Raise the Hammer

Makes a lot of sense although I don't believe peak oil and the devastating consequences described by its followers are imminent. The burbs are here to stay either way and urbanists need to learn to interact with suburbanists and see whats good for one at the expense of the other is good for nobody

Comment edited by turbo on 2010-11-02 07:46:48

Interesting read, good ideas. (And I like the term "pathologically hopeful.") I've often championed the need for service expansion on the mountain and into the suburbs. Transit advocates tend to be relatively urban creatures, but it seems to me that the chicken-egg dilemma of support for transit is not likely going to be solved because of suburban petitions. While it's true that there's room for improvement in transit everywhere, it is also true that in Hamilton, the HSR's current reality possibly contributes to its limited success.

You describe a 41-minute bus ride to Ancaster as being relatively convenient. I suppose that is true if you compare it to an 80-minute Toronto commute, but not if you live off the 5C line (or have access to a car (15 min), at which point your total travel time might be equal to the route's half-hour scheduling). It's a forgiving yardstick, too: The Meadowlands is about 10km from Strathcona, while Union Station is around 60km distant – one would hope that you could get to Ancaster in half that time. Seasoned commuters, of course, don't need as much converting (though some look down their noses at bumpy, over-stuffed and decidedly un-plush city buses), but to someone who has spent most of their adult life going wherever they wish they wish whenever they wish, the circumscribed freedoms of public transit may only ever hold so much appeal.

The ideological plasticity of users might also be something of a geographically relative proposition. Have you ever wondered why last week's poll map of Toronto was the shape that it was?

http://torontoist.com/2010/10/which_wards_voted_for_who_for_mayor.php#colourblind

In Hamilton's case, the connections are just as important, especially when it comes to fostering attitudinal change. Brenda Johnson's Ward 11 upset of Dave Mitchell was cause for elation, but the fact remains that she can either drive for half an hour to City Hall or drive five minutes to the start of an hour-long, two-bus commute.

The other upshot of "re-imagining suburbia" is that it has the effect of making peripheral places more well-rounded, more self-sufficient and arguably less connected to the old city. Go scout a model home in Glanbrook, for example, and think about the circumference of daily life for area homeowners, and the political priorities that accompany.

turbo - not believing in peak oil is like not believing in evolution. they're both facts whether you choose to believe in them or not.

This article makes me wonder about what is going to happen to the old Stoney Creek Dairy. It is a relatively small manufacturing facility surrounded by 1950's housing stock. I've heard rumour that it is for sale and may be re-zoned and converted to condos. If we apply the logic presented in this article should the city resist residential zoning and keep it as a manufacturing facility or should it embrace the re-zoning and increase the population density of the neighborhood? I'd like to hear any opinions on this.

I was recently given the opportunity to work for my employer at a new location on the South-West mountain. As a current South-East mountain resident I was dumbfounded to find that my transit time would go UP moving laterally across the mountain. My current commute is a mountain bus to Gore Park to transfer to the 10/5x transit on Main Street. Lateral movement "up top" on the mountain is limited to the Mohawk and Stone Church buses that have terrible frequency. I propose a LINC/RHCE express bus with connections to 2x buses. You could get from McMaster to Eastgate in under 45mins I'd imagine.

However I'm just going to move back downtown again instead.

I find that trans-mountain service is vexing. And in cases where you're trying to make a tightly timed transfer, it can be even worse. Especially on weekends, when missing a connection can mean waiting for 59 minutes to continue your journey.

Hamilton is 2 cities duct-taped together. The lower city is an old-fashioned post-industrial city. The mountain city is another Burlington/Oakville/Mississauga bedroom community, with Concession Street functioning as its dead Downtown, long-since replaced by the Medowlands and Lime Ridge Mall.

none of these bedroom communities have any use or interest in expanding their bus ridership, until the situation becomes unbearable. If you expand the service, you'll just get more empty busses - people move there because they are committed to car culture. And any bus service there is going to be inextricably worse than the already-mediocre Downtown experience, trying to sell to people who don't see any magical higher worth in bussing - they see it as an alternative to their car that they already need to commute to Oakville, one that really doesn't look very good. The only people who bus in a bedroom community are students, die-hard advocates, and people who can't drive. Those numbers won't change until the car is no longer an option.

Oh, and Jason, the Meadowlands is a bad example because it's beyond the west end of the east-west corridor so the normal frustrations of north/south movement are gone - the 5C was just extended into Ancaster.

Something simpler, like going to Westmount Secondary School (where my wife works) - a city-wide system school and not a community school and thus students are expected to get there by bus.

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2010-11-02 12:20:28

Ryan I agree that the consequences of Peak Oil whenever it may happen is open for debate. I believe we are well on the road to preparing for its consequences technologically and that many of the fears are extremely overstated. Its not that I don't believe it won't happen its that I believe we are extending the date with new technologies and that in the time we have there will be solutions found that don't involve the dismantling of the present economic model

Pxtl - your point about the 5c is well taken (as is Mogadon's) - I entered My home, and Westmount Secondary into Google's trip planner (because HSR's wouldn't load), and it took me there in 50 minutes by bus. In terms of my usual commute, again it's a shorter time, but on a much less pleasant vehicle (say what you will, but I will take a trip on a GO coach with armrests/reclining seats/air vent over an HSR bus any day). The challenge, which relates directly to Mogadon's point, is that it's 3.5 km or so, using my rough estimate off the google map. Granted that 50 minutes includes a 5-10 minute walk on either end, but I know back when I was in top 'hiking' form, I could have handled 3.5 km and the elevation involved in just under an hour. I wouldn't want to try it now, and I certainly wouldn't want to do it every day - but the idea is that Transit should probably be faster than walking.

I don't believe this is a 'if they build it, they will come' scenario, but rather an "I will take local transit when economic realities pry my steering wheel out of my cold dead hands" scenario. Those economic realities may be well on their way.

I appreciate Turbo's hopefullness about technological solutions, and we will once again have to agree to disagree (respectfully) on that point. I'm concerned about oil supplies not just in terms of what will happen with the absolute volume of oil in the ground, but with things like geopolitical instability and sovereign debt collapse which (fingers crossed that they don't) may just precede any opportunity to develop technological adaptions.

We've used petrochemical fuels for over a hundred years because the alternatives aren't as good. The magical technological solution will be inferior, or we'd already be using it. Now, inferior is different from non-existent - but a $50,000 electric car running on expensive green energy is not going to be in everybody's garage.

Good post Jason. I have no problems with your concerns as I share them. I am much more optimistic than you but it would be a boring world with no progress if everyone thought the same way. Ryan , I'm not sure that we need to decrease production for a while yet. There are plenty of untapped reserves that we are presently loathe to exploit that will come on stream when cheap easy oil really does become scarce.

Comment edited by turbo on 2010-11-02 15:42:05

@turbo

Which is why Peak Oil is not going to be a sudden, abrupt downfall into anarchy. Just a steady, inexorable climb of oil prices. The places we're not harvesting from yet are more expensive.

@Capitalist

Mock all you want, but you can tell that the business world quietly believes peak oil is coming. Oil commodities keep bubbling and bursting as the market keeps expecting the next rise to be the one that never comes down. Nobody is building refineries, despite claims of a terrible shortage in refining capacity - either the richest companies in the world suddenly forgot about supply in demand, or they're not expecting this shortage in refining capacity to last that long.

No problem PX. More expensive oil will only bring down the costs of alternative power as it becomes more commonly used and that $50,000 electric car will become that $30,000 electric car. The world isn't falling apart nor is it likely to for a while. The more troubling problem is the US debt load that they don't seem to be able to get under control. Its unregulated business and massive military spending that I fear will cause the collapse of the US economy much like the collapse of the Soviet economy in the Regan years more than anything else that I think will cause a global economic collapse

Comment edited by turbo on 2010-11-02 16:05:34

The problem Ryan is that oil production has remained steady because demand has remained steady. IMO we haven't seen Peak Oil at all let alone for 6 years. I know you disagree but the rules of supply and demand are whats driving production. Simply put there is more money to be made by restricting supply and OPEC has been successful at doing that for years

We'l never agree that there isn't a supply larger than today's production. I really believe you are misinterpreting data. BTW the big recession had little to do with oil, it was a banking system collapse that was caused by poor practice. The oil price declined because of the demand decreasing due to the bank failures, not because the price was inherently too high to sustain under the conditions before the banking system collapse

Comment edited by turbo on 2010-11-03 11:26:46

Ryan, please don't waste any more time on this tedious troll. You're only encouraging him.

I am not a troll. I'm engaging in a debate. You know, where 2 people take different points of view and discuss the merits of their positions. Ryan understands the concept, apparently you don't or you aren't interested in hearing a point of view that you don't share

Comment edited by turbo on 2010-11-03 13:12:15

Ryan, you have been ranting about "peak oil" for a while now yet the sky hasn't fallen.

Just when is peak oil supposed to hit? I would like to buy some oil company shares and make a killing on the deal when prices skyrocket.

You work in the financial sector right?

Do you understand this?

Comment edited by jonathan dalton on 2010-11-04 11:17:50

This is the place where an honest, sincere skeptic would admit, "Wow, you're probably right about peak oil."

I'm not holding my breath.

Demand went down so production went down. The numbers bear that out. This skeptic has seen all of this rehashed a hundred different ways and it all boils down to the same thing. Laws of supply and demand are driven by the demand side not the supply side since 2008. In 2007 you might have an argument but in the 25 year proceding 2007 and the 2 year period after its strictly demand driven. What we have is a one year blip

Comment edited by turbo on 2010-11-04 13:51:38

The real problem with "suburbia" is that it's an environment of enforced sterility. Single use (housing) with huge tracts of nearly identical single family homes, and a huge number of rules and regulations preventing anything "abnormal" from going on. The worse the fuel situation gets, the more we're going to see suburbs in crisis, and the natural response (especially with all those empty garages) will be to diversify. Apartments, small businesses, workshops, farms, restaurants - if suburbs are going to be a place worth living, we must be allowed to do so there.

Suburbs are actually quite a common historical phenomena. What's not so common is the North American trend where the wealthiest live there. In most other conditions (Europe, Asia, South America, Africa etc) suburbs often blend with slums. But the reason so many historical suburbs become thriving and famous neighbourhoods (ie: Monmartre in Paris) is because the people who lived there were allowed the freedom to do things not allowed in the wealthier urban centres (like the Moulin Rouge).

Comment edited by turbo on 2010-11-04 21:21:19

Ahem, as I was saying.

I've often wonder why I end up living in the suburbs so often. The only answers that come to mind are:
1) I like really big trees! :)
2) I do not enjoy living cheek by jowl with neighbours.

I do not enjoy feeling that I have to tippy toe around, shut all noise making devices down @ 11 p.m.& that 'divorced from reality' feeling that comes from living on the 15th. floor. Yes you can leave your heating off until December because of the bee hive factor of a high rise, but if the elevators, power, or the water shuts down..then what?

I have lived in all 3 environs, & the Burbs seem to be the compromise that I take every time, even though I'm completely unsuited to suburban life & the blandness, sterility, & conformity that dwells there along side those trees. I miss having a Public Transit system that Works more than you can imagine!(Even more so, I miss the notion that 'We really ought to have one'.)
I miss seeing people wearing saris, colourful African clothing, & openly declaring who they are & where they came from. The Gap should not be our national uniform.

I am not ambitious, young, or energetic enough to try rural life again. (I don't think-?) It also has the component of 'required sameness' in some places, & requires a bigger carbon footprint to even get out of your driveway in the Winter. No public transit to speak of, & you drive everywhere to get everything except the food you have grown & stored yourself.
But I Do absolutely love the idea of waking up again to see a garden, of flowers & food, & nothing going on to disturb the quiet, unless I chose to crank up the stereo a bit. I like walking down to the mail box with my dog or cat off leash, without anybody having a raging hairy fit about a harmless animal.

The idea of moving into the City is tempting, esp. as you get older. Public transit, stores close at hand, a public library near. But there is always to possibility of moving next door to an alki wife beater, a crack house, or something worse that is totally legal & out of your control. (Been there.. had that happen. The wife beater moved in after we did.)

It probably makes a lot of Green Sense to put everyone in an high rise apartment, low rise, the Too Many Rules Condo Project, or row housing, but will they enjoy it & isn't that the whole point? More to the point, if they are not in a rent controlled building, will they be able to stay there? Who is building geared to income housing these days? Nobody.

I'm also worried about the growing crisis over the availability of rare earth minerals. There goes a sizable part of civilization as we know it & it will inevitably lead to much greater use of fossil based fuels, if it happens.

Maybe this will help solve the argument...

Jeff Rubin is the former Chief Economist for CIBC and has written a book on how the price of oil will be going up drastically very soon...

Comment edited by newsteve on 2010-11-06 18:57:36

Electric cars may be affordable for everyone in the near future, but if everyone had one we'd have rolling brownouts all the time. I suppose we could build another nuclear plant, but those take over 10 years to get constructed and up and running. An easier solution would be for people to live closer to where they work. I predict that in about 10 years after the economy recovers and we have a surplus of jobs, we'll have companies building "satellite" locations in suburbia.

re Burbs: Fear not, the wrecking ball cometh and will do the same job it has always done - demolishing perfectly good stuff to make way for denser living according to higher land values dictated by higher fuel prices. I mourn for the severe downgrading of the resultant waste that was so recently some fools's pride and joy. The signs have been around for a long time for anyone to see but fools are still disbelieving and buying. Sigh. Really though, the process is never ending - going from single family to basement apartment to duplex/triplex torn down to put up new condos and eventually high rises/ office towers. In the meantime, the economy is forcing people to double up, reversing a decades long downtrend in people per household metric. This more than anything else may be the doom of surburbia. Immigration is the only solution to this one.

re peak oil: Ryan: To my eye, looking at your graph, we have not yet reached peak oil - best fit straight line would still be trending slightly up, not flat at least post 2006 or so. Your elastic and inelastic curves are valid at every point on the curve ie. was true in 1920 (or any other year) at lower levels. It just shows the price of trying to expanding the supply at any given time and says nothing about future times.

But Turbo did not win the argument although he came close to the truth in bringing the economy into the picture. Both parties are confused. To my eye, looking at Ryan's chart, the price of oil has fallen sine 2006 , drastically, in real terms, after accounting for real inflation, not the bogus numbers fed us by media shills. I believe this will soon reverse - but not because of peak oil. We are in the beginning phase of the next shift. As you see the price number change, one should not think oil is going up, but rather fiat dollars are becoming worth less - worthless?? Our ability to afford oil is diminishing and China's is increasing. And we still want their stuff!!! I watched this play out with the Japanese for decades with lots of jawboning but no real solution. So Turbo will experience the effect as if it were peak oil, even if it is not peak oil. Yet.

While some comments posit that energy saving will compensate for price rises, I don't believe they will compensate for price rises PLUS billions of new consumers who want to live just like we do. Oil may not peak just yet because more people are looking more desperately but unless we discover a way to mine the stuff more efficiently that poking straws in the ground, peak oil will come. (something like 2/3 of the oil is left behind.) To prove this, Ryan, you may want to show a chart or two of the energy cost of energy. I think it was the Chris Martenson site had some good stuff on this but i ran out of time for this post.

Jason: I checked out your blog and noticed that if one does not have a blogger or similar account then one is not allowed to comment?? I thought i'd mention this in case it was not your intention.

A familiar complaint around vehicle capacity and transit options: http://www.thespec.com/opinion/letters/article/274135--if-the-buses-aren-t-still-running-or-full-what-can-we-do

Bob - that is not my intention. I'll fix that this week. Thanks for your comments.

And production has been increasing ever since the dip that resulted after the spike. The fact is that we have not hit peak production. That blip was exactly that an abnormal blip caused by Big Oil taking advantage. The fact is I believe your theories are pure bunk. I've been around too long to fall for it. I'm with you Bobinnes

Comment edited by turbo on 2010-11-08 16:19:07

A peak in 2005/2006 is fairly debatable, but dramatically rising demand for oil over the last decade? That's a little harder. It goes along with all the data we've got in terms of economics or engineering. Not that you "can't" question it, but it's gonna take some pretty impressive data to convince most of us.

Even after the economic crash, oil prices have come nowhere near settling back into their historic lows, and are now now once again rising. How exactly do price and production rise so much without rising demand? Populations are growing, economies are growing, and things really aren't getting much more fuel efficient (at least, not enough to compensate for China). The recession may have set all forms of demand back temporarily, but not in any kind of sustainable way.

I don't actually believe that production CAN'T rise after a "peak", and I don't think that was Hubbert's intention. If everyone went out and started digging six days a week, it would certainly be doable. The point is that the price will go up exponentially. Ten or twenty years ago, a price increase of even a few dollars per barrel brought a massive influx of new oil - today an extra $50/barrel hasn't. Given that we're still around four times the price that oil was a decade ago, despite the worst recession since the 1930s, I'd say that the numbers fit pretty well.