NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/environm/13813

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-22 | 15.0 KB

Xref: sparky sci.environment:13813 ca.environment:1119 ba.transportation:2889
Newsgroups: sci.environment,ca.environment,ba.transportation
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From: [e-mail] (Mike Vandeman)
Subject: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
Organization: Pacific * Bell
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 00:50:06 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Followup-To: sci.environment
Lines: 325

Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 08:05:20 PST
From: Katie Scarborough <PacBell.COM!igc.apc.org!kscarborough>
Subject: Paving Moratorium Letter Campaign

December 15, 1992

Dear Friend of the Alliance:

WE NEED YOUR HELP!  President-Elect Bill Clinton is now shaping his
new administration, and forming a strategy for his first 100 days
in office.  A major part of his strategy calls for jump-starting
the economy with road and bridge projects.
        Clinton repeated this message throughout his campaign,
sometimes calling for construction of new highways in the process.
Vice President-Elect Al Gore told a crowd in Michigan's Upper
Peninsula that a new superhighway should be built there to speed
exports.  They have both repeated these sentiments at the recent
economic summit, claiming there is broad support for
road and bridge building.
        We need to make sure Clinton and Gore know that
construction of new roads is the wrong road to economic recovery!
Instead, we need road repair and improvements in mass transit,
bicycle and pedestrian facilities.  We want to reach Clinton
with this message before his policies are too firmly in place.
        PLEASE WRITE LETTERS to Clinton, to Gore, and to your
Congressional representatives stating your OPPOSITION to
constructing new roads.  Remind Clinton and Gore of their
campaign promises to create jobs that are good for the environment.
Tell them you'd like to see funding for construction of new
rail, bicycle and pedestrian facilities instead, and for repair
of essential roads, only.  Call for a moratorium on new roads
and parking lots, and include as many of the following points in
your letter as you can:

 No additional federal funds should go into the National Highway
System.  Instead, let's improve transportation by fully funding the
Congestion Mitigation Program and Transportation Enhancements
portions of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act
(ISTEA).
 Studies show that rail construction creates more jobs per unit
of investment than road building.
 Approximately 47,000 people die each year on U.S. roads; even
more are injured or disabled.  We need safer transportation
alternatives, not more roads.
 New roads encourage urban sprawl and destroy farmland, wetlands,
forests and other habitat. Developing rail, pedestrian and bicycle
facilities keeps development compact and can save habitat.
 Construction of new roads perpetuates our dependence on a
costly, polluting car-based transportation system.  We need
alternatives to automobiles, not more facilities for them.
If you wish, draw additional facts and figures for your letters
from the enclosed fact sheet.  Ask Clinton and Gore to respond
and clarify whether construction of new roads will be part of
their strategy, or whether they will concentrate on repair of
existing roads and development of transportation alternatives,
which you can support.  Ask your Senators and House Representatives
to vote against any future proposals from the Clinton
administration which include monies for new road construction.
Send completed letters to:
Vice President-Elect Al Gore, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510
President-Elect Bill Clinton, P.O. Box 615, Little Rock, AR  72203
Hon. Neil Goldschmidt, Chairman, Transportation Cluster,
Clinton/Gore Transition Committee, 1120 Vermont Avenue NW,
Washington, DC  20270
Your Senators, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.  20510
Your Congressperson, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington,
D.C.  20515
        We would like to distribute this letter more widely.
Please send donations to help defray costs to: Alliance for
a Paving Moratorium, P.O. Box 4347, Arcata, CA 95521.
        We urge you to recruit the members of any group you're in
to write letters, too.  Have a letter-writing party!  A sample
letter is included to help you along.  Please also consider writing
letters to the editor, a guest editorial for your local paper, or
an article in your group's publication.  If you need additional
information, please contact me by electronic mail at
[e-mail], or phone [phone], or call Jan
Lundberg at APM's main office, [phone].  Thanks and good
luck!

Sincerely,


Katie Scarborough
Network Director


***SAMPLE LETTER***


President-Elect Bill Clinton
P.O. Box 615
Little Rock, Arkansas 72203

Dear President-Elect Clinton:

        I'm excited about your proposals to create jobs that are
good for the environment, but need some reassurance about your
plans to fund road and bridge projects.
        I'd very much like your presidency to succeed, but am
concerned that if you pour federal money into building new roads,
it could be a dead-end for our economy and our environment.
        We do need to repair certain essential roads, and this will
create jobs.  In fact, maintaining roads creates more jobs than
building new ones.  But we can generate even more jobs, and
environmentally beneficial jobs, if we direct money to constructing
infrastructure for an environmentally kinder transportation system.
        We need to shift U.S. transportation away from automobiles
and toward an integrated system emphasizing rail transit, bicycles
and pedestrian facilities.  We can do this with a moratorium on new
roads and parking lots, and with funding of economic alternatives.
At the federal level, no additional federal funds should go into
the National Highway System.  Instead, let's improve transportation
by fully funding the Congestion Mitigation Program and
Transportation Enhancements portions of the Intermodal Surface
Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA).
        There are plenty of economic and environmental arguments
for doing this.  For example:

Studies show that rail construction creates more jobs per unit of
investment than road building.
Construction of rail is more cost-effective than freeway
construction.
Electric rail can ultimately run on solar photovoltaic
electricity, generating no pollutants in operation.

        Construction of new roads, on the other hand, will only
perpetuate dependence on an environmentally damaging transportation
system.  New roads encourage urban sprawl and destroy farmland,
wetlands, forest areas and other wildlife habitat.  New roads
encourage more car use; motor vehicles contribute more to global
warming and air pollution than any other single source in the U.S.
Approximately 47,000 people die each year on U.S. roads; even more
are injured or disabled.  We need safer, cleaner transportation
alternatives, not more roads.
        One more thing I'd like to mention:  Creation of car-free
pedestrian zones in city centers can revitalize urban economies,
especially in conjunction with bicycle facilities and good transit.
Instead of building roads for cars, we can encourage community
self-sufficiency by building transit, bicycle facilities and
pathways for pedestrians.
        I hope you'll consider these ideas as you shape your new
administration.  Please respond; I hope you can reassure me that
new road construction will not be part of your agenda, but that
you'll propose infrastructure rebuilding which is truly
environmentally and economically sound.

Sincerely,


Katie Scarborough


                            THE PROBLEM WITH PAVING
                    An Economic and Environmental Dead-End
                            Fact Sheet #1 from the
                       Alliance for a Paving Moratorium

>>>  The United States spends nearly $200,000,000 PER DAY building
and rebuilding roads, in spite of predictions that congestion and
delays will only get worse.  Total costs to repair existing poor
roads would total over $400 billion.

>>>  The U.S. General Accounting Office predicts that this
country's road congestion will triple in 15 years even if capacity
is increased by 20 percent -- and even that goal is unlikely to be
achieved.

>>>  More roads lengthen our domestic oil supply lines.  Subsidies
and pressure for more oil, at great cost in Persian Gulf conflicts,
keeps oil prices artificially low; gasoline taxes should be over
$4/gallon, not including environmental costs.

>>>  Driving delays are expected to waste 7.3 billion gallons of
fuel per year over the next two decades, increasing travelers'
costs by $41,000,000,000, and add 73 million tons of carbon dioxide
to the atmosphere.

>>>  The U.S. spends over $300 billion per year to subsidize roads
and cars.  This plus the additional $125 billion for new or wider
roads that may flow from recent legislation will waste resources
and lives while undercutting lesser-polluting, less lethal
sustainable alternatives.

>>>  Approximately 47,000 people are killed each year on U.S.
roads, the same number that died in the entire Vietnam War.  Thirty
thousand additional deaths per year are caused by motor vehicle
emissions.

>>>  Death rates for motor vehicle travel are about ten times
higher than any other form of transportation, including air and
rail.

>>>  Pavement now covers over 60,000 square miles in the U.S. -- 2
percent of the total surface area, and 10 percent of all arable
land.

>>>  Roads and parking lots generate poison runoff which degrades
bodies of water important to humans and countless other species.

>>>  An average of 1.5 million acres of farmland is lost to
suburban sprawl each year, encouraged by road-building and car
travel.

>>>  Suburban sprawl results in higher infrastructure costs as
budget-stressed local governments must provide services -- not only
roads but also sewers, water pipes, and utility lines -- to larger
geographic areas.  Taxes are forced up as a result of such growth,
putting economic pressure particularly on fixed-income residents
and often forcing them to move.

>>>  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, six of
the seven chief air pollutants come from automobiles.

>>>  Automobile exhaust damages crops.  One study estimated yield
losses due to photochemical smog at 1.9 to 4.5 billion dollars per
year for four important cash crops in the United States: corn,
wheat, soybeans and peanuts.

>>>  Motor-vehicle generated ozone costs us an estimated $9 billion
per year in health costs, lost labor hours and reduced agricultural
revenues.

>>>  According to the World Resources Institute, the various types
of damage from motor vehicle air pollution may cost as much as $200
billion per year.

>>>  Motor vehicles are the biggest single source of atmospheric
pollution worldwide.  Automotive fuels account for 17% of global
carbon dioxide releases, 2/3 as much as rainforest destruction.
Motor vehicle air conditioners in the U.S. are the world's single
largest source of CFC leakage into the atmosphere, and subsequent
destruction of the ozone layer.

>>>  The U.S. consumes 40% of the world's gasoline.  U.S. reserves
of oil will be depleted by 2020, and world reserves by 2040.  In
the next decade new U.S. oil will require more energy for
extraction than is obtained from the oil itself.


                            A POSITIVE ALTERNATIVE
                Environmental Restoration and Economic Revival
                            Fact Sheet #2 from the
                       Alliance for a Paving Moratorium

>>>  Oil's uses -- asphalt, tires and plastics -- go beyond fuel
requirements, so this dangerously strategic commodity can be
reduced in use across the board by halting new roads and paving.
Less asphalt production cuts refinery runs of all other toxic
petroleum products.

>>>  Rail system construction is less capital intensive, more labor
intensive and creates more jobs per unit of investment than road
building.

>>>  Only 63 lives have been lost in Amtrak accidents since 1971.

>>>  There are already 140,000 miles of existing railroad track in
the U.S.  Because a single track has the capacity of a 4-lane
freeway, this network's capacity far exceeds that of the existing
42,000 mile Interstate Highway System.

>>>  Car commuters use over 7,200 Btu/passenger mile; rail
commuters use as little as 1,146 Btu/passenger mile. Freight
carried by truck uses nearly 1,900 Btu/ton-mile; freight carried by
train uses less than 1/4 that amount -- 443 Btu/ton-mile.

>>>  One fully occupied train car can remove as many as 100
passenger cars from the road during rush hour.  While car traffic
accommodates about 750 passengers per meter-width of lane per hour,
surface rapid rail will carry 9,000.  In locations without rail
service, bicycles can carry 1,500 persons per meter-width of lane,
at least twice as many as cars.

>>>  Bicycles are a highly efficient alternative to cars.  Bicycles
require only 22 calories per passenger kilometer, compared to rail
at 549 calories per passenger kilometer and cars at a staggering
1,153 calories per passenger kilometer.

>>>  Electric rail emits the least reactive hydrocarbon and carbon
monoxide of any motorized transportation mode; solar electric rail
emits none (excluding production stage).

>>> Light rail is more cost-effective than freeway construction.
Estimates for urban freeway construction range as high as $1
billion per mile, while new light rail costs only $10 to $16
million per mile.

>>>  Light rail in cities competes favorably with the automobile in
terms of speed. One study of average transportation speeds in
cities worldwide found rail speeds averaging over 40 kilometers per
hour, compared to average car speeds of about 21 km/hour.

>>>  Use of rail encourages development to be more compact,
generally in nodes around rail stops.  This results in more
efficient land use, preservation of farmland, a more cost-effective
infrastructure, and conservation of energy.

>>>  Demand for space and real estate values tend to go up around
rail transit stops, for both residential and commercial
development.  Denser living saves energy and time while building
community involvement.

>>>  Studies show that banning cars from city centers and
increasing pedestrian access will increase business revenues.  This
is the trend in Europe today, where more efficient use of energy
clearly benefits economic health.

>>>  A 1990 USDA study for mitigating spotted-owl related job loss
showed that U.S. Forest Service roads present a great opportunity
for job-generating road closure.

>>>  A moratorium on new roads and parking lots can spark a
renaissance in our now-decaying towns and cities by redirecting
development and investment to existing urban centers.

>>>  A moratorium on paving will preserve biodiversity by halting
additional roads, development, clearcutting, and ensuing wildlife
habitat fragmentation and stream erosion.  A paving moratorium
would automatically preserve historic and sacred sites that might
be threatened by paving.

>>>  A paving moratorium will halt the spread of air and water
pollution.  The spread of human population would also be halted,