California Free Press

Here's How the 'Jet-Owning Oligarchy' Harms Both Planet and Workers

A Cessna Citation jet aircraft is seen at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in this aerial photo taken near Healdsburg, California on June 1, 2021.

(Photo: George Rose/Getty Images)

 

by Kenny Stancil, May 1, 2023 from Common Dreams

A new analysis catalogs alarming facts about the destructive private jet industry, which is emblematic of runaway economic and carbon inequality.

Research published Monday details how the working class is paying the price, in more ways than one, for the "jet-owning oligarchy" to hop around the globe in their personal luxury planes.

It's well-established that private jet travel by the super-rich is worsening the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis. Adding insult to injury, this conspicuously carbon-intensive consumption is being subsidized by ordinary taxpayers, as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Patriotic Millionaires make clear in their new analysis.

Entitled High Flyers 2023: How Ultra-Rich Private Jet Travel Costs the Rest of Us and Burns Up Our Planet, the report catalogs alarming facts about the private jet industry and makes recommendations about how to rein in this potent symbol and manifestation of escalating inequality.

To begin with, "private jets emit at least 10 times more pollutants than commercial planes per passenger," the report notes. "Unsurprisingly, approximately 1% of people are believed to be responsible for about half of all aviation carbon emissions."

Amid a surge in wealth inequality since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, "private jet use has increased by about a fifth, and private jet emissions have increased more than 23%," the report points out. "The private jet sector set industry records with regards to transaction and dollar volume in 2021 and 2022."

While a coronavirus-era boom is evident, the industry has been growing steadily alongside wealth inequality since the turn of the century. As the report states: "The size of the global fleet has increased 133% in the last two decades from 9,895 in 2000 to 23,133 in mid-2022. This bonanza was accompanied by an unprecedented number of business jet operations, 5.3 million in 2022."

"If we can't ban private jets, we should at least tax them and require them to pay to offset their environmental damage and subsidies."

According to the report, "The median net worth of a full and fractional private jet owner is $190 million and $140 million respectively." A minuscule 0.0008% of the global population belongs to the jet-owning class, which consists mostly of financial and real estate tycoons.

Last year, billionaire Elon Musk, "the most active high flyer in the United States," bought a new jet and took 171 private flights, or about one every other day, the report notes.

In so doing, he single-handedly "contributed to the consumption of 837,934 liters of jet fuel," states the report, and he "was responsible for 2,112 tons of carbon emissions"—132 times more than the entire carbon footprint of an average person in the United States.

In a statement, report co-author Kalena Thomhave, a researcher with the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS, called private jets "a microcosm of our system of wealth inequality even beyond their image of extravagance."

"Private flyers pay just 2% of the taxes that primarily fund the Federal Aviation Administration, yet nearly 17% of flights handled by the FAA are private," said Thomhave. "Meanwhile, private jets contribute disproportionately to carbon emissions while often representing significant tax savings for their wealthy owners."

As the report observes: "Thousands of municipal airports in the U.S. are funded by the public, but many primarily serve private and corporate jets. These airports may not offer scheduled passenger service, but they still offer airport runways subsidized by taxes."

Such regressive taxation is the product of industry lobbying, the report explains:

The largest player in the private jet lobby, the National Business Aviation Association, has spent an average $2.4 million each year since 2008 lobbying the federal government, primarily for tax giveaways. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the industry specifically lobbied for Covid relief, particularly "medium to long-term liquidity assistance and relief from air transportation excise taxes," even though industry demand was quickly climbing.

As wealth inequality soars, so too does the value of the private jet market, which grew from $32.3 billion in 2021 to $34.1 billion in 2022, the report notes. With wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and little to no downward redistribution on the horizon, the private jet industry is projected to expand further in the coming years.

Report co-author Omar Ocampo, a researcher with the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS, said that the private jet industry's expected growth this decade "provides us with a great opportunity to levy a luxury transfer tax on private jet sales." He added that "the revenue raised from this tax can be invested towards developing a green transportation system."

According to the report, "A 10% and 5% transfer fee on pre-owned and new private aircraft would have raised $2.4 billion in 2021 and $2.6 billion in 2022."

In addition to imposing a transfer tax on all private jet sales, IPS and Patriotic Millionaires recommend the following steps be taken:

• Levy a private jet fuel tax;
• Institute a "short hop" surcharge;
• Resist efforts to increase passenger facility charges until private jet owners pay their fair share;
• Create a sustainable transportation equity trust fund;
• Increase TSA security oversight of private jets; and
• Pass the Aircraft Ownership Transparency Act.

According to the report, Musk would have paid nearly $4 million in additional taxes last year if a transfer fee and jet fuel tax had been in place.

"Private jet travel by billionaires and the ultra-wealthy imposes a tremendous cost on the rest of us," said Chuck Collins, another co-author of the report.

"Not only do ordinary travelers and taxpayers subsidize the air space for private jets, but the high flyers also contribute considerably more pollution than other passengers," said Collins. "If we can't ban private jets, we should at least tax them and require them to pay to offset their environmental damage and subsidies."

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As US Funds Pentagon Bloat, China Investments in Green Energy Soar

A staff member charges an electric bus at a charging station on April 1, 2022 in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

In the first quarter of 2022, China is expected to take 65% of the global market in new-energy vehicles.

 

Juan Cole

April 8, 2022 by Informed Comment

China is beating the pants off the United States in the burgeoning new energy vehicle market, out-producing and out-selling America with regard to plug-in vehicles by a massive margin. Whereas the Chinese government is supporting this new industry, the US government is still subsidizing fossil fuels and is spending $728.5 billion a year on the Pentagon at a time when the US is not even at war. The result is bloated and problematic engines of destruction like the failed F-35.

In 2021, about 4 million EVs were produced around the world. That year, China made 57.4% of them.

In the first quarter of 2022, China is expected to take 65% of the global market in new-energy vehicles, according to Yang Yang at China Daily.

China exported about 500,000 new-energy cars in 2021, 2.6 times more than the previous year,. China's EV exports to Europe rose fivefold to 230,000 units write Akashi Kawakami, Yohei Muramatsu and Saki Shirai at Nikkei Asia.

You know whose EV exports to Europe did not increase five times in 2021? America's.

In contrast, the US automakers accounted for just 12% of global EV sales in 2021, Nikkei Asia says, Worse, the US lost market share in this sector compared to 2020. We're not only not at the forefront of this industry, we are falling behind.

The US Republican Party and their plus-one, Sen. Joe Manchin, are preventing the US from becoming the dominant automaker in the world in this decade by consistently shooting down the green energy and transportation provisions of the now-moribund Build Back Better bill backed by President Biden.

The major Chinese automaker BYD announced Sunday that it now no longer even produces gasoline-driven vehicles using internal combustion engines (ICE). The US looks increasingly like a backward, lumbering dinosaur in this new, green technological environment.

Inside China, EVs had been 6% of new vehicle purchases at the beginning of 2021, but skyrocketed to 22% by the end of last year. That is an increase of 1.3% a month every month, Yang points out.

In absolute numbers, in January 2021, China sold 173,000 new energy cars. In January, 2022, 372,615 new plug-in vehicles were registered. That is more than double—115%.

This are incredible numbers.

In 2021, about 4 million EVs were produced around the world. That year, China made 57.4% of them. This year its market share is increasing significantly.

Chinese firms are aggressively invading formerly Japanese-dominated car markets such as Thailand, Nikkei Asia says. The country's largest producer of automobiles, SAIC Motor, sells its MG EP new-energy car in Thailand for 30% less than the price of a Nissan Leaf EV.

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© 2021 Juan Cole

Juan Cole

Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His newest book, "Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires" was published in 2020. He is also the author of  "The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East" (2015) and "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East" (2008).  He has appeared widely on television, radio, and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. 

Off the Top of My Head

The Manufacture of Steel and Cement Releases Huge Amounts of Greenhouse Gasses

by John Lawrence

It's not enough to electrify cars and make power plants carbon free. About one third of greenhouse gasses are produced by manufacturing processes - mainly in the manufacture of steel and concrete. In order to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, we need to come up with new ways to manufacture steel and cement. Fortunately a Swedish company has come up with a way to manufacture steel without at the same time releasing large amounts of greenhouse gasses. Ironically, wind turbines which produce fossil fuel free energy require large amounts of fossil fuels in the manufacture of their steel. For every ton of steel produced in the world, almost two tons of CO₂ are emitted as well. To really combat climate change, major manufacturing processes need to be revolutionized as well.

Sweden’s SSAB says it has “produced the world’s first fossil-free steel” and has started delivering it to the Volvo Group, its first customer. Cars and trucks are made with lots of steel. Volvo has announced plans to manufacture cars using fossil fuel-free steel by 2026. Fossil fuel free steel has been developed by a consortium of three Swedish companies, two of which are owned by the Swedish state. The Hybrit project was set up in 2016. The idea underpinning Hybrit is to use “100% fossil-free hydrogen” rather than coal and coke in steel production. The goal is to develop the technology so it can be demonstrated at an industrial scale. It’s hoped this could happen as early as 2026. The question is can this process be scaled up on a world wide scale so that the production of steel in its totality can be made fossil fuel free?

The cement industry dumps more than 2 billion tons of carbon into the air each year to make its ubiquitous building material, roughly three times as much as the aviation industry. Plastics are made from fossil fuels, but replacing plastics should be as simple as going back to materials that were used before plastics were invented. In fact going back to the way of life of the 19th century, before oil was discovered, would eliminate a lot, but not all, greenhouse gasses. There is still coal which was ubiquitous in the 19th century. As far as transportation, before the advent of the fossil fuel powered car, horse drawn conveyances were ubiquitous. This produced a lot of horse manure which was a problem in urban settings. People concerned about that breathed a sigh of relief when cars entered the scene because that eliminated the horse manure problem while at the same time creating the greenhouse gas problem which was unseen and unrecognized at the time. As it turns out horse manure is a very good fertilizer and can be put to a constructive use while carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks are deleterious.

But we can't go back to the 19th century. Modern development, using tons of steel and cement, will continue apace. We need to do what the Swedes did, and that is to develop manufacturing processes using hydrogen rather than carbon. We need to get smart about eliminating greenhouse gas emissions wherever they occur. It's not enough just to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. We need to create manufacturing processes free of fossil fuels as well. Also we need to find a substitute for plastics. Many are currently being developed. The question is can they be scaled up in time. The same can be said for eliminating industrial farming and finding plant based substitutes for cows and pigs. The economy of the world needs to be reoriented from the pursuit of profit and even of development to the pursuit of creating an earth suitable for human habitation because with out that the human race has nothing.

Off the Top of My Head

One Positive Thing: Lower Pollution and Greenhouse Gases

by John Lawrence, March 24, 2020

Among all the negative things that are happening because of the coronavirus, there is at least one positive thing: air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) is way down. The pandemic is shutting down industrial activity and temporarily slashing air pollution levels around the world according to satellite imagery. There are fewer cars on the roads, fewer airplanes flying, fewer ships at sea. The downturn in economic activity means that less power is being consumed; therefore, less coal is being shoveled into power plants around the world. It's a veritable demonstration that it is possible to reduce pollution, reduce global warming and in other ways have a cleaner, healthier planet.

Paul Monks, professor of air pollution at the University of Leicester, predicted there will be important lessons to learn. “We are now, inadvertently, conducting the largest-scale experiment ever seen,” he said. “Are we looking at what we might see in the future if we can move to a low-carbon economy? Not to denigrate the loss of life, but this might give us some hope from something terrible. To see what can be achieved. It seems entirely probable that a reduction in air pollution will be beneficial to people in susceptible categories, for example some asthma sufferers,” he said. “It could reduce the spread of disease. A high level of air pollution exacerbates viral uptake because it inflames and lowers immunity.” Agriculture could also get a boost because pollution stunts plant growth, he added.

One of the largest drops in pollution levels could be seen over the city of Wuhan in central China which was put under a strict lockdown in late January. The city of 11 million people serves as a major transportation hub and is home to hundreds of factories supplying car parts and other hardware to global supply chains. According to NASA, nitrogen dioxide levels across eastern and central China have been 10-30% lower than normal.

This period, when the pandemic is not under control, is an opportunity to think differently about the economy. What are essential goods and services? Definitely we need food, clean water and sanitation services. We need garbage collection. People need enough money to supply essential needs for themselves. We could also ask what are inessential needs? Some of these are going to sporting events, going to movie theaters especially when we can watch movies at home, going to music events at arenas especially when we can listen to music at home, going on cruises. With the increase of capabilities for working from home, going into the office is not a necessity for a lot of workers. This can be increased with the result that there will be fewer cars on the road, less rush hour traffic and less GHG emissions. Getting cars off the road is a long term goal for a green economy. This would mean fewer car sales, but it would be better for the environment.

We should ask what are essential activities to keep people healthy and safe and think about doing away with other activities which don't increase the health and welfare of human beings. After dithering for years over the homeless situation, homeless people are being put up in motels and hotels post haste as a public health issue. This is a positive development and goes to show that the homeless situation could have been ameliorated years ago if we had the will to do it. The provision of money to average Americans will not hurt the economy. It will only help the economy. During the 2008 Great Recession trillions of dollars were given to the banks to bail them out. Much of this money went to bail out investors and hedge funds which had made huge bets on the economy. Many of these bets paid off, and their bets were covered in full by the Federal Reserve when the individual Wall Street banks couldn't cover them. Obviously, these rich people did not need that money to continue to cover their own 'essential needs' or the needs of their families. It was money given to gamblers while Joe six pack got zilch. We don't need an economy which caters to rich gamblers and showers them with money when they bet the economy will go down bringing suffering to millions.

At this point the Fed has the capability of bailing out the average American family especially if they have lost their jobs so they can continue to eat and pay rent. This support for average Americans will function also to stabilize the economy and maintain GDP but at a lower level. Perhaps the 70% level that consumption contributes to GDP cannot be maintained, but this might actually be a good thing by eliminating things that are not essential to the health and welfare of the population while driving air pollution and greenhouse gasses down. Neel Kashkari President of the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve siad on 60 Minutes that the Fed needs to be "overly generous" to the average family, something they weren't when the economy tanked in 2008. The Fed is committed to not letting any banks or major US businesses go under. They could just as well make sure that no American families go under. Andrew Yang's idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) not only helps families survive. It will help the economy survive.

Off the Top of My Head

During WW II, Cars and Gas Were Rationed. Would the American People Accept Such Sacrifices in the War on Global Warming?

by John Lawrence, March 10, 2020

Evidently not. Despite warnings that we have less than 10 years to do something before there is runaway global warming, nothing much has been done. Yet the coronavirus has set the world's consciousness on fire in just a few short weeks. Why hasn't global warming gotten the world so up in arms? During WW II everybody had a job; everybody worked, yet there were government mandated limits on consumption. All kinds of things were rationed especially cars and gas. Yet economic activity expanded due to ramping up the war effort. Today the economy is going into a tailspin because large crowds have been proscribed. All the money that has been added to GDP by music events and professional athletics has gone bye-bye. This is not necessarily a bad thing because people might be better off staying home and reading a good book rather than being out at a sporting event. I know. I know this is a very unpopular opinion.

The point is that, during WW II people had the basic necessities, and everyone was employed. They just couldn't have the icing on the cake until after the war when rationing was lifted. Then the economy boomed. Perhaps there is a lesson here for how to mobilize a society to get a handle on global warming.  In the few short weeks that government spokesmen have decried cruise ship and airplane travel, green house gas emissions (GHGs) have actually decreased. If the government proscribed these and other activities such as automobile travel (think gas rationing), GHGs would decrease even more rapidly. Then, if the government went on an investment spree in terms of renewable energy the way it did on planes and battleships during WWII, there would be full employment. People would just be limited temporarily until this war is won in how they could actually spend their money just like in WWII.

Then after a totally green economy is achieved fueled by green renewable energy, the barriers on spending money would be lifted. Could this even work? Some authors don't think so. William Greider writes in "Secrets of the Temple":

World War II was a model of the possible. In theory, if a national consensus of purpose developed, if people would accept temporary limits on their economic choices as well as regulatory controls on wages and prices, the nation could literally rebuild itself, almost overnight. With the right choices, America could practically double the productive capacity of its economy and advance innovation and dramatically multiply new wealth and incomes. These economic choices, however, were really political questions: who would take the sacrifices and who would take the rewards? Whose consumption would be restrained and whose production would be encouraged. All this consigned extraordinary powers to government, perhaps tolerable only in war. No one, including the most ardent Keynesian planners, has ever figured out how to recreate a comparable combination of creative sacrifices in peacetime or how to sell it to a free society.

And that, dear reader is the crux of the matter. How do you sell the necessary war time effort to combat global warming to a free society? Sure the coronavirus has had the salutary effect of decreasing cruise ship and airplane travel with the concomitant decrease in GHG emissions. At the same time the stock market has gone into a tailspin. If the same kind of effort were made in behalf of global warming, we could expect the stock market to go into the mother of all tailspins. Is it worth it or should we consign future generations to the fate of runaway global warming and an uninhabitable planet?

Abraham Maslow wrote a book, "Towards a Psychology of Being" in which he identified a pyramid of needs starting with D-needs. D-needs are the basic needs of food, air, water, housing and clothing. You might throw in medical care.Then, as you ascend the pyramid, higher order needs are revealed once the lower order needs are met. At the top he identified B-needs or self-actualization which might mean developing all your latent higher order capacities such as becoming a great musician. What seems to me to have happened though is that society has intervened in this process to impose superfluous needs on people. Let's call them S-needs. These needs have to do with all the materialistic consumption that a commercial society imposes or tries to impose on people through advertising so that Maslow's higher order needs are really short-circuited. That's why I say that staying home and reading a good book might be more beneficial in and of itself than attending  a professional sporting event in addition to protecting one from the coronavirus.

What an enlightened society would do to combat global warming is exactly what America did during WW II. D-needs were well satisfied due to a full employment society in which certain kinds of consumption were discouraged while making sure that everyone was fed, clothed, housed and had adequate medical treatment. Could in Greider's words a " national consensus of purpose develop" in which people felt it was more important to delay certain kinds of consumption in order to develop the green infrastructure needed to get global warming under control? The world needs America's leadership on this because America is largely responsible for the GHGs already in the atmosphere, and, if America will not have a sense of urgency, why should any other nation which is just starting to develop a consumer culture?

Off the Top of My Head

Even Experienced Pilots Shouldn't Be Flying VFR Flight Rules in Bad Weather

by John Lawrence, January 28, 2020

The tragedy of losing 9 people, parents and children, including Kobe Bryant near Los Angeles, was a preventable accident. The pilot should have known the foggy weather conditions. The fog had persisted for at least a couple days, and he should have checked the weather before he took off. Even police helicopters had been grounded that Sunday. Besides, if the pilot was instrument rated, he should have been flying IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) not VFR (Visual Flight Rules) for which the pilot has to maintain visual contact with the ground which he didn't. There may also have been technical problems with the helicopter since reportedly it descended very rapidly before it crashed.

People who fly private planes or rent pilots to fly private planes or helicopters should understand that it's not simply a process of driving from point A to point B. They should know that no engagement is so important that you should risk your life and the lives of others if weather is bad. Two private planes from my home town were lost in bad weather after they had flown to a golf match and were flying home. There were four guys in each plane. That took the heart out of the small town which couldn't have afforded to lose them. It happens all the time especially to inexperienced pilots and their families. Small planes quite frequently fly into the sides of mountains. They shouldn't be allowed to fly at all, but I guess it's the pilot's decision whether or not to do so.

Dean Martin's son flew into a mountain near Palm Springs in 1987. AP News reported:

MARCH AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) _ Searchers Wednesday found the remains of entertainer Dean Martin’s son and another flier in the rugged San Bernardino Mountains where their fighter jet crashed in heavy cloud cover five days ago. Capt. Dean Paul Martin and Capt. Ramon Ortiz perished instantly at the time of impact,″ said Sgt. Carolyn Hamilton, an Air National Guard spokeswoman who read from a statement. ″They made no attempt to eject.″

In 1992 Reba McEntire lost her band the same way as reported by the LA Times:

The pilot and co-pilot--and, to a lesser extent, a Federal Aviation Administration employee who gave them instructions--were officially blamed Monday for the plane crash on Otay Mountain last year that killed eight members of country singer Reba McEntire’s band.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the “probable causes” of the crash were “improper planning/decision by the pilot, the pilot’s failure to maintain proper altitude and clearance over mountainous terrain and the co-pilot’s failure to adequately monitor the progress of the flight.”

“Factors related to the accident were insufficient terrain information provided by the (FAA) flight service specialist . . . after the pilot inquired about a low-altitude departure; darkness; mountainous terrain; both pilots’ lack of familiarity with the geographical area, and the co-pilot’s lack of familiarity with the aircraft,” the NTSB said.

Flying private planes or helicopters is not like driving a car. Only experienced pilots who train regularly should do so. The weather is becoming much more violent due to global warming which makes flying a small plane or helicopter even more dangerous. No matter how important it is for a passenger to reach a destination in a certain time frame, the flight should be called off if the weather doesn't permit. The consequences for not doing so are fatal.

Will Americans Sacrifice to Save the Planet from Global Warming?

by John Lawrence, January 21, 2020

President Kennedy famously said,"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." That was in 1961. 59 years later we are faced with a problem - global warming - that can't be solved just by Americans taking action within America. We must now ask, "What can you do for your planet?" Global warming makes nationalistic boundaries irrelevant. We must now think of the planet as a whole and come up with global solutions. We are all related, and we are all connected whether we like it or not. We must give up old rivalries, animosities and lifestyles. Will Americans sacrifice their consumerist lifestyles to save the planet for future generations? Don't bet on it.

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter gave a speech asking for Americans to give up their consumerist lifestyles.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we have discovered that owning things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We have learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

Carter put solar panels on the White House. When Ronald Reagan was elected, he promptly took them down. Global warming was not on either of their radars in those days, but those symbolic acts characterize the two parties' attitudes towards global warming to this day. The Democrats believe the scientists and believe we must do something about global warming post haste. Republicans, and Trump in particular, are global warming deniers. Ronald Reagan delivered the following quote: "Approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards for man-made sources." It goes to show his ignorance on the matter. He wanted Americans to have more material goods, not less. "They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where — because of our past excesses — it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true. I don't believe that." His dreams were all involved with material accumulation, of course.

George W Bush's response to the 9/11 attacks was "go out and shop!" Time magazine wrote:

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush didn't call for sacrifice. He called for shopping. "Get down to Disney World in Florida," he said. "Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed." Taken on its own, this wasn't such a horrible sentiment. But Boston University historian Andrew Bacevich has made a convincing case that it was part of a broader pattern of encouraging financial irresponsibility. "Bush seems to have calculated — cynically but correctly — that prolonging the credit-fueled consumer binge could help keep complaints about his performance as Commander in Chief from becoming more than a nuisance," Bacevich wrote in the Washington Post in October. Now we're paying the bill.

So the issue of global warming does call for sacrifice. It calls for sacrificing gas guzzlers and instead driving hybrid or full electric cars or taking public mass transpostation. It calls for eating less meat because the factory farm production of cows pollutes the planet compared to eating the same grains that are first run through a cow. It calls for a less consumerist lifestyle, reusing plastic bags and getting away from one use items. It calls for recycling as much waste as possible. It calls for cutting back on air travel and jet fuel pollution. It calls for working with people in the rest of the world, instead of trying to control them, for a common cause and common purpose. It means cutting back on the world's worst polluter - the US military.

All of the measures that need to be taken call for a less consumerist society instead of a using it once and throwing it away society. It calls for young people to join the Peace Corps, a green oriented Peace Corps, instead of a polluting military. It calls for solutions to the problem of waste production by young entrepreneurs. It calls for replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and doing this with a sense of urgency because we don't have much time left to get it right. The Green New Deal encompasses all these concerns. Ramping up this effort must be undertaken with the urgency manifested in the buildup for World War II. All of this will decrease economic activity as we've known it because less things will be bought and sold and more will be reused. We must replace a throw away society with a sustainable society for the future whatever sacrifices in profits and business activity must be made.

Off the Top of My Head

Boeing's 737 MAX Should Never Fly Again

by John Lawrence, November 21, 2019

But I have a constructive suggestion as to what Boeing can do with them: convert them back to regular 737s. The 737 MAX is a kluge. What they did instead of redesigning the plane from scratch was to take two bigger engines and put them on the 737 that was designed for the smaller engines. This made the plane aerodynamically unstable. They tried to make up for this instability with software. It wasn't a very good idea. The software known as MCAS wasn't up to the task of keeping an aerodynamically unstable plane in the air. Consequently, in short order two of the planes crashed taking everyone with them.

Therefore, Boeing should just take the new engines they put on the 737 fuselage, that was designed for the smaller original engines, off and put the original 737 engines back on. Thus the planes which have a long and safe track record as 737s could go back into service as 737s, and the 737 MAX could be retired permanently. The engines that were taken off could be set aside awaiting a completely redesigned airplane that was designed aerodynamically for those engines. Thus nothing would be wasted, and they wouldn't have to just scrap all those 737 MAXs that are sitting on the ground somewhere. One thing is certain: no one wants to board a 737 MAX again even if Boeing says they have all the kinks worked out.

Off the Top of My Head

Climate Change is Threatening the World's Food Supply

by John Lawrence, August 17, 2019

A new United Nations report details how climate change is making it more difficult for people to be able to feed themselves especially in poorer parts of the world. As diets tend towards more beef, beef cows are replacing land previously used for growing crops. Raising beef uses ten times more resources than poultry, dairy, eggs or pork. Besides that cows belch and fart methane. According to a New York Times article: "Since 1961 methane emissions from ruminant livestock, which includes cows as well as sheep, buffalo and goats, have significantly increased, according to the report. And each year, the amount of forested land that is cleared — much of that propelled by demand for pasture land for cattle — releases the emissions equivalent of driving 600 million cars."

Fortunately, there are now some alternatives to the beef cow which deliver the same meaty product sans cow - Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat. Some smart people have figured out how to create a burger which tastes like a hamburger without running a lot of fodder through a cow. Both are plant based products which look, taste and feel like the real thing. If these products become widespread, the beef cow could be eliminated from the planet, and this would reduce carbon emissions. It would also free up many acres of land on which crops could be raised that would more efficiently feed people.

Both burgers are vegan, halal and kosher. It's unclear at this time whether or not the ingredients are organic and non-GMO. Soy is one of the main agricultural products that is genetically modified so that it can be sprayed with glyphosate (Monsanto's Roundup). cnet reports: "The Impossible Burger contains mostly organic ingredients, while the Beyond Burger doesn't. The Beyond Burger is strictly non-GMO, whereas Impossible Foods recently faced backlash about using genetically modified ingredients that contain the pesticide glyphosate." Well then, how can it be mostly organic, and how can the Beyond Burger that's non-GMO not be?

The New York Times article continues: "Barring action on a sweeping scale, the report said, climate change will accelerate the danger of severe food shortages. As a warming atmosphere intensifies the world’s droughts, flooding, heat waves, wildfires and other weather patterns, it is speeding up the rate of soil loss and land degradation, the report concludes." Already people are migrating all over the world as they face food shortages and eventual starvation.

“You’re sort of reaching a breaking point with land itself and its ability to grow food and sustain us,” said Aditi Sen, a senior policy adviser on climate change at Oxfam America, an antipoverty advocacy organization.

The report said that activities such as draining wetlands — as has happened in Indonesia and Malaysia to create palm oil plantations, for example — is particularly damaging. When drained, peatlands, which store between 530 and 694 billion tons of carbon dioxide globally, release that carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas, trapping the sun’s heat and warming the planet. Every 2.5 acres of peatlands release the carbon dioxide equivalent of burning 6,000 gallons of gasoline.

And the emission of carbon dioxide continues long after the peatlands are drained. Of the five gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions that are released each year from deforestation and other land-use changes, “One gigaton comes from the ongoing degradation of peatlands that are already drained,” said Tim Searchinger, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, who is familiar with the report. (By comparison, the fossil fuel industry emitted about 37 gigatons of carbon dioxide last year, according to the institute.)

Citizens of planet earth take notice. Unless you change the ways you're conducting business, planet earth is not going to be able to sustain you. Consumer oriented lifestyles must be replaced by lifestyles that are more sustainable. Plant based alternatives to beef are a step in the right direction. More birth control would be another to reduce the population. Conversion to renewable energy on a large scale would be the third. Airplanes and the military are large greenhouse gas emitters. All these steps and more must be undertaken if humanity is to survive on planet earth. Humanity is under threat of extinction from just 120 years of industrialization and fossil fuel development. It is time to change course or the earth will cease to be habitable. Whoever thought that the automobile and the airplane were good things?

Off the Top of My Head

Why Does Uber Need to Go Public?

by John Lawrence, April 30, 2019

They have a driver's app and a rider's app which are downloadable to your phone at no cost. Every time a rider calls for a ride and gets picked up Uber collects roughly half the money. This is all done by credit card. It costs Uber basically nothing. It's not like they have to hire a cashier. It's all automated. So aren't the apps in and of themselves money making machines that need no maintenance and hardly any human intervention? So why do they need an infusion of cash by going public? Is it that the owners want to be converted instantly from millionaires to billionaires? That's part of the story.

The other part of the story is that Uber has been losing money every since it went into business. You might ask how is that possible? All they have to do is sit back and collect tolls, and they don't even need to pay the person in the toll booth. Just like the person who makes an incredible amount of annual income, but spends even more than he makes, thereby losing money, Uber has been spending more than it makes profligately burning through cash on such money losing projects as self driving cars, scooter and bike rentals and food delivery. Not content to sit back and collect tolls, they want to take over even more businesses. They want to expaaaaand. It's the competitive American horror story that we live in. It's like Satchel Paige saying, "Don't look back. Somebody might be gaining on you." Who that someone is in Uber's case - is Lyft. Uber and Lyft are competitors. So Uber has to be always growing, always expanding because Lyft might gain an edge on them.

This keeps prices down for riders and increases the payouts to drivers. Just the other day Uber gave me, an Uber driver, $100. They didn't say what it was for, but, after googling around, I found out that it was because they were going public on April 27, the day the money went into my account. What's more they are setting aside a portion of the IPO shares, shares that past IPOs only gave to rich people, for the drivers themselves! So I may get to buy some Uber shares at the IPO price before they even go on the market. Isn't capitalism great?

So what will Uber do with this infusion of cash? Some of it will go into the pockets of the owners, undoubtedly. Some of it might go to pay off debt, and some of it will probably go into more cash burning endeavors. No one is ever content to just sit back and let the money roll in. Look out Uber, Lyft might be gaining on you. Truth be told I drive for both Uber and Lyft.

Off the Top of My Head

A Modest proposal to Eliminate Potholes in San Diego City Streets

Or Why Are San Diego Freeways So Devoid of Potholes But City Surface Streets Are So Pothole Intensive?

by John Lawrence, April 18, 2019

There's a simple answer to this question. There are no utility lines running under the freeways so they are not being dug up constantly. But surface streets - that's another situation. They are being dug up constantly to replace sewer lines and to maintain and upgrade various other utilities which run right down the middle or to one side of practically every street in San Diego. The patches they provide once the digging is done do not facilitate the smooth passage of vehicles over them. They've got two methods: run the utilities down the middle of the street so that they can be connected to from both sides. This creates a constant mess. And if they run the utilities down one side of the street, they need to be connected to from the other side by lines going perpendicular to and across the street.

I have the solution to this problem, but it may not be workable except for new streets under construction: run the utility lines down both sides of the street under the sidewalks. Then the streets do not ever have to be dug up and they can be resurfaced with high quality asphalt not subject to potholes in the same way freeways are not subject to potholes. This would be more expensive of course, but not as expensive as continually resurfacing the streets. Except that they hardly ever resurface the streets. They spend millions of dollars on what they call a slurry seal. They fill the potholes and cracks with a slurry which is a temporary solution at best.

On February 20, 2019, local station NBC7 reported, "On the City of San Diego's Get It Done app, there have been a total of 4,573 pothole complaints in the past 30 days." City of San Diego spokesperson Anthony Santacroce released this statement:

"The strong and frequent rains of late have greatly impacted San Diego roadways and led to the creation of an unusually high amount of potholes in a short amount of time. During intense storms like the city has been experiencing weekly, road repair crews that normally patch up more than 100 potholes a day are reassigned to our storm prep and storm patrol to respond to the most critical storm-related issues such as downed trees, flooding and emergency street repair.

During fair weather and less intense precipitation, road repair crews have been working extended hours to repair potholes and are bolstered by additional staff that normally perform larger asphalt repair, concrete replacement and traffic marking maintenance.

We are eager for a break in this rain long enough to allow us to focus all of our efforts on road repair and to demonstrate the hard work and dedication of City staff in continuing to fix the damage this wet season has imposed on our streets. Safe, drivable and rideable roads remain a top priority of Mayor Faulconer and City of San Diego and that is why the city is deploying all available resources to address this issue." 

Except it's not a high priority at all. What needs to be done is resurfacing, not patching up, the streets. The utilities need to be moved so the streets don't have to be dug up all the time. Then there won't be so many potholes, cracks, bumps, grooves and fault lines in the first place. How come they can have the freeways so smooth with nary a pothole, but the surface streets are a mess? Youth wants to know.

By the way having double sewer lines running down both sides of the street instead of one sewer line and digging ditches across the street to get to the other side can be accomplished with many fewer transverse connections. When there does need to be a transverse connection, it can be made in the form of a tunnel with the street running over it so that the street does not have to be dug up for this transverse connection either. In fact the lines running under the street in a tunnel do not have to be buried so that they are more accessible in the first place.

So I repeat my question: how come freeways in San Diego don't have potholes but the surface streets are almost one continuous pothole? They need to be resurfaced not slurry sealed.

Off the Top of My Head

The 737 MAX Should Not Fly Again

by John Lawrence, April10, 2019

This plane was not aerodynamically designed. They put two larger engines on the Boeing 737 rather than design the whole plane from scratch with the two larger engines onboard. One of the purposes of an aerodynamically designed plane is to prevent a stall. Instead the kluge that resulted from putting two larger engines on the 737 produced what amounted to an unrecoverable stall. Normally, a stall is not that hard to recover from. Every pilot learns how to do it shortly after commencing pilot training.

However, Boeing's management wanted to produce this plane at the lowest possible price point so they took shortcuts. They didn't require pilot simulator training for one thing because that would have increased the cost of the plane to the customers. Secondly, they made some safety features optional including features which might have prevented the two crashes. They relied too much on software and not enough on designing a plane that could be flown with well trained pilot skills. The MCAS system was put on board to prevent a stall. Instead it took control out of the pilots' hands and precipitated two crashes.

Ralph Nader said it best:

In 2011, Boeing executives wanted to start a “clean sheet” new narrow body air passenger plane to replace its old 737 design from the nineteen sixties. Shortly thereafter, Boeing’s bosses panicked when American Airlines put in a large order for the competitive Airbus A320neo.  Boeing shelved the new design and rushed to put out the 737 Max that, in Business Week’s words, was “pushing an ageing design past its limits.” The company raised the 737 Max landing gear and attached larger, slightly more fuel efficient engines angled higher and more forward on the wings. Such a configuration changed the aerodynamics and made the plane more prone to stall (see attached article: https://www.aviationcv.com/aviation-blog/2019/boeing-canceling-737-max). ...

This time, however, the outrageous corner-cutting and suppression of engineering dissent, within both Boeing and the FAA (there were reported “heated discussions”) produced a worst case scenario. So, Boeing is working overtime with its legions of Washington lobbyists, its New York P.R. firm, its continued campaign contributions to some 330 Members of Congress. The airlines and pilots’ union chiefs (but not some angry pilots) are staying mum, scared into silence due to contracts and jobs, waiting for the Boeing 737 Max planes to fly again.

BUT THE BOEING 737 MAX MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO FLY AGAIN. Pushing new software that will allow Boeing to blame the pilots is a dangerous maneuver. Saying that U.S. pilots, many of whom are ex-Air Force, are more experienced in reacting to a sudden wildly gyrating aircraft (consider the F-16 diving and swooping) than many foreign airline pilots only trained by civil aviation, opens a can of worms from cancellation of 737 Max orders  to indignation from foreign airlines and pilots. It also displays an aversion to human-factors engineering with a vast number of avoidable failure modes not properly envisioned by Boeing’s software patches.

The overriding problem is the basic unstable design of the 737 Max. An aircraft has to be stall proof not stall prone. An aircraft manufacturer like Boeing, notwithstanding its past safety record, is not entitled to more aircraft disasters that are preventable by following long-established aeronautical engineering practices and standards.

It's worth saying again: AN AIRCRAFT HAS TO BE STALL PROOF NOT STALL PRONE

Boeing’s Homicides Will Give Way to Safety Reforms if Flyers Organize

Published on Friday, April 05, 2019 by Common Dreams

The Boeing 737 Max must not be allowed to fly again

by Ralph Nader

 

12 Comments

Airline passengers should organize a consumer boycott of the Boeing 737 Max 8 to avoid having to fly on these planes in the coming decade. (Photo: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)

To understand the enormity of the Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes (Lion Air 610 and Ethiopian Airlines 302) that took a combined total of 346 lives, it is useful to look at past events and anticipate future possible problems.

In 2011, Boeing executives wanted to start a “clean sheet” new narrow body air passenger plane to replace its old 737 design from the nineteen sixties. Shortly thereafter, Boeing’s bosses panicked when American Airlines put in a large order for the competitive Airbus A320neo.  Boeing shelved the new design and rushed to put out the 737 Max that, in Business Week’s words, was “pushing an ageing design past its limits.” The company raised the 737 Max landing gear and attached larger, slightly more fuel efficient engines angled higher and more forward on the wings. Such a configuration changed the aerodynamics and made the plane more prone to stall (see attached article: https://www.aviationcv.com/aviation-blog/2019/boeing-canceling-737-max).

This put Boeing’s management in a quandary. Their sales pitch to the airlines was that the 737 Max only received an “amended” certification from the FAA. That it did not have to be included in more pilot training, simulators, and detailed in the flight manuals. The airlines could save money and would be more likely to buy the Boeing 737 Max.

Boeing set the stage for misfiring sensors that overcame pilot efforts to control the planes from their nose-down death dive.

 

Boeing engineers were worried. They knew better. But the managers ordered software to address the stall problem without even telling the pilots or most of the airlines. Using only one operating sensor (Airbus A320neo has three sensors), an optional warning light and indicator, Boeing set the stage for misfiring sensors that overcame pilot efforts to control the planes from their nose-down death dive.

These fixes or patches would not have been used were the new 737’s aerodynamics the same as the previous 737 models. Step by step, Boeing’s criminal negligence, driven by a race to make profits, worsened. Before and after the fatal crashes, Boeing did not reveal, did not warn, did not train, and did not address the basic defective aerodynamic design. It gagged everyone that it could.  Boeing still insists that the 737 Max is safe and is building two a day, while pushing to end the grounding.

Reacting to all these documented derelictions, a flurry of investigations is underway. The Department of Transportation’s Inspector General, Calvin L. Scovel III, is investigating the hapless, captive FAA that has delegated to Boeing important FAA statutory and regulatory duties. The Justice Department and FBI have opened a criminal probe, with an active grand jury. The National Transportation Safety Board, long the hair shirt of the FAA, is investigating. As are two Senate and House Committees. Foreign governments are investigating, as surely are the giant insurance companies who are on the hook. This all sounds encouraging, but we’ve seen such initiatives pull back before.

This time, however, the outrageous corner-cutting and suppression of engineering dissent, within both Boeing and the FAA (there were reported “heated discussions”) produced a worst case scenario. So, Boeing is working overtime with its legions of Washington lobbyists, its New York P.R. firm, its continued campaign contributions to some 330 Members of Congress. The airlines and pilots’ union chiefs (but not some angry pilots) are staying mum, scared into silence due to contracts and jobs, waiting for the Boeing 737 Max planes to fly again.

BUT THE BOEING 737 MAX MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO FLY AGAIN. Pushing new software that will allow Boeing to blame the pilots is a dangerous maneuver. Saying that U.S. pilots, many of whom are ex-Air Force, are more experienced in reacting to a sudden wildly gyrating aircraft (consider the F-16 diving and swooping) than many foreign airline pilots only trained by civil aviation, opens a can of worms from cancellation of 737 Max orders  to indignation from foreign airlines and pilots. It also displays an aversion to human-factors engineering with a vast number of avoidable failure modes not properly envisioned by Boeing’s software patches.

The overriding problem is the basic unstable design of the 737 Max. An aircraft has to be stall proof not stall prone. An aircraft manufacturer like Boeing, notwithstanding its past safety record, is not entitled to more aircraft disasters that are preventable by following long-established aeronautical engineering practices and standards.

With 5,000 Max orders at stake, the unfolding criminal investigation may move the case from criminal negligence to evidence of knowing and willful behavior amounting to corporate homicide involving Boeing officials. Boeing better cut its losses by going back to the drawing boards. That would mean scrapping the 737 Max 8 designs, with its risk of more software time bombs, safely upgrading the existing 737-800 with amenities and discounts for its airline carrier customers and moving ahead with its early decision to design a new plane to compete with Airbus’s model, which does not have the 737 Max’s design problem.

Meanwhile, airline passengers should pay attention to Senator Richard Blumenthal’s interest in forthcoming legislation to bring the regulatory power back into the FAA. Senator Blumenthal also intends to reintroduce his legislation to criminalize business concealment of imminent risks that their products and services pose to innocent consumers and workers (the “Hide No Harm Act”).

What of the near future? Airline passengers should organize a consumer boycott of the Boeing 737 Max 8 to avoid having to fly on these planes in the coming decade. Once Boeing realizes that this brand has a deep marketing stigma, it may move more quickly to the drawing boards, so as to not alienate airline carriers.

Much more information will come out in the coming months. Much more. The NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), which receives incident reports from pilots, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, cabin crew, maintenance technicians, and others, is buzzing, as is the FlyersRights.org website. Other countries, such as France, have tougher criminal statutes for such corporate crime than the U.S. does. The increasing emergence of whistle-blowers from Boeing, the FAA and, other institutions is inevitable.

Not to mention, the information that will come out of the civil litigation against this killer mass tort disaster. And of course the relentless reporting of newspapers such as the Seattle Times, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Washington Post, and AP, among others will continue to shed light on Boeings misdeeds and the FAA’s deficiencies.

Boeing executives should reject the advice from the reassuring, monetized minds of Wall Street stock analysts saying you can easily absorb the $2 billion cost and move on. Boeing, let your engineers and scientists be free to exert their “professional options for revisions” to save your company from the ruinous road you are presently upon.

Respect those who perished at your hand and their grieving families.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Off the Top of My Head

The 737 MAX: Boeing's Nightmare

by John Lawrence, April 5, 2019

Now we learn that the pilots on the doomed Ethiopian plane did properly follow the procedure for disengaging the MCAS system, but the plane crashed anyway. Possibly a bird strike took out the angle of attack sensor. The MCAS system was supposed to recover the plane from a stall, but instead it precipitated one. This was a totally faultily designed aircraft. One of the first things you learn as a student pilot is how to recover from a stall. The Wright brothers probably even knew how to recover from a stall. I practiced stall recoveries even without a flight instructor in the plane after I got my solo rating and even before I got my pilot's license. So why would Boeing design a plane taking stall recovery out of the hands of the pilots? What were these aeronautical engineers thinking? Or smoking?

To think that an every day occurrence like a bird strike would send a plane to its doom. Contrast this with the bird strike which took out the engines of a plane which Sully then expertly landed in the Hudson River. That's the difference between pilot control and computer control. And by the way why did it take Boeing's CEO so long to apologize to the families of those killed in the two airline crashes? Hubris! Boeing thinks it's so great and so wonderful that it can do no wrong. And Boeing's CEO's pay package is likely to suffer a hit as Boeing's stock slides. Indonesia’s national airline, Garuda, said it canceled its order for 49 737 MAXs because of “consumers’ low confidence” in the airplanes following the crashes.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Boeing is a major exporter from the US. Confidence in its planes is absolutely essential if it hopes to compete with France's Airbus. The Washington Post reported:

Boeing is responding to rising public concerns about its Max planes in an effort to save the company’s image and prevent the loss of more business, said Shem Malmquist, an active Boeing 777 captain and a visiting professor at the Florida Institute of Technology.

“They took a different tack — a tack they should have taken in the first place,” Malmquist said.

The company’s changing response may be partly a function of how unusual the situation is, said Seth Seifman, an analyst at JPMorgan.

“The way that it took off in the press and on social media is not something that Boeing is used to,” he said. “It probably took some time to put together a public strategy to deal with that.”

Boeing's purported fix of a computer upgrade will not solve the problem. The problem is in taking control of the plane away from the pilots and placing it in the computer in the first place. Until Boeing eliminates the MCAS system altogether they will not have an airworthy plane. There is no reason why the aircraft's pilots cannot recover from a stall. The cure in this case was worse than the disease.

Of course Boeing is culpable and liable for the loss of life and property. However, they are lawyering up in an attempt to avoid the financial consequences of admitting that their airplane is a kluge. It wasn't even really certified by the FAA. The FAA delegated this little task to Boeing itself! Amazingly enough! And to reduce the cost of the plane Boeing did not require pilot simulator training in the new system. It also made safety features optional add-ons for more money. That's criminal in and of itself in my opinion. Neither of the planes that crashed had the optional safety features.

The plane maker has to walk a fine line in its public statements. Admitting that any fault lies in Boeing’s planes, including software, would create legal liability for the company and damage its reputation for safety, said Scott Hamilton, managing director at Leeham Company, an aviation consultant. “Their public statements are completely driven by what their lawyers will allow them to say,” Hamilton said.

The bigger engines were put on the 737 MAX in order to gain increased range and better fuel efficiency. However, this is what led to the perceived need for the MCAS system which, I maintain, was completely unnecessary. If the bigger engines increased the probability of a stall, the pilots were perfectly capable of recovering from that. The MCAS system needs to be eliminated altogether and pilots need to be trained on how to recover from a stall, something they should have learned in the first week of flight school.

Off the Top of My Head

The 737 MAX: It's not About the Computer Code

by John Lawrence, April 1, 2019

The 737 MAX is a fundamentally flawed plane, but Boeing wants you to think it can be fixed by a computer upgrade. Boeing has put out the message that all it will take is a few new lines of new or revised computer code. That's bullshit, to put it mildly. Instead of designing a new plane from scratch, Boeing put new engines on the 737 MAX but kept the same basic design as the 737. Since the new engines were heavier, they had to be placed further forward on the wings. This changed the aerodynamics of the plane and created a kluge. This forward heaviness made the Boeing engineers think that the 737 MAX would be susceptible to stalling so they came up with a whole new system - MCAS - that would come into play if the plane stalled due to the heavier, more forward placed engines. Their ultimate goal was to compete with the Airbus.

The MCAS system relied on inputs from an angle of attack sensor on the plane. There were two of these on the plane, but the plane was designed to read input from only one - a fatal error if that one malfunctioned. Boeing made airlines pay extra for an optional safety light that would tell the pilots if the two sensors disagreed. The two planes that crashed did not have this optional safety feature installed. Now Boeing is going to give this "disagree indicator" away for free as part of the cost of the plane. However, this fix is in and of itself a kluge. If the disagree light is on, this tells the pilots to disengage the MCAS system which in itself is a cumbersome procedure that evidently the pilots on the two ill fated planes were unfamiliar with. One reason they were unfamiliar with it is that Boeing required no pilot simulator training that would have acquainted pilots with the new system.

The procedure to override the MCAS system should have been intuitive. There is no reason why trained pilots could not recover from a stall. The planes would have had a safer design without the MCAS system even being part of it. The fact that there was no pilot training, that safety features were optional and that the plane was approved not by the FAA but by Boeing itself all contributed to the fatal crashes.

So what about the new redesign. It's still flawed. What if both air attack sensors deliver erroneous data which is only too likely if there is freezing weather and they both freeze up. Will the disagree indicator work? So far Boeing has not gone ahead with a costly redesign which would make disengagement of the MCAS system as intuitive as disengaging cruise control on a car. The pilots should have to do nothing more than take control of the wheel. That in and of itself should disengage the MCAS system. The 737 MAX is still a faultily designed airplane. The MCAS system is a kluge. Even with pilot training and a disagree light, it is unsafe at any speed. Don't fly the 737 MAX.

I have written about his before here and here and here.

Off the Top of My Head

Boeing's 737 MAX: Unsafe at any Price

by John Lawrence, March 22, 2019

Big news, folks: Boeing had made safety features optional on the 737 MAX. The FAA doesn't care. It lets Boeing certify the airworthiness of its own planes! In the wake of the recent crashes of two 737 MAXs, we find out that neither airline had bought the optional safety features in order to save money. Also Boeing didn't require any pilot simulator training for the 737 MAX in order to keep the price down so that it could outcompete France's Airbus. Cutting corners on safety is almost criminal, and the FAA's letting Boeing certify its own planes is irresponsible to say the least.

The corporate state has taken over the functions of government to the neocons' delight. Who was it that said, "I want to make government so small you could drown it in a bathtub."? Well, they sure have succeeded when it comes to the FAA. The FAA didn't exercise any oversight over Boeing and now you have two Boeing Max airplanes crashing in short order with everyone on board dead. The neocons say down, down, down with government regulations. Government sucks. Corporations know what they're doing. Except for the fact that Boeing had become so greedy that it charges extra for safety features that could have saved 189 passengers and crew aboard the Lion Air flight and 157 people aboard the Ethiopian Airlines plane.

The New York Times reported:

Add-on features can be big moneymakers for plane manufacturers.

In 2013, around the time Boeing was starting to market its 737 Max 8, an airline would expect to spend about $800,000 to $2 million on various options for such a narrow-body aircraft, according to a report by Jackson Square Aviation, an aircraft leasing firm in San Francisco. That would be about 5 percent of the plane’s final price.

Boeing charges extra, for example, for a backup fire extinguisher in the cargo hold. Past incidents have shown that a single extinguishing system may not be enough to put out flames that spread rapidly through the plane. Regulators in Japan require airlines there to install backup fire extinguishing systems, but the F.A.A. does not.

“There are so many things that should not be optional, and many airlines want the cheapest airplane you can get,” said Mark H. Goodrich, an aviation lawyer and former engineering test pilot. “And Boeing is able to say, ‘Hey, it was available.’”

But what Boeing doesn’t say, he added, is that it has become “a great profit center” for the manufacturer.

But Boeing is unrepentant. It issues the usual corporate blather about a software upgrade as if this was really the problem. The problem was faulty data from one angle of attack sensor on the plane. You had to pay extra to get two of them on the plane and also for an indicator that told the pilots if they disagreed. But Boeing is still going to make airlines pay extra for some of the safety features that it could install for practically nothing.

The New York Times reported:

Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another.

Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes, according to a person familiar with the changes, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been made public. Boeing started moving on the software fix and the equipment change before the crash in Ethiopia.

The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy. Neither feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“They’re critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install,” said Bjorn Fehrm, an analyst at the aviation consultancy Leeham. “Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.”

The MCAS system software will be updated. It was designed to only read data from one of the two angle of attack sensors. Well what's the point of having two if MCAS can only read data from one and that one is faulty. Evidently airlines had to pay extra to get an indicator light which told the pilot if the readings from the two sensors disagreed. Will the MCAS upgrade automatically cede control to the pilots if the indicators disagree? Or will they still have to go through so awkward procedure to disengage it like they do now. And they were never trained to do so.

The MCAS is the software that drove the two planes into the ground based on the faulty data. You see Boeing really has the fantasy about a totally computer controlled plane. They actually want to eliminate the pilots in order to save the airlines money and sell more planes. The self flying plane will be similar to the self driving car already under development with disastrous results.

MCAS takes control of the plane away from the pilots and disengaging MCAS is what the two pilots involved in the crashes were not trained to do. Disengaging MCAS and letting the pilots take over from the computer should have been as easy as disengaging cruise control on a car - in other words it should have been intuitive - but Boeing wanted the computers not the pilots flying the plane and made safety features an add-on.

As usual Congress will investigate. The Washington Post reported:

Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), who heads the aviation subcommittee, on Tuesday also asked the inspector general to examine questions concerning the FAA’s approach to certifying the 737 Max 8.

Among them: how new automated features of the plane were “tested, certified, and integrated”; what safety assumptions “led to the FAA’s decision not to revise pilot training programs and manuals” to reflect the automated features; how the FAA’s delegation of authority to Boeing may have affected the certification process; and what corrective actions have been taken since the initial accident in October 2018.

However, the prognosis is clear. Boeing is in it for the money. The FAA let them certify their own planes. They made safety features an optional add-on that cost probably millions of dollars although Boeing won't disclose how much. They gave computers, not the pilots, final maneuvering control of the planes. They ought to be sued by the families of the 346 passengers and crew who lost their lives, and the FAA which delegated certification to Boeing itself should be sued also. The fox was guarding the hen house.

Off the Top of My Head

The Most Intelligent Thing Trump Has Ever Said

by John Lawrence, March 13, 2019

As practically every other country in the world has grounded Boeing's 737 MAX planes after two recent fatal crashes, the free market US doesn't think it's necessary until every last one of them crashes. Trump tweeted: "Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better. Split second decisions are needed, and the complexity creates danger. All of this for great cost yet very little gain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!"

Bravo and right on, Mr. Trump, for once you are absolutely right. After the Lion Air crash in Indonesia, I wrote:

Last October a Lion Air 737MAX manufactured by Boeing crashed off the coast of Indonesia. All indications were that the pilots had struggled to keep the plane in the air while at the same time the plane's computers were forcing the nose down causing the plane to dive head first into the ocean. Now that the crash has been thoroughly investigated, it has been learned that  a few lines of computer code added to the plane's software without the pilots' knowledge was the culprit in causing the crash. It is a case of too much technology turning the plane's functions over to a computer and taking the pilots' ability to fly the plane literally out of their hands.

It's obvious that the Boeing 737 MAX has a design flaw: TOO MUCH TECHNOLOGY! They are trying to automate flying to the point where the pilot is unnecessary with disastrous results just as the self driving cars Uber and others were testing led to disastrous results. The manually controlled, electronicless planes of the 1920s were safer than the complex jets designed by Boeing today. Boeing's design calls for an awkward, complicated way for the pilots to take control of the plane and not the computer. It ends up with the pilots and the computer fighting for control, a fight the pilots have lost in at least two cases. It would be interesting to know how many other cases there are in which pilots successfully took control of the plane having disengaged the computer.

Flying a plane needs to be as intuitive as possible. Boeing's prescription for the pilots' taking control in an emergency is anything but, and they didn't want the airlines to have to train the pilots about the new technology because that would have made the planes too pricey. So unless the pilots are geeky enough to memorize the manual, they probably wouldn't have known about the procedure for disengaging the computer or in a crisis they would be incapable of remembering. After all they didn't have time to study the manual at that point. Ask Sully about flying skills vs computer control.

The New York Times reported after the first crash:

The story of the change to that system, and how it came to play a central role in the Lion Air crash, shows how safety on modern jetliners is shaped by a complex combination of factors, including fierce industry competition, technological advances and pilot training. It illustrates how, in the rare instances when things go awry, the interplay of those factors can create unintended and potentially fatal consequences.The crash has raised questions about whether Boeing played down or overlooked, largely for cost and competitive reasons, the potential dangers of keeping pilots uninformed about changes to a critical element of the plane’s software.

I wrote previously:

There was a malfunction of the so-called maneuvering characteristics augmentation system, known as M.C.A.S. due to faulty data being fed to it by the angle of attack sensors which are devices on either side of the fuselage that measure how much the plane’s nose is pointing up or down. Preliminary findings from the investigation suggested that the sensor on the pilot’s side of the plane was generating erroneous data. So erroneous data triggered the M.C.A.S. system taking control out of the pilots' hands and forcing the plane's nose downward.

It sort of looks like the Boeing engineers didn't know what they were doing. They had a good design for a reliable plane - the original 737, but they had to tinker with it in order to make more money. They cut corners creating a monstrosity - the 737 MAX. Now they will have to go back to the drawing board. Airbus couldn't be happier as thousands of the MAX planes are on order but haven't been delivered yet. I believe the operative words are "Cancel my order!"

You're right, Mr. Trump: "Older and simpler is much better. Split second decisions are needed, and the complexity creates danger. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!" Will Boeing redesign the plane to let pilots take control just by moving the wheel as it's done with cruise control in a car? Wait and see.

Ethiopia, China, Other Countries Ground Boeing Aircraft After Devastating Crash

From the Washington Post

Ethiopian Airlines flight crashes, all 157 on board killed

 

 

A new Ethio­pian airlines plane bound for Nairobi crashed March 10, killing all 157 people on board. (Reuters)

 

 

By Paul Schemm

March 11 at 11:31 AM

ADDIS ABABA, Ethi­o­pia — Ethi­o­pia, China and other countries announced Monday that they would ground the type of U.S. aircraft that was involved in a devastating Ethio­pian Airlines crash that killed everyone on board Sunday just minutes after takeoff.

But Boeing, the manufacturer of the 737 Max 8 airliner that crashed on a flight from Addis Ababa to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, said Monday that it has no reason to recommend that airlines ground the plane.

“The investigation is in its early stages, but at this point, based on the information available, we do not have any basis to issue new guidance to operators,” Boeing said in a statement reported by CNN.

A national day of mourning has been declared in Ethio­pia, and investigators are sifting through the crash site to identify remains so they can be turned over to families. Ethi­o­pian Airlines reported that the “black box” voice and data recorders have been recovered from the plane.

Ethi­o­pian Airlines said its fleet of the planes would be grounded as an “extra safety precaution.”

China’s Civil Aviation Administration said in a statement early Monday that it has asked domestic airlines to temporarily ground all Boeing 737 Max 8 jets before 6 p.m. It was the first time China has taken the lead in ordering a model grounded before other national aviation agencies.

Cayman Airways and Indonesia’s airlines also suspended the use of the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane, the latest version of the industry’s most popular passenger airline. Indonesia’s director general of civil aviation, Polana B. Pramesti, said the move was to ensure flight safety and that the planes would be inspected. Indonesia has 11 Max 8 aircraft in service.

Officials are “conducting an inspection by temporarily grounding the planes to make sure that they’re airworthy,” Pramesti said in a statement.

Following a review, India’s aviation authority said crew members operating the 737 Max 8 must undergo specific training and that only pilots with 1,000 hours of flying experience would be allowed to fly the plane. There are 17 Max 8 aircraft operating in the country.

In Vietnam, meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority said it would not license the use of the Max plane in the country pending the results of investigations and remedial measures. While there are currently no Max 8 aircraft in use in Vietnam, budget airline VietJet Air ordered 100 Boeing 737 Max aircraft in February, including 20 of the Max 8 version, at the same time that President Trump was meeting with Vietnamese leaders in Hanoi.

In Morocco and Mongolia, authorities suspended operation of Boeing 737 Max 8 planes flying in each country, news agencies reported. Royal Air Maroc had two of the airlines in service and two others on order. Mongolia reportedly had one of the planes in service.

In the United States, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines expressed confidence in their Boeing planes and crew members. “Our fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft are operating as planned today and we plan to operate those aircraft going forward,” Southwest said in a statement. American said it has “full confidence in the aircraft and our crew members.”

In the aftermath of the Ethio­pian crash, Boeing stock plunged Monday morning, dragging down the Dow Jones industrial average.

Off the Top of My Head

Too Much Technology?

by John Lawrence, November 30, 2018

The Lion Air plane crash that killed 189 people was caused by a tug of war between the plane's two pilots and a computer. Due to faulty readings from one of the plane's sensors, the computer pointed the plane's nose downward while the pilots tried to keep the plane either level or ascending. Before planes were so highly computerized this never would have happened. Even with computers onboard, the pilots taking manual control of the plane should have overridden the computers. This is a design flaw incorporating too much technology. Evidently, there was a procedure to override the computers, but it was far from intuitive.

I got my private pilot's license many years ago, but haven't flown recently. However, I know enough about the essentials of flying an airplane to know that this accident never would have happened on a plane that the pilots actually were responsible for flying and not the computers.

Think of a car's cruise control system. When you put a car on cruise control, it is essentially being run by a computer at least as far as the car's speed is concerned. The computer keeps the car at a constant speed. However, the driver at any time can put his foot on the brakes or accelerator and immediately override the cruise control. This should have been the case on the Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane as well. As soon as the pilot took the wheel, the plane's automated system should have been overridden. Since it was not, this is a design flaw in the plane.

CNN reported:

Former US National Transportation Safety Board air crash investigator and CNN aviation analyst Peter Goelz told CNN the data clearly showed issues with both the speed and altitude of the plane.

 

"There is something obviously wrong in both the air speed and the altitude which would point to the flight control systems," he said. "These are fly-by-wire systems -- highly automated -- and pilots may not be able to troubleshoot failures in a timely manner."

 

This is exactly the problem: the planes are too highly automated. There's no reason why a human pilot relying on simple instruments like an altimeter, airspeed indicator and attitude indicator shouldn't be able to take off and land a plane. These basic instruments are fail safe. Even if these instruments did fail, the pilot should be able to take a look out the window in "normal weather" as was the case that day and control his attitude with the "stick". Since the weather was normal that day, the pilots could have done everything manually.

 

Boeing is putting too much technology into planes making the pilots not only redundant, but unable to take over flying the plane when the technology fails. Of course, this penchant for too much technology makes it possible for Boeing to charge a lot more for the plane. The more technology, the more the price goes up. Sometimes, the simpler, the better. A plane's computers should be easily disabled the same way a car's cruise control is disabled - by a slight pressure on the control wheel.

 

The pilot's control wheel is called a yoke. The pilot uses the yoke to control the attitude of the plane, usually in both pitch and roll. Rotating the control wheel controls the ailerons and the roll axis. Fore and aft movement of the control column controls the elevator and the pitch axis. When the yoke is pulled back the nose of the aircraft rises. When the yoke is pushed forward the nose is lowered. When the yoke is turned left the plane rolls to the left and when it is turned to the right the plane rolls to the right.

 

The plane's automated systems - also called "fly-by-wire" - need to be automatically disabled as soon as the pilot touches the yoke. If they had been, this horrific accident could have been averted.

Off the Top of My Head

Someone's Ubering Lawd: Kum By Yah

by John Lawrence

As a driver for Uber and Lyft, I have been able to supplement my retirement income as well as get out of the house, meet some people and have some interesting conversations. My daughter is a driver too and we have been able to compare notes and swap stories. Both apps work in about the same way. A rider requests a trip and the closest online driver to the rider is pinged with a trip request. The driver can accept the ride or not. If the ride is accepted, then you are navigated to the pick up location, pick up the passenger and start the trip to the destination which the rider has put into the app. You are then navigated to the drop off location.

The neat thing is that, as a self-employed driver, you can choose when to be online, that is you are accepting rides, and when to be offline. There are no constraints about when you choose to drive or how long you choose to drive. If I have to run some errands, I can turn the apps off and do that, then turn them back on again. If I need a bathroom break, I turn them off. I usually have both apps on at the same time, and I accept whichever app pings me first. Then I turn the other app off. After the ride ends, I turn both apps back on.

Lyft has been considered more driver friendly than Uber, mainly because it has always allowed in app tipping. Uber has been on a campaign lately to be more driver friendly so it now offers online tipping as well. Uber also doesn't frown on you if you don't accept a ride when you're online; Lyft does. It keeps track of your acceptance rate, and if it falls too low, you might be deactivated. Uber also has made changes to compensate the driver when multiple passengers are added to the trip. They are now compensated for each pick up and drop off.

Uber and Lyft are in competition, and it's nice to know that now they are competing to see which one can be more driver friendly. Uber needs to do this because it has gotten a bad rep for some of the corporate shenanigans it has pulled in the past especially by its former CEO Travis Kalanick. The current management is trying to soften the corporate image and being nicer to the drivers is one way of doing that.

When Uber or Lyft does a pool, picking up multiple riders, we are fighting climate change and can use the HOV lanes. We are also providing a much needed service for those who cannot afford to own a car. The rates run about half what a taxi would charge. That's why the taxi drivers are so upset.

My daughter is already on the road. I have to stop and get coffee and bananas today between rides. E una bella giornata.

 

Oil Trains: Death and Destruction on the Rails

by John Lawrence

Department of Transportation Predicts Oil Train Derailments Will Become Increasingly Common

On Monday Feb 16, 2015 an oil train carrying millions of pounds of crude oil derailed in Boomer, West Virginia. The accident was the latest in a spate of fiery derailments in Canada and the U.S. as vast quantities of oil are being moved across these nations through sensitive environments and large population centers.

A couple days earlier on Feb. 14, there was a crude oil train derailment south of Timmins, Ontario. It took almost a week in subzero temperatures for the fires to burn out. Both the West Virginia accident and the oil train derailment and fire in Ontario involved recently built tank cars that were supposed to be an improvement over a decades-old model in wide use that has proven susceptible to spills, fires and explosions - the Dot-111.

On July 6, 2013 a train was left on the tracks near Lac Megantic, Quebec, with the engines running while the lone engineer and employee on the train checked into a nearby hotel. During the night the brakes failed and the train rolled downhill and derailed. Much of downtown Lac Megantic was destroyed by a raging fire. Several train cars exploded and 40 buildings were leveled. 47 people died - incinerated and vaporized. No remains were found for five of them.

And these are only some of the oil train accidents that have happened in the recent past. After an explosion in Casselton, N.D., 2300 residents were evacuated. There were similar incidents in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Aliceville, Alabama.

Responsibility for these catastrophes is divided between the oil and gas companies which own and provide the railcars and the railroads - such as CSX - which service and maintain the trackbeds, rails and bridges. Track maintenance or a lack thereof is responsible for most derailments, and substandard railcars are responsible for oil leakage and explosions. Even if the cars didn't explode they would be dumping their contents into rivers, streams and aquifers.

The U.S. federal government predicts that trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times a year over the next two decades, causing more than $4 billion in damage and possibly killing hundreds of people if an accident happens in a densely populated part of the U.S.

The fact of the matter is that trains a mile long carrying nothing but oil, 100 cars of it with 3 million gallons per train, are being used to haul the stuff out of the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Canada. They are mostly using substandard, outdated and outmoded railcars which split open on impact. Since rail lines usually parallel rivers such as the Mississippi and Hudson, these trains are running through environmentally sensitive areas. On derailment there are fiery explosions with the contents being dumped into rivers and streams. These trains also travel near large population centers because that's where the refineries, towards which they are headed, are located.

These trains go across bridges which are not being maintained just as the many highway bridges are being neglected. The US, notorious for lack of infrastructure maintenance, has an estimated two trillion dollar backlog in that respect. It's one thing if a bridge collapses under a few automobiles, but, if one collapses under a mile long oil train, it could be absolutely catastrophic since there can be a chain reaction of explosions.

And these trains do operate near population centers:

[T]here was an incident that occurred in downtown Philadelphia. There was a train crossing the Schuylkill River, and it came off the track. And it was suspended, hanging from the bridge for almost three days before they were able to right it. Now, in this case, the train did not fall off the elevated track. Had it fallen off the elevated track, almost certainly you would have seen fireballs hundreds of feet into the air and flaming tides of crude oil on the whatever was below, whether it was the river or a roadway. It would have been quite dramatic and perhaps even cataclysmic.

These oil trains are highly flammable because of the nature of the oil they carry from the Bakken fields. It's not heavy, viscous crude. There are many dissolved gases in it that separate out during the long journey to refineries and float along on top of the light oil. The fact is that the Dot-111 rail cars were not designed to carry such highly flammable liquids. Their shells are not strong or thick enough. The opening at the top that they put the oil into breaks off in derailments. The valves don't shut properly. At the bottom, there's a fitting where they remove the oil. That, too, tends to break. Both ends of the cars need to be reinforced.

In an interview on NPR Marcus Stern said:

[W]hat happens when you end up with this gaseous blanket sitting on top of the liquid oil, if there is a breach of the railcar and any of the gas - the propane or butane gases inside - come in contact with the outside air and there is a spark, then you have one of those huge explosions or you see the fireballs going into the air hundreds of feet and a flaming oil going in all directions. And the emergency responders have to just cordon off the area to wait for them to burn out. And they'll - one will blow, and it'll act like a blow torch on another railcar that didn't rupture, and then it will blow. And so you have a series of explosions that can go over two or three days.

Before 2009, fewer than 10,000 tank cars of oil were transported by rail each year in the United States but that traffic jumped to more than 230,000 cars in 2012, and more than 430,000 in 2013. The reason is that there is no pipeline infrastructure in North Dakota, and rail is the only way to get the oil out of there. Because the infrastructure is inadequate and ill planned, the railcars in use were hastily adapted from other purposes and aren't safe. Neither are the tracks and bridges. There are many more accidents just waiting to happen.

It's cheaper for CSX to pay fines after accidents occur than to properly maintain its rail system. Virginia environmental officials proposed a paltry $361,000 civil fine against CSX as punishment for a 2014 derailment that saw nearly 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil dumped in and around the James River. The state Department of Environmental Quality said CSX should also pay the agency $18,574 for costs associated with investigating the April spill. In that incident, 17 oil tankers came off the tracks, and three were sent directly into the James. Local officials reported an explosion “causing extensive flames and dense black smoke.”

David Cay Johnston wrote in Free Lunch:

CSX budgets for maintenance and inspection were cut and cut and cut. In the nineties CSX spent less money on maintenance per mile of track than any other railroad. After a spate of crashes that killed 19 and injured more than a hundred people, a federal report said that CSX "employees were not reporting injuries due to fear of reprisals, such as formal hearings or harsh discipline for minor unsafe acts or mistakes."

But accidents are just a part of doing business for CSX as well as the oil corporations, whose profits have skyrocketed from the Bakken oil boom, in the race to exploit America's fossil fuel reserves regardless of the cost to the environment in general or to human lives and property in particular.

According to Common Dreams:

Many insist that, over the long term, society must move away from fossil fuel extraction and the health and environmental hazards it poses—from climate change to transport by rail and pipeline.

"The reality is that there’s no way to safely transport highly volatile crude from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota or heavy crudes from the Alberta tar sands," said Jared Margolis of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Instead these fossil fuels should be left in the ground, both for our safety now and to avoid the impending climate catastrophe."

Accidents waiting to happen involving outdated and unmaintained infrastructure are becoming commonplace. What else is new? Regulators are failing to regulate. Profit making corporations don't want to spend money to properly maintain their railcars and railroads. They are playing Russian Roulette with the lives and property of many Americans. In the long run the fossil fuels that oil trains are carrying will only add to the carbonization of the atmosphere guaranteeing that global warming will finish off the human race sometime in the not too distant future if they are not incinerated by an oil train derailment in the near future.

New York City Prepares for Nation's Largest Bike Share System

Published on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 by WNYC News

by Andrea Bernstein

New York City is preparing to set up the largest bike share system in the nation. The city is issuing a request for proposals for one-way, short-term bike rentals, a system that has augmented the transportation network in dozens of European cities as well as in Denver, Minneapolis, and Washington, DC.

In a bike share system, riders can rent a bike at one location, like Union Square, and drop it off at another, for example the Lower East Side. Minneapolis, Denver and Washington DC all started bike shares programs this year. With greater density than any of those cities, New York believes it can make a profit on a bike share program.

New York City's transportation commissioner wouldn't comment on the details of the request for proposals, which will be released Wednesday morning. But Janette Sadik-Khan frequently speaks at confererences promoting the idea of bike share.

"We're ideal for it," Sadik-Khanhas said. "We have the density. We're flat. Eighty one percent of people in the central business district of Manhattan don't own a car. In this age of transit cuts, this is an ideal way to add to New York's transportation system."

The city is looking to set up a twenty-four hour network of around 10,000 bikes, with the entire bill footed by the private sector, but with the city sharing in any revenues. In other cities with bike shares, sponsorships and advertising help pay for the bikes. Earlier generations of bike share in many European cities required subsidies, but the city believes that with wireless technology, gps and solar-powered bike stations, a system in New York can be run far more efficiently.

"New York is made for bike share," said Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, a group that promotes biking and walking, "so this announcement is very exciting. The characteristics that make bicycling an everyday form of transportation, New York has in spades: density, flat terrain, temperate climate, lots of short trips and an on the go lifestyle. This nimble and inexpensive way to get around will fit easily into New Yorkers' constantly shifting errands and schedules."

The city hopes for the system to be running in 2012. Boston is preparing to start a bike share program soon. Montreal was the first North American city to have bike share.

© 2010 WNYC News

Passenger Trains: Our Hope for a More Sustainable Future

Published on Sunday, September 19, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

by Olga Bonfiglio

President Obama's proposal to spend $50 billion on transportation infrastructure—including 4,000 miles of rail lines—couldn't be a better expenditure of our federal tax dollars.

After spending two days on the Empire Builder, the long-haul Amtrak line from Chicago to Seattle/Portland, I quickly realized that our investment in trains should be readily and heartily embraced.  And, if more Americans were to take such trips, I’m sure they, too, would choose trains as an alternative mode of travel.

Amtrak staff was courteous and responsive to passengers, a bit quirky as train people can be, but absolutely delightful while we all traveled the miles and hours together across the country. Riding the train, especially on an overnight, was romantic and adventurous and we kept to our schedule despite the numerous times we had to yield to freight trains.

Actually, it’s a miracle that Amtrak has lasted these past 40 years since President Richard Nixon deliberately designed it for failure.  Different administrations—both Democratic and Republican—have either ignored passenger rail or, like President George W. Bush, actively sought to scuttle it.

James McCommons, author of Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service tells the story about Amtrak and America’s relationship with trains along with some great travelogues of his year-long train trips around the country.

He points out that most legislators who vote on appropriations for passenger trains have never ridden a train, which severely works against Amtrak. Others have been adamant that Amtrak make a profit.

Truth is, there is no public transportation system in the world that earns a profit.

What is clear is that train networks serve as a means to an end, namely, they contribute to an area’s economic development, an idea that is capturing the attention of more and more mayors across the country, especially in this weak economy.

Actually, highways and airports are not money-makers either and the federal government subsidizes them to the tune of $180 billion per year. Amtrak only gets $1 billion. Unfortunately, many Americans don’t realize that a transportation network is one of the benefits of their taxes.

The reason that Amtrak has been short-sheeted is that passenger rail has simply not been a government priority.

After 100 years of moving people within our cities and around the country, trains lost favor because people were sick of the rapacious and corrupt conduct of the railroad corporations. The vehicles were dirty and staff was rude or mean. Ridership had been steadily declining since 1920. After World War II, the nation made a dramatic switch to invest in highways because our roads were poor and lacked connectivity and, well, people liked driving their cars. It didn’t help that the automobile, oil and tire companies conspired—or at least lobbied—against the public transportation system for their own interests as depicted in the 1996 PBS film, “Taken for a Ride” and its 2008 Part II version. 

Promoted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 required citizens to finance the Interstates by paying 15 to 20 percent of the price of a gallon of gas. The 46,876-mile Interstate system took 35 years to complete and cost $128.9 billion.  The feds paid 90 percent of the cost or about $114 billion—$425 billion in 2006 dollars— even though the Interstates were under the control of the states.  Governors and mayors signed onto this massive public works plan without hesitation because they saw it as an economic development tool for their cities. They would be proved wrong within a couple decades.

As more and more people needed and bought cars, they found themselves stuck in more traffic jams and having to contend with endless road repair. Operating an automobile amounted to $6,000 to $7,000 per year (outside its purchase) and the accident and death rates related to cars—at least 40,000 deaths per year—were overwhelming.

Building the Interstates in the cities also drastically changed urban life, something Eisenhower never intended and experts never foresaw. Neighborhoods were torn up to make way for the highways. Social stratification and racial discrimination intensified as middle class white people migrated to the suburbs and left poor people and minority groups behind in the cities. Downtowns that were designed for pedestrians became congested places and the influx of cars made them frustrating to navigate. Old buildings were demolished to create surface parking, which then created gaping, ugly holes in the cityscape.  People felt unsafe and increasingly reluctant to go downtown. Retail moved out to the suburbs and the companies eventually followed. Of course, all of this out-migration ended up depleting the tax base and making ghost towns out of our once vibrant and prosperous downtowns.

By the late 1990s transportation engineers and analysts began questioning the Interstate’s “externalities” as they costed out pollution, energy waste, land disruption, accidents, time wasted in traffic jams.  They also learned that spending hundreds of millions of dollars to add highway lanes and interchanges didn’t relieve congestion.

The airlines tried to make up for their operational costs with reduced legroom, poorer air quality and overcrowding. Greater demand for air travel also necessitated building or expanding airports, which all takes up a lot of tax dollars.

With the 1990s came new attitudes toward cities and toward the environment. Young people and empty nesters found cities a “hip” place to live and began moving back. They reduced their car usage and demanded more public transportation options. People started a movement to restore historic buildings and revitalize their downtowns.

Meanwhile, rail advocates were keeping Amtrak alive, albeit by a thread. Among them was Gil Carmichael, a former highway lobbyist, owner of five car dealerships and an airport charter service. He later founded the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver where he advocates for what he calls Interstate II.

Interstate II (http://www.texasrailadvocates.org/InterstateII.htm) involves double- or triple-tracking 20,000 to 30,000 miles of mainline freight railroads, establishing corridors for high-speed trains and eventually electrifying the trains to replace diesel engines. Carmichael estimates this could all be done in 20 years for two cents on the motor fuel tax.

“We have this incredible railroad network that goes out all over this land from city center to city center. That's what is so amazing. It's already there,” said Carmichael (in McCommons).

Another idea train advocates promote is the re-establishment of a combined freight and passenger rail system through private-public partnerships that work with state transportation departments.  Dedicated passenger lines have a multiplier effect that can relieve traffic congestion, reduce freight bottlenecks, diminish flight delays, reduce this country's carbon footprint and accommodate people without cars or the means or desire to fly.

When Amtrak was created, politicians, lobbyists and fiscal conservatives really wanted to deep-six passenger rail altogether within two years. It was only through political wrangling and arm-twisting that train advocates were able to save passenger rail by separating it from freight and calling it Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. That did not mean, however, that it would be efficient, well-funded or make a profit despite Nixon’s caveat that the new railroad be off the government dole as soon as possible.

The United States has never had a vision for an integrated railroad network nor has it adequately funded one, says John Gibson, vice president of Operations Research and Planning at CSX (quoted in McCommons).  Instead, passenger rail has been a hit and miss enterprise as Amtrak has tried to put its trains on networks owned and managed by the freight companies.

Could there be a renaissance in trains? Yes, says McCommons, because as the nation’s population increases, as more people decide to lead urban lives and as cities increase in density, it makes sense to use rail—especially with energy costs expected to climb.

“In terms of efficiency—fuel savings, lower carbon outputs, smaller footprint on the landscape—the advantage is really rail,” said Anthony Carbonell of the Lincoln institute of Land Policy in Cambridge (quoted in McCommons). “It has been significantly underinvested in and disadvantaged against the other modes. We once had good train service in this country. We need to recover that capacity.”

The Obama administration clearly sees the possibilities of rail and so it gave Amtrak $8 billion in the stimulus package and another $1.3 billion for car rehabilitation and infrastructure repair on the Northeast Corridor. Vice President Joe Biden, a well-known train buff and consistent passenger during his senatorial days, obviously had a lot to do with this boost for Amtrak. 

This is all a good start but we still have a long way to go.

So, ride the train if you haven’t already, and encourage others to ride also, including your congressional representatives. It's a great way to get this country back on track!

Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to the War in Iraq. She has written for several national magazines on the subjects of social justice and religion. Her website is www.OlgaBonfiglio.com. Contact her at [email protected].

Oil Companies Go All Out to Save Walruses in Gulf of Mexico

by John Lawrence

Not only did BP's detailed emergency response plan for the Gulf of Mexico call for saving walruses, why so did Exxon Mobil's, Conaco Phillip's, Chevron's, Shell's and virtually every other oil company drilling there. You wouldn't think there was so much concern about the Mexican Walrus, but evidently there is.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mass.) took the companies to task for devoting substantially more of their plans to laying out its media response -- complete with pre-prepared press releases -- than on how it would limit the environmental damages caused by a spill. "It could be said that BP is the one bad apple in the bunch, but it appears they have plenty of company," Stupak said. Markey and Waxman both pointed out that four of the five companies noted in their Gulf spill-response plans how they would protect walruses, which do not live in the Gulf of Mexico. "It's unfortunate that walruses are included, and it's an embarrassment that they were included," Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said after being pressed by Markey early in the question-and-answer portion of the hearing.

Well, the explanation for this series of embarassments is really quite simple. All these oil companies outsourced their emergency response plans to the same company. That company, after being paid quite well I would assume, then went to their Xerox machine and simply copied the emergency response plan that they had already prepared for drilling in the Arctic. Then they simply Xeroxed it again and again as each company requested an emergency response plan. It only makes sense that each emergency response plan for the Gulf would be virtually identical. But not that an emergency response plan for the Gulf would be identical to one for the Arctic Circle!

But wait that's not all. All these emergency response plans contained the name and phone number of a man whom it was really, really important to call in case they got themselves into any kind of oil spill trouble. Only problem was that the emergency response plans for 2010 didn't adequately explain the fact that this man had been dead for five years. I assume his phone had been disconnected. You see it really is all about profits and not at all about safety. The oversight to oil company drilling, the MMS, was set up by James Watt, a Reagan appointee, whose philosophy, when it came to regulation, was "the hell with regulation, let the oil companies do anything they damn please." Is it any wonder then that BP has gotten itself into such a fine pickle? All their sought after profits are going flying out the window as they have to pay for this and they have to pay for that.

And it looks like all those anti-regulation guys who also got it passed through Congress to limit oil companies' liability to $75 million have gone down in defeat due to the enormity of the disaster because BP agreed today to put $20 billion in escrow to pay off economic claims. Bush and Cheney tried to put off the financial collapse of 2008 until the Democrats took over in 2009 but their timing was a little off. The collapse actually occurred during the tenure of their own administration. They were luckier with the Gulf disaster. All their anti-regulatory rhetoric and appointees didn't result in disaster until Obama took over. Therefore, as their logic goes, we should blame Obama. They set up the disaster; now it's Obama's job to clean it up, and, furthermore, to take the blame for it. And the blowhards of the right are doing everything in their power to stick Obama with the onus.

The oil administration of Bush and Cheney did everything in their power to favor oil company drilling and the continued use of oil for energy even though Carter had warned 30 years ago that that wasn't such a good idea due to the fact that we have to buy most of our oil from abroad and due to the fact that putting more carbon into the atmosphere is accelerating the pace of global warming. He installed solar panels on the roof of the White House which were peremptorily taken down by Ronald Reagan as he proclaimed Morning in America. We Americans shouldn't have to worry about such things as global warming. Let the gas guzzling resume, said Reagan.

Only now the chickens are coming home to roost in the form of flash floods caused by unheard of quantities of rain falling in a short period of time. This is directly attributable to global warming. The increased ferocity of storms and tornadoes can be attributed to global warming. The warmer the atmosphere the more precipitation there will be. The warmer the atmosphere, the higher wind velocities there will be. Put those together and you have a formula for increased destruction of life and property which we have seen recently in Nashville, Oklahoma City a campground in Arkansas and elsewhere. And it's all directly attributable to oil, the oil Carter wanted to phase out and the oil Reagan, Bush and Cheney gloried in.

If Carter's warnings had been heeded, we would be well on our way to a solarized America, an America in which wind power and other forms of alternative energy would be replacing oil. Instead, because we listened to Reagan, Bush and Cheney, America is losing its lead in green technology to China and other countries while we are reaping the whirlwind of natural and manmade disasters. And it's all about oil. The President must proclaim one area after another disaster zones and give them emergency Federal aid. That alone is breaking the budget. While scores of people are being killed by natural disasters and hardly any by terrorists, we are spending trillions on chasing a few al Quaeda stragglers and in the wrong places I might add. It's like that old song, "Looking for love in all the wrong places." We're looking for al Quaeda in all the wrong places. Hey, wake up. They're actually in Yemen, Somalia and America, and they're not killing Americans at anywhere near the same rate that natural and corporate funded disasters are. Maybe we should spend the money we're now spending on the military-industrial complex more wisely.

And now the US is too poor to invest in solar and wind energy. That must be left to private enterprise which isn't much interested. The oil industry has tons of lobbyists whose purpose in life is to see that oil remains the chief source of energy in the US and that the oil industry continues to receive subsidies and tax breaks when it should be paying royalties for every barrel drilled. Obama gives lip service to mass transit, high speed rail and solar and wind industries. But he is too poor and the US is too poor to do anything about it, and, besides, the oil companies want to keep things just the way they are until they figure out how to monopolize solar and wind energy. Then they might be interested in transferring over. Good luck with that.

If Only We Had Implemented Jimmy Carter's Energy Policy Instead of Dick Cheney's

The energy policies of the Carter administration and the Bush/Cheney administration couldn't have been more different. If we'd only followed Carter's advice, the US today would be well on its way to using renewable energy resources and importing far less foreign oil. If only Carter had been reelected instead of Reagan. Carter called for the US to achieve the goal of having 20% of its energy coming from solar power by the year 2000. Carter put solar panels on the White House. Reagan took them off. If only, if only ...

Jimmy Carter's televised speech in 1979 was prescient:

In little more than two decades we've gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It's a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.

What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important.

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade -- a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.

Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas. I'm announcing tonight that for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop of foreign oil more than these goals allow. These quotas will ensure a reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the recent Tokyo summit.

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel -- from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.

I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation I will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America's energy security.

Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and unemployment.

Point four: I'm asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation's utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source.

Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.

We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

Point six: I'm proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.

I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense -- I tell you it is an act of patriotism.

Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation's strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives.

So, the solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country. It can rekindle our sense of unity, our confidence in the future, and give our nation and all of us individually a new sense of purpose.

Instead of following Carter's advice, the nation went on a consumption binge under Reagan glorying in big cars and gas guzzlers with a complete abandonment of public transportation and conservation. Conspicuous consumption and self-aggrandizement were in; conservation and self-sacrifice were out. It was morning in America; now, with the disaster in the Gulf, it's midnight. Then with the election of oil men Bush and Cheney we literally immersed ourselves in oil as if it were Holy Water and started wars to make sure that our foreign access to oil was secure.

Cheney cut renewable energy projects and gave Big Oil everything they wanted including the ability to regulate itself. Here's the timeline:

2001:
Cheney’s secret energy task force crafts national energy policy. The Bush administration released the National Energy Policy Report on May 16. President Bush appoints Dick Cheney, who was the Chief Financial Officer of Haliburton before taking the VP spot. But he was officially still on Haliburton’s payroll and kept about 430,000 shares in Haliburton stock.

The task force report was based on recommendations provided to Cheney from coal, oil, and nuclear companies and related trade groups—many of which were major contributors to Bush’s presidential campaign and to the Republican Party. The Oil companies— including BP, the National Mining Association, and the American Petroleum Institute—secretly met with the Cheney and his staff.

Only 7 of the 105 recommendations in the plan involved renewable energy. Cheney’s task force report proposed funding the development of “clean energy technologies” by opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling and earmarking $1.2 billion of bid bonuses from leases in ANWR.

2002:
Renewable energy budget cuts. Bush released the fiscal year 2002 budget on April 9 and severly cut clean energy research and development. Solar and renewable energy R&D would drop by more than a third; nuclear energy R&D would be almost halved; and energy conservation R&D would fall by nearly 25 percent.

House energy bill includes $33.5 billion in tax breaks for dirty energy. The House of Representatives on August 2 passed the Securing America’s Future Energy Act, H.R. 4. It included $33.5 billion in tax breaks and other incentives over 10 years for the power industry aimed at increasing oil and gas exploration.

In 2002, Senate clean energy bill fails with a Republican-led Congress.

2003:
Republican-led Congress backs a House energy bill that includes $23.5 billion in tax breaks for big energy companies. The legislation would hand out $23.5 billion over 10 years in tax breaks to increase oil and gas production and $5.4 billion in subsidies and loan guarantees.

Yet more renewable energy budget cuts. President Bush’s FY 2004 budget once again reduced funding for solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass totaling more than $25 million in cuts.

In 2004, the Republican-led House passes a bill allowing companies to build oil refineries in minority communities. The United States Refinery Revitalization Act passed the House on June 16, but was never made into law.

2005:
Yet even more renewable energy budget cuts. President Bush’s FY 2006 budget once again cut energy efficiency and renewable energy programs at the Department of Energy by about 4 percent; cuts totaled nearly $50 million.

Energy bill includes $27 billion for dirty energy. President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 on August 8. The bill closely resembled Cheney’s 2001 plan and gave $27 billion to coal, oil and gas, and nuclear, and only $6.4 billion for renewable energy. Amendments in the House and Senate to raise fuel efficiency standards for vehicles failed.

These regulations permit oil and gas industry to regulate itself!

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service—the agency responsible for managing oil and gas resources on the Outer Continental Shelf and collecting royalties from companies—decided in 2005 that oil companies, rather than the government, were in the best position to determining their operations’ environmental impacts. This meant that there was no longer any need for an environmental impact analysis for deepwater drilling, though an earlier draft stated that such drilling experience was limited.

2006:
A House-passed bill allows drilling in Arctic Refuge. The House passed the American-Made Energy and Good Jobs Act on May 25, which would open oil leases on the coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—an area of 1.5 million acres.
More budget cuts for renewable energy. President Bush’s 2007 FY budget cut funding for energy conservation by 6.3 percent to $289 million and stopped funding for the geothermal program—although Congress later restored some of this geothermal funding.

2007:
Government agency failed to collect more than $865 million in revenues. Investigators from the Interior Department determined that a “top Interior Department official was told nearly three years ago about a legal blunder that allowed drilling companies to avoid billions of dollars in payments for oil and gas pumped from publicly owned waters.”

Yet, still, more budget cuts for renewable energy. President Bush’s fiscal year 2008 budget proposed to cut research funds for efficiency and renewable energy by 16 percent, eliminate them for geothermal energy, and leave funding for solar stagnant.
Bush administration opposes expansion of renewable energy.

President Bush also threatened to veto the Energy Independence and Security Act because it included a renewable electricity standard and renewable energy tax credits funded by the elimination of many tax subsidies for major oil companies totaling approximately $13 billion.

2008:
More budget cuts for renewable energy. President Bush proposes a 27 percent cut for Department of Energy efficiency and renewable energy programs in the FY 2008 budget.

Bush administration opposes expansion of renewable energy. President Bush opposed House passage of the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act, H.R. 5351, as advised on February 28.

Bush lifts moratorium on offshore drilling. Bush lifted the executive moratorium on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts on July 14. This moratorium was put in place in 1990 by Pres. George H.W. Bush. Bush then called on Congress to lift its own annual ban on drilling, as John McCain embraced “drill, baby, drill” that year.

Government agency accepted gifts and engaged in fraternizing and illicit activities. A June 2008 interior general report found that Minerals Management Service officials accepted gifts, engaged in drug use and illicit sex with employees from energy firms, and showed favoritism in handling contracts.

Wheel Dividends: Europe's Clues to Breaking Car Dependence

Published on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 by The Boston Globe

by Derrick Z. Jackson

Bremen, Germany - The self-congratulations by bailed-out American car companies are hard to take seriously in a continent of relatively Lilliputian cars, amazing trains, and almost perfect public transit.

Chrysler last week claimed it may break even this year. General Motors boasted of repaying billions in government loans. GM CEO Ed Whitacre said, "I think the government and us, the taxpayers, made a terrific investment, and I think it's going to pay off big time.''

The payoff is not yet visible. GM promises the electric Volt, but it currently has only one car, the Malibu, among 52 wagons, sedans, and small cars cited by Consumer Reports for high fuel efficiency. Chrysler has none. Both companies still dominate the ratings for worst fuel efficiency from subcompacts to SUVs. Ford, which did not take a bailout, remains the only Detroit competitor in fuel efficient vehicles with its Ford Fusion hybrid. Fittingly, Ford is expecting a $1 billion first-quarter profit.

While America spends $82 billion hoping bankrupt companies retool for President Obama's 35-mile-per-gallon standards by 2016, other countries are already into high gear getting cars off the street completely.

In two-and-a-half weeks in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Bremen, I did not witness a single downtown traffic jam. Part of that is due to the cost of gasoline, up to $8 a gallon. But it is also the alternatives. In Stockholm, buses were frequent and comfortable. Subways in Stockholm and Copenhagen were so smooth and quiet, they made our Boston T seem like a rattletrap. Bus service is so dreadful in many US cities that only the poor climb aboard.

Not only are long-distance European trains blindingly fast, but my wife and I were flabbergasted when our Copenhagen-to-Hamburg express slowed down to enter what we thought was a tunnel. Then everyone was told to get out and go up on deck. The train had been loaded onto a ferry for a 45-minute sea crossing.

The most memorable sight was the most simple: The bicycle. During weekday rush hours, hundreds of people pedal in business attire or with backpacks, groceries, and construction-job tools. Obese people were hardly in sight.

In Copenhagen, at the end of a conference dinner, a middle-age woman rose up at 10:30 p.m. to bid adieu and said she was riding her bike home. At the end of a gathering in Bremen at midnight, a man in his 20s said he was riding his bike the half-hour home. The 65-year-old mother of our hosts in Bremen rides her bike from her house a third of a mile away to see her three grandchildren. Children on cycles are everywhere.

This is no accident. Copenhagen was car-clogged a half century ago, shocked into a fresh vision by the 1970s energy crisis and recession. Urban planners in Copenhagen have installed more than 200 miles of bicycle lanes. Stockholm says it has built more than 460 miles. In these cities, as well as Bremen, bike lanes either share large, wide sidewalks with pedestrians or are separate, dedicated tracks adjacent to sidewalks. Today, the city of Copenhagen says 37 percent of work and school commutes are done by bike. Stockholm says 150,000 of its 810,000 residents bike regularly to work.

This is unlike Boston and Cambridge, where lanes are painted on streets almost as a dare, sandwiching cyclists in between traffic on the left and parked cars on the right, where doors can swing open at any moment. Only the most nimble or fearless of cyclists use them at rush hour. The lanes are a largely vacant symbol of why less than 1 percent of commutes in the United States are done by bike, according to the Census.

That is why the latest auto news is so dull. Instead of throwing billions at uninspired car companies, cities should be reconstructed so that you will want to leave the car in the garage. The real headline is when grandma feels safe to pedal down the street to see her grandkids.

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company

Derrick Z. Jackson is a Globe columnist.

More on Snow, CSX and RRs

by John Lawrence

This is an email from Bob Comer in response to my post CSX Railroad and CEO John Snow's Corporate Ethics Responsible for Killing Paul Palank:

 

That commentary about CSX and John Snow is 100% correct.  The guy is nothing but a white-collar criminal and he was rewarded handsomely for his dirty deeds as you so well documented.  The CSX-SUX website--- have you seen it?   It's here: http://www.csx-sucks.com/

 

I have worked with the man, Dave Nelson, who blew the whistle on CSX (and Snow was CEO when they did it) for ripping-off the federal government for 10's of millions of dollars. It was a classic False Claims Act violation by Snow and CSX.  CSX was guilty, but didn't have to pay nearly enough for their crimes.  Big Corps. get away with nearly everything.

 

The situation of Amtrak having to pay (meaning us taxpayers) for the negligence and irresponsibility of CSX officials is beyond outrageous.  So was the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shanklin v. Norfolk Southern RR.  The Reagan / Bush appointees gave the railroad industry what it had wanted forever-----federal protection from lawsuits based on lack of adequate warnings at RR crossings.  The Shanklin decision said that if even 1 dollar of federal money was spent on the crossing, a plaintiff couldn't claim in a lawsuit that the warning devices were inadequate.  SO, the RR's love that 1952 crossbuck sign since it requires no maintenance for 20 to 30 years and all they have to do is get the state to provide federal funds to put a newer one up and BINGO---hello Shanklin protection!  I have interviewed so many former RR employees I've lost count, but the horror stories are never-ending.  The fact that the U.S. government (FRA) continues to allow the U.S. railroad industry to use the 1872 Track Circuit to detect trains is one of the prime examples of the 'sacred cow' position enjoyed by the industry.  A little rust on just one rail and the "shunt" may fail, causing the train to NOT be detected.  So, the bells, lights and gates don't activate.  The Track Circuit is also used in Block Switching all over the U.S.  High tech. inventions (I did one in the 1990's and so did Joe Pace of EVA Signal) were made using magnetometers, loop detectors and strobe lights at the crossing, but the RR industry and their cohorts at Harmon and Safetran, made sure that the high tech. equipment was never accepted / installed.   

 

I have investigated RR crossing crashes for 20+ years and have done over 300 nationwide.  I helped the NYTimes reporter Walt Bogdanich win a Pulitzer for National Reporting on his intensive investigation of the RR industry, the FRA and crossing crashes in 2003.

 

Bottom line: the RR industry in the U.S. is a 'sacred cow' and has been one since Day One (1825.)  They are self-insured through the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and that self-insurance fund has, last I heard, over 1 Billion dollars in it.  So, when a RR loses a lawsuit, it just gets the money to pay the plaintiff from the AAR fund---no sweat, no bother.  Of course, the RR's always appeal, appeal, appeal---to wear down the family / plaintiff.  AND, I have found that many judges who hear RR cases seem to be on the side of the RR from the very beginning.  One of the worst cases in Ohio, the deaths of a mother and 4 children in Williams county, July 1, 2001, (Petre case) at an unguarded Norfolk Southern crossing (engineer failed to properly sound the horn at the crossing, plus the 5 crossings leading up to the crash), got "the treatment" from a judge-----case thrown out with the judge claiming the driver failed to yield the right-of-way to the train---end of story!   Forget the state law violation by the engineer---4999.02 ORC!  And, the crossing was in violation of 4955.36 ORC----the vegetation removal law.  The train was totally hidden by a two-story farm house and 5 pole buildings, plus vegetation.  Also, many school buses used the crossing but the RR reported to the USDOT / FRA that ZERO school buses used the crossing.  SO, no lights / gates needed!  I did the investigation of that crash and I will be forever angry about the total disregard for safety and justice in that case! 

 

Regards,

 

Bob Comer

Forensic & Electronic Research, Inc.

Magnolia, Ohio  

CSX Railroad and CEO John Snow's Corporate Ethics Responsible for Killing Paul Palank

by John Lawrence

John W Snow was named Secretary of the Treasury by George W Bush in 2003 after having been CEO of CSX railroad prior to that. In effect he was awarded a position of public trust after having flagrantly violated a position of public trust, a policy typical of President Bush. As CEO of CSX, Snow was directly responsible for a policy of neglecting safety and maintenance measures which led to the death of police sergeant Paul Palank.

In July 1991 Mr. Palank was aboard the Amtrak Silver Star heading from Florida to New York to meet his wife and children for a family reunion near Washington, DC. Palank loved trains as much as he feared flying. As the train approached the town of Lugoff, SC, it crossed over the Orlon switch named after the synthetic fiber that was produced by the DuPont Company at a nearby chemical plant. A train with a string of empty hopper cars waited on a parallel track as the Amtrak train crossed the Orlon switch traveling two miles an hour below the posted speed limit. The first twelve cars passed safely over the switch, and then it broke. Six passenger cars hurtled off the tracks. The impact flipped over the first hopper car whose hardened steel wheels cut like a knife through the metal skin of the passenger cars. By the time everything came to a halt, 77 people were injured and 8 were dead including Sergeant Palank. He was 35 years old.

Angelica Palank was waiting in Washington with her children. Frantically, she searched for her husband. A ticket clerk gave her an 800 number to call and pointed her to a pay phone. A stranger's voice delivered the horrible news. In the weeks ahead, most of the families of the injured and dead settled their claims with the railroad discovering in the process how modest their payments were. Only Angelica Palank refused to go along. She did not believe her Paul had died because of some random bit of misfortune no one could have foreseen so she sued.

Undergoing much hardship, Angelica managed to get her case heard before the National Transportation Safety Board. It was quickly deduced that the accident was not a chance happening but was caused by improperly done repairs. CSX maintenance crews had used a rusty nail to hold the switch together instead of a proper pin and jury-rigged shims. CSX had cut corners to inflate profits which meant riches for its CEO whose pay package was tied to profits and stock price.

CEO John W Snow was an early champion of markets as the most efficient regulator of transportation industries. Under his leadership, the railroad aggressively cut costs including maintenance. Palank and her lawyers dug deep into the cutbacks on safety and eventually found two CSX workers who would talk. Allen Clamp testified that his boss  never "performed a disassambly inspection, never walked a switch, and conducted no inspection, or inadequate inspections." He said under oath that he was instructed to falsify inspection reports. It turned out that CSX had knowingly neglected to repair the switch for 10 years in order to save money. Every day CSX trains loaded with toxic chemicals crossed over that switch as did Amtrak passengers.

The jurors awarded Angelica and her children $50 million in damages and a judge delivered a stinging rebuke to CSX: "The clear and convincing evidence shows that Silver Star No. 82's tragic derailment was caused by willful, wanton negligence." Although Angelica Palank was successful in getting upwards of $50 million dollars, most of which she donated to charity in her husband's name and despite numerous appeals by CSX, CSX viewed the settlement as just a minor cost of doing business. For every dollar it had cut on safety and despite 8 lives lost, CSX only had to give back 4 cents on the dollar.

But the saga for CSX only got better. As it turned out, in the final analysis, CSX paid nothing for its recklessness. There were no consequences. CSX simply sent the bill to Amtrak for reimbursement! It sought and got from US taxpayers the full amount including punitive damages that it had been required by the courts to pay for the dead and injured. A federal law shields the freight railroads over whose tracks Amtrak operates from any responsibility in claims arising from Amtrak passengers. Under federal law all claims, even in cases where Amtrak was not at fault, must be paid by Amtrak. What this means is that CSX and John Snow got off scott free despite their culpability because an Amtrak train and not a freight train was on the switch when it failed.

So CSX made out like a bandit and its policy of driving up its stock price by neglecting maintenance proved successful. John Snow went on to be Secretary of the Treasury and was in effect rewarded for bad behaviour, something that George W Bush seemed to value in his appointments especially to regulatory positions.

John Snow's Wikipedia entry states:

In his drive for efficient capital investment,Snow cut $2.4. billion between 1984-1993. Part of the savings was effected by using 3 instead of 4 engines on some hauls. Other savings were effected by huge deferred maintenance and deferred safety measures. CSX was found guilty of flagrant violation of the public trust in the infamous Orlon switch case which resulted in punitive damage fines of $50 million which CSX was able to pass on to Amtrak which was operating the train involved, though it was found faultless.

Part of CSX, CSX Lines was sold to The Carlyle Group, early in 2003. After Snow left the company for the White House, CSX sold its international port operations to the UAE company, Dubai Transport.

This account owes a lot to the book "Free Lunch" by David Cay Johnston. The subtitle is "How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You With the Bill)".

High-speed Rail Plans Announced by British Government

From BBC News:

Plans for a new high-speed rail network, featuring 250mph trains, have been announced by Transport Secretary Lord Adonis.

The government is recommending a route for a new line between London and Birmingham with a future extension to northern England and Scotland.

The public will be consulted on the proposed route, with work unlikely to start until 2017 at the earliest.

Network Rail said high-speed rail "can drive economic growth and boost jobs".

Lord Adonis told the House of Lords that the views of communities along the route would be particularly sought.

Like many people, we're yet to be convinced that the overall business case for HS2 - the high-speed line - stacks up environmentally, financially and socially Patrick Begg, National Trust

"Subject to this consultation, the London terminus for the high-speed line would be Euston, the Birmingham city centre station would be at Curzon Street, and there would be interchange stations with Crossrail west of Paddington and near Birmingham airport."

The preferred route will run out through north-west London, skirting to the south-west of Aylesbury, then to the west of Buckingham and the east of Brackley and Banbury, before passing between Leamington Spa and Coventry and running into the eastern side of Birmingham.

A future extension is being considered to northern England, which would run in a Y shape with one branch to Sheffield and Leeds and the other to Liverpool and Manchester.

Lord Adonis said the project would create 10,000 jobs and yield £2 in benefits for every £1 spent.

He said the first 120 miles between London and the West Midlands would cost between £15.8bn and £17.4bn.

The cost per mile beyond Birmingham is then estimated to halve, taking the overall cost of the 335 mile Y-shaped network to about £30bn.

Detailed map of proposed route

The main opposition parties are also committed, in principle, to the need for a high-speed rail network.

However, reaching the necessary political consensus for a particular route may prove to be difficult ahead of the general election.

Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers said the Conservatives were not prepared to "blindly accept" the route proposed by ministers.

She added that if the Conservatives are elected to power, they would start work on the project in 2015 - two years earlier than the government's plan.

Scotland's Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson said developing high speed rail to Scotland "is central to the economic case for high-speed rail in the UK".

Network Rail chief executive Iain Coucher said high-speed rail was "a vital part of a modern, dynamic economy".

He also said that it would "take cars and lorries off the road, cut domestic flights and release capacity on the existing rail network, transforming services even for those communities not served directly by a high-speed line.

"It is the low-carbon, sustainable transport of the future."

Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc), said: "The commitment that all three parties have shown to HSR [high-speed rail] is a vote of confidence in the industry, and will help place train travel at the heart of a successful low-carbon economy.

Public consultation

"The plans must be affordable at a time of real constraint in the public finances and must show how HSR will be paid for while continuing to invest in the existing network on which passengers make more than a billion journeys a year."

For the past year, the government-backed company High Speed Two has been working on plans to develop a new high-speed rail network, initially between London and Birmingham.

The new line could cut the journey time between the cities to just 46 minutes.

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union, said: "We welcome any move to expand the rail network and to bring more passengers on to the trains.

"However, development of HSR in the UK has been left in the slow lane because of our fragmented, privatised system which puts short-term profits first and long-term, strategic planning a very poor second."

Environmental impact

Patrick Begg, director for the National Trust's Thames and Solent region, said the proposed route could cause "serious and significant impacts on the landscape" of the Chilterns.

He added: "We're taking a keen interest in how these impacts have been considered and assessed, particularly exploring the government's proposals for mitigating against these impacts through design and tunnelling.

"Like many people, we're yet to be convinced that the overall business case for HS2 - the high-speed line - stacks up environmentally, financially and socially."

Geraldine Nicholson, the chairwoman of NoThird Runway Action Group (NoTRAG), which is opposed to Heathrow Airport expansion, said: "If the government thought it was going to get plaudits from us for its plans, it is sorely mistaken.

"What we want to see is an HSR scheme that goes all the way to Scotland, a scheme that is designed to make it easy for people to use the train instead of the plane.

"We will oppose any scheme that does not involve the dropping of the third runway."

Anthony Smith, Passenger Focus chief executive, said he welcomed "the commitment that the new line will be an addition to the current network - not a bolt-on rich man's railway".

He added: "The ability to turn up and travel remains a key attraction of Britain's railway. This new line, with fast frequent services could, with attractive fares, start to revolutionise intercity rail travel."

Toyota and Electromagnetic Compatibility

by John Lawrence

Toyota maintains that there is no problem with its electronics. But they are not talking about electromagnetic compatibility. With wire bundles going everywhere just like in an airplane or a spacecraft, electromagnetic compatibility is indeed a most important consideration. In the first place mechanical linkages to the brake and accelerator systems worked just fine for over a hundred years. One never heard of the Model T having an unintended acceleration problem! So the whole idea of making these linkages electronic is foolhardy to say the least. Here are the problems with electronic linkages.

Signals can jump from one wire to another in a wire bundle. If Toyota has put the wire leading to the accelerator control system in the same wire bumdle as the wire leading to the brake system, a signal meant for the brake can actually trigger the accelerator because a signal in one wire can induce a current in another wire. If the wires are in close proximity, this is even more likely but it can happen even if the wires are not in the same bundle. To be on the safe side, critical wires should be shielded which I bet they're not on the Toyota. Shielding adds another layer and expense to the wiring systems but makes it less likely that an extraneous signal can induce an unwanted current.

Secondly, electromagnetic signals can get in the circuits from outside the automobile. There are all kinds of signals floating around from cell phone signals to TV signals to signals from satellite radio. These signals enter a car from the external environment and are random in strength and variety at any given moment. Again if important wires and subsystems are not properly shielded, these signals can induce unwanted currents in the car's braking and acceleration systems.

Here is a definition of electromagnetic compatibility or radio frequency interference as it used to be called:

Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is the branch of electrical sciences which studies the unintentional generation, propagation and reception of electromagnetic energy with reference to the unwanted effects (Electromagnetic interference, or EMI) that such energy may induce. The goal of EMC is the correct operation, in the same electromagnetic environment, of different equipment which use electromagnetic phenomena, and the avoidance of any interference effects. In order to achieve this, EMC pursues two different kinds of issues. Emission issues are related to the unwanted generation of electromagnetic energy by some source, and to the countermeasures which should be taken in order to reduce such generation and to avoid the escape of any remaining energies into the external environment. Susceptibility or immunity issues, in contrast, refer to the correct operation of electrical equipment, referred to as the victim, in the presence of unplanned electromagnetic disturbances. Interference, or noise, mitigation and hence electromagnetic compatibility is achieved primarily by addressing both emission and susceptibility issues, i.e., quieting the sources of interference and hardening the potential victims. The coupling path between source and victim may also be separately addressed to increase its attenuation.

Electromagnetic compatibility problems have brought down airplanes and probably spacecraft as control systems have been compromised. Malfunctioning of electronic components can result in unwanted signals being generated that then couple to vulnerable circuits where they can interfere with control systems. Lightning strikes can generate an electromagnetic pulse which overwhelms control systems on airplanes or on cars. Why do airline pilots instruct you to turn off your cell phones and laptops during takeoff and landing? Because extraneous signals can cause electromagnetic compatibility problems. There are no such controls in cars. In fact cars are full of electronic devices that are potential causes of interference with vital control systems such as acceleration and braking. And you don't know what electronic sources the driver has brought into the automobile with him that could be left on and could be generating interfering signals. There are all sorts of wireless devices.

And then there are reliability problems. That an electronic switch could fail to turn on or off is not a new revelation. Electronic switches fail all the time. This is a distinct and separate issue from electromagnetic compatibility but is nevertheless related. The usual approach to this problem is through redundancy. If one system fails, there should be a backup system that takes over. In the case of automobile acceleration and braking systems there should be a backup braking system preferably mechanical that would take over in case of electronic system failure.

Toyota's rebuttal to a professor's allegations that he induced uncontrolled acceleration is sort of trite and not to the point as the professor's allegations were rather unsophisticated and crude. Instead of alleging electromagnetic compatibility problems, Southern Illinois University professor David Gilbert alleged an out and out short between two wires. That is not necessary for a signal to jump between the two wires and is a rather crude allegation. It was easy enough for Toyota to debunk it and to show that such a short would cause unintended acceleration not only in Toyotas but in virtually any car with electronic controls. However, there is a grain of something to be followed up on here. A comparison of the systems on cars which have not had acceleration problems with Toyota's similar systems could bring to light differences which could be the root of the problems. In any event "fail-safe" systems need to be installed as backups in Toyotas, something that would result in a very expensive recall, so naturally Toyota doesn't want to do it. It may be necessary for after market engineering to pinpoint the problem because Toyota has no incentive to do it.

The random nature of the Toyota acceleration/inadequate braking problems point to random system failure through component failure or electromagnetic compatibility problems. And these are problems that could cause Toyota a lot of money to fix:

NORRIS: Would the resolution of this problem be radically different if it turned out that it was electrical instead of mechanical? Mr. BENSINGER: I think so. This is something we looked at here at the Los Angeles Times, why Toyota seemed so resistant to electronic issue. And the answer is because it's a much bigger kind of problem than it's a mechanical problem. Fixing an electronic problem is much more complex. It also is a little bit more scary in the public eye. When people think about a sticking pedal, they think, fine, swap out my pedal and I'll be okay, or add a little piece to it. When you think about a computer problem, you start thinking about your desktop that crashes all the time. And that gets very scary when you're talking about vehicles that weigh 4,000 pounds and go 75 miles an hour. People are terrified of that and don't want to think about that. The other issue is litigation, the legal risk is very high because once you start saying there's a potential software or other electronic bug, everyone and their brother will start blaming every fender bender on that whether it's true or not. And certainly a lot of potentially spurious litigation could ensue, that even if Toyota wins, could have it tied up in courts for years.

In addition to electromagnetic interference and electronic component failure, there is the possibility of software glitches in the onboard computer. In general the over sophistication of the modern automobile is probably responsible for the sudden and random acceleration problems. Just turning on or off the headlights might generate an electrical spike that would make acceleration and braking systems malfunction. An excellent and comprehensive article on electromagnetic interference in automobiles can be found here: "Could Electronics Be What's Causing Runaway Cars?"

Toyota: High Technology Gone Awry

by John Lawrence

Over 100 years ago Henry Ford invented the automobile. There were many kinks to be worked out but faulty accelerator pedals was not one of them. Recent events with Toyota's random acceleration problems should give us pause as we ask the question - 'how much technology is too much technology?' Henry Ford had a fairly simple system for accelerating and braking. It was mechanical linkage. In a hundred years this system proved ultra reliable. You never heard of a problem like unwanted acceleration for the first almost hundred years of automobile technology.

However, since Toyota and other car manufacturers have incorporated super sophisticated technology into their automobiles, all of a sudden there are these problems that have caused a number of deaths including the ones on Mission Gorge Road in Santee, CA where I drive practically every day. There a loaner Lexus went out of control with unstoppable acceleration until the four occupants were killed. At that time it was thought that the problem involved improper floor mats. An ancillary problem was that there is no obvious way to turn off the engine since the key had been abandoned for the push button. Some times the simple way is the best way. Why should a tried and true technology that has worked well for 100 years be abandoned in favor of the never, never land of high tech?

Some times I think that Ted Kaczynski's diatribe against technology was correct. To quote him: "The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries." Well, this would certainly be applicable to the overly technologized and sophisticated automobiles being manufactured today. Actually, Henry Ford had a better idea: mechanical linkages.

Although Toyota vehemently denies that the acceleration problems have anything to do with the electronics, there is mounting evidence that they do. First, let's consider why Toyota would want to rule this out in favor of a relatively simple mechanical fix. It would cost them a whopping huge amount of money, that's why, to fix the electronics compared to only a moderately huge amount for a recall involving a simple fix like they are doing now. Today's cars are increasingly run by computers, and for Toyota to redesign and replace all those computers would likely bankrupt the company. Instead of the simple mechanical linkage that has worked so well for 100 years, acceleration is accomplished by sending a signal to the "brains" of the automobile where it is processed and then a signal goes out to the engine to accelerate. Well, what could go wrong with this setup? Everything - that's what. Signals can get sidetracked; signals can go astray. Electromagnetic interference can create false signals that then will be acted upon as if the driver had initiated them. Signals can be spontaneously generated by malfunctioning electronics.

In some cars stepping on the brake will override any signals coming from the accelerator, but not in Toyotas. So there is the possibility for all kinds of electronic mixups which have caused the deaths of dozens of people. The electromagnetic incompatibility of the various subsystems connected up to the car's "brains" can alter the correct functioning of the car in the same way that electromagnetic compatibility problems have brought down airplanes. Wire bundles physically located in close proximity can cause signals to jump from one circuit to another causing erroneous signals to be sent to the car's various subsystems. It's entirely possible that a signal intended for the braking system could "jump tracks" and end up causing the accelerator to function improperly. Also signals originating outside the automobile can attach themselves to the wires of the cars subsystems with the result that the car goes out of control without the driver's ability to override these false signals. Extraneous signals can induce false signals in the automoble's control systems taking the car out of the driver's control.

Then it's entirely possible that the car's central computer itself was improperly designed or in many instances functioned improperly due to the failure of some chip, for example. Electronics malfunction all the time. Relying on the perfect functioning of a computer is skating on thin ice when it comes to preventing the loss of human life. Overtechnologized subsystems are probably responsible for not only cars malfunctioning with disastrous results but also airplane malfunctioning, railroad malfunctioning, signal malfunctioning of all sorts. All sorts of systems rely on the fact that some computer will not malfunction. It's better to rely on the old adage: 'The simple way is the best way.' When you consider all the dirt and pollution that a car is exposed to, the lack of cleanliness in the engine's components could cause various parts to gunk up, and then who knows how that will affect its operation? Dirty electronics have a tendency to malfunction. Mechanical vibrations and jolts can cause electronic components to fail, and cars are certainly exposed to all kinds of potholes and bumps in the road especially as infrastructure is allowed to deteriorate due to lack of funds. A certain number of electronic components will malfunction out of the box. After all they are manufactured by other computers which are not perfect. These are all reasons why there should be mechanical overrides for crucial automobile subsystems. What if, when the power steering failed, the car would be unsteerable? That's not a situation that drivers would probably contemplate with approbation.

Will Toyota go back to the simple mechanical linkages for braking and acceleration and the key starter rather than the push button starter. I doubt it. In the final analysis technology is alluring and seductive. A certain number of deaths will be found to be acceptable although no Congressman will ever say so in so many words. After all they have been paid off by Toyota's campaign contributions and lobbyists. Just as a certain number of deaths from railroad travel or airplane travel is found to be acceptable to the authorities, the same will eventually be the case for Toyota which may be required to "tweak" the system but will probably not be required to go back to mechanical linkages. That would be like requiring early car manufacturers to go back to the horse and buggy.

We can all look forward to continued malfunctioning of computers and electronics due to electromagnetic compatibility problems, due to component failure and reliability problems. All these systems need to be backed up with mechanical subsystems as a last resort when the hypersophisticsted, overdesigned, fanch schmancy, computerized subsystems fail. Ted Kaczynski had a point.