In the U.S., stats show less driving, more transit use

Reuters discusses the decline in American automobile dependence and the concurrent rise in public transportation ridership.

"[It's] as if people... started a new travel behavior, a new habit. And they have stuck with their habit."

Tying it all together

Tom Crawford, author of the "Capitol Impact" column run in Flagpole, provides an excellent summary of - and insightful predictions based on - the dramatic reorganization of transportation planning in Georgia:

SB 200 will drastically revamp the Department of Transportation, shifting much of the power over the agency’s $2 billion yearly budget to the governor and, to a lesser extent, the legislators. The office of governor, already one of the strongest in the country, becomes that much more powerful with the ability to control which highways get built and which do not.

“Mark my words,” said Rep. Alan Powell (D-Hartwell), a longtime House member. “It may take three years; it may take six months, but we just changed the face of politics in Georgia.”

...

Perdue’s ultimate goal in getting SB 200 adopted may be to facilitate the awarding of major contracts to private companies that want to take over the construction and management of public highways in Georgia. One of the world’s leading private developers of toll roads is Cintra, an international conglomerate based in Spain. Cintra has built and operated such major American highways as the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road.

When Perdue flew to Spain last September with a contingent of business leaders - at the same time that Georgia motorists were struggling to cope with a severe gasoline shortage - one of the companies he met with was Cintra. That could be the ultimate legacy of SB 200 - Georgians paying high tolls to drive on highways owned by a European conglomerate. You heard it here first.

Budget crunches, bailouts, and transit

ABH features a story today discussing Georgia's deepening financial problems. But, with the prospect of both federal bailout money for states and another vote on a TSPLOST bill, we may see significant investment in transportation infrastructure. Hopefully, that means rail lines, buses, and rail-trails.

Excerpt:

Congestion in cities, the desire for rural highways to help recruit employers and environmentalists' hopes for mass transit all converge in a quest for additional funding for transportation.

Business groups and environmentalists are lobbying for a constitutional amendment that, if approved, would allow groups of counties to levy a regional sales tax to pay for regional transportation projects. A similar proposal passed the House and fell three votes short in the Senate in the final moments of last year's session.

Senators said there wasn't time to work their way through the proposal's complexities, such as assuring that voters in counties that reject the regional tax would not have to pay it.

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle has said he wants the Senate to pass its version of the bill this week, while House leaders have said there is little reason to rush, since the matter can't be put on the ballot for public ratification until the next general election in 2010.

Why do these media scribes lean so heavily on the word environmentalists?

Public transportation is also very much a social justice issue, a poverty alleviation strategy, a traffic reduction tactic, and a jobs creation program. It's also a fundamentally more sutainable approach to transportation planning. When gas prices spiked last summer, which they'll likely do again, transit ridership increased dramatically. In the event of another fuel price increase, having a reliable, extensive public transportation network also makes sense for economic security.

Thankfully, our local officials have expressed support for a TSPLOST approach to funding transit and have shared this with the Athens area delegation to the state capitol.

GA lowers gas tax

Happy New Year!

Our first post for 2009 relays the bittersweet news that Georgia's already moderate gas tax has been lowered even further.

The state tax was lowered by 4 cents per gallon to 14.6 cents starting Thursday. Georgia's gas tax is adjusted twice a year based on the average price of gas. When that average price dips - as it has in recent months - the tax goes down as well. Gov. Sonny Perdue rescinded an executive order he issued in June that froze the tax as prices skyrocketed during the summer.

The reduction cuts millions of dollars for the state Department of Transportation, which had a $456 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended July 31, according to an audit report in September.

"Our costs are going up and our revenues are declining," DOT spokesman David Spear said Friday. "We're trying to prioritize our projects and do the things that are most needed."

The DOT budget for this year is about $2.3 billion, with about half coming from federal gas tax revenues and a comparable amount from the state. Spending could be padded by a "few hundred million" dollars in bond sales, Spear said.

Transportation funding is a problem nationwide. With motorists driving less and buying less fuel, the current 18.4-cents-a-gallon gas tax and 24.4-cents-a-gallon diesel tax fail to raise enough to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.

In Georgia, a proposal to allow counties to group together and impose a regional sales tax to pay for transportation projects failed to pass in last year's General Assembly by one vote. The legislature is expected to try to tackle a statewide transportation plan in the session beginning this month.

Let's hope the legislature & GDOT concentrate on projects that are "most needed," such as commuter rail, transit expansion, and transportation-oriented bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Recklessly throwing money at road widenings and interstate construction will only waste GDOT's time and money and will exacerbate our state's transportation crisis.

Deep decline in driving

I'm a sucker for alliteration.

AJC relays:

It may not feel like it, but the American road is a lot more open these days.

In a year of historic changes in how we live, the federal government today is expected to announce yet another blockbuster. From November 2007 to October 2008, the U.S. saw the biggest sustained decline in miles driven in recorded history, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

Never before have Americans put the brakes on automotive travel in such a decisive way. Month after month, for an entire year, drivers put fewer miles on the road than they had the year before. It was an unprecedented stretch of highway-driving decline, according to FHWA spokesman Doug Hecox. The agency has been keeping records since 1942.

Vehicles on U.S. roads clocked 100.6 billion fewer miles in the year ending in October than they had traveled the year before, according to a monthly federal report expected today.

Georgians were among those helping drive the trend. Every month, they drove less than they did in that month the previous year. In August —- traditionally a big month for vacations —- Georgians chose to stay off the road by the biggest margin of the year.

In contrast, buses, trains and HOV registries are packed.

State Department of Transportation Commissioner Gena Evans is one of those people who cut down on driving.

After she and her new husband, former state Transportation Board Chairman Mike Evans, saw the rising cost to fill up his Hummer, she started riding mass transit to work in downtown Atlanta much of the time.

Gas prices encouraged the GDOT Commissioner to switch from a Hummer to public transit. No baby steps for Gena Evans!
Let's see if she takes her personal realization and packs that "ready to go" list of state transportation projects with desperately needed mass transit infrastructure (bike paths and sidewalks would be nice stocking stuffers as well).

School Board vote

In last night's school board meeting, the vote was cast to do away with "school choice," meaning that next fall students will attend their neighborhood school, rather than their preferred school.
The district started seriously considering this option back when gas prices were $4+.

After months of deliberation, the Clarke County Board of Education agreed Thursday to do away with school choice and accept a plan that could send up to half of all students to new schools next fall.

Faced with a projected budget shortfall of nearly $6 million over the next two years, board members approved the plan, which could save up to $1.2 million a year in transportation costs, by a unanimous 8-0 vote. Board President Charles Worthy was absent.

The change - which will assign each elementary student to a single school rather than allowing parents to choose from a short list of schools - will ease overcrowding at some schools and encourage more parent involvement, administrators said.

Many parents are understandably upset that their children will change schools, but, from a transportation perspective, this makes far more sense. It will save money and resources and will ultimately create more cohesive neighborhoods.

Downsides to cheap gas

Current gas prices are welcome relief from last summer's rapid spikes, but could the return to $2 gallons signal grim times ahead?

This story from Reuters points in that direction.
Excerpts:

Motorists must be glad the price of fuel is one thing they do not have to worry too much about as they face the worst recession since the 1930s, but cheap fuel is not good for anyone in the long run.

Global oil prices have collapsed since July, losing two thirds of their value from a peak of almost $150 a barrel and dragging fuel costs to their lowest levels for several years.

But while low energy costs come as welcome short-term relief to consumers and companies struggling with the financial and economic crisis, longer term they can be bad for everyone.

Low energy prices squeeze investment in the oil industry, reducing future supplies. They discourage energy saving and they destabilize countries dependent on oil exports, making oil in the future more likely to be expensive and even more volatile.

Perhaps most important of all, low energy prices stifle investment in alternative energy, deepening dependence on oil and other hydrocarbons and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

...
"In the longer term, today's oil price is too low to support much new supply and will slow the momentum toward alternative fuels, new technology and conservation."

Bus ridership sky high

As a result of the hurricane-sponsored gas drought, many more Athenians turned to the bus last month. Flagpole reports:

According to Athens Transit Director Butch McDuffie, last month’s ridership figures are up 20 percent over September of last year, and up 15 percent over August of this year. The bus system logged almost 195,000 individual rides this September. Over 30-plus years, “It’s the highest recorded ridership in any one-month period that Athens Transit has ever experienced,” McDuffie says.
...
“I would hope and anticipate that after this gas crunch goes away, that we will maintain 50 percent of that increase - because people will see that the bus does work,” McDuffie says. “Now that they’ve figured out that, ’Wow, it works,’ I think they’re going to stay.”

Let's hope so, and let's hope the Commission formally approves the ads-on-buses revenue program, that the state legislature moves quickly on allowing a transit-focused TSPLOST program, and that the federal government pulls us out of our exploits for dwindling resources and puts a fraction of that money toward rebuilding our nation's paltry public transit systems.

Kids plea for bus stop on Timothy Rd

The following letter to the editor was published in the ABH today:

Dear editor of the Athens Banner-Herald: Hi. We are third-graders at Timothy Road Elementary School. We are writing because we need a city bus stop in front of our school. There are a lot of events at Timothy that require parents to come. Without a city bus stop, some parents can't come. Sometimes their cars break down or they might not have a car. They might not have any money for gas.

If parents didn't come, then kids would be heartbroken. Kids also feel embarrassed when parents can't come because they don't have gas money or a car. If kids are sad and embarrassed, then they can't learn. Please help us learn by writing to the commissioners of Athens to convince them to put a city bus stop in front of Timothy. Please contact our school counselor, Ms. Saundra Arnold-Smith, if you have any questions.

Thank you for helping us.

Christopher Dellaria

Sylvia Primm

Brian Lee

• The writers are students in Kari Speakman's third-grade class.

It doesn't get more direct than that. Funding transit and providing a full range of transportation choices is fundamentally a social justice issue.

Gas shortages in NE Georgia, Transit ads

ABH reports.

Excerpt:

Gas should be available across the Southeast in the next week, once Gulf Coast refineries resume normal production levels, analysts say. The storm, which struck the Texas coast 10 days ago, caused less damage to refineries than feared, but some refiners still are working to get electricity restored and their equipment restarted - a process that can take several days.

For now, the major pipelines that deliver fuel to many parts of the eastern U.S. are ready for shipments - the supplies just aren't available.

Meanwhile, it's likely that gasoline will get more expensive in short order following a $20-per-barrel spike in the price of oil Monday.

Although officials are working to reassure drivers, area convenience store owners and their customers were finding it hard to stay calm when so many gas pumps are out of service.

Also, the Commission has decided to proceed with a tentative ads-on-buses revenue generating program. This has the potential to greatly stabilize and boost local transit funding.

BikeAthens commends the Commission's commitment to exploring funding for transit expansion!

Rewards for carpooling at ARMC

ABH reports that Athens Regional is providing incentives for employees who carpool.

Suffering suburbs

This article from the US Daily describes the nationwide trend pushing people away from car-based suburbia and toward walkable, bike-friendly, and transit-oriented developments.

Excerpts:

The iconic white picket fence [of suburbia] comes with a hefty price tag in the form of the cost of the gasoline needed to drive to work and to the supermarket, and the suburban idyll is under review.
...

Tracy McKelvey and his wife Jan lived in a ... suburb and used to commute two hours each day to their jobs in Phoenix. But, a few years ago, they traded in their three-bedroom, two-garage house in the Phoenix valley for a downtown loft.

Both McKelveys now travel to work by scooter and enjoy restaurants, cafes, sports arenas and shops within walking distance of home, taking advantage of the $2.3 billion that the country's fifth-largest city is spending to build housing, a university campus and a mass transit rail system.

"We save money on gas. It's a good feeling. I haven't sat in a traffic jam for years," Tracy McKelvey said.

...

"These are not the cyclical changes that recessions cause every few years. These are game-changing structural changes," [University of Michigan real estate development professor Christopher] Leinberger said. "The market is demanding walkable urban product."

Dealing with gas prices

From the Chicago Tribune.

Thanks to Clint for sharing.

ABH: "Perdue delays fuel tax increase"

The Banner-Herald reports that Gov. Purdue signed an executive order yesterday freezing the scheduled 2.9 cent gasoline tax increase.

This move is wrongheaded for a number of reasons:
1. The maintenance of the current tax rate is "expected to save drivers an average of about 50 cents per fill up." 50 whole cents!
2. This freeze is an attempt to get cars on the roads this summer for vacation spending, but "any attempt to fix the fuel crunch by tweaking gas taxes is not going put people back on the road or inspire them to take road trips - it's just going to take money away from needed highway maintenance, [AAA spokesman Randy] Bly said."
3. The fact that the motivation for all this pandering is to inspire people to take road trips is backwards. We have non-attainment status in the metro Atlanta area due to car-based air pollution. We have a very real and undeniably imminent climate change disaster on the horizon. We have a public health epidemic of inactivity and obesity. We have an ugly, car-dominant physical environment that disenfranchises citizens who cannot afford to own, operate, maintain, and fuel an automobile. We have a consumption-based economy that produces very little of value beyond sweltering fast food drive thrus and poorly constructed McMansions set in cul-de-sacs miles from any place. The last thing we need to encourage is recreational driving.

"It's just a bigger problem than can be fixed by adjusting the gas tax."

Your got that right. Let's keep the tax increase, but devote it entirely to:

1. expanding our state's pathetic public transit infrastructure, especially regional light rail, and
   
2. supporting pedestrian & bicycle infrastructure wherever feasible

These are the solutions that will create jobs, beautify our state, protect our air quality, provide options to the less affluent, contribute to decreasing climate changing pollutants, and demonstrate that our state and local leaders are serious about tackling serious problems.

Higher gas prices lead to cycling

According to a piece in last Sunday's ABH, bike shops, including those in Athens, are in the rare pool of businesses benefiting from higher gasoline prices.
While nobody is happy about the soaring prices, the indirect consequence of more attention being paid to transportation options is an undeniably positive development.

"One of the first comments people make is, 'I gotta bring [my old bicycle] out because gas is killing me,' " Davis said.

Sales of commuter bicycles - more upright bikes made for carrying a load down the road - and assorted accessories are increasing at [Athens area bike] shops.

Ever since gas started creeping toward the $4 barrier, and especially in the past two months, [Hub Bikes owner Brian] Molloy said, his store can't seem to keep its shelves stocked with commuter-friendly cycling accessories - rear racks, fenders, pannier bags, lights.

That shift in sales means the shops aren't moving as many recreational bikes as before. However, the cycling business may be one of only a few that weather the gas crunch well, Molloy said.

"Most people used to come in and say, 'I want a bike for fun.' Now people are coming in and saying, 'I want a bike to ride to work,' or, 'I want to buy a bike to get my groceries,' " Molloy said.

But making the switch from gas pedals to bike pedals isn't easy for some people.

"People are still so afraid of being on the roads around here because we have a small amount of alternative transportation routes around town," he said. "But people are willing to take the risk a little more now because of where their gas prices are at."

It's a shame that we don't have an interconnected network of safe & convenient bike lanes and off-road paths to accommodate these new riders (and long-time commuters!). This has been BikeAthens' argument for over ten years!

Now that it's almost necessary to have alternatives to private automobile use, we're going to have to scramble to put the appropriate infrastructure in place. Strides in the right direction have been made (Lumpkin, expanded transit service, etc.), but we're still a far sight from where we should be.

Here's hoping the Mayor, Commission, and local planners re-double their efforts to incorporate transit, pedestrian, and bicycle infrastructure wherever and whenever possible. Here's also hoping that more Athenians opt for less petro-intensive transportation and support their neighbors in doing the same (see the comments under the ABH article linked above for some hilariously scary expressions of spittle-spewing hatred for bicycles. "Cock-roach heads." Seriously.)

Also mentioned in the article was last Saturday's enjoyable and informative group ride along the Greenway. Thanks to John Devine & Mark Ebell for the excellent presentations and the good excuse to pedal down the Greenway. Pictures of the event below:

AP story: More people turning to bikes due to high gas prices

Four-dollar-a-gallon gas is good for business — if you run a bike shop. Commuters around the country are dusting off their old two-wheelers — or buying new ones — to cope with rising fuel prices, bicycle dealers say.

"Everyone that comes in the shop is talking about the gas prices," said Barry Dahl, who opened Barry's Bikes in Bismarck in April. He sold more than 50 bicycles in the first month, double the projections in his business plan.

...

Bicycle shops across the country are reporting strong sales so far this year, and more people are bringing in bikes that have been idled for years, he said.

"People are riding bicycles a lot more often, and it's due to a mixture of things but escalating gas prices is one of them," said Bill Nesper, spokesman for the Washington. D.C.-based League of American Bicyclists.

"We're seeing a spike in the number of calls we're getting from people wanting tips on bicycle commuting," he said.

Full story here.