High speed rail progress

Both houses of Congress have passed transportation bills pledging over $10 billion for Amtrak and high speed rail connecting New York City and Washington D.C. The Senate and House are now in conference regarding the details of the final bill. [Summary of the bill here.]

Vermont completed Phase I of a Boston to Montreal high-speed rail study in 2003, which found that there would be enough demand to support such a service. Phase II suffered a setback when New Hampshire decided to withdraw from the project. It is now back underway with Massachusetts as the partner; the current plans have the corridor passing through Springfield, Mass. to get into Vermont. Charlie Miller, Rail Planning Coordinator at VTrans, anticipates that a consultant for the Phase II study will be selected this fall. [View Phase I report here.]

Meanwhile, New Hampshire high-speed rail advocates are gathering public support to continue the Phase II route as originally planned through New Hampshire.

[Sources: Library of Congress Thomas database, Asbury Park Press, Masslive.com, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Boston Globe, Foster's Daily Democrat]

Schools try to adjust to energy prices

The Springfield School Board is considering changes to its bus routes to save on transportation energy costs, while balancing their statutory responsibility to provide transportation to those who need it. They're not alone. Other schools are balancing transportation and school meal program budgets (Dodge City, KS), school choice programs (Cape Coral, FL), field trip programs (San Jose, CA; Clute, TX), athletic events (Wilkes County, NC).

Some schools have been able to take action, like purchasing propane buses (San Antonio), plug in hybrid electric-diesel buses (Austin Independent School District), and more efficient routing (Northfield, MN) and asking students to walk further to bus stops (Seattle, WA).

[Sources: Rutland Herald, Dodge Globe, The Houston Chronicle, The Daily Texan,
ABC San Francisco, Wilkes Journal-Patriot, Northfield News, TheFacts.com, LA Times]

Fleets feeling the pinch, take action

Haulers and other fleets around the country are taking action to reduce fuel costs and benefitting the environment at the same time. Choosing smaller or alternatively fueled fleet vehicles, making use of electrified truck stops, using GPS to streamline dispatching, and educating drivers about idling reduction are among the best practices.

[Sources: St. Petersburg Times, York Daily Record, PECO Exelon Corporation]

Hybrids for Heavy Diesel Fleets

Freightliner LLC, Navistar International Corp., Kenowrth Truck Co., and Peterbilt Motors are developing or producing larger hybrid diesel-electric trucks. They are expensive but save 30-60% on fuel costs, depending on how they are used. The technology makes sense for delivery and garbage trucks, buses and other stop-and-go vehicles. Hybrid utility vehicles and others that need auxiliary power also can save on fuel.

In Vermont, Casella Waste Systems and Central Vermont Public Service pioneers.

[Source: Arizona Republic]

The diesels are coming

Diesel engines are 30-40% more fuel efficient than gas engines. Manchester, VT recently played host to the global launch and test drive of three new diesel SUVs from Mercedes: the 2009 ML 320, GL 320, and R320 BlueTec. All three are clean enough to be sold in Vermont, certified as Bin 5 Ultra Low Emission Vehicles. Volkswagen and Audi are both releasing similar technology diesels: VW's Jetta TDI models are due this August and Audi's Q7 SUV is scheduled for early 2009 launch.

According to a study conducted by Kelley's Blue Book, U.S. consumers are much more likely to think that hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells, and ethanol mix vehicle technologies are more likely to go mainstream than diesels.

[Source: The Globe and Mail]

Vermonters save money with two-wheelers

Commuters are turning to scooters, motorcycles, and bicycles to save gas money. The motorized two-wheelers can get 70 miles per gallon of gas.

[Source: WCAX, Autobloggreen]

Telework Best Practices

The 2008 Telework Exchange awards showcased six best practice employers that support telework, or telecommuting. Award winners had programs that helped mobile workers skip office commutes, regular surveys to test program performance, an in-house telework committee to act as oversight, a web-based application process, a call center telework program, and dedicated program promotion staff.

[Source: Telework Exchange]

Do You Know...

about all of the federal biofuels incentives?

In Other Vermont Transportation News...

VTrans vanpool program projected to create up to 100 vanpools by the end of the fiscal year. [Brattleboro Reformer]

Transportation Research center event on gas prices and consumer behavior sparks productive discussion. [Burlington Free Press]

Springfield has started its long-awaited downtown sidewalk reconstruction. [Rutland Herald]

A Glimpse into Transportation at Large...

Ethanol
There are 31 E85 stations in 11 northeastern states. Compare to Iowa alone which has 90. How many do other states have? [Ethanol Producer]

Idling
Hong Kong is likely to implement to ban engine idling within a year, at the risk of a HK$320 (US $41) fine. [The Standard]

Iowa Senator asks President to limit federal vehicle idling
[LAist.com]

New York state woman walks car-to-car at her neighborhood train station encouraging waiting drivers to turn off their engines. [The Journal News]

Crude prices
Experts discuss reasons behind swings in crude oil prices. [Yahoo! News]

Electric
Germany's largest automoakers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW want to launch electric cars. [Agence France-Presse]

A Florida man successfully converts his pickup to run on electricity. [News Chief]

Hydrogen
BMW has a demonstration fleet of hydrogen passenger vehicles running in New York City. [NY Times]

Weekly Petro-Stats

Gas at the Pump, VT Crude Oil Futures

This Week
(Jul 20-26) $4.047/gallon $126.436/barrel

Last Week
(Jul 13-19) $4.070/gallon $135.516/barrel

This Week $2.935/gallon

Last Year

Sources: Gas VT, Crude Oil

Trends in car sales: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Car sales in June dropped over 18% to the lowest level in 10 years. Demand for small, fuel-efficient cars continues to grow, however, as pickup truck and SUV sales decreased. This shift has blindsided every automaker except for Honda, whose sales rose 1% in June. Even Toyota was unable to meet demand for its fuel efficient models. Gas prices, a slow economy, and a slowdown in housing construction have all been blamed for the drop in sales. Curiously, it is not only efficient models like the Toyota Prius that are in high demand - according to Forbes, the full size SUV Lexus LX, that gets 14 mpg, is the second most wanted vehicle after the Prius. Some auto analysts note that the the SUV market, though struggling, isn't dead. [Source: NY Times, Yahoo! Autos]

A green cab company

Burlington has a new fledgling cab company in town - GreenCab VT. They have a Mercedes that runs on biodiesel and a low-speed electric car for fares around town. In the future they hope to add hybrids and fuel cell cars. [Source: Burlington Free Press]

Solar power for the Prius?

Rumor has it that Toyota is aiming to add a boost to its high end Prius by adding a solar panel to the roof. Current solar panel technology means that roof space is insufficient to generate much power, but the design does use it where it makes the most sense: helping power air conditioning, which you're more likely to want on when there's plenty of sun outside.
[Sources: eFlux Media, Auto Week]

Idling policies around the country

With fuel costs affecting government-owned fleets, several communities have joined the no-idling chorus. Hernando County, Florida has outlawed idling by county government vehicles (with the usual operational exceptions), the state of Florida has ruled that heavy duty diesel engines cannot idle more than five minutes, and the city of Edmonds, Washington is considering an anti-idling ordinance. [Sources: Hernando Today, St. Petersburg Times, Herald Net]

Policy watch: Public transit forums

Vermont Agency of Transportation is soliciting feedback on public transit around the state to inform its Short Range Public Transportation Plan. Topics under consideration include a review of service areas, current and future demand. For dates, times, and locations, click here. [Source: Rutland Herald, VTrans]

Policy watch: The candidates on transportation energy

A few of the stories available about some of the campaign statements Obama and McCain have made regarding alternative vehicles, alternative fuels, and transportation fuel efficiency:

• McCain and Obama share energy goals, not methods - Christian Science Monitor
• Where the candidates stand on energy - Detroit Free Press
• New Battery Technology "In the Works" Years Before McCain's $300 Million Proposal to Award a "Breakthrough" - The Cutting Edge News

A Glimpse into Transportation at Large...

High speed rail conversations
High speed rail is being explored in California, Texas, and southern states. [Sources: San Jose Mercury News, Temple Daily Telegram, NBC]

National lab work on alt fuels
As one of the flagship nationial research labs, Argonne National Laboratory is working hard to develop alternative fuel technologies. [Source: Voice of America]

Walk or drive?
Navitime is launching a service with its route-mapping system, accessible from PCs or certain cell phone models, that tells you the number of calories you'd use walking a route vs. driving it.
[Source: Network World]

30 Billion Miles

Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. have decreased for the 6th straight month. The number of highway miles driven from November 2007 to April 2008 in the U.S. fell 1.7 percent from the previous year. Public transit ridership continues to increase as a total of 30 billion fewer miles were driven between November and April. Cambridge Energy Research Associates say the gasoline price shock has finally caught up with consumers. This is the "steepest decline" in U.S. driving mileage since the 1979-1980 Iranian Revolution that caused the oil shock resulting in a significant drop in mileage over those two years, said the Department of Transportation's spokesman Doug Hecox. In April of this year alone Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles than they did in April 2007. [Source: Reuters]

4 Day Week 3 Day Weekend

Why commute five days a week when you could only commute four? Vermont state senator Vince Illuzzi, R-Essex/Orleans has proposed state offices and schools add an extra day to the weekend to help save on fuel prices. As heating and transportation fuels increase Vermonters are spending more and more money. Consequently, if state offices and schools only had to be heated 4 days a week, and if those who are forced to commute long distances in our rural state could take an extra day off a significant amount of money and fuel could be saved. The idea has not been completely written off, but there would be some obstacles to overcome including meeting the required number of school days. The cities of Birmingham, Ala. and Avondale, Ariz. are among an increasing number of places that have decided to implement the 4 day work week. [Source: Burlington Free Press]