The Asphalt Institution
On a recent trip to California, I was reminded of an aspect of the state’s focus on electric vehicles that no one talks about: Bitumen, better known in the U.S. as asphalt.
When moving about the Bay Area, it seems as if the entire place is paved, either for highways and roads or for parking lots to store the endless stream of vehicles once they reach their destinations.
California is often held up as a model for its tendency to be “ahead of the curve” in environmentally conscious regulation, especially as it relates to automotive emissions. I’m not convinced it’s the model we need.
Its latest goal, announced by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020, is for all new cars and passenger trucks to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
On the surface, that sounds great. My concern brings us back to the subject of asphalt. A study published in 2020 in ScienceAdviser stated, “Asphalt-based materials are abundant and a major nontraditional source of reactive organic compounds in urban areas, but their emissions are essentially absent from inventories… At typical temperature and solar conditions simulating different life cycle stages (i.e., storage, paving, and use), common road and roofing asphalts produced complex mixtures of organic compounds, including hazardous pollutants.”
The study went on to say, “On urban scales, annual estimates of asphalt-related SOA [secondary organic aerosol] precursor emissions exceed those from motor vehicles and substantially increase existing estimates from noncombustion sources.”
My question is this: why is California – and others in general – so focused on maintaining the institution of individual vehicle ownership and operation? Is the idea that one person per vehicle (still the norm even with HOV lanes and campaigns to encourage carpooling) such a sacred cow that there is simply no interest in devoting more resources to public transit systems and other changes that would make more efficient use of our transportation networks?
What if, instead of focusing on maintaining this institution, they set a goal of reducing the amount of pavement in the state by 10% by 2035? Jevon’s paradox, the subject of a recent post I shared from a colleague, suggests the likely outcome of reducing emissions in vehicles will be greater usage, leading to an increased demand for asphalt. Is that really what anyone wants? More roads and parking lots?
The impact of Institutions is one of the dimensions of the PRISM framework we use at Tilt Global to help leadership teams analyze the current context that both constrains decision-making and identifies opportunities for innovation. Sometimes to make change, you have to break a few eggs. Institutions often have the hardest shells.