A Good Policy to Reduce the Green House Gas - Essay Example

SB 375 EVALUATIONS AND VMT STRATEGY ASSESSMENT AND ANALYSIS OF GHG EMISSIONS REDUCTION In California, 40% of the Green house gas emissions (GHG) are due to the transportation system, with 75 percent coming from passenger vehicles (Air resource board 10). For the passenger vehicles, the following factors are involved in determining the GHG emitted. The vehicle to fuel efficiency can be improved by introduction of more advanced technology. Secondly, is the carbon content of the fuel, reducing the carbon content through the use of alternative fuels like natural gas and bio fuels reduces the green house gas emission rates. Lastly, the number of miles travelled affects the GHG emission rates. To address concerns of pollution and VMT, the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act Of 2008, Senate Bill 375 (SB 375) was passed and signed by Governor Schwarzenegger (Rodier, Caroline 63). It is designed to help the state reduce the green house gas emissions by first ensuring that green house emission gas emissions reduction targets set by Assemble Bill 32 (AB 32) are achieved. These will be implemented through creating incentives for smarter and resource – efficient land use and transportation planning and implementation.SB 375 needs the California ARB (Air Resource Board) to set GHC aims for 2020 to 2035 for each of the sectors covered by the biggest 18 Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPOs) within California and for each MPO to adopt “sustainable communities strategy” that specifies how the reduction targets will be achieved (Air resource board 15). In the paper the analysis of two specific strategies to reduce emissions will be analyzed to get the estimation of VMT and GHCs emission reduction rates. The strategies include: Bike share program to address the last mile problem and road and parking pricing (Rodier, Caroline 70). A good policy to reduce GHGs emissions and VMT is one that provides regulatory certainty to motivate and promote innovations and investments in reducing greens house gas emissions (Cervero, Robert, Duncan 101). A good policy should address both the short term and long term measures to reduce emissions and should be economical viable.SB 375 is a good policy for reducing GHGs and VMT, because it has the attributes of a good policy and has being implemented in parts of the world; hence, it is a landmark legislation (Davis 89).However, the legislation has a number of weaknesses such as: it does not impose heavy penalties for non compliance and gives weak incentives and rewards for compliance. Better incentives and heavy penalties for on non-compliance are needed for large reductions in emissions and to motivate new investment patterns. Another area of concern is that the focus on regulations with little reliance on market instruments has the ability to create in inefficiencies and therefore increasing the cost of compliance. To address this concern a system has to be designed to reconcile regulations with market signals. One measure would be to require people buying vehicles which consume more fuel and produce more greens house gases to pay an additional fee (Giovanni, McFadden, Alemi 20).This will effectively reduce government expenditure in implementing these policies. The other weakness is the absence of policies addressing other modes of transport such as air, maritime and some freight activities and this has the effect of limiting the scope covered by the law. The implementation of the law should be improved in the following ways: first, by studying the current trend in household travel choices, taking into account the transportation system and land use demographics and using travel demand models to test the impact of transportation investments and the proposed policies. There is also need to develop models capable of estimating VMT and GHGs emission rates so as to be able to understand the effects of implementations of the various policies (California code of conduct 42). One of the strategies in reducing pollution rates is the use of bike share program to address the last mile program (Buehler, Ralph, Pucher 120). The bike share program helps commuters to move from the transit place to the final destination without using a vehicle or taking the local bus. Since the bike share program is a simple mode of transportation it is easy to implement because of the small investment capital required. For the specific case of the city of California seven tons per day of smog-forming gases and a ton of inhalable particles are prevented from polluting the environment using the bike share program (Giovanni, McFadden and Alemi 20). Although the bike share system can only be used over short distances studies show that they substitute for longer vehicle trips and have an impact on the VMT in the city. In European countries such as Denmark and Germany where more people use bicycles and few use vehicles evidence suggest that they have much lower GHG emissions rates per capita than in America (Bedworth,louise,hanak 75). To implement this strategy in the campus more the following measures need to be taken. They include, more bike parking areas and cyclist shower and less space for vehicle parking. The objective is to inspire more students to use bicycles when commuting to campus. This will reduce GHG emission rates in the campus. The second strategy to reduce the VMT and GHG emission rate in the city is a road and parking pricing program (Public institute of California 45). One of the main factors that affect VMT is vehicle use. To reduce the VMT economist and urban planners have suggested a pricing policy, where the cost of driving goes up and this will reduce the number of people driving to work. The parking prices can also be used to reduce the VMT by increasing the parking fees resulting in more and more people using public transport to get work and therefore reducing the VMT (McCollum, David, Yang 5580).There are four types of road pricing. The first one is point tolling where drivers are charged to access a roadway segment such as a toll booth or bridge. Studies have shown that using this policy the elasticity of traffic volume with respect to price is in the range of 0.1 and 0.45 (Rodier, Caroline 120).However, this policy has its weakness such as: using alternative routes to avoid tolling and the availability of other modes of travel. In the major cities cordon pricing where drivers are indicted when crossing boundaries of predefined tolling areas have led to reduction of between 12 percent and 22 percent of traffic volume (Bedsworth et al 48). Taking a specific case of Singapore there has being an estimated decrease of between 2 percent and 3 percent in traffic volume for every 10 percent increase in cordon pricing (Adams, Tom, Amanda 48). It is important to note that reduction in traffic volume by the use of cordon pricing does not directly translate to reduction VMT due to drivers using alternative routes or diverting from the tolling stations (Bedsworth et al 23). Lastly, we have distance charging where drivers are charged as per the distance covered on the road network; the following is the results from a travel model simulation in the state of Oregon. A simulated 5 percent per mile VMT charge in Sacramento area resulted in 10 percent reduction in VMT. For the Washington Dc Area a simulated 10 percent VMT charge resulted in 15 percent decrease in VMT. The above policy if introduced in the city it can lead to a 10 % reduction based on simulation of application of the policy in other areas (Calif 68). Conclusions It is evident that the SB 375 passed in California is a landmark legislation that should be adopted by other countries worldwide to help in addressing concerns raised by increased GHG emission. The implementation of this legislation will requires commitment by the government to make investments and provide viable incentives to companies to help encourage the implementation of the legislation. The state of California should impose heavy penalties to non-compiling companies to ensure more companies compile. It is vital to note that research is needed on the effects of implementation of the legislation since the available data is based on simulation which is not very accurate and may not reflect the real life situation. The two strategies that I have discussed can help reduce pollution in the city since bike sharing program reduces the number of users using cars hence less GHG emission. The use of bicycles also helps in reduction of city traffic congestions and help in addressing mobility issues in the city. The use of road pricing and parking pricing significantly leads to a decrease in VMT and hence less pollution in the city. Lastly, there is need for advanced models to analyze passenger travel patterns, air quality and growth management. Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Works Cited Adams, Tom, Amanda Eaken, and Ann Notthof. Communities Tackle Global Warming: A Guide to California"s Sb 375. New York (N.Y.: Natural Resources Defense Council, 2009. Internet resource. Bedsworth, Louise, Ellen Hanak, and Jed D. Kolko. Driving Change: Reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled in California. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California, 2011. Print. Practice 45.10 (2011): 993-1006. Buehler, Ralph, and John Pucher. "Walking and Cycling in Western Europe and the United States: Trends, Policies, and Lessons." Tr News. (2012). Print. Circella, Giovanni, Andrew McFadden, and Farzad Alemi. California Beyond Sb 375: Evaluating the Impact of Proposed Land Use and Transportation Plans on Future Travel Patterns and Interregional Travel Behavior. , 2014. Internet-resource. Comar 26.11.34.02: California Code of Regulations (ccr), Title 13 Motor Vehicles, Division 3 Air Resources Board. Annapolis, MD: Office of the Secretary, Div. of State Documents, 2010. Print. Davis, Calif: Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, 2008. Print. McCollum, David, and Christopher Yang. "Achieving deep reductions in US transport greenhouse gas emissions: Scenario analysis and policy implications." Energy Policy 37.12 (2009): 5580-5596. Rodier, Caroline J. A Review of the International Modeling Literature: Transit, Land Use, and Auto Pricing Strategies to Reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Davis, Calif: Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, 2008. Print. Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More