California voters approved Prop. 1B, a $20 billion infrastructure improvement bond. Funded projects will likely increase carbon emissions in the transportation sector. Is there a more responsible way to spend this money on transportation? I think so.
My goal is to try to identify ways that we can enlist public officials in an effort to spend public monies such that the result is not an increase in overall greenhouse gas emissions.
Spending public monies on road improvements and road capacity expansion is contrary to the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation system. It seems that a more rational expenditure of public funds should use a "carbon removal" strategy for transportation system improvements.
This would mean, for example, that "Using vehicles more efficiently" should be implemented by "Increasing average vehicle occupancy" and "shifting trips to non-motorized (non-emitting) modes". For example, increasing average vehicle occupancy can be more cost effectively achieved (in terms of avoided carbon emissions per dollar) by investing in public mass transportation, than in increasing HOV (high occupancy vehicle or carpool) lane miles.
In this way, I think we can show that good management of public funds in the transportation sector must take us in the direction of carbon removal, rather than capacity (VMT) expansion. We need to enlist the public officials in the notion that by being good managers, they can cost-effectively remove carbon from the transportation system, make the system more efficient in terms of Btu/passenger mile and address congestion in a rational way, without compromising the goal of atmospheric carbon stabilization.
