Posted by: t2chan | February 24, 2010

ITS Seminar – GHG Reduction Potential for 50 States

ITS UC Davis hosted a seminar/webinar titled “Greenhouse Gas emissions reduction potential and associated costs from transportation and land use strategies for 50 states”.  The speaker for this seminar was Dr. Lewison Lem of Jack Faucett Associates presenting preliminary results of an ongoing “50 states study”.  You can access the taped webinar at http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/events/seminarseries/winter10/ and highlights of the presentation are summarized below.    

“50 States Study”

Jack Faucett Associates and the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS) (www.climatestrategies.us) are completing 50 states worth of data and policy work on transportation sector ghg mitigation reduction potential, costs, and economic impacts.  Currently, there are many states with completed climate action plans or plans underway.  Part of the goal of this 50 states data is to answer the question of, “What would the impact be if all 50 states implemented climate action plans?”

CCS used results from 16 state planning processes to project ghg reduction potential and costs or savings to obtain 50 states worth of data.  Under the category of Transportation and Land Use, CCS looked at six policies and analyzed their potential impacts.  Much of the analysis was conducted using the US Department of Energy’s VISION tool.  These results came from 16 states worth of data on climate action plans.  The remaining 34 states were extrapolated using a “middle of the road” type plan of the existing 16. 

Transit Leverage Research

Dr. Lem also presented on a transit leverage literature review conducted for the state of New Jersey climate action plan (appendix located at http://www.nj.gov/dep/oce/gwr.htm).  The analysis of the potential for VMT reduction relies upon a well-established body of research and policy analysis that incorporates the concept of ‘transit leverage’. Statistical studies have shown a more energy-efficient use of the transportation system that is not fully accounted for simply by ‘mode shift’ from private automobiles to bus and rail transit. There has been increasing understanding that transit networks also allow for more trip chaining, shorter driving trips, and more walking trips.

The research shows an overall consensus on the general range of the transit leverage effect, namely somewhere between 2 and 7 times for North American urban areas. This means that for every mile reduction in VMT due to increased transit options and mode shift, between 2 and 7 additional miles are reduced due to indirect or secondary effects. 

The appendices also provide the following general methodology for quantifying and allocating the indirect effects of transit on VMT:

  • An urban growth boundary can provide an impact roughly equal to the direct transit effect (i.e., it has a leverage of 1.0 “units” or 1.0 times the direct effect).
  • A low level of travel demand management (TDM) programs can produce an effect roughly half as large as direct transit investment or 0.5x the direct effect.
  • A high level of TDM programs can produce an additional 1.0 unit effect, for a total potential of 1.5x the direct effect from TDM programs.
  • A program of significant auto use pricing (some combination of fuel taxes, tolls and other facility charges, parking charges, etc) can have an effect equal to the overall TDM effect.
  • Congestion reduction associated with transit has an estimated effect that is 0.2x the direct transit effect.
  • The remaining indirect effects may be considered to be mainly related to land use, including overall residential and job density, as well as transit-oriented development and other aspects of ’smart growth’.

 

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Lewison Lem is climate change practice leader for Jack Faucett Associates. He has extensive experience in the areas of policy analysis at the intersection of transportation, energy, and the environment. Dr. Lem was formerly a senior tansportation policy analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, and the transportation policy manager of AAA of Northern California, Nevada, and Utah. Dr. Lem has assisted more than 30 states with consensus-building, policy development, and technical analysis for state energy and climate plans. Dr. Lem has managed economic and environmental studies for a wide range of public, private, and philanthropic organizations, including the United States Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Energy Foundation. He has been a visiting scholar and guest lecturer at several universities, including the University of California – Berkeley, Portland State University, the University of Hawaii, and Florida State University. Dr. Lem has a Bachelor of Arts in government studies from Harvard University, a Master of Public Administration degree from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in urban planning from the University of California – Los Angeles.

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Posted in Greenhouse gases, Sustainability, VMT

Posted by: Fehr & Peers | February 10, 2010

Fehr & Peers Project Announcement – California Statewide Sustainability Planning Tools

Fehr & Peers is currently developing tools that will enable planners and engineers throughout California to plan for sustainable growth. The tools will help the state’s Metropolitan Planning Organizations perform integrated transportation and land use planning studies and to prepare their Regional Transportation Plans and Sustainable Communities Strategies as required under California’s landmark climate change laws AB 32 and SB 375. A closely related effort will support environmental impact assessments for smart growth development projects in California, possibly setting a precedent for similar approaches nationally.

The work is sponsored by Caltrans, and involves the University of California at Davis and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), as well as Fehr & Peers. The studies draw upon Fehr & Peers’ experience with the US Environmental Protection Agency developing 4D models for regional blueprint planning and MXD methods for reliable quantification of travel generation impacts of mixed-use development and other forms of smart growth. The resulting tools will improve community and regional planning by cities, counties and regional planning agencies, as well as traffic impact studies of development projects. They will create better approaches to:

  • Land use/ transportation planning, by enhancing the responsiveness of interactive visioning tools such as iPLACES and UPLAN to development density, diversity, design and other “D” factors
  • Travel forecasting, through similar “D” refinements to output from travel demand models
  • Development impact analysis, including CEQA documents, through “D” adjustments to methods used for estimating project traffic generation

Fehr & Peers role includes literature review, research, and development of mathematical models, pilot tests and implementation of vision tools and forecasting models in eight representative regions throughout the state, as well as development of user-friendly impact analysis tools for traffic engineers and environmental planners to inform infrastructure decisions and to address climate and energy sustainability.

08AugRiverplace 

08AugSANDAG

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Posted by: Fehr & Peers | January 19, 2010

Fehr & Peers Project Announcement: Vision California

High Speed Rail Shapes the Golden State


“..work has begun that could lead to something California has never had – an explicit government vision for how and where the state should grow”  (State Exploring Growth Strategy”, John King, SF Chronicle Nov 8, 2009) 

“Vision California” is an unprecedented statewide effort to explore the critical role of land use and transportation investments such as High Speed Rail in meeting the environmental and fiscal challenges facing the Golden State over the coming decades. The study, funded by the California High Speed Rail Authority and the state’s Strategic Growth Council, will examine alternative land use and transportation scenarios through which California can accommodate expected growth and create a more sustainable future.

Fehr & Peers is providing the transportation expertise on the Vision California team, a team that is lead by Calthorpe Associates, and that also includes experts in land use, natural resources, energy and public health. The work is a natural extension of Fehr & Peers’ work for the US Environmental Protection Agency on 4D and MXD modeling tools and our role helping define the process for addressing California’s AB32 and SB375 climate laws as participants in California State Air Resources Board Regional Targets Advisory Committee. 

Meeting the targets established by AB32 and SB375 will require a new direction in how the state invests in and develops its communities, transportation systems, and critical infrastructure.  Vision California will develop and apply tools that illustrate and comprehensively measure the role of land use and High Speed Rail and SB 375-mandated regional “Sustainable Communities Strategies” in meeting AB 32 greenhouse gas targets.

“We need better tools. Different patterns of growth can have a huge impact on how the state uses its resources.” (Mehdi Morshed, Executive Director, California High Speed Rail Authority)

The study will include statewide scenario development and modeling coordinated with the Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in each of the regions served by High Speed Rail. The regions will be described though a detailed mapping of “place types” at a 5-acre scale.  Each region will be defined in terms of three alternative visions for future land use and transportation:  officially adopted plans, sustainable plans devised under the regions’ “blueprint” visioning processes, and further-refined plans developed by the study team to integrate High Speed Rail and the policies favored under the state’s Sustainable Communities Strategies.

Fehr & Peers will develop the system through which the scenarios will be evaluated and compared with respect to their effects on transportation infrastructure and the environment. The evaluation will account for place-type’s unique density, location, urban design, transportation network, and demographic context. It will also consider the effects of travel demand management and transportation systems management “best management practices” as defined in the SB 375 target setting process.  The evaluation will provide clear evidence for state, regional and local decision-makers on the effects of the statewide planning visions on California’s future vehicle miles traveled, energy consumption and greenhouse emissions, transit mode shares, walking and bicycling and public heath, cost and fiscal impacts.

“When you’re building infrastructure, you have to take into account the different statewide goals. We haven’t done scenario planning at a statewide level, and it’s something we need.”  (Cynthia Bryant, California’s Cabinet-level Strategic Growth Council)
 
HSR

 

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Posted in Greenhouse gases, Sustainability, VMT

Posted by: Fehr & Peers | December 14, 2009

Growing Cooler – Key Differences & Misconceptions, Part 3 of 3

By Jerry Walters

This is the third in a series of reviews of recent studies on transportation, land use and climate change.  The first two reviews addressed:

Each review compared the study findings with those of Growing Cooler – The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, a 2008 ULI book co-authored by Fehr & Peers.

This third installment reviews:

This report states in its summary and conclusions that Neo-Traditional Developments (NTD) generate more trips than typical suburban development. 

It is a very ambitious study that involved identifying 17 cases of paired neighborhoods, each within the same community, and comparing the neighborhood designs and travel behavior between members of each pair. The 17 communities included Carlsbad and Chula Vista in CA, Clackamas OR, and Colorado Springs, Longmont and Fort Collins CO as well as cities in Texas, Illinois and eight in the southeastern US.  Within each city, they measured and compared the two neighborhoods in terms of design (including the 5D’s of density, mix, urban design, infill vs greenfield, transit vs no transit) and they surveyed residents on their daily trip making.  To quote their stated findings:

“We found that residents of NTDs neighborhoods make more trips, more car trips, more non-motorized trips, and more trips internal to their neighborhood than residents of typical suburban neighborhoods. We found no difference in vehicle mileage, and thereby conclude that trips taken by NTD residents tend to be shorter in length than trips taken by their suburban counterparts. Furthermore, we did not find a statistical difference between neighborhood type residents in the frequency of external trips. This suggests that the difference in overall trips detected is the result of greater internal trip capture by the NTDs”.

However, careful read of the report indicates a very mixed message at best.  Among my observations:

  • In most of the pairs there is very little difference between the two neighborhoods.  In some cases the use mix was better in the “suburban” neighborhood than the NTD, in others aspect of the suburban street connectivity were better than the NTD, and in others the differences even in density were too close to matter.  By my assessment, only four of the neighborhoods were significantly different from their mates, eight were only moderately different from their mates, and in five cases the differences were negligible. 
  • By their nature, both members of each pair have the same transit service and both members of each pair were either greenfield or infill locations.  So the distinctions with respect to two of the primary determinants of trip reduction were nil.
  • In the 17 total, only four of the pairs were infill and only nine had transit service.
  • All of the neighborhoods, both NTD and suburban, were entirely single family residences.  On average across all of the neighborhoods, about 20% to 25% of the residents are retired. This may suggest that some of the pairs, especially in the Southeast, cater to retirees and are less representative of the full-spectrum developments we usually study.
  • In spite of heroic efforts to survey household trip making, the study reports the reliability of its trip-making estimates at only 51%.

Finally, in spite of the bold statement in the report’s summary, Table 11 which contains a comparison of average trip making for the group of NTD versus suburban indicates that the survey means for NTD exhibit about:

  • 12% lower VMT than suburban
  • 5% lower vehicle trips than suburban
  • 20% higher internal trips than suburban
  • 120% higher non-motorized travel than suburban

They did construct models from their data and attempted to parse the differences to a more specific set of individual paired comparisons that may have lead them to their summary conclusions, but bear in mind that their travel survey was only 51% reliable, and only 4 of their 17 individual pairs had notable differences from one another with respect to density, diversity or design, and none had differences with respect to destination accessibility or transit.  It seems questionable that one would want to parse such data too finely. 

While not directly comparable to this study, others (including some of our own research) are finding that those who reside in remote locations tend to combine their trips more than those closer-in with all of their destinations nearby.  Trip chaining can result in lower vehicle trip generation for remote development, although household VMT is still considerably higher than for infill, mixed and transit-oriented development.

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Posted in Greenhouse gases, VMT

Posted by: Fehr & Peers | November 30, 2009

Growing Cooler – Key Differences & Misconceptions, Part 2 of 3

By Jerry Walters

Several new reports on the subject of transportation, land use and climate interactions, reach findings related to and/or directly refer to the findings of Growing Cooler- The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, a 2008 ULI book co-authored by Fehr & Peers. This second of three posts will clarify the misconceptions and key differences between Growing Cooler and the most prominent of these studies:

Driving and the Built Environment

This National Research Council (NRC) report finds lower VMT reduction resulting from land use strategies than did Growing Cooler and than were adopted into Moving Cooler. It estimates that the potential reductions in inter-urban passenger travel resulting from land use shifts and complementary transportation would be in the range of no greater than 8 to 11 percent by 2050, while Growing Cooler estimates the likely range to be between 12 and 18 percent.

The authors of Growing Cooler believe that the lower NRC estimate is the result of several questionable assumptions:

· The NRC study does not take into consideration the effects of more compact future commercial development and redevelopment, it only examines density increases related to residential growth,

· NRC assumes very, very slow redevelopment of residential properties, equivalent to about 500-year life-cycle for housing stock, compared to 170-year life-cycle projections that informed other studies such as Growing Cooler,

· The NRC analysis considered the effects of development density on VMT reductions but not the additional 4D effects of diversity (mixed use), design (walkability and connectively), destination accessibility (infill vs. spread sites), and development distance to core transit,

· The NRC study does not consider the synergistic effects that infill and mixed-use development has on its neighboring land uses, which can occur if it fills needs for complementary land use types. This may result from adding services and entertainment to homogeneous residential areas, or adding housing near pre-existing jobs or retail, or adding a more connected and amenable pedestrian environment to what may have previously been a gray-field or brownfield. It may also result from creating critical mass that generates additional transit investment in the area,

· Also, by working with national averages, the NRC study uses very broad averages of development form, unlikely to register on the benefits derived at a neighborhood or community scale. As reported the study works with average existing residential densities of only 1.7 to 2.9 dwelling units per acre, and then assumes that new development will only occur at densities of 1 DU per acre. As a result, their estimates of VMT reductions have little in common with the types of reductions likely to correspond with the local effects of compact, mixed use development on the vast amount of travel that takes place within neighborhoods and within communities.

In conclusion, the Growing Cooler authors believe that their own estimates represent a fully achievable estimate of VMT and GHG reduction.

______________________________________________________________________________

Coming up next…

- I will review UNC’s Travel Behavior, Residential Preference, and Urban Design: A Multi-Disciplinary National Analysis, which states: “We found that residents of neo-traditional developments make more car trips … than residents of typical suburban neighborhoods… We found no difference in vehicle mileage.”

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