Praça Rodrigues Lobo, Leiria, Portugal
February 2002

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AGS Conference

Interesting contacts were made in Costa Rica, which is working hard to become a sustainability showcase for the world. (The country abolished its army more than 50 years ago, and many social dividends have flowed from the savings.) Environmental protection is taken seriously here, as is quality of life. There are some interesting projects afoot in Costa Rica, some of which may lead to the construction of the first large-scale carfree districts in the New World. Details as they become available.

Fuel-Cell Tram Proposal

Anniversary

Quotable

The only real solution is to have people move by public transport rather than by individual automobile. Some propose high user charges in order to restrict automobile use: Tolls, vehicle registration fees, gasoline taxes, or varying road charges according to type of road and hour of the day. I have objections to such schemes: Charges never adequately cover the immense costs society pays in terms of road space real estate value; noise and air pollution; road construction and maintenance; policing; roads as obstacles to pedestrian life and danger sources for children. Road user charges may create a situation where a few upper income drivers have the street network all to themselves.

Be sure to read the entire article - it's brilliant.

Bush & Co. Retire Oil Slick Award

Blue Meanie Award

World News Notes & Comment

Out in the Cold

Abraham even had the gall to claim that the document release "will further confirm" that the administration sought out a wide range of views, including that of environmentalists, thereby carrying spin-doctoring to Orwellian heights. For example, the DoE released a copy of an NRDC report entitled, "A Responsible Energy Policy for the 21st Century," which the agency claims was "carefully reviewed by DOE staff and resulted in nine of 19 NRDC recommendations (47 percent) getting included in the National Energy Plan." However, Sharon Buccino, an attorney for the NRDC, said the DoE's claim is "an outright lie."

Frankly, I'm shocked. Oh, not that the energy industry dictated terms to Cheney's task force - that had already been bought and paid for. No, what shocks me is that Abraham was so sloppy as not even to talk to at least one token environmentalist, so he could claim that all groups had been consulted. This is, however, is fully in keeping with the brazen attitude of Bush & Co., the weakness that will ultimately be their undoing.

Water in Your Boots

When combined with other factors, such as ocean warming, sea levels could rise as much as 89 cm (about three feet), which would be expected to cause the average shoreline to retreat by 100 meters.

Maybe not a good time to buy that house on the beach.

More Water in Your Boots

Today, it is feared that the West Antarctic ice sheet is unstable. If it collapses, sea level would rise nearly 20 feet. The larger but more stable East Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea level by 200 feet, should it ever melt.

Geoscientist Peter Clark said, "We can't say at this point whether the recent breakup of part of an ice shelf in Antarctica has any relevance to this type of huge meltwater event that originated from Antarctica thousands of years ago. We don't know yet how important these ice shelves are to stabilizing the larger ice sheets of the continent." However, the spike in sea level occurred during a period of increasing temperature, rising sea level, and higher CO2 levels, not unlike what is occurring today.

Europe Will Ratify Kyoto Accord

Romano Prodi, EC President, said, "Today is an historical moment for European efforts to combat climate change. Once again, the EU is exercising leadership in addressing this global environmental problem, as we have done in Bonn and Marrakech last year. We can only tackle climate change effectively through a multilateral process. I urge our partners both in the developed and in the developing countries to also ratify the Kyoto Protocol soon."

The EU continues its call for the USA to take steps to limit climate change. Although the Clinton administration signed the accord, Bush & Co. have since repudiated it.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, Bush & Co. are preparing to burn more coal, the worst fuel there is from the standpoint of greenhouse gas (and other) emissions. Sic transit gloria.

Now, Where Did I Put All That Oil?

The EIA predicts that natural gas usage will nearly double over the next two decades, increasing its share from 23% to 28%. Nuclear power generation will stabilize, with some increases in the developing nations. Many US nuclear power plants are receiving license extensions that will permit them to operate for decades longer than expected, so only a very small reduction in US nuclear capacity is anticipated.

The EIA's vision has renewable sources actually declining slightly in total market share even while total capacity increases by 53%, mainly in the form of mega-hydro projects such as China's 18,200 MW Three Gorges Dam.

The demand for oil arises mainly from the transportation sector. The report says, "transportation energy use is expected to continue robust growth over the next two decades, especially in the developing world, where relatively immature transportation infrastructures are expected to grow rapidly as national and regional economies expand."

Notwithstanding huge increases in consumption, the EIA thinks that fossil fuel prices will remain low, dampening interest in renewable sources. The price of oil is not expected to rise above current levels.

This all assumes that nothing is done to limit (let alone reduce!) CO2 emissions. However, the work of M. King Hubbert makes it seem very unlikely that oil production will ever increase much beyond current levels.

Page 25 of the report states, "Because history has shown that only about one-fourth of the oil estimated to be 'ultimately recoverable' has actually been produced, rough calculations would place the likely peak in worldwide conventional oil production at some point beyond 2020." This seems like very dangerous thinking, and even by their logic, it's probably not very far beyond 2020.

The report predicts a breathtaking further 60% increase in US consumption of oil, primarily for transportation. This at the same time that consumption in Western Europe is projected to remain essentially static.

And then the big scare: "The reference case projects that about two-thirds of the increase in petroleum demand over the next two decades will be met by an increase in production by members of OPEC rather than by non-OPEC suppliers." The remaining one-third would have to come from non-OPEC sources, which are now poised to diminish, not increase.

The EIA claims 1105 billion barrels of proven reserves, 730 of "reserve growth," and 939 of "undiscovered." Now, there is rough agreement between the EIA school and the Hubbert school as far as proven reserves. The Hubbert people do not think that large reserves remain to be discovered. There's a lot of accounting trickery with "reserve growth," which we won't even get into.

If the Hubbert folks are right, we're pretty close to peak world oil production today. Their data shows most oil-producing nations already past the peak of production (the USA by 30 years). While their data show Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer, still about 20 years from peak production, they think it most unlikely that global production can be significantly increased from today's levels. The Hubbert camp forecasts a world peak only about five years from now (and it might already have passed, in 2000). The next few years should bring some very interesting clarity on this.

An Oilman's View

Shell's Dr. Yoram Shoham says that today's total world energy consumption is about 110 million barrels of oil-equivalent per day (MBDOE). He expects this to rise to 150 MBDOE by 2010. At the same time, production from existing sources is expected to fall to 80 MBDOE by 2010, leaving a shortfall of 70 MBDOE that must be made up by new sources during the next eight years. He does not foresee any difficulty in achieving this.

Frankly, I can't imagine how we are going to develop new sources of energy on this scale in eight years. The amount of new energy production required is 7/8ths of the world's total petroleum consumption today. Put another way, it's 9 MBDOE of new energy every year for the next eight years. Is this scenario even remotely possible, or is it time to pull our heads out of the sand?

On a Very Slightly More Encouraging Note...

Wilson continued, "All sectors of the economy need to contribute to more sustainable use of energy. We need greater energy efficiency and more renewable energy. The government has now created an economic and legislative environment in which the renewables industry can flourish." The UK government has made modest commitments to help spur development and installation of renewable sources.

The Hills Are Alive... With the Sound of Trucks

There has been an unusual series of Alpine tunnel disasters that have made it extraordinarily difficult for truckers to get from Italy to Western Europe. The reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel has been repeatedly delayed by safety concerns and has led to friction between French and Italian transport authorities. All of this has set the stage for what may be a seminal conflict between the rights of truckers to haul their loads and the rights of residents to a reasonable quality of life. The conflict has actually been brewing for years, as Switzerland resisted the increasing truck traffic crossing between Italy and the rest of the EU. Another conflict is brewing, between residents living near other crossings and those in Chamonix - if Chamonix says "non" to the trucks, that will increase the burden on those living near other tunnels.

While Switzerland has committed billions to improving the flow of goods across the Alps (by rail, of course), the EU has resisted the large investments needed. However, EU Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio recently supported efforts to move freight off the roads and onto trains, and ground will soon be broken for an $11 billion trans-Alpine rail freight link.

This may be shaping up to be the mother of all transport conflicts.

Red Ken Hits 'em in Their Wallets

Go, Ken, go! Notice that this rather stiff charge is only expected to cut traffic by 15%. People really want to drive. If you'd used British public transport recently, you'd understand why. (Privatization, don't you know?)

Out of Bounds!

Post writer Peter Whoriskey wrote it up like this: "And so it goes. In communities across the country, street games that just a generation ago were a fixture of childhood are fading under rising fear about traffic, the proliferation of homeowners association rules, and neighbors who simply dislike the noise and hubbub."

Gone are the "children at play signs" that once warned where street games were likely to be in progress. Virginia traffic engineer Hadi Quaiyum said, "Our experience is that the signs provide a false sense of security - that it is okay to play on the street. The street should be strictly for cars." Dan Conway, father of Daniel and Becky, said, "It's truly a different world from the one I grew up in. These kids just don't have as much fun. It's a different world, and I rue it."

Me, too.

Feature Article

Zermatt, Switzerland: Carfree Town in the Alps

By Petr Kurfurst

A main street in Zermatt
May 1998

The town of Zermatt has approximately 5500 permanent residents (16,000 including tourists) and lies at an altitude of 1620 meters in the Swiss canton of Visp. It is an internationally-known ski resort and starting point for climbing the Matterhorn. The town‘s population swells to 30,000 in the peak winter season. Zermatt is a living example of a town that abandoned efforts to build enough roads to accommodate the projected volume of car traffic. More than thirty years ago, Zermatt opted for the other solution - it built an effective system of public transport and reserved its streets for pedestrians and cyclists.

The town has been closed to cars since 1966. The reasons were technical as well as safety-related and aesthetic. In the first place, the town did not have adequate road infrastructure to carry the load of incoming traffic. Second, the local politicians believed that traffic growth would have terrible negative effects on street life and the safety of pedestrians, and they feared that traffic would degrade the town's friendly, comfortable atmosphere.

Electric taxis in Zermatt
May 1998

The present local transportation act has been in force since 1990. It begins with these words:

This regulation aims to ensure the safety of pedestrians and vehicles, namely by limiting car traffic to a minimum level. Zermatt is a spa resort for pedestrians and the use of streets and roads is reserved primarily for them.

The town‘s inhabitants own 2040 normal passenger cars, which are parked in privately owned garages at the edge of the town, where the incoming road ends. The canton road ends at Taesch, where visitors must leave their cars in one of the 1300 garage spaces or 1800 surface parking spaces near the train station. The road between Taesch and Zermatt is only accessible to Zermatt residents and entrepreneurs. There is frequent train service between Taesch and Zermatt.

Public transport in Zermatt is provided by eight electric buses that run on two circular lines. Line 1 (Bergbahnen) is 4.5 km long and has operated since 1988. It connects the town‘s center with the lower terminuses of four cable/cog railways, operating every 15 minutes from 0700 to 1830. Line 2 (Winkelmatten) is 5 km long and has operated since 1991, serving the outskirts of the town every 40 minutes from 0700 to 1900. The fare for Line 1 is SwFr 2.50 and for Line 2 is SwFr 3.20. [A US$ is worth about 1.67 SwFr. Ed.] Tickets are sold for individual rides, for 15 rides (for price of 10), weekly passes for visitors, and six-months and one-year passes for residents. Both lines also accept ski-lift passes as tickets during the winter season.

Line 1 is run with five low-floor 50-seat buses, Line 2 with three 27-seat vehicles. The batteries in the larger buses are recharged once a day, the shorter ones twice a day. The town, unfortunately, has no data available on the performance of the public transport system or its modal share, but the town says that, during the winter, all the buses are full.

Freight is transported within the town by hand carts, horse-drawn carts, hand-towed electric carts, and small electric lorries (trucks) that require a special permit. There is a small utility area at the northern edge of the town where freight is transshipped between road vehicles and electric urban vehicles.

Zermatt is by no means the only carfree alpine town in Switzerland. Bettmeralp, Riederalp, Saas-Fee, Rigi, Stoos, and Wengen also prohibit private cars from entering. Most of them are overrun by winter sports enthusiasts, and their cars simply could not be tolerated in the landscape. The towns operate Internet sites which advise tourists to come by train. If they must come by car, then they should leave their cars in the bottom of the valley and take public transport for the rest of the journey. There are no roads coming to Bettmeralp, Riederalp, Stoos, or Wengen, only cable railways.

Saas-Fee (1700 inhabitants) has a policy similar to that of Zermatt - its residents and guests park their cars on the edge of the town, and it has three bus lines.

Petr Kurfurst

Petr Kurfurst is a freelance translator and interpreter for Czech environment and transport NGOs and Car Busters local outreach coordinator. Between 1998 and 2001, he ran a program for transfer of foreign transport experience and research for Centre for Transport and Energy, a Prague-based NGO. He authored brochures on "How motorways (do not) help regional development" and "Transportation Demand Management and Traffic Generation." He gave several public lectures on these topics and co-organized an international seminar for urban planners on TDM. He is the moving force behind the Czech version of Car Busters Magazine.

Resources:

I've twice had the pleasure of visiting Zermatt briefly. It's a lovely town, and the train ride up from Brig is awe-inspiring. I'd love to be able to spend some time there. Ed.

Feature Article

An Introduction to VTPI's Online TDM Encyclopedia

By Todd Litman

What Is TDM?

Most individual TDM strategies have modest impacts, usually affecting just a few percent of total travel activity in an area, with the result that they are often dismissed as unimportant. But most TDM strategies provide multiple benefits, and the impacts are cumulative and synergistic. As a result, a TDM program that includes a variety of complementary strategies is often the most cost-effective transportation investment.

For example, a TDM program may not be considered the most cost effective way to reduce traffic congestion, address parking problems, improve air quality, reducing crash risk, or improve access for non-drivers. Various other solutions are often considered more effective for addressing individual problems, but a TDM program can address all of these problems simultaneously, and is often the most cost-effective overall approach.

Online TDM Encyclopedia - A Resource For TDM Planning

The Encyclopedia has detailed information on dozens of TDM strategies, plus sections on TDM program planning and evaluation. It contains more than 100 chapters, more than one thousand pages of text, and thousands of links to on-line references and resources. This information is regularly expanded and updated.

The following information is provided on each TDM strategy:

• A description
• How the strategy can be implemented
• Travel impacts
• Benefits and costs
• Equity impacts
• Applications (where it is most appropriate)
• Stakeholders
• Barriers to implementation
• Best practices
• Case studies and examples
• Information resources

The Encyclopedia also contains technical information on evaluation methods, transportation price elasticities, land use impacts on travel behavior, economic impacts, equity analysis, safety impacts, and sustainable transportation issues.

Major Topics in the TDM Encyclopedia Index

• Overview
• Solutions to Specific Problems
• Improved Transport Options
• Incentives To Use Alternative Modes
• Parking and Land Use Management
• Policy And Institutional Reforms
• TDM Programs and Program Support
• TDM Planning and Evaluation
• Reference Information

VTPI also provides consulting services.
Contact information is on the VTPI web site.

I have found myself referring more and more requests for information to the TDM Encyclopedia resource, which is why I asked Mr. Litman for this brief introduction. It's a great resource. Ed.

Department of Further Amplification

A Reply to Mr. Vlastos's Comments in Issue 24

Regarding the attitudes of citizens, it must be pointed out that these attitudes are not given a priori but shaped by statements and information offered by the administration. We must always bear in mind that ordinary citizens are not traffic engineers. It is the duty of academics and politicians to correctly inform the public regarding traffic issues, especially if we rely on social pressure to improve the current situation. Ordinary citizens are actually the victims of irresponsible decisions, and should not be blamed when bad decisions are taken by the authorities. Rather, those who decide to turn the last open spaces in the city center into underground garages, to build fences against pedestrians, or to push motorcycles onto sidewalks and into pedestrian areas, should be blamed instead.

It should be noted that metro is certainly a positive project, in that it at least does not promote car traffic. But what is happening to the space freed up by it on the surface? Will it be used as pedestrian space or for more car traffic. I am afraid that the latter is the more likely outcome in Athens.

The case of Athens deserves close attention, because it offers some lessons as to what should be avoided when attempting to follow a sustainability paradigm. Athens, unlike most American and many European cities, has largely escaped sprawl, with most of the population living in a rather densely populated areas ideal for public transport service. Yet walking conditions are pitiful, and the oppression of pedestrians is intense.

Two such lessons are clear from this discussion. First, the detrimental effects of promoting motorcycles are perhaps even worse than promoting cars. And second, fine words and pleasant festivities count for little but can cover much cynical action when politicians act irresponsibly. It is useful to keep these points in mind when designing carfree days.

Book Reviews

Passenger Terminals and Trains John A. Droege Kalmbach Publishing Co., Facsimile edition, 1969 First published 1916 by McGraw-Hill 410 pages Many drawings and illustrations, including station track layouts Hardcover Out of print; $19.00 - $65.00 used

This book isn't for everyone. In fact, it's not even for very many, but for those who need it, it's a treasure. The book is useful for two very different purposes:

• As a guide in thinking about rail passenger terminal design and operation, although the replacement of steam with diesel and electric locomotives has radically simplified the design requirements.
• As a social history of railroad operations and community relations at the high-water mark of US passenger railroads. The book was completed just as the grandest passenger terminals were being finished, such as New York's Grand Central and Penn Stations and Washington's Union Station. Railroads expected passenger travel to continue its rapid expansion, but this was not to be. The book was also written at the height of the City Beautiful movement, which expressed itself partially in the construction of palatial rail terminals.

Considerable attention is devoted to both the architectural and operational design of various terminals, and floor plans and photographs of many prominent US terminals are included. Some attention is also paid to European terminals of the day. There is a quite interesting and still somewhat relevant discussion of electrification, which was just coming into use on main-line railroads.

The book considers baggage handling, signaling, and scheduling. It also delves into such arcana as delousing sleeping cars, à la carte vs. table d'hôte dining car service, train indicators, ferry terminal operations, and so forth. It is, in short, a remarkably thorough treatment of its complex subject and quite fascinating on many levels. For a book of its kind, it's also quite well written.

Events

Hot New Links

Urban Transport and Urban Development: A Different Model by Enrique Peñalosa - a must-read article.

Nikon Salingaros interviews Léon Krier "The Future Of Cities: The Absurdity of Modernism" (in the wake of the September 11th attacks).

Rebuilding Manhattan Without Skyscrapers in Katarxis.

Maul of America by James Howard Kunstler.

UN Carfree Days.

UN Carfree Days - The Fremantle Effort.

"SUVs Should Be Driven Into a Truck Lane: Big guys on the right, little guys on the left. It has a nice ring, doesn't it?" in the Los Angeles Times(!)

The Man Who Loved Bicycles The Memoirs of an Autophobe.

The Impact of Transport Policy on Children’s Development Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Policy Studies Institute, London, UK

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