Perhaps the most important part of Barack Obama’s Southern California trip, in my view, was not hearing the perspectives of a nervous public, or checking out battery technology in Pomona, or using the bully pulpit to speak to the nation on the Tonight Show.  It’s that he got stuck in traffic.

He got caught in traffic on the 110. He bantered with Jay Leno. And he sought to reassure people worried about the sagging economy and the spiraling national debt.

President Obama ended a two-day swing through Southern California on Thursday, a trip that exposed him to both celebrity and everyday struggles. Like many people navigating the freeways at midday, he was briefly tied up in traffic, his motorcade wheezing along at 10 mph as he made his way from west of downtown Los Angeles to Burbank. But he also got to trade quips on “The Tonight Show” with Leno, mixing a sober assessment of the AIG bonus scandal with details about his life inside the White House.

Traffic has actually improved in the LA area over the last six months, at least in peak hours with less workers traveling.  But it remains incredibly difficult to move for large chunks of the daytime, which decreases productivity and causes harmful and unnecessary carbon emissions.  Los Angeles’ transit infrastructure has been abysmal for so long that few remember how it was built, along streetcar lines.  Increased revenue from Measure R can spark a transit revival, with a subway to the sea, a Green Line to LAX, and increased light rail and bus service throughout the region, but that will take years if not decades, especially without federal aid.  

This week, Ray LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation, put a post up at the Department of Transportation’s blog, one of the ugliest-looking blogs I’ve ever seen, what I imagine a blog from 1982 would look like if they had blogs or the public Internet back then… but I digress, because the content is excellent:

Today, I was proud to address my former colleagues in the House of Representatives and co-present a DOT-HUD partnership to help American families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs.

As I told House members, “One of my highest priorities is to help promote more livable communities through sustainable surface transportation programs.” That means roads, rails, and transit. It means safer passage for pedestrians, for bicyclists.

After housing costs, transportation takes the biggest bite out of the typical household budget. That’s why a partnership between HUD and DOT can be so effective; we have the ability to ease the largest financial burden on many American families. We’re talking about 60% of the average working American family’s expenses. HUD Secretary Donovan and I can cut these costs by focusing our departments’ efforts on creating affordable, sustainable communities.

While so many of the decisions about smart growth and livable communities are typically made at the local, the federal government can absolutely play a role in encouraging better development decisions, either through the bully pulpit or grants in aid.  Housing, transportation and energy are all intimately linked.  A community with residential and commercial spaces close together, which provides durable transit options between home and work, whether through bike lanes or light rail or whatever, allows for reducing carbon emissions through auto transit.  It means a more vibrant neighborhood and a higher quality of life.  Communities that cater just to businesses get abandoned at night.  Bedroom communities are sleepy during the day.  It doesn’t make any sense.  Not to mention that reducing housing and transportation costs in tandem frees up money for economic activity for small businesses that cater to the area.

Clearly, the status quo is unsustainable.  Just ask the guy in the motorcade stuck on the 110 last Thursday.

Last week I took a look at the growing Bushville on the American River in Sacramento, which has been garnering national attention as a powerful symbol for these troubled economic times.  It was clear at that time that the city government led by Mayor Kevin Johnson needed to do something to ameliorate the situation.  The decision has been made.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson promised to first make alternative shelter space available for the estimated 150 men and women who inhabit the squalid encampment near the American River, at the edge of the city’s downtown.

Johnson, who toured the area with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a day earlier, said he hoped to have the ramshackle settlement cleared of tents and debris in the next two to three weeks.

“We want to move as quickly as we can,” he told a news conference, insisting the city was determined to treat the tent dwellers with compassion.

“They are people out there. We have to do whatever we can do,” he said. “We as a city are not going to shy away from it. We’re going to tackle it head-on.”

Advocates for the homeless applauded the mayor’s action. Municipal authorities in Sacramento have been debating the fate of the tent city for weeks.

150 seems like a very low number, when news outlets have reported as many as 1,200 homeless staying in the encampment.  Of course, that could simply be a matter of media overhype (local shelter organizers apparently fed this as well).  However, even if the numbers are correct, finding shelter space for 150 deals with those made homeless as of today.  With unemployment skyrocketing, there will be more left homeless tomorrow.  And next week.  And next month.  While most in the encampment did not fit the profile of the “recession homeless” (a closer look reveals that the tent city grew out of multiple closures of other shelters, which is probably because of the recession anyway, so we can go around and around on this), such a group does exist and will need help over the next year as the state struggles.  The fact that so many homes lie vacant and are owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, i.e. the US taxpayer, suggests there are solutions to this problem beyond the short term if creative solutions are made.