Sustainable Transportation and Grounds in UIC - University of ...

Report to UIC Chancellor’s Committee on Sustainability and Energy
Introduction
The Transportation and Grounds (T & G) Subcommittee of the UIC
Chancellor’s Committee on Sustainability and Energy has been
assigned the task of reviewing transportation and landscape and
grounds practices on campus and to develop recommendations to
improve sustainability and environmentally friendly strategies in these
areas. Towards this end, the subcommittee undertook a strategy of
identifying the major issues and concerns in these areas, to collect
relevant data and to develop a set of short-term that are practical,
cost-effective and equitable and take advantage of available services
and programs. The committee also recommends several long-term
strategies that are the innovative and makes use of cutting-edge
technology to improve sustainability practices.
UIC has 25,000 students and over 12,000 faculty and staff. The
campus is located west of the Chicago loop on approximately 240
acres. The campus has the nation’s largest medical school and over
100 buildings. Northeastern Illinois is a moderate non-attainment area
for the 8-hour ozone standard and a non-attainment area for the
annual fine particulate matter standard (PM2.5) (Chicago Metropolitan
Agency for Planning, 2009). Cook County, in which UIC is located,
has been ranked the county with the third highest level of carbon
emissions in the U.S. (with 13,209,000 tons of carbon per year), after
Harris County, TX and Los Angeles County, CA. (CleanBeta, 2009).
Crain’s Chicago Business ranked UIC the 17th largest employer in the
City of Chicago in 2003. The adoption of sustainable transportation
and grounds policies and operations not only has the potential to
harvest benefits that accrue to “early adopters”, but also to bring
about benefits to the region as a whole.
Sustainable Transportation and Grounds
Sustainable transportation or sustainable mobility practices commonly
address the environmental and ecological impacts of travel, including
the influence of the transportation sector on energy consumption,
greenhouse gases, air quality emissions, air and water quality and
habitats. There are several definitions of sustainable transportation,
many of which are restricted to the physical and environmental
aspects of transportation; for example, the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) defined sustainable
transportation as: "Transportation that does not endanger public
health or ecosystems and meets mobility needs consistent with (a)
use of renewable resources at below their rates of regeneration and
(b) use of non-renewable resources at below the rates of development
of renewable substitutes” (OECD, 1994).
However, over time, sustainable transportation has also emphasized
the concepts of social equity and economic effectiveness. For
example, the World Bank (1996) emphasized on three components:
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