January-March 1994 Volume 2 No. 2
THE INFRASTRUCTURE LOBBY
Simon Fairlie, The Ecologist
One promising way out of recession is to reach a larger
market by developing new transport systems.
Those at the helm of development have long known this;
often they have been as ruthless in eliminating the old
transport system as they have been eager to introduce the
new. No sooner had the British canal system been
completed at great expense, that it was judged to be
obsolete by the architects of economic growth. New
railway companies, flush with enterprising investors'
money, went around buying up canals to run them
down; within a few decades the canal system was
moribund and Britain was covered in a network of
railways.
A century later, it was the turn of the railways. In 1936
Standard Oil, General Motors and Firestone formed a
company to buy up train companies in the US and close
them down. By 1956, over a hundred electric surface rail
systems in 45 cities had been acquired and shut down. In
Britain, much the same thing happened, except that it
was perpetrated by the state. The government bought up
the reailways after the second world war, tore up 46% of
the track and ran down the rest. It now plans to sell the
remains back to the private sector, which is expected to
close down still more of the network.
In the vanguard of the movement to destroy the railways
have been those who stand to benefit most by their
replacement: petrol companies, motor manufacturers,
road construction companies, though these interests have
received ample support from large corporations not
directly connected with the road industry. [...]
What unites all these interests is the prospect of
economic growth. The world's first motorways were
built by the Third Reich to bring Germany out of the
depths of recession. [..] America embarked on its own
"freeway" system¾"What is good for General Motors is
good for the country" argued a representative of the
company in 1952. By 1954, the Germans were so worried
about being left behind that the road lobby group,
Transportation Forum, warned that "our traffic network
is, compared to the American, catastrophically
obsolete...The level of motorization in Germany is
strongly linked with the expansion of our economy." [..]
In Britain today, the Department of Tranport's first
objective for road-building is "to assist economic growth
by reducing transport costs", an axiom written into the
evidence that it presents at the public inquiry for every
single road-scheme.
Modal Integration
That the road lobby is strong, if not stronger, than it was
70 years ago, can be seen by the extensive road
programmes being put forward to jerk the economy into
life in almost every country in the North, not to mention
in the straggling Third World.
But lately the rhetoric has changed. The lobbyists and
planners are not now looking specifically towards roads
as a stimulus for growth, but to something they call
"infrastructure". By this they mean a co-ordinated
distribution system using several different technologies:
"a single network, linked by markets, technology, and
organization, which produces a single output: mobility
for the citizen and the economy.
There is a place for everything in this single network.
Railways are now back in favour¾provided they are
either "high-speed" trains, or part of a "multi-modal"
road/rail freight networks. Computer technology is
welcomed, particularly as a means of assuring "intra-
modal integration", though it is subsidiary to the whole,
and not viewed as a means of diminishing the need for
more transport. [...] (cont'd page 3)
ARE PLANNING DEPARTMENTS USEFUL?
Excerpt from Jane Jacob's address to the Better Transportation Coalition's Founding
Meeting on April 3, 1993 in Toronto
Our official planning departments seem to be brain-dead, in the sense that we cannot
depend on them in any way, shape or form for providing intellectual leadership in
addressing urgent problems involving the physical future of the city.
When others do take that intellectual and technical leadership, can we depend, then,
on our planning departments to use their presumed expertise to further constructive
programs, cut red tape serving no purposes other than obstruction, clear away
practices that have now become obsolete, and in sum get things moving? Can they
even arrange demonstration examples of new initiatives? Alas, no. For whatever
reason, to entrust a new, forward-looking program to any one of our planning
departments for demonstration or implementation is merely to consign it to
ineffectuality and limbo.
What use are these elaborate and expensive bureaucracies, then, with their expensive
and well-credentialed professionals?
We must conclude, I think, that they are irrelevant and overblown relics from a past
long gone now. Their main relevance to the body politic today is that they soak up tax
money without pulling their weight, and indirectly soak up university funding to
train people for little or no productive purposes in society.
We citizens have to face the fact that unless intellectually-lively non-planners who
love this city and this province (and are people-aware and environment-aware) don't
make enormous efforts, nobody is going to make them. Nor is anybody going to see
improvements put into practice and made into reality unless concerned groups like
you, the Better Transportation Coalition, push and push and push. God bless you.
Toronto can't do without you. (ORBnet, The Newsletter of the Oak Ridges Bioregion
Network, 94 Croft St., Toronto, ON M5S 2N9)
LETTER FROM AUSTIN, TEXAS
Dear Auto-Free Ottawa,
Yes!! I didn't know there were other people who felt the way i do about
cars...nor did i think there was any hope. Well, from where i am sitting, it doesn't
look like there is any hope. Even as i write this, the most ugly, gross thing is
happening in Austin¾they are building one of those ghastly elevated highways to
connect two other highways, and they have devastated miles of trees, stores, etc. It
looks like a war zone. And they have gutted and concreted-in a lovely little stream to
"control runoff" since now the rain will have no place to go, since everything
everywhere will be covered with concrete. This is the "widening" Ben White
Boulevard project. Good God, the road is already six lanes wide¾too wide to cross as
a pedestrian and expect to get across in one piece. My husband grew up in Austin and
he tells me, less than 40 years ago Ben White was a dirt road!! At a time when we
ought to be getting rid of roads instead of adding more, every time i have to look at
this travesty i feel sick to my stomach. i didn't know that there are people actively
fight this sort of thing...(well, i knew that Europe was more ahead of us).
As a visually impaired person unable to drive for the past seven years, i have become
acutely aware of how there is no provision to travel here besides the car. i am looked
upon by mainstream society as having no value whatsoever as a human being because
i cannot drive! It is practically looked upon as acrime, or a peculiar deformity. When
i lived in England, Vermont and Virginia, walking was often a viable alternative. Not
here. If the reckless drivers don't get you, the fumes will. Being unable to drive, i think
this has made me more acutely aware of how car-dominated we are, being given NO
VIABLE alternative. For months, i've been remarking how ridiculous it is that people
think they own cars, for certainly if one stops and thinks about it, it's the other way
around!!
At any rate, sign me up for a membership/subscription! I simply cannot put your
publication down, i am devouring it like a starved alien.
To a green and carless future!
Bright blessings,
Seajay Crosson
TRACKS VS. TRUCKS
How ironic, or should that be idiotic, that as the impoverished provinces lament the
state of the Trans-Canada Highway and its heavy (and dangerous) truck traffic, the
railways are ripping up track all across Canada. Am I missing something here?
(Letter from Oliver Watts, Paris, Ontario to the Globe and Mail, 8 Jan 94)
AUTO-FREE ZONE is a review of economic, cultural,
environmental and planning issues relating to our
dependence on cars, published quarterly by Auto-Free
Ottawa, Box 21045, 151A Second Avenue, Ottawa-Rideau
Bioregion, ON K1S 5N1, Canada. Subscription or
membership details on last page.
Auto-Free Ottawa is a grassroots group, whose mandate is to
draw public attention to the full costs of our car-dominated
transportation system, and to point out ecologically
sustainable and socially beneficial alternatives.
Opinions expressed in AFZ do not necessarily reflect those of
Auto-Free Ottawa members. Readers are encouraged to
submit articles, announcements, and graphics. Articles
should be submitted on diskette (WP5 or 5.1) and limited to
1,000 words. Letters to AFZ must be marked "For
publication" (include address and phone number which will
not be published), and are subject to selection and editing.
Articles quoted from other publications are abridged to save
space.
Reproduction of editorial content is welcome provided that
credit is given to the author and issue of publication. Please
send a copy of reprinted articles to Auto-Free Ottawa for our
files.
Editor:
Lucy Segatti
Many thanks to the following people for contributing
articles or ideas:
John Barton, Ann Coffey, Tom DeMarco, Stephen Johns, Ian
Whyte
AFZ Graphic: Cathy Woodgold
Other graphics: City of Ottawa ad, Earth First! Journal,
Nancy Shaver, New Yorker Magazine
Photographs: Lucy Segatti, Toronto Transit Commission
Advertising: For information on advertising rates, please
contact Auto-Free Ottawa at the address above or at (613)
234-0923.
AFZ is printed on unbleached, 100% post-consumer recycled
paper.
Deadline for next issue: Spring equinox 1994 (March 20).
ISSN 1195-1958
AUTO-FREE OTTAWA ACTIVITIES
UPDATE
Since the last issue of auto-free zone, AFO made a
presentation to Ottawa City Council on the 1994
budget, continued working on the open-house next
spring on a long-term proposal for an auto-free By
Ward Market by approaching local merchants,
property owners, city councillors, as well as
collecting signatures on our petition. We also
sent a letter to Art Eggleton, Minister of
Infrastructure suggesting that alternatives to
conventional infrastructure be funded.
NEXT ISSUE:
Retrofitting the Suburbs
10-year Proposal for an Auto-Free
By Ward Market
Chris Bradshaw's Walkability Index
(cont'd from page 1)
Governments agree about the need for infrastructure.
President Clinton has promised "to spend $80 billion on
renovating the country's roads, creating a new high-
speed rail network linking America's main cities and
developing new technologies to expand the capacity of
the existing infrastructure". The European Commission
has pledged itself to "the establishment and development
of trans-European networks, in particular in the sectors
of transport, telecommunications and energy
infrastructure."
The emphasis on infrastructure should not, however, be
taken to mean a shift from road transport to rail or
water. The forecast is for a doubling of most forms of
transport, including road transport. Since at present, in
the European Community nearly five times as much
freight is carried by road as by rail, and about 12 times as
much passenger traffic, the bulk of the new infrastructure
is going to be roads. "Intra-modal integration" merely
means that the different forms of transport will act more
efficiently as tributaries and distributaries for each
other¾business as usual, but more efficient.
A BRIDGE TOO FAR
This infrastructure is not confined to the industrialized
world, but is extending its web around the globe. Nearly
all governments, to meet the demands imposed upon
them by the international economy, are pumping
borrowed money into infrastructure schemes, centres for
the most part on roads. Amazonia, served by the most
extensive natural water transport network in the world,
is being rapidly criss-crossed with roads, and the Congo
basin is following suit. The Pan-American highway,
from Patagonia to Alaska, is missing only fifty
kilometres across the Darien Gap in Colombia. Plans
have been mooted to link Alaska to Siberia with a road
bridge across the Bering Straits. When these schemes are
completed, motorists will be able to drive all the way
from Buenos Aires to Cape Town, via New York and
Moscow. The greater part of the world's landmass will
become, in effect, one continent.
No island is safe from this encroaching infrastructure; no
community or culture, however well shielded by
geographical barriers or national borders, will be left
untouched in the drive to prise open the remaining
markets.
SERVING THE SERVICE ECONOMY
For those in the Third World, this will mean further
enclosure: more colonization, more displacement of
people, more disruption of local economies, more
sacking of the environment. Nevertheless, for many in
the poorer countries, there is at least a prospect,
however, illusory that may prove, of attaining a higher
standard of living. The roads will bring the consumer
goods associated with a Western lifestyle.
For many in the wealthy North there is no such incentive,
since there is alrady a glut of most of these commodities;
indeed this overproduction plays a major part in the
recession. The conventional solution¾that each country
escape recession by producing goods more efficiently
than its neighbour¾only aggravates the problem.
The improvement of infrastructure is an attempt to cope
with this unsaleability, part of the move from a
manufacturing to a "service" or distribution economy.
Goods will be shunted around with ever greater
frequency and over ever greater distances to maintain the
illusion, expressed in the annual GNP growth rate, that
people's standard of living is still rising. As transport
costs decrease, competing firms will venture further and
further afield selling identical products in each other's
territory, manufacturers will look further abroad to find
the cheapest supplier of component parts, workers will
be called upon to represent their firms at ever-increasing
distances from home. Not only will the trips be longer
but they will be more frequent, and it seems, will last
into the night. [...]
The result for the citizen will be less an increase in the
amount of commodities available, than an increase in
travel and traffic. People will have to travel further to
work, further to shop, further to visit their relatives and
further to find a holiday resort that has so far escaped the
sameness inflicted by global infrastructure. And they
will have to put up with the increased traffic caused by
everyone else travelling further, not to mention the fleets
of 40-tonne Euro-lorries carrying more or less similar
goods in opposite directions across the continent.
This is not what most people want or have been led to
expect from economic growth. As the enormity of the
trans-continental infrastructure project impinges upon
people's localities, many are beginning to question its
logic. Those who start out by objecting to a road scheme
that runs through their own backyard must eventually
consider the implications of siting it in their neighbour's,
or indeed anywhere. As local objectors in a region or
along the length of a trunk road join forces and examine
the effect that a road scheme in one area will have upon
traffic in another, they cannot but become aware of the
phenomenon of traffic creation and of its pointlessness.
Gradually, as the anti-road movement joins hands across
Europe, a new consensus is gaining ground: "No More
Roads!"
The demand strikes to the bone. Road traffic is the main
despoiler of nature and community; it is a principal
cause of global warming and of atmospheric pollution;
and it is the most blatant example of the disparity
between Northern and Southern lifestyles. It is all of
these things, because roads are the basis of
infrastructure, the skeleton around which the whole
shaky facade of economic growth is built. If we in the
North are serious about trimming our consumption to
sustainable levels, and if we want to do it with a
minimum of pain and a maximum of benefits, then there
is one very obvious way to begin: stop building roads.
(The Ecologist, Vol. 23, No. 4, July/Aug 93)
MYTH #2: ROAD WIDENING FOR HIGH-
OCCUPANCY-VEHICLE (HOV) LANES AND NEW
ROAD CONSTRUCTION BOTH HELP TO DIMINISH
TRAFFIC CONGESTION AND THEREFORE ARE
GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT - Mike Vandeman
and Tom DeMarco
It is time to mention that the Emperor is buck naked and
that the appellation "HOV" is merely the latest in a long,
long series of excuses for paving over more land.
Remember when we needed better highways for
"national defense"? Then we needed them so that we
could see "scenery". Then we needed them to access jobs.
Then we needed them because the old roads were "full".
Now we apparently need them to "create jobs". Is there
anything that more asphalt won't cure? Glad you asked!
Yes, there are a number of "minor" inconveniences
associated with roads, quite aside from the fact that they
encourage the use of pollution-belching motor vehicles...
A great deal of air, water and noise pollution is created
during road construction. Large amounts of energy,
farmland and green space are consumed in the process.
[...]
Road widening is ultimately a futile exercise, catering to
demand of its own creation, dealing with manifestations
rather than sources of transportation problems. Does a
fat man lose weight if he loosens his belt? If you have
nasal congestion, does your doctor widen your nose?
New HOV lanes are just more pavement. Their real goal
is not to increase vehicle occupancy, but to act as a Trojan
horse to increase vehicle throughput. The designation
"HOV" is simply the most politically acceptable way to
do that. It is interesting that the Transport Commission
in the San Francisco Bay area justifies HOV lane
construction by claiming that the travel time savings for
HOV occupants is enough to cause a mode shift. Yet
they also say that the travel time savings for HOV and
SOV (single occupant vehicle) occupants isn't enough to
generate new or longer trips! Newman and Kenworthy in
Australia (Cities and Automobile Dependence: An
International Source Book, Gower and Aldershot, 1989)
have clearly demonstrated otherwise.
While the re-designation of existing pavement for HOV
use is quite acceptable, anybody concerned about the
medical, social, environmental or economic cost of
personal motor transportation should stridently oppose
new HOV lanes and new roads. Rather than creating
excuses for more pavement, we'd better begin removing
asphalt, and soon. What was created with heavy
machinery will have to be removed with heavy
machinery, and that best be done before we run out of
oil! (World Without Cars' Imagine, Fall 93)
Transportation activist Mike Vandeman "travels low on
the transportation chain". Actually, Mike advocates
"living low on the transportation chain": living as close as
possible to where you work, or close to a transit link for
commuting; using your feet as much as possible;
shopping locally; buying goods that are transported
shorter distances (as in farmers' markets rather than
supermarkets); using electronics for communication
rather than cars, etc. (Transportopia Bulletin, Spring 92,
6502 106th Ave. NE Kirkland WA 98033, (206) 827-8908)
This temporarty glass-and-steel building has been provided for
your belittlement until time and engineering faults force its
dismantling or ecological values and sanity prevail.
ASPHALT AD NAUSEAM
BEATRIX POTTER GARDEN TO HOUSE CARS
British fans of Beatrix Potter are angered by plans of the
district in South Pembrokeshire to establish a car park in
the country garden where the author created The Tale of
Peter Rabbit. In 1900, Miss Potter, on holiday at No. 2
Croft Terrace, Tenby, Dyfed, got her ideas for Peter,
Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail et al. in its landscape.
Eileen Hodgson, mayor of Tenby, said the disclosure that
the garden was the inspiration for the books has
prompted demands for recreation of the garden pond
and its steps. (Times of London via Globe and Mail, 17 Nov
93)
THE COST OF FREE PARKING - Jeffrey Tumlin and
Patrick Siegman
Free parking is seen as a birthright by most employees.
Approximately 86% of the American workforce
commutes by car, and more than 90% of all commuters
park for free at work. But no parking is "free". Someone
has to pay for all that asphalt. Who does? And how
much does it really cost?
The Association for Commuter Transportation and the
Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle both assume a
$1,000 a year average national value for a parking space.
Other estimates vary widely. In a study of Stanford
University, the estimated full cost of a parking space to
the suburban campus is $1,451 to $3,822 a year,
depending on variables such as whether the space is in a
surface lot or structure, in measurable market costs
alone. Urban parking, of course, could vastly exceed this
cost.
If parking is so expensive, why do most employers
provide it free to their employees? It is usually in the
employer's interest to assist employees in getting to
work, by whatever modes. Reducing workers' stress and
commute times helps productivity.
What makes transportation different from many other de
facto employee benefits, however, is the vast difference
in price. Someone who drinks a lot of bottled water may
cost the company $50 a year. No big deal. But at $1,000
to $3,822 a year parking is a big deal. This figure dwarfs
other employee transportation expenses. Transit
passes¾usually paid for by the commuter-cost only
around $350 to $1,000 a year. A bus shelter costs the
company, or the transit agency, around $3,000 in fixed
one-time costs. Top-of-the-line bike parking runs $100
per bike for racks to $1,000 for lockers, also in fixed, one-
time costs. Good bicycle parking then requires little to
no maintenance for thirty years or so.
If a company were to provide us all with the same annual
"transportation benefit", an extra allowance, say, of
$1,000, few would mind. One worker could pay for his
piece of asphalt to store his car during the day, and
another could get a bike locker and free annual
maintenance at a local bike shop.
A growing number of companies are exploring such
ideas. Whether they call it a "transportation benefit" or a
"commuter travel allowance", these businesses are trying
to treat all their employees fairly no matter whether they
drive alone or take the bus. As a result, these employers
not only meet their air quality and congestion
management goals, but also reduce parking demand for
one-third to one-half the cost of providing more parking.
More importantly, they do so in a way their employees
and customers can feel good about.
Transportation researcher Jim Sims cites the County of
Los Angeles, which in 1990 replaced free parking with
commuter travel allowances for its employees. All
employees now receive a $70 monthly travel allowance in
their paychecks, which they may spend as they wish.
Parking, formerly free, now costs $70 a month. The
result: demand for parking in the County's lost has
dropped by 40%.
Such results seem surprising. However, the financial
incentives have shifted radically. Now, if an L.A. County
employee uses transit or a bicycle to get to work, she gets
an extra $70 a month, or $840 a year. An employee who
drives gives that money up. The effective cost of driving
has gone from $0 to $70¾and this change brings strong
results.
In case studies involving thousands of commuters at a
number of companies, Donald Shoup and Richard
Willson found that raising the effective price of parking
from free to around $30 a month reduced parking
demand by an average of 27%. Parking demand among
federal government employees in Ottawa, for example,
dropped 18% when a $23 monthly charge was instituted.
Demand among workers at Commuter Computer in Los
Angeles dropped 38% with a $58 monthly charge.
Can a company with sprawling, suburban offices really
expect to reduce parking demand? Certainly. Several of
the companies studied by Shoup and Willson have little
or no pulbic transportation. For example, 20th Century
Insurance Co. sits in the L.A. suburbs of the San
Fernando Valley, where everyone drives and bus lines
are meager. There, a $30 change in parking price brought
about a 30% decrease in parking demand. Carpooling
turned out to be the underused option. Other
organizations, notably UCLA, have created their own
transit, with vanpool networks that fan out to areas
where there are clusters of commuters.
As CH2M Hill in Bellevue, Washington found out,
introducing travel allowances can disprove skeptics who
say that it is time and convenience that determine
commute modes. CH2M Hill's own surveys had
indicated that 80% of their employees would drive alone
to the company's new office location. Seven months later,
after a $40 a month travel allowance was introduced,
only 54% did. Why were the surveys wrong? Employees
had declared their preferences when subsidized parking
was the only option given them, and the cost of parking
was hidden. Travel allowances helped educate workers
about their employer's high expenses in providing
parking, and allowed employees the option of taking
cash instead. Given new options and new information,
the employees made new choices.
Travel allowances help employees however they choose
to commute. By adopting them, we replace a subsidy
which works against our common goals with one that
advances them. (Urban Ecologist, Winter 93)
RESIDENTS ORGANIZE TO STOP THE BLACK
DESERTS
If parking were truly free, then we could all sit around
twiddling our thumbs and not worry about the
environment. But parking is not free, and in fact, takes a
mighty large toll on people, neighbourhoods and the
planet. An average space in a two- to three-story
building can cost between $10,000 to $12,000. Expanding
parking without any kind of pricing mechanisms
encourages people to drive, which exacerbates air, noise
and water pollution, and traffic congestion. A parking
lot is also a poor excuse for land use, when locally-
oriented businesses and open space would better serve
neighbourhood residents and the city's tax base.
Brooklyn, New York
In Brooklyn, Park Slope Action for the Environment is
tying the issue of parking to pedestrian-friendly
development and auto-free living. The Methodist
Hospital has applied for a zoning variance to build a
518-car garage. Community residents have been
lobbying against the variance. They argue that the
parking and retail/office structure will have an adverse
traffic impact by quadrupling the number of people
coming to the complex. The land is currently a park and
across the street from a high school. Also, the Hospital is
served well by mass transit, the mode by which many
hospital employees arrive to work.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
The University of New Mexico was planning to expand a
parking garage on campus to 1,000 at a cost of $11
million. The New Mexico Public Interest Research Group
organized students and community support to stop the
garage, collecting 3,000 signatures on a petition. In a 40-
page pamphlet, they proposed alternatives such as re-
stripping parking spaces (for $2 million), shuttle-bus
service from other parking garages on campus, and
improving conditions for cyclists.
As a result, the parking proposal has been dropped, and
the $11 million will be used for other projects on campus.
Washington, DC
The city government plans to build its first municipal
parking garage in the neighbourhood of Adams Morgan
for $12 million on land that currently houses a surface lot
and the neighbourhood's only hardware store.
The Adams Morgan Transportation Options, a grassroots
group of residents and business persons, has been
organizing community support against the garage and at
the same time pushing for environmentally and
economically sound options for the neighbourhood.
Traffic on local streets is a major safety concern and the
metro Washington region is classified as a moderate non-
attainment zone under the federal Clean Air Act.
Residents argue that the parking garage will only bring
more cars to the neighbourhood and not help alleviate
the severe residential parking crunch already felt by
automobile owners. (Transportation Exchange Update,
Nov 93, The Environmental Exchange, 1718 Connecticut
Avenue NW, Ste. 600, Washington, DC 20009)
TURNING ASPHALT INTO BIOMASS
The capital costs of a parking space range from $2,000 to
$5,000 for a surface lot, and on up to $10,000 to $12,000 a
space in a two- or three-story structure. (Debt interest
can add an additional 7 to 10%.) Operations and
maintenance, including sweeping, painting and
resurfacing, is generally figured at 1.5% on the initial
construction cost annually. Land costs vary widely by
location, but can be calculated from the local cost for an
acre of land: a parking spce takes up 340 square feet for
both the space and the aisle. There are about 128 spaces
per acre. Other costs include utilities, security, insurance,
parking enforcement and administration.
If you divert five parking spaces from a project (freeing
$10,000 to $25,000 of capital) and use two spaces to build
a 680 square foot shower/changing room, and one space
for lockers for a dozen bicycles, you still have 680 square
feet to plant trees.
External benefits, or benefits that are not reflected in
market transactions, are more difficult to precisely
measure, but include increased permeable surface area,
reduced surface water runoff and pollution, etc. To the
extent that providing bicycling commuting facilities
decreases motor-vehicle use, the project decreases air
pollution, atmospheric carbon dioxide, dependency on
foreign oil, congestion, noise, vibration, motor vehicle
accidents, road maintenance and land loss to roads. (IBF
News, International Bicycle Fund, 4887 Columbia Drive
South, Seattle, WA 98108-1919 (206) 628-9314)
DIRTY FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE - John Whitelegg
A new report from the respected Environment and
Forecasting Institute in Heidelberg, Germany puts the car
right back at the centre of the transport debate and raises
fundamental questions about a society increasingly
adapting itself to the car.
The German analysts take a medium-sized car and
assume that it is driven for 13,000 km a year for 10 years.
They then compute its financial, environmental and
health impacts "from cradle to grave".
Long before the car has got to the showroom, they find it
has produced significant amounts of damage to air,
water and land ecosystems. Each car produced in
Germany (where environmental standards are among the
world's highest), produces 25,000 kg of waste and 422
million cubic metres of polluted air in the extraction of
raw materials alone, say the Heidelberg researchers.
The transport of these raw materials to Germany and
around the country to factories produces a further 425
million cubic metres of polluted air and 12 litres of crude
oil in the oceans of the world (for each car). The
production of the car itself adds a further 1,5000 kg of
waste and 75 million cubic metres of polluted air.
Calculations of the impact of a car in use make the
generous assumption that the car has a three-way
catalytic converter and uses 10 litres of lead-free petrol
for every 100 km. Over 10 years, the Heidelberg
researchers believe that one car will produce:
• 44.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide;
• 4.8 kg of sulphur dioxide;
• 46.8 kg of nitrogen dioxide;
• 325 kg of carbon monoxide;
• 36 kg of hydrocarbons.
Each car is moreover responsible for 1,016 million cubic
metres of polluted air and a number of abrasion products
from tyres, brakes and road surfaces;
• 17,500 grams of road surface abrasion products;
• 750 grams of tyre abrasion products;
• 150 grams of brake abrasion products.
• Each car also pollutes soils and groundwater and this
calculated for oil, cadmium, chrome, lead, copper and
zinc.
The environmental impact continues beyond the end of
the car's useful life. Disposal of the vehicle produces a
further 102 million cubic metres of polluted air and
quantities of PCBs and hydrocarbons.
The sum of these different life cycle stages produces
some insights into the penalties societies must face if
they become car dependent. In total, each car produces
59.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide and 2,040 million cubic
metres of polluted air. Each car, say the Germans,
produces 26.5 tonnes of rubbish to add to the enormous
problems of disposal and landfill management faced by
most local authorities.
While this detail is impressive (and wholly absent from
the environmental claims of motor vehicle manufacturers
and motoring organisations), it is still not complete.
Some of the more startling revelations are in the
researchers' wider analysis of social and environmental
costs.
Germany suffers from extensive forest damage attributed
to acid rain and vehicle exhaust emissions. The
Heidelberg researchers calculate that each car in its
lifetime is responsible for three dead trees and 30 "sick"
trees. [...]
The Heidelberg researchers say that over its lifetime, each
car is responsible for 820 hours of life lost through a road
traffic accident fatality and 2,800 hours of life damaged
by a road traffic accident. Statistically, they suggest, one
individual in every 100 will be killed in a road traffic
accident and two out of every three injured. Translated
into vehicle numbers, this means:
• Every 450 cars are responsible for one fatality;
• Every 100 cars are responsible for one handicapped
person;
• Every 7 cars are responsible for one injured person;
And into production data:
• Every 50 minutes a new car is produced that will kill
someone;
• Every 50 seconds a new car is produced that will injure
someone.
Land use data are also brought into the equation to show
that Germany's cars, if one includes driving and parking
requirements, commandeer 3,700 sq km of land¾60%
more than is allocated to housing. Every German car is
responsible for 200 sq metres of tarmac and concrete.
The total impact of the car over all the stages of its life
cycle also produces a quantifiable financial cost. The
Heidelberg researchers estimate this to be 6,000 DM per
annum per car (about $5,000) and covers the external
costs of all forms of pollution, accidents and noise after
income taxation are taken into account. This is a state
subsidy equivalent to giving each car user a free pass
for the whole year for all public transport, a new bike
every five years and 15,000 km of first class rail travel.
The car is thus revealed as an environmental, fiscal and
social disaster that would not pass any value-for-money
test. More importantly, the car can now be seen as a
disaster in itself. It is ownership as well as use that is the
problem of the car and a car used sensitively (if that is
possible) is still a problem for energy, pollution, space
and waste. The balance sheet's bottom line is enormous
societal deficits and penalties and an assumption that we
will all continue to pay the bill.
Reference: Oeko-bilanz eines autolebens. Umwelt-und
Prognose-Institut Heidelberg. Landstrasse 118a,
D69121, Heidelberg, Germany. John Whitelegg is head
of the Geography Department at Lancaster University
and director of the Environmental Research Unit,
Lancaster University. (Oct 93)
IF CARS ARE HERE TO STAY, THEN HUMANS AREN'T!
The good news for the environment is, homo sapiens only has another few generations to go. You hear
that sound? That's the frogs and earthworms, cheering. - Farley Mowat
ENVIRONMENTALISTS PREDICT
DISASTER FOR NORTHERN
FORESTS
Montreal-Imagine Canada's vast
northern and mountain forests turned
into burnt-out, insect-infested
wastelands.
That was the grim scenario painted by a
Greenpeace forestry activist at an
international conference on boreal
forests. It's a doomsday portrait shared
by a Finnish forestry scientist.
Both blame a slow increase in
temperatures on the burning of fossil
fuels, which releases carbon and warms
the atmosphere.
At risk are the boreal forests, the
expanses of spruce and pine found in
cool northern latitudes and high
altitudes. In the long term, say the
scientists, the forest will gradually be
transformed into a temperate
forest¾the leafy species of southern
Ontario and Quebec.
But meanwhile the boreal forests will be
devastated "without rapid changes in
global energy policies," said Kevin
Jardine, a Calgary-based Greenpeace
staff member. "We'll see immense forest
fires, huge insect outbreaks, increased
frequency of storms and lightning."
As the air warms, adds scientist Pekka
Kauppi of Helsinki, carbon found
naturally in cold northern soils will be
released to join the carbon dioxide
already in the air. (Ottawa Citizen,
5 Oct 93)
UP A TREE
Experts in Hungary have said drought
and air pollution have combined to
damage three out of every five trees in
its forests. Oaks suffered the most, with
forest pines and other trees also harmed.
(Green, Nov 93)
WHEN THE M1 WAS FUN
When Britain's first motorway opened in
November 1959 millions of people
thought it was the beginning of the end
of the traffic jam. Heady days. Now we
can see it was just the end of the
beginning. In its first year, the 67 mile
stretch from Watford to Crick, near
Rugby carried 14 000 vehicles a day.
Today the figure is 100 000 and rising. A
further 1856 miles of motorway have so
far been built nationally, and today's
building plans will damage or threaten
over 180 Sites of Special Scientific
Interest. (Green, Nov 93)
RECORD OZONE HOLE OVER
ANTARCTIC
Geneva - Ozone levels over the
Antarctic have dropped to record lows
over the past month creating a polar
ozone hole bigger than Europe, the
World Meteorological Organization said
yesterday. The UN agency said levels of
the gas over the southern pole had
regularly fallen below 100 Dobson units,
"representing the lowest absolute daily
minimum ever recorded in the history
of ozone observations." Citing
provisional data provided by member
states, which operate a global satellite
monitoring system, the WMO reported
the protective ozone layer was more
than 60% depleted over an area covering
some 15 million square kilometres.
(Reuter via Globe and Mail, 16 Oct 93)
BEDTIME WARMING BAFFLES
CLIMATOLOGISTS - Fred Pearce
Global warming occurs largely at night,
according to recent research which has
cast doubt over the accuracy of current
climatic models. At an international
meeting, held in College Park,
Maryland, at the end of September,
climatologists discussed new findings
that since the 1950s the minimum daily
temperature over most of the landmass
of the northern hemisphere has risen
three times as fast as the maximum
temperature. They heard that while
nights are on average 0.84 C warmer
today, days are only 0.28 C warmer.
The trend seems to apply to all
continents and all seasons.
The meeting concluded that the findings
do not, as has been suggested in some
press reports in the US, overthrow
theories of global warming. But they do
cast doubt on the accuracy of the models
currently used to predict the climate.
One likely explanation for the day-night
effect is that acid aerosols from
industrial pollution are restricting
greenhouse warming during the day.
[...]
The rise in night-time temperatures may
reflect the well-known "heat island"
effect, which arises in urban areas
because building materials and road
surfaces retain heat at night, he says.
However, the study has largely
eliminated data from towns with
populations of more than 10 000 and the
conference concluded that this effect,
could at most, explain "only part of the
observed temperature change".
The findings add to the impression that
global climate models are under siege
whenever data suggest that their
detailed scenarios for global warming
are not mirrored in the real world. (New
Scientist, 20 Nov 93)
HIGHER OIL PRICES AFTER 1997?
According to an editorial in The
Economist magazine of September 20,
1993, for four years world demand for
oil has been flat, and consequently oil
has become cheap. However, growing
demand from reviving industrial
economies and the former Soviet Union
and rapidly developing Latin America
and Southeast Asia, by 1997 demand for
oil might reach an extra 4.5 million
barrels a day. But by 1997, there will
probably be no more than 3.5 million
barrels a day of fresh supply. This will
result in higher oil prices.
Energy remains a large cost in all
economies: 14% of all costs for U.S.
industries, and 7% for American
householders. A sudden rise in oil
prices caused recession in the early 1980s
and could do so again. Consequently,
cheap energy should not be taken for
granted, and programs that boost
conservation should not be relaxed.
The editorial suggests that Bill Clinton
raise oil taxes even further to provide
not only a neat source of revenue, but a
boon to the environment and a way to
encourage alternatives to imported oil.
Taxes remind consumers that energy is
not yet as cheap and abundant as today's
low prices misleadingly suggest. (Globe
and Mail, 20 Sept 93)
US OIL FIRMS USE TECHNOLOGY
TO TAP HARD-TO-REACH
RESERVES
New York - New technology is opening
previously unreachable areas of the
United States for oil exploration but
analysts say that while the steep decline
in US oil production might be slowed, it
will not be reversed. [...]
Despite memories of long gas lines and
rationing during the Arab oil embargo
20 years ago, the United States has
increased its dependence on foreign oil
to nearly 50% in recent months, from
36% in 1973. [...]
The US since then has come to rely on
more imported crude largely because US
oil fields are not as productive as they
used to be. Analysts say daily oil
production, which has been dropping by
400,000 barrels each year, will continue
to fall.
Technology is "slowing the rate of
import dependence," said Michael
Barbis, oil and gas analyst for NatWest
Securities Corp. But Barbis and other
analysts agree the decline of US oil
production in beyond reversing. (Globe
and Mail, 19 Oct 93)
CAR CULTURE
CAR ADS AS DEADLY AS TOBACCO ADS
In anticipation of the annual auto show set to arrive at
the Ottawa Congress Centre on February 3, 1994, Auto-
Free Ottawa made enquiries to find out if the auto
industry is governed by special advertising standards or
guidelines.
While the federal department of Consumer and
Corporate Affairs does not have any guidelines
whatsoever, the province of Ontario does regulate the
advertising of price, monthly lease payments, etc., but
not social aspects such as health, safety or environmental
degradation.
The Canadian Advertising Foundation in Toronto was
not aware of standards for car advertising either, but
suggested that any concerns about misleading
advertising should be directed (with a copy of the ad, if
possible) to the provincial office that deals with false
advertising (Marketing Practices, 4900 Yonge St., Ste.
601, Willowdale, ON M2N 6B8).
Meanwhile in Britain, active campaigning by the Royal
Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) has led
the Advertising Standards Authority to clamp down on
ads that emphasize a car's performance so that "car
adverts have become less macho" (New Scientist, 8
August 1992).
Under guidelines laid down by the European Conference
of Ministers of Transport, most ads no longer document
top speed and acceleration, although the underlying
message is unchanged: performance is everything.
The British Automobile Associaton, which regularly
surveys car advertising, said that in 1991, 22% of ads
were "inappropriate" and promoted illegal top speeds,
and that advertisers were "acting irresponsibly towards
road safety and the environment."
The AA reported a gulf between the lifestyles portrayed
in the car ads and the attitudes of ordinary motorists
based on a survey it carried out on 9400 of its members
in June. The survey results showed that the motor
manufacturers' advertising is out of touch with the needs
of ordinary motorists. AA members wanted mechanical
reliability, to be able to travel safely, fuel economy and
low exhaust emissions. Performance came 27th on the
list of virtues, desired by only 68 men and 35
women¾the equivalent of 1% of the AA members.
In addition to being promoted for their performance, cars
are portrayed in pristine wilderness settings, the very
settings that are being destroyed when made accessible
by roads, that are being ravaged for the extraction of raw
materials to manufacture and fuel motor vehicles, and
that are being slowly depleted of their biological
diversity by acid precipitation, UV radiation and global
climate change¾all of which are partly products of car-
dependence.
Because of its enormous health, social and ecological toll,
Dr. Tom De Marco of World Without Cars advocates a
ban on car advertising like the ban on tobacco
advertising that the medical community was successful
in instituting twenty years ago.
How will we ever invert the car-dominated
transportation hierarchy in our society as long as cars are
promoted not only as a means of transportation, but as
status symbols, psychological crutches and even
aphrodisiacs? Perhaps the time for a continental
campaign to ban automobile advertising has come.
LEGAL BATTLE LOOMS OVER AUTOSAURUS
Vancouver's Media Foundation is bent on taking the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to court, in what
could amount to a four-year court battle involving the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The threat has come
after the CBC refused to run one of the Foundation's
"uncommercials".
On March 2, after airing the spot once during a show
called Driver's Seat, a program about cars, the CBC
pulled the ad, saying that advocacy ads cannot run
during "news or information programming" as a matter
of policy.
Kalle Lasn, the Media Foundation's co-founder, says he
thinks the CBC pulled the spot because the show's
sponsors found it offensive. The TV spot, called
Autosaurus, shows a dinosaur constructed of old cars
collapsing into a pile of rubble before announcing the
end of the automotive age. Lasn says the ad is part of a
battle to wrest control of the public airwaves from
commercial interests. (Adbusters Quarterly, Winter 1994.
For a copy of the Autosaurus and other uncommercials
on video ($25), contact: Media Foundation, 1-800-663-
1243, 1243 West 7th Ave., Vancouver, BC, V6H 1B7,
Canada.)
STEPS TO SUSTAINABILITY
TECHNOLOGY AND THE POLICE: ON YOUR BIKE
San Francisco - The bicycle has become the symbol of a
spreading revolution in the techniques of keeping law
and order in America. The usual police squad car is a
steel and glass cocoon whose flashing lights and blaring
siren announce danger and crisis. The unpretentious
bicycle, by contrast, reassures people. Used as an
experiment in some police departments for the past few
years, the bike is suddenly spurting into popularity from
coast to coast.
This is the first year in modern times that New York has
tried bicycle patrols. Some 50 officers are now using
bikes in five precincts. The response has been so good
that next year there will probably be 500, in 50 precincts.
According to Charles Wexler, the executive director of
the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington, DC,
the bicycle "is cost-effective, and officers like it. They
have mobility. They can get into previously inaccessible
corners and through the worst traffic. An officer on foot
patrol looks like he's pressed to keep on moving. On a
bike, an officer looks like he's having fun and can stop to
talk. That makes a difference with the public."
The first modern American use of the bicycle for police
patrols may have been in San Jose, California in 1979,
when two officers who cycled to work started a five-bike
working squad. "We could beat anyone to the scene
anywhere," recalls Lt. Bud Harrington. Today, San Jose
has taken its bicycles deeper into "community policing",
an attempt to help local people improve troubled
neighbourhoods. Sometimes this means organising
youngsters for a park outing; sometimes it means a "job
fair" with employment offices set up in street booths. [...]
Among Californian cities, Los Angeles considers itself
too large for much bicycle policing. But in San Francisco,
policemen are more enthusiastic. One bike patrol officer,
Jaime Ongpin, has just been honoured as a "favourite
cop" because he kept vigil over the weekly meetings of a
senior citizens' club, pedalling protectively beside the old
[sic] people as they walked home. And just over the bay
in Berkeley, where policemen have long drawn hostility
from the street people, campus bike patrols in the
University of California now reveal the officer as another
human being who can be talked to.
In nearby Oakland bicycles are one element in a big
community-relations campaign that began six months
ago. In one gang-ridden area, the police organised
midnight basketball games through the summer to bring
loitering youths off the streets. They encouraged clean-
up brigades for filthy streets and buildings. The next
step is to increase the number of bicycle patrols. In
Oakland too the bike's merits seem clear: it is cheap, it
can cover far more ground than an officer on foot¾and
"best part is, it's non-threatening."
No city has reported bicycle officers as being especially
vulnerable to attack, even though they seem to have so
much less protection than men in a patrol car. Chief
Michael Julian of New York City says his officers relish
bike patrols. "It keeps them fit, they enjoy the fun of
riding. They are genuinely happier than in a car or on
foot. And this is infectious. People respond." (The
Economist, 2 Oct 93)
CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE IN SACRAMENTO
In September, about two dozen happy bicyclists held the
first of monthly critical mass rides in Sacramento,
California. The group of cyclists spanning all age groups,
bicycle types and attitudes took to the auto-dominated
rush-hour streets and momentarily reclaimed some of the
happiness and humanness that has been stripped from
the modern urban landscape by the infestation of gas-
powered single-occupant vehicles. Many in the group of
grinning cyclists rode brightly decorated bicycles and
blew party horns and waved to those they passed. The
ride was momentarily disrupted by two uniformed
officers, who mistakenly cited two cyclists for
"obstructing traffic". How could one "obstruct traffic"
when one actually is traffic?
GREEN STREETS, LOCAL ECONOMY AND BIKES
More and more people are shopping by bike. 39% of
Toronto cyclists have a household income of over
$70,000. That represents considerable buying power.
Cyclists who shop tend to do so locally, so investing in
cycling can be a smart business move, especially where
car parking is difficult. (Bikes Means Business Press, Fall
93)
PAINT IT WHITE
Fed up with the lack of cycle lanes in their area, members
of the Lambeth Green Party painted their own.
According to Shane Collins, a prospective Euro-MP
candidate, "Since we started this spring the police have
once cautioned us for criminal damage to the road¾but
other than that they've left us alone. It would be
interesting if the council tried to prosecute, because we're
only doing what they ought to be doing themselves."
(Green Magazine, Nov 93)
GROUPS TO LAUNCH ACTION PLAN FOR CLEAN
AIR
The Ontario Environmental Network's Air Caucus held
an action-packed founding meeting at the end of
October. One of the chief goals of the meeting was to
strategize on the coming year's priorities for the Caucus.
After good debate, most people agreed that an ideal
Clean Air Strategy for Ontario must be sketched out
jointly. More than just condemn nasty air pollution
problems, credible solutions have to be outlined. Getting
the message out to the public will be the next challenge,
and it was suggested that a map of Ontario's Bad Air
Spots¾a so-called GASP list be created. The newly
elected steering committee will now draw up a double
action plan to make these ideas a reality. Your help is
welcome! Contact: Ellen Schwartzel, Steering Committee,
Air Caucus (416) 926-1907.
DIRTY-AIR BYLAW COULD DRIVE TTC OFF THE
ROAD
A draft bylaw aimed at cleaning up Toronto's dirty air
could also clear TTC buses off the road, transit officials
say.
And the bylaw has a "bounty hunter clause"¾it rewards
people for ratting on their neighbours by paying them
half the fine registered against the driver or company.
Drivers would be fined a maximum of $2,000 for a first
offence and $5,000 for subsequent fines. Maximum fines
for corporations are $5,000 and $10,000 respectively.
The vehicle emissions and idling control bylaw, quietly
passed by Toronto Council last summer but still not yet
law, bans the idling of motor vehicles for more than three
minutes in any 60-minute period.
It's one of the toughest in North America. Other cities,
which have similar bylaws, call for engines to be turned
off after four or five consecutive minutes of idling.
A bus driver on a one-hour route could be charge just for
making scheduled stops and obeying traffic lights, the
TTC says.
The bylaw needs enabling legislation from Queen's Park
before it takes effect in the City of Toronto.
Transit officials are asking the province not to approve
the bylaw as drafted and to exempt the TTC from the
rules. But a Toronto city councillor Howard Levine says
the buses are not shut off when stationary and the TTC
has to learn to live with the new rules in an era that is
more sensitive to the environment.
A report to Council last July says, "The purpose of the
bylaw is to make people aware that vehicle engines left
idling contribute to global warming and to the reduction
of the air quality in our city, already evaluated among
the worst in the country."
The province won't grant or deny approval to pass the
bylaw until spring at the earliest. (Toronto Star, 16 Dec
93)
BIG THREE AUTOMAKERS FEAR BC'S ANTI-
POLLUTION GOALS
Vancouver-BC Environment Minister Moe Sihota arrived
in an electrically powered pickup truck yesterday for a
meeting with worried representatives of the Big Three
automakers.
Officials from Ford, General Motors and Chrysler
travelled from Ontario to discuss their concerns about
Mr. Sihota's announcement this month that British
Columbia will try to adopt California regulations aimed
at preserving air quality through zero-emission
automobiles and less-polluting fuel.
Under the regulations, 2% of automobiles sold in
California must be non-polluting by 1998. A
manufacturer that fails to meet the quota will be
prohibited from selling cars in the state. The regulations
also enforce the sale of renewable fuels such as ethanol
and methanol.
British Columbia has the toughest emission standards in
Canada. Exhaust systems of nearly all passenger
vehicles in the province must be tested annually at
special stations. Cars that fail the test cannot be insured.
Mr. Sihota told reporters yesterday that British Columbia
will try for the time being to duplicate California's
standards without legislation. [...]
Jon O'Riordan, assistant deputy environment minister,
said the improvement of pollution controls in British
Columbia is increasingly urgent because the province's
growing population and strong economy are
outstripping measures to limit smog
and emissions. Vancouver has the second-worst air
quality in Canada, after the Windsor-Quebec City
corridor, and the mountains on the edge of the city are
often shrouded in a brownish haze. Mr. O'Riordan said
University of British Columbia research indicates that $5
to $10 million is lost annually because of reduced
agricultural production in the Fraser Valley as a result of
pollution and low levels of ozone, which protects Earth
from the sun's harmful rays. (Globe and Mail, 23 Nov 93)
OTTAWA CITY COUNCILLOR LOOKING FOR
PROVINCIAL APPROVAL FOR SPEED REDUCTION
Councillor Jim Watson, Dr. Rob Cushman and Ecovision
president Andrea Prazmowski held a press conference in
early November to announce a campaign to lower the
speed limit on residential streets in Ottawa from 50 to 40
km/h. Currently all residential streets in Ontario are
designated 50 km/h, unless otherwise signed, according
to the Provinvial Highway Traffic Act.
In order to minimize the cost to taxpayers of placing
signs on every street, Watson will lobby the Provincial
Government to introduce the appropriate amendment to
the Act allowing municipalities to have residential streets
designated 40 km/h without signage on every street.
Similar policy in Germany has been credited with:
• saving thousands of lives
• considerably reducing noise and air pollution, and
greenhouse gas emissions
• substantial savings on construction and repair of roads
• mode shift, i.e. less driving with simultaneous
increases in walking, cycling and public transport use.
Councillor Watson has already received the support of
numerous individuals and groups, including World
Without Cars, which has sent an action alert to its
Ontario members urging them to write provincial
politicians in support of this initiative.
ACTION ALERT!!! ACTION ALERT!!!
Councillor Watson needs letters of support from
individuals and groups. For a information
package and resolution form, call (613) 564-
1308, fax: 564-8412.
Provincial contacts: Premier Bob Rae, Queen's
Park, Toronto, M7A 1A1; Gilles Pouliot,
Minister of Transport, 77 Wellesley St. W.,
Toronto M7A 1Z8; Ruth Grier, Minister of
Health, Hepburn Block, Toronto M7A 2C4; and
your local MPP.
World Without Cars, 7750 Matchette Road,
Lasalle (Windsor), Ontario N9J 2J4
NEIGHBOURHOODS JOIN FIGHT FOR SAFER
STREETS
Over forty neighbourhood civic groups and block
associations signed on to Transportation Alternatives'
call to New York Police Department Commissioner Kelly
for safter streets, strict speed limits, and driver's license
enforcement. (Auto-Free Press, July/Aug 93)
REDUCE NEW YORK CITY SPEED LIMIT
Pedestrian injuries and deaths in New York City would
be cut significantly if citywide speed limits were reduced
on arterial and local streets from 30 mph to 20 mph. The
faster a motor vehicle is moving when it strikes a
pedestrian, the more damage it causes. The energy
absorbed by the human body goes up as the square of
the speed. For example, at 40 mph a car does four times
as much harm as it does at 20 mph. A pedestrian has
very little chance of surviving when hit by a car
travelling at 40 mph. At 20 mph survival is greater
(though by no means assured), and injuries are less
severe.
A reduction in speed limit is not a high price for
motorists to pay to assure greater safety for all of us
(including dismounted motorists). Car trips average
about seven miles and average trip time is 20 minutes.
Some 38.5% of travel in NYC occurs on limited access
highways. The average car trip is about 4.5 miles on
arterial and local streets where pedestrians and cyclists
are present. Even if as much as three miles of this travel
could be made at the present legal 30 mph limit, reducing
this speed to 20 mph would only add about three
minutes per trip. Travel times would go up about 15%
per trip.
A rigorous enforcement of speed limits, stop signs and red
lights awaits the introduction of universal vehicle
identification (AVI) systems. Needed for no-stop tolls,
AVI also provides an opportunity for pinpointing
vehicles that break traffic laws. Needed is action by
elected officials to get AVI, a proven technology, on
every vehicle. While safeguards are needed to protect
privacy, inept and mean-spirited motorists can terminate
pedestrians' privacy¾permanently. (Auto-Free Press,
July/Aug 93)
CALMING THE CAR
"I estimate that eight out of every 10 urban roads would
potentially be eligible as a 20mph zone", the words of
formers Roads Minister Christopher Chope. The UK has
just 66 traffic-calmed 20mph zones¾but as they show a
70% drop in casualties, calls for more are coming thick
and fast.
Demand for all traffic calming is soaring¾helped along
by the Department of Transport's new traffic calming
regulations, published this summer, which allow
chicanes, pinch points, and other devices as well as
humps. The only problem is that hard-pressed local
government has to pay for it. (Green Magazine, Nov 93)
• Every year about 19 million cars are
added to the half a billion already on the
planet.
UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA GOES PEDESTRIAN
In 1991, the Board of Governors of the University of
Ottawa commissioned a review of the University's
Master Plan with a view to make the campus cleaner,
greener and safer.
The resulting Master Plan Review calls for major changes
that will ultimately see the creation of a pedestrian-
oriented campus.
The changes will take 20 years to implement, and will
include, among other things, the disappearance of
several surface parking lots, the development of
intimate courtyards or quadrangles, and a firm
transportation and parking policy that will greatly
reduce reliance on the private automobile as a main
means of transportation.
The University has moved quickly to adopt many of the
plan's main features, with University and Seraphin-
Marion streets partly closed to vehicles since last
September, a gateway constructed near Tabaret Hall, and
new street lamps being introduced all over the campus.
(Tabaret Magazine, Winter 93)
WINTER MOBILITY
CYCLISTS PREPARE FOR WINTER CYCLING
Winter cycling is not only possible and practical¾it can
be fun! That was the message from the speakers at the
Cold-Weather Cycling Seminar held by Citizens for Safe
Cycling in November. And the more than 50 cyclists who
attended were in full agreement. Tips were given on
choosing and maintaining a winter bicycle, picking
winter routes, and the best clothing for cold-weather
trips. They emphasized that winter cycling is not for
everyone¾it does require more skill in handling your
bike and judging traffic. They also pointed out that it
isn't a bad idea to occasionally abandon your bike on
days when motorists won't be in full control of their
vehicles (like during the first full snowfall of the year
when there are lots of fender-benders). Doug Gabelman
of the Bike Stop then demonstrated the all-year bicycle
that he has been developing, with 7-speed internal hub
gears and brake, and a chain guard. It's designed as a
low maintenance, practical city bike, that he said most
people will find easy to ride to work or the store in
almost any weather. (Citizens for Safe Cycling Newsletter,
Nov/Dec 93, Box 248, Station B, Ottawa, Canada K1P
6C4 (613) 722-4454, FAX: 729-2207)
BUNDLE UP AND RIDE! - Tom DeMarco
Despite a climate as rigorous as southern Canada's,
Danish bicycle ridership decreases by only 17% during
the coldest months. Is winter weather, then, a valid
excuse to stop cycling, or should we just shut up and
ride?
I haven't actually counted them, but excuses available to
defend bicycling are probably as numerous as those to the
contrary. They include lower cost, ease of parking
(snowbanks make good bike racks), amusement, better
health and the satisfaction of knowing you are doing
society a favour. Winter riding offers extra advantages:
no shovelling; no scraping windows; easier to lift the
vehicle if it gets stuck; no waiting for the engine to heat
up. That brings me to the biggest benefit: warmth.
Winter cyclists do not sit inactive on a cold seat wearing
inadequate clothing. Winter cyclists don't just curse the
cold, they do something about it! (World Without Cars'
Imagine, Fall 93)
SNOWFLAKE DEFENSE LEAGUE FORMS IN
OTTAWA
A new group has formed in Ottawa to lobby against the
lunacy of herding snowflakes onto reserves called "snow
dumps".
League spokesperson Crystal Frost said: "Every winter
billions of snowflakes drop into town, and they are
immediately herded off roads and sidewalks by people
out joyriding in giant Tonka toys."
The League was formed to raise awareness about
snowflakes' right to land where they please and to be
moved by natural means such as sunshine and above-
zero temperatures."
Ms. Frost went on to point out the benefits that
snowflakes bring to a city. By beautifying cities and
providing the basis for many recreational activities,
snowflakes attract tourist dollars. In addition, they
provide insulation for dormant plants and shrubs.
The League maintains that over-dependence on the
automobile is the root cause of the conflict between
snowflakes and humans. Furthermore, it claims that the
City of Ottawa could greatly reduce the almost $9
million spent each year to maintain bare asphalt and
concrete surfaces during winter months (about $3 million
per month). Ms. Frost added, "This scorched-earth policy
is depriving Ottawa residents of what could be bright
white instead of dreary grey ones." In some cities, snow
is packed down instead of cleared away.
MEANWHILE, BACK IN OTTAWA...
CITY OF OTTAWA WANTS CITIZENS' ADVICE ON BUSES
The City of Ottawa has approved the terms of reference for an OC
Transpo Citizens Advisory Committee. The purpose of the
Committee will be "to advise the City of Ottawa representatives
on OC Transpo policies". Two members of this Committee will sit
on the Regional OC Transpo Advisory Committee in order to
represent urban and suburban neighbourhoods in Ottawa.
The Committee will consist of 9 citizens representing a wide mix
of public transit users. Auto-Free Ottawa has been asked to have
at least one of its members delegated to the Committee.
The Committee will have part-time secretarial support for its
monthly meetings and a small budget.
Anyone interested in sitting on this Committee should send their
résumé and letter of application explaining why they would like
to be on the Committee to: Elaine Fleury, City Clerk's Office, City
of Ottawa, 111 Sussex Drive, Ottawa K1N 5A1. For more
information, call Lucy Segatti at 234-0923.
CENTRETOWN CITIZENS TO CALM TRAFFIC
The City of Ottawa has allocated funding in its 1994 budget for a
traffic calming plan for Centretown. The Centretown Traffic
Calming Plan study, including the terms of reference, will be
written by local residents with the support of people with
transportation expertise. The study will consists of three parts:
heritage, traffic calming and housing.
Anyone wishing more information should call Councillor Diane
Holmes' office: 564-1311.
AUTO-FREE OTTAWA WRITES
AUTO-FREE OTTAWA'S COMMENTS ON THE
1994 CITY OF OTTAWA BUDGET
December 9, 1993
In a letter to the Globe and Mail (24 Nov 93), Jon Grant, Chair of Quaker Oats in
Peterborough urged governments to follow the lead taken by companies like his,
which have embraced environmental protection as a means to improve not only
efficiency, but also to stimulate conservation and improve worker productivity.
The new Council-approved Official Plan recommends adopting policies that will
make the City of Ottawa both economically and ecologically sustainable.
Unfortunately, the City of Ottawa operating and capital budgets do not reflect any
commitment to realizing this goal.
RECOMMENDATION:
Allocate additional 1% of $30 million being spent on roads to support greener
modes of transportation
Reasons:
1. The City of Ottawa will be spending close to $30M* to maintain a
transportation system that is inefficient and wasteful (in its use of land
and fossil fuels) and pollutes finite natural resources (air, land and
water). Deterioration of roads occurs faster than rehabilitation simply
because of the increasing volume of motorized traffic.
Savings would be realized in the long-run if Ottawans had a viable
options to driving cars: the most heavily subsidized and polluting
mode of transportation. A 1% diversion into programs that promote
walking, cycling and public transit would ultimately reduce road and
parking maintenance costs. A diversion of $3 million could be
considered as an insurance premium paid to maintain the local quality
of life and to mitigate the effects of global climate change.
2. A total of $200,000 has been suggested to carry out 14 transportation
studies (Capital budget, p. 160). While this is encouraging, these
studies will be a waste of money unless sufficient funding is allocated
so that they can include a work-plan and timeline, and funding for
immediate implementation. This is especially the case for the traffic
calming policy, comprehensive cycling plan, and the CO2 reduction
program.
3. Capital projects should not contradict the 1991 Council-approved
official plan, or Ottawa's commitment to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions. Disproportionate funding for roads and parking facilities
contradict OP guidelines and will make it impossible to achieve the
commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 2005.
City of Ottawa staff has been working on a CO2 reduction plan for
about two years, but this program applies to the municipal
corporation only and does not appear to include a work plan and
timeline for the implementation of transportation policies that would
reduce corporate CO2 emissions. Furthermore, no plan has yet been
drawn up for a city-wide policy for reductions in CO2 emissions. A 1%
reallocation of road expenditures (i.e. $3 million) would make it
possible for the City of Ottawa to investigate the comprehensive
report already prepared by the City of Regina on how to reduce CO2
emissions throughout the City of Regina, not just the municipal
corporation. An allocation of $3 million would ensure that a CO2
reduction program could get beyond the initial study phase.
__________________
*The Operating Budget for roads will be about $6M in 1994 (p.18: $11,457,400
minus about $5M for sidewalk maintenance). Capital spending on the design and
construction of roads (rehabilitation and overlay) adds up to $21,542,000.
August 18, 1995
Hon. Art Eggleton
Minister of Infrastructure
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A6
Dear Mr. Eggleton:
Auto-Free Ottawa is a non-profit group working to raise awareness
about ecologically and economically sustainable transportation and land-use
planning.
In view of the $6 billion that are going to be spent on infrastructure
projects, we are writing to urge you to ensure that the infrastructure projects that
do receive funding meet certain criteria of sustainability and that they will be
undertaken only if supported by the local community that will be affected by them.
Auto-Free Ottawa maintains that by continuing to subsidize and
support our current car-dominated transportation system, we will only be adding
to spiralling infrastructure costs and accelerate ecological collapse. Moreover,
increasing infrastructure capacity does not solve traffic congestion problems.
Instead of widening or building new roads, we should be supporting
programs that prevent traffic congestion from happening. We need to encourage
more efficient use of vehicle capacity and support transportation systems that are
the most efficient.
Here are some conditions that we urge you and your staff to place on
any project that receives subsidies under the infrastructure program.
1) Beware bandaid technofixes: Intelligent Vehicle
Highway Systems (IVHS) are currently being promoted as a solution to our traffic
problems. Instead, they are merely another example of an admittedly expensive
and risky technology that will only benefit a few, while wasting money that would
be better spent on ecologically sustainable solutions to transportation problems.
As Marcia Lowe points out (see article enclosed), unlike Europe and Japan that
have inherited a compact urban pattern, by wasting time and money on these
costly inefficient systems, the United States and Canada will only find themselves
further behind once these projects have failed.
2) New roads do not solve transportation problems: New
roads and bridges perpetuate dependence on private vehicles ¾ both private cars
and transport trucks.
The chapter on transportation planning in Towards Sustainable
Communities, published by the National Round Table on the Environment and the
Economy, stresses that the reduction of single-occupancy vehicle trips is the only
sound way to achieve improved air quality, reduce the consumption of fossil fuels
that is contributing to global climate change, and relieve traffic congestion (p. 75).
Infrastructure projects should be based on the intensification and
mixed-use of suburban neighbourhoods as suggested by the Sewell Commission's
report for Ontario. By intensifying the densities of existing suburban and urban
communities it will be easier to afford better public transportation systems like
light rail.
3) Current subsidies for private vehicles should be
reallocated to public transport: In its report The Costs of the Car, Pollution Probe
added the cost of "externalities" to direct costs and calculated that in Ontario alone
private cars are subsidized by $5 billion every year. Hidden costs include:
damage to agriculture, tourism and forestry from acidification; crop damage due to
ground-level ozone; lost time due to traffic congestion; lost productivity due to car-
related stress, injuries and death.
Solo drivers should pay the true cost of their extravagant driving
habits, instead of expecting to be subsidized by walkers, cyclists and public transit
users through "free" parking, cheap gas, frequent road repairs, highway costs,
health care and policing costs, etc.
Subways are another example of inefficient use of infrastructure and
resources. Subways are five times more costly to build than light-rail transit. The
reason subways are still supported today in spite of their cost is that they do not
displace car traffic. This is another case where the under-occupied private car,
which is the most polluting and economically draining means of transportation, is
given precedent over more efficient, less polluting and less land-devouring public
transit.
4) Safety: In response to the argument that wider roads are
needed for safety reasons, Auto-Free Ottawa maintains that greater safety would be
achieved by lowering the speed limit on all roads (as is being recommended by
safety-conscious physicians), imposing even lower speed limits on tractor-trailers
than on smaller vehicles, and shifting most freight transport back to rail.
Not only would rail service for freight make existing highways safer
by discouraging the use of ever larger tractor trailers, but the shipping of
dangerous chemicals, which is still being allowed, would at least be confined to a
known corridor.
As a society, we must also reassess our perception of speed, distance
and mobility in view of the high social, health, ecological and economic costs of
our fast-paced lifestyles.
5) Farmland: The quality and quantity of farmland in
Canada is fast eroding: in Ontario alone, since the turn of the century the amount
of soil nutrients in agricultural land have dropped by about 50% (Standing Senate
Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Soil at Risk: Canada's Eroding
Future, Ottawa, 1984, p. 113). Expropriating farmland to build highways
will make Canada increasingly dependent on foreign markets for its own food
supply (provided other countries are not destroying their soil as fast as we are).
6) Environmentally sensitive areas: In addition to
destroying precious farmland, building highways close to or through sensitive
ecological areas and wildlife corridors will disrupt wildlife habitat and reduce the
biodiversity of Canada's world-renowned but dwindling wilderness.
7) Jobs: The $6 billion infrastructure program is supposed
to create jobs, make Canada competitive and protect the environment. Roads are
destructive and the jobs created by building roads are not long-term, do not
generally benefit the local community, and are not sustainable.
8) Meaningful public consultation: An often overlooked
but essential part of any infrastructure project is consultation with the local
community that will be affected by the infrastructure project, or that will be paying
for it through taxes. You may have heard that after almost half a million dollars
were spent on studies for a new interprovincial bridge between Ottawa-Carleton
and the Outaouais, community opposition forced the City of Ottawa and the
RMOC to withdraw from the JACPAT study. Community groups insisted that
transportation demand measures and public transit alternatives be studied and
implemented instead of building another bridge.
To better understand what your government's infrastructure program
will consist of, we would like a reply to the following questions:
1) Will proposals for infrastructure projects be judged based on full-
cost accounting principles that take into account the health, social, ecological and
economic costs that Canadian citizens will have to pay over the long-term?
2) What sustainable alternatives to conventional road and sewer
projects is your government considering as a means to create jobs?
3) Will funding be made conditional upon a project undergoing a
comprehensive environmental impact assessment?
4) Will open and meaningful public consultation sessions be held so
that the people directly affected will have an opportunity to voice their concerns or
make recommendations?
We look forward to your reply, which we will publish in our
newsletter, auto-free zone.
Thank you.
Carlessly yours,
Lucy Segatti
Enclosures
c.c. Hon. Sheila Copps, Minister of the Environment
Hon. John Manley, Minister of Industry
Excerpts from Paul Hawken's Declaration of
Sustainability
Gas guzzlers are harder on the environment than
electric cars, right? Wrong! A conventional car creates
26 tons of hazardous waste for every ton the vehicle
weighs. A battery-powered automobile produces twice
as much¾52 tons, including a brew of lead and toxic
acids.
As the Worldwatch Institute's Lester Brown patiently
explains in his annual survey, State of the World, every
living system on earth is in decline. Making matters
worse, we are having a once-in-a-billion-year blowout
sale of hydrocarbons, which are being combusted into the
atmosphere, effectively double-glazing the planet within
the next 50 years with unknown climatic results. The
cornucopia of resources that are being extracted, mined
and harvested is so poorly distributed that 20% of the
earth's people are chronically hungry or starving, while
the top 20% of the population, largely in the north,
control and consume 80% of the world's wealth. Since
business in its myriad forms is primarily responsible for
this "taking" it is appropriate that a growing number of
companies ask the question: How does one honourably
conduct business in the latter days of industrialism and
the beginning of an ecological age? The ethical dilemma
that confronts business begins with the acknowledgment
that a commercial system that functions well by its own
definition unavoidably defies the greater and more
profound ethic of biology. Specifically, how does
business face the prospect that creating a profitable,
growing company requires an intolerable abuse of the
natural world? [...]
The economy is environmentally and commercially
dysfunctional because the market does not provide
consumers with proper information. The "free market"
economies that we love so much are excellent at setting
prices but lousy when it comes to recognizing costs. In
order for a sustainable society to exist, every purchase
must reflect or at least approximate its actual cost, not
only the direct cost of production but also the costs to the
air, water and soil; the cost to future generations; the cost
to worker health; the cost of waste, pollution and
toxicity. [...]
The entire tax system must be incrementally replaced
over a 20-year period by "Green fees", taxes that are
added onto existing products, energy, services, and
materials so that prices in the marketplace more closely
approximate true costs. These taxes are not a means to
raise revenue or bring down deficits, but must be
absolutely revenue neutral so that people in the lower
and middle classes experience no real change of income,
only a shift in expenditures. [...]
Under a Green fee system the incentives to save on taxes
will create positive, constructive acts that are affordable
for everyone. As energy prices go up to three to four
times their existing levels (with commensurate tax
reductions to offset the increase), the natural inclination
to save money will result in carpooling, bicyclling,
telecommuting, public transport, and more efficient
houses. [...]
A$60 billion investment in conservation will yield,
conservatively, four to ten times as much energy as
drilling for oil.
Paul Hawken is the author of The Ecology of Commerce
and Our Future and the Making of Things. (Special to
Utne Reader, Sept/Oct 93)
Excerpts from Peter Freund and George Martin's The
Ecology of the Automobile, Black Rose Books,
Montreal, 1993 (ISBN 1-895431-82-4)
A thorough analysis of the connections between
automobility and society is timely. The central role that
auto production and consumption have played in
twentieth century economic growth, through the
organization of production known as Fordism, is ending.
Major auto markets are saturated and the costs of auto-
centred transport are becoming prohibitive. Auto-
centred transport is a technological system with major
impacts on public policy, land use, cultural patterns,
social relations, community, natural resources,
environmental quality, and options for the spatial
mobility of individuals. Auto-centred transport is one
expression of how society subsidizes a system of
individualized consumption that is highly energy- and
resource intensive and is not viable on a global or a long-
term scale. This individualized mode of consumption
has an affinity with, though it is not determined by, the
political economy of advanced capitalism. (p.1)
It is the nature of individualist ideology, so prevalent in
the United States, to portray the individual as an
autonomous actor who stands apart from an alien and
diffuse society. Unfortunately, however much auto
travel maximizes individual autonomy, its excesses
eventually result in a wide range of ecological and social
dysfunctions. On a personal level consider the vastly
increased number of auto drivers, who acting rationally
as individuals clog highways so that their average speed
is decreasing. Auto traffic in central London streets moves
more slowly today than horse-drawn carriages did in the
mid-nineteenth century. Technological gains have not
resolved this contradiction. Despite the development of
faster autos and the profusion of limited-access
roadways, the average time of the journey to work has
remained about the same in the U.S. since World War II.
For urban areas with auto-centred transport systems, the
average travel time to work has actually increased.
Rush-hour auto speeds in major cities are low and are
decreasing because of increased congestion. Today's
average speed is about 7 mph in London, 12 mph in
Tokyo, and 17 mph in Paris. Even in Southern
California's auto-friendly freeway environment, the
average daily auto speed is just 33 mph. Traffic
congestion results in high costs in economic inefficiency
(wasted time and energy) and in societal problems (more
air pollution as cars idle more). (p.7)
There are achievable strategies for reducing auto-centred
transport. Short-term strategies include local
transformations of space, such as by traffic-calming and
greening of urban areas, as well as upgrading provision
of alternate transport, especially walking. In the interim
term, more energy-efficient, less polluting autos need to
be made widely available and mass transit needs to be
both improved and expanded. In the longer term, the
focus needs to be placed on changing land use patterns,
revitalizing inner city areas through infill, and
developing new technologies for a variety of
environmentally friendly transport modes. Other longer
term projects include public education campaigns that
encourage mass transit use and other options to autos.
Ultimately if these strategies are to succeed, the political
and economic context of transport has to be expanded
from a focus on market considerations to include much
more focus on the common good. Transport, like
education and other vital societal activities, is far too
critical to be left to the vagaries of the profit-driven
market place.
Additionally, modification of auto-centred transport will
have to be accompanied by a recasting of psychopolitical
ideologies that are linked to class and gender; for
example, wasy need to be found to curtail macho
attitudes toward speed and power. Thus, it is clear that
reconfiguring transport requires a systematic analysis
and a comprehensive political programme. [...]
At present, even ecologically oriented activists, especially
in the United States, treat transport as one more (and
usually lower ranking) item in a laundry list of sensible
changes. We believe that transport is more important
than this, that it is inextricably bound up with most basic
parameters of human existence, including time, space
and consiousness. Transport is organically linked to all
the significant realms of human social activity, including
the workplace and the home. Transport is a vital
indication of the quality of our individual lives, as well
as the quality of our relationships with each other and
with the earth. (pp. 183-184)
CALM THE TRAFFIC!
Traffic Calming is an invaluable resource book for
community groups and environmentalists trying to
reverse the current car-dominated trend in
transportation and land use planning.
Traffic Calming explains the implementation of
traffic calming techniques, possible future trends and
their impact on cities.
Copies of Traffic Calming are available from Auto-Free
Ottawa for $10 (postage included), or from Sensible
Transportation Options for People (STOP), 15405 S.W.
116th Avenue #202B, Tigard, OR 97224-2600 (503) 624-
6083 for US$6.
The INSTITUTE FOR BIOREGIONAL STUDIES offers
three-week residential programs in Integrated
Resource Management. Studies include: Social Ecology,
Appropriate Technology, Environmental Planning and
Community Self-Reliance. College credit available. For
info send $5 to: IBS, 449 University Avenue, Ste 126,
Charlottetown, PEI, C1A 8K3 (902) 892-9578.
ONTARIO ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK
1994 SPRING CONFERENCE
June 3 to 5
Eaglecrest Outdoor Education Centre
Sundridge, Ontario
For more information: (519) 837-2565
PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE Explore the
principles and practices of permaculture and learn how
to create a sustainable design. Topics include natural
systems, cold climate gardening, appropriate
technologies and village design. Dates: April 29 to May
14, 1994. Location: Albion Hills Conservation Area.
Cost: $900 or $850 by March 31. $200 deposit by Feb
28.94. For info: Richard Griffith, 104 Bridlewood Blvd.,
Agincourt, ON, M1T 1R1 (416) 497-5746.
AUTO-FREE VIDEOS
Ghosts Along the Freeway. A short highly effective look
at the impact of superhighways. 1992, 10 min. Ages 14
to adult. VHS sale to individuals/low-income groups
$39.95, rent $25.
Moving Beyond Auto America. Explores many
alternatives to the auto... should prove thought-
provoking for high school and university social studies
and environmental classes. 1991
Both the above are from: The Video Project 1-800-475-
2638, fax: (510) 655-9115 for complete listing.
Autosaurus. The uncommercial about the demise of the
automobile, and other subvertisements on video ($25).
Contact: Media Foundation, 1-800-663-1243, 1243 West
7th Ave., Vancouver, BC, V6H 1B7, Canada.
CARS ARE RUINING MY LIFE AND OUR BIOSPHERE!
Here's my membership or subscription fee in support of AUTO-FREE OTTAWA's efforts to promote the virtues of car-free
lifestyles and cities.
___ membership ___ subscription
___ $20.00 individual/family ___ $10.00 unwaged ___ $50.00 corporate/institutional
____________________________________________________________________________
Name Tel: (h) (w) (fax)
____________________________________________________________________________
Address Bioregion Postal code
AUTO-FREE OTTAWA
Box 21045, 151A Second Avenue, Ottawa-Rideau Bioregion, Ontario K1S 5N1 (613) 234-0923