Monday 14th November 2005

Enviros trash Government

Traffic levels rise despite record fuel prices

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'Green' Ford Focus

The Government has given up on its environmental aims of curbing car use, according to environmental campaigners, as traffic levels rose again by 0.7 per cent between the third quarters of 2004 and 2005.

According to the Government's latest stats, car and goods traffic was unchanged, although light van traffic rose by four per cent -- which might be accounted for by either a rise in economic activity (surely a good thing?), or seasonal movements of Christmas goods.

Meanwhile, the AA Motoring Trust pointed out that trying to price motorists out of cars did not work, as demonstrated by the continuing levels of car traffic despite huge and record petrol price rises, up to £1 a litre in some cases.

The attack by Friends of the Earth came as Transport Secretary Alistair Darling attended the Environment Friendly Vehicle Conference in Birmingham last week (in a bio-ethanol-fuelled Ford Focus - pictured above), where he declared the Government's intention to make transport fuels greener. By 2010, five per cent of all fuel sold on UK forecourts will come from a renewable source (see Tesco 99 story - link below).

Given that cars contribute relatively small amounts of pollution compared to the emissions from heavy lorries, commercial jets, industrial plants and power stations, you'd hope that the Government would start to concentrate its firepower in that direction...

• Related story

[r988]

Funny there was some environmentalist whiners complaining about the new airbus and there was a heated discussion on the airliner forum about how airliners aren't big polluters compared to vehicles and industry.

Bet theres an industrial forum where they blame it all on vehicles and airliners

Well I found it mildly amusing anyway

Those environmentalists should just give up anyway, obviously their unprecedented moaning and forcing changes have done SFA.

[fosse]

r988 said:

Funny there was some environmentalist whiners complaining about the new airbus and there was a heated discussion on the airliner forum about how airliners aren't big polluters compared to vehicles and industry.

It would be nice if some of these whiners would actually base their arguments reliable data. The new airbus uses less fuel than a 747 despite being a heck of a lot bigger (it is also quieter.

Blame pollution on the cows, I say.

[minicity]

I'm not sure how "pricing people out of cars" works when the costs of using public transport always go up by more than the costs of driving.

[ubergreg]

Never mind the above story - I just read a story in one of the national rags about possible government plans to impose stricter enforcement of the 70mph limit on motorways in a bit to reduce pollution from cars. The argument is that it will dramatically cut overall emissions from vehicles, as engines must work much harder above the national limit.

For your reading pleasure:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,1

[mybrainhurts]

Did somebody mention the Guardian....?

[stenniso]

ubergreg said:

Never mind the above story - I just read a story in one of the national rags about possible government plans to impose stricter enforcement of the 70mph limit on motorways in a bit to reduce pollution from cars. The argument is that it will dramatically cut overall emissions from vehicles, as engines must work much harder above the national limit. For your reading pleasure: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,1

This is the same Government that brings the M25 to a standstill, manufacturing congestion and pollution, just to extract money from drivers for the pleasure of driving over/under the Thames at Dartford. I heard on the radio this morning that there was yet another crash on the QE2 bridge causing even more havoc, which is the obvious outcome when causing traffic to bunch up.

Idiots!

[Krysa]

name said:

This is the same Government that brings the M25 to a standstill

This is the same M25 that was immediately at a standstill when opened under the last government and who took offence when a Today presenter suggested they should concrete over the traffic and start again?

(Had no complaint one sunny day with the roof down when at a standstill under the Heathrow flight path and Concorde went over on take off. Awesome .)

[Balmoral Green]

Ban buses, that's what I say, if we want to clean up a little we need to get people off the buses and into cars.

Car 35mpg, bus 7mpg
Car 180 CO2, bus 3800 CO2
Car seats on average 1, bus seats on average 8
Car costs £15,000, bus costs £120,000
Car 243 times less particulates than a bus, bus 243 times more particulates than a car.

If environmentalists want to target motor vehicles, the bus should be the 1st and biggest target. A whole fleet of cars to carry 77 passengers is still greener, cleaner and cheaper than 1 bus carrying the lot. Plus buses double congestion as they take up 50% of the road where there is a bus lane.

[dcb]

Balmoral Green said:

Ban buses, that's what I say, if we want to clean up a little we need to get people off the buses and into cars.

Couldn't agree more.

You forgot to mention the frequency of bus service versus
frequency of car service.

For example, there's a bus service that offers an every 15 minute
service from 7 am to 11 pm near my house.

This is handy if I want to go to anywhere at or near the bus route.

I might use it now and again, but it's still there, every 15 minutes,
if I use it or not.

Compare and contrast the amount of time and diesel wasted versus
a car which goes exactly from my house to my destination, but exactly
only when I want to go.

Thus avoiding the other 4 * 16 = 64 bus journeys a day
that I don't use.

Any time & motion study will always find that a car is more
efficient than a bus.