Really nice to read a commentary based on data rather than skewed by "professional ideology", as so much commentary on urban transportation is these days. As Andrew points out, by far the largest gains projected for the Boston region are the result of performance improvements in technology which also help to induce changes in the actual technologies used by our society. And this is precisely the path of improvement we have seen in the past 50 years in the USA, in which the amount of pollutants per vehicle mile traveled have been reduced by 98-99% with newer vehicles compared to the baseline of 1970. And fuel economy--which is directly related to the amount of carbon produced from vehicles--has been improved by about 50% over this time span. These performance improvements--a direct result of federal government policies with important pushes from the State of California--completely swamp the effects of any other policies or behavioral changes impacting urban transportation outcomes. And while much remains to improve the carbon impacts of the automobile, the fact that we have come so far with this policy theme seems to me to be a very encouraging development. Scenarios that show decarbonization of urban transportation occurring largely as a result of technology improvements (including substitution of the direct energy source of the vehicle) are consistent with what we know has already worked and produced enormous benefits. Scenarios that rely on changes in consumer behavior, including those premised upon political actions that would price travel in ways never implemented in American society previously, seem much less plausible pathways than those that we have seen have produced beneficial results to date and are consistent with how the government has related to its constituents in at least the USA historically.
Really nice to read a commentary based on data rather than skewed by "professional ideology", as so much commentary on urban transportation is these days. As Andrew points out, by far the largest gains projected for the Boston region are the result of performance improvements in technology which also help to induce changes in the actual technologies used by our society. And this is precisely the path of improvement we have seen in the past 50 years in the USA, in which the amount of pollutants per vehicle mile traveled have been reduced by 98-99% with newer vehicles compared to the baseline of 1970. And fuel economy--which is directly related to the amount of carbon produced from vehicles--has been improved by about 50% over this time span. These performance improvements--a direct result of federal government policies with important pushes from the State of California--completely swamp the effects of any other policies or behavioral changes impacting urban transportation outcomes. And while much remains to improve the carbon impacts of the automobile, the fact that we have come so far with this policy theme seems to me to be a very encouraging development. Scenarios that show decarbonization of urban transportation occurring largely as a result of technology improvements (including substitution of the direct energy source of the vehicle) are consistent with what we know has already worked and produced enormous benefits. Scenarios that rely on changes in consumer behavior, including those premised upon political actions that would price travel in ways never implemented in American society previously, seem much less plausible pathways than those that we have seen have produced beneficial results to date and are consistent with how the government has related to its constituents in at least the USA historically.