Statement by Paul Raun

Building the light rail line provides a crucial step in building Hamilton's capacity as a resilient city, better able to respond to currently unfolding challenges related to resource depletion and economic uncertainty.

In the way of energy use, light rail makes for a highly-efficient mode of transport within an urban setting, combined with its greater capacity for carrying passengers, when we compare it to busses. On its own right-of-way, it offers a mode of transport comparable to private cars in terms of speed(Last Saturday night, in southern Etobicoke part of Toronto, my wife and I saw a 1980-vintage TTC streetcar travelling along at roughly 70 km/h between stops on Lakeshore Blvd., with light car traffic).
http://www.vtpi.org/tca/tca0512.pdf

With respect to improving bus service, light rail provides a highly-effective anchor for bus routes running north-south, especially up on the Mountain. It allows us to transfer more quickly between busses from one end of Hamilton to the other, much like the subway lines operate(and Eglinton Crosstown light rail line will operate) in Toronto.

With respect to the critical issue of resource depletion, particularly the peak in production of conventional or crude oil: easy-to-get and highest net energy source. It is essential to consider the following, not to lull ourselves into complacency over relatively low energy prices.

The drop in energy prices has arisen essentially because of a drop in demand stemming from deepening downturn in the Global Economy, not from any significant rise in production.

In the last few years, energy companies have made lowest levels of discoveries of new deposits, despite having doubled their budgets for exploration in the 2002-2012 period.

Even when energy prices were higher, over $100 a barrel for crude oil, major energy companies were in precarious financial situation, where debt has outweighed revenue by $100 billion for the world's top 127 energy companies, let alone the rash of bankruptcies happening amongst smaller companies with a focus on the once highly-touted shale oil and gas deposits in the US.

In a recent review of the 2012 Global energy Assessment, in a scholarly journal, author Michael Jefferson cited that the figure of "proved conventional oil reserves of nearly 1.7 trillion is overstated by 875 billion barrels: over the half the total figure. This overstating comes from including Canadian Tar Sands and Venezuelan heavy oil in with conventional oil, even if both sources are very different in quality, particularly in terms of their much lower net energy value when we compare them to conventional oil. Also, the higher figure came from including conventional oil reserves with a 50% probability of being proven in those having 90% probability, which started in 1984.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wene.179/epdf

The decision that you collectively as City Council members, particularly to reject provincial funding for an LRT line(to start the process of rebuilding a network of LRT lines) will have deep repercussions over the long term, in regards to coping with such longer term trends as Peak Oil and on-going Financial Crisis. Light rail provides a most effective way of travelling in an urban area(even within a regional area) within the context of declining energy production, in the way of net energy.

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