Daily Score Blog

In Seattle, Mayor Greg Nickels took a cue from Portland and New York by instituting a few “car-free” Sundays where, throughout August, three city streets will be consecutively closed to cars. The program is part of Seattle’s “Give Your Car the Summer Off” project in which the city is encouraging citizens to drive 1,000 fewer miles this year:

"Neighbors will have three to six hours to experience our streets in a new way and to see how livable a city can be when people drive less," Nickels said. "This is our chance to experiment and to evaluate how these events work for people. And we'll be fighting global warming at the same time."

Last week when the Western Climate Initiative's latest draft appeared it mystified most folks who aren't insiders to the process. That's a shame because WCI is hugely important. So over the next few days I'm going to embark on a series of posts that I hope will clear up some of the misunderstandings. Along the way, I'm also going to explain what Sightline wants to see improved.

Maybe the single most important question in cap and trade is the question of "scope," the question of what we should include under the cap. How do we decide which carbon pollution counted? And who must obtain the tradeable carbon permits that are equal to the cap?

WCI gets a couple of things right. First, they will regulate all six of the major greenhouse gases. And they've opted for an "upstream" approach: regulating carbon at the handful of points where it enters the economy (pipelines, refineries and so on) rather than further downstream where hundreds or thousands of fuel users would be implicated. It's the coal plant, not the residential electricity meter, that gets treated.

But other questions have been stickier. Some sectors are getting a pass, at least for now, because they are technically infeasible to cover. For example, emissions from agriculture and forestry are difficult to count and there are multitudes of small-scale emitters who have little capacity to participate in a cap and trade program. Fortunately, however, the vast majority of the West's carbon pollution is relatively easy to count, and the polluters are large and sophisticated companies that are accustomed to regulatory requirements. (Think utilities, oil refiners, and smelter operators.) The right thing -- for the climate, for the program's cost-effectiveness, and for equity among businesses -- would be to include as many sources of carbon pollution as is technically feasible.

But that hasn't happened.

The single biggest problem with scope is that WCI is excluding oil companies -- even though transportation fuels are the single largest source of emissions -- until the second "compliance period," which doesn’t start until 2015. (A "compliance period" is a unit of time over which the regulated firms must match their climate emissions to the number of carbon permits that they have obtained.) Seven years is a long time to wait to address the central climate threat of the West. And it gets worse: because each compliance period is three years long -- meaning that polluters have three years to match their emissions to their carbon permits --we might not see meaningful reductions until eight or nine years from now.

That's hardly the only problem.

Here's the word from the US Department of Transportation:

[Vehicle travel] on all public roads for May 2008 fell 3.7 percent as compared with May 2007 travel...marking a decline of 29.8 billion miles traveled in the first five months of 2008 than the same period a year earlier. This continues a seven-month trend that amounts to 40.5 billion fewer miles traveled between November 2007 and May 2008 than the same period a year before, she said.

So it's official:  high gas prices (coupled with a slack economy) are encouraging us to drive less. And if you look at the chart to the right, the recent downturn comes after a fairly long period of slow growth in vehicle travel.  It looks like the gradual rise in gas prices has been tempering the growth of driving since at least 2005.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that total gas consumption has fallen even more steeply than the number of miles driven.  After all, SUV sales are down; sales of efficient cars are up; highway speeds are slowing slightly; congestion is down (because fewer cars are on the road); and there's anecdotal evidence that people are choosing the more efficient car when they have more than one vehicle in the driveway.  All of these factors tend to decrease gasoline consumption, above and beyond the decline in vehicle miles traveled.

Of course, the DOT responds to the news by...calling for more money for roads!

"Less driving means less money for the Highway Trust Fund," said Acting Federal Highway Administrator Jim Ray. "The status quo cannot and will not work in the 21st century."

That's right: we're driving less, gas costs are through the roof, and people are turning to transit in record numbers.  But according to the DOT, the real problem is that the Highway Trust Fund is running out of cash.  (How on earth are we going to pay for all those new roads that people can't afford to drive on?)

I thought this was interesting.  The Texas highway department – Texas, no less! -- says that roads simply don’t pay for themselves.

… no road pays for itself in gas taxes and fees. For example, in Houston, the 15 miles of SH 99 from I-10 to US 290 will cost $1 billion to build and maintain over its lifetime, while only generating $162 million in gas taxes. That gives a tax gap ratio of .16, which means that the real gas tax rate people would need to pay on this segment of road to completely pay for it would be $2.22 per gallon. This is just one example, but there is not one road in Texas that pays for itself based on the tax system of today. Some roads pay for about half their true cost, but most roads we have analyzed pay for considerably less. To conclude, in the SH 99 example, since the traffic volume for that road doesn't generate enough fuel tax revenue to pay for it, revenues from other parts of the state must be used to build and maintain this corridor segment. The same is true across the state, meaning that, as revealed by the tax gap analysis, overall revenues are not sufficient to meet the state’s transportation needs.

There may be some political shenanigans at play here that, not being a Texan, I know nothing about. (Haven't I heard that Texas is trying to build a massive toll-road corridor?) Still, the idea that roads don't pay for themselves -- and instead, must sap money from other funding sources -- seems like quite an admission from a highway department. Perhaps there are lessons here for road construction projects all across North America, not just in Texas.

It's here! The largest 40 cities in America, ranked by their walkability. Plus, every single neighborhood in those cities -- all 2,508 of them -- rank-ordered for your walking pleasure.

** In a surprise upset, San Francisco edges out NYC for top honors in walkability. Who else made it into the Top 10?

** The Northwest's most walkable neighborhood is in Portland. It's the Pearl District, no suprise, ranking as the 15th best neighborhood for walking in the nation. (Seattle's best showing, Pioneer Square, is 18th). See the rest of America's best walking neighborhoods.

** But Seattle is the Northwest's walking leader, earning a higher overall score than Portland. (The Emerald City ranks 4 slots higher than the Rose City.) Still, both Northwest metropolises do well by national standards. Who doesn't do so well?

** Plus, there are all kinds of new goodies at the Walk Score site. You can take a photo tour of a walking oasis in an unwalkable city. Or you can learn the secrets of walkable cities. You read the Walk Score blog. And then you can help improve America's Walk Score.

Today's release from Walk Score is truly path-breaking. It's the first time this stuff has been quantified and compared on such a large scale. And it's a huge step toward creating great urban places. Walkable neigbhorhoods are easier on our pocketbooks; good for our waistlines; great for kids, older folks and others who don't drive; and helpful to the whole planet. All of us here at Sightline extend a big fat "Congratulations!" to our friends at Walk Score. Walk on, you guys!

Readers, you already knew all about Walk Score, right? We've written about it here and here, among other places. And we loved it when they roled out an early release of the Seattle neighborhood rankings last month.

Via Signpost, a terrific new development from Washington State Parks: a hiker shuttle up Snoqualmie Pass. I'm feeling lazy, so I'll just quote liberally from Andrew Engelson:

The new "Bus-Up 90 Shuttle" will run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and starts at Cedar Falls, which is near Rattlesnake Lake outside North Bend. The shuttle runs to Hyak, east of Snoqualmie Pass. The ride will be air-conditioned and the shuttle has room for backpacking gear, plus a trailer to provide transport for bikes. The shuttle is primarily intended for folks intending to hike or bike down the John Wayne Trail, a 20.5-mile gravel path that follows the old Milwaukee Railroad.

The shuttle will also provide return service and apparently can make stops at trailheads along the western I-90 corridor if you pre-arrange it. There will be three departures daily from Cedar Falls and Hyak.

Schedule and directions are here.

Here's an interesting ranking. For each major US city, the list-happy editors at Men's Health calculated the negative effects of driving. They aggregated scores on transit ridership, air pollution, fuel consumption, and driving miles. (Presumably, the data are for metropolitan areas, not city limits.) Northwest cities do exceptionally well: Seattle ranks number one, Portland ranks third, and Spokane is eighth.

Men's Health doesn't appear to include a methodology on the web, but I'll take a stab at the explanation. First, a minor point. Seattle and Portland benefit from a felicitous geographic situation: prevailing westerly winds tend to keep our air some of the cleanest in the country, so we do relatively well on air pollution scores. But second, and more importantly, the list illustrates that urban areas control their own destinies. Smart policy matters, even if it's relatively small-caliber.

Little things add up: the Northwest leads in bus service, commute trip reduction programs, carpools, vanpools, parking cashouts, bicycle infrastructure, transit-oriented development, and other innovative strategies. And it's here that next-generation tactics get their first airing: congestion pricing, pay-as-you-drive car insurance, and so on. These are not the kind of things that make their debut in Arlington, Texas -- dead last in the rankings. 

If this sounds like stuff that transportation wonks dream up, that's because it is. (And that's probably a good thing.) When it comes to transportation, Northwest cities don't have much that's big-ticket and flashy. So while there aren't many ribbon-cutting ceremonies or photo-ops for politicians, it's still true that a hundred good ideas, implemented locally, can add up to an emerging success story.

As you may have noticed, we love maps, especially interactive ones. I just came across a nifty new little tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technologies that shows annual spending per household on gasoline in 52 major metropolitan throughout the US:

The maps provide data for the years 2000 and 2008, enabling comparisons for the eight-year period between annual household gasoline expenses, monthly household transportation expenses (including vehicle purchase price, insurance and maintenance) and monthly household transportation expenditures as a percent of income. Across the 52 metro areas studied, residents spent a combined $107.4 billion more on gasoline in 2008 than in 2000, an average increase regionally of 155%.

As we might expect, the difference between walk- and transit-friendly urban areas and car-friendly suburbs is staggering. City-dwellers spend $2,100 less per year, on average, than out-ring suburbs. A  household in NW Portland averages $0-$1,600 per on gasoline, whereas a household in a suburb like Lake Oswego, OR spends $3,000 to $3,800. The message? We're spending a far greater percentage of our income in 2008 on transportation than we were in 2000 – and gas prices are hurting those of us with fewer choices about how to get around far more than the city dwellers who have the freedom to walk or bike or take the bus.

This isn't exactly a balanced article -- but since its biases match mine, it's great!  Portland Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder is proposing a congestion charge for the Columbia River Crossing:

Burkholder believes congestion pricing for some busy roads could manage roads for highest productivity; cut pollution, fuel use, CO2 and congestion; and generate revenue for public transportation and high-performance transportation infrastructure and services.

I think that congestion pricing should be on the table, regardless of whether the Columbia River Crossing is rebuilt.  So it's heartening to see the idea gaining currency.

A few years back, I had a fair amount of skepticism about whether buying a hybrid car was really and truly the best buy for the climate.

My argument at the time: hybrids came at a pretty steep price premium.  A low-end Prius cost many thousands of dollars more than a comparable Corolla.  I ran the numbers, and decided that a green-minded consumer who just wanted a new set of wheels would probably be better off buying a cheaper car that got decent-but-not-awesome mileage, and investing some of the savings in something even more effective at reducing emissions: new insulation, say, or super-efficient appliances and furnaces.  Then both you and the planet might come out ahead.

But a few months back, I basically abandoned that line of thought.  What changed?  Mostly gas prices.  As the cost of fuel has risen above $4/gallon, the cost savings from a gas-sipping car have risen in tandem.  Plus, hybrids are proving that they maintain their value very well; maintainance costs are low, and worries about expensive battery replacements are subsiding.  Car rating service Intellichoice.com concluded that the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid were the cheapest cars of their class available, considering the total cost of ownership over 5 years.   So if hybrids are the best buys in their own right, the climate benefits are just gravy.

But now, I see that Edmunds.com has come to the opposite conclusion, and that hybrids aren't even close to being the cheapest cars on the lot.  The Prius, according to Edmunds, clocks in at #26 -- not terrible, really, but not stellar either.   And the Edmunds report even assumes that gas rises to $5 per gallon. 

And apparently Consumer Reports has yet another take; they rated the Prius as the third most economical new car, behind 2 versions of the Honda Fit.  Of course, Consumer Reports limits their consideration to cars that meet their other criteria for quality and safety. (See here for a list of Edmunds & Consumer Reports top 10 most economical cars).  Still, by their reckoning, hybrids fare pretty well.

If I dove into the numbers, I might figure out what's going on here.  Are there different assumptions about mileage, or maintenance costs, or financing? Hard to tell.  But for the moment, I'll consider the issue unsettled.  At current and or/foreseeable gas prices, and factoring in the total cost of ownership, hybrids are either the very cheapest cars to buy; close to the cheapest; or not too shabby, all things considered.  Your mileage may vary.

It's difficult to illustrate the opportunities that are available now on our roads. We don't need big expensive building projects, just smarter systems that protect both our pocketbooks and our natural resources.

It's fairly easy to make the case analytically, but it often doesn't sink in. To find that intuitive hook, I was planning an interpretive modern dance about traffic congestion. But at the last minute, we were all saved from what would surely have been an uncomfortable experience. Instead, I give you Sightline's new 44 second video on fixing our roadways:

Big thanks to Don Baker and Aldon Baker.

It seems to be a trend:  the press is noticing that rising transportation costs are starting to erode the value of housing prices in far-flung suburbs.  See, e.g., this Olympian article, and this article from the LA Times. 

On the one hand, this is perfectly consistent with what I'd expect.  As gas prices rise, living in far-flung neighborhoods gets more and more expensive, while housing that's close to transit, stores, and jobs seems more affordable. If Econ 101 is any guide, those forces will undermine suburban housing prices, and could even ease  the "drive 'til you qualify" phenomenon into reverse. 

On the other hand, the real estate market is just now recovering from a prolonged state of extreme wackiness -- and I'm sure that it's possible to find examples to support just about any point you'd want to make about real estate values.  Perhaps the press happen to be cherry-picking a few good examples that support their story lines, while ignoring other, contradictory evidence.

So if anyone out there in blog-land has the time or inclination, please point me in the direction of any actual studies on the issue -- say, credible academics who've compared real estate trends in both sprawling and less-sprawling neighborhoods, or mortgage industry analysts who are advising lenders about where to focus their lending.  I'd love to know whether falling land values in suburbia is a genuine trend, or just a media fad.

In case you missed it, there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the blogosphere a few months back, concerning the climate impacts of walking vs. driving.  Apparently, some folks -- New York Times columnist and blogger John Tierney in particular -- were spreading the claim that a pleasant stroll to the store might actually release more GHGs than getting behind the wheel.  Other bloggers picked up the meme, including one post with the headline:  "Be Green:  Drive."

The idea may sound absurd, but there's a legitimate insight behind it.  Walking burns calories, which come from food -- and it takes an enormous quantity of fossil fuels to produce, process, and transport everything that we eat.  Add in the other GHGs from agriculture -- everything from cow manure to emissions from synthetic fertilizers -- and you've got a potent global warming cocktail in every glass of milk.

But our doppelgangers at the Pacific Institute did their homework, compiling evidence about climate emissions from both cars and food.  And they came to the conclusion that walking emits about one-quarter the GHGs of driving -- earning a partial retraction from Tierney.  (You go, PacInst!)

But looking at the numbers, I think that the Pacific Institute's numbers are conservative. In fact, I think that when I take a short walk, I'm being at least 12 times as friendly to the climate as if I drove.  Your mileage may vary, of course; but my shoes get about 220 miles per gallon.

Via Erica Barnett, Adam Stein has a fascinating post on San Francisco's move to start treating parking rationally. Here's Stein on parking spaces: 

...their supply is fixed but the demand fluctuates greatly by day and by hour. For most goods, pricing matches supply with demand. But the price for parking is inflexible. Most spots are free. Others are metered at an artificially low rate. Residential permit parking creates local distortions. Private lots skim those willing to pay the most.

The traditional solution to parking problems is to increase the number of spots available, providing yet another subsidy to drivers and pushing yet another cost onto everybody else... Oversupply of parking encourages driving. Undersupply creates a lottery system in which people circle endlessly looking for a spot, or park illegally. In either case, the result is more congestion, more carbon emissions, and less livable cities.

San Francisco's solution to the supply and demaind problem is just what you'd expect from a city of left-wing commie radicals: a free market.

Our friends at Walk Score are out with a ranking of Seattle's neighborhoods. It's good stuff, and Jennifer Langston has a great article about it in the P-I. There's also a nice segment on King 5 news and a good piece in the Times.

So which areas do best? Unsurprisingly, it's the nexus of Pioneer Square, downtown, First Hill, Belltown, the International District, and South Lake Union. But there are a couple of surprises as well: How did Roosevelt end up in the #5 position? And why is Capitol Hill down there at #11?

Part of the answer has to do with how you define a neighborhood. For instance, Roosevelt proper is a relatively small area around the commercial center, while Capitol Hill includes a large swath of land, some of which is fairly low-density and residential. (Check out the "Walk Score Distribution" in the upper right hand corner for a graphic illustration of what's going on.)

You could quibble, of course, about which places are most pleasant to walk -- Capitol Hill is a gem on that score -- but still, the proximity calculations that underlie Walk Score are a very good indication of where it's possible to live a car-lite lifestyle. And nailing down some hard numbers and thoughtful methodology can go a long way toward illustrating comparisons -- comparisons that are already beginning to inform real estate decisions and that may soon inform public policy.

Walk Score will soon produce similar rankings for the biggest 40 cities in the US. Stay tuned!