This post was co-authored by Camille Kustin.
Freight—nearly everything we buy, eat, manufacture, or build with—is carried to us by a complex system of shipping routes, rail lines, highways, ports, and rail yards.
West Coast ports are expected to see a 138% increase in container traffic by 2035. Source: Port of Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, pollution from moving all this freight is significant, and growing. Truck, locomotive, and ship engines spew greenhouse gases, toxic diesel soot, and other dangerous pollutants. These emissions contribute to global warming and are responsible for serious health problems. This is the first in a series of posts about how to address the huge environmental and public health costs of moving goods around the country.
The freight sector alone represents nearly a quarter of the transportation sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, or approximately 8% of total US carbon dioxide emissions according to the U.S. EPA (see pages 130-132). To make matters worse, freight's greenhouse gas emissions have been steadily increasing, even faster than other transportation sectors' emissions. According to the same EPA report, freight's emissions have increased almost 60% since 1990. Meanwhile, passenger travel’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased 24% from 1990 to 2007.
This increase comes with dangerous health risks for American communities. The fine particle pollution from U.S. diesel engines—the most common engines used in freight –is estimated to shorten the lives of nearly 21,000 people each year. And in California, the California Air Resources Board estimates that freight-related pollution was responsible for about 2,400 premature deaths, 2,000 respiratory-related hospital admissions, 62,000 asthma and lower respiratory cases, 360,000 lost work days, and 1.1 million lost school days in 2005 alone.
By 2020, 90.1 million tons of freight are expected to move throughout the U.S., an 80 percent increase from 2002.
The $64,000 question is: Can we keep growing freight transportation and also reduce the damage it does?
We think so — but only if freight's environmental performance is given the attention it demands.
The federal transportation bill provides a good opportunity to modernize country's freight system in a way that also reduces pollution. The bill can steer money to forward-looking gateways and corridors that are planning their infrastructure in a way that gets measurable and sustainable environmental benefits. Freight system improvements that achieve measureable benefits—such as cleaner air, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, less noise for surrounding communities—should be first in line for funding. That alone will motivate other bidders for those dollars to pay attention to their environmental bottom line.
Over the coming weeks, we'll be sharing some examples of great innovations several freight haulers, gateways, hubs and states have used to simultaneously improve efficiency and environmental performance. They prove it can be done, and these projects ought to be emulated. Federal policy and funding can help turn the U.S. freight system into the most advanced—and cleanest—system in the world.