Transportation
The voters in Burlington did not quite approve the bond for the airport parking garage expansion. 65% voted for it, but a 2/3 majority was needed, because the city would have had to co-sign the loan. A bond secured solely on expected airport...
Transportation
I know, I know.
We'll need to completely re-tool our transportation and energy systems as we move into a new century marked by increasingly scarce and more expensive fossil fuel energy resources.
Maybe the new plug-in Prius Hybrid can help get us through the transition, though.
Thoughts?
This idea has some support within Vermont's Agency of Transportation:
Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles.
The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes...
The proposal is not without critics, including drivers who are concerned about privacy and...
In my continuing test of getting around Vermont without use of my own car, I put together the most elaborate day ever last Sunday. With five carpool legs, and a bicycle ride to and from Montpelier at the beginning and end of the day, I got from my house in East Montpelier to Plainfield village to a homestead in Plainfield to a farm in Cabot and back again.
I've had much more complicated travel arrangements when hitchhiking, and people who commute by hitchhiking probably have elaborate logistics every day. For me, I think this is the first time I'd choreographed the intricate, precisely timed sets of rides ahead of time.
...
I got rear-ended by a sweet little old lady last week.
My 1995 Subaru Legacy is now totaled.
I bought it for a song four years ago - the car has run like a champ ever since. Oil changes, new tires, the occasional tweak here, nudge there.
I'm OK. She's OK. No one's kids were in either car. Phew.
My neighbor and good friend, who also happens to be my insurance agent, gets some business. Nice.
But...I am stuck with driving around a bad-ass carbon-belching beast of an SUV - a Ford Escape.
Red, no less.
The only rental vehicle equivalent to an AWD auto in the...
Energy, Food, Education, Currency, Transportation, Politics, Farming, Business, Commerce, Environment
(Updated below)
I'm putting together a list of important books related to the world's energy situation, its consequences, and what to do about it for inclusion in my next column in the Times Argus and Rutland Herald.
Any suggestions? If so, please leave them in comments.
Here's a preliminary list (in no particular order) compiled through random notes scribbled down. I intend to go through the bibliography in A Crash Course and Depletion and Abundance for a more systemic review.
John Michael Greer,...
Energy, Food, Transportation, Politics, Farming, Business, Commerce, Health, Environment, Trade
(Updated below the fold.)
John Michael Greer wonders whether the Transition Town Movement is engaging in "premature triumphalism." As a part of the initiating group in Transition Town Montpelier, which on Tuesday received official recognition from the international transition folks, I doubt it.
We're happy if people even notice what we're up to.
Luckily, there's a chance Monday for everyone in the central Vermont area to find out more about Transition Towns and judge for themselves. Naresh Giangrande, co-...
Those of us who follow the details of monthly or weekly oil data reports have long been awaiting the International Energy Agency's 2008 edition of their annual World Energy Outlook. The IEA has long been a cockeyed optimist about future oil availability, along with the US Energy Information Administration. But the IEA has been indicating since this summer that they were revising their future projections of oil availability downward. Would the new report constitute a recognition of imminent peak oil from a Very Official Institution?
The new report came out today.
You can read the...
(I first examined the falling price of oil in August. The price of oil has dropped further, so it's time for another look.)
Someone told me with relief recently that gasoline is $2.99 a gallon. I was reminded of an editorial cartoon in late 2005 or early 2006, showing someone filling up before and after hurricane Katrina. In both pictures, a guy holding a gas nozzle is looking at the pump and exclaiming, "Gas is $2.50 a gallon!" Before Katrina, he has a look of outrage on his face. After Katrina, he wears a broad grin.
Lower gas prices aren't enough to produce many broad grins these days, against the current...
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