Following New York City and Bogota, City of Buenos Aires Launches Car Free Sunday; Porteños (a.k.a. city residents) Rejoice & Reclaim Public Spaces Lost to Motor Vehicles

August 10, 2009 at 6:25 pm

(Source: Institute for Transportation and Development Policy)

Imagine one of the largest and iconic avenues in Latin America entirely closed to motorized vehicles with children playing happily. On a recent Sunday morning in Buenos Aires on Avenida 9 de Julio and other major streets, where thousands of porteños—as the city residents are called—could be seen exercising, rollerblading, cycling and strolling down streets that are normally clogged with smelly, noisy and dangerous cars and trucks. Following other cities such as BogotáSantiago and more recently New York City, the Argentine capital closed major thoroughfares to motor vehicles so residents could enjoy the first-ever Car Free Sunday.

Image Courtesy: ITDP

The City of Buenos Aires decided to launch the car-free event despite forecasts of low temperatures for June (approx 5° C, 41° F). Starting in the hip neighborhood of Palermo and stretching over 20+ kilometers, streets and avenues were exclusively designated for walking, riding bicycles and rollerblading. Porteños showed up in droves, enjoying the city’s newly reclaimed public spaces—the streets.

Image Courtesy: ITDP - Map of planned bikeways in Buenos Aires. Click to Enlarge.

The circuit connected the stately parks of Palermo with 9 de Julio Avenue to the middle-income neighborhood of Boedo in the south. Citizens could choose to participate in a variety of activities organized throughout the day like exercising to techno-music in front of the iconic Buenos Aires obelisk, rollerblading with the entire family, renting a bike from “La Bicicleta Naranja,” playing soccer or just strolling around with the kids.

The Municipality of Buenos Aires also engaged in another initiative to increase bicycle use and promote high-quality public spaces by developing a Bicycle Master Plan. The proposed bike network will link the 3 main train stations of the city to the downtown business district, as well as some of the most important Universities. Irala Street will have the first cycle lane and will be a model for other cycle lane developments. Physical segregation from cars, new signaling and detailed design will reduce conflicts and encourage everyone to start riding their bicycles.

Click here to read the entire article.

Streetsblog: What If Everyone Drove to Work Inside Manhattan’s Central Business District?

August 10, 2009 at 5:37 pm

(Source: Streetsblog)

Sure, knocking the MTA is a favorite local past time, particularly for the politicians and press who are practically guaranteed a “Hallelujah!” chorus for every barb (today’s scandal: fat cat transit workers poised to rake in cost-of-living allowance!!). But despite the MTA’s problems, as Michael Frumin points out on his Frumination blog, the city’s streets and highways can’t hold a candle to the subways when it comes to moving commuters into and out of Manhattan’s Central Business District.

Parsing data derived from 2008 subway passenger counts and the NYMTC 2007 Hub Bound Report [PDF], Frumin writes:

Just to get warmed up, chew on this — from 8:00AM to 8:59 AM on an average Fall day in 2007 the NYC Subway carried 388,802 passengers into the CBD on 370 trains over 22 tracks. In other words, a train carrying 1,050 people crossed into the CBD every 6 seconds.Breathtaking if you ask me.

Over this same period, the average number of passengers in a vehicle crossing any of the East River crossings was 1.20. This means that, lacking the subway, we would need to move 324,000 additional vehicles into the CBD (never mind where they would all park).

At best, it would take 167 inbound lanes, or 84 copies of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, to carry what the NYC Subway carries over 22 inbound tracks through 12 tunnels and 2 (partial) bridges. At worst, 200 new copies of 5th Avenue. Somewhere in the middle would be 67 West Side Highways or 76 Brooklyn Bridges. And this neglects the Long Island Railroad, Metro North, NJ Transit, and PATH systems entirely.

Click here to read the entire article.

Tree Hugger picks five fashions for the urban biking fashionistas

August 10, 2009 at 1:06 pm

(Source: Tree Hugger)

They did it again!  Our fine folk @ Tree Hugger have once again published something that is worth for the bike-riding masses in our urban jungles (in Europe).  This time around, the publication is focused on some fashionable threads for the urban cyclist with a sense of fashion.  A few of the items listed  below are available locally for folks here in the US of A.  Now off to a quick extract from the Tree Hugger article.

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The whole point with urban cycling is to make it work with whatever your lifestyle and your sense of fashion (or your work clothes requirements) are. If you want to wear Lycra and/or have a long commute that necessitates but padding, then there’s the option of hauling fresh clothes (or at the very least a shirt). But if you want to wear street/work clothes, what have designers been doing to link together bike-friendly with street fashionable? Here is what the Tree Hugger found.  Add your favorite ‘cycle couture’ designers in the comments (i.e., here or on the Tree Hugger site):

DO YOU Velo Jackets photo

Rapha Shorts photo

London Transport Top photo

Swrve Jeans and Knickers photo

Outlier 4Season Pants photo

Click here to read the entire article, with detailed descritpion/comments for each one of the items above. (Images courtesy of Tree Hugger)

Ford Advocates Cap-and-Trade Program Citing US Energy Policies As Critical Factor in Shaping Future Vehicle Fleet

August 9, 2009 at 11:17 pm

(Source: Green Car Congress) Sue Cischke, Ford group vice president, Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering, pointed to the “key role” government policies such as fuel standards and greenhouse gas emission regulations, play in the development and support of Ford’s product and technology pathways. Cischke was speaking at the Center of Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City last week.

Ldcghgpolicy

Image Courtesy: Green Car Congress - Actual and projected greenhouse gas emissions for passenger vehicles by region/country through 2022. Adapted from ICCT. Click to enlarge.

Cischke cited the recent agreement on one national standard for fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions regulations as an example of how the government, the auto industry and the environmental community can work together toward common goals. (Earlier post.) The agreement provides a framework to reach an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 mpg in 2016.

The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) calculates that meeting the proposed Federal policy will require a 5.7% annual increase in average fuel economy through 2016. Meeting the California Pavley regulations will require about a 5.8% annual increase in average fuel economy, according to ICCT. By comparison, meeting Japan’s standards for 2004-2015 requires a 1.9% annual increase; meeting the EU targets for 2008-2015 requires a 2.5% annual increase to 2015; and meeting China’s 2004-2009 target requires a 5.3% annual increase.

To meet the demand for higher fuel efficiency, Ford will leverage and expand EcoBoost engine technology that will be available on 90% of the company’s nameplates by 2013. Other technologies such as six-speed transmissions and electric power assist steering, which yield additional fuel efficiencies, will also be widely applied across Ford’s vehicle lineup over the next several years. Ford has doubled the number and production of its hybrid vehicles and announced an aggressive strategy to bring four new electrified vehicles to market over the next three years.

They include a battery-electric Transit Connect commercial van in 2010, a battery-electric Ford Focus passenger car in 201l, and the next-generation hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicle in 2012.

Click here to read the entire article.

Have you been “Ave-d”? Guardian gushes about the sleek Spanish rail service! Americans left wondering if their Government will ever “get it”?

August 8, 2009 at 5:16 pm

(Source: The Guardian, UK)

Ana Portet has had an unusual commute to work. At 7.30am she popped down to Sants railway station in Barcelona. Three hours later she was in a meeting with colleagues from her brewery firm, 315 miles away in Madrid.

“I’ll be back in Barcelona by half past five,” she said as her early afternoon bullet train flew back along the new high-speed tracks at up to 210mph. “It’s so quick, sometimes you are there before you have even noticed.”

Portet is one of hundreds of thousands of travellers who have migrated from the world’s busiest air shuttle, linking Madrid and Barcelona, to what is now Spain’s most popular train, the high-speed AVE.

The AVE, an intercom announcement has just told us, will leave us in the centre of Barcelona in two hours and 32 minutes. With Madrid’s AVE station a short walk from the Prado museum, the journey is from one city centre to another. What is more, the high-speed train does this in punctual, hassle-free and elegant style.

High-speed trains pulled by aerodynamic engines with noses shaped like a duck-billed platypus are grounding aircraft across Spain. The year-old Barcelona-Madrid line has already taken 46% of the traffic – stealing most of it from fuel-guzzling, carbon-emitting aircraft. As the high-speed rail network spreads a web of tracks across Spain over the next decade, it threatens to relegate domestic air travel to a distant second place.

A high-speed network is not designed overnight. Spain’s AVE story started in the 1980s, when the socialist prime minister Felipe González commissioned a line between Madrid and his home city of Seville. The project was overshadowed by corruption scandals and greeted with a certain amount of scorn. Why was sleepy Seville getting the line and not busy Barcelona? Some saw it as an expensive white elephant and a monument to González’s ego.

The line, however, was a spectacular success. Remote Seville was suddenly two and a half hours from Madrid. Spaniards, used to shabby, lumbering trains that crawled across the countryside following unpredictable timetables, discovered their trains could be stylish and run on time.

Previously the choice on the Madrid-Seville run was between a hot, tiring six-hour coach journey or an aircraft. Seventeen years later, only one traveller out of 10 takes the plane to Seville. The rest go by a train that is 99% punctual. The Seville line proved that high-speed trains could be part of the answer, albeit an expensive part, to some of Spain’s most enduring problems.

By 2020 Spain will have Europe’s largest high-speed network, its 6,000 miles of track outgunning even France’s TGV system. By then 90% of the population will be within 30 miles of a station. New lines have already been opened to Segovia, Valladolid and Malaga in the last 18 months. New links will eventually connect France and Portugal.

The high-speed train network also helps Spain control carbon emissions, with passengers on the Madrid-Barcelona line cutting their own emissions by 83% on the trip.

Click here to read the entire article.

Transportgooru Musings:

Something unusual is happening with the mainstream media these days.  There seems to be a renewed interest in pushing the idea of having a high-speed rail network in to the minds of the American public .  We have seen two articles on CNN/Fortune have brought too fore how China is pushing ahead with its investment in building a sophisticated, world class HSR network.  This spurred a good bit of debate on many popular infrastructure & transportation forums such as the Infrastrucrist.  Another one appeared in LA Times, by business writer David Lazarus whose sentiments about the American transportation system was summarized as follows after experiencing the highly systematic & super-sleek Japanese network: “It’s hard to appreciate how truly pitiful our public transportation system is until you spend some time with a system that works.” Many of us know that feeling.  Then he gushes about the consistently reliable, affordable and convenient transit systems in Japan. “I rode just about every form of public transit imaginable — bullet trains, express trains, commuter trains, subways, street cars, monorails and buses.”  Again, our good friends at Infrastructurist followed-up with a nice debate.

Now we have this Guardian article, that gushes about the glorious Spanish high-speed rail network.  I am sure this would stir another round of renewed interest in the minds of us transportation nerds, especially among those who keenly the TransportGooru and Infrastructurist columns on this topic. But do these discussions go beyond the comments section of these portals.  I wonder if the Government is even taking note of these anxiety-laden cries that advocate the need for a comparable HSR.  As the President and his administration staff reiterate his commitment to keep American workforce competitive in every field, pushing huge loads of money for all sorts of industries (Automobile manufacturing, battery research etc.) , everyone in the Government seems to forget that competitiveness should also extend beyond roads and vehicles.  The vast American bureaucracy is slowly pushing ahead with limited funding ($8Billion) and a massive goal (a HSR-network in pockets of nation with targeted connectivity), while other nations like China and Spain are blazing ahead with massive investments in a rail network.  Unless we as a nation get serious about investing in alternative transportation options such as rail, we will continue to remain dependent on our expensive oil addiction.

With the Government pushing new thinking such as transit-oriented development, it is probably not too far in the future before urban living becomes “cool” again and the minor discomforts of not having the plush sub-urban life with white picket fences and acre-wide manicured lawns might fade away.   The Government facilitated the emergence of the sprawl and the suburban lifestyle with its policy and funding push for interstates.  Back in the past were days when railroading was the best alternative for longer distances.  Ford and other American automakers created a new way of life with the commercialization of automobile technology, which has now blossomed into a thriving industry.  Can the Government enable a similar push for building high speed rail networks around the country?

Before we even get there, let’s first ask: Is there a need for it?   Yes, clearly there is a need for it, at least for distances shorter than 400 miles and there is also a desire for it among folks.  But the only thing that is lack is the Governmental backing. The paltry $8B will not be enough but it is definitely a good start.  It is not always a bad thing to emulate successful strategies, irrespective of where it emulates from.  American ingenuity stems from this ability to take ideas irrespective of their origin and tweak to make them suitable for the American landscape.  We did this for years by simply importing foreign talent (from nuclear scientists to PhD students) propelled new ideas and thinking to create a huge economy that was atop the world for decades. Why not do the same for building a rail network?

We have the need, we have the people who can get it done. All we need is the willingness to invest and the determination to get it done. As demonstrated in the past, Americans can accomplish great things (from building the interstate system to the invention of the atomic bomb), when the Government stood firm and pushed ahead to finish these mega-projects.  Some of these projects not only became a rallying point for nation building (during and after WWII) but they also spawned new economies and industries, spurring job growth and economic development in communities.

For argument sakes, for the time being we can remain content that our nation has a sophisticated air transportation network, with even the tiniest of the towns boasting an airport.  In reality, many of our airports are overwhelmed and strained by heavy operational delays and operate with sub-par efficiency, at times also posing a risk to passenger safety.  But at the end of the day, we are still going to be an oil-dependent economy, ply our cars and planes with imported for the near future.  Of course, there is a lot more to it than just saying and writing it on these websites and newspapers.  But that’s where the Government comes in to figure it all out and to make it happen.  That’s what the American tax-payers pay for every year before April 15th – to fund and keep a massive bureaucracy working for the to safeguard the interests of its citizens and not budge for the disgruntled political masses.

For what it matters, we are blessed with a dedicated team of professionals who are a part of this massive bureacracy and the USDOT employs thousands of people under its railroad-ing arm, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).  The agency should be given special powers (agreed that we are not Communist China and it may all have to be worked out within a Democratic framework) to expedite the approval process for the pending HSR proposals.  It should also be taken into account that allied industres such as steel manufacturing be reviatlized with incentives for making steel locally.  This would be a really good way to resuscitate the long-shuttered steel mills of our nation.  Hire a new workforce to build these raillines (as a data nugget, consider what China had been able to do in keeping its workforce busy.  The CRCC now employ 110,000 workers on a single line connecting Beijing and Shanghai.  If you are running short of professional capacity to build and manage all this new work, employ the new grads coming out of our universities (FYI,  the CNN article on Chinese HSR plans offer this data:  Last year China Railway Construction Co., the nation’s largest railroad builder, hired 14,000 new university graduates — civil and electrical engineers mostly — from the class of 2008. This year, says Liang Yi, the vice CEO of the CRCC subsidiary working on the Beijing-to-Shanghai high-speed line, the company may hire up to 20,000 new university grads to cope with the company’s intensifying workload. But with the private sector cutting way back on hiring — and university students desperate for work — taking on that many new engineers and managers hasn’t been too difficult) and put them to work on this project of national importance.   If we managed to somehow put aside all our  political in-fighting and come together to accomplish this in the next 20 years, our future generations may have a better shot at being competitive.  We may even see a renewed interest in our nations private-sector players to invest and operate these new railroads (many foreign and local infrastructure firms are now buying rights to build and operate our nation’s ports and toll-roads).  Who knows! Someday in the future we may have a sophisticated system if we “get it right”).

It takes a special leader , who can stand tall amidst all the challenges and marshall his troops to get the mission accomplished and our President sure has shown glimpses of such qualities.  But as we all know, mere glimpses are not enough.  Unless our leadership shows some serious commitment and interest, the possibilities of an average American riding an Ave-like or Shinkansen-like or a TGV-like system will remain elusive.  Will the real leader stand up and deliver?

Toyota reports $819 million quarterly loss; Prius is Top-Seller Again in Japan in July; Up Almost 4x Year-on-Year

August 7, 2009 at 10:22 pm

(Source: Green Car Congress, AP, Wall Street Journal & The Japan Times Online)

Toyota’s Prius was the top-seller in Japan in July, with 27,712 units sold—almost quadruple the 7,058 units sold in July 2008, up nearly 25 percent from June, according to data from the Japan Automotive Dealers Association (JADA).

Priusjuly09

Image Courtesy: Green Car Congress - Monthly Prius Sales in Japan Since Jan 2007

For a second straight month, Prius has bagged the top-seller title, underscoring robust demand for fuel-efficient vehicles.  Demand for gasoline-electric vehicles has surged in Japan, helped by tax breaks and subsidies under a government initiative to promote cleaner automobiles. Toyota has said customers placing orders now for the Prius will have to wait until at least April for delivery due to surging demand.

Toyota Motor Kyushu Inc. said Thursday that orders for the hybrid version of its luxury Lexus sedan have been robust, leading the Toyota unit to expand production of the model.

Orders for the HS250h Lexus hybrid launched July 14 have reached 8,600 units, far more than the monthly target of 500, Seiichi Sudo, president of the Toyota unit, said in Fukuoka.

“Orders are very brisk as customers endorse its environmental performance,” he said.

The company is making employees work 30 to 90 minutes of overtime a day to meet demand, Sudo said, warning, however, that delivery of many ordered cars could be delayed beyond the March 31 expiry for the government’s subsidy program.

Overall auto sales in Japan declined 4.2% to July to 289,927. Toyota sales decreased 3% to 135,535 according to JADA.  This decline in Japan’s auto sales for July was the smallest since the world’s third biggest auto market started shrinking last August.

This was the 12th straight month of decline, but it was much smaller than the 13.5% drop in June.

The results for the April-June quarter showed that Toyota Motor Corp. is getting some traction from aggressive cost-cutting and Japanese government incentives that have boosted sales of green cars like the Prius. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had forecast a fiscal first quarter loss of 210 billion yen.

Booming sales of the Prius hybrid helped the world’s No. 1 automaker Toyota deliver a smaller-than-expected 77.82 billion yen ($819 million) quarterly loss and narrow its forecast of red ink for the full year.

Click here to read the entire article.

FHWA’s Transportation and Climate Change Newsletter – July 2009

August 7, 2009 at 3:09 pm

(Source: FHWA-Office of Planning, Environment and Realty)

Recent Events

Secretary LaHood Testifies Before Senate. On July 14, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testified to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works about transportation’s role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  The Secretary outlined several initiatives that DOT is undertaking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including implementing more stringent fuel economy standards, improving operational efficiency of the transportation system, and addressing VMT growth by encouraging development of livable communities.  A webcast recording of the hearing, along with submitted written testimony from all presenters, is available at: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=57b8818d-802a-23ad-4d8d-e09cd7cb134a

Moving Cooler Report Released. This new Urban Land Institute (ULI) publication, prepared by Cambridge Systematics, Inc. based in Cambridge, Mass., explores incremental reductions in U.S. carbon emissions that could occur within the transportation sector as a result of a wide variety of transportation- and land use-related actions and strategies to minimize auto use, including more compact development. The full publication is available for purchase on ULI’s website in either electronic (pdf) or hardcopy formats at www.uli.org.

AASHTO Releases “Real Transportation Solutions” Website and Report. AASHTO has released a new website and report focused on strategies to reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions.  AASHTO calls for limiting growth in VMT to 1% per year, increasing vehicle fuel efficiency, shifting to low- or no- carbon dioxide emitting fuels, and improving efficiency and operations of roadways.  See:http://www.transportation1.org/RealSolutions.

28th Edition of the Transportation Energy Data Book Released. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Lab has released a new edition of its annual compendium of information on transportation energy use.  Two new tables have been added to the greenhouse gases chapter this year.  A new table on transportation greenhouse gases by mode in 1990 and 2007, based on EPA’s Inventory report, indicates that CO2 emissions from light duty on-road vehicles increased 20.8% between 1990 and 2007.  CO2 emissions from medium and heavy duty trucks and buses rose 77.8% in the same period.  Another new table, also based on EPA data, reports the CO2 emissions from a gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel.  For more information, including a pdf of the report, downloadable spreadsheets, and a link to request a free hard copy, see: http://cta.ornl.gov/data/index.shtml.

UK Low Carbon Transition Plan Released. The United Kingdom has released its plan to achieve a 34 percent reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.  Some of the transportation strategies include: calling for the government to purchase vehicles that meet 2015 emissions standards in 2011, investing in low carbon bus technology, providing help to reduce the price of low carbon vehicles, supporting the installation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, sourcing 10% of transportation energy from sustainable renewable sources by 2020, providing funding in a competition for a “Sustainable Travel City,” funding bicycle programs, and funding rail and bus transportation.  The complete plan is available here: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/publications/lc_trans_plan/lc_trans_plan.aspx.

RFF Report Released on Adapting Public Infrastructure to Climate Change. Resources for the Future has released a report that assesses climate change threats and the needs it imposes on public sector infrastructure, reviews infrastructure’s capacity for adaptation, and provides policy options for improving infrastructure’s adaptive capacity.  The report is available here: http://www.rff.org/rff/documents/RFF-Rpt-Adaptation-NeumannPrice.pdf.

State and Local News

CA Sea Level Rise Final Report Released. This study, funded in part by CalTrans, the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and others, analyzes population, property, and infrastructure at risk from future sea level rise along the California coast.  It estimates that with 1.5 meters of sea level rise, about 3,500 miles of highways and roadways along the California coast and San Francisco Bay would be at risk from a 100 year flood, compared to about 1,900 miles of roadways and highways currently at risk.  The full report is available here: http://www.pacinst.org/reports/sea_level_rise/report.pdf

If you have any suggestions for inclusion in future issues of Transportation and Climate Change News, or if someone forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like to receive it directly in the future, please send your suggestions or request to Kathy Daniel at Kathy.Daniel@dot.gov.

“Cash for Clunkers” Back in Business: President Obama Signs Extension; $2B More Will Keep Program Running Through Labor Day

August 7, 2009 at 10:20 am

(Source: AP via NPR)

President Barack Obama signed into law a $2 billion extension for the popular “cash for clunkers” program Friday morning.

The Senate voted to refill the popular car incentive program Thursday, tripling the $1 billion fund that has led to big crowds at once deserted auto showrooms. President Obama signed the bill Friday, extending the program into Labor Day and preventing the 2-week-old incentives from running out.

Car shoppers caught up in the frenzy of the program will have more time now and a $2 billion reason to trade in their old gas guzzlers.

The program gives new-car buyers up to $4,500 toward their purchase if they trade in a less fuel-efficient car or truck. So far, 8 in 10 of the vehicles traded in have been trucks. The three Detroit automakers’ nameplates have accounted for 45 percent of the new-car sales.

Auto industry analyst Aaron Bragman of IHS Global Insight said it was unlikely that demand will remain as high as it is now. Many people who qualified have already bought cars and while the rebates are expected to boost total vehicle sales in 2009, Bragman predicted lower sales next year because many customers have already taken advantage of the incentives.

“You are not going to see a continuation of the frenzied sales pace,” Bragman said. “I don’t think they will use up that money any time soon.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Late Breaking: Senate rescues Cash for Clunkers; Approves additional $2B after 60-37 vote

August 6, 2009 at 11:03 pm

(Source: NPR)

Pedal to the metal, Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation Thursday night with an additional $2 billion for “cash for clunkers,” the economy-boosting rebate program that caught the fancy of car buyers and instantly increased sales for an auto industry long mired in recession.

Images via Apture

The Senate approved the money on a 60-37 vote after administration officials said an initial $1 billion had run out in only 10 days. The House voted last week to keep alive the program, which gives consumers up to $4,500 in federal subsidies if they trade in their cars for new, more energy-efficient models.

Without action, lawmakers risked a wave of voter discontent as they left the Capitol for a monthlong vacation.

Supporters of the program hailed its effect on the auto industry — which had its best month in nearly a year in July — as well as its claimed environmental benefits.

“The reality is this is a program that has been working. Consumers believe it’s working. Small-business people believe it’s working. People who make steel and aluminum and advertisers … and everyone who’s involved in the larger economic impact of the auto industry believe it is working,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).

The legislation had its share of critics, though, most of them Republicans.

“What we’re doing is creating debt. … The bill to pay for those cars is going to come due on our children and grandchildren,” said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH).

Officials said the program’s initial $1 billion probably already has been spent, but a paperwork backlog prevented an accurate accounting. The additional $2 billion is enough to help consumers purchase a half-million more new cars, they added.

There was no suspense about the outcome in the Senate, where supporters of the legislation focused their energies on defeating all attempts at amending the measure. Passage of any changes would effectively scuttle “cash for clunkers,” they said, since the House has already begun a summer vacation and is not in session to vote on revisions.

An attempt by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) to limit the program to lower and middle-income consumers was jettisoned on a vote of 65-32. Gregg’s call for Congress to offset the $2 billion with spending cuts elsewhere also failed, 51-46.

The Senate’s debate capped an unusually swift response by lawmakers, who were informed scarcely a week ago that the program was quickly running short of money.

Click here to read the entire article.

No Cash for Calcutta’s Clunkers: Indian city of Calcutta bans commercial vehicles more than 15 years old; Police start seizing clunkers (4,000 private buses, 6,800 taxis and more than 95 percent of the total fleet of 65,000 auto-rickshaws); Transport workers driving vehicles affected by the ban go on strike

August 6, 2009 at 7:24 pm

(Source: BBC)

For five days, millions of people in the Indian city of Calcutta have endured long queues in the stifling heat at bus and taxi stands, metro railway counters and on auto-rickshaw routes.

They are braving both the humidity and the rain in the hope that what has been termed the city’s “great transport mess” will finally be cleared up.

While the difficulties of getting from A to B may be greater now than at any time over the last two decades, the air of the city is much cleaner than before 1 August.

That was when police started seizing all pollution-emitting pre-1993 vehicles to ensure they are kept off the roads in keeping with a Calcutta High Court order.  The decks were cleared for the government to seize the buses, mini buses, taxis and auto rickshaws after the Supreme Court Friday refused to stay the high court order banning commercial vehicles built before 1993.

Images via Apture

Police and Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed in large number to prevent disturbances, as security personnel moved alongside motor vehicles department officials to identify the banned vehicles on the city streets.

Nearly 4,000 private buses, 6,800 taxis and more than 95 percent of the total fleet of 65,000 auto-rickshaws have been barred from the Kolkata Metropolitan Area following the court order.

Meanwhile, following main opposition Trinamool Congress chief and Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee’s accusation that government departments like the police as also the Kolkata Municipal Corporation were running vehicles over 15 years old, Police Commissioner Goutam Mohan Chakraborty said the city police have decided not to deploy such vehicles.

A survey done by the Calcutta-based Saviour and Friend of Environment (Safe) says that around the city’s four most polluted intersections – the Dunlop crossing, the Shyambazar five-point crossing, Park Circus and the Rashbehari Avenue-SP Mukherjee Road crossing – hydrocarbon levels more than halved.

Auto-rickshaw drivers have tried to keep public transport off the roads

That is important because high hydrocarbon levels have been blamed for an increase in liver and kidney illnesses as well as higher level of cancer.

With less traffic on the roads, the oxygen count shot up by around 15 to 20%, leading to a drop in the percentages of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

Suspended particulate matter, the main cause of bronchial diseases that makes Calcutta the asthma capital of India, dropped by 50%.

“Calcutta is back to low pollution levels it enjoyed until about 20 years ago,” said Safe’s convenor, Sudipto Bhattacharya.

“The vigil has to continue and none of the 15-year-old vehicles or those older should be allowed to go back on to the streets.”

Mr Bhattacharya said that Safe’s findings vindicated the green activists’ stand against older vehicles.

Many other fresh air fans agree with him.

“The sharp drop in the hydrocarbon level proves that older vehicles are the major culprits,” said green activist Subhas Datta, who lobbied the city’s high court to seek the withdrawal of all vehicles older than 15 years.

“They emit unburnt fuel into the air that pushes up the hydrocarbon level to dangerous levels. Let us hope that Calcutta will breathe freely from now on.”

Back in February Calcutta Tramways announced that it would running the buses it operates on a B20 biodiesel blend — a move which, while motivated by financial reasons, is expected to cut pollution from the buses by 35%

Click here to read the entire article.