Update:Today’s Seattle P-I has my op-ed on this issue, and with a good headline too: “Transportation forever linked to climate change.”
In the Seattle metro region, voters just sank an $18 billion transportation mega-proposal that would have built more than 180 lanes miles of highway and 50 miles of light rail. But so far, the mainstream press has missed one of the most important stories of the year. The real story isn’t tax fatigue, it’s this: perhaps for the first time ever, a critical bloc of voters linked transportation choices to climate protection.
In the run-up to the vote a surprising amount of the debate centered on the package’s climate implications. (The state has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, and many cities, including Seattle, have been national leaders on climate.)
The opposition argued global warming. So did the measure’s supporters. If you don’t believe me, see, among others, the Seattle P-I (yes), The Stranger (no), the Yes Campaign, the Sierra Club’s No Campaign, the right-leaning Washington Policy Center (no), and even the anti-tax/rail No Campaign, which kept trumpeting the Sierra Club’s opposition as a primary reason to vote no.
The turning point may have been when King County Executive Ron Sims suddenly withdrew his support. He cited the climate-warming emissions from added traffic as one of his chief objections—he was thinking about his granddaughters, he said, not just the next five years.
The funny thing was, there was a heap of confusion and disagreement over the proposal’s true climate impacts, mainly because no one had conducted a full climate assessment of the measure. But climate clearly weighed as a factor for a critical bloc of voters on both sides of the issue. In fact, Prop 1 may be the last of its kind, at least in the Pacific Northwest: a transportation proposal that lacked a climate accounting.
Obviously, there were more factors in play than just the climate. Taxes and traffic congestion mattered too. But what ultimately may have tipped that scales is that Puget Sound voters are reluctant to expand roads because they lock us into decades of increased climate pollution.
It’s pretty well accepted that Seattle-area voters are receptive to environmental messages—and in this case there were smart and well-informed greens on both sides of the debate. But green or not, the biggest problem for a certain segment of voters may have been that there was no comprehensive accounting of the climate impacts of the project—one that included the roads, the rail, and the probable effects on land-use.
So what’s the lesson?
First, driving is the single largest source of Washington’s emissions, as it is for much of the United States. So, future transportation packages should at least attempt to tally the climate impacts. And as voters begin to take climate protection more and more seriously, transportation packages should address climate change as a guiding principle.
Transportation projects that embrace climate protection will:
Stay ahead of the curve by estimating the climate impacts in advance.
Emissions estimates should be calculated for every large transportation project. Greenhouse gas accounting is still a new field, so analysts may at first be able to obtain only ballpark figures for the expected emissions from some new projects. But reasonable estimates are still useful. And many aspects of climate accounting are fairly straightforward: we already forecast how many cars a new highway will carry, so why not estimate how much gas those cars will burn?
Sightline developed a general estimate showing that in congested urban areas a single new lane mile of road adds at least 100,000 tons of greenhouse gases over 50 years. Detailed analyses of direct impacts, especially tailored for local areas, can help planners and voters determine the most responsible solutions for the region.
Focus on transportation solutions that are both cost-effective and climate-friendly.
Smart, small-caliber solutions can improve mobility even as they curb fossil fuel use, and at modest cost to taxpayers. Solutions like boosting ridesharing, speeding bus service, and expanding bicycle facilities, as well as using existing roadways more efficiently through policies like congestion pricing, are cost-effective solutions that can address the region’s transportation challenges while reducing climate impacts.
Consider transportation projects an opportunity to improve land use patterns.
Our transportation choices and land use patterns are closely intertwined. Adding new highways can induce low-density sprawl, which in turn lengthens trip distances and requires car travel for nearly all trips. New roads can tilt development patterns toward car-dependent sprawl for decades to come.
Planners should begin to examine the greenhouse gas impacts of building and operating a light rail, implementing HOV/HOT lanes, or fostering compact development near transit. In addition, we should study how adding lanes on the urban fringe may lead to new low-density development and increased emissions.
Puget Sound’s roads and transit measure may have been the last of a dying breed: a transportation package presented to the voters without a clear accounting of climate impact.
Over the long haul, transportation is the most important piece of this region’s climate change puzzle. Analyzing the impacts of our transportation projects can create real opportunities to move climate protection in the right direction.
Matt the Engineer
Great points. I’d love to see good climate-based analysis of transit decisions. Looking at the San Francisco area BART system, there are some some strongly beneficial (in the sprawl-sense) stations: Oakland, SF, even the airport extension, and some questionable stations: Bay Point, Richmond, Dublin. Those stations in low-density areas may actually contribute to sprawl, as it allows you to live further from the city and still commute in a reasonable period of time. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, I’d just love to have someone consider these issues before building the stations.
andrew
Nice article.All in all would you say that referendums are good for democracy, or would we all be better off if they did not exist?I am an outside observer from BC where there is a similar plan to expand the highways (but no immediate plan to add transit). There is no referendum system here. The only way we can defeat this measure is by voting the current party out of office.I look on this referendum system with envy, but only slightly. Tying roads and transit together was insidious, and I don’t think it served either side any good.
Morgan Ahouse
Andrew, during the last few months, I was highly sensitive to the democratic behavior I saw around me. I volunteered for one of the recent campaigns where I participated in all kinds of dialogic democracy as an advocate—blogs, letter writing, conversations on the street or at the bar, conversations with friends. I also listened to two groups of friends wrestle with their absentee ballots for at least an hour each.Elections and campaigns are fascinating stimulants of democracy, yet I dislike the way that referenda allow elected officials to avoid risky decisions instead of taking leadership and forging new political realities. Both a strong democracy and bold leadership will be important components to the serious policy work and the political realignments necessary to re-invent our political-economic systems many see as requisite to sustainability.
Matt the Engineer
What bahouse said. The referendum process does force dilligent voters to educate themselves and allows them to participate in the process (both are good things). But the fact is that people don’t educate themselves enough about issues, and therefore are swayed by sound-bites and rhetoric. When there are complex issues involved, I’d rather have a handful of people that can spend all day thinking about the issues make decisions rather than thousands of people that spend less than an hour. Add to that the problem of handing off every tough (and not so tough*) decision to the voters, and I’d argue the system is far worse than representative government.* We’re to the point where Seattle voters had to decide if the mayor has to give two state-of-the-city addresses instead of one, apparently because he snubbed the city council and gave his speach to a business club. Make a decision yourselves for once, council.
Todd Myers
Above you argue that climate change was argued by many groups, including my organization, the Washington Policy Center. Actually, this is not really true. I examined the validity of arguments about Prop 1 light rail with regard to CO2 and found them 1) lacking any data to support them, and 2) incorrect. What I argued was that people should vote for or against based on the impact on transportation for the dollars, not on the largely speculative impact on climate change. The study by the Sierra Club, ironically, shows that the vast majority of voters did that.
Eric de Place
Todd,What I was trying to get across by mentioning WPC’s report on light rail and co2 was simply that everyone was arguing about climate change—it played a surprisingly big role in the debate on every side. And that’s something new under the sun. As you say, the poll numbers show that taxes played a larger role in the no vote (no huge suprise there), but what’s really interestingt to me is that environment/climate change play a much bigger role than it ever has before.
david
Hey, Good thoughts everyone. Let’s face it, there’s no better way to win an election, or in this instance, pass a measure, than to employ confusion as a strategy to cover facts. In this case it appears both sides were playing the green card, I’m just glad in Seattle at least, we’re smart enough to see through the brown veneer. The thing that clued me off on this prop was when a politician quoted. “We know prop 1 isn’t perfect, but it’s all we have”. Or something to that effect, not an extreme vote of confidence.
hearth
Such proposals need to evaluate more than just one of the side-effects of transportation. The dependency on cars affects also: health outcomes, sprawl, traffic on streets, household budgets, and equitable access to good transportation for the poor, youths, elderly, and disabled.And the assessment should be done _before_ the proposition is finalized, so it can be better. This one married expanded roads with expanded light-rail. They appear to fight or duplicate each other, but in reality they favour _mobility_ (distance) or _access_ (arriving at a useful destination). They make long trips easier than short trips.Ask yourself: will the transportation proposal make it easier to live without a personal car? Will it make walking the most favoured mode and reduce intimidation for those on foot and bike?Chris BradshawOttawa, Ontario
andiamo_paolo
Interesting article, interesting comments. What is interesting to me is that most of the news pieces I have read regarding the rejection of Prop. 1 have cited republican spokesmen who cite that, “This is a rejection of the status quo [meaning political] by Washington voters…”. A fair amount of educated voters voted against this measure because of so many other downfalls-expanding roads, but not restricting development or growth. Expanding light rail, but providing no accompanying measure to ensure local governments zone appropriately to support the lines, building the cross-base highway (for the benefit of the construction lobby?), and others.If anyone is interested in examining a solid mass transit plan, look at http://www.rideuta.com. UTA has bought up rail right-a-ways and are in the process of constructing an expansive commuter rail line and light rail expansion within SLC.
greveland
Matt the Engineer for President. His point about sound bites, etc is well taken and mightily true. I thought we hired (voted in) people to do this kind of research, but only Harry Truman could handle it nowdays.