Trains Not Lanes Introduction

GREEN DESIGN February 11, 2008, 11:55AM EST

Cities: A Smart Alternative to Cars

Creating compact communities and eliminating the need to drive everywhere may be the best way to slash greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles

by Alex Steffen

The answer to the problem of the American car is not under its hood.

Today's cars are costly, dangerous, and an ecological nightmare. Transportation generates more than a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gases, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A portion of that comes from moving freight around but more than 20% is personal

transportation. Our vehicle emissions are a major climate change contributor, but what

comes out of the tailpipe is only a fraction of the total climate impact of driving a car, and the climate impact is in turn only a part of the environmental and social damage cars cause.

Improving mileage will not fix these problems.

The best car-related innovation we have is not to improve the car but to eliminate the need to drive it everywhere we go. In the U.S,, we need to stop sprawl and build well-designed compact communities. The land-use patterns in our communities dictate not only how much we drive, but how sustainable we can be on all sorts of fronts. And sprawled-out land uses generate enormous amounts of automotive greenhouse gases.

A recent major study, Growing Cooler, published by Smart Growth America, a coalition of national, state, and local organizations that addresses urban planning, makes the point clearly:

If 60% of new developments were even modestly more compact, we'd emit 85 million fewer metric tons of tailpipe [car emissions] CO2 each year by 2030, as much as would be saved by raising the national mileage standards to 32 mpg.

So we know that density reduces driving. We know we're capable of building really dense new neighborhoods with plenty of open space, welcoming public places, thriving neighborhood retail, and a tangible sense of place. Just look at Vancouver, which has redeveloped its downtown core into a dense mix of retail, jobs, and housing. Not only is the result one of the most liveable cities in North America, but 40% of all downtown Vancouver households are car-free.

OVERHAULING THE AMERICAN CITY

We're also capable of using good design, infill development (new, denser development in vacant or underused lots), and infrastructure investments to transform existing medium-low density neighborhoods into walkable compact communities. Creating communities dense enough to save those 85 million metric tons of tailpipe emissions is (politics aside) easy. It is within our power to go much farther:

to build whole metropolitan regions where the vast majority of residents live in communities that eliminate the need for daily driving, and make it possible for many people to live without private cars altogether.

Generally, we think of cars as things which are quickly replaced and buildings as things which rarely change. That will not be the case over the next few decades. Because of population growth, the ongoing development churn in cities with buildings being remodeled or replaced, citywide infrastructure projects and changing tastes, half of the American- built environment will be rebuilt between now and 2030. Done right, that new construction could enable a complete overhaul of the American city.

This is especially true since we don't need to change every home to transform a neighborhood. Many cities prevent denser development through bad building codes. But many inner-ring suburban neighborhoods, for instance, could become terrific places simply by allowing infill development. Strip-mall arterials could be converted to walkable mixed-use streets. This transition can happen in a few years.

WE CAN'T WAIT FOR CHANGING AUTO DESIGN

In comparison, it takes at least 16 years to replace 90% of our automotive fleet, and since it takes years to move a car design from prototype to production, it looks likely that the cars most people in the U.S. have available to drive in 2030 will not be all that different from the more efficient cars today. I'm optimistic that at least some radically engineered, nontoxic, fully recyclable electric cars will be on the road by then, but it's extremely unlikely that (barring massive government intervention) they'll be anything like the norm. We should not wait for automobile design to fix this problem.

There's no need to delay building bright green cities. Better design solutions for buildings, communities and, in many cases, infrastructure either already exist or are mid-development. And new innovation is exploding. Car-sharing is the best-known and perhaps

most illustrative example but it's far from the only one. Barcelona runs the phenomenally successful "Bicing" program, renting bikes to anyone with a swipe card.

Wired urban living might very well soon evolve into a series of systems for letting us live affluent, convenient lives without actually owning a lot of things. When you build closer together, you also create the conditions for dramatic energy and cost savings. Researchers at Brookings note:

"Transportation costs are a significant part of the average household budget. The average transportation expenditures for the median income household in the U.S. in 2003 was 19.1%, the highest expenditure after housing."

SEATTLE AND PORTLAND ARE LEADING THE WAY

But that 19.1% figure is the median. How much individual households spend varies enormously, and how much we pay for transportation is determined largely by the

location of our homes. People who are living in extremely dense areas, getting around mostly on foot, by bike, and by transit, with the occasional use of a car-share vehicle, can find themselves paying a small fraction of that 19.1%.

What's more, the public burdens created by car-free or car-light lifestyles are so minimal that some municipalities (like Seattle) are actually finding that it makes good fiscal sense to encourage people to give up their cars by subsidizing transit passes and car-sharing

memberships.

People in compact urban areas also pay substantially less in other energy costs. Dense neighborhoods are far more energy-efficient than even "green" sprawl, and innovation trends in green building seem to me to benefit compact development. Carbon taxes can incentivize even more energy-efficient developments as they may soon in Portland.

COMPACT COMMUNITIES CAN ENHANCE QUALITY OF LIFE

Pollution from a car isn't limited to its emissions and leakages. That new car smell? Toxic. We currently have no replacements for most of the bad components, and we don't appear to be much closer to a truly recyclable car. The best try of which I'm aware is the Model U,

William McDonough's collaboration with Ford (F), which is an interesting start but a long, long way from a closed-loop car. Yes, there are a bunch of smart folks hard at work on these issues and on some pretty exciting designs the 100-mpg Aptera, for instance, or the

proposed VDS Vision 200, a "hyperefficient four-to-six-passenger vehicle earmarked for India that will demonstrate a 95% reduction in embodied energy, materials, and toxicity,"

according to the Vehicle Design Summit.

But whether green cars arrive, building bright green cities is a winning strategy. Most arguments against land-use change presume that building compact communities is a trade-off; that by investing in walkable, denser neighborhoods we lose some or a lot of our affluence or quality of life.

But what if the gains actually far outweigh the costs not only in ecological and fiscal terms but in lifestyle and prosperity terms as well?

Green, compact communities, smaller, well-built homes, walkable streets, and smart infrastructure can actually offer a far better quality of life than living in McMansion hintersprawl in purely material terms:

more comfort, more security, more true prosperity.

But even more to the point, they offer all sorts of nonmaterialistic but extremely real benefits that suburbs cannot. Opponents of smart growth talk about sacrificing our way of life, but it's not a sacrifice if what you get in exchange is superior. Just as a home is more than the building in which it resides, a life is more than the stuff we pile up around it. We all know this to be true. In building bright green cities we do more than help avert a monstrous disaster for which we are largely responsible. We might just awaken on the other side of this fight to find ourselves prosperously at home in the sort of communities we thought lost forever, leading more creative, connected, and carefree lives.

This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Worldchanging.com.

David Goldberg

Communications Director

Smart Growth America

http://smartgrowthamerica.org

office/cell: (202) 412-7930

fax: (404) 370-1949?

How hard is this to understand?

National studies confirm that expanding roadway capacity in any major transportation corridor simply provides an incentive for those travelers that were avoiding peak periods, using carpools, or taking alternate routes or alternate modes, to get back into their single occupancy vehicle and drive in the corridor during the peak period until the congestion level quickly reaches where it was prior to the capacity expansion.

Adding roadway capacity tends to provide declining user benefits, since consumers are smart enough to prioritize trips. For example, if highways are congested, consumers organize their lives to avoid peak automobile period trips. As highway capacity increases they travel more during peak periods, perhaps driving across town during rush hour for an errand that would be deferred, or moving further away from their worksite. Each additional vehicle mile provides smaller user benefits, since the most valued vehicle-miles are already taken.

With a mature highway system, it may be better to increase transportation diversity and encourage efficiency rather than continuing to expand roadway capacity.

And yet roadway expansion remains the transportation planning norm throughout the state and country driven largely by elected officials and state and federal decision makers.

We should not be spending any more taxpayer dollars on the current unreliable, unpredictable mode of transportation in the I-70 mountain corridor. We are dealing with a mode that insists on the worst driver setting the pace for everyone else. Reckless, careless and aggressive driving is an everyday occurrence in the corridor along with the accidents that this behavior precipitates. Six lanes will only encourage more of this same behavior, more accidents, more injuries and more fatalities and continue to place an ever increasing burden on the local emergency service providers throughout the corridor. With six lanes total throughput will increase only marginally, if at all, while the hours of closures and delays due to accidents will skyrocket.

What this corridor needs is another mode or another route. Sinking billions of dollars into the current unreliable transportation mode is ridiculous and a waste of taxpayer funds.

The combination alternatives have the most severe and destructive environmental impacts and cannot be supported as a result (50 year vision or not). The AGS alternative has the least impacts of all alternatives with a good deal of the impacts associated with the minimal action highway improvements included in the AGS alternative.

We should be pushing for a technology neutral AGS alternative as the primary improvement in the corridor. Perhaps a number of minimal action highway components with a priority on safety can be considered, but only as secondary to implementation of the AGS.

The discussion needs to be about providing diverse transportation options that will keep Colorado competitive in a global tourism market, especially with the number of unpredictable events looming in our future such as climate change and natural resource depletion.

A six lane I-70 will be just as vulnerable to bad weather, poor driver behavior, avalanche control, accidents and highway construction, as a four lane I-70 and will provide no option to these events, but to sit in traffic and wait with everyone else.

When it snows at 2 inches per hour or more (which is common in the Mountain Corridor, especially from Silver Plume through Vail Pass), there is no way CDOT can keep up with snow removal operations on four lanes, let alone six lanes.

Wind driven ground blizzards creating zero visibility (day or night) mandate I-70 closures, regardless of the number of lanes. Driving under zero visibility conditions is extremely dangerous. How many drivers do you want passing you on either side (as six lanes would allow) in white out or deep snow conditions?

Heavy snow, wind, avalanches, rockfalls and traffic accidents causing injuries and fatalities, drive I-70 closures and shut down the High Country economy. Why would we spend billions of dollars on I-70 highway expansion that will be just as vulnerable to weather related closures that shut down mobility in the mountain corridor and impede the state's resort economy? Wouldn't we be better off investing those same dollars in a safer and more reliable transportation option?

All a six lane I-70 will do is allow more unprepared motorists to crash and be injured, allow more trucks to jack-knife and wreck, allow more horrific traffic backups and strand more motorists throughout the corridor when the inevitable highway closure occurs. This is not rocket science. Colorado needs an option to driving in the corridor in winter weather conditions, which is when many Front Range Residents and Visitors want to get to the Resorts!

In the 21st Century, we will see extensive greenhouse gas restrictions to mitigate global climate change impacts and to protect the world's future. We will also see considerable depletion of the world's oil and gas reserves.

Due to the rapidly rising cost of energy, motor vehicle fuels and highway construction, and the increasing number of babyboomer seniors living on fixed incomes; continued auto-oriented low density development will eventually run out of gas. Colorado should begin planning for better transportation and land use alternatives today and stop throwing away tax dollars on highway expansion projects.

We need to be thinking in terms of Transportation Investment Options that obtain a desired change in travel behavior. We need to look at only those investments that reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled and take motorists off the road by providing better travel options. We need to encourage people to live close to where they work and recreate. We need to encourage complete streets, alternate transportation modes and walkable communities.

How does highway expansion encourage a reduction in Vehicle Miles Traveled and taking motorists off our roadways?

Courtesy of the Rocky Mountain News

Record oil prices push up trade deficit

By Associated Press

Saturday, January 12, 2008

The U.S. trade deficit in November rose to the highest level in 14 months, reflecting record crude oil prices. The deficit with China declined slightly, while the weak dollar boosted exports to another record high.

The Commerce Department reported that the trade deficit, the gap between imports and exports, jumped by 9.3 percent, to $63.1 billion. The imbalance was much larger than the $60 billion that had been expected.

The increase was driven by a 16.3 percent increase in America's foreign oil bill, which climbed to an all-time high of $34.4 billion as the per-barrel price of imported crude reached new records while the volume of shipments declined slightly. With oil prices last week touching $100 per barrel, analysts forecast higher oil bills in coming months.

Courtesy of the Rocky Mountain News

Oil at $200 a barrel? Maybe

Options traders bet it'll happen; analysts disagree

By By Grant Smith , Bloomberg News

Saturday, January 12, 2008

The fastest-growing bet in the oil market these days is that the price of crude will double to $200 a barrel by the end of the year.

Options to buy oil for $200 on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose tenfold in the past two months to 5,533 contracts, a record increase for any similar period. The contracts, the cheapest way to speculate in energy markets, have appreciated 36 percent since early December as crude futures reached a record $100.09 on Jan. 3.

While analysts at Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG say the slowing U.S. economy will lead to the biggest drop in prices since 2001, the options show that some traders expect oil to rise for a seventh straight year.

Demand will increase 2.5 percent in 2008, according to the International Energy Agency.

U.S. inventories fell to a three-year low Dec. 28.

Production from Mexico is declining, and Saudi Arabia is behind schedule in opening its newest field.

"One hundred dollars a barrel is actually 14.9 cents a cup, so we're still talking about oil being remarkably cheap," said Matthew R. Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co. International, a Houston-based investment bank that focuses on energy.

Inventories "are tight as a drum, and I don't see how we get out of this box," he said in a Bloomberg News television interview last week. "Demand clearly isn't starting to slow down."

World consumption will rise to 87.8 million barrels a day this year, 2.1 million more than in 2007, or an increase equal to what Nigeria supplies, according to the Paris-based IEA, an adviser to oil-consuming nations. Demand from China alone will increase 5.7 percent to 8 million barrels a day as imports expand to support an economy that's likely to grow 11 percent, the IEA said.

Oil suppliers are straining to increase production. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter, said last week that the 500,000-barrel-a-day Khursaniyah oilfield missed a December start date. Brazil's Tupi field, the second-largest find of the past two decades, lies more than five miles below the ocean surface and will take at least five years to develop.

Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico's state oil monopoly, suffered a three-year, 40 percent decline at its Cantarell field, the world's third-largest. Fighting in Nigeria has reduced production 11 percent since December 2005 to 2.18 million barrels a day, according to Bloomberg.

Speculators don't require prices to rise all the way to $200 to make money from options since they can sell the contracts to others as their value rises.

Crude futures rose 2 percent in the first three trading days of the new year. U.S. crude inventories fell to a three-year low of 289.6 million barrels on Dec. 28, the Energy Department said.

Barclays forecasts oil will average $87.40 a barrel this year, a 21 percent increase from the 2007 average.

Oil forecasters say there's no chance of $200 crude, as the economy in the U.S., which consumes a quarter of the world's oil, slows.

Prices will average $78 a barrel this year, 20 percent below the current level, and $75 in the fourth quarter, according to the median forecast of 27 analysts Bloomberg surveyed.

Oil demand is increasing . . .

87.8 million barrels a day is the expected world oil consumption this year, 2.1 million more than in 2007.

8 million barrels a day is the expected oil demand from China alone, a 5.7 percent increase.

. . . but supply is strained

40% decline in production is what Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico's state oil monopoly, suffered over three years at its Cantarell field.

11% decrease in production since December 2005 is what Nigeria faces because of fighting.

Now is the time to diversify Colorado's transportation portfolio to meet the State's growing transportation needs and give the people of Colorado a Travel Choice. The entrenched highway culture within the CDOT organization is a flashback to the 1950-1960's Interstate Highway era and not a 21st century asset.

CDOT must begin to embrace energy efficient fixed guideway public transportation as the primary means of increasing transportation capacity in the 21st century.

When will CDOT Region 1, the Colorado Ski Industry and the Denver Metro Chamber Wake Up and Pull Their Collective Heads Out of the Sand?

CDOT Region 1, the Colorado Ski Industry and the Denver Metro Chamber continue to push for six lane widening of I-70.

With no other option than the I-70 highway, all mountain corridor mobility comes to a halt when severe weather hits.

Six lanes on I-70 will do absolutely nothing to stop weather related accidents, injuries, fatalities and the resulting complete road closures that often occur when significant wind, snow or rain events hit the corridor.

The wind and snow closure of I-70 on 12-30-07 and 12-31-07 is a case in point. Ground blizzards and total white out conditions mandate that the highway be closed due to the extreme risk of accidents, injuries and fatalities that result.

Clear Creek County Ambulance Service had 23 calls on Sunday, December 30, 2007 alone as a result of I-70 traffic incidents. If public safety were paramount to CDOT, the Ski Industry, the Denver Metro Chamber and the State of Colorado (instead of the economic interests of the resorts and resort communities) the I-70 highway would have been closed on Sunday morning, 12-30-07.

Heavy wind, avalanches and avalanche mitigation work, rockfalls, mud slides, heavy rain and heavy snow all close the I-70 roadway and will continue to do so regardless of the number of lanes.

Even light snow and sun glare cause accidents and I-70 road closures. Mountain corridor individual vehicular travel is extremely vulnerable to weather events often with the least prepared, most aggressive, most careless, most reckless and most dangerous drivers setting the pace for everyone else.

What a Welcome to Colorado we are providing our out of State visitors!

The extended rockfall closure in August of 2005 is another case in point. Snow and wind are not the only events that can close I-70 for extended periods.

Occurrence: Between 8:30 am

Saturday August 13, 2005, and 5:00 am Sunday, August 14, 2005, a large rockslide occurred on I-70 near just west of Idaho Springs. The slide took place in three sequences varying from approximately 400 cubic yards to less than 100 cubic yards of rock and soil.

Site Conditions The site is located approximately 0.25 miles west of Idaho Springs. This area consists primarily of metamorphic rock (schist and gneiss) with various small scale intrusions of granitic material. Along this stretch of highway the metamorphic rock is highly weathered creating unstable slope conditions in several areas.

The Colorado Department of Natural Resources inspected an abandoned mine shaft located just above the slide and prepared an abandoned mine field form. Results of the mine shaft inspection indicate that the shaft dips into the slope at approximately 30 degrees and could be as deep as 70 feet. The mine shaft was dry at inspection.

A precipitation event preceded the rock slide and likely contributed to the failure. At the time of the initial site visit it was not raining, however, the highway and slope were wet indicating recent rainfall.

The Slide Area: The slide area is approximately 80 ft. wide at its base and 150 ft. in slope length. The thickness of the failed rock layers averages about 10 feet. The slide plane is inclined approximately 50 degrees from the horizontal and dips toward the highway.

Site conditions after the failure prompted an immediate recommendation to mitigate and reduce the rockfall and rockslide risk. The recommendation was to remove slide debris from the ditch area and/or remove loose, residual material from the slope. This mitigation was believed necessary before reopening the westbound lanes of I-70.

Mitigation and Construction Methods:

Mitigation efforts consisted of removing the slide debris from the ditch, shoulder, and roadway and were initiated on the morning of August 14, 2005. The size of slide debris necessitated blasting to break it into manageable pieces. Upon removal of the slide debris to an acceptable level, the highway was temporarily reopened until a contractor could mobilize equipment to the site and begin scaling activities.

On the evening of August 15, 2005 a large crane arrived on site. The crane arrival allowed mechanical scaling techniques to be used and access to areas higher up on the slope needing to be blasted. The scaling and blasting efforts continued nonstop until the slope was stabilized to a point at which a large scale slope failure was not believed to be imminent.

In addition to rock scaling, the installation of rock reinforcement was conducted in an attempt to stabilize a large, wedge of rock on the east side of the slope. The inherently unstable condition of the slope presented unfavorable conditions for the installation and the effort was called off. Prior to reopening the westbound lanes of I-70 all remaining slide debris was removed from the ditch and a temporary rockfall barrier was installed on the shoulder.

During the first 2 days, while rock scaling and blasting were being performed, westbound I70 was detoured at the existing frontage road. As soon as an Incident Management team was formed, westbound traffic was detoured unto the mainline by implementing a 2-lane-2-way on the eastbound lanes. Traffic was returned back to its original four lane configuration around 9:30PM on Thursday (August 18, 2005).

The Ski Industry and the Denver Metro Chamber should be screaming for a more robust mode of transportation in all weather conditions between the Denver International Airport, the Denver Metro area and the mountain resorts and mountain communities as the absolute priority for mountain corridor mobility improvement. Instead they are demanding highway widening. Go figure.

Check out why the CDOT and Denver Metro Chamber Studies are wrong!

CDOT Economic Benefits Study

Denver Metro Chamber I-70 Congestion Study

Why both studies are Wrong (Word doc)

The Driver Factor

Simply stated, mobility in the mountain corridor for all travelers is dependent on the behavior of each individual vehicle driver in the corridor. One bad driver decision resulting in a wreck can cause hours of delays for all of us.

Regardless of vehicle technology improvements, allowing the freedom of every individual to drive and control their own personal vehicle on a high speed freeway, results in the worst car or truck driver setting the pace for everyone else.

Wind driven ground blizzards creating zero visibility (day or night) mandate I-70 closures, regardless of the number of lanes. Driving in deep snow or under zero visibility conditions is extremely dangerous. How many drivers do you want passing you on either side (as six lanes would allow) in white out or deep snow conditions?

DRIVING IS NOT A RIGHT, IT IS A PRIVILEGE.

A privilege that many motorists take for granted. This is especially true in the mountain corridor where there is not only no other feasible alternate highway route, but no other transportation mode available to mountain corridor travelers.

I-70 is it, and all our mobility is subject to the driving behavior of every corridor driver, cars and trucks.

In my research into the I-70 problem, the number 1 outstanding issue which time and time again is missing from the tens of millions of dollars spent on the I-70 analysis, is simply the behavior of corridor drivers.

Colorado State Patrol officials in Clear Creek and Summit Counties report that virtually every I-70 accident year round is a result of drivers operating vehicles at greater speeds than the conditions demand. Every law enforcement official (both local and state) as well as every emergency service provider that I have spoken to, tells me that the corridor drivers are the most aggressive, careless, reckless and irresponsible in the state of Colorado. Emergency Service providers risk their lives every day responding to I-70 incidents.

The appalling corridor driver behavior is witnessed by locals, truckers and public safety agency staff every day. Corridor drivers are always in a hurry. They don’t obey speed limits or law enforcement direction. They fight with State Patrol or local agency staff that is directing traffic. Road closures are a nightmare for the emergency service and law enforcement personnel. Every single driver considers themselves to be the single exception to the rule. They are arrogant, stubborn and difficult. I have witnessed this first hand and believe that the emergency service folks are saints for putting up with the abuse they receive from corridor drivers.

Making highway expansion the priority improvement for the corridor just encourages more of the same aggressive driver behavior. It will simply increase accidents, injuries and road closures, which will only increase driver delays, not decrease them. Even if new technologies are developed that make personal vehicle driving more energy efficient, cleaner and quieter, we will still be faced with more aggressive and careless driving producing more accidents and more delays.