Cars: making life expensive, even for those without

[Brainonska511]

The re-introduction of the Hummer thread, since zapped to The Garage, made me think of the articles below. Car culture is killing our cities and costing us tons of money, and EVs are not going to save us from the current traffic and parking crises we have wrought upon ourselves.

Cars Make Your Life More Expensive, Even If You Don't Have One

Cities are designed for cars and you’re paying for them in hidden costs and higher rent.

www.vice.com

Donald Shoup, an urban planning professor at the UCLA, said North America’s bias towards cars is evident in zoning rules, which separate the areas where people work from the places where they live, and shop, and encourages car use and urban sprawl. “Zoning makes it really hard to live without a car,” he said in an interview.

According to Shoup, when cities offer “free parking,” at the mall or on the street for example, it’s a public subsidy for people who can afford a vehicle. He estimated that the U.S. spends between US$102 billion and US$374 billion on free parking, which is “somewhere between what we pay for Medicare and national defence.”

The Massachusetts car economy is costing us $64 billion a year, and we barely notice it - The Boston Globe

A new Kennedy School report reveals what car culture costs us all.

www.bostonglobe.com

“...the real price Massachusetts pays for its vehicle economy is much, much higher. Now, thanks to an ambitious research project by a team of graduate students at the Harvard Kennedy School, we have an idea of just how high: $64.1 billion a year.

That astronomical estimate includes all the things we don’t often think about when we get into our cars — costs that extend far beyond what we pay at the dealership or the pump. And the biggest slice of that giant pie gets paid for before anybody actually signs a lease or gets behind the wheel.? So many of the expenses associated with cars and roads are borne by the public that the average family in Massachusetts is on the hook for about $14,000 a year, whether they own a car or not, the study found.

For those who do own vehicles, the average annual costs nearly double.?

‘We never talk about the costs of driving,’ said Rep. Seth Moulton, who suggested the study to Linda Bilmes, the Kennedy School public policy professor who oversaw the work. ‘We always talk about subsidies that go to railway passengers, but never the subsidies that go to drivers. ... We are subsidizing the least efficient way to get around.’”

 

[whm1974]

I'm am not surprised at all at the Studies findings. For one, it is not expensive to by the car, but TCO is much higher then the initial cost. And historically they use polluting fossil fuels.

 

[Brainonska511]

I'm am not surprised at all at the Studies findings. For one, it is not expensive to by the car, but TCO is much higher then the initial cost. And historically they use polluting fossil fuels.

It's not even just the direct costs borne by the owners. We've chosen to (stupidly) build cities around the personal automobile - that means external costs put on everyone: parking requirements making housing more expensive and reducing density near transit, clogging streets with traffic that stalls buses, pollution, noise, and pedestrian/bicyclist deaths (since we've built infrastructure that puts the car first). Even if we replaced all fossil fuel cars with EVs, we'd still have almost all the same problems, minus some of the pollution.

 

[pmv]

It's not even just the direct costs borne by the owners. We've chosen to (stupidly) build cities around the personal automobile - that means external costs put on everyone: parking requirements making housing more expensive and reducing density near transit, clogging streets with traffic that stalls buses, pollution, noise, and pedestrian/bicyclist deaths (since we've built infrastructure that puts the car first). Even if we replaced all fossil fuel cars with EVs, we'd still have almost all the same problems, minus some of the pollution.

Car culture is like a zombie apocalypse. It's self-sustaining. The more people become infected by car-dependency the more difficult it becomes for those left to avoid getting bitten.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

But autonomous cars will fix everything!

/s

 

[Brainonska511]

Car culture is like a zombie apocalypse. It's self-sustaining. The more people become infected by car-dependency the more difficult it becomes for those left to avoid getting bitten.

It's easy to be brain dead with car culture. There are so many things about infrastructure that are also counterintuitive - like adding more lanes mostly does nothing except create more traffic, thanks to induced demand.

 

[Jaskalas]

I am trying to imagine not having my own transport. I can't wrap my head around it. You're asking for suicide?

One does not live in America without a car. Full stop. Life would be hell, if not impossible, without.

To put some more thought into it...
What is walking distance? Even the closest stores are 2.5 miles away. Not sure I'd make that if it's below freezing out. And the time it would take? Just crazy.

 

[Brainonska511]

I am trying to imagine not having my own transport. I can't wrap my head around it. You're asking for suicide?

One does not live in America without a car. Full stop. Life would be hell, if not impossible, without.

That's categorically untrue. Plenty of people in the US live without cars, particularly in urban environments. Adequately planned mass transit could help reduce people's personal reliance on automobiles. Maybe it won't stop many households from owning one, but it could reduce their personal car trips.

To put some more thought into it...
What is walking distance? Even the closest stores are 2.5 miles away. Not sure I'd make that if it's below freezing out. And the time it would take? Just crazy.

Again - that's choices we've made as a society with regards to zoning and where we choose to live. In some places, we've decided that commercial/retail and housing shouldn't be mixed, leading to these sprawling, completely unwalkable neighborhoods. We've dedicated tons of space for literally storing personally automobiles.

Also, bicycles and buses don't stop working when it's cold outside.

 

[whm1974]

I am trying to imagine not having my own transport. I can't wrap my head around it. You're asking for suicide?

One does not live in America without a car. Full stop. Life would be hell, if not impossible, without.

To put some more thought into it...
What is walking distance? Even the closest stores are 2.5 miles away. Not sure I'd make that if it's below freezing out. And the time it would take? Just crazy.

Actually many people in Chigco and NYC get along just fine without cars.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Living without a car would mean I'd have to live next to other people again. No thanks. I live in the boonies on some land. I will never willingly go back to having neighbors. I do have a couple neighbors. One is about 400 to 500 feet away and the other is about 600 feet away. Thats close enough for me.

 

[Bitek]

Actually many people in Chigco and NYC get along just fine without cars.

But that's not a model you can extend across the entire country, let alone the planet.

Mega cities are also supplied and fed by large masses of land populated by ppl who need low density transportation options, ie cars/trucks.

You are not going to jam all of humanity in a super high density urban areas then surrounded by roadless wilderness in an effort to invalidate the need for a parking lot.

Imo, this is a fairly useless study.

 

[Victorian Gray]

I am trying to imagine not having my own transport. I can't wrap my head around it. You're asking for suicide?

One does not live in America without a car. Full stop. Life would be hell, if not impossible, without.

To put some more thought into it...
What is walking distance? Even the closest stores are 2.5 miles away. Not sure I'd make that if it's below freezing out. And the time it would take? Just crazy.

And I have never owned a car in my life (going on 69). Don't even have a license. Mind you, I've mostly lived in an urban or suburban area which allowed me to do so.

I like it. It helps me live my life at a slightly slower pace. But again, I aknowledge that my circumstances allow me to live without a car. Living in the country would be a different thing.

 

[Brainonska511]

But that's not a model you can extend across the entire country, let alone the planet.

Mega cities are also supplied and fed by large masses of land populated by ppl who need low density transportation options, ie cars/trucks.

You are not going to jam all of humanity in a super high density urban areas then surrounded by roadless wilderness in an effort to invalidate the need for a parking lot.

Imo, this is a fairly useless study.

Those big cities aren't being fed by people driving tiny automobiles into the city. Granted, there will be lower density areas, and that's fine. But the way we plan our medium- to high-density areas is still moronic. We can't keep cramming more personal automobiles into our urban and suburban locations at the expense of actual people.

And on top of it all, people cry about having to fund public transit while demanding that we just give away public space for private car storage.

 

[Zorba]

It's not even just the direct costs borne by the owners. We've chosen to (stupidly) build cities around the personal automobile - that means external costs put on everyone: parking requirements making housing more expensive and reducing density near transit, clogging streets with traffic that stalls buses, pollution, noise, and pedestrian/bicyclist deaths (since we've built infrastructure that puts the car first). Even if we replaced all fossil fuel cars with EVs, we'd still have almost all the same problems, minus some of the pollution.

This is a little OT. But I run on a trail around a park. The trail is fully contained within a city park, but it crosses a few park roads. The trail has stop signs and the road doesn't even have a yield. That's right, even in a park, cars are being given the right of way. I was almost hit by one on Monday, that was fully stopped for someone else when I entered the crosswalk, then they tried to gun it to get past the crosswalk in front of me, missed me by inches, because I stopped, I'm glad they were able to get to YMCA half a second sooner.

We need to raise gas tax a lot, and put all of that increase into funding public transit and trails. I really don't understand why we have no problem with mass subsidization of cars, but can't stand the thought of subsidizing PT.

 

[Rebel_L]

It's not even just the direct costs borne by the owners. We've chosen to (stupidly) build cities around the personal automobile - that means external costs put on everyone: parking requirements making housing more expensive and reducing density near transit, clogging streets with traffic that stalls buses, pollution, noise, and pedestrian/bicyclist deaths (since we've built infrastructure that puts the car first). Even if we replaced all fossil fuel cars with EVs, we'd still have almost all the same problems, minus some of the pollution.

It seems to me any transportation system moving so many people is going to have massive costs. While you can save some money by taking away the unrivaled freedom of movement that cars offer you are removing that freedom of movement that the car system provides. Most urban people I know choose cars because of the freedom of movement it offers not because there are no alternatives. While totally not in right context the phrase "Freedom isnt free" does apply to this as well.

Also, bicycles and buses don't stop working when it's cold outside.

I dont know if you have ever lived in a cold weather climate, but school bus's and bikes are what you dont see on the road when it gets really cold. Most public transit only functions because they leave them on the whole time. Diesel engines are more difficult to start in cold weather than gasoline engines. Also when exposed skin is getting frostbitten in under a couple of minutes bikes and walking are not really a great way to get around.

 

[darkswordsman17]

It seems to me any transportation system moving so many people is going to have massive costs. While you can save some money by taking away the unrivaled freedom of movement that cars offer you are removing that freedom of movement that the car system provides. Most urban people I know choose cars because of the freedom of movement it offers not because there are no alternatives. While totally not in right context the phrase "Freedom isnt free" does apply to this as well.


I dont know if you have ever lived in a cold weather climate, but school bus's and bikes are what you dont see on the road when it gets really cold. Most public transit only functions because they leave them on the whole time. Diesel engines are more difficult to start in cold weather than gasoline engines. Also when exposed skin is getting frostbitten in under a couple of minutes bikes and walking are not really a great way to get around.

That's kinda the point. The "freedom" isn't just not free, but it costs far more than people realize they're paying for it. And that's before we even get to facts like it is literally fucking killing people (both directly and indirectly via pollution). It also often inhibits freedom since they have to fuck people over to build highways (just recently they extended a major freeway in Phoenix and lots of homeowners are complaining about the excessive noise they're now being exposed to).

We need to change our transportation setup. But as usual people don't give a fuck about anything but themselves and whatever shortsighted thing they want. I really wish they'd find a way to dye gasoline so that it would make people have to realize how much shit they're spewing out of their tailpipes. But then we'd just have a bunch of fucking morons trying to blow that exhaust in people's faces.

That's funny cause I walked uphill both ways in -300degrees with 300 feet of snow! Being more serious, yes I have and the school buses ran all the time in the cold (they were prepped to run even when school was cancelled as they'd wait until like half an hour before school to announce it was cancelled).

 

[pmv]

I am trying to imagine not having my own transport. I can't wrap my head around it. You're asking for suicide?

One does not live in America without a car. Full stop. Life would be hell, if not impossible, without.

To put some more thought into it...
What is walking distance? Even the closest stores are 2.5 miles away. Not sure I'd make that if it's below freezing out. And the time it would take? Just crazy.

(a) You are probably right about much of the US - which is also dependent on air travel and air-conditioning to function. (In my view, that's becuase it was a bad place to put a country). It isn't true of the _whole_ country though, and it won't always be the case to the same degree (as population density and urbanisation increases).

(b) It's true for many rural areas even in other countries, but a lot could be improved as far as cities are concerned.

(c) Personally I see anything under 4 miles as walking distance and anything under 15 as cycling distance. But not everyone is the same of course, and some places have much nastier weather. It does exasperate me when able-bodied people insist on driving trips of less than a couple of miles in town, though.

(d) The most annoying thing is how circular the problem can be. Pepole won't let their children walk to school, whether in town or country, because the roads are 'too dangerous'... because of all the other people driving on them. There are no local shops because everyone has cars and so drives to the larger superstore 20 miles away, and everyone starts to think like a driver and view the world through a car-windscreen, and so it becomes politically impossible to change anything.

 

[pmv]

It seems to me any transportation system moving so many people is going to have massive costs. While you can save some money by taking away the unrivaled freedom of movement that cars offer you are removing that freedom of movement that the car system provides. Most urban people I know choose cars because of the freedom of movement it offers not because there are no alternatives. While totally not in right context the phrase "Freedom isnt free" does apply to this as well.


I dont know if you have ever lived in a cold weather climate, but school bus's and bikes are what you dont see on the road when it gets really cold. Most public transit only functions because they leave them on the whole time. Diesel engines are more difficult to start in cold weather than gasoline engines. Also when exposed skin is getting frostbitten in under a couple of minutes bikes and walking are not really a great way to get around.

Oh come off it. There is no 'freedom of moment' associated with cars in urban areas. They are the biggest single impediment to freedom of movement, because they are such a wasteful use of road-space. Anywhere I want to go, on foot or bike or on a bus, there are cars in the way. They clog up the roads, most of them not even moving. Where do you even store them? Here they block the pavements with them, because there is no space to fit them in. Urban motoring is a disease.

I absolutely acknowledge that different conditions apply in rural areas where distances are far greater, but that's not where cars cause the most problems. I'm sure a few parts of the US have such extreme climate that walking or cycling is impossible, but I don't think it's the majority of it.

 

[pmv]

But that's not a model you can extend across the entire country, let alone the planet.

Mega cities are also supplied and fed by large masses of land populated by ppl who need low density transportation options, ie cars/trucks.

You are not going to jam all of humanity in a super high density urban areas then surrounded by roadless wilderness in an effort to invalidate the need for a parking lot.

Imo, this is a fairly useless study.

Yes, but by definition very few people live in low-population-density areas. Most people live in cities. That's what cities _are_ - the areas where most people live. We already are in the process of jamming most of humanity into super high density urban areas. Have you not noticed? The US came very noticably later to that process than did most of Europe, which urbanised a century earlier (I've seen it suggested that that's why the UK isn't very religious - the working class became 'de-churched' when they all moved to the cities during the industrial revolution), but it's finally happening in the US as well, as well as much of the rest of the world.

And food production uses less-and-less human labour, which is why there are so few jobs in the countryside.

 

[K1052]

Oh come off it. There is no 'freedom of moment' associated with cars in urban areas. They are the biggest single impediment to freedom of movement, because they are such a wasteful use of road-space. Anywhere I want to go, on foot or bike or on a bus, there are cars in the way. They clog up the roads, most of them not even moving. Where do you even store them? Here they block the pavements with them, because there is no space to fit them in. Urban motoring is a disease.

I absolutely acknowledge that different conditions apply in rural areas where distances are far greater, but that's not where cars cause the most problems. I'm sure a few parts of the US have such extreme climate that walking or cycling is impossible, but I don't think it's the majority of it.

I want somebody stuck on the 10 to Santa Monica at rush hour to wax lyrically about the "freedom of movement" lol. Cars are tiny prisons on wheels. That we've made choices to make life difficult without them is on us but it can be fixed.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I agree with the OP premise, cars are definitely catered to. And motorists overall, IMXP, enjoy that preferential treatment to the point where they dont mind intimidating pedestrians or other road users. Makes me sad when some a-hole honks their horn at me riding a bike.

I will say this, we vacation to cape cod during the summer, and most of the people down there (who aren't full time residents) treat pedestrians really well.

 

[Brainonska511]

This is a little OT. But I run on a trail around a park. The trail is fully contained within a city park, but it crosses a few park roads. The trail has stop signs and the road doesn't even have a yield. That's right, even in a park, cars are being given the right of way. I was almost hit by one on Monday, that was fully stopped for someone else when I entered the crosswalk, then they tried to gun it to get past the crosswalk in front of me, missed me by inches, because I stopped, I'm glad they were able to get to YMCA half a second sooner.

That's just another example of car culture and the preferential treatment we give to people in metal boxes. We set up all these insane systems that get pedestrians and cyclists killed, just so a person a private automobile can get somewhere 2 minutes faster.

We need to raise gas tax a lot, and put all of that increase into funding public transit and trails. I really don't understand why we have no problem with mass subsidization of cars, but can't stand the thought of subsidizing PT.

Definitely. I saw one report that said if MA raised it's gas tax 2-3 cents/gallon, it could make all Boston buses free. Imagine how much easier it would be to use public transit if you didn't have to fumble for exact change, and how much it would help people that can't even afford a car in the first place?

It seems to me any transportation system moving so many people is going to have massive costs. While you can save some money by taking away the unrivaled freedom of movement that cars offer you are removing that freedom of movement that the car system provides. Most urban people I know choose cars because of the freedom of movement it offers not because there are no alternatives. While totally not in right context the phrase "Freedom isnt free" does apply to this as well.

That's the point of the OP - you're already paying massive subsidies to keep people in cars. And building up a transit system doesn't have to cost billions of dollars. You don't need to build out subways to start. Buses, though they may be unsexy, are in effect a very green form of mass transit - they can effectively take 40-80 cars off the road since a city bus can hold 40-80 people in the space of 2-3 cars.

I think most people in urban environments choose to drive because they have no other choices and car storage is so cheap. We've decided to segregate where people live from where they work, we subsidize free parking and highways, and kill off opportunities to greatly improve mass transit in places where it could work well.

I dont know if you have ever lived in a cold weather climate, but school bus's and bikes are what you dont see on the road when it gets really cold. Most public transit only functions because they leave them on the whole time. Diesel engines are more difficult to start in cold weather than gasoline engines. Also when exposed skin is getting frostbitten in under a couple of minutes bikes and walking are not really a great way to get around.

I do live in a cold weather climate (a city adjacent to Boston): I see plenty of people biking, even when it's snowing. In fact, to many places in the area, including where my wife works, it's as fast to bike as it is to drive (and you don't have the hassle of having to find a parking spot). A big part of it is due to the proper infrastructure being put in place. Bike lanes, both on-street and segregated, make people feel safer when biking, further encouraging their use; bus lanes greatly improve the speed of buses; and limiting parking in city centers encourages people to find other ways to get to work.

 

[ponyo]

Americans love cars. Nothing is going to change that. Do you know what I love after traveling aboard in Asia and taking public buses, trains, and mass transit everywhere and then coming back home to the US? Getting in my car and just driving. No better feeling than being able to drive and go directly to the places I want to go while not being crammed on buses and trains with other people and stopping on their routes.

I love the US and its clean air. You don't appreciate clean air until you visit cities in Asia and have to breathe the dirty smogs and fumes from gas motorbikes, cars, and buses everywhere in those crazy crowded cities. US is far too spread out to ever have good mass public transit. Cities that do have the population density like New York City and Chicago do have decent mass transit system. Nothing near the levels of Europe and Asia but we also don't have the population density they have.

The solution is EV vehicles and solar, wind, and hydro energy. I'll be happy when 90%+ of the world is driving EV and living in homes powered by solar energy and with power stored in batteries.

 

[fskimospy]

Americans love cars. Nothing is going to change that. Do you know what I love after traveling aboard in Asia and taking public buses, trains, and mass transit everywhere and then coming back home to the US? Getting in my car and just driving. No better feeling than being able to drive and go directly to the places I want to go while not being crammed on buses and trains with other people and stopping on their routes.

I love the US and its clean air. You don't appreciate clean air until you visit cities in Asia and have to breathe the dirty smogs and fumes from gas motorbikes, cars, and buses everywhere in those crazy crowded cities. US is far too spread out to ever have good mass public transit. Cities that do have the population density like New York City and Chicago do have decent mass transit system. Nothing near the levels of Europe and Asia but we also don't have the population density they have.

The solution is EV vehicles and solar, wind, and hydro energy. I'll be happy when 90%+ of the world is driving EV and living in homes powered by solar energy and with power stored in batteries.

First, lots of US cities have similar population density to cities in Europe that have effective mass transit.

Second, the study is about how in areas that have sufficient density for mass transit we instead waste tons of valuable land and time on cars. New York is finally starting to move in the right direction but fundamentally the real answer, at least for Manhattan, is to ban private cars entirely.

Third, you do realize that if you love clean air personal cars are basically the worst thing for it, right? They are an air pollution nightmare as compared to buses and trains.

 

[Zorba]

Definitely. I saw one report that said if MA raised it's gas tax 2-3 cents/gallon, it could make all Boston buses free. Imagine how much easier it would be to use public transit if you didn't have to fumble for exact change, and how much it would help people that can't even afford a car in the first place?

Making PT free would be a great start. Ridership on our new street car system jumped 3x when they made it free on the weekends. The fare was only covering like 10% of the cost anyways.

While this isn't a big issue if you actually lived somewhere, but when I travel I try to take PT a lot. It is always a pain trying to figure out how/where to buy transit passes and whether they are good for just the bus, just the subways, transfers, etc. Even when I was in Busan, Korea (which had an awesome system) the payment was a PITA and you couldn't transfer between buses and subway.

That's the point of the OP - you're already paying massive subsidies to keep people in cars. And building up a transit system doesn't have to cost billions of dollars. You don't need to build out subways to start. Buses, though they may be unsexy, are in effect a very green form of mass transit - they can effectively take 40-80 cars off the road since a city bus can hold 40-80 people in the space of 2-3 cars.

I was talking to my wife the other day, who is pretty knowledgeable on politics and issues, and she actually asked "how does the government subsidize cars?" Since it is the status-quo people just completely ignore the massive amounts of public and forced-private spending on cars.

I was thinking about buses the other day. The biggest employer in my city is the airforce base. The parking lots are packed everyday and you have to walk forever to get into the buildings. Most the people there work the same shift and the vast majority of the people live in one of a few suburbs. It would make so much sense to setup park n' rides in those burbs and just bus people in. It could literally remove thousands of cars off the road. Instead the base is currently expanding parking and the city/state has plans to expand every road and highway around the base.