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The pathway to doubling public transit use by 2035 National Observer Cloe Logan | News, Climate Solutions Reporting | February 27th 2024 Taking the bus in Halifax for Douglas Wetmore often means long wait times, crowded routes and unreliable service. As part of the transit advocacy group It's More than Buses, Wetmore is pushing for change. A proposed rapid transit bus system, which has been stalled due to a lack of financial support from the province, would help resolve those issues, he explains. Halifax, the second-fastest growing city in the country, relies on municipal buses and ferries for public transport: there are no SkyTrains(Vancouver) and no streetcars. At the same time, transit isn’t keeping up with demand: buses are overcrowded and often lag behind schedule. While Wetmore’s experience is common across Canada, a new report suggests there are measures that could make transit more accessible and reliable and, in turn, significantly reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Released Tuesday by Environmental Defence and Équiterre, the study laid out how Canada can double public transit ridership by 2035, reducing GHGs by 65 million tons between 2024 and 2035: the equivalent of the annual emissions from 20 million cars. That GHG reduction would be significant, explains Nate Wallace, co-author of the report and clean transportation program manager with Environmental Defense.
While the federal government has laid out clear targets for EV adoption — all vehicle sales must bezero-emission by 2035 — there aren’t targets to increase public transit ridership. Wallace says the EV targets are “a game-changer in terms of emissions reductions over the long term,” but that “all of those happen post-2035 and nearly none of it happens by 2030.” Twinning EV targets with clear goals around public transportation presents “a huge opportunity here to address these emissions problems in the near term and not wait for electric cars,” he said. The report comes as the federal government continues to work on its Permanent Public Transit Fund, which will divvy out $3 billion each year starting in 2026. Wallace said that funding should start this year, and should be for double the amount proposed. The current funding covers capital costs (which are one-time purchases for an electric bus, for example) but Wallace said the same amount should be allotted for operational funding.
The need for operational funding from provinces and the federal government was one of four key actions outlined in the report that, if taken, would allow Canada to hit unprecedented transit use. The others are: encouraging housing density near public transit, requirements for zero-emission buses, and incentives to build dedicated bus lanes. The policy suggestions were supported by modelling by Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors. Canada’s National Observer reached out to Infrastructure Canada for comment on federal support for public transit and, specifically, the Permanent Public Transit Fund. The department said details on the fund will be released in "coming months," but that it "generally limits its role" to funding for capital projects. "Looking ahead to permanent funding, the goal is to establish a program that offers stable, predictable, and reliable funding tailored to diverse local contexts and needs, including in metro regions across the country where the transit demands and funding needs are highest." said the department in an emailed statement."By doing so, the program will also help partners make longer-term plans for public transit systems and active transportation networks that advance shared priorities on sustainable mobility, housing supply and affordability, climate action, economic development, and social inclusion." The need for operational funding is exemplified by the approximately 1,700 buses currently not being used in Canada, said Wallace. While the federal government has provided funds to purchase buses and trains, more needs to be done to ensure they can be staffed and maintained......and much more https://www.nationalobserver.
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Vancouver shows how Cities can Develop better Urban and Transportation Planning and Development
Where Infrastructure, Transportation and Urban Planning merge.......
- Globally, cities have seen an increase in funding and public demand for improved critical public infrastructure.
- Resilient urban infrastructure requires a long-term planning mindset that considers impacts ranging from scaled electrification to climate change.
- Cities have traditionally approached urban infrastructure through siloed departments, causing a lack of alignment, spending, and redundant work.
- Cities can learn from Vancouver in Canada which has developed best practices for collaborative infrastructure development.
- Cities around the world have become increasingly complex, and leaders are having to solve problems they’ve never faced before. From increased population to climate change, these challenges require a more collaborative approach across city government, which can be difficult when city services have traditionally been organized into silos.When it comes to cities and their large portfolios of infrastructure, there are many stakeholders who have a vested interest: utilities such as power and water, roads and transit departments, public works and community relations, parks and recreation, innovation departments, housing, and many others, depending on the city’s geography, size and structure. Globally, cities have seen an increase in funding and public demand for improved critical public infrastructure.Resilient urban infrastructure requires a long-term planning mindset that considers impacts ranging from scaled electrification to climate change.Cities have traditionally approached urban infrastructure through siloed departments, causing a lack of alignment, spending, and redundant work. Cities can learn from Vancouver in Canada which has developed best practices for collaborative infrastructure development..City leadership can establish the high-level goals for the city such as growth, affordability, or climate preparedness, but these intrinsically have different meanings for every stakeholder. Considering all these factors as part of the city infrastructure ecosystem, the need to find effective, creative, and realistic collaboration methods is critical.In 2022, the World Economic Forum’s Urban Transformation “Building Tomorrow’s Urban Infrastructure” team began looking into how cities are implementing infrastructure governance models. Following the reviews of over 25 city plans, interviewing 11 city infrastructure experts, Vancouver’s approach of collaborative infrastructure governance stood out as a unique and powerful model. Vancouver has strategically positioned itself as a leader of proactive planning across governmental agencies and can serve as a lighthouse model for other cities dealing with shared challenges such as affordability, rapid growth, climate resilience, and citizen well-being. Vancouver's collaborative approach..........
- Vancouver has spent many years developing a governance model that increases collaboration around infrastructure, encourages joint funded projects, and spurs future engagements across the board. This did not happen overnight, nor was this a single iteration that worked immediately. It has been a long-term effort that challenged all parties to actively commit and engage in the collaborative model. This includes dedicated director meetings, transparency of priorities and issues, as well as strategic alignment of departments.The steps Vancouver has outlined for collaborative governance are as follows: 1. Establish and integrate city level priorities into all departments’ plans and programmes utilizing a “layered” system referencing an overall citywide vision, vetted by the community. 2. Connect departments at multiple levels, specifically at the director level, ensuring consistency, collaboration, and coordination throughout. 3. Incentivize the idea of “win-win” models for jointly funded projects in alignment with citywide targets and objectives, creating flexibility of budgets and more available ways to build out infrastructure. 4. Create a centralized approach on programme and project delivery, focused on outcomes and how collaboration can yield those outcomes long-term. 5. Instill a culture that can adjust, evolve, and input feedback from all stakeholders to decrease chances of falling backwards. 6. This process is anchored with an overall citywide vision and land use strategy, called the Vancouver Plan, it was shaped and validated by a wide range of public feedback over a three year period, the highlights of which can be seen in the figure below. ....read on https://www.weforum.org/
agenda/2023/05/vancouver- cities-develop-better- infrastructure-planning- development See also document ...... METRO VANCOUVER REGION.docx -
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Inside Vancouver’s plan to be the greenest city in the world
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How your province rates in the global electric car race. National Observer Barry Saxifrage | Analysis, Climate Solutions Reporting | April 8th 2024 One of Canada’s largest and most out-of-control sources of climate pollution is the CO2 we pump out our tailpipes. These emissions keep rising because the number of fossil fuel-burning vehicles (burnermobiles) on our roads keeps rising. To avoid a full-blown climate crisis, our emissions must fall to “net zero” in a few short decades. That will require zero tailpipes spewing CO2. To get there in time, Canada set a goal for all new cars and trucks to be zero-emissions vehicles by 2035. That’s just a little over a decade away. Fortunately, Canadians can switch to battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). These have no internal combustion engine and no tailpipe. Instead, they run on made-in-Canada electricity only — which is some of the climate-cleanest in the world. How are we doing on the switch to zero-emissions vehicles? Take a look.
Canada is in the slow lane, overall......My first chart shows where Canadians are today compared to many other nations. It includes the world’s three largest economies, which are home to the world’s three largest car markets: the United States , Chinaand theEuropean Union.The green bars on the chart show how many new passenger vehicles were BEVs last year. Let’s start at the top. Leading the global race are the Norwegians, who chose BEVs for 82 per cent of new passenger vehicles last year. The next five nations are northern neighbours. Hmm. Contrary to what you might have read, it looks like BEVs work great in cold regions. China is far ahead of the global average at 25 per cent. It also dominates the market in sheer numbers, buying half the world’s BEVs. Further down is the European Union, which averaged 15 per cent BEVs. Its individual nations, however, ranged widely, from Sweden at 39 per cent to Slovakia at just three per cent. The global average, shown in yellow, was 11 per cent. And well below that, distractedly puttering along in the slow lane, are Canada (eight per cent) and the U.S. (seven per cent). Fortunately, not all of our provinces are such slowpokes. Fast versus slow provinces......Check out the graphs and read on https://www.nationalobserver.
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What Is the Heavy Transport Initiative? As the demand for heavy transport grows in lockstep with global GDP, so do carbon emissions. We are working to break the link between the demand for heavy transport and CO2 emissions by shifting to zero-carbon fuels in the trucking, shipping, and aviation sectors. Trucking....We are working toward zero-carbon trucking by accelerating the adoption of battery-electric technologies in urban and regional markets, and battery-electric or hydrogen fuel cells technologies for long-haul markets to combat 2.7 Gt CO2e per year. We are also partnering with the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) and the trucking industry to increase confidence in energy-efficient technologies and practices. Shipping.....Maritime shipping transports 90 percent of the world’s goods and is responsible for 2–3 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions each year. Left unchecked, shipping emissions are expected to grow by 50–250 percent by 2050, putting the sector on track to become a major contributor of global GHG emissions. We are working to reduce the carbon footprint of global maritime shipping by creating mechanisms that integrate climate considerations into lending decisions to help incentivize shipping’s decarbonization. Aviation.......Emissions from air travel are growing faster than the industry anticipated; aviation will contribute 1 gigaton of CO2 by 2020. That’s equivalent to the total CO2 emissions produced in 2018 by more than all the cars in India. Without intervention, aviation’s share of global carbon emissions will grow from 3 percent to over 9 percent, and its GHG emissions will grow to 20 percent by 2050. We are forging innovative partnerships with airports and industry organizations to decarbonize the aviation industry and speed the adoption of low-carbon, sustainable aviation fuels around the world......READ ON- MANY LINKS TO RELATED STUDIES & ARTICLES https://rmi.org/our-work/industry-and-transportation/heavy-transport/
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The weighty debate about electric vehicles By Rob Miller | Opinion | March 14th 2024 A friend recently expressed concern about electric vehicles destroying our roads and bridges. She’d read this in a Globe and Mail article and thought it made sense because EVs are so heavy. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard EVs were going toruin our roads, so I was quick to point out that the top-selling vehicles in Canada are, in fact, much heavier than the top-selling EV, the Tesla Model Y. Depending on the options, the Model Y’s curb weightis between 1,900 and 2,000 kilograms. The three most popular vehicles in Canada are the Ford F-Series, Chevy Silverado and Dodge Ram pickups. The curb weight of these trucks is between 1,800 kilograms for the six-cylinder F-150 and 3,400 kilograms for the Silverado 3500 HD. The Nissan Leaf is one of the lightest EVs on the Canadian market, weighing in at just under 1,600 kilograms. One question always comes to mind when EVs are attacked because of their weightiness. Why are we only hearing this now? The Globe and Mail’s Eric Reguly is suddenly calling for a weight-based tax on all heavy vehicles, but his end game is to discourage EV buyers. The timing has more to do with a widespread media campaign aimed at resisting the inevitable transition to cleaner and more efficient transportation technology. There’s no denying an EV is going to weigh more than an equivalent model of gas-powered car. For example, the Volvo XC40 weighs 2,280 kilograms while the electric version, XC40 Recharge, weighs 2,520 kilograms. Will that extra 240 kilos have a big impact on our roads? If so, perhaps we should have a weight tax on the occupants of vehicles as well. In the 1950s, the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) performed testing to determine how much road damage was being caused by trucks. The report produced the generalized fourth power law to compare road damage caused by vehicles of different weights. Based on the formula derived from AASHO’s results, an electric XC40 is roughly 1.5 times more damaging to the road than a gas-powered XC40. The heaviest Silverado is five times harder on our roads than the XC40. Inside Science concludes heavy trucks are far more damaging to roads than any passenger vehicle. In general, a 40-tonne semi with eight axles is over 600 times more damaging to roads than an average two-tonne passenger vehicle. Imagine a day when everyone owns an EV except for a few antique collectors. Our roads will be free of those 30,000-kilogram tanker trucks that bring gasoline on a daily or weekly basis to the nearly 12,000 service stationsacross Canada. That will certainly take a load off our pavement, but action movie directors will have to find something else to jackknife and explode in the midst of a car chase. Perhaps Reguly is onto something. Lost revenue from dwindling gasoline taxes could be replaced with a weight tax on vehicles. The cost impact on EVs would be minimal if the tax is calculated according to each vehicle’s potential to cause road damage and it might create some motivation for people to purchase smaller vehicles. EV subsidies could also be used to incentivize lighter vehicles by scaling them to favour smaller, lighter and lower-cost EVs. The misguided concerns over EV weight don’t end with the road damage con job. Apparently, extra tire wear is going to fill our skies with nanoparticles. A reportby Euan McTurk commissioned by the Royal Automobile Club(RAC) in the U.K. points out errors in the research that spawned this misinformation campaign.....and there's more- read on https://www.
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