David P. Hamilton : On the Road in France

French road sign warns of curves ahead. Photo from photoguide.cz.
On the road in France:
A different approach to getting around

...you will often find yourself passing through villages where the road shrinks to one lane to be shared with pedestrians, bicycles, dogs, restaurant sign boards, and oncoming traffic.

By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / May 12, 2010

[This article was written in consultation with Chris Dobbs, American expatriate artist living in Lyon, France.]

PARIS -- When making comparisons between France and the United States, I typically favor France, but not always. France has no Grand Canyon or redwoods. No buffalo or buzzards. The French make a virtue out of force feeding geese, love nuclear power, eat horses, smoke cigarettes too much and pot not enough. Other exceptions escape me.

I was first infected with Francophilia thanks to the U.S. Army, which in 1964 very kindly sent me to France rather than Vietnam. Two months before the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which signaled the beginning of the U.S. assumption of the principal fighting role in Vietnam, I arrived at a major headquarters unit in Orleans, France, to begin my career as an army clerical worker. It was a nice, clean job in a non-combat zone, the very definition of soft duty. Although unaware at the time, I had lucked out beyond my wildest dreams.

Orleans is just upstream from the famed chateau region of the Loire Valley and an hour south of Paris. Although I complained about it for the next two and a half years, it beat being anywhere near Vietnam, or Germany for that matter, by considerably more than a country mile. Only much later did I realize it was a seminal time for me.

Besides our regular army jobs, we were required to do extra duty about once a week, usually struggling to stay awake while "guarding" some empty office building through the night. I volunteered to be a "duty driver" instead. This only meant that I might have to wake up in the middle of the night to drive some drunk lieutenant home from the officer's club. It was my first experience driving in France.

I have since driven through France several times and have concluded that there are several features of the French road system that are clearly superior to that in the U.S. -- and a couple that are not. Although the French are not typically defensive drivers, France has about 40% fewer traffic fatalities per capita than the U.S.

Clearly, they have something positive going for them in this sphere. It is not that they are better drivers or have safer cars. More likely this commendable safety record is due to the traffic system design. American expatriate friends who have lived in France for many years say that it is also due to a cultural undercurrent of patience and civility.

This latter opinion flies in the face of the common American stereotype that the French are rude. I believe this stereotype is pure crap. France is the world's most popular tourist attraction and an important component of that is its citizens being gracious hosts. I've seen Americans in France berating waiters for not speaking English far more often than French waiters being rude to American customers.

Virtually every day French people volunteer to speak their limited English to me even though I'm in their country and speak rudimentary French. Americans who say the French are rude are almost invariably bigoted chauvinists who have never been here. If they have, they probably came on a guided tour with preconceived prejudices and lacked the willingness or ability to speak a word of French. Try to imagine a Frenchman at Denny's insisting on a French-speaking waiter. Yet that's the kind of expectation such Americans have.

View of traffic circle below the Arc-de-Triomphe. Photo from travelpod.com.
The most noticeable difference in the road system is traffic circles. They are rare in the U.S. but very common in France, especially outside city centers. They replace stop signs and red lights and keep traffic continuously moving. On entering them, you must yield to cars already on them, but usually everything just keeps flowing. One can pass through even medium sized towns without ever stopping, having gone through several circles in the process.

Each circle has clearly marked directional options, both road numbers and towns to be found in the direction indicated. You just need to know the next major town in the direction you want to go and it will appear on a sign pointing to the correct road. If you are uncertain where you're going, you can keep circling until you decide. French drivers, however, are quick to observe this indecisiveness and may honk, gesture and mouth unintelligible remarks. This is especially true if you have an Avis sticker on your back window.

To the American driver, the main negative feature of these circles is that they have two lanes going around them and often two lanes entering them. This sometimes calls for a certain amount of maneuvering. The maneuver where a car on the inside (left) lane of the circle suddenly realizes it is time to exit right is troublesome to Americans used to precise rules of the road.

To the French, however, it is an event that calls forth the efficacious driving principle in which rigid rules that breed complacency and displace personal responsibility to external institutions are replaced by individual initiative and mutual negotiations. This mix of freedom, caution, and cooperation enables traffic circles to work well.

The French readiness to communicate with other drivers is subtly different from that which typically takes place in the U.S. In the U.S, most people are reticent to express their displeasure with other drivers because the recipient of their remarks may be heavily armed and have an easily offended masculinity. This potential for serious road rage is practically non-existent in France.

For the French -- not having the God-given right to possess deadly force at all times -- expressing such displeasure isn't all that risky, so people feel more free to indulge. But these exchanges are a kind of banter with a core of politeness or at least civility. The French have even been known to apologize. If you think they're saying something nasty, it's probably because you're paranoid and don't understand idiomatic French.

The signage on French roads, unlike that in the U.S., utilizes international symbols. It is in most respects better, at least insofar as telling you where you are going. The signs can, however, be ambiguous, especially for someone unaccustomed to the international signage and who doesn't read French. It helps to have a navigator with a translation dictionary. Another complication is that the numbers used refer to the metric system. Of course, anyone familiar with both the metric system and the confusing jumble of measurements we use in the U.S. will attest to the superiority and greater simplicity of the former. But it does take getting used to.

The directional signs at traffic circles allow you to travel across France, even on back roads, if you know the next major town along the way to your destination, referring to maps only occasionally to determine the towns along your route. If the town you're looking for is not found on the signs, there will be one saying "toutes directions" or "autres directions." Follow those until you arrive at a circle with a sign pointing to the place you want to go. It almost always works

French road signs on the side of a house. Photo from photoguide.cz.
Another feature of French signs that Americans may find bothersome is that they never refer to cardinal directions. There is no highway D15 east and D15 west; only D15. This may be due to D15 winding in several directions as it circumvents some town. We carry a compass.

Another clearly superior feature of the French road system is that large trucks are always obliged to go slower than cars, in some cases much slower. On super highways outside cities cars can go up to130km per hour while trucks are limited to 90. This confines trucks to the right hand lane. It also allows tourists who don't know where they are going to nestle among them until they figure it out.

On smaller departmental roads, the difference is usually 90 and 80. The maximum speed a truck may go is shown by numbers on its back door. Imagine I-35 in Austin with no semis blazing along at 80mph. And due to reliance on a much better developed rail system for the movement of goods, there are many fewer trucks to deal with.

On French roads the speed limits change automatically when it rains. On super highways, it drops from 130kph to 110 for cars and 90 to 80 for trucks. Corresponding changes are required on smaller roads. Although I've never seen it, I have heard that this exists in the U.S., but varies from place to place and is poorly enforced.

However, speed limits are seldom posted on secondary roads except to slow you down when passing through towns. The maximum speeds are uniform for all roads of a certain type and you're supposed to know what they are without being told. On a D (departmental) road, it's 90kph on dry roads, dropping to 80 if it's raining. But no sign will remind you of this.

Traffic scene. Photo by nealiousq1 / webshots.
If you learned to drive in France, you were required to know maximum speeds for different types of roads under different conditions. Tourists have to figure it out by other means and it's best to do so quickly because French police, when they make one of their rare appearances on highways, will give you a ticket for the slightest transgression of the prescribed limit.

Another outstanding feature is the "passage." These are pedestrian cross walks, a series of white rectangles painted across streets in urban areas. They are very common, not only at corners, and vehicles must stop for pedestrians who are in them. They often do so even for pedestrians near one, when they even look like they might be thinking about crossing. This is especially true for anyone using a cane or pushing a baby carriage.

These events must be anticipated. The question often arises as to who got there first, but the pedestrian has the priority in this game. The driver behind a driver who is about to brake for a pedestrian also must be prepared to act suddenly. Strolling tourists not from California are often timorous about exerting this right, but the French seem to feel confident hurling themselves into the "passage " without looking or breaking stride.

Another very positive feature of transportation in France is that there are so many alternatives to cars. Towns are more compact and many people actually walk to do daily errands. This contrasts sharply with the U.S., where the invariable first act upon leaving one's house is to get into one's car. The arrangement of our urban geography is predicated on the
assumption of individual car use.

Imagine no cars. For many French it isn't hard to do. Living in compact towns and cities laid out long before the advent of cars, they can walk to nearby stores for all their needs. This has added benefits in terms of reducing pollution, promoting health, and maintaining small enterprises and social integration.

There are many more bicyclists in France, some doing mundane tasks and others out getting exercise. Many older men seem to be preparing for another run at the Tour de France. Bicycles rarely have special lanes and you are actually expected to defer to them.

A pair of French landmarks.
Besides these alternatives to driving, France has a vastly better developed system of public transportation. The train system, owned by the government, is especially good. Trains go to even very small towns. We stayed in a town of no more than two thousand, but it had frequent train service to the nearest city and from there to the entire country.

Given the paucity of train service in the U.S., killed off early in the 20th century by car manufacturers and oil companies, I would speculate that the French ride trains a thousand times more per capita than Americans. The trains that run between major cities are now all TGV's, high speed trains that run close to 200mph. Paris to Marsailles can be as little as a few hours. As the train stations are near the city centers, trains are typically quicker from home to ultimate destination than if you flew.

In Paris especially, few people get around by car. It's not practical. There isn't room for them, especially parking places, and municipal authorities look down on their use. This attitude is the opposite of what you find in the U.S, where space for cars is sacrosanct.

In urban France, parking garages are kept out of sight; they are underground and tourists are reluctant to drive down the dark holes leading to them. If you can by some miracle find an above ground parking spot, be ready to spend real money to rent it. There won't be a parking meter for each space, but on the coveted site "payant" will be written. This means you must find the nearby machine dispensing permits, insert the correct change, take the paper permit it gives you indicating how long you have, and put it in a clearly visible place on your dashboard. This may run you a couple of euro an hour with a two hour limit.

If you get a parking ticket and ignore it, you will get a large bill in the mail, even in the US. If you ignore that too, good luck renting a car next time you come to Europe.

Alternatives to using a car in Paris or within other French cities are many. Besides walking and personal bikes, there is an extensive and well organized metro system that is directly connected to a regional train system that takes you far out into the suburbs. There is an even more extensive bus system that uses the same tickets as the metro and provides you with a view, but moves more slowly. For still more leisurely albeit costly transportation there is the "batobus," a large public boat covered with clear plastic canopies that runs up and down the Seine through scenic central Paris.

Public bicycle installation. Photo by Graham Coreil-Allen / GPS.
The latest transportation innovation is the public bicycles that can be found at installations all over Paris. You simply put a credit card into the machine found at each bike station as a deposit to get into the system. Then you can take out a bike for 30 minutes free and for very little thereafter, leaving it at any other bike station in the city. These are three speed bikes, but most of Paris is pretty flat.

By these and other means, such as reducing the number of parking spots and lanes for cars, the municipal government is openly and successfully reducing car use within the city.

The result of all these alternatives is that for urban dwellers cars are secondary transportation, a luxury used for special occasions. In contrast, life in the U.S. has been organized in such a way as to make car ownership an absolute necessity, the primary if not the only form of transportation.

But what about the negative features of driving in France? There are only a couple that seriously bother me. One is that they don't tell you how much to slow down for corners on rural roads. You'll be on a D (departmental) road where the top speed limit is 90kph and approaching a curve. Nothing says to slow down. There may be blue and silver chevrons pointing in the direction of the curve to warn you, but no sign advises you about the safe speed.

This reflects a gymkhana mentality. You clearly can't make that corner at 90kph unless you're a professional race car driver in a formula one vehicle. How fast you can actually do it depends on your car, skill, and nerve. A similar system in the U.S. would produce an epidemic of rollovers. In France, it's a matter of personal responsibility.

Another major problem on French roads is motorcycles. The rules that apply to cars don't seem to apply to them. They totally ignore the speed limits, pass at any time and anywhere, park arbitrarily, and often travel in packs that seem to be racing one another for high stakes. Like on California freeways, they drive down the stripes between car lanes at a very high rate of speed, flying by while you're limited to stop and go.

The difference is that because of high gas prices there are exponentially more of them in France. If you suddenly change lanes without noticing their very rapid approach, bad news. A willingness to constantly risk death seems to be a basic qualification for motorcycle ownership. You would think that the French highway patrol would clamp down on this, but there are very few of them, a fact that has other advantages.

Holiday streetscape. Photo by Graham Coreil-Allen / GP.
The French have a different concept of social space that is much closer and includes the way they drive. Their houses and cars are generally smaller. They stand closer to talk to one another. And they are quite comfortable driving much closer to other cars. If you are a tourist trying to drive leisurely through the countryside, this means that one is very often two feet off your rear bumper and looking impatient. The solution is to merely pull over. On narrow roads, we do it every few kilometers.

This closeness includes the spatial geography of towns and cities. Virtually all of them came into existence centuries before cars and have not been significantly rebuilt to accommodate them. If you choose to get up close and personal with France by driving across it on secondary and tertiary roads, you will often find yourself passing through villages where the road shrinks to one lane to be shared with pedestrians, bicycles, dogs, restaurant sign boards, and oncoming traffic.

Cars belonging to visitors are often not allowed in these villages. You are required to park on the periphery and walk in. Signs confront you saying "interdit sauf riverains," forbidden except for locals. Other signs inform you about who has the right of way when confronting oncoming traffic on a particularly narrow stretch. These places were not designed with cars in mind, and they now seem to make only minimal compromises. This contrasts sharply with the post-car lay out of American urban geography and our exaltation of the rights of these machines.

Vintage shot of Doubs, Miche (ca. 1930). Not built with cars in mind. Photo from photoguide.cz.
Finally, a major difference between driving in France and the U.S. is that it costs significantly more in France. These greater costs are a result of much higher gas prices due to taxes. Gas is now above $7 a gallon and there are also lots of tolls on superhighways outside cities. The French are OK with this because they understand that the money goes into the road system, just as they are OK with higher taxes in general because they get meaningful benefits for their tax money, not just transfer payments to corporations like in the US.

Given the other transportation options, driving long distances is seen as a luxury. Even the argument that you can pack a whole family in one car doesn't hold water. The train guys, government employees, have thought of that and offer family based pricing. You can buy a Carte Enfant + card that gets you 50% off for that child and anyone who travels with him or her. Americans would puke at similar gas prices and tolls because they see "free" roads as a right and don't take into account all the related costs.

If you think that the road system in the U.S. is the best in the world, you're wrong. Having a passport to go with your driver's license might enlighten you. But few American tourists venture out on French roads, especially the back roads. As a result, they miss many of the best sights.

There are many features of European roads that could be easily adopted that would save thousands of lives in the U.S. every year. Requiring large trucks to go significantly slower than cars and automatically reducing speed limits when it rains would cost practically nothing. But, these reforms are so very seldom discussed that few Americans are even aware of them.

The trucking industry and its corporate clients find improving your safety costly and inconvenient. In the U.S. where corporations rule, reducing traffic fatalities has little measurable impact on the only thing that really matters: the bottom line. Such concerns are therefore a very low priority.

Vastly expanding public transportation would shift the whole picture, saving thousands of lives, reducing oil consumption, and improving the environment. But expanding the public sphere is heresy in capitalist America, so don't hold your breath for these obvious reforms to take place.

[David P. Hamilton is an Austin-based activist and writer.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Neil Young : A Race for the Planet

Neil Young's retro-fitted vintage lincoln: The race is on.

If the Big three cannot agree to make only cars that are fuel efficient enough to get at least 50 MPG by 2011, 75 MPG by 2013 and 100 MPG by 2015, then they should go into bankruptcy and fend for themselves like all the other businesses that are having trouble.

By Neil Young / December 4, 2008

A Perfect storm for innovation is gathering in Washington. With the government's recent financial assistance to GM and Chrysler, the Big 3 now have until the end of March to make the case that shows how they will survive. Survival is not enough though.

America now has a chance to lead the world in power and fuel efficiency. The Big three will still be looking for help at the end of March. As the major shareholder, the US government would have an opportunity to DEMAND the type of cars that will lead the world toward saving the planet for future generations.

If the Big three cannot agree to make only cars that are fuel efficient enough to get at least 50 MPG by 2011, 75 MPG by 2013 and 100 MPG by 2015, then they should go into bankruptcy and fend for themselves like all the other businesses that are having trouble. The truth is this can be done and innovators know the way to do it.

Better Place is a new model for power distribution to replace the old model of gas stations that supported the evolution of the automobile to this point. Better Place is taking hold in countries around the world and in some areas of the US. Better Place's revolutionary concept for distribution of power to vehicles actually lowers the price of the vehicle by making the battery free to the consumer and automaker, while a subscription allows the user to only pay for miles traveled. There is a great opportunity for innovative solutions with Better Place.

The Automotive X Prize is a race of 100MPG vehicles across America in 2010 sponsored by the Progressive Insurance Company. There are many entries. These cars must be safe and have a business plan that allows for at least 10,000 units per year. Automotive X prize contenders need to share their knowledge with the Car Czar. How will they get their cars to the magic 100mpg? There are some good ways to do it. Now is the time to share.

Innovators should swarm like locusts on Washington in January, February and March to show the Car Czar how to make fuel-efficient cars.

A Car Czar who knows how it can be done, and a government in control of the automakers while they stabilize will be key to demanding all autos made in the USA have a minimum mileage rating of 50MPG. This includes cars, SUVs and pick-up trucks. Now it is time for America to take back the reins of innovation and show the true wave of the future. It is a window for a sea change and a new opportunity for America to lead the world.

Lincvolt, an X Prize contestant, is a 2.5 ton, 19.5 foot American classic now attaining 65 MPG utilizing electricity and domestic fuel. The converted 1959 Lincoln Continental MK IV demonstrates that today's big sedans SUVs and pick-up trucks can get at least 50 MPG if they are fuel-efficient and use electric power, making it obvious that smaller cars could do even better than that. Ultimately, the Lincvolt team aims to demonstrate a Lincvolt hydro bio-electric series hybrid that will attain 100MPG with domestic fuels and very low emissions.

In February, Lincvolt will begin an historic drive to Washington to showcase "the people's fuel," and show the President, the Car Czar, Congress and the Senate how innovation happening right now in America can be a beacon of change to the world.

The Lincvolt team invites the other contestants in the Automotive X Prize Race, Better Place, and innovators from around the world to join us in Washington during the first 100 days of the new administration.

Source / The Huffington Post

Also see Neil Young : How to Save a Major Automobile Company by Neil Young / The Rag Blog / posted Nov. 19, 2008

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Hawaii : Revolutionary New Electric Car System Proposed

The entrepreneur Shai Agassi, right, met with Anders Eldrup, center, a Danish energy executive, in Copenhagen last March. Photo by Jonas Pryner Andersen / Polfoto / AP.
'By using existing electric car technologies, coupled with an Internet-connected web of tens of thousands of recharging stations, Shai Agassi thinks his company will make all-electric vehicles feasible.'
By John Markoff / December 3, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — The State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Company on Tuesday endorsed an effort to build an alternative transportation system based on electric vehicles with swappable batteries and an “intelligent” battery recharging network.

The plan, the brainchild of the former Silicon Valley software executive Shai Agassi, is an effort to overcome the major hurdles to electric cars — slow battery recharging and limited availability.

By using existing electric car technologies, coupled with an Internet-connected web of tens of thousands of recharging stations, he thinks his company, Better Place L.L.C. of Palo Alto, Calif., will make all-electric vehicles feasible.

Mr. Agassi has succeeded in assembling a growing consortium of national governments, regional planning organizations and one major car company. Tuesday’s announcement follows earlier endorsements from Israel, Denmark, Australia, Renault-Nissan and a coalition of Northern California localities supporting the idea leading to the deployment of an electric vehicle with a range of greater than 100 miles, beginning at the end of 2010 in Israel. The company plans test deployments of vehicles in 2009 and broad commercial sales in 2012.

Mr. Agassi has raised $200 million in private financing for his idea. In October, he obtained a commitment from the Macquarie Capital Group to raise an additional $1 billion for an Australian project.

On Tuesday, he said that he was optimistic about his project despite the dismal investment and credit markets because his network could provide investors with an annuity. Users of his recharging network would subscribe to the service, paying for access and for the miles they drive.

Given the downturn in the mortgage market, he said that investors are looking for new classes of assets that will provide dependable revenue streams over many years. “I believe the new asset class is batteries,” he said. “When you have a driver in a car using a battery, nobody is going to cut their subscription and stop driving.”

Mr. Agassi has argued that even if oil prices continued to decline, his electric recharging network — which ideally would use renewable energy sources like solar and wind — could provide competitively priced energy for a new class of vehicles.

He supposes that his network idea will be appropriate first for “island” economies that typically have significantly higher energy costs, and then will become more cost-competitive as it is scaled up.

“We always knew Hawaii would be the perfect model,” he said in a telephone interview. “The typical driving plan is low and leisurely, and people are smiling.”

Hawaii is a relatively small market with high energy costs. The state has about 1.2 million cars and replaces 70,000 to 120,000 vehicles annually.

Drivers on the islands also rarely make trips of more than 100 miles, meaning there will be less need for his proposed battery recharging stations. Part of Mr. Agassi’s model depends on quick-change service stations to swap batteries for drivers who need to use their cars before they have completely recharged their batteries.

Peter Rosegg, a spokesman for the Hawaiian Electric Company, said that Better Place would become a major customer for electricity and was also planning to invest in renewable energy sources that would be connected to the electric grid.

“It’s going to be a nonexclusive agreement, but so far they’re the only one that has shown up,” Mr. Rosegg said.

In late November, the mayors of San Francisco and other major Bay Area cities endorsed the Better Place network to help create an electric recharging network by 2012. The company estimates that it will cost $1 billion to build a charging network in the Bay Area that may create as many as half a million charging stations.

Despite challenges, the Better Place model is promising, said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. It could appeal to owners of fleets of vehicles and to early adopter customers who are willing to work through the difficulties that will inevitably accompany a new transportation system. “It has a lot of promising features,” he said.

Source / The New York Times

Thanks to Jesse James Retherford / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Neil Young : How to Save a Major Automobile Company

'We need visionary people now with business sense to create automobiles that do not contribute to global warming.'
By Neil Young

See 'Neil Young's car heads west' by Chris Frank and Video, Below.

Find a new ownership group. The culture must change. It is time to turn the page. In the high technology sector there are several candidates for ownership of a major car and truck manufacturer. We need forward looking people who are not restricted by the existing culture in Detroit. We need visionary people now with business sense to create automobiles that do not contribute to global warming.

It is time to change and our problems can facilitate our solutions. We can no longer afford to continue down Detroit's old road. The people have spoken. They do not want gas guzzlers (although they still like big cars and trucks). It is possible to build large long-range vehicles that are very efficient. People will buy those vehicles because they represent real change and a solution that we can live with.

The government must take advantage of the powerful position that exists today. The Big 3 are looking for a bailout. They should only get it if they agree to stop building autos that contribute to global warming now. The stress on the auto manufacturers today is gigantic. In order to keep people working in their jobs and keep factories open, this plan is suggested:

The big three must reduce models to basics. a truck, an SUV, a large family sedan, an economy sedan, and a sports car. Use existing tooling.

Keep building these models to keep the workforce employed but build them without engines and transmissions. These new vehicles, called Transition Rollers, are ready for a re-power. No new tooling is required at this stage. The adapters are part of the kits described next.

At the same time as the new Transition Rollers are being built, keeping the work force working, utilize existing technology now, create re-power kits to retrofit the Transition Rollers to SCEVs (self charging electric vehicles) for long range capability up to and over 100mpg. If you don't think this technology is realistic or available, check out the Progressive Insurance Automotive X prize. Alternatively, check out Lincvolt.com or other examples.

A bailed out Auto manufacturer must open or re-purpose one or more factories and dedicate them to do the re-power/retrofit assembly. These factories would focus on re-powering the Transition Rollers into SCEVs but could also retrofit and re-power many existing vehicles to SCEVs. These existing vehicles are currently sitting unsold at dealerships across America.

Auto manufacturers taking advantage of a government bailout must only sell clean and green vehicles that do not contribute to global warming. No more internal combustion engines that run exclusively on fossil fuels can be sold period.

No Big Three excuses like "new tooling takes time". New tooling is not a requirement for SCEV transition rollers.

Build only new vehicles that attain the goal of reversing global warming and enhancing National Security.

Government legislation going with the bailout should include tax breaks for purchasers of these cars with the new green SCEV technology. The legislation accompanying the bailout of major auto manufacturers must include directives to build only vehicles that attain the goal of reversing global warming while enhancing National security, and provide the financial assistance to make manufacturing these cars affordable in the short term while the industry re-stabilizes.

Eventually the SCEV technology could be built into every new car and truck as it is being assembled and the stop gap plan described above would have completed its job of keeping America building and working through this turbulent time.

Detroit has had a long time to adapt to the new world and now the failure of Detroit's actions is costing us all. We pay the bailout. Let's make a good deal for the future of America and the Planet. Companies like UQM (Colorado) and others build great electric motors right here in the USA. Use these domestic electric motors. Put these people to work now. This plan reverses the flow from negative to positive because people need and will buy clean and green cars to be part of World Change. Unique wheel covers will identify these cars on the road so that others can see the great example a new car owner is making. People want America to win!

This plan addresses the issue of Global warming from our automobiles while enhancing our National Security and keeping Detroit working.

Neil Young, activist (Bridge School, Farm Aid) rock legend, has assembled a team that is in the process of transforming his gargantuan 1959 Lincoln Continental from a gas guzzler into a showcase for green technology and sustainability. The car will be entered into the Automotive X Prize that offers a $10 million prize to develop a vehicle that can get 100 miles per gallon or better. The almost 50 year old Lincoln, one of the biggest, heaviest production cars of all time, has been re-named "Linc Volt" and is the subject of a feature documentary called "Repowering The American Dream" that is now in production under the aegis of Young's Shakey Pictures.

Source / The Huffington Post / Posted Nov. 13, 2008

Neil Young's car heads west
By Chris Frank / November 19, 2008

The '59 Lincoln is from the days of when cars came with lots of chrome, lots of weight and guzzled more 30-cent-a-gallon fuel than a camel in the dessert.

Over the past 14 months, Neil Young has come to Wichita to oversee some of the conversion work and take it for a spin around town.

Now, the car is headed west.

"This is it. This is the very last day in Wichita for probably at least six months," said Jonathan Goodwin, H-Line Conversions

Goodwin and his crew have turned Young's Lincoln from a nine mile per gallon car to a car that gets more than 75 miles to the gallon.

They had to completely replace the original engine.

"What we've done is installed an electric motor. And this motor generates 500 foot pounds of torque. That's more than a diesel pickup truck," Goodwin said.

The car makes a popping sound as the hydrogen bubbles from water are being used to enhance fuel efficiency.

"We're not at the point of being able to use water as a fuel source yet," Goodwin said.

They are, however, at the point of using the Lincoln to demonstrate how a car can generate more electricity than it needs to run.

"But you'll probably want to plug this into your house. Not to power the car, but to actually take your house off the grid," Goodwin said.

That means instead of taking electricity to recharge the car the way hybrids are now, this car will have electricity left over to power your house.

The Lincvolt is now on its way to California, then later to Las Vegas to demonstrate its capabilities to the world.

Source / KAKE.com

Also see Long May You Run: Neil Young’s Eco-Lincoln by Dan Fost / New York Times / Oct. 29, 2008

Neil Young 1959 Lincoln Electric Car Conversion Project



Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Electric Cars Are the Key to Energy Independence

German electric car.
'Anyone who drives an electric car falls in love with an electric car'
By David Morris / August 2, 2008.

Renewables won't give us energy independence unless that electricity is used as a substitute for oil in our transportation system.

Al Gore's heroic speech challenging us to make our electrical system 100 percent renewable promised it would simultaneously address three major crises: the weak economy, catastrophic climate change and the dire national security problems inherent in our dependence on imported oil.

He got two out of three right. A crash renewable electricity initiative would provide an immediate boost to our economy and could slow climate change, since electricity accounts for about a third of our overall greenhouse gas emissions.

But it would do little to enhance our national security.

Oil generates only 3 percent of our electricity. Therefore a 100 percent renewable electricity system does little to reduce our oil dependency -- unless that electricity is used to substitute for oil in our transportation system.

Al Gore knows this. In other venues he has mentioned electrified vehicles. But he needs to make electrifying our transportation the central element in his 10-year plan, for at least two reasons.

One is that it is an initiative that would prove far more compelling to the vast majority of Americans. Climate change is abstract, and the strategies to resolve it are remote. Our relationship to our vehicles, on the other hand, is both concrete and visceral. We desperately want to get off oil, especially when gasoline prices rise to $4 per gallon.

But it is more than a pocketbook issue for many of us; it is a moral issue. Americans hate being dependent for our mobility, and therefore for our livelihoods, on countries often hostile to our way of life. Electric cars promise to end that dependency.

And as a bonus, with rooftop solar cells, we can become independent not only from OPEC but from remote and often unresponsive utility companies. We can become energy producers as well as energy consumers.

And then there is the plain fact that once significant numbers of electric vehicles are on the roads, word of mouth will be a powerful marketing tool. The reason? As Marc Geller, a longtime advocate of electric vehicles, told me a year ago as we were traveling up Route 1 in Northern California in his all-electric small SUV, "." That love affair will be aided and abetted by a population eager to embrace a homegrown fuel and vehicles that offer quicker propulsion, a quiet drive and zero tailpipe emissions.

There is another persuasive reason for Gore to focus on an electrified transportation system: It is simply physically impossible to convert our entire electricity system to renewables in 10 years, but it is possible to convert our entire ground transportation system to renewable electricity within a similar time frame. That would require a national mobilization, to be sure, but it can be done.

Converting our electric system fully to renewables would require us to shut down about 80 percent of our current electricity-generating capacity, much of it low-cost, already paid off and capable of generating electricity for another 25 years or more. Moreover, to reach very high penetration rates of renewable electricity would require that we overcome the principal shortcoming of wind and sunlight: intermittency.

To electrify our transportation system, on the other hand, we could displace rather than shut down the existing system, and we would be replacing a physical stock with a relatively short life expectancy. Given the average seven-year life expectancy of existing vehicles and the high probability that we would offer an incentive for owners of older gasoline-powered vehicles to trade them in, new electric vehicles could constitute the entire fleet within a decade, and that doesn't take into account the potential for conversions of existing vehicles.

Powering 100 percent of our transportation system would require about 30 percent of the electricity generated in 2006. With a massive effort, using a combination of solar and wind power, we could generate about that much electricity by 2020.

The fact that we can even contemplate the rapid electrification of transportation is a testament to 20 years of grassroots activism at the local and state level. The enactment by Congress of a renewable electricity tax incentive in 1992 was important, but the wind energy industry did not take off until states began to mandate renewable electricity. Today more than 25 states boast such mandates. A recent report put together by a task force of California leaders urges the state to double its renewable electricity mandate to 50 percent by 2020.

We have done a great deal, from the bottom up, to increase the supply of renewable electricity. Less well known is how much we have done on the demand side of the equation, that is, the use of electricity in transportation.

A brief historical review might be in order here. The first electric utilities were born largely to serve the transportation sector, which in the late 19th century meant urban streetcars. Until 1920, transportation remained the nation's utilities' single largest customer. And as the birth of the automobile age began, electric vehicles were by far the most popular. In the late 1890s electric vehicles (EVs) outsold gasoline cars 10 to 1. Many of the first car dealerships were exclusively for EVs.

The future of transportation abruptly changed in the 1910s. Mass production of gasoline-powered cars dramatically lowered their price. The introduction of automatic ignition removed the difficult and dangerous task of cranking to start the gasoline engine. Meanwhile the infrastructure for electricity was almost nonexistent outside city boundaries, limiting the utility of electric vehicles.

For the next 70 years, electric transportation all but disappeared.

Then, in 1990, two events occurred to revive the prospects of electrified vehicles. One was a private sector initiative; the other a public sector initiative. One was technology driven; the other politically driven.

In 1990, Sony introduced the lithium ion battery. Its higher energy density quickly made it the battery of choice for electronic equipment. Over the next 10 years, as portable electronic equipment demanded more powerful and longer-lasting batteries, the lithium ion battery industry saw many technological advances. In the last five years, many variations of that battery have begun to vie for supremacy as the foundation for a new generation of electric vehicles.

The public initiative was California's Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate. Enacted in 1990, the mandate required that 2 percent of all new vehicles sold by major car manufacturers in that state be all-electric by 1998, and 10 percent by 2003. By 1994, 12 additional states had adopted its mandate.

If that mandate had remained in place, more than 10 million EVs might be traveling our roads today. But as the marvelous documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" reveals in depressing detail, the ZEV mandate was weakened in the 1990s and finally killed in 2003.

Notwithstanding its demise, the mandate did result in several important and positive outcomes. One was the hybrid vehicle, whose development was in part an outgrowth of the vigorous developments in electrical and electronic vehicle systems spurred by the ZEV mandate. Another was the advance in large-format battery technology after many decades of stagnation. The new Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery replaced the lead acid battery for ZEVs sold in California, and by the late 1990s, a second-generation NiMH promised to last the life of the car, almost halving the capital cost of an electric vehicle. (Tragically, patent disputes have stifled NiMH development.)

Perhaps the most important enduring legacy of the ZEV mandate was the creation of tens of thousands of Californians who experienced the pleasure of driving or being driven in full-size electric vehicles capable of high-speed, long-distance highway driving. "Who Killed the Electric Car?" portrays what seemed to be a futile grassroots effort to stop car companies from taking back their EVs and crushing them.

Yet even as the movie ends, the uprising began to gain traction. GM proved incorrigible. But creative and extensive protests here and abroad persuaded Ford and then Toyota to cease crushing their vehicles and begin offering them for sale. Reportedly, Chris Paine, the director of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is making a new movie titled "Who Saved the Electric Car?" It promises to be a very uplifting sequel.

At its peak, the ZEV mandate brought some 5,500 electric vehicles onto California roads, ranging from Ford's small Think Car to Toyota's small SUV, the RAV4, to Ford's light pickup truck, the Ranger.

After the protests ended and the dust cleared, more than 800 electric vehicles were saved, most of them RAV4s. Some have now traveled more than 110,000 miles, validating both the durability of the batteries and the vehicles' remarkably low maintenance costs.

The EV movement was aided and abetted by the introduction, in 2004, of the second iteration of the Toyota Prius. The best-selling car sported a mysterious blank button on the dashboard. Via the Internet, Americans were told that in Japan the button was operational. Pushing it allowed the car to travel solely by electricity for a mile or so. Engineers in Texas and California quickly learned how to convert the Prius to drive solely on electricity, and they added sufficient battery capacity to travel 10 and then 20 and then 30 miles before recharging was needed.

Several start-ups began to offer plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) conversions. Felix Kramer, the Paul Revere of the movement, spent the next two years trying to convince national reporters, members of Congress, Silicon Valley businesses and even EV advocates, many of whom believed a car with a gas engine was a sacrilege, that a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle could become the foundation for a transition to an electrified transportation sector. Kramer convinced a leading car industry reporter based in Michigan to run a story, which quickly translated into dozens of stories in the national media. In the spring of 2006, he spent $15,000 to transport his own converted Prius PHEV to DC and allow several senators and leading policymakers and opinion leaders to literally kick the tires and drive in it.

At the time fewer than a dozen Prius conversions existed in the entire country. But the work of organizations like Plug-In America and Plug-In Partners and Kramer's own CalCars began to seize the popular imagination.

In just the last 12 months, the dam against electrified vehicles seems to have broken. For the first time since 1910, an oil-free transportation system is on the table.

New announcements by businesses large and small have become almost a weekly occurrence. Hymotion, a small company affiliated with Internet giant Google and the MIT spin-off, battery maker A123, has begun to roll out a nationwide network of certified plug-in hybrid converters.

Toyota, which for the first six years of Prius sales used the advertising tag line, "You Never Have to Plug It In," announced in 2007 an abrupt change of mind. In 2010, Toyota will begin leasing plug-in Priuses in Japan. GM, which had originally loudly and sarcastically dismissed the concept of hybrids, announced it will offer a plug-in hybrid with a 40-mile driving range in 2010. Nissan, VW, Renault and other car manufacturers have all announced their intention to introduce electric vehicles in the same time frame.

In July 2008, San Jose announced the beginning of a network of easily accessible and useable EV-charging stations in parking garages around the city. San Francisco followed with its own request for proposals for a similar citywide network.

On the political front, the current energy bill stalled in Congress because of Republican opposition: The bill contains a tax incentive for plug-ins sufficient to make the first cost of such vehicles nearly competitive with conventional vehicles.

The energy bill signed into law just before Christmas in 2007 includes a little-noticed but very powerful incentive for all-electric vehicles. For purposes of meeting the new higher fuel efficiency standards, all-electric vehicles will be awarded an efficiency rating based largely on the amount of gasoline displaced, which translates into an overall fuel efficiency rating for a typical mid-size EV of about 350 miles per gallon.

And on the customer level, gasoline prices of $4 per gallon have generated a palpable hunger for alternatives and changed the comparative economics of EVs and gasoline-powered vehicles. Driving a mile on electricity today costs about 3 cents while traveling a mile on gasoline costs about 15 cents. This can translate into annual fuel savings of more than $1,000.

The advent of EVs may change not only the contours of our transportation system but also the structure of our electricity system. The unique characteristic of the electricity system is that the product must be instantaneously transmitted and no storage capacity is available. This is the reason Enron and others were able to manipulate the system in deregulated California 10 years ago, a manipulation that led to the near bankruptcy of the state and continues to burden the state budget.

The prospect of a large battery capacity contained in tens of millions of electrified vehicles could be, in the words of one utility executive, "a game changer." Utilities, eager to nurture a potentially large new customer, are also vigorously assessing how this new electric capacity can be integrated into the existing distribution and subtransmission parts of the grid system.

Some studies have estimated that utilities could pay an EV owner several thousand dollars a year to tap into the car's batteries when needed for energy used to keep the local grid stable. The vehicle would be available for such tapping a considerable percentage of the time. A typical vehicle sits idle some 23 of 24 hours a day. Millions sit in commuter parking lots for eight hours a day.

A large storage capacity could also ameliorate the intermittency problem of renewable energy, which in turn could allow a much higher proportion of renewable electricity on the grid. One study of the Sacramento, Calif., electricity network concluded that a significant penetration of battery-powered vehicles could boost the potential wind energy contribution to about 50 percent of total electricity generation.

EVs might spur a profound relocalization of our electricity system. I discovered the intimate link between electric vehicles and decentralized electricity in the spring of 2007, when I spent a week in California driving or being driven in a variety of electrified vehicles, from glorified golf carts to PHEVs to the "0 to 60 in less than 4 seconds" Tesla. I was invited by a national travel magazine to investigate the future of the car based on my 2003 report on the subject, "A Better Way." Everyone I met who had an EV or a PHEV also had solar cells on their roofs. And why not? Not only does it make them more energy self-reliant, but the value of the electricity generated by the solar array is far higher when it displaces gasoline than when it displaces conventional electricity.

Indeed, a symbiotic relationship between car and house may be emerging. California has time-of-day tariffs under which electricity consumed at peak hours, say, midday on a hot summer's day, can be several times more expensive than electricity consumed during nighttime odd-peak hours. If EV owners must use electricity at peak times, they can tap into the stored electricity in their vehicles. The EV serves as a source of backup power for the house. More than one EV owner boasted about how his was the only house with lights on when the neighborhood suffered a blackout.

If Congress enacts its electrified vehicle incentive, we should see an immediate surge in conversions and new PHEV and EV sales. In 2010 several EV and PHEV models should be available from major car companies, albeit in small quantities, and these should allow us to gauge the costs of an all-electric transportation system.

Read all of it here / AlterNet

Thanks to David Hamilton / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Jim Hightower : 'Lifestyles of the Rich... and Cranky.'

Ferrari F430 Spider, just $3,500 a day. Dude.
Democratizing luxury
By Jim Hightower / July 11, 2006

Time to take another peek into the “Lifestyles of the Rich… and Cranky.”

A problem for many rich people is that they’re merely rich – not fabulously wealthy. And, of course, being Mr. Richie Rich means never having to ask the price of anything. So the merely rich get cranky because, while they might be millionaires, it can be hard for them to keep up with the Joneses who are billionaires. I’m sure you can empathize with their angst.

Take the matter of transportation. In some zip codes, you are what you ride, and mass-market mobiles like Cadillacs and Hummers are simply humdrum vehicles, even if they come with uniformed chauffeurs. No, no, it’s important that your wheels make a statement, so you want something like a Bugatti Veyron, with its 978-horsepower engine. The Bugatti is a favorite of Mr. Richie Rich, but with a sticker price of $1.6 million, it’s out of reach for the merelies.

Luckily, though, enterprising saviors like Beverly Hills Rent-A-Car let common millionaires keep up appearances. While these modestly-wealthy swells can’t afford to buy a sleek Aston Martin Vantage Coupe with a powerhouse engine that has “a nice purr to it” – they can rent one for only $1,600 a day. Or, if they want to strut their stuff in even higher style, they can get behind the wheel of a red Ferrari F430 Spider for $3,500 a day. Its “wow” factor is that it can go 200 miles per hour. Be warned, though, that the $3,500 rental fee only gets you 50 miles a day – it’s an extra $2 a mile beyond that.

Oh, and that eye-popping Bugotti? Yes, for ultimate showmanship, you can even rent one of those babies for $25,000 a day.

In these days of economic stress, it’s good to know that luxury is being democratized so mere millionaires are not priced out of the good life.

“A posh ride, for a day,” Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2008

Source. / Jim Hightower

See A posh ride, for a day / Los Angeles Times

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Volkswagen Fast Tracks "One-Liter" Bullet Car

Of course it costs $30-50,000, but thats a detail. Just think of all the money you're going to save on gasoline.

Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / July 5, 2008

Laugh at high gas prices with a 235-MPG VW
(Of course, it'll cost you a pretty penny.)
By Chuck Squatriglia / July 3, 2008

With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more miserly, Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term "fuel efficiency" with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets a stunning 235 mpg.

Volkswagen's had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle -- so named because that's how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers -- stashed away for six years. The body's made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car weighs just 660 pounds) and company execs didn't expect the material to become cheap enough to produce the car until 2012.

But VW's decided to build the car two years ahead of schedule.

According to Britain's Car magazine, VW has approved a plan to build a limited number of One-Liters in 2010. They'll probably be built in the company's prototype shop, which has the capacity to build as many as 1,000 per year. That's not a lot, but it's enough to help VW get a lot of attention while showing how much light weight and an efficient engine can achieve.

VW unveiled the slick two-seater concept six years ago at a stockholder's meeting in Hamburg. To prove it was a real car, Chairman Ferdinand Piech personally drove it from Wolfsburg to Hamburg. At the time, he said the car could see production when the cost of its carbon monocoque dropped from 35,000 Euros (about $55,000) to 5,000 Euros (about $8,000) -- something he figured would happen in 2012. With carbon fiber being used in everything from airliners to laptops these days, VW's apparently decided the cost is competitive enough to build at least a few hundred One-Liters.

VW's engineers -- who spent three years developing the car -- made extensive use of magnesium, titanium and aluminum to bring it in at less than one-third the weight of a Toyota Echo. According to Canadian Driver, the front suspension assembly weighs just 18 pounds. The six-speed transmission features a magnesium case, titanium bolts and hollow gears; it weighs a tad more than 50 pounds. The 16-inch wheels are carbon fiber. The magnesium steering wheel weighs a little more than a pound. How much of the concept car's exotic hardware makes it to the production model remains to be seen.

Low weight only gets you so far in the quest for ultimate fuel economy; aerodynamics plays a big role. The One-Liter is long and low, coming in at 11.4 feet long, 4.1 feet wide and 3.3 feet tall. It features an aircraft-like canopy, flat wheel covers and a belly pan to smooth the airflow under the car. The engine cooling vents open only when needed, and video cameras take the place of mirrors. The passenger sits behind the driver to keep the car narrow. The car has a coefficient of drag of 0.16; the average car comes in around 0.30 and the Honda Insight had a Cd of 0.25.

As for the engine, the concept had a one-cylinder diesel engine producing 8.5 horsepower and 13.5 foot-pounds of torque. Car says the production model will use a two-cylinder turbodiesel for a little more oomph. Doubling the number of cylinders is sure to cut fuel economy, so VW may install a diesel-hybrid drivetrain. The engine turns off at stop lights to save fuel, then automatically restarts when the driver depresses the accelerator pedal.

(Update: The car reportedly has anti-lock brakes, stability control and airbags. According to Canadian Driver, "Volkswagen says the One-Liter Car is as safe as a GT sports car registered for racing. With the aid of computer crash simulations, the car was designed with built-in crash tubes, pressure sensors for airbag control and front crumple zones.")

What's it gonna cost? Car quotes "one well-placed insider" who says the One-Liter could have a sticker price of anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 Euros (about $31,750 to $47,622). That's a lot of money. But then, the One-Liter, despite its diminutive size, is a lot of car.

Source. / Wired.com

I think it's good they only plan to sell 1000 a year worldwide. That's probably about all they will be able to move, especially at that high price. And don't they know people are sociable creatures who like to sit at least two in a row? Back to the drawing board!

Jon Ford / The Rag Blog

Hmmm, turbocharged 2 cylinder diesel. Companies like VW and Honda are really good at coming up with tiny engines that roar. I still think that in the future there will be city cars and road cars. No road cars in the cities except on freeways. City cars will be tiny like this one, and likely electric too, no wasted space like empty back seats. Carbon fiber is the material used in most all race cars, stout and light but expensive. 600 pounds is super light. Maybe putting a weight limit on cars would be the best way to insure efficiency...

Gerry Storm / The Rag Blog

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Two For The Road : Heading For The Exit Lane

By 2012 there should be roughly 10 million fewer vehicles on the road in America...

We stand at a turning point for US transport.

Real gasoline prices have already surpassed the peak levels that followed the second OPEC oil shocks, and even when adjusted for potential fuel efficiency improvements, have increased to the point where they will dramatically change driving behaviour in America.

The some 57 million Americans who own a car and have direct access to public transportation will start to act more and more like Europeans, who have long paid much higher gasoline prices. By 2012, average miles driven will have shrunk by more than 15%. SUV and other light truck sales, which until 2006 accounted for almost 60% of total motor vehicles, will plummet to less than half that level, reversing the last fifteen years growth in market share.

More fundamentally, the freeways are about to get less congested. Not only will the number of vehicle registrations in the United States not grow over the next four years, but by 2012 there should be roughly 10 million fewer vehicles on the road in America than thereare today.

Jeff Rubin and Benjamin Tal / CIBC World Markets / Toronto

Heading for the Exit Lane
by Jeff Rubin / June 26, 2008

Recent announcements from OPEC and China won’t be sufficient to hold oil prices in check. The additional 200,000 barrels per day pledged from Saudi Arabia is apittance compared to the four million barrels per day that depletion will hive off world production this year. What little increase in production Saudi is capable of will probably all be gobbled up by that country’s own voracious appetite for energy. Nor is the $145 per tonne cut (48 cents per gallon) in Chinese fuel subsidies likely to dent demand much.

Most North Americans would gladly line up at the pumps for China’s now $3.25 a gallon gas, particularly those of us who live north of the border.

With half of the world’s population never having to pay world oil prices, it shouldn’t come as a great surprise that $130 per barrel crude prices have yet to quash world demand. And the only supply response to date has been yet another round of cost overruns and lengthy project delays running the gamut from Canadian oil sands to deepwater Gulf of Mexico wells.

With the basic laws of supply and demand are compelled to once again raise our target prices for oil. We are lifting our target for West Texas Intermediate by $20 per barrel to an average price of $150 next year and by $50 per barrel to an average price of $200 per barrel by 2010. Under prevailing refinery margins, that should translate into a near-$7 per gallon pump price within two years, a 70% increase from today’s already record levels.

Higher oil prices spell stagflation for the US economy next year, and we have marked down our GDP growth forecast to barely over 1% for 2009 (pages 9-11). The biggest impacts will be in transport and none greater than the adjustments on the road.

After all, America is the quintessential land of the car.

As gasoline prices climb inexorably, American driving habits are going to have to undergo a massive change, mimicking the driving habits long adopted by Europeans who have faced much higher gas prices. Average miles driven will likely fall by as much as 15%, while the market share of light trucks, SUVs and vans will be literally halved, reversing the trend of the last fifteen years. But the most fundamental, and unprecedented change will be in the number of vehicles on the road.

Over the next four years, we are likely to witness the greatest mass exodus of vehicles off America’s highways in history. By 2012, there should be some 10 million fewer are today—a decline that dwarfs all previous adjustments including those during the two OPEC oil shocks (see pages 4-8). Many of those in the exit lane will be low income Americans from households earning less than $25,000 per year.

Incredibly, over 10 million of those American households own more than one car.

Soon they won’t own any.

Source. / CIBC World Markets / Toronto

Thanks to Roger Baker / The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Two For the Road : Killing Off the Small Town

A road going to Leeton, Missouri, population 619. Photo by jelene's photostream.
High Gas Prices Threaten to Drain
Small Towns' Populations
By Donald Bradley / June 28, 2008

LEETON, Missouri - In this small town south of Warrensburg, directions usually begin with, "From Casey's, you go ..."

That would be Casey's General Store, the only gas station in town. It's where folks fill up while talking about goings-on, politics, weather and who's got the best-looking tomatoes.

These days, they're also cussing and shaking their heads about the price of that gasoline. People are doing that everywhere, but in small towns such as Leeton, population 619, it's even more of a gut punch because nearly every working adult commutes to jobs elsewhere.

These days, there had better be a really good job on the other end of that trip.

Don Campbell's daily commute to Kansas City - about 100 miles each way - costs him roughly $866 a month at $3.90 per gallon. But he's a union iron worker and says he can make the math work.

Most of his neighbors can't. For them and thousands of other small-town residents across the country who drive long distances to jobs that pay little more than minimum wage, the high cost of gas is making that daily commute cost-prohibitive.

So much so that economists predict that over the next few years, the country could see a migration that would greatly reduce the population of Small Town America - resulting in a painful shift away from lifestyle, family roots, traditions and school ties.

"This town's the only place I know," said Louie Rector, who drives 35 miles to his job at a window factory from his home in tiny Dixon, Mo., about 20 miles west of Rolla.

"I grew up here ... raised my kids here. I got my family and friends all here. I don't want to pack up and leave. But it's getting to the point where a fella can't afford to drive to work, and that don't seem right to me."

A Common Fate

Towns such as Dixon and Leeton are everywhere in America. Many don't have much beyond a post office, a grocery and maybe a school. Economists use Wymore, Neb., as an example in that 68 percent of working adults in town commute to jobs elsewhere, most to Beatrice, Neb.

The expected exodus from small towns, said Don Macke, a widely considered authority on rural economics and head of the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship in Lincoln, Neb., will be far more profound than the gradual erosion that has been going on since World War II. That decline was due to the country's shift away from an agrarian economy and a choice for convenience: People wanted to be closer to jobs, shopping and entertainment.

The new flight, Macke thinks, will be more out of necessity.

Most commuters from small towns are high school graduates. They are driving 50 miles or more to work as school cooks, hospital aides, office workers, dental assistants and unskilled factory workers.

"The reality is that those jobs don't pay all that well," said Macke, who is also a visiting scholar with the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri. "They're spending up to $500 a month on gas. A third to half is already technically working poor.

"And as gas goes higher, they will get poorer and these towns will soon struggle to hold on to these people."

David McGranahan, a senior economist with the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, added that the decline would not be entirely longtime residents moving away.

"Young people who leave these towns to go off to college or the military may decide not to go back - as many have always done in years past," McGranahan said. "Also, fewer people will leave the city to move to small towns in search of a quiet life."

But nobody is writing off small towns. Who knows what type of vehicle will come along next? There's carpooling. Computer technology increasingly allows people to work from home. And some communities are working on ways to provide jobs in town.

"I have a lot of faith in ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit," Macke said.

That rescue better happen fast, said Leeton Mayor Larry Mudd. He has lived all his 62 years there and used to commute to Kansas City to work as a school administrator - back when gas was cheap.

He hears the talk around town and he expects to see people, particularly young families, move away.

"People are mad as hell, but they don't know who to blame," Mudd said. "I know we got people here who are buying gas instead of paying bills.

"What a lot of towns are going to end up with is a bunch of empty buildings and empty houses."

Open Space, Cheap Gas

Since the advent of the automobile in the early 20th century, the American rural landscape has been one of spacious land and cheap fuel.

It was commonplace for people to drive long distances for jobs. In isolated areas, such as western Kansas, the drive could be 100 miles or more. Those commuters may have complained about the time in the car, but seldom about the price of gas.

Throughout that period, too, many towns had a factory, and mom-and-pop stores lined main streets.

That has all changed.

Factories in many towns closed years ago as small companies folded or manufacturers sent jobs overseas. Mom-and-pop stores gave way to Wal-Marts in bigger towns. When those changes occurred, jobs and shopping required trips out of town.

And now, gas prices are at all-time highs.

Brian Dabson, co-director of the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri, said the new financial reality has changed the parameters of "rural poor."

The term used to apply mainly to pockets of poverty in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, Indian reservations, and the Texas-Mexico border area.

"Now, it's everywhere - Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska," Dabson said. "The price of gas has redefined a 'sustainable wage.'"

There is little public transportation in these rural areas. And there is less pubic assistance today. Farmers make more money from corn because of its use to make ethanol, but towns aren't sharing in any windfall because the cost of farming has gone up, too, and there are fewer farmers.

No question that gas prices will chase some people closer to urban areas, Dabson predicted.

"There is no hiding place from global pressure," he said.

So why isn't the same thing happening in Europe, where gas prices are even higher?

Because trains connect almost every town there, Macke said. And yes, some people in urban and suburban areas in this country drive 30 miles to work, too, but they tend to be more affluent.

It is in rural America where lives are being turned upside down.

"This country had not planned on a big jump in fuel costs," Macke said.

"No Jobs Here"

Well I was born in a small town,
and I can breathe in a small town.
Gonna die in this small town,
and that's probably where they'll bury me.

John Mellencamp, "Small Town," 1985

The classic song was seemingly written for guys like Rector of Dixon. He never figured he would ever leave his hometown on the edge of the Mark Twain National Forest.

According to Dixon's marshal, Clifty Yoakum, most every working adult leaves town each morning for jobs in other places, such as Rolla or Jefferson City.

"They have to - no jobs here," Yoakum said.

For 29 years, Rector has driven to the Quaker Window factory in Freeburg, 35 miles to the north. The factory is unusual in that it has more employees than that town has people.

"We got about 450 workers and they come from all over, probably six or seven counties," said owner Mike Knoll. "We pay $8 to $10 an hour - better than minimum wage - but I know my people are really feeling the gas crunch."

He recently ordered a switch to four 10-hour days to save his employees a day's drive.

"That's one day we don't have to pay $20 for gas," said Rector's daughter, Tracy, who also works at Quaker.

"Everybody is feeling what's going on. They're cutting back at the grocery store, not going out to eat. But even with that, when you get your check there's nothing left. Gas goes much higher - people are going to stop going to work."

Her father may leave Dixon and move closer to Freeburg, but Tracy Rector isn't yet ready to commit to such a drastic move from her hometown.

"But I'm like most people - I don't know what to do."

Back in Leeton, school Superintendent William Nicely knows he could see a drop in enrollment if families leave. It's a highly accredited school and this year graduated 19 seniors.

But he knows why it would happen because he commutes the other way.

"I live in Sedalia and drive here every day - I know what families are going through," Nicely said.

Resident Jerry King doesn't have to worry about it. He's retired. He used to work at a tire shop in Sedalia.

"I wouldn't want to be making that trip these days, not with gas where it is," King said. "Heck, I don't even want to drive to Windsor for groceries."

Mudd, the mayor, worries that younger residents will start thinking the same way.

"When people move away, towns lose their tax base," Mudd said. "Then you can't fix streets ... you can't do much of anything. That makes even more people leave.

"Pretty soon, won't be much left in these old towns."

Source. / Kansas City Star / truthout

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...