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Published in Winter 2000-2001
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Delivering the goods without damaging the environment
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CEC to consult public on trade corridors
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As regional commerce increases, so does truck traffic pulsing through North American trade arteries. In anticipation of a public workshop in March 2001, JPAC’s John Wirth asks about the unexamined public health and environmental costs that could go along with it.
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By John D. Wirth
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Trade is booming in North America. From 1994 to 1998, total US trade with Mexico increased by US$59 billion while total Mexican trade with the US increased by about one billion US dollars. During that time, Canadian trade with the US increased by US$87 billion and with Mexico by US$2.1 billion. By the year 2015, trade between Canada and the United States alone may grow by as much as 180 percent from 1998 levels!
Everything from cabbages to computers hurtle to markets across North America. Trucks increasingly carry the goods. In 1995, over 40,000 trucks crossed North America’s international borders every day while NAFTA was still in its infancy.
Concerns raised about trade and transportation effects
Increased trade and corridor development can benefit the economies of all three countries. But more traffic in all modes of transportation, often complicated by other factors such as increases in population or sprawl, have led to concerns about the effects on our health, quality of life and environment. Roads, highways and railways often disturb natural habitat, reducing the number and variety of wildlife species and interrupting migration routes. Increased traffic frequently overwhelms existing infrastructure and its concomitant air pollution adversely affects the health and environment of those living in the cities, towns, and countryside along trade routes. This is particularly true along North American borders where 60 to 80 percent of goods are transported by truck. We worry about traffic congestion, safety issues and bottlenecks at the border.
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Photo: IISD
Sheila Holbrook-White
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It is reasonable to expect that traffic idling at border chokepoints will increase the amount of air pollution at international crossings. At CEC’s recent North American Symposium on Understanding the Linkages between Trade and Environment, Sheila Holbrook-White of the Texas Citizen Fund presented a study of NAFTA-associated trade and traffic shifts along transboundary border regions and their resulting environmental impacts (see her paper, entitled NAFTA Transportation Corridors: Approaches to Assessing Environmental Impacts and Alternatives). Case studies focused on Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (Mexico)–Laredo, Texas (US) and Detroit, Michigan (US)–Windsor, Ontario (Canada). Holbrook-White concluded that the increased use of heavy-duty diesel trucks has led to a substantial increase in the emissions of two chemical precursors to ground-level smog.
Corridor coordination lacking
Major highway connections are not particularly well coordinated at many border locations, and railroad lines laid down in the nineteenth century are not always well suited for new trade flows, particularly along a north-south axis. In the United States, the purpose of the interstate highway system initiated during the 1950s was to link cities and military bases, not to support the intercontinental flow of goods. And Canada’s transportation policy was oriented to building east-west connections, not north-south ones.
Many North American communities have proposed measures to improve corridors to expand trade. In fact, competition for proposed routes is increasingly fierce. In the United States, many local communities compete for limited federal funding to build new highways or widen existing ones, often based on the argument that it will help the local region garner a bigger piece of the NAFTA trade pie. Unfortunately, the institutions needed to coordinate trade flows in an overall transportation system are either rudimentary or, mostly, have yet to be created. Lacking is a trinational vision of the whole. As a result, efforts in one locality to change the transportation infrastructure may not integrate well with the goals of other communities located further away along the same trade corridor. The looming specter of communities working at cross purposes along North American trade routes calls for a continental discussion of how best to plan for potential growth in ways that can accommodate increased trade, improve the quality of life and protect the natural environment.
CEC’s Air Quality Program, headed by Paul Miller, seeks to begin this discussion with two initial efforts related particularly to the impact of trade corridors on air quality. The first task in the project was a study of existing corridors and citizen and civic groups that promote them. One of the conclusions was that there is currently little coordination or communication among the various interests involved in corridor development and planning and others whose lives may be affected by changes in trade routes. CEC has also asked Sheila Holbrook-White of the Texas Citizen Fund to look at existing planning efforts that encompass citizen involvement in trade and transportation corridors of North America. Through this work, the Texas Citizen Fund is developing a network of such people and groups to work with CEC on identifying solutions. It is also looking at examples of ‘best environmental practices’ that are currently being used to overcome potential problems associated with corridors.
For the project’s second task, CEC is sponsoring an initial analysis of trade corridor segments to identify potential environmental impacts (with special emphasis on air quality) that can reasonably be projected to occur as a result of increased trade along major North American transportation routes. The scenarios may show whether roadways are likely to be widened, if rail use will increase, or what developments may occur to industries that traditionally settle in border regions. CEC will present the initial results of this study for open discussion at a public workshop in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on 15 March 2001. CEC will be seeking public responses and recommendations that can guide its future work in this area.
Reflecting the increased interest in trade corridors and their impacts, CEC’s Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) will be holding its March 2001 meeting in conjunction with the trade corridor workshop in Winnipeg. JPAC’s goal is to focus national and trinational attention on the need to include public health and environmental considerations in the earliest corridor planning stages, and highlight the need for coordinated planning all along trade routes. This initiative can help ensure that North American trade and transportation corridors will enhance economic sustainability in our three countries without threatening public health and the environment. These are common goals shared by Canada, Mexico and the United States, as reflected in 1993 when all three countries created CEC and JPAC under the environmental side accord to NAFTA (the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation).
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John D. Wirth 