Environmental Impact Studies...A Waste of Money?

The question must be asked... Are Environmental Impact Studies a Waste of Money?

Arguably there is a solid principal of counting the cost of any project and investigating the impacts that planned projects may have, such as economic, engineering, social, mobility, property, and yes even environmental impacts. However in some states these seem to have become a way to significantly delay or even prevent new transportation projects from coming to fruition in the first place. Why? Because of the red tape involved in the process of new projects. Looking at California as the definitive text case for this type of thing are organizations whose sole mission is to circumvent progress in the state towards addressing congestion and improving transportation. Targeted mainly at projects that are seen as car-dependent. Yet these efforts have also been used to delay and prevent even mass transit projects from going forward. Not to mention the immense costs of the studies and the preparation of EIS/EIR reports. And after all of that cost invested by state departments of transportation, project stakeholders, study firms, the project could be stopped completely in its tracks resulting in a complete waste of taxpayer dollars. For successfully completed transportation projects however these can range from a respectable 10% of the overall cost of the project to in some cases more than 25% depending on the issues identified, and the impacts addressed. This is a huge cost.

It seems in some cases, most predominantly in California, that EIS/EIR statements have a sole environmental or ecological focus, while placing other important factors such as the economic or social impact of projects a distant second. Additionally, organizations such as the Sierra Club have even used the court system to block projects on environmental grounds.

Additionally, there has been intense scrutiny on the ever continuing California High Speed rail project, which would be the first of its kind in the nation to bring true high speed rail (speeds up to 220MPH or 350 km/h) to the united states, which can serve as an important milestone in seeing other similar high speed projects around the US in the future. Environmentalists and politicians alike seem to consistently lament America's love affair with automobiles and desire to see alternative methods of transportation developed that will bring people out of their cars. While high speed rail and mass transit will not 'fix' this issue, they could go a long way toward providing viable alternatives to nationwide travel and commuting which could potentially reduce the time that some people spend driving in their cars.

But let's not kid ourselves. In our vast nation there is little likelihood that automobiles will ever go away aside from "Scotty" beaming us from one place to another using transporters, like in Star Trek, Sure autonomous vehicles are coming, and that requires all new infrastructure to make that happen, but individual methods of conveyance are not going anywhere.

I am not arguing that we should do away with EIS/EIR studies, but that they be reformed or revamped in such a way that they cannot be used to inequitably tie up projects in so much red tape that they die. In Portland, Oregon for instance, the new Columbia River Crossing to Vancouver, replacing the aging and outdated Interstate Bridge from Hayden Island was nearly killed, only to be resurrected at the last minute. Yet we must also remember the days when Transportation planners acted carte blanche, bulldozing through neighborhoods and environmentally sensitive areas to build expressways. Many of these neighborhoods were economically depressed or had large ethnic minority populations. Leading to the famous Freeway revolts that happened in many cities in the US, Including Portland, OR and San Fransisco. Ultimately this is why the EPA was created, which instituted the EIS/EIR process. It was a safety net to stop what would have been unnecessary or destructive transportation projects from being built. Just look at old planning maps for Portland and San Francisco from the 50's and 60's and you can see how ambitious the planners were. Even transportation visionaries like Robert Moses became highway crazed and went to far with their ambitious plans, in some cases creating highways to nowhere.

Arguably some areas are better without the planned expressways that would have littered the landscape especially in San Francisco and Portland which would have been carved up into pieces with the numerous freeways that were proposed. Most everyone was glad to see the Embarcadero and Central Freeways come down in San Francisco following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, However this left the Golden Gate forever severed from the rest of the regional highway system, forcing interstate and regional traffic to negotiate city streets in one of the most densely compacted cities in America. Not Ideal.

So where is the happy medium? Where can both sides agree? Is there a way to still have the safeguards that impact studies provide while still allowing needed transportation projects to go forward, while also keeping costs low? I certainly hope so.