see file

Several recommendations were discussed from the Transportation SWATeam and the Puchasing, Waste, and Recycling SWATeam.

The Transportation SWATeam submitted a recommendation to the iWG stating, "Perform a general analysis and recommendations regarding the potential to transition the University fleet to renewable fuels. This analysis would review the types and usage of University vehicles, the current and short term expectation for vehicle availability and propose various plans (i.e. conservative, moderate and aggressive) for GHG emission reductions along with approximate fiscal impact for each plan."

See the SWATeam recommendation, Trans004 Fleet Study, complete with comments from all the Transportation SWATeam members.

The Transportation SWATeam submitted a recommendation stating, "We recommend that Parking Services organize a survey to gauge stakeholder interest in alternative parking plans. More specifically, a survey to gather data on how receptive stakeholders would be to parking plans which included a smaller amount of parking days per year to permit alternative commuting modes when this is feasible."

See attached the SWATeam recommendation, Trans002 Parking Survey, complete with comments from all the Transportation SWATeam members.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Sustainability Working Advisory Team on Transportation

Date:                12-17-14

To:                   Sustainability Working Advisory Team on Transportation

                        Wojtek Chodzo-Zajko, Professor of Kinesiology and Community Health

                        Bumsoo Lee, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning

                        Richard Langlois, Senior eLearning Professional, CITES

                        Peter Varney, Director of Transportation and Automotive Services, Facilities & Services

                        Grace Kyung, Student Member

                        Justin Licke, Student Member  

From:               Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko

Re:       Agenda for Friday December 19, 2014, 1:00 pm meeting 128 Freer

1.         Feedback from Pam Voitik (F&S) – Appendix One

2.         Feedback from Michelle Wahl (Parking) – Appendix Two

3.         Discussion of version 2 2015 iCAP Report (pgs. 26-30) - attached

4.         SWAT strategy cost estimates

5.         Other items

Dear Transportation SWATeam,  [Sorry for the barrage of emails...this is the last one for this morning!]

I met with Michelle Wahl from Parking late last week, and she had some very useful comments on the iCAP draft that I thought I should share with you:

1) She mentioned that in years past, she used to receive "idling reports" on her vehicles, which must have been equipped with some sort of system that tracked when the vehicles were idling.  This raised the question of whether such technology could be deployed widely on our fleet, rather than focusing only on "class 6 and above trucks" (neither of us knew exactly what that means).

2) She was concerned about the financial aspects of providing additional opportunities for people to purchase less than full-time parking privileges in lots with wait lists...this is probably something that deserves further discussion.  If Parking allows someone to drop their full-time parking pass for a particular lot and instead purchase less than full-time for the same spot, their revenue will decrease.  This is concerning because Parking is legally required to be self-supporting -- they cannot receive any subsidy from campus, nor can they make a profit.

3) She recommended adding a recommendation that parking rates be increased to provide a dis-incentive for single-occupancy vehicle use. 

This would also be essential if the number of parking permits sold were to decrease, as Parking's costs are essentially fixed. Raising rates would be a challenge because they are subject to collective bargaining, but it has been successfully done on other campuses (including UIC). 

Having an explicit call for this in the iCAP might help provide ammunition for such efforts.

4) She recommended some investigation of the subsidy that Parking currently provides to MTD.  At present, Parking pays over $500K per year for this, ostensibly to support the buses that run to the "shuttle lot" (E-14, I think).  But this amount greatly exceeds the total revenue that Parking receives from selling permits in the shuttle lot.  She thought it was worth making sure that the amount Parking is contributing towards the MTD is the appropriate amount, because any funds that could be "saved" there could be directed towards other sustainability-related initiatives within Parking.

5) She pointed out that there are now 18 "Level 1" charging stations for electric vehicles on campus, and Parking has plans to install some "Level 2" charging stations in 2015.  She thought it might be worth showcasing this work on page 29 of the current draft, and I am inclined to agree.

Cheers,

Ben

Michelle Wahl is on board regarding attendance at our next meeting. I'm attaching some basic cost information regarding costs of constructing/maintaining spaces on campus that she has provided. She is willing to provide more information, if requested. However, it might be beneficial for her to meet with the group to discuss what is desired rather than having her shotgun us with financial information. - Pete

Transportation SWAT Team Feedback
The first bit of feedback given by a member of the audience was about electric vehicles. These are not specifically talked about in the summary of the report. An infrastructure would be needed in order for these to work well. It is something that could be looked into in future meetings. Along with this, it was noted that the University is currently developing five stations for type two charging with plans for type one charging to be active within the next week. It cannot be ignored how the energy is generated as well. Emissions are still produced by generating electricity to power the vehicles. Another audience member gave an idea about having a parking incentive to people who are driving from a distance and parking at a station. There are people currently on campus who park at a charging station and take a shuttle the rest of the way. It was suggested that the parking rate could be reduced for these people who are commuting with electric cars and taking a shuttle further to promote this practice.

It was inquired about the fact that all types of fuel has hydrocarbons in them and all will affect the environment. The answer to this is that there are different amounts of environmental impacts based on what molecule is the byproduct of the fuel source. The topic of offsets was discussed and what ways were being considered for keeping them local. Currently, the team has not come up with a lot of ideas of how to do this but in the coming months a more comprehensive strategy will be developed to start this process. Traditional offsets would apply to this like having more plant matter and renovating buildings to be more efficient.

Air travel was the final topic of discussion during the forum. It was commented on about how air travel is a function of the global reach as a campus and the more air travel that there is, the more global reach the campus has. A suggestion along with this was to have a carbon tax on air travel that could be used for offset funding. The estimations for projects can include this carbon tax and allow for the campus to improve, get more funding, and travel more while still offsetting the carbon emissions. Wotjek mentioned to the forum that the team would like air travel to broken down from absolute air travel into departmental. This would allow departments to see their own progress and account for fluctuating numbers in a department. Also, this can be used to provide incentives for efficiency of air travel on a departmental basis.

Dear Ben

I am pleased to provide you with our consensus final report.

I was able to address the concerns your raised regarding (1) clarifying the nature of purchased off-sets, and (2) making it clear that we are not necessarily requesting a new OFFICE be established for Sustainable Transportation, rather we would like to see a director of Sustainable Transportation appointed.

Regarding the specification of revised targets.  Our committee had extended discussions on this topic and our position is stated in the report as follows;

"Our committee recognizes that the 2015 goal of reducing carbon emissions by 30 percent relative to the 2008 baseline is unrealistic. Similar concerns can also be raised regarding the more distal targets.  It is the position of our committee that insufficient information is available to provide adjusted transportation emission targets at this point in time. Until such time as substantive decisions have been made regarding strategies to reduce carbon emissions and/or to allow the purchase of carbon offsets, it will be difficult to develop more specific data-based targets for transportation emissions."

We understand that you would have preferred to have new and explicit targets set for intervening years between 2015 and 2050 but it is the position of our committee that there is insufficient data to develop such predictions.  If you or other committees want to take up this task, we would not object.

Thank you for your help on this important and exciting project.

On behalf of the entire committee,

Sincerely

Wojtek

Dear Colleagues:

I have tried to compile the information we discussed into the next draft of our report (attached).

It would be good for us to try and agree on the content before I convert it into the requested format for out chapter.

Do you think you could take a look at the draft and use "track changes" to make any edits.

Please get the draft back to me by end of business on Wednesday so I can start working on the final version of both our report and the re-formatted version.

Many thanks for your help and hard work

Wojtek