He just gave a TED talk about how to make cities more sustainable. And while he’s primarily looking at climate impacts, he pretty conclusively dismissed the notion that the problem can be solved with clean fuels.

“We tend to seek simple answers,” he said. And if we assume the problem is fossil fuels, he said, “the answer must be to replace fossil fuels with clean sources of energy. And while we do need clean energy, I would put to you that by looking at climate change as a clean energy generation problem, we’re setting ourselves up not to solve it.”

With a rapidly urbanizing planet and eight billion people projected to live in or near cities by midcentury, Steffen asserts that it may just not be possible to generate enough energy to power all those cities – if those cities continue to look like the ones in the developed world today, anyway. The solution, he said, is density.

“There’s a direct relationship between how dense a city is and the amount of climate emissions its residents spew out into the air,” Steffen said. “Denser places tend to have lower emissions.”

Source: GRID-Arendal

You know the reason why: you don’t have to drive as much if everything you need is close by. Passenger travel accounts for more than 70 percent of U.S. transportation emissions. Steffen says that a city doesn’t need to increase density everywhere – just a few “hyperdense” hotspots will make a big difference, having a sort of “tentpole” effect that raises the density of the whole city.

“What we see when we get a lot of people together with the right conditions is a threshold effect, where people simply stop driving as much and increasingly, more and more, if people are surrounded by places that make them feel at home, people give up their cars altogether. And this is a huge, huge energy savings. Because what comes out of our tailpipe is really just the beginning of the story with climate emissions from cars. We have the manufacture of the car, the disposal of the car, all of the parking and freeways and so on. When you can get rid of all of them, because somebody doesn’t use any of them, really, you can cut transportation emissions as much as 90 percent. “

People are embracing a “walkshed life” where the idea of the “dream home” has given way to the “dream neighborhood,” Steffen said.

Americans favor transportation policies that would address climate change, such as increased transit and bike lanes, according to a new poll. Photo: Green Chip Stocks

A random survey of 1,010 adults found that 71 percent think that global warming should be a “very high,” “high” or “medium priority” for the president and Congress. Americans overwhelmingly support policy changes that would help address the issue, the poll found. Participants favored developing clean energy sources by a more than 9-to-1 ratio.

“We find very strong bipartisan support for a variety of climate and energy policies in this country,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change. “It runs contrary to what you might expect looking at, for instance, the current make up of Congress and the Republican candidates for president.”

Transportation and planning policies to avert global warming also enjoyed wide approval among survey participants: 77 percent said they support adding bike lanes to roads, and 80 percent said they support expanding public transportation service.

This was true even among self-identifying Republicans. Some 74 percent of Republican respondents said they supported bike lanes and 80 percent signaled their support for increased public transit availability.

Majorities also supported expanding mixed-use zoning, reducing sprawl and promoting energy efficient apartments over single-family homes.

Republicans were more evenly split on issues of zoning and sprawl; 59 percent said they opposed zoning for mixed-uses in order to reduce the need for a car. However, Republicans were split 50-50 on using zoning to reduce sprawl and commute times.

While Americans were generally supportive of climate change policy fixes, their commitment did not go as far when their wallets entered the equation.

For example, poll respondents generally favored expanding public transit options. But when asked if they would be willing to support a 10 cent fee per gallon of gas to support transit, they were overwhelmingly opposed, Leiserowitz said. Americans are also diametrically opposed to tax increases of all types. Those polled rejected the idea of a carbon tax, even if the revenues would be returned in the form of income tax reductions.

But that doesn’t mean Americans are entirely unwilling to bear some costs to support clean energy, Leiserowitz said. For example, when asked if they would support a a 20 percent renewable energy requirement for utility companies, Americans sign on, even if they are told such a regulation would cost them an additional $100 annually in energy costs.

“There is some element of wishful thinking here.” Leiserowitz said. “It’s not that they’re just against paying more; people support increased energy costs. For whatever reason there’s a taboo around paying at the gas pump that people just don’t like. They also don’t like the word ‘tax.’”

Another interesting finding was that public prioritization of federal action on global warming has been declining since 2008, when Yale began its poll. That is mainly due to the public’s increased concern about the economy, Leiserowtz said.

“People are much more worried about losing their job or their house,” he said. “The threat of climate change just can’t compare.”

Michael Bloomberg at the C40 summit in São Paulo, where he spoke strongly of the environmental need for transportation reform. Photo: nyc.gov.

When it comes to sustainable transportation, Michael Bloomberg is saving his strongest words for an international audience. While the mayor’s rhetoric on transportation now tends to focus on safety, when transportation is on his agenda at all, at a meeting of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group in São Paulo Bloomberg brought back some of his 2007-vintage language.

Said the mayor in his speech:

“The intense burning of fossil fuels in the world’s cities – where 70 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are produced – not only contributes to climate change, it also clogs the streets, pollutes the air, and shortens the lives of their millions of residents. How we as mayors respond to these challenges will strongly determine the fate of the entire world, now and for decades to come.”

Bloomberg, the current chair of the C40 project, was there to announce the release of two studies and a new partnership between the coalition of big-city mayors and the World Bank.

The first study created a shared greenhouse gas reporting system for the C40 cities, allowing high-quality comparisons for the first time. The 42 C40 cities that participated were responsible for 1.2 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions, it found, roughly equivalent to the emissions of Japan.

Numbers like that fed into what at times seemed to be a bit of urban policy triumphalism on the part of the mayors. “Because of our shared experiences in leading the world’s great cities, and because, more than anyone else, we grasp the urgency of the challenges we now face, no one can do more to produce good outcomes for the world than we, the mayors of great cities, can,” said Bloomberg.

While it’s true that many cities have shown real leadership on climate change and reduced their greenhouse gas emissions, in the United States, states have probably implemented the most effective new climate policies and no real solution to climate change seems imaginable absent national and international action.

That doesn’t mean that action at the city level isn’t critically necessary, and the second report lays out how much has already been done. In the 58 C40 cities, 4,734 climate change actions are in effect and another 1,465 are in the process of being implemented.

The report notes that transportation is one of the three areas where cities have the most direct ability to prevent climate change, along with energy use by buildings and waste management. Twenty-two of the C40 mayors have invested in new bike infrastructure, for a total of 9,370 km of new lanes, and ten have built bus rapid transit systems. Another nine are working to introduce electric or hybrid taxi fleets.

To ensure that progress on those fronts not only continues but speeds up, the World Bank announced a new partnership with the C40 cities. Though it normally works through national governments, the World Bank will create a new system for C40 cities to access its technical assistance and climate finance initiatives directly.

Though New York is the least car-dependent state in the country, the state DOT isn’t known for championing for the state’s millions of non-drivers. In some corners of the large and decentralized agency, however, progressive ideas have taken root and new programs are being developed. At yesterday’s Rudin Center conference on livability, two DOT officials embraced the state’s extremely ambitious climate plan and outlined a course to expand the state’s much-praised GreenLITES certification system. The challenge for new DOT commissioner Joan McDonald will be to embrace the good thinking already coming from within the department and turn it into statewide policy.

John Zamurs, a 30-year veteran of NYSDOT, is head of the sustainability and climate change section in the agency’s statewide policy bureau. At a panel on the connection between livability and climate change yesterday, Zamurs walked through the goals of the New York State climate action plan, including a $25 billion transit expansion, immediate anti-sprawl measures, complete streets, congestion pricing and parking reform. Zamurs not only said that those kinds of policies would make the state more livable, but that we need what he called “a radical change in how travel is done in the state.”

Plans to expand DOT’s GreenLITES program also offered grounds for optimism yesterday. As Paul Krekeler, the GreenLITES program manager explained, GreenLITES is a rating and certification mechanism for NYSDOT to use internally. As in the LEED program to rate green buildings, DOT projects can earn points for hundreds of different sustainability features, from wetland preservation to separated bike paths and transit signal prioritization, which add up to a ranking from basic certification to “evergreen” status. “Our real goal here,” said Krekeler, “is transportation in support of a sustainable society.”

GreenLITES is on track to expand in a number of ways, according to Krekeler. Two new assessments are currently being rolled out, for example. Right now, there’s one GreenLITES certification for project design and another for ongoing operations. Just added, however, is a new project selection tool, which could move GreenLITES from helping staff include sustainability goals in their projects to helping the department as a whole set priorities. Use of the tool is still voluntary at this point, said Krekeler, but “if every [metropolitan planning organization] looks at this, now we have a standardized way of looking at projects within an MPO and between MPOs.”

After that, said Krekeler, the next step is to ask DOT’s eleven largely autonomous regions to chart a course toward sustainability. Using a “regional sustainability assessment table” currently under development, regions will lay out their current state of sustainability, their desired state, and then “tell us how you’re going to get there,” said Krekeler. One year from now, said Krekeler, a conversation about GreenLITES will sound very different.

Expanding GreenLITES has been a top recommendation from transportation reformers and environmentalists, so Krekeler’s remarks are a welcome first step toward a 21st century NYSDOT. Of course, there’s much more to be done. It’s up to Commissioner McDonald to take these progressive seeds and put them at the heart of DOT’s agenda.

Image © Peter Calthorpe & Marianna Leuschel

Editor’s note: This week, we continue our 5-part series of excerpts from Peter Calthorpe’s book, “Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change.” This is installment number three. Thanks to Island Press, a few lucky Streetsblog readers will be selected to receive a free copy of the book. To enter the contest, fill out this form.

For many people, urban is a bad word that implies crime, congestion, poverty, and crowding. For them, it represents an environment that moves people away from a healthy connection with nature and the land. Its stereotype is the American ghetto, a crime-ridden concrete jungle that simultaneously destroys land, community, and human potential. The reaction to this stereotype has been a middle-class retreat into the closeted world of single-family lots and gated subdivisions in the suburbs. As a result, much of the last half century’s planning has been directed toward depopulating cities, whether through the satellite towns of Europe or the suburbs of America.

But, for many others, the word urban represents economic opportunity, culture, vitality, innovation, and community. This positive reading is now manifest in the revitalized centers of many of our historic cities. In these core areas, the public domain—with its parks, walkable streets, commercial centers, arts, and institutions—is once again becoming rich and vibrant, valued and desirable. There is new life in many city centers and their public places, from cafés and plazas to urban parks and museums—ultimately drawing people back to the city.

In fact, since 2000, many of our major cities have increased their share of new home construction while their region’s suburbs have declined. For example, in 2008, Portland issued 38 percent of all the building permits within its region, compared to an average of 9 percent in the early 1990s; Denver accounted for 32 percent, up from 5 percent; and Sacramento accounted for 27 percent, up from 9 percent. There is an even stronger trend toward urban redevelopment in the largest metropolitan regions. New York City accounted for 63 percent of the building permits issued within its region. By comparison, the city averaged about 15 percent of regional building permits during the early 1990s. Similarly, Chicago now accounts for 45 percent of the building permits within its region, up from just 7 percent in the early 1990s.¹³ This represents a dramatic turnaround as cities regain their roles as centers of innovation, social mobility, artistic creativity, and economic opportunity.

Urbanism of this caliber is desirable but, unfortunately, too often limited and very expensive. A home in the metropolitan center is, in some places, the most valuable in the region—an economic signal of just how desirable good urban places can be. In such cities as New York, Portland, Seattle, or Washington, DC, urban residences command a premium of 40 to 200 percent per square foot over their suburban alternative. ¹⁴ Meanwhile, in our ghettos and first-ring suburbs, the working poor—and now even the middle class—are suffering and struggling. Urbanism is again proving its value; but if in limited supply, it soon can become too valuable.

At the same time, the bread-and-butter subdivisions at the metropolitan fringe experienced the greatest fall in value during the 2008 housing bust.¹⁵ Their physical environments along with their economic opportunities, cost of transportation, and social structures are becoming more and more stressed. Many economic and social factors are at work in this equation, but certainly a better form of urbanism is one necessary component of the renewal we need. But first, a clear definition of urbanism is needed.

Much confusion surrounds the differences between suburbs, sprawl, and what I mean by urbanism. Suburbs are not always sprawl and can be urban in many ways. Sprawl is a specific land use pattern of single-use zones, typically made up of subdivisions, office parks, and shopping centers strung together by arterials and highways. It is a landscape based on the automobile. We all know it when we see it; nevertheless, much of the debate about sprawl and urbanism is rife with misrepresentations.

For example, sprawl is typically described as discontinuous developments that wastefully hopscotches across the landscape. But healthy forms of suburban growth can also be discontinuous, as villages and towns with greenbelt separations demonstrate. Suburbs are criticized for their low densities, as if we should abolish single family homes and yards, but many great urban places integrate a full range of densities, from large-lot mansions and single-family homes to bungalows and townhomes. The classic streetcar suburbs of the turn of the twentieth century were not sprawl— they were walkable, diverse in use, transit oriented, and compact—but they were relatively low density and outside the city center, in a word “suburban.” Conversely, urban renewal programs transformed decaying urban districts into denser versions of suburban sprawl, substituting superblocks and arterials for walkable streets and single-income projects for complex, mixed-use neighborhoods.

It is the quality of the place that is most significant in sprawl: its relentless parking lots and oversized roads, uniform tracks of houses, isolated office parks, strip commercial areas, and, above all, its near total dependence on the car. To be against sprawl is not to be against suburbs or small towns. All suburbs are not sprawl, and unfortunately, not all sprawl is suburban.

Traditional urbanism has three essential qualities: (1) a diverse population and range of activities, (2) a rich array of public spaces and institutions, and (3) human scale in its buildings, streets, and neighborhoods. Most of our built environment, from city to suburb, manifested these traits prior to World War II. Now, most suburbs succeed in contradicting each trait; public space is withering for lack of investment, people and activities are segregated by simplistic zoning, and human scale is sacrificed to a ubiquitous accommodation of the car.

None of these urban design principles are new. Jane Jacobs postulated a similar definition of urbanism in her landmark 1961 work The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The difference here is that urban issues are also being considered in the context of climate change and environmental protection. In fact, one can arrive at the same design conclusions from the criteria of conservation, environmental quality, and energy efficiency that Jacobs located largely by social and cultural needs. By investigating the technologies and formal systems scaled for limited resources, climate change concerns add a new and critical element to Jacobs’ rationale. If traditional urbanism and sustainable development can truly reduce our dependence on foreign oil, limit pollution and greenhouse gases, and create socially robust places, they not only will become desirable but will be inevitable.

To Jacobs’ three traditional urban values of civic space, human scale, and diversity, the current environmental imperative adds two more: conservation and regionalism. Although the traditional city was by necessity energy and resource efficient, it commonly showed a destructive disregard for nature and habitat that would be inappropriate today. Bays were filled, wetlands drained, streams and rivers diverted,
and key habitat destroyed. A green form of urbanism should protect those critical environmental assets while reducing overall resource demands.

Indeed, the simple attributes of urbanism are typically a more cost efficient environmental strategy than many renewable technologies. For example, in many climates, a party wall is more cost effective than a solar collector in reducing a home’s heating needs. Well-placed windows and high ceilings offer better lighting than efficient fluorescents in the office. A walk or a bike ride is certainly less expensive and less carbon intensive than a hybrid car even at 50 MPG. A convenient transit line is a better investment than a “smart” highway system. A small cogenerating electrical plant that reuses its waste heat locally could save more carbon per dollar invested than a distant wind farm. A combination of urbanism and green technology will be necessary, but the efficiency of urbanism should precede the costs of alternate technologies. As Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute famously advocates, a “nega-watt” of conservation is always more cost effective than a watt of new energy, renewable or not. Urban living in its many forms turns out to be the best type of conservation.

In addition, the idea of “conservation” in urban design applies to more than energy, carbon, and the environment; it also implies preserving and repairing culture and history as well as ecosystems and resources. Conserving historic buildings, institutions, neighborhoods, and cultures is as essential to a vital, living urbanism as is preserving its ecological foundations.

Regionalism sets city and community into the contemporary reality of our expanding metropolis. At this point in history, most of our key economic, social, and environmental networks extend well beyond individual neighborhoods, jurisdictions, or even cities. Our cultural identity, open space resources, transportation networks, social links, and economic opportunities all function at a regional scale—as do many of our most challenging problems, including crime, pollution, and congestion. Major public facilities, such as sports venues, universities, airports, and cultural institutions, shape the social geography of our regions as well as extend our local lives.

We all now lead regional lives, and our metropolitan form and governance need to reflect that new reality. In fact, urbanism can thrive only within the construct of a healthy regional structure. The tradition of urbanism must be extended to an interconnected and interdependent regional network of places, creating polycentric regions rather than a metropolis dominated by the old city/suburb schism.

This last point is critical to understanding urbanism and the climate change challenge. City life is not the only environmental option; a regional solution can offer a range of lifestyles and community types without compromising our ecology. A well designed region, when combined with aggressive conservation strategies, extensive transit systems, and new green technologies, can offer many types of sustainable lifestyles. New York City may have among the smallest carbon footprint per capita, but to solve the climate change crisis we do not all have to live in the city.¹⁶

Identifying an appropriate balance among technology, urban design, and regional systems in confronting climate change is now the critical challenge. As a greater percentage of the world’s population increases its wealth, the definition of prosperity will become critical. If progress translates into the old American suburban lifestyle, we are all in trouble. If China and India adopt our development patterns—auto-oriented,
low-density lifestyles or even a high-rise, high-density version of the same—we will truly need breakthrough technologies to accommodate the demands. If they develop an enlightened and indigenous form of urbanism, we all will have the opportunity to address climate change in a less heroic and more cost effective way.

In fact, many developing countries are fast approaching a tipping point of urbanism. As auto ownership grows, the infrastructure to support it expands. Slowly at first, then in a landslide, the logic of surface parking lots, low-density development, freeways, and malls becomes irresistible. As cars make remote destinations viable, the historic logic of density and urbanism erodes and the economics of single-use, lowdensity suburbs grows. The built environment shifts to focus on auto mobility in ways that are hard to reverse—and with this shift urban culture dies. Traditional landscapes and neighborhoods are demolished at astonishing rates to make way for what is now seen as modern. Certainly, we cannot romanticize or literally replicate the complex historic urban fabric of, say, the Hutong in Beijing, but we can learn from it.

At the center of energy and carbon problems in the United States (and in many developing countries in the not-too-distant future) is transportation. It represents almost a third of current U.S. GHG emissions and is the fastest-growing segment.¹⁷As industry becomes more efficient and jobs continue to shift toward an information economy, transportation becomes a more dominant issue.

It seems obvious that the more we spread out, the more we must drive. But the numbers are still startling. From 1980 to 2005, average miles driven per person increased by 50 percent in the United States, a change that can be linked to the nearly 20 percent increase in land consumed per person over roughly the same period.¹⁸ By comparison, Portland, Oregon, with its regional focus on transit and walkable neighborhoods, has seen a reduction in vehicle miles traveled per capita since the mid-1990s.19 At the same time that it reduced auto dependence, the Portland region has preserved valuable farmlands and provided a widening range of housing options. Short of such regional efforts, even a doubling of auto efficiency will not keep up with the typical growth in sprawl-induced travel. We cannot solve the carbon emission problem without changing our travel behavior, and to do that an alternative to our auto-dominated communities is essential.

The good news is that truly great urban places also happen to be the most environmentally benign form of human settlement and are at the heart of a green future. Cities and urban places produce the smallest carbon footprint on a per capita basis.²⁰ New Yorkers, for example, emit just a third of the GHG of the average American.²¹ In addition, it is generally accepted that population growth in developing countries drops as a rural population urbanizes. Urbanism therefore leads to fewer people consuming fewer resources and emitting less GHG at a global scale. Urbanism is a climate change antibiotic and our most affordable solution to foreign oil dependence. Urbanism is, in fact, our single most potent weapon against climate change, rising energy costs, and environmental degradation.

Yet our towns, cities, and regions cannot be shaped around a single issue like climate change or peak oil, no matter how critical they may be. Urban design is part art, social science, political theory, engineering, geography, and economics. I believe it is necessarily all of the above—urban design cannot and should not be reduced to any single metric. In the end, great urban places are qualitative; they are ultimately defined by the coherence of their public places, the diversity of their population, and the opportunity they create for our collective aspirations. We will never treasure our cities and towns just because they are low carbon, energy efficient, or even economically abundant; we will treasure them only when we come to love them as places—as vessels of our cultural identities, stages for our social interaction, and landscapes for our personal narratives. But that does not mean that they should not also play a critical role in the climate change challenge.

From Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change, Chapter 1, by Peter Calthorpe. Copyright @ 2011 Peter Calthorpe. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Notes:

13. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Residential Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan Regions” (Washington, DC: EPA, 2010).
14. Christopher B. Leinberger, “The Next Slum?” Atlantic, March 2008.
15. Natural Resources Defense Council, “Reducing Foreclosures and Environmental Impacts through Location-efficient Neighborhood Design” (New York: Natural Resources Defense Council, 2010).
16. Andrea Sarzynski, Marilyn A. Brown, and Frank Southworth, “Shrinking the Carbon Footprint of Metropolitan America” (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2008).
17. Author’s analysis of data from World Resources Institute, “US GHG Emissions Flow Chart.” (accessed April 1, 2010).
18. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, “National Transportation Statistics 2009” (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation, 2009), table 1-32; Natural Resources Conservation Service, “National Resources Inventory 2003 Annual NRI,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/
technical/NRI/ (accessed February 12, 2010).
19. Metro Regional Government, “1990–2008 Daily Vehicle Miles Traveled, Portland and the U.S. National Average,” Metro Regional Government. (accessed March 1, 2010).
20. The Center for Neighborhood Technology has done extensive research revealing that urban dwellers commute shorter distances and rely on public transit more often. Their per capita emissions, as well as spending on transportation, are consistently lower than those of the average American.
21. Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, “Inventory of New York City Greenhouse Gas Emissions” (New York: Mayor’s Office of Operations, 2007), 6.
22. Assuming advanced natural gas combined cycle plant technology.

Compact urbanism can work in the suburbs, like Bethesda, Maryland. Image: Maryland Sierra Club

“Growing Wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change, and Prosperity” starts with the simple assertion that accessibility – “bringing origins and destinations closer together” – is, after all, “the very reason that cities exist.”

“You want to have your choices nearby so you can meet your daily needs as efficiently as possible,” said report author Steve Winkelman.

By separating residential areas, commercial services, and places of employment, suburban planning requires that people travel long distances to meet their needs. All those miles used to be viewed as a measure of economic progress.

“[Vehicle Miles Traveled] and GDP have grown concurrently since World War II and in lock step for much of that time,” the report states. But around 1996, GDP began growing faster than VMT, and, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “the importance of travel as a component of the U.S. economy has been declining since the early 1990s.”

Indeed, CCAP’s research shows that states with lower VMT per capita tend to have higher GDP per capita.

Excessive travel is more likely to be an economic detriment than a benefit. Ironically, GDP counts as economic productivity many of the counterproductive aspects of motorized travel, such as fuel consumed waiting in traffic jams, oil spills, vehicle repairs and medical treatment resulting from collisions, costs of air pollution, and defense operations to protect U.S. petroleum interests around the world. In fact, many costs of sprawling land use patterns (particularly increased infrastructure) themselves boost GDP figures.

The authors also urge us to distinguish between economically productive travel and what they call “empty miles.” It’s like differentiating between empty calories and nutrition.

“A lot of driving that most people are doing nowadays is not helping them economically,” said report author Chuck Kooshian. “Although the VMT has been going up per capita, as we’re making trips to the grocery store five miles to get some milk, and we’re taking the kids out driving to go trick-or-treating, and driving to the park to walk our dog, this is not helping the average household economically. It might be helping the Saudis.”

From the Center for Housing Policy's 2006 report, “A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Families.” Is the strangulation of the suburbs by rising transportation costs really contributing to GDP?

Economic benefits from walkable, bikable neighborhoods aren’t calculated by GDP alone. They’re also calculated in the drop in health care costs when people get more exercise. The authors cite a study in Seattle, where researchers found that with every five percent increase in the overall level of walkability, there was a 32 percent increase in walking or biking, and Body Mass Index was reduced.

Not to mention the economic impact of the real estate boom in compact urban areas, relative to the suburbs. The authors say that in Denver, homes within a half-mile of stations on the Southeast light rail line rose in value an average of 17.6 percent between 2006 and 2008, while home values in the rest of Denver declined by an average 7.5 percent.

Will driving 2.93 trillion miles again next year help us become healthier and wealthier? Not likely.

The CCAP report focuses largely on economic benefits of compact development, but it also addresses climate change – and comes to the opposite conclusions that Pew came to in its report touting clean car technology as the only viable avenue toward carbon reduction.

If the U.S. is to meet the goal of reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050, CCAP says clean car technologies like those lauded in the Pew report won’t be sufficient. Public transportation can help: mass transit produces, according to a study by APTA, about 45 percent less carbon dioxide per passenger mile than travel by private vehicles. But in the end, we have to give people the option to drive less. And not even that much less: “The actual drop in miles driven per person that is required is relatively modest: We calculate that a 9 percent reduction in per capita VMT (roughly equivalent to each person driving 2.5 miles less per day) will be sufficient.”

Construction to widen I-40 in Arkansas, which came in last in a state ranking of environmental transpo policies. Image: Weaver Bailey Contractors

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Smart Growth America just teamed up to release a new study of states’ efforts between 2005 and 2008. The verdict? “Most states do not make any effort at all to connect transportation policy with climate change and energy goals, and some put in place systems that effectively sabotage these goals.”

NRDC and SGA want to see states invest in public transportation, support smart growth policies and transit-oriented development, and set traffic reduction targets (using tools like congestion prices to reach them).

The authors looked at a variety of policies they say can be applied all over the country, in cities, small towns and rural areas.

California scored highest, with an overall score of 82 out of 100, but that number doesn’t tell the whole story. Mott Smith, a smart growth-minded real estate developer based in Los Angeles, said he’s pleased to be living in a state that is getting so much right. “But I hope our leaders don’t get the wrong idea that they can just relax and rest on their laurels and not push even further,” he said, “because we still have quite a ways to go.”

Even the top-ranked state has a lot of room for improvement, the report authors note.

California scored very well in the Linking Transportation and Land Use sub-category, yet only contributes 16 percent of the state’s overall public transportation funds. Similarly, while the state did very well in the overall Policy category (85 points), it did relatively worse in the Investment category (58 points). Though California has many of the right policies in place, the state could improve the effectiveness of its strong smart growth and transit oriented development policies, further supporting a reduction of transportation-related GHG emissions if the state focused a greater proportion of its transportation funds on cleaner transportation modes and projects such as transit and non-motorized facilities.

Some unexpected results from the rankings: New Jersey cleaned up, finishing third out of all the states, but New York was way down at #21, between Nevada and New Mexico.

California got 17 out of 17 points for complete streets. Photo by Bryan Goebel.

Not unexpectedly, more urban states fared better. Arkansas ranked lowest with a total of 2 points.

Federal policy, of course, provides major incentives to keep states from enacting better policies of their own. Federal transportation funding is allocated according to vehicle miles traveled, fuel consumption, and highway lane miles – rewarding states that enact highway-oriented transportation policies with more money to continue those policies.

What kind of federal policies would encourage state DOTs to invest in more efficient and sustainable transportation modes? NRDC and SGA want to see the federal government:

• Set specific emissions reduction targets for the transportation sector.
• Make low-emission transportation plans a criterion for receiving federal aid.
• Update funding formulas to reward reductions in driving, instead of increases.
• Prioritize cleaner transportation modes.
• In the event that carbon is taxed or pollution permits are sold under a future climate policy, dedicate those revenues to fund clean transportation investment.

Former Maryland governor Parris Glendening (who leads Smart Growth America’s Leadership Institute) said he went over the results of the survey with current Governor Martin O’Malley. Maryland scored second out of all 50 states, but according to Glendening, O’Malley is already angling to beat California next time around.

“I’m hoping, in all candor, that just about every state looks at this and says, ‘How do we move up the ranking?’” Glendening said. “Not just because it’s fun to move up the ranking. But because it represents real progress in the overall picture of the country.”

Report author Colin Peppard of NRDC agreed. “The policies that support clean transportation are also very effective at promoting things like local economic growth, reducing the public health impacts of transportation like childhood asthma and respiratory disease, and also improving the affordability to households across the country,” he said. But a lot of states aren’t connecting the dots yet. “There’s a lot of potential out there.”

The Paterson plan calls for enormous reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve the targets would require a total transformation of how New York grows and how residents get around.

As Andrew Cuomo transitions into the governorship, David Paterson just handed him a parting gift: a comprehensive blueprint for how the state can tackle its greenhouse gas emissions. The plan, which has been in development since a Paterson executive order in August 2009, goes into spectacular detail about how the state might reach the ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels over the next forty years.

With Paterson exiting the stage soon, the plan carries little weight, but it shows what it would take for New York to tackle climate change with the urgency it deserves. While emissions from buildings are the largest contributor to climate change in New York, the team of experts who authored the report make clear that it will take an all-out transformation of the state’s transportation and land use systems to reach the climate goal. Transit expansion, smart growth, complete streets, and congestion pricing (for New York City, at least) all figure into the plan.

The biggest transportation-related reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would come from a total shift to clean vehicles powered by clean fuels by 2035. Over the next 20 years, moving toward that goal could eliminate 130 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, more than every other transportation and land use proposal combined.

The other big-ticket reduction in the transportation sector would come from a massive expansion of transit. That includes everything from bus rapid transit in every metro area in the state, to new subways and the roll-out of high-speed rail. All that new transit would cut greenhouse gas emissions by a large amount, though the report notes that it couldn’t reduce driving very much in more rural parts of the state.

The transit expansion would cost an additional $25 billion over the next two decades, making it the most expensive transportation-related suggestion. “Achieving these goals would require funding well above what is available today,” the authors write. Of course, the report, which is more scientific than political, doesn’t specify where the funding for this transit expansion would come from.

Under the plan, the biggest greenhouse gas emissions reductions would come from changes to how cars are fueled. Smart growth policies offer the state big cost-savings and could be an appealing early action for Andrew Cuomo.

Smart growth initiatives, without which the transportation emissions targets would be impossible, loom large in the plan. “Without significant changes in land use and development patterns in New York State, the level of VMT reductions and mode share changes contemplated in the entire suite of transportation and land use policies will be difficult to achieve,” the report states. If New York keeps sprawling, we won’t be able to build well-used transit systems, and increased driving will eat away at fuel efficiency gains.

The report offers two principal strategies to combat sprawl. First, the authors recommend the creation of “priority growth centers” where compact, mixed-use, walkable and bikeable development can flourish. These centers would exist in urban, suburban, and rural forms. Again, the goals here are extremely ambitious. The report calls for half of all new construction to take place in these priority growth centers by 2030 — a tough bar to clear considering the state can provide smart growth incentives but can’t directly regulate land use.

Even so, the plan emphasizes that smart growth initiatives need to be implemented as soon as possible, especially in fast-growing downstate areas. If action isn’t taken quickly, all that new sprawl gets baked into the cake. “Land use patterns are difficult to change once established,” says one understated passage.

Putting growth in the right parts of the state, however, doesn’t get you across the finish line. You also need to take what the authors call “a micro-planning approach by creating specific, people-friendly/oriented network/land use connections.” That means endorsing complete streets, for example. While more compact development makes it far easier to walk to the store, on a terribly designed street it might still be dangerous or unpleasant.

The plan also endorses two policies particularly important for the densest urban environments in the state: congestion pricing and parking reform.

Congestion pricing, the authors propose, should be instituted in New York City with the revenues going to pay for some of their other recommendations.

The plan also calls for a major revision of parking policy across the state. In the downtowns of all the state’s major cities, smarter pricing of on-street parking could reduce a major incentive to drive. Off-street, employers can offer their workers the option of cashing out their parking benefits rather than only offering free parking. The authors suggest that “the true cost of parking should be reflected in municipal development policies and zoning ordinances.”

Neither congestion pricing nor parking reform offers a large reduction in statewide emissions. In fact, they offer the two smallest reductions of any land use or transportation policy. However, a place like Manhattan already has the best transit and most compact development in the country. The most important policies are already in effect, essentially. Congestion pricing and parking reform would push it a step even further and allow the very green, very massive, very densely populated regional core to function more smoothly.

This climate plan doesn’t have any sort of binding power or even an abstract commitment from the state to eventually follow its specific recommendations, though Paterson’s executive order does promise to reach that 80 percent reduction somehow. Even so, it could serve as a blueprint for the new administration to follow as it tackles climate change and a yardstick against which to measure future environmental efforts.

For the fiscally conservative Cuomo, the report also makes clear that a number of these efforts will actually help the state’s bottom line. In particular, by reducing the cost of new infrastructure, the smart growth initiatives save the state billions over time. If Cuomo wants a way to burnish his environmental reputation without compromising on fiscal discipline, there’s no better place to start.

PlaNYC set the target of reducing annual transportation emissions 6.1 million tons by 2030. So far, the city is not on pace to reach that goal. Image: PlaNYC

The Bloomberg administration released its annual greenhouse gas inventory last week [PDF], presenting some great environmental news: The city’s annual greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 12.9 percent between 2005 and 2009. But inside the report is a worrisome statistic for sustainable transportation advocates. Barely any of that decrease is attributable to a greener transportation system. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions from private cars actually increased by 1.86 percent over those four years.

The persistence of NYC transportation emissions again calls to mind the state legislature’s failure to pass the centerpiece of PlaNYC’s transportation component — congestion pricing. It’s also a reminder of the major citywide reforms that the administration could still enact, like putting a stop to the proliferation of off-street parking.

In total, the inventory shows New York City reducing its carbon emissions from 56.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent to 49.3 million. Only a small fraction of that reduction came from transportation, however: 359,000 metric tons. The bulk of that change came from improvements in the transit system: huge reductions were posted in emissions from diesel buses and in the amount of electricity used by the subways and commuter rail. There have also been large reductions in the emissions generated by transporting solid waste, due to a shift from trucking to rail.

In fact, the amount of carbon emissions from passenger cars, which account for around two-thirds of total transportation emissions in the city, actually increased between 2005 and 2009. Car emissions declined slightly from 2005 to 2007, but then rose from 2007 to 2009. Mayoral spokesman Jason Post explained that car emissions have risen because of an increase in total driving.

For PlaNYC’s emissions goals to be a success, Post said, transportation emissions are going to have to decline. PlaNYC called for reducing transportation emissions by 6.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. Post argued, however, that the city is on track to meet all its PlaNYC goals, though he didn’t specify how policies would push those transportation emissions down. PlaNYC has no intermediate benchmarks for transportation emissions between 2005 and 2030.

Congestion pricing was always meant to be PlaNYC’s big-ticket transportation program. In London, congestion charging has reduced CO2 emissions inside the charge zone by about 20 percent [PDF]. For PlaNYC to get back on track in terms of reducing transportation’s climate impact, we’re going to need a policy of similar, or larger, scale.

New PlaNYC chief David Bragdon started work last month. Based on this inventory, looks like greening our transportation system and reducing driving has to be near the top of his agenda. Is it still a priority for the top-level Bloomberg officials above him?

Photo: pneedham/Flickr

Not every “disappeared” bus or subway trip will materialize as a car trip, of course. Some trips will be made on foot, by bike or by sharing a car, and some others won’t happen at all. But the number of additional car trips caused by the cuts and hikes will be significant, as will the increase in gasoline to fuel them.

I’ve estimated the impacts, using the BTA spreadsheet that has been written about here and was profiled recently in Wired magazine. I inputted an average 7.5 percent bus and subway fare hike along with a five percent increase in the time required to complete an average transit trip. (That's a rough "proxy" for the effects of increased crowding and unsanitary conditions as well as of longer waits between buses and trains and longer walks caused by eliminating some lines.)

The result: by inducing additional car trips as well as reducing the fuel-efficiency of all vehicles due to worsened traffic congestion, the transit cuts and hikes will lead New Yorkers to use an extra 13.5 million gallons of gasoline per year.

On top of that, the hybrid cab requirement would have been expected to save 31.3 million gallons, or almost two-and-a-half times as much as deteriorated transit will cost.

The point isn’t to compare the two -- in a more politically accountable world, the taxi rule would go forward while the transit cuts and hikes would be stayed -- but to show that both impacts are roughly in the same ballpark. In our society, political inertia, whether manifested as government neglect or as judicial narrow-mindedness, tends to reinforce energy consumption and oil dependence.

In this connection, it's worth noting that a well-designed congestion pricing plan -- one that surpassed the Bloomberg plan in scope and, I would argue, cured its political deficiencies -- would, at least on paper, reduce motor vehicle fuel use in the city by an estimated 77.3 million gallons of petroleum per year. That’s between double and triple the taxi-fleet savings. Yet while the associated benefits, in terms of less ecosystem destruction and reduced public pressure (or political cover) to wage war in Asia or elsewhere, would be impressive, they account for less than one percent of the overall expected societal benefit from such a plan. That’s testament not to the low price we pay for oil dependence but to the magnitude of the other benefits, chiefly travel-time savings followed by increased physical activity, that smart and imaginative congestion pricing could bring to our city.

Sen. Jeff Merkley projects that his legislation would allow the United States to almost completely stop importing oil, primarily by reforming our transportation system. Image: Office of Sen. Merkley [PDF].

The Oil Independence Bill for a Stronger America, co-sponsored by Colorado's Michael Bennet, Delaware's Tom Carper, and New Mexico's Tom Udall, sets an ambitious goal: completely halting imports of oil by 2030. Since transportation accounts for a full 70 percent of our oil use, that requires changing how the nation moves around.

Based on principles laid out last month, Merkley's bill has four main components. First, it looks to improve the fuel efficiency of the transportation system we currently have. That means providing incentives for buying electric vehicles and charging infrastructure and setting ambitious new fuel efficiency standards for all vehicles.

Second, the Oil Independence Act would try to rebalance our transportation system away from reliance on the automobile. The bill includes Carper's proposed CLEAN TEA program, which would require state Departments of Transportation and metropolitan planning organizations to set goals for how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and establishes a competitive grant program to fund exemplary projects.

Because Republicans are expected to filibuster a cap-and-trade system that includes transportation, however, the revenues that system would generate aren't available to fund CLEAN TEA. Merkley's bill only authorizes the spending for the grant program; it doesn't actually allocate the funding, potentially leaving the program greatly weakened. 

The bill would also make transit tax benefits equal to parking benefits, permanently index them to inflation, and help shift freight movement onto trains and ships.

Third, the legislation offers support for the development of non-oil-based fuels, whether a next generation of biofuels or natural gas.

Finally, Merkley's bill would try to lower home heating oil use by helping to provide financing for energy-efficient home retrofits.

Merkley's legislation isn't expected to move forward as a stand-alone bill. "It's very much a marker for broader energy legislation," explained Stephanie Potts, a policy associate with Smart Growth America. As the Senate Democrats try and put forward a reworked energy bill, she explained, Merkley's bill provides a way of airing new ideas and measuring their support. 

Because transportation accounts for a full third of American greenhouse gas emissions, serious climate legislation needs to tackle it in some way. Even so, said Potts, "it seems pretty certain that transportation fuels won't be in an overall comprehensive cap at this point." If any sort of cap-and-trade scheme is included at all, she said, it will only cover utilities.

The Oil Independence Act, said Potts, includes policies that could significantly reduce the environmental impact of the transportation sector even in the absence of a price signal. Merkley's office estimates that the bill could save 8.32 million barrels of oil each day by 2030, or 96 percent of our imported oil.

Whether the Senate leadership embraces these policies will become clear very soon. An energy and climate bill is likely to be released on the week of July 26, according to Potts. 

The consequences of our transportation policy. (Photo: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency via Flickr)

Last Tuesday night, President Obama delivered his first speech from the Oval Office on the single greatest challenge our nation faces: how we supply and consume energy.

The searing images we’re seeing from the Gulf Coast -- of the families who lost loved ones, of people out of work and of oil-coated birds and dolphins -- are daily reminders of what’s at stake when we drill, baby, drill.

The truth is that we are drilling 150 miles offshore and one mile below the earth’s surface because we have run out of accessible oil. Most shocking is how small a difference this oil makes to our energy needs. The 35-60,000 barrels spewing daily from the Gulf floor would be enough to power our nation’s cars for just four minutes.

Whether from the Gulf of Mexico or Persian Gulf, we cannot meet our nation’s energy needs by drilling. We are at a precipice, and I stand firmly with President Obama when it comes to Congress passing legislation that arms the nation with clean energy.

But frankly, we need to do more on these issues, especially by addressing transportation and how we build in our communities.

The transportation sector accounts for almost three-quarters of U.S. oil consumption and one-third of our carbon emissions. If we really want to break our dependence on oil and improve our global competitiveness, we must focus on the way people commute and move goods.

Being truly aggressive about where and how we build can save even more money and energy -- with the potential to cut carbon pollution 12-16 percent by 2030 and save more than a million barrels of oil a day.

This is not the first thing that comes to mind for most people, but to ensure our energy security, we need a comprehensive approach. I hope this becomes part of the future message and, more importantly, a key focus of Congressional action.

Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), center, and John Kerry (D-MA), right, with onetime climate bill cosponsor Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at left. (Photo: CSM)

"This is one of those cases where we really can't even talk about the merits of any portion of the bill because the fundamental position is flawed," Millar said.

Referring to the legislation's promise of funding for the clean transport and land-use grants known as "CLEAN TEA" and TIGER, he added, "Many of those are very good ideas … but you can't make those ideas work if there's no significant funding to make them work, and this bill would aggravate the funding situation for public transit."

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), was more direct in outlining where state DOTs want to see the Senate climate bill's fuel revenues directed. "Channel[ing] every dollar through the highway trust fund," he said, would help the industry break through a congressional stalemate and win passage of a new six-year federal transport bill.

Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors, and Pete Ruane, president of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, echoed Horsley's interpretation of the new fuel fees in the climate bill -- which are imposed on oil companies and refiners but are likely to be passed along through higher gas prices -- as a de facto "user fee" on drivers.

The climate proposal, Ruane said, does "nothing more than finance a lot of goals, which are enviable in part, on the backs of transportation users."

It remains to be seen whether the transportation industry's combative stance against the partial diversion of the bill's transportation revenue, billed as a "call for a rewrite" of the climate legislation, will help force senators into restructuring the measure. Ruane said he "like[s] the odds" facing the four groups.

But one congressional source was befuddled by APTA's move to "bit[e] the hand that feeds them" by criticizing a climate bill that stands to give broad, lasting benefits to rail and bus systems.

“Perhaps these groups are confused about the purpose of the climate bill: It’s to reduce emissions, not increase them," the source told Streetsblog Capitol Hill. "The Kerry-Lieberman bill invests more money in transportation than any of the previous climate bills. Instead of working constructively to increase that investment, they are biting the hand that feeds them. Why is APTA advocating for a strategy that will decrease the amount of climate money going to transit? Transit makes out like a bandit in the Kerry-Lieberman bill.”

APTA's alignment with AASHTO and the construction industry groups marks a split of sorts from the Transportation for America (T4A) infrastructure reform coalition, which has praised the upper-chamber climate bill's focus on investing in clean transport projects while taking no official position on the legislation as a whole.

The Senate climate plan provides "a new source of revenue" for transportation, T4A spokesman David Goldberg said in an interview. "This is not a gas tax, and it's not conceived of as a supplement to the highway trust fund, for whatever the business-as-usual, run-of-the-mill highway trust fund projects are."

How big would that new source of transportation revenue be, relative to the total amount raised by the Senate climate bill's new fuel fees? APTA, AASHTO, and 25 other industry groups shared their estimates in a letter sent today to the legislation's chief sponsors, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT):

In 2013, fees from on-road fuel consumption [under the climate proposal] would generate at least $19.5 billion.  Instead of returning revenue from these fees to improving the transportation system, the bill diverts at least 77 percent of the funds away from transportation infrastructure investment.  As carbon prices increase, the bill diverts as much as 91 percent of fuel revenues.  Of particular concern, the bill limits new investment in the Highway Trust Fund to $2.5 billion per year, far below the amount the bill raises from system users. 

In its second
Earth Day release, the U.S. DOT today unveiled a 600-page analysis of
transportation emissions mandated by Congress in the 2007 energy bill.
In addition to weighing in on many potential tactics for limiting
transport’s contribution to the changing climate, the document notably
recommits the Obama administration to that goal at a time when
Democrats are weighing a delay in the energy debate.

Indeed,
the analysis concludes with a candid assessment that the nation’s
existing methods of transportation and land use planning have generated
an unsustainable reliance on fossil fuel consumption:

The ingenuity of transportation planners and engineers has produced a
vast network of transportation infrastructure and services to support
the mobility and economic vitality of the Nation. However, our historic
approach to transportation and land use has created an energy-intensive
system dependent on carbon-based fuels and automobiles.

The authors, including three dozen aides at the U.S. DOT’s Center for
Climate Change and more than a dozen private consultants, also take a
direct tone in evaluating the various emissions-cutting policy
proposals that are available to the Obama administration.

For
instance, the analysis identifies several upsides to increasing the gas
tax, which has "a strong precedent for [its proceeds] being dedicated
to transportation investments," as opposed to a broader carbon tax or
cap-and-trade system, where multiple competing interests would — and did,
as the House climate bill shows — lay claim to a share of the
resulting government revenue to help finance efficiency upgrades.

The
major downside of a gas tax hike to spur emissions cuts, according to
the analysis, would be its risk of exacerbating economic inequity for
businesses and lower-income workers dependent on auto travel. But the
debate is moot, as the U.S. DOT authors remind their congressional
audience, because "an increase in the federal motor fuel tax is not
proposed by the current Administration, given the economic recession."

The
analysis is also open about the unnavigable politics of setting lower
speed limits, despite their potential to yield "an immediate and
significant impact on [greenhouse gas] reductions as well as yield
substantial safety and air quality co-benefits." The U.S. DOT authors
wrote:

Public resistance is likely to be high, and
an aggressive education program and strong political leadership would
be required to gain broad support. Delay costs could be incurred in
goods movement and passenger travel. … In addition, this strategy
would require enhanced enforcement and could impose considerable costs
on States to pay for increased traffic monitoring and enforcement.

A
complete copy of the U.S. DOT analysis, including its comparison of the
emissions-reducing benefits of better land use planning (minor to
moderate) and fuel-efficiency improvements (moderate to high) is
available for download here.

Graphic: MTA

The MTA's 17.4 million metric tons of annual carbon avoidance is the emissions equivalent of burning two billion gallons of gasoline, or 4.5 coal-fired power plants. The authority calculated the figure using a new methodology developed by the American Public Transit Association, which weighs the benefits of both mode shift and land use patterns. The model also takes into account the emissions that the MTA does generate. The results were verified by The Climate Registry, a leading emissions measurement firm.

The transit system's central role in maintaining New York's low carbon footprint comes as no surprise. What's perhaps more interesting is what the MTA wants to do with this information. If Congress passes a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system  -- still a big if -- the MTA wants to use its now-quantified environmental benefits as evidence that American transit agencies deserve a slice of the revenues raised by climate legislation. Putting a price on carbon emissions, the MTA says, shouldn't mean that the authority has to pay for the emissions it does generate. Rather, the agency argues that it should turn a profit because it provides a net reduction in emissions. The MTA previously floated the idea in its 2009 sustainability report. 

The feasibility of such a scheme remains to be seen. Negotiations over climate and transportation legislation are both in constant flux. It's also not quite clear what the MTA is lobbying for. A set-aside of total revenues, like in Sen. Tom Carper's CLEAN-TEA bill? The ability to sell carbon offsets? Regardless, it's an intriguing idea for generating revenue in the new regulatory environment that comprehensive climate legislation would create.

Recent storms have uprooted hundreds of mature trees on New Jersey's "River Road."

The drive, known colloquially as River Road, was constructed in the 1920s and 1930s but was only opened officially to full-time cycling in 1989, after a two-year advocacy campaign led by Transportation Alternatives. Winter or early-spring rockslides have closed the road a handful of times since then, but in specific locations that were repaired within weeks.

The situation this year is far different. According to Chris Szeglin, a spokesperson for the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, "two big storms, back to back, a huge snowstorm in late February and the ‘silent hurricane’ in March," weakened and ultimately uprooted hundreds of trees. One cyclist who skirted a barrier at the Englewood Cliffs entrance on Sunday and made it to the north exit at Alpine reported having to carry his bike over fallen trees "20 to 30 times."

The rugged topography that makes River Road so spectacular obviously leaves it vulnerable to erosion and rockslides. Here is where global climate change may be coming into play.

Climate models predict that the increased thermal energy in a warming atmosphere and warmer oceans should produce more violent storms. And sure enough, "extreme weather events" -- defined as an inch or more of rainfall (or equivalent snow) within a 24-hour period -- are growing more common.

A University of New Hampshire study released last week [PDF] found that over the past 60 years such events have become more frequent at 92 percent of Northeast U.S. weather stations. With runoff rates also rising as natural areas are paved over, trees are being inundated with more water than they have evolved to withstand.

Just as most individual instances of cancer can’t be tied directly to exposure to a particular air toxin or water pollutant, the current devastation on River Road can’t be definitively linked to global warming. Nevertheless, at least in statistical terms, the closure of the road and the loss of so many beautiful trees can probably be taken as yet another consequence of the unchecked buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels.

New York City is not looking to create infrastructure for charging cars on city streets. Image: theqsqueaks via Flickr.

"Electric vehicles are here. They're coming, and they won't stop." Last night, DOT Deputy Commissioner Bruce Schaller opened a panel discussion on electric car adoption in New York City with an implicit message: We should be prepared.

At a meeting that brought together representatives from the mayor's office, two electric utilities, and General Motors, there were two big takeaways for livable streets: The city is working to keep electric vehicle adoption compatible with the goal of reducing personal vehicle use, and on-street space isn't going to be given over to charging stations.

A variety of plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars are expected to hit the market in the next two years, presenting both challenges and opportunities for sustainability-minded cities. Schaller began the evening by noting that, nationally, widespread adoption of plug-in hybrids could take the greenhouse gas equivalent of 82.5 million cars off the road. With numbers like that, New York can't help but take notice.

"In 2007, electric vehicles were just a glimmer in our eye," said Neal Parikh, who leads transportation initiatives at the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. "Now we think it's a real opportunity." He believes that if New York is to meet its PlaNYC goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation 44 percent by 2030, electric cars have to be part of the solution. Parikh was the lead author of the city's recent report on electric vehicle adoption.

While moving toward EVs will require action from the city and other players, including car companies and utilities, Parikh forcefully rejected any measure that would take away from PlaNYC's other transportation goals. While Britta Gross, a GM manager in charge of electric and hydrogen vehicle development, repeatedly claimed that allowing EVs into carpool lanes and offering them free or dedicated parking have proven effective at speeding EV adoption, Parikh said not to expect those offers in New York City. One of his slides put parking incentives directly under the heading "Won't Work."

Parikh's reasoning was simple. He neither wants to give superfluous perks to those who will buy EVs anyway, nor offer incentives that will put more cars on city streets. The city will help educate drivers about EV opportunities and expedite the permitting process for installing a high-voltage charging station, for example, but not offer financial incentives to buy EVs.

"We need to balance moving people into more efficient vehicles, and into walking, transit, or bikes," said Parikh. He also reaffirmed that PlaNYC was "very clear that we wanted to reduce the single-occupancy vehicles on the street." Parikh even cited Copenhagen's outsized EV incentives as a model for what not to do, echoing a theme Charles Komanoff recently explored on Streetsblog.

The panel also answered a common question about electric cars. Where would New Yorkers charge them? The answer: at home or at work, not on city streets. "We're not going to adopt an extensive public charging infrastructure," said Parikh. If someone really wants to drive an EV, he added, and "they're parking on the streets, where they won't have access to charging, they'll change where they park."

An electric car in London. Image: exfordy via Flickr.

As a sustainability initiative, the merit of the proposal depends on whether trips in these new electric cars will replace trips powered by internal combustion or trips by foot, bicycle, and transit. According to the report, electric vehicles charged on New York's grid would emit as little as a quarter as much carbon per mile as conventional automobiles. "Electric cars are cleaner than conventional vehicles," said Natural Resources Defense Council vehicles analyst Luke Tonachel, "but walking, biking, and transit are all cleaner still." 

Switching to electric cars also does little or nothing to improve street safety, decrease congestion, or promote good urban design -- impacts that also benefit more sustainable modes of transport. Which seems to have been overlooked elsewhere, even in countries with enlightened transportation policies. As Charles Komanoff wrote on Streetsblog in November, Denmark's roughly $40,000 tax on conventional automobiles doesn't apply to electric vehicles, and EVs get free parking in downtown Copenhagen -- big perks that will lead more people to drive and fewer to bike or use transit. So is New York City planning to subsidize electric cars the same way they're doing in Denmark?

Thankfully, the PlaNYC report doesn't recommend using financial incentives to push people toward electric vehicles. "The absence of endorsements for such subsidies is a strong signal that the Bloomberg administration does not intend to follow Denmark’s mistake of subsidizing EVs in ways that would encourage more driving," said Komanoff. "This is very good news."

Instead, the report offers policies that mainly remove barriers for people already willing to pay a premium to own an electric car. The recommendations are pretty mild, like educating potential buyers about electric vehicles and then assisting them in finding or installing charging equipment. (The report also includes some fascinating insights into the psychology of early EV adopters. Because "not only do early adopters want to be the first on their block to own the latest vehicle technology, they would like everyone else on their block to be aware of this fact as well," it suggests recognizing early adopters, perhaps by planting trees in front of their homes.)

The big policy choices will come when or if the city decides to promote electric vehicle usage beyond the small set of early adopters. If electric vehicle production scales up in the next few years, the report suggests that the city should expand its focus to a new set of consumers. The city's response targeted at those consumers is the one to watch out for.

Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA), with his family on election night. Photo: Globe

On the transportation front, Brown's election is unlikely to make passage of a new six-year bill any more difficult than it already is, with Democrats still in search of a way to finance the $450 billion-plus legislation many of them envision.

Brown ran as a critic of the gas tax increase floated early last year by Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick to help close the state's transportation budget gap. As Brown's campaign gained momentum in recent weeks, however, he found himself taking fire from Democrats for voting in favor of a budget that merely preserved, rather than raised, an existing state fuel tax.

The exchange underscores the conundrum that continues to stall a reform-minded federal transport bill, whether Brown would vote yes or not: Democrats have little appetite to find a way to pay for it.

The Senate's climate change debate, however, is a different story. Brown's election narrows the already slim chance of corralling enough Democrats to approve an emissions-cutting bill opposed by fossil-fuel industries. The promise of billion-dollar grants for local clean transport programs, which was included in the Senate environment committee's bill, may well be lost for the time being.

What is possible on the environmental front? An "energy-only" bill that includes a renewable electricity standard has a stronger chance of winning a Senate majority, and a Green Bank-type proposal focused on leveraging private-sector money for transportation projects is still in the mix.

The biggest question mark, then, is whether the Obama administration will follow through on its intention to curb pollution through the Environmental Protection Agency if Congress fails to pass legislation. The EPA's air-quality chief suggested last week the agency is on track, but a collapse of the White House's top priority -- health care -- could throw a wrench into the works.

Photo: Scientific American

The eleven governors, including New York's David Paterson, vowed to develop a shared low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) that would cut the total "life-cycle" emissions from transportation fuels. That measure would include the indirect environmental harm caused by biofuels' adverse land-use effects as well as the direct consequences of burning conventional gas.

The process is not going to be easy, or quick -- the states' pact mentions only that a "regional framework" for the standard would be established by 2011. But the governors' deal is a sign that amid uncertain prospects for congressional action on carbon emissions caps, states are emerging as laboratories for new approaches to curbing pollution.

Even an LCFS that allows fuel producers to select their own method of pollution reduction and measures emissions on a per-gallon basis, as recommended by the Union of Concerned Scientists, would not be a substitute for climate legislation that seeks to put a fair price on carbon.

What an LCFS can do is put electrified rail and other forms of transit on a more competitive footing by encouraging gas and diesel prices that reflect the full environmental toll taken by the burning of fossil fuels. As the California High Speed Rail Blog observed in its analysis of that state's LCFS -- which is expected to serve as a model for the eleven northeastern states:

Note that California’s new low carbon fuel standard does not aim to directly reduce total vehicle miles driven, nor to increase vehicle occupancy rates, nor to reduce aggregate net CO2 emissions from ground transportation in the state. Some or all of these outcomes may materialize indirectly as a result of higher vehicle and/or fuel prices.