http://dc.thecityfix.com/hud-and-dot-announce-partnership-for-livable-communities-through-sustainable-transport/ Sustainable Mobility in the District Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:07:25 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5.2 hourly 1 http://dc.thecityfix.com/hud-and-dot-announce-partnership-for-livable-communities-through-sustainable-transport/comment-page-1/#comment-35 Dario Hidalgo Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:47:56 +0000 http://thecityfix.com/?p=1001#comment-35 This is an initiative that really goes in the right direction. Having different secreatries to deal with housing and transport (and the environment), leads to disconnected policies: housing located in low accesibility areas for transit, transit not serving the jobs-housing connections, and so on. I hope the studies that HUD will sponsor include energy and environmental considerations (local and gloabal emissions) of the different housing+transport strategies. They will be surprised how behavioural changes surpass technological approaches in helping reduce fossil fuel consumption and GHG. See, for example, this very interesting analysis http://www.apta.com/research/info/online/land_use.cfm sponsored by the American Public Transport Association that shows that the secondary effects of transit in increasing density and mixed use result in twice as much reductions than the primary effects of transit (reduced energy consumed by trip and less congestion). The land use-transport connection is much more powerful than just tackling the technology behind the vehicles. "To match the total effect of public transportation, the U.S. would have to plant 23.2 million acres of new forest. In other words, if the United States had no public transportation systems, it would need a new forest the size of Indiana to absorb the additional CO2 emissions from the transportation system." concludes the study authored by Linda Bailey, Patricia L. Mokhtarian, Ph.D. and Andrew Little. This is an initiative that really goes in the right direction. Having different secreatries to deal with housing and transport (and the environment), leads to disconnected policies: housing located in low accesibility areas for transit, transit not serving the jobs-housing connections, and so on. I hope the studies that HUD will sponsor include energy and environmental considerations (local and gloabal emissions) of the different housing+transport strategies. They will be surprised how behavioural changes surpass technological approaches in helping reduce fossil fuel consumption and GHG. See, for example, this very interesting analysis http://www.apta.com/research/info/online/land_use.cfm sponsored by the American Public Transport Association that shows that the secondary effects of transit in increasing density and mixed use result in twice as much reductions than the primary effects of transit (reduced energy consumed by trip and less congestion). The land use-transport connection is much more powerful than just tackling the technology behind the vehicles. “To match the total effect of public transportation, the U.S. would have to plant 23.2 million acres of new forest. In other words, if the United States had no public transportation systems, it would need a new forest the size of Indiana to absorb the additional CO2 emissions from the transportation system.” concludes the study authored by Linda Bailey, Patricia L. Mokhtarian, Ph.D. and Andrew Little.

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