Airport operators and aviation authorities say recent growth in both commercial and private flights has led to more complex ground operations, particularly at mid-sized and municipal airports where space is limited and traffic patterns can overlap.

To address these challenges, several airports have begun implementing updated ground markings, enhanced signage, and improved lighting systems designed to help pilots navigate taxiways more clearly—especially during nighttime and low-visibility conditions.

“Air travel is becoming busier at all levels, not just major hubs,” said an aviation safety coordinator familiar with regional operations. “Even smaller airports are seeing increased activity, which means we have to be proactive about safety.”

In addition to infrastructure upgrades, airports are also increasing communication efforts between pilots and air traffic control. New procedures emphasize clearer instructions and confirmation protocols to reduce the likelihood of miscommunication during taxiing and takeoff.

Training initiatives are also being expanded. Flight schools and aviation organizations are working with airport officials to ensure that both student and experienced pilots are familiar with updated layouts and procedures.

Technology is playing a growing role as well. Some airports are exploring the use of surface detection radar systems and digital mapping tools that provide real-time guidance to pilots and controllers, helping identify potential conflicts before they escalate.

Officials say that while aviation remains one of the safest forms of transportation, ongoing improvements are essential as demand rises.

“We’re not reacting to a crisis—we’re planning ahead,” the coordinator said. “The goal is to stay ahead of potential risks and keep operations as safe and efficient as possible.”

Passengers are unlikely to notice most of these changes, but aviation experts say the behind-the-scenes improvements are critical to maintaining safety standards as more people take to the skies.

Airport authorities encourage pilots and aviation personnel to stay informed about local procedures and remain vigilant during all phases of ground movement, particularly in high-traffic environments.

The post Regional Airports Expand Safety Measures Amid Growing Air Traffic appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

California leaders talk a good game on fighting climate change. But when it comes to cutting the state’s biggest source of planet-warming emissions — cars, trucks, airplanes and other modes of transportation — the spending doesn’t match the rhetoric.

Two recent reports highlight the discrepancy. Regulators have warned that the state needs to slash the amount of miles people drive 25% below 2019 levels to help meet 2030 emission reduction targets. But traffic and car dependence has increased in recent years, according to a report from the progressive advocacy group NextGen Policy.

It’s no surprise why: California continues to spend the bulk of its transportation dollars to maintain and expand car-centric roads and freeways. Instead of doubling down on the existing system that makes it inconvenient and unsafe to travel by bike, foot and transit, California should be spending the bulk of its transportation funding to remake the urban landscape so people have real choices in how they get around.

But that’s not happening. Of the state’s primary transportation funding programs, just 19% of the money has gone to projects that help reduce the need to drive, such as building out bike lanes, sidewalks, rail service, electric buses and affordable housing near jobs, according to an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council. These programs are in such demand that the state is regularly forced to deny funding to highly rated pedestrian and bicycle projects.

The NRDC looked at $22.4 billion in spending by 10 transportation programs. About 10% of the money went to expand roads, freeways and interchanges, construction that’s expected to result in more people driving. California is supposed to be rethinking road widenings because such projects only temporarily improve traffic and ultimately lead more people to drive, generating more emissions. But major projects, long in the works, continue to move forward.

About 70% of the state’s transportation dollars go to road maintenance, as required by the state’s gas tax spending plan. That could be an opportunity. Caltrans pledged in 2021 that the agency would use repaving and maintenance projects as an opportunity to transform regular roads into streets that incorporate protected bike lanes, bus lanes and pedestrian safety features.

Despite that directive, advocates say Caltrans’ bureaucracy and resistance to change are too often a barrier to transforming streets. (A Caltrans official this month said she was demoted after speaking out about Sacramento-area road widening projects being misrepresented as maintenance projects.)

By now, it should be clear that California cannot meets its 2030 and 2045 climate targets without major changes to the transportation sector, which accounts for half of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. And simply relying on more people driving more electric vehicles will not get us closer to the climate goals fast enough, not when 75% of vehicles sold in the state are powered by gasoline. The state needs to radically redesign its transportation system to reduce the need for people to drive everywhere all the time.

Funding decisions are statements of priority. It’s time for Gov. Gavin Newsom, lawmakers and top transportation officials to make their transportation spending reflect their climate ambitions.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post California’s transportation spending doesn’t match its climate promises appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Cece Linder was living in a 770-square-foot apartment outside Washington, D.C., last spring when the area went into lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic.

In May 2020, after a few months of both living and working in the small space, Linder decided to leave the capital area and move into the 2,000-square-foot (186-square-meter) beachside home she jointly owns with her parents in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Now she gets to see the sunrise over the water each morning before work.

“If I’m teleworking anyway, why not move to this other place that is more visually attractive, it’s beachside, and someone can occasionally cook for me?” Linder said. “Though that didn’t exactly work out. My mom has me cooking for them.”

Linder was not alone in her thinking. According to a new study and data from the U.S. Census Bureau, she was one of thousands of people who migrated out of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas and into smaller ones during the pandemic.

The study found that, like Linder, many of the migrants weren’t driven by new jobs or weather — or even a fear of the virus — but a desire to be closer to family and a freedom to make it happen because of remote working. Although the pattern of people moving from larger to smaller cities has been going on for several years, the pandemic exacerbated that trend, said Peter Haslag of Vanderbilt University, who conducted the study on migrant motivations with Daniel Weagley of Georgia Tech. Their paper has not yet been published.

The data adds to understanding of how the pandemic has changed where and how Americans live. The moves were most common among those with higher incomes and more job flexibility. If the trends continue, it could have long-term implications for real estate markets, tax bases and the wealth inequality in cities, according to researchers.

“For us, the question is, is this a temporary blip or is it going to continue?” Haslag said. “If work-from-home really is going to be a factor in job and company decisions, and by allowing work and location to be separate decisions, people are going to be able to optimize their locations, if they have the right jobs.”

The Census Bureau data shows that the New York metro area — which was hit early by the new coronavirus — declined by about 108,000 residents, or 0.5%. Roughly 216,000 residents moved out of the metropolitan area, but the natural increase from births and gains in international migration offset the departures. The New York metro area has experienced decelerated growth over the past several years, but last year’s decline was a bigger bite of the Big Apple than in 2019, when it lost 60,000 residents.

The nation’s next largest metro areas — Los Angeles and Chicago — also experienced greater population declines last year compared to the previous year: around 0.5% last year compared to 0.3% in 2019 for both metros. San Francisco also had a drop of around 0.5% last year compared to a 0.1% gain in 2019.

“I think some core urban counties like Manhattan, San Francisco and others may have taken a bigger brunt of pandemic-related out-movement, as well as lower immigration,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. “Overall, it was a year of slow growth with selective movement out of some urban centers.”

Smaller metros in the Sun Belt and West, several with large communities of vacation homes, saw the biggest population gains last year, mostly driven by migration. Led by the Florida retirement community The Villages, the metros seeing population increases between 3% and 4% included St. George, Utah; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Austin, Texas; and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Sun Belt megalopolises, such as Dallas, Houston and Phoenix, also grew last year, though not as much as their smaller cousins.

The Census Bureau data captured changes in states, metros and counties between July 1, 2019, and July 1, 2020. The last third of that time-frame overlapped with the first three months of the spread of the virus in the U.S. Population-change estimates are different from the 2020 census, a head count of every U.S. resident that determines how many congressional seats each state gets. Those numbers were released last week. Population changes are estimated using data on births, deaths and migration.

Haslag and Weagley estimate that 10% to 20% of the 300,000 interstate moves they studied between April 2020 and February 2021 were influenced by the pandemic. Their study used four years of long-distance moving data obtained from UniGroup, the parent company of United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit.

Job-related reasons for moving dropped from 46.6% of responses before the pandemic to 34.5% after the start of the pandemic in the U.S. in March 2020, while the desire to be closer to family jumped from 24.7% to 29.9%. The researchers theorized the jump for family reasons was due to people wanting to create social “bubbles” with family members, and the drop in job-related reasons was due to remote working and the decoupling of jobs from offices.

“It’s not really about the infection rate when it comes to moving. It’s about all the other things that came with the pandemic, whether it was to be closer to family or work from home,” Haslag said. “That was really surprising to us.”

Higher-income households moved less because of job loss or to take a new job than for other reasons such as lifestyle or the ability to work remotely. In fact, 75% of those who cited the ability to work remotely had annual households earnings of $100,000 or more. Lower-income households were more likely to move for financial reasons such as job loss or to move to a place with a lower cost of living, the researchers said.

David Mann and his wife, Lauren, had been wanting to move to the U.S. southeast from Dallas to be closer to family and friends for some time, but it was the pandemic that made it possible. Knowing they could work from home in their jobs in supply-chain consulting and merchandise planning, they made the leap and moved to Atlanta last summer.

“Working from home gave us the opportunity to move without having to look for new jobs,” Mann said.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Study: Residents left big metros during pandemic for family appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The president and auto industry maintain the nation is on the cusp of a gigantic shift to electric vehicles and away from liquid-fueled cars, but biofuels producers and some of their supporters in Congress aren’t buying it. They argue that now is the time to increase sales of ethanol and biodiesel, not abandon them.

To help address climate change, President Joe Biden has proposed an infrastructure plan that includes billions of dollars to pay for 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, electrify public vehicles and enhance the nation’s power grid. These moves follow initiatives in California and other states to mandate electric vehicle sales and a goal by General Motors to shift production fully to electric vehicles by 2035.

Yet any shift from liquid-fueled cars to electric would be gradual, given the fleet of 279 million petroleum-powered vehicles now on U.S. roads. And producers of corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel argue that biofuels will be needed for the foreseeable future.

The government’s promotion of electric vehicles comes as the U.S. works to reduce carbon emissions that worsen climate change and to compete in the increasingly electric global auto market. The transportation sector accounts for the largest share of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and more than 80% of that comes from cars, pickups and larger trucks, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

LMC Automotive, a consulting firm, predicts more than 1 million electric vehicles will be sold in the U.S. in 2023, rising to over 4 million by 2030 — still less than one-quarter of normal annual new vehicle sales of around 17 million. Electric vehicles now comprise less than 2% of U.S. new-vehicle sales.

Citing a recent study from Harvard and Tuft universities that found ethanol emits 46% less carbon than gasoline, biofuels advocates say it’s imperative for the climate that the nation prioritize increased biofuel production.

Geoff Cooper, who heads the St. Louis-based Renewable Fuels Association, calls ethanol the “low-hanging fruit” for reducing carbon emissions and slowing global warming. He supports an immediate move from gasoline blended with 10% ethanol to a blend of 15%.

“If the goal is to reduce carbon impacts of our transportation sector and we knew we’re going to be using hundreds of billions of gallons of liquid fuels for the next several decades, why not take steps now to reduce the carbon intensity of those liquid fuels?” Cooper said.

Each year, U.S. refineries produce about 15 billion gallons of ethanol — about 10% the volume of gasoline — and 1.5 billion gallons of biodiesel, which is typically blended with petroleum-based diesel for trucks and other heavy vehicles.

Plants around the country produce the fuel, but most are in the Midwest, led by Iowa with 43 ethanol refineries and 11 biodiesel plants. Nearly 40% of the U.S. corn crop is used for ethanol, and 30% of soybeans goes to biodiesel.

Despite the carbon benefits of ethanol, others note the growth of biofuels prompted an expansion of corn acreage, increased use of fertilizers and more pollution of waterways. Biofuels plants also typically use hundreds of millions of gallons of water annually.

Iowa’s two Republican U.S. senators consider the shift toward electric vehicles a threat to farmers.

Sen. Charles Grassley said last fall that a proposal by Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Rep. Mike Levin of California to end U.S. sales of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 would devastate Iowa.

“This … would absolutely destroy Iowa’s economy because it’s so dependent on agriculture and agriculture is so dependent on biofuels,” Grassley said.

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst argues that tax credits for buying electric cars typically go to well-to-do people on the East and West coasts and are propping up an industry that hurts demand for biofuels.

“It’s not only the move to all-electric vehicles that should have Iowans concerned; it’s the crazy tax breaks that wealthy coastal elites are getting for their electric vehicles,” Ernst states on her Senate website. “I firmly believe Iowa taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for millionaires to get a discount on luxury cars.”

It is true that many who got the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit since its inception in 2009 could afford a car that cost six figures or more. But since then, new models and higher sales have brought economies of scale and lower prices that appeal to more mainstream buyers.

The ethanol industry itself was a beneficiary of a 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit that provided about $30 billion to help the industry get established before that expired a decade ago. And farmers who grow commodity crops, such as corn and soybeans, still receive help from the federal government, including subsidized crop insurance costing billions of dollars annually.

Despite assurances the move to electric will be gradual, many farmers see the shift as a threat to their livelihoods and doubt state and federal officials from urban areas will protect rural economies.

“It’s like you’re almost helpless,” said Ed Wiederstein, a semi-retired livestock and grain farmer near Audubon in western Iowa. “It’s like a snowball that goes downhill.”

Joel Levin, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Plug In America, said the market will favor electric cars not only for environmental reasons but also because they’re high performance.

“It’s not like Californians wants you to eat your broccoli. These cars are fun to drive,” Levin said. “People don’t drive Teslas just because it’s good for the environment. They drive Teslas because it’s a sick car.”

Over time, a switch to electric vehicles likely will force farmers to adapt, said Chad Hart, an agriculture economist at Iowa State University. Farmers in states such as Iowa and Illinois still will mainly grow corn and soybeans because the soil and climate are perfect, but farmers elsewhere will raise other crops, he said.

“Agriculture is always shifting the crop mix to fit whatever markets offer the best opportunity,” he said.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Biofuels producers, farmers not sold on switch to electric appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

From private companies to public, there are numerous ones out there to look at and consider.  Investment managers have built portfolios of cannabis companies that are stated to expand diversification and reduce risks.  Sectors of the economy expanding into Cannabis include medical, food and beverage, tobacco, security, transportation, processing, automation, real estate, chemical and fertilizer, and manufacturing. A new world has opened up and embraced Cannabis as a multi-billion-dollar industry to start. 

An investor can directly invest in a cannabis company that cultivates, manufactures, and sells its wares.  Another option is to indirectly invest in the industry through companies that support cannabis producers.  Mentioned earlier, this could be new plastic bags, or the RFID used to track-and-trace that states require.  There is a hub of businesses that are in the business but not in the business.  When building a position or selecting a company to invest in it is important to understand that you may already have exposure through an existing position.  For example, Constellation Brands (STZ), an alcohol company with operations worldwide that produces brands like Corona, Modelo, and Ballast Point, is in the business.  Constellation owns 38% of Canopy Growth, a Canadian Pot Producer.  The same is true for many companies.  It is hard for them not to push into a new high growth area.  After all there are two congressional bills moving through the Hill right now to allow cannabis companies to bank with FDIC institutions and to move it from a Class 1 to a Class 3 drug.  With the illegal becoming legal, a new opportunity has arisen and isn’t likely to go up in smoke.

Take GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH), a British company known for its multiple sclerosis treatment product Nabiximols, which was the first natural cannabis plant derivative to gain market approval in every country, even ours.  Their latest drug treats pediatric seizures.  Breakthroughs are happening in every facet.   The key is to not jump into any company before you understand what you are buying their price movements. 

Concerns about the cost of cannabis and related products and where it is headed is a risk.  The cost will most likely be driven down and so may be margins as larger producers and market efficiencies occur.  This will force consolidations in the industry and sharp barriers to entry too.  What I have noticed is there is substantial volatility in pricing of these companies.  By being patient, you can pick up what you wish to buy on the dip and you shouldn’t have to wait long to get the opportunity. 

Pot’s passé and Cannabis is open for business.

Andrew F. Kotyuk, CIMA* is CEO and Principal of Alpha Wealth Management LLC

For questions or investment topics, please email me afkotyuk@alpha-wealth.com.

Visit www.hsjchronicle.com for your local news source.

The post CANNABUSINESS appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.