State Treasurer candidate advocates free public transportation

...Public transportation should be fully funded by the state and federal governments. Debra Reiger, the Peace and Freedom Party's candidate for state treasurer, calls for free public transportation, not just for BART, but for all agencies in the state...

Mary McIlroy

El Cerrito

ContraCostaTimes

Transit advocate may run for mayor of Oakland

Kaplan, who is Oakland's first openly lesbian elected official, said that she would address "critical concerns" including more economic revitalization, local hire policies and livable communities.

A former AC Transit Board director, Kaplan touted her accomplishments as having updated city zoning regulations and obtaining funds to launch a free transit shuttle in downtown Oakland.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/13/BASI1CU9VI.DTL#ixzz0l5CcYZwU

http://www.rkaplan.org/bio.htm
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/92510/archives/2010/04/13/breaking-news-rebecca-kaplan-launches-mayoral-committee

Roseville - Ride free this week with your library card

Celebrate the contributions of our nation's libraries by participating in National Library Week, April 11-17, 2010. Library cardholders receive free trips on Roseville Transit Local Service during this week--just show your Roseville library card to the bus driver when boarding. This offer is not valid on Dial-A-Ride or Commuter Services.


Show your Roseville library card for other free benefits during April 11-17. Visit www.roseville.ca.us/nlw for details.

More freedom with free public transit

Some might argue that people choose to take public transportation, which means that they should pay for it. As someone who rode public transportation for a few years, I can attest to the fact that many people who ride public transportation represent groups that do not have access to cars. This is either due to the fact that they cannot drive, or they are not in an economic class that cannot handle the financial burden of a vehicle.

Overall, I think one can make a good argument that public transportation should be free. Granted, the cost has to be covered somewhere and ultimately the taxpayer will feel the cost, but in a free society it makes sense to give people access to geography. By making public transportation free, people can get around. The ability to travel is an important part of freedom. Todd Pheifer on Helium

Car beats marathon runners by six minutes!

I decided to see if I could drive the marathon course in my car — street for street, turn for turn — during weekday morning rush hour, in a time faster than elite runners could run it on race day. Abraham told me those runners will finish the course in about 2 hours 8 minutes and that he thought I didn't stand a chance, adding that organizers had considered minting a T-shirt that read: "It's faster to run it than drive it."


Challenge accepted.
LosAngelesTimes

Orlando Taylor -- Free Transit saves more than it costs

But more importantly, they said it doesn't cost anything, just get on the bus and ride. That seemed odd, because I live in Washington and nothing is free there, so it didn't make any sense to me. Then I later heard in the conversation and determined that the city of Portland understood that it was cheaper for them in the long run to provide free public transportation in the downtown area than to have all the carbons emitted from autos, for example, and that it was in their health interests and their economic interests to encourage people to ride a bus, not to mention the fact that they saved a lot of money. Cal State Fullerton

While states go broke -- $400 billion wasted on biofuel scam

...A recent report by Rice University (Texas) found that the U.S. spent US$4 billion on biofuel subsidies in 2008 to replace a mere two percent of the U.S. gasoline supply. It estimates that this costs taxpayers about US$82 per barrel, or US$1.95 a gallon more than the retail price of petroleum fuel. By 2022, U.S. biofuel subsidies will have totaled US$400 billion, according to environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth. The EU is no better, giving around €3.7 billion (US$5.2 billion) in biofuel subsidies in 2007, aiming to replace 5.75 percent of transport fuel by the end of 2010.

On top of wasted taxes and higher food prices, biofuels make little environmental sense.

Production in the U.S. and the EU can release more emissions than it avoids. Nobel-Prize-winning chemist, Paul J. Crutzen, estimates that:

“For rapeseed biodiesel, which accounts for about 80 percent of the biofuel production in Europe, the relative warming due to N2O [nitrous oxide] emissions is estimated at 1 to 1.7 times larger than the quasi-cooling effect due to saved fossil CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions. For corn bioethanol, dominant in the U.S., the figure is 0.9 to 1.5...."TheChinaPost