Today we have a guest post from the Antiplanner’s faithful ally, Wendell Cox. You can read more of Wendell’s work on his twin web sites, Public Purpose and Demographia.
To Capitol Hill fanfare, the American Public Transportation Association released its new study, Public Transit’s Contribution to U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions on September 26. The report is full of the usual big numbers for transit’s role in reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs). As is typical for reports covering the insignificant, the big numbers are never related to the much larger base of GHGs from personal transportation. If one believes the APTA numbers (which one does not, see below), transit use saves approximately 0.5 percent of GHGs attributable to personal transportation (cars, personal trucks or SUVs and transit).
There are problems even with that number. More than 40 percent of the “savings†is an exaggerated estimate of the congestion reducing GHG reductions of transit. There is no doubt that, without transit use, there would be more congestion near the cores of the nation’s largest downtown areas (Manhattan, Chicago’s Loop, Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco, for example), but the impact would be slight in the rest of the county (places like Portland, Phoenix and perhaps Paducah), where the great bulk of the nation’s traffic congestion delay occurs. The Antiplanner and I showed a similar estimate to be highly exaggerated in a Heritage Foundation paper, The Contribution of Highways and Transit to Congestion Relief: A Realistic View, three years ago.
All in all, a more reasonable figure for transit’s contribution might be 0.3 percent. Even that may be high. The APTA research only counts energy for propulsion (movement). Some estimates place the energy consumption at transit rail stations and maintenance facilities at a third above the propulsion figure.
But that opens a whole new area of inquiry — full cost accounting of greenhouse gas emissions,. A full life-cycle accounting would include GHG emissions from construction of transit and highway systems, construction of vehicles, extraction of fuel for electricity generation and refining, disposal of vehicles and other materials, vehicle maintenance and administrative support.
Some of the common emotional causes of not being canada in levitra able to develop healthy erections during the time of formulation. The women began to break through the psychological barrier, http://valsonindia.com/about-us/ cheap brand levitra have a better understanding of their own bodies, to know how to navigate through it. Serotonin is related to the relaxed feelings while the later brain chemical is known to control reuptake of cheapest viagra valsonindia.com dopamine. The NBN has webbed the maximum portion of nation with fiber or other forms of fixed broadband (Cheap Business Phone And Broadband) subscriptions per 100 see for more info cialis 10 mg inhabitants) among the countries participating under OECD. However, the news out of APTA is not that transit saves so much in GHGs. It is rather that, even with exaggeration and an apparent error, it saves so little. And things will get worse. The United States might be thought of as two nations in transit — New York and the rest of the country. In New York, transit plays a far more substantial role than anywhere else.
Predictably, transit in New York is very GHG friendly. New York’s GHG emissions are well less than one-half that of transit elsewhere (and cars).
Outside New York, the average automobile (not SUVs) is just about as GHG friendly as transit (see Greenhouse Gas Emissions: US Public Transport and Personal Modes).
However, even New York’s advantage may be fleeting. Cars are becoming more fuel efficient, which is indicated by the hybrid and hybrid diesel data. Toyota’s Prius produces only 10 percent more GHGs per passenger mile than transit in New York. Hybrid diesel cars just entering the European market emit 22 percent less.
So, as for transit’s contribution to GHG reduction — interesting, but no big deal considering that relatively tiny (and low-cost) improvements to automobiles will do far more to reduce GHG emissions without reducing people’s mobility or forcing people to change their travel habits.
— Wendell Cox
Good post.
While both highways and transit have substantial greenhouse gas emissions in their construction, the highways have several multiple number of passenger miles to spread the fixed costs over.
Wendell Cox has managed to out-propagandize APTA, for the moment, since APTA failed to point out how travel behavior is different when someone uses transit as their primary mode (e.g., lower auto ownership dramatically reduces miles driven, even among those who have a “choice”–documentation at http://www.reconnectingamerica.com).
However, Cox’s wet dream for continuing America and the world’s “happy motoring” (as Kunstler puts it) for the foreseeable future, betting that ethanol will replace the massive amounts of motor fuel now consumed is rather naive and misplaced; see, for example, this discussion by a chemical engineer who has worked “…on cellulosic ethanol, butanol production, oil refining, natural gas production, and gas-to-liquids (GTL).” http://www.energybulletin.net/18576.html“, an article originally posted on his blog at i-r-squared.blogspot.com.
The outlook for “pluggable hybrids” is considerably better, but GHG emissions won’t be reduced too much if the new KWh produced–even if at night–is produced mainly from coal, natural gas or other fossil fuels. The price of batteries is still a major problem. You currently can have a Prius or another hybrid car converted with the addition of another batter and upgrading the control systems, but it will cost you $12,000 in addition to the original price of the vehicle.
And in any case, electric rail transit operated through “best practices” (certainly NOT the current state of the industry in the U.S.!) is still the most energy efficient mode of all, even well beyond that possible with even all-electric rubber-tired vehicles, despite Cox’s propaganda to the contract, as documented out the wazoo at http://strickland.ca/efficiency.html.
One more key thing:
In his longer essay on his blogspot site, as usual, Cox is sloppy in his analysis, and misses the most important point.
As a basic economic concept, it is the “utility” or value people obtain from consumption, NOT the consumption itself. Therefore, if people can obtain the same economic utility/value from something that has been technologically improved to dramatically reduce resource inputs, then the fact of reducing those inputs is NOT a decline in the standard of living.
Similarly–since transportation is a MEANS to an END, not valued in themselves per se (in most cases, but not always), then it follows that if someone can walk or take transit to an activity, or drive, EACH TRIP–NOT “each passenger mile” is FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVALENT. Therefore Cox has no basis for claiming that those living in higher density areas, using transit and walking that motor vehicles for every trip, are necessarily experiencing a declining standards of living.
The absurdly high costs of housing in places like San Francisco, Boston, Manhattan and similar high density urban environments suggests the exact opposite–as does the tendency of the rich in most developing countries, regardless of culture, to want to live in the centers of large cities (there are exceptions like Johannesburg in South Africa, but these are relatively few).
This also explains the (mostly irrelevant to the U.S.) case of Australia, where those living in the high density parts of Aussie cities tend to be more affluent than the average (e.g., they consume somewhat more energy overall, but considerably less transportation energy than the low density suburbs.
For people carriers rubber tires are efficient enough when compared to steel wheels, despite what msetty says. An example are the bicycles used for human powered speed records. The record is about 81 mph and the bikes have pneumatic tires. Human-powered rail vehicles with steel wheels don’t go half that speed.
For really great fuel efficiency at very high speed and low pollution it will be hard to beat the Dawn spacecraft just launched by NASA. It has an ion rocket motor and will visit big asteroids and a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt.
Twenty years ago I worked in a factory where Centaur rockets were built. They also gave their payload satellites and space probes very high speed, low pollution (water vapor) and tremendous numbers of tonne kilometers per liter of fuel.
The closest to these great examples we can expect to get with ground transport is evacuated tube transport – see www,et3.com.
While it is worthwhile to examine all the costs (including people’s time, environmental costs, real estate etc,) so we don’t keep making stupid investment decisions it is also worthwhile to develop new technologies and economic strategies which can make major improvements in transport. We need to change our thinking from corridor thinking (one-dimensional) to multidimensional network thinking.
An example of this is to add new freeways where we need them. The freeways will be expensive because the opposition will need to be bought off. By this I mean pay way above market rates for real estate taken by eminent domain and build many overpasses and underpasses so neighborhoods aren’t split by the freeway. When the freeway is elevated put commercial buildings under it that keep the neighborhoods continuous. If the neighborhood is less desirable for residential use after the freeway is built compensate the remaining landowners for their loss.
Other examples are the new personal automated transport (PAT) technologies – robotaxis, personal monorails and ETT(tm) mentioned above.
Disclosure – I am a licensee of et3.com and owner of Higherway Transport Research, a PAT research and development company,
Tad’s comments are correct RE bicycles, but for powered vehicles, he’s wrong.
If the Morgantown “PRT” had been specified as with a narrow gauge rail guideway rather than the concrete guideway that requires heating in the wintertime, their operating expenses would have been significantly lower than with rubber-tired vehicles, the guideway construction would have been much less, and vehicles could have been custom-built a lot cheaper than the one of a kind vehicles it uses, in Switzerland or Japan, since those nations already had the basic railcar building industry and the narrow-gauge railway technology available as components needing only relatively minor engineering work to fit the Morgantown vehicle envelope.
Tad’s credibility is questionable on powered transportation given the way he writes, e.g., as though the things he’s talking (PRT) about are “proven” in the real world. We’ll see if the first “real world” trial of PRT in a form its advocates want it at Heathrow, the ULTra PRT system. I’m highly doubtful, given the failure of the so-called FROG guidance technology, documented here.
Also take a look at the pro- and con links o my PRT/Gadgetbahn page at http://www.publictransit.us/index.php?option=com_weblinks&catid=13&Itemid=27.
I agree that my credibility is questionable – I have made many design errors in my career and almost never get it correct the first time. I am too optimistic. I underestimate how much projects will cost in time and money. For me this is good because if I knew how difficult they would be I would be discouraged and wouldn’t try new projects. I also wouldn’t have the amphibious trimaran pedal/paddle/sailboat, armored vest (1 patent), or Savior safercycle (4 patents) that I built.
My optimism comes partly from my work on the Apollo and Skylab programs and my exposure to the work of prople like Burt Rutan and Paul MacReady. Compared to those projects the PAT technology doesn’t seem to be very difficult.
Watch the DARPA Urban Challenge October 26-31 and November 3, 2007 in Victorville, CA, and maybe you all will be more optimistic about automating surface transport.
Tad-
I’m not denigrating your experience in aerospace–its just that the transit industry has had a long series of failed attempts at transplanting “high tech” from aerospace and elsewhere, such as the 1970’s fiasco with Boeing and its attempts to build (much too complex and unreliable) streetcars. When resources are virtually unlimited such as NASA in the 1960’s and the U.S. Defense budget, you can afford a lot of failures for every success. Boats and bicycles are very simple compared to motor vehicles and trains (though the Vallejo Baylink ferries are also quite complex–and reliable–after a very long teething period).
Even if PRT “works” from a technical angle and has gotten its failure rates to acceptable levels, the economics may not work, unlike the simulation models, to date, have been put together by PRT proponents, not uninterested parties. Results reflect assumptions.
Combining very low travel volumes projected by PRT with high fixed costs for facilities, e.g., stations and guideways, in not in my estimation, going to be economic any time soon, and has to have dramatically improved utilization of the capital investment to be competitive with buses at the low end–and the relatively low capital costs for traffic engineering improvements designed to expedite buses. Also once demand reaches levels where you can supply a vehicle at least every 4-7 minutes (which is typically the range of minimum access/wait time for ANY type of fixed guideway, PRT or otherwise), then existing rail technologies are tough to beat from an economic standpoint.
Given modern safety and aesthetic standards, I don’t see how any elevated or separated guideway can cost less than $10 million per mile. Just to apply a bit of realism here, any safety authorities are likely to require a way of passengers to get themselves down to the ground or out of a tunnel without a fire truck, regardless of the technology. If a systematic PRT failure strands dozens or hundreds of pods in middair, even the largest fire department would take many hours to evacuate everyone. And I can assure you, systematic failures WILL occur at times, regardless of the technology or sophistication of the control system. Just this evacuaton requirement alone dooms “supercheap” guideway construction.
This thread is supposed to be about transit’s reduction or contribution to pollution and green house gases, and it seems to be degenerating into people’s credibility and how passengers can escape from elevated guideways.
Boeing built railcars for the Boston subways and they were unreliable. They built the Morgantown PRT and the people in Morgantown want to expand the system now. Boeing decided they should stick to products and customers they knew and were profitable, so they haven’t built any more transit vehicles. They also stopped building hydrofoil boats.
Burt Rutan and Paul MacReady did some government work but I think some of their outstanding achievements were self-financed or with other private money. See Gossamer Condor and Albatross, Voyager and SpaceShipOne.
Last year Portland saw the installation of the Aerial Tram. It is similar to other gondolas used for sightseeing and ski lifts around the world. As far as I know, none of these elevated systems has a means for passengers to escape unassisted by rescue personnel.
Portland’s TriMet also operates several automated elevated guideway systems, similar in some respects to PAT systems. The longest ones are in the MAX station at the zoo. People refer to these as “elevators” or “lifts” and this technology has been automated for fifty years, with no emergency walkways for passengers to escape unassisted between stops.
There have been many good safety inventions and requirements to use them and many rules which result in lower overall safety.
Zero-zero ejection seats have saved many fighter pilots’ lives but requiring airliners to provide one for each passenger would probably reduce safety and make fares go up a great deal. Belt restraints and airbags have saved many occupants of automobiles but trains and school buses don’t have them for their passengers. Elevators and automated shuttles in airports have doors which don’t open until the vehicle is aligned in its berth at a stop. They have very good safety records compared to light rail and other trains which often hit people falling off or being pushed off loading platforms in front of them. It is better to replace the more dangerous mode (trains, for example) with the safer mode (grade-separated PAT) even if the means to achieve the better safety include different requirements.
For examples of PAT system designs which do have a means for passengers to evacuate unassisted in case of system shutdown see http://www.megarail.com/MicroRail_Urban_Transit/Passenger_Safety/ and http://www.swedetrack.com/e49hiss.htm .
Because, Tad:
(1) Elevators are extremely simple compared to the PRT technology you are always advocating, but still tend to break down too often.
(2) Almost like clockwork, I find myself wasting time arguing UNPROVEN points about PRT, and defending against fundamentally untrue attacks against transit. As I’ve said to sometimes being blue in the face, most of the transportation problems in the U.S. are social and economic, NOT technical!! I get tired of making this key point over and over to those whose technophilia get out of hand, and who consistently muddy the discussion with their still very unproven points.
You’ll have your “proof of concept” if and when the rudimentary PRT at Heathrow is up and running in a reliable manner, they claim beginning late next year. If it actually works, is reliable, and is cost-effective, THEN we can talk about where and under what conditions future PRT systems make sense. Until then, I remain extremely skeptical, I think for quite valid reasons.
Wendell Cox is another asshole highway lobbyiest, just like Mr.O’Toole!