South Carolina Endorses Green Socialism

Back in 2007, Gov. Mark Sanford created the South Carolina Climate, Energy & Commerce Advisory Committee (CECAC). Today, it was announced that CECAC had produced it’s final paper on the results. And they are scary…

First, what I didn’t notice until now is the composition of the group. Take a look through the list. Notice anything? There’s lots of academics, industry leaders and special interest groups represented. But not a single “common man”. Nobody is there representing the people of South Carolina. Which makes the recommendations not that surprising.

Here’s the final report in all of it’s glory. Covering 600+ pages, I doubt that anyone is going to take the time to read through all of it’s heft, including the myriad of policy suggestions that the group is making. Here, I’m going to focus on the “cross-cutting” issues, because those are the policy ideas that are the most disturbing to me, and to anyone who values freedom of ideas.

Mostly this is on the basis of “education”. This is the FIRST paragraph on their education section:

A well-articulated, meaningful, broadly implemented and sustained educational process is the means to achieve effective and durable actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Much of
the response to climate change requires a disciplined alteration in lifestyle that shares many things in common with a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, people have to be motivated to attempt and succeed with basic changes in lifestyles. Individual responsibility, community action, conservation, and prevention are the principles upon which change of this magnitude is accomplished. It is no less than a shift in culture. The effort will benefit all aspects of society.

The educational process must define the basic aspects of climate change, including the evidence for cause-and-effect issues; it must specify the significance of climate change for the target audience and each individual; it must clarify and emphasize the role of the target audience and each of its members for a plan of action to mitigate and adapt to climate change; and it must relate the necessary changes in all aspects of people’s lives and their basic beliefs and values— e.g., health, environment, and economic viability.

Public education and outreach programs must build upon existing efforts and institutions, avoid unnecessary duplication, and promote best practices. The sustained success of policy actions recommended by the CECAC, as well as those that might evolve in the future, depends upon lifestyle changes resulting from education, experience, and practice. (All emphasis added)

This is a shocking amount of changing people that’s involved here. But that’s just the start of it. Here are some sections of the policy recommendations that should be, at the least worrisome for anyone who values academic freedom:

• Future generations—Integrate climate change and healthy lifestyle issues into educational
  curricula, post-secondary degree programs, and professional licensing. Emphasize the common basis and goals of response to climate change with protecting the environment and
  achieving optimum health for all people. Consider creating the South Carolina Health Corps, as outlined in Annex B of this document.

• What this means: Teachers will HAVE to follow the party line if they want to be certified as teacher. It will also mean that some climate change education may become required for graduation from HS or college, and this education will have an environmentalist bend to it. I’ll go into the Hitler Youth Health Corps further down.
• The coordinators for each of the target audiences should be credible with those audiences and have the ability to recruit and energize statewide networks of volunteers within each target audience. The state legislature should provide funding for the basic operations of the committee and the coordinators. Funding should be structured in such a way as to take maximum advantage of established mechanisms for education of each of the audiences.
• What this means: The idea is to get as many people “fired up” about climate change as possible. And it’s going to be paid for by your money, whether you like it or not.
• Level of Group Support: Unanimous
• What This Means: All of the people in the advisory panel approved of these measures. There was probably strong pressure to put out a united front (about 90% of these had unanimous approval). I don’t know how you get 20+ supposedly independent people together and get them to agree THIS MUCH on something as controversial as climate change/environmentalism. This goes to speak to the probability that the people put on the committee were selected more on ideological purity than representativeness.
• The state legislature should provide funding to support development and ongoing revision to the
  state Climate Change Adaptation Plan, including (but not limited to) funds to support the analyses needed to guide and inform the development and implementation of the plan and to cover expenses incurred by the Commission on Adaptation to Climate Change and its members.

• What This Means: A legislative blank check for the panel. Not surprising considering that this is coming from the group that would BENEFIT from the blank check.
• Add climate change to public education performance standards for science and social studies; identify gaps in climate change education and specific curricula to fill gaps. [From their notes] Someone has to be the initial teacher of the science of climate change. Integrate climate change and sustainability into core college curricula. (A more direct way of saying what I gleaned from above.)
• Introduce core competencies on climate change into professional licensing programs (energy efficiency in building design and construction, use of recycled materials, etc.).
• What This Means: Now even your plumber has to know the party line on climate change.
• Identify individual community leaders who are not yet acting on climate change, and make a special effort to educate and encourage them to act.
• What This Means: Target the politicians and those in the community who do not parrot the environmentalist/global alarmist policy. May include shaming or punishing those people.
• Develop and use a state-based “brand” on climate awareness and action.
• What This Means: You probably start seeing the Palmetto Tree/Crescent Moon tied into environmentalist agitprop. Possibly the same with “Carolina Girls: Greenest in the World”.

And that’s just ONE section. I’m going to go after the Hitler Green Youth in my next post, because it’s just that troublesome.

And these ideas are not just limited to South Carolina, as 30 other states have done something very similar. For example, compare the South Carolina website to the Montana website, or the Vermont website.

Look similar. I can only hope that South Carolina didn’t spend too much for the Center for Climate Strategy’s expertise. Because they’re pretty much copying the same exact template for every state. Which means that it’s pretty likely that Gov. Sanford got steamrolled on this one. Which is a shame, because Gov. Sanford is supposed to be a maverick Republican, who’s supposed to be a hawk on fiscal issues. I guess not here.

More on the Gas Run

Gas prices surge as Ike moves in | ajc.com.

States warn gas stations against price gouging

These stories is just full of juicy quotes about indignant consumers (read: voters) about this gas run.  I’ll present some quotes:

Larry Ruiz of Duluth said it cost him $45 Tuesday to fill up his small pickup. Friday, it cost him $60. “It really is just too expensive,” he said. “The government has lost control of the gas.”

Larry, the government doesn’t have control over gas prices.  At all.  It controls one thing, the location and siting of oil refineries.  You know who has control over gas prices?  You.  But I bet you’re not willing to take responsiblity for your actions.  It’s alot easier to set blame on the government than yourself.

The wholesale price for a gallon of gasoline rose about $1, to $4.25, Thursday morning, topping the high price five years ago when hurricanes Katrina and Rita raked the Gulf Coast, said Tom Kloza, publisher of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. It was uncertain whether that price spike will filter down to the retail level.

“It’s pure panic,” Kloza said. “It’s related to the fact that there are worries about whether there’s going to be enough (gasoline) in the distribution system to satisfy some of the September pumping needs on the Gulf Coast.”

More proof that this is a run.  People don’t know if there’s going to be supplies, so they hoard.  This will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Every time there’s a hurricane this happens. They’re just doing this to rip people off,” said 19-year-old Megan Cohen, a South Carolina college student who settled for paying $4.11 a gallon after going to three stations.

Uh, this wasn’t the case in any other hurricane season except following Katrina, Megan.  It hadn’t happened with any of the hurricanes this year, including Gustav, which hit another large section of the oil and gas producing area of the country.  But Megan, you’re not helping by going to three gas stations and “settling” for $4.11 a gallon.  This means that you didn’t need gasoline (then why go to three stations unless they were out, and there’s an easy way to figure out if the station is empty: noone’s getting gas).  But Megan probably has never taken an economics class at her South Carolina college, otherwise she would know about SUPPLY AND DEMAND.  It’s not that hard people.  Less supply means prices go up.  Demand going up sharply because of panic buying means prices go up even futher.  Or, if they don’t go up quickly enough, there’s a shortage.

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford asked residents to avoid filling up unless necessary. “Instead, this is a time to think of ways in which each of us can make a difference on what may come our way if refineries in Texas are significantly damaged,” Sanford said in statement. “It might mean riding to the football games with a neighbor or on Sunday riding to church with a friend. It might mean watching a video at home rather than going to the movies or riding to work with a co-worker.”

I know there’s not alot that can be done legally, but as the leader of a state, can’t Mark do something with a little more leadership?  Making a difference?  Throwing out silly suggestions?  This is wimpy politico talk here.  Man up, Mark!  Tell people to stop being so stupid and panicking, if this isn’t a problem.  If it is… be more forceful in telling them that this might be the case for a while.  But if this is his idea of leadership, then this state’s got problems.  This was also true of the Hanna situation, which was equally feeble in the public response.

In South Carolina – where gas prices increased about 20 cents a gallon on average Friday – Attorney General Henry McMaster said gas stations that price gouge would face criminal prosecution. He did not set a threshold, saying each case must be investigated separately to see whether prices were raised to an “unconscionable” level.

But putting the gouging laws into effect?  Now THAT’S going to make things better!  Making the suppliers walk on egg shells in pricing so that if some 19-year old tart with no clue of how things work gets pissed off and files a complaint, then you’ll have to deal with investigations for the next year.  Or you could price it so low that you’ll be out in 5 minutes, but you don’t have to deal with the state lawyers.  Or you could just go on vacation for the next 15 days until this expires.  Then you’re fine and it’s only the customers who get screwed.  But we already knew that about these types of laws.

North Carolina Republican Congressman Robin Hayes called for a federal investigation into some prices rising more than $1 per gallon in a day.

“I understand there is a substantial hurricane in a sensitive area of the country, but this dramatic spike in gas prices is breathtaking,” he said.

I just wanted to point out the party of the pandering politician here.  What’s a federal investigation going to do that the myriad of state investigations won’t?  Oh, that’s right.  Make it seem like you’re doing something about it.

Sanford issues oxymoron

Sanford issues voluntary evacuation order – Local – Myrtle Beach Sun News.

What’s a voluntary order?  This is one of the more amusing things I’ve heard about the storm that really isn’t, but the media really, REALLY wants it to be.  They’re hoping that it’ll get back to hurricane force winds, though the prognosis isn’t very good for that to happen, especially considering that Hanna continues to weaken.

And as he was announcing the order, even the Governor had to reiterate that it was voluntary.  So why give the order in the first place?  How about issuing an advisary?  Or a suggestion?  But it has to be an order to make it sound important, even if it doesn’t have any meat to it and most people are going to ignore it anyway.

And the best part:

Gov. Mark Sanford just told beachside South Carolinians in Horry and Georgetown counties that if they feel more comfortable getting out of the wind and rain forecast for the next 36 hours, they can begin to evacuate.

So South Carolinians needed to be told by the governor that it’s ok for them to evacuate.  Thank God he said this, because people might have been forced to STAY if they weren’t comfortable with being in the storms path.  Yeeesh.  Have we become so dependent on the state that we can no longer take our safety into our own hands?

The answer is:  of course not.

So far, we have the Governor issuing the voluntary order, the local schools closing up shop for the day as well as the local university, and yet everyone I talked to today was pretty much unfazed with this storm.  As usual, it’s a matter of the tail wagging the dog, as the media is trying to make something out of this.  And as a result, it’s forcing the government to make sure it doesn’t look bad with the media.  In fact, it’s IKE that the people I talked to today are more worried about than Hanna, but that would require long term planning, something the drive-bys are uninterested in doing.

Meanwhile, while the local government employees will get their day off, I’ll be making the drive to the beach, like I do everyday.  Except they have me going from SOUTH to NORTH, instead of NORTH to SOUTH like I normally do.  Which makes no sense, but the bureaucratic dictates of someone two hundred miles away and has probably never done the drive before must be obeyed.  So I have to do something useless and more likely to be problematic, just because someone thinks they have a better idea of how to do my job than the person who has done the job for the past year.  Just like pretty much every bureaucracy.
And I’m sure they also didn’t think that this would force me into the major evacuation route instead of driving against it.  But they wouldn’t think about important details like that.  So I’ll probably be stuck in traffic on US 501 or US 378 tomorrow, all because some genius in middle management came up with a great idea.

Politics as Usual with Palin and the Media

So we’ve gone through a weekend of hearing about Sarah Palin as the new Republican VP nominee. And, to no one’s surprise, it was all about personal characteristics and almost nothing on policy.

There were thousands of stories on Palin’s children, both newborn and almost adult. But that’s the essence of the game as the liberal media and the blogosphere tried to find something against Palin that would stick in terms of criticism. I know it’s hard to find some actual information on three day’s notice, but I was somehow able to find information on her in five hours on Friday afternoon. You’d think the media could do that, since they’re getting paid for it after all. But instead, we get innuendo and slander, going after her personality, but not her policies. And it’s not like she’s a blank slate, as she’s got two years as governor and a couple of years as mayor to find information on. So, as usual, the ancien media fails at their job of investigation and reporting.

Meanwhile, the GOP side of the media is just ecstatic about the pick, as if this is all the people needed to warm up to McCain. To his credit, he did reinforce his social conservatism at the Rick Warren forum, and it appears that this is another pick along those lines. Which is why the anciens wanted to go after her personal life as to make the hypocrite tag stick. But there’s nothing to those attacks, which is why the GOP side is going after them on this issue. So instead of introducing their candidate and filling in the gaping holes on her policy ideas and where she stands on the issues, they’re, once again, playing on the other team’s field. But as this weekend has shown, there’s nothing to this issue, which is why the GOPers are attacking this hard.

But it doesn’t help us in the minority who actually, you know, still care about the issues and policies that government puts in place. And more to the point, both sides have been strangely silent on Palin’s energy policy while in Alaska. It’s supposed to be her strong point, and she even mentioned it in her introductory speech. But as I outlined in my Palin on Energy post, it’s at best a political pander, and at worst, a contradiction of the national Republican policy on taxation and a gold mine for the Democrats, if they’re going to take the bait.

In case you don’t know, Palin instituted a new severance tax on oil pumped from state-leased lands. And contrary to usual Republican policy, this tax was higher than the previous level. In fact, it became a windfall profits tax, as the structure of the tax was that it increased as the price of oil increased, the very definition of a windfall profits tax.

But people aren’t interested in the fact that it’s a tax increase out of the Obama handbook, they’re more interested in covering it up as “giving a tax rebate back to the people”, as epitomized by the Rush Limbaugh show this afternoon:

CALLER: And you asked him a specific question, and what he picked out was so mundane, I mean it was on everyone’s mind. You asked him what were Sarah’s accomplishments here, and he had an ability to tell you a whole litany of things. And he picked out oh, you know, “She’s going to send us some money.” Well, yeah. It’s a small part of a much larger plan by the state –

RUSH: Well, but wait a minute.

CALLER: — to help us out.

RUSH: No, I knew what he was talking about at the time. Alaskans – she gave them a rebate on rising gasoline prices added to whatever it is you guys already get for allowing the Alaska pipeline and other things up there, but she was simply saying, she made it a point in her announcement to say that she didn’t keep the money as a governor and put it in government coffers; she sent it back to the people who were experiencing this rapid increase in gasoline prices. Remember, Obama at the time the gasoline prices were skyrocketing up, said, (paraphrasing) “I’m not really worried about the price but I am concerned about how rapidly it went up.”

CALLER: Yeah, it was disgusting.

RUSH: She turned it back to the people, that’s all. No different than a tax rebate.

CALLER: Right, which was the original idea of the original permanent fund in the first place, because the oil revenue of the state, according to Hammond, our governor at the time, belonged to the people. And so the people get a tiny little portion of the interest, and that’s what that dividend is about, but I wouldn’t have chosen that as her most important accomplishment. Frank Murkowski was expected to be a really good governor, and he was just a bust. She beat him in the primary, and she filed his deal that he had made with the gas companies — or the oil companies, she filed that right in the trash. (Emphasis added)

First of all, it’s not a tax rebate, as the $1200 doled out by each citizen was never collected from the citizenry. It was collected from the oil companies and redistributed to taxpayers. That’s NOT a tax rebate. It’s the same problem that the Bush tax rebates/stimulus payments have, the rebates are uncorrelated with tax payments. So it can’t be a rebate if you don’t pay the tax in the first place.

But the bigger problem is that there is this entitlement to the oil company revenue because the oil came out of state-owned land. The fact that the state owns any land is something entirely different, but that’s different from a federally owned parcel (which was in most circumstances expropriated and definitely unconstitutional). Under the Alaska Constitution, the state can own land, and lease mineral rights, but it doesn’t own the oil. Well, they can own the oil, but they allow private entities to explore and produce the oil, at least until politicians decide to take over the production as a whole (or just go ahead and tax it 100%).

In the grander scheme of things, this should sound at least some concern for conservatives, but I haven’t heard a peep from either side of the aisle, but it’s actually pretty obvious once you think about it.

Republicans don’t want to dirty up the image of Palin, especially when she says that it’s not a tax increase, but it’s getting a fair valuation on the resources. If a Democrat tried doing that on a tax on… anything, Republicans would skin that Democrat alive.

Democrats are either waiting for a “gotcha” moment, possibly during the debate or closer to the election. The question will be obvious: “During your time as governor of Alaska, you passed a tax increase on oil companies that were then sent taxpayers as an energy rebate. Barack Obama has proposed the same thing, but John McCain and the Republicans have attacked this proposal. Do you support Obama’s plan that is very similar to your policy in Alaska?” And then she’s going to have to square the circle, saying that it’s ok to do it on the state level, but not on the national level, or backtrack on her record in Alaska. Either way, the Republicans are going to have to figure that one out quickly, because either she’s going to piss off fiscal conservatives or be attacked (rightly so) as a flip-flopper.

Right now, there’s no sign of what she’ll do, even if she highlighted the policy (in a limited way) in her speech in Dayton. But unlike the pregnancy/child issues, this is a serious issue that could very well put her in a bad position.

(UPDATE: The Cato Institute has done some research into her tax policies: Gov. Sarah Palin’s Record on Taxes and Spending and Palin: Uninspiring Tax Policy Record. Leave it to the libertarians to do the political work of the partisans. There’s a thesis to be had there, do non-mainstream party outlets cover the issues that the Big Two parties do not want to have discussed? I’m also thinking Obama/climate change and environmental parties.)

Sarah Palin on Energy

As most people know, Sarah Palin is now the VP nominee for the Republican Party. Everyone knows the obvious stuff: she’s a woman with 5 kids, current governor of Alaska, former mayor, elected on an anti-corruption kick.

But there’s not so much that people know about her policies and her accomplishments. So I’m going to try and fill in the blanks, especially on energy (It’ll be tougher to get her policy ideas on transportation, but they’re there in the land of the Bridge to Nowhere). I first had my antennae up when both McCain and Palin in this afternoon’s rally mentioned that she had fought against “Big Oil.” It might just be cover to make sure that she doesn’t get politically attacked for being cozy to oil interests or attacking her as “continuing Bush’s presidency.” Referring to the oil industry as “Big Oil” is not something the Bush presidency was known for.

So I found this website, run by a lawyer named Beldar, who jumped on the Palin bandwagon early and often, as shown in the link. As for what she’s done in office:

• She’s spoken out against putting polar bears on the endangered species list. While only tangentially related to energy, putting the polar bear on the list would enable federal regulation of pretty much the entire economy, as the specious reasoning for putting the polar bear on the list as “threatened” is due to global warming climate change. If anything makes climate change worse for the polar bears, it can be regulated by the feds, according to the Endangered Species Act. This is a no-brainer, but it’s a politically risky action to take, for fear of being labeled a “Big Oil” supporter, or anti-green. But she makes up for it with…
• She signed onto the punitive damages case that was eventually brought to the Supreme Court. This case, stemming from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, was about the $5 billion in punitive damages that were sought against Exxon (now ExxonMobil). Exxon thought that this was excessive and fought all the way to the Supreme Court to have them lowered. Exxon won in a 5-3 verdict to lower the damages, though the 4-4 split meant that there could actually be punitive damages under maritime law. The actual Court decision can be found here (warning, lots and lots of legalese). Funny thing, Palin found herself on the side of Breyer, Ginsberg and Stevens, and against Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy and Souter. But as you can see in the video below, this is mostly a populist action, since there were 33,000 people, businesses, and associations impacted by this. It’d be political suicide to not support this, but the populism still remains:
  
• In another populist move, she signed onto a tax increase. On oil companies (scroll to see discussion on “serverance” tax vs. “income” tax vs. “windfall” profits tax.) Here are the details of the actual tax. Key points:
  1. Increases base rate on all oil from 22.5% to 25%.
  2. Adds surtax on value of oil between $30 to $92.50 of .04%
  3. Adds surtax of .1% on all value above $92.50

  Whether you want to call it a windfall profits or a severance tax, she raised taxes on oil output, and made them progressive instead of flat. That’s pretty counter intuitive to pretty much all conservative tax thought, as we would like taxes lower and flatter.

  (As a side note, it CAN be argued that this is a windfall profits tax as this tax is increased as the value of the oil increases. The value of the oil increases NOT on the production capabilities of the oil company but on factors outside their concern, making additional profits prohibitively “windfall”. A flat tax would not be a windfall tax, as the tax would not increase as prices increase, but because of the progressive nature of the tax, it becomes a windfall profits tax. This makes any progressive tax a windfall profits tax, though it’s worse for income, because presumably, the increased income is through increased work, which is not a windfall to the user. Arguments against the windfall profits tax should be the same as arguments against progressive income taxes. It also increases the incentives for oil companies to increase their production costs (or more accurately, persuade the government to increase the production costs allowance) to avoid paying higher taxes, a perverse economic incentive.)

• And with these new tax revenues, she gave them back to the state already flush with government handouts. From the Seattle Times:
  Alaska’s oil windfall by the numbers
  $6 billion – Estimated revenue collected by state of Alaska from new tax on oil profits this fiscal year.
  $10 billion – Estimated total oil revenue collected by state this year (old plus new oil taxes).
  $1,200 – Special payment to each Alaskan resident this year from new oil tax.
  $2,000 – Estimated annual dividend each Alaskan will receive this year from oil-wealth savings account, not counting the new oil tax.

  So Gov. Palin raised taxes by more than 100%. Though to say this is on profits is somewhat disingenous, as it’s just on oil price above production and transport costs, which means that this isn’t even a tax on profits, as it ignores other costs (R&D, maintenance, marketing, etc.). So it’s even worse than a profits tax.

  But the revenues at least went straight back to the populace instead of funneled through all sorts of government programs. That would be even more wasteful and economically illiterate. First she wanted to create a debit card system for energy payments but instead settled on a straight check to “help with rising gas prices” although the money will probably be spent on things other than energy (like the stimulus checks). The straight check at least is good that it doesn’t increase government any more than it already does (the creation of a government check card bureaucracy), since they already have a system in place for doling out the money that they had already received.

  So this tax was in essence a populist ploy to get more oil money redistributed to the citizens of the state. It smacks me of being a little on the road to nationalizing the oil fields there (state-izing?). What happens when the citizenry wants more of it’s $1,200 dollars. The tax goes up. No surprise there.

• Lest I seem too negative on Palin, there are some points that I do like about her. She supports drilling in ANWR and completed the natural gas pipeline to the US through Canada. The natural gas pipeline will be an immense help to the US natural gas market, even if you have to travel through Canada to get there. I don’t know enough about the pipeline as to whether the gas will be intermingled with Canadian gas or not, which would be an interesting trade issue, at least statistically.

So overall, I would peg Palin as a conservative populist on energy. This seems to fit with her overall philosophy, as so far as it can be determined by ontheissues.org:

But we’ll get a closer idea of what she brings to the table as the campaign unfolds.

Columbia’s HOV Future – Part 2 (I-20 Northeastern Richland County)

This is the second in a series of looking at the various stretches of highway in Central South Carolina that the SC Dept of Transportation wants to look at for traffic improvements.

Today’s area of interest is Interstate 20 from I-77 to Spears Creek Road. Here’s some stats on the stretch of highway:
Start: Exit 76 A and B (I-77 and Alpine Roads)
End: Exit 82 (Spears Creek Rd)
Length: 6 miles (per the AP)
Interchanges:

• Exit 76 A – I-77
• Exit 76 B – Alpine Rd.
• Exit 80 – Clemson Rd.
• Exit 82 – Spears Creek Church Rd.

Lanes:

• 2 Lanes in Both Directions

Notes:

• This section of I-20 leads to one fastest growing areas in the region, Northeast Columbia.
• Northeast Columbia has numerous traffic issues, due to a lack of planning and insufficient capacity. The existing roads are overburdened by any stretch of the imagination.

Map

View Larger Map

Biggest Problem:
Massive undercapacity. I-20 being two lanes for this area of the state makes it woefully unable to deal with the commuter traffic and regional/national traffic that uses this highway as the main east-west route in South Carolina. This stretch of road starts with the bottleneck of 3 lanes merging to two along with traffic merging from I-77.

Possible Solutions:
Additional Lanes: Extremely Likely. This stretch of road has plenty of land on both sides of the road in addition to plenty of median space to add lanes in the middle of the road as well.
Converting Current Lanes to Carpool Lanes: Not Happening. Because there are only two lanes each way, there’s no way that there’s only going to be one lane each way for trucks/non-commuters and one lane for commuters. But then there would be strong incentive to carpool, but the road would not be interstate standard at that point.
Converting Current Lanes to HOT Lanes: Unlikely. This would toll the road, but you run into the same problem of having only one lane in each direction. However, you could toll the entire road, but they’re trying to avoid this and this would be rather politically unpopular.

Most Likely Solution: Expand to three lanes each direction, with one lane designated HOV. HOT would not have the political clout to stand on its own (there are few other potential areas for HOT lanes in the region, so you wouldn’t have any economies of scale). However, HOT lanes would allow for financing the lanes much easier.
Best Solution: Northern Virginia-style HOT lanes and an additional lane each way. There’s plenty of room to do this, as there’s enough space on each side AND in the median to add both another lane of mainline traffic with a NoVA style reversible two-lane HOV/HOT lane. Making it HOT would enable the project to get additional money to expedite construction and financing.

This is a short stretch of road, compared to the other areas that are looked at, but has really really been used beyond the scope of what it was intended to do. The SCDOT did not anticipate the growth in Northeast Richland, and as a result, this area of I-20 suffers from daily congestion. Exit 80 (Clemson Rd.) is also situated at the top of a hill, so traffic will back up here, both in the morning and at night. The nice thing is that there is enough space and clearance at this exit that it could easily accommodate two lanes of reversible traffic.

Columbia’s HOV Future – Part 1 (I-26 Lexington County)

As an update, The State has posted a somewhat more in-depth article on the proposal for HOV lanes in the Central SC area. They didn’t go into any more specifics than what you could get from the wire service article I posted yesterday, except they interviewed one person, someone who works for local governments. Not exactly an expert on transportation issues, but this is a newspaper. Yet, Keven Cohen thinks this is a good article. Not exactly Kevin.

But onto what I want to, which is what The State should be doing, a more in-depth look at what the situation currently is and what can be done.

The first area I want to discuss is the stretch of I-26 in Lexington County. Here’s some stats on the stretch of highway:
Start: Exit 108 (I-126 into downtown Columbia)
End: Exit 116 (I-77, US 21, 321 and 176 exits)
Length: 7.22 miles (per the AP)
Interchanges:

• Exit 108 A – Bush River Road (Part of Malfunction Junction)
• Exit 108 B – I-126 (Part of Malfunction Junction, also a left exit)
• Exit 110 – US 378 (Exit terminates at one of the few SPUI interchanges in South Carolina, leading to some… interesting driving maneuvers.)
• Exit 111 A & B – US 1 (Cloverleaf interchange with VERY short merge lanes)
• Exit 113 – SC 302 (Exit to Columbia Metro Airport, mingles with frontage roads)
• Exit 115 – US 21, 321 and 176
• Exit 116 – I-77 (Another left exit with two lanes)

Lanes:

• 3 in both directions between Exits 110 and 113.
• 4 Lanes westbound (northbound) between Exits 110 and 108.
• 4 Lanes Eastbound (southbound) at mile 114 to Exits 115/116

Notes:

• This stretch of highway never goes into Lexington (as The State article says), it’s stays well to the east of Lexington city, while remaining the whole time in Lexington County, which is a big difference)
• This stretch of highway was widened to three lanes already, very much limiting the ability to expand or even shift the alignment to accommodate any changes.
• Originally, at Exit 108, it was two lanes into Columbia (via I-126) and ONE lane through for I-26. This suggests that the original alignment was to continue closer to Columbia or for I-26 to move straight and I-126 to exit left, but the geography of the area, in particular the Saluda River, prevented that from happening.
• The cheapest gas in Columbia can be found at the Bush River Exit.

Map

View Larger Map

Biggest Problem:
Old Interchanges with Poor Alignment. Most problems on this stretch of highway occur at the exits, in particular, the US 378 exit (traffic will back up on the ramp and to the highway due to poor clearance for right-hand turns onto US 378 ) and the US 1 Exit (sharp turns and a very short merge between the first on-ramp and the second off-ramp for this cloverleaf style interchange).

Malfunction Junction (I-20/26/126/Bush River Rd./St. Andrews Rd.) is a completely different story and requires an entry by itself.

Possible Solutions:
Additional Lanes: Not likely. This is due to the expansion already completed in the area and the quasi-urban surroundings on I-26 especially between US 378 and SC 302. However, this wouldn’t solve the interchange problems without dedicated lanes for each exit. This is possible for US 378, unlikely for US 1 or SC 302. However, past I-77 to the south, an additional lane can and should be added as this becomes a bottleneck for traffic to Charleston and I-95 (Florida and Georgia coast).
Converting Current Lanes to Carpool Lanes: Most Likely, but still difficult. There would need to be some realignment of the road to accommodate separating the carpool lanes from mainline traffic. It helps here that traffic is not too bad that the loss of a lane would seriously tie up traffic. But due to the proximity of the exits, it would be difficult to allow for traffic to get off at multiple exits. There may have to be limits on which exits HOV vehicles would be allowed to enter or exit at.
Converting Current Lanes to HOT Lanes: Unlikely. The proximity of the exits would make putting tolls in a problem, requiring a station every mile or so. Also exacerbates the entrance, exit areas problems with additional merges and lane changes. The other problem with HOV/HOT lanes is that it wouldn’t allow for traffic to stay separated past I-77 (east/southbound) due to the left exit. Traffic would have to blend or merge before that point or result in a much more costly fly-over and touchdown on the other side of the 26/77 interchange.

Most Likely Solution: Convert left lane to Atlanta-style HOV lane.
Best Solution: Realign US 378 and US 1 exits to allow for better flow of traffic. No HOT/HOV lanes.

Outside of the merges with exits, there are not problems with traffic flow itself. It also helps that I-77 takes a good portion of northbound traffic on the other side of the city, allowing for traffic to by-pass the city to the east. While there is some commuting from this area to other parts of the city, most commuting in this area is east-west, while this stretch of I-26 is primarily north-south. This is area of I-26 in the area with the least problems.

South Carolina Considers Carpool Lanes

From The State:

Lanes that will encourage carpooling on Interstate 26, Interstate 126 and Interstate 20 in the Midlands are being studied by the S.C. Department of Transportation as an option to relieve growing road congestion.

Less traveled HOV lanes — or High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes — would be set aside for vehicles traveling with at least one passenger. The quicker access those lanes provide have encouraged carpooling in states that have HOV lanes.

If such lanes are created, SCDOT is also studying whether to give drivers without passengers an option to pay a toll and use the less traveled lanes.

Last month, SCDOT began exploring this idea on a 22-mile stretch between Charleston and Summerville on I-26.

HOV lanes are being considered in the Midlands because of the growing suburban population in Lexington County, Northeast Richand and Irmo.

Sections of I-126 and I-20 cannot be widened. SCDOT says traffic will double by 2030.

SCDOT is studying HOV lanes for these four commutes:

• IRMO to DOWNTOWN. A 9.22 mile section of I-126 between Irmo and the Huger Street exit. This is one of the two most heavily traveled interstate highways in S.C.

• I-126 to I-26. A 7.22 mile section of I-26 starting at the I-126 interchange near Bush River Road and headed east toward Orangeburg

• I-20 to I-126. A 6-mile section of I-20, east of Interstate 77.

• NORTHEAST RICHLAND to LEXINGTON. A 14.45-mile section of I-20, west of the I-77 exchange in northeast Richland and stretching to west to U.S. 378 in Lexington County. SCDOT says this section of highway is heavily graveled and cannot be widened.

Ignoring the poor formatting of the article there are three areas they are studying:

1. I-26 to I-126 into downtown Columbia
2. I-26 from I-126 east toward Charleston
3. I-20 from Spears Creek Rd to US 378 in Lexington, a 20 mile stretch of road.

The next three days I’ll look at these three areas and see what it looks like now and what should be done. Here’s a general guideline:

• Increasing capacity is good
• Decreasing capacity is bad
• Market-based tolls are good
• Revenue-based tolls are bad
• Simplifying traffic patterns is good

We’ll start tomorrow off easy with I-26 Eastbound between I-126 and Gaston. It’ll be easy because it’s really simple to look at and critique.

Amen Rush! Pickens Plan = Gore Plan

I’ve mentioned before that I prefer Rush Limbaugh’s style of radio to Sean Hannity’s. This afternoon’s broadcast was an excellent reason why:

RUSH: This T. Boone Pickens thing is fascinating. T. Boone has been buying commercials on this program. He wants to invest in wind and he wants you to invest in wind, and he wants subsidies for wind, but he wants a lot of natural gas and he wants keep drilling for oil. This has led to some very critical pieces of T. Boone. I have one here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers in the Los Angeles Times: “T. Boone Pickens’ ‘Clean’ Secret.”

“Well, Californians can clarify exactly whose dime it will be: Ours. Along with being the country’s biggest wind power developer, Pickens owns Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a natural gas fueling station company that is the sole backer of the stealthy Proposition 10 on California’s November ballot. This measure would authorize the sale of $5 billion in general fund bonds to provide alternative energy rebates and incentives — but by the time the principal and the interest is paid off, it would squander at least $9.8 billion in taxpayer money on Pickens’ self-serving natural gas agenda.”

So what’s happening here is we have a piece by Anthony Rubenstein in the Los Angeles Times, ripping T. Boone for basically saying that he wants his plan to be subsidized by the taxpayers, and that this plan is going to cost everybody a whole lot of money, and that T. Boone’s plan is not right because T. Boone is investing in the very thing that he wants subsidies for and it’s going to lead to him getting even richer while we pay the freight, and that is not right.

Well, I don’t think this is totally accurate, but why do we not get these kinds of stories about Algore? He plainly asks people to invest in the things that he has invested in. He plainly asks people to send him money, and he’s out there scaring people to death, or trying to, saying that we’ve only got ten years. Every time there’s a crisis, these Democrats and these liberals come up with the ten-year number. Can I give you the dirty little secret of all this? Any green energy plan is going to clobber us financially. That is the point, my friends. All of this green energy stuff is a flat out hoax, most of is, designed to increase taxes, raise government’s profile, and reach and power. It’s all based on the fallacious notion that this green energy stuff is going to clean up the planet and stop global warming, manmade global warming and all that. I think people had better understand very quickly, I don’t care if it’s T. Boone Pickens, if it’s Algore, I don’t care what green energy plan comes along, it’s going to cost everybody a lot of money, which is why people are doing it. If you think this green energy stuff is being done out of altruism, people want to save the planet, you gotta wake up. It has nothing to do with that. There isn’t a green program out there. A lot of corporations are actually giving up this green marketing stuff anyway because their customers aren’t buying into it — which is a good thing, don’t misunderstand.

I’ll have to look into Proposition 10, but if it is, it goes along with alot of what Pickens has already been doing with the federal government and in Texas. What’s interesting is that Pickens had said that he’d put the transmission lines up on his own dime, but is now going to be bankrolled by the Texas consumers through their utility rates, according to a ruling by the Texas Public Utilities Commission on July 16th.

Here’s what Pickens said on June 6th:

PICKENS: It’s big. It’s a uh, I think it’s the largest wind farm in the world. It’ll be 4000 megawatts, which will be about probably two pretty good nuclear plants. So, it’ll service a million, three-hundred thousand homes, and it’ll be about a 10 billion dollar project without the transmission, and we probably will do the transmission, and that’d be another two billion – so, total cost would be 12 billion dollars.

GELLERMAN: Now it’s pretty unusual for somebody to bankroll the transmission lines.

PICKENS: It is. That is unusual, I agree.

GELLERMAN: Well, why don’t you let somebody else pay for it, like the transmission people?

PICKENS: Well, it, everything goes slower if I do that. So to fit the schedule of when we’re gonna be ready to start spinning, which will be the last of 2011, we need to have transmission in place at that time, and this is the only way we can time it to work that way. And, see, everything has gotta happen fast for me, because I’m 80 years old.

So it only took forty days for Pickens to changes his mind. Amazing what $4 billion of free equipment will do for your mindset.

Weekend Post – Cars and Bicyclists

From my wife, who wrote some very good tips for biking and driving in urban areas. Considering that South Carolina just passed a law that deals with bicycling, there’s some pretty common sense things to remember here. I really like the difference between cyclists and bicyclists. There are plenty of each down here and you can tell a difference.