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Consulting the Genius of the Place
Blog post
Transport: Time to Think Outside the Metal Box
Posted Dec 8, 2008 by Richard Heinberg
Both the ongoing collapse in oil prices and the car companies' travails are partly illuminated by the following chart of Vehicle Miles Traveled. People are just not driving as much.
And they are not buying as many vehicles—by a long shot. Car sales have fallen through the floor—down a third or more (depending on the company) since last year this time.
With the Big Three automakers on the ropes, everyone's talking about their ludicrously out-of-touch business plans. Of course, they should have spent the past decade developing plug-in hybrids. And so it's good to know there are other US companies making technical advances along these lines (AFS Trinity Power, using a battery-ultracapacitor-ICE hybrid drive, has achieved 150 mpg).
Congress is reluctantly preparing to help GM, Ford, and Chrysler with a bailout package of loans, but only on condition that the industry restructure itself and start making more sensible vehicles.
But the reality is that there won't be enough investment capital available to help the automakers retool comprehensively. Nor will there be enough customers to make new fleets of SUV super-hybrids profitable to build. People without jobs or credit don't buy new cars.
It's about time someone started thinking about the implications. Up until now the US road vehicle fleet has had a 15- to 17-year turnover period. That's about to become 25 years to forever.
Assuming the current economic crisis is not just a cyclical downturn but marks the end of growth as we've known it, it's safe to assume that from now on the road vehicle fleet will be aging and contracting.
In that case, what's a realistic national transportation strategy?
Think Havana: we need to be preparing to repair—training a few more auto mechanics to keep useful vehicles on the road for as long as possible, using whatever spare parts can be scrounged.
At the same time, we will need to pack more passengers in each vehicle. Avego Corporation is pioneering a technology that will enable individuals to use their cars as smart jitneys, filling extra car seats while offsetting the costs of vehicle operation and getting other folks where they need to go. Other carshare, rideshare, car co-op efforts are springing up as well.
Whatever big chunks of investment capital the federal government may be able to beg or borrow for transport purposes should be targeted where they will do the most good. Autoworkers do need jobs, but propping up a failing 20th century industry is a waste of money at this point. Public transit, urban redesign, and low-cost community rideshare programs will help far more in the long run.
Get The End of Growth http://www.postcarbon.org/eog | Watch the animation Who Killed Economic Growth? http://bit.ly/whokilledgrowth
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2 comments
Can You Smell the Roses...?
From: Gus Duncan, Jan 5, 2009 05:09 PM
Beow is a submission that was sent to a local Radio Stataion in Australia some time back in 07...
While Detroit and the car depemdant societies are asking some hard questions could someone run this past them or the people that are bailing them out....
>>>I am interested in transport issues and urban design.
Living in Japan breifly has helped me to understand more deeply the effects of Australia’s urban car culture/design on our way of living.
I see one particular point about car design being poorly address, that of acceleration and speed.
The following basis for a By Design program is written as a means to help fight Global Warming, and claim back valuable urban amenity.
I’m not an academic or involved in the urban planning or transport industry, so I am hoping that if you see merit in the following you might make a program that could arouse some action on this important design issue.
Regards
Gus ‘slow down to smell the roses’ Duncan
Introducing Mandatory Speed and Acceleration Rates
The idea of introducing Mandatory Speed and Acceleration Rates for private motor vehicles is intended to help address Global Warming Transport issues, help in the implementation of sustainable urban design and reduce vehicle accidents and associated social and health costs.
Implementing Mandatory Speed and Acceleration Rates legislation is unique in that it doesn’t require a complete renewal of the current motor vehicle fleet. Thus being timely and saving energy till sustainable transport can be realized.
Electronic and mechanical equipment such as GPS or other speed sign transmitting devices, mechanical limiters and engine management program adjustments already exists to achieve this and could be installed or retro fitted to a large proportion of the motor vehicle fleet.
New vehicle design could be required by legislation to incorporate these changes during manufacture.
Rationalizing Vehicle Design
Important aspects of car design have been led by market forces, which cater to our desire, amongst other things, to enjoy speed.
This situation has produced a primitive attitude to vehicle development for transport. Vehicle design led by the ploy of motor sport and a lack of foresight regarding emissions and safety has led to ‘over designed’ vehicles for the task at hand, but alas, understandable from a male dominated industry. Just look at the majority of car advertising as an indication of the current mind set that the car is an expression of a person’s unlimited power regardless of realty.
Vehicles that fail to consider our ability to control speed have serious safety issues. The justification for lack of appropriate limits is that we have posted speed limits to control maximum speed.
It is inevitable that most drivers want to drive fast and it’s evident that the majority of drivers exceed the speed limits. Excessive speed is a factor in many accidents particularly involving fatalities.
In most places in Australia, if you drive at the posted speed limit you will have several cars behind you wanting to go faster. 10kph over the posted limit is considered by many drivers necessary to get to their destinations regardless of the time available.
Why should we as drivers have to worry about controlling our speed, or worry about other drivers ability to control speed when it can be set for us?
If maximum speed limits are considered necessary why do we have vehicles that can exceed them? The question has been asked many times and has been just surged off.
Until now it has been considered a right if not a status symbol to buy as much horsepower and maximum speed as we can afford.
Market forces in vehicle design have been allowed to put cars on our roads that should be on a race track. This is not just the sports car sector of car production, but also the family car is over powered for safety and environmental considerations.
Production of cars that are not governed for speed and power should be tolerated, but only allowed to be used at Motor Sport facilities allowing them to be used at their full potential in a controlled environment. In the least, we owe this to the vehicle designers and engineers. A consumer of such vehicles should demand it, but most importantly it is a safer and a more appropriate place for the enjoyment of speed than our public roads.
The Good News
As rates of vehicle emissions and fossil fuel consumption are becoming important many of the arguments for speed control can be applied to acceleration rates and speed limits. The good news is that controlling maximum speed and acceleration also controls a vehicles carbon consumption and emissions.
Justification for applying Mandatory Speed and Acceleration Rates can be considered in 2 areas
Environmental Benefits
Limiting Atmospheric Carbon Output
Lots of energy is consumed by a vehicle in the acceleration phase of a journey. The faster that acceleration, the more fuel is used to achieve basically the same result.
Human nature ensures that a lot of energy is wasted accelerating, faster than necessary, to the next set of traffic lights, only to do it over again.
This is compounded with car designers competing with each other over performance statistics to capture market share,
Energy and emissions can be saved by setting the acceleration rate of all vehicles to at least half the current average. Currently there is no limit on the rate of acceleration other than the driver’s ability to pay for the fuel and the car ability to consume it. There are some discretionary registration and tax incentives to curb large or over powered vehicles but this is not enough. All current vehicles regardless of the capacity are wasting fuel to get there intended job done if they are driven at today’s typical speeds.
Slowing oil consumption
Peak Oil is eventually going to be reached and efforts should be made to curb the unnecessary consumption of Fossil Fuels now.
It could be considered as a defensive position with regard to Peak Oil & Transport Global Warming issues.
While the search for sustainable transport gains momentum, it would be remiss to not adopt available technologies and legislation that can limit outputs from carbon emitting vehicles.
Social Benefits
Reducing Motor Vehicle Accidents
A reduction in current speed limits of 25% across all speed zones coupled with taking away a drivers ability to exceed those limits will have a drastic effect on vehicles accidents injuries.
Reducing Aggressive and Dangerous Driving
If all cars could only accelerate and travel at the same reduced speed aggressive and dangerous driving will be reduced. Pedestrians, cyclist, children and older drivers will feel less intimidated by the speed of traffic than in the current situation.
Reducing Speed Limits
Reducing Speed Limits by 25% across all speed zones is possible if we take the ability to disregard these speed limits from the driver.
It will save carbon emissions as well as reduce road accident trauma and associated social and health costs. The down side to slower speed limits cannot outweigh these benefits.
Improved Urban Amenity
Slower speed limits and acceleration control will allow for a denser, human friendly urban design. Communities can claim back the streetscape for more appropriate uses such as cycling and walking. Speed control will reduce effective vehicle commuter distance which will impair urban sprawl, in turn reducing energy consumption and emissions.
Vehicle Design downsizing
Slower, less powerful vehicles can be built lighter requiring less and lighter materials.
Reducing weight, speed and acceleration will allow the use of narrower tires further reducing energy inputs and also reducing road noise. A large percentage of traffic noise is generated by tire to ground contact. Reducing this area and speed will decrease associated urban disturbance from vehicle noise.
Allow parity with Public Transport.
Slower vehicle speeds will allow public transport travel times to compete with car travel, which will increase the use of public transport and reduces emissions and vehicular accidents further.
Legislation has changed public perceptions in the past when such changes were considered unnecessary or too burdensome, such as limiting the right to smoke tobacco, or the right to bare arms, in which the motive was public safety.
The effects of putting these limits on motor vehicles are not onerous considering the necessity of curbing carbon emissions and the social benefits.
If advertising is any indications of the current mind set that the car is an expression of a person’s unlimited power regardless of realty we are in for a challenge.
Surly with all the benefits of motorized transport we have gained the time and experience to slow down to smell the roses.
VMT graph lags reality
From: Mike McCarthy, Dec 9, 2008 09:53 AM
Any graph that uses 12-month (or other long period, relative to a rate of change) moving averages levels out seasonal variances but does so at the expense of building in a change-lag when the item being measured is currently undergoing a change.
If you go to the individual monthly figures, you will see that, month-by-month, we are currently running at 2002-03 VMT rates, not the 2004-05 rate being protrayed by the moving average graph.
If you re-do the graph using monthly VMT, it will look more like the annual graph of rising CO2 levels (a sine-wave on a slope, though not as smooth) up to around 2004-05, then there will be a much sharper break and steeper declines in 2007-08, compared with the under-stated moving-avg. graph.
If I was more computer-literate, I'd run the graph and give it to you (sorry).
As Alan Drake might say, "Best hopes for continued declining VMT!"