The sweet sound of silence

Ah the weekend.  The chirping of birds, the sounds of leaves rustling in the wind and the gradual revving of engines up and down as bikes race around the track over at Clearwater. 

Continuing my quest to find solutions to the issues of living in St. David's brings me to those beloved racing bikes that disturb the tranquil peacefulness of the East End each weekend and the oft evening. 

Could such issues be solved in a similar way to how foreign cities have addressed the issues of highway noise through the installation of sound barriers? 

St. David's evening express

On Tuesday I wrote about a few of the issues St. David's has had to deal with.  Among them I voiced frustration with how St. David's has been handled both in recent years as well as the more distant past.  Even the Premier agrees that St. David's won't be an easy win which is primarily due to the fact that our needs haven't been satisfied.  As I don't wish to be someone who only complains and offer's no solutions, I've decided to elaborate on what could be done to make things better.

One of the things I mentioned is that bus service is inadequate.  While we have morning express runs, we're short on reasonable evening options.  Could the #3 route be extended later in the evening to match it's morning service so that St. David's gets better evening service?

Over the last couple days I've had the opportunity to catch the bus into town in the morning and get more familiar with St. David's bus service.  

From the two experiences I had,  St. David's has respectable morning service.  At 6:40am and 7:40am, the morning two routes terminate in Hamilton as they inherit the service along the number 3 line and run out to Bermudiana road.   My two experiences were on the 6:40am run which was full enough to fill the seats but not so full as anyone was left without one.  It is a quiet and somewhat pleasant ride where I've had the opportunity to get in some reading on the ride to work and still managed to turn up for an early morning meeting with time to spare.

While the I enjoyed the morning service, I was unable to find an evening service that meets my needs.  The only evening service that I found was on Route 11, Hamilton - St. Georges which offered a 5:25pm to St. David's.  Seeing as I usually work until at least 5:30pm, this proved inadequate.

What makes this especially inadequate is that the last run into  St. David's is at about 6:30pm or thereabouts for all routes.  This means that if you don't catch a 5:30pm bus, it is likely you'll be stuck at the number 1 gate.  So if you're like me and you regularly work till about 5:30pm, you're pretty much stuck without service to St. David's, as it's near impossible to leave work and get to a bus on time.

It doesn't make a great deal of sense to offer a morning express via the #3 route while not offering it in the evening.  Could the #3 route be extended to run leaving Hamilton at 5:45pm and 6:45pm to run direct to St. David's?  This would result in better evening service to St. David's and a better option for those who arrive at number one gate too late to catch the last route #6 service to St. David's.

"Oh, we don't serve St. David's"

For us St. David's folk, we're not important enough to deserve decent service when it comes to transportation.  Try taking a bus outside daytime hours and you'll quickly find that they stop at about 6pm.  Try taking a taxi, and they'll tell you they'll send one.  Two to three calls later and they tell you that they called a taxi in St. Georges who refuses to go to St. David's.

I have lost all respect for taxi drivers.  While some are friendly and nice, those who refuse a fare based upon discrimination against those who live in St. David's is ridiculous.  It happens far too often.

Electric scooters alone won't solve the problem

The Royal Gazette has an interesting article on the island's oil reliance due to the heavy rise in inflation, something I touched on only weeks ago.

The article focuses on things we can do to reduce our reliance on oil with one mention being acquiring an electric scooter.  Unfortunately while purchasing an electric scooter seems like a great idea, it really accomplishes little as long as the electricity to power it still needs to come from Belco which burns diesel fuel to generate it.  It does however identify the need for other means to reduce our consumtion through the encouragement of and elimination of duty for solar water heaters and solar panels, as suggested by local environmental group Greenrock.

There are many other things that could be undertaken to reduce our overall carbon impact along with our oil consumption.  As one example, government could be banning the importation of incandescent light bulbs.  According to a lab test conducted by Popular Mechanics, Compact Florescent Light bulbs "use about 70 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs."  Imagine what kind of impact such a ban would have on our overall electricity consumption.  Such bans have already taken place in Australia and California and is something I covered briefly back in February.

Individuals and even storeowners could be doing their part as well.  Each could also consider the acquisition of an eCube to reduce refrigerator consumption.  In a traditional refrigerator, whenever you open and close the fridge, the cool air in the fridge is released as warm air from the room rushes in.  This despite the fact that your items still such as your milk or beer still remain cold.  This is due to the temperature sensor in most fridges which measure air temperature as a means to decide when the fridge should be cooling or not.  When the door opens, the fridge thinks it needs to turn on and thus kicks in the condenser unit, often far more often than it truly should and especially in the case of stores.  The eCube acts to simulate the temperature of the stored products rather than the air around them and thus ensures that the fridge does not run unnecessarily and could serve as a great means to reduce refridgerator consumption.

Belco could be doing more of it's part as well.  The proposed underwater turbine is a good first step, but it's largely untested and unproven.  It also will only supply a small portion of the islands overall needs.  Another consideration would be to offer the ability for people with solar panels and other home oriented power sources to contribute excess electricity into the grid in times that their home consumption is low.

Belco could also be looking into other technologies besides the underwater turbine.  One thing that I'm keen on are algae bioreactors.  A company called GreenFuel technologies produces a bioreactor that works to extract carbon dioxide, a key contributor to global warming, from smokestacks and subsequently uses it to grow algae.  Algae can then be used to create biofuels such as biodiesel or hydrogen to power hydrogen fuel cells.  Rather than releasing carbon dioxide in the air from the Belco and Tynes bay smokestacks, we could be working with companies like GreenFuel to not only reduce our carbon impact but also produce fuel which can be used locally.  Further, we could be trying to invest in the development of algae (or seaweed) farming locally in order to boost our abilities to produce fuels locally and become more foreign oil independent. 

Another key step is that we could be looking to better utilize the ash created by the Tynes bay smokestacks.  Rather than sinking it into cement blocks, we could instead be using it as a fertilizer to improve our ability to create produce locally.  Ash when mixed with soil actually works as a great fertilizer and the ash produced from the incinerator could be investigated as a source.

There are a great many activities we could be undertaking to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and reduce our carbon footprint.  We simply need to start thinking out of the box and ensure that we have a government who is willing to put more emphasis on our future rather than only focusing on the past.

Never count on Bermuda taxis

The lesson of the day:  never count on Bermuda taxis.  While drivers are typically friendly and nice but when you need one they're usually not there. 

Today my sister ordered a taxi for a flight she needed to catch.  Surprise, it never showed up.  Due to this inconvenience, I had to manage trying to fit her stuff on a bike so I could give her a ride in which is quite ridiculous.  What ever happened to the grand GPS scheme that was supposed to fix all our problems?  Years on and here we are, same problems, same unreliable service and hundreds of thousands spent on a system that did not work.

Traffic solution: RFID based parking

Just over a year ago, back in March of 2006 I was asked by then Telecommunications Minister Michael Scott to develop a few ideas of how the Telecommunications Ministry could promote collaboration between Ministries to achieve larger solutions to some of the issues we face.  The following is an exerpt from the report I compiled and presented to him and the directors of his department.

Finding a parking space in town has become a horrendous nightmare. Trying to simply find a traffic spot is very difficult and even though we use scratch based systems, it does not solve our problems. It is commonplace where people will come early to get the best parking spots and spend a good deal of time during the day running back to their car to scratch new tickets to keep their spot.

The sheer cost lost in time for individuals willing to do this as well as the dedication of traffic officers to assign tickets costs our industry a great deal. On top of this we have difficulties chasing offenders to pay their parking fines and dedicate court time to forcing them to do so.

Perhaps a good solution would be to introduce an RFID (wireless identification transmitter) based system throughout town and migrate to designating certain specialized parking zones dedicated to supporting it. Such a solution may likely take the strain off of marking in town and allow us to change from our present scratch book and parking ticket based scheme to one that is more flexible. 

Through such a system we could digitally track how long people park in certain zones, we could create a scheme that encourages people to park for short durations but is flexible to still allow them to park for long duration as well. 

For example, key parking spots could start off at a rate of $1 per half hour and for every half hour you stay in the spot the price increases by say 25 cents (or some other reasonable number). I have given an example fee structure shown below.

 

Such a system would allow those who wish to pay more for great spots to pay a premium bringing in better direct revenue for government while encouraging others to park for short duration. It would remove the limitations of having to hand out parking tickets and those who sign up could be billed electronically with invoices being provided online as well as through mail to make collection easier.  It would eliminate the wasteful nature of hiring traffic officers and subsequently chasing parking offenders to pay their fines and appear in court.

Traffic Solutions: The Stockholm Trial Solution

The "Stockholm Trial" was a congestion tax introduced in Stockholm with a special stipulation, that being that the tax would only be a trial that would last for 6 months, at which point it would be revoked.  Following the completion of the trial, reports would be produced on it's impact and eventually a public vote (similar to a referendum) would be held to determine whether the tax should be permanently put in place or not.   Is this something we should try here?  Perhaps only being charged during specific hours, especially considering that RFID has already been suggested as an alternative to having Police Officers doing license plate spot checks.

A summary of facts released about the trial solution noted:

Public Transport and Park-and-Ride Sites

More people used public transport

• on weekdays between 06.30 hours and 18.30 hours traffic fell by approximately 22%
• over a 24-hour period vehicle passages into and out of the inner-city dropped by 19%
• approximately a 4% increase in the use of public transport

Park-and-ride sites

• approximately 23% more cars parked on park-and-ride sites every weekday

New Travel Habits

• a reduction in car use by 25%
• As many as 69% of the inner-city journeys were made by public transport, 26% were made by car.

The Environment and Urban Life

• a fall in emissions from road traffic by 8% to 14% in the inner-city.

Other environmental effects

• The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide has fallen by 40% in the inner-city and by 2-3% in Stockholm County.
• resulted in a reduction in the number of accidents involving personal injuries by 5–10% in the inner-city.

Retail, Business and the Economy

Retail little affected

• Analyses of turnover within the retail trade in the Stockholm region show that the Stockholm Trial only had a minor impact

More efficient transport

• Studies of companies within transport intensive trades such as taxis, courier services, and tradespeople show that in many cases they have been able to streamline their business as a result of improved accessibility.

Cost-benefit analysis

• If regarded only as a brief experiment, not to be resumed, the Stockholm Trial was a financial loss due to associated setup, investment and the operation of the congestion tax system over the 7 month trial.
• Social cost-benefits such as shorter journey times, improved traffic safety, and health and environmental effects
• The congestion tax levied is estimated to be SEK 763 million per annum, and running costs around SEK 200 million per annum. 
• The extended bus traffic is estimated to be unprofitable from a cost-benefit viewpoint, both during the Stockholm Trial and in any permanent charging scheme.

Traffic solutions: car-sharing

The Problem

We've got too much traffic on our roads and too many cars. 

Do I need a car?  Not always, but there are occasions when I do.   Having recently cut my car in half, I'm considering my options in terms of replacing it before the used-car law kicks in.  Considering that I can afford either a used or a new car and I find not having one quite a hassle for the times when you need it, I shall ultimately end up getting another one.   One more car off the road, and one more on.  Net change to the number of cars on the island?  Zero. 

It isn't right to force people to give up their cars when alternatives could be created that make people want to give up their cars.  Even still, is there a way that companies will best be able to satisfy the needs of their employees without discriminating against certain individuals such as single ex-pats, the commodity that international business most wants to attract.

What are the alternatives?  Are there better solutions?  How could we implement them and what difference would it make?

 

Current Alternatives

What are my alternatives?  Well, it is highly unlikely for me to take the bus.   They wouldn't like all my kitesurfing gear and the service doesn't run after 6:30 to St. David's anyway, which makes public transport pointless if you actually have a life. 

What about a taxi?  When it costs $20-30 to ride from Hamilton to St. David's, what would a trip out to Somerset cost?  $60?  Then back?  So we're looking at $120 a trip for something I try to do every weekend, some evenings and really any time there is wind.  That's a fair bit of cash to drop any time I want to go kitesurfing and when compared to the added luxury of having your own car is not an incentive to give up having a car.

 

A New Solution?

According to FlexCar, a for-profit car-sharing company based out of Portland, they have been able to succeed in getting 1400 people to share 40 cars.  That's 35 people for every car.  Compare that to Bermuda, which according to Bermuda-Online.org there are some 29,230 cars for our population of 65,773.  That means there are 2.25 people for every car. 

If we could achieve half of the success that FlexCar has had and get 700 people to share 20 cars.  Today, those 700 people with their own cars at 2.25 people per car equal some 311 cars.  Take out the 20 original cars and that's some 291 cars that have been eliminated off of the roads.  Compare this to ZipCar, whose 100,000 members share 3,000 cars.  35,000 more people than the number who reside on this island sharing 1/10th the number of cars.

Imagine, a variety of different styles of cars and trucks parked in various places around the island including grocery stores, bus stops and in and around town.  All you'd have to do is be a member, walk up to the car, wave a card and drive off.  Gas, reserved parking and insurance are all included and all you have to do is return the car to it's spot when you're done. 

Imagine if we could get 10,000 people to use such a program and get more than 4000 cars off our roads?  What would that do to traffic?

 

How to implement it?

1.  Conduct a survey

Put Research Innovations to work in polling the people to see how many people would consider a car-sharing scheme.  Do they have cars today?  How often would they use it?  Do they use public transport?  Would this increase interest in public transport? 

2.  Introduce legislation/licensing incentives

Make car-sharing legal and encourage insurance companies to back the scheme with adequate coverage. 

3.  Introduce personal incentives and disincentives.

 

Would you give up your car?

If today a car-sharing scheme existed in Bermuda, would you be willing to give up your car?  What would it take to convince you?  Do you think car-sharing would be a good solution to help address our traffic woes and encourage more people to consider public transport alternatives?

Archive Entry: Docking on familiar territory

Just looking through some old archives of ideas for articles that I had that I didn't end up following through with.  One that caught my attention was in respect to the docks in Hamilton.  Since it's winter, we've quickly forgotten about how each summer the docks become overwhelmed and it becomes horrendous to be able to get anything through.  I had taken a couple screenshots on google maps of Sir John's proposed move of the docks to the north side of town.  While I havn't gone anywhere with the concept in terms of a full piece, I thought I'd post the screenshots anyway and perhaps revisit it again later.

Our current docks:

Compared to... 

The wide open space above government house (sorry Mr. Governor, Bda might have to come first)

I really can't help but look at that and see it as a perfect spot to relocate our docks to.  I have little doubt that the issue will resurface and when it does, perhaps I'll retouch on this thought again

Hamilton Parking Suggestion

Is it possible to get RFID based payment for parking?  On one hand we've got scratch tickets, on the other we've got mounds of coins and neither are overly convienent if you find yourself short of either.  Take bulls head car park for example, $5 in dollars and quarters is alot of change.  It'd be easier if you could sign up for an "easypass" of some sort that tracks when you enter and exit and sends you a bill each month rather then constantly fumble for change.