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Comment 1 for Transportation Comments for the GHG Scoping Plan (sp-transport-ws) - 1st Workshop.
First Name: Bob
Last Name: Johnston
Email Address: rajohnston@ucdavis.edu
Affiliation: UC Davis
Subject: Transportation Policies
Comment:
You leave out of Recommended Measures many transportation policies that would be economically beneficial for the State. You then list many of these in the Other Measures. Most of these policies have been studied in detail, such as freesay congestion tolls (which probably increase VMT and GHGs), all-day freeway tolls, feebates, PAYD insurance, fuel taxes, and worktrip parking charges. The CEC has studied some of these measures, for example, and the others have been modeled and, in some cases, empirically studied in the U.S. and EC nations. Most notable by its absense is a policy to direct Federal, State, and local transportation funding to transit, walk, and bike, in the future. After all, this sector shows the fastest growth rate in GHGs in most State and national projections. It is well known that we must invest in transit and let our highways become congested, in order to get households to take transit, walk and bike, reduce auto ownership, and reduce auto travel. Also, to get them to move to closer-in locations. This, for example, is the policy in the London region, perhaps the most-modeled region in the world. Most transportation researchers believe that we must reduce VMT to attain the 2020 standard. I believe there will be slippage in the GHG reductions projected in this draft Scoping report. We certainly will need to substantially reduce VMT, in order to attain the 2050 standard in the Executive Order and in the IPCC and Stern reports. These transportation and related land use changes require decades to work and so need to be adopted sooner, not later. If you wish to punt these into the next 5-year round because more political work needs to be done with cities and counties, then say so. This can be worded as letting them test policies on their own, etc. You also should state what the problem is with Caltrans not exercising leadership on the investment issue. It is true that this problem extends into the Legislature, which has simultaneously decided to build more freeways and to reduce GHGs. Perhaps the ARB can analyze the additional GHGs that these capacity additions will produce and the cost to reduce a like amount, with other policies.
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Date and Time Comment Was Submitted: 2008-06-27 19:29:39
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