People in the transit industry often tell us how fortunate we are that they are spending billions of dollars of our money each year, because otherwise there would be a lot more cars on the road and a lot more congestion. This is simply untrue.
In most cities, most transit riders are transit dependent — for one reason or another, they can’t drive. If government subsidized transit didn’t exist, private operators would take up the slack and serve these people. The fares might be a little higher (though not necessarily), and they might not serve some low-density suburbs (where you see buses that are empty most of the time), but the service would be there. Plus, anyone who was a “choice” rider — that is, they can drive but would prefer not to — could use these services too.
If subsidized transit disappeared tomorrow and I were designing a private transit system for a middle-sized city or urban area, I would follow the taxicab model. Under this model, the “company” is really just a dispatching call center, while the cabs are all individually owned. This can easily be scaled up to a transit service by persuading drivers to buy buses instead of cars.
A full-sized bus costs about $300,000, which is a lot more than a car. But most routes would not need full-sized buses. Most transit agencies buy buses that are bigger than they need because most of the cost is covered by “free” federal money. If they had to spend their own money, they would buy a lot more van-style buses of the sort you see transporting people from airports to specific hotels.
So, at least to start, many of the routes on my private transit system would be served by such van-style buses. Some might be smaller, eventually some might be larger. But owner-operators could easily afford such vans, which cost around $60,000 to $80,000 new and considerably less used.
The U.S. has one example of an entirely private, unsubsidized transit system that uses this kind of van-bus: the Atlantic City Jitney Association. Each of the 190 buses in the association is owner-operated and follows a fixed route designated by the association. Fares are reasonable and, unlike most subsidized transit systems, the buses run 24 hours a day.
The only difference lies in the colour of both brand viagra from canada the products. The dosage for these pills is very simple. viagra 100mg tablet That cGMP could be the key of order viagra happy, blessed and delightful relationship. You can do this by setting up an account with a web-based merchant. levitra 20mg http://secretworldchronicle.com/2017/11/ep-9-01-find-a-way-part-1/ Curiously, the association is threatened by Harrah’s recent start-up of a free shuttle service between its casinos, and so the association is seeking relief in the form of a law giving it a legal monopoly on Atlantic City transit service. I like to think that competition is a good thing, but economists Daniel Klein and Adrian Moore have proposed that cities sell “curb rights” to private bus operators to prevent cut-throat competition. (Our loyal opponent, MSetty, doesn’t like the idea to judge from his comments on Amazon.)
My private transit system would start out with a combination of fixed and flexible routes. A flexible-route bus moves in one general direction — say, to downtown or some other major job center — but will go out of its way to stop at people’s homes or other locations to pick people up. The fare for a flexible-route bus would be more than one that follows a fixed route and only picks up passengers at designated stops.
Back in the mid-1970s, San Jose tried to use a flexible route system, or “dial-a-ride.” They bought a bunch of small vans and opened up a call center. From opening day on, they were swamped with calls — 80,000 people a day wanted rides. The call center could not handle most of the calls and so most potential riders were disappointed. In addition, the local taxi company had a franchise on door-to-door service in town, and they convinced a judge to order the transit agency to pay millions buying their franchise if the agency persisted in running a dial-a-bus service.
So San Jose gave up on a dial-a-bus in part because, ironically, the demand for it was too great. Today, the Federal Transit Administration has computer software that can handle the requests and dispatching, so there is no risk that a call center will be overwhelmed. But, because of the taxicab lobby, transit agencies restrict their dial-a-ride services to disabled passengers. Because of low ridership, this makes it very costly to operate, but if it were opened to more people, those costs would go down.
The advantage of the taxicab model is that no one has to pay a lot of money up front to start it up. It would not be a single company; it would be an association of operators. The dispatching center might consist of a computer and software. Owner-operators might each buy one van or bus. Those who run on the more successful routes might buy bigger buses — but, more likely, the association would just run more buses on those routes. I would overcome the taxi franchise conflict by getting the local taxi operators to buy into the association.
Most transit agencies have large maintenance centers that have to keep inventories of parts for every single brand and model of vehicle they operate. Agencies that run light rail and commuter rail need separate maintenance centers for each one. The Atlantic City Jitney Association uses just one type of van-bus, which keeps maintenance costs down. My private transit system would, at least initially, contract out maintenance to a private repair shop, thus further spreading the costs and minimizing the risk.
There is some minimum size of city below which this model will not work — for example, any town too small to have a taxi company would certainly be too small for a bus association. But once that minimum size is reached, this model can scale up to any size of urban area: from Logan, Utah to New York City.
It is entirely possible that in many cities the bus-association model would actually provide better service, at little or no more fare, than the subsidized transit systems we have today. The only reason we don’t see it is that it is hard to compete against government monopolies.
Interestingly, one of the other reasons San Jose’s dial-a-ride failed is lawsuits from disabled “advocates”. San Jose’s transit agency liked dial-a-ride because it was both cheaper and offered better service to disabled passengers, compared to fitting every regular bus with very expensive wheelchair lifts. Such “advocates”, like most progressives, don’t care about costs or service, so they sued, arguing that dial-a-ride discriminated against the disabled because it didn’t offer exactly the same service other riders get. “Mainstreaming”, apparently, should be more important to a transit agency than costs and service quality. If that sounds insane, it is. It’s the same attitude that led to lawsuits against a major theater chain, which argued that even though wheelchair-bound patrons got the best location in the theater from which to watch movies it was nonetheless discriminatory to restrict them to that location. Anyway, the transit agency lost the suit and was forced at great expense to install wheelchair lifts on all their buses. Advocates got what they wanted: after spending all that money the agency dropped dial-a-ride as redundant (and has since reduced bus service even further). And if you are in a wheelchair, and found door to door service convenient and timely? Too bad, people suing in your name know what’s best for you.
Ridiculous strawmen aside, arg I can’t find this “lawsuit” in FindLaw. Do you have a case number, plaintiffs, defendant, etc?
Thank you in advance.
DS
Isn’t MSETTY the guy wrote “I understand “libertarian principles†ad nauseum, but violently disagree with them.”
How is his violence manifested?
How is his violence manifested?
How? I don’t know.
Where? Transit stops and alleys, no doubt.
That’s “violently” in rhetoric, numnuts!
Seriously now (if I speculated too much about the deep psychological meanings of those with fetishes about Ayn Rand, using handles similar to those common in a more well-known fanbase such as “Wampa1” or “JediMaster455,” Randal would ban me off this blog for sure!)
Professor John F. Due has written what I think is the seminal debunking of Randal’s position:
http://www.business.uiuc.edu/Working_Papers/papers/03-0101.pdf
For those who know their history of transportation academics, many moons ago (1960), Dr. Due and George Hilton of UCLA wrote the seminal history on “interurbans”, that is, “streetcars on steroids.” (BART, D.C. Metro, and new LRT systems are modern variations thereof). As Randal may or may not know, George Hilton was one of the original anti-rail academics, a few years even before Martin, Kain and Wohl.
For strong evidence regarding what Due wrote, look no further than to bus deregulation in England outside London. I think many cities still provide subsidies for “concession” fares, e.g., for seniors, children, persons with disabilities and other “transit dependents.”. Oh, yes, ridership has tumbled nearly 40% in some British cities despite the “better” service privatisation was supposed to have provided.
msetty For strong evidence regarding what Due wrote, look no further than to bus deregulation in England outside London. I think many cities still provide subsidies for “concession†fares, e.g., for seniors, children, persons with disabilities and other “transit dependents.â€Â. Oh, yes, ridership has tumbled nearly 40% in some British cities despite the “better†service privatisation was supposed to have provided.
JK: Perhaps the riders were asked to pay their own way, instead of sucking off of their neighbors for their transportation costs?
Thanks
JK
Bus lines in England outside London still get subsidies for “welfare” type transportation, e.g., “transit dependents”, G.K.
London has managed to increase patronage significantly while overall subsidies have declined. The difference is that they put service “out to tender” as the Brits call asking for bids, rather than deregulation a la Randal. Putting things out to bid–also practiced widely in this country by many transit agencies, particularly for ADA paratransit–is a substantially different animal than deregulation.
Instead of shooting from the hip as you always do, why don’t you read John Due’s paper first? Of course, my expectations for you are quite low, as you know…sounds like you’d strand the old ladies and wheelchairs, particularly in low density areas where “deregulated” transit operators couldn’t make money–which is most of auto-subsidized America, to the tune of hundreds of billions per year…but I digress…
particularly in low density areas where “deregulated†transit operators couldn’t make money–which is most of auto-subsidized America, to the tune of hundreds of billions per year…but I digress…
We’re having concerns with part of our transit plan right now, as a good fraction of our res development is too low-density to support transit without subsidy & the private operators won’t come out because of the sprawl and density numbers. This is a result of cowboy-type, typical suburban development wave a few years ago, and the cofactor of developers only building what they knew how to do and banks only lending what they knew how to lend.
Anyway, our key demographic will soon be a large population of the non-driving “savvy senior†bracket that will have to rely on call-n-ride, or rely on long headway local service under current transportation funding [which autocentrically mostly funds new roads and road repair], resulting in long wait times or reliance upon friends.
The community is discussing this reality now and they don’t like it, which we all knew, so the community is also discussing how to pay for it. Of course folk want services with no taxes, so good times!
DS
I love transit loonies. You make an argument, then they post a 60 page paper which “debunks” and say “now respond”. Are they all unemployed? Might not wanna answer that one…
They are truly masters in the art of debate.
As a college student in San Jose/Silicon Valley rode a private bus system 5 miles to college. The private system operated 105% from the fare box. It was bought out by (VTA) Valley Transportation authority who now gets 14% from the fare box. It may be time to forget the fare box and let everyone ride for free.
Rotten:
Your logic lives up to your name, but I’m not surprised.
If you want to argue an issue such as those that Randal discusses on this blog, you have to do SOME reading. By the way, Due’s paper is only 14 pages, less than a 30-minute read, and one of the very few ANTI-transit privatization papers I’ve seen from an economist in many years of gainful contract employment in transit (e.g., just in the last few months, I’ve worked on two transit plans, two transit surveys, various other minor items for several clients, putting bids in for new work, etc.)
One of the reasons my website hasn’t been updated as much as I’d like is that I have this PAID work to do, slipping in my comments against the likes of Gridlock Karlock when I can (BTW, less than a total of two hours this week, in-between the PAID work when I need a break! Arguing with G.K., you and others IS entertaining and useful, as I pointed out to Dan the other day.)
For the record, much, much more has been published on the PRO privatization side, including the “curb rights” book, and a lot of rather unconvincing stuff that Randal’s colleagues at Cato and Reason have pumped out over the years. In my view, the only person who has had some actually useful insight into “curb rights” recently is Donald Shoup, e.g., his brilliant idea for funneling back curb parking revenues into the affected local neighborhoods (e.g., in effect a potential “trust”–similar to a land trust– arrangement for such areas operated by local governments).
The only other significant anti-privatization of transit work, besides Due, that I know of is Chapters 4 and 8 (yeah, 60 pages) in University of Melbourne Professor Paul Mee’s seminal 2000 book, A Very Public Solution. I strongly recommend this book to ANYONE interested in urban transportation, whether you’re anti- or pro-privatization. Mee’s work to me is the best reference outlining a sophisticated pro-transit position; even if you don’t agree, this book is still insightful if you want to UNDERSTAND the intellectual basis on which I think the case for public transit rests.
But perhaps you’d prefer to NOT to understand…??
July 18th, 2007, 11:15 am msetty said: Professor John F. Due has written what I think is the seminal debunking of Randal’s position:
http://www.business.uiuc.edu/Working_Papers/papers/03-0101.pdf
July 18th, 2007 at 12:43 pm, msetty said: Instead of shooting from the hip as you always do, why don’t you read John Due’s paper first?
JK: I did – did you. I did n’t find anything except support for Randal’s general positions:
To Due’s credit, there was no reference to GM killing the streetcars (per Roger Rabbit), instead there is this true sounding account of the event:
Initially the bus was regarded as basically a supplement to the street car, providing
service on routes not warranting the investment necessary for the street cars and serving lower
volume areas. But before long the bus came to be seen as a replacement or a competitor of street
car lines – a trend frequently supported by city planners and automobile owner groups.
Ultimately the bus was seen as offering complete competition against or replacement of the street
car. (Bold added)
Then there is a realistic description of one problem inherent in transit systems:
Another element in the difference between transit and most other utilities is the return trip
problem. Traffic flows of transit vehicles and labor differ sharply from most other forms of
business activity – including other forms of transport to a degree. In the typical transit pattern,
the flow of transit traffic is outbound in the late afternoon, while the inbound flow is in the
morning hours, particularly true of work-related commuting but also true of other aspects of
transit work such as school and shopping as well. Which basically says that transit systems are poorly utilized because they don’t match people’s needs very well.
The primary reason that government mass transit is has higher costs is overpaid government employees:
But when the sources of lower cost are analyzed, the primary source of the difference is to be found in labor costs.
Due makes several key points without bothering to support them:
Regardless of the size of the vehicle chosen, freedom of entry suffers from two serious related disadvantages – increased pollution and increased congestion.
(For another opinion see: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/big_rig_cleanup/rolling-smokestacks-cleaning-up-americas-trucks-and-buses.html )
The general failure of transit systems and governments to favor smaller vehicles is a preference on
the part of users and many nonusers.
The failure to act must obviously rest upon public preference for monopoly systems under government ownership and management and the use of large buses.
July 18th, 2007 at 12:43 pm, msetty said: Of course, my expectations for you are quite low, as you know
JK: They can’t be lower than what you actually demonstrate by your arguments here..
July 18th, 2007 at 12:43 pm, msetty said: …sounds like you’d strand the old ladies and wheelchairs, particularly in low density areas where “deregulated†transit operators couldn’t make money–
JK: No, I’d give them transit stamps, so that they could get BETTER SERVICE THAN THEY GET NOW. Door-to-door taxi or the like. The analogy is to food stamps, where there are some people in need, but we don’t build a whole county full of welfare supermarkets. Instead we just help them with the cost of a service provided by highly efficient private operators. In the real world (something planners really don’t like) today that means help with taxi fare. Hopefully that taxi fare will be quite low due to a really free market and all mixed up with on demand, jitneys, small buses, pedicycles etc. But NO monopoly, be it government or government picked favorite “private†operators.
July 18th, 2007 at 12:43 pm, msetty said: which is most of auto-subsidized America, to the tune of hundreds of billions per year…but I digress…
JK: I keep seeing that LIE from planners – care to offer any REAL proof of its truth. I have a credible source that says it is pure bunk (like most of what planners spew): http://www.DebunkingPortland.com/Roads/Docs/Delucchi_Chart.htm
Thanks
JK
(Just having fun debunking planner’s delusions.)
msetty said: By the way, Due’s paper is only 14 pages, less than a 30-minute read, and one of the very few ANTI-transit privatization papers I’ve seen from an economist in many years of gainful contract employment in transit (e.g., just in the last few months, I’ve worked on two transit plans, two transit surveys, various other minor items for several clients, putting bids in for new work, etc.)
JK: Is this just another of the planner’s unsubstantiated claims? It struck me as more as a neutral summary combined with a few wild assertions.
msetty said: slipping in my comments against the likes of Gridlock Karlock when I can
JK: Guess I’m gunna have to find a name for you . Lets see ms-shi-tty?? Sh*tty Setty??
msetty said: But perhaps you’d prefer to NOT to understand…??
JK: A perfect description of the pathetic planning “professionâ€Â.
Thanks
JK
Karlock, your potty mouth and pet names for me don’t phase me a bit. Potty-mouthed asshole. I really don’t give a damn what you think, because it isn’t thinking, just the pathetic ideologically driven rants of an incompetent boob who can only get attention by accusing his opponents of stupidity, mendacity, while at the same time mouthing obscenities when they talk balk. I just wonder if you’re so rude and crude in person, that you’d dare to communicate with your opponents in person the way you do online.
As for the hundreds of billions in annual auto subsidies, here is a starting point. If you don’t like the reams of documentation on this point, too bad! See http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/index.php. Todd Litman has years of heavily documented work on the topic which is covered by several entries in his TDM Encyclopedia, as do dozens of other researchers. This link is mainly for the benefit of blog readers, not you, loud-mouthed Buffoon with Attitude ™.
Come to think of it, I nominate Buffoon with Attitude â„¢ for the new Alexander Cockburn Award–an award I just created– in honor of Cockburn’s name (really IS his last name!), and Alexander’s unparalleled track record as an old-style mendacious Stalinist liar and ideologist, AND prominent climate change denier.
Anyone’s guess why Cockburn as a “leftist” denies global warming, but his extreme record of mendacity and immunity to logic and facts shames all, EXCEPT the sort of people so convinced of their holy opinions, like G.K., who apparently believes that anyone who doesn’t agree is an idiot or a “liar.”
msetty said: Karlock, your potty mouth and pet names for me don’t phase me a bit. Potty-mouthed asshole. I really don’t give a damn what you think, because it isn’t thinking, just the pathetic ideologically driven rants of an incompetent boob who can only get attention by accusing his opponents of stupidity, mendacity, while at the same time mouthing obscenities when they talk balk.
JK: What’s your problem? Here are some thing you recently said:
Msetty: on July 15th, 2007 at 1:47 pm: Gridlock Karlock
Msetty: on July 13th, 2007 at 2:35 pm: Karlock is a classic example of that scourge of human society (and increasingly the planet), an ideologically-motivated IGNORAMUS WITH ATTITUDE!
Msetty: on July 15th, 2007 at 2:56 pm: Hey, Ignaramus With Attitude â„¢, it was the “Farm Under the SAND†NOT the “Farm Under the Icecap!â€Â
BTW I’m still waiting for your answers form unbiased sources:
What is the most significant greenhouse gas (in terms of warming effect)?
How much of the total greenhouse effect is due to CO2?
How much of the total annual CO2 emission is man caused?
According to the Antarctic ice cores, which comes first: rise in temperature or rise in CO2?
And finally:
When will the ice finally uncover all of those medieval Viking farms that are still buried under ice on Greenland
Thanks
JK
msetty said: As for the hundreds of billions in annual auto subsidies, here is a starting point. If you don’t like the reams of documentation on this point, too bad! See http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/index.php. Todd Litman has years of heavily documented work on the topic which is covered by several entries in his TDM Encyclopedia, as do dozens of other researchers. This link is mainly for the benefit of blog readers, not you, loud-mouthed Buffoon with Attitude ™.
JK: I browsed that site once and found a large selection of, well basically, garbage. Is anything that guy says provably correct?
Here are some things that are provable:
High Density CAUSES congestion: http://www.debunkingportland.com/Smart/DensityCongestion.htm
High Density costs more: http://www.debunkingportland.com/Smart/DensityCost.htm
Mass transit DOES NOT save energy: http://www.debunkingportland.com/Transit/BusVsCarTEDB.htm
Mass transit DOES NOT reduce pollution: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2003-05-28/diversions/bus-ted.php
Mass transit DOES NOT save money: http://www.debunkingportland.com/Transit/Cost-Cars-Transit.htm
Europeans are abandoning transit too: http://www.debunkingportland.com/Transit/EuroTranistShareLoss.htm
Thanks
JK
Karlock: So what’s your problem?
Answer: Your (1) utterly predictable reactions to those who fundamentally disagree with you, who you are ready at the drop of a hat to call names or characterize as stupid or morally and ethically deficient. (2) Your routine selection bias in torturing the data to come to the conclusions you want to. (3) Your trust of dubious sources, like Wendell Cox, and to some extent, Randal.
Perhaps the central disagreement is over what indisputable facts MEAN–e.g., data collected by non-axgrinding statisticians generating data from primary sources such as the U.S. Census, the series of National Personal Transportation Surveys, Consumer Spending Surveys, and so forth. This source has the correct interpretation, in my view:
http://www.ceosforcities.org/conversations/blog/2007/07/portlands_green_dividend.php
What if you could add $2.6 billion annually to your local economy?
That’s what Portland has effectively done by getting its citizens to drive just 4 fewer miles a day, according to a briefing paper by our colleague Joe Cortright called Portland’s Green Dividend. What Joe found has big implications for urban leaders across the country.
As a result of enacting a growth boundary, increased density, mixed land uses, and investments in public transportation, walking and biking, Portlanders are saving time and money on transportation that gets funneled back into the local economy.
Critics have long characterized Portlanders as “depriving themselves in the name of saving the environment.†Some have argued that “planning, policies and regulations that restrict use or access to resources impede growth and lower household income.â€Â
But the new study found that assumption is simply not true. There is, in fact, a Green Dividend that accrues to cities willing to make certain choices about urban form and transportation.
The numbers underlying this person’s conclusions ARE NOT IN DISPUTE; they come from statisticians who HAVE NO AGENDA other that to collect accurate statistics on population, travel, consumer spending and so forth.
The key facts are thus: on average, per capita daily mileage in the Portland region is 4 miles per day BELOW the averge for U.S. large urban areas, and that transportation spending is 15% of the region’s personal income, NOT 19% which is the average for U.S. large urban areas. THIS is where the link above came up with the estimated transportation savings dividend of $2.6 billion per year, or about $1,300 per capita–a large chunk of change by any measure.
To offset these what I think are quite tangible benefits, the Texas Transportation Institute–another trustworthy institution–estimated that in 2003, the per capita cost for congestion in time lost was $341. Additional costs that could be added to this include the TriMet and Clark County PTBD net capital and operating subsidies (for FY 2005 from NTD data, TriMet $282 million including some tailend capital costs for the Yellow line, $23.9 million for Clark County, $306 million total, or about $155 per capita that year), using the 2 million residents figure for regional population.
In other words, the costs of congestion and transit are roughly $500 per capita per year in the Portland region, but the direct financial benefits are $1,300 annually per capita, a DIRECT, DIRECTLY MEASURABLE FROM SOURCES WITHOUT AGENDAS OTHER THAN ACCURATE STATISTICS, rate of return of 260% PER YEAR.
I would concede the additional costs for subsidies to high density developments that Randal also likes to rave about, BUT NOT UNLESS YOU CONCEDE the additional environmental savings from reduced auto travel due to that 4 daily auto miles per day saved, as well as the some indirect allowance for oil NOT imported every day and the resulting inflation of the U.S. trade deficit, among many other things financial.
Let’s see for imported oil, at $75.57 per barrel, price closing on Friday, July 20, 2007 http://www.321energy.com, 70% of U.S. oil imported, daily cost of $1.587 billion per day, or $579 billion per year at the current consumption rate. A bit more than 60% of oil usage in this country is for transportation, which I think we can attribute most of the expenses for imported oil to transportation, and the vast majority of transportation to automobiles, which use the most of the transportation oil.
If Americans were consuming oil at the rate of say, the Swiss, we’d have a few hundred billion more a year staying at home in OUR economy rather than in the pockets of OPEC, our trade deficit would be much smaller, oil prices around the planet would probably be significantly lower than they are because U.S. demand would moderate the market, and the dollar wouldn’t be falling steadily like a rock because we’d have a smaller trade deficit and far less need to borrow money from dubious sources like the Chinese to keep our auto-based suburban, largest misallocation of natural resources in history self-indulgent consumption binge going
Postscript.
If you add the capital carrying cost for the $2 billion in rail investment to the $500 annual cost per capita in the portland region for congestion and transit subsidies, costs go up to $560 million per year, which is a 232% annual rate of return from that average saved 4 miles of auto travel per day saved per person.
That is of course, $560 per capita per year COST for congestion and transit subsidies, not millions!
Karlock, your reality distortion field has taken its toll on me this week–generating typos!
msetty said: Karlock: So what’s your problem?
JK: I’m going to ignore your typical planner’s name calling and just concentrate on the numbers that you finally decided to come up with.
msetty said: In other words, the costs of congestion and transit are roughly $500 per capita per year in the Portland region, but the direct financial benefits are $1,300 annually per capita,
JK: If I understand that statement, it is that the net benefit is:
$1,300 savings – $500 costs = $800 net saved per capita. I this right?
I don’t see the higher cost of housing in the costs column.
I don’t see the price people are willing to pay for a larger back yard in that equation.
I don’t see the cost of some people having to choose between housing and food in your calculations
Of course, if you really want to save many Billions, you just put people in ultra high density and limit their mobility to near zero. See any state prison for how cost effective this can be for the inhabitants.
msetty said: a DIRECT, DIRECTLY MEASURABLE FROM SOURCES WITHOUT AGENDAS OTHER THAN ACCURATE STATISTICS, rate of return of 260% PER YEAR.
JK: Whoh! Where did that 260% suddenly come from? If you subtract the cost from the benefit, you get the net cost of the benefit. To claim a return on investment in this situation is quite a stretch. Once you have the net benefit, the question to ask people is:
For a savings of $800 per year ($67/month) is it worth it to put up with high congestion, double normal housing costs and no back yard?
msetty said: Let’s see for imported oil, at $75.57 per barrel, price closing on Friday, July 20, 2007 http://www.321energy.com, 70% of U.S. oil imported, daily cost of $1.587 billion per day, or $579 billion per year at the current consumption rate. A bit more than 60% of oil usage in this country is for transportation, which I think we can attribute most of the expenses for imported oil to transportation, and the vast majority of transportation to automobiles, which use the most of the transportation oil.
JK: How quickly your forget that buses use more energy that cars and that small cars even use less energy than mercury, uranium and thorium emitting electric rail. If all car users switched to transit, there would be an increase in energy consumption because transit uses more energy than cars. If your goal is really to reduce energy consumption, then you would subsidize SMALL cars instead of transit.
msetty said: If Americans were consuming oil at the rate of say, the Swiss, we’d have a few hundred billion more a year staying at home in OUR economy rather than in the pockets of OPEC, our trade deficit would be much smaller, oil prices around the planet would probably be significantly lower than they are because U.S. demand would moderate the market, and the dollar wouldn’t be falling steadily like a rock because we’d have a smaller trade deficit and far less need to borrow money from dubious sources like the Chinese to keep our auto-based suburban, largest misallocation of natural resources in history self-indulgent consumption binge going
JK: You make a very good case for taking the following badly needed actions:
1. Remove all state and Federal barriers to oil exploration.
2. Remove all state and Federal barriers to tar sands explorations and production.
3. Remove all state and Federal barriers to nuclear power (to produce transportation energy.)
4. Remove all state and Federal barriers to coal to oil conversion.
Thanks
JK
G.K.
The runup in housing prices is at least as much a function of dubious lending practices with relatively little regulation, as it is down zoning (a common practice New Urbanists OPPOSE, something Randal wouldn’t tell you), and UGBs. For a while, it was possible for someone with a WalMart job, no assets and no down with a fly-by-night lender to easily outbid the prudent who still had the 20% down and wanted a standard 30-year loan. I also find it fascinating how some of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation tend to be in places like Houston and Atlanta, two of Randal’s “affordable housing” meccas.
Despite years of teethgnashing by Randal, you and others, there is still little credible evidence that the Portland UGB has caused the runup in housing prices. Increasing incomes and dubious lending practices fueling the recent speculative bubble in housing prices are mainly to blame. There is still a lot of vacant land within the UGB that can be built on; also if there REALLY was a housing shortage you would have also seen a runup in rents. And don’t tell me there isn’t a nexus here; several years ago, owners of detached single family houses in the eastern suburbs of Washington, D.C. were complaining about falling housing values due to the construction of so many townhouses and condominiums, both owner-occupied and rented out. The Washington Post ran several articles on this phenomenon, but I don’t know if they’re online or not.
G.K.: How quickly your forget that buses use more energy that cars and that small cars even use less energy than mercury, uranium and thorium emitting electric rail. If all car users switched to transit, there would be an increase in energy consumption because transit uses more energy than cars. If your goal is really to reduce energy consumption, then you would subsidize SMALL cars instead of transit.
How quickly you forget that there is NOT a one-to-one relationship between auto passenger miles and transit passenger miles; people who mainly travel by transit–and on foot in environments where that’s possible, like much of Portland, travel a lot few passenger miles but make just as many trips per person! Transit and walking go hand in hand; lots of transit users also means a lot of walking, with short walking trips in mixed use areas–where possible–replacing a lot of excessive auto mileage to uses spread out in suburban pods. Mixed land use and transit go hand in hand, operating as a SYSTEM, just as sprawl goes hand in hand with heavy auto usage.
People who use transit ALSO walk a lot more than auto users, and for the majority of households who use transit but also own at least one car, they also drive a lot fewer miles compared to people who only use cars. Short, 1/4 to 1/2 mile walking trips replace auto trips that are a few to several miles long. THIS IS why TRIPS COUNT MORE than passenger miles, since short walking trips are FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVALENT to long auto trips FOR THE PEOPLE MAKING THE TRIP. You obviously didn’t understand my “Mike, go get some milk” analogy I alluded to in an earlier post.
As for your energy “solutions,” many of them are worse than the disease. For example, coal conversion to liquids emits more than double the current greenhouse gases than petroleum. Tar sands are much more limited than you think, curbed by the tight and declining supplies of natural gas, or the requirement to build several large nuclear plants in Northern Alberta to supply the process heat needed for tar sands production. In the latter case, it probably makes more sense to build the plants closer to where the fuel is used, e.g., the U.S. and use the power directly in transportation. I do agree with you regarding nuclear, but I don’t see the need to relax safety regulations. Improved technology is possible, as outlined in a late 2005 Scientific American article on new nuclear technology.
After basic measures such as improved conservation, e.g., more insulation, appliance efficiency standards, and other such measures that have helped keep California’s electric consumption to the same level per capita for 30 years while the rest of the country’s per capita consumption skyrocketed, electrification of transportation is the quickest way to reduce petroleum imports and greenhouse gas emissions.
First, impose a gradually increasing carbon tax to (a) reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but also (b) reduce oil imports and improve national security (if Bush and company had been serious rather than urge us to continue buying after 9/11 and started a war they had plans for BEFORE that “new Pearl Harbor,” by now we probably could have reduced oil imports by 10%-15%, with all the commensurate benefits, both national security and economic). Except for say, 10% off the top to install energy efficient transportation infrastructure and tax credits for the difference between gasoline, clean diesel and hybrid technologies, recycle funding to reduce other taxes, particularly those benefiting the poor and working poor, e.g., reduce and gradually eliminate payroll and high sales taxes, for example.
Second, electrification of railroad main lines for freight and passenger service could directly reduce fuel usage by 1.5% of all oil used for transportation, and perhaps another 10% through diversion of a lot of freight traffic from trucks, based on providing better and quicker service to freight customers. Give railroads a 50% tax credit for this.
Third, electrify urban transit using funds from the carbon tax. Ideally, 50% of all urban households should be within 1/2 mile of electrified rail or bus by 2030, something that can be done far more quickly than the conversion of the auto fleet to pluggable hybrids. This has potential, in concert with land use changes a la Portland, to reduce annual transportation costs by $200-$300 billion per year by 2030, but also reduce oil imports by 2-3 million barrels per day (current savings in Portland is 140 million gallons per year or about 70 gallons/year per capita; by 2030, this could be 100+ gallons/year per capita, or 23-24 billion gallons/year for the estimated 240 million Americans that will be living in urban areas over 50,000 by then.
Foruth, certainly go ahead with conversion of the auto fleet to high efficiency diesel, straight electrics and pluggable hybrids, encouraged by a $3,000 to $5,000 tax rebate per vehicle. But this is no panacea. EPRI projects that it will take 40+ years to get to a point where pluggable hybrids would eliminate perhaps 3-4 million barrels per day of oil imports–but we need action a lot quicker than that! (http://www.epri.com/OrderableitemDesc.asp?product_id=000000000001000349)
One thing that is certain: there will be a HUGE supply of large lot suburban houses at fire sale prices for those who want them–and most of these dwellings currently exist–as fuel prices gradually creep up in response to carbon taxes and the increasing supply/demand crunch (occurring before even “peak oil” is likely to be a factor, due to soaring oil demand in India and China; and just wait until there’s 100 million+ sub-$5,000 automobiles in those two countries!) For informed discussion of this issue in incredible detail, refer to http://www.theoildrum.com/ (lots of oil industry insiders at this site). In California at least, housing prices are currently tanking the most in exurbia, e.g., Solano County, San Joaquin County, and other areas where people went seeking cheaper houses at the price of very long commutes.
Finally, I suggest you read, and weep, at the latest issue of Scientific American. Those dastardly godless scientists have not just one big article explaining in clear language the mechanics of global warming, but also a debunking of coal to liquid conversion, AND a discussion of the “rebound effect” from increasing the fuel efficiency of automobiles, e.g., why energy prices still need to go gradually higher as efficiency increases. Otherwise, the benefits of more efficiency are greatly undermined.
msetty said: G.K.
JK: I see you are back to name calling. Ok if you insist, I’ll return the favor.
S msetty said: For a while, it was possible for someone with a WalMart job, no assets and no down with a fly-by-night lender to easily outbid the prudent who still had the 20% down and wanted a standard 30-year loan.
JK: And before we got into land restrictions, it was possible for that WalMart job to buy a house WITHOUT dubious lending practices.
But lets get back to the question that you avoided responding to:
S msetty said: In other words, the costs of congestion and transit are roughly $500 per capita per year in the Portland region, but the direct financial benefits are $1,300 annually per capita,
JK: If I understand that statement, it is that the net benefit is:
$1,300 savings – $500 costs = $800 net saved per capita. I this right?
I don’t see the higher cost of housing in the costs column.
I don’t see the price people are willing to pay for a larger back yard in that equation.
I don’t see the cost of some people having to choose between housing and food in your calculations
Of course, if you really want to save many Billions, you just put people in ultra high density and limit their mobility to near zero. See any state prison for how cost effective this can be for the inhabitants.
S msetty said: a DIRECT, DIRECTLY MEASURABLE FROM SOURCES WITHOUT AGENDAS OTHER THAN ACCURATE STATISTICS, rate of return of 260% PER YEAR.
JK: Whoh! Where did that 260% suddenly come from? If you subtract the cost from the benefit, you get the net cost of the benefit. To claim a return on investment in this situation is quite a stretch. Once you have the net benefit, the question to ask people is:
For a savings of $800 per year ($67/month) is it worth it to put up with high congestion, double normal housing costs and no back yard?
Heck $800/yr is probably less than the savings in the annual property tax bill by moving to an identical home in the burbs. So, lets see, we love the large back yard, good schools and quiet cul-de-sac, but to save $800 on transportation, we’ll move to the crime infested city and give up good schools. And pay $800 more in property taxes!!
Still waiting for your comments on the above.
Thanks
JK
Hey, S msetty, you might enjoy this little indicator of the beginning of the end of CO2 “sky is falling†panic:
Note this statement: And when Lockwood and Froehlich go on to say that the intensification of solar activity seen in the past hundred years has now ended, we don’t disagree with that. We part company only when they say that temperatures have gone on shooting up, so that the recent rise can’t have anything to do with the Sun, or with cosmic rays modulated by the Sun. In reality global temperatures have stopped rising. Data for both the surface and the lower air show no warming since 1999. That makes no sense by the hypothesis of global warming driven mainly by CO2, because the amount of CO2 in the air has gone on increasing.
(Another irrational belief is now starting to go down in well deserved flames)
An Interview With Nigel Calder
Nigel Calder, former editor of The New Scientist and author of innumerable books and articles on science, including The Chilling Stars, in conversation with Pan Pantziarka.
LBR: Do you think that there has been a change in the debate on climate change recently? Is there a greater willingness to entertain alternative views on the causes of climate change?
NC: A local victory for free speech has occurred in the BBC, where an internal report on impartiality (June 2007) picked out climate change as a subject where dissenting voices really should be heard. That verdict is already having some effect, although BBC reporters still tend to assume that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change must be right. More generally there’s a contrast between a hardening of attitudes on the part of the scientists, politicians and journalists in the ‘man-made global warming’ camp, which contrasts with more open scepticism among the general public. One reason for the latter may be horror fatigue, about all the scare stories. Another is a suspicion that politicians are glad of a new excuse to raise taxes. But most importantly there is plain common sense about the weather’s variability. If you’re told that a warm UK April 2007 is foretaste of hotter times to come, you cannot but ask what a cold and wet June portends. And while some of the media and greenhouse scientists have fiercely attacked The Chilling Stars and Henrik Svensmark’s theory, I’ve not heard a single complaint from friends, or friends of friends. It was the same when I appeared in the Channel 4 documentary ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’.
LBR: Given the controversy over ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle?, do you think your decision to take part was a wise one?
NC: Yes. I was in distinguished company with a string of prominent scientists to demonstrate that critics of the man-made warming hypothesis are not just a bunch of crackpots. There’s been almost no attempt to rebut what we interviewees said individually and criticisms were focused on some linking narrations and explanatory animations, which some of us might have scripted a bit differently. By the way, Al Gore’s movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is applauded by greenhouse scientists even though they know know it contains misleading statements. To be inaccurate in a politically correct cause seems to be OK in their ethos.
LBR: Do you think that the idea of a scientific ‘consensus’ on climate change is now so firmly entrenched that it can’t be shifted?
NC: The idea of a settled consensus is alien to productive science. In any branch of research that isn’t moribund, battles rage between the entrenched bigwigs and their cronies, versus others who challenge their hypotheses. What makes science so valuable for our species is that eventually errors are corrected and ideas shift. But that can be a slow and painful process taking 10-20 years. In the case of climate science, control of public research funding by the ‘consensus’ makes life difficult for the likes of Henrik Svensmark. Mother Nature may speed the change of heart if, as some of us half-expect, the next few years bring evidence of global cooling. Did you hear that on 9 July Buenos Aires had its first significant snowfall since 1918?
LBR: What kind of empirical evidence do you think would be needed to prove the theory that anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause global warming?
NC: It’s likely that CO2 has some warming effect, but real proof of that hypothesis is tricky. You have to confirm by observation exactly how the CO2 changes the situation at different altitudes in the atmosphere and in different regions of the world. For example, CO2 is supposed to warm the upper air faster than the surface, but the measurements don’t show that happening. When the CO2 effect is eventually pinned dow, it will probably turn out to be weaker and much less worrisome than predicted by the global warming theorists.
LBR: : How do you respond to the paper by Lockwood and Froehlich, which claims to comprehensively ‘settle the debate’ on the cosmic ray hypothesis you describe in The Chilling Stars?
NC: How often we’ve heard it before, that the debate has been settled! But this is an interesting case because these scientists accept that the Sun has played a big part in climate change over hundreds and thousands of years, just as we explain in the book. They even allow that it was involved in the warming in much of the 20th Century. And when Lockwood and Froehlich go on to say that the intensification of solar activity seen in the past hundred years has now ended, we don’t disagree with that. We part company only when they say that temperatures have gone on shooting up, so that the recent rise can’t have anything to do with the Sun, or with cosmic rays modulated by the Sun. In reality global temperatures have stopped rising. Data for both the surface and the lower air show no warming since 1999. That makes no sense by the hypothesis of global warming driven mainly by CO2, because the amount of CO2 in the air has gone on increasing. But the fact that the Sun is beginning to neglect its climatic duty — of batting away the cosmic rays that come from ‘the chilling stars’ — fits beautifully with this apparent end of global warming.
LBR: How can non-scientists make any sense of the competing theories being proposed, when even the observational evidence is being disputed?
NC: Forget the politics, if you can, and remember that, at the cutting edge of discovery, scientists are no more certain about what’s really going on than men or women in the street. When a new finding is really surprising it falls outside the scope of existing curricula. There are neither textbooks nor highly trained people around, to be aloof in their specialist expertise. In such cases the discoverers sometimes short-circuit the academic process and take their discoveries to the general public as quickly and as directly as possible. Galileo, Darwin and Einstein all did that. They flattered their readers’ intelligence as well as enlightening them, and let them make up their own minds about whether to believe the new stories. It’s in that long tradition that Henrik Svensmark and I present in plain language Henrik’s astonishing realization that our everyday clouds take their orders from the Sun and the stars. We’re entirely happy that our readers, whether scientists or non-scientists, should weigh the arguments and form their own opinions, for or against us.
From: http://www.londonbookreview.com/interviews/nigelcalder.html
Gridlock:
Don’t you have anything less than 2 years old to support your arguments?
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/07/no-link-between.html
End of thread.
Why bother arguing with you can’t accept the latest information that debunks your position, like the “old news” regarding the alleged impacts of cosmic rays, e.g., the link above? I suppose you’ll say the scientists writing this new paper have a political agenda.
Your style of argumentation is so 2002!
For example, just like the intellectually dishonest rail opponents who keep bringing up a badly dated 1990 study by Don Pickrell in their efforts to attack rail transit, but even at that time was intellectually bankrupt using lame excuses to exclude the successful San Diego Trolley from his analysis. Most new system that have opened since the Pickrell report have exceeded their projections, such as St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Minneapolis, among others. Even Portland now exceeds its original projection, where the Gresham line NOW carries more than the original ridership projection, since TriMet now provides a railcar fleet large enough to serve projected patronage than the pathetically small original 27-car MAX fleet!
msetty said Why bother arguing with you can’t accept the latest information that debunks your position, like the “old news†regarding the alleged impacts of cosmic rays, e.g., the link above? I suppose you’ll say the scientists writing this new paper have a political agenda.
JK: Time after time, planners show their ignorance. A paper is published, then another criticizes it then one rebuts the criticism. The process takes years. To say that a recent paper “debunks†older papers just shows your ignorance, as does the use of the marginally litterate term debunk.
Thanks
JK
Still waiting for your answers:
S msetty said: In other words, the costs of congestion and transit are roughly $500 per capita per year in the Portland region, but the direct financial benefits are $1,300 annually per capita,
JK: If I understand that statement, it is that the net benefit is:
$1,300 savings – $500 costs = $800 net saved per capita. I this right?
I don’t see the higher cost of housing in the costs column.
I don’t see the price people are willing to pay for a larger back yard in that equation.
I don’t see the cost of some people having to choose between housing and food in your calculations
Of course, if you really want to save many Billions, you just put people in ultra high density and limit their mobility to near zero. See any state prison for how cost effective this can be for the inhabitants.
S msetty said: a DIRECT, DIRECTLY MEASURABLE FROM SOURCES WITHOUT AGENDAS OTHER THAN ACCURATE STATISTICS, rate of return of 260% PER YEAR.
JK: Whoh! Where did that 260% suddenly come from? If you subtract the cost from the benefit, you get the net cost of the benefit. To claim a return on investment in this situation is quite a stretch. Once you have the net benefit, the question to ask people is:
For a savings of $800 per year ($67/month) is it worth it to put up with high congestion, double normal housing costs and no back yard?
Heck $800/yr is probably less than the savings in the annual property tax bill by moving to an identical home in the burbs. So, lets see, we love the large back yard, good schools and quiet cul-de-sac, but to save $800 on transportation, we’ll move to the crime infested city and give up good schools. And pay $800 more in property taxes!!
Thanks
JK
WORLD ECONOMICS
Volume 8 o Number 2 o April-June 2007
Climate Science and the Stern Review
Robert M. Carter, C. R. de Freitas, Indur M. Goklany, David Holland & Richard S. Lindzen
Fundamentals of the climate science dispute and common misunderstandings of some issues raised about
Part 1 of the Dual Critique of the Stern Review [Vol. 7, No. 4] are discussed. One consideration is that a
distinct anthropogenic greenhouse gas signal has not yet been identified within natural climate variations.
The slight warming that has occurred in the late 20th century, falling within previous natural rates and
magnitudes of warming and cooling, is a priori unalarming. Empirical evidence shows that the warming
effect of increasing carbon dioxide at the rates of modern industrial emission and accumulation is minor,
noting the established logarithmic relationship between gas concentration increases and warming. No global
increase in temperature has occurred since 1998 despite a 15 ppm (4%) increase in carbon dioxide
concentration, and an expectation of continued warming even at constant CO2 levels. The key issue is
assessment of risk, but that includes the risk of future coolings as well as warmings, as well as their
significance relative to other factors. This is why an adaptive policy towards climate change is the most
sensible response option.