BIKE: These guys are really in charge of planning our transpo future?

[Roger Baker]

Besides the stuff below (that I spent too much time on), I went to the 
Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority meeting Wed. and taped the 
following priceless quote by CTRMA board member Lowell Lieberman: "If 
you can't have a toothache, you might as well have a public hearing."  
-- Roger Baker

               ********************************************


CAMPO and CTRMA officials on energy price implications for toll roads

[The following is based on a reasonably accurate transcript of a taped 
meeting titled “Austin Transportation Panel Program by the League of 
Women Voters -- Austin Area”, held at the main meeting room of the 
LCRA, Sept 21, 2004.
[Plus comments and documentation by Roger Baker in bold and in brackets]

CAMPO Director Michael Aulick on oil shortages:

Aulick: “We’ve been at CAMPO discussing that at every meeting -- uh, 
oil shortages -- and when oil production will peak throughout the world 
-- and there’s been a lot written -- as a matter of fact in the Austin 
American Statesman business section on Sunday, about when oil will 
peak. I think you’ve got a lot of things going on; you’ve got a  short 
term disruption which is causing petroleum prices and gasoline prices 
to go up. In the long term, petroleum’s not going to last forever and 
the question is how will we satisfy our need to travel in a personal 
vehicle. Actually the price of gasoline has not kept up with inflation. 
If gasoline had kept up with the price of inflation since 1980 it would 
be three dollars a gallon or more right now so we’ve really had it 
pretty easy. I turns out that its inexpensive gasoline although it 
doesn’t seem that way...”

[Quite true that there was a period when oil was comparatively more 
expensive, but the obvious consequence of twenty four years of cheap 
oil since then is -- that we’ve become highly dependant on oil being 
cheap forever or we’re in big trouble. The Austin area has been 
spending hundreds of millions on oil-addictive  infrastructure serving 
sprawl development since the 1980’s, but during this time the problems 
of congestion and road financing have gotten steadily worse. So now 
that these two problems have gotten really bad, we propose to add a 
third problem of high fuel prices, while assuming that business can 
continue as usual. Thats juggling too many balls at once. To make the 
situation even more precarious, CAMPO is proposing to do all this by 
issuing a massive amount of Wall Street debt for new (and newly tolled) 
roads.]

Aulick: “I was telling my wife that the reason it seems like gas is so 
expensive is that the numbers at the gas station are very big numbers 
so it seems like its really  big although its 30 or 50 cents more a 
tank.  I think that for a Metropolitan Planning Organization we have to 
track whats happening with world oil production. Its not just us. I 
think its too early for us to give up on personal vehicles because of 
what may happen in terms of oil production. The other thing is that I 
don’t think the demand for travel is very elastic relative to gasoline 
prices. I think gasoline prices can go up quite a bit before you see 
people travel less at least in terms of their commutes with the region 
-- maybe vacations. But, and again, thats why you’ve have a multimodal 
system -- a transit system thats there, a bicycle system that there, 
HOV lanes for carpools, so you have a flexibility to account for 
whatever changes in petroleum are met.”

[This claim that CAMPO is tracking world oil production is false. The 
only evidence that future oil price concerns are being considered at 
all by CAMPO is the following passage from CAMPO’s Draft 2030 Mobility 
Plan, page 61.  The World Business Council for Sustainable development 
cited as a CAMPO source is a world business lobby for giant 
corporations, including US oil and car companies:

"Fuel Supply and Mobility  Currently, fuels derived from petroleum 
account for for over 96% of the energy used for transportation 
worldwide. While theories about when we will run out of oil vary, there 
is agreement on the fact that our rising demand for crude oil cannot be 
satisfied indefinitely. A decrease in petroleum availability could 
affect future travel behavior by encouraging a shift to to alternative 
modes of transportation; however any future gas shortage will also 
likely encourage a shift to personal vehicles that rely on alternative 
fuels, including natural gas, hydrogen fuel cells, and gas electric 
hybrid engines. 17

17 Mobility 2001. World Business Council for Sustainable Development. 
http://www.wbcsdmobility.org"

CAMPO has no model or scientific estimate of how soaring fuel prices 
would affect car travel demand and toll revenues.  To merely state an 
opinion that travel demand is not very elastic with fuel prices is to 
justify an unquantified no-impact position. Our local bond credit 
rating and billions of dollars in borrowed investor money are at stake, 
based on the accuracy of that assumption. There appears to be no CAMPO 
committment to travel demand modeling for transportation alternatives 
other than the current proportion of cars and trucks on roads, as the 
following passage quite clearly indicates;

“The 2030 model run assumes that future travel behavior will be  
similar to travel behavior in the base year. “(CAMPO 2030 Mobility 
Plan, page 167).

CAMPO does not consider the price of oil in any of their transportation 
planning or modeling, despite the fact that a number groups and 
individuals (such as R. Baker and R. Kallerman of the Sierra Club) have 
been pointing out this important CAMPO planning omission for years.]

CTRMA director Mike Heilingenstein on oil shortage:

Heiligenstein: “I don’t know what to add to that -- other than I got 
some information not long ago from the Bureau of Economic Geology at 
the University of Texas and they do show over the next thirty years, 
obviously, that there’s a downturn in terms of petroleum but there’s no 
downturn in the use of personal automobiles because by that time you 
will HAVE other substitute fuels provided to you, so you’re still going 
to be going to work, you’re still be going to day care, you’re still be 
going to school --everything you’re doing today. Hopefully you’ll be 
doing it more efficiently, but still the basic travel modes are still 
there and also that raises a sensitivity analysis that is done for the 
price per gallon of gas for every toll road in the United States thats 
funded and by the bond rating agencies in the bond market. The bonding 
agencies are cognizant of that and they require a sensitivity analysis 
on those prices. “

[This amounts to faith-based optimism in favor of the status quo, 
apparently based on only one geologist’s opinion (I’ve heard it is 
William Fisher with the UT Geology Dept.) -- whereas a growing 
consensus of geologists and business publications are warning of a 
world peak in petroleum within five years (google ODAC and/or ASPO). 
The huge worldwide oil price increase over the last year is proof that 
world oil demand is outstripping world oil supply. The doubts about 
future petroleum cost are now so recurrent that the Wall Street Journal 
recently had a front page article on that topic; 9/21/04. There are no 
substitute fuels on the horizon that can come close to matching the 
cheapness and high stored energy content of petroleum. Hybrid cars and 
small cars are about all we have as an alternative, and they only burn 
gasoline or diesel fuel. That is why the bond consultant for the CTTP 
toll road bond package "official statement" specifically cautioned that 
the 30-40 year municipal revenue bonds on these roads would be good 
risks -- if and only if the future price of fuel were to remain below 
$2.50 a gallon in current dollars. This includes all future gas tax 
increases, during the entire future debt repayment period of these toll 
road bonds. The same bond soundness analysis says that current Central 
Texas travel modes must also be assumed not to change during the same 
period.]

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