Greece -- Free Public Transport -- How we would benefit

Για να μην πούμε τα ΠΡΟΦΑΝΗ ΩΦΕΛΗ στο
- ΚΥΚΛΟΦΟΡΙΑΚΟ (και στα νεύρα μας…)
- ΟΙΚΟΛΟΓΙΚΟ – Μόλυνση – Εκπομπές CO2 – Ηχορύπανση
- ΜΕΙΩΣΗ ΚΑΤΑΝΑΛΩΣΗΣ / ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΗΣ ΚΑΥΣΙΜΩΝ
- ΜΕΙΩΣΗ ΑΝΑΓΚΗΣ ΓΙΑ ΑΥΤΟΚΙΝΗΤΑ (ΕΙΣΑΓΩΓΕΣ)
- ΤΟΥΡΙΣΤΙΚΗΣ ΕΛΞΗΣ ΓΙΑ ΤΙΣ ΠΟΛΕΙΣ ΜΑΣ
- ΛΙΓΟΤΕΡΑ ΑΤΥΧΗΜΑΤΑ/ΔΥΣΤΥΧΗΜΑΤΑ ΣΤΟΥΣ ΔΡΟΜΟΥΣ (προφανώς από το λιγότερο κυκλοφοριακό)
- ΛΙΓΟΤΕΡΑ ΚΟΣΤΗ ΣΥΝΤΗΡΗΣΗΣ ΔΡΟΜΩΝ (προφανώς λιγότερη φθορά στα οδοστρώματα)
- ΑΝΑΓΚΗ ΓΙΑ ΛΙΓΟΤΕΡΕΣ ΝΕΕΣ ΕΠΕΝΔΥΣΕΙΣ ΣΕ ΝΕΟΥΣ ΔΡΟΜΟΥΣ

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Start the Bus! Initiative Lobbies for Free Transportation | News | Santa Fe College | Gainesville, FL

Start the Bus! Initiative Lobbies for Free Transportation | News | Santa Fe College | Gainesville, FL: "Tired of fruitlessly searching for vacant campus parking spots, Santa Fe College students are the driving force behind an initiative to provide better public transportation for community college students statewide.

The Start the Bus! program, sponsored by Santa Fe Student Government, hopes to raise support for a transportation bill that gives state colleges the right to collect a small fee in exchange for free bus access for students and expanded bus routes."

Delayism not working against public transit

Those who profit from subsidized autosprawl are moving heaven and earth to keep the subsidies flowing. But, oh-oh, bad news, climate change is baking the streets and flooding back yards. People are starting to get it. More worrisome, the insurance industry is catching on. They don't want to pay the storm-damage claims.

What to do. Well, there is always that handy racist/religious/misogynist coalition. So some oil money was invested and a tea party got started. Emphasis was taken off of burning crosses and killing doctors. Instead scientists are now the new enemy. Great target. Don't have to win, just establish doubt. Scientists are full of doubt and easy to engage in endless debate. Easy work.

But what about public transit? Sad to say, there is not a single passage in the Bible calling it an abomination. Worse, there are plenty of reasons to have more of it that have nothing to do with climate change. Ouch. So deny/delay is not going to be enough. Again, what to do?

Recently foxxil-fuel news had an article blasting public transit as a plot by the left to control your life. Many transit advocates laughed. Others yawned. But this piece is an instruction manual for tea party people to teach the rank-and-file that their job is to hate public transit as well as science. It is hard for them to make the intuitive leap.

Expect more attacks like this.

Switzerland-based group, actif-trafiC, opposing the private auto 20 years

We focus on sustainability and not depend on any party. The association was founded in 1990 to divide in half the individual motor traffic doubled in the space of ten years....

Since 1990 we are committed to a non-motorized, car-free days and make pressure on the authorities to recognize public transport, pedestrian and bicycle mobility as viable alternatives to private motorized traffic.

Our principles are as follows: diversity of opinion within the association, non-violent action and positive independent.

actif-trafiC

Lack of Transit Intensifies Suburban Poverty | Planetizen

Lack of Transit Intensifies Suburban Poverty | Planetizen: "In addition, suburbs are simply not setup to deal with increasing levels of poverty because this is such a new problem. Expanding public transit through suburban areas is costly compared to inner city projects. In downtown areas efficiencies of scale 'ensure people will use new rail lines,' but in the suburbs this guarantee almost evaporates."

The missing link between economic growth and nature

...Look around you. The clothes you are wearing, the chair you are sitting in, the implements on the stove, the stove, the floor and walls of your room, its carpet, the lights and the switches, the electrical lines in the walls, your mobile phone, the road outside, the car you drive and all its tyres, wires, metals, glass, fabrics, batteries; airplanes, skyscrapers, tanks, missiles, computers ... were all once minerals and metals dug up from the earth, then shipped around the world, transformed, assembled, shipped again to a store near you, and sold. Or else they were living beings: trees, plants, animals, fibres, corals that had their own independent existence. Even "synthetics" began as natural elements. Is your shirt made of polyester? Polyester is plastic. Plastic is oil. Oil used to be dinosaurs, trees, plants. All of it is nature. The entire material economy began as part of the earth, buried in the ground, or it grew from it, or it was alive before we transformed it. But it's disappearing fast.

The whole situation is something new for capitalism, a shock. For two centuries it's been like a closely guarded secret that the entire economic system we live in, and assumed was forever, is actually part of another larger system, but with only so many resources and dump sites. But the secret is out. We are eating up the materials that sustain us, and the feast is almost over....

Guardian

Parliamentary Report Warns Of New Oil Shock Looming | Voxy.co.nz

Parliamentary Report Warns Of New Oil Shock Looming | Voxy.co.nz: "'World oil production capacity will not grow or fall for the next five years, while demand will continue to rise,' said Mr Smith.

'While the world will not run out of oil reserves for decades to come, it cannot indefinitely continue to produce oil at an increasing rate from the remaining reserves.

'There is a risk that the world economy may be at the start of a cycle of supply crunches leading to price spikes and recessions, followed by recoveries leading to supply crunches.'"

U.S. energy greed hoist by own petard

fare-free would "create a tipping point toward more people using public transportation"

A way to realign these incentives and increase public transit use is to make all public transportation free to passengers, Erik Olin Wright, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told Big Think. According to Wright, the benefits of free public transit are broader than are apparent with strict financial bookkeeping. The full value comes in a range of ancillary economic, health and ecological benefits, including:

"Reduced air pollution, including especially reduced greenhouse gases, which would help mitigate global warming."
"More efficient labor markets since it is easier for poor people to get to jobs. This is a benefit to employers for it makes it easier to hire people and it is a benefit to the people without cars who now find it easier to get jobs. But it is also a benefit to the society at large because it contributes to a long-term reduction in poverty."
"Health benefits: reduced asthma and other illnesses linked to automobile generated pollution."
"Less congestion on the highways for those who do need to drive."

big think