Reducing Australia's Greenhouse Emissions through Urban Passenger Transport Reform
Submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review on the topic of Transport, planning and the built environment. 2008.4
by Michael Robertson for Urban Ecology Australia.
Abstract
The world needs to reduce greenhouse emissions. What should Australia do? First try no regrets emissions reduction. For example reducing urban passenger transport emissions, which will result in direct cost savings and savings in kind. How? By making alternative non-car modes - walking, cycling and public transport - more attractive. How? Among other things by changing urban design, limiting traffic volumes on main roads, and preventing road congestion through road-use charges.
Submission
The need to reduce greenhouse emissions
Scientists are suggesting we, the world community, will need to reduce our total emissions by 50 percent or more by 2050, eg from the current 45 Gt CO2e per year to around 20 Gt per year, to avoid dangerous global temperature increases. Given an estimated world population of around 9 billion by 2050, average per capita emissions by then will have to come down to around 2 or 2.5 t CO2e, depending on how the global climate system seems likely to respond to increasing atmospheric greenhouse levels or increasing temperatures.
What should Australia do?
If Australia is to aspire to a per capita emissions level of around 2 or 2.5 t CO2e per person per year by 2050, to pull its national weight and set a good example, and not require other (eg poorer countries) to do the work for us, then it has a long way to go, because Australia's current per capita emissions rate is around 26 t CO2e per person per year.
If we (Australians) pass the first few years of the remaining 42 years until 2050 doing just about nothing to reduce our emissions (witness the last few years), then we will make the task harder for our successors - if they end up having to cut emissions by the same amount but in a shorter time. Moreover, if we wish to persuade other countries to curb or reduce their emissions, then we won't have much moral clout if we are (1) among the highest per-capita emitters in the world, and (2) seem to be making no tangible efforts to reduce our emissions.
We should start seriously reducing our emissions now.
No regrets emission reduction
Those of us who like to get desired results while minimising costs, will prefer "no-regrets" emissions reduction measures. That is, measures that bring about net cost savings, and other benefits, in addition to the benefits of emission reduction. Many emission reduction measures such as clean energy will reduce emissions only at increased cost and with little obvious extra benefit. (One of the cheapest ways of reducing emissions is by installing solar hot water heaters in all new homes, and indeed in all homes. However there is no obvious aesthetic benefit from installing such devices on roofs.)
The following proposal, to reduce greenhouse emissions due to passenger transport in Australian cities does seem to be a no-regrets measure, although one part of the package - general road use charging - would be politically contentious.
Reducing urban passenger-transport emissions
Restructuring urban passenger transport from a system dominated by car use to one based on walking, cycling and public transport use, plus some car use, could reduce Australia's greenhouse emissions significantly.
Urban car use in Australian cities is around 6,000 car-km per resident per year, resulting in greenhouse emissions of around 1.7 t CO2e per resident per year. (Assume 0.4 cars per resident; 15,000 car-km per year per car; 0.1 L fuel per car-km; and 2.8 kg CO2e per L fuel, including fuel production/distribution.)
Reducing car use by 2,000 car-km, through a combination of shorter journeys (due to better urban planning), plus mode-shifting from car use to walking and cycling, would save around 0.6 t CO2e per resident per year.
Reducing car use another 2,000 car-km per resident per year through mode-shifting to bus use (or tram or train equivalent) would save another 0.4 t CO2e per resident per year. (Assume 1 extra bus-km per 12 car-km replaced; 0.4 L fuel per bus-km; 2.8 kg CO2e per L fuel.)
This, plus doubling the carbon efficiency of remaining passenger vehicles, would bring emissions down to around 0.4 t CO2e per resident per year - a total saving of around 1.3 t CO2e per resident per year. (Note: these figures don't calculate for "embodied" greenhouse emissions due construction/maintenance of cars, buses (etc.), bicycles, plus roads and other infrastructure.)
If we wished to reduce the per capita greenhouse emissions of urban residents by 13 t CO2e per year (by eg 2020), then restructuring urban passenger transport on the above figures would give us around 10% of the reduction needed - a significant proportion.
Direct cost savings
A mode shift from cars to buses (etc) would not result in large direct savings to the community, unless the price of transport fuel goes up significantly. (The savings due to reduced fuel use, less road wear, fewer collisions, etc would be swallowed up by cost of extra bus (etc) services. However, the combination of shorter journeys plus mode shift to walking and cycling would result in significant direct savings. And, if better alternatives to car-use resulted in (eg) 20% of households deciding to go without a first or second car, then direct savings would be significantly greater still.
Savings in kind
A shift from car use to shorter journeys and more walking, cycling, and public transport use would probably result in a loss of convenience, due to greater time taken, and greater difficulty in hauling heavy loads. (But easy access to a city-wide car-share network would allow people to use a car when the convenience benefit was high - and to walk, cycle and use public transport the rest of the time - eg for most journeys. Also, much of the present inconvenience of using public transport is due to infrequency of services, poor service interconnections, confusing bus routes, and unpredictable bus-stop locations.)
On the other hand, a 70+% reduction in car use, especially in peak hours would significantly reduce noise and air pollution, and would allow much of the urban land now dedicated to wide main roads and extensive off-road car-parks to be allocated to other uses such as buildings, greenspace and pedestrian and cycle paths. This would add considerably to urban amenity.
Changing urban design
Creating more pleasant precincts around bus stops, eg with more vegetation and less car traffic will encourage public transport use, as well as walking and cycling along main road precincts.
To encourage public transport use further, popular destinations such as shops, workplaces, and community facilities, and higher density residential developments should be clustered within easy walking distance of bus stops (tram stops, train stations).
Also, much of the variety of goods, services, social venues and other facilities currently found only in major urban centres should be moved down the hierarchy to smaller urban centres. Too often in Australian cities, a cluster of supermarkets, bakeries and greengrocers will be located in a major centre with no fresh food available for kilometres around.
Limiting traffic volumes on main roads
Apartment buildings located near main roads, especially main road intersections (an obvious place for a bus stop if two or bus routes cross each other there), won't be ideal unless traffic volumes stay within limits, eg a maximum of 10 vehicles per minute each way. This would allow main roads to be one lane each way without creating peak hour congestion, which would cause buses to be held up in traffic, and so make bus travel less attractive.
Preventing congestion through road use charging
Keeping all or most main roads in Australian cities won't itself prevent congestion. Congestion can be effective in discouraging further traffic increases, but it must already exist to do so.
Widening roads is expensive, disruptive, and only encourages car use. A better way to prevent congestion is through road use charging on all main roads otherwise subject to congestion.
Prices for use of certain stretches of main road at certain hours of the day would prevent congestion by being high enough to discourage enough motorists from driving that way at that time to prevent congestion. (An occasional congestion event would be allowed in order to maintain predetermined and therefore predictable prices.) Road charges would be deducted from motorists accounts as currently for use on certain toll roads, eg in Melbourne and Sydney.
The introduction of road charging, in conjunction with better public transport and better urban design, would free people from car dependence for most journeys, and produce costs savings due to less car use, less car ownership, and less congestion, and provide space for urban amenity improvement, in addition to significant greenhouse emissions reductions.
However, it would be politically contentious. It would directly challenge what many Australian's seem to take as a fundamental right - the right to add to urban traffic congestion without charge (apart from lost time and wasted fuel).
It would be one more example of the political (as against technical) difficulties that Australia and other nation's face when it comes to restructuring their economies and the lifestyle aspirations of their citizens. Overcoming such difficulties will be a test of our commitment to the future.
References
Figures on car use in Australian cities
Urban Transport - Looking Ahead (PDF). BTE Information Sheet 14. Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics. 1999
Figures on greenhouse emissions from transport fuel
Life-Cycle Emissions Analysis of Fuels for Light Vehicles (PDF). T. Beer; T. Grant. H. Watson; D. Olaru. Department for the Environment. Australia. 2004
2008.5.8