Cars: Necessity or Luxury?

Some people are chortling over a recent Pew survey that finds the share of Americans who think that cars are a “necessity” is the lowest since pollsters started asking the question in 1973. Perhaps, some are suggesting, that’s because young people aren’t driving as much as older Americans, so we shouldn’t invest much more in highways.

Another interpretation of the numbers is that more people think they should tell pollsters that they don’t need cars as much as they used to. The Antiplanner prefers to rely on revealed preferences rather than survey data. Here are a couple of revealed preferences.

Table B25044 of the 2009 American Community Survey indicates that 113 million out of 123 million American households–that’s 91.1 percent–have at least one vehicle available. Despite the recession, this is up from 105 out of 126 million households (89.7 percent) in the 2000 census (see table H44, summary file 3 or this brief).

To a significant extent, the success discount cialis try here rate is also influenced by the male’s sperm performance. Do not fall for fraudulent websites that offer to sell purchase cheap cialis new.castillodeprincesas.com in their country, but if you want the best results, let have the pill 30-40 minutes prior to the person’s activity. Super P-Force is just powerful when joined with cialis online sale sexual incitement. Now a daze a sildenafil cipla common hard question which is getting increasingly common in men. Table B08301 of the 2009 American Community Survey found that 105.5 million out of 138.6 million workers (76.1 percent) usually drive alone to work. That’s up from 97.1 million out of 128.3 million (75.7 percent) in 2000 (see table PCT55, summary file 3 or this brief). The share of people carpooling declined, but most of the slack was taken up by an increase in people working at home. Transit’s share increased from 4.6 to 5.0 percent, while walking and cycling increased from 3.3 to 3.5 percent.

As the Antiplanner’s favorite demographer, Wendell Cox, points out, census data can be deceiving because the census question is “how did you usually get to work last week?” The National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), however, asks how people actually got to work on a specific day. It turns out people who say they usually drive alone almost always do drive alone, but people who say they usually take transit often take other modes. The 2009 NHTS found that only 3.7 percent of commuters actually take transit on any given workday. This is unchanged from the 2001 NHTS, which also found that 3.7 percent of commuters take transit on any given workday (see page 1-19 of this report).

So fewer people may say they they regard cars as a necessity (though still more than any other piece of technology in Pew’s survey). But their reveal preferences show that more households have vehicles and more people are driving those vehicles. Yes, per capita driving may be down, but that’s more due to the recession and high fuel prices than anything else.

Demographically, the United States has an aging population and an increasing share of retirees. So many transportation experts believe per capita driving is not likely to increase as fast in the future as it has in the past. But the population is growing, there are many congested roads out there, and as cars get more automated there is likely to be a surge in driving. Which all means there is good reason to think that some new roads (paid for, of course, entirely out of user fees) will make sense.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

23 Responses to Cars: Necessity or Luxury?

  1. LazyReader says:

    Just like thousands of years ago, carriages were luxury. Hundreds of years ago horses may have been a luxury. 100 years ago in this country there were dozens of automobile companies that made cars for only the rich, there all out of business. The ones that are left made cars that average people could afford and made a lot more money that way. 30 years ago computers were a luxury. Hundreds of years ago, indoor plumbing was a luxury. Electricity is a luxury. Lobsters are sort of a luxury, yet a century ago it was considered poverty food, slaves didn’t want to, but were forced to eat it even though it was a cheap source of protein. Blue jeans, luxury brands nowadays for basically the same thing one could buy cheaper generics. Economic prosperity is tied heavily to transportation. If your a carpenter and your town is mostly bricks, your better off moving someplace where you have the opportunity to harvest timber and build wooden homes that people would like to buy meanwhile a bricklayer might simply wish to move to your old town. Transportation (cheap transportation) allows us to resettle and move to places where economic activities benefit those that move there particularly with skills that benefit a potential employer. Why should the carpenter stay in Bricktown, USA where the prospects for employment are scarce with his skills, when he and his family can leave for Timbertown. I don’t see cars as a luxury, conversely there are luxury cars out there but if you have the money, whats wrong with having a nice car.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHYuf8OYOC4

  2. Dan says:

    Too bad, Randal, you didn’t discuss anything else argued in the blog post.

    Oh, I know: that would have been inconvenient to your argumentation, but still.

    DS

  3. TMI says:

    Isn’t the premise of your post counter-intuitive to the planning community? More cars, and yet a lower preference for cars? Markets must not work.

    Maybe we should end our reliance upon capitalism.
    .

  4. Dan says:

    Isn’t the premise of your post counter-intuitive to the planning community? More cars, and yet a lower preference for cars? Markets must not work.

    If I understand the non-cogent assertion properly, the italicized is true only if you don’t read the article Randal linked to.

    DS

  5. Sandy Teal says:

    Interesting that the UN is proposing to declare access to the internet a “human right”, while only 50% of Americans consider a computer to be a “necessity” and only 34% consider high speed internet to be a “necessity.”

    Considering how vague words like “necessity” and “luxury” can be, and change over time, polls like this are not very useful.

  6. Dan says:

    I think that if Thomas Paine, Jefferson, and Locke had a blog, it should have been up to Verizon to unilaterally cut off their access and shut their rabble-rousing pie-holes, those socialists – threatening profits and the flow of commerce! And what about Revere’s blog – warning the British! Toss him in some stocks!

    DS

  7. the highwayman says:

    Lazy, automobiles are both a necessity and a luxury.

    Though for that matter public transit is a necessity too.

  8. Andy says:

    I totally agree with Danny Boy. If Verizon had the monopoly corporate grant from the Crown, then they certainly would have cut off the access of the Founding Fathers. Moreover, the Founding Fathers were fully aware of this, even if the internet wouldn’t be invented for 215 years.

    It is that darn villain, capitalism, and its brother freedom, that makes it so hard for government to control the internet. But planners are smart enough to know that if they heavily subsidize (like 80%) a local project with federal dollars, then they have a much better chance of getting local voters to vote for it, even though the local voters know it makes more sense.

    People know that if you pay people to break windows, just to stimulate the window industry, the idea is ridiculously stupid. But if broken window repair is 80% subsidized by the other people, it might actually pay off.

  9. Andrew says:

    Andy:

    Moreover, the Founding Fathers were fully aware of this, even if the internet wouldn’t be invented for 215 years.

    They were aware of this. Its why they created a government operated Post Office and universal mail service at a low flat rate in order to guarantee the dissemination of and equal access to the free flow of ideas through newspapers, journals, and private personal mail.

    So-called libertarian/conservative ignorance of this subject and its importance never ceases to amaze me.

  10. bennett says:

    “Necessity or Luxury?”

    A: False Dichotamy

  11. Andrew says:

    Maybe a better question would be is a second car/van/truck a necessity or luxury.

    Its obvious that for the most part, every family needs one motor vehicle in this country in order to live in a normal manner.

    Whether those families need two, three, four, or more vehicles is much more debatable, and it would be interesting to see how many people think them luxuries versus necessities. I know one family near me with two cars used for commuting plus a minivan only used for occasions when their family of five goes out together, because god forbid one of them commute in an unstylish minivan or cram their family into a sedan for vacation.

    Most families would be much better off financially, and our economy would be much less auto-manufacturing dependent, if they only bought one car/van/truck, and rented a car or took a cab when it was truly “necessary” to have a second car. Of course this might require some forethought about where and how to work and live.

  12. bennett says:

    Andrew says: “Its obvious that for the most part, every family needs one motor vehicle in this country in order to live in a normal manner.”

    I have to disagree (a little bit). I think “Necessity v. Luxury” is a bogus question because it lacks context. “Every family” does not need a car to live in a normal manner. A normal existence in Telluride, CO or NYC, for example does not require a car (though you may bum rides from time to time). In TX, you’re doomed to fail in most endeavors without a car.

    The group of people that have lifestyles and live in locations conducive to not owning a car is large enough to negate “every family”. There is no doubt however, that the group that is dependent on owning a car is much, much, much larger.

  13. Frank says:

    I suppose since my spouse’s work and my work are about 25 miles apart, a necessity.

    Unless I want to walk. Google tells me that takes eight hours. Forget it.

    Bike? Three hours. That’s a long, wet ride. No energy for work after that.

    Suppose I could take the bus(es). An hour and twenty. Getting better, but…

    Driving takes 26 minutes.

  14. MJ says:

    Did anyone else happen to notice that the opinion data cited in the linked blog post varied only slightly over the four decades or so during which it was conducted. Seriously, over all those years there isn’t a difference of more than 5 percentage points in terms of the respondents who consider car ownership a “necessity”.

    Despite the author’s claims of a structural shift that should force a reexamination of our infrastructure policies, the current survey data place response levels right about where they were in 1980, another blip on the radar screen.

  15. Dan says:

    Despite the author’s claims of a structural shift that should force a reexamination of our infrastructure policies

    Evidence please. Plz quote the passage that claims such.

    TIA.

    DS

  16. Frank says:

    Here’s your evidence.

    Haha!

    Who made you the evidence police of this ideological blog?

    This after two sips of wine. I’m so smart! Or as Dan once so sagely stated on July 25th, 2008,”And those are just off the top of my head in 2 minutes, on my third glass of Merlot.”

  17. Dan says:

    Frank, the author didn’t make that claim. Its a false claim. I hope you aren’t advocating for falsehoods being promulgated on this blog.

    Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks!!!!!

    DS

  18. MJ says:

    Evidence please. Plz quote the passage that claims such.

    The last paragraph, quoted verbatim:

    But as we’re trying to figure out what kinds of public investments to make for the future, the rise in the perceived “necessity” of high-tech products and fast internet connections, coupled with the decline in the “necessity” of cars, may offer some hints about which way the wind is blowing.

  19. Dan says:

    Your claim:

    o the author stated there was a a structural shift that should force a reexamination of our infrastructure policies .

    Your evidence:

    o But as we’re trying to figure out what kinds of public investments to make for the future, the rise in the perceived “necessity” of high-tech products and fast internet connections, coupled with the decline in the “necessity” of cars, may offer some hints about which way the wind is blowing.

    Frreals? You go from ‘a structural shift forcing reexamination’ to ‘hints about which way the wind is blowing’?

    How cute.

    DS

  20. Frank says:

    Duty Calls: Someone is wrong on the Internet!

  21. Dan says:

    Yup. You’re right.

    DS

  22. metrosucks says:

    So fewer people may say they they regard cars as a necessity (though still more than any other piece of technology in Pew’s survey). But their reveal preferences show that more households have vehicles and more people are driving those vehicles. Yes, per capita driving may be down, but that’s more due to the recession and high fuel prices than anything else.

    What the planning trolls fail to admit is this: cars are highly necessary for a functional life in most of the US. No, no matter how much Dan lies, (yes, lies), San Francisco or NYC are not the appropriate models for the rest of the country. And people continue to want cars because of the freedom they represent. Though using words like “freedom” completely elevates the conversation above the central planning mentality of people like Dan.

  23. the highwayman says:

    Well if your built environment is only focused around cars, then people are going to be auto dependant & need cars to get around.

    Yes cars need to be considered with urban planning, though so should pesdestrians, cyclists & rail lines(both freight & passenger).

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