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.

 

Laura mulls climate distruption, acts

Healthy communities > Laura mulls climate disruption, acts

By John Holtzclaw

Laura had recently moved to the city, and was distressed at the carbon emissions she and her neighbors must be emitting. She knew they were adding to climate disruption and was curious about how and how much they could lower their emissions. She tried googling.

The more she dug, the more concerned she became about how much electricity and heating she used, and where it came from, how it was generated (but that’s another blog). She found that driving was a huge carbon emitter.

Complete Communities

She compared her electrical and gas use with her parents in a nearby suburb. She and her two roommates were using only ¼ as much. Why? They shared walls with neighbors on either side and above and below, exposing much less surface to the sun, winds and rain. And they didn’t need nearly as much space per person because they had nearby friends, parks and great places to gather, and a wealth of cafes, 500 restaurants within a mile, and entertainment. Nor did they need a garage, nor room for yard maintenance equipment. All this amounted to much less space to heat or cool. Or lawn to water.

Having less lawn, their digs used less fertilizer (made from natural gas). Their neighborhood convenience took less driving for pizza, and has far less roadway to build and maintain.

Laura loved her neighborhood’s great nearby markets, including a farmers market. And also the restored historic district, and music halls and museums. The views from the high rises make for favorite weekend visits. She chuckled to herself when she ditched her car at her parents house.

Her corner grocer, Mohammed, came from Iraq. She had never met a Muslim before. But he had a great sense of humor, and took responsibility for the nearby streets as well as his market, giving an extra sense of safety – Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street.” Knowing him in person liberated her from the 2-D stereotype cast by TV “news.”

She explored Hispanic, Asian and African markets. And the neighborhood had poor as well as some wealthy folk. She relishsed living in a real community, with a sense of shared interests and variety of opinions. A very rich mix.

Her favorite grandmother (not that Laura would play favorites) was planning to move into the city to avoid having to drive every trip, and liberating her from auto costs and the hazards of driving.

Public Transit

Speaking of choices of public transit for those longer trips (we weren’t but we will now), Laura could choose between buses and trolley (electric) buses, historic streetcars and modern light rail, as well as subways. With her girlfriend Gupta’s help, she quickly discovered that each filled a niche, and made her life easier.

She also learned from googling that moving passengers from cars and planes to rail, especially high speed rail, and moving freight from trucks to rail saved energy and emissions, and electrifying the rail greatly reduced them even farther.

Complete Streets

She did notice that the city was tearing up pavement on many major streets and widening the sidewalks, and extending them across parking lanes at corners. And putting bike lanes next to the sidewalks, protected from traffic by a row of parked cars. Her friend Kai Tsai called it complete streets. It really seemed to calm traffic. Even her wussiest roommate tried biking to work. Perhaps even her grandmother would give cycling a try.

The other side of this coin is to avoid building roads that require so much driving and induce additional traffic. Build or widen a freeway and you make farther destinations more attractive, inducing changes in trip destinations and home moves requiring longer commutes. This induced traffic increases climate disruption and other pollution emissions, fuel use and costs, and road wear and maintenance costs.

Bikeshare, Carshare

Rodrigo told her about a new game in town, or actually about to be unveiled – bikeshare. It was the latest rage; every city wanted one to prove they were a 21st Century city. Bikes would be clustered in convenient stations near transit, markets, employment and residential centers, museums. You could then take one using your membership card and leave it at this or any other bikeshare station. Membership would be $100/year or less and the first half or three quarter hour on the bike would be free, with modest charges above that. Membership cards quickly become status symbols! And all these walking and cycling improvements really reduced traffic, parking requirements and the city’s maintenance costs.

Laura knew the city already had carshare, which worked similarly to bikeshare, but for cars. You joined and had your choice of minicars, sedans, sports cars and pickups. It induced many members to ditch owning a car since they had one when needed. Having to pay for the time you have the car proves an incentive to walk, cycle or transit rather than driving.

Retrofitting Suburbs

Laura thought about why suburbs like the one she grew up in required driving for every loaf of bread, and puzzled about how to repair them. She googled and found that sprawl was not accidental, but driven by federal policy. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover promoted model zoning laws that included large-setback single-family housing, off-street parking and wide streets, while prohibiting markets and some sidewalks. Federally funded freeway construction bulldozed central city housing and commerce, destroying and dividing neighborhoods, bringing in hazardous traffic, noise, and pollution, and connecting central city jobs to sprawl development on cheap farmland and natural areas, while loading infrastructure costs onto the rest of the community. That explained why almost everything you wanted to get to required driving. And it is very expensive to provide public transit where the trip lengths are so long and passengers so few, and the public reluctant to fund “empty buses.”

What could be done to reduce the necessity to drive so far, and reduce traffic and road maintenance costs? Suburban communities could reform their zoning to allow in-law units and reduce parking requirements, and to allow cafes, restaurants, local markets, multifamily housing and parks and plazas in strategic locations in the residential areas. They could widen sidewalks and add bike lanes throughout the city. Suburban office parks could be modernized by infilling housing above commerce on those huge parking lots.

Teaser

Well, you’ve read Laura’s story thru to here, and hopefully followed up on some of the links. Our focus is on making cities livable, convenient, enjoyable, vibrant, resilient, efficient and non-polluting. This blog was written from the perspective of no particular city. But we intend to update this every few months, with each focused on a particular U.S. city, by a lover of that city. We plan to cover these same five broad topics in each blog, and digest the materials covered by the links into a separate blog, like the one linked to in bikeshare. Giving us timely one-stop-shopping for improving our city while reducing our environmental footprint. While immersing us in the life of cities like L.A., New Orleans, D.C. and many more.

Quality of place - vibrant and verdant!

Healthy communities > Quality of place

New housing with neighborhood character, in walking distance to transit (South Pasadena)

Walk to neighborhood restaurants and movies (Pasadena)

Streets for people (CycLAvia, Los Angeles)

Streets for people (San Francisco)

Inviting places for people (Santa Monica)

U.S. light rail

Healthy communities > U.S. light rail

Seattle

Portland

Sacramento

Los Angeles

San Diego

Denver

Houston

French trams

Healthy communities > French trams

Angers

Many French cities have built new electric tram lines in the last decade or two. Not only do they provide convenient zero-emissions mobility, they have added wonderful artistic flair to the urban design of both historic and modern areas. Here are four of my favorite examples. Also see Trams in France, Wikipedia, and Oil Free Transportation.

Bordeaux

Montpellier

Strasbourg

Sources: Special thanks to Flickr Creative Commons users Alain Rouiller 1 and 2, David McKelvey 3, Ian Fisher 4 and 5, James-In-Transit 6, rosipaw 7, and Kris Duda 8!

Transit case studies

Healthy communities > Transit case studies

Expo Line light rail approvals – 2001 and 2010

• Opportunity for light rail from downtown Los Angeles west to Santa Monica along existing railroad right-of-way
• Opposition by NIMBYs and rail transit opponents
• Formed volunteer group Friends 4 Expo Transit, including SC Angeles Chapter
• Presented opportunity and need for light rail’s speed, comport, and capacity in this high-density corridor to many neighborhood groups
• Gathered endorsements and signatures and mobilized supporters via email and website to public meetings
• Achieved support of city councils and MTA board approval
• Created constituency for larger transit network that led to Move LA

Measure R, Los Angeles County 2008 1/2-cent sales tax – Move LA coalition

• Organized conference on how to fund L.A.’s transit network
• Built coalition of labor, business, environmentalists, transit agency, and elected officials to create and support county sales tax ballot measure
• Achieved passage over necessary 2/3 majority
• Continuing as leading voice for transit funding (America Fast Forward) and smart growth planning (MPO SCAG’s Regional Plan)

When we urgently saved oil

The U.S. showed how we could save oil in a national emergency during World War II. Here are five propaganda posters promoting saving oil – especially by car-pooling – to complement gasoline’s ration coupons (sixth image). Yes, that is an early Dr. Seuss drawing!

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Climate facts

Oil poisons our air, water, land ...

and climate.

Heat-trapping CO2, the largest driver of global warming, has doubled from human fossil fuel use to levels not seen in over 400,000 years. Impacts already experienced include:

• Heating the atmosphere and ocean (over 90% of excess heat is going into the ocean);
• Melting sea ice, ice sheets, and glaciers;
• Rising sea level;
• Extreme weather including more powerful storms, drought, record heat, and wildfires.

Sources: IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers, page 4; NOAA Vostok ice core and Mauna Loa data; NASA photo.

Over 90% of excess heat is going into the ocean.

Sources: NOAA NODC data; NOAA-NASA GOES Project photo of Hurricane Sandy 10/29/12.

Summer Arctic sea ice volume has dropped by over 2/3 since 1979.

Sources: Polar Science Center data; U.S. FWS photo.


The CO2 emissions path the world is on (red line) is heading far beyond the critical 2 degrees C rise (blue line) and must peak and begin falling soon.

U.S. (15% of world in 2012) and European CO2 emissions are falling slightly, but Chinese (29%), Indian (6%), and other emissions are still rising rapidly. Although second now, the U.S. has the greatest cumulative and per-capita emissions.

Sources: Global Carbon Project 2013, figures 21 and 12.

Transportation is the second-highest U.S. emissions sector, and largest in states like California with less coal-fired electricity.

Source: U.S. EPA data.

Climate Disruption resources

• IPCC
• NASA Global Climate Change
• California Climate Change Just the Facts
• Skeptical Science
• Climate Progress

Oil facts

Fighting the Keystone XL pipeline has been a vital battle against the dirtiest source of oil, but to win the war we must cut demand for oil. Here's how.

World oil production has been relatively flat since 2005. Although the U.S. has been using less and producing more oil, with China and India importing more plus the rest of the world's demand and big old fields depleting there's reason to expect prices continue higher. (mbpd = million barrels per day)

Source: U.S. EIA production, imports, and world production and consumption data.

About half of U.S. oil is used for gasoline, another quarter for distillate (mostly diesel for trucks), and a smaller slice for jet fuel. That's why our focus is on cars and trucks.

Source: U.S. EPA data.

Ethanol from corn takes about as much fossil fuel energy to produce as it yields in energy – not to mention its use of water and fertilizer and land impacts – so it is no solution to oil use, and the reason I've deducted ethanol from motor gasoline in the chart above. Cellulosic ethanol from woody plants has been a hoped-for next step, but has not reached production scale. Future biofuels from algae are a possibility, but will have highest priority for applications like jet fuel.

Nationally over 3/4 of Americans drive alone to work, but some cities did much better. We seek more Healthy Communities where more can bike, walk, and ride transit, but with so much of the U.S. in auto-oriented suburbia, Electric Vehicles are a crucial second lever to reduce oil use.

Source: U.S. Census American Community Survey.


Here is a scenario of how the U.S. could cut oil use in half from 2005-2030. Its baseline already includes savings from the new federal MPG standards for cars and light trucks through 2025. In short, we drive less, drive electric, and/or drive highest MPG.

Source: U.S. EIA actual and Annual Energy Outlook data; Excel model.

Some other oil-saving scenarios:

• Union of Concerned Scientists – Half the Oil: A Plan to Cut Projected U.S. Oil Use in Half in 20 Years
• Rocky Mountain Institute – Reinventing Fire
• Transport Revolutions – Moving People and Freight Without Oil, Gilbert and Perl
• Transport Beyond Oil, Rene and Fields

We're up against huge economic and political power....

But we have the truth about climate and the momentum!