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Eco Advocates NW is active in promoting genuine solutions to create a truly sustainable Eugene and Lane County (as a model for the rest of the nation) on issues ranging from renewable energy, to appropriate transportation, to pesticide alternatives: Bicycles
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Our future is with rail, not bigger roads Guest Viewpoint Shannon Wilson Published: June 26, 2008 12:00AM
Contrary to U.S. Rep. DeFazio’s assertion in his Feb. 25 guest viewpoint, “Feds must lead the way on roads,” Congress and DeFazio should scrap obsolete highway and freeway expansion plans throughout the country. Our future as a civilization is now dependent on creating a new transportation system to survive the end of cheap petroleum and climate change. More and wider freeways and highways will only hasten economic and climatic chaos and disruption.
The only way to make this transition is through major expansion of light rail infrastructure and major upgrading of existing rail infrastructure as a viable alternative to the crumbing highway and freeway systems.
The planned “NAFTA freeways,” including Interstate 5, being promoted throughout the country by governors, Congress and the paving industry to accommodate millions of bigger and heavier trucks from Mexico and Canada must be stopped and scrapped. The trucking industry will soon collapse when diesel fuel is too expensive to run the trucks. This can’t be too far off with diesel now at nearly $5 a gallon. Surely we must repair and upgrade some of the most vital bridges around the country, but we must simultaneously create a rail-based public transportation system.
The cheap and easily drilled crude oil is diminishing, while worldwide demand for oil is surging. Soon the trucking and airline transportation systems are likely to fail, and if we do not prepare for that inevitability there will be chaos and major economic disruption because of our dangerous dependence on these two petroleum-based systems for our every need.
Light rail and heavy rail is the safest and most sustainable transportation on the planet. In the case of passenger transport, hybrid and other hyper-mileage cars can compete with light rail only when used as carpool vehicles. Passenger rail achieves between 50 to 80 passenger miles per gallon, and about 70 to 100 grams of carbon per passenger per mile. A 40-mpg auto can achieve between 40 or 80 (with 2 occupants) passenger miles per gallon. The death rate for all rail is 0.7 deaths per billion miles traveled, while death rate for motor vehicles is more than 10 deaths per billion miles traveled.
The mindset that more and wider freeways are going to reduce pollution as well as reduce global warming gases flies in the face of science, history and basic logic. This is the kind of logic that has gotten us to this dire point.
Fifty years of building highways and freeways for autos and trucking without any regard to urban planning, the impact on our climate, the effects on our health as well as the impact to our psychological well being as a society has led us to this over dependence on a failed system. Let us not forget that scientists have been talking about global warming since the 1960s.
California is working on building a high-speed rail system from Sacramento to Los Angeles. Many major urban areas in the country are turning towards high-speed light rail. Why is the Northwest not forging ahead with a new high-speed rail system from Eugene to Seattle?
The new Amtrak rail from New York to Washington, D.C., has seen an increase in ridership of 20 percent from 2006-07, for a total of 3.1 million passenger trips. The new Amtrak route from San Jose to Sacramento is up 15 percent from 2006-07 for a total of 1.4 million passenger trips.
As constituents we must convince DeFazio — chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit — as well as all other Oregon lawmakers that we must have a high-speed light rail system in the Northwest as well as upgrades in rail infrastructure throughout the nation. These new rail systems will not only provide thousands of new jobs but it will keep the Northwest and the country economically competitive with other economic superpowers in Asia and Europe.
We must demand rail infrastructure now. We either transition off of our addiction to petroleum by going to rail now or surrender to a complete collapse of our whole economic system and way of life.
HHHH
Shannon Wilson of Eugene is chairman of the Many Rivers Group of the Sierra Club and co-director of Cascadia’s Ecosystem Advocates. Copyright © 2008 — The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA Go BackSubscribe to The Register-Guard
BICYCLE RIGHTS Eugene Weekly 9/22/2011 It’s sad to hear about another bicyclist struck to death by a motorist recently. It seems apparent that bicyclists have fewer rights than most people in our society. Pedestrians have miles of seemingly endless sidewalks which they deserve. However, bicyclists are subjugated to ride in the gutters or so-called bicycle lanes with broken glass, rocks, disintegrating manhole covers, potholes and speeding vehicles that may cause our death each day we decide to brave these city elements. This is not to mention distracted drivers, while answering their cell phones or tuning their radios or spilling their lattes could kill any bicyclist in the blink of an eye in the so-called “safe” bicycle lanes. Is it not time for the denigrated bicyclist to demand the same rights as pedestrians and motorists and that being in the form of some bicycle-only streets in this city and every city? How many more of us must die before we demand these rights to pursue our healthful lifestyle? I call all Eugene bicyclists to dedicate 12th Avenue as a de facto bicycle-only street and memorial to the bicyclists who have been struck down until our rights are realized. Shannon Wilson, Eugene Wean Oregonians Off A Failing Fossil Fuel Economy Opinion by Shannon Wilson 1.6.12 http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/27416845-47/eugene-oregon-state-lane-music.html.csp Editors Title "Time to turn away from fossil fuels" The new logging plan for the 93,000-acre Elliott State Forest, recently approved by Gov. John Kitzhaber, will increase logging levels by 40 percent regardless how much it damages salmon runs. Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service proposes to increase logging in ancient forests across the state. Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio proposes to give away 1 million acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management forest land in Oregon to timber barons while he and other politicians ignore the export of billions of board feet of raw logs to Asia. In addition, DeFazio incessantly pushes for federal funding for the paving industry’s billion-dollar boondoggles across the state to build new four-lane, six-lane and 10-lane highways. All those plans and efforts have two things in common: They show there is an air of desperation among politicians and government agencies across the board to keep an unsustainable and failing fossil-fueled economy alive, and they reveal a total lack of leadership in creating an economy that is not totally dependent on fossil fuels. None of those destructive acts of desperation are going to help the citizens of Oregon prepare for a future with a dwindling supply, and subsequent increasing cost, of petrol to supply their basic needs of food, transportation and shelter. Isn’t it time we demand real leadership and real low-tech solutions such as re-localizing food production, hardware manufacturing, non-fossil fuel transportation and watershed restoration that focuses on weaning Oregonians from a fossil-fuel-dependent system? Shannon Wilson Eugene
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