OH, NO !!!

Just because a vehicle is a hybrid... does not mean that it lessens air pollution or fuel consumption!!!

A big hybrid SUV that gets 30 MPG uses more fuel and pollutes more than a regular car like a Honda FIT that gets 35 MPG !!!

Hybrids should not have any more rights to inhabit HOV / HOT lanes than other vehicles!

((( holding head in hands )))

OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP !!!!

Give me a break.  You come on here and whine about a big ugly hybrid SUV that only gets 30mpg when they should have bought an econo-box that gets 35mpg.  If you compare a non-hybrid at 12mpg to a hybrid model that gets much better mileage, I would think you would applaud the effort they made.  I sort of see your point, that if you let a Tahoe SUV drive with no extra passenger, why not let anyone with a Fit drive also.  But, the perk is an incentive to get more people to drive more fuel efficient vehicles.

This is still a free country and we are allowed to drive whatever we want or what we can afford.  I can't stand to see single passenger cars on the HOV and I don't like the HOT lane idea unless the HOT fee is something like $25 per use to really make some revenue.  I also think beer should be $10 each and a pack of cigarettes should cost $15 with the extra tax going to get gas prices down to $2/gal.

P&R Rider, people need to be held to objective standards in life. There is too much "oh, you made a good effort, so you get a gold star!" That kind of BS permeates everything about American life; getting something for nothing.

The point of letting people on the HOV/HOT is to reduce pollution, congestion, and fuel. Not to make people "feel good" about the percentage improvements they've made.

So should a person who has lost 100 pounds and is now 300 pounds whereas they used to weight 400 pounds be allowed to join the HPD Police Academy just because they made a big percentage improvement?

The truth is, a 40 MPG conventional gas car with 2 passengers pollutes less and uses less fuel than a 30 MPG hybrid. End of story! High MPG use and ownership should be encouraged, not drivetrain type!

Mr. Wang,

"High MPG use and ownership should be encouraged, not drivetrain type!"

Excellent point!

We don't need no more stinkin' boondoggle urban rail tethered to a sparking wire!

Royko wrote: "We don't need no more stinkin' boondoggle urban rail tethered to a sparking wire!"

Nice try Royko. But wrong, as usual.

The METRO train uses 8.39 kwh per mile. The TH!NK sub-compact electric car uses 0.242 kwh per mile... about 35 times less than the train. See www.think.no

Therefore, if at least 35 people are on the train, then they are being transported with the same efficiency per passenger as one of the most energy-efficient motor vehicles on the planet.

And if the train is more full than that, then the train efficiency is even higher than the TH!NK.

So the Randal O'Toole's Cato Institute study proclaiming that electric train transport is as inefficient as a large SUV per passenger is way off.

More junk science, from the people who have brought you some of the best junk science to date!

I look forward to seeing how METRO will actually fix or find a way to circumvent the 40 day HOV lane closure. Will they be writting tardy excuses for work??

I just love this question:

"Earlier this year, while I was riding the 44 northbound, a man got on the bus and defecated on himself. It stunk up the entire bus. How would those kinds of things be handled?"

------------------------

This is the reality of what people have to deal with from time to time when riding a local bus.  I've dealt with drunks, fist fights, drug addicts, nutty people, annoying pervs, and just the other day a guy who kept spitting on the floor.  I know there's not a lot Metro can do about these unpleasant people - if they pay their fare they can ride - but it does make me feel better to vent about it from time to time.

I agree with Peter--what should matter is low gas mileage, not what's under the hood. Unfortunately, I can't imagine that it would be practical for METRO to make or enforce rules about which specific types of cars are fuel-efficient enough to be allowed in the HOV lanes as SOVs. (I'm picturing a METRO officer in a car watching a single-driver car zip by in the HOV lane, poring over a clipboard to see if the car is on the "one-driver allowed" list, not finding any listing for the car, and looking up to find that the violator has already driven out of sight.)

What we need to encourage with HOV/HOT lanes is not different purchasing behavior, but different driving behavior (driving with multiple people in the car).

We are not going to "save the planet" by Green Shopping

I disagree with Peter to a large extent on allowing hybrid vehicles on the HOV lanes.Metro already offers QuickRide that utilizes your existing Harris County Toll Road Authority EZ tag to allow one less than the required number of riders for a $2 fee. Why not adapt this same type of plan to an application process in which vehicles that pass a minimum standard of fuel efficiency could pass and be registered? Then it would be auto-policing in the application process. I drive a paid-off SUV, but I do what I can and carpool with coworkers, so a different driving behavior is not the issue. If I could still use the HOV without my carpooling buddies when needed, it would be yet another incentive for me to reconsider my vehicle choice.

I would like to comment how the Houston traffic flow pattern accommondates the people coming out of the parking garages in downtown keeping the buses in down town stacked up and empty at Main Street.  It this case There was as off duty officer directing the flow of cars to move effeciently 90% or more one preson in the car.  I would be willing to bet they did not notice the 7 buses stacked up waiting to Pickup the mulitudes of dripping hot people, waiting on the street curve waiting for those buses to pick them up.  While these people whizzed by with their windows rolled up.  They are probably the same people, who say "I would ride the bus if they ran on time". Last Monday, were you near Main in the heavey afternoon traffice.  I sepecially think of the pickup truck with the three wheeler in back cool man.  

What is Houston's priorities?  The people who is willing to ago a little less class, do something for our future, or people with the cars.   People who will walk a few blocks or the driver.   I too have a love afair with cars.  It seems we are putting the Car before human beings "Pride will be our down fall".  I am a transplanted Oklahoman and proud of what we have achieved in Houston since I moved here in 1971 with the Space Program.  But we can lead the other cities of America it to greater growth, as only this great city can do.

I will answer my own question traffic pattern priority safety of people on foot, people &bus traffic then car and general traffic.  Mass tran should  be prior.

Has anybody noticed that a non diesel powered piston car/truck has spark plugs?  How old is that system?  

The odd thing was atuos were seen as a way to get rid of polution:  HORSE MANURE!  If you hink you have allergy problems now......

KenO, even if you had a 1,000 MPG car, the problem with driving it alone in the HOV/HOT is that of congestion. There's just no more room at peak times the way things are now.

PWANG,

You state I am wrong and attack Randall O'Toole, yet Dr. O'Toole cites FTA and various states' DOT statistics in his analysis.

Your cited figure of MetroRail energy consumption may contain an important error.  First the common unit for analysis is BTU's.

If it assumes that 1 kilowatt hour equals 3,413 BTUs, than this is wrong. Due to losses in electrical transmission, the proper conversion factor is 1 kilowatt hour equals 11,765 BTUs.

Reference: Page B-5 (physical page 263) of Edition 25, National Transportation Energy Data Book,

http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb25/Edition25_Full_Doc.pdf. It mentions the 1 kwhr = 3,412, but adds, "This figure does not take into account the fact that electricity generation and distribution efficiency is

approximately 29%. If generation and distribution efficiency are taken into account, 1 kWhr = 11,765 Btu."

I posted the FY2004-FY2007 data a while back, and could not quickly locate it, and I do not have the time to hunt for it right now.

When you take Houston Metro's light-rail kwhrs for 2005 and multiply by this factor and divide by the number of passenger miles you get 3,216 BTUs per passenger mile. The BTUs per passenger mile for the

average car is about 3,588. So the light rail beats cars, but barely.

If one were to put 2 people in your passenger car, you are probably doing better than light rail (average auto occupancy is 1.6).  I don't have time to look-up the BTU's for a HUMMER, but a typical Transit Bus is listed at 4,100+ BTU's/passenger mile.

Futher, with the market changes driving hybrid, battery, and fuel cell propulsion for passenger cars on the horizon, the argument to squander billions upon billions of prcious taxpayer funds on boondoggle urban rail appears ludicrous.

Peter, if we make the HOT lanes so outrageously expensive that they turn into Lawyer Lanes where only Joe Jamail want-to-be's can afford to drive by themselves, we can get a lot of revenue from the fat cats.  Cigarettes are bad, so tax them even more to get to $15 per pack.  Drinking beer and driving is bad, so put an extra tax on beer.

If we really want to get off of foreign oil, we should force the automakers to put high efficiency diesels in trucks and SUV's and have a huge effort to make Bio-Diesel from old fry oil.

"If we really want to get off of foreign oil, we should force the automakers to put high efficiency diesels in trucks and SUV's and have a huge effort to make Bio-Diesel from old fry oil."

You mean so that the entire city can smell like French fries? Awesome.

ChloeMireille said:  

"You mean so that the entire city can smell like French fries? Awesome."

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Better french fries than whatever that smell is over by the ship channel.  Heck, traffic is already super-sized in Houston, so why not the smell?

If we can just figure out how to turn the downtown pigeons into Bio-Diesel, we could power Metro buses for almost free.  

Metro could install a Bio-Diesel processing plant at one of the bus barns.  As the local buses pass by the local restaurants that have used oil, they could pick up a few gallons and unload them at night for processing.

We can sell adds on the rear of the car.... This smell is brought to you by.....KFC, McDonalds, Mambo's, Timmy Chans, You Buy We Fry Fish Market, Churches, .......;

Diesel from other sources:

Why can't we make fuel out of all the old engine oil from oil changes!

P&R Rider:

It sounds nessy, but if we could convert avian and other animal digestive waste to biofuels, it would be a win-win situation.

We would get rid of a waste product and make something of it!

Royko, since you bring up electrical transmission line losses, how about...

> The energy overhead required to ship overseas oil to our shores from around the world?

> The energy overhead required to push refined product through pipelines to major fuel distribution points?

> The energy overhead required to truck refined product from distribution points to retail locations?

> The energy overhead involved in driving around looking for the lowest-priced fuel?

> How about the energy overhead involved in fighting a war in the Middle East to guarantee access to oil? The US military is one of the world's largest consumers of hydrocarbons?

Your hypothetical BTUs in the hypothetical SUV are off by an unknown (but possibly large) amount. The comparison between electricity and gasoline efficiency are probably much closer than you realize or care to admit.

Of course, economics never lie. My rule of thumb as a consumer is that if it's cheaper, it generally involves less energy or less waste. Since a BTU or Joule of electrical energy is much cheaper than a Joule or BTU of gasoline energy, it's probably less wasteful and involves less energy to create and deliver this service along the entire value chain, from wellhead or coal mine to point of application.

Also, in the future, we are going to have carbon capture and sequestration. Here's a shamless plug for my employer:

http://www.slb.com/content/services/additional/carbon/index.asp

It will be possible to capture carbon from large power plants, but not from tens of millions of invdivdual vehicles.

"It will be possible to capture carbon from large power plants, but not from tens of millions of invdivdual vehicles."

Planting tens of millions of trees can and will offset tens of millions of auto CO2 emissions.

One source states that a single growing tree will absor the same CO2 levels as emitted ny a single car for the year.

Many have not been noticing, but TXDOT has been planting tens of thousands of trees along the freeways for the past few years.  Most of these will be growing, thus absorbing, for decades.  

The plan hopefully will be to have someone harvest, or cull out, the more mature trees later on for construction grade lumber and minimize any burning or decay, and then replanting new trees.  

The problem I have seen with the rail line is that Metro has not planted trees along their ROW due to the problems with branches and the overhead cables.

Another rough rule is that 30 trees planted offset the CO2 generation by a single house.  I have planted 8 trees on my small lot and 3 others in a public area behind my house so I am at least contributing 33% of my contribution to balance.

"If we can just figure out how to turn the downtown pigeons into Bio-Diesel, we could power Metro buses for almost free."

Well, there's a Popeye's right across the street from the pigeon mecca known as Macy's. If they'll let us fryolate them from say...6am to 8am?...the homeless people could have breakfast, and the used oil can be used for Bio-Diesel.

Don G,

A few months back, I met with the man responsible for repairing the signature Main street fountain.

When I asked if the failure was due to excessive corrosion; he stated it was just shoddy construction - what a surprise that was!

We talked about the stray current leakage, and I mentioned it seemed that stray current leakage was a significant problem near Commerce Street.

He stated that he could not keep any of the freshly planted trees alive in that vicinity, and wondered if the stray current leakage was killing his trees.

Have you noticed they quit planting trees close to Commerce Street.

ChloeMireille; I see you are familiar with my pigeon for the homeless plan and your extension is a great idea, although my original solar powered pigeon oven is more Eco-friendly.  

Ahh, a deep fried pigeon with slightly expired dipping sauce, a pigeon feather pillow, and taking a much needed bath in the fancy Metro Fountain at the light rail.  Nothing could be finer.

P&R Rider,

The fountain is used more by the bums as a latrine.  You would be well advised to go to the Discovery Green Rat & Bum park to bathe.  Oh, BTW, I took a photo recently of the Hare Krishner's working the passers-by near the fountain.

"When I asked if the failure was due to excessive corrosion; he stated it was just shoddy construction - what a surprise that was!"

Based on your prior posts, I take it that was a dig at METRO. However, METRO was not responsible for designing or building the Main Street Square fountain.  If my memory serves me, that was undertaken by the Houston Downtown Management District.

P&R Rider said:  

"Ahh, a deep fried pigeon with slightly expired dipping sauce, a pigeon feather pillow, and taking a much needed bath in the fancy Metro Fountain at the light rail.  Nothing could be finer."

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There's a guy who frequently feeds the pigeons at Wheeler station with pieces of bread.  Perhaps he's in on your "Master Pigeon Plan."

Lunk,

You are correct.  The taxpayers of Houston and the taxpayers in both the Downtown MD, as well as the Market Square/Main Street TIRZ have eaten the costs associated with the added (hidden costs) infastructure of the overall boondoggle project so METREAUX could claim the low-ball costs for the shoddily built tram.

The fountain was shoddily built by a minority contractor, and, no one wants to pursue the recovery of the costs to replace all 12 pumps and associated equipment.  Why is that?

I-45 and Bay Area Blvd park and ride is over flowing every day. plenty of people willing to use METRO, now we need MORE PARKING LOTS at that location so we can get even more people on your METRO buses and make more of a difference.  GB

Hey Chief,

The 45 north HOV is full of single passenger vehicles ..EVERY DAY!...

How about getting the information I asked Asst. Chief for?

How many officers do we have per district per shift?

Why do we send the ol'man out to the North HOV on his bike and let him allow 20 vehicles for every one he thumps pass behind his back?

As it takes ages to get an officer to the scene of any incident,Why aren't officers assigned to BOFs to provide better coverage?

I asked these questions of Asst.Chief 6 months ago and haven't gotten an answer yet.

I didn't forget!

wi11ie