TRB - Division A (A): Planning and Environment Group (D): Social, Economic, and Cultural Issues (D): Transportation and Sustainability (40)
TRB - Division A (A): Planning and Environment Group (D): Social, Economic, and Cultural Issues (D): Transportation and Sustainability (40)
Committee on Transportation and Sustainability (ADD40)
Committee Agendas and Minutes: 1/24/2007 Minutes
Transportation and Sustainability Committee (ADD40)
MINUTES OF TRANSPORTATION AND SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE MEETING
Washington, DC
7:30 – 9:30 PM, 24 January 2007
Introductions
Dan Sperling opened the meeting with introductions. He noted the cross cutting role of this committee, which is reflected in its composition.
TRB Report
Lori Kennedy, TRB section chair, said that the summer meeting on July 7-9 in Chicago could be an opportunity for this committee to have an informal meeting. There will be a formal committee meeting during the climate policy conference on August 21-24 at Asilomar. Lori talked about the problem with the server breakdown for the last August 1 paper deadline. This year, the papers will be split into two categories with different dates, to be announced. There were over 3,000 papers submitted. There will be emails soon from Mark Norman asking for any revisions to the committee’s strategic plan and to appoint a person to enter research proposals into the new TRB database for same. The deadline for these two items will be soon, in February. Partnerships for Progress in Transportation will be next year’s theme.
Martine Micozzi suggested that next year’s meeting will probably allow commercial exhibits; she suggested that there might be some “green” technology that could be displayed. The committee should consider what could be illustrated. There was some discussion of this but no definite conclusion nor commitment.
Report on Activities from 2006
Dan said that the committee sponsored four sessions at the Annual Meeting, including a poster session at the current conference. There were 11 papers submitted, with 6 accepted for presentation and 3 for publication. A major activity was organizing the climate policy conference this summer in Asilomar.
Announcements from Members
The Center for Clean Air Policy has put out a paper with ten recommendations to be incorporated into the next transportation authorization—a GREEN-TEA bill. There is also an urban leaders initiative as well as a new CCAP Guidebook to help quantify emissions.
Dan said Driving Climate Change (the book that resulted from the last Asilomar conference) is available for 20% off is one uses the following code and phone number for ordering: 77769, 800 545-2522.
An APTA representative talked about their combined climate change and transit efforts. There will be a special workshop in Seattle at the end of July that will address sustainability efforts. An announcement will be sent to Dan to forward to the committee members when there is more information.
The international activities are increasing. There were 89 papers submitted for transportation in developing counties this year. There may be some efforts for combined sessions with this committee to learn from other countries as well as comparative efforts.
Dan said there has been a proposal to create a subcommittee on climate change that would report to this committee and the energy committee. There was some show of interest in this.
Tony May said that there would be a paper on green transport policy coming from the EU this year. That is a first. He said there seems to be a gap within TRB to address integrated urban transport. Tony and Betty Deakin will take the lead on finding a place for this to be addressed, possibly as a combined effort between this committee and policy.
Jim Joseph of U. of Delaware announced a study on reducing marine emissions that available on the web at http://climate.volpe.dot.gov/plan.html.
Upcoming conferences
This committee is co-sponsoring the Biennial Asilomar conference on Transportation and Energy Policy, focusing on climate policy. August 21-24, 2007
"Best Practices: Coordination of Transit, Regional Transportation Planning and Land Use" to be held in Denver, Colorado, August 26-28, 2007. David Burwell talked about this, saying that the unique feature was addressing the region. He contrasted this with Railvolution, which is more concentrated on transit systems, while this is regional best practices.
Brief presentations
Mark Delucchi, UC Davis, on innovative city designs
Mark said suburban emissions must be reduced if there is to be much change in total emissions; traditional transit does not work in a suburban environment. The solution is slow lightweight vehicles completely separated from the fast heavy vehicles. He showed diagrams of the interlaced, grade separated concepts. The report is on Mark’s faculty webpage at UC Davis. The advantages include much cleaner, safer light vehicle use. This is a plan for new communities; how to address existing communities is an area for research. A key issue for the latter is whether the concept has to be totally grade separated. Giving priority to slow vehicles is a key, but cars have to stay in the system. There is no assumption about density. The costs are estimated to be only about 10% greater than conventional. Examples are Radcliff in New Jersey, Houten in the Netherlands. The city size would be 50,000 to 150,000.
Bill Lyons, Volpe, on newly released USDOT Center for Climate Change Strategic Plan. Available at: http://climate.volpe.dot.gov/plan.html .
Copies were made available at committee meeting. He said that it is supported by the modes since there was no funding for it in SAFETEA-LU. He acknowledged the agency partners who supported this and noted there were a number of interviews, including Dan Sperling and David Burwell, which contributed to the plan. It is focused on greenhouse gas reductions and ways to achieve them. It is DOT’s plan for climate change as well as being the Volpe Center’s strategic plan. Funding is in short supply, less than one million per year, in support of the activities in the plan. FHWA will be coordinating bike/ped aspects, with funding drawn from SAFETEA-LU.
Hal Kassoff, AASHTO, on Sustainability Component of AASHTO Vision/Plan
Hal talked about the next cycle of the transportation reauthorization, which is prompting AASHTO to prepare its position. There is some sense that since the interstate system has been finished, there has been no replacement vision for the highway side. AASHTO is trying to articulate a vision, which it plans to have developed by this summer. To do this, it is putting together nine different working groups, which would synthesize their results by late May. The areas include sustainable transportation among others. Others include future of the interstate system, freight logistics, future of freight rail, urban mobility, safety, advanced technology applications, and funding. The goal is to have a conference of about 150 people, with working groups of 10-12 people addressing each topic with respect to issues, opportunities, and the like. Ideas for this should be sent to Dan Sperling and David Burwell, who will participate in this exercise, within the next two weeks since the conference will be around the end of February. Dan said that this is the time to think big. June Carlson volunteered to pull the ideas together.
Committee Business
Subcommittee on Sustainable Transportation Indicators (Todd Litman, chair)
Todd gave a report, saying that indicators are one of the key inputs in the project. Todd is trying to develop a list of sustainable indicators over this next year that track social and environmental trends that are appropriate for different scales: local versus state and nation. The list will recommend data needed for this, e.g., per capita energy consumption, per capita accidents, etc., and come up with measures that are ubiquitous enough to allow tracking of sustainability trends. He hopes to have this validated by TRB by the end, although there is no process for this currently.
Committee Website
Dan talked about research needs under sustainability, which would be cross cutting methodologies, databases, etc., with the emphasis on cross cutting. The idea is to compile these into a database by the beginning of June. Marie Venner mvenner@icfi.com volunteered to lead this effort.
2008 TRB Session Topics and Calls for Papers
Todd suggested a call for papers on sustainable transportation indicators. He will put together a call and send it to Dan.
Joann suggested that 2008 will be the year of climate change. David Greene said that perhaps the emphasis should be what to do, now that the consensus is heading toward actually doing something. David Kriger said that private companies are starting to do things and that we might tap into those efforts. Dan suggested coordinating with the energy committee, adding something on the investment side of SAFETEA-LU. Steve Winkelman suggested trying to cooperate with other committees on how climate change will affect their area, e.g., need for more permeable pavement to handle greater storm events. Dan asked Joann to take the lead, perhaps with a call for papers and also approaching other committees to collaborate on the effects on infrastructure. This is probably the same group that wants to be on the climate subcommittee. Send an email on this to Dan and he will send it to Joann.
Tony May would like to explore a call for papers in the urban transport coordination area, working on this with David Burwell.