An anti-auto urbanist named Brad Meacham wrote a blog post that offers a typical “we-have-to-get-people-out-of-their-cars” diatribe. When Meacham’s post was picked up by a San Antonio on-line magazine, someone asked the Antiplanner to comment. While my response speaks for itself, I’d like to add a few comments here where I don’t have to worry so much about word limits.
Meacham’s case against cars stands on four legs:
- Congestion is only going to get worse
- The cost of driving is increasing
- Fiscal reality will force cuts to highway budgets
- People are hungry for community
The first claim is almost certainly false. As the Reason Foundation recently showed in the case of Denver, if an urban area truly wants to reduce congestion, it can do it and do it in a cost-effective manner. Reason’s plan for Denver would cost less than half as much as Denver planners are already planning to spend on transport, but because Reason’s spending is targeted on congestion-reduction rather than social engineering, it actually can relieve congestion.
This is just one illustration of the sad truth that most of the huge increase in congestion over the last 30 years has been a self-fulfilling prophecy on the part of those who say, “Congestion is only going to get worse, so let’s not try to do anything about it.” As the Antiplanner showed in a 2007 report, when San Jose dedicated congestion-reduction funds to highways, traffic congestion declined despite rapid economic growth. When it rededicated those same funds to transit, congestion rapidly grew again.
This doesn’t mean we have to pave over America. As the Antiplanner noted last week, technological improvements such as adding adaptive cruise control to as little as 25 percent of cars on the road will make a lot of congestion go away without any infrastructure improvements. But cities and states should make an effort to fix bottlenecks and provide new capacity in growing areas of their regions.
Meacham’s claim that the cost of driving will keep rising is amusing at a time when gas prices are falling. I saw gasoline for $1.79 a gallon in Austin last week, and if I’d looked a little harder I might have seen it for $1.62 (your results will vary depending on when you click on this link). Of course, these low prices won’t last forever, but the availability of new sources of oil mean that oil prices are not likely to rise much above $100 a barrel, which corresponds to about $3 a gallon, for the rest of this century.
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The truth is that it is transit costs that are rising fast. Between 1992 and 2002, transit operating costs per trip grew by 28 percent (after adjusting for inflation). When capital costs are added, transit costs per trip grew by 40 percent. Fares per trip grew by 24 percent, which means the share of costs covered by fares declined from 27.7 percent in 1992 to 24.5 percent in 2012. (All of these numbers, except for the adjustments for inflation, are from the historical tables in the American Public Transportation Association’s Transit Fact Book. Adjustments for inflation are based on GDP price deflators.)
Meacham’s argument about fiscal realities is even more amusing. We live in a country with a socialized transit system in which 75 percent of the cost of transit is paid for by taxpayers and a socialized highway system in which less than 5 percent of the cost of driving is paid by general taxes. The Antiplanner is all for ending the subsidies, but doing so is not going to get many people out of their cars.
Finally, Meacham’s claims about the demand for community are just irrelevant. Does community mean getting your face squeezed against the glass of an overcrowded railcar? Does it mean getting assaulted while you are taking the bus home from work? In what way are automobiles incompatible with a sense of community?
As the Antiplanner has noted in the past, communities aren’t necessarily geographically based. Instead, they are based on people’s interests and backgrounds. Building a town square does not create a sense of community. But transportation technologies (such as cars) that offer more mobility allow people to reach more people who have the same interests and/or background as they do.
Cars are cleaner than ever before and getting cleaner all the time. They are safer than ever before and getting safer all the time. Americans consistently spend about the same share of their personal incomes on transportation over time, but because cars are getting less expensive to drive, at least relative to incomes, that fixed share means greater mobility.
What it comes down to is that there is really no reason to try to get people to stop driving in either urban or rural areas. Instead, we should focus on providing the most cost-effective mobility for everyone. For some people, that may mean bicycles or transit, but for most people for most trips, it will continue to mean cars.
I need to make a quick trip across town to pick up some specialty supplies.
Lets see, shall enjoy a sense of community on a one hour bus ride for $4 round trip or spend 10 min (and $1 for gas) in my car?
Are people like Meacham really that out of touch with reality?
Do they ever look at data?
Which would he choose?
thanks
JK
I couldn’t think of a better sense of community than getting spit on, listening to loud rap music, or smelling someone’s bodily fluids while crammed on a planner’s idea of community transportation.
My favorite sense-of-community moment occurred in San Francisco, when a drunk and apparently homeless disabled man in a wheelchair urinated in his pants and began screaming belligerently at everyone. The dark colored urine, which smelled so strongly that I nearly vomited, was sloshing up and down the channels of the bus’ central walkway/standing area all the way from the front to the back of the bus.
I am just so hungry for community like this.
They waste enough money with LIFT-type service already, why not carry those kind of people on LIFT? Of course, I do realize that half the time, they just want to ride around to keep warm or annoy the other people on the bus.
Non-automotive “community” only works when you live in the center of a small town or a true old-fashioned neighborhood with sufficient local jobs, shopping etc. Where you can walk to everything you need or want. Unfortunately, very few such places exist.
Once mass transit is required, the sense of community is gone, replaced by a sense of dependence upon strangers or government officials. As described by the above posts, that is not a good way to live. That is why cars are popular and necessary.
“That is why cars are popular and necessary.”
Indeed.
But to address the Antiplanner’s and Jim Karlock’s assertions, while gas is cheap, car ownership is not.
My wife’s 1998 car wouldn’t start after the cold snap, and after trying to jump the battery, which is only three years old, it seems something else is wrong. It’s also due for new car tags this month, which have increased 60% to $160 (to fund buses). It needs new brakes, shocks; the A/C doesn’t work and the heater smells like burning. It would cost more to re-register and fix it than it’s worth, so time to donate or scrap, especially since I walk to work and my wife drives my car two miles to her work (which would take 45 minutes on the bus).
Not that owning my car is cheap, either, after I just put $600 into it on Friday for its fifth speed sensor, a serpentine belt, and other miscellaneous maintenance. Got the good news that the power steering is profusely leaking and the rear break drums and assemblies are nearly toast, the shocks are shot, and I’ve got to put another $3000 into the car for maintenance and $160 for tags this spring, and it’s only worth about that.
So no. Cars aren’t cheap. Particularly when you live in the city and pay high rent and the city doesn’t fix roads and the roads damage your car.
I’d also speculate that the cost of repairs has increased over the last 15 years at a rate faster than inflation, but a cursory search hasn’t found evidence of for this hypothesis.
So true. This is why nobody wants to live in San Francisco. I was there just yesterday and it’s clear that everyone who has the means has decamped for the suburbs long ago. All that’s left are the squatters and the panhandlers. In The Mission landlords are simply burning their buildings down to collect on the insurance because they can’t get anyone to rent them.
“There’s a Car in Your Future.”
Thankfully not.
Walk. Cycle. Tram. Suburban train. Bus. Inter-city train. Car. In that order.
Works great.
“The dark colored urine, which smelled so strongly that I nearly vomited, …” Great prose. Poor you!
“Once mass transit is required, the sense of community is gone, …” No. Mingling/Cooperating with others is kind of the definition of community.
Walk. Cycle. Tram. Suburban train. Bus. Inter-city train. Car. In that order.
Works great.
Except it doesn’t—and you forgot air.
That is, unless you want to take an inter-city train from, say, Seattle to Phoenix and spend 43 hours traveling (assuming everything runs on time—if it doesn’t, with a one-hour layover in LA, and only three trains a week, you’ll be spending several days in the station or in a hotel).
Inter-city trains are an obsolete form of transportation.
Great prose. Poor you!
Not as poor as the guy who got stabbed on the bus here on Christmas day.
Now that’s community! (The definition on which does not include “cooperating with others”.)
My favorite trip on light rail was in San Jose, when a rider got on and promptly threw up all over the center of the train. The smell was overpowering and we had to wait until it was all cleaned up. Later we were worried about the riot police surrounding a station we were passing through and later we had concerns about the neighborhood we were in or headed to.
@Frank:
“Except it doesn’t—and you forgot air.”
How is air transport NOT public transport? It looks like everyone getting on the same vehicle. Like a bus with wings.
Frank January—- But to address the Antiplanner’s and Jim Karlock’s assertions, while gas is cheap, car ownership is not.
Actually car ownership is quite cheap. The average middle income American only spends about $260/month on each car including ALL COSTS.
see: http://www.portlandfacts.com/carcost.html
“The average middle income American only spends about $260/month on each car including ALL COSTS.”
If that’s the average, then there must be a lot of cars in disrepair as $260 equals just my payments and insurance, not including gas, maintenance and licensing. And my car is driven far fewer than the national annual average miles.
http://www.bls.gov/cex/2013/combined/income.pdf
Frank it looks like households spend mean average $8500 on cars annually, two cars per household average, so ~355 a month per car.
http://www.bls.gov/cex/2013/combined/quintile.pdf
Third quintile (middle income?) spends ~640 per month on cars, if they have two cars each then 320 per car. I’d guess that 260/month is an old number.
Frank & ahwr:
Did either of you bother to look at my source?
It was: http://www.bls.gov/cex/2010/share/income.pdf
JimKarlock: Middle quintile spends ~337 per month per car. Why does your warped definition of middle income include people with income of five thousand dollars per year?
ahwr: ” Why does your warped definition of middle income include people with income of five thousand dollars per year?”
The number I gave ($260) DOES NOT INCLUDE “people with income of five thousand dollars per year”. It was for $20-$29k income (as you would have seen if you bothered to look at my citation). But it really doesn’t change much up to $70K ($280).
Why do you call me warped? Are you interested in data, or insults (which are a sure sign of illiteracy.)
I reran the numbers based on 2013 “Income before taxes — (PDF) (XLSX)” found on http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxcombined.htm
Here are the monthly costs PER CAR for each income category (Transportation-Public and other transportation) by income level:
All…. 371.36
under $5000…………$297.13
$5,000-$9,999…….. $308.125
$10,000-$14,999…..$247.083
$15,000-$19,999…..$265.00
$20,000-$29,999…. $337.798
$30,000-$39,999…..$341.875
$40,000-$49,999…..$329.561
$50,000-$69,000…..$365.952
$70,000- up………….$439.872
So that $260 number became $338 (a 30% increase) in 2013.
I’ll bet that has dropped recently due to gas prices. It appears that a gas drop of 50% would take that down to $284 (only a 9% increase)
Thanks
JK
I assumed you were getting 260 a month from your link where it says:
Cost to own & operate ONE car for average incomes from $5000 to $69.999
Average cost of car (7): $3121 ($260/month)
First, even a $300 cost per month per car is 3 times more expensive than a $100 monthly bus pass in Los Angeles. How many people do you think would benefit from an additional $2400 in take home pay per year? Such money would be enough to live in a better place, take community college classes, or pay for health care.
Second, the average cost per month for a car, especially an old car, needs to be mentioned with a reference to the standard deviation. Old cars have a nasty habit of not costing anything until all of a sudden they need $2000 in repairs, money you don’t have.
The Antiplanner did not even respond to the comment about fiscal reality and highway budgets. The federal Highway Trust Fund is in deep trouble, and most states are experiencing road funding challenges. Of course, there are easy solutions – raise gas taxes, increase tolling, implement vehicle mileage fees – that would solve these fiscal problems but of course increase the cost of driving while doing so.
Obviously if states and the federal government do not have enough money to even maintain their existing roads they cannot have money to provide new capacity.
I agree that a sense of community is kind of laughable but while riding the Washington Metro yesterday and watching all the intense idealistic young people I did feel a momentary fuzzy feeling.
“First, even a $300 cost per month per car is 3 times more expensive than a $100 monthly bus pass in Los Angeles. How many people do you think would benefit from an additional $2400 in take home pay per year?”
That $100 monthly bus pass does not begin to pay for the actual cost of the system. What’s moral about stealing money from the majority so a small minority can have an additional $2400 in take home pay a year?
And buses don’t go everywhere. What if I want go camping in the Santa Monica Mountains? What if I want to get a enough groceries so I don’t have to go to the grocery store every day or every other day?
“The federal Highway Trust Fund is in deep trouble”
Largely because it has been raided to pay for transit so people can get a subsidized pass at $100 a month. Yeah, gas tax revenue has declined as fuel efficiency has increased, but the AP has talked about solutions to this, which include direct user fees. And please support your assertion that user fees/VMT “but of course increase the cost of driving while doing so.” Thanks in advance.
“Obviously if states and the federal government do not have enough money … they cannot… provide new capacity.”
Have you read the articles the AP has posted about how adaptive cruise control on just 25% of cars would reduce need for new capacity? How about the parts where fixing bottlenecks would reduce the need for new capacity?
ahwr—
I assumed you were getting 260 a month from your link where it says:
Cost to own & operate ONE car for average incomes from $5000 to $69.999
Average cost of car (7): $3121 ($260/month)
Yeah, I probably did, but it is also the cost for incomes $20-$30K.
What difference does it make?
Fact is that the cost is relatively constant for most people until you get to the high income people.
Why are you wasting our time with such nits?
Where is this thing about all cars needing $2000 in repairs? Never in my 14 years of driving have I had a car needing that figure in repairs, except now when I have a new car under warranty (manufacturing problem/quasi recall with the engine, so an anomaly). I’ve owned and driven everything from $1000 Geo Metro’s to $25k Subaru’s, and especially on the older cars, have done the majority of the work myself. Driving stick also precludes the possibility of a automatic transmission repair issue. I’ve done clutches, injectors, timing belts, exhaust, brakes, steering components, heater cores, pretty much everything. I just did the brakes on my Outback for $80 in parts; the minimum for this job is $100 + fees & taxes per axle at some shitty chain store. if you are poor, do some work on the car yourself and save major moolah. And drive a stickshift.
As mentioned above, my 2004 vehicle needs nearly $4K in repairs, and I’ve done $650 to start. Still have to fix the rear breaks, get new struts, fix the power steering system, and do other minor repairs…that doesn’t even include the struts for the back window, which are failing after 30,000 miles. It also doesn’t include the two radiators, water pump, A/C condenser, brakes, tires, four speed sensors, battery, etc., etc. that I’ve put into it since buying it at 65k miles and driving it to 100k miles in four years.
While doing research, I read that the average repair shop has something like $25k in tools and repair equipment. I certainly don’t have that and am not qualified to do most of these repairs. Nor do I have a driveway or a garage where I can do these repairs.
So, yeah, I agree that “Old cars have a nasty habit of not costing anything until all of a sudden they need $2000 in repairs”.
Gee the last time i had that big a bill was an engine rebuild around the 200,000 mile mark.
Approaching 400k I had to do a radiator ($300) and need to do heater core (expect another $300)
Oh, and the auto transmission every 100k or so for around $1000 (1cent/mile)
A few several hundred dollar items, but far less that car payments. And far less per mile than transit.
Just to annoy the transit lovers, a transit fare here is $2.50 for an average trip length of 3.5 mi (bus) or 5.2 mi (LRT). That’s an average cost between $0.48 and $0.71 per mile. A car is around $0.20/mile
http://trimet.org/fares/index.htm\
http://www.portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html
You must own a Toyota.
And I’m willing to bet hourly labor is a bit higher in Seattle than Portland.
Frank—- You must own a Toyota.
No Chrysler 300.
A Chrysler product? No way! Me, too! Guess I got a lemon or that all Jeeps are lemons.
Frank January —-A Chrysler product? No way!
YEP, finest 1969 technology!
Thanks
JK
Frank…
Jeep? No wonder. That’s literally the most unreliable car on the road, according to many magazines and surveys. What you are experiencing is in NO way indicative of typical car maintenance expenses.
On a 2010 Subaru Forester that went to 115,000 miles before being wrecked, the only major expense I had was timing belt at 105,000 miles, and that was just maintenance. That cost about 500 bucks at the dealer. I had to do maintenance items like brakes and hydraulic fluid flushes, but that’s also work any car needs.