Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier Clark and most of Canada’s premiers recently signed the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. ‘Framework’ is a good title for this agreement — it is barely a start on what is needed.

But it contains a policy shift that could dramatically reduce climate pollution from transportation.

Over the past decades the federal government has funded transportation infrastructure with little or no regard for climate pollution. They spent billions of public dollars every year on projects that increase climate pollution, such as urban highway expansion.

And since projects are usually cost shared, one billion of federal money is often matched by two billion from the province and region or municipality. Largely as a result of this perverse spending, between 1990 and 2014 climate pollution from transportation increased 32 per cent.

Trudeau’s first budget allocated new money to a public transit fund, which can reduce carbon pollution, but there was no commitment to shift money away from projects that increase pollution.

Now there is a commitment — of sorts — in the fine print of the climate framework.

The framework commits the federal and provincial governments to “shift from higher to lower-emitting types of transportation, including through investing in infrastructure.”

The examples include shifting from driving to transit and cycling as well as shifting freight from trucks to rail.

This is not a completely new development: the NDP and Greens helped pass Liberal MP Andy Fillmore’s private members bill to the same effect in September.

Bill M-45 calls for analysis of the greenhouse gas impact of every infrastructure funding proposal over half a million dollars, and for giving funding priority to projects that reduce climate pollution.

The cliché “you can’t build your way out of congestion” is well supported by studies and experience. Roadway expansion in urban areas worsens both pollution and congestion.

In a 2007 study Clark Williams-Derry of the SightLine Institute found that “adding one mile of new highway lane will increase CO2 emissions by more than 100,000 tons over 50 years.”

Considering that transportation is the second biggest source of climate pollution in Canada, the effect of road expansion must not be ignored.

But until now climate impacts have, for the most part, been ignored.

Ontario’s Highway 427 Expansion project in Metro Toronto is proceeding with barely a mention of carbon pollution. One rather disturbing exception is British Columbia; instead of ignoring climate impacts Premier Clark makes the ridiculous claim that urban highway expansion projects reduce climate pollution.

When governments bury a policy in the fine print, it usually means they have little intention of following through. But the experience of Metro Vancouver shows that people working in concert with their local municipal governments can take this policy from the fine print into the headlines.

In 2006 a packed room of residents favoring public transit over freeway expansion cheered a close Metro Vancouver Regional District board vote to oppose the multi-billion dollar Port Mann Bridge.

The vote did not stop the provincial government from building the bridge, but the federal government didn’t fund it and later funded rapid transit projects in the region instead.

Municipal politicians in Metro Vancouver learned the lesson — if you want federal rapid transit funding you need to reject highway expansion.

In June of this year when the Metro Vancouver board voted to formally oppose the replacement of the four-lane Massey Tunnel with a 10-lane mega-bridge the vote was overwhelming. Only one mayor supported the $3.5 Billion toll bridge.

The main argument Metro Vancouver used was that the project contradicts regional planning objectives, but now the Massey Bridge proposal also violates the federal-provincial climate framework.

Now everyone who wants better transit has a new tool to help ensure our public funds are not spent to make the climate crisis worse.

The first step is to get your municipality and regional district to endorse this new policy of shifting of money away from road projects that increase pollution to public transit. Then be prepared to demand that your mayor and councillors actively oppose the next polluting urban highway expansion project the provincial government announces.

Eric Doherty is a Victoria-based transportation planning consultant and a founding member of the Better Transit Alliance of Greater Victoria.

Image: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Kathleen Wynne at a public infrastructure announcement in Barrie, Ontario. Photo: Prime Minister's Photo Gallery

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This is a guest post by David Suzuki.

Beijing’s 21 million residents live in a toxic fog of particulate matter, ozone, sulphur dioxide, mercury, cadmium, lead and other contaminants, mainly caused by factories and coal burning. Schools and workplaces regularly shut down when pollution exceeds hazardous levels. People have exchanged paper and cotton masks for more elaborate, filtered respirators. Cancer has become the leading cause of death in the city and throughout the country.

Chinese authorities, often reluctant to admit to the extent of any problem, can no longer deny the catastrophic consequences of rampant industrial activity and inadequate regulations. According to Bloomberg News, Beijing’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention says that, although life expectancy doubled from 1949 to 2011, “the average 18-year-old Beijinger today should prepare to spend as much as 40 percent of those remaining, long years in less than full health, suffering from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis, among other ailments.”

China’s government also estimates that air pollution prematurely kills from 350,000 to 500,000 residents every year.* Water and soil pollution are also severe throughout China.

The documentary film Under the Dome, by Chinese journalist Chai Jing, shows the extent of the air problem. The film was viewed by more than 150 million Chinese in its first few days, apparently with government approval. Later it was censored, showing how conflicted authorities are over the problem and its possible solutions. The pollution problem also demonstrates the ongoing global conflict between economic priorities and human and environmental health.

Rather than seeing China’s situation as a warning, many people in Canada and the U.S. — including in government — refuse to believe we could end up in a similar situation here. And so U.S. politicians fight to block pollution-control regulations and even to remove the power of the Environmental Protection Agency, or shut it down altogether! In Canada, politicians and pundits argue that environmental protection is too costly and that the economy takes precedence.

Some people even point to China as a reason for Canada not to do anything, arguing that what we do or don’t do to confront climate change and pollution will make little difference because our contributions pale in comparison to countries like China and India. But while Canada’s air quality is better than many places, half of us live in areas where we are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution.

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, “Short and long term exposure to air pollution are estimated to result in 21,000 premature deaths in Canada in 2008 as well as 620,000 doctor visits, 92,000 emergency department visits, 11,000 hospital admissions and an annual economic impact of over $8 billion.”

And, as we know, air doesn't stay within national boundaries. The global atmosphere is being loaded with the sum of all nations' activities.

As for greenhouse gas emissions, Canada may contribute less than two per cent of overall global emissions, but we have the highest emissions per capita — more than the U.S. and Russia and close to three times the global average. Even with a small population compared to many countries, we’re in the top 10 for overall emissions. Don't we have a moral responsibility to reduce our share?

We can and should do more to curb pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, especially as demands from industry and a growing population continue to increase. That means making homes and workplaces more energy-efficient and driving less. Transportation is a major contributor to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. But, despite the fact that a large percentage of the emissions and pollution come from SUVs, trucks and vans, sales of those vehicles are rising while car sales are decreasing.

As individuals, we can take action to reduce pollution and emissions, but greater gains should be made at the policy level. Creating good transit and transportation infrastructure that gets people out of their cars is a huge step, as is offering incentives to improve energy efficiency in homes and buildings. Regulations to limit industrial pollution are also necessary.

We may never experience the kind of deadly pollution China is struggling with, but we can do a lot to make sure our air, water and soil are as clean as possible, now and into the future. We must do our part.

* This sentence has been corrected for accuracy.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Image credit: V.T. Polywoda via Flickr.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Last week I started to explore the possibility that British Columbia could become a 100 per cent renewable energy region, as 140 regions in. Germany are planning to become.

This week, we look at transportation. Is it possible that we could get where we want to be and ship our goods where they need to go without any use of fossil fuels?

Helsinki, capital of Finland, is taking a big step in this direction, with its goal that by 2025, nobody will need to own a car in the city at all, thanks to an advanced integrated ‘mobility on demand’ network of shared bikes, transit, LRT, and computer-automated Kutsuplus minibuses that adapt their routes to take you wherever you want to go.

The cars, trucks, ferries and planes that we use to go about our daily lives are 38 per cent of the cause of global warming in B.C., so this is clearly a big deal. So let’s start at the easy end, and work our way into the difficult, uncharted territory.[view:in_this_series=block_1]

Have You Ever Tried Cycling in North Vancouver?

Cycling is easy: the bustling city of Copenhagen has already demonstrated that 35 per cent of its commuters can get to work by bike, and many cities in Holland can boast equally good numbers.

“Ah, but it’s flat,” you might respond. “Have you ever tried cycling in North Vancouver?”

“Ah,” I respond, “have you ever tried an electric bike?” Electric bikes defy gravity, making hills vanish with a twist of the hand. In so doing they open up new realms of possibility for older cyclists, and anyone who doubts their ability to cycle a 10 km round trip. Add safe protected bike-lanes, off-road bike trails, clearly marked intersections, good bike-sharing schemes with bike-attached tablets that give GPS based-directions, as they are doing in Copenhagen, and you’ve got a set-up in which cycling becomes irresistible.

There’s a cost to all this, of course – but in Holland, which has 35,000 kilometres of bike paths and spends $580m a year on bicycle infrastructure, the cost is 4.3 cents per kilometre pedaled by each cyclist, compared to 22 cents for a motorist. In other words: it is five times cheaper. For shorter distances of 5km or less the bike will also get you there faster than a car. In Copenhagen, they justify the cost of the bike infrastructure by the health care savings: the health benefit of cycling comes to $1 per km, creating an overall annual benefit to the Danes of some $388 million.

But even so—where will the money come from? It could come from existing transportation budgets, by spending less on roads. It could come from an increase in the gas tax. It could come by changing the way we use income from the carbon tax, spending it on positive climate solutions instead of returning it in tax reductions. It could come from a special green bonds issue. Or it could come from road tolls, which make sense in a post-carbon world when gas taxes will no longer exist. 

1,000 Kilometres a Day – in an Electric Bus

Next up is public transit, bus rapid transit and light rail transit. There are cities all over the world with excellent systems, from Portland to New York, Paris to Tokyo, Curitiba to Bogota. Light rail can be fully electric – and so can a regular bus. There are 100 per cent electric buses on the road without overhead cables in Seoul, Montreal, London, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Edmonton, Geneva (using a 15 second flash charge), Adelaide (solar electric), Umea (Sweden), San Francisco—and soon, everywhere. In the U.S., the Proterra electric bus has set a world record, travelling over 1,000 kilometres in a single day, using rapid fast charging during the day.

In China, the auto-manufacturer BDY recently received an order for 1,800 electric buses that can travel300 km on a single charge, with 1,200 going to Dalian in northeast China and 600 to Nanjing in eastern China. With that kind of range, fast luxury electric coaches travelling into Vancouver from Whistler and the Fraser Valley cannot be far away, equipped with tables, coffee and orange juice.

Next, there’s railways. The West Coast Express from Vancouver to Mission could easily be electrified, as railways are in many parts of the world. If you have never travelled on a fast, comfortable train, you don’t know what you’re missing. When I lived in England, I would regularly take the two-hour ride from South Devon to London. The seats were arranged in groups of four around a table, enabling you to spread out, work, and talk to fellow travellers if you wanted to. When I travelled on a high-speed train across South Korea, averaging 300 kph, the journey was so smooth you hardly knew you were travelling. It’s just a matter of commitment, to make the investment.

In the Lower Mainland, there is an existing Fraser Valley Interurban rail line that runs from New Westminster to Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack where a light rail train could operate, sharing the track with existing goods use. Maybe the rail line that carries coal to Roberts Bank at Tsawwassen could also share the track, allowing a light rail passenger service to operate there too.

The Electric Car – and Pick Up Truck

So now we come to the big one—the electric car. Among those who observe the scene, there is a sense of welcome inevitability that the future of cars and light trucks will be electric.

Not hydrogen fuel cell, since a fuel cell electric vehicle uses three times more energy than a straight EV.

Maybe not biofuel, since progress on second-generation biofuels grown on marginal land is slow, and most biofuel still has a large carbon footprint, with the exception of recycled biodiesel, as distributed by the Cowichan Biodiesel Co-op and other groups.

And not natural gas, since gas is a non-renewable fossil fuel that increasingly depends on fracking for extraction, polluting the groundwater with unknown chemicals and releasing fugitive methane emissions into the atmosphere.

EV prices are falling, and choices are increasing. EV drivers report a really positive driving experience, and B.C.’s charging infrastructure is spreading. If B.C. was to follow Norway’s example, with a well-organized system of incentives, 10 per cent of all new cars sold could be electric. The question is not ‘if,’ but ‘how soon?’

At today’s fuel-prices, a regular car costs $200 a month to lease and $150 for gasoline, which comes to $11 a day. A Nissan Leaf, offered for lease in America for $199 a month, and costing just $10 a month on electricity, comes to $7 a day. With prices like that, anyone who does not drive a leased EV will be losing $4 a day, or $120 a month.

And if you live out in the back-country, where you really need your rugged pick-up truck? They're coming: Tesla has plans for an EV pick-up truck similar to the Ford F-150, and Via Motors already has one on the assembly line. 

The best policy approach to accelerate the EV revolution is simply to set a high standard for fuel efficiency. In Europe, by 2020, new cars will need to produce no more than 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre, reduced from the current 120 g/km. The same approach could be used to reduce emissions to zero, giving auto-manufacturers time to plan and retool. This is not something B.C. could do on its own, however; it would require federal regulation to make it Canada-wide.

Could B.C. Produce Enough Electricity?

Would there be enough electricity if every car and light truck in B.C. were to be electric? If two million electric vehicles each traveled 15,000 kilometres a year at an average 25 kwh per 100 km, each vehicle would use 3,750 kwh a year, totaling 7,500 GWh, compared to the 60,000 GWh that B.C. consumes every year.

Solar PV on half of B.C.’s south-facing rooftops could produce 7,500 GWh a year; alternatively, since a 3 MW wind turbine can produce 7.5 GWh a year, sufficient for 2,000 cars, a thousand turbines could produce the power for two million electric vehicles. A 30 per cent efficiency improvement on every home could free up the same amount of power.

Given the potential for far more travel by bike and transit, a more realistic calculation might be for one million EVs driving 10,000 kilometres a year, resulting in 2,500 GWh of additional demand, or just 4 per cent of B.C.’s current power usage.

The Car-Sharing Revolution

In 1998, just 905 people belonged to carshare groups around the world. By 2012, that number had increased two thousandfold to 1.78 million. By 2020, carsharing revenues are set to hit $6 billion, with12 million members worldwide.

The real breakthrough, however, comes with peer-to-peer carsharing, when people put their cars into a shared rental pool. It started in San Francisco several years ago, and has spread through outfits such as Getaround, Buzzcar, RelayRides and Communauto in Montreal, with owners earning up to $300 a month. It is only a matter of time before it reaches Vancouver and Victoria.

So picture a 100 per cent per cent narrowed, creating space for trees, food and children’s play. With narrower, slower streets come more neighbourhood friendships, more green space, and an increase in our social and ecological wealth. What’s not to like about this future?

Next week: In Part 3, I will explore the more difficult challenge of achieving 100 per cent renewable energy for long-distance trucking, boats, ferries and planes. In Part 4, I will wrap things up by asking how we might be able to achieve all this.

This series originally appeared on the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association website.

Image Credit: Rush hour on the Dunsmuir separated bike lanes by Paul Krueger via Flickr.

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