Carfree Tokyo

Congestion Tax

2009-12-08T19:30:00.000-08:00

This from the New York Times: M.T.A. Tax Revenue Is $200 Million Short

If ever there was a time for New York to introduce a congestion charge (an electronic charge on driving automobiles into the inner city) that time is right now.

Extreme Golf

2009-10-17T04:47:00.000-07:00

My latest hobby is "Extreme Golf". In Japan, the land of mountains, the only place left for golf courses is high in the mountains. Most people drive there by personal car - often alone, meeting their friends there, who also drive their personal car. This tradition has held me back from golf, as I avoid driving whenever there is another option. However, I lately discovered the golf delivery service, a service whereby for about 15 dollars you can have your clubs delivered from your home to the course overnight - and back again afterwards. Thus unburdened, I can take my racing bicycle on the Shinkansen (express train) and enjoy a leisurely ride from the nearest station up through the forests to the golf course. You may ask "What is so extreme about this?" Well, often tee-off is quite early, so not wanting to rush, I will sometimes take the train up after work the day before, and ride in the evening, camping out somewhere near the golf course in a bivvy bag, where I can wake to a stunning dawn and reach the club house in time for a quick wash, breakfast and still be the first to tee off. To be honest it is not particularly extreme at all but the golfers I know seem to think it is.

You may also ask just how much less impact is this when you are still sending a truck up the mountain. Well you would just have to see the truck - absolutely teeming with tens of bags to be delivered back to Tokyo. In Japan, many people do the same thing, but of course taking the shuttle bus rather than riding a bicycle from the station.

The moral of the story is that when you give people low-impact options, they can and will use them - it is not just about hardship, but in fact can be more pleasant and satisfying provided the right systems are in place.

My Extreme Golf is a flippant example but take urban sprawl for instance. Living in a sprawling auto-dependent city largely precludes low-impact living due to the transportation constraints. But put in just one car-free greenway that crosses the city from the mountain to the beaches, a few trains or trams and a good delivery system, and all of a sudden, people have an option that is not only low impact, but actually a better experience. Why are beachside houses so popular and expensive despite forecasts of rising sea levels? I believe it may well be because we have beach parks that enable healthy living options, while increasingly wider roads away from these parks cuts off other citizens from these wonderful places. Imagine now if one of these beach parks had a strip extending, not along the beach, but perpendicular right up towards the mountains, forcing all major roads to go under it and other to just dead-end. Immediately you have given thousands of people the option of ditching their car for a healthy way to get to the beach, and probably dramatically increased land prices around that strip. If I had my way, every beach town in Australia would have one or two of these green highways going out from the beachside or town centre. This is how governments can and should add value - because they are the only ones who can do this kind of thing. And if we don't we will find we are bonded to our cars like so many slaves to the machine.

The Paris' "Velib" system is another case in point. Give people a good, simple, convenient, low-impact, cheap, fun and healthy way to get about a city via a system that really works, and surprise surprise - what do you know? Tens of thousands of people start using it the very day it was introduced.

China Dust Clouds

2009-11-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

China's dust clouds have been getting some attention around the world of late. To be honest I am a little afraid for Japan on this account, due to proximity. The dust can noticably impare air quality as far away as Tokyo, and it seems the effects are felt elsewhere also - in fact, just about everywhere.

A Japanese study using a NASA satellite has apparently found that one 2007 storm in China's Taklimakan desert made "made more than one full circle around the globe in just 13 days" according to this Reuters article.

A frightening thought and yet another reminder that there can be no shirking from dealing with the effects of global environmental damage, of which climate change is really just one element. Americans, Canadians and Europeans can no longer export the environmental impact of their consumption to China and the developing world without facing the consequences directly.

On a side note, I notice that the article also quotes the researchers as saying that "Dust clouds contain 5 percent iron, that is important for the ocean." It has been said that iron in the ocean can increase absorbtion of carbon dioxide, reducing the impact of global warming. Ironically (pun intended) this means that the dust storms - perhaps themselves partly a consenquence of global warming as well as urbanization and bad land use practices, may also be mitigating the impact of CO2 emissions elsewhere.

An interesting thought, and really in line with the somehow comforting Gaia concept of an essentially self-regulating Earth environment - including living and non-living elements. That is, until you imagine life with lots of big dust storms like this and realize that this particular "self-regulation technique" does not a nice living environment make for us humans...cough cough

Blog Intro

2009-11-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

Introducing another interesting little blog: The Sexify Blog *in Seoul*. The owner of the blog posted a comment here a long time ago, but I didn't follow up. Perhaps it was the peculiar title. However it is actually an entertaining and well organized blog - related to all things urban cycling, by a British person based in Seoul, with some good commentary and a few interesting links.

Driven to Distraction

2009-11-13T21:01:00.000-08:00

This is old news now, but very noteworthy. A July 21, 2009 article in the New York Times revealed that the U.S. government withheld important data on risks of distracted driving, stating:

"In 2003, researchers at a federal agency proposed a long-term study of 10,000 drivers to assess the safety risk posed by cellphone use behind the wheel. They sought the study based on evidence that such multitasking was a serious and growing threat on America’s roadways.

But such an ambitious study never happened. And the researchers’ agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, decided not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the use of phones by drivers — in part, officials say, because of concerns about angering Congress."

The article includes statements by the likes of the former head of the highway safety agency who is quoted in the article as saying he was urged to withhold the research to avoid antagonizing members of Congress who had warned the agency to stick to its mission of gathering safety data but not to lobby states.

Fortunately the research data has since been released and in case you weren't convinced of the danger, the article notes also that "The highway safety researchers estimated that cellphone use by drivers caused around 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents over all in 2002."

This article, and in fact there is now a whole series on the topic on the NYT website, to me really shows the importance of public opinion in shaping public policy. Congress can be bought out, and at times that can be extremely detrimental to the nation, but it can only go so far if the public opinion turns against them.

I sometimes wonder if the US would not be a very different place if there were all of a sudden no automobile advertising, which incidentally stood at something like US$10 billion or more in 2008. Good use of public bailout money that is... car companies start to fail because we realize we just don't really want life with cars so much any more, then govt steps in and bails them out so they can keep pitching cars that we don't want to us.

Stats and views from the USA

2009-11-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

I did say I would try to focus more on Japan, but I found some very thoughtful comentary on US automobile dystopia by an investment analyst on a Seeking Alpha blog "The Ramifications of Growing Global Gas Guzzlers" and thought I would share.

Many interesting stats and insights from the US Department of Energy's Transportation Energy Data Book. He also hits the issue on the nose by pointing out that while the US is now (slowly)starting to head in the right direction, we need to be (very) worried about global car ownership.

Taken for a Ride

2009-08-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

Fairly well known documentary about efforts to derail mass transit in the US. Just thought I would put it up here in case anyone has not seen it. Really wish a similar thing would be done about Japan's own sordid history of motorway construction - right up to the reduction of highway tolls today as "economic stimulus."

Inner city Driveways and Garages Strictly Not Allowed

2009-06-07T06:27:00.001-07:00

Very interesting article here in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Of course, as usual, Japan appears to still be going in the opposite direction. I am told that many wards of Tokyo will raise taxes on vacant lots in an attempt to force owners to build on empty plots. One exemption however is car parking. So, them message is clear: pave over and create a 4-car carpark and you will save tax. Some wards even go so far as REQUIRING SPECIFICALLY that car parking park be created on a vacant lot if a building is not to be erected immediately.

Imagine if a slightly different policy were implemented - that driveways and garages could not be created in built up areas. There would be less parking. It would become more expensive. Less people would drive. More people would walk or cycle. More people would catch the train. Trains would make more money and (hopefully) improve service and increase lines. Community based organizations would prosper (less bed-town phenomena). Only good things could come from this - except perhaps the inevitable vitriol that would come from old men who like to drive cars. But I would enjoy that. When these old men complain, I know we have got something right.

All Tokyo Train Stations 100% Smoke Free From April 2009

2009-06-07T21:47:00.001-07:00

So, as of April this year, all Tokyo JR train stations are completely smoke free. This is something of a milestone to be celebrated given that some stations have close to a million people pass through them each day.

I find it very encouraging that Japan has finally joined the anti-smoking movement. It should only be a matter of time before residents of the city realize that automobiles are just as "meiwaku" - but in many more ways than just the stink, carbon emissions (or noise). Tobacco kills, but for the most part only kills the persistent smoker themself in a way that might almost be seen as evolutionarily satisfying if it weren't for the issues associated with the drug and the demography of the addiction patterns. Allowing driving to become our main form of transport on the other hand, endangers all of us. In fact, it endangers the people around them more than the driver themselves, which does not engender responsible driving.

The big question is whether we will we realize this before billions are invested in EV technology, and before China goes too far down the automobile path...

I guess the only safe automobile might be a true AUTOmobile - one that drives itself. Whether or not that can be reconciled with the environment is another question given that high automobile use encourages urban sprawl, and the high cost of the systems necessary for automatic driving.

Which should come first, cycling popularity or better planning?

2009-08-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

Very interesting study here. I never knew that bicycle use in Japan doubled from 1975-1977. According to this article it appears to have been triggered by a change in public policy in favour of bicycle use. Pity they didn't think of a system like the Paris Velib project, which would have eliminated some of the need for spwrawling parking facilities.

When Can Deflation be a Good Thing?

2009-08-06T20:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13610845
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/11/20/whats-so-bad-about-deflation-remembering-irving-fisher/
http://economics.about.com/b/2007/12/03/is-deflation-necessarily-a-bad-thing.htm

What sound should electric cars have ?

2009-08-07T02:41:00.000-07:00

As noted in a recent Reuters blog article Gassing About Electric Cars, motor engineers these days appear to be faced with a peculiar problem - what sound to give electric cars?

Automotive industry participants obviously do not buy into the idea that we should have fewer cars on the road. More is better from their perspective. Anything else and even Government Motors will not be saved. Hell, the auto industry hasn't even liked the idea of moving to electric vehicles. However the industry has recently been forced to concede that at a bare minimum, a shift of the current fleet to electric vehicles will be necessary if we are to avoid a future not worth considering.

Now, as I have noted in previous posts, for various reasons I think the switch to EVs is just one very small part of the change that is necessary. In fact it may even lead to more difficulties down the road as the world gears up nuclear power stations to provide all the electricity necessary.

One thing I do find amusing is that electric vehicle designers are confounded by the noise of electric vehicles - or lack thereof. Why should it be a problem for a vehicle to be quiet? Well, not so surprisingly, automobiles are extremely dangerous. Those of us lucky to have good hearing have relied on it to save our lives. It is no surprise to know that deaths by automobile are highest among the elderly. The elderly cannot hear vehicles coming. Pretty soon we will all be faced with this issue. So what to do? Give cars artificial noise. Well this will bring a whole new dimension to the fight over noise pollution in cities. Not only are drivers making a lot of noise - it will be entirely preventable.

Meanwhile the USA has poured another billion dollars down the drain with their "Cash for Clunkers" program, while urban renewal projects that promote walkable cities are being knocked back due to lack of funding.

Japanese Media Critisize Honda Over F1 Pullout

2009-07-07T06:01:00.000-07:00

ARTICLE HERE. Well they damn well would winge and complain wouldn't they. The advertising industry is one of the forgotten beneficiaries of the automobile industry. And a hefty largesse it is too.

I find it quite heartening that they could not find a buyer for this team. It just goes to show what the public think of the "sport" of motor racing these days.

6 billion on this and what for rail? - a coal shipping line.

2008-08-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

Tolls possible on new Melb ring road freeway
ABC Online - 1 hour ago
Part of the link between the Ring Road and the Eastern Freeway will be built underground. (ABC NEWS) The Victorian Government has confirmed it will spend $6 billion connecting Melbourne's Metropolitan Ring Road to the Eastern Freeway.
$6 billion road project will connect Melbourne Melbourne Herald Sun
Brumby's $40bn plan to get Victoria moving The Age
NEWS.com.au - The Age - Melbourne Herald Sun
all 26 news articles »

Who is responsible ?

2008-08-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.theage.com.au/national/commuter-train-kills-driver-in-level-crossing-smash-20081118-69bq.html

Car driver crashes through a boom gate, get's hit by train, and they blame it on the train? Strange place.

The Real Tragedy

2009-08-06T05:26:00.000-07:00

- Private Cars in China Up 28% in 2008
The number of privately owned cars in China rose by 28% in 2008, making the
total number of civilians owning private cars 19.47 million, according to the
National Bureau of Statistics of China (probably an unreliable source).
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/private-cars-in-china-up-28-percent-2008.php

Even if the figures are overstated, this is the real tragedy. China, Russia, Brazil, India. If they all start driving like "Westerners" do, we are screwed.

Honda: Insight or Incite ?

2009-07-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

Really great commentary from Worldwatch Institute on the advertising for the new Honda "Insight" hybrid, which the company touts "theoretically seats 6.75 billion."

OPINION: The More Hybrid Drivers the Better?

The Worldwatch Institute gets right to the crux of the issue when it notes that more hybrid drivers does not in any way deliver energy saving. In fact, if the world's people (all 6.75 billion of them) were to drive hybrids or any kind of motor vehicle it would be an unmitigated disaster.

There is an interesting paradox in energy called Jevon's Paradox, which simply put notes that technological advances in energy efficiency tend to increase output rather than decrease overall consumption of the resource, so much so in fact that you end up with greater overall consumption due to the elasticity of demand. In other words, improvements in fuel efficiency do not automatically lead to decreased consumption - in fact the opposite is true.

In the context of hybrids, this would mean that the more efficient the vehicle, the more we would tend to drive. Looking at Honda's advertising, this is clearly their goal. It has nothing to do with saving the environment, though they would have you think it does.

Way to go Honda... very inciting, but lacking insight.

So a smoker kicks Lucky Strike for low tar. Woohoo! Actually, no. He's still a smoker - and the chances are pretty good he will just smoke more cigarettes to compensate. In the process the habit becomes even further ingrained into his daily life...

The Invisible Hand

2009-06-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

http://seekingalpha.com/article/141807-life-insurance-companies-tobacco-investments-profits-over-health?source=feed

Article on the twisted state of health/life insurance companies investing in tobacco industry, while excluding smokers from policies. Insurance companies win on both and anyone who smokes gets doubly shafted.

It makes you wonder about evolution and where it will all end up.

Compressed Air Car

2009-06-17T17:47:00.001-07:00

This is a Reuters video about a compressed air car being developed for the European market in the near future. Nice idea, and a damned sight better than what we have now.

A few notes:

1) Sceptics quoted in the video note that it "does not meet modern automobile safety standards". What these people do not realize is that this is not a normal automobile. It is a complete rethink of the car. In other words, at low speeds "modern safety standards" are complete overkill. The more speeds are reduced, the more such "standards" can be relaxed. Why would anyone want to relax standards? One simple reason - less weight. Lower weight drastically reduces the energy input required. The incumbent motor industry realizes this, therefore pushes the "modern" auto safety standards line as hard as they can, because high-speed crash "standards" means greater weight, which means higher energy input levels are required. On that playing field oil/gasoline wins (if we ignore the myriad problems associated with it).

2) OK so let's consider the compressed air car as a people mover (ignoring for a moment that it is fairly clear the long term goal should be just re-development of our cities around walking, cycling and public transport). OK, so this thing runs on air and does not spew out pollutants. That's good. It is also lighter, which means it consumes less energy - good again for environment. Hopefully it is also inherently slower - because given its lower weight, it will need to be slower for safety reasons. This not only protects the occupants of the vehicle, but everyone else around. Assuming there will be more pedestrians around in the coming post-auto era, this is definitely a good thing.

However, we must ask one question... "Where does the compressed air come from?" Even if we give these guys the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have also developed solar powered compressors to provide the air that charges these cars, there is another question: "Where are the compressors and solar panels created...?" Are they also created and transported with renewable energy?

This reminds one yet again of the KISS principle, and the simple beauty of just making cities walkable again. Most of us have legs - so let's use them, eh?

God only knows, at current obesity rates, most of us could use a good walk...

(Austin Powers as "Fat Bastard")

Demotorizing our Urban Centres

2009-06-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

With the popularity of PPS, Transportation Alternatives, Velib and the like, it seems many movers and shakers are finally realizing that "de-motorizing" the urban centres of our cities may be necessary to achieve the drastic cuts in fossil fuel energy consumption that are required to avoid the global warming disaster that scientists now seem to agree we are heading for ever more rapidly. De-motorizing a city results in drastically less CO2 emissions (transport is estimated to generate around a quarter of CO2 emissions) but also less pollution, less noise, less stress, less loss from death and injury, more human interaction, better sense of community and a range of other tangential benefits. And face it, who wouldn't enjoy walking through the city on a tree-lined (car-free) boulevard?

Speaking of which, am I the only one who thinks EVs are a fantastic great red-herring? If you believe the motor industry and battery making companies, EVs are the world's only hope. But surely it is marginal at best, for until most or all the energy for electricity generation, not to mention the factories that produce the EVs, and the mining for the resources that produce them, comes from clean sources there will be little or no net gain to the planet from switching to EVs. Doh!

By applying the KISS principle(Keep It Simple Stupid) those who choose to do so can deal with many of the critical transport issues on a personal level by simply riding a bicycle instead. I do not expect everyone to suddenly start riding bicycles - not at least until some of these boulevards are built.

World's Most Livable Cities

2009-06-23T21:07:00.000-07:00

What do these images have in common?

Reuters shows a Photo slideshow of the top 25 "most liveable cities of the world." Not surprisinging, not a single one of them has images of highways or automobile transport. The fact of the matter is, when thinking about what makes their city great, nobody really cares how fast you can get from one side of the city to the other. Nobody is proud of their auto traffic jams, noise, or drunken or dangerous drivers.

But what these images do have in common is a theme of peace, quiet, and any images of roads are ones that are tree lined and free of cars, roads physically connect people but in a more peaceful and more meaningful way, where there is time to communicate with others. One even has an image of a Velib type bicycle sharing as the quintessential image of their livable city - the new Bixi system in Canada.

Something for all city planners to think about.

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/rpSlideshows?articleId=USRTR24YP2#a=1

Canadian Smokers (sorry, drivers) up in Arms

2009-05-10T03:42:00.000-07:00

This article is great. It reminds me a lot of the "Great Whinge" that smokers kicked up when the tide of public opinion turned against them a decade or two ago. Front page on the Globe and Mail National Section, the article is a good whinge about how automobile lovers are under attack from all sides in the city of Toronto. The hilarious hypocrisy that says it all about this kind of view is the Porsche advertisement at the bottom picturing the automobile drivers wet-dream of a road - fast, scenic, pedestrian free, even sidewalk free, and no other vehicles on it except your own, not even a motorcycle. This is a dream that not only excludes all non-drivers but is also fundamentally unattainable. Yet, this is the very dream that generations of last century's Americans were sold, came to pine for and ultimately paid billions in real money in an utterly vain attempt to attain, the only lasting legacy of which is horrific snarling traffic, chronic sedentarism, pollution, the ongoing liability for maintaining these automobile dystopias left for future generations, and half a century of neglect for non-auto transportation infrastructure. I could go on, but you get the picture. I think this article shows the level that the auto-crowd have fallen to. Like the smokers complaining bitterly when the public first began to call for bans on smoking in pubs and restaurants a few decades ago, the next step is capitulation. Let's take it all the way.

The Carbon Cost of Hydrogen

2009-05-21T00:44:00.000-07:00

Nice to see Reuters looking at this.

Hydrogen is definitely not the best answer. The best answer is for government to admit that supporting auto as an asset is not the way forward. If no private lenders will lend to people who want to borrow money to buy automobiles, then probably THERE IS A VERY GOOD REASON. Why is the government supporting automobile credit? OK cars are handy sometimes, but WE HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH OF THEM. If we could just get our act together we could probably do just fine with a tenth of the cars currently on the road. And given the environmental crisis on our doorstep, and that hydrogen is not the answer people are hyping it to be, it may come to pass sooner rather than later. Is this the root of the crisis? It is of course tied up with demographics, because as people age they drive less and discover for the first time in their lives just how inconvenient, how inhospitable, how downright hostile Western cities are these days for the non-driver.

Depths of Disgrace

2009-05-14T22:31:00.000-07:00

A little off topic, but wow. SEC employees under investigation for insider trading?! By whom? The SEC? HAH! These guys are supposed to be the watchdogs... What a disgrace.

53 Miles Per Burrito

2009-04-29T21:35:00.001-07:00

Interesting little article linked above - a reminder of the efficiency of different forms of transportation. Makes you wonder why many roads are effectively designed to make life difficult for cyclists.