edenz’s Recent Comments

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  90% Reduction

  Another site to check out is the Riot for Austerity - 90% Reduction Page. This is a group that is commited to reducing their envioronmental impact to 90% of the average American's (Monbiot's estimate for achieving 350 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere).

  It's in seven categories (Transportation, Electricty, Heating, Water, Trash, Food, and Consumer Spending) that attempt to cover the vast majority of your impact. There are goals, guidelines, and a yahoo group.

  http://www.riot4austerity.org/blog/?page_id=2On Umbra on carbon calculators posted 1 year, 5 months ago 11 Responses

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  (Also - re fares)

  Also, one of the major reasons that fares only cover such a small part of the total budget is two reasons:
  

  1. You're looking at capital and opertating expenses. If you compared the cost of the gas tax and tolls to the capital expenses of highways you'd end up with a similar number. In fact, road travel is the most highly subsidized form of travel. Next is air.
     
  2. Fares have to be kept artifically low b/c they aren't competing with the total price of car ownership (price of car, maintenance, insurance, gas, etc.) just the marginal cost (i.e. the cost of one trip).
  On U.S. public transit overwhelmed by increased ridership, higher fuel costs posted 1 year, 5 months ago 13 Responses

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  Let's actually think about that suggestion.

  Large city transit carries millions of riders at a time. There is NO individual transit option that can deal with this capacity.
  Even assuming you're getting 4 people to one of your cabs, that's still over 250,000 more cars on the road - which means increased congestion, usage of more gas, and a much less pleasent ride for the users.
  Private cabs are a great idea for non-rush hour trips or in more lightly populated areas. They can NEVER replace high capacity transit like trains, subways, light rail, and BRT.On U.S. public transit overwhelmed by increased ridership, higher fuel costs posted 1 year, 5 months ago 13 Responses