Schwarzengreener, or Transit Terminator?

How green is California?

Posted by Jon Rynn (Guest Contributor) at 1:05 PM on 05 Sep 2007

Read more about: California | placemaking | cars | public transportation | Arnold Schwarzenegger

The State of California just passed a budget that, thanks to Governor Schwarzenegger and the Republicans in the Assembly, removes $1.3 billion from the public transit budget. Yes, this is the same state and governor that passed a cap-and-trade bill that seeks to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. But so far, the only thing being cut is the one way to get cars off of the roads.

But let me tell you about this car-pool lane ...

Photo: house.gov

You know all of those ways we could allegedly do the equivalent of removing cars from the road, like buying compact fluorescent light bulbs? Trains and buses actually replace cars. In addition, more public transit leads to absolute and certain reduction in emissions. Even mandating greater efficiency of cars does not eliminate the possibility of greater emissions. More efficient cars might simply delay an increase in carbon emissions, since miles traveled keeps going upward -- unless there are trains or buses.

With peak oil looming, the situation is getting more critical, both for drivers who have to pay more for their gas, and might therefore prefer to take public transit if it was available, and for nonelectrified buses and trains, since their fuel costs increase. So, the logical thing to do would be to increase public transit funding. Enter the convoluted state of budgets in most states, particularly California:

Drivers buy gasoline. They pay a special gas tax, and that money has to go roads and other transportation projects. Except in fiscal emergencies, when it could be diverted to the general fund. Fiscal emergencies, it turned out, happened all the time. So voters -- here's that pattern -- got fed up and passed an initiative to cut off that diversion.

Ah, but drivers also pay sales taxes on gasoline, and unlike the sales tax on anything else, the tax on fuel has to be used only for roads and other transportation projects. Except in fiscal emergencies, when ... Well, you get the idea.

When gasoline prices soar, a chunk of the gasoline sales tax goes to fund public transit. But that "spillover" never actually spills over. The governor and the Legislature take it to balance the budget. That's what happened this year, as in most years. Drivers pay, but they don't get what they're paying for.

Got it? Good, because I don't, and it gets worse. According to the Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC):

Spillover dollars provide critically important funding to local transit operators. In a time when working families have suffered persistent fare hikes and service cuts, these flexible dollars are needed to keep our transit systems running

California voters just passed a proposition that funds transportation (including roads) to the tune of $20 billion over 30 years. So, Schwarzenegger decided that since public transit was getting the money they needed anyway, he might as well take the new money and plug other holes in the state budget, even though they weren't supposed to do that ... except in fiscal emergencies. Meanwhile, that $20 billion is for building new things, not maintaining existing things -- the money for which is supposed to come from the spillover. Fortunately, Schwarzenegger's attempt to permanently eliminate this spillover fund was defeated.

TALC claims that typically "Less than 20% of state transportation funding typically goes to public transit." According to the California Transportation Commission, the state actually needs $200 billion in improvements to its transportation infrastructure. Here are just some of the projects imperiled in southern California:

The cuts could imperil a variety of transit projects, most notably the Exposition Line light rail from downtown L.A. to the Westside, extending the Orange Line busway from Warner Center to Chatsworth, and building the Gold Line from Pasadena to San Bernardino County, said Roger Snoble, chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

"As far as improving transportation here, it's really a big setback," Snoble said.

Having grown up in southern California, I find the idea that California could significantly reduce its carbon emissions simply by improving gas mileage to be quite a stretch; if southern California does not engage in a large-scale program of public transit, there is no way that they will hit their emissions targets. The San Francisco Bay Area is in much better shape since they at least have BART, and it is a denser area. But much of the state has been built on the assumption that the big interstates would carry much of the traffic.

Apparently it was relatively easy for Schwarzenegger to look green by mandating tighter standards in the future, but when the going got tough, he acted more like the bad Terminator, as far as public transit is concerned.

For story: Schwarzengreener, or Transit Terminator?
9 Comments | Post a Comment

CA Public Transportation

Except for BART and some parts of the MTA, public transportation in California is a joke and a waste of money. Its an hour between buses where I live and you have to go on three different buses and travel 12 miles to visit a store 2 miles away. Of course, there is no air conditioning either so you don't ride when its over 95 degrees outside, which is pretty much between May and October. Maybe if they cancelled the funds and started from scratch it would be a more efficient system in the long term.

by wayneluke at 1:31 PM on 05 Sep 2007

Does anyone have a link

Does anyone have a link to a study that even tries to demonstrate that public transit is a cost-effective means of reducing emissions? Of course we could spend billions of dollars to reduce emissions in this way, but is this a cost-effective way to reduce emissions?

I'm not saying it isn't cost-effective, but you will have to simply accept that many people say it is not cost effective. You cannot ignore these people, you have to explain why they're wrong.

If the upshot is that we should forget about subsidizing mass transit and instead jack up a carbon tax higher, that's a valuable lesson for all of us to learn, and would make our lives easier.

by mkayser at 1:57 PM on 05 Sep 2007

mkayser==

The best links off the top of my head are, first, a very long discussion at theoildrum, "The Potential of Electrified Urban Rail and/or Electric Vehicles", in which, there is a short discussion of an efficiency study of various forms of transit, which itself has links to various studies.

Eventually, buses and trains would have to be run on electricity, and that electricity would have to be solar/wind/geothermal, if we are to eventually get down to the kind of numbers, tending towards no emissions, that we need to avoid (hopefully) the worst of global warming, much less peak oil (and eventually, peak coal). Perhaps the same, or similar, could be done with an all-electric car/truck vehicle fleet, I suppose, but the twin of mass transit is mixed use/dense building for cities and towns, which also cuts down on transportation, which relying on automobiles will make impossible.

So I guess you would have to show that we could keep up with happy motoring on an all-electric car fleet -- but I figure that's best left to another post.

As to "but people won't want that", they will when the price of gas goes high enough, and/or hopefully they will so that we don't fry the planet.

by Jon Rynn at 2:31 PM on 05 Sep 2007

As a New Jerseyite...

I can testify that states on this side of the country actively promote transit as a way to battle the increase in greenhouse gasses. Whether it be NYC Mayor Bloomberg's 2030 plan (which is better known for its congestion pricing component) or New Jersey's new rail tunnel into New York City; government agencies are embracing transit as the best way to reduce automobile emissions.

I have some power points from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection about NJ's GG reduction plans which include promoting transit and trying to find ways to LOWER fares. If anyone's really interested, I'd be happy to email them to you.

by daymen at 7:57 AM on 06 Sep 2007

Daymen --

Just moved from Joisey, lived in Montclair a bit, glad to hear about a new rail tunnel, they certainly need it. The NYC area (I lived in NYC for decades) is a world apart from the rest of the country -- I think it's the only part of the country were people don't think you're crazy if you don't own a car. I also know from experience that the NYC subway is very well maintained -- the Chicago system is in bad shape because of lack of funding. So anyway, if you could email me those powerpoints at jonrynn@economicreconstruction.com, I'd appreciate it.

by Jon Rynn at 8:15 AM on 06 Sep 2007
[ Parent ]

Light Rail Boondoggles

"Mass Transit" is a crock. Nobody rides it. It doesn't make a profit. And its ridership decreases over time.

California needs more car services available at a lower rate.

$1,000,000,000 could put a fleet of 10,000 Chevy Volts on the road for on demand pickup and carry in a Texxi system.

by jabailo at 8:31 AM on 06 Sep 2007

A lot of alternatives

Thanks very much for the link Jon. The arguments for rail look interesting, I haven't examined very thoroughly yet.

There are many alternatives to subway/light rail mass transit:

electric cars
subsidize smaller cars
subsidize bike lanes
heavily tax single-occupant car trips
heavily subsidize private shuttles within city
institute toll regions in city

I am not sure about the numbers but consider that the average number of occupants in a car might be as low as ~1.2. If we could raise that number to ~3 or 4 we would be halving emissions, or better. It is easy to imagine that this is the lowest-hanging fruit, and not mass transit infrastructure. Note that carpooling does not require any different infrastructure at all! (people already have cars).

by mkayser at 8:46 AM on 06 Sep 2007

Alternatives --

Yes, it is possible that those various alternatives could do a considerable amount of good, although I think that there need to be some numbers behind them. For EV's for instance, how much electricity would be required to power them? Could the electricity come from renewables? The other big question with cars, it seems to me, is the problem of increasing miles travelled and fuels used.

So, the analysis needs to include the long-term, because we need to move toward a fossil=fuel(and even fuel)free society. You put down mass transit lines, you have a pretty constant infrastructure. You make cars more efficient, people drive further in cars.

Which brings me to the other part of the problem, which is that mass transit works much better in a dense/mixed use area, premiere example being NYC, or much of Europe. This will require even more and far-reaching changes, which leads me to the next problem, if we are looking at global warming/ecosystem destruction in a holistic way, then we have to start worrying about agriculture, and how suburbia makes a shift to sustainable agriculture much more difficult. So you see, we move from, cars vs. transit, in everwidening circles to suburbia vs. towns/cities.

I think ultimately mass transit should be considered as part of a holistic solution, involving transportation/energy/cities/agriculture (and a few others). Now, as to how we should move now -- if you look at lightrailnow.org, for instance, I think you will see some pretty good discussions of how light rail, for instance, can decrease car use now, even with our current land use patterns.

Ultimately, one (public transit) certainly doesn't preclude the other (ways to make car use more efficient).

by Jon Rynn at 9:02 AM on 06 Sep 2007
[ Parent ]

Turning Lanes

I'm a member of the City of Kent's Bicycle Advisory Board appointed by Mayor Suzette Cooke.

http://www.ci.kent.wa.us/transportation/bicycle/

I have this "idea". I've noticed that a lot of our suburban streets have a "turning lane" in the middle. To me, that seems like wasted space.

I want to add "Sharerows" or bicycle lane markings and restrict cars to U-turn only activity (get them from using it at all driveways and from using it as a Fifth Lane.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0831/p14s02-ussc.html

This would be a great underutilized resource that could be turned to walking and bicycling activities without too much conversion headaches.

by jabailo at 10:35 AM on 06 Sep 2007
[ Parent ]

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