Becky Steckler, AICP | ECOnorthwest

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Presentation Description

Daily personal travel and residential building operations account for almost half of greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado. The Colorado Energy Office is attempting to influence land use policy to shift both the spatial pattern and the building types of new residential development toward more efficient outcomes. This research forecasts the 2050 residential land use pattern using models of real estate development feasibility and household assignment to residential units. A baseline scenario represents a “business-as-usual” growth trajectory. A range of land use policies are then applied to build two policy scenarios with the goal of shifting growth toward more compact, higher density, and transit accessible locations. For each scenario, residential building operations emissions are predicted using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s End-Use Load Profiles dataset. Daily transportation behavior and the resulting emissions are modeled using the Colorado Department of Transportation’s activity-based travel model and the MOtor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES). The policy scenarios result in consistently lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The stronger policy scenario shifts around 3% of 2050 households to new locations and/or different residential building types. This results in new residential buildings emitting 30.6% less C02e than in the baseline scenario. The stronger scenario also decreases C02e emissions from total regional daily travel by 4.9% when compared to the baseline.

Speaker Biography

Becky Steckler, AICP is a project director at ECOnorthwest and has over 25 years of experience managing land use, transportation, economic development, and strategic planning projects. Becky rejoined ECOnorthwest in 2022 and works on a wide range of projects related to reducing GHG emissions and adaptation and resiliency in the built and natural environments. She is a prolific public speaker and regularly participates in policy work groups and task forces including Oregon’s Legislative Task Force on Autonomous Vehicles (2018-2019) and served on the American Planning Association’s Trend Scouting Foresight Panel (2022-2023) and the NCHRP 20-102(34) AVs and Land Use Advisory Committee (2023-ongoing).

Prior to working at ECOnorthwest, she was the Program Director at the Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon where she conducted technical research on the secondary impacts of emerging technologies – new mobility, e-commerce and goods delivery, and AVs – on land use, urban design, building design, transportation, and real estate and the implications of these changes on equity, health and safety, the economy, and the environment. She also has experience working for the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association, the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, and the California Coastal Commission.

Co-presenters

Ian Carlton
ECOnorthwest

Kelly Blynn
Colorado Energy Office

Erik Sabina
Colorado Department of Transportation

Delia Walker-Jones
ECOnorthwest

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