Urban Vancouver

Hybrids and Highway Expansion

By b5baxter@drupal.org on June 11, 2007 - 2:07pm

I have been thinking more about the idea that fuel efficient vehicles will help mitigate highway expansion.

Only about 1% of vehicles currently sold in Canada are hybrids.  The best estimates I have seen predict that the Gateway project will increase automotive emissions by 31%.   Hybrids under best conditions can reduce emissions by half.  So if, 1% of the increase is from vehicles that reduce emission by half that means that the increase will be 30.85% instead of 31%.

How will a 30.85% increase instead of 31% help us meet Premier Campbell's target of a 33% reduction?

How do we explain to parents of an asthmatic child that their asthma attacks will be 30.85% worse instead of 31% worse?

Hybrid vehicles are a small part of the solution, but if we really care about people in our region we need better solutions.

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Bizarre Gateway Arguments

By b5baxter@drupal.org on June 8, 2007 - 10:42am

The arguments of proponents of the Greater Vancouver Gateway Project  keep getting more bizarre. 

First, they tried to use the news that BC has reduced it's green house gas emissions to argue that we need to exapnd highways. 

Except the fact is that BC reduced emissions during a period when we were NOT building highways but instead making limited investments in public transit.  Why would we want to reverse this trend and invest money in highways instead of transit?  Especially when the the reduction we have seen is only one tenth of the Province's own modest emissions targets?  And when even the Province admits that the Gateway project will increase GHG emissions?

Now, they are trying to argue that the increased use of hybrids means we should support the Gateway program.