Ozone levels in Richmond and Hampton Roads has improved so much, reports Rex Springston with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that the Environmental Protection Agency will drop both regions from the national list of smoggy areas.
And Now for Some Good News!
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24 responses to “And Now for Some Good News!”
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That is funny news as much as it is good news. Just a few months the shill in Hampton Roads was to increase our taxes to pay for new roads, or (gasp) the EPA was going to punish us for polluted air – caused by (you guessed it) not having enough roads for more cars and more pollution.
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Taht really is funny. Like I said, you can’t believe anything either side says, and that makes it hard to make real progress.
Still, when I moved to the DC area, if you were driving North on 495 and got to the Pentagon, you could very seldom see the Monument. Now it is seldom obscured. Progress does happen.
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Of interest to those who finger the EPA as the “bad guy” for enforcing clean air rules including those who claim that such rules merely take money out of the economy…
down in the article – the following:
…[the] turning point came in 2004, when the EPA cracked down on ..factories and power plants ….
That move stopped a lot of pollution from blowing into Virginia ..[in] Shenandoah National Park, the reaction was dramatic”
Also.. this tidbit – no joy for NoVa:
“Heavily congested Northern Virginia, beset with pollution from vehicles, has violated ozone limits since the mid-1970s.”
A MYTH: more roads means less pollution because of less congestion.
Air quality traffic models confirm this.
In the NoVa area – Congestion Pricing offer the best path to better traffic flow AND better air quality.
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A MYTH: more roads means less pollution because of less congestion.
How would you know in NOVA? Haven’t built any new roads there there in decades. If you build more roads and have more cars, clearly you will have more pollution. I’ve never heard anyone say otherwise. But we do hear people claim that increasing density reduces pollution, which is equally crazy.
But if you have a congested bottleneck where cars are sitting and idling, clearly that is more pollution than if the same cars whiz through to their destination.
Let’s at least nail down one variable before we go around on circular arguments pointing at each variable and seein it the way we choose to see it as we go around and around.
The statement was that HEAVILY CONGESTED norther VA has violated standards for years. There are three ways to reduce congestion: have less people go there, provide enough capacity to relieve the congestion (and not let any MORE people go there.) Or shift some of the capacity to other modes. (If they really pollute less.)
Calculate the costs, and pick one.
Also, getting more throughput and more pollution is part of the trade off of having too many destinations in the same place. Even if you built more roads and had more pollution, it might still be cheaper and cleaner than some other alternatives.
According to a UNC-C study, public transit has no significant impact on congestion; the only factor influencing congestion being jobs.
the study also says:
“Contrary to popular perception, public service costs tend to be lower where population densities are lower.
We have already seen that mass transit does not ease, but in fact, can exacerbate traffic congestion.
Commute times for light rail are more than double those for automobile. The average light rail commute time is 45 minutes, but only 21 minutes by automobile.13Rail transit is less safe than automobile travel. The number of fatalities per 100 million passenger miles in the from 1990-1997 was significantly higher for commuter rail (1.310) and light rail (1.317) than for automobile and trucks (0.745).14
Mass transit is less energy efficient than automobile use. Energy consumption per passenger mile for automobiles (3467 BTU) is less than that for transit buses (4650 BTU), rapid rail (3790 BTU), and light rail (3919 BTU). “
It is a system, and it is useless and counterproductive to go around pointing at each little problem without considereing everything that is related at once.
Take the energy argument in the paragraph above. It is misleading because in congested areas where transit makes sense the energy consumption for autos may be far higher.
You can’t find the best solution unless you look at the system, and you can never find the best answer if you start off with preconceived notions or refuse to look for the best answers.
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re: “But if you have a congested bottleneck where cars are sitting and idling, clearly that is more pollution than if the same cars whiz through to their destination.”
the amount of pollution is directly related to the amount of fuel burned per unit of time.
It doesn’t seem like it but 20 minutes of idling generate far less pollution than 20 minutes of
70 mph per hour driving. Hybrids are even better.. no pollution at “idle”.MWCOG/TPB use EPA-certified computer models to predict pollution levels based on how many cars are on the road and the road.. average speed, etc ..
If it were true.. that idling cars produce more pollution than 70 mph cars.. this would be quickly confirmed but, in fact, it’s the opposite.
As far as more people, more cars, etc.
There is NO leeway for this.
There are air pollution CAPS regardless of population.
The Wash Metro area has to meet those targets even as population continues to grow.
This will force more and more less-polluting vehicles (like the California low emission standards) and hybrid autos – all of which – will use less gasoline – and accordingly pay less gasoline tax.
This is going to happen, in fact, it is happening as we speak. It’s not up for debate just like those Power Plants that were forced to reduce polluting… not under debate either.. do it .. or get shut down by the EPA.
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re: “But if you have a congested bottleneck where cars are sitting and idling, clearly that is more pollution than if the same cars whiz through to their destination.”
the amount of pollution is directly related to the amount of fuel burned per unit of time.
It doesn’t seem like it but 20 minutes of idling generate far less pollution than 20 minutes of
70 mph per hour driving. Hybrids are even better.. no pollution at “idle”.MWCOG/TPB use EPA-certified computer models to predict pollution levels based on how many cars are on the road and the road.. average speed, etc ..
If it were true.. that idling cars produce more pollution than 70 mph cars.. this would be quickly confirmed but, in fact, it’s the opposite.
As far as more people, more cars, etc.
There is NO leeway for this.
There are air pollution CAPS regardless of population.
The Wash Metro area has to meet those targets even as population continues to grow.
This will force more and more less-polluting vehicles (like the California low emission standards) and hybrid autos – all of which – will use less gasoline – and accordingly pay less gasoline tax.
This is going to happen, in fact, it is happening as we speak. It’s not up for debate just like those Power Plants that were forced to reduce polluting… not under debate either.. do it .. or get shut down by the EPA.
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re: There are three ways to reduce congestion: have less people go there, provide enough capacity to relieve the congestion (and not let any MORE people go there.) Or shift some of the capacity to other modes.
Number Four – “shape” or spread out the congestion over wider time-periods.
This is what Congestion Pricing is all about.
You have a certain number of lanes – that are basically 10% at 2am and basically 110% at rush hour.
Some traffic doesn’t need to be there at rush hour. They are discretionary trips that could be accomplished
outside of the worst of rush hour.I agree with you on Bottlenecks.. chokepoints but ask yourself .. where is the money to fix them?
You know what VDOT will do if they even get new money… it’ll go for mega projects.. not for optimization just like right now… 700 million for Springfield.. and they’ve shot their wad…
Well.. that money is what you get for charging for reduced congestion.
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At 12:52 PM, Ray Hyde said…
According to a UNC-C study, public transit has no significant impact on congestion; the only factor influencing congestion being jobs.
the study also says:
“Contrary to popular perception, public service costs tend to be lower where population densities are lower.”
One must be very careful when referencing studies. The UNC study looked at areas of less then 1 person per acre. In other words, everything was low density. The results were not surprising. Read E M Risse’s book. There are three sweet spots for lower public service costs, densities below 50 acres per household. The UNC study confirmed this. Densities around 10 households per acre. And transit oriented densities around 40 households per acre.
“You can’t find the best solution unless you look at the system, and you can never find the best answer if you start off with preconceived notions or refuse to look for the best answers.”
We seem to follow a practice of choose a solution, look for data that will support our solution, simplify complicated date to eliminate any that does not support our solution.
The transit numbers are one example. Transit in low density areas is not a congestion solution. The only reason for publishing aggregate numbers is to prove a preconceived position. Not, to solve the problem.
For Pollution Larry Gross used simplified facts. The EPA model is not simple. It divides trips into start up, miles, and cool down. It then calculates precursors. Next you go to a weather model to calculate ozone. Lots of chances to lead a simple idea astray.
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re: “For Pollution Larry Gross used simplified facts. The EPA model is not simple. It divides trips into start up, miles, and cool down. It then calculates precursors. Next you go to a weather model to calculate ozone.”
I plead guilty.
There is no easy way to explain… but those interesting in reading.. start at the MWCOG/TPB site and go from there.
The point I was trying to get across – abeit very poorly – is that
1. – The EPA model is fairly credible and has been adopted for use in determining actions, priorities and policies in many urban areas who the EPA monitors and presides over air quality.
2. – There are many misconceptions about the who, what, where, and why of air quality – not the least of which was the incorrect implication that the air quality was not so bad after all in Richmond and Hampton – whereas the truth is that it IS better and it IS better because of the EPA rules – which.. play a much bigger role in policy decisions about transit vs roads vs HOT lanes.. etc et al..than many suspect.
When someone states that Transit is more expensive than roads… and therefor inferior as a mode – they’re not paying enough attention (in my view) to the involvement of air quality in such decsion-making.
Of course .. all bets are off if Bush and company fully gut the EPA.
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It doesn’t seem like it but 20 minutes of idling generate far less pollution than 20 minutes of
70 mph per hour driving. Hybrids are even better.. no pollution at “idle”.This is the kind of nonsense that makes me crazy. Of course you are right, as you have stated the conditions.
But the real fact is that you can idle for 20 minutes and barely travel 2 miles, in some locations. But from those same locations at 70 mph, you could be halfway to Baltimore.
My statement was that “if you can whiz through to your destination”. Presumably then you will stop, and there will be no pollution.
You can always be right if you always change the problem. I’ll concede your point.
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Number Four – “shape” or spread out the congestion over wider time-periods.
I agree, you win again.
For most people, not being there on time means not being there – you are in fact somewhere else. I don;t see a disagreement here.
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re: “For Pollution Larry Gross used simplified facts.
I plead guilty, too.
I deliberately chose inflammatory and unpopular statistics. And I also pointed out why they were misleading.
The problem is that we can’t even believe the numbers, let alone each other. Thst’s because we start with the answer we want, and work backwards to create the facts to support it.
JW is right. There are places and times where tranit is more energy efficient than autos.
That still doesn’t mean that it is more cost efficient. And as JG notes some of us have different priorities over pollution vs time vs money.
Here is my problem. suppose you identify a place and time where tranist is more efficint than autos, say Ballston in 2005. You spend a billion dollars to install heavy rail.
What happens thirty years later when Ballston looks like it did in 1975, decayed, run down, and decrepit. Is heavy rail still cost effective?
Why is it we are willing to spend billions to rehabilitate Ballston, but 10,000 bucks to help rehabilitate an old barn is too much to ask?
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In the NoVa area – Congestion Pricing offer the best path to better traffic flow AND better air quality.
I agree, and I have no problem withthat at all. Just don’t expect miracles. In London, congestion pricing means that on a five kilometer trip, you save 15 seonds, at a cost of $16.
The Authorities have figured out how to spin that inot a 30% reduction in congestion. The way they do that is to figure the free flow travel time, the congested travel time, pre fees, and the congested travel time post fees.
They subtract the free travel time in order to make the difference between the congested travel times look greater as a percentage.
That is very slick, but ask yourself if it makes a difference to the real traveler.
Where does the better air quality come from? Is it because fewer people travel, or is it because the travel at different times, and the air pollution is diluted with time? What is the difference betweeen diluting air pollution with time and diluting it with space? Why not just mandate 70 HP cars, which is what I have always driven?
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In the NoVa area – Congestion Pricing offer the best path to better traffic flow AND better air quality.
I agree, and I have no problem withthat at all. Just don’t expect miracles. In London, congestion pricing means that on a five kilometer trip, you save 15 seonds, at a cost of $16.
The Authorities have figured out how to spin that inot a 30% reduction in congestion. The way they do that is to figure the free flow travel time, the congested travel time, pre fees, and the congested travel time post fees.
They subtract the free travel time in order to make the difference between the congested travel times look greater as a percentage.
That is very slick, but ask yourself if it makes a difference to the real traveler.
Where does the better air quality come from? Is it because fewer people travel, or is it because the travel at different times, and the air pollution is diluted with time? What is the difference betweeen diluting air pollution with time and diluting it with space? Why not just mandate 70 HP cars, which is what I have always driven?
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Who says the EPA is the bad guy?
EPA has major problems, no doubt. but evil intentions isn’t one of them.
That doesn’t mean that bad things don’t happen. EPA is going to require GE to dredge huge amounts of spoil in the Hudson river to try to revoer PCB’s that would otherwise lie buried for centuries. My opinion is that dredging will release more PCB’s to the environment than otherwise, and at a cost of billions. This was a politically expedient decision, driven by people unwilling to listen to reason, again, in my opinion.
Virginia was a victim of old power plants in Ohio and elsewhere. The rules on upgrading and grandfathering old plants were probably wrong. Maybe, (I don’t know the facts, this is a gedanken experiment) Ohio residents are now paying higher rates for electricity and Virginia residents benefit. Shouldn’t the costs of the benefits be equally distributed?
Never mind that the previous condition was wrong. The current condition is equally wrong.
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Let’s assume the EPA has an accurate and complete air quality model. As I understand it, the average home emits or causes from one third to two thirds as much pollution per year as the average auto.
Assume that congestion policies and transit alternatives reduce the future increas in auto use by 15%. If we are already bumping the limits on auto use in terms of air pollution limits, how much increased density will that 15% reduction in auto use buy us in terms of central area home construction, assuming anyone can afford it?
The answer might be differnt in composition, but isn’t the end answer the same? There is only so much you can do in NOVA, on account of pollution regs.
Or is it that the polltion regs are only targeted towards autos? What if we reduce city auto HP to 30 and reduce pollution that way? Then what is the answer? The cmparisons on energy use listed above are based on the current (crazy IMHO) HO usage for cars. If we really trid to fix the car problem, transit might be blown out the window.
I’m not saying this is so, just asking the question.
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When I was a chemist, working on hazardous waste remediation problems, I became aware of two lobbying groups. One was somthing like the Environmental Action Committee for Clean Water, and the other was something like The Environmental Action Comittee for Clean Air.
The first group consisted of companies that owned Hazmat incinerators, and the second group consisted of companies that owned hazardous waste landfills.
An EPA official explained the situation to me this way. “We set a standard, and then wait for the lawsuits. When the dollar value of the lawsuits is equal, that is where we set the standard.”
It was years later before I understood the truth of what he said, and it was years later still before I understood the logic.
As much as I hate to admit it, this makes perfect sense (allowing for some hype in the lawsuits), and it is pretty much exactly what I was taught in graduate level environmental economics.
I guess I;m at a disadvantage in economics, because I was trained first as a scientist. Consequently, I have a hard time accepting the political side of economics, which is a point LG never fails to try to drill into my head.
My contention is, that politics are temprorary, compared to economics.
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I don’t care whether autos are more efficient or more polluting than transit, or more time sensitive, or capital intensive. I really don;t care what the right answer is.
All I care is that people realize that there are real and legitimate questions being asked. Untrammeled, unrestricted, scattered growth, and unthinking, dogmatic, conservation, smart growth,and new urbanism both have a price.
How much are YOU willing to pay?
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What happens thirty years later when Ballston looks like it did in 1975, decayed, run down, and decrepit. Is heavy rail still cost effective?
Ray , you could ask that question abou anything.
for instance: “what happens 30 years later when the Wilson Bridge has … gotten old and/or not maintained as it should be”.
or “what happens.. if you don’t repave I-95 when you should?”
WHY.. does that aspect mean that building anything was not a good idea … because later.. you did not maintain it properly.
Am I missing the point?
This is where I get dizzy trying to understand the logic…
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re: the “right” answer
I would agree – every path has consequences and no single path leads to perfect answers. There ARE tradeoffs – sometimes ugly.
But you do have to agree on what you’re trying to acheive – what your goal is at the start or you’ll be at cross-purposes from the very beginning.
Achieving acceptable air quality – air that does not damage kids, elderly and the physically impaired – was the goal.
Engage in whatever process.. simplistic or complicated.. and come back with a plan .. to achieves the goal.
But don’t come back without a plan because.. there were no simple answers… and don’t come back with a plan that is not attainable – i.e costs a gazillion dollars per person.
and most important – don’t come back with no plan because there were too many “complications”.
The EPA did their job.
Give them credit.
Compare EPA’s problem solving to VDOTs.
Relieve congestion in NO Va a worthy goal?
Certainly. The road advocates Plan:
just build more roads.. no matter how many, how expensive or how much pollution is generated.. and sooner or later… congestion will be solved and no one will be sitting in traffic.
We’ll be broke, paved over with roads and heavily polluted but what the hey… the answer was “simple”.
but of course .. no one would admit this is “reasonable”
and the “be reasonable” answer.. do all of the above ..incrementally… over time .. towards the same goal.
🙂
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12;39 AM Ray Hyde said:
An EPA official explained the situation to me this way. “We set a standard, and then wait for the lawsuits. When the dollar value of the lawsuits is equal, that is where we set the standard.”
This is called a deep pockets standard. The children in doctors’ offices don’t count. The lawsuit to correct the error inherent in deep pocket standards has a mountain to go over because the Courts defer to the Executive Branch.
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My point about letting things get run down is that this happens because we don’t pay enough incrementally along the way. Look at the Marshall water supply, or the DC sewers, the Boston Water supply, or the warrenton Sewer System.
Then, after we haven’t paid enough for our own upkeep, we expect new construction or builders to pick up the tab for us, as Salamander did In Middleburg.
I’m jsut pointing out that in my mind there is a fuzzy line between newly required infrastructure, and unpaid defferred infrastructure costs.
It is also fuzzy in my mind what part of the new infrastructure is a general public benefit, and what part benefits only the new residents.
On the lawsuit thing, I’m just relating the story as it was told to me. It makes sense that the executive branch would attempt to divide and conquer. If they wind up setting the standard in the middle, both sides have a smaller incentive to follow through on their lawsuit. It also makes sense that by listening to the countervailing arguments EPA would gain knowledge that helps to clarify their argument.
As for the road advocates plan, I think your characterization is misstated. I have never heard any body say we should continue to build roads, no matter how many or how expensive. I have heard people suggest that we put the next million people on 3300 acres.
I’d be curious if you can point me to the “road advocate” who ever said such a thing. I’m no road advocate, but the fervent anti-road, and anti-car crowd haven’t convinced me yet that their psoition has merit, mostly because of overstated or distorted positions like this especially in the absence of any plan that can be demonstrated as better.
What I have said is that there must be some combination of road density, job density, housing density, and even Metro density that produces the most net wealth for the least pollution and the least public cost. I don’t think anyone is searching for that answer.
It might be that we are willing to accept higher pollution, costs, and congestion in one area to spare those costs in another area. I don’t know how that squares with the idea of protecting the elderly and children from breathing disorders, but maybe deer need protection too. But if that is one of the trade offs, then we ought to understand who is trading what.
As I see it roads are paid for, on average and by and large, by people who use the roads. It may well be that the distribution of costs is unfair, and I have no problem with working on that.
But you can’t say the same for Metro. In fact Metro is also paid for, in part and probably mostly by people who drive cars.
If we actually did away with cars tomorrow how would you pay for Metro? Everyone would have to pay full price, and they’d have to find a home and job near Metro. Obviously we would have to expand Metro immensely and at huge cost, We’d have to build enormous amounts of transit oriented housing and what would we do with the rest?
It doesn’t take much to figure out that the anti-car argument must have some limits. Those limits cannot be build an infinite number of roads at any price and send the bill to everybody, willy nilly. And it equally can’t be that we are never going to build a new road anywhere unless someone else pays for it.
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3:00 pm Ray Hyde
“What I have said is that there must be some combination of road density, job density, housing density, and even Metro density that produces the most net wealth for the least pollution and the least public cost. I don’t think anyone is searching for that answer.”Ray I recommend you start your search with:
The Shape of the Future…“The Shape of the Future: The Critical, Overarching Impact of Human Settlement Pattern on Citizen’s Economic, Social and Environmental Well-Being”
by EM Risse
https://www.baconsrebellion.com/Books.phpWhen you understand the answer to what belongs where, you can help others in the search.
The problem is what belongs where. Not, what should be banned.
I have yet to meet a member of “the fervent anti-road, and anti-car crowd.” The closest I have come is a supporter of Zipcar for Arlington residents along Metro.
The use of imaginary straw men does not help reach any solution. -
You are kidding, right?
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