Month: March 2010

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The Do-Nothing Energy Tax: $3 Gasoline Dead Ahead

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By Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The mounds of snow blackened by auto exhaust have barely melted in Washington, D.C, yet the Energy Information Administration’s Short Term Energy Outlook already predicts that average gas prices “will exceed $3 per gallon” in coming months:

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Higher gasoline prices are like a tax on consumers – they pay more for the same amount of product, with the additional funds enriching big oil companies and foreign oil suppliers.

Since one of every four barrels of oil comes from nations that the State Department classifies as “dangerous or unstable,” more oil consumption and higher prices further enriches these states. And a $1 increase in oil prices provides an additional $1 billion dollars to the Iranian government – even though the U.S. buys no oil from it. This can only help Iran incite unrest and attacks in Iraq and elsewhere.
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MTA and The Sun Are Still Wrong About MARC and Bikes

By Michael Byrne

The Baltimore Sun’s Getting There blog posted a response from the Maryland Transit Authority to all the hullabaloo about bikes not being allowed on MARC trains generated by a Greater Greater Washington post a couple of weeks ago. No surprise, but it’s not exactly satisfying.

The MTA’s Henry M. Kay notes in the Sun post that MARC’s Penn line is the fastest commuter railway in the nation. But it’s also worth noting that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s regional trains, which do allow bikes, hit a top speed of at least 100 MPH, nipping at MARC’s 100-plus-MPH heels. In any case, the solution MTA studied was removing two rows of seats for bike stowage—which, heavens, would take away seating for four passengers. Without explanation, Kay says the two rows would be per car, but it only seems necessary to have perhaps two or so cars per train with bike capacity, as do many other commuter rail systems in the country.

Kay is really only explaining Penn Line rush hour trains, however, in his response. And, again, I don’t think anyone is suggesting that allowing bikes on Penn Line rush hour trains is a good idea. What about non-rush hour trains when rows of seats are sitting empty, or far lower-speed and lower-capacity Camden and Frederick line trains? In fact, just allowing bikes on those lines seems an easy stopgap solution—and neither the MTA nor Getting There columnist/blogger Michael Dresser have come up with a reason, good or not, for not allowing them on those trains. One suspects there just isn’t one. As I mentioned before, bicycles are a rapidly growing part of commuting habits and, sorry, buying a second bike, transporting it somehow to your destination, and stowing it there full-time is not a solution.
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Fuel Tax Increase Necessary to Cut Transportation Emissions

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Raising the price of gas to $7 per gallon may be necessary to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2020 targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent, says a new report from Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The report posits that reducing oil consumption and carbon emissions from transportation will be more difficult than previously assumed. It will require substantially higher fuel prices, ideally in combination with more stringent efficiency standards.
Additionally, the study concludes that relying on subsidies for electric or hybrid vehicles – often the politically attractive option – is an ineffective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the near term.
“Tax credits don’t address how much people use their cars,” said Ross Morrow, one of the report’s authors. “In reverse, they can make people drive more.”
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Google Adds Biking To Google Maps

Via Bike Huger:
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Google, who is joining Bike Hugger at the Mobile Social in Austin at SXSW to talk about this exciting new feature (more on that in other posts) has taken a lot of time to develop the much-requested cycling layer for their popular Google Maps tool. No mere add-on, the new functionality provides cyclists with some impressive features thanks to an overhaul in how Google Maps works.

In many ways, Google’s technology will be more accurate and more detailed than anything that regional planning groups or municipal governments tend to provide as it will indicate not only state-designated or city-designated bike lanes and routes, but trails and other bike paths as well.

The Google Map bicycle layer not only displays these key bits of cycling’s connective tissue but routes cyclists on the most efficient (read “least hilly” and “least congested”) This is combined with a newly designed bike-route display on the site that decreases the emphasis on vehicular routes and displays three levels of bike route. A dark-green route indicates a trail that’s bike only (and therefor the safest and most preferred route on Google Maps), light-green to indicate a bike lane that follows a road, and a dotted-green lane that shows roads without designated bike lanes but that are suitable for cyclists.
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U.S. Transit Trips Hit 10.2B in 2009, With Light Rail Up in Nine Cities

The nation’s transit systems hosted 10.2 billion trips last year, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) reported yesterday. While that figure represents a 3.8 percent decline from 2008, APTA’s data showed light rail ridership rising in nine cities and the long-term increase in transit use continuing to outpace growth in population and vehicle miles traveled.

APTA President William Millar portrayed the new ridership figures as a win for transit, given the economic recession and the fact that fuel prices declined last year relative to their 2008 highs.

"Considering that nearly 60 percent of riders take public transportation to commute to and from work, it is not surprising that ridership declined in light of the many Americans who lost their jobs last year," Millar said in a statement.

Since 1995, APTA has reported a 31-percent increase in transit ridership nationwide, compared with a 15-percent increase in population over the same period and a 21-percent increase in highway miles traveled.

Nine cities reported light-rail ridership increases to APTA: Baltimore; Oceanside, CA; Memphis; Seattle; Philadelphia; Tampa; San Francisco; Portland; and New Orleans. Heavy rail networks in Los Angeles, D.C., Chicago, and Philadelphia also saw more riders last year.

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WABA’s Bike Valet at National Cherry Blossom Festival

March 27 – April 11, 2010

By WashCycle

Cherry Blossom
WABA will again have its bike valet, and Bike and Roll and NPS will again do tours of the blossoms, via the going out gurus.

And if you can’t wait to take out that fixed-gear you bought because it was cool, hit the free, three-hour ranger-led bike tours
of the cherry blossoms offered Saturdays and Sundays through the
festival. Tours begin March 27. Want to hop off and walk some of the
way? The Washington Area Bicyclist Association is bringing back its
cherry blossom bike valet: You can park your bike with them free on
Saturdays and Sundays for the length of the festival (March 27-April
11).

Even if you don’t have your own bike, you can throw your name on the
list to rent a bike and take tours during the festival. Bike and Roll
offers rentals, as well as two-hour, six-mile Bike the Blossoms
tours that begin and end at the kiosk on Pennsylvania Avenue. New this
year — and ideal for locals and serious cyclists — is an
approximately 15-mile, Blossoms by Bike River Ride, which starts in Old
Town and runs along the Mount Vernon Trail into Washington.

Photo by Tom H. Jones

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Don’t buy Obama’s greenwashing of nuclear power

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President Obama has justified his proposed $55 billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors by misrepresenting nuclear reactors as the largest "carbon-free" energy source in the United States. That’s like saying McDonald’s should be put in charge of a nationwide obesity campaign because it’s the largest restaurant in the U.S. that sells salads.
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Tell Congress: Get America back on its feet with investment in healthy transportation!

Transportation For America Logo

In the last 15 years, 76,000 Americans have been killed by while walking or crossing a street – too many of our roads are built for cars only.

But Rep. Earl Blumenauer just introduced a piece of legislation that could set aside $2 billion for grants to fund safe networks for biking and walking in communities all across the country.

Urge your representative to co-sponsor the Active Community Transportation Act. Sign the letter below and we’ll deliver your message to Capitol Hill.

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