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public transit
"Et Tu, Hochul?" Betrayal!
With her flip-flop on congestion pricing, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, not the youth-led Sunrise Movement, is the real climate traitor.
Jun 07, 2024
I had another piece planned for today, and I will get back to it soon—it will deliver a certain amount of good news. But events intervened. I try not to write out of anger, but on occasion it overtakes me, and Wednesday’s actions by the governor of New York were so shockingly cynical that—fair warning—I’m indulging some of that fury.
But as I begin, a plea not to be angry with the youth. There was a mild kerfluffle on the climate interwebs Wednesday, when the Sunrise Movement—the youthful progenitors of the Green New Deal—announced that they weren’t yet ready to endorse Joe Biden for president. The keyboard gladiators of the status quo—led as usual in their chivalrous charge by the reliable down-puncher Matt Yglesias—crackled with indignation at the young folks.
lmao—I hope everyone who gassed this institution up with money and coverage is proud of themselves
I am an unrepentant supporter of Sunrise, so let me explain. I knew many of their first generation of leaders, who had cut their teeth on the fossil fuel divestment campaign; wanting to fight on after college, they’d formed Sunrise, ginned up the Green New Deal, and used a sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office, with AOC in attendance, to give it oxygen. Their tactics worked—they were a big reason that by the 2020 Democratic primaries “climate change” was the number one issue for huge numbers of voters. They were obvious Bernie Sanders supporters, but when he lost they swallowed hard, and took part in the negotiations that produced a united Democratic front for Biden: Indeed, Sunrise’s director, Varshini Prakash, was on the team that sat with a couple of key Biden aides to work out the essentials of Build Back Better. They didn’t endorse Biden, but they did work hard, and effectively, against Trump, as the youth vote in 2020 eventually demonstrated. And then they worked hard, and effectively, to pass Build Back Better, even as Joe Manchin cut it down into the Inflation Reduction Act—again they swallowed hard and backed a seriously imperfect bill. It was a rare display of political maturity and effectiveness among any progressives, let alone young ones.
Now a new generation of Sunrise volunteers is saying they can’t, yet, endorse Biden—but they’re also promising to fight hard against Donald Trump. Look, I’m fighting hard for Biden. I understand deep in my soul the existential risk Trump poses. But I also get why young people are having a hard time joining fully in—it’s because of Gaza, above all. And we do not want a world where young people would not be hideously upset by Israel’s endless bombing campaign, a campaign of immiseration clearly designed, as Biden said this week, to protect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future. Though the media has seized on every example of left obtuseness they can find (usually from middle-aged college professors), the young people I’ve watched have been clear in their condemnation both of Hamas’ repulsive violence, and of antisemitism. And in part because of their hard work, Biden has shown more willingness to stand up to the repugnant Netanyahu and try to end the fighting even as he works to head off a regional war. The invaluable Kate Aronoff has a fine account of the Sunrise news in The New Republic yesterday, and she even bothered to call up the head of the thing and ask what it meant.
“Do we want to be fighting for a Green New Deal under a Trump presidency or a Biden presidency? To me, the answer is pretty clear,” Stevie O’Hanlon told me earlier today. “Donald Trump winning a second term is an existential threat to our climate and our democracy and will set back the fight for a Green New Deal.”
So yes, Gaza is complicated and nuanced. But a society needs people for whom complication and nuance are not central, and these are usually young people. They offer useful clarity. And if Biden eventually loses, it will be less because young people don’t support him than because old people don’t: There are far more of us, and we are not reliably voting in defense of the values we grew up with (like, respect, decency, kindness, and not getting convicted of felonies). That’s why we at Third Act are backing Biden with all that we’ve got—we don’t like what’s happening in Gaza, but a job of older people is to bring to bear the somewhat wearying but valuable experience that simply living longer allows you to accumulate. We admire Biden for the good things he’s done, and we know that Trump can and will make the bad parts worse, beginning with his promise to radically accelerate the climate crisis. But I’m glad, for one, that the young are making the witness that they are.
This week did offer a real betrayal, though, and it came from Democratic elders—most particularly New York Governor Kathy Hochul. She—out of the clear blue—announced she would block New York City’s congestion pricing plan, due to go into effect January 30.
You don’t wait until the last possible moment to jerk around the advocates who have spent years working with you to craft an agreement.
This is stupid policy—it’s the most aggressively anti-environmental stand I can recall a major Democratic governor taking, beating even Gavin Newsom’s recent demolition of rooftop and community solar in California. Congestion pricing meant that people who wanted to drive into the clogged streets of lower Manhattan would pay a $15 toll; the revenue would go to support the beleaguered transit system that actually allows New York to operate. This kind of system has been a huge success in the European cities that have tried it, like London and Milan; Manhattan (as advocates back to Jimmy Breslin and Norman Mailer have noted) would be an incredibly sweet place with many fewer cars. This is, as Robinson Meyer noted yesterday “tier one climate policy,” which with a success in Manhattan could quickly spread to other cities. And so there’s been a tremendous effort over decades to build out support for congestion pricing. An earlier version came close to passing years ago—lore has it that the opposition of parking garage owners carried the day in Albany. This time, though, everything was lined up: Governor Hochul had given a rousing defense of the plan in a speech just two weeks ago. I’m going to quote from it at some length, because I think it’s possible that no politician in American history has ever flip-flopped quite so thoroughly or so fast:
Walk around many major cities and it won’t take long to encounter frustrated drivers caught in traffic jams, cars spewing exhaust on overpacked streets. We determined that the average New York City driver spends 102 hours a year stuck in traffic. Those hours add up to more than four days of your life—every year.
That’s four days sitting behind the wheel of a car instead of sitting by your kid’s bedside, reading them a book, sitting around the dinner table or reconnecting with a friend.
There has to be a better way. So, starting next month, New York City will become the first city in the U.S. to implement congestion pricing. We’ll charge people $15 every time they drive into New York’s Central Business District.
London, Milan, Stockholm, and Singapore have all implemented similar plans with great success. In New York City, the idea stalled for 60 years until we got it done earlier this year.
It took a long time because people feared backlash from drivers set in their ways. But, much like with housing, if we’re serious about making cities more livable, we must get over that.
We estimate congestion pricing will reduce the volume of vehicles in Manhattan’s central business district by 17%. Fewer cars mean less gridlock, traffic, and pollution. Fewer cars means safer streets, cleaner air, and more room to maneuver for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Congestion pricing will generate $1 billion every year, which will then fund large-scale projects that make public transit faster and more accessible. That’s key because we’ll never change people’s habits if we don’t offer safe, reliable alternatives to driving that work for everyone.
In her remarks blocking the plan yesterday, Hochul said something something pandemic—when work on the plan began in 2019, “workers were in the office five days a week, crime was at record lows, and tourism was at record highs. Circumstances have changed, and we must respond to the facts on the ground.”
But clearly none of those circumstances changed in the past two weeks. Who knows what caused this unreal shift. Speculation ranges from (the now fashionable) brain worm to lots of Hochul fundraising by local autodealers to the notion that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries was worried that congestion pricing would hurt the prospects for regaining his majority in the fall elections. (A bad showing by New York Democrats in the suburbs cost him the speakership last time around; the same people are still in charge of the Empire State campaign this time around). If it’s really electoral fear that drove Hochul’s stab in the back, then this is political malpractice: You don’t wait until the last possible moment to jerk around the advocates who have spent years working with you to craft an agreement.
People on the outside underestimate, I think, the degree to which significant change comes from a long and controlled dance between activists and politicians—and one of the rules of that, on both sides, is that you don’t pull out the rug at the last minute. People like Charles Komanoff have spent most of their lives working up to this deal, jumping through every hoop to demonstrate the needed support, and now it’s been trashed. And trashed with the support of other parts of the progressive coalition. It was so sad to see the United Federation of Teachers gloating at the downfall of congestion pricing—the larger left has engaged in a generational effort to raise teacher pay, understanding it to be both right and a core concern of a partner; the UFT ignored the core concern of environmentalists in order to help teachers who wanted to keep driving. Public school teachers should be supporters of public transit; this, not Sunrise, is real-world malarkey.
If any possible good could come from Hochul’s cold-blooded betrayal, it’s that she, and Albany Democrats in general, might feel the need to give environmentalists some kind of win. The NY Heat act, and the climate superfund bill, are both up for action in this final week of the legislative session. It would be scant comfort to see them passed in the wake of this shocking schism, but it would be something.
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'Climate Time Bomb': Infrastructure Law Funds Highways Over Public Transit
"If we want to tackle congestion and the climate crisis, instead of offering platitudes, the next transportation bill needs to offer clean mobility options, like transit, car share, active modes, and electrification," said one analyst.
Feb 29, 2024
The law that the Biden administration has heralded as "a once-in-a-generation investment in America's infrastructure" that would help to "build a clean energy economy" has led to an explosion in state-level spending on highway expansion, leading one transportation advocacy group to project on Wednesday that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will result in more emissions from transport than if it hadn't passed.
The law, officially known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), gave state transportation officials discretion over how to spend money distributed by the $1.2 trillion package, but Transportation for America warned in a new analysis of 57,000 projects that the law has revealed itself to be a "climate time bomb," with more than half of the funds—about $70 billion—so far spent on resurfacing and expanding highways.
Only about $25 billion of the money dispersed to states has been spent on transit and passenger rail, even as Americans clamor for more public transportation options.
As Inequality.orgreported last week, a 2023 nationwide survey found that 71% of respondents believed the U.S. "should be shifting funding from highways to public transit," and 70% said such a shift would be better for people's "health, safety, and economy."
"Considering the billions of federal dollars already spent on highway expansion projects, it's going to take more than self-congratulation over the bill's historic funding to undo the environmental harms."
Just 18% said building more highways and highway lanes would reduce traffic, cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions—of which transportation is already the biggest source globally and in the United States.
Transportation for America found that unless states change course, highway expansions paid for by the IIJA will lead to more than 178 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and will be only slightly offset by emissions-reducing measures in the law.
"While the IIJA could have been a win for the environment, across the country, states have instead used this once-in-a-generation level of funding to expand roadways the same way they've been doing for years," wrote Corrigan Salerno, a policy associate for the group. "Considering the billions of federal dollars already spent on highway expansion projects, it's going to take more than self-congratulation over the bill's historic funding to undo the environmental harms."
The group noted that the Biden administration advised states to prioritize highway repairs over expansion, but states including Texas and California have forged ahead with plans to increase congested roads' capacity for more vehicles.
"So much of the decision making falls to state departments of transportation," Mary Buchanan, research and policy manager at TransitCenter toldThe Guardian. "There are essentially 50 opportunities to get this right, I guess, or to potentially get it wrong, in terms of how money is being spent."
The analysis was released a day after an Indiana state House committee approved a bill delaying implementation of dedicated bus lanes in Indianapolis to "study the transportation option," with Republicans in favor of the bill saying the state needs to have an "overall conversation about road funding."
One Democratic lawmaker who has advocated for more public transit options in the city "broke into tears," according to local public broadcasting affiliate WFYI, as he called the decision "really, really, really bad public policy."
Indianapolis residents had testified for months against the bill, WFYI reported.
Salerno called on the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress to "explore every means available" to reduce transportation emissions.
"Congress needs to get real—the largest and most growing sector of emissions is transportation," Salerno wrote. "If we want to tackle congestion and the climate crisis, instead of offering platitudes, the next transportation bill needs to offer clean mobility options, like transit, car share, active modes, and electrification—not just the same strategies that got us in this position in the first place."
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Transition to EVs Must be Paired With Bold Investments in Mass Transit: Study
"We can either electrify the status quo to reach zero emissions, or the energy transition can be used as an opportunity to rethink our cities and the transportation sector," says lead author of new report.
Jan 25, 2023
Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last year, the Biden administration has been making a broad push for a future centered around electric vehicles—but a first-of-its-kind study released Tuesday warned that the EV transition —but a first-of-its-kind study released Tuesday warned that the transition must go hand-in-hand with major investments in mass transit and other steps to reduce U.S. dependence on cars altogether.
Researchers at the Climate and Community Project and University of California, Davis noted in the study, titled Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining, that the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) that the Biden administration is envisioning would require the country to mine three times the amount of lithium domestically than it currently does—all from the single U.S. mine in operation.
Global demand for lithium, which powers electric batteries, is expected to rise over 40 times by 2040, if the International Energy Agency's (IEA) "sustainable development scenario" is met, with the world reaching roughly two billion EVs on the road by 2050 in order to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
"The report brings into light possibilities for a future without fossil fuels that minimizes mineral extraction and new harms to communities in lithium-rich areas."
"Replacing all of the [internal combustion engine] vehicles on the road with EVs on a 1:1 basis is infeasible, particularly on the urgent timeline needed for climate mitigation," reads the report. "This would require significant increases in extraction of minerals like lithium and cobalt for EV battery packs and would also require an enormous amount of electricity."
The extraction of lithium can have "oftentimes devastating consequences," reads the report, including consumption of massive amounts of water—often in areas already facing climate crisis-fueled drought like Nevada, where 50 new lithium mine projects are being developed—water contamination; violations of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent standards for Indigenous people; and the destruction of landscapes that serve as carbon sinks.
While "preserving the status quo" and maintaining the number of cars on the road may be "politically easier," lead study author Thea Riofrancos toldThe Guardian, "it's not the fastest way to get people out of cars or the fairest way to decarbonize."
"We can either electrify the status quo to reach zero emissions, or the energy transition can be used as an opportunity to rethink our cities and the transportation sector so that it's more environmentally and socially just, both in the U.S. and globally," she added.
\u201cCheck out our latest report covered by the Guardian! \n\nOur groundbreaking research shows that we can massively reduce the need for lithium by:\n \n\ud83d\ude8e investing in buses, subways, and walkable cities\n\ud83d\ude97 limiting car size (no EV hummers, please!)\n\u267b\ufe0f recycling\u201d— Climate and Community Project (@Climate and Community Project) 1674575193
The researchers created models to determine the amount of lithium the U.S. would need to extract in order to achieve zero emissions for personal vehicles, comparing scenarios with a number of variables including car ownership rates, the size of EVs and the batteries they use, city density, public transit use, and battery recycling rates.
\u201cHow much lithium is needed to electrify the car-dependent status quo vs transforming the transportation system to increase mass transit, walking & cycling? Our new @cpluscp report finds dramatic differences. We can achieve more mobility with less mining 1/ https://t.co/hzgDJ6gm1o\u201d— Thea Riofrancos (@Thea Riofrancos) 1674572126
In the best-case scenario, the U.S. would have to extract 40,000 tons of lithium to power EVs in 2050—with demand 92% lower than under the car ownership status quo. In this scenario, battery recycling would be widespread, EVs would use small batteries, and the vehicle ownership rate would be sharply reduced.
"But results show that even if Americans can't wean themselves off cars with big lithium batteries, increasing the density of metropolitan areas and investing in mass transit would cut cumulative demand for lithium between 18% and 66%," reported The Guardian. "Limiting the size of EV batteries alone can cut lithium demand by up to 42% by 2050."
Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, said the study contained "fascinating and important research on how policies like investing in mass transit, walkable cities, and battery recycling, while reducing size of EVs, can cut the amount of lithium for fossil-free transportation."
"The report brings into light possibilities for a future without fossil fuels that minimizes mineral extraction and new harms to communities in lithium-rich areas," Pía Marchegiani, policy director at the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation in Argentina, told The Guardian.
The report was released a month after U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) unveiled legislation to invest in bus and light rail transportation to cut down on emissions from transportation.
"The findings of this report," Payal Sampat, mining program director at Earthworks, told The Guardian, "must jumpstart policies to invest in robust, accessible public transit systems that advance equity, reduce pollution, and get people where they need to go."
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