Rocket Talk: When's the TTC Going to Roll Out More Fare Collection Methods?
Newsstand: November 9, 2009
Zack Taylor in Disney Mama Drama
Santa's Weston Workshop
The Daily Photoist: November 9, 2009
Sales of hybrid cars like the Prius are booming not only because drivers wish to spend less on gas and reduce their emissions, but because they want everyone to know they're driving a hybrid. Today the Ontario government proposed a plan that might add an additional layer of smugness to your vehicle: a conspicuous green license plate.
If a vehicle met certain specifications of a to-be-determined rating system, the Province would issue the special plate which would then entitle the driver to special perks, like HOV lanes and parking discounts. The program would also apply to commercial vehicles and light trucks that meet the criteria.
Expected to launch by the spring, the green plate plan is part of a new environmental initiative announced today by Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield. The proposal also includes a $15 million pilot project that would help Ontario businesses convert about 1,000 commercial vehicles to "cleaner" technologies and revamp some of Ontario's own fleet of government vehicles to use 85% ethanol (ethyl alcohol) fuel.
Granting perks for cleaner cars has been employed in Virginia, where hybrid drivers can bypass the notorious traffic in and out of Washington, D.C. and zip along in the carpool lane. It has almost worked too well—avoiding traffic was reason enough for motorists to run out and buy a Prius, and the HOV lanes soon became jammed with hybrids, leading the Transportation Department to call for an end to the privilege.
Like the State of Virginia, the Ontario government already offers a tax rebate of up to $2,000 for drivers who use the cleaner vehicles, which helps offset the increased cost to buy or lease them. Sure, many Ontario motorists clamoring for the green plate privilege will be doing it for self-serving reasons, but if it gets people in the habit of buying hybrids, biodiesels or electrics, we're all for it.
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I don't watch much South Park, but this sounds eerily like a recent episode, where drivers driving hybrid cars reduced smog levels but contributed another far more dangerous gas to the ozone level: smug.
That said, I like it. Can I get one for my bike?
right, let's let the people with fuel efficient cars zip by while the rest of us in our dirty gas hogs sit here idling in this freeway-turned-parking-lot pollution factory.
I watch a lot of South Park. Smug Alert!
New car owners are still waiting for their rebate promised them in the Flaherty budget.
This reminds me of times when I've been on a diet. If people brought donuts into work and I didn't want one, I would get this, "Oh, you think you're better than us" look (Fine, OK, I'll eat 4, happy?).
I'm not sure why it's considered smug to try to consume less (food or energy).
What could be more smug, with our current energy prices and global situation (ie. war for oil), than to drive around in an SUV or Hummer. It's like someone saying, "Yes, I know kids are dying over oil and most people can't afford to drive because of gas prices or car prices...But I do, because I can".
I either ride my bike, or when I do drive, I have a Toyota Corolla, not exactly the coolest babe magnet, but it costs less than 10 cents per mile to drive it. In the winter, I put plastic on my windows and seal the doorways and keep it around 65 degrees, so I must be one smug bastard...but it beats a $400 utility bill and spending $80 at the gas station every week.
The truth is that hybrids are not much more efficient than their 100%-gas-powered counterparts on the highway. I think HOV privileges are smug. Free/reduced parking in the city would be great, though.
And to answer the parking lot highway complaint. If more people use the HOV lanes, it should be traffic removed from the existing lanes and should relieve everyone... to a degree.
I've been waiting nearly eight years for an ethanol fuel station to open in Toronto for my 2000 Ford Ranger with the E80 "FlexFuel" engine.
Hybrid fuel economy is similar to the best compact cars out there (like a Honda Civic) and the manufacture and disposal of the battery technology is a valid environmental concern, but the real advantage to the environment comes in volume. Toyota and Honda hybrids are much more fuel efficient than non-compact cars, and the more hybrids on the road, the more significant the drop in total emissions. Plus, those hybrids are built with lighter materials, have smaller engines, turn the engine off when the car isn't moving, and recapture wasted energy.
The reason I mention Honda and Toyota specifically, aside from them pioneering the technology, is because other car manufacturers are slapping "hybrid" on the vehicles as a marketing tool, whereas their hybrid drives are much less efficient than the Prius/Camry/Insight/Civic. Also, selling hybrid SUVs under the pretense of being "greener" is a crock.
As for the HOV lanes, the problem with Toronto's highways is that they will always get filled solid whether there's an extra lane or not. That's why adding another lane to the DVP won't relieve traffic—research and history shows that we just accommodate the extra space with more cars. The HOV lanes would only be beneficial as a perk until the number of vehicles allowed in those lanes reached a certain number. The traffic into Washington D.C. in the morning is absolutely insane, but now that about 30% of the vehicles in the HOV lanes are hybrids (which people bought solely to avoid the traffic), they're getting jammed too and are reaching capacity.
I also agree with guest #5 that conservation should never be viewed as smugness. That's an honour reserved for vegans, fundamentalist Christians, obscure music snobs, Mac users and people who don't have TVs. ;-)
Guest #7: I believe there is one E85 ethanol station here in Toronto operated by the provincial government, but sadly, it's not open to the public. The two new ones will be in London and Peterborough and probably not open to the public either.
Sell the car, learn to walk. No green plate required.
"Sell the car, learn to walk. No green plate required."
True, medieval economies have no need for these plates.
Can we go back to talking about Toronto now?
Chris Taylor: You are my hero.
Why do they bother giving small perks like this to people who are (according to the previous commenters) still polluting about the same as a large number of other road users who won't get the same privileges.
How about some sort of tax breaks for cyclists and pedestrians? Or fare decreases / service increases on the TTC?
There is a Bicycle Commuter Act that is trying to get legs down her ein the dumb-downed nation (America) do a search on the Bicycle Commuter Act...may be something to get going.
Guest #11:
I live and work in non-medieval Toronto, along with the rest of you.
My office is in the heart of downtown, King and Bay, about 11km distant from my home. Daily driving would be an insane, hypertension-inducing roller coaster. No thanks. I use the subway to get there. Takes about 33 minutes (23 of which is subway), door to door.
I have two grocery stores within a 10 min walk from home; I can also use the subway to get to them, if required. There's also a drugstore, dry cleaner, daycare, dentist, optometrist, UPS store and many other conveniences within a 5-10 minute walk. I have to go a little further abroad for clothes, but that's not something you do every day, more like once or twice a season. Unless you've got kids -- and there is a kidswear store within 5 minutes, too.
Now I will grant that it took a tremendous amount of research to find the right location, and the location is not by any means inexpensive. I simply didn't want to live more than a 30min commute from the office. But I don't have to cough up for gas, insurance and maintenance -- that all goes directly into savings.
I'm not what you'd call a tree-hugger by nature, but I didn't see the logic in living in the city and having an enormous expense (car) justified by once or twice a week usage. Why pay for crap you don't use all the time? Rent one on the weekends, maybe. Just doesn't make economic sense in my situation.
It doesn't take medieval lifestyles, or pie-in-the-sky uber-green idealism, it just takes a little research.
Chris, my office is at Yonge and Queen. My commute from Mississauga involves a 20-minute walk to the Streetsville GO station, a 35-minute train ride, and a 15-20 minute walk up from Union depending on the lights.
In my case too, daily commuting by car would be insane.
Unfortunately, the large majority of people who live and work in Toronto don't have the same access to public transit as you and I do. Nor do we all enjoy full amenities at 10 minutes' distance as you do.
So when you address "the rest of you" and tell us we should live like you do, please remember that we represent a much more diversified population than you seem to think exists in your Toronto.
So when you address "the rest of you" and tell us we should live like you do, please remember that we represent a much more diversified population than you seem to think exists in your Toronto.
I think maybe you are arguing the wrong point with the wrong guy. My point is that green plates are useless faddism, and responded in a sarcastic, flippant way. You are the guy who decided that living without a car was medievalist and impossible in this city.
I'm just demonstrating that it's possible to do so without also 1) an premodern ascetic minimalist and 2) being an absolutist enviro-freak. Whether or not everyone else drives cars isn't a big deal to me; I don't care. I just thought it was rather short-sighted of you to imagine that anybody who didn't drive was living in sod-thatched huts and paying tribute to the seigneur.
Chris, were you not suggesting (in #10) that "Sell the car, learn to walk" was what *everyone* in Toronto should do?
"You are the guy who decided that living without a car was medievalist and impossible in this city."
I never wrote that. I DID write that for *everyone* living and working in Toronto to "Sell the car, learn to walk" would require a medieval economy.
Sarcasm and flippancy aside, I agree that green plates are useless faddism.
Chris, were you not suggesting (in #10) that "Sell the car, learn to walk" was what *everyone* in Toronto should do?
'Fraid not, just snarking. There is a certain type of urban green that would just for that to happen, but it's not realistic unless we spend trillions on mass transit and re-zoning. And even if the body politic were willing to do so, I don't think it would be particularly wise.
In an unrelated hilarious post-script, there are certain places where having a green license plate will be a big, giant neon sign saying "Vandalise my car, I'm a convicted sex offender!"