Looking for ways to save money, lessen the wear and tear on your car, help reduce traffic congestion, and contribute to cleaner air? Why not consider setting up or joining a carpool?

There are 5.6 million commuters in Ontario and 71 per cent use a personal vehicle to travel to work. Depending on the type of vehicle you drive, and the amount you drive it, the Canadian Automobile Association has estimated that owning and operating a vehicle can range from $8,000 to $15,000 each year. As well, emissions from passenger vehicles contribute to smog, and are a key source of greenhouse gases. As I reported in my 2011 Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report, personal vehicles account for about 57 per cent of Ontario’s transportation emissions. Given the future growth predictions for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, strong efforts will be needed to help stabilize and, ideally, reduce these emissions.

Fortunately, there are organizations out there that can help you reduce your costs and emissions. One of them is Smart Commute, a program of Metrolinx and the municipalities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. This week is Carpool Week, an annual event designed to encourage sharing a vehicle, cutting your costs and helping the environment. Check it out at http://www.smartcommute.ca/en/whats-happening/carpool-week

November, a month where conversations tend to lament the long lost days of summer, has seen a remarkable number of conversations about a similarly depressing topic: overcrowded transportation infrastructure in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area (GTHA).  At the beginning of the month, the Canadian Urban Transit Association held its fall conference. Sponsored by TTC and Metrolinx, the title was Public Transit: Investing in Quality of Life. This was followed up with Toronto Talks Mobility, a session organized by the Pembina Institute, Councillor Joe Mihevc and the University of Toronto’s Cities Centre. Coming up later this month is a “Mobility Pricing Stakeholder Forum” sponsored by Transport Futures.  These conversations are driven by projections that the GTHA will add close to 3 million new people in the next 20 years. Given current car ownership trends, this will result in an additional 1 million automobiles trying to access roads that are already hopelessly congested.   But isn’t the GTHA already at “peak car” with traffic congestion rates among the worst in North America? And aren’t vehicles already the largest sources of greenhouse gases in Ontario (see chart below)? Can we afford to put all these additional vehicles on the road, you ask? Good question.

The message emerging from these conversations is that we need to get serious about moving people out of their cars and onto mass transit. But with the GTHA’s public transit system in its own state of chronic underfunding, significant investment – $80 billion dollars was the amount being tossed around at the Toronto Talks Mobility session – is required to make it a viable alternative.  That is a huge sum of money for cash strapped governments in a time of fiscal austerity, and so innovative funding mechanisms will be required. Metrolinx is required to release an investment strategy to find the money by no later than 2013; why the delay? Let’s get this strategy released for public discussion sooner so that it can influence and inform transit planning and decision-making in 2012. The longer we wait, the greater the chance that we’ll continue to make planning decisions that will lock-in our commuting patterns for decades to come.

While I have pointed to the potential for road pricing to bridge the funding gap in both my 2010 and 2011 annual greenhouse gas progress reports and in a recent blog, most decision-makers in the region are reluctant to entertain it as a possibility. Most of the speakers at the Toronto Talks Mobility session danced around the issue of road pricing. Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion did suggest, however, that road tolls and related road pricing will have to be evaluated as a funding option. She stressed repeatedly that this will be tough to sell to the commuting public, especially those traveling to work in single-occupancy vehicles. She conceded however, that if the monies were put towards funding rapid transit – and only rapid transit – this would be an easier sell.  The elephant in the room is making its presence known.

To date, Ontario’s policy responses to climate change have primarily focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from both the energy and transportation sectors or methane emissions from the waste and agricultural sectors. But scientific evidence points to opportunities presented by reducing emissions of short-lived climate forcers, principal among which is black carbon. Black carbon exists in the atmosphere as one component of fine particulate matter (commonly referred to as soot). Scientists and policymakers have typically focused on the health effects of black carbon emissions, which are estimated to result in hundreds of thousands of premature deaths around the globe annually. Only recently has significant attention been paid to black carbon reductions as a potential tool for climate change mitigation. The United Nation’s Environment Programme has chosen to focus attention on this issue in a recent report and the U.S. Congress directed the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a study on black carbon’s climate and health impacts as well as mitigation options.

I’ve highlighted this opportunity in my most recent annual greenhouse gas progress report and am pleased to see the growing attention being paid to this issue. Black carbon in the atmosphere absorbs heat and thus contributes to local and regional warming, and when it settles on snow and ice it increases the absorption of sunlight which promotes melting. This effect is particularly important in the Arctic. As the ice melts, less heat is reflected out of the atmosphere and more is absorbed by the oceans. Scientists fear that this effect constitutes a potential feedback loop for climate change because as oceans become warmer, their capacity to store carbon dioxide is diminished and thus more of it ends up in the atmosphere as global warming pollution. As a Northern region, black carbon emissions in Ontario have a greater impact on Arctic sea ice and so the opportunity for climate change mitigation is greater.

Black carbon particulate emissions from a diesel generator tester in an apartment building

The major sources of black carbon emissions in Ontario are transportation (both on and off-road diesel vehicles; locomotive and marine vehicles) and residential wood combustion. Policy options are available to the Ontario government to address these sources and should be explored. For vehicles, diesel particulate filters (DPFs) are available that remove around 99 per cent of black carbon. New on-road vehicles purchased after 2007 are subject to emission controls that require DPFs, but thousands of older vehicles remain on the road without emission controls. As well, an untold number of off-road vehicles, locomotives and marine vehicles are currently operating that have not been subject to such stringent standards. Wood stoves and fireplaces in the residential sector are another major source of black carbon that can be reduced by incentivizing the change-out of older, inefficient appliances and educating consumers about the importance of using seasoned wood that burns cleaner.

All of these mitigation options are justified based on the public health benefits of black carbon reduction alone. The added benefits for the climate are just beginning to be understood. I look forward to seeing how the Ontario government responds to this climate change mitigation opportunity.

In my recently released Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Progress Report, I highlighted my concerns about traffic congestion in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). It’s far more than just an inconvenience; it imposes huge costs on the economy, the environment and public health. Fully one-third of Ontario’s GHGs originate from the transportation sector, with the bulk of these emissions coming from gasoline consumption for personal vehicle use. A recent study by the C.D. Howe Institute called Congestion Relief: Assessing the Case for Road Tolls in Canada reported that congestion in the U.S. in 2005 resulted in just under 4 billion hours of travel delay and nearly 9.5 billion litres of wasted fuel that costs the U.S. economy $63 billion!

The OECD has noted that the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) suffers from the worst traffic congestion in North America, with an average commute of 80 minutes – worse than Los Angeles – while costing the Ontario economy $3.3 billion each year in lost productivity. The Pembina Institute reports that growth in the GTHA is occurring twice as fast as the supply of roads and 2.5 times faster than transit capacity. The Ontario Ministry of Finance expects the GTHA to grow by an additional 2.5 million people by 2031, bringing an additional 1.4 million vehicles with them.

These facts lead to one unalterable conclusion: Traffic gridlock in our cities is only going to get worse if we stick to the current way of moving people and goods around. Based on these facts, we have basically two choices: 1) accept more traffic and greater gridlock as inevitable; or, 2) DO something about it by pricing the commodity. We will have no choice but to price this limited resource (our road capacity) and the downtown parking that supports (encourages?) its overuse.

Road pricing need not be – in fact, it shouldn’t be – a cash grab … it’s about reducing unsustainable gridlock. Highway 407 just north of Toronto is a strong demonstration that the costs of congestion can be reduced while speeding up the flow of traffic. Road pricing has been shown to work in London, Stockholm and Singapore where average speeds almost doubled. And, local businesses are on side too. A global survey by the New York City Small Business Council called Congestion Pricing and Its Effect on Small Business reported that businesses within the City of London England’s congestion charge zone outperformed those outside, in terms of profitability, productivity and job creation once the congestion charges were introduced.

As was noted recently, paying by time and place of use rather than with fuel or property taxes sets up price signals that are more transparent while reducing congestion. I believe that a reliance on fuel taxes will continue to fail us. If you drive an internal combustion engine, for how long are you going to put up with subsidizing those who will be driving electric vehicles in the coming years?

A properly constituted “Special Purpose Fund”, with citizen oversight, can ensure that funds raised through any road pricing initiatives (gas tax, road tolls, congestion charges and/or parking fees) go to fund more transit (and, possibly, to maintaining the existing road network but, not to building new roads). When the Toronto Board of Trade suggests that we need to at least look at road pricing in their thoughtful The Move Ahead: Funding “The Big Move” that says a lot!

Toronto, 31 May, 2011 – The Ontario government will not, with its current programs, meet its targets for reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs). This is one conclusion from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s 2011 Greenhouse Gas Progress Report, released today.

• Click to download the full report
• Click to watch videos of the Commissioner outlining key points of the report:
  • Overview
  • Recommendations
• Click for more information about the report

“Recently released federal government data indicate that Ontario’s GHG emissions in 2009 were at the levels the government wants to achieve by 2014,” Miller says. “While the drop in GHGs is encouraging, it is highly likely that emissions have increased each year since 2009 with the return of economic growth. So I expect the government will need to renew its efforts to meet its 2014 reduction target.”

The Commissioner says this highlights the need for governments to break the link between GDP growth and GHG emissions. Miller is convinced the best way to do this is to put a price on carbon. “It is unfortunate the Ontario government recently announced a delay in participating in a regional cap-and-trade system.” Noting that the industrial sector is responsible for 30% of Ontario’s GHGs, Miller says “putting a price on carbon now will guide investment decisions, and help families, businesses and municipalities transition to a low-carbon economy.”

Miller is also concerned with the lack of action in reducing emissions from the transportation sector. “The transportation sector is responsible for almost a third of all emissions, making it the largest contributor of GHGs in the province” says Miller. The Ontario government is cutting back programs it’s using to reduce transportation emissions. It has cancelled a tax credit for fuel-efficient vehicles as well as the Ontario Bus Replacement Program, and frozen funding for the Green Commercial Vehicle program. “The government needs to make a much more concerted effort to control this large and growing source of emissions, if it hopes to meet its near and medium-term reduction targets”

The Commissioner says the government must also begin a serious discussion about tolls and road pricing, in order to lessen traffic congestion. “We have to reduce the number of single-passenger vehicle trips in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area. They are already at a higher level than in most global cities, and car traffic is expected to increase by another 7% by 2020,” says Miller. “Traffic congestion is more than just an inconvenience; it imposes huge costs on the economy, the environment, and public health.”

For more information, contact:
Hayley Easto
Communications and Outreach Coordinator
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario
416-325-3371 / 416-819-1673
1-800-701-6454
hayley.easto@eco.on.ca

Commissioner’s Remarks to the Green Infrastructure Ontario Coalition Launch:
November 22, 2010, Evergreen Brick Works, Toronto

A Vision for a Green Infrastructure in Ontario

So what is green infrastructure?  Before we can answer that we have to understand a more basic question: What is Infrastructure?

The Ministry of Infrastructure says that its objective is to make strategic investments that will meet the needs of a growing population and economy by identifying what infrastructure developments will most benefit key public sectors and the standard of living in Ontario over the long run.  They divide those investments into four major categories:

• Education
• Health Care
• Transportation
• Municipal and Local:
  • Safe drinking water
  • Environmentally responsible sewage and waste disposal
  • Health promoting parks and recreation facilities
  • Better local  roads, bridges and transit

Most of those investments are done through an agency called Infrastructure Ontario.  On its website, the following current projects are listed:

• 37 hospitals and health care
• 11 justice system
• 4 highways and roads
• 1 data centre

These projects are not driven by provincial mandate; they are based on applications received for capital projects from various institutions in our society.  So in a real sense, this is how “we” collectively see infrastructure.  And, although it seems that the goal of all those infrastructure things is to keep our water clean and safe, not pollute our environment and protect our health … we mostly do it by pouring a lot of concrete, laying a lot of asphalt and constructing a lot of steel and glass.

These are necessary things, but are they sufficient to meet the goal?  Sounds like drinking water is covered, and maybe sewage, but what about storm water … the water that runs off after rainstorms and feeds our streams and rivers?  In most urban areas its quality is not so great, and although there are rules and policies, storm water quality isn’t really reflected as a priority in this model of infrastructure.

What about air quality?  Surely urban air quality has public benefits and standard of living implications.  Certainly the emphasis on health and medical treatment helps us deal with the impacts of smog days and poor air quality – but how does our infrastructure spending model help us improve air quality?

What about thermal control?  Our urban areas are often heat islands, accumulating heat well in excess of suburban or rural landscapes surrounding.  Of course this adds to our air conditioning energy costs but, more importantly, we must recall the European heat wave of 2003 that killed 35,000 people … we have been spared this type of event so far, but for how much longer?  How does our infrastructure model address that risk?

And there are other public benefits and implications to our standard of living.  I mentioned energy costs: does our infrastructure paradigm reflect the growing need to improve our energy productivity and control costs?  Do we require or even endorse distributed electrical generation?  Do we take advantage of ground source or solar thermal heating opportunities?  When surplus heat is available, do we capture it in district heating systems like the Europeans do?  On a global level, we have a responsibility to reduce our GHG emissions, is such a reduction a natural function of our infrastructure investments?  And on a more local scale, are we building infrastructure and protecting it in a way that will maximize its life and thus minimize our replacement costs?

Since there are these other benefits and improvements to our quality of living in the long term that are available, perhaps it would be wise if we reconsidered our perspective of what infrastructure is and how we could bring in other tools and approaches into our infrastructure toolkit. Many of those tools could be things we have come to characterize as green initiatives.

We actually have a lot of interesting green stuff around the province.  Toronto and some other cities have some pretty sophisticated systems to improve and maintain tree biodiversity and coverage within the city.  We have some urban parks and sometimes have ravines or escarpments that are ecologically rich natural systems.  Some municipalities like Richmond Hill have added to these lands by building quite sophisticated and naturalized storm water management facilities.

Toronto has a green roof by-law which in increasing greening its roofscape, but I don’t think it has anything yet like the rooftop of the Rideau Centre in Ottawa where four stories up there are lawns and gardens and trees 25 cm or more in diameter with baby rabbits hopping around.  And there are only a few instances where the carpet of living things we put on top of our buildings is encouraged to spread down the sides and integrate into the grey water and storm water management systems and other landscaping.  The techniques of actually designing for building integrated vegetation (BIV) are in their early stages of development.

There is a great renaissance in urban agriculture occurring across the province.  Although it’s worth noting that what may be new to some, has always persisted in the yards of many immigrant neighborhoods.  Nonetheless, it is growing and spreading and presents a different view of the urban landscape.

We love to make our urban surfaces hard to support the weight of our various machines and the high volume of human traffic, and so far our hard surfaces are impermeable to water.  Unlike living soft surfaces which absorb water and process pollutants, hard surfaces collect wastes and pollutants during dry periods and shed them rapidly into streams and rivers during rainfall and snow melt events.  We know how to build permeable hard surfaces, but their adoption is limited so far.

So there are green tools for the infrastructure toolkit.  But they are just pieces, scattered around, not integrated into the normal course of business, because they are not seen as parts of a greater infrastructure approach.  The benefits of cost savings and improvements to the quality of life they offer are lost because we see infrastructure as just the buildings and pipes and roads and wires that we construct.

Perhaps it would be useful to step back and consider another complex infrastructure that we are familiar with … it is called a forest.  It was here before the urban areas of Ontario were built and it functioned quite well.  It ran exclusively on renewable solar energy and had a large built environment that was self sustaining.  It produced 100% of the food for its inhabitants and recycled 100 % of its waste.  The air in the forest was clean and cool and the shaded environment did not experience photo degradation.  The streams of this infrastructure flowed clear, clean and cool.

The forest (much modified) is still with us, of course.  It’s all around us and if you look at Google Earth for Toronto, for example, you will see how the forest seamlessly penetrates the urban landscape right down to where we are standing.  It is still here and it is still functioning to some extent … still cleaning the air and the water and where we don’t rush in to pick it up, processing its own wastes.  It is part of our infrastructure and it is providing benefits and improving our quality of life.

We can’t have the all the environmental benefits of a forest in a human occupied urban landscape, but we can learn from nature.  We can see what works and why and investigate the interconnectedness of the systems.  We can do things differently.  We can make a human landscape that not only utilizes all those tools I have listed to get the benefits described but does more than that.  We can have a living environment rich with living things to which people intrinsically respond in a positive and relaxed way.

So my task was to define what green infrastructure is so that the coalition can get on with its task …

Green Infrastructure is a new way of conceptualizing our urban landscape … a way of integrating life and life forces into our urban living spaces that maximizes the utility of ecosystem goods and services thus lowering operating costs and capital replacement investment while improving our well being.  Green infrastructure is about good business and a good life.

Thank You

A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle has rechargeable batteries that can be can be restored to full charge by connecting a plug to an external electric power source. (Click to read more.)

Find out more on Toyota’s website.

Road pricing refers to any direct charge levied to the user of roads, and can take the form of fuel taxes, parking fees, road tolls and/or congestion charges. The latter two — road tolls and congestion charges — are getting a lot of media buzz lately.

Simply put, with road tolls, you pay-as-you-drive, usually on multi-lane highways.  Ideally, the money goes to build better rapid transit and, if implemented properly, can improve public transit to the point where it really does get people out of their cars in their daily commute.  Better transit, less gridlock, lower emissions.  Win-win-win!  It’s a neat and tidy way to capture the full costs of our transportation network: both the direct costs of building and maintaining our roads; and, the current indirect externalities that don’t get factored in, like pollution, GHGs and health impacts.

If you choose to drive on a designated toll route like Hwy 407 just north of Toronto, you get a bill each month via a tracking transponder in your vehicle or via a photo record of your license plate.  The advent of satellite technology is making “smart transportation pricing” much more efficient and cost-effective.  No need for 407-styled lights, cameras and transponders.  A small GPS unit in your vehicle will automatically track where you go and the company running the system sends you a bill each month.  Some systems use GPS units that electronically debit your account!

Congestion charges work a bit differently.  The most famous one is the City of London Congestion Charge Zone (CCZ).  Similar to road tolls, the intent is to reduce traffic gridlock while raising funds to invest in public transit.  If you enter the London CCZ between 7 am and 6 pm, a camera records your license plate and you are automatically charged the equivalent of about CDN$14.  Milan, Italy has a similar system called Ecopass; if you drive into the city centre you pay a fee.  But, if you drive an alternative fuel vehicle, you get a free pass.

So, how much can road tolls reduce pollution like greenhouse gases?  The San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) suggests that road pricing policies combined with supporting land use policies could reduce GHGs from transportation by 11-14 per cent.  Let’s assume 10 per cent in the GTA; that could translate into about 5 million tonnes of GHGs per year by 2020.

Road pricing: a very effective transportation demand management (TDM) measure that reduces traffic congestion, curbs gasoline consumption, cleans the air and pays for better public transit.

Find out more in the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s 2008/09 Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report