During 2010, Environmental Practice (ENP) focused issues on sustainability, the 40th anniversary of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and water. Last year was an active period for the ENP editorial office at DePaul University. These journal issues were produced by lead editor Dr. James Montgomery in conjunction with Dan Carroll as managing editor and an editorial board with several new members committed to participating in journal operations. The editorial office implemented a revised ENP format for manuscripts and a new cover that has been well received by the readers.

Many fields of study reinvent themselves as new ideas come to the fore, but this process has been particularly profound in transportation science. This discipline, once largely the province of civil engineers, microeconomists, and travel-demand forecasters who tended to look rather narrowly at the various transportation modes, now attracts a more colorful spectrum of stakeholders. Environmental experts, urban-development specialists, and social scientists in many disciplines are pushing the field into exciting new areas. Along the way, much of the prevailing orthodoxy is being overturned.

Do you believe we are on the way to a more sustainable life? The words transportation and sustainable probably don't mix well in many people's minds. When we think of transportation, it may be hard to realize modes of transportation that do not have some lasting effect on the environment. It may also challenge us to think about how we would get our sons and daughters to soccer practice, music lessons, and other school activities, and how we would do our weekly grocery shopping, errands, and our daily work commute without getting in our cars, SUVs, or vans. How do we get smarter about the choices we make when we travel?

The intercity bus sector in the United States (US) has experienced a dramatic recovery in recent years due to the expansion of new curbside operators—express operators linking major cities that do not use traditional stations. Curbside operators such as BoltBus, DC2NY Bus, and Megabus are infusing new life into this once-struggling sector, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast. This study explores two aspects of the changing role of the intercity bus. First, it evaluates the extent to which intercity bus service diminished after 1960 and its subsequent recovery starting in 2006. Drawing on newly collected data from 11,400 arrivals and departures from a representative sample of US cities between 1960 and 2010, it shows that US cities lost more than three quarters of their intercity bus services before the recovery began. Secondly, it shows how recent growth of curbside-bus operators is reducing fuel consumption by about 11 million gallons annually and reducing carbon emissions by an estimated 242 million pounds. This is the equivalent benefit of removing 23,114 vehicles from the road or having 66,041 people convert from conventional to hybrid cars. These findings suggest that the sector's recovery has significant and perhaps underappreciated environmental benefits. It also suggests that further expansion by the sector, nurtured by public policy, could be an effective strategy to promote more energy-efficient intercity travel.

Environmental Practice 13:1–9 (2011)

Biking is increasingly being recognized as a highly sustainable form of transportation. Consequently, a growing number of American cities have seen tremendous growth in bicycle travel, in part because many cities are also investing resources into improving bicycling infrastructure. Aside from the environmental advantages, there is now growing evidence to suggest that cities with higher bicycling rates also have better road safety records. This study attempts to better understand this phenomenon of lower fatality rates in bike-oriented cities by examining 11 years of road safety data (1997–2007) from 24 California cities. The analysis included accounting for crashes across all severity levels, as well as for three classes of road users: vehicle occupants, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Additionally, we looked at issues of street and street network design to help determine the role that these features might play in affecting both bicycling rates and road safety outcomes. Overall, cities with a high bicycling rate among the population generally show a much lower risk of fatal crashes for all road users when compared to the other cities in our database. The fact that this pattern of low fatality risk is consistent for all classes of road users strongly suggests that the crashes in cities with a high bicycling rate are occurring at lower speeds. This agrees with the finding that street network density was one of the most notable differences found between the safer and less safe cities. Our data suggest that improving the streets and street networks to better accommodate bicycles may lead to a self-reinforcing cycle that can help enhance overall safety for all road users.

Environmental Practice 13:16–27 (2011)

In cities with a hub-and-spoke style transportation system, each individual's transit decision produces externalities contained within a particular transit spoke. When spokes vary in the typical number of drivers, in the capacity of the infrastructure, or in the average income of commuters, the efficient tax to charge drivers to minimize the externalities may vary across spokes. The size and importance of this variation are evaluated by comparing the potential welfare benefits of a congestion tax in Chicago, which is different rates for different highways to a tax that is a single rate. Using the 2000 United States Census Public Use Microdata to estimate wage distribution and data from the Illinois Department of Transportation on vehicle speed and road occupancy, this research provides estimates of optimal taxes for each neighborhood and for the city in aggregate. Results show that optimal tax rates vary substantially, from a low of $6.75 per vehicle per day to a high of $16.50, but that the overall welfare difference between charging a neighborhood-specific tax and charging a citywide tax is minor. This occurs because the number of drivers changes very slowly at high tax rates, meaning that a wide range of taxes can produce nearly optimal results in terms of welfare. An optimal congestion tax of $11.25 per day is estimated to result in 400,000 fewer downtown commutes per day, reducing pollution costs valued at $2.9 million per year.

Environmental Practice 13:1–10 (2011)

This article provides an estimate of the amount of land that is paved for roads and parking facilities in typical urban areas, examines the full economic, social and environmental costs of this impervious surface, and discusses the amount of road and parking land area that can be considered optimal. The analysis indicates that, in a typical urban area, about three times as much land is devoted to roads and parking as to residential structures, and that per-capita road and parking facility areas vary significantly, depending on planning practices, with much higher rates in areas that have automobile-oriented transport systems and sprawled land use. It identifies current policies and planning practices that unintentionally contribute to economically excessive road and parking requirements, and provides specific recommendations for reducing the amount of land paved for transport facilities.

Environmental Practice 13:38–46 (2011)

Although the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided $8 billion in federal grants for passenger rail development, no national policy framework yet exists to guide this investment. Integrating new high-speed rail lines with existing railroad infrastructure and connecting them with air, road, and transit systems will be of utmost importance. As most of the world's cheap and accessible oil has already been consumed, transportation modes that depend exclusively on oil can be expected to decline, while energy-efficient, low-impact modes such as passenger trains will advance. A new model railroad that shifts more passenger travel to rail will develop through an incremental adaptation of current passenger services, a comprehensive transformation using high-speed train technology, or a combination of these two trajectories. North American designs for high-speed rail will need to incorporate the European innovation of providing multiple air, auto, and rail connections in the form of four station types: the city-center and airport stations seen in Europe, as well as suburban stations at business parks and at suburban commercial centers. To create an effective synergy between transportation and local land use, three broad categories of policy tools will need to be deployed.

Environmental Practice 13:47–57 (2011)

Commercial air transportation has long since lost its luster as the sophisticated, intelligent way to move around the nation or across the globe, yet that reality has little to do with aviation's controversial impact on the environment. Flying has largely deteriorated into an affordable ordeal, made bearable only by the allure of the destination, or the family, friends, and business associates at the other end. Cheap air travel is a paradox that is seemingly becoming more politically incorrect by the day. Its detractors are not lacking for ammunition, and aviation's unique environmental issues only make matters worse.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process includes the evaluation of several alternatives prior to the selection of a preferred alternative. This can pose a problem if the project is a county-wide project. Normally, a preliminary review of the anticipated issues is conducted for each alternative. The identification of hazardous waste and hazardous substance sites can be accomplished within a modest budget. However, once the data are collected, the evaluation can involve a considerable amount of time for the environmental professional to assess the potential impact of each site along the proposed alternatives.

When it comes to transportation and sustainability, the conversation almost inevitably veers toward low-emission or zero-emission vehicles—and surmounting the technological challenge of creating cars that will run on something other than fossil fuels and the batteries to store the power. While this is a worthy goal, the technology is not there yet. Replacing our cars won't be enough: we need to replace our roads.

Moving into the 21st century's second decade, policy makers and urban planners are well aware of the importance of diverse transportation networks for communities small and large. As climate change, energy, public health, and quality-of-life concerns—all of which link with transportation to some degree—continue to grab our collective attention, cities throughout the world are working to broaden their transport systems to better serve a wider user range. These efforts often include improving nonmotorized transportation options, notably though expansion of walking and bicycling networks. This is obviously not new to some regions (such as Western Europe, where comprehensive pedestrian and bicycle systems have existed for decades); however, the trend is gaining traction around the world. Even in the oil-rich Middle East, communities are becoming increasingly aware of the need for enhanced nonmotorized transport systems to address growing—often chronic—traffic congestion, air pollution, user safety, public health, and other concerns.

The Gorham (Maine) East-West Corridor Study is a major new transportation and land use study of the Greater Portland region, with a strong focus on transportation corridors immediately west of Portland. This region has historically been the fastest-growing residential and job area in Maine and, as a result, the recipient of many undesirable regional growth challenges. The current crisis in transportation funding, added to rising energy and highway construction costs, makes this a good time to take a step back and fully evaluate the range of opportunities available for this corridor. The study's goal is to evaluate all the options and find the right package of alternatives to protect home owners' quality of life over the long term, increase mode choice, and address regional growth challenges through coordinated local land use actions and transportation system investment, all while striving to maximize the life of existing and future roadway networks.

The relationship between transportation and climate change seems so obvious that it can be surprising to learn that federal policy on these two issues is completely separate and that few elected officials are even aware of the overlap. While President Obama made energy and climate change a focal point of his campaign, and then tried unsuccessfully to pass cap-and-trade climate legislation, he has not yet made the case that energy and climate should be important considerations in our future surface transportation policy. And even though Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works oversees not only climate but also highway funding, there has been little attempt so far by that committee to connect the two issues.