Environmental Impacts

The Environmental Impacts of Automobile Centric Urban Growth

The importance of living in a sustainable environment is clear to those concerned for the health of future generations.  Unfortunately, attaining sustainability in an automobile centric urban design is impossible; the automobile is wholly unsustainable.

 

Most people even agree in understanding that the automobile is environmentally unsustainable by looking at the air we breathe.  But, beyond poor air quality there are a myriad of other harvests of damage due to the automobile.  The automobile touches every aspect of our lives but, it is not possible to merely stop relying on the car in this society.

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From the book: The Geography of Transport Systems, author Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue points out that transport has a number of relationships between the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere and the ecosphere.  He further shows that transportation’s main factors considered in the physical environment are geographical location, topography, geological structure, climate, hydrology, soil, natural vegetation and animal life.

The amount of land consumption required to maintain a car culture urban design is untenable for large automobile centric populations.  Loss of fertile farm land through land consumption to maintain sprawl is common knowledge, its lingering effects are unknown. 

New findings of environmental concerns are often unpredicted.  As technology progresses, there is an increase of discoveries regarding the direct and indirect impacts to the ecosystem.  The discoveries have led to new policies which reduce the environmental harm from automobiles.  The consistency of studies linking health problems in air pollution to the automobile caused the State of California to legislate regulations in an attempt to lower automobile usage.

California legislation, AB32 (“The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006”, now CA State law in the Health and Safety Code, Section 38500) mandates 1990 levels of air quality by the year 2020.  This represents a 25% reduction under business as usual estimates.  Additionally, in October 2008, SB 375 was signed into law.  SB 375 gives the California Air Resource Board (CARB) authority to implement strict mandates to reach AB 32 air quality targets.  CARB is demanding the real estate and transportation industries to find viable environmental solutions for the harmful pollution resulting from combustion engine exhaust. 

As an extreme example of unsustainable land use and the indirect impacts; the Lake Tahoe area, in California, has an ongoing campaign which says: “Keep Tahoe Blue”.  Since the 1970s the water in Lake Tahoe has begun losing its pristine and crystal blue brilliance.  The water has taken a greenish tint with uncommon algae growth which has infiltrated into the formerly pristine waters.  The cause is merely disruption of the primitive earth water run off flow patterns due to road building and driveways for parking. 

An automobile is used 5% of its life; the other 95% it sets parked.  To accommodate this lack of use, the automobile centric land-use design has to allow for locations of the car’s idle time.  Parking lots are inefficient when empty and are inadequately inefficient when full.

There is concern in the dialog of environment about water contamination.  One of the biggest sources of contaminates into the water table is water runoff from the roads.  The heavy air particle pollutants of exhausted fumes fall to the ground and are gathered along the road ways.  This material is filtered in the soil but, some unfiltered water flows directly into water sources. 

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) recognizes that roads, highways, and bridges are a source of significant contributions of pollutants to the nation's waters. Contaminants from vehicles and activities associated with road and highway maintenance and construction are washed from roads and roadsides when it rains or snow melts. Large amounts of this runoff pollution are carried directly to water bodies.

The EPA identifies runoff pollution as that associated with rainwater or melting snow that washes off roads, bridges, parking lots, rooftops, and other impermeable surfaces. As it flows over these surfaces, the water picks up dirt, dust, rubber and metal deposits from tire wear, antifreeze and engine oil that has dripped onto the pavement, pesticides and fertilizers, and discarded cups, plastic bags, cigarette butts, pet waste, and other litter. These contaminants are carried into lakes, rivers, streams, and oceans.

When the oils and grease leaked onto road surfaces from car and truck engines, spilled at fueling stations are discarded directly onto pavement or into storm sewers, the rain and snowmelt transport these pollutants directly to surface waters.

Heavy metals come from some "natural" sources such as minerals in rocks, vegetation, sand, and salt but, also come from car and truck exhaust, worn tires and engine parts, brake linings, weathered paint, and rust. Heavy metals are toxic to aquatic life which can potentially contaminate ground water.

Legislatively in 1987, Congress established the Nonpoint Source Management Program under section 319 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), to help States address nonpoint source, or runoff pollution by identifying waters affected by such pollution and adopting and implementing management programs to control it. These programs recommend where and how to use best management practices (BMPs) to prevent runoff from becoming polluted, and where it is polluted, to reduce the amount that reaches surface waters.

The cumulative effects of sprawl are a growing concern to uncontrolled urban expansion.  The necessity of land-use consumption with sprawl development is not ecologically possible to maintain.

Mankind’s technological progression has been able to take advantage of advanced inventions but, there is a limit to Earth’s acceptable damage.  The amount of harm is by no means insurmountable; however, the accumulative increase has reached the point in which a tolerable level has to be discovered.  Vegetation modification, hydric cycles, level of underground water resources, soil erosion, air purification, ecosphere capacity, food sources of agriculture, entertainment and tourism are points that Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue address as critical impacts effected by the car culture. 

Environmentally, for society to reach a point of sustainability its foundation has to be built upon an environmentally friendly transportation source. 

Changing of the Blog

This blog has been spent following the California High Speed Rail.  To simply comment on a government caused impending train wreck is masochistic; this blog will turn to discussing the importance of sustainable transportation.

Impacts of Automobile Centric Urban Growth

Automobiles serve as the center of our car culture society.  In the US, nearly every aspect of one’s life is affected by the car.  At the foundation of urban design is transportation; how a person gets from one place to another.  The automobile, however, is wholly unsustainable.  To base a society on an unsustainable foundation is problematic.  With the automobile centric urban land-use design (urban growth centered around the automobile) based on unsustainability; its effects are seen environmentally, economically and socially.   

In Western Society, today’s Car Culture is the victim of its own doing.  Automobile and related industries have far reaching cultural effects beyond what is easily seen from environmental damage.  Throughout the 100 year history of the automobile and the aggregate of related industries producers; financial success has been its primary goal, a reasonable business objective.  In an automobile centric society, however, there are further reaching consequences that effect its participants to this car culture and the simple goals aspired by product manufactures to increase sales.    

These negative impacts of an automobile’s inefficient nature are magnified over time when used as the base of society.  An automobile centric car culture is an amalgamation of inefficiencies that include land consumption for urban growth.  

In considering what makes the automobile unsustainable, one measure is its basic energy inefficiency.  An average car weighs three thousand pounds.  In terms of inefficient, this says it takes a 3,000 pound car to carry a 200 pound load (one occupant).  The larger the vehicle, the heavier it is and the more energy is spent carrying its own weight. 

The impact of a car’s ability to become more energy efficient regarding its fuel consumption, however, has no bearing on the inefficiency of travel time to society in traffic congestion and the reflecting lower local economic productivity.  This again, complies with the nature of building a society on an unsustainable foundation.

In an automobile centric society, land consumption is engulfed by the automobile. Including freeways, surface streets, driveways, shopping mall parking and other parking, a staggering seventy percent of all land in automobile centric urban land use design (sprawl) is consumed by the automobile.  The human component is insignificant and the automobile is parked 95% of its life.

In his book, The High Cost of Free Parking; UCLA Professor of Urban Planning, Donald Shoup, explains the many negative design issues associated with automobile parking.  He reasons that free parking is a terribly expensive public subsidy.

The result of basing our culture on an un-sustainable single source for mobility gives us uncontrollable traffic congestion, destructive stress-related behavior, reduced productivity due to commute time, increasingly negative social impacts from the isolationism of single-occupancy vehicles, sky-rocketing fuel costs, declining air quality, and loss of prime production farm land.

Automobile oriented areas are unfriendly to any other form of transportation.  Not only is walking on a freeway hazardous, it is illegal.  Freeway systems are visually intrusive, noisy, stressful to navigate, the vehicles generate negative impacts of poor air quality, and with the increase in fuel costs at the pump; have produced negative impacts to local economies.  Society needs transportation methods that alleviate all levels of harm to reach sustainability.  

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics there were 22,707 automobile fatalities in 2007.   Combining figures from the National Safety Council (NSA) show that for every 100 million miles traveled in 2007, there were 182.5 accidents and 2.19 fatalities.  (www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/) 

An October 21, 2004 article by Health Editor, Jeremy Laurance, in The Independent, a London newspaper headline states: “Car fumes and traffic stress trigger heart attacks”.  The article goes on to state: “Fumes from car exhausts, noise and stress brought on by traffic congestion are likely to be the main causes of the increase in risk, researchers say. Air pollution is known to be a factor in heart disease, which develops slowly over decades, and research has shown that people living close to a main road have twice the risk of dying from the condition.”

The air quality in the San Joaquin Valley is being worsened by a higher car count.  This higher car count has been concluded as the primary factor in air pollution.  In The Fresno Bee newspaper article: published 04/29/04, Barbara Anderson writes:

“Smog and tiny particles make area one of nation's worst, lung association finds”

“Smog in the Valley is blamed for contributing to asthma rates that are among the highest in the state and for increases in the number of people with lung diseases, such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis.”

As these regulations attend to the environmental aspects of an automobile’s inefficient nature there are two other aspects which have gone un-noticed.  Consider the automobile’s negative economic and social impacts.   

In reference to the unsustainable social aspects to an automobile centric society, there are situations that occur constantly while at the steering wheel of a car: for every driver.  The most common occurrence is the reassurance that everyone else is a bad driver.

Still in the news

The CA HSRA (California High Speed Rail Authority) is still at work, despite being cut off from its State bond issue funds.  On May 6 & 7 there was another board meeting where they approved its latest URS Corp 20,000 page EIR (environmental impact report) and cost estimate.

In its coverage of the meeting, the LA Times May 7, 2014 article is written like a humorous editorial.  One gets the impression that it is standard procedure for the CA HSRA to be comical; or an appalling pursuit of hostility against California residents displayed as political wrath in maintaining an insane agenda.  The political stance by the staff and HSRA Board doesn’t seem to believe the expensive costs of erecting its proposed antique train technology project.   The political will for building this 150 year old technology refuses to accept reality of high costs for steel, concrete and real estate procurement.    

When Jerry Brown became governor again, he announced that the HSR system would only cost $68billion, not the estimated $98billion.  His reasoning was that the $98billion was too expensive.  So he declared a lower cost to the public.  That’s like saying: “It’s going to cost less because I say it’s going to cost less.”  There is no justification for a lower cost.  Peer groups in the transportation industry were speculating normal government cost overruns would put the overall cost of completion at $212billion, not the conservative and more politically acceptable $98billion.

Most supporters of the proposed HSR work in other industries and rely on information provided by the multimillion dollar advertising campaigns from the CA HSRA.  The advertising companies don’t provide the staggering costs involved in building this type of antiquated heavy rail train system.  Average costs of building this type of heavy steel wheel on rail electric train is $70million per mile at grade (just laying the track on the ground), $150 million per mile elevated (17 ft above ground) and $300million per mile underground.

At the center of controversy is its cost.  Underlying cause of disputes about the costs is due to intended deception by particular politicians that felt the proposed project wouldn’t be supported by voters if its costs were honestly revealed.   This was seen when the original bond passed by a narrow margin in 2008.  That bond issue was for $9.1 billion to be spent on the HSR.  The HSRA arrived at their cost estimates ($25million spent by the HSRA to five separate transportation engineering consultant firms) by using the standard at grade cost estimate of building the 700 mile HSR project at $70million per mile; a total of $49billion.  It is mystifying that politicians would then sell the project to voters at $9.1billion.  Even with the unrealistic price tag of an at grade estimate the project was pushed to the voters at the deceptive rate of $9.1billion.  In the fine print of the 1A bond, the $49billion was mentioned, yet a definitive clarification where the lacking $40billion comes from has always remained void.     

Points in the lawsuits against the HSRA show perverse conflicts to the original bond issue promised to voters.  The presiding judge agreed with the plaintiff and froze the bond issues from being released to the market.  HSRA current funds are a grant from the US Dept. of Transportation. 
  

At the May 2014 meeting the HSRA board also approved the section’s 15% cost increase.  The new estimate falls short of standard implementation costs for this type of system.  At its 15% increase, URS estimates are $8million per mile lower than a typical steel wheel on rail train systems of this type.  The newly approved EIR includes a cost estimate for the 112 mile segment at $7.13billion.  Typical systems cost $70million per mile.  For URS to suggest $62million per mile is a significant savings.  It is the opinion of this writer that URS has done an exemplary job in reducing costs, however, in knowing the general procedure of how the government operates; estimates are always obliterated by blueprint conflicts, unforeseen obstacles and errors which lead to massive cost overruns amounting to double and triple original cost estimates.   

It appears that the opinion of the HSRA says their only required mandate is to approve the phase one valley section EIR of the proposed project in order to begin the work.