P. J. O’Rourke has a new book, Driving Like Crazy, and an article in the Wall Street Journal lamenting that the magic of the automobile “was killed by bureaucrats, bad taste, and busybodies.” Because his grandfather was once a car dealer, some readers will consign him to a part of the “vast automobile conspiracy.”
The Antiplanner, however, doesn’t believe that “Americans fell out of love with the automobile.” Except for the fact that people like something because it is less expensive and more convenient than the alternatives, most Americans never were in love with the automobile — though certainly some were and still are. For most trips, cars are still less expensive and more convenient than the alternatives, so they are likely to remain the dominant form of American transportation for a long time.
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O’Rourke is doing some public readings from his book. I don’t know his complete itinerary, but readers who happen to be in Washington next week should plan to attend his presentation at the Cato Institute at noon on Tuesday, June 9. P. J. tends to fill the Cato auditorium, so make your reservations soon and show up early, as later arrivals end up watching on television monitors from the auditorium’s foyer.
It appears he will also be in Petersborough, NH on Saturday, June 6, and Palo Alto on June 11.
I don’t know… the ADC equates the American DREAM to owning a car, and nothing else. That sure seems to me like love.
Heck, auto ownership was not (and is not) just the American Dream.
Consider that in the days of the former Soviet empire, living in apartment buildings and taking transit was literally the Communist Party link on development, transport and housing.
But in spite of that, there was tremendous demand for private
motor vehicles (and there was no such thing as auto financing –
cash up front was the rule).
Some of the brands from the Soviet Union and its underlings in
the former East Germany and the former Czechoslovakia:
– Moskvitch;
– Volga;
– Chaika;
– Wartburg;
– Trabant;
– Ã…Â koda;
(not to be confused with Ã…Â koda Works, which builds, among other things, streetcars and trolley buses).
Yup, anything to prop up the car fetish.
Nonetheless, the paean to the hairy-chested manly white suburban patriot in control over the Escalade and the Fed Chairman…sounds like parody or satire to me.
DS
C. P. Zilliacus “Consider that in the days of the former Soviet empire, living in apartment buildings and taking transit was literally the Communist Party link on development, transport and housing.”
ws: That was a major development pattern in the US too, at the time. Although getting to that point was much different.
Shouldn’t we as US citizens be non-partisan to what the “American Dream” is? I always thought the American Dream was something that allowed you to pursue what you wanted in a free land…
Submitted without comment:
Randal O’Toole: Taking Liberties With the Facts
http://tinyurl.com/qjnm4e
The Antiplanner sees the American dream as freedom of lifestyle choices and opportunities to realize those choices unfettered by government subsidies or restrictions.
As for the claim in D4P’s link that the Antiplanner ignores highway subsidies, I’ve addressed that many times in this blog. Yes, there are highway subsidies, but they are tiny compared to transit subsidies. I oppose all subsidies. Will D4P agree with me that we should get rid of all subsidies and then let people make their own choices?
Yes, there are highway subsidies, but they are tiny compared to transit subsidies
Are you comparing the respective subsidies at a particular (especially, recent) point in time, or are you talking about total subsidies over the past 100+ years? And what counts as a subsidy in this analysis?
The Antiplanner: “Will D4P agree with me that we should get rid of all subsidies and then let people make their own choices?”
ws: This is assuming that they are all operating on the same, level playing field. Highway/suburbia has received so many upper hands and development of the last 60+ years that assuming we dropped any and all subsidies to everything, different transportation systems would still not be competing properly. I think many of us do agree that we need to reduce subsidies and level the field.
You have never once addressed in detail the true societal costs of the automobile imposed on society, but obsess in great detail of the Btu output of light rail construction. If you were really concerned with subsidies to the automobile and implementing a true free market transportation system, you just might address these points.
ws said: If you were really concerned with subsidies to the automobile and implementing a true free market transportation system, you just might address these points.
THWM: Though the street in front of your residence, has an important social/civil function as a commons and that’s also where the trouble starts.
ws said: Highway/suburbia has received so many upper hands and development of the last 60+ years
JK: Care to cite credible sources for that statement?
Just to save you some time:
* The federal highways were paid for by users – that is NOT a subsidy.
* Subdivision toads, sewers sidewalks etc. were paid for by the developers.
* Home mortgage deductions is available in the inner city as well as the burbs – that is not a suburbia subsidy.
* Buses use more imported oil per passenger-mile than cars.
* The average commute time is slower in the inner city.
* The average commute distance is about the same for suburb dwellers.
ws said: I think many of us do agree that we need to reduce subsidies and level the field.
JK: Of course you are advocating for the end of most mass transit since few people will be willing to pay close to $20/day for a bus ride to/from work.
ws: You have never once addressed in detail the true societal costs of the automobile imposed on society,
JK: Such as?
Don’t forget to weight the benefits:
* Faster commute
* Available when needed
* Rapid accomplishment of many tasks over a wide area. You can make more trips in an couple hours in a car than you can in a day on transit.
* Cars are cheaper.
* Time saved is money saved.
* Cars enlarge the job shed
* Cars increase people’s standard of living because they allow a wider choice of jobs.
ws: but obsess in great detail of the Btu output of light rail construction.
JK: Only because the enviro nuts insist on falsely claiming than transit saves energy. And they act as if that was all that mattered.
ws: If you were really concerned with subsidies to the automobile and implementing a true free market transportation system, you just might address these points.
JK: What points? Complete garbage that has been debunked time after time. BTW who pays you to post your junk here?
Thanks
JK
Submitted without comment
Ryan and I are e-quaintences and I highly recommend his writing – a sample from the above link, explicitly what I say implicitly:
There’s much more cogent writing there and elsewhere.
DS
JK:* The federal highways were paid for by users – that is NOT a subsidy.
ws: The pay as you go system allowed for the government to tax consumable goods (of automobiles) for highway construction. The railroads did not receive this type of consideration, financed their own construction, and paid taxes on their property. Highways do not pay taxes – just user fees that don’t even cover them.
This in effect had a drastic change on how people lived and it was a huge socialistic endeavor by the government.
Automobiles get by on heels of many publicly financed services. RRs do not. The drastic change of RRs to Highways had major impacts on the built environment. The RRs are a bastion of our free-market society.
JK:* Home mortgage deductions is available in the inner city as well as the burbs – that is not a suburbia subsidy.
ws: The home mortgage deduction reduces the pool of renters to be home owners and it is also a regressive deduction where larger homes on bigger lots receive more deductions (where exactly are bigger homes on bigger lots located?) Home mortgage deductions also increase housing prices.
“The deduction pushes up prices in places where the supply of new homes is constrained, as it is in many coastal markets.”
“The deduction encourages people to buy larger, single-family detached homes, and that increases carbon emissions and pushes people out of cities. The deduction encourages people to buy more expensive homes, which are generally bigger homes.”
-Edward Glaeser
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/killing-or-maiming-a-sacred-cow-home-mortgage-deductions/?apage=4
JK:“* Buses use more imported oil per passenger-mile than cars.”
ws: Per passenger mile, but a bus that is relatively full and supported by a dense city makes that an irrelevant statistic.
JK:“* The average commute time is slower in the inner city.”
ws: That is why people walk or take transit in cities, along with drive. It’s called options.
JK:“* The average commute distance is about the same for suburb dwellers.”
ws:Sure, let’s see some data on that position.
JK:“Rapid accomplishment of many tasks over a wide area. You can make more trips in an couple hours in a car than you can in a day on transit.”
ws:Depends on what trip and what for. Most home depot trips wouldn’t make sense to walk to or take transit because you may need a car for that; whereas you can do multiple things in one transit stop or simply by walking in a denser, mixed use environment.
As an anecdote, I recall where I had lunch, stopped off at a bank, and went to an office supply store all within one block of each other while walking downtown. Put that trip into the moonscape we call suburbia, and that would take forever – not to mention waste imported terrorist oil, utilize more public services (socialized services), and be environmentally detrimental.
It depends on the type of trip you are taking. We can’t say one mode is better than the other for every type of trip. It doesn’t work like that. If a true cost is imposed on every trip, including mass transit, it will enable people to take the most effective form of transportation for their needs and budget as well as reshape the built environment to reflect actual market conditions.
JK:“What points? Complete garbage that has been debunked time after time. BTW who pays you to post your junk here?”
ws:Nobody pays me. Do you want to donate?
Dan:“In the first place, gas tax revenue comes nowhere near paying for roads. .The Texas Department of Transportation recently developed an asset value index, intended to gauge the cost-effectiveness of a road over the whole of its life cycle. They discovered that most roads don’t come close to paying for themselves. In one typical road analysis, it was determined that a real gas tax rate of $2.22 per gallon would be necessary, simply to break even. No stretch of road in the whole of the state covered its costs.”
ws: Here’s a link to that study:
http://www.txdot.gov/KeepTexasMovingNewsletter/11202006.html#Cost
The issue, ws, that ideologues never bring up (IIRC I’ve been shouted at then deafening silence after I gave personal struggles here) is that repaving usu comes out of the General Fund.
Now we expect most ideologues here will remain silent on this as they can’t speak to financing issues, as they have zero clue as to how things actually work on the ground (hence their continuing fetishizing about a novel guiding our lives).
Some of my current work happens to be how to extend the repaving cycle so poor taxpayers don’t have to spend directly into autocentric development.
DS
Randal wrote,”For most trips, cars are still less expensive and more convenient than the alternatives,..”
I have noticed a lot of repetition by most of the people on this blog, and I dislike repeating myself but I won’t let that stop me this time. My least expensive and most convenient transport for most trips is my 1980 Kawasaki KZ250 motorcycle.
When I was commuting to work in San Diego my choices were walk, run, bicycle, bus, motorcycle or my wife’s car. I usually took my bike in the summer and my motorcycle in winter. The least cost choice was my wife’s car because then she wouldn’t be driving it and spending money shopping.
Now I have a minivan which I seldom use to pull trailers and carry large objects or several family members.
It would help reduce my transport expenses if there were a convenient low cost minivan rental agency nearby.
Just because many people use a particular transport mode doesn’t mean that it is the most economical or convenient. Many other factors affect choices, such as fear, pride, status, social or antisocial character.
On June 3rd, 2009, ws said: The railroads did not receive this type of consideration, financed their own construction, and paid taxes on their property.
JK: Who feeds you your carp? The railroads got something even better – vast swaths of free land clear across the county. A mile or more wide.
On June 3rd, 2009, ws said: Highways do not pay taxes – just user fees that don’t even cover them.
JK: More crap – really where do you get so much misinformation? Are you spending too much time with the Sierra Klub weekly reader?
Highways pay for themselves and much of mass transit:
* Highway passenger transportation system paid significantly greater amounts of money to the federal government than their allocated costs.
* Transit received the largest amount of net federal subsidy
* federal subsidy to passenger railroads was the third largest, except for the years 1998-2000 (Figure 1), when it was second.
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, : Federal Subsidies to Passenger Transportation
To actually learn something, see: portlandfacts.com/Roads/RoadSubsidy.htm
ws said: The home mortgage deduction reduces the pool of renters to be home owners and it is also a regressive deduction where larger homes on bigger lots receive more deductions (where exactly are bigger homes on bigger lots located?) Home mortgage deductions also increase housing prices.
JK: Now you are showing your total ignorance of economics. Home ownership is the very foundation of most people’s economic well being:
* Home equity is the main source of funds to send the kids to college.
* Home equity is the main source of funds to start a business.
Home owners tend to have net worth to leave to their children, renters tend to die broke.
ws said: Per passenger mile, but a bus that is relatively full and supported by a dense city makes that an irrelevant statistic.
JK: Again you show your ignorance about even the most basic facts that you write about. First, in the real world (you should look at it sometime), you cannot run buses full. The average USA bus carries only 9 passengers. Even in NYC, the buses average only 18 passengers.
Here are two very dense cities (Using NTD 2007 data from http://ti.org/NTD07sum.xls)
New York:
xls line 7:
New York City Transit: 1812 million passenger-miles, 4,576 vehicles, 17.9 passengers/vehicle, BTU/pass-mile = 3,322 (average American car (2006) = 3,549 – not much saving here )
Chicago:
xls line 100:
Chicago Transit Authority, 762 million passenger-miles, 2163 vehicles, 11.2 passengers/vehicle, BTU/pass-mile= 4,590 (average American car (2006)= 3,549 – oops – no saving)
And we all know that cars that beat the American average are readily available at low cost. So even in the city with the highest density core, newer cars match or beat bus transit and the new ObamaMobiles will kick ass. Save energy, save money, save time, drive a small car!
ws said: JK:“* The average commute time is slower in the inner city.â€Â
ws: That is why people walk or take transit in cities, along with drive. It’s called options.
JK: Lets see, the commute time is long, so people walk. What the heck are you saying?
Commute times are long because of the horrid congestion CAUSED by high density. People do not opt to waste time, they are forced to waste time in your high density paradise.
ws said: ws:Sure, let’s see some data on that position.
JK: Sorry, I’ve had my fill of dealing with fools today. Look it up your self if you happen to care about the accuracy of what you believe (which i doubt)
Thanks
JK
JimKarlock said: On June 3rd, 2009, ws said: The railroads did not receive this type of consideration, financed their own construction, and paid taxes on their property.
JK: Who feeds you your carp? The railroads got something even better – vast swaths of free land clear across the county. A mile or more wide.
THWM: Land grants were a one time deal, people wanting to start farms got land grants too, but they have to keep paying property taxes on those grants.
There were even toll road companies in OR that got land grants.
JK: On June 3rd, 2009, ws said: Highways do not pay taxes – just user fees that don’t even cover them.
JK: More crap – really where do you get so much misinformation? Are you spending too much time with the Sierra Klub weekly reader?
THWM: He got his info from the TxDoT.
JK wrote: “The railroads got something even better – vast swaths of free land clear across the county. A mile or more wide.”
And at the same time obligations to carry government employees and pay other fees:
“For ‘land grant’ read ‘land grab’ according to some later historians. That is hardly warranted, because the Federal Government was careful to attach conditions which some hold have more than recouped the price of the gift, never mind how one quantifies the added value which the railroads unquestionably generated. For instance, lines built with benefit of land grant were for ever required to hand over 7% of their gross earnings, which all but doubled the taxes the normal route paid in the ensuing century; they were compelled to carry troops and war materials at half-rate; and at a later date were subjected to a 20 per cent discount”
Railways – Past, Present and Future. G Freeman Allen.
JK wrote: “Again you show your ignorance about even the most basic facts that you write about. First, in the real world (you should look at it sometime), you cannot run buses full. The average USA bus carries only 9 passengers. Even in NYC, the buses average only 18 passengers.”
In Latin America, home of Bus Rapid Transit, they run the buses very full. But they also do things to make buses competitive with cars. Such as having multiple side doors, so that loading passengers is fast, and having dedicated bus lanes. If we are, indeed, talking about the real world.
Bath University, UK, also has a bespoke bus service. They use articulated buses, but these are also full. In the real world.
JK:Who feeds you your carp? The railroads got something even better – vast swaths of free land clear across the county. A mile or more wide.
ws: Almost any industry received free land westward. What can I say, Manifest Destiny is not the fault of the industries who came west.
JK:“More crap – really where do you get so much misinformation? Are you spending too much time with the Sierra Klub weekly reader?”
ws: The State of Texas: http://www.txdot.gov/KeepTexasMovingNewsletter/11202006.html#Cost
JK:“Home owners tend to have net worth to leave to their children, renters tend to die broke.”
ws: It is not the job of the Gov to promote home ownership. In the Edward Glaeser article, he mentions reducing total taxes, among other things. What kind of Libertarian are you? The deduction for HM awards people who are wealthier, and is regressive in nature.
JK:“Lets see, the commute time is long, so people walk. What the heck are you saying?”
ws: Yeah, it’s called a city, Jim. Sometimes it’s faster (and more economical / healthy) to walk. Why take a cab or transit when the walk is only 7 minutes away by foot?
JK:Sorry, I’ve had my fill of dealing with fools today. Look it up your self if you happen to care about the accuracy of what you believe (which i doubt)
ws:You never have your fill, that is why you keep reiterating the same crap over and again. Is it possible that you have no data that people in the city travel longer distances?
http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/historical_records/dspDocument.cfm?doc_ID=88DC0C34-AC81-A387-AC21368509BA4E4B
The history of the Barlow Road began in the mid-1840s when large wagon trains of American emigrants were making their way to Oregon from the Midwest. In the fall of 1845, hundreds of emigrants finally reached The Dalles, where they faced a logistical crisis. Only a limited number of boats were available to ferry the overlanders down the Columbia, and local food stores were dangerously low. Faced with this grim situation, several families elected to try crossing the Cascade Range rather than wait indefinitely at The Dalles for passage to Fort Vancouver. Headed by Sam Barlow and William Rector, these families set out along the Deschutes River in late September 1845. They were later joined by a second party led by Joel Palmer. Their objective was to find a southern route around Mt. Hood.
While earlier Native and non-Native travelers had crossed the Cascades, none had driven wagons over the mountain range. The emigrants’ attempt proved quite harrowing, but ultimately successful. After caching their wagons and extra supplies five miles south of Barlow Pass, the emigrants made their way on foot and on horseback down the western slope of Mt. Hood. They finally arrived in small parties at Philip Foster’s farm at Eagle Creekâ€â€present-day Clackamas Countyâ€â€in late December 1845. The emigrants made their way to Oregon City, subsequently returning to bring their wagons and remaining goods down Mt. Hood after the spring snow melt.
In the meantime, Barlow applied to the Oregon Provisional Government for a charter to operate a toll road across the Cascades along the route the emigrants had taken. The government granted Barlow a charter to construct a road from Oregon City to the eastern slope of the Cascades. With his partner, Philip Foster, Barlow employed some forty men over the spring and summer of 1846 to complete the road. In the fall of 1846, the Barlow Road became a regular route for emigrants traveling along the Oregon Trail to the Willamette Valley. For the next seventy years, various owners operated the toll road, making route changes from time to time. In 1919, George W. Joseph, the current owner, deeded the Barlow Road to the state of Oregon. Today, most of the road is only accessible to hikers; however, the section of Highway 26 from Government Camp to Sandy generally follows the route of the original road.
http://tinkerstewart.com/wagonrd1.htm
The Santiam Wagon Road has an interesting and unique place in Oregon’s History. Unlike other wagon roads that were built to bring settlers to the Willamette Valley, this road was built to lead settlers and their livestock out of the valley, playing a major role in the settlement of Central Oregon.
Since its discovery over 146 years ago, the Santiam Pass has remained an important transportation route across the Cascade Mountains. Before that time, native American groups from the Willamette Valley, the Kalapuya (Calipooia), the Cascades (Molala), and Central Oregon (Warm Springs), seasonally traversed the pass on subsistence and trading ventures.
The first white men to visit this area were Finnan McDonald, Thomas McKay, and Joseph Gervais, while trapping for the Hudson’s Bay Company out of Fort Vancouver in August of 1825. However, the need for a wagon road would not come for another 25 years.
During the 1840’s and 50’s the population of Linn County was beginning to increase and so was the amount of land being used for crops. With less grazing land available, the cattle ranchers of Linn County began to think about the possibility of a route over the mountains to the wide open grazing lands of Central Oregon. At the same time, gold had been discovered in parts of Central and Eastern Oregon. Boomtowns were springing up east of the Cascades and so were the needs for food and other supplies in those areas. The only other wagon roads across the Cascades were the Barlow Trail near Mt. Hood and the Applegate Trail (also known as the South Road of the Oregon Trail) near Diamond Peak. A road from the central part of the Willamette Valley was now needed.
In 1859, a party including Andrew Wiley, John Gray and John Brandenburg traveled east from the Sweet Home area, up the South Santiam River, in search of a feasible route to Central Oregon. Shortly after crossing what is now called Tombstone Pass, the party became disoriented in the deep valley and tall timber along Hackleman Creek near Lost Prairie. Trying to gain a better view of the area, Wiley, the leader of the party, climbed a tree on a nearby ridge, becoming the first white man to see the Santiam Pass from the west.
After returning from the mountains, Wiley proclaimed that he had found a feasible route for a wagon road to Central Oregon via the South Santiam River. Other ranchers in Linn County were excited to hear this news and joined together to form the Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain Wagon Road Company (WVCMWR) in March of 1864. Their primary intention was to build and maintain a road between Albany and the Deschutes River.
Initially, financing of the road came from the sale of stock at $100 per share, as well as from the tolls charged for the use of the road. This amount later proved to be insufficient and the company filed for a land grant with the federal government for 800,000 acres. Some of this land was then sold to help finance construction costs.
Construction of the wagon road began at Wiley Creek near Foster in 1865, and proceeded to the east, up the South Santiam River Valley. By 1868, the road was passable as far east as Camp Polk near Sisters. The new wagon road became an immediate success. Popular road houses were located at Cascadia, the Walton Ranch (Long Ranch), and the Mountain House. Gatekeeper and road superintendent John Gilliland reported that, as of July 8, 1871, 3126 cattle and 2310 sheep had crossed the pass already that year.