Minnesota Is “Urging” Residents To Not Drive As Much To Stop Climate Apocalypse

For the moment they’re urging. In the future? Well, let the inner authoritarian out

Fight against climate change could include goal to reduce driving in Minnesota
Legislators could put vehicle travel limits into law to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Minnesotans may be urged to put down the car keys in a new effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and fight climate change.

The House Sustainable Transportation Act would build more stations for charging electric cars and swapping batteries, push local governments to electrify their fleets and prod the Metropolitan Council to electrify all its buses by 2040, among other things.

It would also put into statute a new statewide goal to reduce vehicle miles driven by at least 20% by 2050. (snip)

Electric vehicles alone won’t get the state on track with legislated goals for cutting greenhouse gases, Hornstein told the committee. Transportation is the largest source of emissions, and electric vehicles are still less than 1% of new vehicle sales.

That’s because not that many people want, or can afford, EVs. Have the rich folks elected to the Minnesota House switched to EVs themselves? What about road miles for the state government?

“We have a long way to go, and driving less really is one of the key ways we can reduce greenhouse gases,” Hornstein said. “We are going to have to do things differently.”

By “we”, they mean you.

He also noted that it doesn’t make sense to ask people in rural areas to ditch their cars. Urban residents will need to curb their driving more than 20% “to make up for the geographic difference.” To make those urban reductions work, he said, everyone needs to be within a half-mile of reliable transit.

No, no, they certainly won’t attempt to force the peons into certain urban areas and restrict them from using their legally purchased property, right?

Regardless of the legislative outcome, the driving reduction goal is gaining traction at the state level. Last week, in its official response to the advisory council’s recommendations, MnDOT committed to adopting a preliminary goal of cutting vehicle miles traveled by 20% by 2050. The goal will be finalized after more work.

It’s a major shift for the state agency that has long tracked vehicle miles driven and indicated the need to drive less, but has never committed to something specific in writing. In an interview, MnDOT’s Sexton called a driving reduction policy goal an “important first step.”

“Implementation is something that we would need to work with partners to figure out,” he said.

As in, how do they make Citizens give up driving so much? Penalties? Fines? Requiring a tracking device on their vehicles?

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9 Responses to “Minnesota Is “Urging” Residents To Not Drive As Much To Stop Climate Apocalypse”

  1. Hairy says:

    Tesla mod 3 costs less than the average new car sold in the USA
    Over a 5 year span a Tesla mod 3 costs less to operate than a Toyota corrola the next cheapest car to own
    Think zero fuel costs zero oil changes

    • drowningpuppies says:

      Not too many Teslas driving around Minnesota during the wintertime.
      But one hears that a Tesla snowplow is in the works.

      Bwaha! Lolgf https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_heart.gif

    • Kye says:

      I take it you drive a Tesla, Hairy? Or are you just an internet shill for Elon?

    • Dana says:

      The Hirsute One wrote:

      Tesla mod 3 costs less than the average new car sold in the USA

      Oddly enough, the actual TESLA website doesn’t tell you how much the Model 3 costs, not until you start to order one. If you just do a google search for tesla model 3, you’ll see:

      Standard Range Plus: $37,490
      Long Range: $46,490
      Performance: $55,900

      The average new car cost in the US was $40,107, so the bare bones T3 is less than that, but when you are spending that kind of money on a new car, you don’t want bare bones.

      Zero fuel costs? When you plug that thing into your garage, you are going to wind up paying for that sparktricity; it ain’t free!

      If people want to buy plug in electric vehicles, well, more power to them. I support anyone exercising his freedom of choice in buying an automobile. But please, leave the rest of us alone!

      • Est1950 says:

        Tesla’s in the long run are actually cheaper to run that a fossil fueled vehicle. The problem is that they still require electricity and since we need 800,000 square miles of Solar panels to power the USA there will be no power for autos. Including Tesla’s.

        this of course is the plan. Get everyone to buy Electric and then get rid of electricity. In the end the AGW Terrorist organization is all about ending inequality and a vast majority of the world cannot afford a 40k or 50k auto of any kind.

        Critical race theory is awesome. IF we follow it to it’s logical conclusion then the NBA and NFL should cease to exist. So should the NHL and MLB since hispanics are considered WHITE and CRT is all about the evil of white people.

        91 percent of the owners of Electric Cars are Racists. They are white people.

        83 percent of the owners of all small businesses are Racists. They are white people and by white I mean Asian, Hispanic, Indian, Muslim and WHITES because you see according to CRT only BLACKS are not racist and are the protected of the world.

        All Hail Adolph XI. I will be starting a seminar on Mandarin Chinese soon.

        Meanwhile Biden bows to China and says puhlease don’t hurt us. In case you don’t know folks. China is already squeezing the USA of Medicines and BIDEN isn’t doing shit about it. He’s too busy accepting more WHITE RACISTS (MEXICANS) into the country to care that you can’t get a full prescription from your Doctor.

  2. Dana says:

    The Wall Street Journal noted that the automobile industry sort of sees plug in electric vehicles as its future, but the problem is that few customers want to buy them.

    Remember this one?

    Tesla Owners Wait in Long Lines to Recharge over Holidays
    Institute for Energy Research | January 6, 2020

    With over 400,000 Tesla vehicles on U.S. roads, Tesla’s Supercharger stations were overcrowded over the holidays and many Tesla owners faced an hours-long wait to recharge their electric vehicles. At one location in Kettleman City, California, a line of 50 or so Tesla vehicles awaiting a Supercharger stall stretched to about a quarter mile over Thanksgiving weekend. The station is located about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Its 40 stalls were insufficient to accommodate the demand, and the simultaneous recharging of the vehicles lowered the rate of recharging, frustrating customers even more. It takes about 52 minutes to charge a Model 3 to 80 percent at a 120 kilowatt Tesla Supercharger.

    How many times have you gone to the gas station, and had to wait behind a vehicle or two to get your turn to fuel up. When it takes around five to ten minutes to pump gasoline into a vehicle, it’s annoying enough, but what if there was just one vehicle ahead of you . . . and it took the driver 52 minutes to recharge his car?

    Even if you get to pull right up to the supercharger station, are you going to enjoy spending the better part of an hour to charge up your Tesla or your Bolt?

  3. Jl says:

    Liberals again advocating for less freedom….

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