Water and Mobility and Funding, Oh My!

From digital infrastructure to federal funding opportunities, the Cityfi team continues to engage in dynamic and impactful work with our clients across sectors and industries.

We are excited to announce that we are looking to grow our team with a Senior Associate, Associate, and Marketing Coordinator! If you or anyone you know is interested in helping the public and private sectors navigate the complex urban landscape with efficient, sustainable, and equitable solutions, we encourage you to apply.

The 2021 Changing Lanes: A Gender Equity Transportation Study was just recognized with the American Planning Association California Advancing Diversity and Social Change award and previously won the Los Angeles Section award in the same category. Cityfi was thrilled to team with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, Kounkuey Design Initiative, and our partners to envision gender-equitable transportation systems and policies that support efficient, flexible, and affordable mobility solutions for Angelenos of all genders.

This month, Cityfi Associate Karla Aurea Peralta Paredes examined the global challenge of water management and actions to reduce water demand. As nations grapple with climate change, its impacts on water supply force people to contemplate the long-term sustainability of this essential resource.

Cityfi recently aided the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) in drafting letters to federal regulators urging reinitiation of rulemaking to support sensible development and responsible management of autonomous vehicles rather than regulating through exemption. Read more about this safety and equity issue and NACTO’s position in Streetsblog USA and Route Fifty.

Cityfi Partners Karina Ricks and Alexander Kapur presented at the ITS World Congress, leading discussions on transportation digital infrastructure and data standards to support transportation equity and presenting findings from Cityfi’s work with cities on autonomous technologies. The flagship ITS convening covered a lot of new ground, engaging topics such as how digital payments will unlock access to mobility and “intelligent” electrification. Cityfi joined JOLT Charge, an Australian-based Charging as a Service (CaaS) provider, as they hosted a rooftop happy hour with friends from the U.S. and Los Angeles mobility communities.

If you are involved in an initiative or solving a challenge that Cityfi may be able to help with, we would love to hear from you. Likewise, if anything we are working on piques your interest, our team is happy to share more with you. Have an awesome week!

Cityfi Partner Karina Ricks Joins CoMotion Global Strategic Council

CoMotion Global Strategic Council welcomed Cityfi Partner Karina Ricks as a new member in October. CoMotion brings together transportation and technology companies and mobility leaders from both civic and business backgrounds in pursuit of an equitable and sustainable multimodal future. Cityfi is looking forward to CoMotion LA, from November 15 to 17, and the always-engaging discussions for which the event is known.

If the price of water reflected its value, would we consume it in the same way?

By Karla Aurea Peralta Paredes

“Hardly a week goes by without a major news story about the threatened destruction of a valuable resource” - Elinor Orstrom (Governing the Commons, 1990)

As we transition into a new season, we are able to reckon with the impacts of climate change this summer. This includes heat waves, where over 100 U.S. cities experienced one of their top-ten hottest summers this year; historic rainfall and devastating flash floods, experienced in parts of Missouri and eastern Kentucky; wildfires, where as of September 15, over 50,600 wildfires have damaged more than 6.7 million acres this year (above the 10-year average); and severe droughts, widespread from the Great Basin to the Pacific Coast. The summer of 2022 was a season of extremes, and these events influence the way we live, the amount of energy and water we consume, and in the foreseen future, where we choose to reside. These events also encompass the complex topic of water management, which requires various activities like proper planning, efficient distribution, and optimal use of water resources to meet current and future demands.

As years go by, we are more frequently exposed to what a future without water looks like, as well as to its economic, environmental and social impacts. For instance, two of the largest reservoirs in America (Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona and Lake Powell in Utah and Arizona) are at their lowest levels due to decaying flows and increasing withdrawals from the Colorado River, which supplies water to 40 million people and more than 5.5 million acres of agricultural land. These reservoirs are in danger of reaching “dead pool status,” which implies that the water level in the dams will be so low that it could no longer flow downstream, affecting water supply and hydroelectric energetic production. This dire situation is also being experienced in countries outside the U.S., such as when Cape Town, South Africa (where water shortages have long been a way of life) in 2017 experienced one of the most significant droughts ever recorded. This drought threatened the arrival of “day zero,“ which would mean that the city would have to shut off drinking water to most businesses and homes. The crisis was averted due to two main factors, first, the implementation of emergency actions, with created a water limit consumption of 13 gallon per inhabitant per day, which is less than the recommended minimum personal daily water needs by the U.N. (13.20-26.41 gallons); and second, the arrival of rain, which rose dam levels. Experts believe that climate change and overconsumption of water are factors that increase these events, So, what is the best solution to guarantee water quality and quantity for all citizens in the long term?

Source: Own interpretation

A few years ago I came across a video focused on the World’s Water Crisis, which drove me to study more about water management and its hurdles. Some of the main root causes that threaten the long term supply of water are aging infrastructure given that the infrastructure design standards of reservoirs and disaster response plans used in the past might soon be out of date; water lost due to leakage, through the water distribution system and at home (the average household’s leaks account for more than 10,000 gallons of water wasted every year, equivalent to the amount of water needed to wash 270 loads of laundry); and high water demand (in America the average family uses more than 300 gallons of water per day at home).

Source: How we use water. United States Environmental Protection Agency.

A number of actions must simultaneously be implemented to fix the former causes, but today I want to make the case for the importance of water demand reduction. Water, defined as a Common-Pool Resource, is a good that operates as a hybrid between public and private since it is shared and available to everyone but also scarce, with a finite supply. These types of resources tend to be subject to the tragedy of the commons, where everybody acts in their own interest, over-consumes the resource, and ultimately deplete it for all. In 2015 the United States Geological Survey (USGS) published the national breakdown of water withdrawals which shows, to my surprise, that the thermoelectric (41%) and Irrigation (37%) uses are attributed to 78% of the total annual withdrawals in 2015. In the figure below, it is possible to see which are the counties that contribute most to water extraction by use. Interestingly, some of the counties with more water extraction attributed to irrigation are in the states that suffer from the highest droughts.

Source: U.S. Water Withdrawals in 2015, USGS.

So the question is, if the price of water reflected its value, would we keep growing some of the most water intensive crops in the driest regions?

One of the most common policies that are implemented to reduce water demand are metering and pricing. These policies consist of metering the amount of water consumed and then charging a fee. Water pricing policies have different scopes in different areas of the world, even states. Some fees are designed to mainly support the maintenance of the water infrastructure, others aim to send a price signal to the consumer with the scope of reducing water demand. The former tends to be incredibly unpopular, due to the fact that water is a human right, and also because increasing the price of water may put more pressure on family budgets. Nonetheless, pricing policies could be beneficial by charging a higher price when consumption is above the human right or targeting specific uses, which could send a price signal and reduce consumption. For instance, in agriculture, this idea could be implemented, where production is projected to double by 2050 in order to sustain the needs of the growing world population. In Australia, where the price of agricultural water has increased, they were able to cut irrigation water use by half without loss of output by implementing existing water-saving irrigation techniques.

“We must recognize that all our key environmental challenges are connected to water – whether there is too much or too little, or whether it is too polluted for human use. The task now is to understand the links between water, climate change, and biodiversity loss, and to properly define, value, and govern water as a global common good. Thinking about water in this way will allow us to mobilize collective action and design new rules that put equity and justice at the center of our response”. - Mariana Mazzucato

As we experience more environmental shocks related to climate change, it is important to identify which actions we should take going forward. In the case of water management, measuring and disseminating the amount of water that is destined for different uses is crucial, and could create a great impact on the way we consume, and better design policies to use the resource in an efficient way. Lastly, a great step has been taken by the federal government on Earth Day (4 April, 2022) when the White House announced the launch of the Natural Capital Accounts initiative, which intends to measure the economic value that natural assets provide to society and reflect them on the nation’s balance sheet. “Our natural assets will finally be reflected on our nation’s balance sheet, where they will tell us how future opportunities are changing — just like a balance sheet helps assess a business’s creditworthiness”. -Biden-Harris Administration.

I believe this is outstanding, in the meantime, there are actions that we can all take, for instance, to reduce domestic water consumption, and as policy makers, evaluate which are the main threats that water shortages impose in our communities and evaluate the best solutions.

Cityfi and the Open Mobility Foundation Host Digital Infrastructure Convening

On October 11 and 12 in Chicago, the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF) and Cityfi, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, hosted the first of two gatherings in the Digital Infrastructure Convening Series to examine the OMF’s future role in advancing digital infrastructure. Along with the OMF and Cityfi teams, fourteen members of the organization’s community, subject matter experts, advisors, and advocates discussed “the art of the possible” to explore a vision for the OMF, its future impact on mobility, and organizational structures to support its mission. The Digital Infrastructure Convening Series is a critical component of the OMF’s and Cityfi’s strategic planning initiative to define the organization’s long-term role and direction in a visionary, financially sustainable, and operationally successful way. The year-long effort will culminate in a strategic plan and two-year action agenda prioritizing key actions for the OMF. We appreciated the opportunity to hear diverse, passionate, and international perspectives and look forward to translating learnings from this dialogue to upcoming stages of our strategic planning.

USDOT Webinar Features the SMART Grants Application Process

Cityfi attended the second Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants webinar held by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), which focused on a deep dive on the application process for SMART Grants. USDOT reiterated that SMART Grants is a two-stage program. Stage one encompasses the planning and prototyping grant for organizations to provide a proof of concept for their idea and build and strengthen partnerships in their communities. Stage two entails the implementation grant for organizations to scale prototypes to demonstrate benefits to their communities while working towards key performance indicators.

The Notice of Funding Opportunity, which was released on September 19, also includes a Collaborative Application option in which eligible entities may choose to collaborate across different regions or geographies on projects with similar characteristics, addressing similar problems, and with similar technologies, potentially sharing common resources such as partnerships with industry, nonprofits, academic institutions, or community foundations. The webinar also provided illustrative examples of projects that could be eligible for the SMART Grants Program. The focus of the examples ranged from climate resiliency to equity and access. Lastly, the grantors provided evaluation criteria they would use for how each application would be assessed.

Cityfi is working with cities and communities across the country to prepare their proposal submissions. We are pleased to be able to deploy our unique skills to help cities clearly define the problems they are seeking to solve - from roadway safety, to mobility justice, to transparent and effective right of way management - and propose actionable, next-generation technology solutions to demonstrate in the first stage of this cutting-edge program.

National Electric Vehicle Charging Networks Greenlit

President Biden announced his approval of Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure Deployment Plans for all fifty states, D.C., and Puerto Rico ahead of schedule under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program that was established and funded under his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The NEVI formula funds provide $5 billion over the next five years. This is an important step toward building a reliable and affordable EV charging network across the nation.

Now that EV charging plans for all fifty states are approved, each can be reimbursed for costs and now have a wide range of options to use the NEVI formula funding for projects directly related to the charging of a vehicle, including:

● Upgrade of existing and construction of new EV charging infrastructure

● Operation and maintenance costs of these charging stations

● Installation of on-site electrical service equipment

● Community and stakeholder engagement

● Workforce development activities

● EV charging station signage

● Data sharing activities

● Related mapping analysis and activities

Cityfi Cofounder Emeritus Gabe Klein was appointed as the Executive Director of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. His office, alongside the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), will continue to provide direct technical assistance to states as they begin to plan implementation and support them throughout the lifetime of the NEVI Formula Program. All approved plans are available on the FHWA website, and you can view funding tables for the full five years of the NEVI Formula Program. The NEVI Formula program is just one type of funding available to advance President Biden’s climate and economic agenda. An FHWA guide on federal funding available for EV charging infrastructure is also available.

White House Issues Blueprint for AI Bill of Rights

On October 4, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a long awaited Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. The AI Bill of Rights is designed to provide protections to apply broadly to all automated systems that may significantly affect individuals or communities, from civil rights and liberties, including privacy, to equal opportunities for healthcare, education, and employment, as well as access to resources and services. It was designed with extensive collaboration across the federal government.

The AI Bill of Rights contains five broad and aspirational principles designed to “guide the design, use, and deployment of automated systems to protect the rights of the American public in the age of artificial intelligence.” They are the following:

● Safe and Effective Systems: An individual should be protected from unsafe or ineffective systems, including protection from foreseeable harms from uses or impacts of automated systems.

● Algorithmic Discrimination Protections: An individual should not face discrimination by algorithms, and systems should be used and designed in equitable ways.

● Data Privacy: An individual should be protected from abusive data practices with built-in protections and should have choices over how data about said individual is used.

● Notice and Explanation: An individual should know an automated system is being used and understand how it can impact them.

● Human Alternatives, Consideration, and Fallback: An individual should have access to appropriate human alternatives and other remedies for systems resulting in discrimination or other harms.

The Blueprint, while non-binding, represents a significant effort by the White House to guide both the private industry and state and local governments toward development of effective and holistic policies and practices around the use of automated systems.