(Source: The Infrastructurist)

Fiat and Magna emerge as serious bidders for Opel…GM is said to favor a single bidder, which may improve Fiat’s chances somewhat. Union officials and policymakers in Germany, on the other hand, have voiced concerns over the Italian automaker’s plans, saying they welcome the alternative plan from Magna. It should be interesting to see how this all plays out in the coming weeks.[Source: Automotiv…

Deal Would Combine Financing Arms Auto lenders Chrysler Financial and GMAC would be combined under a proposed Chrysler restructuring plan.

GM Offers U.S. a Majority Stake  GM outlined a new turnaround plan that would leave the U.S. government controlling the auto maker, as it set up a showdown with bondholders that could determine whether the troubled American icon lands in bankruptcy court.

Statement from GM Bondholder Committee’s Advisers Here is the statement from advisers to ad hoc committee of GM bondholders:

Billion-Dollar Baby: We Drive the Chevrolet Volt…wheel of GM‘s last best hope: the electric Chevy Volt.

 (Source: Autobloggreen & Reuters)

We first heard about a proposal to ban cars powered solely by fossil fuels way back in 2007. According to Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen, the plan “is much more realistic than people think when they first hear about” it and is still very much in the works. Still, it’s highly unlikely that the proposal would come to fruition due to opposition from current Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

“The financial crisis also means that a lot of those car producers that now have big problems … know that they have to develop their technology because we also have to solve the climate crisis when this financial crisis is over,” she said.

“That is why we would like a ban from 2015,” she said, during an exhibition in Oslo of electric and biofuel-powered cars during which she raced a red and white Mitsubishi electric car around a course against several other politicians.

(Source: Public Discourse – The Witherspoon Institute)

It might seem as if nothing could be less important to social conservatives than transportation. The Department of Health and Human Services crafts policies that affect abortion, the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission play crucial roles in determining how prevalent obscenity is in our society, but the Department of Transportation just funds highways, airports, and railroads, or so the usual thinking goes. But decisions about these projects and how to fund them have dramatic and far-reaching consequences for how Americans go about their lives on a day-to-day basis. Transportation decisions have the power to shape how we form communities, families, religious congregations, and even how we start small businesses. Bad transportation decisions can destroy communities, and good transportation decisions can help create them. 

Sadly, American conservatives have come to be associated with support for transportation decisions that promote dependence on automobiles, while American liberals are more likely to be associated with public transportation, city life, and pro-pedestrian policies. This association can be traced to the ’70s, when cities became associated with social dysfunction and suburbs remained bastions of ‘normalcy.’ This dynamic was fueled by headlines mocking ill-conceived transit projects that conservatives loved to point out as examples of wasteful government spending. Of course, just because there is a historic explanation for why Democrats are “pro-transit” and Republicans are “pro-car” does not mean that these associations make any sense. Support for government-subsidized highway projects and contempt for efficient mass transit does not follow from any of the core principles of social conservatism. 

A common misperception is that the current American state of auto-dependency is a result of the free market doing its work. In fact, a variety of government interventions ensure that the transportation “market” is skewed towards car-ownership. These policy biases are too numerous to list exhaustively, but a few merit special recognition: 

-If a state is interested in building a new highway, the only major regulatory obstacle is completing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). After this, the federal government will typically pay for a large portion of the project, and leave the details of its planning and construction to the state’s Department of Transportation. If a state or municipality is interested in a transit project like a subway, a streetcar, or a bus system, however, not only must it complete an EIS, it must also clear a barrage of regulatory hurdles, including a cost-effectiveness analysis, a land-use impact analysis, and a comparison with other transit systems. None of these requirements is necessarily bad in itself (though many of these regulations were designed only to make it harder to build transit systems), but highways aren’t subject to any of them. Naturally, states therefore find it easier to channel transportation dollars into highways. 

-As a 2003 report by the Brookings Institution points out, “federal funding for highway projects is more secure and generous than for transit projects; making highway projects easier to finance.” The Department of Transportation will typically match 80% to 90% of state funds directed towards highway repair or construction. Those same funds directed towards transit usually receive less than a 60% federal match, and carry further burdensome requirements for local funding that highway projects do not need to meet. 

-Zoning requirements in most municipalities mandate that shops and houses must be separated. It is widely illegal to build the old small-town main street with the mix of shops, houses, and apartments that many find charming (so charming that some of these towns have been turned into tourist attractions). Furthermore, in most states it is mandatory for new schools to be built next to hundreds of acres playing fields, and thus far away from residential neighborhoods (see this report and this paper for a fuller discussion of policies that affect travel to school). These and similar regulations ensure that there are no shops or schools—that is, major household destinations—within walking distance of the average American’s home, which in turn requires the average American to own and use a car, not merely to commute to work but to perform basic tasks like picking up a gallon of milk or sending the kids off to school in the morning. 

Clash of the Titans: Fiat reportedly squaring off with European Union over mergers…interest in GM‘s European subsidiary Opel, Marchionne is now asserting that would consider the possibility, but that no offer had been made to date.[Source: The Detroit News | Image: Andrej Isakovic/AFP/Getty]Clash of the Titans: Fiat reportedly squaring off with European Union over mergers originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:…

 More cuts across the board: General Motors to slash dealers, plants and employees…GM, Earnings/FinancialsGeneral Motors’ spate of announcements this morning was bad news for enthusiasts (e.g. the shuttering of Pontiac) and even worse for GM‘s debt-for-equity swap (without a 90% take-rate the automaker is bound for CH 11). But for dealerships and workers, GM‘s re-revised restructuring plan is going to hurt… hard.In addition ..

(Source: Streetsblog)

Ultimately, SAFETEA-LU’s greatest failing may have been its failure to articulate a truly multi-modal vision for the nation’s surface transportation network. Essentially a continuation of 1950s-era policies, it repeated the same-old same-old about a need to complete the Interstate highway program, directing billions of dollars to state DOTs to pour asphalt and expand roadways. Nowhere did the legislation suggest a need to adapt to a future in which American dependence on automobiles and fossil fuels must be dramatically reduced. That’s the challenge faced by Congress today.

Less of this...

 Transportation funding from Washington has been heavily weighted toward highway spending ever since President Eisenhower first proposed the Interstate Highway Act in 1956. SAFETEA-LU, 2005’s federal transportation bill, was no exception. It provided $244.1 billionover five years, its revenues raised by the federal gas tax and directed to the Highway Trust Fund, which has both highway and mass transit accounts. $40 billion a year went to highways, most of which was used to expand and upgrade the Interstate highway system; some $10 billion went annually to mass transit.

The $10 billion in public transportation funds is distributed by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for a variety of uses. The FTA administers the urban areas program, which allocates money to metropolitan areas for transit system capital expenses, as well as a rural areas program that helps states pay for rural transit. SAFETEA-LU also included a fixed-guideways formula, aimed at keeping mostly older rail transit systems like those in Chicago or Boston in working condition. Finally, the New Starts/Small Starts program allowed the FTA to fund competitive grants for major capacity expansion such as new subway or bus rapid transit lines.

More of this...

 SAFETEA-LU provided for $40 billion in annual funding from the highway account, the traditional federal source for financing Interstate highways. But under the law, money from the account could actually be spent on more than just roads. Roughly $6.5 billion per year was allocated to the “Surface Transportation Program.” States were allowed to use this money to fund transit and “bicycle transportation and pedestrian walkways.” The “Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program” — about $1.7 billion a year — went to projects likely to reduce pollution, and specifically forbade funding “a project which will result in the construction of new capacity available to single occupant vehicles.”

There’s one problem, though. The federal government may allow such funds to be spent on non-auto uses, but that’s rarely the case.

That’s because, while each metropolitan area has a federally-mandated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) whose role is to establish priorities for transportation investments, state departments of transportation have ultimate discretion over how national highway funds are used. The inevitable consequence? Asphalt-happy DOTs usually choose to invest highway funds in roads, even when MPOs advocate for improved transit or bikeways. According to Transportation for America, only five states — California, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia — have taken advantage of the flexibility of these funds. The rest have spent the vast majority on auto infrastructure.

What’s more, SAFETEA-LU made it easy for states to build roads and hard for them to build transit projects. While funds for new roads were simply distributed to states based on a formula, new transit lines had to undergo the rigorous New Starts process — competing with other projects from all over the country — before winning a share of federal dollars. There was no such required audit for road projects.

(Source: Institute for Transportation & Development Policy)

Activist Says Jakarta Current Vehicle Growth Leads to Transportation Failure

If the vehicle growth rate in Jakarta continues to hover around tens of percent annually without any breakthrough in transportation and traffic management, the city will be paralyzed by total gridlock by 2014, a nongovernmental organization said Wednesday.

“Total traffic failure is an unbearable risk caused by the city’s failure in transportation and traffic management,” the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy said in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post.

“Traffic jams have degraded the environment and people’s health due to excessive vehicle emissions. They also halt residents’ mobility that, in turn, cause economic losses,” it said.

Jabodetabek, a large-scale metropolitan area with a population of 21 million, consists of Daerah Khusus Ibukota/DKI (Capital Special Region) Jakarta, as the capital city of Indonesia, which is the center of politics, economy and social activities, and 7 local governments (Bodetabek) in the surrounding areas covering Kota (municipality) Bogor, Kabupaten (regency/district) Bogor, Kota Depok, Kota Bekasi, Kabupaten Bekasi, Kota Tangerang, and Kabupaten Tangerang.

Traffic congestion is a chronic problem faced in the Jabodetabek region and the situation is expected to worsen should there be no improvement of any kind made on the existing transportation system. According to a 2005 study,  the economic loss caused by traffic congestion in the region could be as much as $ 68 million per year due to traffic congestion – and this estimate excludes the impacts of traffic congestion and pollution on human health.

Jakarta’s Paratransit Network Still Stuck In Slow Lane 

(Source: New York Times)

Union leaders said Sunday that they had reached an agreement with Chrysler that meets federal requirements for the automaker to receive more financing.

The deal includes Fiat, the Italian automaker with which Chrysler was ordered by the government to form an alliance before Thursday.

Neither the United Automobile Workers union nor the company released details of the tentative agreement, which would modify the union’s 2007 contract and reduce the amount of money Chrysler must pay into a new health fund for retirees.

Image: New York Times

The union plans to have its 26,000 Chrysler workers vote on the deal by Wednesday.

Chrysler said the agreement, reached during marathon negotiations over the weekend, satisfied the requirements laid out by the Obama administration for a deal by an April 30 deadline.

Even with the agreement, Chrysler is expected to seek Chapter 11 protection, in a case mapped out by the government in advance, including safeguards meant to protect worker benefits, people with knowledge of the company’s plans said Sunday night.

A new company would be set up with the best assets of Chrysler, these people said. Fiat of Italy would own 20 percent to 35 percent of the new Chrysler, they said, with the government also holding a stake. Some of the equity in the new company would also be given to Chrysler’s creditors as repayment.

These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the deals had not been finalized.

The Treasury Department has also reached an agreement with Daimler of Germany, the former owner of Chrysler, to settle tax and other claims left over from its sale of Chrysler in 2007 to Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm.

In order to persuade the union to back the sale to Cerberus, Daimler agreed to pay $1 billion to Chrysler if the company’s pension plans were terminated in a subsequent bankruptcy filing. Details of the Treasury’s deal with Daimler were not available.

Last week, the union reached an agreement in principle with the administration and Chrysler that would protect workers’ pensions in the event of a bankruptcy filing and provide for a change in the financing of a health care trust set up in 2007.

Click here to read the entire article.

ALGIERS (AFP) – OPEC wants to see oil prices rising to more than 70 dollars a barrel, the oil cartel’s secretary general Abdalla El-Badri said Sunday.

 “The price of 50 dollars is not enough to cover investment costs for the future,” El-Badri told reporters in Algiers.

(Source: Autobloggreen)

According to Autocar in the UK, Scotland Yard has announced plans to replace half of its fleet of vehicles with either electric or air-powered vehicles within four years. We’re not sure what air-powered vehicles are being considered, but we’ve been hearing about the compressed air vehicle from MDI for the last few years at least.

There are already 140 or so Toyota Prius hybrid police cars currently in use by the Metropolitan Police Service and officers have been putting electric versions of the smart fortwo through their paces. Those two programs are expected to continue and grow. Nigel Jakubowski, head of transport services, says, “The uniformed officers who have driven them say they are very quick. We have installed charging points at the stations the cars are based in, and they work very well.”