Mikhail Chester, Assistant Professor Civil, Environmental, & Sustainability Engineering Affiliate Faculty, School of Sustainability Arizona State University

University of Michigan November 2, 2012

Growing interest in understanding the sustainability of cities

Emerging urban sustainability policies without a clear understanding of underlying activity drivers

A city can be thought of as a sociotechnical system that emerges from technical, cultural, institutional, economic, and psychological subsystems

New York City

Los Angeles

San Francisco

Pittsburgh

Transportation. Residential Buildings. Other.

While the social, institutional and cultural dimensions of urban systems are highly complex, not well understood, and not well integrated into UM and industrial ecology assessments, it remains true that every urban system requires physical infrastructures that take in resources, produce value, and generate waste.

M. Chester, S. Pincetl, and B. Allenby, 2012, Avoiding unintended tradeoffs by integrating life-cycle impact assessment with urban metabolism, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 4(4), doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2012.08.004

Produce a methodology for assessing the underlying drivers of urban sustainability, by considering parcel behavior

Better understand how infrastructure incentivizes a city’s emergent behavior

Better understand how infrastructure is interdependent, and how benefits in one can lead to benefits in others

Assembly Bill 32 1990 GHG

levels by 2020 25% reduction

Senate Bill 375

1965 Wolman in Scientific American

Cities are living organisms

Have metabolic processes

▪ Resources in

▪ Resources transformed

(desirable, undesirable)

▪ Accumulation

▪ Products and waste out

Phoenix, Stockholm, Toronto, Hong Kong, Brussels, London, Cardiff, Manchester, Bangkok, Cape Town, Hamburg, Vienna, Swiss lowlands, Taipei, Mexico City, Canadian Cities, Santiago, Miami, etc.

Energy

Water

Materials

Nutrients

Energy

Water

Waste

Materials

Nutrients

Accumulation

35 MILES

Case Study: Los Angeles County

Industrial & Commercial Services & Activities

Building Use Transportation (Passenger &

Freight)

Roadway & Parking

Infrastructure

IMPLAN + CA-EIOLCA

Building Construction

Vehicle & Fuel Production

Supply Chain Supply Chain Supply Chain Supply Chain

Resource Inputs

Athena + Utility Data

Hybrid LCA Literature

PaLATE Hybrid LCA

Energy Consumption Air Emissions (GHGs + Conventional)

Solid Waste Wastewater

Socio-economic Assessment

Stephanie Pincetl, Ph.D. Director of the

Center for Sustainable Urban Systems

Mikhail Chester, Ph.D. Assistant Professor

Zoe Elizabeth Project Manager

University of California, Los Angeles

Arizona State University (Energy & Environmental Assessment)

Deepak Sivaraman Post-doctoral

Researcher

University of California, Davis (Economic Modeling)

Economic Round Table (Social Equity)

Giovanni Circella, Ph.D. Research Scientist

Robert Johnston Emeritus Professor

Janet Ferrell Ph.D. Student

Dan Flaming, Ph.D. Researcher

Patrick Burns Researcher

Buildings 32 Categories

Passenger and Freight Transportation by Travel Analysis Zone

Roadways and Parking

How does transit contribute to environmental goals?

Los Angeles and SB375

Vehicle

Infrastructure

Energy Production

Extraction of Raw Materials

Manufacturing

Operation / Maintenance End-of-life

Raw Fuel Extraction Transport Processing / Refining

Distribution Electricity Generation

Extraction of Raw Materials Construction

Operation / Maintenance Decommissioning

Encino Station Canoga Park Station

OR

AN

GE

G

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D

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DA

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San Fernando Valley

Energy

Air Emissions SOX Respiratory irritant, acid deposition CO Asphyxiant NOX Respiratory irritant, smog VOC Photochemical smog, cancerous PM Respiratory and cardiovascular damage

Greenhouse Gases

CO2, CH4, N2O

Others Water, labor, costs, toxics, hazardous, etc.

Human Health and Environmental Impact Potentials Respiratory: SOx, NOx, and PM2.5

Acidification: SOx and NOx Photochemical Smog Formation: CH4, CO, VOC, and NOx

Energy Inputs

Process

Emission Outputs

Impact Potentials

Greenhouse Gas Emissions in g CO2e per Passenger Mile Traveled

- 50 100 150 200 250 300

Sedan Near-term

Sedan Long-term

Orange BRT Near-term

Orange BRT Long-term

Gold LRT Near-term

Gold LRT Long-term

Vehicle Operation Vehicle Manufacturing Vehicle Maintenance

Vehicle Insurance Infrastructure Construction Infrastructure Operation

Infrastructure Maintenance Infrastructure Parking Infrastructure Insurance

Fuel Cycle M Chester, W Eisenstein, S Pincetl, Z Elizabeth, J Matute, & Paul Bunje, 2012, Environmental Life-cycle Assessment of Los Angeles Metro’s Orange Bus Rapid Transit and Gold Light Rail Transit Lines, http://repository.asu.edu/items/14223

- 5 10 15 20 25

Sedan Near-termSedan Long-term

Orange BRT Near-termOrange BRT Long-term

Gold LRT Near-termGold LRT Near-term

Thousands

Vehicle Operation Vehicle Manufacturing Vehicle MaintenanceVehicle Insurance Infrastructure Construction Infrastructure OperationInfrastructure Maintenance Infrastructure Parking Infrastructure InsuranceFuel Cycle

Photochemical Smog Formation Potential in Mg O3e per Passenger Mile Traveled

Life-cycle Smog Hotspots NOx: Orange line tailpipe. NOx: Supply chain diesel truck emissions. VOC: Vehicle fluids (steering, brake, transmission, coolants, etc.). VOC: Vehicle manufacturing and truck transport. VOC: Volatile organic diluents in asphalt.

NOx SOx CH4 CO

M Chester, W Eisenstein, S Pincetl, Z Elizabeth, J Matute, & Paul Bunje, 2012, Environmental Life-cycle Assessment of Los Angeles Metro’s Orange Bus Rapid Transit and Gold Light Rail Transit Lines, http://repository.asu.edu/items/14223

Attributional (Footprinting)

Consequential (System Changes)

Avoided Bus Avoided Auto Orange

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TIME

Vacant Lots

Dedicated Parking Lots

Kimball M, Chester M, Gino C, and Reyna J, TOD Infill in Phoenix Can Reduce Future Transportation and Land Use Life-cycle Environmental Impacts, In Review.

Option 1 Option 2 Option 3

Kimball M, Chester M, Gino C, and Reyna J, TOD Infill in Phoenix Can Reduce Future Transportation and Land Use Life-cycle Environmental Impacts, In Review.

Kimball M, Chester M, Gino C, and Reyna J, TOD Infill in Phoenix Can Reduce Future Transportation and Land Use Life-cycle Environmental Impacts, In Review.

The transportation-land use interdependency can be used to the City’s advantage:

Investments in light rail yield transportation and land use energy and environmental gains

The marginal benefits received from land use

strategies that utilize light are significantly larger than the marginal costs

Reduction potentials: GHG emissions: 500 mt CO2e/du Energy consumption by 7.5 TJ/du

The potential for human health respiratory effects will be reduced by 18% and smog formation by 21% for TOD households

Phoenix could reduce their GHG emissions footprint to 1990 levels by targeting 120,000 dwelling units for TODs We show how 22,000 dwelling units can be added.

(the equivalent of 1.2 million households each driving 600 fewer annual miles, or turning off all BAU households for 2.6 days of the year).

Photo source: Mikhail Chester, Paris, December 2009.

www.sustainable-transportation.com chester.faculty.asu.edu

mchester@asu.edu