Growing Cooler – Key Differences & Misconceptions, Part 1 of 3

November 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

By Jerry Walters

You may be hearing about several new reports on the subject of transportation, land use and climate interactions, that some may say rebut the findings of the 2008 ULI book Growing Cooler – The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change.  This first of three blogs will clarify the misconceptions and key differences between Growing Cooler and the most prominent of these studies:


Moving Cooler

Moving Cooler is an expansion and extension upon Growing Cooler, which primarily addresses the effects of coordinated land use and transportation strategies on reducing VMT and GHG generation. After addressing the degree to which greater vehicle fuel economy and cleaner-burning fuels can begin to address the needed levels of GHG reduction, Growing Cooler goes into considerable depth on which factors related to land use (the Ds) contribute to travel and GHG reduction and what the likely aggregate effects would be if planning policies shifted to meet the growing market demand for compact, mixed and transit oriented development.  It considers several broad complementary transportation strategies, including road pricing (fuel price, tolls, VMT fees) and transit investments.  It addresses policies and strategies that can be applied at the development level, city/county level, regional level, and statewide level. 

Moving Cooler is a national strategy piece.  It does little or no original research on strategy effectiveness but devotes a lot of effort to combining a long list of potential strategies into three “bundles” representing a future baseline or “expanded current practice”, an aggressive bundle, and a maximum effort bundle.  Each bundle contains a mix of land use, transit and non-motorized measures, system and driver efficiency measures, facility pricing, vehicle technology and fuel content.   For its land use effectiveness assessment, Moving Cooler relies on the analysis and assumptions from Growing Cooler, with only a minor exception.  Rather than comparing the future “business as usual” to the future with-action as does Growing Cooler, Moving Cooler uses “expanded current practice” as its baseline against which to compare its action elements.  As a result, its incremental percentage reductions in GHG from land use strategies appear lower than in Growing Cooler, even though both predict essentially the same end-state.

What Moving Cooler does to is to assemble an impressive list of TDM strategies and system efficiency strategies and to select from earlier research on each strategy to estimate its potential effectiveness.  It is not clear, however, whether they realistically accounted for the mutually reinforcing and mutually detracting interactions among groups of measures, as their efforts to consider the combined effects of measures within and between bundles is reported only to be a matter of multiplying rather than adding the effects of individual elements. 

Moving Cooler was sponsored by an important group of organizations, including EPA, FTA, FHWA, APTA, ULI and NRDC.  However, one of the original supporters, AASHTO backed out of the effort when it found that it could not support the findings related to the effects of roadway expansion.  

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 Coming up next…

-   I will review the recent TRB document Driving and the Built Environment which some believe finds the potential effects of land use strategies to be only about half of those estimated in Growing Cooler.

 -  I will then review UNC’s Travel Behavior, Residential Preference, and Urban Design: A Multi-Disciplinary National Analysis which, paraphrased, states: “We found that residents of neo-traditional developments make more car trips … than residents of typical suburban neighborhoods… We found no difference in vehicle mileage.”

Filed Under: Greenhouse gases, VMT

Ron Milam Participates in Greenhouse Gas Emissions – Climate Change Law and Initiatives Conference in Sacramento

October 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Climate change laws and regulations in California are altering traditional transportation planning practices in California.  Ron Milam of Fehr & Peers has been tracking these changes and has developed a new paradigm for transportation planning in California that responds to climate change regulation.  Ron will be sharing some of his latest work at the December 7-8, 2009 CLE Greenhouse Gas Emissions Conference on Climate Change Law and Initiatives.

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Click here for more information.

Filed Under: Energy, Greenhouse gases, Sustainability

New Smart Growth and GHG Emissions Study

June 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

CCAP Press Release:  

New Study Shows Smart Growth and Improved Transportation Choices will Reduce GHG Emissions and Save Americans Money

Washington, DC — The Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) released a study today concluding that comprehensive application of smart growth best practices and improved transportation choices could significantly reduce transportation emissions at a cost savings to society.  The study is released as House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar announces his outline for surface transportation authorization legislation. 

CCAP

Most greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction studies miss the benefits of smart growth and improved transportation choices.  However, the new CCAP study shows that these policies can reduce the amount Americans need to drive — as measured in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) — by 10 percent per capita from 2005 levels.  A 10 percent reduction in per capita VMT would reduce annual transportation emissions by 145 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2) in the year 2030, equivalent to the annual emissions of about 30 million cars or 35 large coal plants.  These reductions would equal approximately 6 percent of the 2030 GHG reduction goal proposed in the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

The new study, titled “Cost-Effective GHG Reductions through Smart Growth & Improved Transportation Choices: An economic case for strategic investment of cap-and-trade revenues,” was prepared with input from Transportation for America, Smart Growth America, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, Rails to Trails and HDR.

Climate advocates say that addressing the transportation emissions is critical for reducing U.S. GHG emissions because nearly one third of U.S. emissions come from transportation, making it the nation’s largest end-use source of emissions.  Furthermore, transportation is the fastest growing source of U.S. emissions.

“We cannot address climate change without addressing transportation emissions.  Our analysis indicates that we can achieve transportation emissions reductions with significant economic benefits, yielding net cost savings per ton CO2, when factoring in avoided infrastructure costs, consumer fuel and insurance cost savings and projected tax revenue growth from high value economic development,” said Steve Winkelman, director of transportation and adaptation programs at CCAP. “These positive economic findings hold at local, regional, state and national levels.” 

CCAP reviewed a number of reports and case studies about U.S. cities and states that demonstrate how making smarter land use and transportation choices reduces emissions and saves money. For example, Sacramento projects GHG savings of 7.2 MMT CO2 by 2050, while saving $9 billion in infrastructure costs and $380 million in annual consumer fuel costs, yielding a net economic benefit of almost $200 per ton of CO2 saved. Portland, Oregon’s investments in bicycle infrastructure will reduce emissions by 0.7 MMTCO2, with net economic benefits of more than $1,000 per ton CO2 saved. 

At the state level, Georgia could save more than $400 billion over 30 years, while saving 18 MMTCO2 with strategic investments in transit, freight and travel demand management (e.g., four day work weeks, telecommuting, carpooling).  In Atlanta, Georgia, the Atlantic Station redevelopment project is reducing residents’ need to drive by more than 30 percent, which would cut 0.6 MMTCO2 over 50 years, and generate $30 million per year in much-needed local tax revenue.

The study points out that although the price signal from a national cap-and-trade system will be sufficient to change behavior of major point sources of emissions, it will be far less effective in influencing travel demand for Americans.  This study demonstrates that achieving economy-wide emissions reductions will be less costly if strategies include smart growth and improved travel choices.  Therefore, CCAP recommends dedicating 10 percent of national cap-and-trade allowance value to smart growth and improved transportation choices. 

Winkelman said that this investment will jump start smarter land use and transportation choices at the local, regional, and state levels while lowering economy-wide GHG mitigation costs.

“It is time to invest in our citizens, to improve their health, their quality of life, their neighborhoods and their employment opportunities — by supporting smart growth and improved transportation options,” said Winkelman.  “The U.S. should seek investments that bring the greatest benefits to society, particularly during this economic downturn. This study shows that smart growth pays dividends to all citizens.”

This summer, CCAP will release a more in-depth review of the economic impacts of smart growth and improved transportation choices, called “Growing Wealthier: The Economic Benefits of Smart Growth.” 

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For more information on CCAP’s smart growth and transportation program, please visit: http://www.ccap.org/index.php?component=programs&id=35. 

 

Since 1985, CCAP has been a recognized world leader in climate and air quality policy and is the only independent, non-profit think-tank working exclusively on those issues at the local, national and international levels. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., CCAP helps policymakers around the world to develop, promote and implement innovative, market-based solutions to major climate, air quality and energy problems that balance both environmental and economic interests.  For more information about CCAP, please visit www.ccap.org.

 

Filed Under: Greenhouse gases, Sustainability, VMT

Proposed VMT Threshold for the Yolo County General Plan Update

May 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The County of Yolo, located in the Sacramento, California region, is in the process of updating their General Plan with a horizon year of 2030. The unincorporated area of the County has historically focused on preservation of farmland, open space, and natural resources, while directing residential growth to incorporated cities and in some cases established rural communities. However, with the existing incorporated cities nearing build-out and increased pressure on the county to accommodate additional residential growth, the County has the opportunity to establish a new growth area. As part of the General Plan update, the County has identified the Town of Dunnigan (with less than 400 existing residential units) as a new Specific Plan area that would accommodate up to approximately 8,000 new residential dwelling units. The size of the community was predicated on a desire to fix existing environmental problems such as water contamination due to private septic systems while also creating a sustainable full-service community.

The Draft General Plan includes policies that promote sustainable development in the Dunnigan Specific Plan area, including matching jobs to housing, ensuring that jobs are created concurrently with housing, providing needed services in the community, and promoting walking, biking, and transit. The focus of the policies is to reduce the need for vehicle travel but it is not intended to reduce personal mobility. To further insure that the Dunnigan Specific Plan area achieves lower levels of travel, Fehr & Peers worked closely with the County to develop a daily vehicle miles of travel (VMT) generated per household threshold. The threshold was developed based on the new regional travel demand model for the Sacramento region, called SACSIM, which is a state of the art activity-based travel demand model. This new type of model simulates people and their activity patterns (i.e., why they travel) to estimate regional travel performance measures, such as VMT.

The regional SACSIM model estimates that the incorporated cities of Davis and Woodland, which are mature full service cities, are anticipated to generate 44 miles per household by 2035, while the unincorporated area of the County is estimated to generate 77 miles per household by 2035. The Dunnigan Specific Plan area is envisioned to include a land use pattern and transportation system representative of a mature and sustainable community similar to the Cities of Davis and Woodland. As a result, the following new policy was developed as part to the VMT analysis in the Yolo County General Plan Draft EIR:

  • The Dunnigan Specific Plan shall incorporate a maximum of 44 vehicle miles of travel (VMT) generated per household per weekday through implementation of all feasible actions including but not limited to specifications contained in Policies CC-3.3 through CC-3.6. As part of the specific plan implementation, the VMT performance shall be monitored at each phase.

The specific approach may be applicable elsewhere but it would need to be tailored to the local conditions. Yolo County has unique land use conditions (i.e., Williamson Act properties, strong commitment to agricultural protection, focused growth in cities that no longer want to grow in significant amounts, etc.) that were important considerations in establishing the threshold. Other key factors related to this approach include the following benefits that go beyond just greenhouse gas reductions:

  • Reduces the urban footprint of planned development through higher densities and a mix of land uses with a focus on encouraging transit, bicycling, and walking.
  • Reduces energy use from buildings due to higher densities and from traveling.
  • Reduces air pollutant emissions.

The full VMT discussion is available for public review in the Transportation and Circulation section of the Draft Yolo County General Plan EIR at the Yolo County Web site.

Filed Under: CEQA, General Plans, Greenhouse gases, Local ordinances, VMT

CARB Local Government Toolkit Advisory Group Creates Helpful Web site

March 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The California Air Research Board recently announced a new online portal that has been developed to help "cool" California.  The portal (Web site) provides an innovative statewide carbon footprint calculator for California households, individuals and communities, including links to useful solutions for improving energy efficiency, and for reducing your overall carbon footprint.  While these tools may prove useful for a variety of applications, users should be aware of key limitations when applying these or any model/tool to comply with California planning or environmental requirements. 

Click here to visit CoolCalifornia.org.
                                                    

coolcalifornia

Filed Under: Greenhouse gases, Local ordinances, Sustainability

Jerry Walters Testifies Before California Climate Change Panel

February 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Jerry Walters, Fehr & Peers Principal and Chief Technical Officer, recently made a presentation to the California Regional Target Advisory Committee (RTAC) titled “State of the Research: Land Use and Transportation Effects on Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” The presentation described the factors that affect GHG emissions, based largely on the 8-D’s, followed by good questions from almost every one of the committee members.

Mr. Walter’s testimony comes after his appointment to the California Regional Target Advisory Committee. The committee has been established to set regional greenhouse gas targets under the State’s climate change laws, AB 32 and SB 375. The committee’s decisions will have statewide significance, affecting development potential and transportation strategies for all of the regional governments. 

Committee members include the Executive Directors of the four major Metropolitan Planning Organizations (LA/ IE/ Orange County, San Diego, Bay Area, Sacramento), high-ranking elected officials from jurisdictions throughout the state, representatives of several public interest groups and the building industry.  Fehr & Peers is the only consulting firm included in the committee. Mr. Walters will be the primary representative and Ron Milam, Fehr & Peers Principal, will serve as alternate.

Filed Under: Greenhouse gases, VMT

We Need a Fewer Fleet not a Newer Fleet

February 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Interesting article about the futility of trying to transform to a more efficient transportation system though clean fuel vehicles.  Creating more efficiency inevitably results in more demand, and more of the bio-product that we are trying to avoid.  When you factor in the additional waste created by a vehicle fleet change-over, changing to clean fuel technologies does not stack up well against more basic solutions such as walking, bicycling and using transit. 

disposal

It is quite similar to our findings on induced travel - increasing travel speeds, which reduces the emissions of a vehicle, results in the unintentional outcome of more people traveling and the cumulative effect of even more emissions for a segment of road.  This also supports the school of thought that what is needed is not a newer fleet, but a fewer fleet, which can only be achieved by enabling car-free lifestyles through good land use and transportation planning, particularly investment in capacity-enhancing transit projects.

The same conclusions can be reached about HOT lane projects, whose ultimate goal is to move more vehicles.  Articles like this one assume that the increase in capacity will not result in a commensurate increase in demand returning congestion to prior levels, but with more vehicles experiencing the congestion.  Anything that results in increased efficiency of auto travel will result in more use of automobiles.

Filed Under: Greenhouse gases

California Proposes Dropping Auto LOS

January 19, 2009 By 1 Comment

In early January, the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) quietly proposed a sweeping change to the way that transportation-specific environmental impacts are evaluated.  In the Preliminary Draft CEQA Guideline Amendments for Greenhouse Gas Emissions recently released, all reference to automobile Level of Service (LOS) has been removed, including related text referring to roadway volume to capacity ratios, automobile congestion, and parking capacity.

Filip Bodgan Pursuant to Senate Bill 97 (2007), OPR is responsible for updating California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) guidelines to support mitigating greenhouse gas emissions or the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.  The purpose of these guidelines, originally released in preliminary draft form in October 2008 (see related CoolConnections post here), is to help local jurisdictions meet their CEQA obligations.

CEQA itself has no specific Level of Service requirements, but it does encourage the adoption of standards of significance to be used in determining significant impacts. It is the responsibility of the Lead Agency to determine the definition of “significant.”

Typically, standards of significance for transportation impacts in California (and around the nation) are based on automobile LOS.  This is partly due to the fact that current CEQA Guidelines state significance thresholds need to be:

“… an identifiable quantitative, qualitative or performance level of a particular environmental effect, noncompliance with which means the effect will normally be determined to be significant by the agency and compliance with which means the effect normally will be determined to be less than significant.” (CEQA, Section 15064.7)

Standardized LOS policies tend to fit the above description well.  While permissible to use differing significance thresholds, Lead Agencies have so far been reluctant to deviate from the use of LOS.

Part of the reluctance may be due to recent case law generally interpreting the analysis of transportation impacts in light of consistency with the CEQA Checklist, which states that a project will normally have a significant effect on the environment if it will:

“… [c]ause an increase in traffic which is substantial in relation to the existing traffic load and capacity of the street system (i.e. result in a substantial increase in…the volume to capacity ratio on the roads, or congestion at intersections)….” (CEQA Checklist – Appendix G)

This language in the CEQA Checklist was added in 1999 and suggests the use of automobile-based standards of significance as opposed to alternate approaches involving considerations for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit (some jurisdictions use multimodal significance criteria, but this is always in addition to, not in lieu of, automobile significance criteria).

Which brings us to January 2009.  OPR has released proposed changes to the CEQA checklist which eliminate the above language, replacing it with language relating to the number of automobile trips or vehicle miles traveled (VMT) a particular “project” would generate:

OPR Text - January 2009

This proposal comes on the heels of the City of San Francisco’s proposal in the Fall of 2008 to do just the same thing.  It also follows an LOS Forum on this topic that was held at OPR in December.  If adopted, it would mean that automobile LOS, which describes the level of congestion and delay on a road, would be abandonded in favor of impacts being based on the amount of automobile travel generated, irrespective of roadway capacity.

Workshops to discuss this and other aspects of the Preliminary Draft CEQA Guidelines will be held on January 22 and 26.  We’ll continue to review new developments with this proposal, including its implications, in upcoming posts.

Filed Under: CEQA, Greenhouse gases, Level of Service

CEQA and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

November 4, 2008 By Leave a Comment

California’s recent Senate Bill 97 (2007) states that greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of greenhouse gas emissions are subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  Pursuant to SB 97, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) has developed draft guidelines for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions or the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.  These guidelines are intended to help local jurisdictions and other CEQA-defined lead agencies meet their CEQA obligations.  As part of this process, OPR has asked the California Air Resources Board (ARB) technical staff to recommend statewide interim thresholds of significance for greenhouse gases.

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On October 24th, ARB released a set of preliminary concepts for developing CEQA thresholds of significance for greenhouse gases – Preliminary Draft Staff Proposal: Recommended Approaches for Setting Interim Significance Thresholds for Greenhouse Gases under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). ARB hosted a public workshop on October 27th to present these concepts, pose an initial set of questions, and receive public input prior to presenting a final recommended approach to the ARB Board in January 2009.

The Preliminary Draft Staff Proposal includes ARB staff’s initial recommendations for industrial and residential/commercial projects. For these projects, staff has outlined an approach which considers project exemptions, performance standards, and significant impacts – for residential/commercial projects, there is also a “programmatic approach” to streamline projects that comply within the requirements of a previously adopted plan (EIR). While industrial projects have a recommend threshold of 7,000 MTCO2E/year (metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent), the residential/commercial projects’ threshold is yet to be determined. The document notes that staff is still working on a proposal for an interim approach for thresholds for transportation projects and large dairies. Electricity generation is another sector where clarity is needed in the near term. 

ARB staff also recognizes that additional analyses and data are needed to fill in some of the blanks, and to understand how the thresholds will operate in the real world. Comments on all aspects of the Staff Proposal are encouraged. In particular, ARB seeks the active participation of local lead agencies.

Staff has identified a few questions in both their Preliminary Draft Staff Proposal and at ARB’s October 27th public workshop to solicit further comment:

  1. How should the performance standards for transportation, construction, waste, and water be defined?
  2. What are the unintended consequences?
  3. ARB would like additional analyses of categorical exemptions
  4. ARB is concerned that projects that meet thresholds could still have significant climate change impacts

Full Presentation from the October 27th workshop can be viewed here.  Additional information can be found on ARB’s Climate Change Website.

ARB is currently encouraging comments on the Preliminary Draft Staff Proposal.  The proposal has already generated some in-depth discussion and is sure to generate more in the weeks ahead.

- Lauren Hilliard

Filed Under: CEQA, Greenhouse gases
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