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Seattle's Climate Mitigation

My name is Conrad Laesch and I am a Seattleite. I have been tasked with investigating my home city's current and/or future climate mitigation plans. I have chosen to zero in on the city's transportation proposals and goals. The Seattle Metro is phenomenal public transportation system that is planning on being 100% zero-emissions by 2035.

Photo provided by Google Images

Narrative

The state of Washington's Department of Ecology mentions the following about vehicles: "Motor vehicles are the largest source of air pollution in Washington. Transportation contributes about 22 percent of total air pollution and 45 percent of greenhouse gas emissions throughout Washington. Along with cutting greenhouse gases, reducing vehicle emissions will improve air quality and protect public health, especially for people living near a highway or road with a lot of traffic." To combat this growing issue, the King County Metro has implemented 227 zero-emission vehicles in the city in the past 8 years. This mitigation falls under the "strategic energy management" subsection of Seattle Public Utilities' Climate Action plan. The importance of public transit is highly overlooked as it takes 175,000 cars off the road off the road each weekday. However, it is counterintuitive if the means of transportation is polluting the planet as well. To meet their goal of zero emission by 2023 the Metro plans to purchase 370 more electric buses in the next 4 years. This statistics were provided by King County's Metro webpage. To accompany this new fleet, more charging bases are arranged to be build. In 2008, road transportation consists of 40% of Seattle's carbon footprint according to Seattle's greenhouse gas inventory. There are several new laws in place that outline carbon emissions for the next 27 years and 100% retail of electric passenger vehicles by 2035. Under a 2020 law, Washington is required to reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030, 70% by 2040, and 95% by 2050. The city of Seattle is adopting the California electric vehicle legislation called the Clean Vehicles Program. The passenger vehicle section of the program is this, "The sales mandate would take effect in model year 2026 and begin by requiring 35% of new passenger vehicles sales to be zero-emission vehicles. That percent will increase 6-9% per year until zero-emission vehicles make up 100% of new sales starting in model year 2035. It will also require light and medium duty vehicles to meet stronger emission standards."

Here is the map of the Seattle Metro service provided by the King County Metro.

Above are stats provided in the 2008 Seattle greenhouse gas inventory. Units are in the metric tons

Reflection

In middle school I took this the public bus almost everyday to school. There were several routes I could have taken to get to my school. This transportation system is extremely well run and maintained. Learning about my hometown and the ins and outs about the local politics is always interesting. I believe the Metro fleet initiative is an attainable goal as several steps have already been made in hopes of reaching its zero emissions goal. The Clean Vehicle Program and Washington's hopes of 100% electric vehicle sales sounds like a far reach to me. People will always made the choices that they want to, regardless of protecting the environment or not. Though California has found success in their legislation, opposing coalition is pushing against its adoption in the most northwestern state. The Seattle Met describes the impact the conflicting views, "'The cost of electric grid upgrades needed for new EV charging loads are unknown and could be in the BILLIONS,' says opposing coalition Affordable Fuel Washington on its website, which lists Washington Oil Marketers Association and Western States Petroleum Association among its members." Hopefully citizens can come to accept this law as a necessity for protecting our planet. As for Seattle, it is a progressive city that values the safety and protection of its citizens and future.

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