I'll Juice You Up

In St. Paul the utility company is going to have to rip up the streets anyway for light rail so they are trying an innovative energy rebate program and testing smart grid technology. Sounds pretty interesting.

The area is being dubbed “the Innovation Corridor,” says James Lockwood, a spokesman in Mayor Chris Coleman’s office. “Since all the utilities have to get in there to move lines because of the installation of light rail, they saw this as a great opportunity to figure out what to do to create smart grid technology to improve energy efficiency for businesses and homes,” he says.

I just hope they aren't asking for free cable...

Saturday Sacramento Links

It was nice to see everyone at the NJudah shindig last night. I'm in Sacramento for a family reunion this weekend so posting might be light.

Looks like Phoenix is pausing its first extension due to funding issues.
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I think people like Barbara Boxer still don't get the climate, transport, land use connection. I am glad that folks are talking gas tax, but there has to be a better way.
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LA is building an Orange Line extension that connects the Chatsworth Metrolink station to the Warner Center, which is kind of like LA's Tyson's Corner. I think this is a great connection that obviously should be updated as soon as possible. With the Warner Center thinking about densifying, the connection to commuter rail is key.
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I like this quote from Rep. John Mica:

"if you're on the Transportation Committee long enough, even if you're a fiscal conservative, which I consider myself to be, you quickly see the benefits of transportation investment. Simply, I became a mass transit fan because it's so much more cost effective than building a highway. Also, it's good for energy, it's good for the environment – and that's why I like it."

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Some interesting information on traction motors in Europe. Kind of continues on our electrification theme of late.

Of Montréal Electrification

Looks like Montreal could reap the benefits of electrification sooner than others.

Agence Métropolitaine de Transport and Hydro-Québec agreed on May 5 to invite proposals for a study to determine the feasibility of electrifying four of Montréal’s commuter rail routes totalling 250 km.

In Calgary they ride the wind. Here they could ride the wave.

Don't Lecture If You Can't Change Yourself

In an article on the new Indian auto sensation, Projjal Dutta calls for the United States to and other countries around the world to invest more in transit to change the future land use patterns that we know will result from all the automobiling that is in front of the Tata Nano. But he calls out the government for just doing the same as it always has in the stimulus package at 80/20.

As with many other issues, the world will expect America's "talk"--say, urging China and India not to become auto-centric--to be accompanied by "walk," at home. That, unfortunately, despite early glimmers of hope, is not happening. The stimulus bill has allocated about 8 billion dollars to transit, compared with 30 billion to highways. This is roughly in keeping with the traditional 80/20 split of federal transportation funds that have been enshrined since the Eisenhower days.

I agree. We can't just lecture other countries about what they should do when we continue to fund the same levels we always have. How are we supposed to solve the problems in the world if we can't lead by example.

The president's stimulus package has put dollar commitments behind promises about promoting green-jobs and increasing renewable energy generation capacity of the U.S. Yet, despite the concern and awareness within the administration, American lifestyles are inextricably linked to very high automobile usage. Until that bull is taken by the horns, climate change cannot be properly confronted.

This is why I keep harping on the folks at SF city hall in the Emerald Aristocracy. Fake green and gizmo green is not leading by example, its just delaying the inevitable. Check out the Forbes article, it's a good read.

Philanthropy Intersecting Transit

I just had a wild and crazy idea. Much of the capital fundraising for philanthropy seems geared towards building new museums and other major pieces of infrastructure. In particular I was thinking about how Gap money man Don "More Parking" Fischer is looking to spend millions of dollars to build a new museum in the Presidio. The approximate $100 million could also be used to build a subway station along a Geary subway line.

But I wouldn't say that we shouldn't build the museum. I think the Museum should be attached to or at least part of the Subway station. In this way, new subway lines would be strings of culture funded in part by the philanthropic minded of the city while also providing a public good in transportation.

While we are always saying that we need to keep land use and transportation in one mindset, it seems that we could be thinking of better ideas of how to keep the large amount of donations that come from philanthropic interests moving towards not only the public good of increasing culture, but the public good of reducing emissions and improving movement and air quality for all citizens of the city. I would donate money to these causes and I believe others would as well for the double benefit that comes from it. I know I'm crazy but sometimes you just gotta throw ideas out there.

People Want Rail, Clean Energy...

but they don't want to pay for it. I'll pay my share. Where do I sign? And where can I pay up for a San Francisco Metro network?

-86% believe that investing in alternative energy will create jobs
-84% support investment in fuel efficient railways
-Solid majorities support policies that transfer wealth to individuals and businesses who invest in clean technology (84% like tax rebates for individuals who reduce energy use, 79% support the same for businesses, 73% support tax rebates on hybrid vehicles, 72% support policies that both reward business that reduce CO2 emissions and penalize those that don’t.)
-68% support investments in energy independence, even if it raises energy costs.
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While this should come as no surprise, it’s worth noting that in spite of the overwhelming support for good policy, no one really wants to pay for it. From congestion pricing to gas taxes, overwhelming majorities are opposed to those options that—as framed in the survey—suggest that specific economic pain may be imposed on the specific survey responder.

More Signs of the Apocalypse

GM's Chief thinks it might be a good idea to have $4 gas.

In a surprising turnabout, General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said Tuesday that increasing the federal gasoline tax to guarantee a minimum price of $4 a gallon is an idea "worthy of consideration."

Obviously this would help them sell more Volts. But it would also get people to think about their decisions and the true cost of gasoline.

A GM spokesman acknowledged that the automaker is thinking about the price of gasoline as an incentive to buy hybrids. "Everybody talks about $4 a gallon because, until gas prices hit $4, nobody saw any shift in consumer behavior," said Greg Martin, GM's Washington, D.C., spokesman. "Only then did people put fuel efficiency front and center."

Collective Investment

San Francisco is a great place and a city known around the world. If only we could be so forward thinking that we could cut emissions by 40% like Amsterdam.

Mark Scott has a nice piece in BusinessWeek on Amsterdam's plan to become one of the world's premier green cities—and fast. Scarily fast. The city is hitching up with utilities and private companies to plunk down $1 billion over the next three years to do stuff like creating a citywide smart grid that better juggles electricity demand, replacing old garbage trucks with electric vehicles, powering bus stops with solar panels, improving the efficiency of homes, putting meters in homes to let people better monitor their own energy use, and so on… All told, Amsterdam hopes to cut its carbon emissions 40 percent by 2025.

This also got me to thinking, a billion dollars over three years is not a lot if you're going to do something extraordinary. Especially when what you're doing is lowering everyone's costs. I would think this would be the same for expanding the subway network here in San Francisco. Sure it might be a bit of an up front cost, but the more people that we can get to leave their cars, the more they will save. Huge benefits to collective investment.

Electric Surge

An article in USA Today discusses one California city's preparation for the surge in power needed for electric cars. When is the surge in electric transit coming?

Automakers envision electric cars as a solution to gas price jumps. Environmentalists see bluer skies. And electric utilities? They could be the biggest winners of all.

Seems to me electric utilities could be even bigger winners if they built electric transit networks. Then we wouldn't be sending our money to companies that provide diesel but rather the local power company, which hopefully has a smart grid linked to alternative energy. But its better than breathing the diesel fumes even now.

Incentivizing Clean Energy Consumption

I was reading Jim's post on public utilities providing a push to build more solar.

What a great idea: incentivize ( I hate the 'word,' but it's descriptive) consumers to install wind and solar power equipment by paying them a premium for the power generated.

It got me to thinking, what if the FTA incentivized cleaner transit such as trolley buses making the replacement cost to transit agencies lower if they or the utility build the infrastructure. It seems to me that allowing transit agencies just to replace with diesel buses because they are a bit cheaper is looking only at the short term benefits instead of the long term. Anyways, just thoughts.

Energy Question

So I've been thinking a lot about the BRT report and comments on the (edited from CCT: Purple Line) in this post. The WRI study states that BRT is better for reductions in GHGs than LRT because LRT comes from dirty sources such as coal. Ok, I'll bite. Here's Greg Fuhs (from WRI) very fair comment at the end of my last post:

What we (and MTA) are saying is that by building a medium or high investment BRT system in the corridor, this would reduce GHG emissions from current levels by getting more people out of single vehicles and moving them more efficiently along the corridor than is currently the case. The significant fuel savings from this system would lead to the reduced GHG levels.

The reason light rail would increase GHG emissions over No Build is due to the electricity source, which for this region is primarily coal-fired power plants. While people would leave their cars and move more efficiently along the corridor with light rail, the coal plant emissions generated to produce the electricity required for the Purple Line would exceed the emissions savings from getting people out of their cars.

Now I understand this argument, but I have to dive in a little deeper. I'm wondering if the following thought is true. If you build an electric system, bus or rail, more electricity has to be produced during peak periods where the rail line is more efficient than the buses burning diesel. At the same time, during the off-peak, does the powerplant have to produce extra power or does that energy already exist in the grid.

I've heard ideas about the power grid benefitting from off peak power usage because the plant was going to run no matter what, but I'm wondering if the GHG's are already being produced, therefor any other emissions such as those from the bus are on top of what already existed from the power plant whether the light rail line was there or not. If this were the case, doesn't that reduce the emissions factor of the LRVs because the emissions are already out there from the coal plant? Does anyone know the answer to this or other ideas?

Clean Air

One of the things I harp on constantly is the need for clean air which is part of the reason that I like electric transit. Well Matt at Orphan Road has some news about lifespans and clean air. Seems like it helps people live longer. Who knew?

"Experts"

Case in Point, David Spurling.

"Sperling is the co-author (with Deborah Gordon) of Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability, a book that considers the environmental impact of so many automobiles and suggests ways that politicians, car companies and the general public can curb car-ownership and reduce climate change."

While most of the talk is on technology, he discuss the roles of transit, land use, and bicycling and car-share. "Mass transit won't solve our energy and transportation problems," states Sperling. The average bus passenger contributes as much greenhouse gases as a car driver because the buses aren't full, he explains.

Wonder which O'Toole he got that data from?

Walk & Train

Ryan says:

It's easier to support a carbon tax if you have a grocery store within walking distance and can take the train to work.

Absolutely. I would likely be skeptical if I were living in Austin still and knew that I had to drive to get most places. Now that BART and the Grocery store are a half mile in each direction, I don't worry about it anymore. I fill up my car maybe once every month and a half, sometimes even longer. Think about if everyone was able to move from once a week to once every two months. More money for local business, more money for alternative energy and more money for housing near transit. Winners all around.

Singles Use Energy

Anyone seen this? Says singles use more energy. I wonder if they controlled for city living vs. suburban living.

Inertia

For energy. And for development patterns. How do you stop a moving freight train with your bare hands?

Good for Chu

Caught this over at Planetizen:

"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told the Wall Street Journal in September.

From the Wall Street Journal Article:

In a sign of one major internal difference, Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work.

At least someone in the administration gets it. Apparently Obama does not, at least publicly.

But Mr. Obama has dismissed the idea of boosting the federal gasoline tax, a move energy experts say could be the single most effective step to promote alternative energies and temper demand. Mr. Obama said Sunday that a heightened gas tax would be a "mistake" because it would put "additional burdens on American families right now."

Mental Block Hop

On a loop around from our post on transit and energy usage, Matt discusses the issues of fares and the thought that transit should have little or no cost to use, just like empty roads. BUT, only if they are not crowded. That is time for congestion pricing. Empty buses, as that study showed do us no good. Heck I wouldn't mind if Muni were free during off periods. I was talking to a friend today who mentioned when he has his Muni pass, it makes him take transit more, because all he has to do is hop on. I would do the same thing, not worrying about getting quarters out of my bag. As he said, it's just enough of a mental block to discourage it, just like losing my parking spot discourages me from driving.

Transit Energy Efficiency & Lifecycle Costs

We've seen any number of calculations of energy efficiency and green house gases in transit modes. Some a bit out there because of crazy assumptions for autos. Even our favorite libertarian O'Toole played the game. The problem with all of these is that they don't consider the whole picture, or what happens when buildings are built closer together and transportation makes it easier for people to walk. But I digress.

At Rail~Volution I saw a presentation by Tina Hodges at the FTA that had some cool charts and comparisons of modes. The one I've seen before is the increase in VMT versus what CAFE standards will do. Now we've seen that there is a bit of a drop recently due to the economy but with gas prices as they are and no change in habits, I still believe this will happen.


Then here is the difference between current occupancies vs. all of the vehicles full and over the lifecycle of the vehicle in the second chart. These are based on a UC Berkeley study by Mikhail Chester that considered vehicle construction, guidway construction etc. The list of items lifecycled are at the link. Apparently buses off peak are the worst and peak are the best, even better than rail lines. Yet rail lasts longer and attracts more passengers overall so on average is better. I didn't really have time to read the 332 page tome, but if you're interested go for it.


But the most interesting in the presentation to me was the difference between the Heavy Rail modes. BART is the most efficient while Cleveland is almost as bad as a single occupancy vehicle. The relative inefficiency of the EL was surprising to me as well.

Thought this would be of interest to folks. I have to say again that its necessary to not just measure the lifecycle and modes but rather the land uses and transportation, but its interesting to learn that this work is being done.

On Systems Efficiency

The discussion of sustainability in buildings and urban places in this country is much too basic. As we keep building more sprawl, the gains in energy efficiency in buildings as well as transportation energy expenditures get worse because of increases in VMT and increases in energy use due to total buildings. This is another issue that is totally missing from discussions higher up (The Livable Community Blogosphere has been talking about this for ever). Here is what Obama mentioned in the stimulus package talk this morning:

First, we will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won’t just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work.

Yes it will put people to work and is needed, but long term we need to think bigger. My point is one made by Beyond DC very eloquently when talking about the LEED architecture program which designates green buildings:

LEED architecture without good urban design is like cutting down the rainforest using hybrid-powered bulldozers - it just sort of misses the point.

But there is a whole other level to what we talk about. I think the more holistic approach to sustainability pushed by firms like Mithun is a way to go and when coupled the themes of urbanism and sustainable transport. This would lead to wholesale change in terms of energy efficiency which is a major part of sustainability. Here's a bit from Mithun's sustainable urban design plan for the Lloyd District in Portland.

The Sustainable Design Plan, in contrast, rests on a functional concept of “Pre-development Metrics” developed by the team. These measures embody a theoretical baseline representing the ecological profile of the site before there was a human presence on it. This framework was then used to create a plan that would be even more ambitious than the “beyond-platinum” goals specified in the RFP.

In effect, the remarkable notion at the heart of the plan is that intense urban redevelopment can be used to reverse existing environmental impacts, and return many of the ecological qualities of the site to those of a 54-acre, mature, mixed-conifer forest. Wildlife habitat, water and usage quality, and energy consumption are three areas where the plan establishes specific performance goals.

In terms of habitat, the pre-development metric was 90 percent tree cover, supporting a diverse range of species. In comparison, the plan attempts to reestablish 25-30 percent tree cover—an “abstraction” of a mixed-conifer forest, involving native “forest patches,” green streets, rooftop gardens, and habitat corridors. Meanwhile, provisions are also proposed for off-site habitat restoration.

Update 10:00 pm PT: continued quote left out earlier...

In terms of water, the plan estimates the study area receives 64 million gallons of rainwater a year, and it proposes treating much of this runoff on-site. It also proposes reducing potable water consumption by 62 percent, and providing on-site sources for 100 percent of nonpotable water demand through rainwater harvesting and wastewater reuse. Energy metrics involve a number of concerns. According to the plan, the neighborhood receives 161 million kilowatt hours per year of solar energy. The plan aims to exceed the level of utilization of this energy that would be typical of a mature forest.

Among the plan’s other goals are to reduce on-site carbon dioxide emissions to predevelopment levels and create an overall carbon-neutral strategy. Since the construction industry consumes 40 percent of the global economy’s raw materials, the latter would involve giving preference to materials that employ renewable resources, that are from within 300 to 500 miles of the site, have low embodied energy, and that receive a positive Life Cycle Assessment.

Now I know this is a bit too heady for basic stimulus issues and needs to be developed further, but this is the type of thing that will lead to true sustainability. If we put our brightest minds to work to figure out how to implement strategies like those mentioned by Mithun above, we'll be a whole lot better off. We need to stop looking at things in silos and start looking more at systems in transportation, land use, habitat, and water systems.