Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Clean diesel engines, which expel less emissions and get better mileage than conventional counterparts, are benefiting from a lobbying campaign by auto companies. And environmental advocates have come to the table, agreeing with the construction industry on a plan to convert highway construction equipment to clean diesel.

The accord between the Clean Air Task Force and the Associated General Contractors was first reported in today's Greenwire: 

The groups want the [next long-term transportation] legislation to authorize states to require diesel emissions reductions at construction sites and to cover the cost of retrofitting or re-powering equipment manufactured to meet earlier emissions standards.

The proposal would not alter the bidding process for contractors hoping to land federally funded transportation projects, and any additional costs of the emissions-savings measures would be covered by federal funding.

Federal funds to reimburse contractors for any increased costs they incur would come from an existing federal air-quality program, the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program.

On its face, the deal sounds promising. Exhaust from older, dirtier diesel engines contains more than 40 separate toxic contaminants, according to California state air regulators, but diesel emissions standards have been strengthened at a far slower rate than those for conventional autos.

Moreover, providing government funding to help convert diesel highway equipment -- thus ensuring the construction industry doesn't foot the bill -- has paid off in California, known for its ahead-of-the-curve approach to air pollution.

But using funds from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program to pay contractors for converting their engines risks depleting a crucial source of aid for clean transportation. Read more...

Urbanists often find themselves falling into a pattern of thinking that boils down to the dictum that what's good for drivers must be bad for walkability, and sustainability, and all the things that they prize about well-designed cities. Drivers seem to believe this too, which is interesting because it often isn't true.

Take performance parking. Both urbanists (and drivers) seem to believe that it's good (or bad), because it makes parking more expensive, which is bad (or good) for drivers. But this assumes that a free parking system, where open spots are almost never available, is desirable for drivers.

That's like saying that a store that gives away bread for free -- and which subsequently never has any bread -- is good for people who like eating bread.

For the most part, thinking about congestion pricing follows this same rule. Urbanists tend to like it because it makes driving more costly and raises revenue for transit infrastructure. Drivers tend to oppose it, because they don't want to pay more to drive. In fact, congestion pricing would be good for people who really want to drive and good for people who'd like to have an alternative to driving.

This message has been slow to sink in, but the fact that drivers may benefit from congestion pricing may be beginning to resonate with urbanists. Unfortunately -- and so powerful is the what's-bad-for-drivers-is-good-for-cities mentality -- the absorption of this message has caused some urbanists to conclude that they've been wrong all along, and that congestion pricing really is bad. If drivers might benefit, it must be the case that cities, and the earth, will not.

So writes the New Yorker's David Owen, in an extremely misguided piece in the Wall Street Journal.

By requiring car drivers to pay a fee to drive in a city at peak hours, congestion pricing reduces traffic and raises money that can be used to support public transit—both worthy goals.

Yet congestion pricing has dubious environmental value. Traffic jams, if they’re managed well, can actually be good for the environment. They maintain a level of frustration that turns drivers into subway riders or pedestrians.

He is saying that congestion pricing is a bad idea, because traffic encourages drivers to switch to transit or otherwise get off the roads. But this misses the point that congestion pricing works by ... encouraging drivers to switch to transit or otherwise get off the roads. And as a bonus, it creates revenue which can be used to build more transit alternatives for frustrated drivers.

Owen seems to be arguing that the primary effect of congestion pricing may be to spread driving out over a longer period of time rather rather than to encourage a shift away from driving. But of course, the primary effect of congestion might also be to spread driving out over a longer period of time rather than to encourage a shift away from driving, particularly in places that don’t have good transit systems (which makes the revenue question all the more salient).

The argument doesn't make sense, and it doesn't appear to be supported by actual experience with congestion pricing schemes, as Charles Komanoff points out here. In London, better driving conditions after the adoption of a congestion pricing regime encouraged some drivers to take additional trips, but that increase didn't come close to offsetting the drop in vehicle trips induced by the cordon charge.

As difficult as it may be for all involved to accept, congestion pricing manages to benefit transit riders and drivers. Commutes are faster and emissions are reduced. But the benefits don't stop there.

A new economics paper by Janet Currie and Reed Walker explores what happened to neighborhoods near congested highway toll plazas after those plazas were replaced by the E-ZPass electronic tolling system. Here's the abstract (paragraph breaks mine):

Read more...

The short answer: Nope.

A report published this hour suggested that the House transportation committee chairman -- who has repeatedly vowed to pursue a long-term federal bill before existing law expires at the end of this month -- had abandoned the fight.

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) said an extension of the 2005 transport legislation "is likely," according to the report. But Oberstar, who began his Capitol Hill career as a House aide 46 years ago, is not ready to accede to the White House position on delaying the next bill.

"Oberstar has not endorsed any kind of extension," spokesman Jim Berard told Streetsblog Capitol Hill. "The only extension I've heard him say he'd support at this point in time was a short-term extension, if we were making progress on a bill."

The political reality in Washington, where health care continues to dominate the agenda and few legislative days remain in September, does mean that an extension of some kind is very likely.

Still, Oberstar has not shied away from challenging the Obama administration on its push for an 18-month delay, and his strong standing with House leaders could leave him well-positioned to advocate for a shorter stopgap in the coming days.

Stay tuned...

The Environmental Protection Agency today granted California's request for a waiver allowing greater limits on auto tailpipe emissions, a move that effectively speeds up the phasing-in of the Obama administration's fuel-efficiency standards in as many as 13 other states.

The EPA billed its decision, which was widely expected and fulfills a campaign promise made by the president, as a return to long-standing precedent of regulating under the Clean Air Act.

But the waiver is likely to bring short-term benefits for California as well as the 13 states that joined its waiver request, permitting that group to impose stricter auto emissions standards between now and 2012.

In 2012, California has agreed to equalize its program with the federal government's, EPA officials explained to reporters today. That paves the way for the Obama administration's 35.5 mpg fuel-efficiency standard to begin taking effect in the 2016 model year.

California lawmakers reacted excitedly to the announcement. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA), referencing the Bush administration's controversial denial of the emissions waiver, remarked: "It should be comforting to know that the [EPA] is now putting science and the law back into the driver's seat rather than politics and special interests."

Meanwhile, the auto industry was as glum as could be expected, given that it has already agreed to the Obama administration's fuel-efficiency rules and agreed to drop all lawsuits contesting the waiver request. "We are hopeful the granting of this waiver will not undermine the enormous efforts put forth to create the national program," Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers President Dave McCurdy said in a statement.

The Municipal Art Society came out with a report yesterday urging New York State to start analyzing greenhouse gas emissions in its environmental review process (SEQRA). MAS argues that the policy could be adopted without changing existing laws, which raises an interesting question to ponder on this Earth Day afternoon: Would the State Senate's latest MTA funding plan pass muster if it were subject to an EIS that factors in climate change?

The MTA rescue package does not, in fact, fall under the purview of SEQRA, even though it's probably the most important piece of climate policy that the state legislature will consider this year. The Senate's latest stab would keep the trains and buses running for a few more months, but it's an eco-stinker compared to the Ravitch plan and any other package that includes road pricing or tolls on currently free bridges.

Let's go back to the spring of 2008. Remember all the carping from Richard Brodsky and other state legislators about congestion pricing not going through the SEQRA process? That was regarding a policy projected to take 112,000 cars off the road each day. Now we have an MTA funding plan getting serious consideration that would create worse traffic bottlenecks and more incentives to drive, but so far not even a peep about environmental consequences from Albany.

Mayor Bloomberg delivered his seventh State of the City Address yesterday morning at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The speech had several nuggets of news and info related to livable streets issues.

Touting the good news from 2007, the Mayor noted that New York City's streets are getting safer:

In 2007, we made the safest big city in the nation safer than it has been in generations. The fewest traffic deaths in nearly a century. Historic lows in jail violence. Historic lows in fire fatalities. And the fewest homicides recorded in modern history. This is New York City today.

And, in a roundabout admission that more can be done to improve safety, Bloomberg mentioned a new initiative aimed at making the city more livable for senior citizens (like his own 99-year-old mom), taking a page from Transportation Alternatives' Safe Routes for Seniors program:

Today I'm announcing a major effort called 'The All Ages Project.' In collaboration with the City Council and the New York Academy of Medicine, this project will completely re-envision what it means to grow old in New York... For instance: How can we ensure that more seniors are cared for in their own homes, rather than in institutions? And how do we make our city easier to get around in? Next month, we will begin to address that second challenge with traffic engineering improvements at 25 high-accident areas which are especially problematic for seniors.

He wrapped up with a lengthy push for PlaNYC initiatives, including a brief pitch for congestion pricing:

With the State's blessing, we'll also use technology to create a system of congestion pricing -- something no other American city has done. It will help us achieve four critical, inter-connected goals: reducing traffic congestion; raising money for mass transit; improving our air quality; and fighting climate change.

As part of its "Steal This Idea" series, Good magazine has a suggestion for a way to move toward a more sustainable New York: offering subway riders the chance to pay a little extra for a wind-powered ride.

Each year, the New York subway system uses 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, making it the city's single largest consumer of electricity. What if the subway's MetroCard machines offered the option of paying a small premium to purchase the rider's share of electricity from non-polluting wind power instead of traditional hydroelectric, nuclear, and fossil-fuel sources?

For its residential customers, ConEdison-the city's only electricity company-charges an additional 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to use wind energy. The average subway ride uses 1.2 kilowatt-hours of power (based on 1.5 billion 2006 rides), which means the wind power surcharge would amount to 3 extra cents a ride-a 1.5 percent increase from the normal $2 charge.

With a 1.5 percent surcharge, a seven-day unlimited pass would cost $24.36 (up from $24), and a 30-day unlimited pass would cost $77.14 (up from $76). Say the surcharge was 5 percent-those prices would only increase to $25.20 and $79.80. A 5-percent per ride surcharge with a slim 10-percent participant rate could inject as much as $15 million into the wind-power market annually.

Sounds intriguing. But as recent efforts to establish wind farms upstate, off Long Island and in the Nantucket Sound have shown, a combination of high cost, environmental concerns, and plain old NIMBYism has bedeviled the development of wind energy in New York and elsewhere.

Photo: Nick Atkins Photography via Flickr 

If nothing else, gridlocked traffic is a good marketing opportunity for Oscar Mayer's Wienermobile.

US Rep. Anthony Weiner was one of the first voices to speak up against Mayor Bloomberg's proposal for a three-year congestion pricing pilot project and he remains one of the loudest. In his testimony Oct. 25 before the NYC Traffic Mitigation Congestion Commission, Weiner -- who is planning a 2009 mayoral run -- consolidated his arguments, starting off with a diplomatic concession: "The Bloomberg administration has begun a very important conversation about what New York will look like in 2030 and how we prepare now for the sustainable and prosperous future." Weiner went on immediately, however, to characterize the mayor's congestion-pricing plan as "expensive and unfair." Today, an even more boiled down version of Weiner's proposal can be found on the New York Post op/ed page. 

In his testimony, Weiner outlined a seven-point alternative that has a little something for everybody. Very roughly, here's what it boils down to:

• Improving mass transit, including ferries and buses, before anything else is done. Weiner also outlines a plan to get 1 of 10 New Yorkers on a bike by 2020, with strategies including a pilot bike-sharing program and expanded bike-storage facilities.
• What he calls "carrot and stick congestion pricing"-- a tax credit for companies that schedule truck deliveries in off-peak hours; increased tolls during rush hour; and an increase in metered parking fees during peak hours. Weiner says these last two points "would satisfy the Department of Transportation's requirement that some element of congestion pricing be part of the City's plan, and thus make us eligible to collect the federal grant." (Actually, no, those ideas don't appear to meet the federal government's definition of "congestion pricing.")
  
• Reducing reliance on trucks by building the Cross Harbor Tunnel.
• Scaling back alternate-side parking and street-cleaning.
• Avoiding the creation of an expensive infrastructure in order to qualify for the $354.5 million in federal funds.
• Enforcing existing traffic laws such as "don't block the box."
• "Apportioning the benefits and the burden fairly--don't pit neighbor against neighbor."

Weiner's proposals prompted a scornful response from Transportation Alternatives. In a letter to the Traffic Mitigation Commission, TA executive director Paul Steely White said: "Congressman Weiner does nothing to help the work of this Commission by presenting an 'alternative' plan to mitigate congestion that includes a hypothetical blank check from the federal government to pay for it. Choices the Congressman suggests like eliminating congestion pricing, lowering truck tolls at off-peak times, providing off-hour delivery tax credits to businesses and building a cross-harbor tunnel carry an exceptionally high cost while providing no substantial revenue streams." Here's the PDF of White's full letter.

Jeff Zupan, Regional Plan Association's transportation analyst, has shown why other alternatives to congestion pricing are flawed. Some of those points apply to Weiner's plan as well.

Help shape the neighborhood streets of the Upper West Side. Work with your neighbors to create beautiful, green streets with safer bike lanes, great walking spaces, less traffic and cleaner air. The Upper West Side Streets Renaissance Campaign is holding a series of events aimed at empowering residents to re-imagine neighborhood streets and make their visions a reality.

A Workshop With Jan Gehl, the World's Foremost Urban Designer
Tuesday, November 6th, 2007, 5:30-7:00 pm
The Jewish Community Center
334 Amsterdam Avenue at West 76th Street
Opening Reception, 7:00-8:30 Presentation

DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan will be there too. Admission is free. Seating is very limited and RSVP is required.

The Philly CarShare program (Motto: "Why own when you can borrow?") is one of the most successful of its kind in the country. Currently in its fifth year, the Philadelphia-based non-profit recently surpassed 30,000 members and is generating $10 million annually to pay for a small staff, the purchase and maintenance of a fleet, and a reduction in rates when possible.

Started by two city planners, a community activist and an investment banker, Philly CarShare's goal is "fewer cars clogging streets and lungs." Yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

One of Philly CarShare's advantages is the relationship it has with local government. In 2004, it awarded Philly CarShare a contract that allows multiple departments to share cars, and then frees them up at night and on weekends for use by city residents.

As a result, Philadelphia was able to sell off 329 vehicles. Since the program started, the estimated saving in lower insurance costs, less use, and less abuse is $6 million, according to Jeff Friedman, a consultant for the city's Office of Fleet Management.

Nationally, Sheehan says, studies show that each shared car takes six to 10 private vehicles off the road. Factor in the number of car purchases postponed or canceled, and the number jumps to about 25.

Photo: Jonathan Wilson