Most of the major presidential candidates have now put
forward aggressive Climate Change proposals (thanks Gov. Inslee and CNN!). I’ll leave it to others to assess the
relative merits of all these programs and the performance of the candidates on
CNN and other venues. However,
most of the coverage and commentaries I have seen give scant attention to the
transportation elements of these programs, which I will attempt to remedy,
beginning with Bernie Sanders.
Bernie has launched a really big and comprehensive program (available
here). I will leave aside the
revenue piece for the moment and summarize the spending and policy elements.
The overall goal is to “fully electrify and decarbonize our
transportation sector,” which I think is a clear and crisp goal statement.
Some of the specific program ideas (my comments in
parentheses):
·
Build a national electric vehicle charging
infrastructure with open access and interoperable stations. (I’m all for this. No details provided, although I think
you could do a lot for the $85.6 Billion proposed!)
·
Replace all transit buses and school buses with
electric models. (I agree. It’s time for this.)
·
Set up a vehicle trade-in program, as well as
direct grants for low-income people, to incentivize replacing old internal
combustion vehicles with US-made EVs.
(There are plenty of successful program models to build on.)
·
Replace all diesel trucks with “fast-charging
and long-range electric trucks.”
(Definitely needs to happen, but the technology to make it happen is not
yet reliable and scaleable.)
·
Build more public transportation, increase
ridership by 65%, promote transit oriented development. (Definitely doable and important, but
the devil is in the details.)
·
Build regional high-speed rail to complete the
Obama proposal. (Important and
expensive. The “regional”
qualification is key as it recognizes that it’s a big country and not all
intercity corridors are suitable for high-speed rail with existing and
reasonably predictable technology.)
There are other key transportation proposals included under
“Infrastructure”:
·
Increase funding for roads. (Yes, but I would add a qualifier that
the Highway Trust Fund can’t be used for highway expansion.)
·
Repair freight and passenger transportation networks
using TIGER grants. (Don’t know
how this is supposed to work. I’m
all for TIGER grants, but these are best used for targeted innovative projects,
not bread-and-butter rehab work.)
·
Retrofit public infrastructure – including roads
and bridges – to withstand climate impacts. (Absolutely.
But not sure whether we are talking about a new program here. The roads and bridges piece could be
handled through adjustments to FHWA programs.)
·
Adapt to sea-level rise by providing funding to
coastal communities. (Same comment
as above.)
