The Livable Blog

Transit delays and fare hikes drive tar sands expansion

By Eric Doherty, January 26, 2012

On Wednesday (January 25), B.C. transportation minister Blair Lekstrom once again announced the Evergreen SkyTrain line to Coquitlam and the Tri-Cities area. This time he announced the start of work after more than a decade of delays—well sort of. Only minor preparatory work is starting. No contracts for the actual transit line have been signed, and further delays are possible. The numerous delays to the Evergreen Line stand in marked contrast to the rapidly progressing work on the massive new Cape Horn freeway interchange connecting to the Tri-Cities.

The new Cape Horn Interchange and expanded Highway 1 freeway will provide a toll-free route for Coquitlam residents heading into Burnaby and Vancouver. Effectively, the B.C. government has spent $3.1 billion to convince people to drive instead of riding the $1.4 billion Evergreen Line. . . .

See full text and comments at http://www.straight.com/article-593651/vancouver/eric-doherty-transit-delays-and-fare-hikes-drive-tar-sands-expansion

Well here we go. Another Gateway megaproject, $1.8 billion for airport expansion. http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Hike+Vancouver+airport+help+billion+expansion/6051326/story.html This is about the same cost as the South Fraser Perimeter Road, and is even more of a climate crime.

No time for a long post today, but this is the letter I just wrote to the Vancouver Sun:

Re. Hike in Vancouver airport fee to help pay for $1.8-billion expansion (January 26). Short haul flights are the most carbon intensive way to travel, and electric trains are the most efficient. There is a much better investment for the $1.8 billion – phase out the short flights that cause airport overcrowding and use the money to create an electric passenger rail system for the whole province. Otherwise YVR will end up under rising seas caused by all the oil sands fuel burned in trips better served by bus and rail.

Please consider writing your own letter, and get going on the tweets facecrack posts etc. Plane Stupid in the UK has lots of resources. This is what they are about:

Plane Stupid is a network of grassroots groups that take non violent direct action against aviation expansion.

We have three demands:

End to short haul flights and airport expansion
Stop aviation advertising
A just transition to sustainable jobs and transport

We came together in 2005 to oppose an aviation industry conference and have been taking action ever since.

http://www.planestupid.com/aboutus

Andrew Nikiforuk has a very interesting article in the Tyee today, titled What the Keystone Rejection Really Reveals. While most of the article is a good analysis of the first-round victory against the Keystone tar sands pipeline and the fight to come, what really caught my eye was this quote under the sub heading Key Lessons:

"Meanwhile, greens still think that they can stop Big Oil without first having an open conversation with oil's highly distracted consumers. When the greens eventually focus on consumption instead of production and recognize the limits of renewables, they'll become truly dangerous to the status quo."

I disagree with the idea of focusing on "consumption instead of production", but completely agree that it is time to go on the offensive regarding oil consumption. We need to link the campaigns against the tar sands to campaigns for decisive measures to reduce oil consumption.

The fact is that, scary as it may be, we need to challenge the automobile and airline industries that lie at the end of the tar sands pipelines. Thats right, the tar sands pipelines end in the tank of your car and feed the airplanes so many Canadians fly on frequently and frivolously.

So lets get that conversation rolling . . .

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/01/19/Keystone/

The history of automobile dependance is fascinating, and raises some fundamental questions about what direction we could change to. What would policy designed and carried out in the public interest look like?

Later on in the interview Chomsky elaborates on how fracking for oil and gas is leading us towards a climate catastrophe, suggesting that a sharp peak in oil and gas production would be a very good thing.

It is well worthwhile to listen to the full WORT-FM interview with James Howard Kunstler, Nicole Foss, Dmitri Orlov and Noam Chomsky at http://www.energybulletin.net/media/2012-01-06/heinberg-kunstler-foss-orlov-chomsky-public-affair

32:48

We pour a huge amount of money into maximizing the use of energy. This goes back very far. So you go back to right after the Second World War for example. There were major efforts to shift the entire economy to highly wasteful hydrocarbon use. Eisenhower's national highway program, for example--it was called National Defense Highway because you had to throw the word defense in to justify expenditures--but it was basically part of a general program of undermining efficient, lower cost transportation. Rail, in particular, and to replace it by government-subsidized, high fuel use systems like highways, airpots and so on. That actually followed on a literal conspiracy, a conspiracy judged so by the courts, between several major producers... actually it was General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Firestone Rubber, who got together to buy up the quite efficient electric rail system in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California and to replace it by busses, trucks, and roads and so on. They actually were brought to court for conspiracy and I think fined about enough to pay for their victory dinner or something like that. That was a part of an extensive program of suburbanization, shifting the economy to roads, trucks, airplanes, high fuel use and that continues right up to the present.

In fact, some of the programs that were carried are kind of almost surreal. For example, in the late Eisenhower years, must have been '58 or so, there was a government decision to use up our Texas oil resources, instead of using much cheaper Middle East, mostly Saudi, resources. The reason was basically a gift to Texas oil producers, and it went on for about 15 years I think. In effect, the government policy was to use up domestic resources and then later when that's proceeded, to build big holes in the ground and fill it with imports--that's called the strategic reserve. It was very conscious. There were actually quite conservative critics, like Adelman, who's an oil specialist at MIT, who was bitterly critical of this on national security grounds as well as economic grounds. But it's part of the way these programs continue and it continues right now.

For example, there's now a lot excitement and hype even in places where I wouldn't expect to see it, like the London Financial Times, a mostly sensible newspaper, about the claim that the United States might have oil independence for a hundred years and therefore be able to maintain its global hegemony, I'm virtually quoting, by high tech methods of accessing shale oil, sand oil, and so on, fracking, all the rest of it. They think all that's wonderful. What's going to happen to the world, if the United States goes on for a hundred years, maximizing the use of hydrocarbons? Well, that question doesn't come up but we know the answer. In fact, it would be a very good thing if we were approaching something like peak oil. Unfortunately, it's being deferred for a long time, which is a disaster for the world.

52:02

For example, there's a recent book that just came out from the Economic Policy Institute, called "Failure by Design," which is a review of their studies of the last 30 years on the policies that have led to the situation that the Occupy Movements are now beginning to confront--very narrow concentration of wealth, incredible concentration at the top 1/10th of one percent of the population, mostly in the financial sector--hedge fund managers, corporate executives, and so on. Along with pretty much stagnation for the majority. People have been getting by, by heavier workloads, much higher than Europe; by debt, which is of course unsustainable; and by the bubbles that have been created ever since the Reagan years, largely through deregulation. Concentration of wealth leads to concentration of political power which leads to legislation that carries the vicious cycle forward. Going back to their book, it's called "Failure by Design" and the stress is on the word design. These policies are designed. They don't happen by the laws of nature or for economic reasons, any more than the highway program and the destruction of the electric rail and regular rail system did. These are choices and they're choices that aren't made by the population. They're very harmful to the general welfare but with the deterioration of the functioning democratic system--which is no secret to the population, just look at the poll results on popularity of congress--with that, policy is designed and carried out in a way in which the public interest doesn't matter. The same is true going back to fossil fuels--of the efforts to try to maximize fossil fuel use with it's destructive consequences.

By Eric Doherty

Early on Sunday morning, Marcelo Ebrard the Mayor of Mexico City sent hundreds of riot police into a working class neighbourhood to evict occupiers and ensure that work can proceed on his pet freeway project, the “Supervía Poniente” which translates approximately as ‘Western Superhighway’. Residents of the neighbourhood Magdalena Contreras along with supporters from the Frente Amplio Contra la Supervía Poniente de Cuota en Defensa del Medio Ambiente (Broad Front Against the Western Superhighway and in Defense of the Environment) have mounted an occupation which has been ongoing for over a year.

On December 2nd, a panel of judges unanimously voided the environmental permit for the controversial Supervía $500 million highway project in Mexico City. The decision in favour of a coalition of environmental and human rights groups found that the environmental assessment for the P3 (private public partnership) project had not met the requirement for public consultation in article 50 of Mexico City’s Environmental Law.

This court victory confirmed a January decision by the Mexico City Human Rights Commission that found that the government should suspend construction until a public consultation was completed. The commission found that the Supervia project violates "the rights to decent housing, a healthy environment, water, information, citizen participation, and legal security" and that rapid transit should be considered as an alternative.

Mayor Ebrard might not appreciate the irony of sending in riot police to ensure that public money goes to highway expansion rather than transit on the final day of international climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa. The expansion of roads, and resulting automobile dependency, is one of the leading drivers of rising carbon emissions worldwide. The results of the weak agreement reached today are expected to be disastrous for countries around the world, including Mexico. The Guardian quotes Andy Atkins, of Friends of the Earth, saying: "This empty shell of a plan leaves the planet hurtling towards catastrophic climate change”.

It is time to step up the fight against climate crimes, including urban freeway projects such as the Supervia in Mexico City, the proposed re-building of the Turcot Interchange in Montreal, and numerous other highway projects around our fragile planet.

Originally published at http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/hundreds-riot-police-threaten-occupation-illegal-freeway-mexico-city/9377