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Questioning the direction of transportation policy
Lloyd Lindley, The Oregonian
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., are championing the $500 billion six-year Surface Transportation Act.
This financial commitment to our transportation system pales compared to the $2.2 trillion five-year expenditure necessary to raise the system’s overall “D” rating (according to the American Society of Civil Engineers) to satisfactory levels…
…So why would the United States continue to justify sinking billions of dollars into building cars and roads when we cannot fund the existing system or significantly reduce carbon emissions and lost time? We should be asking: Are we strategically building the right transportation future and are cars, green or not, the right mode of transportation for that future? Or more specifically, should the country more aggressively retool and pursue a national passenger rail system?
We should be questioning the direction of national transportation policy. Significant change is a tough prospect. Washington’s lack of attention to the future of transportation undermines the nation’s ability to competitively move goods and services within national and global markets. Most troubling is that we are headed for an uncontrolled smash-up in which depleted oil resources, astronomic maintenance costs, lack of time and reluctance to change will collide somewhere around 2040…
(17 July 2009)
Recession brings sharp fall in UK road deaths
Steve Bird, The Times
A decline in car use due to the recession has contributed to a sharp fall in road deaths in Britain.
There were 2,645 fatalities in 2008, a drop of 13.5 per cent compared to the previous year when there were 3,059 deaths.
The trend was mirrored throughout Europe and across much of the world. Road deaths fell by 17.5 per cent in Ireland, 13.6 per cent in Belgium, 9.7 per cent in America and 8.5 per cent in Australia.
The Paris-based International Transport Forum (ITF) said that while the reduction in road deaths reflected improved road safety policies and enforcement, it was also linked to fewer vehicles being on the road.
…A spokesman for ITF said that the road death statistics appeared to suggest that countries such as Iceland, Ireland and Spain, that had been some of the worst affected by the recession had the greatest fall in road deaths.
“It is certainly one of the possible explanations. Some countries that have suffered worst in the recession have had a corresponding reduction in road traffic deaths,” he said.
Edmund King, the AA president, said that he believed the reduction in road deaths was also due to motorists cutting their speeds to save at the petrol pumps.
(22 July 2009)
Relocalizing Vermont: We Just Paid $3,500 for Poultney Man’s 18 mpg Truck
Carl Etnier, Vermont Commons blog
A Federal “Cash for Clunkers” program was promoted as something that would help the environment, stimulate the economy, and reduce income equality. According to Gordon Dritschilo in today’s Rutland Herald, apparently the first Vermonter to participate walked away with $3,500 of our tax dollars to subsidize his purchase of an 18 mpg Ford Ranger. Maybe the purchase helped stimulate the economy, but the money probably would have done more for the environment (and energy security) and reducing income inequality if it had been distributed to low-income people to buy scooters.
The article says a Poultney man traded in a 1991 For Ranger for a 2009 model, going from a 16 mpg vehicle to 18 mpg. Big deal! How is this worth $3,500 to us taxpayers?
One of the ideas behind cash for clunkers is that older cars pollute more. Economist Alan Blinder’s article in the New York Times popularized the idea of a Federal Cash for Clunkers program, citing an estimate from Texas that older cars pollute 10-30 times more than newer cars. Clearly they’re not referring to carbon dioxide emissions, but something else in the lethal cocktail that cars and trucks spew out their exhaust pipes.
The CO2 emissions from a new 18 mpg guzzler are marginally smaller than those from a 16 mpg clunker. And in rural Poultney, the health and environmental benefits of reducing emissions other than CO2 are likely small, compared to, say, in a Texan mega-city.
Meanwhile, Tom Whipple argues persuasively that the present fleet of vehicles in the US will outlive the gasoline available to run them all, and the US should stop manufacturing two-axle vehicles that get under 30 mpg.
Instead, we get $3,500 subsidies for trucks and SUVs that get as little as 15 mpg, with $4,500 available if the fuel economy of the new vehicle is 10 mpg or more above that of the trade-in. What’s the benefit even to individuals of taking on loans for new, fuel-guzzling trucks and SUVs that they won’t be able to afford when gas is $5 or $10 a gallon?
If the Feds are going to offer incentives to get old, polluting vehicles off the road, they ought to either require that the new vehicles get at least 30 mpg or follow Blinder’s suggestion that the incentive be in cash. Then people could choose to spend the money on bicycles, quadracycles, scooters, a car-share membership, bus or cab fare, or (like AIG) just pay off their debts.
(25 July 2009)
