Blessed by the Potato

I got the first of what will undoubtedly be many flyers in the mail today about the upcoming provincial election. I was glad that it prominently mentioned the referrendum, and included the question we’ll be faced with. I’m hoping that as the election gets closer, there will be more press coverage of the referrendum aspect. But to be sure, the homework I’m assigning for tonight is to talk to at least one other person at your work about it, and how you intend to vote on the referrendum even if you don’t care enough to vote for your MPP.

I just saw the “Vote or Die” South Park music video (as part of the episode Douche vs Turd) and was reminded why South Park is awesome at musical numbers…

The budget woes of Canada’s largest city have been in the news a lot lately, culminating in Mayor Miller’s defeat in council to increase revenues. Since I don’t really live in Toronto any more, I haven’t been paying too much attention to the whole situation, and have some mixed feelings on the whole idea. On the one hand, Toronto needs money, and some of the ideas were pretty good ones, in particular the vehicle registration surcharges. Property taxes are one of the only other routes open, but at this point I think (even as a non-property owner) that they’re starting to get excessive — high property taxes encourage sprawl, which is already pretty far out of hand. A casino is neither here nor there for me — but I think with casinos in Orillia and Niagara and slots in many closer locations, Toronto’s gambling needs are pretty well serviced; on the other hand, Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax seem to live with their casinos without turning into hotbeds of sin. I’m particularly pissed that the other levels of government haven’t been able to help Toronto out, particularly the Federal government which has found billions of dollars for almost everything else under the sun (perhaps if Toronto elected a separatist party, we’d get appeasement money too).

After city council voted to delay any funding increases until after the results of the provincial election in the fall, they had to start looking for ways to cut. The CBC has an article on the planned TTC cuts that made me do a double take:

Cancelling about 20 low-ridership bus routes, including the Dupont, Pharmacy and Calvington lines, as soon as October.

Abandoning plans to put 100 new buses into service this fall, instead using them to replace old vehicles.

Closing the Sheppard subway line at the beginning of 2008.

Cancelling all planned service improvements.

Hiking fares by 10 to 25 cents.

In the immortal words of Kyle’s mom: What-what-WHAAAT??!! They’re going to close the brand-new Sheppard subway line? I haven’t ridden that line yet, even for novelty’s sake, but I imagine the ridership is low (especially if they’re planning on closing it). But realistically, how much can it cost to run a line that’s already built, compared with the busses they’d need? Electricity is cheap (especially compared to gas prices lately), a train only needs two employees (and it would take more than two busses to replace a train, unless they’re really empty), and maintenance/wear-and-tear on an electric train is way lower than a bus. Plus since installing the line, the condo developers have set up shop all along Sheppard. In just a year or two there’s going to be a metric shit-tonne of people trying to commute along that corridor. I just can’t see the sense in closing it (especially after the billion dollars needed to build it has already been sunk).

And more fare hikes? It’s already gone up over 75 cents in less than 10 years.

$130 million is what the TTC is looking to cut, according the the article. Pennies compared to the billions in extra spending the “conservative” government brought in (and a sad farewell to the concept of paying down our debt). One thought: if I were in charge of a major political party, perhaps one with millions of dollars at its disposal to launch unending attack ads outside of any election call, I’d consider (though the legalities may be tricky) just throwing that ad money at public transit to build goodwill and make much better use of the resources. How many voters are actually swayed by ads anyway?

So, here’s what I consider to be a very good question: should transit be a municipal issue? All our levels of government are interested in pissing down the chain lately: provincial and federal levels passing responsibilities down to municipalities; municipalities running out of money, cutting programs, and telling people to deal with issues themselves. But perhaps with transit, we should buck it up to a provincial or federal responsibility. That might also make transit more equal between cities: Toronto, for instance, has pretty darned good transit with the TTC. The 905, by and large, has decent transit options for getting to Toronto, but not getting around their own municipalities. London has a decent bus system, especially for a city of its size, but lacks some amenities such as late night busses (in Toronto you can take the subway home from a bar if you leave just a little bit before closing, and the vomit comet after that; London shuts down bus service to Richmond Row at midnight). A province-wide transit authority (with a lot more money) would be able to give every reasonably-sized municipality decent bus service, and would be able to integrate the services between cities: perhaps making it possible to take a bus from Sheppard to John St. along Yonge without having to pay two fares; also synchronizing the schedules between different services.

I’m drafting letters to my MP & MPP while the image analysis computer here chugs away (as useless as I know that will be, what with the provincial government in hibernation until the election, and the federal government under the thrall of the insane fuck-wads conservatives, while my MPP is Liberal; as is my parents’). I’ll post them soonish.

Update: Of course, Wayfare is probably right “They won’t close the subway, it’s just a political move.” Political grandstanding of this sort is quite common, and the TTC probably wouldn’t close the Sheppard line just as it gets into the design stage for the Spadina subway extension…

I just got one of those chain letters about boycotting Petro-Canada* to force gas companies to lower prices.

* – by the way, who gets to pick which station to boycott? When will chain letters start coming with a “this letter was started by [Person X] at [website/email], see [website] for any updates that may be relevant to this chain letter (such as the drug in question being off the market for a whole decade, the basic premise of the boycott being unsound, a change in the company’s policies, an apology was received, or the stupid kid died of cancer anyway, and every card you send drives his mother into hysterical fits of tears) as well as a statement of bias.” Of course, until that time I guess there’s always Snopes.

Unfortunately, these ideas never work. Primarily because:

[…] teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace . . . . . not sellers. […] Since we all rely on our cars, we can’t just stop buying gas.

is a contradiction. Buyers can’t control the marketplace as long as they’re not prepared to stop buying gas (or at least reduce usage enough that gas stations are left with excess product). There’s no leverage in that position.

Beyond that, the idea would require extreme organization by consumers to work at all. If Petro-Canada did start having some drop-off in sales, all they would have to do is lower the price a fraction of a cent to get the customers who aren’t participating in the boycott to switch to them. Because of the boycott, the other stations would still have enough support to keep prices high (that is, not everyone would be buying on price alone), and so the price would stay high. If the boycott was perfectly successful and nobody bought gas at Petro-Canada, then gas prices would likely go _up_ at all the other stations because there would be a run on gas — if Petro-Canada is say 1/5 of all gas stations in Canada, then boycotting them would remove 1/5 of our gas supply. Only a ~6% reduction in supply lead to a ~20% increase in price this winter when a refinery in Sarnia had to temporarily shut down. Ignoring all that, there’s also the part where gas is a very “liquid” commodity: the different companies generally have agreements to sell their gas to each other for logistics reasons. If Petro-Canada isn’t selling gas at Petro-Canada branded stations, they can still unload their product in Shell, Sunoco, Canadian Tire, Esso, and Irving stations, and the only ones really hurting are the franchisees.

Wish I had read Snopes before typing that, it would have saved me some time, since they make many of the same arguments :) Snopes on Gas Out.

Also, the old standby of getting the government to drop taxes on gas might have worked in the not-so-distant past, when gas prices were set based basically on the cost of the gas (affected of course by the perceived future cost), a modest profit margin, and the taxes. Back then, the prices changed daily as stations engaged in price wars, and the cost of a barrel of oil fluctuated. Now, however, prices are driven way up by the high demand and low supply — if taxes were lowered, the pump price would stay the same, because that’s how high it has to be to keep people from exhausting the supply. The only difference would be that the oil companies would get more of our money, instead of the government.

There is still the very real possibility that prices have been driven even higher by nefarious means. Whether stations are colluding (and oddly enough it seems that they are even moreso now when the price doesn’t move at all for a whole week than when they flew up and down several times a day in near-synchrony) or whether refineries are purposefully reducing their output is tough to say. Some commentators have pointed out that in addition to the spate of minor refinery fires we’ve had this year, the other refineries have taken their sweet time doing their spring maintenance and fuel mix changeover. This could be a deliberate tightening of supply, or it could be simple prudence: if two of your buddies had fires at their houses, you’d probably take the time to check the batteries in your smoke detector and the readiness of your fire extinguisher.

So, to reduce the price of gas, there’s really only a few things we can do. The first, and most effective, is to stop using it, or use less. That’s also the hardest for us to do; biking is great, but I only know one guy crazy enough to bike Toronto to London, and he only does it once a year. I’m a fan of walking, but also recognize that it’s really only pleasant for about 4-6 months a year. Public transit isn’t always an option, and is sometimes retarded. The next method involves government intervention, and would only work if gas companies really are driving the price up artificially. In that case, we simply have to buy back Petro-Canada and run it as a Crown corporation. Have it buy oil, refine gas, and sell at a modest profit — controlled by the government, it shouldn’t be engaging in collusion, so they’ll sell gas at about what it costs, and the other brands will have to follow suite (though demand issues could still affect that, unless they were wililng to have shortages). Finally, one idea I have is to only buy regular gas. I have no idea if this would work, but it seems as though the refineries can churn out (nearly) whatever grade of gas they want (and it’s not really due to the content of the crude oil). When we had the recent gas shortage, a lot of stations were selling regular only because they needed to streamline the supply chain to meet demand. Even with the immediate crisis behind us, there’s no real reason we can’t take advantage of that streamlining still. Most cars on the road today run just fine on regular gas (87): even the ones that say they need premium (largely) have the technology to change the valve timing/compression ratio to run on regular (at a slight power loss, but most engines that need premium can afford it anyway; if the engine can’t handle 87 then you’ll find out real quick. I’d recommend trying a few liters after letting the tank go nearly bone dry: if the engine pings, you’ll have a problem, turn around, and fill the rest of the way with premium; if you can drive on those few liters just fine, try a few more until you’re satisfied and then put a whole tank in). Either way, we could still eliminate mid-grade, since AFAIK there aren’t any cars sold today that require 89 — they either go for regular, or all-out to premium (though I may be wrong and there may not be a midgrade refining step, it may simply be a mixture of premium and regular done at the pump).

One of the “low hanging fruit” benefits of hybrid cars that improves their fuel efficiency and emissions is that they turn the engine off when it’s not needed, such as at stop lights. In fact, with a little bit of key-turning, this can be achieved in most other cars, even if not quite as often. Many cities (including London and Toronto) have anti-idling bylaws that hand out tickets for idling more than 3 minutes, though enforcement is weak to say the least and the laws don’t apply when the weather is very cold or very hot — which makes sense from a comfort point of view, but is also unfortunate because it’s on the very hot days that cars need to be shutting down for air quality purposes. The startup period in a car does cause more wear, but there’s obviously a point where it’s more beneficial to turn the car off: I’ve heard many rules of thumb regarding how short a period of idling makes turning the car off worthwhile, from 10 seconds to a minute. Personally, I try to go by about a 30-second period: if I know I’ll be idling for that long, I shut the car off, except at lights (but I do for trains crossing by me). So when I was at the carwash this week, I shut the car off, but felt a little weird doing it (except for train crossings, I don’t usually get into idling situations). I was talking to Wayfare about it at the time, and debated whether we’d be waiting long enough to make it worthwhile — it turns out it really was, as we were waiting at least 4 minutes for the infernal machine to be ready for us. Now thinking about it in hindsight, I feel strange for feeling weird at the time. Turning the car off should have been my natural reaction, I shouldn’t have had to think about it for so long…

The thing that bugs me most about idling is the cabbies. They’ll idle for hours in front of the hospital on some days, if business is slow. There are a few who are pretty good about opening their windows and turning the car off. If the weather’s really hot, there’s at least one that will simply get out of the car and sit on the grass, or lean against the car, or one time, pull out a folding chair.

A CityNews spot recently talked about the short enforcement blitz last week to remind drivers of the bylaw, and mentioned that delivery trucks idle a lot (they do), partly because refrigerated trucks have to keep the engine on to run the compressor. First off, I don’t want my ice cream to come all melty, so they do have something of a point that strikes close to my heart. I have a few problems with that, though. Most of the refrigerated delivery trucks have a coolant pod on the transport trailer — that means that the coolant system for the trailer must be electrically driven (the AC system on most cars is belt-driven directly from the engine, which is why you can run your fan but not your AC in engine-off accessories mode). If it’s electrically driven, then the truck’s battery should be able to keep it going for a while (at least 10 minutes I would estimate, and a battery upgrade to run the cooler for an hour should be extremely easy to install right on the trailer). Also, most refrigeration systems run in cycles (or are capable of doing so, unless they are taxed to their maximum capacity), so the truck drivers should be able to cut the engines for at least as long as the system usually cycles off for (my fridge, for instance, runs for about 5 minutes every half hour — I could have a 25-minute blackout at my house and the food in the fridge would never know anything out of the ordinary was happening).

Also, this tiny news snippet was a little disappointing.

…the premier says Ontario won’t implement regulations as strict as those of California…. Ontario will stop short of California’s tough new tailpipe emission standards because they could hurt the province’s auto sector.

I think it’s pretty backwards to resist emission standards because auto manufacturing takes place in the province — stricter emissions standards don’t, as far as I know, actually hurt the car industry in general. People still buy cars. They just buy cleaner cars. Perhaps that impacts the bottom line of the automakers, or perhaps it’s an indication that the domestic manufacturers (or the particular models manufactured in Ontario) have trouble getting any cleaner and more efficient. If that’s the case, then the province should still go ahead with the tighter emissions standards — after all, there are still plenty of “emissions equipment optional” states to sell Ontario-manufactured cars to, and I’m sure most cars driven in Ontario aren’t made in Ontario, so stricter emissions standards would help our quality of life. And, if say California enforces stricter emissions standards, but cars are built in Michigan and Ontario, then the car companies are pretty much SOL. If Ontario and Michigan implemented stricter standards (even stricter than California, say), then the province (and state) could directly help the auto manufacturers with various tax incentives and research programs, and would have the justification for doing so. If the province helped make sure all the cars built here had superior emissions controls and fuel efficiency, then that would also help the auto sector become more competitive elsewhere (California, Europe, as well as with anyone who valued efficiency and low emissions in the other states and provinces), and in the future as well. After all, California emissions may seem strict and tough to meet now, but they’re not revolutionary, not by a long shot (the revolutionary parts were killed over the years by lawsuits and lobbyists). The other states, provinces, and countries globally are catching up. Do the car companies want to be seen as the ones fumbling to meet minimum requirements at the last minute, or the ones that have been successfully meeting California emissions standards all along? (wouldn’t it be great to say “Ontario efficiency standards” in the same breath? :)

I really enjoy reading Orson Scott Card’s columns, even when he’s mostly wrong on a subject. I particularly disagree with him when it comes to global warming — but I do agree with a lot of what he has to say when it comes to creating pedestrian-friendly cities and a car-free life. Here are three of his recent columns:

Oil, past the peak
Walking Neighbourhoods
Life Without Cars

Now I have to ask myself, what can we do about bringing these principles to the new developments in the 905 and 519? I remember a conversation with Wayfare’s neighbours about one “innovative” housing project in the 905 that was popular precisely because it was on a grid layout with interspersed light commercial zones that aimed to be pedestrian friendly.

Oh, and I’m sure everyone’s already heard of New York Taxis going hybrid (it just makes sense — its a technology that works best in a city environment, and hybrid cab owners in BC have said that with a cab the cost of fuel over the lifetime of the car is far more than the car ever costs up front).

Update: Just wanted to add this post from the Green Party blog.