2014 was hottest year on record

NASA global land-ocean temperature data shows that 2014 was the hottest year on record and the heating trend is continuing.

MARTA TOD blog

MARTA TOD blog

From: Tanya

To: Nathaniel

Thanks for the praise, but it was you and your neighbors that helped the Sierra Club, Georgia Chapter, get MARTA’s 1 cent sales tax passed overwhelmingly in Clayton County this past election. Now comes the fun part—helping the experts design the rail extension and station areas!

From: Nathaniel

To: Tanya

Thanks Tanya! Now that we have it, I am concerned about increasing ridership in the area around Airport/Mountain View Station. That way, we will get more service and can finally sell off one of our cars. You know more about how to do that than I do. Suggestions?

From: Tanya

To: Nathaniel

Sorry to take 3 days to respond, but I wanted to check where MARTA plans to put stations in Clayton. As I recall your area has older industries, including chemical plants,  lots of parking, and other vacant land. It’s a good candidate for substantial redevelopment, especially since it counts as a “brownfield.” There are lots of grants and other programs to help remove toxins from the soil and develop Transit Oriented Development. You’ll hear that called “TOD” more often though. So, just think of Atlanta’s Atlantic Station, but in your area you’re probably only going to get mid-rise buildings. Here’s a picture of a similar project, a BART station near San Jose, California, http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/place/article/Fremont-s-imaginative-planning-puts-S-F-s-to-5768319.php, illustrated below.

My station, Southlake Mall already has a start on TOD development with a large mall and blocks of parking that could be filled in with housing and local shopping. However, the old rail right-of-way is about three blocks east and may have to be rerouted.  If that doesn’t happen, we need to at least make sure that people can easily bike or walk from there, or even have a bus or streetcar that connects the two!

From: Nathaniel

To: Tanya

That’s an interesting idea, and could work if my neighbors would accept less parking and some mid-rises in exchange for nearby shopping, jobs and other destinations that could be easily walked or cycled to. Just curious, do you know how much fuel and carbon emissions would be saved?

From: Tanya

To: Nathaniel

Bear with me Nathaniel, it’s going to get technical! So, we do have estimates from a Sierra Club transportation activist out in California. To start, he used a study from the transportation consulting firm Nelson\Nygaard titled Crediting Low-Traffic Developments; Adjusting Site-Level Vehicle Trip Generation Using URBEMIS (which can be found at http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/transportation/documents/TripGenerationAnalysisUsingURBEMIS.pdf), especially Table 1, “Summary of Trip Reduction Credits”. He estimated trips and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for a well-done and complete TOD. Smaller or incomplete TODs would have less reduction in driving and emissions. 

He assumed that:

1. At 30 year buildout, the 80% trip reductions shown in Table 1 of Nelson\Nygaard could be assumed to be the TOD’s driving (VMT or Vehicle Miles Traveled) reductions. This does not take credit for special efforts to reduce driving like building extra worker housing, free transit passes and telecommuting. Nor for the shorter trips TOD neighbors would have in getting to markets and services within the TOD.

2. Initial sprawl (non-TOD) driving equals the GA state average of 31,000 VMT/Household.

3. At 30 year buildout, the TOD covers a 1/2 mile radius from the station (approx 500 acres), with 70% (350 acres) in residences, including residential streets, and 30% (150 acres) in offices, industry, and parks/plazas/open spaces. At buildout, the residential density would be 40 – 60 households per residential acre (hh/res acre); for examples see http://vault.sierraclub.org/sprawl/density/projects.asp?density=3&gm=20&gp=4.10&i=&r=summary.asp . These densities are much lower than San Francisco’s North Beach at 100 hh/res acre, or Manhattan at 200.

4. Auto fuel economy assumed the US on-road fleet averages (real world values for all light-duty vehicles on the road, not inflated CAFE): 21.5 mpg in 2012, up to 37.2 mpg by 2040 (EIA's 2014 Annual Energy Outlook - http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/pdf/0383(2014).pdf).

5. Burning a gallon of gasoline releases 28 lbs of CO2.

And he got the following:

 

  

So, a well designed TOD would reduce VMT emissions by 4.3 million tons of CO2 during the 30 year buildout, and is then saving 375,000 more tons of CO2 each year. At 10 tons of CO2 emitted annually per car, that is equivalent to taking 430,000 cars off the road for a whole year. In 30 years, we would be keeping 37,000 cars off the road annually thereafter. That’s big-time savings! These driving reductions occur as the TOD is planned, streets laid out, and housing, a market and parks are constructed. This would be followed by more housing and markets, restaurants, plazas and bike lanes, a coffee shop with blazing fast WiFi, a chocolate store, a craft brewery and so on over 30 years.

So in sum, if TOD at your Airport/Mountain View Station was well-done, but had only half as much land in housing and commerce as this TOD example, it would save only half as much driving and emissions, or 2.1 million tons of CO2 during the 30 year buildout, and thereafter 187,000 tons of CO2 annually. Or if only 300 acres of land around the station could be developed, of which 200 acres are residential, the CO2 emission totals would be reduced by 200/350, or 2.5 million tons of CO2 during the 30 year buildout, and thereafter 214,000 tons of CO2 annually. And if my Southlake Mall Station had 150 acres of residential, it could cut emissions by 150/350 of the full TOD example, or 1.8 million tons of CO2 during the 30 year buildout, and thereafter 160,000 tons of CO2 annually.

From: Nathaniel

To: Tanya

Wow! Thanks for that, and boy my head is spinning from all these numbers! But I do understand that most of these driving and emissions cuts would not all be from all travelers riding MARTA to work. Only 15 – 20% of our trips are commutes and TOD can shorten 80 – 85% of other trips enough to walk, cycle or take transit, or just have a shorter drive. Plus, it seems like TOD helps to create great, safe places to be and walk in. Also, TOD will definitely provide many local jobs since it encourages economic activity here in town. It certainly seems worthwhile to pursue this TOD!

California ZEV goals

I’d like to share the vivid concluding comments by California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols for item 14-8-5 at their meeting last week in Diamond Bar (Los Angeles), re-articulating California’s zero-emissions vehicle goals, and politely but specifically disagreeing with board member Dan Sperling’s promotion of a more gradual approach. It begins at about 6:05:50 on the video archive.

I fundamentally disagree with my colleague Dan Sperling about how we’re going to get to where we want to go. … I think we should be driven … by a desire to solve a problem, which is the unacceptable amount of air pollution and greenhouse emissions that are coming from our transportation sector.

… the ZEV mandate is fundamentally a simple goal, it is a vision of where we’re trying to get to … by 2030, 100% of the vehicles sold in California had better be essentially zero-emission vehicles, looked at on a life-cycle basis, and by the time we get to 2050 we’ve got to change the whole fleet. Now there’s things we can do to get more people to use transit, have bike-able walkable communities, …”

Above is a photo of their outside display of one of about every ZEV currently made – BEV and FCV automobiles, BEV and FCV buses, a BEV UPS delivery van, and two heavy truck cabs.

You can also see my testimony on this item at about 4:57:00.

Good news and bad news for Tesla fans

First, and most importantly if you are considering leasing one, really good news comes via Tuesday's Wall Street Journal (Oct. 28). Mike Ramsey writes that thanks to an agreement with U.S. Bank, lease rates will drop as much as 25%.

That's a considerable amount considering that the iconic car company's only car, the Model S, leases for $777 to $1,271 a month. You may still have to wait for a vehicle, though, as the model “is currently back-ordered until December, according to a company sales representative.” However, as one might expect, the plunging price of gas has not exactly provided a great incentive to spur sales.

A barrel of oil traded in the U.S. for about $81 on Monday, 23% less than at the end of June—leading the national average price of a gallon of gasoline to hover around $3 a gallon. Lower fuel prices weaken the business case for the sale of electric cars that don’t require gasoline or diesel for propulsion.

However, plunging gas prices can not entirely be blamed for the 26% drop-off in Tesla sales through September, compared with the same period last year.

“I would attribute the sales decline to the Model S being a niche product that has probably temporarily satiated demand, somewhat exacerbated by falling gas prices,” Haig Stoddard, a WardsAuto analyst, said.

I'm not particularly sure that Tesla buyers are all that tuned to gas prices, at least to the same level that say other EV car buyers would be. What do you think? Would love to hear from you if:

• You own a Tesla
• You are considering buying/leasing a Tesla - in that case - any thoughts on the reduced leasing costs?

[Full access to the Wall Street Journal article  for non-subscribers will work for seven days from Oct. 28]

National Drive Electric Week

Gina Coplon-Newfield, director of the Sierra Club's Future Fleet & Electric Vehicles Initiative, and Zan Dubin-Scott of Plug In America, reported on Huffington Post:

In 152 cities and 39 US states, more than 90,000 people attended events last week associated with the 2014 National Drive Electric Week. Getting people into plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) to experience the fun, quiet, and clean air benefits of EVs first-hand was part of the point. ...

Cupertino's celebration peaked when a judge with GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS® pronounced a new record for most all-electric vehicles in a parade: 507.

Inspiring Citadis tram video

The latter part of this video of the new Alstom Citadis X05 tram does a lot to illustrate the vision of livable communities inspiringly served by transit!

Also see these great photos of trams in French cities.

California's potential 2030 GHG target

This is excellent news from California's Governor Jerry Brown at the United Nations (Sacramento Bee):

Brown said California will meet its goal of reducing carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and within six months will set a new goal for 2030 “that will be more ambitious, that will require more technology and will also require heightened political will.”

I’d expect his starting point will be this chart and the discussion about updated climate science in ARB’s Scoping Plan Update last spring, which established the idea of this curved path from 2020 to 2050. At 5.2% per year that would be a 42% reduction from 2020 to 2030.