by jboullion | Aug 14, 2008 | Uncategorized
From an article by Sean Ryan in The Daily Reporter:
Vehicles, sidewalks and medians are stuck in a battle for right-of-way as the state and cities push for new bike lanes with road projects.
On the 76th Street reconstruction project in Milwaukee, for example, the state and city might need to take a chunk from the median to make room for bike lanes, said Dave Schlabowske, Milwaukee bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the Department of Public Works. But the city and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation must weigh priorities, such as whether a narrower median leaves enough room for cars to wait while making left turns, he said.
“You have to balance everything out,” Schlabowske said. “So we’re taking a closer look at it, and it looks like WisDOT is willing to flex a little bit on their lane widths.”
WisDOT is making bike lanes a priority on its projects along local roads because the Federal Highway Administration is tying its money to complete street requirements, Schlabowske said.
The desire to create complete streets for walkers, bikers and drivers is stirring up residents in Shorewood who don’t want trees cut down to widen the right-of-way. Shorewood is considering a long-range plan for a network of bike routes with bike lanes and directions sending bikers to roads that are wide or quiet enough to be safe.
Bikes are a hot topic, and many communities are creating long-range plans to establish bike routes because it’s politically correct and gas prices are driving more people to pedal, said Mary Beth Pettit, project manager of the Shorewood plan for Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer and Associates Inc., Milwaukee. She said the focus on bikes creates problems if the right-of-way doesn’t have enough room for bike lanes.
And a story by Dorie Turner in The Chicago Tribune reports that Ripon College, among others, will provide bicycles to students who don’t bring a car to campus:
Cycling already has a foothold at many colleges, where hefty parking fees, sprawling campuses and limited roads make it tough to travel. Still, most students are reluctant to leave their cars parked.
“They’re using them to drive from residence halls to class, which is a two- or three-block commute,” said Ric Damm, an administrator and cycling coach at Ripon College, which is giving away $300 bikes to freshmen who leave their cars at home. “We thought, ‘How can we provide an incentive to get them out of that behavior?'”
Damm’s school, outside Oshkosh, Wis., has spent $26,000 on its free bike program, which so far has signed up half of the 300-student freshman class, Damm said.
“I think a big draw is the just the environmental aspect,” said freshman Regina Nelson, who readily signed up for a free bike. “And, honestly, I think that anything free when you’re in college is good, especially something like a bike that is worth something.”
by jboullion | Jun 16, 2008 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in The Capital Times (Madison):
The impossible happened this week — the U.S. Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to fully fund Amtrak for the next five years. There’s even some matching money to help states set up or expand rail service.
It’s amazing what four-buck-a-gallon gas will do.
Amtrak’s funding package even got the votes of some of its biggest critics, like Florida Republican Rep. John Mica, who admitted for the first time that Americans need some transportation choices.
“Nothing could be more fitting to bring before Congress today, on a day when gasoline has reached $4.05 a gallon across the United States on average,” he announced on the floor.
The two houses need to patch over some minor differences in the bills they passed, but Amtrak backers are confident that won’t be any trouble.
The biggest trouble, though, may still come from the White House. President Bush, who has attempted to dismantle the national rail system throughout his presidency, has pledged to veto the bill. Fortunately, both the House and Senate passed the funding by veto-proof margins. Unless Republicans switch because they don’t want to “embarrass” their president, Bush’s veto will be moot.
Frankly, the president should be embarrassed. His stand on public transportation has marginalized him on the issue. He continues to insist that Amtrak should be dismantled and pieces of it turned over to private companies to run short-line routes. That might work in highly urbanized areas, but without government subsidies the vast expanse of America would be left with no rail service of any kind.
But Bush has been far from alone. There has long been a mind-set against subsidizing rail transportation. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have never had trouble subsidizing the building of more and bigger highways and underwriting the cost of airports and sleek terminals, but when it came to rail, they sang a different tune.
Had we adequately funded Amtrak so that it could have improved trackage in congested areas and run more than one train a day between big cities like Chicago and Minneapolis, for example, the country would today have a reasonable alternative to $4gas and gridlocked and unreliable airports. We might even have had rail service to Madison. . . .
by jboullion | May 19, 2008 | Uncategorized
Immediate release
May 19, 2008
More information
Michael Vickerman
608.255.4044
mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org
Fossil Fuel Watch: Gas Tax Pains
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
May 19, 2008
Could there be more convincing proof of America’s debilitating addiction to oil than the recent calls to institute a gasoline tax holiday issued by two of the three presidential aspirants still in the race?
Imagine what would happen if a candidate for public office endorsed a repeal of cigarette taxes. Articulating such a position would instantly disqualify that candidate from serious consideration by rank and file voters. Indeed, it would stop a candidacy faster than you can say “macaca.”
Yet, while Sens. John McCain or Hillary Clinton, both advocates of suspending the 18.4 cents/gallon gasoline tax, have been excoriated in editorials for espousing such patent flimflam, they don’t seem to have lost any ground with the voting public.
Though the McCain-Clinton gas tax suspension proposal set a new low in the public discussion of energy, it can’t be dismissed as mere election-year pandering. Instead, this proposal reveals a dark truth about ourselves: we Americans are psychologically unprepared to accept the energy reality we now inhabit, which is that oil is neither cheap nor plentiful (relative to demand). The same holds true for natural gas.
The factors converging to create global energy insecurity—diminishing output from supergiant fields, rapid demand growth in the world’s most populous nations, civil unrest in oil-exporting nations, etc.—cannot be held at bay with political stunts.
Whether its citizens like it or not, the United States will, going forward, consume a smaller portion of the Earth’s remaining petroleum than at any time during the Automobile Age.
But before the federal government takes action to address supply uncertainties and price volatility, our leaders have to tell the nation in no uncertain terms that continued dependency on oil and natural gas will hasten our economic decline and lead us into future resource wars.
Certainly, Senators McCain and Clinton aren’t up to the challenge. Fortunately for the nation, both are powerless to push their intellectually dishonest tax holiday proposal past Congress and the White House.
The White House predicts that this year’s budget deficit will reach $410 million, a sum that excludes the cost of our continuing military misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States can hardly afford to forgo $9 billion in hard revenues just to manufacture the illusion that every motorist will have $28 extra dollars to spend on items other than gasoline.
Savings in excess of $28 can easily be achieved with one less fill-up at the gas station. And how can that be accomplished? By driving less aggressively, turning off the engine while standing, keeping your tires fully inflated, and organizing your errands to reduce miles traveled.
These are simple and practical suggestions that don’t involve sacrifice or hardship. All that is required is the will to take responsibility over your driving habits.
Each time we leave a light bulb burning in an unoccupied room, each time we leave the engine running in the drive-up lane, we dig ourselves a deeper hole. Of course, we must stop what we’re doing, but we’ve become so accustomed to cheap and abundantly available sources of fossil energy that wasting it has become second nature.
So who’s going to throw the bucket of cold water on our national energy fiesta and tell the people that thrift and responsibility are in and energy profligacy is out. Senators Clinton and McCain have disqualified themselves in spectacular fashion. Is Obama our only hope here?
–30—
Michael Vickerman is the executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, a Madison-based nonprofit organization that acts as a catalyst to advance a sustainable energy future through public policy and private sector initiatives. These commentaries also posted on RENEW’s blog: http://www.renewenergyblog.wordpress.com
and Madison Peak Oil Group’s blog: http://www.madisonpeakoil-blog.blogspot.com.
by jboullion | May 16, 2008 | Uncategorized
From a new Fossil Fuel Watch by Michael Vickerman:
Could there be more convincing proof of America’s debilitating addiction to oil than the recent calls to institute a gasoline tax holiday issued by two of the three presidential aspirants still in the race?
Imagine what would happen if a candidate for public office endorsed a repeal of cigarette taxes. Articulating such a position would instantly disqualify that candidate from serious consideration by rank and file voters. Indeed, it would stop a candidacy faster than you can say “macaca.”
Yet, while Sens. John McCain or Hillary Clinton, both advocates of suspending the 18.4 cents/gallon gasoline tax, have been excoriated in editorials for espousing such patent flim-flam, they don’t seem to have lost any ground with the voting public.
While the McCain-Clinton gas tax suspension proposal may have a set a new low in the public discussion of energy, it can’t be dismissed as mere election-year pandering. Instead, this proposal reveals a dark truth about ourselves: we Amnericans are psychologically unprepared to accept the energy reality we now inhabit, which is that oil is neither cheap nor plentiful (relative to demand). The same holds true for natural gas.
The factors converging to create global energy insecurity—diminishing output from supergiant fields, rapid demand growth in the world’s most populous nations, civil unrest in oil-exporting nations, etc.—cannot be held at bay with political stunts.
Whether its citizens like it or not, the United States will, going forward, consume a smaller portion of the Earth’s remaining petroleum than at any time before during the Automobile Age.
by jboullion | Apr 4, 2008 | Uncategorized
A presentation by Michael Vickerman at the Green Vehicles Workshop sponsored by the Milwaukee Area Technical College.
Vickerman poses the question, “[C]an we change our current habits and attitudes to transition into a less mobile but more sustainable future relying on renewable energy flows and low-EROEI energy stores?”
Complete presentation here.
