CAWP News Issue 5-09
“Moving Cooler” Report has the Transportation Community Up in Arms
While the nation at large and the political community are consumed by the current debate about health care, another controversy is being played out on a smaller stage but with no less intensity. The object of the controversy is a recently released report entitled "Moving Cooler". The report, unveiled with great fanfare on July 28 before a large gathering of the Washington environmental community, purports to estimate the potential reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that can be achieved from surface transportation. The report’s authors conclude that a combination of strategies and policy actions involving changes in vehicle and transportation system operations, travel behavior, land use patterns and level of transit service could reduce annual GHG emissions by up to 24 percent from the expected baseline levels in 2050. The authors further maintain that with "strong economy-wide pricing measures" (read, VMT fees and PAYD insurance), annual GHG emissions could be reduced by up to 47 percent.
The report was commissioned by a group of sponsors and written by a well-known transportation consulting firm, Cambridge Systematics. Sponsors included two environmental advocacy groups (Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council), several foundations, the American Public Transportation Association, the Urban Land Institute, ITS America, Shell Oil Company and three government agencies – Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), one of the original sponsors, withdrew its support after concluding that the study "did not produce results upon which decision-makers can rely." Specifically, AASHTO expressed concern that decision-makers could be led to rely on the study’s conclusions "without understanding the drastic steps that would have to be taken" to achieve the promised reductions.
At an August 13 meeting convened by AASHTO to discuss the report, many of the study assumptions were described as "extreme, unrealistic and in some cases downright impossible." A list of 37 specific issues challenging the report’s methodology and requiring clarification was presented by a team of researchers that analyzed the study. Transportation professionals reached after the meeting were equally blunt. "This is an advocacy document pure and simple, couched in the form of a pseudoscientific analysis," one state DOT official told us. Other transportation professionals, speaking on background, criticized the study as "not meeting scientific standards," "using implausible assumptions," "failing to adequately disclose key analytical assumptions," "lacking in objectivity," " a deeply flawed analysis," and "following a questionable peer review process."
Precisely what kind of assumptions did the report use to warrant such a severe condemnation? Here is a partial list of measures assumed by the report’s authors that would be needed to achieve the estimated reductions:
• Institute tolling of all interstate intercity highways throughout the U.S. by next year (2010). Minimum toll would be 5 cents/mile. As the presentation to AASHTO pointed out, this would require immediate Federal legislation to authorize tolls and a massive crash effort to install toll equipment on these highways within the next year. The tolls would likely shift some traffic to other roads and hit rural areas hardest. According to the analysis, a five-cent-per-mile toll would be equivalent to increasing the gas tax for interstate trips by $1.10 per gallon for vehicles that get 22 MPG and $1.75 per gallon for high-efficiency vehicles.
• Impose congestion pricing in 125 metropolitan areas, at 65 cents per mile. The presentation to AASHTO pointed out that a 20-mile round-trip commute would cost an additional $26 each day. Service workers and delivery vehicles could face much higher increased costs. The top 125 metro areas where congestion pricing would be imposed include such small urban areas as Canton, OH; Jackson, MS; Flint, MI; Modesto, CA; Greenville, SC; and Lancaster, PA.
• Impose or significantly increase parking fees in the CBD and require $400 biennial residential on-street parking permits
• Reimpose a national 55 mph speed limit
• Invest $1.2 trillion over 40 years in expanding urban transportation. Increase transit operating subsidies by next year to allow transit fares to be cut by 50% in all regions.
• Increase highway capacity above the baseline by either $640 billion ("aggressive deployment") or $1.2 trillion ("Maximum deployment") over 40 years.
• Add bike lanes and paths at quarter-mile intervals in high density areas (more than 2,000 persons per square mile.)
• Require at least 90% of new development to be in compact, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly neighborhoods with high quality transit. The report notes that the land use measures "may require strong regional land use planning and oversight agencies...may result in higher housing prices and...some people might need to live in smaller homes or on smaller lots than they would prefer."
While the report’s authors acknowledge in the body of the report that implementing the strategies at their "maximum deployment level" would require a major shift in national attitudes and political will, the presentation and press releases distributed at the July 28 report rollout ignored this caveat. They also ignored the report's conclusion that lower emission reductions would be achieved at less intensive – and more realistic – levels of deployment. Thus, an impression may have been created, says Allen Biehler, Director of PennDOT and AASHTO’s President, that emission reduction targets in the range of 24 to 52 percent are reasonably achievable. This, in turn, could lead to their adoption in EPA rulemaking and legislation pending in Congress.
Source: Innovation NewsBriefs