Today’s show is all about how we get around, whether we’re in a national park or a city.
First, we’re revisiting an episode of CapRadio’s 2018 podcast, YosemiteLand. Host Ezra David Romero will give listeners a tour of Yosemite Valley’s twin sister, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, before taking a ride on the open-air tram known as the Green Dragon.
Then, we’ll hear a 2014 interview with a UC Davis transportation researcher who helped author a report on urban transportation. Next, we’ll examine how California’s cap-and-trade program is resulting in funding for transportation projects statewide and in Sacramento. We’ll end with a conversation with author Jane Delury about her award-winning novel, "The Balcony."
YosemiteLand: Green Dragon
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Last summer, the CapRadio podcast YosemiteLand explored how the park has changed over the years, and looked ahead at its future. We’re revisiting those stories, and today we get more acquainted with the valley as we take a tour on a Green Dragon. It’s an open-air tram tour on a green, flat-bed truck, led by rangers. We’ll hop on with podcast host Ezra David Romero.
A Framework For Urban Transportation Investment
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In 2014, a report from UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies set forth a potential path for cities to plan smarter for the future of transportation and increased urbanization. The first global study of its kind, it examined how drastic changes in cities’ transportation investment could reduce emissions and potentially address economic inequality. The report was titled A Global High Shifts Scenario: Impacts And Potential For More Public Transport, Walking, And Cycling With Lower Car Use.
It said more than $100 trillion in public and private spending could be saved between now and 2050 if the world expands mass transportation, walking and cycling in cities. Additionally, carbon dioxide emissions could be reduced up to 1,700 megatons per year.
UC Davis transportation researcher Lew Fulton helped author the report, which he discussed in studio in September 2014.
Cap-and-Trade Investments in Transportation Projects
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California’s cap-and-trade program aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industry in the state by charging corporations for permits to create emissions over a certain threshold. The California Strategic Growth Council is investing funds from the program in development projects that emphasize sustainability and reduced emissions.
One of those projects is a collaborative effort in North Sacramento centered around the Twin Rivers housing project and a planned light rail stop that will connect the neighborhood to the rest of the city.
In this conversation from February 2019, SGC Executive Director Louise Bedsworth and Sacramento State Environmental Studies professor Ajay Singh sift through the economics of cap-and-trade and what this new investment will mean for Sacramento.
'The Balcony' Transports Readers Through Time
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Jane Delury’s "The Balcony" won the 2019 Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction awarded by the American Academy of Arts & Letter. This 2018 historical novel of mini-stories traces generations of families — many of whom are unrelated — who have lived in the same country estate in France. The home’s balcony in particular becomes the scene of pivotal dramas in various characters’ lives.
Delury uses time hopping as a technique to transport readers from 1890 to 2009, but not necessarily chronologically.