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Californians like to think of themselves as green. But are they green enough to give up their cars (or at least drive less)?

That difficult question sits at the center of a recent article about an audacious new bill that would essentially force California cities to allow eight-story buildings around transit stops. The goal is to make it possible for more people to commute to work by increasing height limits within a half-mile of rail stations.

Given that California is falling behind its climate goals and suffering from a dire housing shortage that has given the state the distinction of having the nation’s highest poverty rate, it seems clear that some inevitably controversial plan will have to be adopted if the state is going to become greener and more economically equal. It seems equally clear that the state won’t get there without some big changes to existing neighborhoods — which won’t be easy.

To gauge the impact of the bill, Urban Footprint, a software platform that allows people to map neighborhoods and analyze planning policies, recently ran the numbers for three consecutive East Bay BART stations: the higher-density MacArthur station in Oakland, the slightly lower-density Rockridge station (also in Oakland), and the very low-density station in the next door suburb of Orinda.