NSI Day 10 Script
- Journal starter- "Where all is but dream, reason and argument are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing."
-John Locke
- Any remaining questions or comments about global warming stuff?
Final Project:
How many people ride tri-met on a regular basis? Why? What are the benefits of doing this, why do you think it’s a “virtuous” thing (if you do)?
This next 5 weeks of working on the final project will serve to illustrate and help you learn about the issues that arise in dealing with a technical, community social issue - in this case, what kind of system do we want to have to move people where they need to go, without damaging the natural environment we treasure and enjoy.
In order to keep things focused somewhat, I’ve narrowed the goal: we’ve got a billion dollars to spend, and we want to minimize CO emissions into the atmosphere. We have to decide what will best actually achieve that - more light rail, more buses, better cars, etc.
I’ve narrowed the project to focus specifically on the impact of transit options on air pollution. This way, you have a specific, measurable target outcome: minimize CO emissions produced by our transit system. It doesn’t matter which solution people believe is most environment-friendly: it matters only which one really reduces emissions.
Key questions they’ll have to answer along the way are:
1) What are the major sources of CO, and what harmful effects does it have?
2) What are the “marginal” emissions reductions per passenger mile for bumping people into each of the alternatives ( carpools, diesel buses, natural gas buses, light rail, etc.)? Use single-occupancy cars (SOVs) as a baseline; I’m assuming all the alternatives are less polluting than cars, and so will result in lower emissions than what we would have had with everyone in cars.
3) Estimate riders’ behaviours in response to various options- how many people are likely to switch from SOVs to a particular alternative? This takes into account convenience, reliability, etc. (Obviously this will be a crucial, and tricky, thing to estimate. Any insight or evidence you have about this, from past experience with the impact of transit solutions, will be welcome). Once they make estimates for this behaviour, they can multiply the marginal emission reduction for each transit mode by the number of people expected to switch, to get the total emission savings for that alternative.
4) What are the costs for each of the alternatives? This is obviously related to (3), since by spending more we might be able to make a particular transit mode more attractive to people. As much as possible, I want to include TOTAL costs here - including money from federal grants, capital investment, operating costs, etc. - since this is the real cost to society for choosing that option. One of the things I’m trying to get the students to think about is the tradeoffs involved whenever we choose to allocate resources a certain way. What we care about in this case is the bottom-line reduction in emissions. Any resources we spend on one means of reducing emission are resources lost for implementing other solutions.
Indicate how expensive that option would have to become before you would change your mind. If we decide, for example, that an expanded light rail system is the best use of our resources, then we ought to be prepared to specify a price for the light rail expansion at which it would no longer be the best alternative (i.e. for that price, we could implement enough other options to achieve an even greater reduction in pollution). Or, if light rail is not the best option, we ought to be able to specify how much its cost would have to drop before it WOULD be the best option.
5) Based on (2), (3) and (4), what is the overall cost per unit of emission reduction for each alternative? These numbers and their uncertainties are the information we need in order to make policy decisions.
Figure cost per passenger mile, use to compute cost per unit of emission reduction (be sure to include total costs, capital, operating, etc. What we want is cost to society (eg includes federal funding), so can consider the trade-offs for how else those resources could have been spent)
- if light rail is best use of the billion, for realistic estimates of how much it will reduce emissions, At what value of dollars per passenger mile would you change your view? This is the key question; if you cannot give such a figure, then you cannot know it is really the best solution.
Questions to be considering of the speakers:
Of the light rail proponents, you know there is some emission savings going on. So you’ll want to be asking questions related to how many SOVs can really be removed from the road. Try to find upper limits - eg ask how many people a rail car can carry, and how many cars per hour can travel. How does this compare to current rush hour cars per hour along that corridor?
Of the anti-MAX folks, want to ask how much pollution savings can get from alternatives.
Assign groups.
Get started on this - it will take you a little while to get into it, and it may seem frustrating as you struggle to figure out which questions to ask, where to find info. This is part of the process, so don’t worry about it, just keep pushing through, keep hunting, and write about it in your journal.
Web link to resources.