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US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is appealing to Congress for funds to replenish the Highway Account of the Highway Trust Fund. The fund gets its revenues from a 18.4 cent per gallon tax levied on petrol purchases and is the major conduit for federal money going to state and local highway and transit projects.

Because of high fuel prices, gasoline consumption has declined over the past year resulting in revenue shortfalls for the fund. Because the tax is a fixed, higher pump prices do not necessarily mean higher revenues. Furthermore, when consumers purchase fuel-efficient vehicles they pay less taxes per mile driven yet still require well-maintained and expanded highways.

This financial situation suggests larger structural imbalances in the financing system for roads and highways. When gas prices were relatively low, enough revenue was generated to meet costs; but when prices got high enough to impact demand, the system shows its faults.

Peters’ running to Congress for money to fill the gap should remind us of what could have happened had John McCain’s insane idea to create a “gas-tax holiday” generated more steam.  The budget shortcomings could have been even more severe and with more consumption, the urgency of highway maintenance and expansion would have been more pronounced.

With his elevation of a climate change denier to be his potential Vice President and his embrace of crackpot schemes to weaken the country’s transportation infrastructure, McCain is doing little to suggest he is serious about confronting some of the country’s pressing policy challenges.

I have published several papers on planned communities and have a long-standing interest in looking at the tensions between the visions of planners and the ways in which everyday people relate to the economic, social, and cultural elements of these planned spaces.

Often planned communities are derided for their social and cultural “inauthenticity” and their contribution to ecologically unsustainable sprawl.  Some planners, however, have been trying to address these issues and build in a more environmentally-friendly fashion.  Prairie Crossing, in Grayslake, Illinois is an interesting attempt in this regard.  Terrain.org did a good story a few years back about its origins, but, briefly, the community was developed self-consciously to respect natural ecosystems.  Any develompent of this size will undoubtedly come up short in solving all of the environmental problems associated with the intractable problems of suburbanization, but in a 677-acre site, the developers did an admirable job.

I visited there a few days ago and, in an effort to continue some experiments I’ve been doing with google maps, I will post below a modest “virtual interactive tour.”  Clicking on the blue points will bring up pictures and commentary.  The map can be linked to directly on google’s website.

The New York Times has two articles today discussing the problems with essential elements of the US infrastructure.

The first is a front page discussion of the electricity grid and how the lack of capacity for electricity transmission is causing problems for renewable energy development.  There are plenty of places where wind energy in particular could be effectively and profitably generated–they just happen to be in places where not a lot of people live.  The transmission grid structure has essentially remained stagnant for the past two decades and sites with promise for wind generation are not well-served.

One problem that is highlighted in the article is the fact that states have tremendous regulatory power over grid siting, construction, and maintenance as well as over utility prices.  Without federal incentives, the article suggests, states with cheap sources of electricity production may be unenthusiastic about price hikes that might accomopany exporting energy to distant states.

The second article discusses the emergent trend in cities to sell off infrastructure to investment banks in exchange for short-term capital infusion.  Here in Chicago, Mayor Daley has deployed this strategy, selling off the Chicago Skyway and proposing to sell Midway Airport.

In a similar situation which faces the electricity infrastructure, we are seeing a crisis in the maintenance and expansion of essential transportation amenities in cities and metropolitan regions.  As in the case with the electricity grid, this largely stems from the absence of a concerted federal policy to address the problem.

For cities, their only choice seems to look to private capital for financing.  While privatizing a highway or airport might temporarily free up municipal budgets for other things, there are numerous problems involved with relying on privatization as a strategy for insuring a functioning transportation network.  Elements that may not be profitable for private capital–but which are essential for a functioning network–are likely to be ignored.  Additionally, issues of equity are apparent as privatization is also generally accompanied by higher user fees for roads, airports, and transit.

What is missing in both transportation and energy policy is a logical, coordinated, federal policy.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is furthering his ambitions for making New York a more sustainable city by calling for the city to more aggressively pursue local, renewable energy production.

In a speech in Las Vegas earlier this week, he expressed a desire to make the city sustainable in its energy production by pushing wind and tidal turbines and solar power projects.  Although, he has backpedaled a bit on his proposal, the idea that you can have smaller-scale energy production by deploying wind turbines on skyscrapers and bridges and solar panels on thousands of rooftops throughout a city is an innovative approach.

Many of the current renewable proposals use the same large-scale industrial mode of thinking that characterizes fossil fuel production: big solar and wind farms in thinly populated western states.  These proposals face numerous challenges, the least of which is developing the transmission line capacity needed to move the electricity to urban consumers.
A decentralized, urban approach, however, could be less intrusive and require less massive bits of infrastructure.  Having thousands of buildings generating a percentage of their electricity on-site in a city could have tremendous impact in reducing carbon emissions and lowering energy prices.

Cities can also develop larger projects as well.  The New York Times local politics blog has an intriguing proposal for turning the recently closed Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island into a wind farm.

Today’s Washington Post has an article on housing prices and development patterns in the region’s Virginia suburbs.  Apparently housing prices have fallen most dramatically in exurban areas while sites closer to DC and near transit stops have maintained their value.  Exurban communities have little appeal when you can only get around by automobile.
The result has been higher-density development strategies undertaken in suburban municipalities often centered around transit expansion.  The article addresses the fact that sprawling development is–in part–a result of an imbalance in the investment of transportation dollars.

With high petrol prices here to stay, the question becomes: when will political leaders adequately address this historical imbalance?

As the US Presidential campaign heats up, candidates are starting to develop more specific proposals on pertinent issues.  Yesterday, Barack Obama released his New Energy for America plan.

Here are the highlights as I see them:

• Cap and Trade: He advocates for reducing US greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 1990 levels.  This is an ambitious target and one that exceeds the G-8 agreement last month for a 50% reduction.  He also wants to auction 100% of the emissions credits and use the money for research into renewables as well as to provide rebates for consumers to shift to low-carbon technologies.
• Increase fuel efficiency in vehicles by 4% per year and put 1 million plug-in electric vehicles on the roads by 2015.  GHG emissions stemming from the transportation sector are significant and it is a good idea to reduce them.  However, a shift to electric cars could have the opposite effect since in many areas of the country coal is the major source of electricity.  More electric cars would place greater demands on fossil fuel electricity generation.  The other problem with these fuel efficiency schemes relates to the current financing structure of higway construction and maintenance.  The federal highway trust fund raises revenue by a tax on fuel.  With higher efficiency vehicles, there is less revenue raised.  Additionally, the costs of driving are lower with greater efficiency which could lead to greater use.  Greater use plus lower revenues is not necessarily sustainable.  Obama offers little disucssion in how his energy plan would effect this revenue stream.
• He does end the plan with an acknowledgement of the need to “build more livable and sustainable communities.”  This is light on specifics, but he claims to be “committed to reforming the federal transportation funding and leveling employer incentives for driving and public transit.”  A coherent urban development and transporation strategy would be significant in reducing a dependence on fossil fuels.  Obama doesn’t offer such a strategy here, but it is a positive step that he at least acknowledges the connection on at least a superficial level.

Like most politicians, Obama is a bit too bullish on bio-fuels, failing to address the environmentally problematic aspects of their production, the massive subsidies that go this sector through the Farm bill,  and the tariffs on imports that artificially rasie their prices.

On the whole his plan is decent–clearly a dramatic break with Bush’s harmful actions and more coherent than McCain’s shifting positions on the topic.

The Washington Post is reporting that the “Dead Zone” in the northern Gulf of Mexico is at a near record size of 8,000 square miles.  The “dead zone” is the product of hypoxia–a depletion of oxygen in the water, which is necessary for marine life.

The phenomena occurs as a result of nitrogens used for fertilizers in industrial agriculture running off into the Mississippi River and its tributaries, becoming concentrated as the river empties into the gulf.  The expanding hypoxia zone kills off fish and wreaks havoc on local economies dependent on healthy fisheries.

The fact that the hypoxia zone is expanding should be a national scandal as it is a product of wholesale pollution stemming from the lack of any effective environmental regulatory regime for industrial agriculture.  As climate change brings about higher temperatures, the phenomenon is likely going to get worse [.pdf].

I haven’t heard either presidential candidate offer a solution to this expanding national disaster, but it was a positive development yesterday when the Bush Administration’s Agriculture Department took an uncharacteristically rational  position by refusing to allow farmland uncultivated for conservation purposes to be brought into production.

As concerns about peak oil prompt new interest in electric vehicles, the Guardian reports on a potentially problematic aspect should this trend continue to grow: limited supplies of lithium.  Lithium is the primary component of Li-ion batteries that are used in a variety of portable technologies, including electric cars.

According to the article, there is little consensus on the amount of lithium reserves on the planet (check the debate at EvWorld for more background).  However, it is a limited resource and this fact alone should be taken into account by policymakers as shifts from fossil fuels are pursued.

On the heels of Paris’ successful bike-sharing program, Vélib, the city is proposing a variant using cars: Autolib.

Details have yet to be worked out–particularly with regard to financing–but the idea is similar to Vélib.  Users would “check out” a car from one station and drive it to their destination across town and deposit it at another station, paying only for the time that they were using the vehicle.

Here in Chicago, we have a couple of pretty successful car sharing schemes, the non-profit I-Go and the for-profit, Zip Car.  However, both of these programs require the user to deposit the car at the originating location.  I can certainly see the advantage of the Autolib scheme–you don’t have to pay for the vehicle when it is sitting idle.

Of course, it could also result in higher levels of use (and more traffic) as it could theoretically allow more efficient use of a single car.

In Sunday’s New York Times, Princeton economist Alan S. Blinder, wrote a column advocating for a federal “Cash for Clunkers” environmental/economic stimulus law.

Perhaps because my car is 18 years old and has logged 204,000 miles, I found his proposal intriguing.  Given the fact that older model cars are significant contributors to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, the cash for clunkers program would give owners of old cars a cash payment of 20% over the Blue Book value to get them off the road.

Blinder also proposes that an income cap on eligibility be established to limit costs and insure that low-income people (who likely drive older cars anyway) can take full advantage of the subsidy.  People could use the money for whatever they want.  In many cases, one would expect, another, newer car would be purchased injecting cash into the economy and resulting in an aggregate decrease in harmful emissions.

This is not a new idea.  Canada is initiating a similar program, beginning in January 2009 and Texas already has a program giving a $3,500 rebate for a new car for eligible trade-ins.