PlanItMetro

Environmental Impacts of Life Without Metro.  Click for larger version.

Every time you ride Metrorail or Metrobus you make a positive impact on the region’s environment. As you can see, those positive impacts extend from the regions rivers and streams right through to the air we breathe every day. For example, without Metro:

• Stormwater runoff from 750 lane miles of new roads would need to be managed
• An additional 41 million gallons of fuel would be used annually
• The region would spend 7 days per household per year stuck in traffic
• 400,000 tons of CO2  equivalent would be produced
• 260 tons of volatile organic compounds would be released into the atmosphere
• 22 tons of particulate matter would be released into the atmosphere
• $9.5 million of additional environmental costs due to emissions would be incurred annually
• The 2.2 million calories expended by Metrorail riders walking to rail stations each weekday morning would not be burned

In particular, the positive impacts on air quality become increasingly important during the summer months when harmful ozone levels are at their highest. When it’s hot and sunny, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from vehicle emissions react and produce low-level ozone that dramatically reduces air quality precisely when the weather is good and people are outside taking advantage of this. So with summer around the corner taking Metro never made more sense. To see some more detail on the environmental value of transit and Metro to the region check out the details here Making the Case for Transit: WMATA Regional Benefits of Transit Report.

This post forms part of a series featuring content from Metro’s Sustainability Agenda, part of Metro’s Sustainability Initiative.

Net Zero Water Treatment Facility

Near the Largo Town Center Metrorail Station, Metro is constructing a water treatment facility that features a modular green roof system and rain garden to filter stormwater. The facility will manage subsurface water from the track bed and has been designed with photovoltaic panels and battery storage system to achieve net zero energy specifications. Designing the facility to net zero means the building will produce as much energy as it needs on-site, without drawing power from the electric grid, to perform the entire subsurface water treatment process.

Currently, in accordance with State of Maryland requirements, track bed water at the station is treated to balance acidity and sulfate solids prior to being discharged into the storm sewer system. New regulations require Metro to undertake more comprehensive stormwater treatment to remove also remove iron and suspended solids. Initially, expanding the current underground water treatment facility at the site was considered. However, the existing location did not have sufficient space to allow the new requirements to be met and a new treatment facility was necessary. The new treatment facility will utilize three large submersible pumps to transport the stormwater to the surface for treatment. Pumping the water to the surface presented new process load requirements, but to address these the facility has been designed with a gravity feed system that uses less energy over the life of the project to perform the water treatment process. In addition, the facility also showcases a host of operating cost reducing green building technologies, including: Read more…

Wayside Storage Battery Power System

For more than 20 years, Metro’s rail cars have captured and reused some of the electric energy that would otherwise be wasted when they brake through a process called regenerative braking. This process converts the excess kinetic energy, as the vehicle slows, to electric energy which can be stored and reused for propulsion power. Building on this technology, Metro recently completed tests to capture and utilize even more of the energy during braking through wayside battery storage.

The pilot project tests the energy storage efficiency and return on investment of a wayside Battery Power System (BPS). The BPS uses an innovative nickel-metal hydride battery that is characterized by low internal resistance. As a consequence, the battery can charge and discharge in a matter of seconds, making it perfect for wayside applications where rapid storage and discharge of propulsion power is required. Through this BPS storage system, the kinetic energy that would previously have been dissipated as waste heat can now be productively reused to power railcars and reduce overall energy consumption. Read more…

Metro’s Sustainability Agenda

To coincide with today’s Earth Day we are excited to announce the launch of the Metro’s Sustainability Initiative. Last spring Metro’s Board of Directors adopted Momentum, Metro’s strategic plan, committing Metro to sustainability.  As a companion to Momentum, Metro’s Sustainability Initiative sets out Metro’s plan to meet that commitment through 2025 and beyond and positions the Authority to enhance regional livability while providing service more efficiently.

Check out Metro’s Sustainability Agenda a publication that highlights Metro’s sustainability investments to date, sets forth regional and internal sustainability performance  targets, and outlines future actions that can help meet these targets.

Performance targets include:

•   Increasing Metro ridership 25% by 2025
•   Increasing greenhouse gas displacement 10% by 2025
•   Reducing energy use per vehicle mile 15% by 2025, and cutting in half greenhouse gas emissions per vehicle mile during the same timeframe
•   Reducing water use per vehicle mile 20% by 2025

Read more…

Metro is conducting rider surveys in support of a new study examining late night bus service, generally defined as operating between 11pm and 4am, with a focus on Metrobus service generally inside the Beltway and during the time period after Metrorail closes (after midnight during the week and 3am on weekends).  The study will examine the performance of existing late night Metrobus service, connections among bus routes and between late-night activity centers (see map below), and the potential for 24-hour bus service, and for branding late-night bus service.  The study will also make recommendations for near-term service improvements.  Riders of many of the most heavily used Metrobus routes may have noticed surveyors at major bus stops as in-person surveys were conducted from approximately 11pm to 4am over the past week. Read more…

It might bend your brain a little to think about it – but we’re doing outreach to improve our outreach!  In order to help us be more successful at reaching our riders and engaging them in meaningful two-way conversations, we’ve embarked upon a project to ask our our customers and the non-riding public what will work for them.   Our goal is to use the input we receive to create a toolkit that will help us tailor our outreach to a variety of communities.

Metro’s SpeakUp! It’s Your Ride campaign is the publicly visible piece of a larger project to develop an agency-wide public participation plan that will boost inclusiveness, diversity and accessibility when getting feedback about decisions that affect riders. We’ll be hosting a number of festive events around the region where we’ll be asking people how they typically get their information and how they would like to give us their opinions on projects and programs.

You can find the schedule here at wmata.com/speakup or en Español at hablaconmetro.com, along with a link to the survey we have out there to collect this info. Stop by an event or fill the survey in on-line. Tell your friends and family – we want to hear from you!

See below for some photos from the DC United season opener SpeakUp It’s your Ride pop-up event.

Read more…