The Transportation Energy Intensity of Buildings
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08.28.07
Alex Wilson of Building Green notes that employees for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation used to walk to work; now, to get to the world's first LEED Platinum building, the Philip Merrill Environmental Center, employees have to drive. He notes for an average office building in the United States, commuting by office workers accounts for 30% more energy than the building itself uses. For a modern green building, it is as much as 50% more.
He suggests that we have to measure “Transportation energy intensity” -"the amount of energy associated with getting people to and from that building, whether they are commuters, shoppers, vendors, or homeowners. The transportation energy intensity of buildings has a lot to do with location. An urban office building that workers can reach by public transit or a hardware store in a dense town center will likely have a significantly lower transportation energy intensity than a suburban office park or a retail establishment in a suburban strip mall." ::BuildingGreen
Wilson says that LEED should recognize this.
"USGBC should articulate the specific needs for such performance-based metrics and assemble a team of the leading experts in transportation and land-use planning to develop those metrics. The end product might be a “transportation energy intensity” spreadsheet that would be used for a building going through LEED certification. A dozen or so factors would be entered for such attributes as distance to public transit, neighborhood density, limitations on parking, access to bicycle and pedestrian pathways, and streetscape design amenities like traffic calming that encourage pedestrian use."
Buildings don't happen in a vacuum. If we are serious about building green buildings, they have to be built in place that people can get to. ::BuildingGreen
Building buildings in a convenient location is desirable for the worker. But the sad fact is that the closer you get to mass transit and the inner city, the closer you get to often out-of-control crime. If you have a choice between not getting raped/robbed/killed or spending more on gas, which would you choose? Overpopulation imposes a heavy burden on society and the environment. And I am talking about overpopulation in the US, not other third world countries.
But the sad fact is that the closer you get to mass transit and the inner city, the closer you get to often out-of-control crime. If you have a choice between not getting raped/robbed/killed or spending more on gas, which would you choose?
What a ridiculous red herring. The probability of getting raped, robbed, or killed by a stranger is miniscule compared to the risk of getting killed or injured in a car accident.
By your theory, the parts of Manhattan and San Francisco with the best transit service (the downtown cores) should have the highest violent crime rate in America, which isn't even close to being the case.
What a bizarre comment. What US cities are you referring to that have out of control crime in the inner city? What I see driving most location decisions are proximity to senior management's houses and attractiveness to visiting clients.
Let me get this straight: It's too dangerous for people to work at a location convenient to their homes, but not too dangerous for them to live there? That, after all, is pretty much what you're implying here.
More to the point, the workers in this particular building evidently didn't have an issue with walking to work in its former location, so why would it have been a problem to build the LEED-certified building there?
FWIW, "out-of-control crime" is largely a media fabrication borne of the need for something sensational to talk about in this age of the 24-hour news cycle, 800 cable channels, and politicians who frighten their constituents, intentionally or otherwise, to show them how tough they are on crime. Statistically, your "out-of-control" accusation is tough to support, as is your assertion that mass transit brings the criminal element. I choose not to fall victim to the hysteria and save money on gas. (For the record, I live smack-dab in the center of what is statistically one of the most dangerous cities in the US, I walk everywhere I can, and in 12 years have never once felt threatened.)
"But the sad fact is that the closer you get to mass transit and the inner city, the closer you get to often out-of-control crime."
I can't speak for the US, but I don't think this applies in much of the world. Maybe I haven't been to the sort of US cities you're thinking of, but of the US cities I've worked in, nothing about their central business districts or mass transit systems made me feel unsafe. Is crime that out of control on Wall St?
Besides, the perception of crime (real or not) is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lively downtowns aren't so conducive to crime, but as soon as people and businesses start moving out, the resulting desolation and decay becomes a magnet for crime, accelerating the flight to the suburbs is a vicious circle. Someone has to make the bold step of saying "I believe in the city", or downtowns will never regenerate.
On a positive note, in our own (very lively and safe) downtown, we've just seen the completion of one very green office building in a recycled 80s cinema complex next to the main bus route, and there's a brand new green building nearly complete on the downtown waterfront. Quite apart from all the water- and energy-saving features of the building, the location within a few minutes walk of the main transport hub makes it "green", and my favourite feature is that it has no carparking whatsoever, and in fact replaces what was an ugly surface carpark, but has a bicycle rack instead.
"A dozen or so factors would be entered for such attributes as distance to public transit, neighborhood density, limitations on parking, access to bicycle and pedestrian pathways, and streetscape design amenities like traffic calming that encourage pedestrian use."
Maybe Alex Wilson should read up on LEED ND (Neighborhood Development). These factors are all included in this rating system. It's currently in pilot version.
Building buildings in a convenient location is desirable for the worker. But the sad fact is that the closer you get to mass transit and the inner city, the closer you get to often out-of-control crime.
Dude, I lived and worked until recently in about the scariest downtown business area in America, the L.A. garment district. I rode my bike to work. Crime is an utterly exaggerated threat that works well at keeping good consumers hiding in their boring suburbs with nothing to do but shop.
What makes this comment even more ludicrous is that the downtown that used to house the Chesapeake Bay Foundation was downtown Annapolis. Violent crime in downtown Annapolis might consist of getting thrown up on by a drunken Naval Academy Midshipman or accidentally boinked by a croquet ball hit by one of those hippies at St. John's College.
While this is an interesting concept, this kind of calculation seems to run the potential of 2+2=6. Like some attempts at 'carbon counting' I've read, the assumption is that all energy used is purely based on the work commute. Now if a person leaves work, is able to get their shopping done in route going home, where is that displayed? Some of the energy use should be shared with the stores on the way. Odds are it wouldn't be counted (too complex of a system) so you get a value of say 2 for the drive to work and 2 for the drive home. The store is halfway between where you work and live, so it gets a value of 1 for each direction (total of 2). The end result is that you spend 4 units of energy, but you end up with value of 6 overall (you end up 'double-billing').
Where I work now is a renovated building near downtown in an attempt to 'improve the neighborhood'. Since we have moved here (Dec 2005) we have had one employee shot, another robbed at gun-point (on our 'greenway bike trail'), several cars have been broken in to and thousands of dollars in vandlism and stolen property. Those of us that admit to our insurance companies where we are now commuting too see an increase in our rates. So while 'rape' and 'killed' hasn't entered in to the picture yet, we were stuck in a high-crime area and for many, the cost of living increase has offset the mileage cost of driving outward rather than inward.
Additionally, given that most of the employees live in the suburbs, there is no energy savings (using the system above) as everybody still has to commute in. It is a neat concept, but I don't know if the numbers would ever really match reality enough to justify its use in anything other than NIMBY arguements.
Not every LEED certified building will earn every available point...there is a point for urban density & community connectivity though, so they are aware that denser sites are preferrable.