Tri-State Transportation Campaign board chair Rich Kassel, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, joined Port Authority executive director Chris Ward last week to announce a truck replacement plan that will help clear the air around the ports of Newark, Elizabeth, and New York City.  Kassel was instrumental in drafting the plan, described in more detail at NRDC’s Switchboard blog, to require that all trucks doing business at the ports have cleaner 2004-model engines by next year, and 2007-model engines by 2017. Currently, many truckers own vehicles that are almost 30 years old, and switching to a 2004-model-year truck will cut soot by two-thirds and nitrogen oxides by over 50%, according to NRDC. Switching to a 2007-year truck will cut soot by 95% and nitrogen oxides by 75%. Truck drivers will receive grants and low-interest loans to help them make the switch.

Also last week, TSTC board member and environmental economist Charles Komanoff was in Guangzhou, China, to discuss congestion pricing. In a piece on the New York Times‘ Dot Earth blog, Komanoff tells blogger Andy Revkin that major transit investments in Guangzhou have only slowed a rise in traffic congestion as car ownership in the city soars. National officials convened an “International Symposium” on traffic management, hoping to find solutions for the congestion which is clogging urban centers across the country.

Komanoff’s takeaway for Chinese policymakers?  “Congestion pricing [is] a virtually fail-safe tool,” but “politics leaves little room for error in designing the toll, choosing the tolling technology, and marketing the program.”

Image: Courtesy Charles Komanoff via Dot Earth.