HSR in Canada?

A recent article from CTV news titled "Trainwreck: Canada's high-speed rail failure" provides a detailed summary of the current debate surrounding high speed rail in Canada. Here is a quick refresher on the benefits of HSR (courtesy of the article):

• They're fast. Japanese and French high-speed trains have both reached mind-boggling speeds of over 575 km/h. The Chinese, who are quickly becoming a leader in high-speed rail, had a recent test of a passenger train that hit 486 km/h on a soon-to-be-opened link between Shanghai and Beijing.

• Dedicated high-speed rail lines are ridiculously efficient -- at least in Japan. Officials there point out that trains are punctual down-to-the-minute, even with 300 million riders a year.
  
  
• They're safe. There has not been a single fatality in either the Japanese or French system. An average of seven Canadians die in road accidents every day.

• Environmentally, there is no better way to move a large amount of people, unless someone builds a really, big bike.

• Major economic benefits. Study after study says high-speed rail creates significant numbers of permanent jobs and massive residual benefits. An Alberta government report suggested a Calgary-Edmonton high-speed line could be worth $33 billion to the economy.

• Canada has the home-grown expertise in a company such as Bombardier.

While I recognize the drawbacks and limitations of HSR, I don't think it's worth criticizing this transport mode right now when they are starting to be recognized as a sustainable transportation solution. There is no shortage of ideas on how we can make HSR feasible and operational in Canada, or North America more broadly. My friend Leonard, shared a great idea on this blog a few weeks ago on how we can make progress on the HSR front. Alas, money and budget constraints often limit funds for sustainable and innovative infrastructure projects like HSR lines.

Many HSR proponents do not advocate for a national HSR line in Canada. That would be too expensive and impractical considering the geography and low population density of this country. The two corridors in Canada that would be suitable for an HSR line include Calgary-Edmonton and the Quebec-Windsor corridor, where half of Canada's population lives.

Jeff Casello, a prof of transportation planning and engineering at U of Waterloo, says "the capacity of Toronto's Lester B. Pearson Airport and Highway 401 is maxed out, making high-speed rail an attractive alternative. I think there's very strong consideration on the (Quebec-Windsor corridor) considering the limits on Pearson and its ability to handle any more traffic and the unwillingness to invest in widening the 401. There's realization that there needs to be some redundancy in our transportation network, so we can't rely on a single mode to satisfy all our transportation needs".

Read more here.

Climatopolis - A Review

I recently finished Matthew Kahn's newest book titled "Climatopolis". I was looking forward to reading this book from the summer but did not find the time this past semester to indulge in Kahn's thought-provoking piece.

To begin, I highly recommend this book to anyone and especially those who love cities. According to the UN, 60% of the world's population will be living in cities by 2030. Climate change is bound to and already has affected urban areas. There are many opportunities for urbanites and Kahn is optimistic about how we will adapt.

Climate change has been a topical subject since 2006 when Al Gore and Nicholas Stern frightened the world about the future risks humanity would face if we did not take action. Gore, Stern (to a lesser extent) and a number of climate change researchers including climate scientists, economists, geographers etc, often focus our attention to climate change mitigation. This means looking at tools or systems (such as a carbon tax, cap-and-trade emissions standards, energy conservation) that will help lessen the impacts of climate change by emitting fewew greenhouse gas emissions. Few, however, talk about the importance of adaptation, or simply adapting to climate change in our uncertain future.

Matt Kahn's book takes us on economic journey (he's an environmental economist) exploring how residents of global cities such as Los Angeles and New York City can adapt to climate change if they receive proper signals about the importance of doing so. In a time when people have better access to information (thank you Google) there is more knowledge being created about the risks of more frequent natural disasters - flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, heat waves and droughts are all severe and highly damaging to any city in the world. Whether it is a developed or developing city, some residents are far more impacted than others (take hurricane Katrina in 2005 as a good example).

Throughout the book, Kahn talks about two vastly different groups and how they will respond or adapt to climate change. The first group is the Homer Simpsons of the world; those who are lazy, myopic and unwilling to sacrifice for their long-term good. They might be more skeptical of climate change and do nothing to protect themselves from it. Or, there is the traditional economic person who is cold, calculating and self-interested who Kahn calls the Mr. Spocks (Star Trek) of the world. The Mr. Spocks will take advantage of all of the information available on climate change and take pro-active steps to cope with the uncertainty surrounding climate change.

Take this example from the book: Kahn explains a situation where Al Gore (Mr. Spock) and Homer Simpson are both offered an opportunity to buy a home at a low price in an area that climate change scientists believe is at a high risk for serious flooding. The Al Gores would say either no thanks or if they accepted this offer, would take steps such as elevating the home and other costly flood-proofing actions to protect it. Homer (the ignorant one) would not be aware and take the offer right away. The Homers might take advantage of the low cost and migrate (or as Kahn says, "vote with their feet" by moving) away from a safe city such as Salt Lake City* to more risky and desirable cities like NYC, if they could trust their government and engineers to invent a credible protection strategy. The local government could construct seawalls for example, to help protect households living on the coast. That would be costly though and the money would come from all taxpayers including those who decided to live in less risky areas. As more and more households start to live in these risky areas, the federal government would provide more funds for protection because their political clout increases. So, if there is no flood, Homer will live on to be a happy person. If there is one, Al Gore will not suffer and Homer will.

Kahn provides examples like this to illustrate how both information and incentives can drastically change the way people think and adapt to climate change. Forward-looking entrepreneurs can innovate (earning huge profits) and be ready with a variety of products to help the Homers cope with their new reality. Thomas Mayne, an architect at UCLA, is discussed in Kahn's book because he is designing a "floating house" for New Orleans' residents. Such innovation can earn him big bucks for those wishing to live in riskier flood-prone areas.

There are countless examples in the book of such risky areas (like fire zones with wealthy landowners) where a market or insurance system can be created to price land based on climate change risk. An example comes from the state of Missouri where some local governments encourage developers to develop on high risk flood plains. This so-called "land assembly problem" allows developers to build on really cheap land in flood prone areas and make huge profits. The local government is excited about the new tax revenue and the job creation that accompany these projects. Alas, when floods happen in that state the federal government comes in a bails out the developer with tax payers' money because they were foolish enough in the first place to build in risky areas! Kahn suggests that insurance companies and markets need to appropriately price this land so that any risk takers who suffer from such disasters are solely affected by it, and not the taxpayers who probably disagreed with the development in the first place.

The bottom line is that there are a number of opportunities in cities across the world to embrace a more market and insurance oriented approach based on climate change risk. When insurance companies start to price land based on future risk, people will respond in different ways - some will migrate and some will stay and take advantage of the new demand for products such as floatable houses, more energy efficient air conditioners, rain water harvesting systems and many more. They will, in effect, adapt and create a greater market for such products allowing for better innovation and design from the business world thereby creating a safer city in our uncertain future. Keep in mind that while these adaptation technologies sound very promising, they will probably be very expensive and hence out of reach for the poorest and most marginalized - the group most affected by climate change.

These are just some highlights from the book. I do not agree with all of Kahn's points but I commend him for his forward-looking approach on a significant global issue of our time. He talks about Los Angeles and NYC extensively in his book because they are good case studies of climate change risk and adaptation potential. There is also a good amount of writing on China in the book and Kahn's predictions about how they will (or will not) green their cities in the face of climate change.

I have a copy of the book and would be happy to lend it to anyone interested.

I will write a post in January about some of the lessons urban planners could learn from Kahn's book.

*Kahn comes up with a list of the United States' top five most resilient cities that will cope best with climate change. These include 1) Salt Lake City 2) Milwaukee 3) Buffalo 4) Minneapolis 5) Detroit

Guest Entry: How can HSR gain speed and momentum in North America?

By: Leonard Machler

Infrastructure inflation has caught up with us, and we are starting to get used to billion dollar projects being thrown around with the casualness that we used to reserve for bus stops and phone booths. And even though high speed rail (HSR) may cost less than expanding airport and freeway capacity – with the added benefit that it provides a transportation alternative that is more environmentally friendly and that is meant to stimulate development in dense, walkable downtowns, the cost of HSR still represents a significant chunk of change.

The California High Speed rail system is estimated – at a minimum – to cost around $40 billion dollars; upgrading the Northeast Corridor of the United States for 300 km/h operation has been pegged at $117 billion. To compare, this figure is about the same as the total economic output of the Ukraine last year. Even if high speed rail in the US was not a political hot potato, it would be hard for any government to scrounge up that kind of cash. To compensate, governments, such as the Obama administration, contribute toward the project incrementally by providing “small” funding commitments.

This year, roughly $1.4 billion (including $624 million that had been allocated to Wisconsin, but turned down by a newly-elected Republican governor) was earmarked for the California High Speed Rail (HSR) project. In 2009, $2.3 billion was allocated to the California HSR program. At this rate, it will take over 20 years to fund the project in full, so the California HSR authority has proposed building a segment of the line between the two Central Valley cities of Fresno and Hanford. While not so small that they can’t be found on a map, connecting these two towns with a high speed rail line hardly has the cachet as a link between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Predictably, critics have derided this first segment as a line between nowhere and nowhere.

On the one hand, they are off base: the segment has to be built eventually, so why not now? Moreover, the short line would serve as a handy test track to evaluate the performance of high speed trains before they see regular service. On the other hand, the fact that it will be used as a test track for nearly a decade before regular service begins is a political high-wire act because almost nobody other than industry insiders will see the public benefits (i.e. trains that people can actually ride on) for this project. For the average voter, the line will not just be a train from nowhere to nowhere, it will be a line from nowhere to nowhere with no trains on it. Did it have to be this way? Are we doomed to wait an eternity until enough cash trickles in so that we can build a line people can actually use?

Most European countries have a different attitude. They would use the partial funding to build a short high speed line – similar to the Hanford-Fresno demonstration line – and then run the remainder of the service on conventional track. This way the public gets high speed rail service from day one and, over time, services and speeds improve as an increasing amount of high speed track comes on line.

This was how I remember the evolution of high speed rail in Germany. When I first used the system as a kid in the early 90s, only a handful of sections – usually meant to bypass especially slow or built up areas – were actually genuine high speed rail lines. Most other times, the ICE train would plod along the old rail line, bypassing freights and slower passenger trains at a comparatively “slow” 160 km/h. As the years went by, the ICE would spend less of its time dodging freight trains on the old tracks and more of its time speeding through the German countryside in its own dedicated high speed line.

It’s time for California and other North American jurisdictions to try a similar approach. The high speed line in the Central Valley should be built for demonstration purposes, as is the plan, but conventional trains should be allowed to use it – at least until the full HSR line is built out. Granted, track conditions in Germany – even on old, conventional lines – are better than pretty much anything that exists in North America today and are also electrified for higher speed too. California could use the earmark from the next two years to upgrade the existing track between San Francisco and Los Angeles* to support at least some quasi high speed service using conventional passenger trains, while taking advantage of the short high speed segment in the Central Valley.

Running conventional trains at higher speeds along incrementally longer stretches of high speed rail is not as sexy as a bullet train whisking passengers along a fully built-out line, but at least it has the chance of seeing the light of day sometime this decade. More importantly, it provides taxpayers with the impression that the line is immediately useful. As they say, it’s not perfect, but at least it’s a start.

Leonard Machler is a PhD student in the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. He is a transportation enthusiast and is a strong advocate for more sustainable and accessible urban transportation systems.

*For a rail map comparing trips statistics (airplane, HSR and car) between San Francisco and Los Angeles, click here.*

A Wind Energy Update in Canada

Image credit:
http://top-10-list.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/wind-energy.jpg

I love renewable energy but I usually don't blog about it. While I am relatively informed about wind energy (thanks to Chris and his comprehensive 100-page honour's thesis on wind energy deployment in Canada) I thought I would write a post about it.

The Globe and Mail (don't worry, I read other news sources too) had a special information feature on climate change and the environment a few days ago. The articles were written by representatives from several groups and institutes including Alberta's Pembina Institute, the University of Calgary's Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy, the David Suzuki Foundation and an article from the CEO of Siemens AG.

One of the articles discussed how wind energy was the world's fastest growing source of electricity generation in the U.S. and the EU in 2009. Canada, they argue, has a long way to go in fully developing its wind energy capacity. Wind energy in Canada has enough power to ostensibly generate at least 20% of Canada's electricity by 2025. That's huge!

Alberta is currently looking at renewable sources of energy, like wind, to alleviate its dependence on dirty coal-based electricity. According to the report from the Pembina Institute, the generating potential of wind in Alberta was estimated at 64,000 megawatts (MW). To put that in perspective, if you look at the IESO wind tracker located at the top right corner of this blog, 127 MW is enough electricity to power the City of Newmarket (population about 80,000). Just imagine what 64,000 MW could do.

In Canada, electricity generation is responsible for 17% of all greenhouse gas pollution, more than that produced by all of the cars on Canada's road. Both the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) are strong proponents for this renewable energy but continuously face obstacles from organizations and wind-opposing folks that Chris has talked about in the past.

It has been reported that a typical wind turbine in Canada produces enough power to meet the needs of 450 homes. Canada ranks 11th in the world in terms of wind energy-based electricity generation. Who are the leaders? 20% of Denmark's electricity is from wind sources, in Spain it is 13%, in Portugal, 12% and Ireland 9%.

Robert Hornung from CanWEA says that when measured as a percentage of total electricity production, Canada ranks significantly lower generating about 1.5% right now. Policy is the big challenge. We need incentives he argues. The federal production incentive program for wind energy is coming to an end. "Without a stable, clear-cut and long-term strategy to facilitate wind energy development, it will be hard to attract wind energy investment in Canada".

The key message is that federal government needs to send the right signals to renewable energy markets that demonstrate the need and importance of wind energy in this country. Alberta is constantly criticized for its oil sands industry and heavy dependence on coal based electricity. Alberta has a great opportunity to pursue this technology right now to earn some green points. But other provinces must also continue to increase their wind energy potential with the help of government incentives and strong renewable energy markets.

On a promising note, the International Energy Agency predicts that $20 trillion (US dollars) will be invested in renewable energy projects worldwide in the next 22 years. C'mon Canada, this is your chance to shine!

City Planning: Melbourne and Toronto

I was reading an article in the Globe and Mail yesterday that discussed contemporary city planning issues in Melbourne, Australia and Toronto, Canada. The article, structured in a question and answer format, featured two urban experts discussing what their cities have done and what their cities need to do on the urban planning front. Robert Adams, director of city design for Melbourne is a huge proponent of pedestrian traffic and bike lanes (Don Cherry would call him a pinko). Mr. Adams vehemently lobbied to make public transit in Melbourne free before 7 am and cars were banned from the city's busiest street. A really progressive and visionary leader who has made Melbourne the third most livable city in the world, according to The Economist.

The urban expert interviewed from Toronto is Gary Wright, the current chief planner for the City of Toronto. In my undergrad, Gary spoke as a guest lecturer in one of my geography courses (summary of that lecture found here). Gary is very proud of what the Dundas Square has become (under his leadership) in terms of a public open space in which people can appreciate and gather together to enjoy the city's culture, night life and artistic events. This is what some would call experiential consumption whereby citizens and tourists can experience and enjoy the culture and vitality of the city through public spaces and not through shopping and material consumption.

He also commented on the planning of the forthcoming Pan Am Games in Toronto in 2015. He says that the athletes' village is going to require close collaboration with developers to ensure that everything goes well. The city's waterfront reinvention plan is underway and will have many implications for waterfront development in the coming years. In sum, he supports greater involvement of the developers because of their knowledge and expertise. Last and unsurprisingly, he is a big advocate for better transit in Toronto. Transit is a very salient issue these days but in a time of financial uncertainty, and with a new mayor, we'll have to wait and see how things play out on the transit agenda.

The rest of this post will focus on the great city planning work of Robert Adams and what other cities could learn from him. To begin, as a design enthusiast and supporter for greater pedestrian traffic, Adams recognized the importance of widening sidewalks. Trees were planted along the widened sidewalks which eventually led to a proliferation of sidewalk cafes.

From the Globe: "Adams closed Melbourne's main thoroughfare, Bourke Street, to cars before 7 p.m., transforming it into wide lanes for pedestrians, bikes, streetcars and buses. More than 35,000 pedestrians now walk the street each day, up from 12,000 ten years ago and businesses have returned as well."

Adams says we need more residential development around existing transit lines (something Hong Kong has mastered). He also thinks that municipal plans are too technical and thus non-transparent to the public. Plans need to have more visual components to show people how their communities are going to change in the coming years due to urban development and population growth. Finally, Adams, as a designer and planner, is really effective and engaging and leveraging public sentiment. One example from the article is a time when he announced his desire to pull down a freeway standing between the city centre and the Yarra River. Many thought this was not possible. He slowly developed green spaces around the freeway and Melbourne's citizens, quite some time later, saw the benefits of this and demanded that the road be pulled down.

City planning can drastically transform our cities into healthier, more transit friendly and enjoyable places. Both Adams and Wright have done remarkable things for their respective cities. Planning is inherently a political process with multiple stakeholders and multiple perspectives. This mix of interests is healthy but challenging for the planner who must consult and facilitate disparate and contested views.

Finally, Melbourne and Toronto are unique in that they have historic streetcar systems. Personally, I have come to appreciate streetcars not only because they have contributed to Toronto's identity, but also because they effectively complement other transit forms such as subways, buses and walking. For you transportation nerds out there, I would encourage you to read a paper by Currie and Shalaby on the successes and challenges in modernizing streetcar systems in Melbourne and Toronto. For the paper, click here.

Problems with HSR in China...

A number of months ago, I wrote about China's high speed rail (HSR) construction. China has the world's longest high-speed rail network with 6,920 kilometres and will expand to 13,000 kilometers within the next three years.

I also wrote about the many benefits of China's HSR growth. HSR will help stabilize the country's greenhouse gas emissions in its transportation sector. It will (over the long-term) decrease demand for airlines services, it will advance China's transportation network, foster a greener ethic in its citizenry etc.

BUT, recent news from the Chinese Academy of Sciences suggests that such HSR expansion is happening too quickly and might be too expensive for the nation long-term, if demand is lacking.

"The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) reported to the State Council recently, urging the large-scale high-speed railway construction projects in China to be re-evaluated. The CAS worries that China may not be able to afford such a large-scale construction of high-speed rail, and such a large scale high-speed rail network may not be practical".

"Some local media have reported recently that the recently enabled Wuhan - Guangzhou high-speed rail is currently running an average daily attendance of less than half capacity, while the newly opened Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed rail attendance is even lower. The main reason for the high-speed rail low attendance is that fares are too high; the high-speed railway ticket prices are usually double or higher than normal train fares". Read more here.

I have and continue to argue that HSR ticket prices must be competitive with airfare tickets. The success, popularity and future ridership of HSR will largely be dependent on how affordable it is for China's citizenry. HSR construction is indeed really expensive. However, if one of the goals is to have an extensive high speed train system with very high rates of use, then prices must be affordable to all income groups. With decent rates of ridership, the benefits will pay off long-term and the Ministry of Railways can recover the costs of construction.

I do hope that China continues to expand its HSR corridors. The Beijing-Shanghai line is supposed to open next year. I imagine it is going to have decent ridership and significantly reduce the amount of GHG emissions due to less demand for airlines. But, the issue of cost is something the Chinese Ministry of Railways must better address in this critical time for the nation.

Metro Vancouver Walkability Index

The physical activity of walking is becoming a central part of discussion today in fields such as public health and transportation research. It is a very topical theme in general as cities prides themselves on being "walkable". Indeed, a report on the world's top ten most walkable cities was just released. In June, Chris blogged about urban walkability and a software called Walk Score. Walkability, believe it or not, is becoming very popular because it has economic, social, health and environmental implications.

A team of UBC researchers recently wrote a report titled "Neighbourhood Design, Travel, and Health in Metro Vancouver". The research was led by a professor in my program named Dr. Larry Frank.

Professor Frank and his team developed the Metro Vancouver Walkability Index (VWI) to measure neighbourhood urban form characteristics in Metro Vancouver. The report summarizes results from local studies that have applied the VWI to explore associations between neighbourhood design and travel behaviour, physical activity, obesity, and air pollution exposure.

The walkability index specifically measures residential density, commercial density, land use mix and street connectivity. Without getting caught up in this jargon, the key point is that neighbourhoods that are well serviced by public transit, are in close proximity to amenities (grocery stores, schools, community centres, shopping areas, entertainment), and are close to major street intersections are all conducive for walking.

Generally, compact and mixed use neighbourhoods allow for shorter trips (that can be done by walking or cycling) to access local amenities and services. If amenities are a 10 minute walk from someone's house, cycling and walking become much more desirable options and the physical health benefits of this are enormous.

Image credit: The South Fraser Blog

The map above shows the walkability of Metro Vancouver. It's fairly evident that the City of Vancouver is more walkable than Surrey, or Richmond. There are many reasons why this might be, but I can tell you that Vancouver has higher density than the aforementioned cities and is also better serviced by public transit.

Why is this important? Measuring walkability has implications for public health policy and transportation. Larry Frank's study looks at the relationship between walking and active transportation i.e. adults living in the top 25% most walkable neighbourhoods drive approximately 58% less than those in more auto-oriented (less walkable) areas. They are probably more physically active as a result.

The report also looks at neighbourhood walkability and air pollution exposure. Nitric oxide (NO) levels are highest in urban areas of high residential density and on arterial roads where more vehicles in a smaller area result in higher concentrations of this pollutant. What does this mean for the walkers who are exposed to air pollution?

It is a really dynamic and informative study. I would encourage you to read it if you have some time on your hands. While the focus is on Metro Vancouver, it is critical to understand why walkability is important in our cities so that we can do smarter planning for active transportation and a healthier society.

Check out the report here.