AL.com: "You need not be a fan of urban buses or high-speed trains to have concerns about transportation funding and infrastructure in Alabama. There's also a crisis looming for folks committed to roads and bridges. Federal and state gasoline taxes, which support these projects, haven't been adjusted since the 1990s and aren't indexed for inflation. Unless policymakers act, rising construction costs and dwindling funds will lead to more potholes and greater risk of a bridge collapse.
Transportation policy affects nearly every aspect of life in Alabama, from urban traffic jams to rural residents' ability to get health care. Whether a person cares about foreign oil dependency or wants ideas for job creation, transportation policy touches on economic concerns as well as social justice.
Every merchant wants customers to be able to get to the store to do some shopping. Every employer wants workers to be able to get to work on time. And every Alabamian wants to be able to get around, whether the trip is a crucial errand or just a social call.
Transportation is at the core of these overlapping concerns. Yet our current system seems to suggest that if you don't have steady access to a car or truck (along with the money to buy insurance and put gas in it), your time matters quite a bit less.
This is no way to run a state. Elderly Alabamians who can't drive shouldn't be cut off from the rest of society. Folks who can't afford a vehicle shouldn't be forced to rely on family or neighbors to get around. People with disabilities ought to have the option of taking a quick, reliable and reasonably priced bus to their destination. Other places aren't perfect, but many have figured this out and offer mass transit options that create more opportunities for everyone to participate in modern life."
Our Finite World: "I would argue that falling commodity prices are bad news. It likely means that the debt bubble which has been holding up the world economy for a very long time–since World War II, at least–is failing to expand sufficiently. If the debt bubble collapses, we will be in huge difficulty."
EcoWatch: "The foreign policy wonks at the State Department may not understand that Russian oil production has just hit a post-USSR peak and will be declining anyway. The effect of the sanctions will be to speed the Russian decline, forcing up world oil prices as soon as U.S. tight oil maxes out and goes into its inevitable nosedive in the 2017-2020 time frame. Russia, which will still be an oil exporter then, will benefit from higher oil prices (perhaps nearly enough to compensate for the loss of production resulting from the sanctions). But the U.S., which will still be one of the world’s top oil importers, will face a re-run of the 2008 oil shock that contributed to its financial crash."Bankers are forcing US government to pursue desperate, dangerous policy. If oil price were to drop suddenly, the US tight oil would be inaccessible and the US petrodollar would take a sharp wound. But trying to control the world market has proved difficult and will become more so.
Daily News Egypt: "In the report, the agency detailed how diesel-fuelled buses will increase fares, adding that taxi fares will be increased by 5.6%. Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb mentioned in a Saturday press conference that the base fare for white taxis will start at EGP 3, up from the current EGP 2.5.
Meanwhile, fares for the use of transport vehicles will increase between 2.3% to 4.7%.
Dalia Moussa, researcher at the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), projected that transportation fares will keep increasing. She attributed the increasing continuous increases in food and industrial products to the rise in fuel costs."
Ahram Online: "An increase in the price of fuel will not affect public transport costs, Egyptian government officials stated in the face of public concern after the prices of subsidised gasoline were raised on Friday night.
Egypt raised the prices of three widely used petroleum-derived fuels, octane 80 gas, octane 92 gas, and diesel, by up to 78 percent.
Cabinet spokesperson Hossam Gaweesh announced that public transportation, including Cairo metro fares, would not be affected by the price hikes."
We can't force corporations to pay their taxes because they will raise prices and pass the cost on to the consumer and that will hurt the economy.But prices are determined by the market, are they not? If they raise prices they will be lose business to competitors. Not being able to pay for the cost of doing business means you should go out of business.
EcoWatch: "With less useful energy available, the global economy will fail to grow, and will likely enter a sustained period of contraction. Increased energy efficiency may cushion the impact but cannot avert it. With economies no longer growing, our current globally dominant neoliberal political-economic ideology may increasingly be called into question and eventually overthrown."Waiting for collapse is not acceptable. What can be done right now? We need to undo sprawl. Sprawl is subsidized, and the auto has critical mass in transport. When people are no longer car-dependent, they will no longer support sprawl subsidy. This is the Achilles heel of sprawl. Free buses are the arrows that can break the critical mass of the auto, and its sprawl.
Resource Insights : "The pending 96 percent reduction in estimated deep shale oil resources in California revealed last week in the Los Angeles Times calls into question the oil industry's premise of a decades-long revival in U.S. oil production and the already implausible predictions of American energy independence. The reduction also appears to bolster the view of long-time skeptics that the U.S. shale oil boom--now centered in North Dakota and Texas--will likely be short-lived, petering out by the end of this decade."
Aggressive TWU Transit Funding Campaign in Michigan Yields Landslide Victory at the Polls: " The tax millage will generate an estimated $3.4 million in Ann Arbor, $202,730 in Ypsilanti and $778,207 in Ypsilanti Township annually, and will fund the implementation of the AATA’s five-year transit improvement plan. That plan includes more than 90,000 hours of additional fixed-route bus service in the county's urban core, including about 57,000 in Ann Arbor, more than 8,500 in Ypsilanti, and over 9,400 in Ypsilanti Township. "
BEZPLATNA KOMUNIKACJA MIEJSKA: ""On Wednesday, the boardwalk Chelm gathered representatives of the Free Trade Union of Workers want August 80, in several Polish cities including Chelm appeared free public transport. What are the advantages of this solution?"
Do the Math: "In brief, the idea is that once we enter a decline phase in fossil fuel availability—first in petroleum—our growth-based economic system will struggle to cope with a contraction of its very lifeblood. Fuel prices will skyrocket, some individuals and exporting nations will react by hoarding, and energy scarcity will quickly become the new norm. The invisible hand of the market will slap us silly demanding a new energy infrastructure based on non-fossil solutions. But here’s the rub. The construction of that shiny new infrastructure requires not just money, but…energy. And that’s the very commodity in short supply. Will we really be willing to sacrifice additional energy in the short term—effectively steepening the decline—for a long-term energy plan? It’s a trap!"Many EROEI (net energy) numbers are generous as they usually omit clean-up costs. We believe that the tarsands are already negative net energy and the Do-the-Math article addresses this:
"Anything less than the break-even ratio of 1:1 means that the source provides no net energy (a drain, in fact), and is not worth pursuing for energy purposes—unless the form/convenience of that specific energy is otherwise unavailable."
Free Public Transport - Southeast Asia: Taib calls for better public transport: "BorneoPost Online : "KUCHING: An efficient public transportation will not just ease gridlocks and lessen travel time for commuters but will help tourists go around the state see more places."The U.S. government is controlled by the oil industry. There is no force currently on the stage that is even coming close to opposing that. That is why we say put your energy into your local government policy. Many towns have free transit. Your town can have it too. But we have to stop begging the GOP to "be good" and start talking to our neighbors and pushing for free transit in local political circles.
Miami-Dade Green -: "Riding on transit also helps to save money. According to the American Public Transportation Association, the cost savings of taking transit over driving to work continues to rise. As of January 2014, commuters who take transit instead of driving to work save $829 a month on average, or nearly $10,000 a year. "Free transit can be implemented for a tax of $100/yr per person. If free, more people would use it, and more people could save up to $10,000 per year. In addition many costs would drop.
Oil money behind Keystone XL Senate bill breaks 20 million dollars | Oil Change International: "In other words, those Senators cosponsoring the pro-Keystone XL bill introduced today have received roughly 5 times more in oil industry cash than those who remained off the bill."
