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Riders flock to T in record numbers
Keith O’Brien, Boston Globe
In a world of $4-a-gallon gasoline prices, grocery bills that break the family piggy bank, a seemingly endless home foreclosure crisis, and rising anxiety about the unsettled state of the US economy, there is at least one winner: the MBTA.
In fiscal 2008, according to numbers to be released today by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, nearly 375 million people took public transportation, 21 million more riders than the state agency had in fiscal 2007, a 6 percent leap and the highest ridership total in the agency’s 44-year history.
“Many tons of people, in fact,” said Daniel A. Grabauskas, the MBTA’s general manager. “It’s pretty exciting. We were definitely trending toward a good year and it turned out to be a phenomenal year for ridership for the MBTA, a historic all-time high.”
The fiscal 2008 ridership totals smashed the previous record from 2001, when the MBTA recorded more than 354 million riders. The largest increases last year, according to the agency, came from people riding buses and light rail, such as the Green Line. And because gas prices did not hit $4 a gallon until May – near the end of the fiscal year – transporta tion officials and analysts expect interest in public transportation to continue in the months ahead…
(28 July 2008)
Oil shock: China’s cars, accelerating a global demand for fuel
Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post
…Car ownership in China is exploding, and it’s not only cars but also sport-utility vehicles, pickup trucks and other gas-guzzling rides. Elsewhere in the world, the popularity of these vehicles has tumbled as the cost of oil has soared. But in China, the number of SUVs sold rose 43 percent in May compared with the previous year, and full-size sedans were up 15 percent. Indeed, China’s demand for gas is much of the reason for the dramatic run-up in global oil prices.
China alone accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s recent increase in demand for oil, burning through twice as much now as it did a decade ago. Fifteen years ago, there were almost no private cars in the country. By the end of last year, the number had reached 15.2 million…
(29 July 2008)
Pedal power challenges car culture as cyclists seize Los Angeles freeways
Chris Ayres, The Times
Los Angeles, meet the bicycle.
Of all the least-expected consequences of soaring fuel prices, this has to be near the top of the list: swarms of cyclists are taking to the intimidating, multi-lane thoroughfares of Los Angeles, some even defying the law and whizzing between the stationary cars on the gridlocked freeways.
The result is a city of diehard motorists in need of some anger management. Criminal charges have already been filed against one driver accused of deliberately braking in front of two cyclists in the wealthy suburb of Mandeville Canyon — home of the world’s most famous Hummer-driving road hog, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both cyclists ended up in hospital.
Meanwhile, pedestrians are beginning to repeat the constant gripe of the modern Londoner: traffic-dodging cyclists are hogging the “sidewalk” and almost knocking them off their feet…
(28 July 2008)
