I suggest that there is widespread agreement even among drivers that the use of cars is destroying our society. Most people just shrug their shoulders and say something to the effect that the car is so ingrained in our way of life how can we do anything about it? I would suggest that we can start by eliminating employee parking. At first by eroding the subsidies for workplace parking and then moving to depaving of the parking lots. This is especially true in Ottawa where so many people work for the various levels of government. Why should the taxpayer subsidize someone else's parking place? Surely in an era of downsizing and cutbacks this is a prime area to remove from funding.
Consider the benefits. If most of the federal government employees did not have subsidized parking many would take OC-Transpo or walk or cycle or... This would be a big subsidy to OC-transpo without costing anyone money, and the reduced congestion on the roads would ameliorate the needs for new bridges and roads in the region, again saving millions of dollars.
Given that it costs at least $5,000 a year to keep a car on the road and maybe $200 a year to keep a bicycle in operation, most of the workers, would also see a dramatic saving. Even a years worth of bus passes is still under $1,000. So in terms of money I am suggesting a plan where just about everybody wins.
The problem is clearly an emotional one partly through advertising and partly through habits. Many people in our society have become addicted to their cars. In many cases it is not possible to have a rational discussion about cars without antagonistic emotional outbursts. As a car-free person I look at many car users and see overweight, sickly, harassed people. I would like to quote one of our esteemed members Chris Bradshaw in an article for the Peace and Environment News April 1996: "A car-free lifestyle involves surprisingly minor and mostly positive adjustments. It doesn't take long before you feel sorry for people who drive."
Many people might find this strange, perhaps even insulting. I assure you neither is true. At least for me, being car-free is a tremendous freedom and has opened up many new vistas to my life.
I am of course not the first person to realize that parking is key to the problem of car dependency. Several articles in this issue point out facets of this problem and others suggest mechanisms by which parking can be addressed.
Friends of the Market needs
volunteers for the next porter
service initiative. Please
see article below.
The City of Ottawa is currently developing a plan to "calm traffic" in Centertown. It proposes to do this by:
This plan will:
IF YOU WANT TO STOP THIS PLAN, PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO MAKE YOUR VIEWS KNOWN IMMEDIATELY TO:
OTTAWA COUNCILLOR ELIZABETH ARNOLD Phone: 244-5361 Fax: 244-5371 REGIONAL COUNCILLOR DIANE HOLMES Phone: 560-1220 Fax: 560-1203 J.P. BRAAKSMA & ASSOCIATES LTD. Phone: 723-1264 Fax: 723-2653
AUTO-FREE ZONE is published quarterly and is mailed to subscribers or members of Auto-Free Ottawa (see form inside last page). Opinions expressed in AFZ do not necessarily reflect those of Auto-Free Ottawa members. Articles should be submitted on diskette (WP 5.1) or by E- mail and limited to 1,000 words. Letters to AFZ must be marked "For publication" (include address and phone number which will not be pub- lished), and are subject to selection and editing. Articles reprinted from other publications are abridged to save space.
Thanks to the following for contributing articles (original or borrowed), graphics, ideas or their time: Linda Hoad, Cathy Woodgold, Chris Bradshaw, Mike Buckthought, Richard Briggs and Caroline Vanneste AFZ Graphic: Cathy Woodgold, the "Swarm" from Adbusters and the "Car Plague" from Auto- Free Times.
Deadline for next issue: Aug. 20, 1996. Tentative Topic: Long Distance Public Transit (High Speed Trains for Canada?) ISSN 1195-1958
DON'T: Just suddenly announce that employees who choose a dangerous and polluting mode of transport will now have to pay market costs for the land and maintenance of their parking spots; or just sudden;y announce that employees can no longer park at their workplace. Although this may be the fairest and best thing to do in some ways it may provoke a rebellion among the employees.
Do: Set up a Transportation Subsidy for the employees, and gradually make it more fair. Start by taking money out of the parking-lot maintenance or expansion budget. Distribute this money equally among all employees, and those who park pay it back as a parking fee. Thus in a sense they're still getting free parking but there's now an incentive not to park.
All money collected as parking fees and all money saved because fewer parking spots are being used should go to the Transportation Subsidy. Alternatively, the land can be used in some money-making way such as renting it to a food concession. Again, all money earned this way should go into the Transportation Subsidy.
Gradually, the Transportation Subsidy will get larger, and fewer and fewer employees will choose to park at their workplace. The employees should be free to spend their subsidy however they want: on bus passes, on bicycle maintenance to offset higher rents while living closer to work, or to pay for their workplace parking spot. Employees who park should be made to go through the motions of collecting their subsidy and paying for their parking spot. They can be reminded from time to time that the parking charges are less than the actual cost of the parking space.
After a few years, the employees will be accustomed to paying for parking. An announcement can then be made that the price of parking is being raised slightly, in order to offset higher maintenance costs. People are used to prices going up. They probably wont rebel.
Once the have gotten used to that, then the price of parking can gradually be raised until it covers the cost of the land and maintenance plus and additional amount to act as incentive to choose less dangerous and less polluting forms of transportation.
During this whole process, the employer should congratulate those who choose less polluting modes of transportation, and distribute statistics showing how many accidents and how many emissions have been prevented by the program. This will make the employer look "greener" in the eyes of the public and will also make employees feel good about choosing less polluting modes.
Eventually, the price of parking will be very high, the employees will be enthusiastic about their safer, non- polluting choices, and only a few hardcore drivers will still be parking at the workplace. At that time, an announcement that employee parking will no longer be offered can be safely made without provoking a general rebellion.
by Dennis Whitfield
I wrote several letters to local politicians suggesting that subsidies for government employee parking be removed. A portion of one is reproduced below.
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am a member of a citizen's transportation group (Auto-Free Ottawa) which is greatly concerned about the impact of mechanized vehicles on the health, safety and economic well being of Canadians. Numerous studies have recommended that ways be found to minimize automobile use in society. We believe that one of the simplest approaches, since it actually saves money, is to eliminate subsidized employee parking. This is especially true in the Ottawa region. We are asking politicians at all levels of government in the region to support this initiative.
In order to develop a more advanced plan we would like to obtain detailed information on which federal acts and which federal departments directly administer employee parking for the federal government... It would help us in this endeavour if you could provide as much information as possible. Your co-operation will be greatly appreciated.
Most recipients responded with
non-committal answers. The
responses all confirmed that
the Treasury Board has
ultimate jurisdiction in this
matter. I also posted this
idea to our internet site and
several ideas and suggestions
were made. Excerpts slightly
edited to eliminate acronyms
are reproduced below.
Does anyone know of any
workplace in the national
capital region that provides a
subsidy to help staff buy
their monthly bus pass? To my
knowledge there are none in
the public sector; are there
any in the private sector?
Good question Neale. One
interesting thing that has
come out of the Transit
Advocacy Project questionnaire
in Tunney's Pasture is the
fact that Department of
National Defense (DND) gives
employees bus tickets to
travel to meetings downtown.
Yet to be verified is whether
this is in place of taxichits,
but judging by the very few
taxi trips taken by DND
employees in Tunney's Pasture
for meetings, etc., I suspect
that no taxi chits are
offered. Think what a
government-wide policy on free
bus fare instead of free taxis
would do for poor old OC
Transpo and STO (Hull buses) -
even if they offered a choice
to employees??
Second question: what would be
a reasonable subsidy for an
employer to provide for buying
bus passes? I am looking for
a dollar amount or a
percentage of the cost.How
about the price of a
government parking space?
This has the advantage of
being calculated already for
most Canadian cities. It is
however, higher than the price
of a bus pass in the downtown
but considerably less than the
price of a bus pass elsewhere.
In the USA, employers can
offer their employees a fixed
amount per month (Gail
McEachern at Transportation
Advocacy Project (TAP) has the
exact $$) which the employee
then spends as s/he wishes for
parking, transit, car-pooling
or whatever. This amount is
tax-free. By the way,
Treasury Board turned down OC
Transpo's request to increase
the non-core parking fee to
the price of a bus pass. TB
says that they will be
reviewing the parking policy
in 1997 and will consider the
question at that time!! More
needs to be done about this -
I may make a proposal to
readers of this list when I
have a moment to think up a
strategy.
Linda Hoad an AFO member
What would seem to me
to be more important is for
Treasury Board to start
charging for parking at the
level of at least half of a
bus pass at its non-central
offices.
Chris Bradshaw an AFO member
At my workplace, (federal
government) we have to pay
about $48. a month for
parking. Oh, maybe it's $43.
I forget. Anyway, that gives
an idea of the cost of a
parking spot. In the downtown
the cost is probably much
higher. You have to consider
the rent they would get if
they built a store there
instead of having parking. I
agree, the bus pass subsidy
should be no less than any
parking subsidy given out by
the same employer. I also
suggest that stores ought to
give out free bus tickets to
people not using their
freeparking. However, the bus
pass subsidy could be more
than the parking subsidy. For
example, an employer might
decide to provident subsidised
parking, but to provide bus
passes.
I think providing the whole bus pass for free is a good idea. It's about the same cost as free parking, or less I think(depending on what part of the city you're in; parking is presumably cheap in rural areas.) Maybe an employer could negotiate with OC Transpo for a discount. We could pressure both employers and OC Transpo to enter into such negotiations. It makes sense. Even if the bus pass costs more than parking, so what? It's worth it for the benefit the employer is providing to the employees; the reduced greenhouse gas emissions; and the goodwill the employer would get. Most people would recognize the employer's action as being a very positive, "green" action.
How about providing free bus passes for the entire family of the employee? For example, at my work we get free medical benefits (well, not exactly free) and dental plan for the whole family. Anyway, one step at a time: the first thing is to get free bus passes for the employee.
Are employers afraid employees will be late too often if they come by bus? Never mind that. Think positive. Green planet. People can relate to that.
Cathy Woodgold
In a recent referendum, Carleton undergraduate students voted to pay $140 in extra student fees in exchange for a bus pass good for the school year. This will result in savings of $234/year for students who currently buy a pass each month.
Mike Buckthought an AFO member
by Hermann Knoflacher, Professor Traffic Planning Institute Technical University of Vienna, Austria.
1. Traffic problems: a worldwide misunderstanding: For decades traffic engineers and politicians have been dealing with the problems of traffic flow, particularly since the sharp increase in motorization in various countries. They believe that traffic problems are problems of capacity and traffic flow. Problems on the road are nothing but the symptoms of traffic problems, however. If we want to identify the real cause of traffic problems in motorized countries, we have to look at the origin: the origin of every car trip is always the parking space. We therefore should question whether the way we regulate parking in our cities and countries might be the basic cause of all traffic problems. If we find the cause, we can also solve other traffic problems.
2. Our problem has two causes. The first cause is man and his behaviour, which the author discovered and described 16 years ago. Human behaviour is related to maximum comfort, which means a minimum of body energy and a maximum of positive stimulation. Weber-Fechner's law describing the relationship between stimulation and sensation explains the secret of traffic problems. Sensation is energy consumption by the body. Stimulation is the organized environment, for example the parking problem. As long as parking is unorganized and people can put their cars where they want, they will park close to their flats, places of employment and shopping centres. Under those circumstances, the car user is unwilling to accept a change to public transport. Society consequently loses public space to parked cars, and loses a large amount of ground which could be used for housing, recreation, trade and so on. The solution to the problem is to sweep the ground free of parked cars and concentrate them instead in car parks. Man always chooses the mode of travel which gives him optimum body-energy savings and maximum positive stimulation. The second causal factor is the discrepancy between true costs and actual costs. We do not pay the right price for parking. Anyone who wants to buy or rent 20 m2 (square metres) of public space anywhere in a city will have to invest a certain amount of money. Car owners have escaped the dictates of the market economy. In our city centres, the monthly rate for renting about 20 m2 of ground is about 5,000 to 6,000 Austrian shillings. The car owner, on the other hand, pays nothing. Unorganized parking is the most expensive solution. To save public and private moneys, we have to organize the traffic system efficiently. This means building car parks and introducing the principles of the market economy. Doing so will remove the problem of public budget deficits, especially at community level. How to solve the problem? The solution lies in the priorities which most political parties in all advanced countries have set. Nearly all of them have declared public transport a priority. But this is not enough. Taking into account real human behaviour, if public transport and travel by car are to have an equal chance, then the walking distance between where all of man's activities take place and his parked car has to equal the walking distance between his activities and a public transport stop. This means that the solution to all traffic problems lies in re-organizing our system in such a way that cars must be parked in collective car parks equidistant to public transport facilities. This should be done not only in cities but also in villages. Under these circumstances, man has a real choice between the car and public transport. Since the car parks have to operate in the market economy, they will be the cheaper alternative. For the price of about 1500 to 2000 shillings per month, a commercial garage can store a car while making a profit for the operator as well as for society in general. Under these circumstances, many more people start and perhaps end their journeys at the same place because the beginning and end of a trip are always a car park. So the occupancy rate will increase, public transport will be improved and everybody can keep their cars under supervised conditions. Broad powers to re-organize our traffic system at the source and a wider scope for car park operators are therefore necessary to control traffic problems, and not the infinite construction of motorways. None of the world's traffic engineers trying to solve traffic problems on the road seem to understand the mechanism of the traffic system.
Effects on society and the environment: This way of organizing the traffic system has tremendous effects on society and the environment. Public space lost to cars today can be returned to the people. Public space will once again become a place for communication, recreation and living; it will become safe, quiet and multifunctional. The existing social isolation will disappear and there will be enough space for pedestrians, cyclists, trade and communication. Besides other positive effects, a well organized parking structure will have tremendous positive effects on the environment. Studies in Vienna have shown that the emissions measured at a parking space in a garage are only about 10% of the emissions caused by an unorganized parking structure. On-street parking creates a lot of traffic because people drive around searching for a free parking space in an unorganized system.
Conclusion
A proper system analysis of the traffic situation shows that it is necessary to look at the causes and not the effects of problems. It has proved impossible to find the causes of traffic flow problems within the past four decades. Engineers have tried to find them in the moving traffic, but most traffic problems are caused by the improper organization of parking. If we organize parking space in the right way, we can also solve traffic problems on the roads. But the question remains: what is the right way to organize parking? Studies into human behaviour show that the energy consumption of the human body is the key factor influencing human behaviour. The solution to the problem is parking in car parks instead of unorganized parking on the street. On top of that, parking in car parks is also the cheapest solution for society as well as for the individual motorist. An analysis of the environmental and social effects shows that these measures have a major positive impact on society and the environment. People become less isolated, multifunctional structures are supported and emissions are minimized compared to the situation today. Since parked cars are quiet and not visible as moving objects, they have been overlooked by all the disciplines in the past five decades.
Literature: KNOFLACHER, H.: On the Harmony of the City and Traffic. Cultural Studies. Library of Cultural History, special issue 16, Bhlau Verlag, Vienna - Cologne - Weimar, 1993. KNOFLACHER, H.: Human energy expenditure in different modes: Implications for town planning, international symposium on surface transportation system performances; US Department of Transportation, October 1981.
According Wayne Roberts and Susan Brandum, the emerging fourth-wave economy pushing up against the corporate and government old guard is starting to put the global economy in its place.
"After a decade of big chills", say Roberts and Brandum, "the counter-culture spawned the rock climbers of the fourth wave, who defied the laws of economic gravity by finding toeholds in tiny niches and defining the critical features of the fourth wave--- diversity, interdependence, co-evolution and balance in healthy ecosystems and markets alike."
Here is an excerpt from "Get A Life!" on mass transit: "True Grid Mass transit can't compete with the car for the simple reason that cars have changed the rules of the road. Traffic patterns bear as much resemblance to cow paths as they do to the grid lines laid out for subways, streetcars and buses. In a city where trips are best simulated by pouring spaghetti on a map, public transit is stuck in the rut of fixed routes to a few destinations, apparently based on the theory of build it far away and they will come. To be successful, alternative transit systems must accommodate four realities:
1. A motorized transit system inevitably favors the car, which goes directly where the driver wants to go, when the driver wants to go. "Follow that car" works for cabs, not public transit. Land use reform which brings essential services to consumers, so they can walk or bike, is more effective than mass transit locked into sprawling city forms dictated by planners who zone for single use. Main streets, corner variety stores, bike paths and walking trails are the main vehicles of a public transit system because they are an alternative to a motorized access system. Often, this will mean increasing density of housing arrangement [...] so that we can increase street traffic while decreasing the space taken up by roads. This will free up a third of the space in most cities, and give it over to other public uses such as recreation, which again reduces the need to drive elsewhere for entertainment.
2. Public transit cannot function effectively as long as the car infrastructure of roads and parking continues to be subsidized. When car travel is artificially under-priced, home buyers and businesses move farther afield to where land is cheap, unravelling the density needed for main streets and public transit. That's why public transit has to be subsidized whenever cars are subsidized. Chasing the city form created by car infrastructure always leaves public transit one step behind the car. By contrast, cars are left behind in city environments built for walkers, strollers, people- watchers, bikers, bladers and transit riders.
3. Public transit has to offer a competing experience to the car. We've put the car on easy street. Cars get the parkways, transit riders get a subway. Cars go express. Buses do milk runs. Cars provide private space. Public transit invades private space. Driving is safer than walking or biking. Drivers have air conditioning. Bikers breathe in their pollution, and bake on un- treed blacktop. Any need to wonder why drivers won't give up their cars? [...]
4. To deal with the reality of free wheeling traffic patterns, public transit has to be de-massed and de-railed, freed from the grid mentality. Big buses haven't been able to accomplish this. They have to carry too many passengers to allow them to take advantage of their flexibility and go down side streets to pick up or drop off passengers. Though buses can theoretically go anywhere, they may as well be rail cars for all the convenience they offer customers. [...]" "Get A Life!" is the ultimate how-to book for people looking to succeed financially in exciting jobs that make a difference. Wayne Roberts and Susan Brandum criss-crossed the continent to find hundreds of leading edge self-employment and guerilla projects that pay off for workers, neighbours and the planet.
To get "Get A Life!" - the
in-your-face "bible of the
90s"- send $24 (shipping and
handling included) to: Get A
Life! Publishers 2255B Queen
Street East, Suite 127
Toronto, ON M4E 1G3 Canada
416-699-6070 Fax:
416-699-4221 e-mail:
ertin@io.org or 4045 Meadow
Gateway Broadview Heights,
Ohio 44147 USA or check out
the Get A Life! home page at:
http:\\www.developers.com\aura
\getalife
The video showing we had through OPIRG drew out 12 people. At least 6 of these were our own people but I think it was passable. Next time I think we should go around the table and have everyone introduce themselves and perhaps have them say something about why they are interested the topic. As well as telling us who the strangers were,it might have served as a way to draw them into the discussion. We could also have distributed AFO pamphlets. Thanks to Carol and unknown others at OPIRG for their work.
Many recommendations but only 2 of interest to AFO.
Use of "Pack Persons" to assist getting from store to car in lots > provide "service"
Make bicyclist and pedestrians feel comfortable and at home.
A number of disturbing facts about the negative impacts of cars were printed up on brightly colored recycled paper. Inspite of the february weather several AFO members put up several sets of these posters on streets around the car show. Thanks to all volunteers for this effort.
Our "Cars Kill" campaign worked well. This banner was held in front of the Congress Centre for over an hour on the saturday with no hassles from either police or show organizers. This location was probably better than the original plan to put the sign up on the Laurier bridge. Being right outside the Congress Centre allowed AFO members to talk to pedestrians about the campaign.
AFO had a show on March 26 at 9:30 in the morning on 93.1 FM. A tape of the show is available and a more complete report will appear in the next Newsletter.
Some AFO members, notably Richard Briggs, have helped set-up and maintain a presence at information tables. The ones I know of where at Gloucester High School Benefit (April 26) Great Glebe Garage Sale (May 25) and the Annual Peace March (June 1). We have found that the Car Facts Posters used for the Car Show protest are very effective at attracting attention. From these events many pamphlets and Newsletters have been passed out. Several teachers from all different types of schools have taken sets of the car facts for classroom use.
Friends of the Market kicked off the summer season with another trial run of its Porter Service. Using two bicycle trailers, compliments of Chris Bradshaw, our volunteers made 4 deliveries over the duration of the service from 12-4 PM. That's an average of one delivery per hour which is the same rate as last years demonstration where we made seven deliveries over seven hours. We had hope for a better results, but it is apparent to us that this isn't likely to happen until the porter service has a continuous and predictable presence in By Ward market. People need to know that we are going to be there on a regular basis so that they can plan to use the service.
We feel that the best way to accomplish this is by setting up the delivery service as a small business to bring in income for a couple of people, possibly students. This is the goal we now want to work towards.
One idea is to get the Rideau Street Youth Initiative involved, but this would take some seed money to get going, so we are looking for funding sources. Any ideas or suggestions are more than welcome.
During our stint in the market many people indicated that they were supportive of the idea. In particular we had the full support of one happy customer, who is an owner of a business in the market area (see photo). Eugene Haslan, the owner of Zaphod's and Barrymore's, told us he thought the Porter Service was a great idea and suggested we mention his name in any discussions we might have with Jackie Holzman (Mayor or Ottawa). We delivered two trailer loads of bedding plants for Eugene and his friend.
If you wish to help out with Friends of the Market, or have nay idea how to proceed, please cal Carolyn at 241- 8176. Thanks to all who helped out.
South West Green Party news..... from area press officer Martin Hughes-Jones 01884-821164 4th April 1996
Car ozone pollution - so high.... so early!!! At the start of the long Easter weekend and as the nation jumps in a car to drive somewhere, the outlook for car induced ozone pollution looks poor. Already levels are approaching or exceeding World Health Organisation (WHO) 8 hr thresholds and high levels of sunlight and still air mean there will be much worse to come. Levels today so far (DoE Freefone infoline 0800 556677) at Devon's YarnerWood monitoring station on the edge of Dartmoor are: 12am 42ppb, 1pm 42ppb, 2pm 43 ppb, 3pm 45 ppb. Yarner Wood is the only monitoring station west of Bristol. Other areas are also suffering at 3pm Nottingham was 71 ppb, EAnglia 54 ppb and E Sussex 57 ppb. This follows a week of levels tottering around the 50ppb WHO threshold. High ozone pollution levels exacerbate asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory problems. Levels generally peak in the early afternoon and pollution does not generally start to become a problem until June or July. PPC for Tiverton and Honiton Emily McIvor said: "To see the ozone pollution levels reach such high values, so early in the season and despite the steady breeze underlines the seriousness of the situation. The Easter holiday has only just started and with the current weather pattern the prospects are not good. We have got into this mess because of the cowardice of the government in failing to address the real costs of our excessive dependency on cars. We have seen the massed and vested interests of the roads lobby turn the "freedom to drive" into a "right to pollute" We are looking at a situation which is so serious that we may have to, like Germany and Greece, ban cars and reduce vehicle speeds during pollution episodes." Notes. The WHO states the 1 hour maximum as 76-100 parts per billion (ppb), and the 8 hr max. as 50ppb. The elevated levels of summer ozone pollution episodes are caused by volatile organic compounds (VOC's) and nitrogen oxides the bulk of it from cars. Exhausts from motor vehicles react with strong summer sunlight and produce ozone pollution. The Government's Environment Committee and Department of the Environment's own Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards(1994) have both backed the 50 parts per billion target.
Excerpted from a letter to the editor from the Instututo Mexicano del Petroleo in Science Vol. Feb 23 1996 on Air Quality in Mexico City. This letter is about the constituents that make up Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and specifically relates individual compounds to fossil fuel powered vehicles as opposed to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) used primarily for cooking or natural sources such as trees or volcanoes. These compounds directly contribute to smog in general and ground level ozone which is strongly implicated as the causative agent for many respitory problems.
In Mexico city ... in March 1995, propane and butane have been the most abundant compounds constituting up to 30% of the VOC in these samples. These results made us aware of the impact that LPG has on the formation of ozone (propane and butane are major components of cooking gases)... The third most abundant compound found in our sample was toluene. We also found substantial amounts of ethylene, acetylene, isopentanes-compounds mainly associated with solvent use and vehicular emissions... Other major hydrocarbon components of the atmospheric mixture could be correlated with the emissions of the approximately 3 million vehicles in the metropolitan area. In fact, the large amounts of ethylene and acetylene were used as fingerprints of car emissions....
Chemical and Engineering News (American Chemical Society March 18 1996) Ozone levels hit record lows over Northern Hemisphere
Extremely low stratospheric ozone levels have been observed this winter over northern subpolar regions ranging from Greenland to Scandinavia to Western Siberia, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Ozone levels even sank an unprecedented 45% below the long-term mean for a few days, says Rumen D. Bojkov, special advisor to WMO's secretary general. WMO's Global Ozone Observing System collects data from ground-based and satellite observations of ozone. Bojkov notes that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere's stratosphere have been cold enough during the past few weeks to allow formation of polar stratospheric clouds, the culprits behind the Antarctic ozone hole. However, Bojkov points out the severe depletion in the Arctic has been lasting weeks, not the months it persists in the Antarctic.
May 13 1996
Small Air Particulates Blamed for Thousands of Premature Deaths The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) claims that about 64,000 people die prematurely each year in the U.S. because of illness complicated by small airborne particulate matter. An NRDC report entitled "Breath- Taking: Premature Mortality Due to Particulate Air Pollution in 239 American Cities," is based on two scientific studies on the relationship between particulates and health, and on data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on air pollution in metropolitan areas. The report says that, although concentrations of some air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and ozone are decreasing, the problem posed by fine air particles has not been alleviated. EPA currently regulates particulates larger than 10 æm but NRDC says that even smaller particles, down to 2.5 æm, are responsible for health problems. The sources of these particles include old coal-burning power plants, industrial boilers and motor vehicles. Commenting on the NRDC report, EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner agreed that "a growing body of evidence now suggests that particulate matter poses a serious threat to public health in many American cities and may contribute to premature death from lung and heart disease."
Nature Vol. 380 March 7 1996 Note PM10 stands for Particulate Matter 10 æm and less ... but EPA missed its 1992 deadline for revising the standard (on PM10's). That prompted a lawsuit by the American Lung Association, as well as a court order compelling the agency to decide by November this year whether to stay with the current PM10 standard, or to propose a new one, to take effect in June 1997. The court order is now driving the entire debate on particulates - at much too fast a pace, according to most experts.
Nature Vol 379 February 29 1996
France votes for the Green car Paris. Edith Cresson, the European Union's research commissioner who has championed the development of the electric car as a research priority, will be cheered by a new survey of attitudes to science among the French public. This shows that a non-polluting car ranks highest in their wish-list of new technologies, achieving two-thirds of either first or second choices.
Nature Vol 379 February 8 1996 Clair C. Patterson (1922- 95)
Clair C. Patterson died suddenly at his home early in the morning on 5 December 1995. His main contributions to science were the discovery of the age of the Earth and his pioneering studies of global lead contamination. That research, which won him the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement catalyzed an unprecedented worldwide policy shift banning lead in gasoline and manufactured products....
His meticulous documentation of lead contamination was initially controversial. Malicious attacks were directed at him by many people because his analyses invalidated their data or their ideas and revealed the enormous societal costs of environmental lead contamination. However, all of Patterson's research has now been corroborated. His methods have revolutionized environmental and medical research. Where clean techniques reveal structure in the biogeochemical cycles of other trace elements, at environmental concentrations often orders of magnitude lower than earlier experiments could have detected....
Increased hospital admissions for respiratory illnesses such as asthma, heart and immune system diseases, especially among the very young and elderly. Costs (in Canada) estimated at about $1 billion a year. (Ottawa Citizen June 5 1996)
Every year our nation's experimenters kill 100 million lab animals, hunters kill 200 million "game" animals, and motorists kill nearly 400 million road animals. Only America's meat-eaters take a larger toll than its motorists....
Roadkill. Truck drivers want to prevent it. Car drivers wail and lament it. Still, hit-and-run drivers flee the scene of the crime. The very word implies that the road is the lone assailant. We could never call it carkill-because the cars are ours....
Woodland caribou survive as a single herd of 50 diehards in northern Idaho and southern British Columbia. The U.S. Forest Service blames roadkills, not habitat loss, as the greatest threat to their survival...
With dwindling and damaged habitat, animals are losing ground in humanity's broader war against wildlife. In time, the rate of roadkill will decline - not from lack of cars or roads, but from lack of wildlife.
Paris - The Eiffel Tower has shut its doors to tourists, leaving 15,000 visitors a day stranded beneath its metal buttresses. The tower is closed because 100 of its 180 workers have decided to go on indefinite strike now that they can no longer park their cars underneath it.
Interesting Excerpts from a
city of Ottawa By-law
Reserved Bicycle Lanes 43A
Schedule XVIIIA
(a) drive or permit to be driven any vehicle, other than a bicycle on any lane or part of lane established as a Reserved Bicycle Lane under...
Notes - Taxis and disabled person are allowed to stop for passengers
-turning is supposed to be as minimal as possible
-no parking
$8.3 million for parking
tickets in City of Ottawa in
1995 as reported by a local
councillor.
There couldn't be a more clear cut case for getting tough on bad driving than a road tragedy...A 12-year old boy dies at the scene, his mother a day later, two other children and the father are badly injured. The driver of the other car is revealed to have been driving with his licence suspended...
Take British Columbia's crackdown on drinking and driving in 1977. Police stopped and checked the equivalent of 30% of all registered vehicles in the province. Result an 18% reduction in alcohol related traffic fatalities, but a 19% increase in the overall number of traffic deaths, alcohol related or not. This is what Gerald Wilde, psychology professor at Queen's University would expect. Wilde's theory of homeostasis to oversimplify it states that people alter behaviour to keep risk constant in their lives...
Wilde has a whole book full of other real-life examples of how we all set a risk target and adjust our behaviour accordingly. Adding anti-lock brakes to a car for example, doesn't reduce accidents. Aware of their greater braking ability, drivers follow more closely and drive faster on slick streets. This deliberate increase in recklessness keeps the risk of getting into an accident constant, using the extra safety margin...
...In the Pacific Northwest area that was studied nearly 2,000 people and 168,000 were injured in car accidents in 1993, said the report by Northwest Environmental Watch, a Seattle-based non-profit research group...
"Suburbs being safer is one of the myths that people aren't aware of," said study author Alan Durning. "It is made worse by people's misperception about their risk due to violent crime which is highly exaggerated in North America. "Tragically, people often flee cities they perceive as crime-ridden for the perceived safety of suburbs, only to increase the risks they expose themselves to,"... But the daily crawl to and from work, 17 kilometres per hour is an unrecognized killer the study says. Crime risks are significantly higher for city-core residents, but because they drive less their total crime-and-car risk is significantly lower than that faced by suburbanites. The report was published this week in simplified form as a book titled The Car and The City.
Metro Council has approved a one-time payment of $107,500 to more than 100 bureaucrats hit by Revenue Canada assessments for free parking and the use of Metro vehicles. Recipients include 25 senior bureaucrats and department heads, who were paid about $5,000 of the $107,500 as reimbursement for interest payments on late taxes levied by Revenue Canada for their underground executive parking spaces at Metro Hall. ... An official with Revenue Canada said the one-time payment would itself be considered a taxable benefit. ... Last year Revenue Canada conducted an audit back to 1993 and reassessed staff usage of reserved parking spaces at Metro Hall and Metro-owned vehicles as taxable benefits worth about $150 a month. Metro politicians were spared the assessment.
This report is filled with well referenced facts on Transportation and the Environment. Although it is primarily about the United Kingdom (UK) much of it also applies anywhere. Some small portions are reproduced below and more will appear in the next few AFZ issues. Included are some details on PM10's and ground level ozone mentioned in the news section above.
The construction industry has often advocated a large programme of road building or, more recently, an early start to major rail projects, as a way of providing additional employment
Airborne Pollutants from Road Transport, by Class of Vehicle (1990)
percentage of total road emissions
Cars Light Goods Heavy Goods Public Service Motor-
Vehicles Vehicles Vehicles Cycles
========================================================================
Carbon 88 7 3 1 1
Monoxide
Nitrogen 72 7 19 3 -
Oxides
Volatile Organic 84 7 6 1 2
Compounds
Particulates 6 7 77 10 -
Sulphur 37 9 47 6 -
Dioxide
========================================================================
and boosting the economy.
While investment for such
purposes leads to an increase
in overall economic activity
if it utilises resources which
would not otherwise have been
used, a comparison also has to
be made with alternative forms
of capital investment. It has
been argued for example that
road building is less cost-
effective in creating
employment than investment in
the upgrading of railway lines
or in housing (Bray, J. 1992
The rush for roads: a road
programme for economic
recovery? A report by Movement
Transport Consultancy for
ALARM UK and Transport 2000.
It has also been an assumption of both UK and European Community transport policy that further investment in transport infrastructure will stimulate the growth of other sectors of th economy by facilitating the movement of goods between areas with different comparative advantages. In the Treasury's (finance department) view it is not possible to generalise about the importance of transport infrastructure as a factor in bringing about economic growth in depressed or deprived regions. We consider that it would be desirable to carry out further research on th subject. A recent study concluded that road building is not key to economic growth in the regions (Hart, T. 1993 Transport investment and disadvantaged regions: UK and European policies since the 1950's. Urban Studies, 30, No. 2, March 1993, 417-436). It is clear that the existence of a network of uncongested motorways in an area such as Merseyside (a very depressed region in the UK) has not been sufficient to overcome the influence of other factors which inhibit economic growth. Indeed, it seems that good roads can sometimes speed the decline of less prosperous areas by allowing their needs to be met conveniently from sources outside the area.
Although only limited statistics are available, it is clear that increased use of cars, especially for short journeys has greatly reduced the distances many people walk or cycle. This is of considerable concern in a health context. Physical activity contributes to the prevention and management of weight problems and obesity and protects against coronary heart disease. Present levels of fitness are very low. About one-third of men aged 55-64, almost two-fifths of women aged 45-54 and over half of women aged 55-64 are not fit enough to walk on level ground at 3 mph.
Strong sunlight promotes the formation of ozone. High ozone concentrations may give rise to `photochemical smog'. In the UK, ozone concentrations are highest between April and September. In areas where there is heavy traffic, nitric oxide (NO) emitted by vehicles removes ozone from the air almost as rapidly as it is formed. In consequence, although the precursors of ozone [nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and VOC's] come to a large extent from urban areas, the highest ozone concentrations are usually found in rural or surburban areas, in an air mass which has drifted away from an urban area.
The particulates in exhaust gases consist mainly of carbon and unburnt or partially burnt organic compounds from the fuel or lubricating oil. In addition, secondary particulates may be formed in the atmosphere; these include nitrates and sulphates formed from nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2). The atmosphere also contains particulate matter from power stations or industrial processes and dust from a variety of natural and other sources. Small particles of solid or liquid form aerosols. Individual particles vary considerably in size and are variously categorised: PM10 is a term applied to particles with a diameter of less than 10 æm, inhalable particles are those which are small enough to breathe in, thoracic particles those which penetrate beyond the larynx, and respirable particles (a term frequently applied to particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 æm) are small enough to penetrate to the deep lung and remain there. Concentrations of particulates in air are estimated in various ways: by calibrating the darkness of a white filter after the air has been drawn through it (to measure black smoke), by assessing the total mass of particulates (gravimetric method i.e actually weighing) or by controlling the size of particulates collected (to measure PM10 i.e. use precision sized filters).
City staff have put forward a proposal that involves closing Ottawa South and Glebe Community centre, and using the saved money to build a big complex at Brewer Park. This area already has extensive facilities.
Auto-Free Ottawa opposes this plan, which will remove accessibility by walking and lead to increased traffic. The plan is unfair to those who choose not to or are unable to drive. Community Centres are important for the spirit and vitality of communities. That spirit will not be maintained by car owners driving to distant expensive facilities.
Make your views known! Contact your city councillors, or call Cathy Woodgold (231- 4311) to find out what you can do.
Glad to find Auto Free Ottawa and Pedestrian Net. I've almost taken to videotaping drivers who cut in front of me, block my way, splash me, or otherwise use their big metal single person movers to make my walks and bike rides anger-filled. We should have a public list of offender's license plate numbers and descriptions of specific incidents just for the embarrassment value.
CARS ARE RUINING MY LIFE AND OUR BIOSPHERE!
Sign me up, and ....................................................................... ............send a complimentary copy to: ___ $20.00 individual or family ___ $10.00 un/underwaged ___ $50.00 corporate/institutional ___ donation (sorry, we don't issue tax receipts) _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Name Name _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Address Address Tel: (h)___________________(w)______________________ (e-mail) __________________ AUTO-FREE OTTAWA, Box 57006, 797 Somerset St. W., Ottawa River Bioregion, Ontario K1R 1A1 (613) 237-1549