An occasional update on items from Motordom – the world of auto dominance.
HORSE-DRAWN HUMMER
Known as the CEO Stagecoach, the horse-drawn Hummer is the work of artist Jeremy Dean, who bought a new H2 Hummer and chopped it up in protest at the United States’ ‘culture of excess’….
He says the Hummer and cart is a modern interpretation of the little-known Ford Model T horse-carts of the Great Depression. In the Depression, car owners who were unable to afford fuel for their cars removed the engines and used horses to pull them instead.
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PROGRESS IN VANCOUVER
Yes, the title is ironic. But we typically measure progress in terms of growth – like, in the number of registered passenger vehicles.
Here are some updated stats from ICBC:
2006 2007 2008
1,043,000 1,066,000 1,075,000
That’s 32,000 more vehicles in two years in Metro Vancouver. Which, if each is about 5 metres long (roughly 16 feet), creates a line-up of parked cars, bumper to bumper, that would stretch from Horseshoe Bay to Hope – 160 kilometres. Which explains the observation below.
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PROGRESS IN MELBOURNE
“Billions of dollars spent building freeways across Melbourne since 1995 have failed to deliver the spectacular time savings promised to justify their construction. …
Transport analyst John Odgers … in the first analysis of its kind for Melbourne, has reviewed the promises made by consulting groups whose work was used to successfully argue for several big freeways built in Melbourne since the 1990s.
The roads include CityLink, 
the Deer Park bypass, EastLink and the extension of the Eastern Freeway.
The average speed Melburnians travel on freeways today is 78 km/h, the same as it was in 1995. Chief among the rationale for building each major new road, the study shows, was the travel time savings the roads were promised to create. …. But Mr Odgers’ study shows this has not happened – something disputed by those who worked on the road projects. …
“Melburnians are spending hundreds of thousands more hours on freeways – leading to zero gains in speeds or travel times, as roads fill up as soon as they are built.”
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Well it is progress of sorts – from .493 cars per person to .477 cars per person. That is at least a step in the right direction.