Sustainability

Managing partnerships for sustainable development: The Berkeley—China sustainable transportation program

Alainna Thomas
Elizabeth Deakin
2017

Over a five-year period, the University of California Berkeley’s Global Metropolitan Studies-China Program conducted research in partnership with local counterparts in Beijing, Shanghai, Jinan, Chengdu, and Kunming. Research focused on strategies for maintaining and increasing the sustainability of the cities’ transportation systems in the face of rapid economic growth and accelerating motorization, and included planning, analysis, and design of projects on transit-oriented development, non-motorized transportation, and bus rapid transit. In this paper, we focus on two cases that exemplify...

Carbon in Motion 2050” for North America and Latin America

Lee Schipper
Wei-Shiuen Ng
Brian Gould
Elizabeth Deakin
2010

Transportation contributed nearly 25 percent of global anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2007. The level of emissions depends on the distances people and goods travel, the modes with which they use, the fuel consumed per kilometer moved and the CO2 associated with each fuel. Different developed countries have complied to different levels of emissions reductions targets, while developing countries are not subject to any national agreement to reduce their emissions levels. For the United States, President Obama has pledged to reduce CO2 emissions between 14 percent and 17...

Sustainable Transportation: The Future of the Automobile in an Environmentally Constrained World

Lee Schipper
Elizabeth Deakin
Daniel Sperling
2010

“Sustainable Transportation: The Future of the Automobile in an Environmentally Constrained World” has analyzed the nature of the problems confronting the transportation systems of industrialized countries. We seek to understand how travel and energy use for travel (and freight) is changing, how these changes may affect the environment, and how the environmental problems may in turn affect future travel and freight activity. During its first three years, the study focused on the automobile. During the final two years, we aim to examine other modes of transportation more closely, in order...

Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Urban Road Transport in Latin America: CO2 Reduction as a Co-Benefit of Transport Strategies

Lee Schipper
Elizabeth Deakin
Carolyn McAndrews
Werner Rothengatter
Yoshitsugu Hayashi
Wolfgang Schade
2011

We review aggregate trends in CO2 emissions from road transport in Latin America. Comparison with other regions, as well as with automobile ownership and use suggests that road transport the emissions in this region are closely connected to high automobile ownership and use. Examination of detailed estimates of vehicle stocks, use and fuel intensity as well as data from four large metropolises in the region confirms this suggestion. The same data show that it is cars that are the main reason for congestion, high levels of air pollution, and other transport related externalities in urban...

An integrated assessment of factors affecting modal choice: towards a better understanding of the causal effects of built environment

Samira Ramezani
Barbara Pizzo
Elizabeth Deakin
2018

This paper discusses the methodological challenges in understanding causal relationships between urban form and travel behavior and uses a holistic quasi-experimental approach to investigate the separable marginal influence of each of several urban form factors on mode choice as well as the complex relationships between those factors and a wide range of personal traits. Data analysis and models are used to reveal the effect of such interactions on mode choice for both work and non-work trips in Rome, Italy. It is found that population density does not have a significant marginal positive...

Perception-Based Walkability Index to Test Impact of Microlevel Walkability on Sustainable Mode Choice Decisions

Sungjin Park
Elizabeth Deakin
Jae Seung Lee
2014

This pilot study had two major research goals. The first goal was to develop a perception-based composite walkability index, with which researchers could evaluate the microlevel quality of the walking environment in an objective and systematic way. The second goal was to test the impact of microlevel walkability on mode choices, including walking as a travel option. For the development of a perception-based composite walkability index, a case study was conducted in the station area near the downtown of Mountain View, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Three surveys were conducted:...

Transforming High-Speed Rail Stations to Major Activity Hubs: Lessons for California

2009

This paper presents findings from domestic and international case studies of developments around high-speed rail stations and derives from these findings some lessons for station area development for California’s high-speed rail system. The paper reviews the case for high-speed rail as a complement to air and highway systems in addressing congestion and providing needed additional services as the population of the State continues to grow. Review of domestic and international experiences reveals that well-planned station-area developments can result in desirable impacts on the communities...

Including climate change considerations in Latin American urban transport practices and policy agendas

Carolyn McAndrews
Elizabeth Deakin
Lee Schipper
2013

In this research we sought to understand how actors in urban transportation adopt climate change considerations into their work, including the techniques they use to address it, such as planning, design, analysis and advocacy in project planning and implementation. Through interviews with transportation practitioners at the World Bank, working in Latin America, we found that efforts to include climate change mitigation in the urban transportation policy agenda encountered major challenges such as lack of support for interventions that slow motorisation. In response, these transportation...

Climate Change and Urban Transportation in Latin America: Analysis of Recent Projects

Carolyn McAndrews
Elizabeth Deakin
Lee Schipper
2010

Urban transportation investments present an opportunity to mitigate climate change while supporting effective, clean, safe, and equitable transportation. This study reports on the response of a set of urban transportation investments in Latin America to climate change. A sample of recent transportation projects funded by an international bank was analyzed to learn what kinds of infrastructure, plans, and policies were being pursued and to assess whether projects developed specifically to address climate change differed from other projects. Loans and grants supported a mix of infrastructure...

Inhalation Intake of Ambient Air Pollution in California's South Coast Air Basin

Julian Marshall
Patrick Granvold
Abigail Hoats
Thomas McKone
Elizabeth Deakin
William Nazaroff
2006

Reliable estimates of inhalation intake of air pollution and its distribution among a specified population are important for environmental epidemiology, health risk assessment, urban planning, and environmental policy. We computed distributional characteristics of the inhalation intake of five pollutants for a group of ∼25,000 people (∼29,000 person-days) living in California's South Coast Air Basin. Our approach incorporates four main inputs: temporally resolved information about people's location (latitude and longitude), microenvironment, and activity level; temporally and spatially...