From sujit at vsnl.com Sat Sep 1 16:34:54 2007
From: sujit at vsnl.com (Sujit Patwardhan)
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2007 13:04:54 +0530
Subject: [sustran] Chicago Transit Fare Hike
Message-ID: <4cfd20aa0709010034m53a34692i3c45eddcec0c893d@mail.gmail.com>
1 September 2007
While we feel encouraged by the excellent proposals initiated by the Mayor
of New York, here is what I got from a friend about Chicago. I was under the
impression that Chicago was one of the better cities in the US in providing
transit facilities.
--
Sujit
Here is the news:-
To make up for poor revenues in recent years, the Chicago Transit
Authority's board has approved *fare hikes *and changes to services?to
include the shutting down of 39 bus routes. Bus and off-peak train fares
paid in cash will rise from $2 to $2.50. During peak hours, train fares will
become $3. The price of the one-day travel pass will increase from $5 to $6;
the seven-day pass from $20 to $23; and the 30-day pass from $75 to $84. The
changes go into effect on September 16th.
--
------------------------------------------------------
Sujit Patwardhan
sujit@vsnl.com
sujitjp@gmail.com
"Yamuna",
ICS Colony,
Ganeshkhind Road,
Pune 411 007
India
Tel: 25537955
-----------------------------------------------------
Hon. Secretary:
Parisar
www.parisar.org
------------------------------------------------------
Founder Member:
PTTF
(Pune Traffic & Transportation Forum)
www.pttf.net
------------------------------------------------------
From eric.britton at free.fr Sat Sep 1 18:10:36 2007
From: eric.britton at free.fr (eric.britton at free.fr)
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2007 11:10:36 +0200
Subject: [sustran] Chicago Transit Fare Hike
In-Reply-To: <4cfd20aa0709010034m53a34692i3c45eddcec0c893d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <671479417CDD45A687C1238F3C4B80CA@joey>
Dear Sujit and Sustran friends,
Don't think that our Chicago CTA friends have made these moves with joy in
their hearts. The fact is that they have been trapped by state legislators
(many of whom have their power base in rural and small town areas) who have
decided to, in a phrase, "punish the CTA for their inefficiency and
profligacy". Typically "old mobility" and terribly wrong headed, but if this
were only the only city and agency that this kind of thing were to take
place this would be a happier planet.
In point of fact I have just come back from a lively week on brainstorming
session with a group of more than forty experts and agencies around the
table, where we gave our full attention to the possibility of "Reinventing
Transport in Chicago". You can see more of that if interested in our New
Mobility/Climate Emergency Project at www.climate.newmobility.org
, where I hope shortly to post some
useful information on these sessions.
In the meantime, you may fond some us in the "Workpad" that you will find on
the bottom left menu of this site in process.
Eric Britton
1 September 2007
While we feel encouraged by the excellent proposals initiated by the Mayor
of New York, here is what I got from a friend about Chicago. I was under the
impression that Chicago was one of the better cities in the US in providing
transit facilities.
--
Sujit
Here is the news:-
To make up for poor revenues in recent years, the Chicago Transit
Authority's board has approved *fare hikes *and changes to services-to
include the shutting down of 39 bus routes. Bus and off-peak train fares
paid in cash will rise from $2 to $2.50. During peak hours, train fares will
become $3. The price of the one-day travel pass will increase from $5 to $6;
the seven-day pass from $20 to $23; and the 30-day pass from $75 to $84. The
changes go into effect on September 16th.
From etts at indigo.ie Sat Sep 1 21:41:59 2007
From: etts at indigo.ie (Brendan Finn)
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2007 13:41:59 +0100
Subject: [sustran] Re: Chicago Transit Fare Hike
References: <671479417CDD45A687C1238F3C4B80CA@joey>
Message-ID: <00fb01c7ec95$7d3dc1b0$3201a8c0@finn>
Dear Eric, Sujit,
I have argued many times against cheap fare policies (i.e. deliberate under-pricing) and that transit should be as close to self-financing as it can achieve. I have argued three main points :
1) All choice users and many non-choice users have the affordability to pay more than "cheap", and most would be willing to do so for better quality. Under-priced transit uses up the available funds for wealth-transfer, leaving little for quality improvements or reinvestment. Public funds should be spent on service, quality and infrastructure, not on low fares.
2) The vulnerable within society can be supported by subsidising transit passes for them (rather than for all users) and this should be done through welfare funding channels rather than transit funding channels. This better protects the funding source since politicians and administrators would have to overtly remove welfare from those who need it, at risk of heavy political backlash.
3) Cheap fares require heavy subsidies, and these inevitably tend to keep growing. The transit is then totally at the mercy of the funder. Sooner or later, an administration will come in who decides to cut the subsidy program. They can dress it up in many ways - national austerity measures, correct 'inefficiency and profligacy' (as Eric quotes), moving to a user-pays principle, etc., etc. - we are all familiar with these dreaded sea-changes. Tariffs increase dramatically, services are thinned out and quieter routes closed, customer support programs are slashed, investment is put on hold, quality programs are shelved, important management functions are shut down, and confrontation arises with labour as hard measures are forced through. Patronage is lost, good working relationships are lost, the development effort of a few decades goes down the drain, and the innovators and developers in the management team are pushed aside for the bean-counters. Instability and down-sizing kill user confidence in a way that takes decades to recover.
Chicago seems to be yet another example of the vulnerability of transit once subsidy becomes a significant part of its income stream. I have no moral or economic argument against subsidy for transit - the more public funds the better, if used wisely. However, it is a Faustian Pact, and a day of reckoning eventually comes. Transit planners and managers should think long and hard about the bargains they enter - they owe it to their customers, their city and their workers.
With best wishes,
Brendan.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
>From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd. e-mail : etts@indigo.ie tel : +353.87.2530286
----- Original Message -----
From: eric.britton@free.fr
To: sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 10:10 AM
Subject: [sustran] Chicago Transit Fare Hike
Dear Sujit and Sustran friends,
Don't think that our Chicago CTA friends have made these moves with joy in their hearts. The fact is that they have been trapped by state legislators (many of whom have their power base in rural and small town areas) who have decided to, in a phrase, "punish the CTA for their inefficiency and profligacy". Typically "old mobility" and terribly wrong headed, but if this were only the only city and agency that this kind of thing were to take place this would be a happier planet.
In point of fact I have just come back from a lively week on brainstorming session with a group of more than forty experts and agencies around the table, where we gave our full attention to the possibility of "Reinventing Transport in Chicago". You can see more of that if interested in our New Mobility/Climate Emergency Project at www.climate.newmobility.org , where I hope shortly to post some useful information on these sessions.
In the meantime, you may fond some us in the "Workpad" that you will find on the bottom left menu of this site in process.
Eric Britton
1 September 2007
While we feel encouraged by the excellent proposals initiated by the Mayor of New York, here is what I got from a friend about Chicago. I was under the
impression that Chicago was one of the better cities in the US in providing transit facilities.
--
Sujit
Here is the news:-
To make up for poor revenues in recent years, the Chicago Transit Authority's board has approved *fare hikes *and changes to services-to include the shutting down of 39 bus routes. Bus and off-peak train fares paid in cash will rise from $2 to $2.50. During peak hours, train fares will become $3. The price of the one-day travel pass will increase from $5 to $6; the seven-day pass from $20 to $23; and the 30-day pass from $75 to $84. The changes go into effect on September 16th.
--------------------------------------------------------
From chriskost at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 00:19:59 2007
From: chriskost at gmail.com (Christopher Kost)
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2007 11:19:59 -0400
Subject: [sustran] Re: Chicago Transit Fare Hike
In-Reply-To: <00fb01c7ec95$7d3dc1b0$3201a8c0@finn>
References: <671479417CDD45A687C1238F3C4B80CA@joey>
<00fb01c7ec95$7d3dc1b0$3201a8c0@finn>
Message-ID:
Brendan,
You raise good points, but the assumption that the transit-dependent
can pay more than cheap is problematic.
At least in the U.S., many public transport users are very poor. In
Los Angeles, the median household income for bus riders is $12,000.
(The median household income in the city as a whole is $43,000.) A
family with that income buying, say, two adult monthly passes and two
student passes will end up spending a similar proportion of its
income on transportation to that spent by those who own cars. So even
the current "low" fares aren't giving poor people much of a break.
I agree that the first-best solution would be to use welfare
channels, but that's difficult in the current political climate in
the U.S., so in the meantime I think it makes sense to keep fares low.
Regards,
chris
On Sep 1, 2007, at 8:41 AM, Brendan Finn wrote:
> Dear Eric, Sujit,
>
> I have argued many times against cheap fare policies (i.e.
> deliberate under-pricing) and that transit should be as close to
> self-financing as it can achieve. I have argued three main points :
>
> 1) All choice users and many non-choice users have the
> affordability to pay more than "cheap", and most would be willing
> to do so for better quality. Under-priced transit uses up the
> available funds for wealth-transfer, leaving little for quality
> improvements or reinvestment. Public funds should be spent on
> service, quality and infrastructure, not on low fares.
>
> 2) The vulnerable within society can be supported by subsidising
> transit passes for them (rather than for all users) and this should
> be done through welfare funding channels rather than transit
> funding channels. This better protects the funding source since
> politicians and administrators would have to overtly remove welfare
> from those who need it, at risk of heavy political backlash.
>
> 3) Cheap fares require heavy subsidies, and these inevitably tend
> to keep growing. The transit is then totally at the mercy of the
> funder. Sooner or later, an administration will come in who decides
> to cut the subsidy program. They can dress it up in many ways -
> national austerity measures, correct 'inefficiency and
> profligacy' (as Eric quotes), moving to a user-pays principle,
> etc., etc. - we are all familiar with these dreaded sea-changes.
> Tariffs increase dramatically, services are thinned out and quieter
> routes closed, customer support programs are slashed, investment is
> put on hold, quality programs are shelved, important management
> functions are shut down, and confrontation arises with labour as
> hard measures are forced through. Patronage is lost, good working
> relationships are lost, the development effort of a few decades
> goes down the drain, and the innovators and developers in the
> management team are pushed aside for the bean-counters. Instability
> and down-sizing kil
> l user confidence in a way that takes decades to recover.
>
> Chicago seems to be yet another example of the vulnerability of
> transit once subsidy becomes a significant part of its income
> stream. I have no moral or economic argument against subsidy for
> transit - the more public funds the better, if used wisely.
> However, it is a Faustian Pact, and a day of reckoning eventually
> comes. Transit planners and managers should think long and hard
> about the bargains they enter - they owe it to their customers,
> their city and their workers.
>
> With best wishes,
>
>
> Brendan.
> ______________________________________________________________________
> _______________
>> From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd. e-mail : etts@indigo.ie tel :
>> +353.87.2530286
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: eric.britton@free.fr
> To: sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org
> Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 10:10 AM
> Subject: [sustran] Chicago Transit Fare Hike
>
>
> Dear Sujit and Sustran friends,
>
> Don't think that our Chicago CTA friends have made these moves
> with joy in their hearts. The fact is that they have been trapped
> by state legislators (many of whom have their power base in rural
> and small town areas) who have decided to, in a phrase, "punish the
> CTA for their inefficiency and profligacy". Typically "old
> mobility" and terribly wrong headed, but if this were only the only
> city and agency that this kind of thing were to take place this
> would be a happier planet.
>
> In point of fact I have just come back from a lively week on
> brainstorming session with a group of more than forty experts and
> agencies around the table, where we gave our full attention to the
> possibility of "Reinventing Transport in Chicago". You can see
> more of that if interested in our New Mobility/Climate Emergency
> Project at www.climate.newmobility.org www.climate.newmobility.org/> , where I hope shortly to post some
> useful information on these sessions.
>
> In the meantime, you may fond some us in the "Workpad" that you
> will find on the bottom left menu of this site in process.
>
> Eric Britton
>
> 1 September 2007
>
> While we feel encouraged by the excellent proposals initiated by
> the Mayor of New York, here is what I got from a friend about
> Chicago. I was under the
> impression that Chicago was one of the better cities in the US in
> providing transit facilities.
> --
>
> Sujit
>
> Here is the news:-
>
> To make up for poor revenues in recent years, the Chicago Transit
> Authority's board has approved *fare hikes *and changes to services-
> to include the shutting down of 39 bus routes. Bus and off-peak
> train fares paid in cash will rise from $2 to $2.50. During peak
> hours, train fares will become $3. The price of the one-day travel
> pass will increase from $5 to $6; the seven-day pass from $20 to
> $23; and the 30-day pass from $75 to $84. The changes go into
> effect on September 16th.
> --------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------------------------------------------
> IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via
> YAHOOGROUPS.
>
> Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-
> discuss to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership
> rights. The yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members'
> there cannot post to the real sustran-discuss (even if the
> yahoogroups site makes it seem like you can). Apologies for the
> confusing arrangement.
>
> ================================================================
> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
> equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing
> countries (the 'Global South').
From edelman at greenidea.info Sun Sep 2 22:51:09 2007
From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory)
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:51:09 +0200
Subject: [sustran] Re: Chicago Transit Fare Hike
In-Reply-To:
References: <671479417CDD45A687C1238F3C4B80CA@joey> <00fb01c7ec95$7d3dc1b0$3201a8c0@finn>
Message-ID: <46DABFCD.9010506@greenidea.info>
... and what about private transport being self-financing as a
pre-condition or part of the same plan? Hmmm.... guess it would have to
be part of a package lowering income taxes significantly at the same
time....
- T
Christopher Kost wrote:
> Brendan,
>
> You raise good points, but the assumption that the transit-dependent
> can pay more than cheap is problematic.
>
> At least in the U.S., many public transport users are very poor. In
> Los Angeles, the median household income for bus riders is $12,000.
> (The median household income in the city as a whole is $43,000.) A
> family with that income buying, say, two adult monthly passes and two
> student passes will end up spending a similar proportion of its
> income on transportation to that spent by those who own cars. So even
> the current "low" fares aren't giving poor people much of a break.
>
> I agree that the first-best solution would be to use welfare
> channels, but that's difficult in the current political climate in
> the U.S., so in the meantime I think it makes sense to keep fares low.
>
>
> Regards,
> chris
>
>
>
> On Sep 1, 2007, at 8:41 AM, Brendan Finn wrote:
>
>
>> Dear Eric, Sujit,
>>
>> I have argued many times against cheap fare policies (i.e.
>> deliberate under-pricing) and that transit should be as close to
>> self-financing as it can achieve. I have argued three main points :
>>
>> 1) All choice users and many non-choice users have the
>> affordability to pay more than "cheap", and most would be willing
>> to do so for better quality. Under-priced transit uses up the
>> available funds for wealth-transfer, leaving little for quality
>> improvements or reinvestment. Public funds should be spent on
>> service, quality and infrastructure, not on low fares.
>>
>> 2) The vulnerable within society can be supported by subsidising
>> transit passes for them (rather than for all users) and this should
>> be done through welfare funding channels rather than transit
>> funding channels. This better protects the funding source since
>> politicians and administrators would have to overtly remove welfare
>> from those who need it, at risk of heavy political backlash.
>>
>> 3) Cheap fares require heavy subsidies, and these inevitably tend
>> to keep growing. The transit is then totally at the mercy of the
>> funder. Sooner or later, an administration will come in who decides
>> to cut the subsidy program. They can dress it up in many ways -
>> national austerity measures, correct 'inefficiency and
>> profligacy' (as Eric quotes), moving to a user-pays principle,
>> etc., etc. - we are all familiar with these dreaded sea-changes.
>> Tariffs increase dramatically, services are thinned out and quieter
>> routes closed, customer support programs are slashed, investment is
>> put on hold, quality programs are shelved, important management
>> functions are shut down, and confrontation arises with labour as
>> hard measures are forced through. Patronage is lost, good working
>> relationships are lost, the development effort of a few decades
>> goes down the drain, and the innovators and developers in the
>> management team are pushed aside for the bean-counters. Instability
>> and down-sizing kil
>> l user confidence in a way that takes decades to recover.
>>
>> Chicago seems to be yet another example of the vulnerability of
>> transit once subsidy becomes a significant part of its income
>> stream. I have no moral or economic argument against subsidy for
>> transit - the more public funds the better, if used wisely.
>> However, it is a Faustian Pact, and a day of reckoning eventually
>> comes. Transit planners and managers should think long and hard
>> about the bargains they enter - they owe it to their customers,
>> their city and their workers.
>>
>> With best wishes,
>>
>>
>> Brendan.
>> ______________________________________________________________________
>> _______________
>>
>>> From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd. e-mail : etts@indigo.ie tel :
>>> +353.87.2530286
>>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: eric.britton@free.fr
>> To: sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org
>> Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 10:10 AM
>> Subject: [sustran] Chicago Transit Fare Hike
>>
>>
>> Dear Sujit and Sustran friends,
>>
>> Don't think that our Chicago CTA friends have made these moves
>> with joy in their hearts. The fact is that they have been trapped
>> by state legislators (many of whom have their power base in rural
>> and small town areas) who have decided to, in a phrase, "punish the
>> CTA for their inefficiency and profligacy". Typically "old
>> mobility" and terribly wrong headed, but if this were only the only
>> city and agency that this kind of thing were to take place this
>> would be a happier planet.
>>
>> In point of fact I have just come back from a lively week on
>> brainstorming session with a group of more than forty experts and
>> agencies around the table, where we gave our full attention to the
>> possibility of "Reinventing Transport in Chicago". You can see
>> more of that if interested in our New Mobility/Climate Emergency
>> Project at www.climate.newmobility.org > www.climate.newmobility.org/> , where I hope shortly to post some
>> useful information on these sessions.
>>
>> In the meantime, you may fond some us in the "Workpad" that you
>> will find on the bottom left menu of this site in process.
>>
>> Eric Britton
>>
>> 1 September 2007
>>
>> While we feel encouraged by the excellent proposals initiated by
>> the Mayor of New York, here is what I got from a friend about
>> Chicago. I was under the
>> impression that Chicago was one of the better cities in the US in
>> providing transit facilities.
>> --
>>
>> Sujit
>>
>> Here is the news:-
>>
>> To make up for poor revenues in recent years, the Chicago Transit
>> Authority's board has approved *fare hikes *and changes to services-
>> to include the shutting down of 39 bus routes. Bus and off-peak
>> train fares paid in cash will rise from $2 to $2.50. During peak
>> hours, train fares will become $3. The price of the one-day travel
>> pass will increase from $5 to $6; the seven-day pass from $20 to
>> $23; and the 30-day pass from $75 to $84. The changes go into
>> effect on September 16th.
>> --------------------------------------------------------
>> --------------------------------------------------------
>> IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via
>> YAHOOGROUPS.
>>
>> Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-
>> discuss to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership
>> rights. The yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members'
>> there cannot post to the real sustran-discuss (even if the
>> yahoogroups site makes it seem like you can). Apologies for the
>> confusing arrangement.
>>
>> ================================================================
>> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
>> equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing
>> countries (the 'Global South').
>>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via YAHOOGROUPS.
>
> Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to the real sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem like you can). Apologies for the confusing arrangement.
>
> ================================================================
> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South').
>
>
--
--------------------------------------------
Todd Edelman
Director
Green Idea Factory
Korunn? 72
CZ-10100 Praha 10
Czech Republic
Skype: toddedelman
++420 605 915 970
++420 222 517 832
edelman@greenidea.eu
http://greenideafactory.blogspot.com/
www.flickr.com/photos/edelman
Green Idea Factory is a member of World Carfree Network
www.worldcarfree.net
From eric.britton at free.fr Mon Sep 3 16:35:06 2007
From: eric.britton at free.fr (eric.britton at free.fr)
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 09:35:06 +0200
Subject: [sustran] Reinventing Transport in Cities: Pillar 1- Public transport
should be free
Message-ID: <404D44BB0E904B1D93B876E2EED776B8@joey>
With all due respect Brendan, and I do very much appreciate those three
important points you bring up (see below), I really do believe that the time
has come in which we have to set aside just about all of our traditional
thinking and practices about how we finance and deliver transport in cities
and in the process come up with a whole new game plan. The Chicago
experience, so very typical in many respects, makes it clear above all to me
that we simply cannot afford to tinker any longer with the old models,
which clearly are not working by any of a thousand balanced criteria.
The emerging new model, which many of us here are trying very hard to help
bring out from the woodwork, the so-called New Mobility Agenda, is
predicated on an entirely different set of assumptions, one of them being
that a whole dynamic range of seamless "non-own-car" services are needed,
that these can and will be provided by a much broader spectrum of players
than in the old binary mobility model, and that one of these has to be a
basic underpinning of available-to-all public services which are in effect a
"free" or at the very least a fully seamless public utility.
And yes of course I am well aware of the abuses that such free services can
lead to, and this note will not be the place to elaborate or to defend the
basic concept. I might add however that in my view at least the services
should not be altogether free, since it is important for many reasons to
have full feedback about system use and patronage trends, etc., which means
some kind of smart card, and this it seems to me to be fair and good to ask
people to pay for.
The end goal has to be to get the very great majority of private cars out of
the city, and in order to achieve that we are going to have to provide
"better than car" mobility systems. Hop-on, hop-off transit is part of this
necessary package, an essential foundation stone for the rest.
How to pay for it? How to deliver it? And how do you, how do we assure the
necessary rigors of good management? What other kinds of services are
needed to fill out the mobility spectrum, and what do we need to do to we
get them on board?
These are the kinds of question that we should be asking ourselves. And
finding cities and city leaders who want to get involved in making this new
model of transport and society. This has to be a teamwork undertaking
Eric Britton
PS. Some of you may wish to check out our in-process Reinventing Transport
in Cities site at www.climate.newmobility.org
. In addition to the Workpad examples,
more will appear there shortly on the on-going Chicago rethink.
-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of Brendan Finn
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 2:42 PM
Dear Eric, Sujit,
I have argued many times against cheap fare policies (i.e. deliberate
under-pricing) and that transit should be as close to self-financing as it
can achieve. I have argued three main points:
1) All choice users and many non-choice users have the affordability to pay
more than "cheap", and most would be willing to do so for better quality.
Under-priced transit uses up the available funds for wealth-transfer,
leaving little for quality improvements or reinvestment. Public funds should
be spent on service, quality and infrastructure, not on low fares.
2) The vulnerable within society can be supported by subsidising transit
passes for them (rather than for all users) and this should be done through
welfare funding channels rather than transit funding channels. This better
protects the funding source since politicians and administrators would have
to overtly remove welfare from those who need it, at risk of heavy political
backlash.
3) Cheap fares require heavy subsidies, and these inevitably tend to keep
growing. The transit is then totally at the mercy of the funder. Sooner or
later, an administration will come in who decides to cut the subsidy
program. They can dress it up in many ways - national austerity measures,
correct 'inefficiency and profligacy' (as Eric quotes), moving to a
user-pays principle, etc., etc. - we are all familiar with these dreaded
sea-changes. Tariffs increase dramatically, services are thinned out and
quieter routes closed, customer support programs are slashed, investment is
put on hold, quality programs are shelved, important management functions
are shut down, and confrontation arises with labour as hard measures are
forced through. Patronage is lost, good working relationships are lost, the
development effort of a few decades goes down the drain, and the innovators
and developers in the management team are pushed aside for the
bean-counters. Instability and down-sizing kill user confidence in a way
that takes decades to recover.
Chicago seems to be yet another example of the vulnerability of transit once
subsidy becomes a significant part of its income stream. I have no moral or
economic argument against subsidy for transit - the more public funds the
better, if used wisely. However, it is a Faustian Pact, and a day of
reckoning eventually comes. Transit planners and managers should think long
and hard about the bargains they enter - they owe it to their customers,
their city and their workers.
With best wishes,
Brendan.
_________________________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: eric.britton@free.fr
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 10:10 AM
Dear Sujit and Sustran friends,
Don't think that our Chicago CTA friends have made these moves with joy in
their hearts. The fact is that they have been trapped by state legislators
(many of whom have their power base in rural and small town areas) who have
decided to, in a phrase, "punish the CTA for their inefficiency and
profligacy". Typically "old mobility" and terribly wrong headed, but if this
were only the only city and agency that this kind of thing were to take
place this would be a happier planet.
In point of fact I have just come back from a lively week on brainstorming
session with a group of more than forty experts and agencies around the
table, where we gave our full attention to the possibility of "Reinventing
Transport in Chicago". You can see more of that if interested in our New
Mobility/Climate Emergency Project at www.climate.newmobility.org
, where I hope shortly to post some
useful information on these sessions.
In the meantime, you may fond some us in the "Workpad" that you will find on
the bottom left menu of this site in process.
Eric Britton
----- Original Message -----
From: Sujit Patwardhan
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 10:10 AM
While we feel encouraged by the excellent proposals initiated by the Mayor
of New York, here is what I got from a friend about Chicago. I was under the
impression that Chicago was one of the better cities in the US in providing
transit facilities.
--
Sujit
Here is the news:-
To make up for poor revenues in recent years, the Chicago Transit
Authority's board has approved *fare hikes *and changes to services-to
include the shutting down of 39 bus routes. Bus and off-peak train fares
paid in cash will rise from $2 to $2.50. During peak hours, train fares will
become $3. The price of the one-day travel pass will increase from $5 to $6;
the seven-day pass from $20 to $23; and the 30-day pass from $75 to $84. The
changes go into effect on September 16th.
From chuwasg at yahoo.com Mon Sep 3 17:37:27 2007
From: chuwasg at yahoo.com (chuwa)
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 01:37:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [sustran] Peak oil and sustainable transportation
Message-ID: <472447.21382.qm@web36912.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Sorry if this is off-topic.
I chanced upon into this article "Life After the Oil Crash" http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/, which talks about the inevitable impact of "Peak Oil" effect. It give me a new sense of urgency to switch to (energy) sustainable way of living, including mode of transportation.
The author suggested, big oil companies and automotive related industries are "desperate" to find means to continue their unsustainable business model. Sooner or later, the hard limit (Peak Oil) will hit and there will be no escape. Quick switch over to sustainable transportation should help to soften the negative of "Peak Oil". Ironical but may be true, giving up automotive industry can help to extend the life of oil companies.
From etts at indigo.ie Mon Sep 3 17:47:50 2007
From: etts at indigo.ie (Brendan Finn)
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 09:47:50 +0100
Subject: [sustran] Re: Reinventing Transport in Cities: Pillar 1- Public
transport should be free
References: <404D44BB0E904B1D93B876E2EED776B8@joey>
Message-ID: <015701c7ee07$1c7267f0$3201a8c0@finn>
Dear Eric,
I think we are at cross-purposes here. Let me spell out the two main concerns I have about free or under-priced transit :
1) Sooner or later, an incoming government will change the ground rules and either pull the funding or deregulate the market, with devastating and long-lasting effect. The only question is whether it will be a drastic shock, or death by a thousand cuts. The issue is vulnerability caused by dependency, and the history of urban areas and public transport is littered with such casualties.
2) Funding free public transport is very inefficient, since a huge amount of money is required just to keep basic services going. But most users have the affordability and willingness to pay fares, especially for a good quality product. (Perhaps the USA is an exception, if only the socially marginalised ride the bus). For example, if bus services in Dublin were free, it would require an annual subsidy of over $200 million just to keep the current service working. Nonetheless, the money is gone just to give them what they have already (and grumble about). Consider, by contrast, the dramatic impact of the same $200 million annually spent on a combination of BRT and bus-lanes, short-term subsidy to launch new routes, more buses to guarantee a seat, customer-care programs, subsidy for revenue losses due to fare integration. Spend the money where it has the most impact, both on the quality of service and capturing the public's attention.
Today's public transport already costs money. If you want 'better than car', it's going to cost an awful lot more. People are willing to pay for everything else - bread, shoes, electricity, going to the movies. Finding a balance between what the user pays, and who pays for what (users pay for operations, society invests in infrastructure and improvements) is not 'old-thinking', it's in line with everything else in life.
With best wishes,
Brendan.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
>From Brendan Finn, ETTS Ltd. e-mail : etts@indigo.ie tel : +353.87.2530286
----- Original Message -----
From: eric.britton@free.fr
To: Sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org ; NewMobilityCafe@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Brendan Finn (bfinn@singnet.com.sg) ; Brendan Finn (etts@indigo.ie) ; Peter Ekenger ; Amy Malick ; Karl Peet ; WorldTransport@yahoogroups.com ; sujit@vsnl.com
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 8:35 AM
Subject: Reinventing Transport in Cities: Pillar 1- Public transport should be free
With all due respect Brendan, and I do very much appreciate those three important points you bring up (see below), I really do believe that the time has come in which we have to set aside just about all of our traditional thinking and practices about how we finance and deliver transport in cities and in the process come up with a whole new game plan. The Chicago experience, so very typical in many respects, makes it clear above all to me that we simply cannot afford to tinker any longer with the old models, which clearly are not working by any of a thousand balanced criteria.
The emerging new model, which many of us here are trying very hard to help bring out from the woodwork, the so-called New Mobility Agenda, is predicated on an entirely different set of assumptions, one of them being that a whole dynamic range of seamless "non-own-car" services are needed, that these can and will be provided by a much broader spectrum of players than in the old binary mobility model, and that one of these has to be a basic underpinning of available-to-all public services which are in effect a "free" or at the very least a fully seamless public utility.
And yes of course I am well aware of the abuses that such free services can lead to, and this note will not be the place to elaborate or to defend the basic concept. I might add however that in my view at least the services should not be altogether free, since it is important for many reasons to have full feedback about system use and patronage trends, etc., which means some kind of smart card, and this it seems to me to be fair and good to ask people to pay for.
The end goal has to be to get the very great majority of private cars out of the city, and in order to achieve that we are going to have to provide "better than car" mobility systems. Hop-on, hop-off transit is part of this necessary package, an essential foundation stone for the rest.
How to pay for it? How to deliver it? And how do you, how do we assure the necessary rigors of good management? What other kinds of services are needed to fill out the mobility spectrum, and what do we need to do to we get them on board?
These are the kinds of question that we should be asking ourselves. And finding cities and city leaders who want to get involved in making this new model of transport and society. This has to be a teamwork undertaking
Eric Britton
PS. Some of you may wish to check out our in-process Reinventing Transport in Cities site at www.climate.newmobility.org. In addition to the Workpad examples, more will appear there shortly on the on-going Chicago rethink.
-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of Brendan Finn
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 2:42 PM
Dear Eric, Sujit,
I have argued many times against cheap fare policies (i.e. deliberate under-pricing) and that transit should be as close to self-financing as it can achieve. I have argued three main points:
1) All choice users and many non-choice users have the affordability to pay more than "cheap", and most would be willing to do so for better quality. Under-priced transit uses up the available funds for wealth-transfer, leaving little for quality improvements or reinvestment. Public funds should be spent on service, quality and infrastructure, not on low fares.
2) The vulnerable within society can be supported by subsidising transit passes for them (rather than for all users) and this should be done through welfare funding channels rather than transit funding channels. This better protects the funding source since politicians and administrators would have to overtly remove welfare from those who need it, at risk of heavy political backlash.
3) Cheap fares require heavy subsidies, and these inevitably tend to keep growing. The transit is then totally at the mercy of the funder. Sooner or later, an administration will come in who decides to cut the subsidy program. They can dress it up in many ways - national austerity measures, correct 'inefficiency and profligacy' (as Eric quotes), moving to a user-pays principle, etc., etc. - we are all familiar with these dreaded sea-changes. Tariffs increase dramatically, services are thinned out and quieter routes closed, customer support programs are slashed, investment is put on hold, quality programs are shelved, important management functions are shut down, and confrontation arises with labour as hard measures are forced through. Patronage is lost, good working relationships are lost, the development effort of a few decades goes down the drain, and the innovators and developers in the management team are pushed aside for the bean-counters. Instability and down-sizing kill user confidence in a way that takes decades to recover.
Chicago seems to be yet another example of the vulnerability of transit once subsidy becomes a significant part of its income stream. I have no moral or economic argument against subsidy for transit - the more public funds the better, if used wisely. However, it is a Faustian Pact, and a day of reckoning eventually comes. Transit planners and managers should think long and hard about the bargains they enter - they owe it to their customers, their city and their workers.
With best wishes,
Brendan.
_________________________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: eric.britton@free.fr
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 10:10 AM
Dear Sujit and Sustran friends,
Don't think that our Chicago CTA friends have made these moves with joy in their hearts. The fact is that they have been trapped by state legislators (many of whom have their power base in rural and small town areas) who have decided to, in a phrase, "punish the CTA for their inefficiency and profligacy". Typically "old mobility" and terribly wrong headed, but if this were only the only city and agency that this kind of thing were to take place this would be a happier planet.
In point of fact I have just come back from a lively week on brainstorming session with a group of more than forty experts and agencies around the table, where we gave our full attention to the possibility of "Reinventing Transport in Chicago". You can see more of that if interested in our New Mobility/Climate Emergency Project at www.climate.newmobility.org , where I hope shortly to post some useful information on these sessions.
In the meantime, you may fond some us in the "Workpad" that you will find on the bottom left menu of this site in process.
Eric Britton
----- Original Message -----
From: Sujit Patwardhan
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 10:10 AM
While we feel encouraged by the excellent proposals initiated by the Mayor of New York, here is what I got from a friend about Chicago. I was under the impression that Chicago was one of the better cities in the US in providing transit facilities.
--
Sujit
Here is the news:-
To make up for poor revenues in recent years, the Chicago Transit Authority's board has approved *fare hikes *and changes to services-to include the shutting down of 39 bus routes. Bus and off-peak train fares paid in cash will rise from $2 to $2.50. During peak hours, train fares will become $3. The price of the one-day travel pass will increase from $5 to $6; the seven-day pass from $20 to $23; and the 30-day pass from $75 to $84. The changes go into effect on September 16th.
From eric.britton at free.fr Mon Sep 3 18:38:33 2007
From: eric.britton at free.fr (eric.britton at free.fr)
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 11:38:33 +0200
Subject: [sustran] Reinventing Transport in Cities: Pillar 1- Public transport
should be free
In-Reply-To: <015701c7ee07$1c7267f0$3201a8c0@finn>
Message-ID: <56C90397FCEE421C8AA626BACF26C92D@joey>
Dear Brendan,
I don't want to get overly stuck on the world "free" here, a source probably
of more heat than light,. So let me just pop in a few thinking points on
this in an attempt to explore all this a bit more and perhaps more
creatively;
1. Private cars do not "work" in most of our cities -- so the
alternative mobility model should be based on other kinds of services, and
specifically a rich range of travel options that together can provide
"better than cars" access (and economics) to all concerned.
2. High quality service - which is what we need - is going to cost
money.
3. Cities with mobility systems that work well have healthier local
commerce, higher real estate values and tax bases than those that do not.
4. "Public transport" (more or less fixed route, fixed schedule
services) should be as seamless as we can make it. This means that users
should have easy access and that barriers such as fare boxes need to be
removed.
5. Well working transport services of all kinds require tight
information feedback loops, bringing us straight to smart cards of various
types.
6. There are a growing number of cities around the world that are
actually delivering free transit services today. And I am rather sure that
these are not anomalies nor guilty of soviet-style inefficiencies. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-fare_public_transport for some more on
this.. A bit rough but still a useful first point of reference if needed.))
7. The Paris Carte Orange experience is one interesting experience to
ponder (there are plenty of others but what is particularly interesting
about the Carte is that it has been around for a long time and has in many
ways shown the way). The Carte is financed through a number of revenue
streams, of which the actual traveler contribution is less than half.
8. There are, as you and others point out, lots more poor people
depending on public transit in most places (the usual captive riders) which
certainly suggests that it would be unfair and potentially dangerous to hit
them with the full bill for transit. And they deserve high quality
transportation.
9. All of which suggest to me that we need to put on our thinking hats
and really give attention to new ways of financing and accessing transport.
Fortunately the present systems that we have in most places are so terribly
expensive and so grossly underperforming on just about all bases, that it is
in fact an easy model to improve on.
What I am trying to get at here is that we will do very badly if we fail to
take these points into account as we rethink our transportation arrangements
. Which we very definitely should be doing.
Best/Eric
-----Original Message-----
From: Brendan Finn [mailto:etts@indigo.ie]
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: Reinventing Transport in Cities: Pillar 1- Public transport
should be free
Dear Eric,
I think we are at cross-purposes here. Let me spell out the two main
concerns I have about free or under-priced transit :
1) Sooner or later, an incoming government will change the ground rules and
either pull the funding or deregulate the market, with devastating and
long-lasting effect. The only question is whether it will be a drastic
shock, or death by a thousand cuts. The issue is vulnerability caused by
dependency, and the history of urban areas and public transport is littered
with such casualties.
2) Funding free public transport is very inefficient, since a huge amount of
money is required just to keep basic services going. But most users have the
affordability and willingness to pay fares, especially for a good quality
product. (Perhaps the USA is an exception, if only the socially marginalised
ride the bus). For example, if bus services in Dublin were free, it would
require an annual subsidy of over $200 million just to keep the current
service working. Nonetheless, the money is gone just to give them what they
have already (and grumble about). Consider, by contrast, the dramatic impact
of the same $200 million annually spent on a combination of BRT and
bus-lanes, short-term subsidy to launch new routes, more buses to guarantee
a seat, customer-care programs, subsidy for revenue losses due to fare
integration. Spend the money where it has the most impact, both on the
quality of service and capturing the public's attention.
Today's public transport already costs money. If you want 'better than car',
it's going to cost an awful lot more. People are willing to pay for
everything else - bread, shoes, electricity, going to the movies. Finding a
balance between what the user pays, and who pays for what (users pay for
operations, society invests in infrastructure and improvements) is not
'old-thinking', it's in line with everything else in life.
With best wishes,
Brendan.
From gerd at tokiwa.ac.jp Wed Sep 5 10:15:11 2007
From: gerd at tokiwa.ac.jp (gerd)
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2007 10:15:11 +0900
Subject: [sustran] Passengers' Safety in Public Transport
Message-ID: <46DE031F.5040405@tokiwa.ac.jp>
Dear members,
Please let me know when you are doing research on passengers' safety in
public transport, especially in sexual molestation of commuting passengers.
We are in the process of designing a research project and we would like
to know who is active in the field.
Friendly regards
Gerd Ferdinand Kirchhoff
--
Gerd Ferdinand Kirchhoff, Prof. Dr. jur.
Professor of Victimology (Japan)
Criminal Law - Criminology - Victimology ( em., Germany)
Graduate School of Victimology and
Tokiwa International Victimology Institute
Tokiwa University Mito
1 430 1 Miwa, Mito shi, Ibaraki ken, Japan 3108585
phone +81 29 232 2865 ( or 2796)
fax +81 29 232 2522
email gerd@tokiwa ac.jp
From c_bradshaw at rogers.com Wed Sep 5 22:06:49 2007
From: c_bradshaw at rogers.com (Chris Bradshaw)
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2007 09:06:49 -0400
Subject: [sustran] Re: [NewMobilityCafe] Reinventing Transport in Cities:
Pillar 1- Public transport should be free
References: <404D44BB0E904B1D93B876E2EED776B8@joey>
Message-ID: <077401c7efbd$a1499540$0202a8c0@acer56fb35423d>
If our goal is "new mobility", we cannot give a "pass" to transit, either to defend the status quo or suggest that everything would improved if it were free. We don't want to fall into a kind of thinking I call "transit correctness."
I was a bit surprised to here the terms "transit-captive" and "transit-choice" uncritically mentioned. This, of course means those _without_ a car of their own and those _with_ a car of their own. In reality, it is the car-owner who lacks freedom. To wit:
Yeates:
> ... the car still costs a lot in fixed costs if left in the garage, but that is the result of having cheap petrol and high fixed costs, rather than the other way round.
It is this misbalance between high fixed costs and low variable costs that makes a car-owner work so hard to not leave home without it (and actually fears being further than 50 m from his). And since car-access is a monopoly for private-ownership rather than sharing, people don't have a choice to own just a "little" car. We should be thinking about dividing the poipulation into the the "car-captive" and the "car-choice," or between living car-dependent and living car-lite.
I agree that transit should pay its own way, but only if the car pays its own way as well. The only way the latter will happen is if we move to a shared-car regime, in which, naturally, the costs are almost all variable, so that each use of the car is to be resisted. Further, a shared-car regime provides little need for the car-travel that is stimuated by the need to take a car with you in order to have it available if a need arises, since shared cars are available everywhere.
With the high-tech components carshare organizations naturally add to their cars, it is easy to charge users peak-hour congestion charges, area-congestion charges, and to limit speeding and other congestion-exacerbating behaviour (illegally turning left, blocking drivers behind). And it will allow for one-way uses and spontaneous ride-sharing (as opposed to the stodgy risesharing for regular commutes) that could allow transfers between rideshare vehicles and transit. (And, it would provide on-demand car-access to the people who have arrived at the job without a personal car!)
If that could happen, bus service to the suburbs (residences and business "parks") could be replaced by ridesharing in these types of vehicles. Such a scenario would mean that transit in the city core would, as Jane Jacobs suggested in her last book, Dark Age Ahead, not need subsidy at all, and the other service would be totally privately provided by carshare organizations (CSOs).
I am presenting this vision -- and its contributions to walkability -- to WALK21 in Toronto in early October.
Chris Bradshaw
Ottawa
From litman at vtpi.org Thu Sep 6 22:52:56 2007
From: litman at vtpi.org (Todd Alexander Litman)
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:52:56 -0700
Subject: [sustran] VTPI NEWS - Summer 2007
Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070906065239.0764cb98@mail.islandnet.com>
-----------
VTPI NEWS
-----------
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
-------------------------------------
Summer 2007 Vol. 10, No. 3
-----------------------------------
The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is an
independent research organization dedicated to
developing innovative solutions to transportation
problems. The VTPI website (http://www.vtpi.org )
has many resources addressing a wide range of
transport planning and policy issues. VTPI also provides consulting services.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ONLINE TDM ENCYCLOPEDIA
========================
The VTPI "Online TDM Encyclopedia"
(http://www.vtpi.org/tdm
) is a comprehensive information resource to help
identify and evaluate innovative management
solutions to transport problems, available for
free on our website. Many of the chapters have
recently been updated with new information.
The Encyclopedia has a new feature titled,
"Organizations and Stakeholder Groups"
(http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/index.php#stakeholders
). This section indicates the best mobility
management strategies for various types of
organizations and stakeholder groups, including
businesses, and local, state/provincial and federal government agencies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SMART TRANSPORTATION EMISSION REDUCTIONS
====================================
Many governments and organizations are now
evaluating climate change emission reduction
options. There are many possible ways to reduce
transportation emissions, but some provide far
more total benefits than others. Emission
reduction strategies that reduce vehicle travel
also reduce congestion, roadway and parking costs, accidents and sprawl.
"Win-Win Transportation Solutions" are
cost-effective, technically feasible market
reforms that help solve transportation problems
by improving mobility options and removing market
distortions that stimulate excessive motor
vehicle travel. They provide many economic,
social and environmental benefits. If implemented
to the degree economically justified, our
analysis indicates that Win-Win solutions could
achieve the transport component of Kyoto emission
reduction targets while supporting other economic
and social objectives. Critics are wrong to claim
that meeting emission reduction goals would harm
the economy: by choosing the right strategies we
can achieve both environmental goals and economic development goals.
However, conventional tends to consider a limited
set of impacts and so tends to undervalue Win-Win
strategies. Only by applying more comprehensive
analysis can their full benefits be recognized.
VTPI has updated its reports concerning Win-Win strategies.
For more information:
"Win-Win Emission Reduction Strategies: Smart
Transportation Strategies Can Achieve Emission
Reduction Targets And Provide Other Important
Economic, Social and Environmental Benefits,"
(http://www.vtpi.org/wwclimate.pdf )
"Win-Win Transportation Solutions: Cooperation
for Economic, Social and Environmental Benefits,"
(http://www.vtpi.org/winwin.pdf )
"Efficient Vehicles Versus Efficient
Transportation: Comparing Transportation Energy
Conservation Strategies,"
(http://www.vtpi.org/cafe.pdf ).
NEW DOCUMENTS
==============
"Guide To Calculating Mobility Management
Benefits" (http://www.vtpi.org/tdmben.pdf )
This Guide provides instructions for estimating
the benefits of a specific Mobility Management
(also called Transportation Demand Management or TDM) strategy or program.
"Evaluating Accessibility for Transportation
Planning" (http://www.vtpi.org/access.pdf ).
This paper discusses the concept of
'accessibility' and how it can be incorporated in
transport planning. Many factors affect
accessibility, including mobility (physical
movement), the quality and affordability of
transport options, transport system connectivity,
mobility substitutes, and land use patterns. More
comprehensive analysis of accessibility in
planning expands the scope of potential solutions to transport problems.
"Build for Comfort, Not Just Speed: Valuing
Service Quality Impacts In Transport Planning"
(http://www.vtpi.org/quality.pdf )
This paper examines practical ways to evaluate
qualitative transport improvements such as
increased convenience, comfort and security in
transport planning. Conventional transport
planning and evaluation practices tend to focus
on quantitative impacts and undervalue
qualitative impacts. Improving qualitative
analysis can expand the range of impacts and
options considered in transport evaluation,
leading to better planning decisions.
"Evaluating Transportation Affordability"
(http://www.vtpi.org/affordability.pdf )
This paper investigates the concept of
'transportation affordability,' its importance to
society, how to evaluate it for transport
planning, and practical ways to improve it.
Conventional planning tends to consider a
relatively limited range of transport
affordability impacts and objectives. More
comprehensive analysis can help decision makers
better understand affordability impacts and
identify more effective strategies for improving transport affordability.
"Pay-As-You-Drive Pricing in British Columbia:
Backgrounder" (http://www.vtpi.org/paydbc.pdf ).
Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) pricing means that a
vehicle?s insurance premiums and registration
fees are based directly on the amount it is
driven. PAYD pricing is particularly appropriate
in British Columbia because the Insurance
Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) insures
all vehicles in the province and has a mandate to
maximize social benefits, including traffic
safety, insurance affordability and emission
reductions (due to the province?s aggressive
climate change emission reduction targets). This
short paper describes PAYD, summarizes its
history in BC, and describes how PAYD pricing can
help achieve provincial objectives. This is part
of a new campaign to encourage ICBC to implement
a PAYD pilot project to evaluate the concept.
"Designing Pay-Per-Mile Auto Insurance Regulatory
Incentives Using the NHTSA Light Truck CAFE Rule
as a Model" (http://www.vtpi.org/07-3457.pdf ), by Allen Greenberg
This paper, presented at the 2007 Transportation
Research Board annual meeting, describes the
concept of Pay-As-You-Drive-And-You-Save
(PAYDAYS) insurance, which converts premiums into
distance-based fees, and evaluates its value as
an energy conservation strategy based on the
method used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
to develop new fuel economy rules for light trucks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATED DOCUMENTS
==============
"Pavement Busters Guide: Why and How to Reduce
the Amount of Land Paved for Roads and Parking
Facilities," (www.vtpi.org/pavbust.pdf )
This guide identifies ways to reduce the amount
of land devoted to roads and parking facilities.
It identifies current policies and planning
practices that unintentionally contribute to
economically excessive road and parking
requirements, and specific strategies for
reducing the amount of land paved for roads and
parking facilities. This analysis indicates that
road and parking pavement area can often be
reduced in ways that are cost effective and
maintain adequate levels of accessibility.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPCOMING EVENTS
================
VTPI will participate in these upcoming events:
'A City Built for Everyone: A Sustainable,
Equitable and Smart Transportation Forum,'
Sustainable Calgary (http://www.sustainablecalgary.ca )
September 29, 2007, Calgary, Alberta
'WALK21 2007 - Putting Pedestrians First'
(http://www.toronto.ca/walk21 )
October 1st To 4th, Toronto, Canada
Walk21 Toronto 2007 is the 8th annual conference
on walkable and livable communities.
Monday, Oct. 1, all day workshop, 'Measuring
walking: Towards internationally standardized
monitoring methods of walking and public space'
Wednesday, Oct. 3, 10:45-11:15, 'Economic Value of Walking'
Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2:00-3:30, 'Can You Spy the
Signs: How Walking with Children Can Change the World' (Suzanne Kort-Litman)
Cotter Debate on Transportation Policy and the
Environment (http://www.colby.edu/news_events/calendar )
Monday October 8, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
Debate between Todd Litman (Victoria Transport
Policy Institute) and Samuel Staley (Reason Foundation)
Canadian TDM Summit (http://www.actcanada.com/EN/Conference2007 )
November 25-28, 2007, Calgary, Alberta
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
USEFUL RESOURCES
=================
'Sustainable Transportation Indicators Listserve'
The Transportation Research Board?s Sustainable
Transportation Indicators Subcommittee (ADD40[1])
now has an active listserve. We are currently
working to develop recommendations for a
preferred definition of sustainable
transportation, and development of a recommended
set of indicators, which could be adopted by TRB.
This list is open to anybody interested in these
issues. To subscribe, go to
http://lists.cutr.usf.edu/read/?forum=sti
.
The GTZ "Sustainable Transport Sourcebook" is now
available in HTML format
(http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=566&Itemid=40&lang=en
). These versions are identical in content (and
virtually identical in format) to the PDF
versions, but easier to download with low band width Internet.
"Bus Rapid Transit Planning Guide"
(http://www.itdp.org/STe/ste24/new_pub.html
). After over two years of effort, 800 pages of
text, and nearly 1000 images and graphics. The
document is currently in English, but it will be
translated to Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese, and Indonesian.
"Transit Oriented Development; Chapter 17, Travel
Response To Transportation System Changes,"
(http://www.trb.org/TRBNet/ProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=1034
), by John E. Evans and Richard H. Pratt.
This latest volume of this comprehensive study of
factors that affect travel behavior. It indicates
that transit-oriented development can provide
significant reductions in per capita vehicle
ownership and use, and increase walking and public transit travel.
"WalkScore" (http://www.WalkScore.com)
automatically calculates a neighborhood?s
walkability rating by identifying the distance to
public services such as grocery stores and
schools. It works for any street address in the
United States of America and Canada, assigning
points based on the distance to local amenities,
using Google maps and business listings.
"Economics of Travel Demand Management:
Comparative Cost Effectiveness and Public
Investment"
(www.nctr.usf.edu/pdf/77704.pdf ).
This document by the Center for Urban
Transportation Research provides guidelines for
applying benefit/cost analysis to mobility
management programs. It describes TRIMMS (Trip
Reduction Impacts for Mobility Management
Strategies), a software program that automates economic evaluation.
"Impact of Employer-based Programs on Transit
System Ridership and Transportation System
Performance,"
(http://www.nctr.usf.edu/pdf/77605.pdf).
This study by the Center for Urban Transportation
Research uses a traffic model to evaluate the
impacts of Commute Trip Reduction programs on
transportation system performance. It finds that
such programs can provide significant reductions
in traffic congestion delay and fuel consumption.
"Getting Up To Speed (GUTS): A Conservationist?s
Guide to Wildlife and Highways,"
(http://www.GettingUpToSpeed.org)
provides a foundation for evaluating roadway
environmental impacts and incorporating this
information into transport planning.
"Economic Benefits of Land Conservation"
(www.tpl.org/content_documents/econbens_landconserve.pdf
).
This document by the Trust for Public Lands
describes how land conservation and parks can
help communities grow smart, attract investment,
revitalize cities, boost tourism, protect farms
and ranches, prevent flood damage, and safeguard
the environment. It includes monetized estimates of some impacts.
"Portland?s Green Dividend,"
(http://www.ceosforcities.org/internal/files/PGD%20FINAL.pdf
), by Joe Cortright. This study by CEOs for
Cities finds that as a result of innovative
transportation and land use policies, Portland,
Oregon area residents drive about 20% fewer
annual miles and use alternative modes about
twice as much as in comparable cities, and as a
result enjoy various benefits, including more
regional economic development, consumer cost
savings, reduced air pollution, better health and
more livable urban neighborhoods. Also see, 'Less
driving is more cash for Portland' "The
Oregonian"
(http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1187576751202450.xml&coll=7
)
"Smart Parking Seminar ? Developing Policies for
Your Community"
(http://www.mtc.ca.gov/planning/smart_growth/parking_seminar.htm
), by the San Francisco region Metropolitan
Transportation Commission. This website contains
materials developed for a training seminar on
parking policies to support smart growth.
The Institute for Transportation and Development
Policy (ITDP) has an excellent e-newsletter
called Sustainable Transport
(http://www.itdp.org/STe/index.html ).
Ian W. H. Parry, Margaret Walls and Winston
Harrington (2007), Automobile Externalities and
Policies, (http://www.rff.org/rff/Documents/RFF-DP-06-26-REV.pdf )
This paper discusses the nature, and magnitude,
of externalities associated with automobile use,
including local and global pollution, oil
dependence, traffic congestion and traffic
accidents. It discusses current federal policies
affecting these externalities, including fuel
taxes, fuel-economy and emissions standards, and
alternative fuel policies; discusses emerging
pricing policies, including congestion tolls, and
pay-as-you-drive insurance reform; and summarizes
what appears to be the appropriate combination of
policies to address automobile externalities.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please let us know if you have comments or
questions about any information in this
newsletter, or if you would like to be removed
from our email list. And please pass this
newsletter on to others who may find it useful.
Sincerely,
Todd Alexander Litman
Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org)
litman@vtpi.org
Phone & Fax 250-360-1560
1250 Rudlin Street, Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, CANADA
?Efficiency - Equity - Clarity?
From eric.britton at free.fr Sun Sep 9 15:43:40 2007
From: eric.britton at free.fr (eric.britton at free.fr)
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2007 08:43:40 +0200
Subject: [sustran] Reinventing Transport in Cities: 2007-2012 - collaborative
project and invitation
Message-ID: <6F638986C2E3473382D5AA919734F33A@joey>
Dear Sustran friends,
This is to inform you about our latest collaborative new mobility project:
Reinventing Transport in Cities: 2007-2012. You will see it at -
http://www.invent.newmobility.org .
Why do I take your valuable time with this information this morning? Three
reasons, in brief:
* First, it is my hope that even as it stands (eternally incomplete
and in process) I hope you will find it a useful resource in support of your
own work.
* Second, to invite your comments and suggestions for making it
clearer and better. These you might want to pass on to me privately, and
perhaps later I can provide a summary of these ideas and share them with the
group as a whole.
* And finally, because I would very much like to hope that in a few
cases at least this might lead in time to a collaborative project, either
perhaps in your city or region,, or via some kind of network or agency. That
after all is what the whole things is about. The bottom line.
If you would agree to share this with your colleagues and various lists and
networks, and perhaps also some of our media friends - after all this is
such a hot and important topic - well that would be much appreciated,
There you have it. Grist I hope for your good mill. Let me know what you
think we can do with this.
With all good wishes,
Eric Britton
Reinventing Transportation in Cities - at http://www.invent.newmobility.org/
Europe : 8/10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France. T: +331 4326 1323
USA : 9440 Readcrest Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90210. T: +1 310 601-8468
E. eric.britton@ecoplan.org. E2. fekbritton@gmail.com Skype: newmobility
The Commons: A wide open, world-wide open society forum concerned with
improving our understanding and control of technology as it impacts on
people in our daily lives. Seeking out and pioneering new transformational
concepts for concerned citizens, activists, community groups, entrepreneurs
and business. Supporting local government as that closest to the people and
the problems. Increasing the uncomfort zone for hesitant administrators and
politicians. And through our long term world wide collaborative efforts,
energy and personal choices, placing them and ourselves firmly on the path
to a more sustainable and more just world.
From edelman at greenidea.info Sun Sep 9 23:51:07 2007
From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory)
Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:51:07 +0200
Subject: [sustran] BRAZIL: Ethanol Divides Agribusiness
Message-ID: <46E4085B.4050501@greenidea.info>
*RIO VERDE, Brazil, Sep 8 (IPS/IFEJ) - The expansion of sugarcane
farming to produce more ethanol in Brazil has run into unexpected
resistance in Rio Verde, a prosperous town in the central state of
Goi?s, and it is coming from agribusiness leaders.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39191
*
The local government, of the conservative Progressive Party, decided to
impose a limit on sugarcane to 10 percent of the municipality's
farmland. That represents 50,000 hectares, eight times the area already
planted with sugarcane in Rio Verde, to supply an old distillery that
produced fuel alcohol, or ethanol.
The measure, demanded by agribusiness leaders, was proposed by Mayor
Paulo Roberto Cunha and approved unanimously by the municipal Council.
Sugarcane monoculture is "a green tsunami that is breaking the
agribusiness productive chain" and causes "social tragedies" as well as
environment problems if it is not controlled, Avelar Macedo, secretary
of industry and commerce, and promoter of the restrictions, said in an
interview.
The municipal law, in force since September 2005, also prohibits
planting sugarcane less than 50 meters from water sources and burning
sugarcane chaff within 20 kilometres of urban areas, near
environmentally protected areas or near power lines or highways.
The union of local officials and business leaders defends the
"diversified activities" that they say led to an average 30-percent
economic growth in the municipality since 2001, according to the
Commerce and Industry Association.
Rio Verde has a soybean oil industry, whose by-product, the bran, is
used as cattle feed. Maize supplies more than 1,600 poultry and hog
farms, which in turn supply Perdig?o, a group that seven years ago set
up the largest meat processing complex in Latin America and created
7,600 direct jobs, and 35,000 indirect jobs, according to Macedo.
Sorghum, beans, rice and cotton are other important products for the
municipality, generating a broad market for tractors, machinery, and
other farm inputs. Agroindustry has also fomented the production of
containers -- metal, plastic and cardboard.
The result is a city of 136,000 people without obvious poverty -- nobody
asking for money on the streets -- and many signs of prosperity, such as
brisk commercial and banking activity on the main avenue. There are four
university institutions, which draw students from nearby towns.
This agro-industrial chain, "which adds value locally," is threatened by
the "euphoria for ethanol," said Macedo. The sugarcane industry does not
benefit the population because it mainly offers temporary, low-paid
work, and generally purchases its machinery and inputs from foreign
suppliers, he explained.
Its expansion poses a threat because the farmers are "decapitalised" by
low commodity prices and the unfavourable exchange on the dollar in the
last few years, so they are more vulnerable to offers from sugarcane or
ethanol producers to rent or buy their land, warned Macedo, who is
himself a landowner and entrepreneur in the construction and tourism
sectors.
Sugarcane could bring progress in the northern part of Goi?s state,
where there is an "economic vacuum", but the industry would rather take
advantage of existing infrastructure in the south, where Rio Verde is
located, he said.
The law that turned Rio Verde into a national reference point, taken as
an example by dozens of other municipality governments worried about
monoculture, is being challenged in court by the Goi?s syndicate of
alcohol manufacturers, SIFAEG.
The group charges that the law is unconstitutional because it violates
private property rights and infringes on national jurisdiction.
The legal battle likely will last several years, agree both sides.
Sugarcane is grown on 290,000 to 300,000 hectares in Goi?s, or just 0.8
percent of the state's territory, and with maximum expansion predicted
to reach 2.0 percent, which is less than one-third of the area planted
with soybeans, says SIFAEG president Igor Montenegro. In the next five
years, 20 more distilleries could be added to the existing 18 in
operation, "without threatening the grains".
That expansion would require a small portion of the "immense area that
could be freed up" by a simple improvement in livestock management,
which currently covers 57 percent of Goi?s territory in
"low-productivity pastures," he said.
Montenegro hopes to counteract the "unfounded hysteria" among economic
sectors that have nothing to fear "if they are competitive and
profitable." The sugarcane agro-industry, he assures, is the one that
"offers most jobs in agribusiness. One million direct and six million
indirect" across Brazil. And they are less and less temporary and more
skilled jobs, with an increasingly mechanised harvest, he added.
In fact, it would not be necessary to deforest areas in order to expand
cane fields or grain crops in Goi?s, agrees Emiliano Godoi, agronomist
and head of biodiversity and forests for the state's environment
secretariat. But the tradition is "to open new pastureland" instead of
recovering the degraded land, which is why sugarcane is pushing the
agricultural frontier into the forests.
This is a threat to the Cerrado, the savannah of unique forests that
cover a large part of central Brazil. It is a biome heavily affected by
agricultural expansion but has received little attention in terms of
knowledge about it and its conservation.
In Goi?s, conservation areas make up just 4.9 percent of state
territory, "which is very little, but five years ago it was just one
percent," said Godoi. Furthermore, most municipalities fail to comply
with legislation that requires maintaining at least 20 percent of land
with its original, native vegetation intact.
But his concern about sugarcane is "more social than environmental."
During the harvest season, May to November, the small towns receive a
flood of cane cutters who come from distant parts of the country, and
there is a rise in prostitution and unplanned pregnancies.
The burning of cane fields to facilitate cutting pollutes the air, which
causes respiratory illnesses. The problems accumulate and overburden the
services of city governments of limited resources, said Godoi.
The pollution from the burning in Goi?s is more harmful than the air
pollution in Sao Paulo state, Brazil's leading producer of sugar and
alcohol, because the atmosphere of the Cerrado in these months is very
dry and keeps the concentrated particulate material suspended longer, he
said. In addition there is the particulate matter from the poor
sanitation systems in most of the state's cities.
(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development
by IPS-Inter Press Service and IFEJ-International Federation of
Environmental Journalists.) (END/2007)
--
--------------------------------------------
Todd Edelman
Director
Green Idea Factory
Korunn? 72
CZ-10100 Praha 10
Czech Republic
Skype: toddedelman
++420 605 915 970
++420 222 517 832
edelman@greenidea.eu
http://greenideafactory.blogspot.com/
www.flickr.com/photos/edelman
Green Idea Factory is a member of World Carfree Network
www.worldcarfree.net
From carlosfpardo at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 01:39:20 2007
From: carlosfpardo at gmail.com (Carlos F. Pardo)
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:39:20 -0500
Subject: [sustran] Revised gender and urban transport module
Message-ID: <46E57338.80309@gmail.com>
Dear colleagues,
Based on the feedback received from various professionals, and other
comments on the gender and urban transport module, the authors have
reviewed the document and have made important modifications to its full
contents. Please go to our website to download the new version of the
module (in section 7). You can access it from the address of our sourcebook:
http://www.sutp.org/content/view/426/72/lang,uk/
Best regards,
--
Carlos F. Pardo
Coordinador de Proyecto- Project Coordinator
GTZ - Proyecto de Transporte Sostenible (SUTP, SUTP-LAC)
Cl 93A # 14-17 of 708
Bogot? D.C., Colombia
Tel/fax: +57 (1) 236 2309 Mobile: +57 (3) 15 296 0662
carlos.pardo@sutp.org www.sutp.org
From edelman at greenidea.info Sat Sep 15 03:10:36 2007
From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory)
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:10:36 +0200
Subject: [sustran] BBC: Send in videos and photos which show how YOU commute
to work
Message-ID: <46EACE9C.2070206@greenidea.info>
* How do you commute to work?*
We want to see your videos of your daily commute.
What is your commute like? For many it's a daily grind of crowded
trains, trams and buses. For others it's a chance for contemplation, a
bit of peace and quiet.
The BBC is looking for videos and photos of people commuting to work,
all over the world.We'll be using these pictures to create a special
short film - made up entirely of content sent in by you. When it is
ready we will show it on the BBC News website and on BBC World.
See for how to
send video, conditions, etc.
--
--------------------------------------------
Todd Edelman
Director
Green Idea Factory
Korunn? 72
CZ-10100 Praha 10
Czech Republic
Skype: toddedelman
++420 605 915 970
++420 222 517 832
edelman@greenidea.eu
http://greenideafactory.blogspot.com/
www.flickr.com/photos/edelman
Green Idea Factory is a member of World Carfree Network
www.worldcarfree.net
From edelman at greenidea.info Sun Sep 16 10:48:53 2007
From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory)
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 03:48:53 +0200
Subject: [sustran] Fwd: Re: Carfree Day in India?
Message-ID: <46EC8B85.6010604@greenidea.info>
Anyone have info on Carfree Day activities in India? See below...
--
--------------------------------------------
Todd Edelman
Director
Green Idea Factory
Korunn? 72
CZ-10100 Praha 10
Czech Republic
Skype: toddedelman
++420 605 915 970
++420 222 517 832
edelman@greenidea.eu
http://greenideafactory.blogspot.com/
www.flickr.com/photos/edelman
Green Idea Factory is a member of World Carfree Network
www.worldcarfree.net
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Subject: Fwd: Re: [carfree_cities] Carfree day
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 17:35:11 -0500
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From eric.britton at ecoplan.org Mon Sep 17 16:00:35 2007
From: eric.britton at ecoplan.org (eric.britton)
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:00:35 +0200
Subject: [sustran] GoLoco discussion and commentary (ride-sharing,
digital hitchhiking)
Message-ID:
This is a discussion that is to take place over in the Lots Less Cars list.
Thought it might interest some of you:
* List address: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LotsLessCars/
* To post message: LotsLessCars@yahoogroups.com
* To subscribe: LotsLessCars-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
-----Original Message-----
From: eric.britton [mailto:eric.britton@ecoplan.org]
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 8:28 AM
To: 'LotsLessCars@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: GoLoco discussion and commentary
I propose a public discussion here of and invite your comments and
suggestions on Robin Chase's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Chase ) new
GoLoco ride-sharing service of which you have a brief introduction below and
full information at www.goloco.org.
GoLoco: How does it work?
1. Post a trip -- want to go to the beach? shopping? daily commute?
out of town? -- for your friends, colleagues, or classmates to see.
2. View profiles of people whose trips match your own. Decide if you'd
like to travel with them.
3. Accept a trip as is, or negotiate changes online.
4. Meet up at a specific location and time.
You can use GoLoco to share rides for free. Or you can choose to share trip
costs quickly and easily online before the trip without the awkward money
discussion or exchange in the car. GoLoco collects each passenger's share of
the total trip costs before the trip begins and transfers it to the driver
using online accounts. We charge a 10 percent transaction fee.
* * *
I see GoLoco as one pioneering example of a very important class of new
mobility services which we call xTransit (see www.xtransit.org
), and of course the sub-class ride-sharing. And
within that, a further sub-class that we call "digital hitchhiking". The
stack in our nomenclature, if you will, looks like this, from the more
general at the top down then getting more specific.
1. Movement
2. Transport(ation), mobility, logistics
3. Sustainable transport
4. New mobility
5. xTransit
6. Ride-sharing
7. Digital hitchhiking
By way of historical curiosity I thought some of you might be interested to
see an early example of this last, in the form of a 1978 proposal form this
end for a service which we then called CHARM: Computer-Helped Area-Wide
Regional Mobility system, which I disinterred this morning and attach just
in case you feel like a quick trip through a transportation/technology
museum.
I look forward very much to this discussion, and would ask you to share this
note with others, and lists, who you think may share our interests.
Eric Britton
PS. It would be great if Robin might in parallel share with us any articles
of thinkpeices she might have on her concept and implementation, including
status information if available Again, all that over at Lots Less Cars.
From lwright at vivacities.org Tue Sep 18 03:39:22 2007
From: lwright at vivacities.org (Lloyd Wright)
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:39:22 -0500
Subject: [sustran] Fw: Bicycles are not a form of transportation
Message-ID: <002001c7f95a$136be740$6500a8c0@Nikita>
Interesting article on how the Bush administration does not consider the
bicycle to be a form of transporation...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20819827
The bicycle thief
Bike activists face an uphill climb against Transportation Secretary
Mary Peters, who claims bike paths are not transportation and are
stealing tax money from bridges and roads.
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Photo: AP/Wide World
Salon composite of Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters.
Sept. 14, 2007 | Imagine you're the federal official in the Bush
administration charged with overseeing the nation's transportation
infrastructure. A major bridge collapses on an interstate highway during
rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring an additional 100. Whom to
blame? How about the nation's bicyclists and pedestrians!
The Minneapolis bridge collapse on Aug. 1 led Secretary of
Transportation Mary Peters to publicly reflect on federal transportation
spending priorities and conclude that those greedy bicyclists and
pedestrians, not to mention museumgoers and historic preservationists,
hog too much of the billions of federal dollars raised by the gas
tax, money that should go to pave
highways and bridges. Better still, Peters, a 2006 Bush appointee,
apparently doesn't see biking and walking paths as part of
transportation
infrastructure at all.
In an Aug. 15
appearance on PBS's "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," Peters
spoke against a proposal to raise gas taxes to shore up the nation's
aging infrastructure. The real problem, the secretary argued, is that
only 60 percent of the current money raised by gas taxes goes to
highways and bridges. She conveniently neglected to mention that about
30 percent of the money goes to public transit. She then went on to
blast congressional earmarks, which dedicate 10 percent of the gas tax
to some 6,000 other projects around the country. "There are museums that
are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing
lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is
being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure," she said. The
secretary added that projects like bike paths and trails "are really not
transportation."
Peters' comments set off an eruption of blogging, e-mailing and
letter-writing among bike riders and activists, incensed that no matter
how many times they burn calories instead of fossil fuels with the words
"One Less Car" or "We're Not Holding Up the Traffic, We Are the Traffic"
plastered on their helmets, their pedal pushing is not taken seriously
as a form of transportation by the honchos in Washington, D.C.
Bike paths are not infrastructure? "There are hundreds of thousands of
people who ride to work, and millions who walk to work every day, and
the idea [that] that isn't transportation is ludicrous," says Andy
Clarke, executive director of the League
of American Bicyclists, who has biked to work for almost 20 years on a
path paid for with federal dollars. Clarke fired off an angry letter to
Peters, and invited the 25,000 members of his organization around the
country to do the same. "The guy in his Humvee taking his videos back to
the video store isn't any more legitimate a trip than the guy on the
Raleigh taking his videos back," says Andy Thornley, program director
for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
In fact, only about 1.5 percent of federal transportation dollars go to
fund bike paths and walking trails. In the meantime, 10 percent of all
U.S. trips to work, school and the store occur on bike or foot, and
bicyclists and pedestrians account for about 12 percent of annual
traffic fatalities, according to the Federal Highway Administration. "We
represent a disproportionate share of the injuries, and we get a
minuscule share of the funds," says Robert Raburn, executive director of
the East Bay Bike Coalition in the San Francisco
Bay Area, who calls the Peters' comments "outrageous." Plus, he notes,
with problems like global
warming, the obesity epidemic
and energy independence, shouldn't the U.S. secretary of transportation
be praising biking, not complaining about it?
What really drives cyclists around the bend is that while they're doing
their part to burn less fossil fuel -- cue slogan: "No Iraqis Died to
Fuel This Bike" -- they're getting grief for being expensive from a
profligate administration. "War spending, tax cuts for the rich, and gas
taxes are all big sources of funding. Bike spending is not," fumes
Michael Bluejay, an Austin, Texas, bike
activist, in an e-mail. "The few pennies we toss toward bike projects is
not enough to fix our nation's bridges, not by a freaking long shot."
One of the many communities that benefit from federal dollars for
bicyclists and pedestrians is the very one where the bridge collapsed.
For the St. Paul, Minn., program
Bike/Walk Twin Cities, administered by
Transit for Livable Communities, $21.5
million of federal dough is being spent to create bike lanes, connect
existing walking and biking trails with one another, and install signage
to alert drivers of the presence of bicyclists and walkers. Despite the
cold winters, Minneapolis is something of a biking Mecca, with 2.4
percent of all trips to work made by bike, significantly higher than the
national average of 0.4 percent, according to Joan Pasiuk, program
director of Bike/Walk Twin Cities.
It's hard to argue that walking paths and bike trails are robbing
federal coffers when states can't even spend all the federal money
they've received to repair bridges in the first place. In 2006, state
departments of transportation sent back $1 billion in unspent bridge
funds to the federal government, according to the
Federal
Highway Administration. "The fact that there is a billion dollars of
bridge repair money sloshing around in the system not being spent
suggests that it's not the fault of bike trails," says Clarke.
Congressional Democrats agree. "It's a red herring to point to bike
paths and even imply that if we didn't build another bike path we'd have
all the money we need to fix our highways and bridges," says Jim Berard,
communications director for the House Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure. "You can't build very many bridges with the amount of
money that you would save if you didn't build any bike paths."
So why is Peters suddenly taking on bikes and pedestrians? Her comments
are especially odd since she sang the praises of bikes as transportation
in a speech at the
National Bike Summit in Washington, in March 2002. Has she simply
forgotten the glory of two wheels? One theory: Peters is on a campaign
to quash the idea of raising the gas tax, as she editorialized recently
in the
Washington Post. A key proponent of raising the gas tax
to fund bridge restorations in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge
collapse is Democratic Rep.
Jim Oberstar of
Minnesota, who has advocated for bike and pedestrian paths in his
district. By putting a culture-war spin on the bridge collapse, Peters
is hoping to run his gas tax proposal off the road.
Does Peters herself buy this theory? Does she really think that bike
paths do not qualify as transportation infrastructure? Why does she say
that things like bike paths steal money from bridge repairs when states
have more than enough money to fix bridges? The secretary would not
respond, but Jennifer Hing, a spokesperson for the Department of
Transportation's Office of Public Affairs in the Office of the
Secretary, would. She answered all the specific questions with one
resoundingly uninformative e-mail: "The federal government should set
high standards for and invest in the ongoing safety, reliability and
interconnection of the nation's transportation network. State and local
communities should have the flexibility to then set local transportation
priorities."
For their part, cyclists have been weaving through political land mines
for decades. In the perennial struggle to gain public support for bike
paths, they remain philosophical. Says Thornley of the San Francisco
Bicycle Coalition: "Before there were automobiles, and after there will
be automobiles, there will be bicycles moving people around for
transportation."
Lloyd Wright
Executive Director
Viva
Robles 653 y Av. Amazonas
Oficinas 601-602-603
Quito
Ecuador
Tel. +593 2 255 1492
Mobile +593 9 577 6500
Fax +44 871 263 8779
Email lwright@vivacities.org
Web www.vivacities.org
"Viva...changing the world one street at a time."
From schipper at wri.org Tue Sep 18 03:47:41 2007
From: schipper at wri.org (Lee Schipper)
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:47:41 -0400
Subject: [sustran] Re: Fw: Bicycles are not a form of transportation
Message-ID: <46EE938D020000380001C3FA@HERMES.wri.org>
Does this mean i can no longer cycle to meetings at DOT?
>>> "Lloyd Wright" 09/17/07 2:39 PM >>>
Interesting article on how the Bush administration does not consider the
bicycle to be a form of transporation...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20819827
The bicycle thief
Bike activists face an uphill climb against Transportation Secretary
Mary Peters, who claims bike paths are not transportation and are
stealing tax money from bridges and roads.
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Photo: AP/Wide World
Salon composite of Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters.
Sept. 14, 2007 | Imagine you're the federal official in the Bush
administration charged with overseeing the nation's transportation
infrastructure. A major bridge collapses on an interstate highway during
rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring an additional 100. Whom to
blame? How about the nation's bicyclists and pedestrians!
The Minneapolis bridge collapse on Aug. 1 led Secretary of
Transportation Mary Peters to publicly reflect on federal transportation
spending priorities and conclude that those greedy bicyclists and
pedestrians, not to mention museumgoers and historic preservationists,
hog too much of the billions of federal dollars raised by the gas
tax, money that should go to pave
highways and bridges. Better still, Peters, a 2006 Bush appointee,
apparently doesn't see biking and walking paths as part of
transportation
infrastructure at all.
In an Aug. 15
appearance on PBS's "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," Peters
spoke against a proposal to raise gas taxes to shore up the nation's
aging infrastructure. The real problem, the secretary argued, is that
only 60 percent of the current money raised by gas taxes goes to
highways and bridges. She conveniently neglected to mention that about
30 percent of the money goes to public transit. She then went on to
blast congressional earmarks, which dedicate 10 percent of the gas tax
to some 6,000 other projects around the country. "There are museums that
are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing
lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is
being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure," she said. The
secretary added that projects like bike paths and trails "are really not
transportation."
Peters' comments set off an eruption of blogging, e-mailing and
letter-writing among bike riders and activists, incensed that no matter
how many times they burn calories instead of fossil fuels with the words
"One Less Car" or "We're Not Holding Up the Traffic, We Are the Traffic"
plastered on their helmets, their pedal pushing is not taken seriously
as a form of transportation by the honchos in Washington, D.C.
Bike paths are not infrastructure? "There are hundreds of thousands of
people who ride to work, and millions who walk to work every day, and
the idea [that] that isn't transportation is ludicrous," says Andy
Clarke, executive director of the League
of American Bicyclists, who has biked to work for almost 20 years on a
path paid for with federal dollars. Clarke fired off an angry letter to
Peters, and invited the 25,000 members of his organization around the
country to do the same. "The guy in his Humvee taking his videos back to
the video store isn't any more legitimate a trip than the guy on the
Raleigh taking his videos back," says Andy Thornley, program director
for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
In fact, only about 1.5 percent of federal transportation dollars go to
fund bike paths and walking trails. In the meantime, 10 percent of all
U.S. trips to work, school and the store occur on bike or foot, and
bicyclists and pedestrians account for about 12 percent of annual
traffic fatalities, according to the Federal Highway Administration. "We
represent a disproportionate share of the injuries, and we get a
minuscule share of the funds," says Robert Raburn, executive director of
the East Bay Bike Coalition in the San Francisco
Bay Area, who calls the Peters' comments "outrageous." Plus, he notes,
with problems like global
warming, the obesity epidemic
and energy independence, shouldn't the U.S. secretary of transportation
be praising biking, not complaining about it?
What really drives cyclists around the bend is that while they're doing
their part to burn less fossil fuel -- cue slogan: "No Iraqis Died to
Fuel This Bike" -- they're getting grief for being expensive from a
profligate administration. "War spending, tax cuts for the rich, and gas
taxes are all big sources of funding. Bike spending is not," fumes
Michael Bluejay, an Austin, Texas, bike
activist, in an e-mail. "The few pennies we toss toward bike projects is
not enough to fix our nation's bridges, not by a freaking long shot."
One of the many communities that benefit from federal dollars for
bicyclists and pedestrians is the very one where the bridge collapsed.
For the St. Paul, Minn., program
Bike/Walk Twin Cities, administered by
Transit for Livable Communities, $21.5
million of federal dough is being spent to create bike lanes, connect
existing walking and biking trails with one another, and install signage
to alert drivers of the presence of bicyclists and walkers. Despite the
cold winters, Minneapolis is something of a biking Mecca, with 2.4
percent of all trips to work made by bike, significantly higher than the
national average of 0.4 percent, according to Joan Pasiuk, program
director of Bike/Walk Twin Cities.
It's hard to argue that walking paths and bike trails are robbing
federal coffers when states can't even spend all the federal money
they've received to repair bridges in the first place. In 2006, state
departments of transportation sent back $1 billion in unspent bridge
funds to the federal government, according to the
Federal
Highway Administration. "The fact that there is a billion dollars of
bridge repair money sloshing around in the system not being spent
suggests that it's not the fault of bike trails," says Clarke.
Congressional Democrats agree. "It's a red herring to point to bike
paths and even imply that if we didn't build another bike path we'd have
all the money we need to fix our highways and bridges," says Jim Berard,
communications director for the House Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure. "You can't build very many bridges with the amount of
money that you would save if you didn't build any bike paths."
So why is Peters suddenly taking on bikes and pedestrians? Her comments
are especially odd since she sang the praises of bikes as transportation
in a speech at the
National Bike Summit in Washington, in March 2002. Has she simply
forgotten the glory of two wheels? One theory: Peters is on a campaign
to quash the idea of raising the gas tax, as she editorialized recently
in the
Washington Post. A key proponent of raising the gas tax
to fund bridge restorations in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge
collapse is Democratic Rep.
Jim Oberstar of
Minnesota, who has advocated for bike and pedestrian paths in his
district. By putting a culture-war spin on the bridge collapse, Peters
is hoping to run his gas tax proposal off the road.
Does Peters herself buy this theory? Does she really think that bike
paths do not qualify as transportation infrastructure? Why does she say
that things like bike paths steal money from bridge repairs when states
have more than enough money to fix bridges? The secretary would not
respond, but Jennifer Hing, a spokesperson for the Department of
Transportation's Office of Public Affairs in the Office of the
Secretary, would. She answered all the specific questions with one
resoundingly uninformative e-mail: "The federal government should set
high standards for and invest in the ongoing safety, reliability and
interconnection of the nation's transportation network. State and local
communities should have the flexibility to then set local transportation
priorities."
For their part, cyclists have been weaving through political land mines
for decades. In the perennial struggle to gain public support for bike
paths, they remain philosophical. Says Thornley of the San Francisco
Bicycle Coalition: "Before there were automobiles, and after there will
be automobiles, there will be bicycles moving people around for
transportation."
Lloyd Wright
Executive Director
Viva
Robles 653 y Av. Amazonas
Oficinas 601-602-603
Quito
Ecuador
Tel. +593 2 255 1492
Mobile +593 9 577 6500
Fax +44 871 263 8779
Email lwright@vivacities.org
Web www.vivacities.org
"Viva...changing the world one street at a time."
From edelman at greenidea.info Tue Sep 18 04:13:56 2007
From: edelman at greenidea.info (Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory)
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:13:56 +0200
Subject: [sustran] Re: Fw: Bicycles are not a form of transportation
In-Reply-To: <46EE938D020000380001C3FA@HERMES.wri.org>
References: <46EE938D020000380001C3FA@HERMES.wri.org>
Message-ID: <46EED1F4.5010609@greenidea.info>
Hi Lee,
It means that when you go to those meeting you should wear lycra,
cycling shoes, expensive sunglasses, etc... to make a statement that
cycling is only "sport"...
- T
Lee Schipper wrote:
> Does this mean i can no longer cycle to meetings at DOT?
>
>
>>>> "Lloyd Wright" 09/17/07 2:39 PM >>>
>>>>
>
> Interesting article on how the Bush administration does not consider the
> bicycle to be a form of transporation...
>
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20819827
>
>
> The bicycle thief
>
>
> Bike activists face an uphill climb against Transportation Secretary
> Mary Peters, who claims bike paths are not transportation and are
> stealing tax money from bridges and roads.
>
> By Katharine Mieszkowski
>
>
>
>
>
> Photo: AP/Wide World
>
> Salon composite of Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters.
>
> Sept. 14, 2007 | Imagine you're the federal official in the Bush
> administration charged with overseeing the nation's transportation
> infrastructure. A major bridge collapses on an interstate highway during
> rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring an additional 100. Whom to
> blame? How about the nation's bicyclists and pedestrians!
>
> The Minneapolis bridge collapse on Aug. 1 led Secretary of
> Transportation Mary Peters to publicly reflect on federal transportation
> spending priorities and conclude that those greedy bicyclists and
> pedestrians, not to mention museumgoers and historic preservationists,
> hog too much of the billions of federal dollars raised by the gas
> tax, money that should go to pave
> highways and bridges. Better still, Peters, a 2006 Bush appointee,
> apparently doesn't see biking and walking paths as part of
> transportation
> infrastructure at all.
>
> In an Aug. 15
> _08-15.html> appearance on PBS's "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," Peters
> spoke against a proposal to raise gas taxes to shore up the nation's
> aging infrastructure. The real problem, the secretary argued, is that
> only 60 percent of the current money raised by gas taxes goes to
> highways and bridges. She conveniently neglected to mention that about
> 30 percent of the money goes to public transit. She then went on to
> blast congressional earmarks, which dedicate 10 percent of the gas tax
> to some 6,000 other projects around the country. "There are museums that
> are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing
> lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is
> being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure," she said. The
> secretary added that projects like bike paths and trails "are really not
> transportation."
>
> Peters' comments set off an eruption of blogging, e-mailing and
> letter-writing among bike riders and activists, incensed that no matter
> how many times they burn calories instead of fossil fuels with the words
> "One Less Car" or "We're Not Holding Up the Traffic, We Are the Traffic"
> plastered on their helmets, their pedal pushing is not taken seriously
> as a form of transportation by the honchos in Washington, D.C.
>
> Bike paths are not infrastructure? "There are hundreds of thousands of
> people who ride to work, and millions who walk to work every day, and
> the idea [that] that isn't transportation is ludicrous," says Andy
> Clarke, executive director of the League
> of American Bicyclists, who has biked to work for almost 20 years on a
> path paid for with federal dollars. Clarke fired off an angry letter to
> Peters, and invited the 25,000 members of his organization around the
> country to do the same. "The guy in his Humvee taking his videos back to
> the video store isn't any more legitimate a trip than the guy on the
> Raleigh taking his videos back," says Andy Thornley, program director
> for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
>
> In fact, only about 1.5 percent of federal transportation dollars go to
> fund bike paths and walking trails. In the meantime, 10 percent of all
> U.S. trips to work, school and the store occur on bike or foot, and
> bicyclists and pedestrians account for about 12 percent of annual
> traffic fatalities, according to the Federal Highway Administration. "We
> represent a disproportionate share of the injuries, and we get a
> minuscule share of the funds," says Robert Raburn, executive director of
> the East Bay Bike Coalition in the San Francisco
> Bay Area, who calls the Peters' comments "outrageous." Plus, he notes,
> with problems like global
> warming, the obesity epidemic
> and energy independence, shouldn't the U.S. secretary of transportation
> be praising biking, not complaining about it?
>
> What really drives cyclists around the bend is that while they're doing
> their part to burn less fossil fuel -- cue slogan: "No Iraqis Died to
> Fuel This Bike" -- they're getting grief for being expensive from a
> profligate administration. "War spending, tax cuts for the rich, and gas
> taxes are all big sources of funding. Bike spending is not," fumes
> Michael Bluejay, an Austin, Texas, bike
> activist, in an e-mail. "The few pennies we toss toward bike projects is
> not enough to fix our nation's bridges, not by a freaking long shot."
>
> One of the many communities that benefit from federal dollars for
> bicyclists and pedestrians is the very one where the bridge collapsed.
> For the St. Paul, Minn., program
> .html> Bike/Walk Twin Cities, administered by
> Transit for Livable Communities, $21.5
> million of federal dough is being spent to create bike lanes, connect
> existing walking and biking trails with one another, and install signage
> to alert drivers of the presence of bicyclists and walkers. Despite the
> cold winters, Minneapolis is something of a biking Mecca, with 2.4
> percent of all trips to work made by bike, significantly higher than the
> national average of 0.4 percent, according to Joan Pasiuk, program
> director of Bike/Walk Twin Cities.
>
> It's hard to argue that walking paths and bike trails are robbing
> federal coffers when states can't even spend all the federal money
> they've received to repair bridges in the first place. In 2006, state
> departments of transportation sent back $1 billion in unspent bridge
> funds to the federal government, according to the
> Federal
> Highway Administration. "The fact that there is a billion dollars of
> bridge repair money sloshing around in the system not being spent
> suggests that it's not the fault of bike trails," says Clarke.
>
> Congressional Democrats agree. "It's a red herring to point to bike
> paths and even imply that if we didn't build another bike path we'd have
> all the money we need to fix our highways and bridges," says Jim Berard,
> communications director for the House Committee on Transportation and
> Infrastructure. "You can't build very many bridges with the amount of
> money that you would save if you didn't build any bike paths."
>
> So why is Peters suddenly taking on bikes and pedestrians? Her comments
> are especially odd since she sang the praises of bikes as transportation
> in a speech at the
> National Bike Summit in Washington, in March 2002. Has she simply
> forgotten the glory of two wheels? One theory: Peters is on a campaign
> to quash the idea of raising the gas tax, as she editorialized recently
> in the
> 82401697.html> Washington Post. A key proponent of raising the gas tax
> to fund bridge restorations in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge
> collapse is Democratic Rep.
> Jim Oberstar of
> Minnesota, who has advocated for bike and pedestrian paths in his
> district. By putting a culture-war spin on the bridge collapse, Peters
> is hoping to run his gas tax proposal off the road.
>
> Does Peters herself buy this theory? Does she really think that bike
> paths do not qualify as transportation infrastructure? Why does she say
> that things like bike paths steal money from bridge repairs when states
> have more than enough money to fix bridges? The secretary would not
> respond, but Jennifer Hing, a spokesperson for the Department of
> Transportation's Office of Public Affairs in the Office of the
> Secretary, would. She answered all the specific questions with one
> resoundingly uninformative e-mail: "The federal government should set
> high standards for and invest in the ongoing safety, reliability and
> interconnection of the nation's transportation network. State and local
> communities should have the flexibility to then set local transportation
> priorities."
>
> For their part, cyclists have been weaving through political land mines
> for decades. In the perennial struggle to gain public support for bike
> paths, they remain philosophical. Says Thornley of the San Francisco
> Bicycle Coalition: "Before there were automobiles, and after there will
> be automobiles, there will be bicycles moving people around for
> transportation."
>
>
> Lloyd Wright
> Executive Director
> Viva
> Robles 653 y Av. Amazonas
> Oficinas 601-602-603
> Quito
> Ecuador
> Tel. +593 2 255 1492
> Mobile +593 9 577 6500
> Fax +44 871 263 8779
> Email lwright@vivacities.org
> Web www.vivacities.org
>
> "Viva...changing the world one street at a time."
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via YAHOOGROUPS.
>
> Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to the real sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem like you can). Apologies for the confusing arrangement.
>
> ================================================================
> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South').
>
>
--
--------------------------------------------
Todd Edelman
Director
Green Idea Factory
Korunn? 72
CZ-10100 Praha 10
Czech Republic
Skype: toddedelman
++420 605 915 970
++420 222 517 832
edelman@greenidea.eu
http://greenideafactory.blogspot.com/
www.flickr.com/photos/edelman
Green Idea Factory is a member of World Carfree Network
www.worldcarfree.net
From whook at itdp.org Tue Sep 18 04:17:04 2007
From: whook at itdp.org (Walter Hook)
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:17:04 -0400
Subject: [sustran] Re: Fw: Bicycles are not a form of transportation
In-Reply-To: <46EE938D020000380001C3FA@HERMES.wri.org>
Message-ID: <00c201c7f95f$55c01710$3601a8c0@DFJLYL81>
This is an oversimplification of a complex debate on the hill. The stupid
comment about bike paths not withstanding, I am glad she is criticizing
earmarks, most of which are road pork. She has been pushing for more
tolling and supportive of congestion charging, (fed support is key to our
chances for nyc congestion charges, and democratic pork politicians like
Oberstar and road lobby stalwarts like highway and transit subcommiteee
chair democrat de fazio of Oregon tried to kill it. Oberstar is great on
money for bike lanes but also presided over massive highway pork spending.
To me the solution is a fix it first law modeled in new jersey that would
restrict federal funding for new roads and bridges till the existing ones
are all in a state of good repair.
-----Original Message-----
From: sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org@list.jca.apc.org
[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org@list.jca.apc.org] On Behalf
Of Lee Schipper
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 2:48 PM
To: sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org; lwright@vivacities.org;
carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sustran] Re: Fw: Bicycles are not a form of transportation
Does this mean i can no longer cycle to meetings at DOT?
>>> "Lloyd Wright" 09/17/07 2:39 PM >>>
Interesting article on how the Bush administration does not consider the
bicycle to be a form of transporation...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20819827
The bicycle thief
Bike activists face an uphill climb against Transportation Secretary
Mary Peters, who claims bike paths are not transportation and are
stealing tax money from bridges and roads.
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Photo: AP/Wide World
Salon composite of Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters.
Sept. 14, 2007 | Imagine you're the federal official in the Bush
administration charged with overseeing the nation's transportation
infrastructure. A major bridge collapses on an interstate highway during
rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring an additional 100. Whom to
blame? How about the nation's bicyclists and pedestrians!
The Minneapolis bridge collapse on Aug. 1 led Secretary of
Transportation Mary Peters to publicly reflect on federal transportation
spending priorities and conclude that those greedy bicyclists and
pedestrians, not to mention museumgoers and historic preservationists,
hog too much of the billions of federal dollars raised by the gas
tax, money that should go to pave
highways and bridges. Better still, Peters, a 2006 Bush appointee,
apparently doesn't see biking and walking paths as part of
transportation
infrastructure at all.
In an Aug. 15
appearance on PBS's "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," Peters
spoke against a proposal to raise gas taxes to shore up the nation's
aging infrastructure. The real problem, the secretary argued, is that
only 60 percent of the current money raised by gas taxes goes to
highways and bridges. She conveniently neglected to mention that about
30 percent of the money goes to public transit. She then went on to
blast congressional earmarks, which dedicate 10 percent of the gas tax
to some 6,000 other projects around the country. "There are museums that
are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing
lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is
being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure," she said. The
secretary added that projects like bike paths and trails "are really not
transportation."
Peters' comments set off an eruption of blogging, e-mailing and
letter-writing among bike riders and activists, incensed that no matter
how many times they burn calories instead of fossil fuels with the words
"One Less Car" or "We're Not Holding Up the Traffic, We Are the Traffic"
plastered on their helmets, their pedal pushing is not taken seriously
as a form of transportation by the honchos in Washington, D.C.
Bike paths are not infrastructure? "There are hundreds of thousands of
people who ride to work, and millions who walk to work every day, and
the idea [that] that isn't transportation is ludicrous," says Andy
Clarke, executive director of the League
of American Bicyclists, who has biked to work for almost 20 years on a
path paid for with federal dollars. Clarke fired off an angry letter to
Peters, and invited the 25,000 members of his organization around the
country to do the same. "The guy in his Humvee taking his videos back to
the video store isn't any more legitimate a trip than the guy on the
Raleigh taking his videos back," says Andy Thornley, program director
for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
In fact, only about 1.5 percent of federal transportation dollars go to
fund bike paths and walking trails. In the meantime, 10 percent of all
U.S. trips to work, school and the store occur on bike or foot, and
bicyclists and pedestrians account for about 12 percent of annual
traffic fatalities, according to the Federal Highway Administration. "We
represent a disproportionate share of the injuries, and we get a
minuscule share of the funds," says Robert Raburn, executive director of
the East Bay Bike Coalition in the San Francisco
Bay Area, who calls the Peters' comments "outrageous." Plus, he notes,
with problems like global
warming, the obesity epidemic
and energy independence, shouldn't the U.S. secretary of transportation
be praising biking, not complaining about it?
What really drives cyclists around the bend is that while they're doing
their part to burn less fossil fuel -- cue slogan: "No Iraqis Died to
Fuel This Bike" -- they're getting grief for being expensive from a
profligate administration. "War spending, tax cuts for the rich, and gas
taxes are all big sources of funding. Bike spending is not," fumes
Michael Bluejay, an Austin, Texas, bike
activist, in an e-mail. "The few pennies we toss toward bike projects is
not enough to fix our nation's bridges, not by a freaking long shot."
One of the many communities that benefit from federal dollars for
bicyclists and pedestrians is the very one where the bridge collapsed.
For the St. Paul, Minn., program
Bike/Walk Twin Cities, administered by
Transit for Livable Communities, $21.5
million of federal dough is being spent to create bike lanes, connect
existing walking and biking trails with one another, and install signage
to alert drivers of the presence of bicyclists and walkers. Despite the
cold winters, Minneapolis is something of a biking Mecca, with 2.4
percent of all trips to work made by bike, significantly higher than the
national average of 0.4 percent, according to Joan Pasiuk, program
director of Bike/Walk Twin Cities.
It's hard to argue that walking paths and bike trails are robbing
federal coffers when states can't even spend all the federal money
they've received to repair bridges in the first place. In 2006, state
departments of transportation sent back $1 billion in unspent bridge
funds to the federal government, according to the
Federal
Highway Administration. "The fact that there is a billion dollars of
bridge repair money sloshing around in the system not being spent
suggests that it's not the fault of bike trails," says Clarke.
Congressional Democrats agree. "It's a red herring to point to bike
paths and even imply that if we didn't build another bike path we'd have
all the money we need to fix our highways and bridges," says Jim Berard,
communications director for the House Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure. "You can't build very many bridges with the amount of
money that you would save if you didn't build any bike paths."
So why is Peters suddenly taking on bikes and pedestrians? Her comments
are especially odd since she sang the praises of bikes as transportation
in a speech at the
National Bike Summit in Washington, in March 2002. Has she simply
forgotten the glory of two wheels? One theory: Peters is on a campaign
to quash the idea of raising the gas tax, as she editorialized recently
in the
Washington Post. A key proponent of raising the gas tax
to fund bridge restorations in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge
collapse is Democratic Rep.
Jim Oberstar of
Minnesota, who has advocated for bike and pedestrian paths in his
district. By putting a culture-war spin on the bridge collapse, Peters
is hoping to run his gas tax proposal off the road.
Does Peters herself buy this theory? Does she really think that bike
paths do not qualify as transportation infrastructure? Why does she say
that things like bike paths steal money from bridge repairs when states
have more than enough money to fix bridges? The secretary would not
respond, but Jennifer Hing, a spokesperson for the Department of
Transportation's Office of Public Affairs in the Office of the
Secretary, would. She answered all the specific questions with one
resoundingly uninformative e-mail: "The federal government should set
high standards for and invest in the ongoing safety, reliability and
interconnection of the nation's transportation network. State and local
communities should have the flexibility to then set local transportation
priorities."
For their part, cyclists have been weaving through political land mines
for decades. In the perennial struggle to gain public support for bike
paths, they remain philosophical. Says Thornley of the San Francisco
Bicycle Coalition: "Before there were automobiles, and after there will
be automobiles, there will be bicycles moving people around for
transportation."
Lloyd Wright
Executive Director
Viva
Robles 653 y Av. Amazonas
Oficinas 601-602-603
Quito
Ecuador
Tel. +593 2 255 1492
Mobile +593 9 577 6500
Fax +44 871 263 8779
Email lwright@vivacities.org
Web www.vivacities.org
"Viva...changing the world one street at a time."
--------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via
YAHOOGROUPS.
Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to join
the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The yahoogroups
version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to the real
sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem like you can).
Apologies for the confusing arrangement.
================================================================
SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries
(the 'Global South').
From ericbruun at verizon.net Tue Sep 18 06:34:57 2007
From: ericbruun at verizon.net (ericbruun at verizon.net)
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:34:57 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [sustran] Funding solutions
Message-ID: <25800101.16972081190064897556.JavaMail.root@vms061.mailsrvcs.net>
Walter
I doubt that laws prohibiting money to be spent on new construction until everything existing is up to standard would work. First, standards would be downgraded to allow them to be built. (This trick is already being used, the Minnesota bridge was judged borderline acceptable for years). Second, money is fungible, so that other money would be used for new construction instead, money that could otherwise go to transit, water supplies, schools, etc. (This trick is already being used, too.)
Although it is almost impossible to get through Congress, a better solution would be to give federal funds to Metropolitan Planning Associations instead of to State governments.
Eric Bruun
From: Walter Hook
Date: 2007/09/17 Mon PM 02:17:04 CDT
To: 'Lee Schipper' , sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org,
lwright@vivacities.org, carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com
Cc: 'Michael Replogle'
Subject: [sustran] Re: Fw: Bicycles are not a form of transportation
This is an oversimplification of a complex debate on the hill. The stupid
comment about bike paths not withstanding, I am glad she is criticizing
earmarks, most of which are road pork. She has been pushing for more
tolling and supportive of congestion charging, (fed support is key to our
chances for nyc congestion charges, and democratic pork politicians like
Oberstar and road lobby stalwarts like highway and transit subcommiteee
chair democrat de fazio of Oregon tried to kill it. Oberstar is great on
money for bike lanes but also presided over massive highway pork spending.
To me the solution is a fix it first law modeled in new jersey that would
restrict federal funding for new roads and bridges till the existing ones
are all in a state of good repair.
-----Original Message-----
From: sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org@list.jca.apc.org
[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org@list.jca.apc.org] On Behalf
Of Lee Schipper
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 2:48 PM
To: sustran-discuss@list.jca.apc.org; lwright@vivacities.org;
carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sustran] Re: Fw: Bicycles are not a form of transportation
Does this mean i can no longer cycle to meetings at DOT?
>>> "Lloyd Wright" 09/17/07 2:39 PM >>>
Interesting article on how the Bush administration does not cons