LA Port Reports 2005-2008 Air Emissions Down

Monday, November 9, 2009

LA Port Reports 2005-2008 Air Emissions Down

The Port of Los Angeles said that total air pollution emissions from port operations were down 16 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, and down 23 percent compared to 2005.

The data was part of the port's latest annual air inventory report– covering the year 2008– that was released last week.

The report, available on the port's website, said that diesel particulate matter– often seen as tailpipe or smokestack soot– dropped 12 percent in 2008 compared to the previous year. Diesel particulate matter, according to the port, also fell 31 percent between 2005 and 2008.

The port, along with the neighboring Port of Long Beach, which issues its own air inventory reports, first began issuing annual reports in 2005. Subsequent studies use the 2005 report as a baseline of comparison.

The LA report also said that oxides of nitrogen, or NOx, a smog-forming emission, also fell in 2008 by 18 percent compared to 2007. NOx declined in 2008 by 20 percent compared to the 2005 numbers.

Emissions of oxides of sulfur, or SOx, another smog-forming component, increased in 2008 by 5 percent compared to 2007 but was down 32 percent compared to the baseline year of 2005.

All told, the Port of Los Angeles-generated emissions accounted for about 7 percent of the total Southern California air basin pollution in 2008, a 2 percent drop from 2007 according to the port figures.

It is worth noting that from 2007 to 2008, cargo volume through the port fell by 7 percent while increasing 5 percent from 2005 to 2008.

Update on Little Tokyo / Regional Connector

Some interesting ideas presented here. Given LT's opposition to anything transitioning to grade, this seems like it'll help win community support. I find it interesting that there's a bit of a PPP involved here, too--good to know some developers are thinking outside the box and recognizing that this "generosity" could be a good negotiating tool for their development as well as provide increased economic activity for them due to transit proximity/access.

Little Tokyo Asks Metro to Study Grade-Separated Alternatie for Regional Connector

blogdowntown: Home Page for the Downtown Click.

http://blogdowntown.com

A 5th Option?


Happy Halloween.

The End of LOS?

Is it too good to be true?

http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/10/26/ca-poised-to-reform-auto-centric-level-of-service-environmental-rules/#more-17371

California may drop LOS requirement in CEQA. Adding more traffic lanes at the expense of other modes may no longer be required by "environmental" laws.

Bike lanes to create jobs?

People are finally starting to realize that people will only bike if there are bike lanes to safely use bicycles on.

This blog post highlights more details about this.

But it does make sense that bike lanes can create jobs and create some economic revitalization in areas that have high potential bike ridership but little to no bicycle infrastructure.

Anyone want to run a survey and find the areas with largest potential bicycle ridership in America?

In reference to Professor Kodama's Post

Here is the link to the article about Santa Monica and Parking

Santa Monica to experiment with parking psychology

Don Shoup and San Fransisco can be found below

Donald Shoup on San Francisco’s Groundbreaking Parking Meter Study

and finally the last one about Green port, NY

Putting Greenwich Street Back Together

If any of these articles are incorrect lemme know.

Santa Monica, Don Shoup, San Francisco, New York

Anyone see the Los Angeles Times article on parking in Santa Monica? How about Don Shoup talking about San Francisco - and two other cities? How about parking in Greenport, New York?

Let me know your thoughts in class...

Parking thoughts from the other side of the world

I find that when anyone discusses parking and Japan, people often think of those really cool ferris wheel-esque designs where you drop your car off in a slot and then all of the cool automatic and digital mechanisms go into place and swiftly take your car off to this amazing hidden magical place...

Well, this isn't about that.

In doing my language studies, I read an interesting article about a parking structure owner who could never fill all three stories of his lot in part because there was another structure owner who had a better location.

However, with a little creativity he decided to stratify the daily and monthly cost per floor. The top floor was the cheapest with the bottom floor being the most expensive. What is unusual about this case is he didn't raise his overall price for the bottom floor to account for charging less on the 2nd and 3rd levels. Rather he saw that he was never getting any cash flow from the upper levels and decided to "cut his losses" when in actuality he accommodated market demands and ended up making multiples of what he would have otherwise.

This presents a novel yet effective method in solving the empty roof level parking problems in many vertical parking structures since, as we all know, the higher the floor the more it costs but the less likely it is to be used.

You can pay me later for the idea :-p