Atmospheric Change and the North American Transportation Sector Summary of a Trilateral Workshop (1998) / Chapter Skim
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Reducing the Impacts of the North American Transportation Sector
Reducing the Impacts of the North American Transportation Sector
Pages 12-17
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From page 12... ...
, lighter materials, advanced electronics, and alternative fuels such as hydrogen, natural gas, propane, methanol, and ethanol. In response to a question about the future role of diesel technology, David Green, from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, explained that diesel engines do offer significant advantages in terms of fuel efficiency, but they need to be improved to reduce emissions of NOx and particulates; this offers another candidate for hybrid technologies.
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From page 13... ...
Hegu/~IorJv fools In addition to such partnership programs, there are many regulatory tools that governments can use to encourage development of efficient and alternative fuel vehicles. Some of those discussed include: corporate and government fleet quotas; liability limits for companies bringing new products to market; tax credits to manufacturers for selling clean vehicles; tighter Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)
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From page 14... ...
Land use controls to increase urban and suburban density and to encourage more compact, mixed-use communities, is a commonly suggested strategy for reducing transportation demand; however, several difficulties in implementing these changes were mentioned: zoning is usually a local issue; major infrastructural/developmental changes can take decades to- occur; and planning cities so that people live near their work is complicated by the fact that most households have two workers traveling to different locations. Simpler land use changes include making cities more friendly to cyclists and pedestrians, and minimizing parking availability.
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From page 15... ...
Many participants felt that the most powerful way to influence personal decisions about transportation use is to send the right pricing signals, so that people can make choices that are economically reasonable as well as environmentally benign. In the United States in particular, the current pricing signals are motivating people to drive more while the costs of driving (in terms of real fuel prices)
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From page 16... ...
The Clean Air Act (in particular the 1990 amendments) contains a host of regulatory tools to address the issue of mobile source emissions, including tighter emission standards for highway and off-road vehicles, mandates for the use of clean fuels in highly polluted regions, particulate standards for urban buses, fleet quotas for efficient and alternative fuel cars, and strong inspection and maintenance programs.
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From page 17... ...
But true interdisciplinary cooperation means more than just occasional conferences or consultations, it requires sustained collaboration in research and modeling studies, policy development, and education.
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