"Greenlink" And The Vehicles Windsorites Drive!
Here is a note circulated by Dennis DesRosiers which I thought you might find interesting
"I sent out the following e-mail last week which documents that Windsor residents drive the least fuel efficient vehicles in all of Canada. (see attached table). I've been getting a lot of requests to expand on this and try to explain what this means so here goes.
Well, unfortunately this means that Windsor has the highest Green House Gas emissions in all of Canada from the vehicles on the road in the area. (GHG's are tied directly to fuel efficiency!) This is another case of Windsor saying to the rest of Canada .... "Do as I say, not as I do".
Here we have a Mayor demanding that the Government invest billions into their "Greenlink" road to the border supposedly to lower pollution when in fact the Citizens of Windsor drive the LEAST environmentally friendly vehicles in all of Canada and contribute more GHG's to their local community than any other city in Canada. When the Mayor got 16,000 citizens to sign a petition supporting Greenlink I wonder whether he asked any of them to write down which gas guzzler they were driving and to sign a pledge to downsize to a more environmentally friendly vehicle?
Maybe this is why this proposal is viewed with such scepticism by senior levels of Governments? I ask, "Why should Government be forced to spend billions in additional taxpayer money to address pollution issues when the citizens of Windsor themselves have demonstrated, through the vehicles they drive, that they are the least environmentally sensitive community in Canada?"
My rant for the day!
Dennis
Fuel Efficiency of Vehicles in Canada's largest CMA's - Another dubious distinction for Windsor
One of the databases we have is a census of vehicles on the road that is produced annually by R.L. Polk. We recently took this information base and merged it with Transport Canada's fuel efficiency guide. The results are quite interesting I will write up an analysis and publish it in one of my Observations but in the meantime I ran off the average fuel efficiency of the 25 largest Census Metropolitan Area's in Canada and found the results quite interesting. In order to normalize the information I also looked at the fuel efficiency with and without commercial use vehicles (defined as pick up trucks and panel vans). My figuring is that some CMA's are tied to very resource intensive economies and thus they need to drive more pick ups and panel vans. So it wasn't fair to compare these CMAs to more urban oriented areas in the country.
By a wide margin Quebec City consumers drive the most fuel efficient fleet in Canada with an average fuel efficiency rating of 8.9 Litres/100 kms. The least efficient was Windsor, Ontario. Isn't it ironic that the City that is most dependent on the automotive sector in Canada and thus the City that is being hurt the most by the automotive downturn in the USA (partially caused by high gas prices) is also the City that has the least fuel efficient vehicles on the road? Windsor's fuel eficiency is 10.2 Litres/100kms. I guess they reap what they sow?
Other than income and automotive workers preferring larger vehicles I can't easily explain why there is such a discrepancy. Both Windsor and Quebec City are of the same
size population and share similar geographic attributes so one would think that their driving needs would be very similar. But vehicles owners in Windsor are the most irresponsible anywhere in Canada when it come to fuel efficiency and Quebec City consumers are the most responsible. Go figure.
Calgary is second worse but then I'd expect that since Calgary is the centre of the oil universe in Canada and a lot of Westerners use pick up trucks as their personal use vehicle. Thunder Bay is also very poor at 10.15L/100 kms and Thunder Bay is the worse if you include commercial use vehicles. All the low ranking Cities (except) Windsor are in the West or are very dependant on the resource sector.
The top five most fuel efficient cities are also in Quebec with Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivieres, Montreal and Chicoutimi-Jonquiere joining Quebec City (all in the low 9 L/100 km range). What's interesting is that fuel efficiency appears to very geared to income levels. This should surprise no one. Low income areas in the country like Quebec buy smaller vehicles than high income areas in the country like Calgary and Windsor (high income at least until recently in Windsor).
This little analysis also highlights how hard it is going to be to reach the Federally imposed improved fuel efficiency standards over the next few years. Fuel efficiency is mandated to improve by about 25 percent by 2020 so cities like Windsor and Calgary are going to have to move not just to Quebec City levels of fuel efficiency but to levels better than you see in these cities today at closer to the 8L/100 km range. And the Quebec City's within Canada are going to have to move to maybe 6 L/100 kms? My take is that this will be near impossible. Sorry policy makers."
Well, unfortunately this means that Windsor has the highest Green House Gas emissions in all of Canada from the vehicles on the road in the area. (GHG's are tied directly to fuel efficiency!) This is another case of Windsor saying to the rest of Canada .... "Do as I say, not as I do".
Here we have a Mayor demanding that the Government invest billions into their "Greenlink" road to the border supposedly to lower pollution when in fact the Citizens of Windsor drive the LEAST environmentally friendly vehicles in all of Canada and contribute more GHG's to their local community than any other city in Canada. When the Mayor got 16,000 citizens to sign a petition supporting Greenlink I wonder whether he asked any of them to write down which gas guzzler they were driving and to sign a pledge to downsize to a more environmentally friendly vehicle?
Maybe this is why this proposal is viewed with such scepticism by senior levels of Governments? I ask, "Why should Government be forced to spend billions in additional taxpayer money to address pollution issues when the citizens of Windsor themselves have demonstrated, through the vehicles they drive, that they are the least environmentally sensitive community in Canada?"
My rant for the day!
Dennis
Fuel Efficiency of Vehicles in Canada's largest CMA's - Another dubious distinction for Windsor
One of the databases we have is a census of vehicles on the road that is produced annually by R.L. Polk. We recently took this information base and merged it with Transport Canada's fuel efficiency guide. The results are quite interesting I will write up an analysis and publish it in one of my Observations but in the meantime I ran off the average fuel efficiency of the 25 largest Census Metropolitan Area's in Canada and found the results quite interesting. In order to normalize the information I also looked at the fuel efficiency with and without commercial use vehicles (defined as pick up trucks and panel vans). My figuring is that some CMA's are tied to very resource intensive economies and thus they need to drive more pick ups and panel vans. So it wasn't fair to compare these CMAs to more urban oriented areas in the country.
By a wide margin Quebec City consumers drive the most fuel efficient fleet in Canada with an average fuel efficiency rating of 8.9 Litres/100 kms. The least efficient was Windsor, Ontario. Isn't it ironic that the City that is most dependent on the automotive sector in Canada and thus the City that is being hurt the most by the automotive downturn in the USA (partially caused by high gas prices) is also the City that has the least fuel efficient vehicles on the road? Windsor's fuel eficiency is 10.2 Litres/100kms. I guess they reap what they sow?
Other than income and automotive workers preferring larger vehicles I can't easily explain why there is such a discrepancy. Both Windsor and Quebec City are of the same
size population and share similar geographic attributes so one would think that their driving needs would be very similar. But vehicles owners in Windsor are the most irresponsible anywhere in Canada when it come to fuel efficiency and Quebec City consumers are the most responsible. Go figure.
Calgary is second worse but then I'd expect that since Calgary is the centre of the oil universe in Canada and a lot of Westerners use pick up trucks as their personal use vehicle. Thunder Bay is also very poor at 10.15L/100 kms and Thunder Bay is the worse if you include commercial use vehicles. All the low ranking Cities (except) Windsor are in the West or are very dependant on the resource sector.
The top five most fuel efficient cities are also in Quebec with Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivieres, Montreal and Chicoutimi-Jonquiere joining Quebec City (all in the low 9 L/100 km range). What's interesting is that fuel efficiency appears to very geared to income levels. This should surprise no one. Low income areas in the country like Quebec buy smaller vehicles than high income areas in the country like Calgary and Windsor (high income at least until recently in Windsor).
This little analysis also highlights how hard it is going to be to reach the Federally imposed improved fuel efficiency standards over the next few years. Fuel efficiency is mandated to improve by about 25 percent by 2020 so cities like Windsor and Calgary are going to have to move not just to Quebec City levels of fuel efficiency but to levels better than you see in these cities today at closer to the 8L/100 km range. And the Quebec City's within Canada are going to have to move to maybe 6 L/100 kms? My take is that this will be near impossible. Sorry policy makers."
posted by JoeBlog at 12:05 a.m.
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