When I read the Mayor’s email this week and it included the line “To achieve our goal of carbon neutrality over the next 10 years, we’ve figured out that 33% of us need to purchase electric vehicles as our next car,” I was seriously annoyed.
It’s spelled out in the Newton Climate Action Plan, but there is nothing in the plan about adding infrastructure to reduce car trips. Worse, the city can play a much more important role in reducing car trips by focusing on bike and pedestrian infrastructure, something it has actual control over. Incentives to switch to electric come from the state and federal government, not from the city. City officials can, however, lobby Beacon Hill to change the classification of electric bikes away from “mopeds” so that we can get incentives in place (see: Vermont). Yet, none of that is spelled out.
I agree with you. The focus on electric cars without a concrete plan to reduce vehicle miles driven is really short-sighted. It will take leadership to improve the bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure. There are many not too expensive things the city could do encourage, not just tolerate bicycles. Such as:
Commit to reducing vehicle miles travelled in Newton by 15% by 2030
Maintain road surfaces so they are safe for bicycling (i.e. pavement in bike lanes/striped shoulders need to be smooth and free of snow and loose debris)
Remove parking in “choke points” so bicycle infrastructure is continuous and bicycles aren’t forced into the motor vehicle travel lane
Create and fund a bicycle network plan
Educate motorists on how to safely share the road with bicycles and pedestrians
Make narrow streets one way for cars to make room for bike lanes
Encourage bicycling to school, work, errands.
Install cycling infrastructure on major east/west and north/south routes and on main streets within 1 mile of all schools, libraries, municipal buildings, and village centers. (Ideally: cycling infrastructure should be protected not just painted and separated from pedestrian infrastructure, but painted bike lanes is better than nothing)
Add cycling and pedestrian safety improvements (bike lanes, cross walks, sidewalks) whenever road repaving projects are done (don’t just maintain the status quo)
Add bike racks at T stops, schools, municipal buildings, shopping areas
Use conservation land to create “bicycle boulevards” and protected bicycle connections (separate from walking paths) between destinations
We need to move Green Newton and specifically Helina Brown on this. Which is super funny as her husband is Dutch. She thinks we need to get people to convert to electric cars first, then figure out how to expand bike infrastructure. I could not get her excited about addressing heat islands on large commercial parking lots either.
Newton has one of the highest Particulate Matter levels in the State because of the Pike. PM levels are correlated with increased deaths from COVID, asthma, heart attacks, low birth rates, etc. EV do nothing to reduce PM levels, paved surfaces or microplastics.
How to change the CAP, we need a group in Newton working with the City as closely as the Newton EV Task Force and Citizens Commission on Energy working on strengthening the Transportation section of the CAP. I would love to work on this, if there are others interested. Feel free to contact me directly at dolanlucia@gmail.com or 617 775-8609 Lucia
Chuck, I completely agree. Our goal should be a reduction not just in car trips and vehicle miles traveled but also in overall car ownership. If and when temporarily remote workers resume their commutes they should be looking at alternatives to driving and Newton should be figuring out how to encourage and incentive walking, biking and public transportation.
We need bike routes that safely get us where we need to go - this means protected or off-street bike lanes that maintain those protections through intersections and village centers. It means slower speeds on our streets and prioritizing pedestrians and cyclist access and safety as much as or more than vehicle throughput. We need a more complete network of sidewalks and a stronger snow removal ordinance that motivates people to actually remove snow from their sidewalks.
It also means keeping the momentum going of all the new cyclists and walkers that we saw come out last spring.
I confess, I had the same reaction of outrage when I saw the Mayor’s note, spent a few seconds to see if it was published or on social media for discussion, then lost focus (hey, it’s a pandemic… but no excuse)
Please remind me, is this a new report? A quick skim shows that it does give some mention of reducing car trips, but may focus on EVs because, you know, people are EV happy around here. Is it the report that’s at fault for focusing on EVs, or just the Mayor’s interpretation and messaging? Does the committee really think that EV makes carbon emissions magically disappear and that electricity is all green? Are we going to wall our city and only allow EVs in?
I think some of the evidence coming out about tire emissions and particulates is important, EV’s are heavier and thus go through tires more frequently and have more road impact on wear&tear (heavy vehicles do more damage in general). But it is counter intuitive a bit. The issue is I don’t think anyplace has the incentives figured out quite right between both replacing gas vehicles with EV’s for those that can’t or won’t ever walk/bike but also not disentivizing those modes. I believe The Netherlands is having that issue in that they are somewhat cannibalizing bike trips by incentivizing EV replacement…
Another thought is that this spring we reach out to the Mayor’s Office and ask that the climate benefits of active transportation and public transportation be emphasized. Walking and biking are tolerated (as Molly said above), but the assumption continues to be that people have cars and will drive to get where they need to be, even though Newton is set up well to walk or bike for many errands and for most elementary kids to walk to school.
Good points. As many of you know, I check all the boxes: an avid
cyclist, an owner of an electric car, and a homeowner whose house has 25
solar panels on it, mini-split heating and cooling, and no use of fossil
fuels in any manner. It didn’t happen all at once but over a decade.
Though I try to bike everywhere I can locally, weather permitting, and
though I take public transportation when practical (not during the
Pandemic), the electric car still has a role to play. The problem is the
lack of infrastructure for recharging when on a lengthier car trip.
Public transportation won’t do when heading, say, up north or down to
the Cape for a vacation. Government must aggressively plan for Level 3
charging stations to replace, step-by-step, gas stations if it hopes to
convince citizens to purchase that electric automobile. Level 2 stations
require several hours to recharge the typical electric car battery;
level 3 can do so in fifteen minutes to a half hour at present.
So let’s not pit one advance for transportation and the environment
against another. All contribute to a healthier lifestyle and cleaner
environment, each in its place.
Bob Jampol
Getting TAG, Bike Newton, and others together is a great idea. I don’t think it can be a one off, though. We need to strengthen the CAP transportation goals with an action plan and monitor progress.
Because the focus is on the environment and how transportation impacts it, I think GreenNewton and TAG would be best to co-lead.
I created a spreadsheet of CAP transportation items, with the EV ones noted. I don’t think GN/TAG needs to work on those, they are covered by the Newton EV group.
One other thing to add. I truly feel that we aren’t factoring in the lingering impact of the pandemic into our thinking.
Yes, we will regain mobility and mass transit will bounce back in some form.
However, I believe that telecommuting and product delivery have gotten a huge and successful trial by fire and succeeded beyond anything that would have been possible even five years ago. The economic and management incentives for centralized offices may never recover for an entire class of businesses.
Smaller cities like Newton should capitalize on that trend both to succeed economically and to meet our larger civic goals.
We can’t fight yesterday’s battles. We need to look forward. We don’t need to wait and see what the long-term looks like. We need to poised to capitalize on the next five to ten years, and be nimble enough to adapt. I hear nothing like this direction coming from City Hall.
I should note that Helina Brown has been an amazing spokesperson for addressing Climate Change in Newton. I think it will be difficult to move forward with reducing VMT without getting her backing.
To Mike’s point about a post-Covid world, I think there is something here around economic development as well. Most of us live an easy bike ride away from the villages, but people get in their cars to run those errands. Imagine a future in which more people work from home, but bike to lunch meetings, coffee meetings, or other activities like that.
Sounds good. Feb 17 @ 7pm - Climate Action Plan (CAP) City’s presentation to introduce Energy Coach & CAP.
I believe monitoring Transportation should be part of the Energy Coach’s job. Possible measures - miles of continuous bikeways/sidewalks in good condition; % of kids walking to school; annual VMT reduction rate; sidewalk snow clearing 311s.
Halina, Phil, Mark Dwyer and Ann Berwick, plus Nicole, all need to be part of the conversation. These are the people I see working on transit in Newton outside of TAG. I think they see VMT reduction as an impossible climb and EV switches as easier and more measurable.
Per Lucia, it is easier to switch to gas fired power plants from coal/nuclear because the built-in systems are designed for that. We all know however that the “bridge fuel” was a sham and the collective “energy” would have been better spent getting wave power costs reduced, investing in offshore wind and creating incentives for commercial roof-top solar vs using farm fields and forests for solar parks as well as battery backup and grid upgrades. EV’s feel like a win, but the incremental step is frankly not enough at this point. EV’s were a good push 15 years ago (of course they didn’t exist really then so there is that) it is too late for them to be a major part of any plan. There are simply too many emissions built into a car-focused environment that we can’t afford…
Thank you, Alicia, for acknowledging the great job Halina is doing as chair of the Newton Citizens Commission on Energy and I’m glad to see her and her efforts, as well as the entire NCCE acknowledged.
I don’t believe there is any conflict with actions and positions the NCCE is taking under her leadership, and the electrification of busses and trains.
The NCEC is not only focused on a move to EVs, but also how homeowners heat their homes, zoning issues involving new and modified buildings and homes, and so much more, including the new Energy Coach position that has been funded and now chosen, a long and complex process. Resident volunteers have spent hundreds of hours in discussions and negotiations with NStar, National Grid, and more.
The NCCE members and committee as a whole have no conflict with TAG’s focus on bicycle infrastructure, or walking infrastructure, complete streets, or whatever. Not only no conflict, but they’re quite supportive of that. In fact, many of the NCEC members bike too.
The NCCE does indeed talk alot about EVs. But then again TAG talks a lot about the electrification of busses and trains. Is there a conflict between the two? I think not. I think if TAG wants to focus on these things, the public transportation side, I don’t see why the NCCE is being faulted for directing their attention to private use of internal combustion engines. It was a great win for the City this past year when the NewMo vehicles were all hybrids and the City purchase more EVs for its fleet.
NCEC is not opposed to reducing VMT at all. I’m unsure where the impression that they are comes from.
Regarding the reduction of VMT, the NCCE is all for reducing VMT. If energy use can be reduced, then the committee as a whole and the committee members support reducing VMT.
I’d love to gather as many voices as possible behind improving Newton’s bike and pedestrian infrastructure and policies and welcome NCCE, Green Newton, and others to be additional strong voices in asking the City for better facilities and encouraging city councilors to support projects that better facilitate safe walking and biking connections that reduce VMT. The ask is an “and” not an “instead”. It sounds like this may be accomplished simply by some of us reaching out to other groups and asking for support as we did for the Auburn/Comm Ave roundabout which Green Newton was happy to support.