This is another diary in the continuing “New Environmentalism” series. In this series, we’re going to be looking at ways to change the way we live and work – sometimes significantly – in order to live in harmony with our environment and deal with the inevitable post-oil period.
Goals of the New Environmentalism: devise a practical, realistic vision for a sustainable future and a plan for moving from our modern society to a sustainable society. In this society, we claim that the proper goal of economic activity is not growth but, rather, human happiness.
Knoxville Progressive and I encourage you to contact either of us by email if you’d like to be a contributor to this series (post a diary / host a discussion).
Two previous diaries in this series have looked at the problems of short-range and long-range transportation. I focused mainly on mass urban and inter-urban transportation. Most of the solutions I examined existed in a vacuum. Any realistic solution to the problem of transportation in a post-oil society is going to require a multiplicity of solutions operating together, unlike our current “one size fits all” model. In this diary, I’m going to re-examine a couple of things I skimmed over before, look at transportation for rural areas, and look at integration issues for transportation systems.
Bicycles and buses
I’m afraid that I kind of skimmed over bicycles and buses in my first two transportation articles, which, after more reading, I realize was a big mistake. Both definitely have their place in a post-oil society, and are worthy of further examination.
Bicycles and buses have two distinct edges over rail-based solutions: they can use existing infrastructure. Trains require the installation of rails and power feeds. They also often require significant urban re-design, as not only do they usually need built-up stations and infrastructure, but they usually cannot corner as tightly as buses, bicycles, or cars can. This makes installing train routes in old cities, like Boston or Halifax, challenging, as long cross-city above-ground routes are difficult or impossible. Gradual urban redesign can address this problem, and buses and bicycles provide an excellent interim solution, and a solution for cities where train-based solutions simply are not feasible.
The advantage of bicycles is obvious. They produce no direct pollution, they have next to no issues with congestion, and they’re very safe. They’re also very, very cheap, and can be used to haul reasonable quantities of goods (groceries, say) without difficulties. I’ve never seen good figures for how much extra food someone who commutes solely by bicycle needs to consume, but I seriously doubt that it’s significantly more than they would otherwise. They are fairly slow, so they’re not suitable for prompt cross-city travel, but they’re faster than walking.
buses are more viable than I initially thought too. Although not as efficient as trains, they’re very efficient, and are considerably safer and lower-volume than cars. The volume may be low enough that a city can afford to run its buses on food waste biodiesel. Halifax runs its entire (admittedly insufficient) bus fleet on biodiesel now, though it’s a blend of 20% fish oil-based biodiesel and 80% regular diesel. The cost increase was next to insignificant. The problem here is picking good bus routes that both make good use of existing roads and provide enough transportation when it’s needed.
Rural Transportation and Emergency Vehicles
For transportation in rural areas, there really isn’t much choice but to use something like cars. The routes are too long and irregular for public transit to really manage. This is less of a problem, fortunately. With inter-city transportation handled by train routes, and branch train routes for rural-city transportation, the volume should be significantly lower. This opens up a lot more options for fuel sources. Good road design and lower traffic volume also seems like it would eliminate a major source of inefficiency for cars operating in a city: frequent stops, starts, and changes of speed.
Biodiesel, again, becomes a good option. Rural communities have more ready access to potentially useful biological waste matter which, combined with the reduced volume, makes this a potentially promising choice. Depending on the distances involved (see the integration discussion for some thoughts about this) batteries might be feasible. While they still need to be charged off the grid, the reduced volume could make this work. Hydrogen fuel cells are another possibility. Both batteries and hydrogen fuel cells have two potential barriers that biodiesel does not: disposal. While they don’t create air pollution, the power storage units do eventually run down and need to be disposed of. Whether this is a serious issue or not remains, as far as I know, unclear.
Emergency vehicles have similar needs, both inside and outside cities. They have to go where they’re needed – which could be practically anywhere – when they’re needed. This means that they practically have to be outside of a normal public transit infrastructure, and that the city has to be constructed to allow them passage. Again, the reduced volume eliminates the problems associated with our current use of cars (congestion, safety, inefficiency), making car-ish vehicles feasible. While we can’t eliminate cars, we can probably reduce the need for car-type vehicles to sustainable levels.
Transportation Integration Issues
One thing should be clear from previous diaries: I don’t believe we’re going to be able to find a single method of transportation that will cover all the roles that cars do now. This means that we’re going to have to move between methods of transportation more often, and design them to accommodate this. So let’s look at a few edge cases, as people seem to have taken an interest in them in previous diaries.
The most obvious edge case is moving between types of public transit at a common stop. We already see this a lot in modern public transit. It’s fairly common, for example, for large metro stations to also have a bunch of bus terminals. Designing such a station well requires some thought to layout. How do people typically move between lines? Can they get from Point X to Point Y before Bus B departs? If they miss their connection, do they have somewhere sheltered to wait for the next vehicle to come along? I honestly don’t know how most modern public transit systems score on these criteria. I know Halifax is around a C. We have a couple of large bus terminals, and while they’re easy to navigate, there’s next to no shelter, you have long waits between buses if you miss a connection, and the schedules are often set up so that people travelling in one direction arrive just as the bus they want to catch leaves.
One interesting case here that I don’t think gets much consideration in modern public transit systems is bicycle to public transit. I think it’s worth thinking about; after all, bikes are wonderful for really short distances, and public transit is nice for longer trips. Taking your bike into the public transit car with you is the most obvious solution, but as more people do this it quickly becomes overcrowded, and potentially dangerous. Another possibility is dedicated bike racks, either inside the vehicle or on the outside, near the doors. External bike racks seem to have serious issues with security (making sure the person taking it off is the one putting it on) and speed. Internal racks have the same space concern as just bringing the bike on the vehicle with you, but eliminate the safety, speed, and security concerns.
This sort of naturally segues into another topic that’s come up in past diaries: disabled people and mass transit. Here in Halifax, we have bus routes designated as wheelchair-friendly. These routes are serviced by “kneeling buses”, which can lower themselves down to afford easier access. They also have ramps that can be extended for wheelchair users, and two three-person seats can fold up to create space for two wheelchairs to be strapped down. This takes a fair bit of time when loading and unloading wheelchair users, and requires the aid of the bus driver, but works fairly well. The same bus design, with most of the bus occupied by rows of seats facing a wide centre aisle, worse very well for young parents with children.
Integration of cars is another potentially interesting field. Modern railways already have dual-use vehicles that have a primary set of road wheels and a secondary set of railway wheels. This may be useful, especially if the car’s railway wheels can draw power from the grid. An alternative approach, proposed in a previous diary on this topic, would be to have an ordinary train that the cars can be docked with. Again, there’s a lot of possible solutions to investigate here.
What Can You Do?
As usual, try and get involved with the planning and implementation of your local public transit system. Try to develop a system that’s friendly to cyclers and the disabled. Push your public transit authority towards sustainable fuels. Even if the cost is a little higher, they’ll save in the long run. Take public transit, and encourage others to do the same. If people don’t use the public transit network, it won’t get expanded. And spread awareness of the issues!
This is probably going to be the last diary on transportation issues, unless something big shows up in the discussion.
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because it has no public transportation system. I used to ride my bike for everything that was less than 20 miles including grocery shopping. I never like to shop more than three days out for fresh stuff anyhow. There are no bike paths here though……if I even attempted it I would be splattered on the road someplace here in Alabama. All these freewheeling crazy drivers are really dangerous for walkers and bicylces.
It’s not impossible to make even a “red” place bike-friendly, but it takes time, and coalition building between groups that might not ordinarily have common cause.
Here in Knoxville we’ve slowly put together a pretty decent bike trail system, mostly running along creeks where the land can’t be developed economically anyway because it’s in a flood plain. Encourage your parks board to put in parks along streams, with bikeways. You now have (at least) two constituencies rooting for approval – bikers and nature lovers.
Once the bikeways along the creeks are in place, you can lobby for bike paths along streets that cross the creeks, as “feeders” and “connectors.” It may only means marking some areas on the shoulder, but you could ask for the road to be widened two feet next time it’s repaved (if it’s in an open area, not downtown) to allow a full bike lane to be marked off.
It takes time to do it piecemeal, but it’s more likely that way to fit into existing city or county budgets without the need for new revenue (taxes), and so get politician buy-in. Politicians like nothing better than ribbon-cuttings before elections!
Another thing to look for is old three- or four-lane city streets with parking along the side. If your city’s anything like Halifax, you’ve got several dozen of these. They’re the ones where both sides of the street are almost constantly lined with cars, rendering one or two of the lanes useless for motor vehicle traffic. Pushing to get these lanes reclassified as combined parking space and bicycle lanes might be productive. Not only does it provide cyclists with a reasonably safe place to cycle, it makes driver’s lives easier, as the redesign will probably eliminate a number of potentially dangerous lane changes in heavy traffic necessitated by parked cars and poor lane design. (And a lot of associated looking-ahead.)
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Central Station - AmsterdamPS Each year 20% of bicycles stolen in Amsterdam
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
In BC Canada, we are not allowed to ride bikes two abreast, only single file. (Not that everyone obeys that law.)
There’s an organization ‘Critical Mass’ who stage large bike rallies to take over bridges and downtown streets. I think those rallies just make car drivers hate cyclists even more than usual.
It is astonishing that America lacks a good mass transit system. This was not always true. America’s system of light rail for mass transit was large. In the SF bay area, one could ride interurban rail from Chico to Gilroy with stops just about everywhere in between. The Red Line down in LA was just as large. Similar systems existed throughout America. However, light rail system (electric interurban railways or trolleys) were not viewed as the future of transportation at that time, and ridership was decreasing. GM (and a couple of other large companies) viewed mass transit as a system best destroyed since it was a direct competitor, so they bought over 45 of these systems in the 30s and 40s and ripped out the tracks, replacing the systems with buses. This sold lots of cars and buses at the time, but completely removed the most difficult to replace component of light rail – the right of way and tracks.
Here’s some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
http://moderntransit.org/ctc/ctc06.html
Since then, the US has designed and built it’s urban areas and transit based on cars making it difficult, if not almost impossible for many to use mass transit.
Amtrak is once again under threat of losing it’s $17B Federal subsidy and being shut down. We’ve all heard the meme – it doesn’t make money, shut it down. This strikes me as both a bit of a lie, and a short term view.
The Federal government funds freeways and air travel at much higher levels each year than Amtrak yet no one in the Federal government is talking about stopping funding the Highway Trust Fund or the FAA. It’s not as if America is somehow messing up rail travel either since no national railway anywhere in the world is making money. Here’s some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak
http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_amtrak-001.htm
Rail travel will obviously play an even bigger role in the future. Rail is much more economic and environmental friendly compared to air or vehicle travel, and this advantage will continue to increase as we consider the rising cost of fuel and pollution (greenhouse gases) cleanup. It’s rue that from a purely practical point of view, passenger rail cannot provide the same short travel times for coast to coast travel, but already there is a sweet spot range where rail travel is as quick as air (after factoring in airport wait times) and cheaper.
Defunding Amtrak right now is as short sighted as busting up the trolleys was fifty years ago.
Ah, excellent! That one’s definitely getting bookmarked; point #2 should be vital when I cross-post this on ET. (There were a couple of car fans there last time going on about how highways make a profit. I didn’t have the numbers handy to contradict them.)
But rail has a bunch of important advantages for coast-to-coast travel, even though it’s slower:
A bit off topic, but on German TV the other night there was a documentary using colour movies shot during WW2 by the US government.
Leaving aside the scenes of combat, the most interesting shots were those from the US itself.
The streets of New York City and Chicago, with only buses, cabs and the occassional delivery truck on the streets. Everybody was walking, using the subway and trains.
These contrasted somewhat with a bit from San Francisco, although this may have been during the last months of the Pacific War in 45, with more private vehicles on the streets.
There was, however, a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge with virtually no traffic on it.
I have also seen films made in London during WW2, the scenes were similar, virtually no private traffic.
Our nations did function once without masses of private cars, we will have to again.
Perfectly on-topic. I sort of covered that in previous diaries, but it’s good to bring it up again. As Knoxville and I keep realizing, a lot of the really bad stuff is recent developments – like, last 30-40 years. Apply modern technology to the methods used before that, and you’re a long way towards sustainability already.
Part of this was due to gasoline rationing during WWII, but the point is well taken in showing that it can be done if it has to be. How well people will tolerate it after having been spoiled the last several decades is another matter. But once the oil is gone (for economic purposes, anyway), how happy they are about it will be a secondary question; there will be more immediate issues to address, like how they’re going to get to work from far suburbia…
You are correct about gasoline rationing, but there were
four things (in order of effect)
There are stories, some maybe to be taken with a pinch of salt, that people who had a high gasoline ration used to take their windshield wipers, batteries and even tyres off their car at night.
In a rural environment, many people would still be able to get to work — and the goods they produce would be available via trains.
In our current rural location, the rail line is only a mile away and it goes directly — and I do mean directly — to Hubby’s place of employment. And goes on from there to many other local places of employment that also deal in bulk quantities of goods.
Freight trains could add on passenger cars for workers quite easily, one would think.
The problem comes when we think about how these trains will be powered. If very few people are running exhaust-producing gas-powered vehicles would it be so bad if America used its coal resources to power trains? In rural environs it would be better perhaps.
But, where the trains all come together in an urban distribution center it would make the cities as uninhabitable as they were in the early 20th century, all sooty and choked with fumes.
Hubby tells me that electric-powered trains are not a solution for bulk freight because they are not powerful enough. He imagines that hydrogen or nuclear-powered trains would be needed and that’s a scary thought — a train derailment could mean a radioactive no-go zone for miles. Hubby holds faith in technological development while I think we’ll all end up doing without goods that come from a distance…
Hm. I’m not sure. There have been electric bulk freight locomotives, such as the Milwaukee EF-series and the famous Swiss Crocodile. For passenger trains, electric-grid locomotives are perfect. Again, the usual problem with non-electric solutions is volume. Drawing your power from the grid scales much better, produces more even traction, and lets you draw on power generated by sustainable means. Remember too that all modern locomotives are effectively electric, as their drive trains use electric motors. Most here in North America simply have a diesel electric generator in the locomotive to generate their own electricity.
We will definitely have to do without quite as many goods from far away. We’re going to have to get used to not being able to fling things around the globe effectively at will, and we’re going to have to diversify local (state/province-level) production again. It’s going to be a big change, but it’s also probably going to be a good change.
Yes, especially in much of Canada and the American west. I grew up in a rural town, and one thing always stuck in my head: the towns followed the railroad. Admittedly, I grew up on the east coast, but if I remember my history, much of the westward settlement happened along the transcontinental railroad lines. Every major town here in Nova Scotia that I can think of had an (often disused) rail line running through or near it. The problem is really rural locations that were either established pre-railroad (as returning them to their former isolated state would be undesirable) or post-automobile. Simply connecting them to the rail network and using short-range biodiesel or battery-electric cars locally is probably the best bet.
Some progressive developers are building condos in the city with car-shares built into the agreements. This cuts down on the number of parking spaces that the developer might be forced to provide. One car is owned by all the condo dwellers and they work out a sharing agreement. It works since the condos are within walking distance to working places. The car is used for more long distance travel.
That’s a nifty idea. And I imagine the condo dwellers like it, because they each have to deal with a smaller share of the insurance and other costs…
in transportation, with the developers. The wheels of change, they grind slow.
For example, a housing development in the lower mainland of BC built the homes around a small attractive shopping centre that would supply basic needs for most people, post office, drugstore, etc.
It appears that the development pattern is to buy the land, secure the zoning, throw up the houses, sell them. Later, everyone bitches about the lack of schools and the heavy traffic getting to town. The planning is so slap/dash profit oriented.
All modern trains are moved by electric motors. What differs is if the electricity comes from a third rail, or is generated by a diesel powered generator (i.e. what is called a diesel electric locomotive).
I’m sure what concerns your husband is that current battery technology is nowhere near being able to provide the required power, and that is true. All rail mass transit systems use a electric third rail or catenary overhead wire to provide the necessary power to the trains. This is an added cost when building the track, but it allows the use of a centralized power plant which can be more efficient and less polluting than a diesel electric locomotive.
Where I live, buses take bikes on the outside front of the bus so the tired cyclist can get a lift. It takes only seconds to lift the bike and secure it.
As far as the food requirement for biking, oh yes, it’s your fuel. A man in Vancouver Canada who used his bike on the job was successful in having his lunches tax deductable for that reason.
My bike is my vehicle and there are only a few days of wind storms that I am unable to use it.
We have advocacy groups who lobby to get bike lanes and who educate drivers of cars and bikes on road safety. The big issue is not helmets but rather on the cyclist being seen. Now I see cyclists with flashing red lights on their heads, backs and the backs of their bikes.
I just bought myself a neon green jacket.
Right, but is it significantly more than you’d need anyway?
Probably works as good as or better than the more complicated solutions.
Yes, the combination of exertion and fresh air does make one more hungry than sitting in a car for example.
But how much more? I’ve seen a lot of “libertarians” argue that bicycles are less sustainable than cars, but their numbers never seem to take into account the food eaten by the car driver. This means that they’re assuming that the cyclist consumes twice as much food. This seems patently absurd – I’d be amazed if it was more than 5-10% more.
the cycling is long distance, commuter, around town. (We won’t get into mountain biking.)
A short trip to town by car, 5 minutes would not elevate my appetite one bit. A 15 minute bike ride definitely would.
I would guess a 30% increase in food consumption for the regular cyclist who uses his bike as his only transportation. (without any weight gain either).
Right. But since most Americans eat far too much anyway, the actual increase in their eating habits is going to be small.
I rode over two thousand miles last year (mostly commuting) and seriously doubt that there was any significant change in my caloric intake averaged over a year. Quit frankly, what I do notice is that I get in much better shape (i.e. I metabolize my food more efficiently) and loose most of the body fat I’m not supposed to be lugging around anyways. It is true that your body will require lots of calories if you push it. I’d estimate I eat about eight to ten thousand calories in one day when I ride a double century (200 miles), but that’s ten to twelve hours of riding as fast as I can go. Tops for most bike commutes is 30 to 45 minutes on the bike riding at a much less frantic pace. This is about as hard as going out and working in your yard for a hour or so.
Given that over sixty percent of America is now overweight (already eating too much) I seriously doubt that America’s food supply is in danger if too many people begin biking to work, but I strongly suspect that if we can get more people exercising (be it riding, walking, whatever) there is a big chunk of money to be saved in health care costs over the long haul.
I’ve noticed something similar about metabolism. I walk pretty much everywhere (well, when I’m not sitting on my ass plugging away at thesis code. Grr to 802.11) even in the winter. I can eat meals large enough to make my friends who drive everywhere cringe. (Not big meals, just generous portions) I’m a twig.
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for. How does it compare to walking the same distance? (I’ve walked 30-45 minutes before, and the increase in my appetite is tiny.)
There’s quite a few burn rate calculators available on the web. I’m using this one:
http://health.discovery.com/tools/calculators/activity/activity.html
Bicycling, 12 mph (easy pace), 200 lbs (I’m big), 30 minutes = 347 calories
They don’t have a “Yardwork” activity so I substituted “Walking”:
Walking, 3.5 mph, 200 lbs, 60 minutes = 406 calories
Or this one:
Light Work, N/A, 200 lbs, 60 minutes = 326 calories
Interesting. So you burn fewer calories bicycling about 6 miles faster than you do walking it more slowly, and only slightly more than you spend doing an hour of yard work. That doesn’t sound like a massive increase in food intake to me…
Note that it’s thirty minutes of riding and one hour of walking/yardwork.
It was proven in a Vancouver court, that cyclists need to eat more when they use their bikes for work.
Why not try a test, get up early and go for a 10 – 20 kilometer bike ride before breakfast. See how hungry you are afterwards compared with your usual appetite for breakfast.
Yes. The question is how much more. A 30 minute bike ride being equivalent to an hour of yardwork isn’t bad at all.
I see a court case as more about interpreting the law than performing a good rigorous medical study. If his co-workers all used cars to perform the work and were allowed to take a tax write off for the cost of operating the car, then he wanted to get a tax writeoff for the cost of operating his bike. Food is his fuel, no argument there.
Using the same burn rate calculator, here’s the relative calorie burns for a ten mile commute, walking, riding and sitting (I’m assuming sitting is driving):
Walking 1306 (5 mph, 2 hours)
Riding 510 (10 mph, 1 hour)
Sitting 76 (30 minutes)
So the person riding will, in general (I realize these numbers are approximations), use more calories then one driving, but the one walking uses even more.
Should the cyclist be allowed to write off his food if it is a legitimate work expense? I don’t see why not. Where I have a hard time with this is saying that over the course of a year that these three different activities MUST result in different food bills for the year (or the even weirder assumption that if too many people started riding their bicycles to work we would run out of food – if that’s true then everybody better quit walking right now). Human physiology and behavior are not simple. All of us exercise to some degree through normal activities and eat for reasons other than just calorie requirements.
I’m not trying to be a butthead about this sybil. Sorry if it seems that way. I don’t disagree with you that someone who gets around only by bike will eat more than the next guy, but this person is going to eat about the same as someone who gets around only by walking.
I definitely have some biases cooking here. Let me explain:
I’ve commuted on and raced bicycles over twenty years. My detailed observations on diet and training are unfortunately limited to pretty much just me. I tend to eat about the same all the time even if I’m riding a lot or not. If I’m not training, my weight goes up. I’ve always regarded this as more of a character flaw (I cannot control my intake) which has not allowed me to maximize my racing potential. Good male racers can get their body fat measurements down into single digits like seven to nine percent. This has always been exceeding difficult for me to achieve.
Given that I have trained hard for racing in the past – 200 plus miles a week some of it riding very fast (26 MPH or higher), and know many people who ride much harder than I do, I guess I do not regard a 30 minute commute at 15 MPH as any big deal. In fact, the biggest problem I have with my commute is that it is not hard enough or long enough to be a good training ride. A 2000 bike mile year is a low number for me.
Food intake can go way up when one starts really training hard. No doubt about that. But you’ve got to understand that my standards set training hard as a bit higher than most other people. I have trained hard enough in the past that I could not keep my weight up and I was probably eating four to six thousand calories a day. Luckily, food costs are moderated by buying good, cheap calories (back then mostly pasta), and it’s been my observation that food costs are much more effected by decisions such as eating organic, or kosher, or vegetarian, or a lot of meat. or eating in/out rather than by how hard I’m training.
By the way, I do not regard myself as exceptionally fit or anything (and I am not a very good bike racer). I have always liked to ride and done it more than most. I cannot picture myself running a marathon, or doing an ironman – too hard on the body, but I can get on my bike and ride fast for hours. Anybody else could do it too.
I do own a car (a truck actually) and realize most Americans need to own a car. I do not hate cars/drivers since I would not have all these wonderful roads to ride my bike on without cars. (Actually I’m a gearhead mechanical engineer and a bit of a car nut anyways.) I try to stay as far away from cars as practical when I ride – sometimes that is not possible so I “take” the lane (i.e. ride right down the middle of the lane to prevent being side by side with a car since there is not enough room.) A collision with a car which would not even dent the vehicle could kill me. I obey all the traffic laws. I wear funky riding clothes (very bright colors) so that drivers will see me – it’s much better to get laughed at and pointed at then have someone standing over you saying, “I never even saw them.” I do not ride in bad/cold weather and minimize riding in the dark, both of these are dangerous. I have never had a bad car/bike accident in all these years and many, many thousands of miles (knock on wood), but I have fallen on my bike many times (all my fault).
But getting back to commuting by bike –
Biking to work is a big winner for America. Most Americans are alarmingly out of shape. Getting thirty minutes to one hour of exercise wedged into most Americans’ schedules would do them a world of good. Otherwise, we’re looking at a mess of expensive health problems as we age. Also most of America’s oil addiction is due to driving. Biking to work reduces oil use and makes for cleaner air. Biking to work costs very little even including cost of a good bike the additional food expense.
Biking to work is just one alternative. It cannot be done safely in all commutes. It cannot be done year round due to weather in many places. But more public awareness and acceptance of biking as a commuting option by public planners, transit authorities, companies and most people will be good for America.
near and dear to my heart, both as a non-driver and the spouse of a transit operator.
Another advantage that buses have over rail transit, especially in urban environments, is flexibility; as people’s travel patterns change, it’s relatively easy to reassign buses from lesser-traveled routes to areas in more need.
There’s also been a lot of movement towards co-ordination of bus schedules here in the Silly Con Valley; at major transit centers there have been attempts to have “timed transfer” connections, where buses will leave within about 10 minutes of other routes’ arrivals. And in the evenings/late nights, some routes will have “hold notices” for the operator to hold until they see another route arrive/depart, in case there’s someone transferring (this happens a lot in downtown San Jose, with people transferring from light rail to buses or vice versa).
Experimenting has been ongoing with alternate fueled buses, too — there’s a joint project between Santa Clara County and San Mateo County involving hydrogen-fuel celled zero emission buses (ZEBs). If anyone’s interested, I could get the spouse to find out the status of the project; last I heard from the general scuttlebutt was that reliability of the vehicles was spotty at best, but that could just have been typical transit gossip.
Unfortunately, most of Silly Con Valley is built for the automobile commuter; to get from a transit stop to your destination usually involves a lot of walking (which is healthy, but not fun especially in the pouring rain of yesterday). It’s enough to off-put quite a few people when they consider the idea of public transportation — having to cross a giant parking lot to get to the office isn’t most people’s idea of how to start their work day, much less crossing that same parking lot to go home. There are even areas that have NO SIDEWALKS — one has to either walk in the gutter or on the grass (which can be slick/muddy after rains) to get from the nearest transit stop to their destination (I remember traversing some of those areas back in my temp days). So, it’s not just a national crisis; there has to be local action as well.
(Hmmm, there’s a project for the good weather — head out to the research park area around Lockheed and take pictures of all the streets without sidewalks, then make a presentation to the Sunnyvale City Council…)
It’s not bad for rail either theoretically… The problem is when people’s travel patterns change enough that your rail lines need to be moved around. A good light rail/tram system can handle this, but it would take time to refit into existing cities, and still has issues with corners.
Fuel Cells are one of those things I’m wary about. Too often, they get billed as a One True Solution that’ll solve all our problems. That’s far from the case. However, for an application like this, they can make a lot of sense. It’s not as good as drawing straight from the grid, but it’s pretty close. Especially if buses are the only traffic.
Ugh, I hear that. Halifax is the same way. The old parts of the city are wonderful to walk in, though horrible for automobile drivers. Lots of sidewalks and parks, very little parking and lots of one-way streets. The bus stops are also generally well-positioned. The newer parts of the city aren’t quite so nice. The bus stops tend to be less convenient, the parking lots much larger, and the sidewalks more sporadic. The most recent business development – Bayer’s Lake Business Park – is totally unwalkable for the most part.
Though it’s not like there’s much of interest out there. A few big chain restaurants, a big chain movie theatre, and a lot of big chain stores. One big chain bookstore, whose selection has deteriorated in quality steadily since it opened.
One big option is for people to just travel less. There are three reasons for travel: work, shopping, leisure.
Many people no longer work at jobs where their physical location is important. Corporate lawyers, tele-marketers, accountants, programmers, and other information workers could work from home or from generic offices near where they live.
Much shopping can be done online with delivery provided by a shipping service. Better co-ordination of purchases could cut down on the number of delivery trips as well. Mobile peddlers could also cut down on travel. In my youth we had bread/baked goods services as well as the milk man. A mobile vendor of common consumables like dairy, meat, vegetables and bread would allow shoppers to make many fewer trips.
For leisure, the soccer mom tasks could be better planned. Leaving these things to informal car pooling could be replaced with things like on-demand jitney services.
The point I’m trying to make is that we need to examine the reasons for travel as well as the mechanisms of travel itself.
Yup. The main problem there, in my experience, is management. Management doesn’t like it when they can’t see the workers. They’re afraid that the workers will slack off, or engage in Unapproved Activities (like, say, talking to people, taking strolls to think, playing with a pet, cooking food) on Company Time with Management Keeping Vigilant Watch.
Though FWIW, every company I’ve worked for would run significantly more smoothly if you fired a randomly-chosen 75% of the management.
Or even more local stores. Having a smaller grocery store every couple of neighbourhoods would probably be much more sustainable than having a big-box supermarket for a quarter of a city. Especially if you located them near metro or bus lines, so that deliveries could be shipped along the public transit system.
This is a great series, I’ve just stumbled upon it.
I think that for rural transport, the only thing that is going to save energy is high-mileage trucks and SUVs. I grew up in a town of 500 and just got back from visiting there. They will NOT get into public transit – period. They do use things like the Senior Bus to take people to the senior day center.
Raise the CAFE standards by 50% over four years, best option for hte rural voter.
Why won’t they get into public transport, even if it can save them money? Too conservative? Too bound up in the myth of self-sufficiency?
Thanks! I’m glad people are enjoying this series; Knoxville, philinmaine, and I have been working hard on it.
Public transportation is never going to be convenient enough in truly rural areas. Carpooling maybe – my sister carpools actually. There are places you could make inroads, but people in the country are self-sufficient and that includes the ability to move around at will. If the kid gets sick and you life 30 miles from home, you don’t want to wait for the neighbor to finish work before you go pick him/her up at school. If you’re the neighbor, you’re stuck calling around trying to find someone to come get you.
On a local scale, more schools could do buses for sports events – which is a lot of cars driving a long distance two or three times a week.
rambling.
Right. Which is why I think biodiesel or electric cars are probably the only choice there. If we can drastically reduce urban car use, and get rid of the suburbs entirely (preferably by borrowing Fangorn Forest, but I’m open to more humane methods 😉 ), that sounds like it might be sustainable.
You, sir, are dead on the MONEY!
Doesn’t it strike you as odd that America’s average vehicle MPG from twenty years ago was higher than it is today? This is because of the SUV/Light Truck CAFE loophole. This could and should be fixed right now.
I’m not sure if 50% is doable, but smaller gains are. I honestly suspect they could get a couple of percentage points almost overnight by tweaking the horsepower down on the engine controls.
I’m sure the auto companies would complain. It may help to point out to them that if they had made more fuel efficient SUVs and light trucks over the last couple of years, they wouldn’t be bleeding red ink and getting their butt handed to them in a bloody bag by the Japanese auto makers.
By an odd coincidence my wife just handed me a book called “Transportation and Land Use Innovations” that she was reading.
It’s ten years old and based on Orlando Fl data, but the interesting thing is that the focus of the urban planners is on moving people quicker. There is no discussion of land use despite the title, except as to how it is used for roadways or bike paths, etc. Perhaps the thinking has changed since then, but I don’t see it. New sprawl is still emerging in the South West, for example. Even within its constraints the plans were aimed at 10-20% improvements.
I think we need to discuss catastrophic planning. Suppose the oil availability in the US was cut by 50%. Even if everyone wanted to drive half as much in response how would they do it? There aren’t enough trains or buses to meet demand. Coordination for things like ride sharing doesn’t exist. Park and ride lots are too few and too small.
As it now stands efficiencies in gas mileage or travel time will just lead to a rise in demand putting us back where we started in terms of total usage. This has been the pattern of the past decade, for example. Fine tuning is OK as an interim step while longer-range ideas are worked on, but it must be regarded as a stop gap at best.
I think we’d see a sudden surge of interest in public transit alternatives. We’d also probably see an economic recession, as people with no choice but to drive started budgeting more and more of their incomes for fuel. With a sensible government, that would probably mean large public works projects to expand bus networks, install domestic rail, and that kind of thing.
The American economy would crash. The price on gas swings up to $3.00 per gallon on small demand/supply swings. A 50% reduction would cause gas prices to go very high: $10.00 to $20.00 per gallon? I don’t know.
Where’s Jerome a Paris when you need him?