The Metropolitan Transportation Planning ... - Saginaw County

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The Metropolitan Transportation Planning Process: Key Issues Financial Planning and Programming Freight Movement Land Use and Transportation Models and Their Use Performance Measures Project Development and the NEPA Process Public Involvement Safety System Management and Operations (M&O) Title VI/Environmental Justice Transportation Demand Management (TDM) AIR QUALITY What is the relationship between transportation and air quality? Air quality issues play a major role in metropolitan planning. MPOs in air quality nonattainment and maintenance areas are required to ensure that emissions from transportation investments will not cause new violations or affect an area’s schedule to attain the air quality standards. Therefore, MPOs need to have a clear idea of what the requirements are. Air pollution is caused by the interaction of topography, weather, and human influences on the environment, such as manufacturing, use of petroleum-based products like gasoline, and even small business activities, such as dry cleaning. What are the major sources of pollution? Sources of air pollution can be classified as stationary, area, or mobile sources, as shown in Figure 4. Stationary sources include relatively large, fixed facilities such as power plants, chemical process industries, and petroleum refineries. Area sources are small, stationary, non-transportation sources that collectively contribute to air pollution, and include such sources as dry cleaners and bakeries, surface coating operations, home furnaces, and crop burning. Mobile sources include on-road vehicles such as cars, trucks, and buses; and offroad sources such as trains, ships, airplanes, boats, lawnmowers, and construction equipment.
The Metropolitan Transportation Planning Process: Key Issues * Emissions reductions targets developed by the state environmental agency D Figure 4: All sources of pollution can be looked at for ways to reduce emissions and improve air quality. Clean Air Act: The Clean Air Act sets out the criteria by which transportation plans, programs, and projects in nonattainment and maintenance areas are assessed for compliance with air quality goals. The key transportation-related pollutants are ozone precursors, carbon monoxide (CO), and particulates (PM-10 or PM-2.5 or particles smaller than 10 microns or 2.5 microns, respectively). The ozone precursors are pollutants that combine to form ground-level ozone, which in turn is part of smog. Ozone precursors are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). These pollutants all emanate in part from on-road mobile sources and cannot exceed certain specified levels in a given region. Nonattainment areas are geographic areas that do not meet the federal air quality standards, and maintenance areas are areas that formerly violated but currently meet the federal air quality standards. If no violations of air quality standards have been found, the area is considered to be in compliance or attainment with federal air quality standards.The Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1990 identifies the actions states and MPOs must take to reduce emissions from on-road mobile sources in nonattainment and maintenance areas. The CAA and Title 23 U.S.C. both require that transportation and air quality planning be integrated in areas designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as air quality nonattainment or maintenance areas. In fact, in nonattainment and maintenance areas, federal funding and approval for transportation projects is only available if transportation activities are consistent with air quality goals through the transportation conformity process. The transportation conformity process includes a number of requirements that MPOs must meet (see section below on transportation conformity). An area can be nonattainment for one pollutant and in compliance for another. Transportation conformity is required for all ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter nonattainment and maintenance areas.
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The Metropolitan Transportation Planning ... - Saginaw County

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