A new report from the Center for Neighborhood Technology claims that living in smart-growth regions isn’t as unaffordable as some (such as the Antiplanner) claim because high housing costs are offset by lower transportation costs. However, the data behind the claims leave something to be desired. Specifically, what would be desired are data.
Instead of gathering data to back up its claims, the report (and several predecessors) is based on a model of household expenditures. The model assumes that people who live in denser neighborhoods drive less and ride transit more. The model assumes that transit is a perfect substitute for driving. The model assumes that those who drive pay the average costs of driving and those who ride transit pay only transit fares. (No one in the model has to pay for the huge transit subsidies.)
All of these assumptions are flat-out wrong. The assumed relationship between density and driving is nowhere near as strong as the model assumes. Instead, the model relies on studies that fail to account for self-selection — that is, for the fact that people who live in dense areas don’t drive as much anyway. This doesn’t mean that we can put a family of four in Portland’s Pearl District (which has only a handful of children) and they will give up one of their cars.
Transit is far from an adequate substitute for driving. Some people can rely on transit because they choose to live and work (or go to school) in areas served by transit. But only a small percentage of jobs in American urban areas is adequately served by transit, so most people can’t make those choices. Nor are most people willing to make the housing sacrifices needed to live in high-cost, inner-city neighborhoods.
The model’s estimates of the costs of driving, says one of the background reports, come “from FHWA estimates from the 2001 editions of The Complete Car Cost Guide and Complete Small Truck Guide from Intellichoice, Inc., and sales figures from Automotive News. Auto ownership costs include depreciation, insurance, financing, and state fees. Auto use costs include fuel, maintenance, fuel tax, and repairs. The FHWA estimates the fixed annual ownership and use costs by the type and age of vehicle. We use a weighted average for the two costs on the basis of the existing fleet of U.S. vehicles, which results in $5,068 for the ownership component and 9 cents per mile for the use component.”
Okay, that’s a mouthful. But the point is that this model assumes that everyone buys a new car of average fuel economy and pays full finance charges. But not everyone does that. As the report goes on to say, “Because these costs are averages, in some cases, the model will over- or underestimate the ownership, use, or total costs. For instance, the ownership costs will be too high for vehicles that are older, smaller, or less expensive than the average vehicle on the road, and the auto use costs may be too low for these same vehicles, especially if they require more maintenance or are less fuel efficient.”
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How about that? “Working families” whose incomes are lower than average — the people who the authors of this report claim to care about — have many ways of reducing their costs of driving, none of which are accounted for in the report. They can get a used car. They can pay cash instead of finance charges (or get a car that has 0 percent financing, as many do). They can get a car that gets better than average fuel economy. And, what do you know, despite the fact that the whole point of the model is to account for local variations in costs, the report adds that, “The pricing model also does not account for variations in local economies or state regulations and how that might affect insurance rates, gasoline, and other auto costs.”
Finally, when talking about how transit is so much more efficient than driving, the model fails to account that government subsidies to driving average about a penny per passenger mile while subsidies to transit average something like 60 cents per passenger mile. Sure, if you subsidize something enough, some people might save money using it. But it is noteworthy that, even with the subsidies, transit carries only about 1 percent of passenger travel in the U.S.
Interestingly, the background documents all focus on how they modeled transportation costs, but say very little about how they modeled housing costs. But the housing numbers offered in the report are suspicious as well. For example, their maps of housing affordability in the Portland, Denver, and other urban areas claim that housing alone is more affordable in the central cities than in the suburbs. Have they ever heard of the rent gradient (in which land and housing get more expensive as you get closer to city centers)?
Further, page 9 of the report says that the share of working-family income dedicated to housing ranges from 23 percent in Kansas City to 35 percent in San Francisco. According to Penny Wise Pound Fuelish, the source of this information is a 2006 report, A Heavy Load, also from the Center for Neighborhood Technology. According to that report, the source is “Center for Neighborhood Technology calculations.” That’s helpful!
According to Census Bureau data, in 2006 median family incomes in the Kansas City metro area were $55,779 and the median value of an owner-occupied home was $104,400, for a value-to-income ratio of 1.9. Median family incomes in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose metro area were $71,333, while the median value of an owner-occupied home was $340,800, for a value-to-income ratio of 4.8. So, relative to incomes, housing in San Francisco costs more than two-and-a-half times as much as in Kansas City, yet families in San Francisco manage to get by spending only 50 percent more of their income (35 vs. 23) on housing. How do they do that? Either the model is wrong or families in San Francisco are settling for smaller and/or lower-quality housing.
Obviously, one problem comes from relying on models rather than actual data, compounded by the lack of detailed information about how those models work. But an even deeper problem is the assumption that central planners can and should second-guess people’s lifestyle decisions and use various subsidies and regulations to nudge them towards the decisions that are, after all, in the people’s best interests (according to the planners).
Despite these problems, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has ordered all metropolitan planning organizations to use this methodology in their next transportation plans. So welcome to the grand future of “location-efficient housing.” Your housing is going to be crummy, your neighborhood will be noisy and congested, your choice of jobs will be limited, and you will have to rely on the kindness of strangers subsidizing your transit dependence. Oh, and let’s not mention that, because of high land and congestion costs associated with density, all your other consumer costs, such as food and clothing, will be higher as well. Otherwise, it sounds like a great life.
JK:
That $5068 annual ownership costs seems high for 9 year old cars. A scan of the blue book shows an awful lot of $7000 cars listed under 2001. Also the AAA data shows an annual cost of $5,569 for 2 ½ year old upscale cars typical of AAA members. When you correct that to the average USA car, I got an annual cost of $2484! See http://www.portlandfacts.com/aaa_method.htm That difference is probably enough to completely negate their conclusion and make the report just another in the long line of propaganda and lies coming out of the smart growth, new urbanism, pro transit lobby. But the planners will add it to the books of their bible.
Then there is the cost of transit. At an national average big city bus fare of $0.90 (http://www.portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html) and their cost of 9 cents per mile for the use component, once you have a car, it is cheaper than transit for trips of less than 10 miles. And will get you to a heck of a lot more job possibilities than transit!
Using Portland’s Trimet annual pass price of $946, that costs as much a 10,500 miles of the use component of driving a car. That would be 42 miles per working day! Or a 20 mile commute to & from work for the cost of transit. And driving will be about twice as fast. See http://www.portlandfacts.com/commutetime.html
Of course if we all switched to transit, we would ALL have to pay the ACTUAL transit cost of about 5 times what driving a car costs. So what is the point?
They also forgot to mention the slowness of transit compared to driving. The average transit commute is 23 minutes longer than the average car commute time EACH WAY. That is almost one hour per day wasted. Lets see, guess at 200 million workers and guess $15/hr, 250 working days/yr. That is national waste of 46 min x ($15/60)/min x 200e6 workers x 250 days = $5.7e11 – $578,000 million– or $½ trillion per year.
Again, what is the point? Is transit somehow going to make our lives better as we waste $½ trillion each year in time alone. Plus the actual extra cost of transit above the cost of a car, an $0.80 difference per mile?
Thanks
JK
A few small points.
Firstly the Anti-planner is a liar and a shill.
Secondly a rant: Yet another foulness of lefties is their willingness to make people do unpaid work, sorting trash to “recycle” being the prime example. However, this transit bug they have is the same.
Mr. Karlock notes in passing that transit takes twice as long and cites a “survey”, which is of course a compendium of lies and inaccuracy. “Alcohol use? Me? Coupla drinks a day maybe…”
I have attempted to use transit many times, in many cities. I firmly believe it’s 4 times as long as the equivalent car trip, Mr. Karlock, despite what the survey says, with a few exceptions. The exceptions involve living and working near transit nodes or using the car for part of the trip, usually to drive to a node.
A transit trip involves a walk to a stop or station, carrying not very much, a wait for the vehicle which except for rush hour can be a very long wait, then the trip, replete with transfers, more walking and waiting.
When on public transit I particularly enjoy the sight of the lefty intelligentsia and politicos in their Zil limousines (Now made in the USA by Government Motors) being whisked to the Kremlin in their special lanes, not to be used by the proletariat. Of course this is necessary so they can arrive calm and rested, ready to do their great work for the People.
You think that last paragraph is a joke? Pelosi. Government jets.
The papers with the lower VMT do in fact acknowledge self-selection Randal, and the latest Orenco explicitly brought it out and found a robust relationship.
So again your points are moot. IF you are truly concerned about it, e-mail the authors for their data. Let us know if you actually intend to do this and follow through.
DS
The Antiplanner wrote:
> All of these assumptions are flat-out wrong. The assumed
> relationship between density and driving is nowhere near as
> strong as the model assumes.
As a friend (who is a nationally-respected transportation planning professional) put it a long time ago, densities do not ride transit – people do.
> Instead, the model relies on studies that fail to account
> for self-selection — that is, for the fact that people who
> live in dense areas don’t drive as much anyway. This doesn’t
> mean that we can put a family of four in Portland’s Pearl
> District (which has only a handful of children) and they
> will give up one of their cars.
Related to that is the quality of public schools, something that does matter to families with school-age children, a subject that the Smart Growth industry prefers to ignore.
blacquejacqueshellac wrote:
> the Anti-planner is a liar and a shill.
Care to elaborate?
BJS apparently is attempting to be clever.
Nonetheless, CPZ, it is only partially true that densities don’t ride transit, but transit (esp buses) will only go to areas with sufficient density – so it is a chicken-and-egg deal. When I practiced in WA, KC Metro would not run a regular bus route to areas IIRC with density LT 7 DU/ac. Also, part of the point is that in sufficient density and LU mix, one can walk for some destination trips.
Randal himself has provided the readers here with .xls datasets that show VMTs are lower as density goes up. Its not rocket science, but apparently poor memory. Or something.
DS
It is anecdotal of course but my family lives in the Pearl District. We gave up one car when we moved there because of the $100 per car we pay for parking the three cars we still have. I have never taken a transit trip since we moved there. (my wife and kid rode max to the zoo once for fun). Our parking garage is packed with cars and many people rent from the lot next door. I see many people coming and going by car but few on foot, bus or bike.
Antiplanner, great post. Jim Karlock, great comment. blacquejacqueshellac: go away.
These studies are so biased towards crowded living & reliance on nanny state transit.
Many figs are wrong, such as the cost of a car & the correlation of VMT w/density.
It’s like SEIU doing a report on how wonderful unions are.
Use basic common sense: Would a person drive less because of more residents in their neighborhood? Many needs cannot be met by pubic transit, including many purchases. On public transit, places as destination are severely limited, such as choices of employment & places of appointments (ie doctors, accountant, hair).
Some of their conclusions are based upon faulty logic, such as people without cars choose/need to live in high density.
As for schillness, is the federal gov going to stop all support of mass transit because of ownership in 2 car companies? Hey, people don’t need to be marketed to buy a car, but on which one.
The report is very open about its premises and point of view. Its premise is that people are lured into the suburban by low housing prices, that they do not realize their increased transportation costs, and if they knew what they were really paying they would choose to live in dense urban housing instead.
I will leave it to others to comment on whether people understand costs and benefits when they make housing/commuting lifestyle choices. I just want to point out that many economic analysis techniques assume that a willingness to pay more for a bundle of goods indicates a preference for those goods rather than a lack of understanding of the costs.
ROT: “[A]n even deeper problem is the assumption that central planners can and should second-guess people’s lifestyle decisions and use various subsidies and regulations to nudge them towards the decisions that are, after all, in the people’s best interests (according to the planners).”
Or how about that they can and should formulate a model, as these aspiring centralized planners have done here, that plugs in supposed averages for thousands of possible factors? As the saying goes: garbage in, garbage out.
I suspect adherence to this nearly arbitrary contrivance of a model would yield outcomes that, at best, grossly diminished the quality of life for 1/3 of the people or, at best, did so for all.
It is surprising to see such a report use the propaganda term “working families” to describe households with annual earnings of $25k-$50k. Families that earn more than $50k do not work? The term is worse than the usual meaningless spin, but instead is truly Orwellian.
Lefties always claim to be tolerant and smart and yet they often fail to grasp simple matters and argue thusly: “go away”.
How? Why? Where? By transit or may I drive?
The post and Karlock comment were great, with me merely supporting them generally while suggesting that things were even worse than suggested.
The Anti-Planner is neither a liar nor a shill, but several commenters call him that regularly, both directly and indirectly. I was, as Dan aka DS writes, attempting to be clever, and actually I was clever, presciently so, and at DS’s expense, though he never seems to figure it out or stop his baseless insults of our host.
DS today insults the AP with: “Its not rocket science, but apparently poor memory. Or something.”
My words: “the Anti-planner is a liar and a shill” are a pretty good paraphrasing of DS’s comment and I managed my comment before DS wrote a word, because I knew, to a reasonable certainty, that it was coming.
Lying amidst the bilious spew of false premises, arguments from ignorance, evidenceless assertions, baseless accusations, mischaracterizations and hasty generalizations, we find these Galileo-like gems as well:
My. At least th’ soshulizm silliness seems to be falling out of favor. Nevertheless, who knew that simple cognitive dissonance invoked such lofty prose in some small circles?!
Little wonder, then, there is little influence on policy and society.
DS
That is it, Dan? That is your pitifully weak response? I know you were trounced substantively today, but even I am disappointed that your response was just a juvenile rant. Please go back to taking your meds.
Preference won’t be known until transportation modes pay their actual costs — internal and external. If I had a nickel everytime I said that…
So planners and anti-planners would achieve more if they actually addressed that core issue.
Or we can keep rehashing the same old talking points that both sides use regularly. I’m guilt of it too, but even I’m getting jaded.
How do you get that a car costs only $2484 to operate? Last year I spent $1800 on gas alone. Insurance I spent $800 on. I suppose you could break the law and drive without insurance, and steal gasoline. How are low income people supposed to afford your $25,000 hybrid? Or you think low income people have $10,000 in cash to buy a used car without a loan? Low income people in Detroit are forced to spend their money on a car instead of other things because there is literally no alternative.
But I would love it if transit fares were higher like they are in Canada, Europe, and Australia. Perhaps then we would have better service.
Randal tried:
(No one in the model has to pay for the huge transit subsidies.)
Since we are being so assiduous about counting, no one in the model has to pay for autocentric externalities either, which are far higher than other transport modes [EU perhaps ~6% of GDP] and transit subsidies.
DS
transitboy: What’s your point? There are a wide variety of costs based on a wide variety of situations; can’t the $2484 be an average? For example, last year I spent $500 on gas and $360 on insurance and $50 on oil changes and $35 in registration fees for a grand total of $945. I choose to drive a used, paid-for car; I choose not to drive very often or far from home and to live close to work; I choose to have only the minimum liability insurance required by law. You could make the same choices, if you wanted. But of course, you don’t have to. That’s the great thing about freedom. There’s ALWAYS an alternative.
Spending about as much time researching as an…um…average…commercial break on broadcast TV, one finds the $2484 annual auto cost figure a ridiculous lowball.
Certainly parody or a joke, not a serious assertion.
o 2008 BLS transport average expenditure: 8604/annum
o AAA costs:
small sedan $4,350 (12k miles 5,985)/annum
o Consumer Reports:
7-yo car in their database: ~5,200/annum http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/car-prices/what-that-car-really-costs-to-own-4-08/costs-drop-over-time/what-that-car-really-costs-to-own-owner-costs-drop-over-time.htm
Comedy gold!
DS
Wow, just when we thought Dan hit a new low in stupidity, he falls even lower. In comment #3 he pompously argues that his side knows that people who favor not driving will self-select to live in areas where they don’t need to drive. Then in #20, Dan pompously declares that comment #19 cannot be true because he found data that the AVERAGE car cost was greater, completely failing to remember his comment in #3 that people will self-select and thus differ from the average.
Dan usually argues out both sides of his sewer pipe, but usually not directly in the same day.
Dan, you seem to not understand a few terms.
However, your verbage is full of vagueness, generalities & little substance.
Here are a few definitions of items that you brought up from points that you disagree with:
• Galileo-like—???; using science & reality while the masses believe otherwise (ie Earth vs sun centered solar system)
• propaganda and lies—using buzzwords; inaccurate projections; demonizing personal mobility; blaming individuals for societal problems; ignoring that capitalism has created prosperity; ignoring that authoritarian socialist nations have stayed poor; ignoring the many differences where regions have transit use
• bible—a fictional work to help people behave from harming others; creating a magician to explain origins; a prime piece of work to adhere to, by faith, without using sense
• lefty—in favor of redistribution; dislike of incentive structure; wanting the state to provide, which is done by confiscating wealth; punishing success, rewarding bad decisions;
• compendium of lies and inaccuracy—see 2nd
• Smart Growth industry—not a business based endeavor, since construction companies build anything; pile-on land mentality; uses biased term, “smartâ€, to make it seem good, while actually against naturally occurring forces & the market; wanting others to live a certain way; feel-do-good approach, while not even having positive results; going back a century in development; ignores much new technology, decentralization & many new job types
• biased—withhold data; pre-determined conclusion; ignore drawbacks to side; ignore benefits to opposition; using loaded, pejorative labels
• crowded living—simple synonym to high density
• nanny state transit—another term for big gov, collective; state takes from you & gives to others; “you should ride thisâ€; courtesy of others
• aspiring centralized planners—those moving up to control others; having low self esteem; guys jealous of others; can make decisions for others
• nearly arbitrary contrivance—taking any random event & claiming that it caused/prevented certain results; claiming that correlation is causation
• Orwellian—statism; limited free will; others will decide for you; you are scum; some are more equal than others; spread the misery; equality for all by leaching off of producers, except much for the rulers/deciders
• double standard/hypocrisy—inconsistent; often claimed by pro transit towards cars, yet, take the “pay principle†& public transit will crumble, while drivers can pay & roads will be better; from pro-gov: “the other side exhibits that slightly, but my side can do it greatlyâ€; user must pay only for cars, while the few that ride transit should be paid by others
You are often called out & proven wrong in you weak assertions. You usually avoid it. Perhaps you don’t read past posts beyond a few days. Most likely you either just don’t understand or have no valid response.
You are often asked to clarify, provide data or elaborate, without your response.
You pretend to be intellectual, but regular readers know that you have limited capacity.
You want fairness for all, er rather, for just leftists, and those who disagree should pay for your stuff & have the same wants as you.
Frank:“What’s your point? There are a wide variety of costs based on a wide variety of situations; can’t the $2484 be an average? For example, last year I spent $500 on gas and $360 on insurance and $50 on oil changes and $35 in registration fees for a grand total of $945. I choose to drive a used, paid-for car; I choose not to drive very often or far from home and to live close to work; I choose to have only the minimum liability insurance required by law. You could make the same choices, if you wanted. But of course, you don’t have to. That’s the great thing about freedom. There’s ALWAYS an alternative.”
ws:It can’t be the average because reputable institutions, such as AAA, have a reasonable methodology:
http://www.aaapublicaffairs.com/Assets/Files/20073261133460.YourDrivingCosts2007.pdf
Only in bizarro land would Karlock’s math hold true. He’s undershooting the average by a lot.
I want you to look at a typical metropolitan area in Google and see the land-use patterns and then come back here and say “people have a choice”. Most people’s choice is to live in a slum or live in the suburbs and drive, with the exception of nice metro areas with better choices. An overly simplified rational, yes, but it holds true for many metro areas. Not to mention, so many jobs are in autotopic office parks off highways. Also, people with families can’t always uproot themselves and move rapidly.
Choices are really limited, unfortunately, and we can see the our transportation/land use system distorting itself in favor of the auto because we do keep the costs of running a car in the US extraordinarily low.
Rather than question the mechanisms that create this distortion, ROT and the pseudo-Libertarians want to continue the “business as usual” highway-suburbia-sprawl model.
Of course driving is more expensive for the individual.
That’s not a question, nor even claimed to not be true.
What these lefty statists are misrepresenting is that fact that gov cost/passenger-mile is much higher for public transit.
Do they really think that people are unaware that it costs more to make a purchase?
People buy items for a purpose, in this case, to get around–to where they want, when they want, in a short time. Duh!
Are there studies to tell us that Ramen noodles are less expensive than steak & veg meal?
Will those studies show that the steak meal has much more nutrition too (ie more value)?
These studies are ignoring the obvious, of an incredible amount of more personal mobility, including potential to earn much more money.
So there is an immense larger factor in “more for your money” & benefit, when a person pays for a car. It’s also better to have a car in areas that are less dense than ~6,000/sq.mi., because density has higher parking costs & more congestion & slower roads.
Dan: I didn’t know you were a bureaucrat in King County? Whenabouts and what did you do? I’m in south Sno now.
transitboy: $1800 a year in gas? Are you a long-haul trucker or do you drive a main battle tank? I often did 2+ hours of driving a day in my late-model Civic and never cracked $1000.
Perhaps another cost to consider is that of taxation/regulation. In my area, assuming all spending/price averages, one will pay over $9000 into a single vehicle in its lifetime just in taxes and fees (nearly $12,000 if you include RTA collections). That includes licensing, sub-agent fees, emissions, tabs, state and federal gas taxes, sales tax on purchase, etc. Multiply that by cars owned during one’s lifetime. Interesting, if nothing else.
Andy: FWIW, regarding the idea that people would choose to live in high-density areas if only they knew the true costs of suburban living (I know that’s not what you are saying), in my area, the difference between living in the urban core and living in the suburbs is about 17% average (7% to rent) cheaper in the inner suburbs to about 47% average (27% to rent) cheaper in the outer suburbs. This is only for my area, but the idea that it generally gets cheaper as you move inward–that’s lunatic.
Dan said: Spending about as much time researching as an…um…average…commercial break on broadcast TV, one finds the $2484 annual auto cost figure a ridiculous lowball.
Certainly parody or a joke, not a serious assertion.
JK: Once agin the planner shows his inability to read simple English (from my original post, bold added):
That $5068 annual ownership costs seems high for 9 year old cars. A scan of the blue book shows an awful lot of $7000 cars listed under 2001. Also the AAA data shows an annual cost of $5,569 for 2 ½ year old upscale cars typical of AAA members. When you correct that to the average USA car, I got an annual cost of $2484!
Note the term, from the original article, “ annual ownership costsâ€. That is the FIXED cost of just “owning†the car, with NO variable cost per mile. You have to add in the variable costs to get the total cost. Planners really should study some economics and basic logic.
Dan said: o AAA costs:
small sedan $4,350 (12k miles 5,985)/annum
JK: You need to spend more time at http://www.PortlandFacts.com – you would have found that the AAA cost is for the average UPSCALE AAA member, not the general public. Their cost is based on the average AAA membership, it is highballed.
Dan said:
o Consumer Reports:
7-yo car in their database: ~5,200/annum http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/car-prices/what-that-car-really-costs-to-own-4-08/costs-drop-over-time/what-that-car-really-costs-to-own-owner-costs-drop-over-time.htm
JK: The average UAS car is 9 years old, not 7, but, lets take that $5200 and subtract my $2484 – you get $2715 for gas, oil, routine maintenance. At $2.50/gal gas & 22 mpg (national avg.) 15,000 miles accounts for $1704 of that. Not too far off for estimates, with two years difference in the car age!
Dan said: Comedy gold!
JK: One again the planner (Dan) is wrong.
(Do planners get anything right? See: http://www.portlandfacts.com/smart/smartgrowthlies.html
Thanks
JK
ws: It can’t be the average
JK: Of course, as the original artcle and I said that is the “ownership†component of cost, not the whole cost.
ws: because reputable institutions, such as AAA, have a reasonable methodology:
http://www.aaapublicaffairs.com/Assets/Files/20073261133460.YourDrivingCosts2007.pdf
JK: Your carelessness is showing – the AAA cost is calculated to represent their member’s cost. Their members tend to be upscale, with an average car age of 2 ½ years compared to a USA average of 9 years. If you had bothered to check my reference you would not have made that blunder. So why don’t you actually look at http://www.portlandfacts.com/aaa_method.htm ?
ws: Only in bizarro land would Karlock’s math hold true. He’s undershooting the average by a lot.
JK: You are only making a fool of yourself with such statements because you are totally wrong because you couldn’t be bothered to look at actual data. All you had to do is actually read YOUR citation above. You idiot.
Thanks
JK
Randal tried:
NIIIICE! comparing apples to pomegranates is always helpful to obfuscate what you don’t like and to demonize things that show an ideology is irrelevant.
Nonetheless, despite the ham-handed attempt at mendacity, % income spent on housing is a standard metric, since it is a measure of the % of income spent on something in a year. This is the point – what is spent, not what someone will lend you.
Since we like the Census so much, this is what they say about % income.
DS
Dan wrote:
> Nonetheless, CPZ, it is only partially true that densities
> don’t ride transit, but transit (esp buses) will only go to
> areas with sufficient density – so it is a chicken-and-egg
> deal.
Are you saying that transit which runs on steel rails will serve areas without sufficient density?
> When I practiced in WA, KC Metro would not run a regular bus
> route to areas IIRC with density LT 7 DU/ac. Also, part of
> the point is that in sufficient density and LU mix, one can
> walk for some destination trips.
In theory.
> Randal himself has provided the readers here with .xls datasets
> that show VMTs are lower as density goes up. Its not
> rocket science, but apparently poor memory. Or something.
Why don’t you be more specific?
blacquejacqueshellac wrote:
> The Anti-Planner is neither a liar nor a shill,
Thank you for making that clear. I agree with you.
> but several commenters call him that regularly, both directly
> and indirectly.
Unfortunately, you are correct.
> I was, as Dan aka DS writes, attempting to be clever, and
> actually I was clever, presciently so, and at DS’s expense,
> though he never seems to figure it out or stop his baseless
> insults of our host.
I agree with you.
Scott wrote:
> Smart Growth industry—not a business based endeavor,
> since construction companies build anything; pile-on land
> mentality; uses biased term, “smartâ€, to make it seem good,
> while actually against naturally occurring forces & the
> market; wanting others to live a certain way; feel-do-good
> approach, while not even having positive results; going
> back a century in development; ignores much new
> technology, decentralization & many new job types
I may be guilty of coining the phrase “Smart Growth industry.” In many ways it resembles the so-called Republican Echo Chamber (as a liberal Democrat I dislike both).
The phrase Smart Growth may have originated with ex-Gov. Parris N. Glendening of Maryland, though many Maryland neighborhoods (including the one where I have lived since 1985) have suffered from Smart Growth for years before the term was invented.
Are you saying that transit which runs on steel rails will serve areas without sufficient density?
That is not what I said.
Why don’t you be more specific?
Randal apparently has “forgotten” that the very data he provided his readers show the opposite of his assertion. Or perhaps these data are inconvenient to the assertion so are ignored.
I agree with you.
And I thought you showed here you were capable of thought.
DS
The Antiplanner wrote:
> (No one in the model has to pay for the huge transit subsidies.)
Good observation.
So let’s say (just for the sake of discussion – please bear with me) that all of the transit-oriented land use, new bus lines, light and heavy rail lines, bike pedestrian paths really work and materially reduce motorized traffic. What then?
From where will the subsidies to keep these transit lines operating (including paying their employees) and in a state of good repair come from?
Good point, C.P. Zilliacus. Does anyone know if the Report’s model includes full upkeep and replacement costs for the transit, as transit budgets rarely do?
Another point is that automobile use pays a lot in taxes, even beyond the special taxes generally targeted for roads and highways. The sales tax on car purchases, gasoline, parts, accessories, repairs, etc. all goes in the city and state general fund to pay for general government services. The businesses that provide services to automobiles also pay substantial property taxes.
Government high speed rail and transit does not pay sales tax — not on fares, not on fuel, not on parts, not on property. If a model is going to compare transit to automobile, then it also must adjust for the differences in general revenue taxes.
From where will the subsidies to keep these transit lines operating (including paying their employees) and in a state of good repair come from?
Using this same…um…”argument”, if our nation becomes less dependent on one mode of transport…erm…freedom, where will e.g. Exxon get its tax breaks from to match, say, 2009 where it made US$45Bn profit and paid not one red cent in taxes?
Who will keep the health industry afloat, with less cardiopulmonary issues from emissions?
If a model is going to compare transit to automobile, then it also must adjust for the differences in general revenue taxes.
That’s a mighty impressive leap of logic. You sure can tell you did some reading of the report to be able to speak to the issue.
DS
Dan, you really do live in government planner fantasy land.
You have dedicated your life to replacing a private industry with a government program, yet you never considered there might be tax receipt consequences? Where do you think your government salary comes from… leprechauns? Funny how government planners go insane to even contemplate that their work should pay taxes.
Dan, You have again avoided how I spanked many of your points. (It would take too long to destroy all your false points.) Actually your low level of comprehension might need each sentence expanded to a paragraph.
For example, you don’t seem to understand the dif between regional standards of living, such as SF having a ~double avg income as KC, yet housing is over 4x.
BTW, KC is very low density & has about the most freeway-lanes/capita.
Your last post as a huge error of ~Exxon not paying any taxes. How do get such a ridiculous idea?
Let’s see some documentation. You are believing lamestream media claims, which actually have not even asserted that, but talk in general terms of “tax breaks” without any concrete figs.
Exxon pays an incredible amount of taxes: payroll, property, sales, unemployment, disability, income & other. I haven’t looked up specifics on each.
Why would you think that none of those taxes would be paid? It’s profit of $45 billion is not proportionally real high, being only 10.2% of sales. The industry-wide avg is <8%, & all businesses avg 5-7%.
Dan said: “Who will keep the health industry afloat, with less cardiopulmonary issues from emissions?”
Maybe i’m wrong here, but it seems to me that cardiopulmonary issues are more prevalent in denser communities because there are lots of people walking along the streets along with cars and trucks. In comparison, suburbia offers more open spaces and less pollution issues. Unless everyone rode the train, I think cardiopulmonary issues would still be a problem in smart growth and new urbanism communities.
Borealis said: Automobile use pays a lot in taxes, even beyond the special taxes generally targeted for roads and highways. The sales tax on car purchases, gasoline, parts, accessories, repairs, etc. All goes in the city and state general fund to pay for general government services. The businesses that provide services to automobiles also pay substantial property taxes.
THWM: Though the same goes for other retail goods/services & property owners.
As an infrequent visitor to this blog, I hope no one minds if I make an OT comment.
It is my observation that a lot of very interesting conversation, and a variety of viewpoints and opinions are presented here in rebuttal to user Dan.
Although many of his assertions and comments seem baseless, I’m hoping that he is not somehow driven away, (if that were even possible) as his function as a lightning rod is an important one.
This comment section would likely be much less interesting without him.
Thank you Ron.
Speaking of wishing for baseless, did we know:
the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials say that we should, like the implications in the report above that Randal pretends he can’t find data or methodology:
The State Highway Transportation Officials say we should double transit ridership, increase biking and walking. People dependent on auto dependency. Saying we should cut auto dependency.
Wowie. They also frame it in the context of helping to cut carbon emissions. Kenya imagine?
DS
Dan said: The State Highway Transportation Officials say we should double transit ridership,
JK: Why would anyone want to waste time, money and energy by increasing transit usage?
You do know that transit costs about 5 times the cost of driving and takes about twice as long for the average commute and does not save energy, don’t you?
See:
http://www.portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html
http://www.portlandfacts.com/commutetime.html
http://www.portlandfacts.com/transit/cost-cars-transit(2005)b.htm
Dan said: increase biking…
JK: Why would we want to increase a form of transportation with a death rate many times higher than driving?
Dan said: Saying we should cut auto dependency.
JK: We are NOT DEPENDENT of the automobile – we chose the automobile because it is the fastest, cheapest way to get around. It is a major contributor to our high standard of living. Do you have something against a high standard of living?
Why would we want to reduce usage of the cheapest, fastest, most energy efficient form of motorized personal transport. Even Europe at $7-9/gal for gas overwhelmingly chooses a car for its motorized travel. The reason is the extreme utility of the car. Too bad planners are to wrapped up in their religion to recognize this.
Dan said: Wowie. They also frame it in the context of helping to cut carbon emissions. Kenya imagine?
JK: Kenya – NO. Transit does not reduce carbon emissions.
As if there was any advantage to reducing carbon emissions since the whole climate change fraud is starting to be exposed for the fraud that it is. In case you missed this one little tidbit (of many):
(Phil Jones is head of the CRU (on leave pending an investigation of his misconduct) and the CRU is the foundation of the UN’s IPCC reports, the foundation of the global warming hysteria:)
BBC: Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
CRU Head, Dr. Jones: So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
.
BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
CRU Head, Dr. Jones: Yes, but only just.
.
BBC: Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
CRU Head, Dr. Jones: No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
.
BBC- If you agree that there were similar periods of warming since 1850 to the current period, and that the MWP is under debate, what factors convince you that recent warming has been largely man-made?
CRU Head, Dr. Jones: The fact that we can’t explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing – see my answer to your question D.
.
Read the whole interview at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
.
The real question is what is the evidence that man has caused warming? The best case the warmers have is simply laughable and can be summed up as:
.
We know that the, not unusual, recent warming which stopped in 1995 and has reversed since 2002 was man caused because, applying flat earth logic, we can’t figure out an alternative explanation.
Thanks
JK
STOP THE PRESSES! Dan has discovered that a DC Lobbying Group has set goals that coincidentally perfectly match the spending priorities of current Highway Department. See Antiplanner’s posting last month http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=2934#more-2934.
Dan, think about “dog bites man” before you are so amazed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog_%28journalism%29.
Ron H, great comment. We don’t want to drive him away either. We like a good debate and treat him well when he acts like an adult, but when he acts like a juvenile troll we have to spank him.
Too bad some don’t check their dates so they don’t look foolish.
But we’ve come to expect such foolishness from the usual suspect fools.
[ignores fish in barrel]
DS
So sorry Dan. I made the make of assuming you would only be orgasmically amazed by something that happened in the last year. You are definitely stretching to the bottom of the barrel – a two year old dog-bites-man story is usually not worth even citing.
The funding priorities of FHA that the special interest group he cited was sucking up to have been around for decades (see http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11608).
Dan, You never explained why you fabricated your assertion of Exxon paying no taxes. I would guess that they paid at least $60 billion in taxes.
Regardless, if you want any business to pay more taxes, guess what? Higher retail prices are needed. How can people be so dumb to not realize that?
You really think that people need to be made sick to provide business for the health-care industry? Jeeshz!
There is going to be a big problem with having enough medical personnel if this nazi-care stays.
It is fun having goobers like Dan & railhighman, to see how foolish, nonsensical, ignorant & just plain devoid of the ability to reason, that some can be.
It does make you wonder how beings like this can function outside of an institution.
Scott said: “Dan, You never explained why you fabricated your assertion of Exxon paying no taxes.”
We live in the age of information Scott. Just google it or see the following links:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Tax/ge-exxon-paid-us-income-taxes-09/story?id=10300167
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/06/exxon-tax/
Dan fabricated nothing.
Dan said:
Jeez!
ASSHATOAASHTO said that 2 years ago!I wonder why an organization, whose name implies that they are concerned with highway transportation, would recommend so much social engineering!
I can’t imagine why anyone would consider these to be worthy goals, for the reasons JK pointed out in #42.
Sorry, I don’t see carbon emissions as a problem.
If any of the listed goals are good ideas, people will do them on their own, because they benefit directly from them. No government force will be needed, and more importantly, no subsidies will be needed.
Bennett
You actually only provided one reference. The 2nd and 3rd link just repeat the Forbes story and credit it.
What Dan andYOU failed to say is that Exxon Mobil paid no US taxes. If you read your own source closely, you will see that in reality Exxon Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes worldwide last year,which is more than any other corporation, and is 47% of pre-tax earnings. Not exactly “paid no taxes”.
In 2008, the year we were all in a tizzy about Exxon Mobil’s $45 billion profit, the company paid $36 billion in taxes.
The company hasn’t done anything illegal, merely taken maximum advantage of existing tax code, as you or I would do.
I’m not a big fan of Exxon Mobil, but if you want to generate outrage, please be accurate and complete. This news story is in fact quite mundane except for the implied “getting away with something”.
bennet, Wrong wrong false (doubly)
liar liar pants on liar.
Try reading slower.
Let me explain how you are off:
You are talking about income taxes.
Dan typed taxes, and so did I at #37
I even broke down taxes to categories:
“payroll, property, sales, unemployment, disability, & other”
Just for payroll taxes, consider the amount taken out of employees gross income. Companies also pay that same amount to the gov for the employee. So total payroll tax is about 15% of income, with a partial ceiling (about $103,000 for SS).
You are both wrong on income taxes too. Exxon paid the most, $15 billion. The distinction is, US. Read, in the middle.
Here are the particular paragraphs:
Mind you, not all global megacorps enjoy such low tax rates. Try to muster some pity for Big Oil. ExxonMobil paid more income taxes than any other U.S. company last year, some $15 billion, or 47% of pretax earnings. Exxon’s peers Chevron and ConocoPhillips likewise paid out more than half their earnings in income taxes. The oil companies are oddities among the multinationals because many of the oil-rich countries where they do business levy even higher taxes than the U.S.
Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.
BTW, that income tax that Exxon paid is 33%. The maximum rate that the US corporate income tax rate would be, is 35%. So if all its operations were set up to be solely taxed in the US, it’s US Federal income tax rate, after deductions & stuff, would be even less than 33% of profits.
Do I get an apology?
To get the total taxes (all kinds) paid by Exxon, that would probably be in the Annual report. I stand by my estimate of ~$60 billion.
You have also ignored the fact that if businesses are to pay more of any taxes (ie income tax or other tax, duh), the prices of products or service need to be raised. Hello!
As I’ve typed before, add ~$0.60/gallon gas to pay for the slight gap in highways funding & then some.