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The quickest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to lower the speed limit to 55 MPH.
This will reduce emissions by 25%.
The San Francisco Bay Area is proposing to take the first steps.....from the article.
......"The letter also outlines a plan to “lower the speed limit to 55 mph on freeways to improve safety.”.........The blueprint is part of Plan Bay Area 2050, a long-term roadmap charting the course for the future of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area...................
........................ to help the final Plan Bay Area 2050 meet the 19 percent reduction in per-capita greenhouse gas emissions mandated by state law."
Those of you in California need to write Governor Newsome and indicate that there is NO REASON to wait to implement 55 MPH in the Bay Area. He ALONE has the authority to lower the speed limit to 55 MPH tomorrow.
We cannot wait on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We need the 55 MPH speed limit NOW.
California, Oregon and Washngton missed all their greenhouse emission goals due to emissions from vehicles exceeding the environmental speed of 55 MPH!!
The Governors of all three of these GREEN states need to implement 55 mph NOW.
The good news is that there is NOTHING President Trump can do to stop 55 MPH!!
The quickest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to lower the speed limit to 55 mph.
!
Not really....
a) Only about 1% of American roads have speed limits in excess of 55mph now, so eliminating them would hardly change anything--even if we assume people will obey the new speed limits.
2] You need to take gearing into account: a car travelling at 45mph, for instance, in 3rd gear will burn considerably more gasoline per mile than one travelling 45 mph in 4th gear....Semi trailer trucks can have as many as 18 gears and limiting them to 55mph can cut their mileage in half...
For cars, travelling at 55 has the automatic transmission "confused"-- slowing down just a little from 55 will have it often shifting needlessly into lower gear. (A 60 mph limit would make more sense-- little difference in gas mileage and less up & down shifting in actual driving conditions.)
c) If we really want to speculate, we could argue that slowing freeway traffic down will cause the number of cars on the road per mile per hour to increase, leading to more traffic jams and more sitting at idle in rush hour traffic-- way more fuel wasted.
This is one of those "let's do something so it looks like we care" movements that is not very well thought out.
Yeah that’s really gonna make people slow down. Sorry but they won’t have the manpower to enforce it. The whole defunding the police.
Seriously, though, as long as apps like Waze exist (and thank the Lord for Waze as it has stopped me from getting pulled over countless times now) where users can input where they spot the police in real time and speed traps are highlighted, folks aren't going to start slowing down.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Reducing the speed limit to 55 won't make much difference, in fact for most cars up to 65 is within the lowest emissions range. A more effective way to reduce emissions is to build more roads, so that traffic can move. The worst pollution is coming from vehicles idling while stuck in jammed up commute gridlock.
If it isn't the cost of housing it is the rising homeless problem with no solutions in sight. Plus the drive to defund the police does nothing to help stabilize the area.
The only way 55 mph would save San Francisco is to slow down the exodus!
Anyone who was old enough to drive back in the 70s can remember the oil embargo and fuel shortages resulting in gas rationing, and the governmental "wisdom" to reduce speed limits to 55 to conserve gas. Commuting at 55 v. the 60/65 it had been resulted in no difference - there was no miraculous conservation in gas usage. Now we jump forward fifty years and the "new thing" is to go back to 55 and "miraculously" reduce emissions to save the planet. Picking 55 as the perfect speed is not part of the engineering of gas-powered vehicles which include cars, trucks, busses, trains.
Anyone who was old enough to drive back in the 70s can remember the oil embargo and fuel shortages resulting in gas rationing, and the governmental "wisdom" to reduce speed limits to 55 to conserve gas. Commuting at 55 v. the 60/65 it had been resulted in no difference - there was no miraculous conservation in gas usage. Now we jump forward fifty years and the "new thing" is to go back to 55 and "miraculously" reduce emissions to save the planet. Picking 55 as the perfect speed is not part of the engineering of gas-powered vehicles which include cars, trucks, busses, trains.
It was a monumental failure back then as it would be if attempted again today.
Come on now, y'all gotta stop confusing the OP with facts. I'm sure he/she wants nothing more than to make everyone do what he/she thinks is best for them.
The quickest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to lower the speed limit to 55 MPH.
OK but what if you drive a Tesla. Then what is your justification?
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