Free transit for EU seniors proposed... again

Nessa Childers, Labour's MEP candidate for Ireland East, today announced a major proposal to bring free public transport to senior citizens from across the EU in all 27 EU member states. Nessa was speaking at an Irish Senior Citizens Parliament public meeting in Dundalk, organised in the run up to the European and local elections. The meeting focused on the European Union and the upcoming European elections as well as a number of other issues. Ireland Labour Party

U.S. autosprawl chickens coming home to roost

One year of GM Stock (from Google Finance)

Auto companies in bankruptcy, soldiers bogged down in hopeless energy wars, unsustainable homes in foreclosure -- the U.S. policy of "build roads, drop bombs" is coming home.

It is intuitive that the autosprawl system is wasteful. The best way to cut that waste is to make public transit fare-free. Fares simply are a restraint-of-trade tariff which hurts all business in order to subsidize the auto/fossil-fuel/sprawl industry.

Simplify

...Public transit debates are often a confused mixture of technical information and value judgments. Sometimes, it serves someone's agenda to keep these things mixed up....
As an expert on public transit, let me warn you that the job of developing great transit must never be left entirely to experts. Once a community has expressed its transit goals, experts have a role in designing systems to meet them. But experts shouldn't be the source of the goals themselves. Citizens and their elected officials are entitled to a clear explanation of the underlying choices they face, and a chance to express their views on them. I believe every citizen has a right to debate about their public services in terms that they can understand... -- Jarret Walker, Human Transit

Cars stink

I support the New Urbanism but strongly prefer the pure car-free solution, as the advantages are even greater. Once the last car disappears from the street, it becomes a playground for people of all ages. This can be seen any day in Venice or Fes. Peace, safety and tranquility settle over the street, and a rich and vibrant social life takes the place of the stink, noise, and danger of cars. JHCrawford- NYTimes

Congress for New Urbanism

Who is next? Columbia Missouri?

Columbia explores offering free transit
Friday, May 8, 2009 12:01 a.m. CDT
BY Jessica Cherry
COLUMBIA — In September, the City of Columbia doubled bus fares. Now, City Council is exploring ideas to create free public transit...
columbiamissourian.com

Zagreb, Croatia - Free Public Transport

Free public transport in Zagreb as city bosses look to cut car numbers
Croatian Times

City bosses in Zagreb have introduced free public transport in a bid to cut car numbers in the capital.

Public city transport in the wider Zagreb downtown area became free of charge as of today (Tue) and Zagreb Municipal Transit System (ZET) head Ivan Tolic said: "This is designed to reduce car traffic in the centre and encourage residents to park their cars in public garages outside the centre."

Tolic said the city’s finances would not be hurt by the new measure.

Renewables all used up by growth

Increase in U.S. energy consumption 2003-2007
Total - 3.337 Renewables - .663 Fossil Fuels - 2.134

The above graph is derived from the EIA data linked below. It shows the growth in energy consumption in the U.S. from 2003 through 2007 in quadrillion BTUs. The first bar is the total increase over the 5 years. Also shown are (non-nuclear) renewable and fossil-fuel components of that total. Renewables increase was less than 1/3 that of fossil fuels.

The private-auto system consumes 25% of U.S. GDP. A sharp curtailment of the private-auto system of transport is the only the path that can significantly reduce fossil fuel usage.

Table 1.1 U.S. Energy Consumption by Energy Source, 2003 - 2007

(Quadrillion Btu)

Sprawl subsidies disguised as "job-creation"

At the same time, there is evidence that job subsidies encourage companies to move to areas that are inaccessible for many urban working families. In our study, Another Way Sprawl Happens, Good Jobs First examined the movement of companies to Anoka (an outer suburb of Minneapolis), which had offered them free land valued at more than $7.5 million. This resulted in the movement of 29 companies with 1,600 jobs to a 300-acre industrial park. The net result of the subsidized relocations was to move the jobs away from the region's largest concentrations of people of color, away from pockets of poverty and away from households receiving public assistance. Read more at: GoodJobsFirst

Conservatism, highway subsidy, and the Lexus lane

Maryland Traffic - Photo Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

In a thorough, well-researched, and prescient article, Ben Ross of Maryland's Action Committee for Transit clearly lays out the insidious nature of the "Lexus lane." The Lexus lane and road-pricing in general are an attempt by so-called "conservatives" to reconcile their alleged free-market philosophy with their unquestioning support of highway pork. This article is must reading if on first glance you think tolling and privatizing highways are a plausible market solution to traffic congestion.

....These survey results suggest that the "Lexus lanes" moniker is well deserved. Who uses pay lanes is mostly determined by income. For most of the people in the free lanes, consumer sovereignty is a fiction. They haven't made a voluntary decision that their time isn't worth the price of a quicker commute. They are sitting in traffic jams because the toll exceeds what they can afford to pay.
Even if this is true, toll lane supporters respond, the lanes still benefit lower-income drivers. Those who can't afford to use the new lanes benefit from the added road capacity tolls pay for. With the wealthy on the new lanes, fewer drivers are squeezed into the free lanes, and everyone has a faster commute. The argument is logical, but it does not fit the facts. It turns out, excepting rare circumstances, that express toll lanes added to existing highways cannot raise anywhere near enough revenue to pay for their construction cost....Dissent Magazine