Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Netherlands Plans Massive Road-Pricing Scheme
Adam Stein, WorldChanging
How did I miss the fact that the Netherlands is planning to wire up the entire nation for a massive road-pricing scheme, starting in 2011? Sort of the love child of a congestion pricing program and a gasoline tax, the scheme will use satellite technology* to track every vehicle in the country and charge them per-mile-driven according to a flexible rate schedule. Initially the program will cover just commercial trucks, expanding over time to all vehicles by 2018.
According to the (surprisingly lucid) government proposal, the road pricing will be “differentiated by time, place and environmental characteristics while proportionally eliminating fixed charges.” It’s worth unpacking this a bit: …
- The entire program will be revenue neutral. As the program ramps up, the Netherlands will phase out its stiff motor vehicle tax. Such a system is inherently more fair: people who drive infrequently will actually pay less under the new system. Heavy drivers will pay more.
That last point is worth underlining. The knee-jerk reaction to such programs is that they’re regressive intrusions that saddle all drivers, but particularly low-income drivers, with new fees in the pursuit of some lofty environmental goal. This program is revenue-neutral, and will help to make roads more accessible to low-income drivers by charging people for actual road use rather than for car ownership. The system will also benefit drivers by reducing the amount of time stuck in traffic.
… * For those freaked out by the privacy implications of the satellite-tracking system, your concerns may be assuaged by the extensive privacy controls the Dutch government is planning to put in place. Or they may not.
(8 December 2008)
Sounds like using a cannon as a fly-swatter. Is a complex, expensive network really necessary? Especially when car transportation is dependent on a declining resource? The potential for government surveillance is mind-boggling. The present Dutch government is benign, but the temptation for government abuse is inevitable. And governments change. In the mid-20th century, Europe was a laboratory for authoritarian governments. Repressive government could easily happen again, especially in times of economic turmoil. -BA
The transportation story at the heart of a history-making crisis
Ryan Avent, Gristmill
How things changed
There’s a remarkable graph that has starred in blog posts and news stories with some regularity over the past year. It shows vehicle miles traveled in America over the last quarter century or so. For most of the period, the line rockets upward, straight and true, preparing to blast off the page. But then the strangest thing happens. In 2004, it starts to level off. And in 2008, it begins to decline.
The tale behind that line grows in significance by the day. That rocket-ride upward corresponds fairly directly to the economic story that has culminated in the current crisis. Americans moved outward from cities in droves in the 1980s and 1990s, buoyed by cheap oil prices. Commute times soared as metropolitan areas stretched into the distant exurbs, many of which now lay devastated by housing defaults and foreclosures. As demand for oil increased, so too did prices, which led to a stream of money flowing into the Persian Gulf. Gulf nations recycled it back to us by buying American debt, thereby facilitating the massive borrowing that fueled the housing bubble.
In the end, high oil prices also helped to pop that bubble. The squeeze expensive gas placed on household budgets helped push marginal homeowners over the edge, fueling the credit conflagration, before finally exhausting the American consumer and tipping us into recession. And an epic recession it will be — large enough to sink oil prices and the international financial system that sustained American debt-supported consumption.
The line also embodies a significant change in the mindset of the American commuter. As vehicle miles traveled have fallen, transit ridership has exploded.
(11 December 2008)
Links and more at original.
Traffic Accidents Top Cause Of Fatal Child Injuries (text and audio)
Brenda Wilson, Morning Edition, National Public Radio (NPR)
Nearly a million children worldwide die every year as a result of unintentional injuries, and the biggest killer is traffic accidents, according to a report from the World Health Organization.
The report said traffic accidents, followed by drowning, fires and burns, falls, and poisoning, are the five major causes of unintentional injuries. About 830,000 children under 18 die every year, and millions more children suffer disabling injuries that could have been prevented, says Dr. Etienne Krug, the director of the Department of Injuries and Violence Prevention at WHO.
Krug says that when it comes to the health and survival of children around the globe, there has been a preoccupation with infectious diseases and malnutrition. But he notes that a child who survives infancy faces a series of dangers as they get older.
“Once a child reaches age 9, injuries become the leading cause of death,” Krug says. “We have a huge public health problem out there. … It is like wiping out the entire child and adolescent population of Chicago every year.”
The World Health Organization found that being on the road or in a car is dangerous for children anywhere in the world, but especially in developing countries.
The highest rate of fatalities from unintentional injuries was in low- and middle-income countries, especially in Africa, where children haven’t been educated about the dangers of road traffic and aren’t prepared when a new road is built through the village, according to Krug.
In Asia, deaths are most often caused by two-wheeled motorized vehicles. It is not unusual to see entire families on one motorcycle in countries such as Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
(11 December 2008)
