From Burness Communications via Eurekalert
Urban transportation systems an emerging priority ahead of UN climate and sustainable development meetings
NEW YORK (17 September, 2014)—More than $100 trillion in cumulative public and private spending, and 1,700 megatons of annual carbon dioxide (CO2)—a 40 percent reduction of urban passenger transport emissions—could be eliminated by 2050 if the world expands public transportation, walking and cycling in cities, according to a new report released by the University of California, Davis, and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).
Further, an estimated 1.4 million early deaths could be avoided annually by 2050 if governments require the strongest vehicle pollution controls and ultralow-sulfur fuels, according to a related analysis of these urban vehicle activity pathways by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) included in the report.
“Transportation, driven by rapid growth in car use, has been the fastest growing source of CO2 in the world, said Michael Replogle, ITDP’s managing director for policy and co-author of the report. “An affordable but largely overlooked way to cut that pollution is to give people clean options to use public transportation, walking and cycling, expanding mobility options especially for the poor and curbing air pollution from traffic.”
“The analysis shows that getting away from car-centric development will cut urban CO2 dramatically and also reduce costs, especially in rapidly expanding economies,” said report co-author Lew Fulton, co-director of NextSTEPS Program at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis. “It is also critical to reduce the energy use and carbon emissions of all vehicles.”
The report, A Global High Shift Scenario, is the first study to examine how major changes in transport investments worldwide would affect urban passenger transport emissions as well as the mobility of different income groups. The authors calculated CO2 emissions in 2050 under two scenarios, a business-as-usual scenario and a “High Shift” scenario where governments significantly increased rail and clean bus transport, especially Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), and helped urban areas provide infrastructure to ensure safe walking, bicycling and other active forms of transportation. The projections also include moving investments away from road construction, parking garages and other ways that encourage car ownership.
Under this High Shift, not only would CO2 emissions plummet, but the net financial impact of this shift would be an enormous savings over the next 35 years, covering construction, operating, vehicle and fuel-related costs.
The report was released at the United Nations Habitat III Preparatory Meeting in New York on September 17th, in advance of the September 23rd United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Summit, where many nations and corporations will announce voluntary commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including new efforts focused on sustainable transportation.
“This timely study is a significant contribution to the evidence base showing that public transport should play central role in visions for the city of tomorrow” says Alain Flausch, Secretary General of the International Association of Public Transport, and member of UN Secretary General’s Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport.
Better Mobility Leads to Social Mobility
The new report also describes sustainable transportation as a key factor in economic development. Under the High Shift scenario, mass transit access is projected to more than triple for the lowest income groups and more than double for the second lowest groups. Notably, the overall mobility evens out between income groups, providing those more impoverished with better access to employment and services that can improve their family livelihoods.
“Today and out to 2050, lower income groups will have limited access to cars in most countries under almost any scenario; improving access to modern, clean, high-capacity public transport is crucial,” said Fulton.
“Unmanaged growth in motor vehicle use threatens to exacerbate growing income inequality and environmental ills, while more sustainable transport delivers access for all, reducing these ills. This report’s findings should help support wider agreement on climate policy, where costs and equity of the cleanup burden between rich and poor are key issues,” noted Replogle.
Emission Standards Save Lives
Air pollution is a leading cause of early death, responsible for more than 3.2 million early deaths annually. Exposure to vehicle tailpipe emissions is associated with increased risk of early death from cardiopulmonary disease and lung cancer, as well as respiratory infections in children. Car and diesel exhaust also increases the risk of non-fatal health outcomes, including asthma and cardiovascular disease.
The International Council on Clean Transportation evaluated the impacts of urban travel by cars, motorcycles, trucks and buses on the number of early deaths from exposure to soot emitted directly from vehicle tailpipes. “Future growth in vehicle activity could produce a four-fold increase in associated early deaths by 2050, even with a global shift to mass transit,” said ICCT’s Joshua Miller, a contributor to the study. “We could avoid about 1.4 million early deaths annually if national leaders committed to a global policy roadmap that requires the strongest vehicle pollution controls and ultralow-sulfur fuels.” Cleaner buses alone would account for 20 percent of these benefits.
Fuel Economy Standards Save Fuel and Cut CO2 Emissions
While this study has not focused on further actions to boost motor vehicle fuel economy, it takes into account existing policies that, in the International Energy Agency’s Baseline scenario, improve average new car fuel economy by 32 percent in countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of 34 of the world’s most developed, democratic, market economies, and 23 percent in non-OECD countries.
The High Shift scenario increases this to 36 percent and 27 percent respectively, due to improved in-use driving conditions and a slight shift to smaller vehicles. However, the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) calls for much more: a 50 percent reduction in fuel use per kilometer for light-duty vehicles worldwide by 2030. Achieving the GFEI 2030 goal could reduce 700 megatons of CO2 annually beyond the 1,700 reduction possible from a High Shift scenario. Taken together, achieving this fuel economy goal with better public transport, walking and cycling could cut annual urban passenger transport CO2 emissions in 2050 by 55 percent from what they might otherwise be in 2050 and 10 percent below 2010 levels.
Cutting Emissions with Sustainable Transportation Across the World’s Cities
Transportation in urban areas accounted for about 2,300 megatons of CO2 in 2010, almost one quarter of carbon emissions from all parts of the transportation sector. Rapid urbanization—especially in fast developing countries like China and India—will cause these emissions to double by 2050 in the baseline scenario.
Among the countries examined in the study, three stand out:
- United States: Currently the world leader in urban passenger transportation CO2 emissions, with nearly 670 megatons annually, the US is projected to lower these emissions to 560 megatons by 2050 because of slower population growth, higher fuel efficiencies, and a decline in driving per person that has already started as people move back to cities. But this pace can be sharply accelerated with more sustainable transportation options, dropping to about 280 megatons, under the High Shift scenario.
- China: CO2 emissions from transportation are expected to mushroom from 190 megatons annually to more than 1,100 megatons, due in large part to the explosive growth of China’s urban areas, the growing wealth of Chinese consumers, and their dependence on automobiles. But this increase can be slashed to 650 megatons under the High Shift scenario, in which cities develop extensive BRT and metro systems. The latest data show China is already sharply increasing investments in public transport.
- India: CO2 emissions are projected to leap from about 70 megatons today to 540 megatons by 2050, also because of growing wealth and urban populations. But this increase can be moderated to only 350 megatons, under the High Shift scenario, by addressing crucial deficiencies in India’s public transport.
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) is a global nonprofit that helps cities design and implement high-quality transit systems to make communities more livable, competitive and sustainable. ITDP works with cities worldwide to bring about transport solutions that cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce poverty, and improve the quality of urban life. Please visit http://www.itdp.org for more information.
UC Davis is a global community of individuals united to better humanity and our natural world while seeking solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. Located near the California state capital, UC Davis has more than 34,000 students, and the full-time equivalent of 4,100 faculty and other academics and 17,400 staff. The campus has an annual research budget of over $750 million, a comprehensive health system and about two dozen specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and 99 undergraduate majors in four colleges and six professional schools.
International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) is a non-profit research organization dedicated to improving the environmental performance and efficiency of transportation to protect public health, the environment, and quality of life. ICCT provides national and local policymakers with technical analysis of regulations, fiscal incentives, and other measures for clean vehicles and fuels. For more information, please visit http://www.theicct.org.
This came out of UC Davis? How embarassing!
This is most definitely NOT about “giving people a choice”.
Where I live, Calgary, has always been a boom-bust city. Currently we’re riding an extended boom, with a population surge to 1.2 million. Our roads were designed for a city half that size. Commuting is a disaster, my previous morning commute was a grueling hour of idling 6 minutes away. All of this because our last few mayors are completely on-board with the ridiculous UN mandates to reduce personal transportation.
Insufficient roads, coupled with over 100 clearly identified AND clearly INTENTIONAL choke points to slow traffic down. That’s the future of mandated public transportation.
Oh, and the public transportation? None. Our LRT (train) has no line coming to my 1/3rd of the city. The cost of building it is ridiculous, and only climbing. It’s already 30 years old and in desperate need of major repairs and renovation, and it’s a major focus of crime.
The goal of the push toward public transportation is NOT to make it possible for people to pursue the lifestyle we have now. Not everyone lives the way downtown dwellers live, and most of us don’t want to. But one by one the major cities are closing to vehicle traffic, either by eliminating parking or outright banning. This is not a positive thing. I despise having to go downtown for anything, and everything government is down there, like the courts (I was in court over 20 times the last 3 years, and every trip there is a nightmare of parking, traffic, hassles, and even the times I took the train were just as bad.)
I think one of the problems of recent decades is the centralisation of many previously available local facilities such as bakers, greengrocers, newsagents etc etc into huge shopping malls only accessible by car. it means that walking or cycling to pick up your everyday stuff becomes very difficult for many people and so they need a vehicle.
There are of course many shops that exist better in a mall with easy larking such as those selling carpets and white goods and other heavy objects where you need ready access.
We are fortunate that our village still has all the necessities of everyday life which we can walk to.
tonyb
It depends on the city and where in the city you live. I live within walking distance of 3 malls—4 if I’m in the mood for a 30-minute walk one way. When I shop for groceries, I usually bring a stroller bag, which is handy for dragging home 10+ kg of stuff. That said, however, using a car is quite convenient when transporting bulky/heavy items, traveling long distances, traveling in inclement weather, and transporting elderly people.
Is this why bicycle lanes have become such an urgent matter?
Ian M
Nope, I disagree with all comments so far, I reckon they are onto something here!
Goverment SHOULD invest heavily in long-lasting transportation infrastructure.
Cars, trucks, gigantic freeway structures, massive amounts of real estate devoted to parking… etc, are hugely inefficient and wasteful ways to move people and things.
The future should bring heavy rail, HSR, rapid light rail, automated driverless taxis, and within the cities moving walkways, electric bikes, scooters, (and electric wheelchairs etc for the infirm and old!). And a few more bicycles and space to use them would do a lot of us some good.
It is damn silly us all sitting there alone in our several tonnes of steel and alloy and plastic and rubber, in a traffic jam on a few million tonnes of concrete freeway, listening to the radio and burning petrol and not going anywhere. I am not so worried about CO2, but it is a ridiculous waste of energy and resources, and a lousy economic system to boot.
Those who have not traveled would not believe the speed of growth of car and motorcycle growth in the developing countries …. and the resulting traffic jams on the lagging road system.
Rural areas? Still will need cars and trucks into the foreseeable future. But that can be solved by a certification/licensing entitlement system, and road access charges. If you want to drive into the city, you get to pay for the privilege. No bans needed, just charges and structures.
Don’t worry, under the right system those who like cars will still be able to collect them, but they will have to decide if that is the best way they want to spend their money!
Don’t underestimate the technology. If you could just stand on the footpath, press an Uber type app button on your smartphone, and a self driving taxi swerved over to pick you up and take you to the nearest train stop, owning, fueling and parking a car would start to look a lot less attractive. If the train stations were within walking distance, you’d happily do it if it was cheaper more convenient and quicker than dealing with a car trip. (Experience: Singapore, where car taxes double the price of a car, plus the COE (cert) to own one doubles that again, then automatic road pricing kicks in …. the MRT, Bus and taxi services are great and become much more attractive).
An aside: Note after decades of trying to promote ride sharing with special lanes etc, note how governments respond to Uber? By banning it in support of the taxi owners.
Try Beijing, Shanghai and Bangkok, where you can only use your car on odd or even numbered dates depending on whether the last digit of the number plate is odd or even … it is not quite so convenient any more then.
markx, I will believe the technology future you envision when I get the flying car they promised me when I was a kid.
The attack on Uber shows that this is not about getting people to share rides, but about control.
Speaking of ride-share, I have yet to see any research that HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes cause any significant increase in ride sharing. I have, on the other hand, seen studies that show that HOV lanes make the rest of traffic worse (along with metering and other innovations).
Unless there is a major revolution in physics, flying cars ain’t ever going to happen, and never would. Expending energy to fly in a low density medium such as our atmosphere was never going to out-compete something as simple as a wheel with bearings.
I agree with your opinions on Uber and the failure of ride sharing. (Although they found ride sharing worked marvelously in Jakarta; enterprising young kids would wait on the side off the road and fill up a passenger seat for about 10 cents, so the cars always had sufficient people on board!)
It is very nice of you to decide what is best for the rest of us. Next we can systematize the rest of the economy. For example, once I sat and the crest of Snoqualmie Pass, in WA and watched the interstate traffic. I saw two trucks headed opposite directions carrying what seemed to be essentially the same load of lumber. I’m sure a good Soviet 5 year plan could have eliminated it. Unfortunately liberty and capitalism are the worst possible systems, excepting all the others.
Hi Dire,
No, it is an opinion. I am not deciding anything for you. You can do it however you want.
Interesting that you think (I assume) that the best implementation of liberty and capitalism necessitates elimination of all forms of government, planning and central control.
markx, there is nothing so bad that government planners can’t make it worse. I am a libertarian who sees the value of limited government. Government needs to set boundaries for society so that when I seek my good I do not harm you and vice versa. Government needs to plan in such a way as to allow the greater wisdom and achievement of people voluntarily acting together to create a better world, one not pre-determined by a small group of elite. As Hayek noted, no small group of people can plan as well as the whole mass working independently.
You misspelled your name, there’s a K there that shouldn’t be …
Hi Tom,
I have great faith in capitalism, but none in the manipulators who are making sure every single thing favors big business so some can live like kings. (Yeah, carbon trading and taxes fits that bill too0.
It is (in my humble opinion) one of the great faults of the great US of A that everything is immediately visualized through the simple prism of left/right politics, and that there is a huge indoctrinated underpayed underclass who are, strangely enough, rabidly right wing and actually believe they are getting a great deal because they have read about a guy who actually made it from the bottom and dragged himself up by his bootlaces to be a success. The basic binary belief system now contaminates and muddies most western countries.
I suspect this all stems from the anti-communist movements of the 50s and those feelings linger. But undoubtedly most of the more recent indoctrination comes from our current crop of uber-capitalists and multinationals and the politicians extracting political donations. That lot are very rapidly ending up buying up the world, and after a few more mergers, we will likely all end up working for the one company.
It is NOT a simple left/right divide. The wonderful (and I mean that genuinely) capitalist system we have seen to date depends on a myriad of rules, regulations and government controls. From the basics of private property ownership, legal systems, banking laws, currency regulations, banking systems, financial controls,labor regulations and laws; we can see that everything only operates because of this.
Something as simple as controlling, regulating car usage can easily be controlled from within a nicely capitalist system.
It is a funny and revealing thing that cars are marketed in the booming car market of China, not with advertisements of how convenient owning a car is, or how much efficiency it will add to one’s day.
Nope, all the advertising is about “freedom!” and “success!” and “Now you have made it!”.
All quite a con job, really.
What I really dislike is our ‘rulers’ trying to tell us how we must live and behave, how and where we travel etc.
“Telling us where and how to live…”
Tom, they don’t and won’t need to tell us that. That is already dictated to us by the economics. If my desire was to live in the middle of New York, or Singapore, but also to live in a two story house with a large garden and swimming pool, I’d find I could not, because it was too expensive. So I would choose to live somewhere else, or to live in a smaller apartment in the city site of my choice.
Likewise, I currently may wish to drive a Mercedes, but if I also want a 4 door car with a powerful engine, I’d better buy something cheaper.
And if the system was set up so that driving a car into a densely packed city was expensive, I may happily choose to take the MRT.
markx, interesting how you just assume that the only reason why the world isn’t shaping up the way you believe it should is because powerful interests are conspiring against you.
The tag Marxist fits you just fine, even if you don’t want to admit it yet.
Funny how you see that, I never knew that a belief in small government, private enterprise and free speech is marxist. Isn’t that what conservative Tea Party folk believe in? I prefer CHOICE in spending my hard-earned money, if I prefer to ‘waste resources’, that’s my business.
Mark W
Powerful interests don’t need to conspire agaist me. In fact, they barely need to conspire at all, as the connections and the current system makes itveasy for them.
You don’t see it now, but your libiterian world will lead to fewer larger multinational companies running more, and setting pricing as they wish. More mergers and acquisitions and fewer inordinately rich running everything.
You will be dictated to by a very small elite. But you will have absolutely no electoral say over them, as they will be part of shadowy, self selecting and self sustaining boards.
Exactly!
I’ll have my car, by choice, because I live in the sticks. All the farmers round our way will too. We’ll pay more because we’ll lose economy of scale, but the majority in towns will save because of economies of scale. I’m OK with that.
Notice how that statist declares that the govt should just over ride the wishes of the polloi. Heck with what you want, mass transit is, in his opinion, better for you, so govt should force it on you.
Another constant, the statist feel that personal freedom and having the ability to control your own life has no value.
Those who have not traveled would not believe the speed of growth of car and motorcycle growth in the developing countries …. and the resulting traffic jams on the lagging road system.
Don’t tell me about it…make those developing countries get with the program.
More buses, HSR, LR, subways and lots and lots more bicycles.
These 3rd world people are such a pain.
Says you.
Can you find the hidden message?
Do you know what words are not in the press release? Fitness and Exercise.
You all know what is one of the most pressing challenges, that must be tackled to increase quality of (urban) life and reduce poverty? Too many old people. Social Security and Medicare shall bankrupt the US if they don’t figure out how to get rid of so much non-productive dead weight sucking up tax revenue that needs to be urgently spent on social programs elsewhere. Many other developed countries have the same problem.
Have they mentioned how switching to walking and cycling will provide exercise, leading to higher levels of fitness and increased life expectancy? No, because that is not a desired result. They got to get rid of excess oldies to make things better for the rest.
Will they complain about air pollution that might be making the younger serfs less productive and thus generating less taxable revenues, by the productivity and revenues of their employers or perhaps themselves? Yes, because it is convenient.
They are demanding “ultralow-sulfur fuels” which is almost specifically diesel. Many places already demand low sulfur diesel, dyed green for easy identification. #2 home heating fuel and diesel differ on additives, heating fuel dyed red.
How much longer until they attack that other source of atmospheric sulfur, #2 home heating fuel? Which is wastefully burned with antiquated technology lacking the efficient emissions controls found on vehicles. Think of the many millions of projected lives that will be saved by demanding more-expensive “ultralow-sulfur fuels” with much-more-expensive emissions-controlled furnaces.
You know what other fuel is used for home heating that contains sulfur? Coal. Since that is inherent to the fuel, you’ll either need tested and certified “ultralow-sulfur” coal, and keep the documents proving such from every load, or perhaps they can sell home-sized emissions scrubbers, to be maintained by outside certified technicians.
Old people freezing because they can’t afford fuel, mandated new furnaces, or even the mandated visits from the certified heating systems inspectors who verify the emissions are within compliance? Reduced societal burden, therefore a desirable outcome.
With the moves to reduce power plant emissions thus driving up the cost of electricity for heating and cooling, like with the UK National Health Service where life improving and saving operations are granted based on equations using estimated remaining productive years (coming to Medicare officially soon), and several other nudges like allowing the flooding of the country with illegal immigrants who spread contagious diseases among the poor and elderly, it’s all shaping up to be quite an effective start for their society-improving progressive pogrom.
This is why I agree with the premise of the article: If there is, or is going to be a problem of pollution, of too rapid consumption of resources, of lack of space, then don’t crack down on power stations and home heating and make those basic necessities of life more expensive … crack down on the most inefficient system around: grid locked cars and gigantic concrete freeways.
In a few thousand years they will gaze upon the relics of our work in bafflement and say, “Did they really erect all that concrete to move individual people in large motorized vehicles?”
We do not have a space problem, (the world can well support a few billion more) we do not have a resources problem… http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/ we do not have an energy problem. CO2 is not a pollution problem. Indeed, it is an immense water resource and land saver.
If you, and other people like you wish to invest in a transportation system that is better in some areas, please do so. If highways are regularly grid locked, you may be a success as customer come in droves.
“In a few thousand years they will gaze upon the relics of our work in bafflement and say, “Did they really erect all that concrete to move individual people in large motorized vehicles?”
I doubt it.
They’ll say, “Damn, those guys were lucky. I wish I had my own car, my own house, my own life.”
You may well be correct about that David, and I truly think the urgency of all those situations is hugely overstated. But cities based around a car centric system are surely horrifically wasteful and often unpleasant structres (especially in relativel unplanned developing nations) .
I believe there has to be a better way.
“In a few thousand years they will gaze upon the relics of our work in bafflement and say, “Did they really erect all that concrete to move individual people in large motorized vehicles?””
Then their central planning manager will beat them for talking and “encourage” them to continue working.
OK, the million-Hyundai theory …
Here in southern Australia, the state of Victoria spends a round billion dollars a year on public transport: Bus, Train, Tram.
With depots, offices and railway right-of-way they sit on literally billions of dollars of real estate (Australian real estate is expensive stuff, not like that cheap state-side stuff).
Less than 10% of commutes are made by public transport. Also, the local real estate values are directly proportional to the level of public transport. Translation: wealthy people in wealthy suburbs get all the public transport. Poor people in poor suburbs get none.
The million-Hyundai theory is:
(a) immediately scrap all public transport. Use that billion dollars a year towards the following.
(b) auction off all the real estate at fire sale prices – except for a couple of railway lines to convert to freeways.
Use four billion of the sale proceeds for the following. Any left over can go towards the new freeways.
(c) Ring Mr. Hyundai and make him an offer: “I will give you 5 billion dollars down payment, and 1 billion a year for ten years. All you have to do is to deliver a million Hyundai’s over the ten years. How you do it is your problem.”
(d) Anyone who wants to go somewhere, take a free Hyundai. Give it back when you’re done.
(e) Granny can’t drive? A new condition of receiving welfare benefits is that you offer to drive 5 grannies a week to do their shopping (or to the male stripper show, whatever).
(f) Traffic will be clogged? Not so much. Remember, less than 10 percent of commuter trips here are via public transport. Besides, we get a couple new freeways out of the railway tracks.
At the end of the day the whole thing is cost neutral. And Mr Hyundai is very happy.
OK, in reality the million-Hyundai theory is silly.
But try a couple of variants:
“The million-Uber-ride theory”
“The million-Google-car theory”.
The bottom line is that we are pissing billions up against the wall on nineteenth century socialist transportation systems, while the 21st century marches on and leaves us all behind.
Heh – one thing about dictators, is they can make the trains run on time. Back in the 30s, that actually had a meaning that was universally understood. Today people just don’t get it.
You’re right – trains and buses ARE 19th century socialist transportation systems. And some of the commentors here don’t understand that I WANT my car, no matter what. I want the choice of make and model. I enjoy having a car that can smoke a set of tires into oblivion at will. I like a car that isn’t just a utilitarian transportation, but is actually fun, loaded with leather, airbags, gadgets, gizmos, GPS, ABS, ESP, etc.
By the way, like many cities we have the Smart cars hanging around all over town that you can just “borrow”, pay a minimal price, and drive yourself. They’re losing money, rapidly. They’re only useful for a small percentage of people, just like ALL transportation systems.
Me too,
But when I visit a city with a subway system and that subway has stops in walking distance of where I want to go, I will park at one of the outlying stations with large parking facilities and use the subway train. It saves me having to park.
In Atlanta, I am usually visiting the downtown area, so I park at the station outside the I-285 ring and ride in to go to the attractions in downtown. If I am going anywhere else in Atlanta though, I have to drive because they don’t have very good coverage of the whole city, and I refuse to use the bus systems.
In DC, when I visit I use the stations on the Metro outside the I-495 ring and do my business in the city. I even try to get hotels that are near enough to those stations to make an easy drive (but far enough out to avoid some of the crime problems – there’s that downside of density)
So I am not against rail systems where they make sense, but I want my car for those areas where it doesn’t make economic sense to invest trillions of dollars in lightly used infrastructure.
Now there’s a socialist’s dream.
Forget freedom…make ’em do what you say.
Slaves may need occasional whipping, though.
Nothing could go wrong relying on a stranger to drive Granny to the bank or your 12 year old daughter to soccer practice.
Which commie should we put in charge of this plan?
Obama will be in charge. Thank you.
Any article that says CO2 is a pollutant is not worth reading.
Public transport – a great concept! Unfortunately, it is controlled by the same numbingly incompetent twits that are trying to tell us that the sun doesn’t make the earth warm.
Somehow I can’t imagine this ever coming to fruition. Plus, it is not like I enjoy my drive to work – I would gladly jump on cheaper, faster, safer, reliable, flexible public transport – could someone point out where this exists? Assuming, of course, that I am allowed to travel to more places than just work, the tax office, and my shoebox appartment?
Public transport is not a great concept. It forces people to waste one of the most important thing of their lives: TIME
You should read the rest of my post.
You have probably never been gridlocked for two hours in central Bangkok. Since the overhead rail system opened, most smart peiple prefer tobuse that to get around in peak hour…. Or many other times of the day.
“…the sun doesn’t make the earth warm.”
Not enough energy to warm the earth but plenty to hook us all up on solar panels.
They confuse me so much.
In other news switching from houses to mud huts will save the U.S. 300 bazillion dollars. Loin cloths are expected to save another gazillion.
Why doesn’t lefty set the example and leave everyone else the hell alone?
well, it seems what cars are left will not be running on alternative fuels!
***amusing quote from a UC-Davis fellow:
17 Sept: Bloomberg: Joe Carroll: Chevron’s Search for Alternative Fuels
Stumps Best Minds
Chevron Corp’s attempts to turn plants into alternative fuels for
profitable, large-scale production have failed.
The second-largest U.S. oil company by market value spent “significant sums”
and assigned some of its best scientists to evaluate more than 100 kinds of
feedstock and 50 techniques for converting them into fuels without success,
Chevron Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Watson said during an
address to the Economic Club of Minnesota in Minneapolis today…
Major crude producers from Chevron to BP Plc have been scaling back
investment in renewables to focus on higher-profit ventures such as
deep-water oil wells.
Chevron’s setbacks echo those of Exxon Mobil Corp., which last year said its
$600 million foray into algae-based fuel may not succeed for another 25
years. BP put $3.1 billion of wind assets for sale last year after
withdrawing from solar in 2011…
***Watson, a University of California at Davis-trained agricultural economist,
also said the U.S. government should reconsider the mandate requiring
domestic refiners to add corn-based ethanol to gasoline.
“Is it really good energy or land-use policy to have 40 percent of our corn
crop effectively mandated for fuel use?” Watson asked …
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-16/chevron-s-search-for-alternative-fuels-stumps-best-minds.html
On February 28, 2001 an earthquake damaged Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct. The planned replacement is a tunnel. Note the word planned. It took until January, 2009 to arrive at the decision. The tunnel boring finally got started in early summer of 2013 and stopped in early December when the cutting blades encountered a steel pipe. It has not restarted. I do not see rapid and radical restructuring of urban areas between now and 2050.
I live 15 miles from the nearest grocery store, gas station, school, and so on. Rural or semi-rural living is common in many places. This is where crops are grown, timber for wood products are obtained, and rock/gravel/sand dug from the ground. Many poor and retired people live in the country because of inexpensive land and housing. Advancing age induces many to move into an urban setting – reluctantly. The house remains to be filled by another family seeking a low cost situation and rural setting. I do not see rapid and radical restructuring of rural areas between now and 2050.
Give me $5 Million of that $100 Trillion and I could find a place in a city and walk to a grocery store. In a few years I’ll need a powered scooter or similar mode of transportation. Make that $ 6 Million.
“The International Council on Clean Transportation evaluated the impacts of urban travel by cars, motorcycles, trucks and buses on the number of early deaths from exposure to soot emitted directly from vehicle tailpipes.”
Soot is unburned carbon. If your car emits more soot, the engine is malfunctioning. Fix your engine. If your house roof is leaking, will you move to a cave? Cycling is a good exercise but it cannot replace cars. Bicycle deaths is 2% of all traffic deaths but only 1% of all trips.
Percent death to percent trip ratio:
Bicycle = 2/1 = 2
All other modes of urban travel = 98/99 < 1
It seems cycling is not very safe mode of transport.
I Can’t disagree with your closing comment. For a bicyclist, danger is everywhere.
A big factor in bicycle safety is choice of route. The savvy (sub)urban rider learns to avoid pinch points, and heavily traveled streets, The danger is not only being run down from behind, but also something/anything impeding progress of the bicycle’s front wheel.
The more congested an area, the more likely something will pull, bolt, open, jump, slide, or run in front of you. Such obstructions as a small dog, a water bottle, a brick, even a rock can block the front wheel, and throw the rider over the handlebars. And some people just don’t know how to get out of the way. They may see you coming, and yet step directly in your path.
I’m not suggesting that the bike can replace the car, or that people should give up their cars. But I am suggesting that some driving is frivolous and unnecessary.
After all, what would all those people on the 210 on Sunday afternoons do if they couldn’t get to wherever it is the 210 takes them on a Sunday afternoon? In California, many people not only have a fairly lengthy commute every day, but they also on weekends hop in their cars and drive to Santa Barbara, Yosemite, Oceano, Venice Beach…lots of things to do and places to go in California, and even if you have no real destination, why, you can just get on the freeway and drive, man, drive.
Driving is like flying. It was only good when not so many people were doing it.
Meanwhile, I do my frivolous traveling on my bicycle.
It’s really amazing how you can decide that any of the people on the 210 are driving “frivolously”. Should we have a “frivolous” commission deciding which trips are really needed? As the song says, “You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”
The rudest, riskiest drivers I have ever seem on the road were people on bicycles. I used to commute in DC. They are absolutely awful, dangerous, rude, etc. I’m not saying *YOU* are any of those things, just based on my personal experience.
I don’t want to live in a city full of stinking, noisy, dangerous cars. I live in the centre of a large densely built European city where cars are effectively kept out (narrow streets, insufficient parking space, high parking rates) and where public transportation is good, and walking and cycling a joy, and relatively safe. It is a great place to live even for the very old and very young, with all the attractions and possibilities that only big cities can offer. Forget about the CO2, this is all about quality of life. I think that making cities attractive for living, rather than just for working, shopping and entertainment, is a great idea. And as an added benefit, it makes them more attractive for visitors as places where you like to BE, even for a couple of hours, rather than as places you have to traverse to get to something you want to need.
[thumbs up!]
Trouble is I hate cities, having been brought up in a northern industrial town and living in London for 15 years moving to a large country village was the best thing I ever did. Its large enough to have essentials like schools, pubs and the village shop but small enough to be civilized. The only down side being the almost complete absence of public transport as the local council while preaching green values slashed the budget for rural public transport, after all none of us vote for those socialist numpties anyway.
Short answer is I am in my 60’s and arthritic, cycling is NOT an option.
People in their seventies and later cycle around here. All the time. They are probably arthritic too. Activity helps.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
I’m old too, also arthritic, and riding a bicycle is easier for me than walking. I can’t run, so riding is the only real cardiovascular exercise I get.
The bicycle provides a very high return of investment in terms of distance traveled and energy expended. On a nice surface, a few rotations of the pedal crank can take me 100 meters, or more, depending on gear, and much of it may be spent just coasting.
The further benefit for those with arthritis is that bicycling is a low-impact activity, and that amounts to very little wear and tear on the joints, especially hips, knees, ankles and feet.
I often ride at not much more than a walking pace. Maintaining balance at slow speeds is a valuable exercise. Climbing hills is good concentrated exercise, but a big enough hill can kick anyone’s fanny.
So you want a city only for yourself. A mostly dead city.
Hating other people freedom.
Cees, cudos to you. I don’t want to live in a city full of stinking, noisy, dangerous cars, either. I want to live in a smaller city where the cars don’t stink, people are more polite/quiet and don’t drive like idiots. Cars are not the problem. Density is. Cars lined up in a traffic jam — bad. Cars flowing smoothly through city streets — good.
What you consider quality of life, I would consider hell on earth.
I don’t want to live in a city full stop. I’ll stick to the suburbs, thank you very much.
If these people think that in 2050 we will still be driving around in gas powered cars, they are nuts.
I will be.
Of course not. They’ll be driven by steam, the boilers automatically fired with pellets made from wood, usually recycled, with added paper and field waste. Just as the Green God wanted. A few electric motors and some electromechanical switches, doesn’t even need solid state electronics, the same pellets and carbon-neutral boiler technology can power your car or heat your house. In fact there’ll be dual-purpose boiler units, the same model could power your car or heat your hovel. You can have a Ford in your driveway and another Ford as “backup” for your thermal solar panels.
even better, they’ll survive an EMP attack! Steam – It’s not just for the 19th Century anymore!
I don’t see any technology that is likely to be taking over from gas anytime in the next hundred years or so.
The reaction to this is really silly. If you look at the death rate from using cars as a means of mass transportation, its really appalling. If someone were to propose it, western society would simply reject it out of hand. Its well over a million a year worldwide killed, and serious injuries must be several times that.
In addition there are the side issues about pollution. In Europe and the UK diesel powered cars are putting out huge amounts of particulates. Oxford Street is a main pedestrian shopping street, and it has huge pollution levels.
It is perfectly rational to want to take social action to limit car use. Not because we should be seeking to reduce CO2 emissions to reduce global warming – that is simply idiotic. But because getting cars out of our cities and away from places people live and walk would improve the quality of life.
If you look at London or Paris, not only has the car damaged the environment and killed people, because its an intrinsically unsafe method of mass transport. It has also made it impossible to cycle safely, so its contributed indirectly to lack of physical activity, which itself is a major health concern.
So yes to restriction of cars, yes to taking back of living and walking outdoor space, yes to more provision for safe cycling in temperate climates. And do it for the right reasons, human welfare, not because of this absurd warming hysteria.
The complete irritation of people wanting to do the right thing, but for the most wrong headed reason you could imagine!
The reaction to this is really silly. If you look at the death rate from eating potato chips as a means of mass-appeal snacking, it‘s really appalling. If someone were to propose it, western society would simply reject it out of hand. It‘s well over a million a year worldwide killed, and serious health complications must be several times that.
Yes, those photos of smashed-up potato-chip gobblers are just too horrifying, especially the posterior views
I love it the way statists are so eager to re-design the world. For your benefit of course.
Of course they also never actually ask you if you want the world to be redesigned.
I’m not eager to redesign the world. Nor am I a statist.
I am simply pointing out the inconvenient truth that we have implemented a system of mass transport that leads to a million or so deaths a year. If we had been asked up front would we allow this, the answer would have been no, there must be a better way. And there is. It is to separate cars and people. To separate high speed traffic from residential and shopping neighborhoods. It can be done, its no great limitation on freedom of movement, any more than other traffic regulations are. What do you think a shopping mall does? Oxford Street in London is one vast shopping mall, with, bizarrely, cars buses trucks and taxis all running through the middle of it at speed emitting clouds of particulates. Why on earth is this right for Oxford St and wrong for the suburban shopping mall? No-one in their right mind would ever design a shopping area in this way.
You can see this also if you just look at Northern Europe, Holland in particular. It works. It does not stop people driving. But it does stop them, as they do so, destroying the environments and yes the property rights of those who live where they drive through. It separates living and the walked environment from high speed traffic.
One of the extraordinary things about car mania is that it is usually expressed as a variety of free market liberalism. But the right being claimed is actually an attack on private property. If you are never secure from your side street with high valued properties and amenities being autocratically transformed into a rat run, you have lost property rights.
Give power to the people whose streets are being driven through and you will soon find that they are very willing to sacrifice their own right to drive at speed through others neighborhoods in order to have their streets safe and pleasant for their children to play in.
But, of course, do not do this in the name of carbon emission reduction. That is simply mad. Do it if anything in the name of stopping people having to breathe in particulate diesel fumes. That makes perfect sense.
If cars are a problem in residential areas there are simple solutions: cul-de-sacs and speed bumps. Take all your residential neighborhoods and cut off streets in the middle of blocks. No more people running helter skelter through your neighborhood. All the high-income neighborhoods in Dallas-Fort Worth use cul-de-sacs and winding (sometimes maze-like) roads to keep the riff-raff out.
Speed bumps effectively discourage through-traffic.
Funny, though, how no one in the neighborhoods you say are suffering damage to their property right clamor for these solutions. Maybe they value access more than the supposed deterioration you claim happens.
Dire Wolf on September 18, 2014 at 7:36 am days: “If cars are a problem in residential areas there are simple solutions: cul-de-sacs and speed bumps.”
Dang! That sounds exactly like central planning and government telling people what to do and how to do it!
You obviously missed my comment that these solutions aren’t used because people don’t clamor for them and actually prefer access over the so-called harm of cars driving through the neighborhood. If people in the community want it, it ain’t planning.
“If someone were to propose it, western society would simply reject it out of hand.” Meanwhile on actual earth, more and more people embrace personal vehicles globally by the day, knowing the dangers. I live in a very rural place, with this central planning mindset growing I have to wonder what the future holds for me. A lack of a vehicle certainly wouldnt improve my families welfare. I would rather be stranded out here in the trees on my mountain then live in even an efficiently run and well planned city let alone the nonsense we see forming thus far from this central plan.
Careful, you’re poking a sacred cow. I grew up hearing Dinah Shore’s golden voice ♪ See the U S A, in your Chev ro let ♪, and now they advertise cars showing them spinning out, racing through Gotham, wheels whirling, smoke swirling, you know you’re a real stud when you get behind the wheel of the latest sleek model from your favorite manufacturer, and with all those visions of Madison Ave. racing in your head, you go racing down the road just like the dude in the ad. Cool, ain’t it, how that works?
So it’s true. It’s deeply ingrained part of American Culture, good ol’ red blooded pedal to the metal, and lead, follow, or get out of the way! You know it’s all good ’cause it’s on the television.
So why fix lunch when I can jump in my ride and cruise on down to junk food junction and pick up a bag of the savory fare, big ol’ sloshing soda, and a cheeseburger in paradise.
The flight to the suburbs was accompanied by the development of bigger and bigger malls, and that accelerated the decline and near-death of core cities. I wonder how many of the big malls were paid off, before they went under? Of course, this is the United States of America, so there was no central planning involved when all the sudden everybody starts building malls. And at the end of the fiasco, the question always arises: who got left holding the bag?
The best plan is to get the cars out of the urban centers. Cities like Denver and Boulder in Colorado that have done this enjoy vibrant pedestrian malls.
Friends:
The issue is practicality and not politics.
Public transport is good and useful: I use my OAP Bus Pass where that is useful. But personal transport such as my car is better: it is more convenient in every way.
My car is available at any time but public transport is intermittent. I prefer to be traveling in comfort in my car instead of waiting in the cold and rain at a bus stop.
Here in tiny Falmouth, Cornwall, we have three railway stations (four if you include Penryn). But the walk down and back up the hill to the nearest station is not possible for the infirm such as me, especially not with luggage. And even a power-assisted bicycle is not an efficient shopping transporter.
Carrying children in a car is safer and easier than on a bicycle especially when loaded with shopping..
If I use my car to the station then I can use it to get were I want to be. And the marginal cost of the car journey is much less than the train fare. It is very much less for a family with children.
The young and fit are always too arrogant to understand that they, too, may get old. Bicycles and public transport may fit their existing needs, but do not meet the needs of many (most?) others. Private transport such as cars does.
Richard
For me it has nothing to do with practicality. I work hard for my salary. Long hours each day and I often put in time on the weekends to continue that work. I will buy a car if I damn well feel like it. Even a gas guzzler. And those nosy nannies who think I should be more concerned about CO2 can butt out of my life.
Yes, Pamela. I is not about whether you can buy a car. It is about where you can drive it and at what speed. And its about what rights those who own the properties you drive by, in the neigborhoods you drive through, what rights they have.
Buy one by all means. Just don’t drive it through our neighborhood.
Sorry Michel but your complaint falls on stout Irish Daughters of the American Revolution ears, The Civil War ears, and the Oregon Trail ears. Independent pioneering folk. So call 1-800 waaaaayyy. Better yet, put on your big boy panties. If the street is public, I helped build the damn thing. I can drive on it if I want to.
Exactly, Richard.
Richard, I may be wrong but I don’t believe anyone in here is advocating that cars simply get taken away, leaving people stranded in their homes. Obviously you cannot use a public transport system where one does not exist.
I think the general concept is that cars are often a pretty poor system of transport, and if they can be replaced by something better, they should be. And there will very likely remain situations where they continue to be needed and used.
I also get the impression that some in here regard the automobile as the ultimate form of transport and as the pinnacle of the expression of freedom, but I could be wrong about that, too.
markx
You begin your post saying to me
Pardon!?
What on Earth makes you think I suggested “cars simply get taken away” or that one “cannot use a public transport system where one does not exist”.
I began my post saying
Public transport will replace the car if the practical reasons I listed for preferring car to public transport are resolved. Until then, it won’t.
This is demonstrated by London. The tax on cars into London is not the major reason people use the tube in favour of cars: commuters drive to the station where they park their cars and take the train for the part of their journey which is fastest and most convenient by train.
Richard
markx, the problem is that public transportation is such a poor transportation system. Just take shopping. Carrying or dragging groceries of any appreciable amount any distance is difficult. I have been in Paris where people shopped every day for food because it was too difficult to carry any quantity home on foot/bike/metro. Think of all the waste of human talent/time when you have to shop daily.
The car delivers the best solution for most people. Last I looked, NYC where transit is best in the US only 17% of all trips are taken on public transit. That ought to tell you exactly what you need to know about the usability of transit for most people.
Hi Richard,
Yes, you are correct and I apologise. I think I over-interpreted your remark somehow.
We seem to be on the same page in that sometimes cars are perfectly appropriate, and sometimes their presence and the structure of their facilities is not.
Regards,
Mark.
These cliamte obsessed tools should see what a low carbon footprint really looks like:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/michaelrusch/view-from-space-at-night-shows-huge-difference-between-north#1m0ykt
Sorry, let’s try that again:
These climate obsessed tools should see what a low carbon footprint really looks like:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/michaelrusch/view-from-space-at-night-shows-huge-difference-between-north#1m0ykt
I want to ask the mayor of my city why all her officials have access to the Council’s fleet of cars. Why can’t they take public transport or ride bicycles ,in the same manner that we will be expected to use?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Jeff giles September 17, 2014 at 9:44 pm
If you say it enough times it makes it true.
———–
Ah, the CAGW mantra!
Wow, everything good happens by getting away from cars! I thought history showed a different story. The US economy was based on rail service and local public transportation like horses, trolleys, and walking. Then along came Ford and the Model T.
But now everything will be solved by going back to the future.
Buses and trains are really going to work well during a natural catastrophe and you need to leave town with your family and belongings fast.
Um, so why would we actually want to reduce our GDP by $100 trillion.
Perhaps these people might take Economics 101 before making these announcements.
Look this polarization becomes silly at a certain point and is missing the point.
Buses are not evil
Cars are not evil
Managing our waste and limiting pollution is not evil
CO2 is not evil
Public Transporation is not evil
Bicycles are not evil
Walking is not evil
The problem is apples, the garden of Eden and all that.
Telling someone else the have to do any of the above is evil.
I couldn’t agree more with this article. America’s highest priority should be increased subsidies for the lawyers and investment bankers who commute on Metro North with me from Connecticut and Westchester into Manhattan.
More unproven models?