More on Wisconsin

Another page in the Wisconsin I-94 widening story…..my op-ed piece in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel here.

My previous posting, with map, links to my full report, etc. is here.

I’m sure there is a lot more to follow!

On Wisconsin…..to a better alternative to freeway widening!

Congrats to Bruce Speight, WISPIRG, and the Coalition for More Responsible Transportation for going nose to nose with Wisconsin DOT over the agency’s proposed widening of I-94 in Milwaukee.  It’s a bad project, out of touch with the times and the place, and deserves to be replaced by something better.

My role has been to offer a real alternative for the something better: “The Rehab/Transit Option: A Better Solution for Milwaukee’s East-West Corridor.”  The Coalition formally launched the option at a City Hall press conference today (links to the press release, the full report, and a map of the transit plan all available on WISPIRG’s website here).
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story, with video, slide show, and link to paper here.

The two pieces of the proposal are pretty straightforward.  The Rehab part would replace WisDOT’s unnecessary widening with a rehabilitation project.  The Draft Environmental Impact Statement actually concedes that most of the infrastructure, safety, and operational issues on the highway can be addressed through a rehab option.  The Transit piece proposes a new, high-quality, rapid transit system in the corridor that would provide long-term, sustainable mobility, much more in keeping with the needs of a 21^st-century city.  At this stage of the game, the transit plan is very much conceptual, with detailed planning and engineering stages needed.  But hopefully the concept plan will show Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin citizens how major origins and destinations can be better linked by a modern transit system than by an 8-lane (in some places 10-lane) urban freeway!

A Streetcar Named Despair

Alas, those of us who struggle to reignite a sense of purpose and optimism in this country, and especially those of us in the transportation field, took another hit recently with the announcement of the end of the Columbia Pike Streetcar project in Arlington, VA (story here).  County leaders took stock after the re-election of an anti-streetcar member of the county board (his initial election to the board in a special election was considered a fluke – my story here) and threw in the towel.

This was a real setback for smart growth advocates.  Arlington is the poster child for transit-oriented development – at least in the Northeast – and Columbia Pike looked to be an ideal setting for a streetcar that would promote transit, leverage sustainable economic development, and enhance the region’s investment in the Metro system (to which the streetcar would link).

No doubt the streetcar project had issues, being big and complex, and expensive, and perhaps just too heavy a lift for a small jurisdiction (227,000 people).  And when it comes to funding projects like this, the federal government is nowhere to be found, doling out money to only a handful of projects around the country.  At this rate, it will take us a century or more to build the projects that we ought to put in the ground in one generation.

My congressman was a rocket scientist

Bad news: Rush Holt, New Jersey congressman and scientist, is wrapping up his Capitol Hill career.

Good news: Rush will be the new CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science! (story here)

Now that the Flat Earth Society has a working majority in both houses of Congress, we can only hope that Rush Holt will be able to use his new platform to argue persuasively for science, reason, creativity, and optimism.   This is clearly his platform – including seeing the need for imaginative new thinking in transportation! (see some nice quotes in the linked story)

We continue in this country to spend far too much money on 20^th century solutions to 20^th century problems and very little on developing and implementing 21^st century solutions to 21^st century problems.  Let’s hope Rush can give us a boost!

FYI, Rush Holt (who is not now, but has been my congressman) is really a plasma physics guy, not a spaceflight guy, but “My congressman is a rocket scientist” has to be one of the best political bumper stickers of all time!

Latest climate change report: Situation normal, awfuller and awfuller

The latest climate change report from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scientists is out and has the usual grim warnings.  I read with interest the “summary for policymakers” of the final report.  Unfortunately, it’s a difficult summary (22 pages of dense text and 18 pages of complicated tables and charts) and probably not much use to policymakers.  All the pieces of the 2014 status report can be found here, including a set of “headline statements,” which are a bit easier to follow.

The important takeaways (from my point of view):

·      Yes, things are continuing to get worse.

·      The good news, mitigation works: “Substantial emissions reductions over the next few decades can reduce climate risks in the 21st century and beyond, increase prospects for effective adaptation, reduce the costs and challenges of mitigation in the longer term, and contribute to climate-resilient pathways for sustainable development.”

·      The bad news, it’s still going to get worse: “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.”

·      The bad stuff that can happen?  “In urban areas, climate change is projected to increase risks for people, assets, economies and ecosystems, including risks from heat stress, storms and extreme precipitation, inland and coastal flooding, landslides, air pollution, drought, water scarcity, sea-level rise, and storm surges.”  (Yowsers!)

·      How urgent is mitigation?  “Delaying additional mitigation to 2030 will substantially increase the challenges associated with limiting warming over the 21st century.”  (How is that looking after Tuesday’s election results?)

Although the document doesn’t offer much for policymakers (I don’t think that was their mandate), it does suggest some guideposts for further policy work.  For instance, they note that mitigation strategies and adaptation strategies can often yield “co-benefits.”  Examples: “(i) improved energy efficiency and cleaner energy sources, leading to reduced emissions of health-damaging climate-altering air pollutants; (ii) reduced energy and water consumption in urban areas through greening cities and recycling water; (iii) sustainable agriculture and forestry; and (iv) protection of ecosystems for carbon storage and other ecosystem services.”  There are also, however, tradeoffs that may need to be made.

There is no attention paid to transportation, other than the barest mention that very large investments in “low carbon electricity supply and energy efficiency” in transportation and other sectors will be vital to any mitigation strategy.  (This fits with my view that electrifying the transportation system is job number one.)

Unfortunately, the chances for an educated public policy debate on climate change in this country are bleak and have become bleaker.  Nevertheless, there is a lot of urgent work to be done, and the latest IPCC report documents both the gravity of the problem and the size of the gap we in the transportation policy world need to close between the facts of climate change and workable, real-world policies and programs.

Taming King of Prussia

King of Prussia – if you don’t know it – is one of those regional supermall/supersprawl sites, in this case 18 miles from center city Philadelphia.   The good news is that small initial steps are being taken to tame the sprawl and make this mess of an area a bit more transit-accessible, walkable, and mixed-use.

A recent panel discussion in Philadelphia (“Crowning the New King of Prussia”) provided an update on key happenings (press story here):

·      A Draft EIS is moving forward for an extension of the Norristown High-Speed Line rapid transit service to King of Prussia,

·      The local municipality, Upper Merion Township, has rezoned a core area for mixed-used development, with real prospects for new residential development (currently the vast majority of the 50,000 people who work in the area commute by car from neighboring towns), and

·      The local business improvement district has committed to ameliorating the “everything looks like a highway” appearance of the place with some landscaping, road diets, and programmed open spaces.

Unfortunately the transit line – if all goes well! – won’t be in revenue service for another 9 years.  SEPTA, the transit agency, now has a good supply of state money from the recent revenue package, but still needs to compete for very scarce federal New Starts money.  We as a nation just plain spend far too little on new transit.  Even when money is available, it takes an excruciatingly long time to plan, design, and build projects, even when they provide enormous environmental and economic benefits.

The panel discussion included direct comparisons with the Tysons redevelopment plans in northern Virginia.  The Tysons complex is twice as big as King of Prussia and the planned redevelopment and Metro extension are far more extensive.  But at least King of Prussia is making a start!

Congrats to PenTrans (Pennsylvanians for Transportation Solutions), who sponsored the program, one of a long series of events they have held to educate opinion leaders and promote sustainable transportation (PenTrans website here; full disclosure: I serve on the PenTrans board).

Self driving cars on the way

Self driving cars seemed like science fiction not so long ago….now they seem well on the way.

A story in Popular Science (here) points out that 6 major auto manufacturers have officially put autonomous vehicles in their research and development programs.  And Google continues to dazzle us with what their test cars can do.

But once again Elon Musk and Tesla are way out in front in putting new technology on the road.  Tesla (see story here) says their Autopilot technology is still a long way from actual driverless cars.  But new Model S cars have “forward radar, 12 long range ultrasonic sensors positioned to sense 16 feet around the car in every direction at all speeds, a forward looking camera, and a high precision, digitally controlled electric assist braking system.”  As the software comes online, the Tesla will be able to keep in its lane, change lanes with a tap of the turn signal, slow or speed up to stay within speed limits and keep safe distances, and so on.  Very soon, according to Musk, the Tesla owner will be able to summon the car, which will open the garage and drive up to you, already heated and with your favorite radio station on.

Maybe not self-driving but getting pretty darn close!

And in the transportation world, we still need to figure out how to make this rapidly developing technology work with our infrastructure and regulatory systems.