[WEC-All] for LTD BRT scoping

[Mark Robinowitz]

http://www.road-scholar.org/peak-traffic.html


This article was originally published May 10, 2006 at From the  
Wilderness. This was the introduction they wrote for this:

[In an engaging discussion of the effects of Peak Oil on automobile  
traffic, Mark Robinowitz examines the ridiculousness of implementing  
“superhighway” plans while the nation faces an inevitable oil drop- 
off. Learn how the interstate highway system was originally a  
military venture of the 1950’s after the “streetcar conspiracy,”  
and about methods that are more effective responses to swelling  
traffic than imposing more oil-heavy highway expansions. Robinowitz  
tells FTW readers why supposedly-green programs like “inter-modal”  
transportation or “Smart Growth” serve only to divide and divert  
activists, while generating more problems than solutions. From  
Eisenhower, to Clinton, to George W. Bush, read how decades of  
presidencies have added to the monstrosity of highway systems in  
America, not for the good of the people, but to line wealthy pockets  
with profitable pavement and catapult America swiftly towards “the  
end of suburbia.” - FTW]
[In the second part of Mark Robinowitz’s discussion of the effects  
of Peak Oil on automobile traffic, he reveals the ironies of many  
specific highway laws, including why proposed highway projects have  
made gravely incorrect estimations of future traffic by excluding  
Peak Oil as a variable. Read further to learn about the fine print  
within National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations that  
allows for major changes in the focus and allocation of federal  
transportation funds so that Americans may make use of less energy- 
expensive forms of transportation. Learn the difference between the  
façade of the “Power Shift” program, and why Richard  
Heinberg’s “Powerdown” program is brilliantly realistic, yet  
unsupported by oil elites. Robinowitz provides FTW readers with an  
extensive compilation of valuable resources, including news, books,  
articles, websites, and the best names in the Peak Oil discourse.  
Robinowitz clearly exposes his best-case scenario as to what might  
happen if America were to turn its oil and traffic troubles around  
before it’s too late. – FTW]


this article was mentioned in The Rock River Times, Rockford, Illinois

www.rockrivertimes.com/index.pl?cmd=viewstory&id=13324&cat=4

Viewpoint: Are we building highways to oblivion?
By Joe Baker, Senior Editor

 From the May 31-June 6, 2006, issue



Part 1

Peak Oil: Personal Impact and Public Policies
The Highway Industrial Complex
Multiple Bypass Surgery
NAFTA Superhighways:  Bush, Clinton, Bush
Limited Hang Out:  “inter-modal” transportation
Environmentalist Myopia
Smart Growth versus Sustainability
New land use and economic paradigms needed
Part 2
An introduction to Highway Laws
Segmentation and ISTEA: how to use Peak Oil to change transportation  
policies
Peak traffic
rising asphalt prices
Peak Oil and transportation planning
Council on Environmental Quality regulations implementing NEPA
Federal Highway Administration regulations about NEPA
Power Shift or Powerdown?
Reviving the Rails: a best case Peak Oil scenario
Additional resources:


Transportation planning in the United States -- the epicenter of oil  
combustion -- has been remarkably impervious to rising gasoline  
prices and growing awareness of climate change and the geological  
reality of finite fossil fuel supplies.  Hundreds of billions of  
dollars have been committed for massive expansions of the interstate  
highway system.   The plans for these “NAFTA superhighways” and  
Outer Beltways assume limitless cheap oil, a trillion dollar mistake  
that must be corrected if there is a hope for a renewable energy  
society after petroleum.  This article examines transportation  
planning in the United States and offers a tool that concerned  
citizens could use to force governments to shift long term plans to  
prepare to mitigate Peak Oil.





Peak Oil: Personal Impact and Public Policies

Three dollar a gallon gasoline has increased public concern about  
energy supplies, but this awareness has not translated into changes  
in public policies. Widespread outrage about astronomical oil company  
profits has not fueled political pressure to tax excessive profits to  
fund a European style inter-city rail network, put solar panels on  
millions of homes or other initiatives designed for a Post-Peak Oil  
world.

The arrival of Peak Oil and climate change onto the world political  
stage has not deterred governments from further investments in  
suburban sprawl, more highways, and other overdevelopment dependent  
on endless supplies of dollar a gallon petrol.

A large part of the public discussion about Peak Oil is about  
personal transportation issues, since most people’s consciousness of  
industrial energy systems is focused on purchasing petroleum at the  
pump.  There are many excellent strategies for reducting one’s  
energy consumption:  driving less, carpooling, car sharing , using  
public transportation (if available), bicycling, walking, living  
closer to your job (if possible) and buying locally made products to  
reduce transportation demands.  However, an effective response to  
Peak Oil will require efforts at all levels - family, neighborhood,  
city, state, nation and planet -- to be useful in the post-Peak era.

 From the Wilderness , Life After the Oil Crash , Energy Bulletin and  
many other news sources have documented that the most important  
issues of Peak Oil are about food supplies (especially for  
metropolitan areas far removed from farms), civil liberties ,  
economic instabilities and global conflicts.

A shift in transportation policy that admits to Peak Oil and climate  
change is needed to spark widespread discussions of needed changes to  
retool civilization for a post-carbon future.




The Highway Industrial Complex

"Above all, it is the young who succumb to this magic. They  
experience the triumph of the motorcar with the full temperment of  
their impressionable hearts. It must be seen as a sign of the  
invigorating power of our people that they give themselves with such  
fanatic devotion to this invention, an invention which provides the  
basis and structure of our modern traffic."
-- Adolf Hitler

American way of life (AWOL): a method of consuming non-renewable  
resources that Vice President Dick Cheney says is "not negotiable"
-- Permatopia Dictionary

Since World War II, car culture has transformed the literal and  
political maps of North America.  The many impacts of identical  
sprawlvilles from coast to coast are well documented in countless  
reports, books, and documentaries, and the spread of these homogenous  
exurbs is a core part of the spiritual crisis our society faces at  
the end of the era of cheap oil.

Highway construction is a key part of the wealth transfer scheme  
called “the economy.”  Road expansion unites powerful interests,  
including real estate speculators, developers, road construction,  
sand and gravel mining, and lending institutions.  In most  
communities in North America, these elites are the financial sponsors  
of local politicians who make zoning and planning decisions to build  
new highways and the associated development.



  In the U.S., nearly all large highways are built with federal  
transportation funds, and are usually supported by a coalition of  
federal, state and local governments.  However, controversial federal  
aid highways can be approved over local government objections, and  
there are cases where the federal government is split about a  
proposal (usually if there are major environmental or legal problems).

If a highway violates too many federal laws, the Federal Highway  
Administration may decide not to approve a road project even if local  
governments are vocal supporters (since the FHWA is the agency that  
gets sued, not local governments who contribute very little toward  
construction but gain all of the benefits).




Multiple Bypass Surgery
The interstate highway system was created in the 1950s, part of a  
“National Defense” network promoted by President Eisenhower as a  
military necessity for moving troops and equipment (similar to the  
Autobahn network built in Nazi Germany).

This massive construction was a consequence of the conspiracy between  
General Motors, Firestone Tire and Standard Oil to destroy public  
transit systems in over 100 cities (partly a result of these  
companies using their war profits to transform the civilian  
economy).  A websearch on “streetcar conspiracy” will retrieve  
numerous articles that document this part of American history.

Ironically, the United States is now spending billions to build new  
light rail and street car networks in cities from coast to coast --  
if the rails had been left intact, American cities would not be as  
car dependent, a tragic mistake that will make coping with Peak Oil  
much more difficult.

The interstates quickly became fuel for generating vast areas of car- 
dependent suburbs that created a “donut” form of development,  
turning some inner cities into semi-abandoned areas.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of many who decried the inherent  
racism of these road schemes.   In his speech "Remaining Awake  
Through a Great Revolution," delivered on March 31, 1968 , King said  
"These forty million [poor] people are invisible because America is  
so affluent, so rich; because our expressways carry us away from the  
ghetto, we don't see the poor."  It is surreal that numerous highways  
are now named after someone who decried the “white flight” fueled  
by freeways.

During the peak of the civil rights struggle in Washington, D.C., a  
rallying cry of opponents who spent a decade to stop Interstate 95  
from tearing through the inner city was “No White Men's Roads  
Through Black Men's Homes.”  An article that explores this history  
is“Interview with a Freeway Fighter,” archived at  
www.permatopia.com/wetlands/compromise.html

Cities that had public campaigns that stopped highways include  
Boston, San Francisco, Memphis, Toronto (Canada), Washington, D.C.,  
Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, Portland (OR), Eugene (OR) and  
Pasadena (CA).
In the wake of the 1960s explosion of freeway fighting, few new major  
highways were proposed.  The focus of many transportation agencies  
was to complete projects proposed in the 1950s, which were delayed by  
the rise of citizen activism and increasing construction costs  
(especially after the 1973 Saudi oil embargo).

In the 1990s, there was a resurgence of plans for new freeways.   
Several major upgrades to the interstate system were unveiled to help  
implement the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), building  
new and expanded north-south trucking routes between Canada and  
Mexico.  Metastasizing metropolitan areas also made new plans for  
megaroads, since outer suburbs require more asphalt per capita and  
are more car dependent than urban cores or inner suburbs built during  
the street car era (early 1900s).



NAFTA Superhighways: Bush, Clinton, Bush

The NAFTA superhighway concept was first included in the 1991  
Intermodal Surface Transportation Act (ISTEA).  ISTEA was enacted two  
years before the NAFTA treaty was passed by a Democratic controlled  
Congress.  ISTEA included numerous new and expanded north-south  
interstate highways to facilitate increased truck traffic between  
Canada and Mexico, plus dozens of other projects to benefit the  
highway lobby, national distributors such as Wal-Mart, and the  
metastasization of suburban sprawl.   This was George H. W. Bush’s  
highway law.

ISTEA’s expansion of the highway network was followed by the 1998  
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which  
funneled even more pork dollars for bypasses and NAFTA  
superhighways.  Bill Clinton signed TEA-21 into law.

George W. Bush’s turn at the public trough was Safe, Accountable,  
Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users  
(SAFETEA-LU), an even larger expansion than ISTEA or TEA-21.

These full extent of these expansions have received very little  
public scrutiny, even from most groups that do not want more roads.   
It is odd that amateur enthusiasts who like freeways and want more of  
them have done a better job of tracking the expansion of the national  
highway network than the environmental groups.  For example, the  
Sierra Club’s transportation website is an excellent resource of the  
social and environmental impacts from highways, “induced  
demand” (building more roads creates more traffic jams), and why  
public transit is beneficial -- but the Sierra Club and their allies  
do not highlight the new superhighway network that is the largest  
part of these transportation appropriations.




This map from the Federal Highway Administration shows new and  
expanded highways proposed in ISTEA and TEA-21.  Corridor 18 is the  
proposed extension of Interstate 69, perhaps the most prominent  
“NAFTA superhighway” project.  Highway boosters in Indiana  
campaigning to extend I-69 from Indianapolis to Kentucky convinced  
their allies in other states to band together to make an integrated  
NAFTA superhighway proposal a national priority to ensure federal  
funding for their segment.  The 2005 SAFETEA-LU law has 80 priority  
corridors, a massive highway expansion on the cusp of Peak Oil.



Limited Hang Out:  “inter-modal” transportation

ISTEA was sold to the national environmental groups as a multi-modal  
transportation bill, funding not just new and wider roads but also  
public transit systems and bicycle / pedestrian improvements.

ISTEA did appropriate billions for subways, light rail, buses and  
required that each State Department of Transportation had to include  
pedestrian and bicycle issues.   Much of the literature from these  
groups made ISTEA seem like a effort to ensure that every community  
would have bicycle lanes and effective public transit -- ignoring the  
fact that most of the money went toward roads.

TEA-21, the Transportation Equity Act was also marketed as a  
envronmental improvement by most environmental groups.  However, the  
“Equity” did not refer to choice between transportation modes, but  
to funding levels between the States.

Despite these lopsided funding levels (roads vs. transit), most  
national environmental groups rallied behind the meager improvements  
in ISTEA and TEA-21 and ignored the embedded NAFTA superhighway  
proposals.  Many of these organizations are dependent on grants from  
foundations invested in destructive industries.  This dynamic is  
similar to the “left gatekeepers” phenomenon that has keep the  
liberal “alternative” media from examining issues such as the coup  
against President Kennedy and the war games on 9/11 that confused the  
air defenses over Washington and New York).

The “inter-modal” emphasis was effective at splitting  
environmentalists between those who are appeased by inclusion of a  
bike path along a new highway and those with a holistic perspective  
who want a paradigm shift.

An example of the compromising approach is a recent action alert from  
the Washington Area Bicyclist Association urging its members to  
demand inclusion of a bicycle path along the proposed $3 billion  
Inter County Connector superhighway in Maryland.  This campaign did  
not express solidarity with the many environmental and community  
groups who have spent years (and decades) in opposition to this  
enormously destructive project, but focused solely on the side-issue  
of whether this new segment of the Washington Outer Beltway would  
have a token parallel bike route or not.




Interstate 84 in Portland, Oregon:  six lanes of freeway traffic plus  
the MAX Light Rail line.  The traffic on I-84 is helping to melt the  
polar ice caps, but at least commuters in this area have a choice of  
transportation options.  (The electricity to run the train is  
generated by a blend of hydropower, coal, natural gas, nuclear power  
and wind.)




Environmentalist Myopia

The environmental movement has largely ignored the ecological  
implications of Peak Oil, despite the fact the solutions to finite  
fossil fuels and climate change are intertwined and nearly identical.

An example of environmentalist refusal to incorporate Peak Oil into  
their analyses is the “Region 2040” program in Portland, Oregon.   
This long term planning effort grew out of the “Land Use,  
Transportation, Air Quality (LUTRAQ)” initiative, one of the more  
famous examples of “progressive” land use planning.   LUTRAQ was  
an effort that successfully stopped a proposed freeway bypass by  
showing that a new new rail line combined with land use shifts to  
encourage transit oriented development was superior to the highway  
for traffic mitigation and air quality levels.  Region 2040 and  
LUTRAQ are improvements over the traditional suburbia development  
model, but their omission of Peak Oil suggest they are going to be  
irrelevant long before the year 2040.

Environmental perspectives are desperately needed to challenge  
centralized energy conglomerates proposals for a revival of nuclear  
power, so-called clean coal, oil drilling in wilderness regions and  
conversion of farmland and forests to biofuel production.  These  
destructive practices are unlikely to be stopped as long we cling to  
the assumption that we can continue to have endless growth.



Smart Growth versus Sustainability

"You will change nothing until you change the way that money works"
-- M. King Hubbert, author of the mathematical model to predict Peak Oil

Sustainability refers to practices that can be continued generation  
after generation.  This word has been co-opted by polluters trying to  
confuse the public to ensure continued unsustainable extraction, the  
basis of the modern industrial economic paradigm.

Sustainability does not mean nice words or good intentions -- it  
refers to practices that your great-great-great-great grandchildren  
will still be able to do once the oil is gone.   By that standard,  
virtually no one in North America is living “sustainably,” with  
the exception of Amish and some Native American / First Nations  
communities.

Most of the best practices marketed as “sustainable” are merely  
efficiency.  A 100 mile per gallon car is an efficient use of non- 
renewable petroleum, but it is not sustainable.  Most forms of  
renewable energy are a means of using non-renewable resources (oil  
for plastics and transport, minerals) to capture sunlight, wind,  
etc.  It is hard to envision a successful transition from our current  
industrial paradigm to true sustainability, but honesty is critical  
for designing any successful outcomes.

“Smart Growth,” sometimes called “Sustainable Growth,” is  
another mantra of pseudo-environmentalism.   This oxymoronic slogan  
ignores the realities of overpopulation and overconsumption.

The first politician to use the term “Smart Growth” was Maryland  
Governor Parris Glendening (1994-2002), a Democrat.   In 1997, he  
embraced the term at the height of his campaign to promote  
construction of the Inter County Connector (ICC) superhighway, part  
of the long planned Outer Beltway around Washington.   This policy  
claimed to refocus public subsidies away from sprawling outer suburbs  
to reinvest in urban areas, but it also allowed connector roads  
between designated growth areas - a loophole large enough for the  
entire Outer Beltway. “Smart Growth” was embraced by the  
foundation funded environmental groups but scorned by grassroots who  
saw it as a distraction from the Governor’s superhighway plans.   
This “greenwash” (the false claim of environmentalism) did not  
succeed in approving the project, since in 1998 the FHWA quietly  
concluded that the ICC would not withstand a legal challenge, and the  
approval process stalled.

The “Smart Growth” is an example of how highway funds are used for  
social engineering.  The Glendening plan directed public subsidies  
toward the most urban parts of the State which are the most  
Democratic constituencies.  In contrast, outer suburb edge cities and  
rural areas are more Republican and use more gasoline per capita than  
Democratic.   Oil consumption is a variable that shows whether a  
community is more likely to vote for the D’s or for the R’s.

In 2006, former Governor Glendening is now president of the Smart  
Growth Leadership Institute and a board member of Smart Growth  
America , a national coalition of organizations advocating  
alternatives to urban sprawl.  If the Democrats are allowed to take  
over the White House in 2008, look for Glendening to take a key post  
promoting “Smart Growth.”

The Republican governor of Maryland revived the ICC, and the Bush  
administration made it a national priority (since it would connect  
military and intelligence contractors throughout the Washington area  
with key federal facilities, especially Fort Meade, home to the  
National Security Agency).  On May 29, 2006, the FHWA issued a  
"Record of Decision" for the ICC and environmental groups plan to sue  
to block construction through parks and neighborhoods.




New land use and economic paradigms needed


Most who promote “Smart Growth” have good intentions.  But this  
paradigm is an inadequate examination, since it only looks at  
personal transportation issues and ignores many of the other  
ecological impacts of cities.  Whether people live in apartment  
buildings served by public transit or dispersed edge cities, they use  
the same amount of energy to grow and transport the food they eat.   
Urban areas have an ecological “footprint” that is many times  
larger than the size of the metropolitan region to extract the raw  
materials needed to keep the City fed, lit, heated and economically  
vibrant.

"Smart Growth" won't do much to keep metropolitan areas fed after the  
peak of petroleum is past.  It might keep some farmland near cities  
from being paved - but urban agriculture will be needed to address  
food shortages in the future -- which is in contradiction to "Smart  
Growth's" insistence on greater density in cities.  It's hard to have  
community gardens when cities get too dense, although rooftop gardens  
are a practical way to supplement urban diets.

A new form of urban planning is needed to integrate transportation  
and land use planning with ecological footprint analyses.   Most  
ecological efforts to reduce car use and create more livable cities  
have stressed density as a solution to the transportation crisis, but  
overbuilt neighborhoods still require lots of delivery trucks  
bringing in food from distant farms.  A genuine solution would  
balance neighborhood density, intelligent urban design, converting  
lawns and parking lots to gardens and other efforts to make cities  
become more locally oriented in their consumption.

Steady state economics are a prerequisite for any sensible strategy  
to achieve a harmonious balance with the natural world to plan beyond  
the era of cheap oil..  M. King Hubbert pointed out that the  
solutions required abandoning the economic paradigm of growth and  
shifting toward steady -state economics.   Several articles about  
this are linked from www.permatopia.com/growth.html

One analogy for a steady state economy is an old growth forest  
ecosystem.  A definition of a mature forest is a system where growth  
and decay are in balance.  The total tonnage of biomass may remain  
consistent in a given area, but life continues to be dynamic for  
individual species.   A forest in balance is still a dynamic place  
for the mouse being eaten by an owl, or for a sapling feeding on the  
soil created by trees that fell over decades ago.

Smart Growth cannot solve exponential growth, overshoot, Peak Oil and  
other resource depletions.   Smart Growth is riding First Class on  
the Titanic, ecological destruction with good taste.

In nature, endless growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.   A  
truly sustainable society would mimc natural processes, since we live  
on a finite planet and must change our politics, economics and  
psychology to adjust to this reality.




An introduction to Highway Laws

Freeway fighting is a complex and obscure topic. It involves arcane  
laws, reading thick reports, neighborhood association politics and  
seemingly endless governmental meetings designed to soak up your  
time. Most of the best guides to stopping unnecessary roads were  
written in the 1970s, following the “peak” of successful citizen  
efforts to block highways, and are nearly impossible to find. The  
best resource this author has seen is the 1977 book “The End of the  
Road: A Citizen’s Guide to Transportation Problemsolving” from the  
National Wildlife Federation and Environmental Action (the latter  
group has been defunct since the late 1990s).

Fortunately, federal transportation laws are some of the strongest  
environmental laws remaining in the United States. There are many  
good precedents that even corrupt judges must provide some lip  
service to. A short guide to some of the most important laws suggests  
that Peak Oil could be used to force major shifts from new highway  
construction toward policies that would better prepare communities  
for the energy crisis.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was signed by President  
Nixon, and governs all federal actions that impact the environment,  
even (acknowledged) military bases. NEPA is sometimes misrepresented  
as the National Environmental Protection Act, but it is procedural  
law, not substantive -- it merely requires adequate disclosure of all  
decisions. If an administration planned to destroy all life on Earth,  
NEPA would require that they analyze a range of alternatives (perhaps  
an option to destroy half of the Earth along with a “No Action”  
option), since NEPA does not require selecting the least destructive  
alternative.

NEPA is the law that requires Environmental Impact Statements (for  
large projects) and Environmental Assessments (for smaller projects).  
The start of an EIS or EA is the drafting of a “Purpose and Need”  
to identify a problem, followed by “scoping” of a range of  
reasonable alternatives. The preferred alternative is approved in a  
“Record of Decision” after the Final EIS, at which time citizens  
can sue to block the project.

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, also signed by Nixon, regulates  
the destruction of wetlands. Most highways destroy wetlands, an  
activity regulated by the Army Corps of Engineers. Wetland permits  
need to evaluate whether the action is avoidable before examining how  
to mitigate the impacts. The highway lobby has worked for many years  
to attack this law, and the Roberts Supreme Court is likely to reduce  
its effectiveness.

The Clean Air Act regulates highway construction in smoggy urban  
areas that are polluted beyond officially acceptable levels. Road  
construction using federal funds in these communities can only be  
approved in conjunction with promises that the projects will not  
worsen the smog problems -- often an exercise in statistical  
manipulation that does not protect public health. A metropolitan area  
that fails to meet Clean Air standards can be threatened with a loss  
of federal highway funds. Ironically, the cutoff of those funds would  
be part of a lasting solution to air pollution, not merely a  
punishment for regions downplaying the problem.

Perhaps the most powerful and least known highway law is Section 4(f)  
of the 1966 Transportation Act, which prohibits transportation  
projects through parks and historic sites unless there is not a  
“prudent and feasible” alternative. (Roads built without federal  
money or other federal DOT actions are not affected by this  
restriction.) It was passed as a consequence of citizen anger of  
highways tearing up parks, since it is much cheaper for the  
highwaymen to decimate parkland than to compensate people for  
bulldozing their homes. The 1995 SAFETEA-LU law introduced a “de  
minimus” standard (too small to notice) to exempt minor impacts from  
4(f) consideration.

Some highways also violate the Endangered Species Act, but this legal  
tact has rarely been successful in stopping road construction. The  
ESA is also under attack, and the environmental community is on the  
defensive trying to hold onto Nixon-era laws, rather than taking the  
initiative to create stronger protections to slow down or reverse the  
destruction of the biosphere. It is incredible that protections for  
extremely rare species are being eviscerated as climate change,  
habitat destruction and toxic wastes are leading to the sixth great  
mass extinction of life in the Earth’s history.

One of the best guides to understand highway law is the FHWA  
Environmental Guidebook, a review of highway laws and regulations  
written for State transportation planners to ensure they design  
projects that will withstand legal challenges.




Segmentation and ISTEA: how to use Peak Oil to change transportation  
policies

The FHWA’s implementation of the NEPA law requires that the full  
impacts of a highway must be analyzed before a Record of Decision is  
issued. Approving a road that forces additional construction that is  
ignored in the environmental documentation is illegal  
“segmentation” of the project.

In the 1991 ISTEA law, a provision was added to federal highway  
approvals that requires all highway plans in a metropolitan area to  
fit into a regional long range transportation budget to avoid a form  
of fiscal segmentation. If a metro area wants lots of new roads, they  
have to show how the projects could be paid for (federal and local  
funds) over a 20 year period. Approving a project that lacks funding  
is therefore a form of segmentation. The funds need not be available  
when construction begins, but the entire project has to fit within a  
constrained transportation budget - a process similar to buying a  
home with a mortgage (a home buyer has to show their potential  
ability to raise all of the funds over the span of the loan).

A few highway officials have privately admitted to this writer that  
they understand that Peak Oil should be included in transportation  
planning, the agencies they work for have a “Not See” attitude and  
do not dare discuss it.

FHWA funded highway projects are designed to meet traffic needs 20  
years in the future - not for existing traffic snarls. If Peak Oil  
were included in these projections, it would force major changes to  
transportation policies at the local and national levels.

While no one, not even Dick Cheney, knows precisely what will happen  
with Peak Oil, to ignore it completely and make more “growth”  
projections and traffic models that assume constant supplies and  
pricing of petroleum is delusional. When FHWA finally requires energy  
analyses in NEPA documentation, they could examine a range of  
scenarios: gasoline at $5 per gallon in 2025, gasoline at $50 per  
gallon in 2025, and gasoline not available to the public in 2025  
(only to elites and the military).

It is impossible to project what oil will cost when annual extraction  
is roughly half of current levels (as the best estimates project for  
2030). When that happens, current traffic demand statistics will  
probably be worthless.




Peak traffic

The 2005 Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Inter County  
Connector highway had this response to a comment that referenced Peak  
Oil as a reason not to build the road:

It is speculative to assume that increases in gasoline prices will  
"reduce congestion." Evidence indicates that very substantial price  
increases might be needed in order to substantially change  
transportation choices and decisions. Price increases could cause a  
variety of responses which might not affect highway usage; e.g.  
production and acquisition of more fuel-efficient vehicles. The  
travel forecasts were made assuming a cost per mile for operating an  
automobile. Historically as the price of gasoline has increased the  
miles traveled per gallon of gas have also increased. In fact, gas  
costs less per mile traveled today than it did prior to the first oil  
embargo in 1974. Petroleum scarcity as a result of consumption in  
China is speculative.
- Final Environmental Impact Statement, Inter County Connector (I-370)

This EIS is correct to state that planning for rising gas prices is  
speculative, but planning as if prices will remain constant for the  
next two decades is even more speculative.

It is not “speculation” to predict that higher gas prices will  
prevent traffic increases. Here is a small example of how this works,  
which shows that the price increases likely from Peak Oil will lower  
traffic demand considerably in the design year of 2030.

www.cnn.com/2006/AUTOS/11/30/gas_prices.reut/index.html
Americans drive less for first time in 25 years
Higher gas prices cut not only sales of SUVs, but also time spent on  
the road: study.
POSTED: 3:47 p.m. EST, November 30, 2006
HOUSTON (Reuters) -- High gasoline prices not only slowed fuel demand  
growth and cut sales of gas-guzzling vehicles in 2005, they also  
prompted Americans to drive less for the first time in 25 years, a  
consulting group said in a report Thursday.
The drop in driving was small - the average American drove 13,657  
miles (21,978.8 km) per year in 2005, down from 13,711 miles in 2004

More riders crowd buses
The rising cost of driving sends record numbers to LTD, where human  
traffic jams the aisles
BY JEFF WRIGHT
The Register-Guard
Published: Thursday, April 6, 2006

TRAFFIC AT THE YORK TOLLS on the Maine Turnpike - a standard measure  
of tourism in the state - was down in June and even more in July  
compared with the same time last year. . . Traffic passing through  
the York tolls had increased every year until five years ago, when it  
became stable. This is the first time it has dropped significantly;  
the decrease was 5.3 percent when comparing June 2004 and June 2005,  
and 5.8 percent when comparing July numbers. . The national average  
price for regular unleaded gas was $2.41 a gallon, compared with  
$1.86 a year ago
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/050813gasprices.shtml
http://www.maineturnpike.com/jpgraph/total_by_month.html
http://www.maineturnpike.com/jpgraph/yearly_totals.html

High gasoline prices filling bus, train seats
Tue Apr 25, 2006
By Bernie Woodall, Reuters
Some mass transit advocates hesitate to say the price spike has  
forced drivers onto public transportation, including Amtrak spokesman  
Cliff Black.
But in some cities where the car is undisputed king of transportation  
such as Houston and Los Angeles, public transportation ridership is up.
In Houston, home to many oil refineries, ridership was up 10.2  
percent in the most recent fiscal year, said Houston's Metropolitan  
Transit Authority, which has a large bus fleet.
In Los Angeles, Metro Rail ridership rose 11.4 percent and the number  
of bus passengers increased 7 percent in the first quarter of 2006.  
About 1.4 million ride Los Angeles County buses and trains daily.
It's difficult to say how many are on board because of gasoline  
prices, said Dave Sotero of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan  
Transportation Authority.
"When gas prices go up, we do see spikes in ridership," said Sotero.  
"We're hopeful people who haven't used public transit, they will  
carry on riding even if gasoline prices drop," said Sotero.
Last week, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in the  
nation's capital had the two highest ridership days in the  
Metrorail's 30-year history that were not linked to a special event.  
The highest day was April 20, with 780,820 riders, up 6.2 percent  
from a year ago.
But WMATA spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said it's hard to peg that on  
gasoline prices -- nice weather last week may have had more to do  
with it, he said.

These statistics do not suggest a major shift (yet) due to increasing  
gas prices, but they hint at much larger changes to come on the  
petroleum downslope.





Peak Asphalt

http://lcog.org/meetings/mpc/0806/MPC% 
205g1i_OregonianArticleonCostIncreases.pdf
Soaring costs throw Oregon road projects a curve
Rough road - Officials are facing steep price increases for asphalt  
and other materials
Monday, July 31, 2006
JAMES MAYER
The Oregonian

www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060616/ 
NEWS01/606160303/1002
Asphalt prices delay pressing road repairs
By Joseph Gidjunis
Staff Writer
The Daily Times, Salisbury, Maryland

www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/politics/14837423.htm
Fri, Jun. 16, 2006
Asphalt prices skyrocket, highway officials scramble to adjust
JOHN HARTZELL
Associated Press

www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=5026843&nav=0RY5
SHREVEPORT, LA
Asphalt Prices May Mean Fewer New Shreveport Street





Peak Oil and transportation planning

There are two ways that Peak Oil could be inserted into highway  
planning for a large road project. These issues could be raised  
during the “Scoping” process that is the first step for an  
Environmental Impact Statement. If this framework was required to  
include reasonable scenario for energy availability in the year 2030,  
new highways would be scrapped in favor of better transit, a  
revitalized train network, and maintaining existing infrastructure  
(especially aging bridges.

If project is further advanced, NEPA mandates that a  
“Supplemental” EIS must be prepared if there are "new  
circumstances" not anticipated when the scoping process was  
conducted. Surely reaching the peak of petroleum production worldwide  
is an important circumstance for a transportation project allegedly  
designed for travel long past the peak of petroleum.

If FHWA included Peak Oil into environmental analyses for highway  
projects, this could create a seismic shift in transportation  
planning across the United States, allowing for honest public  
discussion about energy and transportation policies. There are  
several ways this shift could happen: a successful Federal lawsuit  
forces FHWA to include Peak Oil, the start of gasoline rationing  
makes transportation planners consider alternatives, or a change in  
national policies (probably the least likely in the near future).




Council on Environmental Quality regulations implementing NEPA

40 CFR 1502.9: Draft, final and supplemental statements.

(c) Agencies:

(1) Shall prepare supplements to either draft or final environmental  
impact statements if:

(i) The agency makes substantial changes in the proposed action that  
are relevant to environmental concerns; or

(ii) There are significant new circumstances or information relevant  
to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its  
impacts.




Federal Highway Administration regulations about NEPA

23 CFR § 771.130 Supplemental environmental impact statements.

(a) A draft EIS, final EIS, or supplemental EIS may be supplemented  
at any time. An EIS shall be supplemented whenever the Administration  
determines that:

(1) Changes to the proposed action would result in significant  
environmental impacts that were not evaluated in the EIS; or

(2) New information or circumstances relevant to environmental  
concerns and bearings on the proposed action or its impacts would  
result in significant environmental impacts not evaluated in the EIS.




Power Shift or Powerdown?

As Peak Oil awareness continues to spread, supporters of the dominant  
industrial paradigm will increase their propaganda that technological  
shifts are sufficient to solve the problems. These efforts to  
maintain the status quo of growth based economics in the face of  
resource limitations distract from practical steps our society could  
have taken to mitigate these impacts.

An egregious example of this limited focus (on demand side solutions)  
is the Power Shift series of conferences across the country,  
sponsored by a coalition including environmentalists (Natural  
Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists) and  
warmongers (Center for the Defense of Democracies, a neo-conservative  
supporter of the “War on Terror”). Power Shift is a carefully  
crafted means of keeping grassroots who are concerned about these  
issues from recommending policies and logistics that would be needed  
to address the problems.

The brochure distributed at the April 8 Power Shift event in  
Portland, Oregon had pictures of interstate highways and messages  
about our right to Middle East oil, but there was no mention of  
relocalization of food production, Amtrak, or converting the bloated  
military budget for peaceful uses.

Power Shift is a proposal to substitute alternative fuels (other than  
oil) to maintain car culture and centralized energy systems, even  
though biofuels, liquified coal and other demand side technologies  
cannot possibly fill maintain current overconsumption levels.

Powerdown, the title of Richard Heinberg’s excellent book, is a more  
realistic approach. Powerdown includes relocalizing production,  
renewable energy, efficiency, conservation and reduction of demand.  
Unfortunately, the elites who fund many energy outreach efforts  
cannot figure out how to profit as much from this approach, and  
therefore are not interested in Powerdown.

 From the Wilderness published two articles about some of the players  
behind “Power Shift” and the “Oil Storm” scenario exercise  
they present to audiences.

OIL SHOCKWAVE:
Torrance, CA Emergency Simulation Targets Big Business and Local  
Government Managers
Ominous Timing in Advance of Hurricane Katrina
by Zac Evans and Michael C. Ruppert

WOOLSEYS IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
How Dumb Can the Left Get?
by Michael C. Ruppert




Reviving the Rails: a best case Peak Oil scenario

"In the United States, we have a railroad system that the Bulgarians  
would be ashamed of. We desperately are going to need railroad  
transport for moving people around, for moving goods around – we  
don’t have that. What we do have is a trucking system that is going  
to become increasingly dysfunctional, especially as the expense  
mounts of maintaining the tremendous interstate highway system. It  
costs so much money every year to maintain what the engineers call a  
high level of service – which means that the trucks that are  
delivering things from the central valley of California to Toronto  
don’t break their axles while they’re bringing those Caesar salads  
to Toronto. Once you have a certain number of trucks that are  
breaking their axles in that 3,000 mile journey, that’s the end of  
transcontinental trucking – which also implies that this is the end  
of certain economic relationships that we have gotten used to."
-- author James Howard Kunstler, from an interview in the film "The  
End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the End of the American Dream"

It is serious time to look at the nationalization of America's  
critical infrastructure industries: oil, gas, electricity, and others  
that have gouged the American consumer and now deserve to lose their  
windfall profits in a nationalization effort that will return to them  
ten cents on the dollar, if they are lucky.
- Wayne Madsen Report, April 25, 2006

In the 1960s, the success of freeway fighters in stopping the Boston  
Inner Belt spurred Congress to change transportation laws to allow  
money programmed for Interstate highways to be used for public  
transit. Several rail systems were created from unused freeway funds,  
most notably the initial construction phase of the Washington, D.C.  
Metro.

If the United States ever makes shifts to have an ecological,  
socially just policy to cope with Peak Oil, it would need to shift  
money from the NAFTA superhighway program to a serious revival of  
inter-city rail to efficiently move people and goods with less energy  
consumption.

A best case scenario for mitigating Peak Oil could include

bullet train service between cities (with solar panels lining the  
tracks to provide some of the power),
light rail and better bus service on major roads,
major investments in renewable energy and hyper-conservation,
land use shifts to reduce commuting distances,
widespread suburban agriculture to convert lawns into food production  
(which would reduce truck deliveries),
other steps to reduce our demand for oil, coal, natural gas, uranium,  
concrete, and mineral ores.
If we continue on the current road of overshoot, the likely  
consequence will be a “national Katrina” disaster, where a small  
group would still have access to fuels, capital, and quality food  
while a much larger underclass would be left to scramble for  
survival. But that dismal potential shares one outcome with the  
“positive scenario” -- both the cooperative, conservation future  
and the collapse scenario would greatly reduce need for more  
highways. Whether we cope with Peak Oil and climate change or  
continue to ignore the problems until they become catastrophic and un- 
mitigable, there is no need to continue to expand highway network.

Relocalizing production and building renewable energy systems is a  
bigger priority for using the remaining oil than more freeways for  
Wal-Mart delivery trucks.

Future generations will regret that essential farmland was paved over  
- not that one more dumb highway was not built.

Politicians who have nothing practical for the public to mitigate the  
consequences of Peak Oil risk being thrown out of office once the  
price of gas goes up and stays up. Who will get the blame for  
ignoring the issue?

The most important question regarding planning for 2030 is what type  
of economy we will have after the cheap abundant oil is replaced by  
expensive, scarce oil. Will we use the remaining oil to relocalize  
production and build lots of renewable energy equipment or will this  
oil be used to build more freeways and fuel a futile World War to  
control the remaining oil fields? The answers to these questions  
determine the future of the human race.




proposed, unfunded network of high speed rail corridors, a step  
toward a real passenger train network




old Amtrak (long distance trains traveling 80 mph / 130 kph) and new  
Amtrak (Cascades route using Spanish trains that can go 124 mph / 200  
kph, but the tracks they travel cannot accommodate those speeds)




Amtrak “Acela” train from Boston to Washington, D.C. (150 mph /  
240 kph) - almost as fast as high speed rail in Japan, Europe, and  
Korea.




Magnetic Levitation test track in Germany. MagLev trains travel  
around 300 mph / 480 kph. Demonstration routes for ultra high speed  
trains are proposed between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.,  
Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Florida, and in southern California.




Additional resources:

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change,  
and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century by  
James Howard Kunstler

The UnPlanning Journal discusses the Oregon Transportation Plan and  
some detailed comments.

The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American  
Dream (movie).

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, a film from  
Community Solution.

Food Not Lawns, Eugene, Oregon

City Farmer, Vancouver, BC

Urban Gardening Help

City Repair, Portland, Oregon

Saving Oil in a Hurry: Oil Demand Restraint in Transport
Workshop on Managing Oil Demand in Transport (2005)
archived at http://www.permatopia.com/doc/Saving-Oil-in-Hurry.pdf

Future U.S. Highway Energy Use: A Fifty Year Perspective (DRAFT)
May 3, 2001
Office of Transportation Technologies
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
U.S Department of Energy
archived at http://www.permatopia.com/doc/DOE-highways-may2001.pdf

Association for the Study of Peak Oil
334. New roads and a tunnel in Switzerland (March 2004 issue)

Switzerland operates a devolved form of government seeking to involve  
its citizens in major issues rather than impose decisions by  
parliamentarians under the iron grip of party machines, as practised  
in many so-called democracies. The decision now facing the Swiss  
people is whether or not to modernise the highway system and build a  
new tunnel under the Alps. Linear extrapolation of past trends of  
traffic and goods transport has no doubt been used to justify the  
mammoth undertaking, but it is meeting strong opposition, partly  
built on recognition of oil depletion. A cartoon has appeared  
depicting a future scene of a cyclist and an old man looking down on  
an empty highway with trees growing through the cracks. The old man  
comments “In my day we believed in all that” to which the cyclist  
replies "You still had petrol."
The Swiss Federal Office of Energy is holding a Workshop on oil and  
gas resources on February 27th which will be open to the public. ASPO  
will be represented by Campbell and Bauquis in a discussion with  
representatives of the IEA, IHS, Schlumberger and Chevron-Texaco. It  
remains to be seen if it will have any positive outcome, as the  
accompanying report commissioned by the Federal Office simply  
contrasts the views of so called “optimists” and “pessimists”  
to reach a neutral position, absolving the government from the need  
to take any firm action. The likely outcome is that the investments  
in roads and tunnels will be neither approved nor rejected but simply  
delayed – it might indeed be a good political response, given that  
impact of peak oil will soon be self-evident.

Published on 4 Apr 2005 by New Zealand Herald. www.energybulletin.net/ 
5112.html
New Zealand: No easy solutions in sight to keep oil prices in check
by Cameron Pitches

... New Zealand’s transport agencies need a contingency plan for the  
rising price of oil. At US$70 a barrel, the Auckland Regional  
Transport Authority should be looking to secure options on electric  
rolling stock for our rail network.
At US$100, the Government should be suspending all new roading  
projects. At US$200, Auckland International Airport’s proposals for  
a second runway should be shelved in favour of a container wharf for  
shipping.
Reliance on emerging new energy technologies such as hydrogen won’t  
help us in the short term, either. The so-called hydrogen economy is  
a net energy-loss proposition - more energy is put in to the  
extraction, compression and storage of hydrogen than comes out of it.
In addition, more than 90 per cent of hydrogen is obtained from  
fossil fuels, which defeats the purpose of an alternative fuel.

www.sevenoaksmag.com/commentary/63_comm2.html
A bridge too far: Big men and their little toys
May 24, 2005
Am Johal

... Building our way out of congestion through highway expansion  
seems incredibly short-sighted, especially in the context of oil  
reaching $100 a barrel by 2010 and a public transportation sadly in  
need of a billion dollar overhaul.

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