Downtown Pittsburgh owners vow to go green

August 22, 2012 12:06 am

By Mark Belko / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One by one, they stepped to the microphone Tuesday to pledge some of Downtown's most celebrated properties -- from One Oxford Centre to PNC Park -- to going greener.

During the course of 45 minutes, owners of 61 properties representing 23.3 million square feet of space Downtown and on the North Shore publicly committed to cutting energy, water and transportation consumption by 50 percent over the next 18 years as part of a national campaign.

Among those making the pledges were Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, both of whom committed various city and county buildings to the cause, including the historic county courthouse, and Gary Saulson, director of corporate real estate for PNC Financial Services Group, which is building what it says will be the world's greenest skyscraper on Wood Street.

Other properties that are part of the pledge include BNY Mellon Center, Fifth Avenue Place, the One, Two and Three PNC Plaza buildings, Benedum Center, Consol Energy Center, Alcoa Corporate Center, the O'Reilly Theater, K&L Gates Center, and the county jail.

In all, about 38 percent of the properties in the Downtown business district have committed to the national challenge launched by Architecture 2030, a non-profit organization seeking to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the global building sector.

Michael J. Schiller, executive director of the Green Building Alliance, which is spearheading the local effort, said he's "thrilled" to have 38 percent of the properties committed to the cause and expects to get more in the weeks and months ahead. He said it took Seattle two years to get about the same amount in pledges that Pittsburgh got in two to three months.

"It exceeded my expectations," he said. "I think it really speaks to how progressive and how aware the property owners and the community partners are in Pittsburgh."

The first part of the going greener effort will involve establishing baselines for consumption in office buildings, parking garages, and other properties. Owners then will start to look for ways to reduce usage to the target level over the course of almost two decades.

"This is the celebration," Mr. Schiller told those who gathered at the Benedum Tuesday to make pledges. "The work starts after this."

He noted that there are various ways property owners can cut consumption without breaking the bank, from replacing light bulbs or fixtures with more efficient versions to putting sensors in offices to turn off lights when a room is not in use.

Another strategy could be to switch to cleaning offices during the day, eliminating the need to keep lights on for crews after hours.

More expensive options include replacing windows or heating and air conditioning systems and switching to low flow water faucets. The Empire State Building recently paid $13 million to replace all 6,514 double hung, dual pane windows and make other improvements to cut energy consumption and save about $4.4 million a year.

Mr. Saulson said PNC, which has been a leader locally in green construction and practices, has spent $16 million installing new lights in various buildings throughout its system and will get a payback in less than three years.

"With that kind of payback, the savings for the shareholder is tremendous," he said. "And as we look at a portfolio of 32 million square feet, the upside potential is really great. So we really can save a lot of energy and a lot of money."

He applauded the new initiative to cut consumption Downtown.

"I hope more and more building owners step up and join in because I think it's a really good idea. I think the upside potential for companies to save money is tremendous," he said.

Pittsburgh is one of three cities to sign up for the challenge so far. Seattle and Cleveland are the others.

Of course, if building owners Downtown get really serious about cutting energy, there could be some unintended consequences. For one, the city skyline might not be so bright at night.

Mr. Schiller acknowledged as much. Not that he seemed to mind, though he professed to be a big fan of Light-Up Night.

"Some other time, I want to shut all the lights off in the entire city just to prove we can do it," he said.

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/downtown-pittsburgh-owners-vow-to-go-green-649934/?print=1

Record Warm Water in Long Island Sound Shuts Down Connecticut Nuclear Power Plant

Posted by Joseph Eaton on August 13, 2012

National Geographic -- The Great Energy Challenge

In a sign of the severity of this summer’s record heat, one of the two reactors at Connecticut’s only nuclear power plant has been shut down due to historically high water temperatures in Long Island Sound, source of the facility’s cooling water.

Unit 2 of Millstone Power Plant near New London was shut down Sunday afternoon after temperatures in the sound exceeded 75 degrees for 24 hours, the maximum temperature at which the nuclear power plant has permits to extract cooling water for the unit, said Ken Holt, spokesman for plant operator Dominion.

The outage in southeastern Connecticut appeared to have no immediate impact on power delivery, as the New England grid operator reported that the system operations were normal. New England was expected to have a buffer of 26 percent more electricity supply than peak demand this summer, according to a national reliability outlook published earlier this year.

But it’s a dramatic development for the water temperature in the sound to close the unit. Holt said company records dating back to 1971 show that this summer’s heat wave has led to the highest recorded water temperatures in the sound.

“It’s not that it’s been hitting 100 every day, but it’s been steady heat,” he said. “We haven’t been getting any breaks. Also we had a very mild winter, so (the sound temperatures) started from a higher point than we traditionally have.”

Holt said that Millstone’s other reactor, Unit 3, pulls water from deeper in the sound than does Unit 2, and so far has not been affected by the warm waters. However, he said the unit has the same temperature limit under which it can operate. “If temperatures continue to rise, Unit 3 will be shut down as well,” he said. (Unit 1 at the southeast Connecticut plant ceased operation in 1998 and is being decommissioned.) Together, the two Millstone reactors produce about 16 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year—enough to power 500,000 homes.

So far this summer, the Millstone unit appears to be the only U.S. nuclear power plant to face shut-down due to the record-breaking weather, the hottest July on record since 1895 and the most wide-reaching drought since 1956. Nuclear and coal power plants rely on cooling water, and past droughts and severe heat waves in the United States have shut down plants—with those located on rivers considered the most vulnerable. In Iowa, this year, authorities have watched closely the water levels in parched Cedar River, cooling water source for that state’s only nuclear power plant, Duane Arnold. Despite the drought, however, the power plant has operated near capacity all summer, except for a 5 percent reduction in output for several hours during the height of the July heat wave.

August is typically the peak month in the United States for nuclear generation, according to the industry trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute. The NEI earlier this summer noted on its blog that more than 90 percent of the nation’s nuclear capacity remained available, despite the heat. The current operating status for all U.S. nuclear power plants can be seen here.

http://www.greatenergychallengeblog.com/2012/08/13/record-warm-water-in-long-island-sound-shuts-down-connecticut-nuclear-power-plant/

In Japan, energy saving takes its toll

By Chico Harlan

Washington Post

August 10

SAPPORO, Japan — In this summer of idled nuclear plants and energy shortages, corporate Japan is operating under duress.

Workers in short-sleeve dress shirts spend their days in 82-degree offices, the new standard. Lights are dimmed and printers are on only when necessary. Companies chart their energy use, and at one bread factory on this northern island, an employee jumps on the PA system when electricity usage spikes, ordering air conditioners off and asking select workers to stop what they’re doing.

“This is a demand warning,” the announcer says, reading from a script. “We ask for your cooperation.”
But many Japanese companies are tired of cooperating. Asked by the government to use less electricity, companies say the cutbacks curb their productivity, thin their profits and could eventually stall the world’s third-largest economy.

The energy-saving push was seen on a smaller scale last year after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Japan’s east coast and caused shutdowns at several others, and Japanese companies obliged without complaint. Electricity conservation, or “setsuden,” was a way to help the post-disaster cause.

But this year, Japanese business leaders say, the energy-saving feels more like a major drain than a goodwill duty. Unlike last summer, when severe shortages were confined to the northeast, even regions far removed from the Fukushima plant now face shortages, with all but two of Japan’s 50 viable reactors shuttered amid public opposition. Utility companies are importing record levels of fossil fuels, but even that hasn’t covered the gap. That leaves companies — many that were already energy-efficient — straining for unorthodox ways to meet peak-hour summer reduction targets.

Electronics giant Panasonic told employees at its Osaka headquarters to take a nine-day paid vacation in late July. Manufacturer Nippon Tungsten, in Japan’s southern island of Kyushu, bumped work shifts to the weekend to avoid peak hours and, to use less air conditioning, started spraying factory rooftops with cold water.

Breadmaker Nichiryo, based in Hokkaido, leased a 200 kilovolt-ampere diesel generator, which sits like a horse trailer outside its main factory and supplies electricity at four times the cost of the regional utility company.

“It makes no sense financially to use the generator,” said Hidetaka Matsuda, a Nichiryo manager in charge of energy use. “We’re doing it just to achieve the reduction target.”

Matsuda described the energy restrictions as “severe.” A Panasonic spokeswoman said they’ve had a “major impact” on business. At the Kawai Tekkou Iron Works plant in Hokkaido, some employees second-guess the need for conservation and point fingers at the utility company, which they feel should provide the necessary amount.

“Our work shouldn’t suffer,” said Hiroki Kawai, an employee who is a third-generation member of the family business. Kawai said he was describing others’ complaints, not his own.

The energy debate

The economy-sapping energy shortages hint at the stakes of the fierce debate over Japan’s energy future. At the root is whether Japan, in the wake of the triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant, should renounce nuclear power to build a less disaster-prone country or re-embrace it to fuel a more economically viable one.

At the 11 public hearings the government has held to discuss nuclear power, 70 percent of the citizens who spoke said they favored a no-nuclear policy by 2030. That is one of the three plans being considered, along with options under which nuclear power would make up 15 or 20 to 25 percent of Japan’s total energy supply by 2030.

It is the leaders of corporate Japan, along with top government officials, who form the powerful pro-nuclear minority. Persistent energy shortages, they say, will wreak havoc on a resource-poor nation whose energy costs — already among the world’s highest — will further rise with growing fossil fuel imports.

Japan needs nuclear power for a stable electricity supply, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in June, and without that, “Japanese society will not be able to function.”

A nuclear Japan, according to December 2011 projections from Tokyo-based Institute of Energy Economics, would have a GDP in 2012 roughly two points higher than a non-nuclear one, and experts say the difference could be even greater if oil prices spike.

Anti-nuclear activists say that Japan could replace nuclear power, which once supplied one-third of the nation’s electricity, with renewable sources. But that will take years of work and billions in investment. This summer’s shortages have convinced some corporations that nuclear power is essential, at least until progress on renewable energy is made.

“It’s preferable to reduce our dependency on nuclear power plants in the medium- to long-term,” said Cathy Liu, a Panasonic spokeswoman. “However, there is no other way but to keep using nuclear power plants, with attention to their safety, as we do not have an alternative energy at this point.”

The shortages, in theory, can disappear — or at least diminish — with just the flick of a few switches, as seen last month when Japan’s central government ordered the reboot of two reactors in the industrial heartland known as Kansai. With that restart, the Kansai region’s energy-saving request was trimmed to 10 percent of 2010 peak levels from 15 percent. Each region has different energy-saving targets, imposed on companies and households, depending on the severity of shortages faced by utilities in the area.

In Hokkaido, households and companies are being asked to shave 7 percent from their 2010 peak-hour consumption levels. Were the local utility able to operate even a single reactor, such a request wouldn’t be necessary.

The saving is not mandatory, and companies face no punishment for ignoring the request. But by doing so, they risk sudden blackouts that would come if demand by the utility’s customers exceeds capacity. So far this summer, this verdant island famous for its agriculture has avoided such a scenario — a sign, officials here say, that the voluntary cutbacks are working.

The energy-saving, though, is expected to get harder the longer it goes on. A 2011 report from the International Energy Agency on urgent electricity shortages said that “consumers may be more willing to conserve energy if they know the shortfall is short-term.” Japanese people “will become tired and exhausted” over the long haul as the country loses the feeling of post-disaster crisis, said Yu Nagatomi, an economist at the Institute of Energy Economics.

This year, some in Japan are brushing off energy-saving as a low priority — something unheard of last year after the disaster. At a spring meeting with regional farm leaders, Hokkaido’s powerful agricultural co-op recommended only a few modest ways for farmers and producers to cut back electricity — and mostly on the office side, not with actual machinery. Save electricity, a document outlining the meeting said, only to the extent that “it does not create any trouble for managing your business.”

Difficult to plan

The energy shortages are particularly vexing for companies because nobody knows how long they’ll last.

Energy experts say that the best way for corporations to reduce consumption is with heavy investment, particularly in energy-efficient lighting and in modern machinery. Companies, though, are hesitant to spend the money before they know Japan’s long-term plan for the nuclear plants.

During a recent tour of his family’s iron factory, which employs 40 people, Kawai pointed out the many decades-old appliances he’d love to replace. Wiring. Machinery. The fire-hot mercury lamps that light up his factory “like a baseball stadium.”

But Kawai Tekkou has lost 28 million yen over the past two years. Major investment in ­energy-efficient machinery isn’t so smart if Hokkaido’s three reactors are operating by next summer. In the interim, Kawai Tekkou is trying to save electricity only on the office side, by using less lighting and air conditioning.

“It’s almost impossible to do energy conservation without [changing] the machines,” Kawai said.
He emphasized that energy-saving is an admirable goal, and he’d prefer that Japan not rely on nuclear power because of the safety risks. But he has come to think that the country has no choice.

“People say, ‘Shut down all the plants,’ ” Kawai said. “But then what do we do in the alternative? We’re stuck.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-japan-energy-saving-takes-its-toll/2012/08/10/3fef736e-dfb3-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_story.html

Chinese eco pilots find habits hard to change

Low-carbon city programmes are doing well on public awareness, but survey finds little evidence of greener habits

• Zhang Chun and Wang Haotong for ChinaDialogue, part of the Guardian Environment Network
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 August 2012 10.44 EDT

Only a small proportion of people in China's low-carbon pilot cities are living "low-carbon lives" in spite of widespread knowledge of the green agenda, a year-long survey of household energy consumption carried out by Beijing-based NGO Green Beagle suggests.

The study of habits in eight Chinese cities identified as green leaders by China's top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, involved 3,200 questionnaires and interviews with three to five households in different income brackets in each region. The NGO wanted to find out if inhabitants of these places had heard about "low-carbon" lifestyles and whether they were making efforts to reduce their own environmental footprint through their daily choices.

Under the "low-carbon" pilot scheme, which launched in 2010, the eight cities – Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang and Baoding – are trying to find ways of reducing carbon emissions while continuing to grow economically (Beijing and Shanghai were added to the list in 2011, but are treated as a separate category). Five provinces are charged with the same task: Guangdong, Liaoning, Hubei, Shanxi and Yunnan. If they perform well, they will be treated as an example for the rest of the country.

Green Beagle found that public knowledge of the low-carbon agenda and the green actions people can take is already widespread in these cities thanks to television coverage, advertising campaigns, internet forums and print media. Almost 99% of respondents had heard about climate-change and were aware of the concept of a low-carbon lifestyle.

But, while most respondents had heard about "low-carbon" ideas, and some expressed support for the principle of reducing their cities' carbon emissions, only a minority were implementing these ideals. Out of 135 people polled in Tianjin, only 10 said they would avoid buying a car for the sake of protecting the environment, for example. Of respondents who already owned a car, 62% said they use it for daily life and 31% for long-distance journeys.

Household energy use was – unsurprisingly – closely correlated with income, social status and local energy supply. An average settled family in a southern coastal city, for example, was found to have between four and six air-conditioning units, all set to 26 degrees, while a migrant worker in the same city had none. Some families said they could afford to jet overseas for a high-carbon holiday, while others reported that time off alone is a luxury and they have little opportunity to travel.

The researchers also noted a disparity between the awareness of the low-carbon agenda of different groups: average wage earners have no alternative to cheap public transport, but do not consider it a low-carbon choice. White collar workers, meanwhile, said they tend to travel by car, as it is convenient or necessary for their work, even though they know it is not low-carbon.

Green Beagle's report is the latest addition to a growing literature on China's energy-use patterns. Recent years have seen a string of studies come out about the structural difference in energy use across Chinese households, from researchers including Zhi Jing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Between the early 1980s and late 1990s, the percentage of energy sourced in the countryside being consumed by rural households (as opposed to servicing the cities) fell from 80.3% to 50%. Meanwhile, the overall contribution of biomass to household energy supplies fell from around 80% to 70%, while electricity and coal use increased. But rural energy use is limited by economic factors, and the energy structure changes quite slowly. In comparison, transportation and housing account for most of the energy consumption of urban dwellers.

In China's reform era, uneven economic development has also created something of a north-south divide in energy consumption. In the economically developed south, gas and electricity came into use early and spread quickly – by 1996, electricity was common in the villages of Jiangsu and other southern provinces, while in northern herding areas, most rural household consumption was still for the sake of survival.

The huge differences across regions are still reflected in the types and quantities of energy consumed energy. Low-carbon advocacy should take this into account, while targeted energy-saving measures are needed from government.

Energy consumption habits have an impact on the environment, mostly determined by the type of energy used. Rural households mostly get their energy from biomass. Between 1991 and 2008, carbon emissions from Chinese agriculture rose by an average of 2.59% annually and accounted for 10.43% of total emissions. More than 90% of those emissions were due to the burning of straw, which happens largely to provide household energy. This kind of energy use creates huge carbon emissions, damages the land's ability to recover, and results in the loss of soil, water and fertility.

In the cities, energy sources are more diverse. Electricity, coal and natural gas are used in the home, while transportation is powered by diesel, petrol and natural gas. Every aspect of urban life uses energy and creates emissions. Individual energy use and efficiency is determined by factors like how frequently and for how long residents shower, what they eat, how they travel, how they entertain themselves, how they work and so on. Wasting food, electricity and water damages the interests of all and, over time, has an irreversible impact on the environment. In the two decades from 1979 to 1999, the carbon footprint of food eaten in Beijing households increased by 28.5% as consumption of meat, which is carbon-intensive to produce, soared, supplementing or replacing grains.

Green Beagle also drew attention to the "lock-in effect". Once large items of equipment and infrastructure are in place, the associated energy sources and efficiencies will remain fixed. A neighbourhood's energy supply will also determine what kind of fuel households use, meaning that any attempt to build a low-carbon community has to be closely integrated with urban planning, the authors of the study said. Meanwhile, huge amounts of energy are consumed in the manufacture of everyday goods, and there is a real need for energy-saving and emissions-reduction in factories, at the same time as insulating low-income families from extra costs.

The external environment will of course influence consumption habits. With most external environmental factors – resource availability, level of economic development, energy and technology prices, market conditions, environmental policy – the government must take the lead.

The Green Beagle survey shows that, in the face of social norms and everyday inconveniences, individuals find it hard to change their habits – they don't see the impact of their choices and often feel powerless and isolated. This suggests that a top-down, policy-led approach is suitable for reforming household energy use. Appropriate economic levers can be applied to encourage low-carbon choices, with subsidies or awards for low-income, low-carbon families and high-income, high-carbon families subject to some type of carbon tax to rein in their consumption.

At community level, green offices, organic markets and low-carbon advocacy can all increase monitoring and supervision within communities and increase the sense of achievement for those who manage to live low-carbon lives.

• Zhang Chun is an intern at chinadialgue and Wang Haotong a Beijing-based journalist.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/06/chinese-eco-pilots-habits?newsfeed=true

Street Sweeping Leads to More Driving: Study

By TED MANN

Wall Street Journal

August 6, 2012, 11:13 p.m. ET

It's long been a theory among grumbling critics of the city's alternate-side parking rules: If you make people move their cars, they will drive them.

Now a forthcoming study by researchers at New York University says that the truism is usually true—but with a surprising twist. In neighborhoods where on-street parking is scarce, motorists are more likely to drive than use mass transit on days when they have to move vehicles for street sweeping.

But the study also unexpectedly found that in neighborhoods where driveways and garages abound—like the farthest reaches of Brooklyn and Queens—street-cleaning days can actually reduce driving because owners pull their cars off the street altogether, said the study's lead author Zhan Guo, an assistant professor at NYU's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management.

On balance, though, the rules lead to more driving—an average increase of 7.1% in car usage on cleaning days, the study found—giving ammunition to residents who clamor for fewer cleanings.

In an interview, Mr. Guo said his paper was an attempt to empirically determine a truth that many New Yorkers know anecdotally and all too well: they spend a lot of time moving and parking their cars. (The paper begins with an epigraph attributed to author Calvin Trillin: "You can park your car on the streets of New York, or you can have a full-time job, but you can't possibly do both.")

"Street cleaning and [alternate side parking] rules do indeed force residents without off-street parking to use their cars when they would not otherwise choose to do so due to fear of losing their street parking spots," the study reads.

Those extra vehicle trips aren't solely a result of scheduling car-related tasks, like picking up groceries, to a day when the car has to be moved.

Previous studies attempted to measure the effect of cleaning on drivers, including a 2008 DOT study that showed a 19% increase in morning traffic in Park Slope on alternate side mornings. But those studies didn't prove the traffic was caused by the rules, Mr. Guo said.

The new paper, to be published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, uses data compiled in 1998 by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council's once-per-decade household travel survey.

To be sure, the stats are dated, but Mr. Guo and a colleague, Peiyi Xu, say more recent numbers weren't available and they don't believe parking behavior has changed dramatically.

They also used Google's Street View and Bing maps to assess the households they studied and make sure the streetscape hasn't changed.

"I think for some of the community boards who want to change street cleaning frequency, this might be good news," Mr. Guo said. "But we should be cautious not to generalize this to too many of the neighborhoods."

Martine Orcel, a therapist from Prospect Heights, drives to work but would rather not. "I would more likely leave my car and take public transportation if I didn't have to look for parking," she said.

The new study comes soon after a 2011 City Council measure provided a framework for handling requests for less frequent street cleaning. Under the new law, the sanitation department and the city's Office of Operations, which has kept "scorecards" on street cleanliness since the 1970s, can approve the requests to cut back in community districts that have maintained a score of 90 or above for at least two years.

The Department of Transportation announced earlier this summer that it would suspend alternate-side parking rules in Brooklyn's Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace, and Greenwood Heights neighborhoods—the first to see the rules changed under the new law.

Previously, the DOT had approved street-cleaning reductions in three other neighborhoods, a spokesman said.

—Danny Gold contributed to this article.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443792604577573331262287726.html?mod=WSJ_NY_LEFTTopStories

Finding the cure for traffic

Sweden’s capital cut traffic sharply by charging motorists downtown, and we can do the same

By Derrick Z. Jackson

 |  GLOBE COLUMNIST   

  AUGUST 05, 2012

STOCKHOLM

For the price of a large cup of coffee, Sweden’s capital turned the typical Monday rush-hour traffic snarl into the equivalent of a calm Saturday stream of cars. Six years after the city imposed a congestion fee on drivers coming into the urban core, the sense of sanity in Stockholm’s streets continues to awe local researchers, environmentalists, and politicians.

Beginning as a seven-month experiment in 2006, Stockholm, a city of 820,000 people in a metropolitan area of 2 million, ringed the perimeter of the city center at 18 entry points with camera gantries. As cars cross into the so-called congestion zone, cameras take pictures of their license plates and automatically charge drivers a fee ranging from about $1.50 at non-peak hours to about $3 at peak.

It was as if, for example, motorists were charged to cross in and out of downtown Boston from Cambridge or along Storrow Drive, or to approach the oft-choked Fenway, Longwood, and Boston University areas along Commonwealth Avenue, Beacon Street, the Jamaicaway, or Route 9. When the Stockholm scheme was first proposed, it sounded as improbable to many Swedes as it would to Bostonians now.

“At first, we thought there was no better way to commit political suicide than to have a congestion fee,” said Gunnar Soderholm, Stockholm’s director of health and environment. “Now the fee is mainstream. There is no discussion.”

Anti-congestion measures have been debated here since the 1960s, when Stockholm traffic jams were every bit as formidable as the backups on Interstate 93. The fees were not created out of stereotypical Swedish socialist comity. Long after Singapore pioneered the first congestion fee scheme in 1975, remedies in Stockholm were derailed by urban-suburban friction and condemnation of new taxes.

“Don’t mistake Sweden with the rest of northern Europe and their little cars,” said Magnus Nilsson, a senior campaigner for Transport & Environment, a group that lobbies the European Union for sustainable transportation policies. “We’re the land of Volvo and Saab.”

But in 2002, the small, pro-environment Green Party gained critical leverage in Stockholm’s multi-party elections, and negotiated congestion pricing as the condition of joining a governing coalition. A trial was eventually set to begin on Jan. 3, 2006. To make public transportation more attractive as that date approached, Stockholm purchased nearly 200 new buses, created more park-and-ride spaces, and added kilometers of bicycling lanes.

“If your goal is to move people out of cars, you have to have something to move them into,” said Stockholm traffic manager Daniel Firth. He was also a traffic manager in London, which implemented congestion charging in 2003.

Even with the upgrades, public opposition to the fees initially ran as high as 75 percent. On Jan. 2, the day before the trial, the roads were packed. The next morning, rush hour came, and Swedes dropped a collective jaw. Traffic flowed smoothly, with large gaps between many cars. When the trial ended July 31, Stockholm had experienced a 22 percent reduction of traffic. But perhaps more importantly, peak travel times had been slashed.

“Even many of the businesses that opposed the fees said they were getting deliveries on time for the first time in years,” Nilsson said.

When the trial was over, the cars came back. Traffic volumes rose so close to their original levels that city residents, by a slim majority, voted to make the congestion charge permanent. The result made Stockholm the first city to approve such fees by election. The charges resumed in 2007, and today traffic is still 20 percent lower than it was. The percentage of trips to the city core by public transportation at peak hours rose to 78 percent.

That dwarfs Boston’s 12.2 percent of metropolitan residents who use public transportation for work, according to the Census Bureau. Though Boston has the sixth-highest number of public transit commuters in the nation and a commuter rail system that stretches deep into the suburbs, the Green City Index by Siemens and the Economist ranks it only 17th in transportation quality among 27 major US and Canadian metro areas, in part because of a relatively low level of public transit availability per developed square mile.

Boston’s transit system is on a path toward decline. The debt-ridden Massachusetts Bay Tranportation Authority’s recent fare hikes and service cuts come at a time of record ridership and as local officials work hard to recruit researchers and innovators. At best, there will be crushing rush hours on the subways, as a recent Urban Land Institute report predicted.

More likely, discouraged MBTA users will go back to cars. Not long ago, I was on a Red Line train that took longer to creep from Dorchester to Cambridge than it took me to walk and ride both a bus and train 27 miles from my hotel in suburban Stockholm into the city. But retreating into cars has clear costs: Despite the $15 billion Big Dig, metro Boston auto commuters still sit through 47 hours of delays a year — longer than in Dallas, Atlanta, or Philadelphia — and waste $2.4 billion of fuel, according to the Texas Transportation Institute.

Boston would not need to take as many cars off the road as Stockholm to see major relief. “I don’t think you’d need a 20- to 25-percent reduction,” said Tim Lomax, a senior research engineer at the institute. “If we cut 10 to 15 percent of the demand, I could be the king of Boston.” These numbers make Boston a prime candidate to be the first US city to try a congestion fee.

But a proposal by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to charge drivers $8 to enter midtown Manhattan died under fierce opposition from outside Manhattan. San Francisco is studying congestion pricing, but implementation would not likely occur anytime before 2015. The idea of congestion pricing was floated in Boston in 2005 by former city councilor Paul Scapicchio. He was widely pilloried (not least by the Globe’s editorial page).

Today, the obstacles to a congestion charge in Boston seem daunting even to people who are open to the idea. Richard Dimino, CEO of the business group A Better City, said Boston should consider holding a trial like Stockholm’s, but is concerned that the city does not have a public transportation schedule that “complements the current character of the economy and people working flex time, working late at night and on weekends, which also can reduce congestion.”

Yet the transit system cannot get better without a source of money to improve it. London, which imposed a stiff $15.50 congestion fee, netted half a billion dollars in the last two years to improve mass transit.

A congestion charge system in Boston could also help resolve a major inequity: Interstate 90 already has tolls, but Interstate 93 does not. And there is an obvious upside that needs to be publicized: “Some people say these fees are un-American,” said Boston-based transportation consultant Stephen Fitzroy. “But congestion isn’t very democratic either. Without congestion, a plumber might get an extra $85 job that day, or a working mother would not have to pay a $25 late fee picking up her child at day care.”

In Stockholm, at least, the congestion charge proved potent in changing people’s habits while improving their lives. Jonas Eliasson, director of transportation studies at the Royal Institute of Technology, wrote that about half of the car trips that “vanished” were shopping and lesiure trips that motorists “did not even notice that they had canceled.” Yet researchers found an increase in department store sales.

The Royal Institute’s Greger Henriksson, Karolina Isaksson, and Maria Borjesson said there was no universal mentality of those who stopped driving at peak. But congestion charging now enjoys two-thirds public support.

“Some people found public transportation more comfortable, some people realized how expensive driving was, others wanted to not be as dependent on a car on principle,” Henriksson said. “Somehow, it all came together to hit a tipping point.”

A hint that congestion is forcing Boston to its own tipping point came this summer, with news that the city is working with IBM on an app to let traffic planners quickly locate congestion to take quick action to relieve it. But that already seems behind the curve; it was IBM’s sensor technology in Stockholm that helped get cars off the road, slashing afternoon peak drive time by half.

Mayor Thomas Menino said recently, “We don’t do a good job of moving traffic. We’ve got to modernize.” There is no need for Bostonians to merely wish for modernization. Stockholm has already shown the way. The only question is if we have the will.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/08/04/congestion-charges-fixing-traffic-for-price-cup-coffee/Z4VWqAK3t2vVR5Im02kmjK/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw