CART Newsletter, Fall 2007
Announcements:
CART Quarterly Meeting - "Kentucky's Transportation Future"
A presentation by Ron Crouch, Director of Kentucky Data Center. This meeting is free and open to the public.
Please join us beforehand for dinner at 6pm at Masterson's. Reservations are $15 per seat. Contact Cynthia Cooke immediately. That means before Sept 10!
World Car Free Day - Rally
Rally for World Car Free Day, Saturday, September 15, 2007 at the corners of Bardstown Road and Eastern Parkway 5-6 p.m. Bring your signs with positive messages for motorists to see, e.g. "Try the bus next week" or "Bike instead next week" or "Walk this way next week" World Car Free Day Posters will be on hand also. The goal is to bring about awareness of World Car Free Day and introduce people to the idea of driving less.
Bluegrass Energy & Green Living Expo - Carpools Forming
CART is going to the Lexington-based expo again this year, and we need people both to drive carpools and to work the CART booth. Please contact Dean Sutton to schedule. More information, including available booth slots, is available here.
Local News:
This week's must-read energy piece is Rep. Jim Wayne's statement regarding the Kentucky Energy Bill (HB1).
How much of a subsidy will this total? For poverty stricken Peabody Energy, the wealthiest coal company in the world, whose environmental and labor records embarrass Lucifer himself, the total state welfare check is estimated to be as much as $300 million.
What do we get in return? An estimated 375 permanent jobs at a cost to us of up to $800,000 per job.
Read the whole statement here.
Ohio River Bridges
CART, River Fields, West Jefferson County Community Task Force, and others have banded together to pen and ratify the Transportation Statement of August 1st, 2007. From ktap.org:
Our region deserves transportation solutions that:
- Address the financial, energy and environmental realities of the 21st Century
- Meet the needs of all people, regardless of socioeconomic status
- Are developed through an open, understandable public process
World, national and regional conditions have significantly changed since the start of the Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges Project in 1992. The $3.9-Billion project has not adjusted to today’s financial, energy, and environmental constraints. Its Environmental Impact Statement is no longer valid for informed decision-making. Further, the decision-making process has become less, not more, open to the public and public officials.
These current conditions demand that transportation officials show the taxpayers how they will pay for this project—the costliest in Kentucky’s history. The Financial Plan required by federal law (23 USC §106(h)) should be produced immediately and subjected to a thorough public process for review and comment.
Until that time, no further funds should be spent on the Ohio River Bridges Project.
World Beat:
Washington State Buying Track to Get Farmer's Goods to Market
Maintaining freight service a lot less expensive than maintaining roads for trailer trucks.
Study: Does Transit Work? A Conservative Reappraisal
Faced with anti-transit attacks from within the Republican party, conservatives are forced to refute the old saw:
"Why should we keep transit around, when it only carries one percent of total trips? That number seems to make it clear: transit just doesn't work!"
The result
"We need to ask not what percentage of total trips transit carries, but what percentage it carries of trips for which it can compete."
They find that when transit is available and high quality, that ridership is quite popular, and growing more so with time.