Secrets of the City

The last link is to Rich’s own story, but I approved it, provided Rich does regular roundups of political stories. It was the same deal we had with Politics in Minnesota.

Heh. Tofurkey. Funny.

Light rail = SUV. Even funnier.

I want a bumper sticker that simply says: Michelle Bachman. Bat-Shit Crazy.

The report shows that most light-rail lines use as much energy per passenger mile as an SUV and emit as much greenhouse gases as the average automobile. I conclude that cities that want to save energy or minimize greenhouse gas emissions should not build rail transit, but should instead take steps to reduce emissions from automobiles by relieving congestion.

Wow. Because LRT, which holds hundreds of people, emits as much greenhouse gases as a Ford Explorer, which holds 6 people, we should not use LRT, but build more roads.

That’s genius.

PwrGeek, I’d buy one too. I bet you could make tens of dollars selling those.

I probably could, actually. Tshirts, too!

Then I could make a hundred dollars!

Oh please! I live in the 6th District. No need to pour salt in the wound.

KC the report says ‘per passenger mile’. Although the report was done by Cato and not some leftist University so everyone here can dismiss it.

whoops. I really am having a hard time reading today. I guess it is the ‘mental torture’ of this job again.

The report ultimately provides the information that a bus system is the most environmentlly efficient transortation system.

Light rail loses again-what a shock!! Light rail is good for developers and determining winners and losers by line placement. Big infrastructure costs make it a favorite of the deign and construction industries. Shiny new lines with ribbon cutting ceremonies are much more picturesque than startin an additional bus in operation.

But the key to the environmental efficiency of any public tranportation system is the number of paasengers on the vehicle at any time. More passengers per bus mean less greenhouse gas per passenger mile. More riders on light rail mean less greenhouse gas per passenger mile.

In the end, the key is high passenger utilization. That’s where the savings are–not more automobiles.

And here you go. Get them while they’re hot!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: More transportation funding needs to be dedicated to biking, bike lanes and the like. Yes, we’re on the right track in Minneapolis but it should be done nationally as well.

Maybe I haven’t said it before, but I am saying it now.

Cato is hardly unbiased. And why are the Universities exclusively leftist? I seem to know of more than a handful that skew rightist, and a myriad that skew moderate.

Regardless this screed is has the flawed assumption that the energy use by automobiles will continue to improve at a rate of 2.7 percent per annum and light rail energy consumption will remain static. Bollocks to that. But that is only light rail, separate from commuter and heavy rail. Odd cleavage.

Regardless density of population will determine wether a rail line is a better fit than adding more roads. Few mayors would allow their cities to be gutted again so that people from outside can enter and exit easily. The rail corridors are already there.

Even using math that would make a Hillary campain spokesperson blush, the Cato report shows the energy consumption of our Hiawatha Line is well bellow that of an average passenger car.

See page 11, Figure 3.

Lunch is correct that that he makes a lot of assumptions. For example, much of his report is based on the idea that light rail requires a large “feeder bus” system to work, and he adds in the emissions and energy guestimates from these as well.

I don’t know how many Hiawatha riders also take a bus as part of their daily commute, but I do know that our fleet of metro transit buses, all running on B20 biodiesel and with more than 150 electric-diesel hybrids, are among the “greenest and cleanest” in the nation.

I dunno bob, in boston they’ve got actually electric trolley-buses, and a shit-ton of CNG units too. CNG burns pretty damned clean compared to most liquid fuels.

Whenever I go to research or analyze something I always go in with my conclusion decided. If I get an answer I don’t like I repackage my data to fit my pre-ordained conclusion. I call this reductive reasoning. It will soon replace the scientific method and cost benefit analysis.

I don’t think the LRT article is saying that one LRT train that carries 100 people is equal to one Ford that carries 6.

I think they are saying the environmental impact for 100 people on LRT is the same as 100 people in Suv’s.

Though, I don’t know if I believe that and I may have misread it.

Among, wayne, among.

I wasn’t disin Beantown buses.

You have a great career ahead of you in politics, Lunch.

That’s what statistics are for, aren’t they?

Slightly off topic, but I want more biodiesel. I was in Winnipeg over the weekend and whilst I was sitting outside drinking a glass of tasty Canadian booze, a bus drove by. And instead of a blast of foul-smelling exhaust, we were inundated by a cloud of delicious french fry scented air. Truly glorious.

Of course, then we got a serious case of the munchies and ordered wings.

Besides the fact that there’s no concievable way such a thing could be true, the other thing about light rail is it uses electricity. Electricity is a way of transferring energy, not a source – it’s independent of the source, which, in some alternative future where the morons STFU and let the adults make the progressive decisions that need to be made, can be renewable.

Regardless of Cato’s anti-government screed there’s one huge factor that electrically powered Light Rail has over automobiles. Light Rail’s power is provided mostly by the big electrical utilities, which means most if not all of the emissions resulting from power generation are in a handful of locations.

It is much easier to clean up emissions from a dozen power plants than it is from thousands of automobiles. (Easier technically, I’m not talking about the getting the legislation passed to actually force it.)

And a percentage of that electricity already stems from renewable sources. A percentage that will likely increase quickly in coming years.

And a word about “leftist” universities: The scientists that work at universities are part of a global peer-review system, and when they make mistakes, there’s a hundred more scientists waiting to make their careers by jumping like vultures on the mistaken report. It’s as unbiased a system as imaginable, and if it seems “leftist” it’s only because reality has a well-known liberal bias. Cato, on the other hand, is unabashedly a libertarian think tank that answers to nobody. The difference between an “institution” and a university is a political angle.

Light Rail’s power is provided mostly by the big electrical utilities.

And class, where does electricity come from?
That’s right power plants, gold star.

And what are most power plants powered by?

Correct, coal and natural gas.

You’ll be tested on your high horses later.

Well, Professor, perhaps you could tell us about the legislative mandate for power generation via renewables that MN enacted?

I want a bumper sticker that simply says: Michelle Bachman. Bat-Shit Crazy.

I want a bumper sticker that simply says: “Liberal Men – Turn in Your Testicles. You’re Not Using Them Anyway”

Well, Professor, perhaps you could tell us about the legislative mandate for power generation via renewables that MN enacted?

He may not, but I can. They don’t kick in for several years yet.
———

The report heaps effusive praise on the energy use of our buses. The entire “Alternative Transit Fuels and Technologies” section is about the cost-effectiveness of the hybrid and biodiesel buses here. It calculates that a hybrid bus costs 60-cents per pound of CO2 and biodiesel only 10 cents. It even says the LRT is one of the more energy efficient ones. Good, I guess.

(shrugs indifferently)

I got the kids to prove I am. Babies. So many babies.

Correct, coal and natural gas.
Can, and is, changing.

So let me get this straight:

Situation #1:
50 people riding in a light rail car

Situation #2:
50 people in Ford Explorers

and both are equivalently efficient? WTF? seems very strange.

Ironically this guy is an avid cyclists and bikes to work….

I still think advanced and pretty public transport such as the LRT is the way to go.

Why cars suck to commute with:
1) Traffic
2) Parking
3) Expensive gas
4) accidents

Pretty much all of this is avoided with the LRT. Busses are cool too but they are so old, nasty, loud, bumpy ride, etc.

Here is the alternative the author of this study would have us use:

Not to mention that both busses and cars run on a particularly volatile resource at the moment.

I prefer this, personally.

The Professor is correct on the sources of MN electrical power (followed by nukes, hydro, wind and biomass, in order of % of the grid).

There are a few things he forgot.

1) Natural gas IS a fossil fuel — it is also the cleanest burning fossil fuel, and a damn sight better than coal.
2) The new law richg memtioned will require that 25% of our electrical power come from a renewable source by 2025. Excel is going to do 30% by 2050, they say.
3) Wind is a small % (about 3, I think) now, but it’s the fastest growing segment. We already rank in top 5 in nation for wind as a percentage of electricity used.

But biggest of all, from my point of view, is land. Adding more and more lanes might work in less developed parts of the country with crappier farmland. But here the soil is amazing. People would fight wars over land this good.

People would fight wars over land this good.

They have.

And we will again if those Canucks don’t stop eyeballin’ me land.

It is manifest destiny. Manitoba must extend to the Gulf of Mexico.

The battle with Canada has already begun. Local hip-hop group denied entry to Canada.

To arms, citizens, to arms!

Hey Bob,

Not really local, but from my time at Purdue, I was under the impression that these guys were in Southern Indiana.

Crazy and stupid knows no geographic boundaries, my Boilermaker friend. Click on the candidate’s website and you’ll see he why felt right at home with his little costumed friends, and saw nothing wrong with speaking at that event.

BTW, note how he pictures himself in a US Naval Academy uniform in the “about Tony” section, yet if you look at bottom of his cv, he was only there for two years. Medical discharge. My money is on “section 8.”

The funniest part was when he tried to explain that they weren’t really Nazis, but the National Socialist Workers Party.

While the biodiesel mandate is far from being law, its chances look pretty good this session. If it passes, it could really make a sizable dent in particulate pollution once we gear up to using a B20 blend in the summer.

I ran some numbers for WCCO-TV when they were doing their school bus pollution story. Switching to B20 biodiesel is the fastest and cheapest way to make a statewide reduction in emmisions from schoolbuses. We have more than enough biodiesel produced in MN right now to fill every schoolbus with B20 tommorow. There will plenty of soy left for Tofurkey, too. Minnesota farmers are expected to plant more soy and less corn this year.

As older buses are taken out of service and newer buses come online, the emission levels will drop sharply. Older buses can (and are being) retrofitted with the newer emission control devices required on new buses.

Heh. Perhaps the rest of you have seen this, but one of my co-workers just sent me a copy of “the front fell off.” It’s a scream from Down Under, and more than a little connected with the Minnesota biodiesel story.