Thanks to WBEN for letting me promote this in peak drive-time, live with John and Susan. To sign the petition, click here.

Some have criticized this as being disproportionately too generous for someone who was just doing his job, or was just a mere journalist, and I guess there has been some Russert fatigue setting in among some. Some suggest he shouldn’t receive this honor because he’s a liberal Democrat. Or because he was too easy on George Bush. Or because he’s not an aviator.

All of those criticisms miss the point.

The point isn’t that he was a well-respected journalist. The point isn’t that his was the political junkie’s program of record on Sunday morning. The point isn’t his politics or anything like that.

With Tim Russert, you have a favorite son; a man who never forgot where he came from and was a tireless, vocal ambassador for his hometown, its past glory, and its future potential. When people turned on Meet the Press during football season, they got a reminder of Tim’s roots with his “Go Bills” signoff. When the Sabres were in the playoffs, he expressed his support for them. He wrote a book about growing up in Buffalo that shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. He helped to promote Buffalo Old Home Week/Homecoming.

Orange County named its airport after an actor, John Wayne. Liverpool’s airport is named after a singer/songwriter, John Lennon. John Wayne was an Iowan who lived in Orange County. John Lennon was a favorite son, like Russert. It beats naming a stretch of Route 20, and is, I think, more appropriate than putting his name up in Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Gas prices could go up to $7.00 or $8.00 per gallon, and it won’t be enough to get people out of their cars. They might select different cars, but individual transportation will not die completely.

If you want people who are happy with their cars to consider using public transportation, it would be good to make that transportation clean, modern, efficient, and reliable. Big Billy Fuccillo buses need not apply.

So, consider this rubber-tired newfangled tram-bus, now rolling in France:

This is a bus-train, basically a train on rubber tires instead of rail tracks. The vehicle is designed to function exactly like an urban streetcar with a low floor that is level with boarding stations. The vehicle is guided by a centre track in the street and is meant for urban city streets, as shown above.

That’s all well and good for the city and throughout the suburbs. But what about speedier commuter rail? Quick trips between downtown and East Aurora, Hamburg, Orchard Park, Clarence, Lancaster, etc. Something like this would do just nicely:

Photo courtesy Kecko via Flickr.

Intercity and intracity rail expansion would be great for the Buffalo area. If only we had the money and political will to build it.

The NFTA recently transformed a lot of its buses to diesel/electric hybrids. So did Toronto’s TTC. But in Toronto, they discovered this:

Toronto’s new and expensive hybrid buses are saving less than half the amount of diesel fuel the transit agency - and the governments that paid for them - claimed.

The Toronto Transit Commission and the federal, provincial and city governments said as recently as March that the new hybrid diesel-electric buses - which cost $734,000, compared with $500,000 for a conventional bus - were using 20 to 30 per cent less fuel.

But the TTC’s current fuel-savings estimate, incorporated in its 2008 budget after tests on the new fleet last summer, is just 10 per cent - although officials expect that number to improve.

Since hybrids only make sense in stop-and-go, heavy traffic*, I’d wager that the fuel savings in the Buffalo-Niagara region is even lower still.

The NFTA says:

Metro estimates a 25% to 30% reduction in fuel based on the efficiencies of the hybrid drivetrain.

If Toronto is getting 10 - 20% savings, I’d bet that we’re getting 5 - 10%. If that.

*The hallmarks of hybrid engines are engine start/stop, occasional electric propulsion, and brake regeneration. For that to make sense, you need to be stopping and braking a lot. Hybrid vehicles make zero sense in zero traffic WNY.