Showing posts with label air quality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label air quality. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

No new freeway will reduce pollution

Adding a new freeway will never reduce pollution, because that does not reduce vehicle miles traveled. Vehicle miles traveled generate half the air pollution in SLCo. Adding more miles traveled will not help.

Our air quality fails twice yearly: pm2.5 (winter) and ozone (summer). We are in "Serious Non-attainment". Which means we may lose all Federal funding for me roads. (The feds pay for 80 percent of new freeways.) Only California and Phoenix are in similar circumstances. Note that both, after decades of freeway expansion, are now engaged in huge programs of transit construction. This suggests the same will occur in Utah.

It is unlikely freeway construction will stop. But it is likely that what will be built will not be grade separated freeway. Rather, the most expensive part of new freeways (interchanges) will be omitted or delayed. Hence, most new roads will be more like Bangerter highway, with innovative intersections rather than interchanges.

Alternately, more like Mountainview corridor: phased segments and widths. A sort of boulevard treatment for a freeway. First, the access lanes (frontage roads) get built (as minor arterials) with a big space left in the middle. And then the freeway lanes in the middle get built.

In any case, the 'surge' of additional mobility historically generated by a new freeway is likely gone for good. And hence the massive profits from developing farmland. The land value uplift will still take place, but at a slower and more gradual rate.

The market knows this, even if it doesn't know it knows. The price of 'raw land' in the county, (even marginal and difficult to develop land) is rising like mad. And housing pricing reflects this. New houses typically cost 5x the cost of the land. So as land prices rise, either new houses get more expensive, or lot sizes fall. I think we see both happening.

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

What does Non-attainment actually mean?

If you hadn't heard, the Salt Lake and Provo area failed the last round of EPA air quality tests. It's not a big surprise--we've been just skating by for years. But what does that mean? Well, I asked my good friend Google, who directed me to the EPA website.

  • All requirements above, with
    • Major source threshold 50 tpy
    • NSR offset ratio 1.2:1
  • 18% RFP over 6 years
  • Enhanced monitoring plan
  • Modeled demo of attainment
  • Milestone contingency measures for RFP
  • Enhanced I/M
  • Clean fuels program (if applicable)
  • NSR requirements for existing source MODS
  • Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) demonstration, and transportation control measures if needed
Which is a pile of acronyms, and not very helpful. Decoded, it reads:

  • All requirements above, with
    • Major source threshold 50 tons per year
    • New Source Review offset ratio 1.2:1
  • 18% reasonable further progress over 6 years
  • Enhanced monitoring plan
  • Modeled demo of attainment
  • Milestone contingency measures for Reasonable Further Progress
  • Enhanced Inspection and Maintenance
  • Clean fuels program (if applicable)
  • New Source Review requirements for existing source MODS
  • Vehicle miles traveled demonstration, and transportation control measures if needed
'Major Source' I presume to mean any single polluter emitting more than 50 tons a year of anything gets hassled; hence, any major single company is going to have a hard time (which may make them reluctant to come to Utah, or stay here).

'New Source Review' covers new polluters; they can pollute, if they can obtain 'offsets' by reducing pollutants from other sources. We're now at a 1.2:1 ratio, so for every 5 tons of new pollutant a New Source would emit, they have to find a way to reduce 6 tons of pollutant someplace else.

'18% Reasonable Further Progress' seems to indicate that while we don't have to fix the air quality immediately, we will need to demonstrate serious effort to do so; that serious effort being an amount of reduction in the next 6 years; ie, 18% of the total necessary reduction. 'Milestone Contingency' measures is related to this--things that we agree to do if we fail the 18% reasonable Further Progress. 

VMT & 'Transportation Control Measure' is the scary one: It's a mandatory 'hard cap' on the amount of driving people are allowed to do. (57% of emissions in Salt Lake come from vehicles, I seem to recall). Crazy things like 'alternate day driving'.

All this makes me wonder how other places are doing: Current Non-Attainment Counties, 

In 'Serious' Non-attainment.
AZ: Maricopa, Pinal
CA: Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, King, Los Angeles, Madera, Merced, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare, Ventura..

In 'Severe' Non-attainment:
CA: El Dorado, Los Angeles, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, Solano, Sutter, Yolo.

In 'Severe' Non-attainment:
CA: Fresno, Kern, King, Los Angeles, Madera, Merced, Orange, Riverside, San Bernadino, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare.

I don't think any of these are part of a club that Utah wants to be part of. Barring two counties in AZ, these are all in California. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) can do some pretty draconian things. 

Oh, and if Utah (for mad reason) elects not to comply with air quality standards, we don't get our share of the Federal Gas Tax funds. Which pays for 50-80% of all roadway and transit projects. (80% for freeways). So, without that money, the amount Utah taxpayers would have to pay our per freeway QUINTUPLES.


Non-Attainment and Future Transit in Utah

Found this on SkyScraperForum. Fascinating.


Posted May 3, 2017, 3:55 PM, by Makid

     ..Coming back to the part above about the State possibly providing funds for Trax. I do think that the increased talk we have seen about Trax to Lehi/Utah County in the Legislature increase further. It may not be the next session but I do think that 2019 or 2020 the State will need to step in and probably force the Proposition 1 increase in Utah and SL Counties (if the counties haven't yet passed it).
     The State would do this with the intention of bringing Trax to Lehi/Utah County as well as Trax extending towards the relocated prison. This will also bring Trax through the International Center as well as through the Inland Port (Probably #1 or #2 topic of the 2018 session).
     I do think that the State will also directly provide funding to additional transit along the Wasatch Front soon. This is mostly due to the EPA classifying the majority of the area as a Serious Non-Containment Area. If the designation doesn't change soon, the State will lose funding for Roads and be forced to pass all laws that other states have enacted to improve air quality. This may include some of the statewide transit authorizations that some states have passed to help with air quality...
....without additional transit funding and usage, Utah will have the same air quality regulations and laws that California has....Dedicated Transit Funding, Stronger Limits on Emissions for all vehicles as well as Industries (MagCorp), Limits on Mining and air particles (Rio Tinto, Point of Mountain (North and South), and Limits on Coal Power emissions. These are the minimum that could be forced on the State by 2020...

I hate to cheer when my home state is about to take a punch to the gut, but....Serious Non-Attainment is no laughing matter.