Andy Dreisch

First, I'm a card-carrying bike-commuter, so my credentials regarding this topic are better than most. Second, I've actively tried to enlist others in my company and elsewhere to take up b-c'ing. Yes, some of these people could bike-commute but elect not to. The car is too convenient, etc. And my company's employees are on average very young and we're in sunny San Jose, so you'd think the odds are best here.

Some work an early shift and would b-c in the dark in the morning all summer long. They feel unsafe. I tell them it's not bad. Still, they believe it to be unsafe.

Others are worried about the impending darkness of autumn/winter. Same story. Same response.

Others worry about the upcoming rainy season. Others are concerned about safety overall. Many haven't been on a bike in 10 years so it's a primarily a perspective thing.

Then we have the significant majority of otherwise able bodied people who have kids to pick up or drop off, who want to go to a restaurant after work, who ... this and who ... that. These people view a bike as constraining.

Besides, if more than a few elected to do the b-c thing, the shower facilities would need expanding.

I guess the point is that where these folks could commute via bike, they have their own reasons to say "Thanks, but no thanks". They choose not to b-c. I can't fault their reasoning even though I'm in a unique position to counter their arguments. Then again, I b-c only about 3 times a week because 20 miles each way is a long way to go.

Andy Dreisch

I didn't say "all" government services, did I? I was careful to use "very many".

Besides, what is Medicare and Medicaid if not a HUGE, public health care system?

I agree, however, that people are lulled into thinking their gasoline taxes feed into the transportation fund when we know that, in fact, it goes to the general fund.

Just like other "specific" taxes, like FICA.

Personally, I don't fret too much over the car and public transportation and such. I think the real answer is to cut down on the need to travel to work in the first place. Social changes regarding telecommuting can cut the demand for transportation significantly. Not eliminate, but reduce traveling. It will take time, but it's far cheaper than throwing money at public transit.

Matadon

It's a false analogy; first off, the U.S. doesn't really have much of a public healthcare system; most people have medical insurance through their work.

Second, a properly run public healthcare system is a service that only serves public benefit; it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, young or old, green or mauve -- you can get healthcare. This helps to improve the overall health of the entire community; not just those lucky few at the top of the medicinal pyramid.

In contrast, the American highway system is only of benefit if you own a car, although you pay for it either way. Furthermore, there are no reasonable alternatives for the majority of Americans -- if you don't want to use public healthcare, as in the above example, you're free to go to a private practice, holistic medicine specialist, witch doctor, or whathaveyou.

Same arguments apply; it's another false analogy. You don't need twenty thousand dollars worth of steel and plastic in order to expand your mind in school; and, furthermore, going to school improves one's quality of life -- spending an hour in a traffic jam does not.

Andy Dreisch

On (A), we agree to disagree on the merits of a public healthcare system. Medicare/Medicaid forms the largest entitlement spending programs of the Federal gov't ... how this can be considered "private" beats me. Anyway, it's a sidenote ... I hereby drop healthcare as a discussion item for this thread.

On (B), the highway system is a benefit even if you don't own a car. It was created as a means to insure defense, it allows ambulances to get to you quickly, it allows your food to be easily and cheaply delivered. It is simply preposterous to think the highway system benefits only those having cars.

On (C), education does indeed require infrastructure to "expand one's mind". I fail to see your point. Also, going to work certainly improves one's quality of life; if you choose to sit in a traffic jam as a means to this end, so be it. It's a cost of the gain that is work. If it weren't, you wouldn't do it.

Matadon

Since debating the merits of a public healthcare system is rather off-topic, fair enough; but note the size difference between Medic(are|aid) and, say, Blue Cross.

Emergency services and pizza delivery (there is no other food) are both local services, and make no use of the massive interstate system which we have built. I think we all agree that local roads are a good thing to have; the question here isn't "are roads a good thing?", but is instead "is our current freeway system a good thing?"

Goods are easier to transport by rail, and commercial rail systems are both more durable, carry substantially more cargo, and do less damage to the environment than do trucks. It makes more sense to move goods across the nation via rail to local points of delivery, where motorized vehicles can transport them to their final destination. The energy savings alone of doing things this way would likely be in the billions of dollars.

As to national defense, that's why the freeways were created; but that isn't the purpose they serve today. Troop and equipment transport is done mostly via aircraft nowadays; a C-130 can take a lot more cargo than a Peterbuilt, and have room for troops to boot.

Education does require infrastructure; that's not the question here. Education does not require a multitrillion dollar freeway system, nor does it require a personal automobile to ferry faculty and students to and from the classroom. Furthermore, the costs of maintaining parking space for all those vehicles detracts from the funds available to educate.

As for commuters, it really isn't a matter of choice. Housing is rarely available near commercial areas, and if it is, it's far too expensive for anyone but the incredibly wealthy to afford it. Look at San Francisco -- a studio apartment near the financial district runs around $1,500 a month. Working in the suburbs is an option, but only if you want to work in the service industry, where you will take a very signifigant pay cut over working as a professional. So, commute, or live in near-poverty. Not much of a choice to me.

Andy Dreisch

Time to go back and dissemble your original quote ...

By "cost" of gasoline, you mean taxes on gasoline, which is different than the cost of producing gasoline, which is less now than in the "oil crisis" on an inflation-adjusted basis.

So, you mean tax the hell out of gasoline to drive up the cost and make people aware of and respond to the "real" costs of driving.

And how would the "real" cost of driving be determined? Does the transportation fund represent the "real" costs? If not, you're going to have to assess the real cost before instituting the fee structure. Have you thought of that? Good luck.

And, again, you make a false assumption that only users of highways benefit from highways. The entire trucking distribution network which cannot be substituted by the train system as you suggest is centered on interstates, my friend. You may choose to ignore this obvious fact if you wish. But take away the highways and watch food costs, for instance, skyrocket. I'll identify the real costs of not having highways on your behalf while you focus on pizza delivery.

And exactly how would you implement this use fee structure? On a per-mile basis? By enacting tolls every 10 miles or so? Can you imagine the gasoline waste and pollution arising from cars idling at toll roads across the country? Taxes on vehicles? Then watch for the introduction of unsafe vehicles as manufacturers build wildly inexpensvie (read: cheaply built) automobiles to backfill demand. Taxes on gas? Cars go to diesel. Taxes on diesel? Trucks stop shipping.

And how exactly will you get your pipe dream enacted? Because without enactment, it's a dream, right? So, tell me how you're going to convince rational people that your scheme is the correct one.

Idle thinking. Keep dreaming.

Steele-Bike

Europe seems to do just fine with their multi-dollar gas tax. Of course, America is a large country and relies a lot on long distance transportation of goods. But, then again, why do I need underwear made in Mexico? Can't Iowan's make underwear?

Matadon

By "real" costs of driving, I mean to include all the costs of road mantenance and construction, traffic planning, and pretty much most of the departmental budget of the DOT (or at least the NHSTA); most of this comes out of the general fund at this point in time. Or are you telling me that eighteen cents a gallon is enough to cover all of that?

I don't recall saying that all trucking could be replaced; I stated that most, if not all, cross-country trucking could be replaced by rail transport. Hell, by keeping the interstates in place, the changes can be made gradually, over time, in small increments. Local trucking will continue for some time, although a multipurpose (commuter/commercial) light-rail system will help reduce local trucking needs as well.

As for pizza delivery, please, learn to take a joke.

Raising the taxes on fuel (for reasons stated above) will handle the use fees; logically, the more gas you buy, the more you use the roads.

Second, I like your slippery slope there. Raised taxes leads to unsafe vehicles and massive tax-fraud and a collapse of the national economy. Care to explain your logic?

Actually, I never said it was anything but a dream -- Americans will grind themselves into the ground and turn the U.S. into a third-world country before they give up their fast-food ford-on-the-freeway lifestyle. It's the really sad thing about my people; unable, for the most part, to see beyond the carrot dangling in front of their noses.

Matadon

Of course they can, but you'd have to pay more for it. Maybe even a whole dollar. *gasp*

Andy Dreisch

You sure are loose with other people's money !!

Andy Dreisch

BTW, y'all. You'd be proud of me. I took the SJ Light Rail home tonight. I have to say it was dreadful. It took forever to snake its way through SJ -- over an hour. About the same amount of time, coincidentally, it takes for me to bike-commute 20 miles home.

At least in SJ, public transportation in the form of the high-tech light rail system is a no-go for most people.

Dutchy

This is true to a point, but not realistic.

What else don't we need.

Electricity (that pretty much covers all things that use it), people lived for thousands of years without it so why do we burn mountains of coal to make the stuff. We don't need it to live, but I am not about to give it up.

Cars are here to stay like it or not. And a lot of people do need them to live. My dad is a brick layer, I can't see him towing his trailer on the bike with half a tonne of sand, cement mixer, scaffolding and tools. Not everyone can ride 40 miles r/t to work (me included), and not everyone can live close to work, it just isn't possible.

Try going to the hardware store and buying a wheel barrow then carting it home on a bike. Try going Christmas shopping with two kids, then carting all those gifts home on a bike. Try going out for dinner with your wife all dressed up for an anniversary on a bike (if I tried this I would not be married for long) Not likely.

Cars do have a purpose, a bike WILL NOT be ideal in every situation for everyone. Having said this, I still believe that more people should try finding alternative means to get to and from work at least a few days per week. If everyone did this there would be a lot less traffic on the road.


CHEERS.

Mark

nathank

Dutchy,

i agree, and i was only stating that to make a point about our assumptions of what we NEED - and b/c Andy's statements about most people not being ABLE to bike is false --- they're too lazy, OK, but very few are truly unable. and yes, your father probably COULD transport most of his stuff by bike, but in today's economy he wouldn't be very competitive. so he has a more legitimate need to drive a truck, but the solo drivers on the freeway in the SUV going to work and back...

my view of the ideal is pretty similar to what you described: where society is organized so people don't NEED a car for every little activity and walking or biking serve most needs and then we have more heavy-duty transportation like rail, cars, trucks, and planes for long-distance or freight transportation.

but transporting a huge mass of steel and plastic tens or hundreds of miles a day for your own personal self is SO wasteful and inefficient and eventually unsustainable not only b/c of pollution and fuel, but just simply there is not enough space for 6+billion people on this planet to live this way...

as i said before, the huge automobile as daily personal transport device for the majority of people in the US will not last much longer... but people won't face this reality and will drive and sit in traffic and inhale pollution and endure road-rage and commute 50 miles from the suburbs for quite a few years before the critical change point is reached in maybe 20-25 years... then things will change radically and quickly - to what i'm not sure.

Matadon

Nuclear. Solar. Wind. Geothermal. Hydrogenerated. There are plenty of non-polluting sources of energy. Yes, I'm aware of what nuclear waste is, but it's something we can contain and deal with -- not a cocktail of nasty chemicals that just gets thrown into the atmosphere as a byproduct of combustion.

Generating electricity doesn't have to pollute the air, or water, or ground.

It's not a matter of everyone giving up cars; your father needs his truck to do work, as do others, and this is a given -- e.g., his vehicle is *commerical* in nature. Where the problem lies is with the millions of commuters that shuttle themselves back and forth between the suburbs and the city, wasting millions of gallons of gasoline, polluting the atmosphere, and destroying the land with their passage.

Light-rail is the answer to that problem. Cars will always be here, in some form or another, but we desperately need to reduce their quantity.

As to distance-to-work, what's close? Five miles? Ten? I'd say ten is a reasonable distance for an average bicycle commute, which would give a rough area of 300 square miles in which to place office buildings, people, and businesses. Now, imagine what you could do in three hundred square miles if you didn't need to devote one inch of it to automotive parking[1].

Personally, if I could walk/ride to a local RT station, and and it took an hour to get to work, it would be worth it. Why? Because I can reclaim that time. I can read. Play on my laptop. Do homework. Listen to music on my walkman/discman/PDA. I'm not stuck in an endless line of cars, having to worry about what the driver in front of me is going to do next.

That's what rental cars are for. Think about it; not owning a car will save you in the neighborhood of $6000 yearly (including depreciation). For that, methinks you can rent a light truck for days at the hardware store, and you can splurge and rent a Ferrari to take your wife out on your anniversary.

We agree on that; cars aren't evil things, they're just grossly mis- and over-used by the majority of the population.

[1] Small electric vehcles could handle emergency duties, as well as provide transport of goods and services in and out of this rather small city.

Matadon

If it's anything like Sacramento's, than you're right, it's crap. Our light-rail was likely designed by a cadre of rabid, worm-infested kangaroos, because it certainly wasn't designed by people with college educations.

It only goes from Sacramento proper (which is good) to the slummiest neighborhoods in town (which is bad; and, yes, they were slums before RT came around). It's great for commuters if you're primary industry revolves around words and phrases like "biatch", "8-ball", "freebase", and "give me your wallet."

Why they couldn't have sent rail out to the three main commuter-habitats, I have no idea. Three new tracks, laying on dead-man's land next to the freeway, running out to Roseville, Folsom, and Elk Grove, would help to alleviate so much traffic congestion that the freeway would actually be useful again as a means of transport.

pathtek

I know that this is way off the subject and I may be way out of line to correct something like this, but the book referred to originally in the thread is called The Immortal Class by Travis Hugh Culley. Not trying to be a jackass, but if someone wanted to read it, they might have a hard time finding it if the name is incorrect. Also, I just skimmed the threads so the correction may have already been made...if so I apologize in advance.

Andy Dreisch

On (A), I suppose we could all run to work too. How 'bout walking on our hands? There are any number of substitutes for locomotion, but how many feasible substitutes? People view driving a car as more time-efficient, safer, convenient, and luxurious than biking. I view these as factors leading to a rational choice they make that leads them to turn the key (even though I am a serious bike-commuter) while you view their choice as being rooted in laziness. I think your analysis ignores human factors like those denoted above.

On (B), remember that by now we should have been zipping along in clean, electric, Jetson-style levitating cars. But in all these years, no one has found a viable alternative to the good ol' internal combustion engine.

As far as the sustainability of this behavior (driving) all I can say is that the benefits so far of driving far exceeds the cost, as is apparent by the unending popularity of cars. Fuel is more abundant than before, and cheaper, and pollution is always a problem, but not a worsening problem (according to the EPA) even with the explosion in the number of cars on the road in the past decades.

Roughstuff

In a macro sense, the advantage of auto based transportation is that it places choice in the hands of millions of individual riders and thus is flexible, convenient, and not easily disrupted. My apologies to all of you stuck in traffic jams in Manhattan, LA, and every other urban eyesore that folks willingly decide to live in; but the problem is not cars. The problem is that you are so incapable of entertaining and employing yourselves in the absence of millions of your fellow men (and women) that you cluster together like lemmings on the shore. 95% of the pavement in this country is not bumper to bumper clogged traffic.

In reverse, the disadvantage of mass transit is that it places choice in remarkably few people, it is not convenient, and it IS easily disrupted. You wanna see gridlock? Watch what happens in NY or DC when some disgruntled public employee transit unions decide they aren't gonna work unless they get a pay raise.

To me the solution is smaller cars, and more fuel efficient vehicles. This will happen in due time when the price of gasoline rises...NOT BECAUSE of taxation, but due to natural economic forces. I fail to see how giving MORE money to the Ted Kennedys and George Bushes (to avoid the democrat/republican issue) will solve our transportation problems. Fuel efficiency is a virtue in its own right, and I think it will proceed in coming decades no matter what happens to the price of gas.

My suspicion, as an economist, is that increases in fuel efficiency in transportation and elsewhere will overwhelm the decline in supply, and that petroleum prices will continue to fall in real terms--even if short term spikes such as we have now my pockmark the way. Of course, then we Amerikans will be to blame for poverty in the Arab world, where they will be sitting on drained and useless oil fields while the rest of the world uses solar, wind, and various degrees of nuclear energy. Until then, enjoy your SUV!! And gimme a wave when ya go by...I am the guy with the cranberry colored fuji.

Roughstuff

Roughstuff

Do they wear underwear in Iowa?

I am not so sure Europe is 'doing fine with its multidollar gas tax.' Eurosclerosis is now a widespread disease, has been for almost 15 years. Many European countries sport unemployment rates in the high single digits and low teens, and even so are hopelessly dependent upon a subservient immigrant class (the Turks in Germany, for example) who can be deported at a moments notice. The europeans are clucking right now that we want to go to war with iraq to keep oil prices low...when in fact, we import less oil as a percent of consumption than almost every european country. If we catch cold, they will get pneumonia.

Of course there are many OTHER reasons for these problems, too..not just transportation taxes But it's all different blooms of the same rose: decisions are made by government bureaucracies and not by individuals.

Roughstuff

Andy Dreisch

Good stuff, Roughstuff, except that disagree that there is a declining supply of gasoline. (I agree, however, that fuel efficiency will nevertheless improve as a consequence of increasing technology.)

Gasoline supplies (oil reserves, actually) are increasing faster than the rate of depletion. There is therefore no imminent end to fuel supplies as many would like to believe. The internal combustion engine is capable of existing for quite some time to come.

Bikesalot

To me the solution is smaller cars, and more fuel efficient vehicles. This will happen in due time when the price of gasoline rises...NOT BECAUSE of taxation, but due to natural economic forces. I fail to see how giving MORE money to the Ted Kennedys and George Bushes (to avoid the democrat/republican issue) will solve our transportation problems. Fuel efficiency is a virtue in its own right, and I think it will proceed in coming decades no matter what happens to the price of gas.


Roughstuff-

I may be incorrect or off base here, but isn't the price of gasoline in this country artificially low due to direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies to the oil companies? To name one, how much does it cost the U.S. to maintain a significant military presence in the Persian Gulf? Certainly at least part of the reason has to do with the oil reserves located there. Now if Exxon had to pay for their own military forces to keep the supply of oil stable, wouldn't that be an example of a "natural economic force"? It would certainly raise the price of a gallon of gas. Instead of taxing gasoline and handing money to the Kennedys and the Bushes, why don't we just remove all subsidies that benefit oil producers, and let the economic chips fall where they may? That seems like a free-market solution that doesn't require any government intervention at all. In fact, it would save billions in public spending every year.
What do you think?

cycletourist

According to the book Ashalt Nation, removing the subsidies (including huge tax breaks for oil companies, military *******, etc) and requiring all road maintenace to be paid for by gas taxes, would raise the price of gas by several dollars per gallon.

Roughstuff

We have had this argument before. MANY MANY companies get subsidies--if ya wanna hop on the libertarian train I have been riding for years and try and phase them ALL out, I am with you 100%. Yes...let the chips fallwhere they may. I might point out that in many countries oil companies (not just US ones) do maintain substantial paramilitary and police forces at considerable expense. It will only get bigger with time...as the book 'The New Centurions' makes clear. Having dealt with some of these people from time to time, I think you would prefer the citizen soldiers we have in the US. But yes I agree with your very good suggestion...phase out these subsidies.

Still i must quibble a bit about this incessant reference to our involvement in the middle east as being a hidden cost to US oil users. That my be correct, but it is ALSO true that the lower prices flow to ALL users worldwide...US, Europe, Japan and many others. I am ALL FOR assessing foreign countries for their fair share of OUR EXPENSE (and OUR BLOOD) to protect what is the lifeblood of the WORLD ECONOMY..not just our own. If you assume that this cost is, for example, $1.50 per gallon of gas, that price would be tacked on worldwide (or should be) and then you'll be RIGHT back where ya started--a differential between the US and European countries due primarily to taxes.

But damn it sure would help us conserve. For god sakes 2000 years from now we'll look back on this amazing substance and say, 'can you believe people used to just BURN this stuff?'


roughstuff

usnagent007

Segway will change the world as we know it...
*cough

Steele-Bike

Is it getting hot in here, or did those flames just burn the Hanes off my .....?