[sustran] fwd: (long) Downsizing Infrastructure : From Mega to "Nega"

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

From: "Ajay Darshan Behera" <navnita at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>
To: <kabelvag at egroups.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 03:39:38 +0530
Subject: [kabelvag] Downsizing Infrastructure : From Mega to "Nega"


" The theoretical basis for negagallons, negamiles, and negajunk is the
same as for negawatts. Namely, demand for water, automobile travel, and
materials is elastic: it can change quickly as incentives change.
Experience with drought in Northern California, for example, has shown that
water demand can be cut by more than 50 percent for homes, 60 percent for
parks, and 20 percent for businesses. During the 1977 drought, in fact,
several Northern California municipalities slashed their consumption by
nearly 60 percent.Japan and most Western European countries, moreover,
generate only about half as much waste per capita as the United States.
Heavily taxed "tipping fees" at landfills are $200 to $300 per ton in
Japan, where land is at a premium and indigenous resources are scarce. This
pricing, 10 times the U.S. level, more accurately reflects the true costs
of using the land and stimulates innovation in recycling methods.Despite
the allure of the private automobile, driving can be moderated as well. On
Sao Paulo's aggressively promoted "Alert Days" - a demonstration program to
relieve air pollution - automotive travel fell 90 percent. And per capita
auto use in much of Western Europe is 20 to 55 percent below the U.S.
level. Granted, the much greater size of the United States requires more
transportation infrastructure. But Canada, similar both culturally and
geographically, drives 10 percent less than the United States and has less
than half the roadway mileage per capita, according to John Pucher,
associate professor of urban planning at Rutgers University." 
----------
Downsizing Infrastructure

Clark Wieman,  Technology Review, Vol. 99, May 1996, p 48 -  

CLARK WIEMAN is research director of the Infrastructure Institute at Cooper
Union in New York City. 
----------
As cities stagger under the cost of building and maintaining public works,
investment in concrete and steel must give way to more efficient alternatives.



The United States has made a multitrillion-dollar investment in
infrastructure, from waterworks to streets and highways to electrical
networks. Systems in many urban areas are reaching the end of the their
useful lives, trapping local governments in a seemingly unwinnable game of
triage: as federal and state support dwindles, officials must decide which
systems to salvage. And infrastructure funding will become even tighter as
local and state governments are asked to shoulder a growing portion of the
costs of programs addressing AIDS, housing, childcare, and other pressing
social problems.


Clearly it is in local government's best interest to pursue least- cost
solutions to problems posed by aging public works. Part of the answer
entails a major shift in the way government approaches infrastructure
planning. Today, most agencies overseeing public works think in narrow
terms of capital construction or reconstruction. But in many cases, there
are alternative Well-thought-out environmental regulation, land-use
planning, and demand management can delay or completely offset
concrete-and-steel solutions, saving billions. In most cases, the new
approaches boil down to two sometimes distinct, sometimes overlapping
concepts: reducing demand and improving long-term planning.


Cutting Consumption


Bringing demand for infrastructure under control presents cities with a
huge challenge. Total vehicular travel has grown fivefold in the past four
decades, per capita solid-waste generation has doubled, and water
consumption has outpaced population growth in many metropolitan areas.
Today a typical four-person household drives 28,000 miles, generates 5,800
pounds of municipal waste, and consumes an estimated 115,000 gallons of
water in one year.


A major culprit is infrastructure policies that shield consumers from the
true costs of the services they receive. Consider the effects of direct
government subsidies. To varying degrees, each type of system - roadways,
waterworks, sewage plants, and power plants - receives public funding from
local or federal sources. Such financial support, while certainly
necessary, distorts the systems' actual cost. For example, the Tri-State
Transportation Campaign, a consortium of transportation analysts in the New
York City region, estimates that automotive taxes and tolls cover just 65
percent of the cost of using the city's roads and bridges - including the
cost of maintenance and providing traffic patrols. Under this estimate,
taxpayers subsidize New York City motorists by $2.4 billion annually.
Similarly, a U.S. Department of Transportation study found that user fees
and earmarked taxes covered just 69 percent of nationwide highway
expenditures in 1985.


Other subsidies are indirect. U.S. motorists fail to cover an estimated
$400 billion in "external" costs - the price of pollution, noise,
congestion-related delays, and excess wear on infrastructure - according to
a 1994 study by Kohnheim and Kecham, a leading New York City engineering
firm. Failure to cover these costs with automobile surcharges, gasoline
taxes, or tolls in effect pushes up the demand for infrastructure, adding
to the wear and motivating bureaucracies to expand capacity.


Today these consumption patterns are colliding with the financial obstacles
to building new systems and replacing old ones. The hurdles are compounded
by worries over jammed highways, overflowing landfills, and unhealthy urban
air, not to mention widespread concern that communities drowning in a sea
of cars - and asphalt - are becoming less and less attractive places to
live and work.


But there is immense potential for improving the efficiency with which we
travel, consume material, and use water. In this regard, the enormous gains
made in the efficiency of electric power consumption - which have caused a
leveling of demand - serve as an inspiration.


>From Mega to "Nega"


Energy guru Amory Lovins first outlined in 1976 how superefficient
technologies - from light bulbs to electric motors to industrial chillers -
can lead us down a "soft" energy path that dramatically cuts electrical use
while maintaining living standards. Though at first it met with strong
criticism from the electrical industry, Lovins's vision is today widely
accepted. Some 20 utilities now aggressively push efficiency, while as many
as half have moderate conservation programs, according to David Moskowitz,
director of the Regulatory Assistance Project in Gardiner, Maine, an
educational resource for public utility commissions.


Central to this vision is the idea that people don't demand electricity -
they demand the services electricity provides: light, ice cubes, preserved
food. As equipment becomes more efficient, service levels and standard of
living can be maintained on far fewer kilowatts, providing the opportunity
to eliminate the most expensive, dangerous, and polluting power plants.


The same logic can be applied to transportation, water use, and garbage
generation. After all, people don't demand highways or wastewater treatment
plants or landfills - they demand transportation, potable water, and
efficient removal of waste. Just as the electrical industry has shown that
small investments in efficiency can offset huge investments in power
generation, so can communities meet the demand for other services without
spending billions on new public works.


How do we change the current incentives that boost U.S. consumption and the
need for supporting infrastructure? Lovins's concept of the "negawatt" may
offer some answers even outside the realm of power generation. In essence,
negawatts are a measure of electricity "supply" derived from efficiency.
They cost only one-tenth to one-fifth as much as electricity from a new
power plant. As Lovins puts it, "One can think of a 14 watt replacement for
a 75 watt lamp as a 61 negawatt power plant."


By the early 1990s, utilities in at least eight states were actively
investing in negawatts - with as many as three-quarters of all utilities
expressing interest before a recent wave of deregulation and restructuring
destabilized the market. Southern California Edison is a prime example.
Between 1981 and 1994, the utility cut electricity demand by an average of
almost 500 megawatts per year, for a combined saving equivalent to the
output of at least three nuclear power plants. Utilities that take such
steps realize a profit, since expenses - in terms of both capital
investment and operating costs - fall faster than revenues.


Perhaps similar marketlike mechanisms could motivate public-works agencies
to stem consumption of their services and, in the longer term, to cut their
investment in infrastructure. It is conceivable that public agencies could
be recast as public-private utilities comparable to electric utilities.
Properly devised, these enterprises could profit from marketing the logical
follow-on to negawatts - negamiles, negagallons, and negajunk.


While these utilities would not be dispensing a commodity like gas or
electricity, they would have authority over travel, municipal or commercial
waste, or water consumption - and the supporting infrastructure - within a
given territory. Of course, that authority would not extend to rationing or
controlling flows; rather, the utilities would quantify usage and implement
strategies to moderate consumption, with the financial payback distributed
to customers within the region. Similar to today' s agencies, they would
have authority to issue bonds to build and maintain infrastructure, with
debt service supported by user fees or taxes. But as with Lovins's negawatt
scenario, they would have the incentive to cut consumption levels through
investment in water- saving technologies, transit and telecommuting, and
waste-reduction methods. Indeed, the new nega-units could, like negawatts,
become a commodity that can be traded between utilities, even between
customers.


The theoretical basis for negagallons, negamiles, and negajunk is the same
as for negawatts. Namely, demand for water, automobile travel, and
materials is elastic: it can change quickly as incentives change.
Experience with drought in Northern California, for example, has shown that
water demand can be cut by more than 50 percent for homes, 60 percent for
parks, and 20 percent for businesses. During the 1977 drought, in fact,
several Northern California municipalities slashed their consumption by
nearly 60 percent.


Japan and most Western European countries, moreover, generate only about
half as much waste per capita as the United States. Heavily taxed "tipping
fees" at landfills are $200 to $300 per ton in Japan, where land is at a
premium and indigenous resources are scarce. This pricing, 10 times the
U.S. level, more accurately reflects the true costs of using the land and
stimulates innovation in recycling methods.


Despite the allure of the private automobile, driving can be moderated as
well. On Sao Paulo's aggressively promoted "Alert Days" - a demonstration
program to relieve air pollution - automotive travel fell 90 percent. And
per capita auto use in much of Western Europe is 20 to 55 percent below the
U.S. level. Granted, the much greater size of the United States requires
more transportation infrastructure. But Canada, similar both culturally and
geographically, drives 10 percent less than the United States and has less
than half the roadway mileage per capita, according to John Pucher,
associate professor of urban planning at Rutgers University.


Taking advantage of this elasticity in demand, redesigned bureaucracies
could become seedbeds for innovations in efficiency, which could be
marketed around the world. (Lovins estimates that the global market for
electrical efficiency is $1 trillion; the nega market for waste, water, and
travel may be larger.) It is not difficult to imagine transportation
utilities with a staff of telecommuting experts providing technical
assistance to firms looking to cut auto travel. Water departments could
design and install water-saving retrofits like gray-water systems (which
use recycled water for toilets and irrigation). They could also profit from
encouraging customers to install more efficient fixtures; a 1994 New York
City study showed that providing a $240 rebate for converting to low-flow
showerheads and toilets would cost only one- third of the $8-12 billion
price tag for developing new water sources.


The market-based nega concept could provide a palatable alternative to
government intervention in everything from auto congestion to interstate
garbage flows. The San Francisco Bay Forum, a consortium of business
leaders, academics, and government officials, advocates using market
incentives to cut auto travel and spread demand throughout the day as a
means to counter impending regulatory measures. The forum's " Market-Based
Solutions to the Transportation Crisis" recommends a system of emission
fees, highway user fees weighted to reflect congestion levels, and the
replacement of free parking with employee travel allowances. Users would
still have free choice, but price signals would push them to choose the
most economical and socially beneficial mode and time of travel. The monies
generated could fund an expanded range of choices, including more transit
and more high-occupancy vehicle lanes.


Planning Ahead


Properly designed and regulated, the infrastructure utilities would work
with local public agencies to pursue mutual planning goals. Long- term
planning, the other main route besides demand management to cutting
infrastructure spending, is often overtaken by daily crises, especially in
mature cities with aging public facilities. But some municipalities are
undergoing what Eileen Kaufman, chief planner for the New York City
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), calls a "paradigm shift" in
planning - a move away from capital construction and toward innovative and
cost-effective solutions.


In 1990, for example, the DEP established a program to protect upstate
watershed areas that provide the city with 1.5 billion gallons of water
daily. The logic is simple: the cleaner the water at the source, the lower
the cost of rendering it fit to drink. Designed to meet the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's mandated water-quality levels for New
York City, the program became politically charged - pitting environmental
activists against an upstate business community emboldened by a new
Republican governor. Still, a management plan was recently accepted by the
EPA. A combination of development controls, preservation of strategic
buffer zones near reservoirs, and upgrading of upstate treatment plants,
costing some $1 billion, is now in place to offset an estimated $6-8
billion investment in water filtration infrastructure downstream, according
to environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose organization,
Hudson Riverkeeper, was formed to protect deteriorating New York City water
quality.


Another New York City effort, the award-winning Bluebelt Project, is moving
beyond conventional methods of managing water runoff from streets - methods
that amount to "putting everything in a pipe." Thirty- year-old plans for
developing 5,000 acres of wild land on Staten Island are being revamped to
reduce wastewater infrastructure and preserve wetlands. New schemes call
for diverting storm water to acreage that would remain undeveloped - in
essence, an urban wetland. By using existing streambeds instead of building
huge sewer mains, the program will save $50 million in sewer construction
as well as offset the need to expand wastewater treatment. At the same
time, the scheme will preserve natural drainage patterns for flood control,
provide community open space, and protect wildlife habitat.


In Minneapolis, vigorous waste-management planning has eliminated the
once-pressing need to expand landfill capacity, according to James Craig,
senior engineer of Hennepin County's Environmental Management Agency. A
campaign launched in the early 1980s developed a multifaceted approach to
handling the waste of the area's nearly 1 million residents. First, it put
in place one of the nation's most aggressive recycling programs; recycling
rates have soared from about 25 percent in the late 1980s to 48 percent
today. Next the campaign upgraded a waste- to-energy plant and developed a
refuse-derived fuel (RDF) plant that turns some of the municipal waste into
a coal substitute burned by the local electric utility. Now the focus is on
waste prevention, a concept that can include exchanges of reusable
materials between companies, the more sparing use of paper within offices,
and procurement procedures that eliminate surplus materials.


Similarly, in Seattle, projections in the early 1980s of dwindling landfill
space spurred waste management policies based on "noncapital programs,"
according to Jeffrey Gaithsford, manager of the city's recycling program.
Since 1986, recycling rats have grown from 18 to 50 percent, circumventing
the need for new incinerators.


To reduce the demand for automotive travel, the key policy approach is
urban planning that makes more efficient use of land. A group known as 1000
Friends of Oregon, a nationally recognized planning-advocacy organization
based in Portland, points to the "3 Ds" of appropriate land-use planning.
The first is density - the ratio of residences to acreage. Experience in
San Francisco has shown that people in compact neighborhoods make 42
percent fewer auto trips than their suburban counterparts. A doubling of
density cuts vehicle miles traveled by 30 percent. Besides being
advantageous for transportation, denser development offsets other
infrastructure costs as well. A 1989 study by the Urban Land Institute, a
research and education group in Washington, D.C., showed that
infrastructure costs per dwelling unit drop precipitously as density
increases. The combined costs of utilities, schools, and streets fall from
$90,000 for one dwelling sited on four acres to just over $10,000 per unit
for developments that place 30 residences on an acre.


The second D is designation - the extent to which residential, commercial,
and industrial uses are mixed or isolated - which determines the distance
between trip origins and destinations. As zoning became legally mandated
early in the century, it was used to separate hazardous smokestack
industries from residential and commercial centers. This history is still
reflected in most modern zoning codes, which designate homogeneous,
isolated uses of land, greatly increasing trip distance. In many cities,
such zoning makes driving virtually essential and greatly inhibits
pedestrian and bicycle travel. By contrast, mixed-use developments, which
place offices, shops, residences, and other types of buildings side by
side, can cut automobile travel. Many planners argue that mixed use also
creates a more active and interesting social setting and promotes a greater
sense of community and neighborhood.


The final D is functional design, which is required to expand
transportation options and make communities more livable. Even in dense
mixed-use areas, drainage ditches, large parking lots, and busy streets
lacking crosswalks can be obstacles to pedestrian, bicycle, and
public-transit travel. Pedestrians find cul-de-sacs and streets with no
sidewalks especially vexing.


To put these infrastructure-saving concepts into practice, however,
communities will have to reexamine their attitudes toward another big D,
development. Pucher of Rutgers argues that development in the United States
is largely haphazard, fixated on the return on private investment and blind
to social consequences. By contrast, most Western European governments have
a long tradition of guiding development and a far lower tolerance for
dispersed private land use. In Sweden and Denmark, for example, development
is coordinated with public investment in convenient transit lines, and in
many cases dispersed growth is virtually prohibited. In Canada, too, strong
regional planning gives high priority to dense, coordinated land use - and
local governments provide tax bonuses for high-density development and
strictly limit downtown parking to promote public transit.


The United States, with its habituation to urban sprawl, averages 2.5 times
as many roadway miles per capita as European countries, and just over twice
as many as Canada. And transit use in Western Europe is 3 to 8 times higher
than in the United States.


Coordinated dense land use can cut governments' share of operational costs
for transit. Contrary to the common belief that European countries spend
more public funds on transit, the fact is that in 1982 the United States
led Western developed countries in per-passenger transit subsidies, paying
86 cents per trip. Other countries' subsidies ranged from 73 cents in
Sweden to just 13 cents per trip in Switzerland. Simply put, compact
development makes transit more attractive, and commuters are willing to pay
more for it.


Any development pattern that promotes transit over automotive travel is a
prime way of cutting infrastructure costs. Transit not only offsets the
automobile's indirect costs - pollution and congestion - but is
substantially cheaper in direct capital costs. For example, the Oregon
Department of Transportation estimates that a certain six-lane highway into
Portland, carrying 3,000 peak-hour passengers, would cost $3.24 billion,
including the necessary expansion of approach roads. A light- rail line for
the same corridor would cost just $1.5 billion, while carrying 1,000 more
rush-hour passengers, according to G.B. Arrington, director of strategic
planning for Tri-Met, the regional transit agency. And ridership could be
expanded to 6,000 much faster and more cheaply than highway capacity could.


Transit investment today can also help city planners cut long-term
transportation costs, circumventing the problems that now face aging cities
like New York. The city must contend with a multibillion-dollar deficit in
rebuilding a massive network of auto infrastructure dating from roughly
1930 to 1960. For example, an estimated $1 billion is needed for just a
three-mile stretch of elevated highway, Brooklyn' s Gowanus Expressway.
While the costs aren't exactly comparable, upgrading the entire subway
system, which services a billion passengers annually, cost $16 billion over
10 years. Per-passenger costs for reconstructing transit are thought to be
roughly one-tenth those of highways.


The Portland Experience


Even though dense, coordinated land use is pretty alien to the American
landscape, municipalities that are hungry for solutions have an excellent
model to follow. Portland, Ore., is on the forefront of U.S. cities in
addressing the joint problems of poor air quality, auto congestion,
unsightly and inefficient sprawling suburban development, and skyrocketing
infrastructure costs.


The city's current planning efforts are rooted in progressive urban
strategies - not unlike the multifaceted policies of European cities -
launched more than 20 years ago in anticipation of a surge of growth.
Dispensing with plans in the early 1970s to build a new freeway, Gov. Tom
McCall spearheaded a move to develop new regional transportation strategies
stressing transit. And in 1972, Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, in
cooperation with community and business leaders, devised a redevelopment
plan that encouraged downtown retail development, boosted downtown
development densities, created a residential zone in the urban core, and
curtailed downtown parking.


Today, MAX, a 15-mile light-rail line, is among the nation's most
successful new transit systems, with more than 60 miles of suburban
extensions under development or in planning. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, 40
acres of open green space on the banks of the Willamette River, has
replaced six lanes of asphalt. Similarly, Pioneer Square, a bustling
downtown open space that anchors Portland's civic and retail center, sits
on the former site of a parking garage. And pedestrian- friendly design,
including tree-lined transit malls, has become a cornerstone of downtown
redevelopment.


Portland has also taken major steps to discourage driving downtown. While
most zoning codes require a minimum amount of parking per square foot of
development, Portland takes the opposite approach, placing a ceiling on
parking spaces. The Downtown Parking and Circulation Policy allows just 7
spaces per 10,000 square feet of development near transit lines and 10
spaces per 10,000 square feet elsewhere. The policy also bans the
demolition of buildings to create surface parking lots. Not coincidentally,
the city's once-serious air-quality violations are a thing of the past.


All major project designs are geared toward pedestrians and transit riders.
Pioneer Place, a $180 million downtown complex, is most easily reached by
three surrounding transit lines. An $85 million convention center in the
eastside Lloyd District is fronted by a light-rail station and a pedestrian
plaza. And a new 19,200-seat stadium for the Portland Trailblazers, being
developed in coordination with MAX, will include just 3,400 off-street
parking spaces.


But perhaps the most innovative move has been to discourage sprawl by
establishing an "urban growth boundary." Beyond the boundary, land is
strictly zoned as either forest or farmland; within the boundary, building
laws encourage the development of compact, livable communities. This
approach allows Portland both to grow efficiently and to conserve open
space surrounding the city.


Portland is now reaping the benefits of its careful planning. Curtailed
auto travel has eliminated the need to add two highway lanes to each major
artery entering Portland and to build three downtown parking garages 30
stories high, according to Keith Bartholomew, staff attorney for 1000
Friends of Oregon. By making the downtown more inviting, the integrated
policies also helped create 30,000 new inner-city jobs, without appreciable
increases in vehicles, trips or parking spaces. Planners credit the efforts
with attracting $900 million in private investment - plus $440 million
worth of planned projects - near transit lines.


Community design schemes like Portland's can be the center of a policy of
reinvigorating inner cities, easing environmental impacts, attracting and
guiding private development, and adding life to the typical suburban model
of strip malls, office parks, and oversized and barricaded single- family
lots often criticized as sterile and lifeless. And the bottom line is that
it's cheaper. In Portland's case, avoiding several hundred million dollars
in highway construction is a conspicuous byproduct of well-considered
community-based planning.


This drive toward efficient development can surely be translated elsewhere,
and in other areas of infrastructure. Look what has happened in electric
power: even though Lovins's calls for efficiency in the mid-1970s were
branded a "siren philosophy" - a prelude to a New Dark Age - U.S. Gross
National Product climbed more than 50 percent by 1990, while total energy
use grew just 9 percent. The energy needed per dollar of economic activity
fell by nearly a quarter, mostly because of greater energy efficiency. A
combination of market incentives and planning efforts can expand these
efficiency gains to water, waste, and travel - reducing pollution, creating
more livable cities, and providing hundreds of billions of dollars in
savings as municipalities downsize their infrastructure.


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