Transportation and the Environment

First objective - Replace cars with transit for commuter traffic.  Where cars are necessary, they must get better mileage.

Different carbon tax rates could be charged depending on the use and fuel efficiency of the vehicle.

Commercial users of energy for moving passengers or freight already extend themselves to minimize their fuel costs.  They should not pay the same carbon tax as a single occupancy SUV used to commute from suburbia to the downtown core. 

1 - Transport management revenue

A carbon tax applied to transportation fuel should be designed to impose the highest costs onto the most wasteful users. 

Revenues from carbon tax on transportation fuels will be spent to improve and expand mass transit service in the areas where the fuel was bought and used.

Congestion charges and road tolls should be imposed on non-commercial vehicles entering the core of large cities.  Revenue from congestion charges shall be used to finance reduced transit fares and free parking at transit hubs outside the congestion perimeter.  Transit gets reserved lanes, control over traffic lights.

2 - Cash for clunkers

This was a great idea that worked well as an employment initiative.  It’s just as good as an energy initiative.  The greater the improvement in mileage, the greater the subsidy.

3 - Regulation - CAFE

Canada should establish a CAFE standard with the objective of doubling the fuel efficiency of the new car fleet in ten years.

Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) is the sales weighted average fuel economy, expressed in miles per gallon (mpg), of a manufacturer’s fleet of passenger cars or light trucks, manufactured for sale in Canada, for any given model year. Fuel economy is defined as the average mileage travelled by an automobile per gallon of gasoline (or equivalent amount of other fuel) consumed as measured in accordance with the testing and evaluation protocol set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

A CAFE standard would require a car company meet a sales weighted average fuel economy for all the cars it sells.  Failure to meet the CAFE standard results in fines designed to confiscate profits made by not meeting CAFE.

CAFE does not dictate technology.  It does not ban the Hummer.  It imposes an obligation on the automaker to sell enough hybrids to bring the fleet average under the CAFE limit.

Making cars more fuel efficient can be done with technology such as the hybrid drive.

It can also be done by making the cars lighter.

4 - Transportation and Individual responsibility

More than any other energy issue, transportation depends on the choices of individual consumers.   These decisions often have less to do with energy economics than the same decision made by a profit driven corporation.  Fun, fashion statements, macho can all be found in cars.  They all have a cost.

The government has an interest in moving people and freight from one place to another.  The government has no interest in status symbols or manhood enhancement.

Necessary transportation policy will use market and regulatory measures to dissuade people from doing things they are in the habit of doing.  Since 1971 the efficiency of internal combustion engines, as well as ignition and transmission systems has improved substantially.  Over the decades, individual consumers have preferred cars that exploit better engineering for speed and image, rather than better mileage. 

If the media and advertisers can re-define “cool” it would save a lot of fuel spent on fashion statements.

Markets can send signals.  Regulation can send signals.  Is the consumer listening?  When does the public good trump fashion and fun?