Planning Capacity and Delegated Authority for Decarbonizing Metropolitan Regional Transportation: A Comparison of California and Quebec
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: In this paper, we report on a comparative investigation into the decarbonization of transportation systems in the metropolitan regions of Montreal and Los Angeles. While both regions have made efforts to reduce transport-related emissions, including through transit-oriented development, California adopted the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act, known as SB375, which explicitly targets greenhouse gas emission reductions from metro region transportation. However, questions remain about the effectiveness of SB375 and its transferability to other jurisdictions. Methods: Our study is based on a review of available policy documents and interviews undertaken over 2020–2021 with 23 experts and practitioners knowledgeable about transportation policy in the LA and Montreal metro regions. Results were interpreted using an analytical framework distinguishing between planning capacity (including administrative capacity and transport system modelling capacity) and governance authority over transportation system financing and land use. Results: Investigation of the LA metropolitan region suggests that regional planning organizations in California have considerable planning capacity but insufficient authority over transport system financing and land use to ensure that plans are implemented. Instead, financing is largely supported through special tax authority accorded to LA County while land use authority is vested in local governments. While regional actors in Quebec possess lower modelling and administrative capacity, the provincial government retains considerable power over transportation infrastructure and land use to drive densification. However, a lack of capacity to estimate current and planned transport-related emissions in the metro Montreal region frustrates firmer conclusions about policy effectiveness. Conclusion: Efforts to decarbonize metro region transportation are strongly affected by the broader set of institutions in which regions are situated. Both planning capacity and governance authority need to be appropriately allocated to rein in transportation emissions at the metro region level.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".