Cap and Trade Funding

Pass amended legislation that enables local governments to use California’s carbon cap and trade funds to support commuter flights for the following uses:

1. “subsidize “ flights for low income workers.

2. “financially back-stop” flights for new Air Metro Transit commuter routes.

Introduction

At half the cost and 4 times as fast as commuting via an automobile, all without the need or costs of a building or maintaining a road, UAM brings the Bay Area’s outlying cities like Stockton and Sacramento within commuting range of the employee starved, high wage paying employers located in the Silicon Valley.

An affordable Air Metro would give high speed, commuter access to existing jobs in the Bay Area and so be a much more efficient use of capital, than creating jobs in low income areas or building affordable housing in high cost areas.

Cap and Trade

$11 billion dollars have been appropriated to-date by the California Legislature for state agencies implementing GHG emission reduction programs via the Cap and Trade program.

California’s Governor proposed an FY 2019-20 state budget allocating $447M for Low Carbon Transportation investments alone and substantial funding allocated to low income families via California Air Resource Board (CARB).

Unfortunately none of this funding has been allocated as yet to support Urban Air Mobility (UAM) as a potential tool in California’s toolbox of solutions that can be brought to bear on ending our state’s affordable housing crisis.

Subsidize flights for low income workers

Tapping into Cap & Trade funding allocated for priority populations, local government could begin to “subsidize ” UAM routes to make commuter flights affordable for low and medium income workers. This subsidy could be called the Dollar Flight Club as it would only cost a low income worker $1 per ticket to catch a flight to work. The Dollar Flight Club could be very quickly be transformational for large numbers of low income workers.

For example, you could be working a minimum wage job in a Bay Area outlying city earning $10 per hour giving you a total income of $1,600 per month. So as not to be economically stressed by your housing costs, this level of income means you could only afford housing costing $480 per month. There are few housing options in California available for that low a price beyond living in your car, a van or out on the street.

However, if you caught a Dollar Flight Club commuter ride on the air metro to go work at one of the 40,000 plus jobs at SFO for example, which pays a minimum wage of $18 per hour, you would almost double your income. This would mean doing the same kind of work with the only difference being you are working in a higher paying location. You would not have to re-skill, you would not have to move from your home town, you would not have to endure a super commute or hope that some benevolent organization would build affordable housing in your location.

Because you are now earning $2,800 per month, you could now afford $850 per month in rent or mortgage without exceeding the 30% housing cost threshold that indicates housing costs are economically stressing. By using the high speed “Air Metro” for only $1 per flight, you are changing your employment location to a higher paying geography. You are now presented with non-economically stressing housing options that are readily available in your existing home town.

The Dollar Flight Club can make thousands of homes now affordable to low income workers without having to build a single new home or put up the price of new, market rate housing to subsidize the cost of making affordable homes available for low income workers.

The potential result of an initiative like the Dollar Flight Club initiative could be trans-formative for our economy and help easy the income gap. The Dollar Flight Club flight subsidy could be based on published income sliding scales, for example something like this scale based on Yolo County income scales:

The Dollar Flight Club could see as many as 250,000 low income workers commuting into high paying Bay Area jobs on a $1 dollar flight to work everyday, with the cost to the Cap and Trade program equal to approximately $ 1 billion per year, which is an incredibly efficient use of capital.

Extremely low cost of commuter flights become possible due to the game changing nature of electric flight. It costs approximately $1.50 in electricity per half hour of flight in a small, 4 seat commuter, electrically powered aircraft. If you make that aircraft autonomous, you now have one of the lowest cost and fastest means of commuter travel ever invented.

This means that a subsidy from Cap and Trade funding is only needed to catalyze mass transit commuting for low income workers via Urban Air Mobility technologies and an air metro is not dependent on subsidies over the long term. Cap and Trade subsidy for low income workers can fade away over time as employers existing transit and parking subsidies can make up the costs of flights so a low income worker would still only need to pay $1 per flight.

Financially Back-Stop Routes

The “Greater” Bay Area can take a page out of Europe’s low cost airline playbooks by mirroring how un-serviced airports in Europe have been opened up to travelers by low cost airlines through the use of subsidies from destinations. A destination that is currently undeserved by any airline have found they can attract thousands of new tourists to their destinations by subsidizing as well as backstopping a regular flight into their local airport. The flight might only cost the traveler a few dollars, such as those routes pioneered by Ryan Air, yet the total dollar spend of those tourists easily covers the back stop costs of establishing the route.

An outlying Bay Area city like Stockton could financially back-stop new routes for a 135 operator to fly regular routes into an employer or employer’s Vertiport. Bay Area outlying cities can “financially back stop” UAM routes to de-risk routes for operators by tapping into the California Air Resource Board (CARB) funding specifically allocated to UAM from carbon Cap and Trade sources.

A financial back-stop would only draw cash while a route is being established and as the route became used by commuters, the back-stop funding would reduce over time. A financial back-stop would ensure that routes for an air metro would be established all over the greater Bay Area, and not just in the more affluent enclaves.

Corporate Car Parking Spaces

Pass an amendment to existing legislation to mandate California employers also install a “Vertiport”, when mandated automobile parking spaces are over an appropriate threshold # of parking spaces.

Introduction

A Vertiport is a location not dissimilar to an existing Helicopter pad. A Vertiport optimized for Urban Air Mobility should be able to handle 100 flights per hour, so accommodate 400 in-bound commuters per hour .

A “Mega-Vertiport” can be vertically stacked on as little as 2 acres could handle as many as 1,000 landings per hour and 1,000 landings could deliver as many as 4,000 passengers per hour.

To give some context, a Mega-Vertiport built in Facebook’s car park could potentially handle 4,000 commuters per hour which is equivalent of 1/3rd of Facebook’s Menlo Park staff total of 12,000.

A Mega-Vertiport built in each of the large Bay Area’s existing employer’s car parks would only displace parking for approximately 300 cars, yet could enable at least 1/3rd of its work force to commute car free every day. 1,000 Vertiports installed all over the Bay Area could move 1.5 million commuters per hour which would enable ¼ of the 4 million Bay Area workers to fly to work everyday.

A fleet of 40,000 eVTOL’s could move 1.5 million people to work everyday in the San Francisco, Bay Area. This means that a Silicon Valley “Air Metro” system would require less than 1/3rd of the cars manufactured in the world each and every day.

Zoning Mandates

Statewide mandated changes to zoning laws are always difficult. However, we need to recognize that income inequality and the housing crisis that is contributing towards the the flight of our citizens as well as their employers to lower cost locations, is an existential threat to California’s economic well being.

An air metro could be part of the solution, but the establishment of a transit system in the sky requires Vertiports to be built and a large number of them would need to be located in employer’s existing car parks. Going through a separate planning application, for every city and employer in northern California, will ensure that a Vertiport in every Bay Area city and large employer campus will take more than our life-time’s to become a reality.

One way to accelerate the adoption of an “Air Metro” that could move 1.5 million workers per day, would be to mandate that all employers with car parks over a certain size be mandated to allocate some of that automobile parking towards the location of a Vertiport.

Incentives

To make the mandates more attractive and ensure the Vertiports are actually built, incentives will need to be offered.

These incentives may take the form of zoning law changes that allow for an equal percent of the land allocated to a Vertiport also be allocated towards new buildings. A further inducement to get commuters out of cars, might be an additional incentive of extra land can be converted to buildings if a threshold of employees commute on a regular basis via the “Air Metro”.

For example, if a land owner is mandated to allocate 2 acres of their existing car park towards the space of a Vertiport, then that land owner may also take an additional 2 acres and use that space for additional buildings. The land owner is incentivized to install a Vertiport as the reward is that those additional 2 acres can now be built upon, essentially turning low value land into land than at current San Francisco prices, could be worth up to $10 million per acre.

A Vertiport in every town

Pass an amendment to existing legislation that mandates all California cities make space available for new housing also include space for a “Vertiport” to be constructed.

Introduction

A vertiport in every town in the greater Bay Area would complete the “Air Metro” transit station system so that all citizens living in northern California can commute to work in the Silicon Valley, should they have the opportunity and choose to do so.

To make the “Air Metro” station network complete and accesable by all, each town will in northern California will need to participate by building at least 1 vertiport. Unfortunately, obtaining local planning permission will be a very long an arduous process as there are over 100 cities and towns in the greater Bay Area.

Going through a separate planning application, for every city and employer in Northern California, will ensure that a Vertiport in every Bay Area city will take more than our life-time’s to become a reality.

As Californian residents, we need to recognize that keeping Silicon Valley’s ecosystem thriving and growing is essential for our state’s economic well-being as it accounts for over 1/3rd of our state’s GDP.

Mandates

Statewide zoning laws will need to be amended to make the planning permission process happen in a short time-frame.

An amendment to existing legislation could be made to facilitate an “Air Metro” and this change is to existing legislation. Legislation is in place that mandates all California cities make space available for new housing. An amendment to this legislation should be made that any developer given permission to build new housing with car parking space should include space for a “Vertiport” to be constructed.

Incentives

To make the mandates more attractive and ensure the Vertiports are actually built, incentives will need to be offered.

These incentives may take the form of zoning law changes that allow for an equal percent of the land allocated to a Vertiport also be allocated towards new housing.

A further inducement to get commuters out of cars, might be an additional incentive of extra land can be converted to housing if a threshold of residents commute on a regular basis via the “Air Metro”.

For example, if a developer is mandated to allocate their car park spaces towards the space of a Vertiport, then that developer may also take an additional 2 acres and use that space for additional housing. The land owner is incentivized to install a Vertiport as the reward is that those additional 2 acres can now be built upon, essentially turning low value land into land than at current California prices, could be worth up to $1 million per acre.