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Automotive News & Views Are automobiles a major cause of global warming?
6866 messages, Last post on Nov 30, 2009 at 9:01 AM
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Replying to: gagrice (Jul 11, 2008 5:47 am) Meaning that it is crap in reality right ? Frankly I don't know of any HST line that was built and which appeared as a failure afterwards. You may prefer the traffic jams and the 65mph SL of California but some others may not. The largest HST failure I ever came across was in the US. The very first mistake about it is that it is absent. >What that means to the person getting on the HST anywhere along the line is the need to have someone drop them off on one end and someone to pick them up on the other There is no way to have 100% end to end mass transit transport for everyone in California. The car keeps its overall flexibility advantage. I see however a potential for mix car+mass transit transport. pure or partial mass transit could represent 30% of all transport in california, that would be 20-30% less of a massive amount of CO2 in the air. >y inclination is to Vote "NO" on the proposition. If the last governor had not pissed away our $39 billion surplus we could have this HST. In other words, you are telling me the HST should pay for the Enron scandal -or whatever scandal that burned this massive amount. Major infrastructures projects should receive less money while money spending/wasting should go ahead first? I also support more money for education. I already hinted at some measures that imho could save money. >About half the CA residents pay little or nothing. Those are the ones that would benefit from mass transit. I am not sure about the rationale behind this thinking. Do you view mass/rail transit as a sorry transport meant for the most economically challenged only ? You know, I am supporting transport sytems that both decrease A to B transit time and burnt oil while increasing comfort. While wouldn't everyone benefit from this ? >if some fat cat like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett want to build a HST and operate it as a private enterprise I would say great. How about the Interstate highway systems. Was it built using private only funds ? while it is certainly recognized as a major engineering project in the 50s, one could arguably say that at that time it did not benefit but to a few ? It is all about the US stepping into oil-free transportation systems. This is a huge opportunity for America.
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Replying to: vchiu (Jul 13, 2008 8:17 pm) Saving money is not what American politics is all about. HST is no small project. The sad part is every year the projected cost of building a mass transit system goes up by an enormous figure. Lets look at that. Going from a possible $30 billion to $40 billion in one year. What cost 25% more? Wages have not gone up more than 3% at best. We are dealing with a nest of corrupt officials in the USA. So tell me again. WHY SHOULD I VOTE TO INCREASE MY TAXES? This is an open ended project with no real cost attached. The last project like this in the USA was a total disaster. The BIG DIG in Boston. Seattle voted down just such a project by 70%. The US citizens are getting tired of paying big bucks for failed public projects. About all big cities seem capable of doing are sports stadiums. Which I have always voted against. Now let's look at this project. Where is the heavy traffic we are going to relieve? It is mostly around LA and SF. Not when you get out on Interstate 5 between the two. That is relatively light traffic. It would be nice to get to SF from LA in a shorter time than driving. We could open the speed limit on those sections of the Interstate to autobahn speeds and that would speed up the time from SD to LA to SF or Sacramento. With HST you still have to get around once you are there. I do not see as much need as there is within the metro area where the real congestion exists. If I am going North and have to pass through LA. I go at 2 AM when traffic is light. Did I mention Ahnold is cutting education spending. So where would the extra money come from for HST? I can hear it now. We ran out of HST funds just outside of Fresno. It would be the "train to nowhere". Sort of like the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. The Interstate highway system was supposed to cost US $25 billion over 12 years. It ended up $114 billion over 35 years. That is $425 billion in 2006 dollars. It was a result of the Big 3 lobby money well spent. It killed travel by rail for all practical purposes. Last but not the last word. We do not build any HSTrains in the USA. So would we buy from another country and further erode our balance of trade? We are plane & car people and the transition to train travel may not make it here.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jul 14, 2008 5:31 am) Yes if that is any indication it costs about $1 billion/mile to run tunnels or bridges in an urban area. If you keep the HST train ending in the suburbs that would be cheaper construction costs. Maybe $25million/mile? But then you're not connecting to the subways. But the other thing is that Congress would never agree to select just 2 cities in 1 state. The argument would be why not connect Houston and Dallas, or Chicago and NYC ... Every state's congressmen would want a piece of the action - some other form of spending in their state, for voting for a bill like that. And again a HST only moves thousands of people a day to 2 specific points. This is a miniscule, miniscule can I say it enough - solution to transport in this country. We need to move several hundred million people to many million different locations each day! |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jul 14, 2008 5:31 am) That would be a 33 1/3 % increase in my math. >So would we buy from another country and further erode our balance of trade? But it would look like politicians are actually _doing_ something if they can get it through. And that's so much more glamorous to the green crowd than fixing education lack of funding or fixing the no school-up-to-par act or fixing the waste of money in almost every governmental layer from Washington down to the local city. I'm becoming convinced that all the furor over global disaster due to warming to to distract voters from analyzing what the politicans are actually planning to do in the run for P\president or analyzing what congress is not doing to reduce our trillions of debt (in the teens?) now that we are thoroughly bankrupt. Let's worry about global warming, a nonproven item that it's not PC to question, and we can throw all sorts of money at it to benefit certain politicians. I note the green party has McKinney running for president. "Are automobiles a major cause of global warming?" No.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jul 14, 2008 5:31 am) mmm, I would first say that waiting one more year was not a good choice. Projects tend to get more expensive in time and delays are one big source of cost increases. I am not familiar enough to say. I guess the US legal environment is challenging in that any groundbreaking project is going to meet resistance in the form of expensive lawsuits. We need to consider land value. it may increase quite a lot in a short time, depending on market conditions Then the USD has lost quite some value. As a first project would initially incorporate more European technology, I speculate that there is an influence as well. >WHY SHOULD I VOTE TO INCREASE MY TAXES? 2000 billions USD were thrown in Iraq so far, right ? Let us not talk about petty amounts. > About all big cities seem capable of doing are sports stadiums. You are too clever to draw any comparison/parallel between money spent for entertainment and amounts invested in infrastructure. > Where is the heavy traffic we are going to relieve? Are you telling me current traffic in california is a breeze ? I did not remember it being so. Let us imagine it is anyway. The HST will simply relieve air and car traffic from the corresponding routes. Let us say current passenger flow between LA and SF is 60% car 40% plane. It is likely to become 30% car 20% plane 50% HST If you drive from LA to SF, wouldn't you be happy to meet 50% fewer cars doing the same trip as you? This is that fewer accidents on the road. >We could open the speed limit on those sections of the Interstate to autobahn speeds I would support this initiative, but even at high German speeds on the highway, it is very unlikely to beat any modern HST. I am sure we would see sometimes people in a Veyron or whatever super car try to beat it. Adding 3 or 4 USD in infrastructure tax per gallon would certainly have people behave. >With HST you still have to get around once you are there. This is no different than when you get off the plane. As mentioned earlier, a network of light rail should cope for a measurable % of the local transport needs, but it is not about banning the car in california. >So where would the extra money come from for HST? As suggested, more tax on gas, fewer military spendings, tighter control budget and a legal environment less defavorable to railways. >We do not build any HSTrains in the USA. So would we buy from another country and further erode our balance of trade? Not sure how you consider Canada, but Bombardier is a pretty prominent train manufacturer and has HST up their sleeve. Directly replying to your question, most large projects of this kind have technology transfer agreements. For many Alstom projects (Korean TGV, Spanish AVE) the lead units were made in France but the bulk were locally made. I trust any US project would be the same, with a subsidiary of the manufacturer being established in the US and local work done there. It is not like currently buying a Prius. >We are plane & car people and the transition to train travel may not make it here. I see the dependance upon oil burning technology a major threat to the US. -an economical threat because it will draw more and more money out of US -a political threat as US is likely to wage other wars to secure its oil supply, with all the good image that comes along. -an environmental threat ... Oh, I forgot global warming is not a big issue and if it was, it can't be man-made can it. If the US don't start any soft transition now (giving people choice with incentives for the clean solutions) Reality may strike very hard and later transition may prove brutal.
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jul 14, 2008 6:58 am) Our pinhead governor just made his bid to be Obama's energy czar. I am just so glad that he cannot be President. He will bankrupt CA with his lack of gray matter before this term is up. He came in with some good ideas and when they did not fly through our TOTALLY corrupt legislature he decided to become one of them. I do not believe I have ever seen a worse transition in a politician. He is not what he seems in the movies. NO strength of character at all. He has no idea how he will cut GHG back to 1990 levels. It is just a buzz word he picked up from his flaky friends in Hollywood. They will spend billions trying to buy their way out of global warming. No other country has done it. Does he think he can just shut us down? 
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Replying to: gagrice (Jul 14, 2008 7:31 am) |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jul 14, 2008 5:31 am) Denver voters passed a $4.7 billion light rail expansion project back in '04 - they voted to raise their taxes to fund it. Light rail stokes development and jobs (the cluster effect). As far as building with local tech, a Boise outfit builds and refurbishes locomotives and cars, so you don't have to go to France. Although the French built rubber tired subway cars in Mexico City are terrific - or would be if they weren't so packed.
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Replying to: vchiu (Jul 14, 2008 7:25 am) That is always the argument used to justify additional spending. That money is spent. Or should I say tacked onto the National debt. We should be looking for ways to spend less money not more. We should be paying down that debt not adding to it. As far as taxing gas like they do in the EU. That will not fly. We are near revolt over the current gas prices. Those kind of jolts to a society have to come slowly. If gas doubled over 5 years it would be accepted much better than one year doubling. We have politicians trying to save their jobs by cutting the measly 18 cents a gallon we now pay in Federal highway tax. Why do people think that we should tax automobile drivers to finance mass transit? why not tack an additional tax on air travel. Why not limit CO2 from air travel over land? Last I read a cross country flight dumps as much CO2 per passenger seat as a small car in one year (about 5 tons). Each person is allowed 10 tons per year PERIOD. No buying carbon credits for the rich. We all get to dump the same amount of GHG. Do you think all the twinkies in Hollywood would back up AHNOLD if that is what he proposed? I see the dependance upon oil burning technology a major threat to the US. That could be for the whole World. I am thinking we will all have electric cars soon. Then What do we need mass transit for?
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Replying to: gagrice (Jul 14, 2008 8:18 am) Highways Don't Pay for Themselves (Streetsblog)
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