Cycling over the peak - PIA NO.3

Australian cities are generally dispersed, a problem identified in earlier articles of the special edition of Australian Planner Vol47 No4 (here & here). This article reviews what realistic transport role bicycles can play in a post peak world - remembering that we are not all super sleek lycra freaks.

Rethinking oil depletion: what role can cycling really play in dispersed cities?
Matthew Ian Burke and Jennifer Bonham
Pages: 272-283

Abstract
An overview of cycling in dispersed cities, focused on US and Australian cities, highlights low bicycle mode shares and low participation rates for women, children and seniors at present. Yet cycling can flourish in suburban settings, with  low-density, outer-suburban communities in many European cities having very high bicycle mode shares, and strong participation across all demographic groups. Under a variety of Peak Oil scenarios, the bicycle is shown to play specific roles in supplying local mobility and access to and from mass public transport for longer distance trips.

Many advocates have thrust forward cycling as a way to ‘solve’ an oil-related transportation crisis.

The main bicycle advocacy groups in Australia, including the Cycle Promotion Fund, have included oil vulnerability in their political campaigning for cycling investment. [But if] we look at government, there is very little uptake of such views. Australian state government cycling strategies tend to identify health, environment and traffic congestion as main motivators for encouraging cycling, rather than oil depletion.

This paper seeks to provide a reasoned evaluation of the role of cycling in dispersed cities … thus far absent from the literature.

The Shorter PIA – Australian Oil Vulnerability

In a previous post I pointed to the special edition of the journal Australian Planner on Peak Oil (Vol 47 No 4) from the Planning Institute of Australia. Starting with this post I will give a brief cut and paste overview of some of the papers, hopefully capturing the flavour and important points of each paper. Much of the information is familiar to followers of energy issues, especially the backgrounds given at the start of the papers. Ellipsis (...) indicates deleted text and square braces [ ] indicates inserted text. Some references have been omitted.

Dark clouds on the urban horizon: petroleum and Australian planning
Jago Dodson, pages: 226-231.

Rapid urbanisation, population growth, infrastructure and resource demands all place pressure on urban systems. A major strategic challenge for urban regions especially among developed nations ...  is the vulnerability of cities to the systemic and particular effects of future constraint on global petroleum supplies.

The years [since oil began its upward climb in the early 2000s] have witnessed extreme volatility in petroleum markets with prices rising to beyond US$100 by late 2007 to a peak of US$140 per barrel by late-2008. Oil prices then slipped back to US$30 in early 2009 with the onset of the global financial crisis, but by mid 2010 had returned to their pre-crisis levels of approximately US$80 per barrel.

It seems unlikely that the world will return to the low and stable price patterns seen from the late-1980s to the mid-2000s.

A commonly cited causal factor underpinning recent high oil prices was the global economic expansion over the decade to 2009 intersecting static or only gradually increasing oil production. China’s economy, for example, has grown by at least 8.3% per year in GDP terms since 2000 (IMF, 2010).

The investment task [for the production, exploration, improving technology and protection of oil supplies] is monumental. The International Energy Agency (IEA, 2008, 39) projects that US$26 trillion worth of production investment is needed by 2030 to meet anticipated global oil demand.

As other reserves decline, the share of global oil production provided by members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) dominated by Middle Eastern nations is expected to increase from 44% in 2008 to 52% by 2030, giving this grouping considerable influence on global supplies. Some 28% of global oil supply in 2030 is projected to come from just six Middle Eastern OPEC countries: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Probably the most significant and imperative business statement on the problem of petroleum security, peak oil and wider energy constraints came from the Lloyds insurance group in June 2010. Lloyds is, according to the company’s website ‘the world’s leading insurance market’ which ‘is often the first to insure new, unusual or complex risks’. The company’s white paper on sustainable energy stated:

Companies which are able to plan for and take advantage of this new energy reality will increase both their resilience and competitiveness. Failure to do so could lead to expensive and potentially catastrophic consequences . . . An oil supply crunch in the medium term is likely to be due to a combination of insufficient investment in upstream oil and efficiency over the last two decades and rebounding demand following the global recession. This would create a price spike prompting drastic national measures to cut oil dependency.

Perhaps the most substantive, if opaque, signal that petroleum security is now a major international governmental concern is the realigning of political and institutional relations between producing and consuming nations. Thus, the most recent International Energy Forum meeting in early-2010 gathering together 68 national energy ministers  including Australia’s  sought to establish a formal global venue for ‘consumer producer dialogue’ focusing on measures to mitigate energy market volatility, and the security implications of this problem.

Australia’s planning challenge

Australia is the greatest per-capita energy consumer in the OECD (Garnaut, 2008). Australia possesses huge energy resources in coal and gas but only modest petroleum reserves, holding just 0.3%of the world’s oil. Australian oil production peaked in 2000 and now satisfies only two thirds of domestic consumption; this is probably misleading as there is a strong divergence between the types of oil Australia can produce and the types it consumes. This mismatch has already generated a $9.3 billion trade deficit in 2008/2009, which is anticipated to hit $25 billion by 2015.

Planning for Oil Vulnerability

The Age is mining stories from a special issue of The Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) journal Australian Planner titled CITIES AND OIL VULNERABILITY (Vol 47, No 4, Dec 2010).

I have compiled my own review from this issue (including quotes) which you can find at:
The Shorter PIA – Australian Oil Vulnerability
Shorter PIA NO. 2
Cycling over the peak - PIA NO.3
Where do the children play? PIA NO. 4
Transurbanization – PIA NO. 5
Public Planning and Policy Post Petroleum – PIA NO. 6 Finale

Much of this information may sound like 'old news' to peak oil literate readers but at least in this form it gets reported as a serious topic (no longer some 'fringe' opinion) and the reports will be presented to the council of Australian Governments from a recognized professional body.

Report warns of oil woes (edited - a bit)
Andrew West, December 28, 2010

AUSTRALIA will be forced to rely on huge quantities of imported oil unless it radically overhauls its transport and urban policies, according to a major study by the Planning Institute of Australia.

The study ... warns that without urgent national action the country's trade deficit will spiral and many of the outer suburbs will become slums. ...Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University, who is ... an adviser to the federal government, said the most compelling finding of the research was that "urban sprawl is finished".

"If we continue to roll out new land releases and suburbs that are car-dependent, they will become the slums of the future." He said every state should duplicate a Queensland law that requires local councils to conduct an "oil dependence study" when approving new developments.

Dr Jago Dodson of Griffith University, forecast a grim future, with Australia's trade deficit, which was $9.3 billion in 2008-09, due to hit $25 billion by 2015, largely because of oil imports. "With Australian cities so clearly exposed to the effects of depleting global oil supplies, our urban planning should now turn its attention to mitigating oil vulnerability and adapting Australian cities to an oil-constrained world."

Professor Newman said the cost of building public transport to remote suburbs on the urban fringe would become prohibitive and Australian policymakers were "about 30 years behind the times" in solving the problem.

Transport study derails thinking on outer suburbs
Andrew West, January 5, 2011

Dr John Stone, of the University of Melbourne, and Dr Paul Mees, of RMIT University, argue that many city dwellers have been presented with a false choice - live in apartments and enjoy good public transport or retain the house and land and rely on cars.

"Many planners, and other commentators on urban issues, appear to believe that getting significantly more people on public transport will not be possible until massive changes in suburban densities are achieved", they write. Their study ... finds that cities with densities comparable with Melbourne and Sydney, such as Toronto, Ottawa and greater New York, have better public transport than Australia's two biggest cities.

Greater New York ... has 20.5 people to the hectare: Sydney has 20.4 people. Melbourne, with 15.7 people to the hectare, has only slightly lower density than Ottawa, with 17.2 people.

"There is no doubt that a compact and connected urban form enhances the potential for oil-free mobility through walking, cycling, and greater public transport use", the authors write. "However, we argue that it is not necessary to intensify land-use across the whole city before significant improvement in both patronage and economic efficiency of public transport becomes possible."

[I]ncreasing public transport use in outer suburbs [requires] more frequent buses, running at least every 10-15 minutes, not just in peak hour; better co-ordination with rail services; more convenient transfers; and fares that allow free transfers between modes.

[R]esidents of Australian cities "will continue to live in houses and suburban subdivisions that are already built". "Alternatives to the car will need to be effective at existing urban residential densities".

The forward to this special edition by Neil Savery, the president of the PIA, states in part;