On-Street Parking

The importance of on-street parking (Steve Mouzon, New Urban Network, Aug. 10, 2011

Today’s focus is on the need for on-street parking and why the alternatives are unsafe, bad for business and generally bad for the urban environment.



Key Quotes:

Why on-street parking is needed:

“*Commercial parking lots

-if they are built in front of a building..nobody will ever walk on the sidewalk that runs between the parking lot and the street..beside the building.. snaggletooth streetscape..If everyone parks in back, then it seems logical to the building owner to put the front door in the back

*Residential parking

-double-wide driveways are big heat sinks with lots of stormwater runoff.

*Parking decks

-next to a sidewalk creates a terrible pedestrian environment.. Parking decks are broadly perceived as being scary places.. Bore the pedestrians, and they won't walk there. Build ugly buildings, and they'll abandon your sidewalk as well

*Liner buildings

-It is possible to fix parking decks by building what is known as a "liner building" between them and every adjacent sidewalk. A liner building is a thin building that "lines" the parking deck's outer edges

*The pedestrian shield

-One major source of fear is the possibility that a car might run off the street and hit you. On-street parking alleviates this fear

*Thriving retail

-every on-street parking space in a thriving retail district is worth $250,000 in sales to the nearby merchants on that street”

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Gridlock – real or imaginary?

Traffic Gridlock: The Real Deal or a Pile of Nonsense? (26 page pdf, Barry Wellar, Jul. 28, 2011)

Also discussed here: Transportation: Inspiring a Sustainability Action Agenda (39 page pdf slideshow, May 14, 2011)

The focus today is on an analysis by a leading Ottawa expert on mobility, Prof. Barry Wellar. He sees the use of the term “gridlock” as a dichotomy between “research-based, and deserve to be treated as the real deal” or “not research-based, and deserve to be dismissed as a pile of nonsense”. The answer is left to the reader of his paper to answer. That said, the causes of gridlock and the impacts it might have on mobility in general and the environment in particular are worth examination.

(26 min YuTube video, May 14, 2011)



Key Quotes:

"… Besides, increased traffic is a natural outcome of the city's intensification goals."

“gridlock..used as a general purpose term to cover all manner of volume-related, capacity-related, and other kinds of problems associated with traffic flow interruptions, delays, diversions”

“if major corrective steps are not taken, entire cities will be going to transportation hell in a handcart on a daily basis because private motor vehicles – cars, SUVs, pick-ups, minivans, tractor trailers, etc. – will be in the grip of paralysing gridlock”

“the claims, pronouncements, exhortations, promises, profferings, threats, calls for attention, warnings, etc., about traffic gridlock lack methodological underpinnings, and in general appear to be at best the products of what has been described as anatomical sourcing”

Questions to be addressed:

1. “What is the meaning of traffic gridlock?
2. How is traffic gridlock defined?
3. How is traffic gridlock measured?
4. What is the process whereby traffic gridlock occurs?
5. What is the established process whereby traffic gridlock is mitigated, resolved, or dissolved as the case may be?
6. What are the full environmental, economic, financial, social, energy, and multi-modal transportation system benefits and costs of solving either chronic or temporary manifestations of so-called traffic gridlock?
7. How do you methodologically measure the full environmental, economic, financial, social, energy, and multi-modal transportation system benefits and costs of solving either chronic or temporary manifestations of so-called traffic gridlock?”

Related articles

• Traffic gridlock on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, by citizen Ifeanyi (vanguardngr.com)
• Just a Few Talking Cars Could Eliminate Gridlock | Autopia | Wired.com (paulsaute.wordpress.com)
• Janette Sadik-Khan, New York's transportation commissioner, cuts through the gridlock to build a greener city. (slate.com)
• 'Perfect Storm' Of Events Expected To Create Major Gridlock Across NYC (newyork.cbslocal.com)
• Wireless system to help gridlock? (nydailynews.com)
• Video: Bill Ford is worried about traffic, talks to TED about it (autoblog.com)
• Just a Few Talking Cars Could Eliminate Gridlock (wired.com)
• Three ways to save pedestrians (theglobeandmail.com)

Traffic Air and Sound Pollution Impacts on Blood Pressure and Hypertension

Long-Term Urban Particulate Air Pollution, Traffic Noise and Arterial Blood Pressure (30 page pdf, Kateryna Fuks, Susanne Moebus, Sabine Hertel, Anja Viehmann, Michael Nonnemacher, Nico Dragano, Stefan Möhlenkamp, Hermann Jakobs, Christoph Kessler, Raimund Erbel, Barbara Hoffmann, |Environmental Health Perspectives, Aug. 9, 2011)

The focus today is on research into the impacts of long term exposure to emissions and noise from heavy traffic (greater than 22,000 vehicles/day) on blood pressure. The results point to a link even when the increase in PM concentration is small, because even a small increase over the long term has large impacts in population health terms.



Key Quotes:

“Urban PM air pollution is determined by multiple sources, including regionally transported PM,local industrial sources, home heating, and traffic”

“we investigated the cross-sectional association of long-term urban background particulate matter with arterial BP and hypertension in a population-based sample, taking longterm traffic noise and short-term variations of air pollution into account.”

“Residential proximity ≤50 m to high heavy-duty traffic and long-term road traffic noise >65 dB were associated with a somewhat higher prevalence of hypertension”

“long-term PM exposure may promote atherosclerosis with air pollution-induced increases in BP being one possible biologic pathway”

“High BP is the most important determinant of cardiovascular mortality and even small changes on the population level can lead to a high burden of attributable disease”

“An exposure contrast of only few Lg/m3 PM2.5 in the urban background concentration may therefore lead to a shift in the population distribution of BP, similar in effect size to the dietary salt reductions”

“We consider these findings to be indicative of traffic-related effects on a small spatial scale, independent of and in addition to the effects of urban background air pollution”

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• Health Costs of Air Pollution from Traffic in U.S. Cities (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)
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Investing in Toll Roads Internationally

Image via WikipediaFor Whom the Road Tolls: Reviewing Listed Toll Roads, Bridges and Tunnels (Seeking Alpha, May 3,2011)

Also discussed here: Publicly listed toll roads outside the USA (Road Pricing, Aug. 5, 2011)

And here: The Dow Jones Brookfield Toll Roads Infrastructure Index (3 page pdf, Dow Jones)

Today’s review article contains an investment analysis of 23 toll roads in 8 countries which differ significantly both in national financial policies and in the amounts invested and the returns and dividends. While Italy has the largest market capitalization for one toll road (Atlantia SPA), China’s roads offer the most attractive prospects with equity ratios as high as 70%.



Key Quotes:

“Nearly three thousand years ago, travelers had to pay a toll for using the Susa–Babylon highway under the regime of Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the seventh century BC. The business of toll collection has survived through the ages”

“there is a whole world of privately owned commercial, investment grade road assets, that are tolled, with publicly listed companies”

“Private toll roads were also introduced in America at the end of the 18^th century, after private toll bridges were found to be extremely profitable businesses”

“The article summarises the state of 23 toll road companies that are publicly listed globally., 8 are Chinese, 4 in Italy, 3 in Australia, 3 in France, 2 in Brazil, 1 in Argentina, 1 in Portugal and 1 in Thailand”

“the Asian toll road operators offer the most attractive valuations, while some operators in Europe are also worth considering. Asian toll roads have the benefit of better economic prospects, more room for future growth in traffic, and a better balance sheet structure. They also currently offer higher dividend yields”

“Toll roads are local operations that have a fixed location, and their performance is linked to the local economy. Key drivers are, for example, the mobility of the population (number of cars), trade volumes between the node points of the highways, and the population of cities joined by them”

“China has the largest number of listed toll roads, and the eight I have listed have a total market capitalization of nearly $18bn. the Chinese toll roads have rather solid balance sheets. Their equity ratios range from 40% to 70%.”

“Existing toll roads might be sold, but highways that are now free to use may also become subject to tolls to replenish state coffers. For example, Germany is considering a toll for private cars (not just trucks) on its highways… Austria and Switzerland already charge tolls for their expressways (and some tunnels)”

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Mid-Town Freeways, Sprawl and Quality of Life

A Distant Mirror: 40 Years of Urbanism in Vancouver (Nicholas Kevlahan, Raise the Hammer, Aug. 2, 2011)

Vancouver is the only major city on the continent that does NOT have a freeway through its centre. Result? It has developed into an urban planner’s dream with high population density and a quality of life that is the envy of many in leading cities around the world. Today’s review article examines the development of Vancouver over the last three decades and compares it to a comparably sized city, Hamilton, located west of Toronto which itself has sprawled in all directions thanks to its own freeway bisector, the 401.

The road not taken



Key Quotes:

“Vancouver's population density is almost twice that of Hamilton (and the density of the downtown is much greater: 35 000/km^2 for the West End)..there is one direction that is open to 'sprawl' development: to the south in Hamilton, and to the east along the Fraser Valley in Vancouver”

“Hamilton's economy was historically based on heavy manufacturing; the city has lost most of its large employers in the past three decades.. However, Vancouver has thrived with essentially no manufacturing (what little there was centred on False Creek and was essentially all gone by the 1970s)”

“in the early 1970s Vancouver made a fundamental choice that was to determine its future development. Vancouver refused to build a freeway system through the downtown core….the freeway would have been built in a massive 'ditch' below grade level, and its construction would have involved the wholesale demolition of (mostly poorer) neighbourhoods”

“The Vancouver model relies on a planning department that is largely independent of Council influence, and on the entire city staff (including the traffic department) being onside. This is contrary to the case in Hamilton where the progressive ideas of the planning department are often ignored or opposed by council or vetoed by the traffic department.. In addition, residents and developers tend to oppose any and all city planning decisions by appealing to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB)”

“the Vancouver model:

• Priority of the planning department within city administration: decisions are not overturned by other departments (emergency services, traffic).
• Independence from Council interference on operational decisions (council decides the priorities and strategy, planning staff implements).
• An interventionist and prescriptive approach to planning.
• Built-form control and mandatory mixed use.
• Prioritizing high density residential over commercial and office space downtown.
• Prioritizing pedestrians above all other transportation modes, with through traffic as the lowest priority.
• Flexible zoning allowing developers to gain increased height or density by providing public amenities (e.g. park space, view corridors or social housing)”

“Real Estate prices in Vancouver are extremely high: the average price throughout the GVRD is about $800 000 and the median price is about $600 000 ..Vancouver also suffers from pockets of extreme poverty, associated with drug use and criminality”

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• Top lists (canadianinindiana.wordpress.com)
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Health Impacts of Future Heat Waves as a result of Climate Change

Image via WikipediaProjecting Future Heat-related Mortality under Climate Change Scenarios: A Systematic Review (43 page pdf, Cunrui Huang, Adrian Gerard Barnett, Xiaoming Wang, Pavla Vaneckova, Gerard FitzGerald, Shilu Tong, |Environmental Health Perspectives, Aug. 4, 2011)

The focus of today’s review article is on the heat-related deaths likely under climate change scenarios that extend out 50 years. A literature search revealed that heat waves are the single largest cause of deaths of any severe weather and women particularly elderly women tend to suffer the most. Acclimatization to warmer temperatures is an important factor to avoid exaggerating the mortality impact. Air pollution will add to the impact from heat waves.

Key Quotes:

“heat waves are the biggest cause of weather-related fatalities in many cities, responsible for more deaths annually than any other form of extreme weather”

“People with cardiovascular or respiratory disease, diabetes, chronic mental disorders or other pre-existing medical conditions are at greater risk from heat exposure”

“The heat threshold is the temperature at which the harmful effect of heat begins to occur, and the heat slope measures the size of this effect”

“[in 44 USA cities] increases in heat-related mortality would range from 70% to over 100% in 2050, relative to the baseline 1964–1991 summer mortality”

“[in 3 Canadian cities] a significant increase in temperature related mortality in summer that was not offset by a significant but smaller estimated decrease in fall and winter mortality.

“In Lisbon, acclimatization could reduce heat-related deaths on average by 15% in the 2020s and 40% in the 2050s, relative to projections assuming no acclimatization”

“the effects of heat on mortality appear sometimes to be greater in women, especially elderly women”

“Air pollution is expected to increase in urban areas due to climate change, so the joint exposure of urban populations to high temperatures and air pollutants will increase in the future “

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Risk Assessment and Air Pollution Epidemiology

Improving the Linkages between Air Pollution Epidemiology and Quantitative Risk Assessment (23 page pdf, Fann N, Bell ML, Walker K, Hubbell B, Environmental Health Perspectives, Aug. 4, 2011)

Today’s focus is on the link between the assessment of health risk on the one hand and the analysis of causes and effect of health impacts through epidemiology- and how one can complement the other. The review article considers a number of aspects: estimated effects, air quality, population and health data.



Key Quotes:

“The extent to which risk assessors can properly specify a quantitative risk assessment and characterize key sources of uncertainty depends in part on the availability, and clarity, of data and assumptions in the epidemiological studies”

“the role of air pollution epidemiology in supporting quantitative risk assessments—principally by providing the risk coefficients that relate air quality changes to the probability of a variety of adverse health outcomes, including premature death, hospital visits and acute respiratory symptoms among many others”

-policy questions:

• “the total public health burden associated with exposure to air quality levels above some background level in terms of the number of excess cases of premature death or illness?”
• “the impact on human health of incremental changes in air quality due to a proposed policy?”

“Key attributes of epidemiological studies relevant to risk assessment:

• Effect estimates - the U.S. EPA recently evaluated the long-term PM mortality literature to consider the empirical basis for a threshold in the concentration-response relationship. EPA found useful the graphics depicting the concentration-response curve and 95th percentile confidence interval over the range of the observed data
• Air Quality - Risk assessments rarely have the opportunity to rely on risk coefficients from epidemiological studies in which the temporal and spatial variability in air quality is fully consistent with that of the policy scenarios being analyzed.
• Population - risk assessments tend to estimate the incidence of adverse health outcomes among a population whose attributes are sometimes very different from the study population in ways that may alter the outcome of the risk assessment.
• Health Data - consider which endpoints to quantify, how to match key characteristics of the endpoints across populations, and how and whether to pool evidence across studies.

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