I commend everyone to this article by Ben Adler on American Prospect, which addresses a perpetually overlooked strategy to reduce oil use and combat global warming:
With all the focus on ... "alternate energy programs," too many [politicians] are ignoring a long-existing technology that, unlike, say, ethanol, already has the power to radically reduce our oil consumption. I'm speaking, of course, of mass transit.
This is a real problem. There are organized national constituencies for most environmental issues, but when it comes to public transit, there's nothing.
For public transportation to survive, we all need to ... drive more?
Ask Umbra on buying carbon offsets
If REDD can’t save this….
Comments
View as Flat
boba12 Posted 10:56 am
15 Feb 2007
Another much overlooked conservation measure is walking to get to places less than 5 miles away from home. Walking also reduces the resources needed for health care and weight reduction programs. Walking also slows the individual down enough to become aware of the earth as a living, breathing organism.
Bob loves you means he is doing all that he can for the less fortunate and the earth.
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 12:14 pm
15 Feb 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 12:17 pm
15 Feb 2007
Victual Reality
Permalink
Jason D Scorse Posted 1:05 pm
15 Feb 2007
J.S.
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
Permalink
sunflower Posted 1:26 pm
15 Feb 2007
Permalink
libertyvini Posted 1:48 pm
15 Feb 2007
Public transit's biggest problem isn't lack of funding, or lack of taxes. Rather, it's that first word, public, not as in the public can use it, but that the public is forced at the point of a gun to fund it. Therefore, it has absolutely no incentive to respond to the demands of its actual or potential customers, and every incentive to respond to the demands of the connected. This builds gigantic inefficiencies in, making subsequent efforts to appeal to a wider ridership doomed from the start. The same is true for public highways, exacerbating the problem.
Public transit's second biggest problem is institutional. Those who run and benefit from the running of it have edifice complexes, they buy and build the biggest, most complicated, and most expensive conveyances possible, without any thought of flexibility, changes in demographics, economic conditions, or any other factor, micro or macro. All of these investments become stranded, sooner or later. The New York City subways are popular and useable due solely to happy accident of the unique location they inhabit, nothing more. The MTA's surface transportation systems are middling to poor in the way customers are served.
But the main problem is the coercive nature of government-run transit. The second problem is a result of the first. Government should get out of transit altogether, including highways. Truly private, competitive systems, free from government interference will serve customers best, because to be successful, or even to survive, they will have to do so.
Vince Daliessio
http://www.libertyguys.org
Permalink
JMG Posted 5:01 pm
15 Feb 2007
lightrailnow.org is a good place to start too ...
Permalink
sensato Posted 9:41 pm
15 Feb 2007
Permalink
spaceshaper Posted 9:51 pm
15 Feb 2007
Oh dear. Not that old canard again. "only private enterprise is efficient, yadda yadda" There are just so many examples to the contrary, especially in the realm of transportation. Here's just one: the UK used to have a great nationwide, government-owned rail network - reliable, safe, fast, efficient. By any standard it's gone to hell in the last ten years or so since it was privatized for political reasons.
Transportation, any kind, is an infrastructure issue that properly belongs in the public realm, either by enactment or regulation or both. Public ownership doesn't need to be exclusive, but it needs to be part of the picture.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
Permalink
bryankwalton Posted 11:16 pm
15 Feb 2007
Permalink
libertyvini Posted 11:18 pm
15 Feb 2007
Speaking of canards, government "privatisation" isn't at all the same thing as the free market, in fact, it's much worse than either fully public or fully private transit. As a rule, "privatisation" isn't privatisation at all, it is simply moving assets off the public books and into the pockets of connected interests, period.
British Rail was not sustainable, so instead of opening its routes up to competition, the Thatcherites simply swept all of the valuable property it owned into the pockets of connected contributors. It isn't hard to see why it is failing.
And the replies to my post vindicate my point about public transit systems being centered around large investments in inflexible systems and expensive technology - problems that are endemic to public systems that cannot be solved.
Completely private, competing, decentralized, free-market systems are THE ONLY way transit will ever work in the modern world. Every centralized, government-run system is either underutilized, deteriorating, or sucking an increasing amount of taxpayer subsidy out of the pockets of millions of people who have no reasonable chance of ever benefitting (e.g., NYC's Second Avenue Subway project, slated to take something like $20 BILLION dollars from American taxpayers, 99.999999% of whom will never benefit, so that a few old Jewish ladies can get their hair done more conveniently).
Show me a self-sustaining public transit system, and I'll point out to you the free-market aspects that make it possible. But so far, I've seen no evidence of one, anywhere, just socialist systems with privatized profits.
Vince Daliessio
http://www.libertyguys.org
Permalink
Liz Borkowski Posted 11:33 pm
15 Feb 2007
Edward Beimborn and Robert Puentes at Brookings have written an excellent paper that details the different processes that highway and transit projects have to go through to get federal money. The federal government automatically allocates highway funding to states, which can then use it as they see fit. Transit projects, on the other hand, have to apply to Congress for a share of the far-too-small funding pool, and go through several steps in the process: a regional review of alternatives, development of preliminary engineering plans, FTA design approval, etc.
If a transit project clears the hurdles and beats out other competing projects, the grants will still only cover 50 - 60 percent of the project costs, whereas federal money will shell out 80 percent for highway projects.
Permalink
willa Posted 12:16 am
16 Feb 2007
Oh, and David, I would like to point out that your title is sexist and heteronormative and reinforcing of cliches that damage the self-esteem of geeky girls. Not that I expect you to care.
And yeah, I think Libertivini's assumption that "old Jewish ladies" are somehow the only ones who will benefit from the NYC project--and that that's an unacceptable thing for taxpayers to subsidize--is also totally out of line.
Permalink
Laurence Aurbach Posted 12:31 am
16 Feb 2007
Using conservative assumptions, the study found that current public transportation usage reduces U.S. gasoline consumption by 1.4 billion gallons each year. In concrete terms, that means:
108 million fewer cars filling up - almost 300,000 every day.
34 fewer supertankers leaving the Middle East - one every 11 days.
Over 140,000 fewer tanker truck deliveries to service stations per year.
A savings of 3.9 million gallons of gasoline per day.
... Households who use public transportation save a significant amount of money. A two adult "public transportation household" saves an average $6,251 every year, compared to an equivalent household with two cars and no access to public transportation service.
Public Transportation: Benefits for the 21st Century
Savings with public transportation are substantial. They add up for everyone: every $10 million invested in public transportation saves more than $15 million, for both highway and transit users. Americans living in areas served by public transportation save $18 billion annually in congestion costs.
... Public transportation produces 95 percent less carbon monoxide (CO), 90 percent less in volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and about half as much carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx), per passenger mile, as private vehicles.
The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is another excellent source of information in support of transit, providing numerous reports, analyses, and basic background information. VTPI's public transit reports go into detailed cost/benefit analyses, and really bring to light the many surprising ways that automobile use is much more costly than is commonly assumed.
Permalink
Laurence Aurbach Posted 12:35 am
16 Feb 2007
Public Transportation and Petroleum Savings in the U.S.: Reducing Dependence on Oil
Permalink
Engineer Posted 1:46 am
16 Feb 2007
Well, according to a NASA study of NYC Transit buses...
The study found that conventional diesel buses are comparatively fuel efficient, but produce nitrogen oxide pollutants that can contribute to photochemical smog as well as large amounts of fine soot and sulfate particles, which are suspected to contribute to heart disease and lung cancer.
buses tested included diesel buses with pollution controls called soot particle oxidation traps and without controls, new compressed natural gas fueled buses...measurements showed that the CRT technology for diesel buses did reduce fine particle emissions as expected, but increased the fraction of nitrous oxides emitted as NO2, rather than the less toxic NO, from 5 to 40%.
The Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) powered buses also emitted much less particulate matter than diesel buses, but emitted troubling quantities of methane and formaldehyde.
And on the Answers.com website about the NYC subway:
Trivia
According to the United States Department of Energy, energy expenditure on the New York City Subway rail service was 3656 BTU/passenger mile. This compares to 3702 BTU/passenger mile for automobile travel.
The Bureau of Transportation shows transit bus energy expenditure between 3576 and 4415 BTU/passenger mile.
With that slight of an overall efficiency increase between cars and transit, the reduction claims appear to be...generous...
Common sense is an oxymoron...
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 2:01 am
16 Feb 2007
We'd have to spend a lot of money building out train infrastructure before we got anywhere near a level playing field.
Victual Reality
Permalink
spaceshaper Posted 2:03 am
16 Feb 2007
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:05 am
16 Feb 2007
Trains would need to have wireless internet and be cell phone friendly. Employers would have to cooperate too.
Oh and trains that you could use exersize machines on would help too. And how about a way to bring your bike with you for the commute from the train to work.
"Government should get out of transit altogether, including highways."
Halliburton own US highways? Naked cheerleader pyramids of pulled over drivers along the freeway? Torture by Halliburton highway contractor patrols? That would cut down on driving for sure! Good plan.
But could taxpayers afford it? And 50 dollar toll booths every three miles? I guess Halliburton execs could still afford to drive, but they all take hellicopters and corporate jets. Except in Iraq, the ride in specially armored vehicles.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
Jason D Scorse Posted 2:20 am
16 Feb 2007
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 2:50 am
16 Feb 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 3:16 am
16 Feb 2007
I haven't seen any quick charge nano tech li-ion bus projects yet. That would seem to be the best though. A 20 minute break for driver and bus every few hours would allow for a quick charge up.
Another charging option would be an inductive strip under the road surface and a pickup coil. Buses could recharge in transit in special lanes.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
CrosbyMacDonald Posted 4:19 am
16 Feb 2007
I agree with earlier comments that transit needs to be affordable, quick, and comfortable for mass-use. Designing communities around transit hubs and incorporating transportation into city planning is essential.
Locating residential areas close to commercial and industrial amenities helps in a huge way to create more sustainable and livable communities.
I live in Vancouver, Canada, in the downtown core, which is one of the densest neighbourhoods in North America. I walk to work, have all the shops I need on the way home, and generally park my car for days at a time because I don't need to drive anywhere.
Cities with suburbs that are purely residential end up having huge commuter traffic - this is still an issue in my city as well.
New Yorkers actually have one of the smallest environmental footprints in the US, because its better for many to walk or take the subway to work than to sit in traffic.
Permalink
mihan Posted 4:31 am
16 Feb 2007
Permalink
birdboy Posted 5:30 am
16 Feb 2007
The biggest problem IMO is the lack of interest in taking public transportation. Anyone seen a survey of the number of people willing to switch? In the South, people commute in huge SUVs and trucks (diesel 6-wheelers are very popular), all alone, because their personal space, convenience, and freedom is far more important than perceived environmental impact.
For example; my city just started a commuter rail, using existing tracks to minimize costs. Funding was so low, a local bank saved the project at the last moment with a big loan. They decided to charge $10/day for the commute (justified by assuming we all get 15 mpg and pay for all day parking); and it only runs during the morning and evening rush hours. There is no transit to the train station, so you must own a car, buy insurance and gas, drive to the station, park, wait for the train, ride, transfer to a bus downtown, and finally, (about 90 minutes total) arrive at work. The commute by car takes about 35 minutes, and uses <1 gallon of gas (at 30 mpg- $2.20 today). Worse, if your work schedule doesn't match the train schedule, you're out of luck. This project was designed to fail- it's expensive, slow, and inconvenient. A huge waste of money that will justify people's resistance to spending any more money on public transport.
a liberal in redsville
Permalink
Sam Wells Posted 5:54 am
16 Feb 2007
There have been some interesting results when this paradigm was changed to include an expanded "commuter" service, such as with trolleys, buses, light rail, and so forth. In my experiencem yes mass transit ridership does increase but not at a level to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution, or fuel consumption because overall, people are driving more.
Highways, thar symbol of sin, was never even intended to move people and we are seeing that problem today even more. That's right, the Interstate Highway System was not designed for us commuters. It was designed (1) for the military and (2) for interstate commerce - mainly the larger trucks.
Which leads to the question, what on Earth are we supposed to do?
I find people who think they know the answer to be rather boring and have some political motive.
Onward through the fog
Permalink
libertyvini Posted 12:57 pm
16 Feb 2007
...which is barely a walking pace. Not much incentive to use it for commuting.
And I'm glad people are aware of the political and financial origins of the interstate system. Prior to its construction, the only intercity expressways were private or quasi-public tollways. The federal creation of the interstate system put an end to self-financed highways, just as they put an end to self-financed railroads 100 years earlier.
But come on - Halliburton? $50 tollbooths every 2 miles? Ridiculous. As bad as they are, the PA and NJTPKs do a decent job with far less federal money than the interstates get, and an end-to-end trip in a car (NJ) is still less than $10, a bargain.
Face facts, people, The cost of mass transit and highways is increasing, not decreasing (the cost of cars is too, but a lot of that due to non-technical costs), but come on, think bigger. Forget "infrastructure" - it's a sink for cash, and enriches construction companies and administrators, and empoorens everyone else. When you have a real-estate jillionaire like Peter Kallikow running a transit system, you know it's his own interests, easy money, and power that are the real motivator. We can't keep this up.
As for political agendas, here's a thought - in whose best interest is it to have subsidized transit within high-density urban areas - giant megalopolies, or small, lean, entrepreneurial businesses? Show your work!
Mass transit has to be completely re-thought, along a decentralized, entirely private model, all costs paid by private owners, who also own 100% responsibility for upkeep, safety, and environmental impacts, and bear the burden of making transit serve the customer, lest they lose business to a competitor.
But what form will this take? Hovercars? Skycars? Pneumatic tubes? Will devolving the true costs of building, operating, and maintaining the "infrastructure" to the owners result in efficiently-running 150-year-old rail technology? Will it result in more rationally-dispersed development, without "planning" and "anti-sprawl" ordinances?
Will most of us work from our homes? (look how the price of telecommuting is decreasing in almost direct proportion to how the cost of actual commuting is increasing). Will the very nature of life and work and the relationship between the two change?
I don't have all the answers, people, I never claimed to. Centralism is a recipie for bigger, crappier, breathtakingly expensive systems that benefit the user least of everybody. Government mass transit, in the long run, cannot and will not work, because it suffers from the same fundamental problem that all socialist systems suffer from - the inability to calculate rationally. Currently it simply doesn't work well, anywhere. Without massive subsidies, and freedom-robbing mandates, it doesn't work at all. But the free market does.
Vince Daliessio
http://www.libertyguys.org
Permalink
libertyvini Posted 1:41 pm
16 Feb 2007
"And yeah, I think Libertivini's assumption that "old Jewish ladies" are somehow the only ones who will benefit from the NYC project--and that that's an unacceptable thing for taxpayers to subsidize--is also totally out of line."
Sorry the comment offended you, but what part of my statement was fundamentally wrong, versus the parts that were exaggerated for contrast?
How is such a massive transfer of wealth (or for that matter even one thin dime) from 292 million people to 8 million people even in the same galaxy as fair?
Conversely, how would simply (actually, competitively) privatizing highways, and shifting all costs onto the owners, to recover at a profit from the users, be anything but the very definition of fair? I guarantee the cost per mile will increase significantly for lots of the miles traveled, lowering them significantly, won't that be good for the environment? Won't that tend, over the long run to encourage more (private) mass transit, higher average development density, and less miles traveled overall?
But funding more of the same old 'Monorails' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTrain%20JFK will not get us there, period. The model has been tried, found wanting, and is slowly closing the door on the opportunity to create real solutions.
Vince Daliessio
http://www.libertyguys.org
Permalink
willa Posted 3:38 am
17 Feb 2007
If you want to be an ignorant bigot, fine, whatever, just don't expect it to be a convincing argument.
Permalink
Nucbuddy Posted 5:30 am
17 Feb 2007
...One that no longer tolerates personal neglect of biological hygiene? Biological aging no longer exists, except in the bodies of the ignorant, the selfish, and the incompetent.
lef.org
What kind of society would choose to cater to the self-neglect-created needs of those people?
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 7:46 am
17 Feb 2007
Anyway, if he is going to wield an offensive stereotype, to no purpose so far as I can see, he should at least go the whole nine yards: "Jewish ladies who want to get their hair done" do NOT take the subway. Either they take a cab, hailed for them by their doorman; or they get the beautician to come to their apartment.
There are many people in NYC of all descriptions who have long wanted a 2nd Avenue line, including many working people traveling between parts of Queens and Brooklyn who would prefer not to have to loop all the way around to Times Square or Grand Central Terminal.
And regarding taxes: NYC pays a huge amount more in federal taxes than it ever receives. And it is generally true that the blue states are the payers-out, and the red states are the receivers. Anyway, it is not by relying on federal funding that this line will be built.
On intracity transit: The problems of the newer, more spacious and sprawling cities are not insuperable. There are engineers who specialize in transportation systems; we should be confident that they can come up with practical solutions.
On intercity transit: Amtrak deserves to be subsidized richly. (So does the train system in general.) Regional inefficiencies should not be allowed to vitiate the excellent principle of the thing. This country should commit itself to restoring its passenger trains. Here along the Northeast corridor, many people rely on Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and a number of regional bus lines. It is a pity that Amtrak has never got an entirely satisfactory high-speed line off the ground, along the lines of the 3-hour train between Toronto and Montreal that the Canadians are building. Metroliner and Acela are OK, but could be better. But that is not entirely Amtrak's fault. Serious funding, and serious government support, would make it work.
I have traveled a number of times on the Western Amtrak trains, originating in Chicago and going to LA, Oakland and Seattle. For a certain kind of traveler, for whom timeliness is not a high priority, they are very satisfactory. I was impressed at the number of passengers getting on and off at the smaller stops, for example along the High Line in Montana. One little but not trivial problem, which could be easily focussed on and fixed, was that the dining cars sometimes ran out of some provisions in the course of the trip.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
Permalink
libertyvini Posted 12:57 pm
17 Feb 2007
Cute, keep beating on my "offensive" remark, I suppose it suits you to argue such trivia, rather than address the substance of my arguments. For the record, two of my heroes are Murray Rothbard and Walter Block, both Brooklyn / East-Side Jews, so please spare me the harrumphing about my cutesy remark.
The facts contradict your assertions. The Second Avenue line and East Side Access are two completely different wasteful, inefficient, largely federally funded projects. The last article I read showed $20 billion and change for the first 3 phases of the 2nd Avenue line, 70% federally funded. I have not found a total estimate for East Side Access, I HAVE seen a figure of $17 Billion ALL FEDERAL for the first phase.
Show me some better figures if you want to argue, that's still $30 BILLION and change stolen from 292 million on behalf of 8 million, more or less, however in reality it is a contribution from all 300 million of us more or less into the pockets of interests like Peter Kallikow and Rudy Giuliani.
But wait, I shouldn't even go there, since, as you point out, "blue" states are net IRS payers, while "red" states are net consumers (I don't buy this politically-motivated dreck for one second, since the version I am familiar with excludes "entitlement" spending, which the last time I checked still comes out of the pockets of taxpayers).
My retort to this - New Yorkers, and everyone else should be paying little to no federal taxes, which obviates the need to even do this little purple calculation.
And if Peter Kallikow wants to increase the value of his buildings with convenient transit, let him spend his OWN money to do it.
Vince Daliessio
http://www.libertyguys.org
Permalink