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This paper reviews the California Global Warming Solutions Act, which motivates both urban modeling by countywide agencies and the modeling of energy use in buildings and travel and the resultant greenhouse gases (GHGs). The authors identify principles for urban models and travel models, as applied to countywide land use plans and transportation plans. Two urban models, UPlan (a simple one) and PECAS (a complex one) were developed by the authors and are outlined here. The energy use and GHG impacts calculator, which will take as an input floor space data from UPlan or PECAS, is described. The methods used in this calculator and how it will be applied within the two urban models are described. The UPlan implementation is described in detail and an example given. Finally, the limits of UPlan are identified and an explanation for how PECAS may be able to perform all of the economic evaluations called for in the California Climate Act is provided.

Bicycling is an environmentally friendly, healthy, and affordable mode of transportation that is viable for short-distance trips. Urban planners, public health advocates, and others are therefore looking for strategies to promote more bicycling, including improvements to the built environment that make bicycling more attractive. This study presents an analysis of how key built environment characteristics relate to bicycling frequency based on a large sample from the 2012 California Household Travel Survey (California Department of Transportation, 2012) and detailed built environment data. The built environment characteristics we explore include residential and intersection density at anchor locations (home, work, school), green space, job access, land-use mix, and bicycle infrastructure availability. Analyses are conducted separately for three distinct demographic groups: school-age children, employed adults, and adults who are not employed. The key conclusion from this work is that the relationship between bicycling and some built environment characteristics varies between types of people — most dramatically between adults and children. To develop targeted policies with scarce resources, local policymakers need specific guidance as to which investments and policy changes will be most effective for creating “bikeable” neighborhoods. Our work indicates that the answer depends — at least in part — on who these bikeable neighborhoods are meant to serve.

Fresno County is a rich agricultural area that faces rapid urbanization and farmland conversion. The county is participating in a strategic, multicounty planning initiative aimed at making sustainable and regionally cohesive land-use decisions. To inform this effort, we conducted a farmland conservation assessment and identified strategic farmlands for prioritization in future conservation efforts. We identified environmental and human predictor variables that affect the viability of existing farmland, used a geographic information system (GIS) to integrate them, and created a countywide strategic farmland conservation map. We compared our analysis to status quo methods of prioritization and found that with our model the spatial output of highly valued farmland was shifted, narrowed and located adjacent to some of the county's most urbanized areas. These findings are influencing growth policies and farmland conservation planning in Fresno County. Land assessment for future farming viability is a critical component of farmland conservation and land-use planning.