The Transit blog, No. 5 for the week starting May 26, 2008.
Tuesday
Road Repairs Hit by Petroleum Prices
Roads Will Be Slightly Quieter
Kalikow & MTA Cronies Get Free EZ-Pass Tags
The Many Benefits of Higher Gas Prices
Kunstler: Wake Up, America We're Driving Toward Disaster.
Fuel Prices, Economy, Party Buses Hit Limos Hard
New Mall Bus Stop Prompts Concern for Seniors, Disabled
IReporters Change Lifestyles to Dodge Hefty Gas Bills
Wednesday
Trying to Beat the Price at the Pump
Half-gallon Pricing to Hit Gas Stations Soon
Thursday
Drivers Seek Bargains As Gas Prices Soar Past $4 Per Gallon
Gas Cost Fallout: Check Pump Total, Double It
Proposal to Make Oval Traffic One Way
In Dispute On Free Transit Passes, It’s New York Agency vs State’s Top Lawyer
This Is Why Fuel Economy Standards Are Evil
Friday
Peeved at Prices? Don't Blame the Dealer
Standards will help keep the 'country' in rural road
Rail Station Repairs Grow to $267,000
Mopar Fuselage Styled Full Size Cars
CDTA Receives $2M from Federal Government to Buy Hybrid Buses
Boondocks is about farms, rural life, and power toys.
Energy looks at high energy prices and our future.
Enviroman looks at man and the environment.
Hayseeds looks at politics and life in our nation.
Individual looks at myself and how I'm changing
Outblog is all about my outdoor experiences.
Truck gives you stories and trips in my Ford Ranger.
“The high cost of petroleum-based materials used to construct roads will mean fewer highway projects in the region this summer, according to public works officials. Ballston Highway Superintendent Joseph Whalen said he doesn’t have the equipment to do major road projects, so he contracts with private companies to rebuild and resurface the 45 miles of road in his town.” P'Link
“If you’re burning charcoal in the backyard this weekend instead of burning gas to get to the mountains, you’re not alone. Gasoline is at or near $4 per gallon — up 85 cents from a year ago — and many people think the economy is wheezing like a smoker who has taken up jogging.” P'Link
Kalikow & MTA Cronies Get Free EZ-Pass Tags. Apparently that's one of those perks for MTA board members after they serve their terms, even though they are suppost to get no compensation for their positions.
Nearly 60 past and present MTA board members - many of them millionaires many times over - get free, taxpayer-funded E-ZPass tags for life.
Not only are taxpayers footing the bill for tens of thousands of dollars in free rides, but many of the well-heeled honchos get tags for other cars they own - as many as eight for former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Peter Kalikow.
The multimillionaire developer gets the multiple electronic tags so he doesn't have to switch them from car to car in his private fleet.
Kalikow has so many E-ZPass tags because he has alot of cars - "45 or 48" of them, he said, many vintage or custom-made, and each worth a small fortune.
And, get this, nobody thinks there's anything wrong with it.
"Everybody on the board serves for nothing," said Kalikow, who once owned the New York Post. "They do a lot of hard work and it's a way of saying thank you."
Read Kalikow & MTA Cronies Get Passes for Life - and YOU Pay in the Daily News. P'Link
The Many Benefits of Higher Gas Prices. Getting people out of their cars can have many benefits not just for the environment, but personal health, and and the livelihood of communities.
Whether they are environmentalists, public transportation advocates, average folks or economists - including Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard economist and onetime economic adviser to President Bush - fans of pricier petroleum believe there are good things to come as filling the tank becomes prohibitive and cars stay parked in the garage more often.
Less driving means less pollution, less traffic and fewer accidents, the argument goes. Car companies could be spurred to greater innovation in fuel efficiency. Government might invest more in mass transit. Consumers might be more willing to buy a hybrid or compact car rather than simply driving a gas-guzzling SUV by default.
Some - like Jennie Sunshine, a stay-at-home mom from Yorktown - even hope rising gas prices will mean society becomes more neighborly.
"While high gas prices are scary, and are pushing the American people to the limit, I also think it's a good thing," she said. "It will force some folks to embrace public transportation, car pool, consolidate errands and only drive when necessary, which are all much better for our environment. It will reduce carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles overall, reduce the congestion on the roads and get people to stay home and do things in their own neighborhoods. Maybe having neighbors over for a barbecue would suddenly become the thing to do again, instead of going out to dinner just as a family."
These are all good reasons to get out of the car.
Read Environmentalists Fond of Higher Gas Prices in the Journal News. P'Link
Kunstler: Wake Up, America. We're Driving Toward Disaster. In an Sunday morning op-ed in the Washington Post James Howard Kunstler writes a cautionary op-ed where he points out that we as a society should be doing a lot more to conserve energy, and be less concerned about so-called claims of hyper efficency and super-sources of energy that don't really exist.
Everywhere I go these days, talking about the global energy predicament on the college lecture circuit or at environmental conferences, I hear an increasingly shrill cry for "solutions." This is just another symptom of the delusional thinking that now grips the nation, especially among the educated and well-intentioned.
I say this because I detect in this strident plea the desperate wish to keep our "Happy Motoring" utopia running by means other than oil and its byproducts. But the truth is that no combination of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used French-fry oil will allow us to power Wal-Mart, Disney World and the interstate highway system—or even a fraction of these things—in the future. We have to make other arrangements.
The public, and especially the mainstream media, misunderstands the "peak oil" story. It's not about running out of oil. It's about the instabilities that will shake the complex systems of daily life as soon as the global demand for oil exceeds the global supply. These systems can be listed concisely:
The way we produce food
The way we conduct commerce and trade
The way we travel
The way we occupy the land
The way we acquire and spend capital
And there are others: governance, health care, education and more.
Kunstler makes some good points about us being totally unprepared for higher energy prices and the induced inflation, and how some people will be more effected then others from it.
Indeed, if we had better mass transit in our country, ready to accept the additional capacity due to high fuel prices and people lived closer to where they work/shop, then it would be far less painful then it currently is with high fuel prices. Likewise, if agriculture wasn't so energy intensive, then there would not be the inflationary presures on food.
Kunstler will probably be proved right far enough out. Yet, the economy will change and people will change to ways that are less energy intensive and cheaper, long before some of the problems that Kunstler argues. Automobiles will not disappear when gas prices go up—they'll just become more of a fun toy or something just used a minimally as possible in favor of more efficent transit.
What Kunstler doesn't mention in his article or his writings, is all the problems that cheap energy causes to our economy. Oil, and it's derived products are the number one cause of cancer and death by far today. Rural towns and small towns have been abandoned for mega-cities and the surrounded driven by cheap energy.
Go to any rural community in our country and you'll find out what's wrong with cheap energy. You'll find unemployement, abandoned buildings, superhighways bypassing towns in speeding cars, death and carnage from horrific car accidents, obesity, and very, very marginal people trying to farm or mine and make a buck or two on a product that nobody really wants like rocks, coal, milk, or agricultural products.
Which do you want? The shinny new pickup truck or some milk right now? Which comes from Rural America?
Read Wake Up, America. We're Driving Toward Disaster on washingtonpost.com. P'Link
“Limousine companies are suffering from high gasoline prices like most Americans. But it isn't just the economy and the cost of fuel that has stretch limos and Hummers sitting in lots. What once was the most fashionable way to get to the prom is out. Today, kids want something bigger and better. ” P'Link
“With the expansion and renovation of Colonie Center, the bus stop near the west side of Sears was moved. I understand all buses now must discharge passengers at the bus stop on Wolf Road, requiring passengers to cross the parking lot on foot to reach the mall.” P'Link
“Janaki Purushe, a 22-year-old genetic researcher living in Rockville, Maryland, bikes just about everywhere she goes. "When I had the opportunity to finally plan my own life after I graduated college," Purushe explains, "I took into consideration where I was going to shop, where my friends live, where my boyfriend lives, and I definitely tried to plan the location of my home around where I was going."” P'Link
Campaign Gas Gimmick Backfire. From the article:
An attention-grabbing stunt by a top Democratic recruit intended to highlight the high price of gasoline instead turned into a public relations embarrassment for the campaign.
Business consultant Dan Seals, the Democrat challenging Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), held an event last week at a suburban Chicago service station where his campaign subsidized the price of gas to the same $1.85 level as it was before Kirk was elected in 2000.
What the campaign didn’t fully anticipate was the nearly two-mile long stretch of traffic created by the stunt, which hamstrung the local police force.
In the end, only 50 drivers were able to fuel at the station – with the rest sitting in traffic unable to receive the discounted gas. And the local police force sent the campaign an additional $2,200 tab to cover the price of traffic control.
Read The Crypt: Campaign Gas Gimmick Backfires - Politico.com. P'Link
“As gas prices rise, our travel habits are changing. Hudson Valley bureau chief Susan Barnett looks at the statistics, and what they mean in real terms.” P'Link
Half-gallon Pricing to Hit Gas Stations Soon. To fix the problem of greater then $4/gallon gasoline, Ag Commissioner Pat Hooker is going to let old-style gas stations meter gas sales by the half gallon rather then the full gallon.
"The price of fuel is rising faster than our dispensers can calculate in some instances," Hooker said. "In order to keep some of our smaller and seasonal fuel retailers operating during times of $4 fuel, we are temporarily allowing stations to compute prices by using half the price per gallon. We are fortunate to have this provision in our regulations as it gives us the tools to respond very quickly during times of escalating fuel prices and keep these small businesses in business."
Many of the older style mechanical dispensers use numbered wheels to display the gallons and total sale figures. The regulation, signed today by Hooker, allows gas stations to compute prices at one-half the price per gallon, until they have the dispenser upgraded with a replacement computer.
That's a way to save money.... I guess.
Read Half-gallon Pricing to Hit Gas Stations Soon on Syracuse.com. P'Link
“Motorists air frustrations on unrelenting rise at pumps” P'Link
Gas Cost Fallout: Check Pump Total, Double It. From the Times Union:
The half-gallon option originally was added to state regulations in the early 1980s when gasoline prices topped $1.999 a gallon and was used again in 2005 when they topped $2.999 a gallon.
Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the Colonie-based New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops, said the problem arose even earlier, when Middle East nations organized an embargo that cut U.S. oil supplies and soon boosted prices above a dollar a gallon.
Pumps at that time weren't designed to go above 99.9 cents, because "no one could ever believe that gas would go over a dollar," Bombardiere said Wednesday.
This time, the replacement computers go to $9.999 a gallon, so station owners shouldn't have a problem until gas reaches $10.
Read Gas Cost Fallout: Check Pump Total, Double It in the Times Union. P'Link
“Residents of the U.S. Oval on the former Plattsburgh Air Force Base are seeking to have traffic reduced to one-way only. They also would like to see one lane turned into a pedestrian walking and biking path. The change would not only make the area safer, they say, but would enhance its value as a recreation center. "By making the Oval a fitness destination, people from around the area will be drawn into the city," Oval resident Luke Cyphers wrote to Mayor Donald Kasprzak and the Common Council.” P'Link
“That is because the authority gives its board members, who do not receive salaries, free E-ZPasses to drive across its bridges and tunnels without paying tolls, as well as passes to ride the subways, buses and commuter railroads without paying. Former board members are allowed to keep their passes for life. But that could be coming to an end. The authority said on Wednesday that it would go to court to defend the perk, which was challenged by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo. He said that the free E-ZPass tags violated a law requiring board members to serve without compensation. ” P'Link
This Is Why Fuel Economy Standards Are Evil. Don't we all want one of these great 1969 Dodge cars—back when cars where fun?
The entire '69 Dodge Fever advertising campaign is such great fun to watch.
Too bad they don't make fun cars like those anymore. Then again, modern cars are so much more fun to parallel park and are a bit cheaper to run. You can enjoy your Honda if you want.
And the so-called indestructable 1969 AMC Rebel:
"It looks like at this point the rebels are going to outlast the teachers" P'Link
“Every time Sohaila Rezazadeh rings up a sale at her Exxon station on Chain Bridge Road in Oakton, her cash register sends the information to Exxon Mobil's central computers. If she raises the price of gasoline a couple of pennies, chances are that Exxon will raise the wholesale price she pays by the same amount. Through a password-protected Web portal, Exxon notifies Rezazadeh of wholesale price changes daily. That way the oil giant, which is earning about $3.3 billion a month, fine-tunes the pump prices at the franchise Rezazadeh has owned for 12 years.” P'Link
“Baltimore County's rural roads won a measure of support May 15 when the county's Planning Board approved design standards and policies to help preserve the roads. "Before this, the county's main concern was to move the most amount of traffic in the least amount of time," said Wayne McGinnis, who headed a six-person committee that worked with the county Department of Public Works to create the standards, which must now be approved the County Council. "We've reversed that thinking in the rural areas," he said. "Now, if you leave the roads the way they are, narrow and twisty, that will limit both speed and volume."” P'Link
“The cost of repairs on a parking deck and bridge next to the Rensselaer Rail Station this summer could nearly double after the discovery of more problems with deteriorating expansion joints between concrete slabs. The Capital District Transportation Authority began a $142,500 project this spring to replace failing joints on the parking deck, which also serves as the top level of a parking garage. The work comes just over five years after completion of a $53.1 million station project.” P'Link
“This website is dedicated to Chrysler, Imperial, Dodge and Plymouth full size cars built from 1969 until 1973.” P'Link
“As state officials prepare to meet again next week to discuss safety issues on Route 9, another truck ran into trouble on the mountainous highway Thursday but was steered by its driver onto a truck escape ramp. ” P'Link
CDTA Receives $2M from Federal Government to Buy Hybrid Buses. This makes me happy to see that CDTA will be buying 22 more hybrid buses this year!
The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded $2 million in bus funding to the Capital District Transportation Authority.
CDTA in Albany, N.Y. will use the federal money to buy 20 diesel-electric hybrid buses, an initiative expected to cost $10.6 million.
Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) released a joint statement welcoming the funding.
"This money is terrific news for the Capital Region, providing the necessary funds to upgrade its bus fleet and provide its passengers with reliable and environmentally friendly service," Schumer said. "Transportation improvements fuel economic growth across the region and improve residents' quality of life."
CDTA's board of directors on Wednesday approved spending $10.6 million for the energy-efficient vehicles.
Apparently the plan is to buy 22 total new hybrid buses by the end of the year, and this will be on top of the 5 they have for a fleet of 27 buses. The performance of the hybrid buses is stunning—based on Route 55 use as of December 2007, they are reporting nearly 50% fuel savings over convention buses.
Old style 40-foot buses like the Nova LFS series got about 3.6 MPG, the Gillig T-40 Hybrid buses get 5 MPG. That's a really big jump when you think about it.
The Read CDTA Receives $2M from Federal Government to Buy Hybrid Buses - The Business Review (Albany):. P'Link
Copyright ©1999-2008 Andy Arthur.
All mistakes are intentional or otherwise.
Mind where you step in a cow pasture or legal mindfield.