Category Archives: Transportation

The infrastructure of a healthy society

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Well, I’m back. I had some sort of crud yesterday that made me leave the office about this time yesterday– upset stomach, weakness, achiness. It lasted until late last night. When I got up this morning, I was better, but puny. So I went back to bed, and made it to the office just after noon. Much better now.

Anyway, instead of reading newspapers over breakfast at the Capital City Club the way I usually do, I read a few more pages in my current book, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles C. Mann. Remember how I was all in a sweat to read it several months ago after reading an excerpt in The Wall Street Journal? Well, having read the prequel, 1491, I’m finally well into this one.

And I’m reading about how settlement by Europeans in many parts of the New World established “extraction societies.” At least, I think that was the term. (It’s one I’ve seen elsewhere, related to “extraction economy” and, less closely, to “plunder economy.” The book is at home, and Google Books won’t let me see the parts of the book where the term was used. But the point was this: Settlements were established that existed only to extract some commodity from a country — say, sugar in French Guiana. Only a few Europeans dwelt there, driving African slaves in appalling conditions. Profits went to France, and the institutions and infrastructure were never developed, or given a chance to develop.

Neither a strong, growing economy with opportunities for all individuals, nor its attendant phenomenon democracy, can thrive in such a place. (Which is related to something Tom Friedman often writes about, having to do with why the Israelis were lucky that their piece of the Mideast is the only one without oil.)

Here are some excerpts I was able to find on Google Books, to give the general thrust of what I’m talking about:

There are degrees of extraction societies, it would seem. South Carolina developed as such a society, but in modified form. There were more slaves than free whites, and only a small number even of the whites could prosper in the economy. But those few established institutions and infrastructure that allowed something better than the Guianas to develop. Still, while we started ahead of the worst extraction societies, and have made great strides since, our state continues to lag by having started so far back in comparison to other states.

It is also inhibited by a lingering attitude among whites of all economic classes, who do not want any of what wealth exists to be used on the kind of infrastructure that would enable people on the bottom rungs to better themselves. This comes up in the debate over properly funding public transit in the economic community of Columbia.

Because public transit doesn’t pay for itself directly, any more than roads do, there is a political reluctance to invest in it, which holds back people on the lower rungs who would like to better themselves — by getting to work as an orderly at a hospital, or to classes at Midlands Tech.

It’s a difficult thing to overcome. Other parts of the country, well out of the malarial zones (you have to read Mann to understand my reference here), have no trouble ponying up for such things. But here, there’s an insistent weight constantly pulling us down into the muck of our past…

At least they didn’t show favoritism

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Rand Paul, with his family and a staffer, arrives at an airport during his 2010 campaign./photo by Gage Skidmore

Sounds to me like the TSA people did what they should in this case:

Sen. Rand Paul, an outspoken opponent of the TSA’s pat-down searches, says he was “detained” in the Nashville, Tenn., airport on Monday morning after refusing to undergo the search himself.

The news originally came via his communications director, Moira Bagley, who tweeted: “Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

The Associated Press quickly followed up with the libertarian-leaning Republican with a phone interview, during which Paul explained that he had been “detained” by TSA officers after setting off one of the airport’s image scanners and subsequently refusing to submit to a pat down. As a result, he said that he missed his flight to Washington, D.C., where he was slated to speak at the March For Life later Monday.

A TSA spokesperson released a statement to Politico about its protocol in such situations, but did not refer directly to the specific incident. “When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport. Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling,” said spokesperson Jonella Culmer.

Makes sense to me. If somebody’s making a point of being uncooperative with the established procedures for keeping terrorists off an airliner, being pulled off to a separate room is the very least that should happen.

If you want to fly on an airliner with other human beings, you should be prepared to be a big boy about it, and follow the rules.

Remembering the Air Florida crash in D.C.

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When I was traveling with Howard Baker in Iowa in 1980, before the caucuses, it looked like we were going to be iced in at Dubuque. We had flown in earlier in the day. I had been in the second plane, with a couple of guys from an NBC crew. It was a four-seater, and flying in from Des Moines, the pilot only had a tiny patch of windshield, about the size of my hand, that he could see through by constantly squirting alcohol on it. When I got out of the plane, I was trying to button my trenchcoat when the wind caught it like a sail and I started gliding across the frozen tarmac.

Later, I was scheduled to fly back to Des Moines in the “big” plane, which wasn’t all that much bigger, with Baker. We waited in the tiny general aviation terminal for more than an our while the wings of our plane were deiced, then deiced again, and again. Finally, we got in and took off. Someone told me that they only let us go because it was Sen. Baker.

Two years later, I realized that the aviation officials had done us no favors letting us go. I had no idea how very dangerous ice on the wings could be. Until the Air Florida crash.

Greetings from way, way, WAY on down South

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I’ll be missing the craziness in SC the next day or so, as I’m in Key West talking about it.

You know how the Tea Party and the Occupiers get really worked up about the coziness between politicians and corporations? Well, I’m at the nexus of that. Or one of the nexuses. Or nexi. Or whatever.

Or at least, that’s what the protesters would probably say.

I’m at the Senate President’s Forum, where top officers from state senates across the country get together with corporate types and talk politics. So far, I haven’t met any of the participants, as the first event is tonight. I’ve never attended anything like this before; it promises to be interesting. I’ll tell you what it’s like. (Our own Senate president pro tem, Glenn McConnell, isn’t coming. SC is to be represented by Tom Alexander.)

I’m here to participate on a panel discussion about the presidential election. I’ll be joined by David Yepsen, former chief political editor at The Des Moines Register (somewhere, there are senior political editors who still have newspaper jobs, but I seldom run into them) and now director of the Paul Simon Institute at Southern Illinois University; John Marttila, President of Marttila Communications; and Mike DuHaime, Managing Director, Mercury Public Affairs and former Chief Strategist for Chris Christie’s successful gubernatorial campaign.

My job, of course, is to explain politics in the state that everyone is watching this week.

I need to write some opening remarks, which I worked on a bit on the plane this morning, but have only roughed it out. When I get it written, I’ll share it with y’all.

I’ll also be doing some walking around. This is my first time to Key West.

NLRB to SC, Boeing: Never mind…

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Have you seen this?

NLRB Withdraws Boeing Complaint

The National Labor Relations Board dropped a high-profile complaint against Boeing Co., a move that was expected after the aerospace company’s 31,000-member machinists union approved a sweeping contract extension earlier this week.

The NLRB said Friday that it withdrew the April complaint, which charged the aerospace company with illegally retaliating against the union for previous strikes by opening an aircraft-production line at a non-union plant in South Carolina.

The agency had filed the complaint on behalf of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers after siding with the union’s allegations. Boeing contested the charges, saying it had made a business decision and didn’t retaliate against the union. The case drew heavy criticism from the business community and some Republican lawmakers, who said the NLRB should not be interfering with companies’ choices about where to open factories….

The action makes sense — certainly a lot more sense than the agency’s previous position. I kept wondering where NLRB thought it was going with that. I mean, try to imagine the agency actually making Boeing pull back out of South Carolina. A federal agency telling a major corporation where it can do business within the United States? It would have been like nothing that I can recall in U.S. labor history. It would have required a complete rethinking of the role of government in the economy. It would have been way more radical than what GOP politicians seem to think Obamacare is.

Speaking of Republican politicians, this decision has left some of them off-balance. There they were in full outrage mode, and now, “Huh?” They’re like Wile E. Coyote, who suddenly realizes there’s no mesa beneath him.

Lindsey Graham is demanding an investigation:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is calling for a congressional investigation into collaboration between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union against The Boeing Company’s decision to build a second 787 Dreamliner production facility in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Graham’s announcement comes after the NLRB announced it will drop its complaint against Boeing.

Graham also reaffirmed today he will continue to place an indefinite Senate hold on nominations to the NLRB Board.  Beginning in January 2012, the NLRB will have just two members.  The Supreme Court last year ruled that an agency board with just two members lacks the authority to issue case rulings.

More to the point, the senator said, “For the sake of the Boeing South Carolina workers, I’m pleased to hear the frivolous complaint that has put a cloud over their operations has been lifted.  However, it’s hard to celebrate an event which never should have happened…”

By the way, I THINK this is the new Boeing plant. I shot this in North Charleston yesterday, near the airport. There were no signs to confirm, that I saw...

Anyone have anything to say about the Ports thing?

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Perhaps I’ve been remiss by not commenting on hearings the Senate Medical Affairs Committee has been having regarding the recent DHEC decision to allow the state of Georgia to dredge.

It’s just that I haven’t been sure what to say about it.

The panel itself has absolved the governor and her staff of having exerted undue influence in the decision:

A panel of state senators cleared Gov. Nikki Haley’s staff Thursday of charges that they exerted undue influence in a controversial decision to allow the expansion of a Georgia port.

By a 7-3 vote, the senators, who are investigating the port decision, agreed no evidence exists the that governor’s office unfairly influenced the process….

But frankly, I was never convinced that the panel was asking the right question.

The governor’s political opponents have seemed very concerned with trying to find a smoking gun — some specific instance in which the governor, or someone on her staff, said to the DHEC board, “Do this.”

And as far as most of the Democrats on the panel are concerned, they found it. “Boom! That was it,” says Joel Lourie of an Oct. 4 meeting at which the governor promised her Georgia counterpart a rehearing. “That lit the fire.”

Haley staffer Ted Pitts confirmed that the conversation with Gov. Nathan Deal took place. The governor subsequently “called Allen Amsler, the DHEC chairman, into her office and asked him to grant the hearing.”

But Pitts says there was no promise of an approval the second time around.

So put whatever spin on that you like. Vincent Sheheen is so convinced that this inculpates the governor that he’s including the Post and Courier story in its entirety in fund-raising emails, saying “I urge you to read the article below so that you can tell your friends what a travesty is occurring in Columbia.  We need your help to keep fighting to expose the dishonesty and self interest that has infected our state at the highest levels. Our state’s future is at stake!”

But here’s the thing for me: I don’t need to know who said what to whom on what date. The governor appointed this board. This board made this decision. The governor says she supports the decision. None of this is in dispute.

No voter needs to know more than that in order to hold Nikki Haley responsible for the decision. The rest — hearings and such — is political theater.

There’s no question that it is fair and right to identify Nikki Haley with this decision. That’s not in dispute. The reason why I’m not as up in arms about it as Sheheen and Lourie and others, including such Republicans as Larry Grooms, are is that I don’t know enough to know whether it was a bad decision.

Maybe I’ve missed it in the coverage I’ve seen, but I’ve not encountered a clear answer to this question: Was the board — which is entirely Nikki Haley’s creation — overruling the considered judgment of DHEC staff? At first, I assumed that was the case, and was duly outraged. But I haven’t seen that stated overtly anywhere. If staff concurred in this reassessment, that puts everything in a different light.

So what I’d like to see a Senate panel dig into — if it is indeed inclined to dig — is the extent to which staff and board diverged. That would help me know what to think.

Staff people aren’t going to come forward and dispute their political masters on this. Are you kidding? But perhaps the Legislature could compel testimony not otherwise available…

Column I: Cindi Scoppe puts Georgia port dredging issue into perspective

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Today, I think I’ll use some columns I read in the papers this morning as conversation-starters. We’ll begin with Cindi Scoppe’s balanced, thoughtful approach to DHEC’s granting of a dredging permit to Georgia.

As is her wont, she skewers weak arguments on all sides:

  • To those who ask, “Did Gov. Haley pressure her appointees to the DHEC board to approve the permit?,” she explains that it doesn’t matter. The governor says she fully supports the decision. She takes ownership of it. It doesn’t matter whether she pressured anyone. And what pressure can she exert? She appointed these people, but she lacks power to remove them. Who cares? She appointed them, she in no way distances herself from the decision.
  • Then there’s this red herring: “Why did the DHEC commissioners put Georgia’s economic interests above the economic interests of the state of South Carolina?” It’s not DHEC’s job to decide on the basis of economic interests. It’s their job to protect the environment, which is a separate question.

Here’s the question Cindi urges lawmakers to concentrate on: Did the Corps of Engineers and Georgia grant enough concessions to meet our state’s environmental requirements?

She continues with a discussion of various aspects of that consideration.

Then, in the end, she offers this bit of simple clarity:

We probably wouldn’t have to worry so much about cozying up to our competitors if our own Sen. Jim DeMint hadn’t helped put the Port of Charleston even further behind the Savannah Port, by delaying efforts to dredge Charleston Harbor. But the sad truth is that he has done far more to damage the Port of Charleston than anything DHEC could ever do. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much the Legislature can do about that.

All around, a good, solid column on a difficult issue.

Vincent Sheheen wants entire DHEC board to quit, hints at impropriety by Nikki Haley

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I don’t know what Vincent Sheheen knows, or thinks he knows, but he comes on pretty strong in this release I got from Phil Bailey a few moments ago:

Sheheen Calls DHEC Port Decision a Costly Blunder

Calls for DHEC Board’s Resignation

Columbia, SC  – State Senator Vincent Sheheen of Camden today called the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) unanimous decision to allow the dredging of waterways to the Port of Savannah a costly blunder and called for Board members to resign immediately. Sheheen issued the following statement:

“Today’s decision by the DHEC board is a disaster for our state’s environment and our future economic growth. Selling out on protection of our sensitive natural habitats and our own economy is a blunder that will cost us dearly in jobs and natural resources. The DHEC Board members should resign immediately and Governor Haley should replace them with knowledgeable individuals who will represent the best interest of South Carolina and who are not campaign contributors to Haley. I am further requesting that state Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell convene an investigatory committee to review whether or not the DHEC board was improperly influenced.  I am also calling on Governor Haley to disclose immediately all contributions, if any, she received from persons or corporations residing in the state of Georgia during the last six months.”

“The actions today show a disregard for our state’s economic and environmental interests.  Every person who loves this state should be shocked.”

###

Here’s what little I know about the action that prompted the release, from The Associated Press:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The board overseeing South Carolina’s environmental agency has approved a compromise with the Army Corps of Engineers over a permit to dredge the Savannah River.

The agency’s board voted unanimously Thursday to accept the agreement, putting Georgia and the federal government a step closer to deepening 35 miles between the Atlantic Ocean and the port of Savannah, Ga.

DHEC staff denied the Corps’ water permit request in September. The agreement was reached minutes before an appeal before the board.

It includes Georgia’s promise to pay for upkeep on devices the Corps will install to inject oxygen into the river, and agreeing to preserve an additional 1,500 acres of marsh.

Patrick Moore with the Coastal Conservation League says his group will appeal the decision to the state’s Administrative Law Court.

There seems little doubt that this is not good news for SC, but I have no way of knowing whether there is anything nefarious going on.

Occupy Columbia almost make me have a wreck

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Just a little while ago — within the past hour, as I type this — I nearly got hit by a van at the intersection of Lady and Sumter.

Why did that happen? Because the driver of the other vehicle was too busy gawking at the Occupy Columbia demonstrators who were chanting, and creating as much of a distraction as they could, on the northeast corner of the intersection.

The light was green, but he hit his brakes as he got to the intersection. I went to go around him, and he started to roll forward without his eyes on the road, and wandered over into my lane.

That reminded me of something.

This morning (see the lousy photo above), one of the OC demonstrators was holding a homemade sign out before him into the right-hand lane of traffic, in front of the State House right where Main runs into Gervais. I’m supposing he backed off as the traffic started; I was too busy watching where I was going to testify on that.

Anyway, since  some of my friends here wonder what possible harm causing a commotion out on the street could cause — well, this is one kind. I don’t think that’s the intention of any of these kids. But to use a badly overworked cliche, I’m just sayin’…

… and beach traffic is still beach traffic

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After all these years, and after all the frustration, I still prefer to take the Interstate route to and from the Grand Strand. The back route through Georgetown, Andrews and Manning that my wife prefers just seems to take much longer to me, even though there’s always less traffic. I’m not a two-lane road guy.

So since I was just taking one granddaughter home (the one who had to be back at school), and my wife would be going in a separate car the next day, I took my preferred route. On Labor Day.

I knew the chance I was taking. I was willing to take it.

And I had thought I had beat the odds. After swinging through the old Air Force Base to pick up some Starbucks, I got on the 17 Bypass. Not too bad. Then I got on 501. STILL not too bad. Then I got all the way to Conway without hitting any jams. I was practically laughing out loud. I was SO going to call and gloat to my wife when next we stopped…

But then we DID stop. Between Conway and Aynor. With this I had not reckoned. Nobody expects a jam between Conway and Aynor after having passed smoothly through Conway.

I had reckoned without the new connector to North Myrtle Beach. OK, so it’s not so new. But I suppose I hadn’t travelled that route, at such a bad time, since it was opened. WOW, it dumps a lot of traffic onto 501, seemingly out of nowhere.

So I spent the next half-hour mostly stopped (and yes, I was stopped when I took the photo) behind the vehicle pictured above. Imagine how much I enjoyed that.

Kind of makes you wonder what weird, unintended consequences might occur if they ever do build the I-73 extension.

How it actually looked...

The need to support public transit

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OK, so it’s not exciting video, but I thought I’d help the Chamber keep this issue before you, because the need to deal with it remains. As a release from that worthy body notes:

Last week, York County said “yes” to another seven years of Pennies for Progress, the county’s 1-cent sales tax roads program.This is the third time York County citizens have voted favorably for a tax that supports infrastructure and road improvements in their county.

Last year, Richland County barely failed to pass such a referendum, thanks to the mistake of bringing it up in the year of Nikki Haley and the Tea Party (you know that band; they did that song “I’m Walking on Moonshine”).

Next year, it will be up again. It should pass.

What in the world are these things?

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Went to Greenville over the weekend, and was puzzled the whole way by these things, which were spaced more or less 100 yards apart all along the median of I-26.

I have no idea what they are. They appear to be covered in some sort of synthetic fiber, but moving at 65-70 mph, it was hard to tell. (And no, I was not driving. It was hard enough capturing one of these in a frame on my iPhone as we whizzed by even as a passenger. It took a bunch of exposures to get one as clear as the one above. The blurry one below was second best.) I could not tell whether they were solid — made, say, of concrete — or mere covered frameworks. There may or may not have been gravel about the base.

They were four or five feet in diameter.

Drains of some sort? Shock-absorbing barriers for cars that wander into the median? UFOs? I don’t know. If they are drains, they seem … excessive. Like maybe DOT had some stimulus money it didn’t know what to do with.

Anyway, can anyone tell me the correct answer?

I say it again: City doing what it has to do on buses

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As we saw yesterday:

Columbia residents — homeowners and renters, churches and nonprofits, businesses and schools — will pay for the area’s struggling bus system through an increase on their power bills

City Council approved the increase Tuesday night with a 5-2 vote after a contentious, two-hour public hearing that included a retired Detroit cop calling council members “enlightened despots” and a retired federal prosecutor asking council members to slap him if he got too excited “because I promised my wife I would behave up here.”

The city charges SCE&G a 3 percent franchise fee for the right to run power lines in the public right of way. SCE&G passes that fee along to its customers. Tuesday night, City Council members increased the fee to 5 percent. The amount of the fee varies by customer, depending on the size of a customer’s bill. A charge of $100, for example, would be assessed a $5 franchise fee.

Hey, at least the ex-cop called them “enlightened,” huh? She thinks the city’s leaders don’t get it, saying, “Voters told you ‘no’ to a tax hike. You lost.” What she doesn’t get is that the city has a responsibility to provide this service, and if one way of paying for it doesn’t pan out, the council has to find another way. Besides, as Tameika Devine explained, voters in the city voted for the referendum.

Anyway, as I said before, the slight majority of Richland County voters who turned down a perfectly workable, practical way of paying for the service left city council with little choice. No, I take that back: The city could have chosen to be irresponsible, and let county council continue to carry the burden with its unpopular vehicle tax. But that would not have been a long-term solution. And by “long-term,” I mean a solution that lasts until the referendum is placed on the ballot again, and passes.

Whether CAE succeeds depends on all of us

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Columbia Metropolitan Airport Executive Director Dan Mann introduces Bill Maloney of Vision Airlines Wednesday at CAE.

You may have heard that discount carrier Vision Airlines will soon offer flights out of Columbia to its home in the Destin, Florida, area. Yesterday, Bill Maloney, Vision’s director of business development, introduced himself to local media.

He didn’t offer a lot of new details beyond what had been reported previously, so I pass on this from Columbia Regional Business Report, which provides the basics:

A charter airline that got its start in 1994 offering aerial tours of the Grand Canyon, Vision is expanding the scheduled commercial service it started just two years ago. The company announced today that it will launch service in 20 Southeastern cities this spring. In addition to Columbia, the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport is on the list.

Vision, headquartered outside Atlanta, will fly to the Northwest Florida Regional Airport, providing a gateway to the coastal towns in the Florida panhandle.

The company operates a mixed fleet of Boeing 767, Boeing 737 and Dornier 328 aircraft. At Columbia, Vision will fly a 148-seat Boeing 737-400 aircraft….

Vision is offering introductory fares of $49 one-way if booked Jan. 18-23. After that, rates start at $89 one-way.

The other cities where Vision is launching service include Atlanta; Little Rock, Ark.; Hunstville, Ala.; Punta Gorda, Fla.; Baton Rouge, La.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Macon, Ga.; Savannah, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala.; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Louisville, Ky.; Orlando, Fla.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Asheville, N.C. and Shreveport, La.

Will Vision make it where others have not? Will it grow here, and add destinations to its modest initial offering? Will it help broaden the menu of destinations from CAE and lower fares?

Well, that depends on us. Of everything said at the press conference Wednesday, the most pertinent to me was this, from CMA Executive Director Dan Mann:

The key is going to be community support, and getting on the aircraft.

It’s all up to us. Either Columbia — and by “Columbia” I mean the economic community that sprawls across Richland and Lexington counties and beyond — gets in the habit of flying out of its own airport when feasible (and cost-effective), or it doesn’t. We all want lower fares (the lack of which is the biggest reason many folks drive to other cities to catch flights), but we’ll never get them unless we fill up the flights we have here, so the airlines can make money flying bigger planes, with more seats, out of CAE.

As consultant Michael Boyd made clear last year, airlines aren’t going to do that out of sympathy for our plight. We, the community, have to change the math for them. And for the airlines to schedule more flights out of here, with bigger planes – thereby lowering fares – we have to provide them with more passengers wanting to fly from HERE to those destinations.

Too many of us don’t fly out of Columbia because of the fares. And we can’t lower the fares without more of us flying out of here. It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing. Or a tomato thing.

I liked what airport commission vice chair Anne Sinclair said in my hearing recently:

People used to not care where their tomato comes from. Now they do. That didn’t happen by magic… I honestly think people take this airport for granted.

Columbia needs an aviation version of the locavore movement. Increasingly, consumers care that their tomato is homegrown. That’s what Emile DeFelice played on so effectively when he ran for state commissioner of agriculture on the slogan, “Put Your State on Your Plate.” He didn’t get elected, but his campaign spurred the agriculture department to step up its own program to promote local products, “Certified South Carolina.” Not quite as catchy or engaging to the imagination, but now you see those stickers in every supermarket, and they are increasingly part of the consciousness of the shopping public.

For CAE, the challenge is to get its friends and neighbors to Think Columbia First. Without a united community that sees Columbia Metropolitan as OUR airport, the airport can’t grow. And without a growing, dynamic airport, our community can’t grow.

More people in the Midlands need to think of Columbia Metropolitan Airport as their airport, the one in which they have a stake, the one they want to see succeed (and want to be a part of bringing about that success). Of course, that also involves having a more positive attitude toward their own community. There are people who turn up their noses at things because they are local, the function of a collective inferiority complex. That needs to change (and fortunately, I think that on a number of fronts it IS changing). As I’ve said before — stand in the place where you live.

Dan Mann — the guy who won my admiration when he introduced himself to Columbia Rotary by showing a Louis C.K. video making fun of people who gripe about air travel — understands this. The challenge for him, and for all who want to grow this community, is to make sure the rest of us get it.

“It’s more car than electric:” Chevy apologizes for making the kind of car America needs

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I keep hearing Chevy’s tagline for promoting the new Volt on the radio:

“It’s more car than electric”

And every time, I am deeply underwhelmed with GM’s lack of enthusiasm for its new product.

You know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like when Nikki Haley tells everyone that her children attend public schools. And then hastens to add that in her Lexington County district, the public school are like private schools. Kind of spoils the affirmation.

What ad wizard decided to say, in effect, “We know you don’t want an electric car any more than we want to make one for you. So rest assured, this is nothing cutting-edge, it’s way more like the sucky cars we’ve made in the past.”

While others out there get the idea that Americans (and the rest of the world; after all, it is a global economy) kind of like something new, something better — take Steve Jobs, who totally gets that people want something better than what they’re used to, something original and even exciting, something that enables them to do things they couldn’t do in the past — GM wants to make sure you don’t think they have any such notions.

I thought GM got the “thanks, America” thing right. But they’ve got this wrong. And I’m not alone. Here’s another view on it:

The Chevrolet brand name is a major problem. Chevrolet stands out in the mind as a classic American brand. In its heyday, they built big steel cars that looked great and endlessly chugged gasoline. In fact, not even two years ago Chevy was running an awesome billboard campaign to reinforce this perception for a powerful and classically American car. Yet now the consumer is supposed to associate Chevy with a small car that can sip gas ever so slightly and still be great.

I doubt that that will happen, especially with the Volt’s current positioning strategy: “More Car Than Electric.” That positioning hardly screams out “Chevy is a small, fuel-efficient car.” Instead, Chevy is attempting the impossible task of fighting deep-rooted perceptions, specifically that small (and electric) cars are not powerful. For consumers, small and powerful are conflicting qualities in a car. Any consumer making judgments on vehicle horsepower or toughness will make a strong determination without even hearing so much as the sound of an engine. A simple eyeball test will tell them that a Chevy Volt is not “more car” than the significantly larger vehicle it’s parked next to. Trying to convince the American consumers otherwise is an exercise in futility.

And yet another one:

I have been waiting for the Volt since it was announced in January 2007. From what I have been able to read through October 2010, all of GM’s buzz about the Volt has been positive. So I was flabbergasted and deeply annoyed that GM should choose the slogan, “It’s more car than electric”, as their lead advertising catch-phrase. What a negative way to advertise GM’s outstanding engineering achievement!

One university student who knows my Volt advocacy — I wear a Volt tee-shirt during the summer — has asked me, “Is GM apologizing for this car?” Another asked, “Why would anyone want to buy it a Volt if GM is ashamed of the engineering that makes this car both unique and ecologically appealing?” I can’t answer them because this phrase is so out of character for the group that made this car and for potential customers like myself who have been cheering on GM since January 2007. Did this phrase arise from a focus group packed with folks who’d rather be driving a Cobalt or a Cruze?

Yeah, I get it that they’re thinking an electric car won’t have the range, or the pickup, that their 2000 Buick Regal with the supercharger (which I mention because, well, I own one) has. But it completely ignores that people likely to buy an electric car are looking for something completely different, something that gets them from point A to point B more efficiently, cheaper and without the harm to the planet and national security. People like that — or at least, like me — don’t even care if that something is a “car.” We actively, ardently want something different.

This approach is made even more ironic, sounds even more tone-deaf, because I hear it during the sponsor breaks on NPR news shows. Like you’ve got to apologize to that audience for making a break with the internal combustion engine. What ARE these people thinking?

(Oh, and why do I, the founder of the Energy Party, drive a 2000 Buick Regal with a supercharger? Because I could afford it, when I suddenly needed a car after my last truck spontaneously combusted one day on I-77. I could NOT afford a Prius, much less a hybrid Camry, which is what I really wanted. Of course, a fully electric car would have been even better. But I’m not likely to be able to afford one of those until someone comes out with a mass-production one and sells a LOT of them, and the technology keeps improving, and the prices drop, so I can pick me up a used one. In the meantime, I take my solace where I can — such as enjoying the sweet way my Regal zips around trucks on the Interstate when I engage the supercharger, which works the way the afterburner on a jet works, by dumping a lot of extra fuel into the burner. Primitive, and wasteful, and foolish, but also exciting — sort of like tossing a water balloon full of gasoline onto a campfire. OOPS, I did it again — another error. It’s corrected below, in the comments…

But GM doesn’t get the likely customer for an electric car. And I wonder whether it ever will.

A little ditty you can sing to take your mind off being groped

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That is, if you mind being groped.

Personally, I was struck by how nonintrusive security was on my recent flights across the ocean and back. You’d think that on an international flight to and from a country that’s as involved (as target, and as combatant) in the War on Terror as the UK, you’d see security as tough as anywhere (with the possible exception of Israel).

The only sign I saw of really heightened security during the whole trip was when we went to see Downing Street, which is totally barred off and heavily guarded, with at least one submachine gun being wielded up close and personal so that the tourists can’t miss seeing it. But at least we could see something — I couldn’t quite make out the famous door of No. 10, although I could see the famous railings in front of it (which is how I could tell that was it, and not another black door that was at a slightly more advantageous angle for viewing — perhaps the chancellor of the exchequer’s abode; I don’t know).

But, after all the talk about invasive, intrusive new TSA procedures in recent months, what we experienced was not noticeably different from any other trip I’ve taken over the last decade or so. The only hassle I remember at all was the rigmarole of having to reclaim our bags in Atlanta after getting back, and then having to recheck them for the flight to Columbia. That was highly irritating at the end of a day (actually, the worst thing was that it WASN’T yet the end of the day) when we’d already been up for 18 hours, and had just stepped off a 9-hour flight. Without that drill, we might have made our connection in spite of our flight from Heathrow having been delayed. Delta quickly got us onto another one — although our bags didn’t follow us until the next day.

But all that stuff about futuristic x-ray machines and being groped by the TSA? We didn’t encounter any of that. I was ready for it, and all prepared to shrug it off (why people get so worked up about such things I still don’t understand), but then it just … didn’t happen.

Still I can enjoy a joke as well as the next guy. So when a friend who closely follows such issues showed me the above video, I just had to share it with y’all…

Near as I can tell, this video comes courtesy of buckhowdy.com.

The only obviously stepped-up security I saw the whole trip was at the end of Downing Street, where it runs into Whitehall.

The terrible, awful, horrible day that the VAT went up

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So maybe you didn’t feel it where you are, but today was the day — and they’ve been building up to it for the whole week that we’ve been in the UK, with sales urging people to come out and buy before it happened — that the VAT went up from 17.5 percent to 20 percent.

Guess what — I didn’t feel it, either.

There are several things that it’s taken some time to get used to here in the UK:

  • People driving on the left. This is maddening when you’re riding in a bus. And I’ve almost been hit from behind by buses several times walking along a road too close to the curb, with the road on my right (you expect to see traffic oncoming, but it sneaks up behind you — and is really close, because the lanes are so narrow).
  • The fact that tips aren’t expected. We made friends with a barman from Sri Lanka in Greenwich (a really nice guy), and he explained that they don’t get tips. We left him one anyway. But it’s really weird to leave, say, 15 quid for a bill of 12 pounds 52 pence, and have the server chase you out of the place trying to give you change. It happens time and again.
  • The fact that you NEVER feel the tax, no matter how high it is. That’s because it’s built into the price of the things you buy. If something is listed as 99p, and you give the clerk a pound coin (and why is it we haven’t had a dollar coin, or two or three dollar coin, catch on in this country? they’re so convenient), you get back a penny.
  • The fact that I’m in a country where the conservative party is raising taxes (OK, technically it’s a coalition government), and the dominant party of the left (Labour) is griping about what a terrible burden taxes are on ordinary families.

But both The Times and The Guardian are going on about this big, monstrous, huge increase. To which I say, who crosses the street to get a 2.5 percent discount on anything? I mean, really? This increase would amount to 25 p on 10 pounds. Or say you spend a thousand pounds on something — which is a lot more than a thousand dollars, mind — what’s the increase in tax? Twenty-five pounds. Like you’re going to worry about that if you can afford a thousand. (Oh, and by the way — that 600 pounds a family The Times predicts is on families that make 70,000 pounds or more. The burden is much less on median incomes.)

All that aside, the most amazing thing, the thing hardest to get used to, is that I’m in a country where the government has decided to deal with the deficit by — now get this — cutting spending and raising taxes. Of course, back home, the recent huge compromise between President Obama and the Republicans was to raise spending and lower taxes. That’s how we deal with deficits in the U.S. of A.

Riding through London on the magnificent Tube — which as far as I’m concerned is one of the marvels of the world, a testament to the ingenuity of Man — and asking directions from the helpful bobbies (“just 200 metres more on your roight, mate”), reading the extremely clear directions on where the buses that come every few minutes go, or going to the fantastic museums and paying nothing (except a few pounds voluntary contribution now and then), I personally feel that the tax I’m paying is one of the great bargains of all time.

And I’m wondering how well I’ll adjust when I get back home to a place where folks don’t want the gummint doing anything, ever, if it’s going to cost a penny more…

No, folks, I’m not a convert to socialism. I worry about the burdens of the welfare state, and I know that increasing taxes too much can have a nasty cooling effect on growth. But I have enjoyed some amenities here that seem more than worth the taxes I’ve paid here. All I’m saying.

I found “Championship Vinyl” (and you can’t prove I didn’t)

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See where it says "shop to let"? And do you see any window-shoppers?

Well, I told you I would find the former site of “Championship Vinyl,” the record shop in High Fidelity, and I did. And no one (except maybe Nick Hornby) can tell me I’m wrong.

It satisfies the criteria:

  1. It’s in Holloway.
  2. It’s just off the Seven Sisters Road.
  3. It’s in a location that guarantees the “minimum of window-shoppers” — in other words, the only customers are those geeky young males who go out of their way to seek the place out.
  4. I was looking for a vacant space, on the theory that since the book was published 15 years ago, and since Rob was trending toward changing his life for the better toward the end, that he would have moved on from running the store, or moved it to a better location, or something by now. I mean, he and Laura would have some kids by now. Any road, this is a good theory for me to have to explain that it’s not actually there, since, you know, it never really existed.

I made up that last criterion, but the first three are in the book.

So, you ladies are wondering — just how patient is my wife, to go along to places like this? Well, she didn’t. This was the one thing I did

Unfortunately, the souvenir shop wasn't open. I had wanted one of those scarves...

on my own. Today was the day we were leaving London for Oxford, and she just wanted to get up and get ready. So I got up before she did, hopped the Jubilee line down to Green Park and got on the Picadilly way out to Islington, to Holloway Road, and hiked over to Seven Sisters.

Then, after “finding” Championship Vinyl (it was the first street off Seven Sisters with some actual commercial fronts off the main road) on Hornsey Road, I walked back east until I got to Arsenal Stadium, the scene of other Hornby tales. At Arsenal, at least, I wasn’t the only geek taking pictures of the stadium — but the others were English football fans. One guy was having his wife take his picture there while she tried to keep the kids in order.

After I found the Arsenal Tube station (this required asking directions four times, twice from people who did not speak English), I rode back to our stop, and left Swiss Cottage station with sadness. I really, really love the Underground. (There’s no other way I could have gone all the way to Islington in a city this crowded and done all that walking about and gotten back in less than two hours.)

When I got back, J had packed for both of us, and we took a taxi to Victoria Coach Station for the ride to Oxford. Come to think of it, she really is enormously patient with me…

Oh, and if you wonder why I would want to do this… well, you just have to read High Fidelity. The movie was great, but the novel was much better.

Or maybe THIS is it, a couple of doors down. I can see how experts could in good faith disagree...

I’m really counting on British pluck here…

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Here we are, five days from when I’m supposed to leave U.S. airspace, and I’m hearing a bunch of stuff I don’t want to hear:

Heathrow airport could remain in a state of partial paralysis beyond Christmas, its owner admitted yesterday, spelling misery for the tens of thousands of passengers who face the prospect of being stranded over the festive period.

BAA said two-thirds of flights into and out of Britain’s largest airport would be cancelled until at least Wednesday morning because it has the resources to keep only one of its two runways open.

Of course, that’s from those lefty alarmists at The Guardian, but even more sensible, conservative newspapers are saying distressing things. Even
The Times, if you’re willing to pay a quid to read it.

This morning, I was hearing that everything should be cleared up by Friday. Now we’re hearing the ominous “beyond Christmas,” which, after months of planning and years of anticipation, could potentially put a crimp in our plans.

My wife’s been reading cheery notices from the British rail system about all the salt they’ve bought, and how energetically they’re applying themselves to the problem.

And that’s what I’m counting on, you see. British pluck. Nothing like it. Go to it with a will, lads. I’ve all the faith in the world in you. Make this your finest hour, and clean up this mess. And don’t fear; I’m on the way…

City doing what it has to do on buses

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Yesterday I had breakfast with Joel Lourie over at the Lizard’s Thicket on Forest, and as we were chatting he was accosted by a constituent who didn’t like what he’d halfway heard Joel saying about the need for more moderates in the Legislature. He proceeded to lecture Joel on why voters are more and more “conservative” these days. Mainly, it had to do with spending.

But the thing that jumped out at me was the local example he used. After excoriating the effort to raise the sales tax to pay for transportation needs, he said, flat out, “We don’t need buses.” He said it like public transit was just the stupidest, most wasteful idea he had ever heard of.

The conversation ended pleasantly, as Joel listened politely and declined to engage the voter on the more incendiary things he said. (After many years of dealing with angry readers, I can testify that’s a good formula for ending conversations better than they started — look for areas of agreement, look for opportunities to explain your own position better, but mainly allow the frustration to be vented. Most people just want to be heard, and don’t have the same opportunities to make that happen that politicians and journalists do.)

But I thought back to it later in the day. Brian Murrell of ADCO and I went to get some lunch at Greek Boys, and had to park almost a block away north on Sumter. As we walked past the bus stop at Sumter and Hampton in the bitter cold, we passed a guy — probably a patient from Palmetto Health Baptist across the street — standing with a walker waiting for the bus.

We had a nice, warm lunch inside — I had the beef tips over rice with greek salad (minus the feta). It didn’t take all that long — service is fast there — but we weren’t in a hurry, either. We took time to chat with Butch Bowers and Todd Carroll from Hall Bowers over at the next table. Call it 30 minutes, maybe 40.

Then we bundled back up and headed back into the bluster. And as we passed the bus stop, there was that same guy with the walker, still waiting. He had to be chilled right through his bones.

At that moment, I wish that voter from Lizard’s Thicket that morning had been there to tell THAT guy we don’t need buses.

All of which is a long way of getting to the point that Columbia City Council is simply doing what has to be done by coming up for different revenue source for the bus system, for now. Read about that here.

What we should have done was pass the sales tax. But since we didn’t, the city’s got to do something (and so will the county). So that, so far, is what it’s doing.