Seattle Region In Violation Of Clean Air Act
Matt Rosenberg
This just in, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Seattle is in violation of the Clean Air Act for the first time since the 1990s. Going over the legal limit for smog over the weekend means officials here will have to start hammering out a plan to improve air quality.That could feature a number of measures to put the brakes on pollution, including requiring reformulated, more expensive gasoline for the region.
The final violation of the smog standard needed to push the Emerald City and the Puget Sound region into official violation of the act occurred Saturday afternoon, when a monitor at Enumclaw in south King County went over the official limit.
It's thanks to ozone emissions, which at ground level are a public health hazard. The official designation of the city and region as a "non-attainment area" won't be until 2010, due to reporting regulations. But if one more wake-up call were needed, this might be it. There are plenty of other reasons to move beyond oil in transportation - anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and national security to name two - but if that's not quite enough, how about having to devise "reformulated, more expensive gas for the region."
As it happens, Cascadia Center, with Microsoft, Idaho National Laboratory and other event sponsors, is holding a two-day conference in Redmond Sept. 4 and 5th, titled "Beyond Oil: Transforming Transportation." Top international, national and regional experts will present solutions involving electrifying transportation, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, and much more. Our event page with updated agenda and registration information is here.
Speakers include Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, former CIA chief R. James Woolsey, Project Better Place founder Shai Agassi, and Chelsea Sexton (above at right), star of "Who Killed The Electric Car" and now head of Plug In America.
UPDATE, 8/18/08, 3:56 p.m.: Additional coverage of the Clean Air Act violation from The Seattle Times.
RESOURCES
Our 2007 Cascadia-Microsoft PHEV/alternative energy conference page: Jump Start To A Secure, Clean Energy Future (links to speaker PowerPoints, more)
Cascadia's "Beyond Oil" page (including our op-eds - from '07 to 7/31/08 - on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, moving beyond oil in transportation, more)
RECENT NEWS ARTICLES & COMMENTARY
"Trucks - From Delivery Vans To Big Rigs - Need To Get Efficient, Too," Steve Marshall & Bruce Agnew, Puget Sound Business Journal, 8/18/08
"Turbulence In Air Travel: What High Fuel Costs Mean To Boeing," Steve Marshall & Bruce Agnew, (Cascadia Center), Puget Sound Business Journal, 8/4/08
"PGE Installs Filling Station Of The Future," Daily Journal Of Commerce, 7/31/08
"Kulongoski 'Plugs In' To Transportation Solutions," Daily Journal Of Commerce, 7/31/08
"Paccar's Fuel-saving Hybrid Trucks Aimed At Nation's Distribution Industry," Seattle Times, 7/29/08
"Plug-in Cars Zoom Forward," Forbes, 7/29/08
"Texas To Tel Aviv," Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, 7/26/08
"Electric Industry Plugged In For Move To Rechargeable Cars," Oregonian, 7/24/08
"PHEVs In The Spotlight," Green Biz, 7/23/08
"Can Plug-in Hybrids Ride To America's Rescue?" Christian Science Monitor/ABC News, 7/19/08
"Electric Ride Powering A Transportation Revolution," Globe & Mail, 7/7/08
"Ensuring America's Growth," Peter Morici, Forbes, 5/28/08
Comments
Hmmm... Despite your discussion above, I'm not seeing any representative for or discussion about electrified public transportation.
Is the solution just plug-in cars? It seems like electric rail is far more efficient. Will we still be using diesel busses? Ugh.
Posted by: Matt the Engineer | August 19, 2008 11:09 AM
Matt the Engineer,
Electrifying public transportation more is a worthy goal, and I expect it will get some play at this conference, particularly from Ron Sims, who last year stressed the greening of the Metro bus fleet. I would expect that attendees at this year's "Beyond Oil" conference would be likely to hear some ideas and proposals for how public transportation can reduce its carbon footprint, and how large vehicle fleet owners, including governments, can begin to embrace electricity as a fuel source. The conference agenda includes Gov. Gregoire, Exec Sims, a Snohomish County fleet manager, a Kitsap County telework initiative representative, a presentation on a proposed Eastside multi-modal transit hub, a full panel on renewable energy, and a look at a plug-in hybrid electric school bus now in operation in the Lake Chelan School District.
Posted by: Matt Rosenberg | August 19, 2008 11:33 AM
Your answer is Ron Sims?! You do know that he recently voted against bringing ST2 to the ballot (after trying to tack on special diesel bus funding for his agency)?
I want to say that this conference is a good thing - and it probably is. But I can't help feel it's an infomercial for more road-based infrastructure.
Posted by: Matt the Engineer | August 19, 2008 4:45 PM
Roads and highways are important infrastructure, much more important than rail in terms of geographic coverage of an urban region like metro Seattle-Bellevue-Everett-Tacoma, as well as in market share of trips made.
Unlike railroad tracks, roads go everywhere people and goods need to go all the time -- and where emergency services like police, fire, and ambulances need to be able to go anytime day or night when needed.
Roads are projected under all future scenarios of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) planning agency to carry the vast majority of trips in the 2040 central Puget Sound region even if all the light rail and commuter rail in Sound Transit's long range plans were to be implemented. Note that the ST long range plan more than doubles the light rail promised from the Prop 1 ballot measure this fall.
IF the current Sound Transit rail construction plan in the new Prop 1 were to be funded, built, and then run at maximum full capacity during peak periods (a big IF, because this means closely spaced four car trains jam packed with 800 people each, mostly standing), the overall transit market share in the region across all trip purposes would no more than double ... from the 4.5% actually forecast for 2040 by PSRC, to around 9%. The other 91% of 20 million daily trips would be on the roads and highways.
That said, Sound Transit has been invited to have staff participate on one of the Beyond Oil workshop panels, and the agency will likely send one or more.
Furthermore, there will be ample opportunities for all participants in the room to provide facts and opinions on how to make our transportation system less dependent on oil.
Posted by: John Niles | August 22, 2008 5:44 PM
John,
I don't think anyone's proposed tearing up all of our roads - or any of them for that matter. I think it's amazing that rail can move that many people when you compare Link costs to the huge amount we've spent on freeways over the years.
The fact that you're having a conference about clean air and transportation, then only having road-based speakers seems very strange.
Posted by: Matt the Engineer | August 25, 2008 11:22 AM
Sound Transit had an invited speaker on the Beyond Oil conference agenda, and several other speakers mentioned railroads as an important form of mobility, including the State Secretary of Transportation.
Posted by: John Niles | September 5, 2008 3:50 PM