City Approves Marine-Based Trash Plan That Will Cut Truck Congestion

CONTACT: Diane Slaine-Siegel 212-616-1267, dslaine@environmentaldefense.org

Coming on the heels of the President’s State of the Union remarks on global warming, the Bush administration announced it seeks to add $170 million to its $130 million December 2006 initiative for congestion strategies to help U.S. cities  cut emissions from traffic.

The initiative will award grants starting this summer to help cities and states build electronic toll systems designed to curb traffic congestion by charging drivers fees to travel in large city centers or metropolitan motorways during peak traffic times while improving transit and traffic operations. The DOT estimates the total cost of U.S. congestion at about $200 billion annually counting wasted fuel, delays, and environmental costs. The Administration estimates that travel delay wasted 2.3 billion gallons of fuel in 2003 and that accounts for more than 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emission – the leading greenhouse gas.

The health effects are evident. For example, new studies clearly link early exposure to air pollutants found in car and truck exhaust to increases in the risk of cancer in later life. Worldwide, transportation accounts for 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

The growth of megacities will be one of the biggest challenges to controlling greenhouse gases. Half the earth’s population now lives in urban areas. Many economists say that urban traffic congestion is virtually impossible to reduce without some form of congestion pricing. The U.S. is beginning to get into the game, while Europe and Asia have been forging ahead.

Congestion pricing has taken hold in big cities around the world - London, Singapore, Stockholm, and Oslo (and soon Jakarta) have congestion pricing systems in place to reduce traffic congestion, gas emissions, smog and greenhouse gases, and to boost and fund public transportation.

In London, it has resulted in lowering traffic congestion by 30% and an increase in the use of public transportation by 38%. Fossil fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions are estimated to have declined by 20%. The revenues have been pumped into public transportation and the system made a net profit of $174 million in 2005. London is now looking to expand the system to the suburbs.

Michael Replogle, the Transportation Director at Environmental Defense and a past consultant for the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, EPA, and World Bank, helped convince the Bush administration to adopt this initiative. He has worked across the world for over three decades to help manage and curb traffic problems and will be traveling to Jakarta in 3 weeks to work with that government in helping to design a congestion pricing plan. He will be taking a number of Indonesian officials to see Singapore’s system, which has mostly eliminated traffic congestion while helping to spur that city’s extraordinary economic success.

Michael will be in New York on Thursday, February 22nd. Please let me know if you would like to meet/interview Michael before he leaves for Jakarta. He has created a powerpoint presentation on Singapore’s congestion pricing system and will be able to demonstrate that as well.