Environment – Page 3 – ACCESS Magazine

Introduction

Elizabeth Deakin

Transportation planners and engineers often focus on specific areas of expertise, such as particular modes of transport, or air quality effects of transportation. Increasingly, however, Californians are reminded that such focused specializations, while valuable, are insufficient by themselves. Current efforts to meet stringent greenhouse gas reduction targets while accommodating growth and counteracting economic downturn show just how complex and interconnected urban development issues are. The emerging paradigm is one that integrates transportation planning into a broader metropolitan development strategy.

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2017-05-19T22:57:42+00:00Categories: ACCESS 33, Fall 2008|Tags: Design‚ Development‚ and Housing, Environment, Regional & International Development, Transportation Policy & Planning|

Planning Water Use In California

William Eisenstein and G. Mathias Kondolf

As California's population grows, so will its demand for a full range of infrastructure and services. An efficient transportation system, for example, is crucial for the state’s economy and people. So is a system for storing water and moving it to where it’s needed. Water is a perennial problem in California, but it is not the problem most people think it is. Viewed strictly as a matter of quantity, California does not have a water shortage, nor will it anytime soon. The state’s water is plentiful, but it is inconvenient for human use; distributed unevenly across time and space, it is rarely where we want it when we want it. About three quarters of the potential water supply in the state of California originates north of the city of Sacramento, while about three quarters of the demand is south of the city. During flood times, the state’s most pressing water problem is getting rid of it, while in dry times the problem lies in storing and moving it.

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2018-02-07T23:33:43+00:00Categories: ACCESS 33, Fall 2008|Tags: Environment|

California Futures: Accommodating Growth In an Era of Climate Change and Rising Fuel Prices

Elizabeth Deakin

Sometime between 2025 and 2030, California's population will reach 50 million. During this same period, the state (and indeed the entire world) must find effective ways to substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in hopes of slowing and reversing climate change. California has committed to such reductions in SB 32 and Executive Order S-3-05; the state has pledged to reduce GHG to 2000 levels by 2010 (11 percent below business-as-usual), to 1990 levels by 2020 (25 percent below business-as-usual), and to eighty percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

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2017-05-30T21:58:31+00:00Categories: ACCESS 32, Spring 2008|Tags: Environment|

Urgent Action Required

Melanie Curry

At a recent conference in Berkeley sponsored by the University of California Transportation Center, On the Road to Sustainability: From Research to Practice, researcher after researcher discussed the climate implications of a wide range of transportation issues. Participants heard how better coordination of systems for dealing with empty freight containers could reduce the numbers of truck trips; what effects, if any, various finance and land use policies have on the amount of driving people do; what new fuels are in the works and whether they hold potential for greenhouse gas reductions; how much aggregate— rock—is needed to complete California highway projects (a lot) and how much of it must be transported from overseas quarries. . . .

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2017-05-30T22:01:37+00:00Categories: ACCESS 31, Fall 2007|Tags: Environment, Freight & Commercial Transportation|

If Cars Were More Efficient, Would We Use Less Fuel?

Kenneth A. Small and Kurt Van Dender

Reducing US gasoline consumption might seem a straightforward task: just increase vehicle fuel efficiency, also known as miles per gallon (MPG). That, of course, is the principle behind the existing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. But it’s not that simple. If MPG improves, the cost to drive a mile declines, so people drive more. Some critics have even argued that this “rebound” effect is so large that not much gasoline is saved, and other problems such as congestion are exacerbated. Is this right?

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2017-05-30T22:02:01+00:00Categories: ACCESS 31, Fall 2007|Tags: Environment|

Introduction: We’re All Transportation Planners

Melanie Curry

For eighteen years, the University of California Transportation Center, with help from USDOT and Caltrans, has conducted and shared research on compelling transportation issues. During those years, the issues have grown in complexity right along with growth in population and sizes of cities.

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2017-05-30T22:17:48+00:00Categories: ACCESS 29, Fall 2006|Tags: Congestion, Environment, Travel Behavior|

Asilomar Declaration on Climate Policy

Daniel Sperling

Climate change is creeping into the public consciousness. Arcane scientific debates are front page news. Best-selling authors and Hollywood movies feature climate change. Presidents and Prime Ministers are becoming conversant in climate change science and policy. It is time for the transport sector to become part of the solution. Opportunities to reduce climate impacts abound in transportation, with broad economic, environmental, and social benefits. We need new partnerships among industry, political leaders, and the public, and a new culture of innovation that builds synergies across technological and behavioral initiatives.

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2017-05-30T22:18:07+00:00Categories: ACCESS 29, Fall 2006|Tags: Environment|

Down to the Meter: Localized Vehicle Pollution

Douglas Houston, Jun Wu, Paul Ong, and Arthur Winer

Air pollution control programs have helped improve many aspects of regional air quality over the past thirty years despite tremendous growth in both population and vehicle-miles traveled. However, regional strategies to confront vehicle-related pollution are proving to be insufficient to protect the health of those who live, work, attend school, or play near major roadways. Recent air pollution and epidemiological findings suggest that harmful vehicle-related pollutants and their associated adverse health effects concentrate within a couple hundred meters of heavily traveled freeways and thoroughfares. We’re just beginning to understand the health and economic costs of such localized effects, and we still know little about who is exposed to these pollutants.

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2017-05-30T22:18:19+00:00Categories: ACCESS 29, Fall 2006|Tags: Environment, Equity in Transportation|

The Transition To Hydrogen

Joan Ogden

Of all alternatives to gasoline fuels, hydrogen offers the greatest long-term potential to radically reduce many problems inherent in transportation fuel use. For example, hydrogen could enhance energy security and reduce dependence on imported oil, since it can be made from various primary energy sources, including natural gas, coal, biomass, and wastes, and from solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and nuclear energy. Also, hydrogen vehicles have zero tailpipe emissions and are very efficient. If it is made from renewable sources, nuclear power, or fossil sources with carbon emissions captured and sequestered, hydrogen use on a global scale could produce nearly zero greenhouse gas emissions and greatly reduce emissions of air pollutants.

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2017-05-30T22:28:44+00:00Categories: ACCESS 27, Fall 2005|Tags: Environment, Technology & Innovation|

Hydrogen Highways

Timothy Lipman

The state of California has for many years been at the vanguard of environmental and energy policies, creating strict standards that have afterwards been adopted by other states. Today is no different. Despite a severe budget crunch, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has recommitted the state to a variety of clean energy goals, including deregulation and liberalization of electricity markets, increased energy efficiency in new and retrofit state buildings, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The state has also outlined a major solar-power initiative and a Renewable Portfolio Standard that sets goals for producing electricity from renewable sources. And in pursuit of the elusive zero-emission vehicle — the ZEV — the governor has called for California to take a leading role in advancing the commercialization of hydrogen-powered vehicles with the “California Hydrogen Highway Network.”

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2017-05-30T22:28:54+00:00Categories: ACCESS 27, Fall 2005|Tags: Environment, Technology & Innovation|