Back in 2010, when I was Mayor of Ventura, the city installed parking meters downtown for the first time in 40 years. Not for every parking space, of course. The meters covered only 300 or so prime spaces on Main Street and a few popular side streets. Thousands of other downtown spaces � both onstreet and off � remained free.

 The problem we were trying to solve was a pretty typical one: Demand was so high for the prime spaces that people were cruising up and down Main Street, causing a constant traffic jam, in search of a space. The spaces themselves were hogged by merchants and their employees. It was hard to enforce the existing two-hour time limit, and the parkers gamed the system with such familiar tricks as wiping the meter maids' chalk of their tires. Meanwhile, a half-block away, parking lots and a parking garage sat empty.

In recent weeks, we've seen a lot of moves that suggest it may be time to change the way California funds transportation, including the following:

• Board of Equalization Member George Runner has been touting a 21% cut in the gas tax as part of the "fuel tax swap" formula from a few years ago.
• A committee headed by former San Diego City Councilmember Jim Madaffer is looking at how to implement a mileage tax as an alternative to the gas tax.
• Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins has proposed a $52 annual fee on most drivers as a way to raise almost $2 billion for road repairs.

So, one of the biggest questions in planning and development today – in California and elsewhere – is what accounts for the Millenials' preferences for urban living and less driving. Is it generational? Or a lousy economy?

"I think our answer is yes," says Brian Taylor, an urban planning professor at UCLA and head of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies there. 

The Governor's Office of Planning & Research is a month late in issuing its final recommendation on whether to replace "level of service" as the measurement of significant transportation impacts in transit priority areas under the California Environmental Quality Act. But there's not much mystery: OPR has sent clear signals that it is going to propose replacing LOS with vehicle miles traveled, or VMT.

Is the California Environmental Quality Act finally on the verge of major reform?

Or will CEQA's defenders succeed in limiting the reform to just nibbling around the edges, without attacking the law's basic structure?

When Jerry Brown first proposed killing redevelopment -- back in January 2011, when he released his first budget -- he said he would replace it with some other economic development tool. After Brown succeeded -- when he released his second budget, in January 2012, just days after the Supreme Court killed redevelopment – his tune changed, ever so slightly. He said he would consider bringing redevelopment back if it didn't affect the state's general fund.

Fair enough.