Technological Narcissism: Pay No Attention To Those Bumps In The Road

[peristaltor]

For those of you still unfamiliar with M. King Hubbert and his now-famous theory of "peak oil," do look up Wiki entries on his name and theory. If you don't, not only will this entry seem curious (if not completely unhinged), but so will reality.

If you're still curious about what this might mean for, well, everyone on earth,

Comments

[ironphoenix]

Yeah, transit in my city is on a slow downward slide, I find. Well, except for the prices, those keep going up. I moved to the west end to be close to work (I can walk or bike easily in good weather), but a fair bit of my social life etc. still demands that I go downtown, and driving still saves more time than the fuel costs. There is a failure of thought which is leading city politicians to imagine that transit should be downscaled until it's not so expensive; they aren't considering the real cost-benefit of buses versus cars, so they are headed toward the break-even point where they have no buses, so no expenses equals no revenue is a win, right?

[peristaltor]

There is a failure of thought which is leading city politicians to imagine that transit should be downscaled until it's not so expensive. . . .

Ah, a good point. The answer is yes, that is exactly what's happening. Your following point about the "real cost-benefit of buses versus cars" doesn't apply to the transit officials, though, since they don't pay for the cars.

Remember, most municipal transit agencies started as for-profit alternative transport competing against horses, stages, and horse and electric trolleys. Only later were they de-privatized, once cars began to compete effectively and the for-profit no longer made profit. Much of the profit mindset of operations still exists.

We'll see how much taxpayers are willing to shell to keep transit alive. It will depend, I think, on how difficult it becomes to do business without it.

[wildilocks]

No disagreement from the cheap seats over here. Downsizing is the name of the game atm, for those of us in retail, it's a particularly tough road even such a lovely blessed place as Aussieland, but I am hoping the government keeps going the direction its going: Carbon Tax comes in in 2 months, and they're doing a damned sight more than NZ to head in the correct direction, even with pulling all the stuff outa the ground.

Also, I'm planning on getting my backup/secondary electric bike fixed this week.

[peristaltor]

I forgot about your electric rides. I do envy your relatively flat terrain.

[albionwood]

I'm finding optimism in those vehicle-miles charts; it's exactly what needs to happen, and exactly what you'd expect to happen if price signals work. Adaptation can be messy, but it works better than prediction. (Meaning, strategies that are based on predictions (=assumptions) about the future are less robust than those based on observations.)

The news that Orion is closing, on the other hand, exposes a flaw in the system: reliance on government for these kinds of services. I predict that something else will emerge to help people move about, but I have no idea what that will be.

[peristaltor]

I would disagree that a reliance on government is the problem with mass transit infrastructure funding. After all, the same would happen if the transit authorities were private, perhaps more so.

I think the flaw here is how governments are funded, and the particular susceptibility of their funding structures to suffer during economic downturns. Change that structure, change the profitability of technological solutions bridging the downturn in energy availability.

[bradhicks]

Hi, sorry to engage in "thread necromancy," but I only just noticed this

[bradhicks]

Addendum: there is a 4th option that wasn't even seriously considered.

4) Move the business that depend on low-wage workers back towards the low-wage workers, back towards the inner-ring suburbs and the city, and make the white-flight upper middle class and rich people be the ones who do the long-distance commuting. Or else find some way to carve out gated whites-only upper-middle-class and rich enclaves downtown again. Either way, shorten the commute for workers.

As I say, it wasn't even seriously considered. But with the era of Cheap Oil coming to a grinding halt, I remain confident that #4 is the one they're going to have to eventually choose. But they'll fight it tooth and nail to the last possible minute, no matter what it costs them and no matter what it costs the country and no matter what it costs the world.

[peristaltor]

Interesting. We recently had a cut-back scare here as well, one that didn't go through. The list of cut runs, though, was pretty evenly spread throughout the county, probably to get as many vocal protests to the council meetings as possible.

I agree, the forth is the most likely long-term option, and the one that will be fought the hardest. The segregation opportunities brought by cheap petroleum-fueled transport are found frickin' everywhere. There's a parkway in New York deliberately built with 9-foot overpass crossings, too low for buses, to deter the bus-riding black folk from visiting the beach.

For another more local example, here in Seattle we are now tearing down The Alaska Way Viaduct over our waterfront, built back in 1949. It was built to re-route traffic passing through downtown from the North end (north of the Ship Canal) heading to build airplanes at Boeing (just south of downtown). Why didn't Boeing workers simply move closer to the factory (other than airplane noise, I mean)? Boeing jobs were white and good-