The Return Trip From Hell

We had thought that our new way of commuting to New York City, via New Jersey Transit and SEPTA light rail, was the answer. Sure, it takes a little longer than the bus, but it's more comfortable. Well, the NJT train out of Penn Station yesterday evening took almost two hours to get to Trenton, so we missed our SEPTA connection. So much for the idea of taking the two light rail trains. Now it's back to letting Greyhound do the driving. What's wrong with this country when it comes to our trains? In Europe the trains run exactly on time. Don't tell me, I know. The trains here are for the Hoi Polloi...the affluent are rich enough not to have to use them, and the middle classes still drive everywhere, for the time being. The rest of us are stuck. As usual, the USA sucks on another front, mass transportation. That's right, just continue to devour what oil is left, while heating up the planet. Stupid.

PHOTO: The Schuylkill River is clean enough now to have fish in it once again, and hunting birds like this cormorant. It's fun to watch them dive and come up minutes later yards away.

Jim

One Way To Conserve Energy...

...would be to reinvigorate our passenger and freight railroads. In Europe, rails are a prime method of transport. In this country, railroads, especially passenger service, have been trashed due to Americans' love affair with the automobile. That will have to change.

If you do any amount of highway driving, you probably have had some scary moments with trucks. On the New Jersey Turnpike, there are car only lanes in the Northern part of the road, thankfully. I'd like to see less trucks on the road and more use of rail for transport of both freight and passengers.
Read the following to see how railroads can help with our energy problem:

If 25 percent of truck traffic were shipped instead by freight trains, by 2025
the following benefits could be achieved:
• The average person traveling
during peak periods would save 44 hours per year (equal to more than to five
8-hour work days) as the reduced truck volume eased traffic congestion. In the
most congested urban areas, annual savings could exceed 100 hours. Nationally,
we would save 3.2 billion hours of delay.
• Fuel consumption would be
reduced because of faster speeds and more fluid traffic flow on the less
congested roadways. Diesel and gasoline fuel consumption in 2025 would be an
estimated 17 billion gallons lower than it otherwise would be - equivalent to
more than 250 gallons annually per motorist.
• The savings in travel time
and fuel would yield significant economic benefits. A typical household would
enjoy $620 per year in reduced congestion costs, equal to $44 billion overall,
in urban areas nationwide.
• Air quality would improve thanks to an
estimated 900,000 fewer tons of air pollution, including lower levels of carbon
monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxide (NOx).

This is from the "Go Rail" website, which can be found here.

Once again, where are our political leaders when it come to advocacy for his sort of thing? Probably, they are securely in the pocket of trucking industry lobbyists.

PHOTO: One of our historic boat houses has its own attached lighthouse!

Jim

Bush, Gasoline Prices, And The Energy Crisis

I made a two day round trip back to Philadelphia to pick up Dan and Nikko, our cat, and bring them out to Fire Island. It's fun to have the entire family together out here for the summer. The weather on Monday was spectacular. I hope it continues for the entire week and throughout the holiday weekend.

Do you wonder where Bush is when it comes to the record high price of gasoline? Has he made an address to the nation? Has he called his big oil buddies to try to "jawbone" them to hold down the price increases at the pump, produce more gasoline, etc? We know he's not in favor of conservation. Does he have any compassion for the American driving public in the face of record gasoline prices? It seems not.

We need presidential leadership, not a junior president, who is in the pocket of the big oil companies. A real leader will finally have the courage to be honest with the American public. We must rein in our outrageous levels of oil consumption. Automakers must re-tool and produce cars with much higher gas mileage, more hybrids and all-electrics. America must re-invest in mass transit. Americans will have to sacrifice by drastically reducing their consumption of oil, and by paying much higher prices for the gasoline they use. However, the profits should not go to big oil, rather, the money should be used for mass transit, research into alternative energy forms, etc. Breaking the back of our dependence on oil, especially foreign oil, will have the added benefit of defusing much of the causes for the hatred directed against America as a result of our oil-requirements-driven foreign policy and our oil-based wars, e.g., Iraq. We can do it as a nation, but we need leadership. Unfortunately, I don't hear any of the declared candidates for president being honest with the American public about the realities of our energy situation. Who will have the courage to finally tell the truth about energy to America?

Photo: a favorite trail through the Fire Island dunes...in the "meat rack"

Jim