Make our Transportation System More Sustainable
There are many crises that could quickly raise oil prices to well over $100 a barrel, and gasoline to over $5 a gallon: instability in the Mideast , another oil embargo, another bad hurricane season. Just as the City prepares for hurricanes and public health emergencies, it should develop contingency plans to respond to price hikes and shortages. Fuel saving measures to be put in place before emergencies are outlined in a report from the International Energy Agency, Saving Oil in a Hurry .
- highway speed limits
- increased fuel taxes
- reduced fees for public transit
- car pooling
- driving bans
- telecommuting
- compressed work weeks of fewer but longer days.
Unfortunately, as world oil supplies continue to deplete, increased transportation costs will not just be linked to a crisis, they will be permanent. For the transportation system to be sustainable, efforts to reduce fuel consumption by minimizing use of individual cars and by maximizing highly efficient mass transit must begin as emergency measures and become standard practices.
Before crises take place, how can we prepare travelers to switch to more efficient, fuel-saving modes of transit?
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Getting travelers out of cars and into high occupancy buses - even traditionally fueled ones - reaps much more conservation per dollar than efforts to move to different fuels, fuel cells, or the like.
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Bus service improvements are the lowest hanging fruit in terms of mode switching from private cars; put express bus routes
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Improve bicycle networks and safety measures, and pedestrian routes.
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Explore fees, restrictions and taxes on transportation services to help fund public transit and discourage less desirable practices, such as charging the right rate for curbside parking to encourage use of mass transit.
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Congestion pricing, in which an E-ZPass system automatically bills daytime driving into the central city at higher rates, has been successfully adopted in London . NY's Regional Plan Association reports that applying this regime to central Manhattan would reduce congestion, reduce traffic, reduce travel time, reduce waste of fuel from traffic jams, and redirect travelers to more efficient mass transit.
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Maximize use of NYC's r egional commuter rail system. Increase service and integrate fares between the Metro North, NJ Transit, LIRR, and NYC subway systems.
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End free parking entitlements to government workers and diplomats.
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High-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, rapid transit lanes on key bus routes (some of which have already been identified by the NYC Department of Transportation), require major employers to offer TransitCheks to their staff, better planning of transit links to major development initiatives, and improved cross-harbor railroad freight systems.
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Consideration of a phased-in carbon tax.
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Expand NYC's outstanding alternative fuel vehicle fleets program.
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Carpooling resources
RideCheck: www.ridecheck.com
DriveMates: www.drivemates.com
Easy Street: www.easystreet.org
Enterprise Carpool: www.vanpool.com
eRideShare.com: http://www.erideshare.com/
NuRide https://www.nuride.com/nuride/main/main.jsp
ZipCar https://www.zipcar.com
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Alternative fuels and alternative vehicles will be central to our transition away from petroleum fuels. There is an ongoing debate as to which fuels and vehicles will be most effective, and will have the greatest energy profit, over the long term. Massive research and development efforts will be required.
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Rapid increase in vehicle fuel efficiency standards
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Rapid mass production of alternative fuels, such as ethanol made from corn or bio-diesel made from soybeans or used frying oil.
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Make vehicle technology more efficient with hybrid-electric motors, and m odern aerodynamics, tires, engines and materials.
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