Jacksonville, FL - free trolleys downtown

JACKSONVILLE! The sleeping giant of Florida, the states largest city (anyway you count it). Larger then Buffalo, Atlanta or St. Louis, 3RD largest City on the East Coast...Has FREE TRANSIT.

Jacksonville has a downtown network of 3 Faux Trolley - bus routes. Affectionately known locally as PCT TROLLEYS (for: Potato-Chip-Truck), they don't win any prizes for looks but they're free.

The Jacksonville Transit Blog has interviewed the JTA boss, Mr. Mike Blaylock, and knows he wishes to make the entire system fare-free. The drawback is funding at the State and Municipal level, with a Conservative mayor that is now planning to raid the fixed transit funding for a few more lane miles of highway at our international port.

Blaylock is in a catch 22 position, being between job security and mass transit and the mayor and severely restricted and/or expensive transit.

The battle lines have been drawn ad God knows, it's as much along the lines of "fare-free" as it is "transit free." It will be interesting to see if the local monorail system (The Jacksonville Skyway) and more of the bus system go fare free, they very well might.

That being said, there is an equal chance that Blaylock has to walk home from his job, de-throned by Neanderthals at the top. But Mike should know, he'd be the hero of Transit Systems all over the nation. I can't think of a finer way to move up and OUT!

- Robert Mann

Free Transit Advocates - step forward!

The world is in a period of change. Interest in our cause is growing. Here is what you can do: Write up a short post on your local public transport situation. We especially need correspondents in Bermuda, Bangkok, and Bangalore. send it to us at info@freepublictransit.org .

other action you can take:

• join your local public trans advocacy group
• join our email list
• send us your research and/or opinion
• paste our link when commenting on free transit
• notify us of places that have free public trans

Feeder buses - not park-and-ride

The Land Transport Authority wishes to promote the "park-and-ride" scheme.
It is better to promote feeder services. These services should meet the following criteria:

1. Be frequent
2. Short travelling time
3. Be affordable.

The light bus system used in Hong Kong is the best model. It should be managed by individual operators and not big companies. SingaporePublicTransport

Environmental Ponzi Scheme

A Ponzi scheme pays investors "dividends" from the capital of new investors. Eventually it collapses. The autosprawl system pays "dividends" in the form of profits for fossil-fuel, auto, and related companies. These are not real profits, they are stolen from our environmental capital. This scheme must be stopped. The quickest way is a mass movement for free public transportation.

Arctic carbon release imminent

QUEBEC CITY, Canada - In just a few summers from now, the Arctic Ocean will lose its protective cover of ice for the first time in a million years, according to some experts attending the International Arctic Change conference here.

....Burning of fossil fuels contributes about 8.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, but the permafrost holds more than 1,670 billion tonnes. 'It's bigger than we thought,' Schuur said in a release.

He estimates that thawing permafrost could add 0.8 to 1.1 billion tonnes per year in the future -- almost as much as deforestation currently adds. Ominously, carbon from melting permafrost is not included in climate models... inter press service via commondreams

J.K.Galbraith says invest in rail and transit

...Economic recovery in an existential crisis like this means actually building a new economy. For that, we need investment-to restore our roads, rails, transit, broadband, and water systems, to build parks and museums and libraries, to protect the environment. Right now, states and localities can't borrow for these things. Creating a National Infrastructure Fund, using Uncle Sam's borrowing power to put money where it's needed, is one way forward. Federal capital spending should be bond financed and exempt from budget rules, especially pay-as-you-go. It makes no sense to finance projects whose benefits will last for 50 years solely from tax revenues of today... commondreams

Driver pays ultimate price for fare collection

Edwin Thomas, killed collecting a fare

Bus and train fares exist mainly for one purpose. To protect the auto-sprawl-fossil-fuel industry from any possible competiton. Fares exist mainly to discourage use of public transport. Transit employees are put in the difficult and dangerous position of having to demand payment from people who are under economic stress, with some individuals at the breaking point. It is time to stop subsidizing and protecting waste. It is intuitive that public transit is more efficient than the private auto. Let's stop hobbling our investment and remove the fares!

Asia - private auto promotes terrorism

streets of Chennai - seeing green

India has a great thirst for energy. More and more, the energy is being wasted by private autos. A private auto requires large amounts of resources to build, but then just sits most of the time, waiting for its owner to wake up or finish at work. To make it worse the auto promotes sprawl, spreading out structures, costing more energy to heat or cool and get to and from. Even worse, the auto burns a lot more fuel per passenger than a bus or tram.

To feed this thirst for energy. Oil and gas companies are fighting over building pipelines from fossil fuel sources in central Asia. These companies are so powerful, they persuade their national armies get involved. These armies invade and occupy areas of fuel sources and pipeline routes and terrorize on the populations. So people are being terrorized for fuel that is just being wasted.

Netherlands public employees have free public transportation

The Dutch believe that the “care of the environment is more than a list of technical measures, but a combination of policy, technology, responsibility and behavior.”

I asked how they encourage people to switch to more eco-friendly practices. I was told that they believe in penalizing and rewarding. Below are some interesting examples of such penalties and rewards and other interesting facts and good practices:

TRANSPORTATION/USE OF BICYCLES

-The ministry believes it should practice what it preaches. Therefore its head office uses energy that is 100% environmentally friendly (more on this in a separate report).

- to reduce the use of fossil fuel, government discourages the use of private vehicle and instead offers its employees free public transportation.

- To be more energy efficient and environmentally friendly, they promote public transportation and the use of bicycles. The planning of public transportation facilities is an integral part of planning for urban and rural development.

- to promote the use of bicycles:

-- the ministry recently mandated that real estate developers/builders build new houses with a bike storage area.

--government employees have access to government bicycles for their official use.

--government employees will also receive a subsidy for using a bicycle as their mode of transport to work. mydailyrace

Road traffic kills poor people more

...The committee heard evidence that child pedestrians from the lowest socio-economic groups are 21 times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident than those from the top socio-economic groups. Poorer car users are also at greater risk of death than the more affluent.
Chair of the committee Louise Ellman said: “The number of deaths and injuries on our roads far outweighs the deaths and injuries in other transport modes or in other
work-related accidents... Les Bonner's Blog photo from flickr