Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Grocery delivery can cut carbon emissions compared to driving your car to the store and back. But delivery services also replace walking, biking, and transit trips. Image: Transportation Research Forum

In a recent study out of Seattle, researchers Erica Wygonik and Anne Goodchild found that having groceries delivered by truck can cut mileage by up to 85 or 95 percent compared to driving a car. ”It’s like a bus for groceries,” Goodchild told NPR. ”Overwhelmingly, it’s more efficient to be sharing a vehicle, even if it’s a little larger.”

The most efficiency can be squeezed out of grocery delivery when dispatchers can design short routes that serve many people. When customers can choose their delivery times, however, the routes become significantly less efficient.

But in urban areas, where houses are close enough together that delivery might be relatively efficient, not everyone drives to the store. And people without access to a car might be the most likely to use a delivery service. In these locations, perhaps delivery services are replacing walking, biking, and transit trips more than driving trips.

It looks like more research is needed to evaluate the full impact of grocery delivery services on travel choices and carbon emissions. “We don’t have great data about how people get to the store,” Goodchild said in an email exchange. “We also don’t know to what extent these shoppers (bike/ped) might choose to shop online, versus those who drive to the store.”

She said she and her co-author have talked about conducting simulations where they consider biking “but would need to estimate calorie burn.” Yes, calorie burn — but hopefully not “increased respiration.”

Expanding NEPA to include climate impacts and adaptability won't necessarily mean a future free from this. Photo: Macomb Politics

Since 1970, the National Environmental Protection Act has required federal agencies to consider the impacts of their projects on air, water, and soil pollution — but not on climate change.

Until recently, carbon dioxide, which causes global warning, wasn’t classified as a pollutant and so couldn’t be regulated under environmental laws. The EPA in 2009 asserted its power to regulate carbon emissions but hasn’t applied it to NEPA analyses for infrastructure – until now.

President Obama hasn’t made the announcement yet, but Bloomberg reported Friday that he “is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they should consider the impact on global warming before approving major projects, from pipelines to highways.”

There’s more – projects could also be evaluated according to resiliency in the face of climate change. Would the new infrastructure be destroyed if faced with flooding, drought, or other severe weather? Bloomberg reports that the White House is also “looking at” requiring these climate adaptability and resiliency reports for projects “with 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions or more per year, the equivalent of burning about 100 rail cars of coal.”

Does this mean no more highways?

The conservative National Review’s headline about the changes was, “Did Obama Just Block Keystone?” Columnist Stanley Kurtz speculated that Obama could publicly approve the Keystone XL pipeline and then let the new environmental review process rule it out.

Could the same go for highway projects?

Read more…

It has a nice ring to it: using oil and gas revenue to shift transportation off oil and gas dependence. President Obama announced a plan to do just that on Friday — but the details of his plan are disappointing if you want to see the conversation on clean transportation go beyond cars.

Hey, it's OK -- they're all electric cars. Photo: A Marked Man

The Energy Security Trust would be funded with $2 billion in oil and gas revenues, in what the Washington Post called a “jujitsu” move – using oil and gas money to hasten the elimination of oil and gas as a transportation fuel.

This handy infographic from the Energy Department about what the money will fund shows just how narrowly defined the trust is. Light fuel tanks for natural gas, advanced vehicle batteries, cleaner biofuels, hydrogen fuel-cell technology. But as David Burwell of the Carnegie Endowment’s Climate Program notes, “it has the distinct sound — to use a Zen Buddhist metaphor — of one hand clapping.”

“Certainly, electric vehicles and advanced biofuels are a key tool in drastically reducing the 70 percent of total U.S. oil consumption devoted to transportation,” Burwell said. “However, it misses at least two additional key elements of any oil-back-out scheme — (1) more trip choices and (2) reducing the need to travel.”

Obama has shown an impressive resolve to reduce vehicle emissions but not much desire to reduce vehicle trips. While his transportation budgets have enabled some progress on rail and transit, and his infrastructure initiatives focus on maintenance instead of road expansion, his signature program – the increase in CAFE standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 – would do nothing to reduce traffic, create more transportation choices, or encourage walkable development.

Read more…

Hybrid drivers: Nice try, but your wheels aren’t really saving the planet.

Your environmental concerns aren't over when you buy a hybrid. Photo: Mississippi Business Journal

Consumer Reports announced Thursday that the mileage ratings on Ford’s hybrid models were inflated. Instead of getting “47 city/47 highway/47 combined mpg” as advertised, the Fusion sedan gets 35/41/39 and the new C-Max wagon gets 35/38/37. That’s a pretty big difference — far bigger than any that Consumer Reports found for other cars.

And it can add up to a lot if hybrid drivers follow the guidance and do a ton of driving — that’s the only way to get their money’s worth, after all. An article this morning in Business Insider offers this perverse incentive for environmentally-minded hybrid owners to spend lots of time on the road:

Hybrid cars get better fuel economy, so the more miles you drive, the faster you will recoup the extra cost [of the vehicle purchase]. To get to the break-even point the quickest, you’ll want to be someone who logs at least an average number of miles annually (12,000 is typical) or more.

When you’re driving those 12,000+ miles a year, should you drive them in the city or on the highway? You’ll get better mileage on the highway, but hybrids really shine in the city, since they recharge when you brake. That’s the beauty of a hybrid! Except the more you brake and recharge that battery, the more long-term capacity the battery loses.

Read more…

A study by the government of the Australian state of Victoria highlights the limits of electric cars, in isolation, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Australian government researchers say electric vehicles are no environmental panacea. Photo: The Age

The Victorian government’s ongoing “electric vehicle trial” [PDF] found that electric cars powered by coal may actually produce more carbon emissions than petroleum-fueled cars over the lifetime of the vehicle, from manufacturing to junkyard. This is due in part to the added environmental impacts of the lithium batteries that electric cars require.

This is not to say that EVs won’t improve on internal combustion engines. It all depends on where the electricity comes from. The authors found that, taking into account the full vehicle life-cycle, an electric car powered by 100 percent renewable energy — like wind and solar — can begin outperforming gas-powered cars after two years of use.

In the United States, the cleanest sources of electricity are near the coasts, and EVs in those areas outperform the best hybrids, according to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists released last spring. But in the Midwest and Mountain West, coal-powered energy generation makes EVs dirtier.

Of course, even setting aside the deaths, injuries, chronic diseases, and traffic jams caused by a car-dependent transportation system, vehicle emissions are far from the only environmental cost of cars. To reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, cutting down on the “embedded energy” that comes with sprawling development is absolutely essential. And while cleaner cars can help curb global warming, the wrong incentives for their use can also dump more carbon into the air. To the extent that policies discourage transit, biking, or walking in order to favor electric vehicles, the net effect can actually backfire. Witness Denmark’s incentives to park electric cars in the center city, which undermines the high mode-share for greener modes of travel.

The Australian government has been providing a better incentive, helping gas stations install electric vehicle charging facilities. The city of Melbourne currently has about 30 such stations in the central business district but 10 more are on the way as part of a government trial, reports Melbourne’s The Age.

About 12 hours after President Obama won re-election, Bloomberg News ran this tantalizing headline: “Obama May Levy Carbon Tax to Cut U.S. Deficit, HSBC Says.”

A carbon tax could finally put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, but the Obama administration says it's not on the agenda. Photo: Boxoid

The article suggested that a $20-per-ton tax on carbon emissions, rising gradually over time, could help reduce the deficit by half within a decade.

Within the same story was the antidote to the optimism the headline may have evoked: The founder of the world’s biggest carbon trading exchange said Obama probably won’t seek to install such a program in his second term, but that something might be possible around 2020. As Philip Bump wrote in Grist, it’s best to take with a grain of salt what some guy from HSBC — based in Great Britain — says is a political possibility in the United States. “His finger might not be that close to the pulse of what the White House is thinking,” Bump wrote.

Indeed, the Bloomberg story cited absolutely no reason to think Obama was considering a carbon tax, except that it would be a good idea. And it certainly would be a good idea – incentivizing efficiency, raising revenues, and just maybe slowing the march toward catastrophic climate change.

Indeed, it might be our only hope. The day after the Bloomberg story ran, Oxford economist Dieter Helm wrote in The Guardian that carbon emissions are rising faster now than before the Kyoto Protocol was ratified (in every country in the world except the United States and Afghanistan) and the only way to make a real dent in it is to tax carbon.

But then the White House extinguished the flame of hope right quick.

“The Administration has not proposed nor is planning to propose a carbon tax,” a White House official told The Hill.

Read more…

A professor at San Francisco State University recently developed an econometric model to study how smart growth affects travel behavior. His finding: quite a bit.

If Bakersfield, California enjoyed the same density and transit amenities as the San Francisco Bay Area, households would drive 55 percent less, according to a recent study. Photo: Bakersfieldcarealestate.com

Dr. Sudip Chattopadhyay measured the impact of certain smart growth indicators on 18 metro areas across the U.S. He found that a 10 percent increase in smart growth amenities — measured by residential and job density and per-capita transit spending — leads to a 20 percent reduction in miles driven.

“This is a huge impact,” said Chattopadhyay. “Success is gradual and long lasting.”

The study, published in the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, set out to determine if smart growth or taxation strategies like increasing the fuel tax has a bigger impact on driving behavior. His finding was that smart growth produced a bigger return: 18 percent reduction for taxing versus 20 percent for smart growth.

Further, the study found that if mid-sized California cities like Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield had similar density and transit amenities as some of the state’s larger cities — the Bay Area and Los Angeles — they could expect to see a 55 percent reduction in per household driving activity, or about 5,238 miles per year.

Chattopadhyay said his findings lend support to California’s State Bill 375 and Assembly Bill 32. Both laws promote efficient land use to help curb global warming. The study did not examine other benefits of smart growth, such as better health and environmental outcomes.

On Thursday, DOT Secretary Ray LaHood announced the creation of a new Freight Policy Council, which is charged with coming up with a freight strategic plan. This is a first step toward a sorely lacking national plan around freight.

DOT Chief Ray LaHood announced the freight policy council's creation last week in Washington state. Photo courtesy of the secretary's FastLane blog

The movement of goods accounts for about a quarter of all transportation-related emissions. Every American is responsible for 40 tons of freight a year, according to DOT. Everyone agrees that freight is essential for the economic well-being of the country, and much more so given President Obama’s stated goal of doubling exports by 2015. “A more efficient freight network will reduce traffic congestion, environmental impact and shipping costs, which will lead to lower prices for consumers,” according to a press release by U.S. DOT. But up until now, there’s been no coherent policy around freight, or any governmental body tasked exclusively with looking at it.

A bill to create a national freight strategic plan and a permanent freight planning office at DOT was introduced two years ago but was always intended to be rolled into a reauthorization, not passed as a stand-alone bill. MAP-21 captured most of the elements of that plan, and advocates are glad to see it moving forward.

“Creation of a high-level, multimodal Freight Policy Council will go far in ensuring MAP-21’s freight provisions increase efficiency across all modes of the national freight network,” said Mortimer Downey, chair of the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, in a statement. “Establishment of this Council signals a praiseworthy commitment to our national economy and global economic competitiveness.”

The operative word there is “multimodal.” For sustainable transportation advocates, that’s the key to whether this council – and the plan it comes up with – is transformative or disappointing. “Are they going to build a lot of truck-only lanes or are they going to look toward a smarter future where we’re moving as much as possible off the roads?” asks Ann Mesnikoff, director of the Sierra Club’s Green Transportation Campaign. “It is certainly time that we take a very close look at how we are moving freight and ensure that we do as much as possible to slash oil consumption, carbon pollution and the dangerous air pollution associated with freight.”

U.S. DOT didn’t need legislation to move forward on creating a national freight plan. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) urged LaHood to do so months ago, using his existing authority. But MAP-21, signed into law July 6, gave the agency the kick in the pants to get it done.

Read more…

Traffic congestion, air pollution, and lack of mobility disproportionately harm the poor in the developing world when transportation investments favor automobiles. Photo: Owni

If you think the United States is doing a bad job shifting toward sustainable transportation, take a look at the developing world. The places with the most to lose from auto-oriented development are doubling down on it — to the enormous detriment of their citizens, especially the poorest.

The number of cars in the world is expect to grow as much as 375 percent by 2050. Road fatalities in low- and middle-income countries are expected to rise by 80 percent just over the next eight years, with pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable users making up about half those deaths. Harmful air pollutants that already cause 1.3 million premature deaths each year, mostly in developing and middle-income countries, will rise. And carbon dioxide emissions from transport could grow 300 percent over 2005 levels by 2050 — with most of the growth, again, coming from the developing world.

The energy consumed by the transportation sector globally more than doubled between 1970 and 2005. Source: Worldwatch Institute.

Michael Replogle and Colin Hughes warn of these dire outcomes in their article on sustainable transportation for the 2012 State of the World report, published by the Worldwatch Institute. While international climate change agreements have historically overlooked the transportation sector, the authors note some promising changes afoot as international development banks seek to add transit projects to their portfolios.

Replogle and Hughes frame transportation policy in terms of both sustainability and equity. The urban poor lose out disproportionately when car-oriented infrastructure dominates, they note, since the lack of affordable transportation forces them “to choose between low incomes in informal sector employment close to affordable housing and higher-wage jobs that force them to spend a large share of their income and hours each day commuting.”

Compounding the inequity, fossil fuel subsidies disproportionately allocate public funds to the wealthy, the authors report: “The International Energy Agency estimates that only eight percent of the $409 billion that the world spent in 2010 to subsidize fossil fuel consumption (about half of which is used for transport) went to the poorest 20 percent of the population.”

Unfortunately, say Replogle and Hughes, international agreements on poverty reduction and climate change have largely ignored transportation. Even the Agenda 21 agreement, a bogeyman among far-right cranks, included “no targets, goals, commitments, or other forms of accountability” for sustainable transport.

Read more…

Republicans have made clear that they don’t think President Obama’s jobs plan, including $50 billion for transportation infrastructure, will create jobs. They would rather remove regulations that cost industry money. They say reducing this “regulatory burden” will create jobs — and they want to start with the cement industry.

During floor debate on the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act, Rep. Waxman shows a picture of an elementary school located right next to a cement kiln.

The House is currently debating the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act, which would eliminate EPA standards, passed last August, to reduce hazardous air pollution. Industry hacks say regulations currently facing the cement industry could force the closure of 18 of the nearly 100 U.S. cement plants and result in the loss of 4,000 manufacturing jobs. Democrats — and the Congressional Research Service — refute those numbers.

Republicans have been toiling away all year to gut EPA regulations of all stripes — indeed, California Democrat Henry Waxman, ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, today called it “the most anti-environment Congress in history,” having voted 136 times this session to block environmental measures.

But the GOP says this one in particular is a jobs-killer. “The cement industry is in its weakest economic condition since the 1930s,” said Jason Altmire (R-PA) on the floor of the House. He says the bill would simply remove an unnecessary barrier to industry.

About 40 percent of the cement used in the U.S. in a given year is used to surface highways. According to Earthjustice, cement plants are among the nation’s worst toxic polluters. Cement kilns are the second largest source of mercury emissions in the United States, after coal-fired power plants. So essentially, this Republican bill is another government subsidy to the road industry, only this time we’re paying with the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.

Read more…