****SPAM**** Re: BIKE: How oil affects gasoline prices; CATCO "public" input and the CATCO lobby

[Roger Baker]

On Oct 7, 2004, at 11:25 AM, Mike Dahmus wrote:

> Roger said:
>
> "Mike Dahmus denied the oil production crisis a few years ago when I 
> was warning about it, more recently supported the toll roads, and now 
> opposes the passenger rail start, so I'll leave to your imagination my 
> regard for his opinion in such matters."
>
> OK, you jackass, you finally got me mad.
>
> 1. There STILL is no oil production crisis. This doesn't mean that 
> it's not on its way, just that your posts every couple of weeks about 
> it for the last decade or ten were premature and irritating, just like 
> you.

You don't really believe that do you?

I have known about the true seriousness of the oil production crisis 
since 1997, when I first learned of the impending threat of a world oil 
peak based on scientific evidence of geologists like colin Campbell, 
and I have been warning about it ever since, whereas the oil junkies 
have been in deep denial about the evidence related to their addiction. 
That is how the addictive syndrome works.

See the March 1998 Scientific American article "The End of Cheap Oil". 
This problem is now so serious that the oil price has soared about 60% 
in the last year and most airlines are no longer profitable (I expect 
our airport and convention center are also in trouble for the same 
reason). There is enough of an oil production crisis that the IMF is 
now warning that it represents a serious threat to the world economy. 
There is no relief in sight. The business media has awakened to the 
world oil production crisis in the last year, and a number of good 
books such as Heinberg's "The Party's Over" and Robert's "The End of 
Oil" and various excellent web sites have appeared like the "Oil 
Depletion Analysis Center" and the "Association for the Study of Peak 
Oil". There is an excellent video "the End of Suburbia" that explains 
the energy problem in detail and ties it very clearly to road policy 
and sprawl. Try this recent link:
http://tinyurl.com/63luw


>
> 2. I supported the toll roads because I'm not a complete moron like 
> yourself who thinks that the other alternative was "no roads". The 
> choice in the REAL world was between toll roads and more free roads IN 
> THE SAME PLACES. NONE of these toll roads weren't ALREADY in the CAMPO 
> plan. The ONLY DIFFERENCE is that suburbanites will have to pay direct 
> user fees when they use these roads instead of (more of) the cost 
> being pawned off on drivers and non-drivers in the center-city as is 
> the practice with free roads.

As I recently documented, Austin area drivers rank fourth in the world 
in terms of their per capita driving, even worse than Dallas, which is 
fifth in the world. (No wonder biking is so dangerous here). The closer 
you look, the more it appears that the real estate and road lobbies, 
with the encouragement of Rick Perry and TxDOT have gotten us caught up 
in an unsustainable pattern of building roads to serve low density 
sprawl development. It would be bad enough if they were urging us to 
perpetuate this problem with existing revenue, but the fact is that 
they are trying to maneuver us into perpetuating this sprawl pattern 
with an enormous scale of deficit spending on municipal revenue bonds 
to build billions of dollars worth of toll roads. Fortunately the 
public has now caught on to the sleazy politics promoting the toll 
roads, which amounts to bad public policy for about all Austin area 
residents except for sprawl land developers and road contractors. Try 
www.corridorwatch.org to see some of the sleazy politics promoting 
these toll roads statewide. It now looks like Perry's top-down support 
of toll roads as a near-universal solution to urban transportation 
problems will become a key issue in the Texas Governor's race.

Such roads by their nature oppose the goals of sane sustainable urban 
planning that Envision Central Texas has advocated, and to which the 
public responded by supporting this shift to compact city development. 
But that isn't what the road lobby wants. The fact that the road lobby 
has gotten the roads approved by CAMPO in its long range plan by no 
means indicates that approving and building the roads as fast as 
possible is good public policy. This is especially true if you have a 
bunch of New York bond house lawyers demanding that we facilitate 
enough new sprawl development as future policy to make sure they get 
all their money back.
I feel certain the toll road bonds will default, because of the end of 
cheap oil, long before the 30 and 40 year bonds are paid back.

>
> 3. I HEARTILY SUPPORT passenger rail. My experience IN THE REAL WORLD 
> with a system JUST LIKE the one being proposed by Capital Metro now 
> (South Florida's Tri-Rail) is that it's the stupidest possible way to 
> start a rail network, one that will likely destroy momentum for REAL 
> URBAN RAIL after its construction for 15 years as it did in South 
> Florida.
>
> In short: if you can't talk about me without lying your ass off, as 
> you did in #3 above, then shut the hell up.

The best reason to support this small regional rail start is that it is 
probably our ONLY chance to get any kind of rail start in the immediate 
future, and maybe forever.  The road lobby and real estate lobby wanted 
roads and they worked behind the scenes with Rep Mike Krusee to kill a 
second vote on the comprehensive light rail that got narrowly voted 
down a few years ago.  That is the real reason why we won't get to vote 
again on a really good light rail system like the one that got turned 
down. Given the politics involved, its a choice between voting for that 
one little rail line or nothing. As the severity of the world energy 
crisis becomes more apparent over the next several years (not five or 
ten or twenty), I expect that public opinion will shift strongly in 
favor of rail and the wisdom of supporting this modest start will 
become apparent, even to you.


>
> Regards,
> Mike Dahmus
>
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