Ah, environmental politics

I must admit that since moving in with my father, I have become quite the little political thinker. Today I wrote my first letter to the editor. I hate myself. (just kidding) Now I feel like expanding on the subject.

Last friday (March 28, 08) The Duluth News Tribune's cover story was about the 2 hybrid transit buses that the DTA had purchased, and how they planned on replacing all 44 buses with hybrid equiped machines.
Great, lovely.
Each hybrid bus costs $500,000. Uh, what!? Come again!?
Yes, ladies and gentlemans, for 3.6x the cost of the average Duluthian home (http://www.city-data.com/city/Duluth-Minnesota.html) you too can purchase ONE hybrid transit bus.

Okay okay so the government (read- tax dollars) pays 80%. That still leaves $100,000 to be paid directly by the Duluth tax dollars. Which is they change out the entire fleet of buses equates to 4.4 MILLION dollars directly to Duluth, or $22 MILLION to the tax paying general public.

I can hear the greener of you out there thinking to yourselves "Well you can't put a price on saving the environment." Right... But we can minimize the cost imposed to us by the philanthropist government. But i will touch on this again towards the end, hold on through my fiscal analysis please.

The article states that the hybrid bus saved approximately $3500 per quarter, which means $14000 per year.
If we look at this from Duluth's perspective it is good. The buses will pay for themselves in 7-8 years. BUT if we look at the total cost of the bus it will take about 36 years to even come close to payoff. These calcs don't even touch on maintenance costs or intrest payments or anything else. If you are not from Duluth or the upper-Midwest let me tell you about the roads: SALT. My 20 year old BMW that lived it's life here should probably be illegal to drive because of the rust damage from road salt. A 20 year old transit bus should look about the same, if not worse. So how in the world are they planning to get 36 years out of these buses? Perhaps that should be the DNT's next cover article? LOL

Back to the environment.
Me and my father discuss the environmental/green FADS at length when we get bored. People are gullible seems to be our common conclusion. I would apply the same here.
Why do we, the environmental concious public, HAVE to spend $500,000 x 44 to "save the environment"? Why don't we refit half the fleet with hybrid units $170,000 x 22 and reduce the bus routes? (I do see people waiting for the buses here in the west end...but rarely downtown, and pretty much never in the east end)
How about spending $200,000 on bike and walking trails/paths? Spending $100,000 on offering incentives to car-poolers? Or to businesses that use more fuel-efficient vehicles?

Hybrids are not the golden egg, the holy grail, or the golden fleece. So get over it, folks. Learn about what effeciencey actually means before you give in to the "social norm" and the environmental fashion. Please?