Living Car Free - Cars=Class Warfare?

I ran across this post on 30th Century Bicycle! (http://30thcentury.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/30th-century-bicycle/) Interesting reading and point of view, that I happen to agree with.

Cars eat up smaller incomes

When the automobile is used as the primary mode of mass transit, the poorest are hardest hit. In 2008, for instance, the poorest fifth of Americans spent 13 per cent of their income on gas. The top fifth spent 3 per cent. In Highway Robbery: Transportation, Racism and New Routes to Equity, Robert Bullard notes: “Those earning less than $14,000 per year, after taxes, spend approximately 40 per cent of their take-home pay on transportation expenditures. This compares to 22 per cent for families earning between $27,177 and $44,461 annually, and 13 per cent per year for families making more than $71,900 per year.”

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. households earning less than $15,000 a year own a car, and in an extreme example of auto dependence, tens of thousands of “mobile homeless” live in their vehicles.

The poor purchase cars because there is no other option in a society built to serve the needs of the automobile. If you want to work, you need a car. If you want to visit your friends, you need a car.


Aaron :)

In my younger days I struggled to pay the bills. I supported a family with a pizza-delivery job. My then-wife didn't work. We did have one car, which was necessary for the pizza job. It was years before my wife bothered to get a drivers license.

I lived in a small town in Michigan, and *could* have walked or biked anywhere in town. We didn't. We drove everywhere.

It's really a matter of knowing that the option is there. I never considered it. Other than riding our bikes, how do we educate others?

I saw a craigslist posting a few weeks ago. Two bikes for sale, don't need them anymore, I have a car. Sad.

I think it is generally accepted that the lower down the socio-economic ladder you go the more people spend on the necessities of life such as food, accomodation and heating as a proportion of their income whereas the higher you go up the less people spend proportionally.

The figures quoted only confirm that in the US, for many a car is a necessity.

What this figure doesn't tell you is the coincidental costs of trying to maintain a car on a low income. I can tell you some of them:
- the mental costs of wondering if the strange noise coming from your transmission is likely to end your ability to get to work
- the energy needed to spend all Saturday looking through wreckage yards for a part for your car
- late nights after work in crummy weather in the driveway trying to install a starting motor or something
- time needed to track down someone who will patch up your exhaust, even though it would be cheaper in the long run to repair it correctly.
- the anxiety and irritation buying a really old used car entails, along with the higher cost of borrowing.

I suppose there are more. I spend quite a few years in the 1980s and most of the 90s trying to pay for car transportation on a real shoestring budget. I'm happy to be out of that loop.

I wonder if that reasoning couldn't be applied to housing and food as well. I suppose you could add cloths also. What is obvious is those making or having more money will be spending less by percent than someone making a basic living.
Now it could be argued that these things tend to drive people into having to work harder or seeking a higher paying job even if they like the job they have but I am not sure it equates to class warfare.

I've been CF for 6 years now, fully capable of hauling a week's worth of groceries for a family of 8 (in my case, extended family, sister's brood) at any time with the trailer, and it's been a normal thing this past year to bring extras home in those re-useable shopping bags hanging from my bar (I carry 2 in my gear). But my sister's husband, as recently as last August, railed at me about when was I going to grow up and buy a car. (He's 61, I'm 51, and I'm the one working, he's somewhat disabled.)

Think I'll ride my bike to his funeral.

Now, back on topic: this is precisely the reason I chose to become CF -- the car died, we were barely making it, a car payment wasn't even in the same GALAXY with our budget, and I was already bike-commuting 90% of the time anyway. What did I give up? Out-of-town trips to see family. Hauling lumber and heavy/bulky freight. Not a huge impact....

What did I gain? Health, freedom from plates/registration, auto insurance, fill-ups, oil changes, radiator flush-n-fills, fun, and the affirmation that my inborn attitude of NOT fitting in just to fit in was valid.

When it comes to the money part , I can relate to that one. I see kids at my job working part time just to support the car and driving.... Tyler Durdens quote never fails, "Things you own end up owning you."

I wonder if that reasoning couldn't be applied to housing and food as well. I suppose you could add cloths also. What is obvious is those making or having more money will be spending less by percent than someone making a basic living.
Now it could be argued that these things tend to drive people into having to work harder or seeking a higher paying job even if they like the job they have but I am not sure it equates to class warfare.

It does apply across the spectrum, but it seems that a car is a huge portion and not much can be done to reduce that portion in many cases. You can patch clothes or shop Goodwill or thrift stores. Food you can eat more things like beans and rice and less meat. But with a car the base cost is there whether it is a beater or a better car. In most cases you can't cut back on it at all.

Gerv has a good list up there, I have been down that road more than once and it is not a fun place to be.

Aaron :)

I ran across this post on 30th Century Bicycle! (http://30thcentury.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/30th-century-bicycle/) Interesting reading and point of view, that I happen to agree with.
Aaron :)

This was a very good article. Thanks for posting.

I was shocked at the percentages as usual of how much people are spending on their motorcars in comparison to how much they earn. This is one of the reasons why the economy is in slow growth mode. The motoring lifestyle took away the discretionary income of the middle class and lower class in this country.

Today, the bike lane, public transit and carfree movement are under attack by right wing groups in this country. The economy made this vocal group hostile as they look for reasons to blame for the poor economic conditions. In their minds, bike lanes are detracting from local business and public transit should pay for itself. What they really want is to eliminate pubic transit and use the money for motor transport.

Rob Ford the Mayor of Toronto wants to eliminate the street car altogether and use the money to construct subways. He knows full well they will never build billion dollar subways since they don't have the money to fund the street cars today which is far less costly. However, once the street cars are scrapped, Mr. Ford will have buses replace some of the lines while limiting service for all.

)[/QUOTE]

I wonder if that reasoning couldn't be applied to housing and food as well. I suppose you could add cloths also. What is obvious is those making or having more money will be spending less by percent than someone making a basic living.
Now it could be argued that these things tend to drive people into having to work harder or seeking a higher paying job even if they like the job they have but I am not sure it equates to class warfare.

You realize, don't you, that no matter how hard everybody in California tries to find a job, at the end of the day more than 12 % of them won't have a job, and another large fraction will be working for wages that won't support an individual, let alone a family?

What this figure doesn't tell you is the coincidental costs of trying to maintain a car on a low income. I can tell you some of them:
- the mental costs of wondering if the strange noise coming from your transmission is likely to end your ability to get to work
- the energy needed to spend all Saturday looking through wreckage yards for a part for your car
- late nights after work in crummy weather in the driveway trying to install a starting motor or something
- time needed to track down someone who will patch up your exhaust, even though it would be cheaper in the long run to repair it correctly.
- the anxiety and irritation buying a really old used car entails, along with the higher cost of borrowing.

I suppose there are more. I spend quite a few years in the 1980s and most of the 90s trying to pay for car transportation on a real shoestring budget. I'm happy to be out of that loop.

Good description of being poor with a car. I remember the anxiety each time that old beater made a new noise. Still, it often seems harder for poor people to become carfree, compared to those in the middle class. Poor people usually have fewer options in where they live and work. They may have to live in a small town or exurb if they want their kids to go to good schools, since they can't afford private or parochial schools in their neighborhoods. They often have to live far from work, school or child care because they can't afford more convenient housing.

fortunately, most Americans don't know first-hand what it's like to be truly poor. Poverty is a trap that is very difficult to escape. That mountain climber who had to cut his own arm off actually had it easy compared to many poor people.

I wonder if that reasoning couldn't be applied to housing and food as well. I suppose you could add cloths also. What is obvious is those making or having more money will be spending less by percent than someone making a basic living.
That's true, but the whole point of the cited article is that impact is magnified in the case of transportation because the US as a whole favours an expensive transportation system, as the cited author is pointing out, and everyone has to play along. If the country put more public money into public transport instead of highways, and more poor people had access to it, the portion of personal income dedicated to transport would be lower, and the poor would benefit the most.

If you want to discuss food and housing as examples, an analogous situation would be if building apartment blocks or grocery stores was discouraged and more people were forced by lack of access to those resources, to buy or rent detached houses and eat at restaurants. That would increase their food and housing costs and the poor would have the hardest time adapting to that.

That's true, but the whole point of the cited article is that impact is magnified in the case of transportation because the US as a whole favours an expensive transportation system, as the cited author is pointing out, and everyone has to play along. If the country put more public money into public transport instead of highways, and more poor people had access to it, the portion of personal income dedicated to transport would be lower, and the poor would benefit the most.

If you want to discuss food and housing as examples, an analogous situation would be if building apartment blocks or grocery stores was discouraged and more people were forced by lack of access to those resources, to buy or rent detached houses and eat at restaurants. That would increase their food and housing costs and the poor would have the hardest time adapting to that.


I never said cars weren't expensive. I said that the percentage against someone making $15,000 a year is naturally going to be higher than one making 60k or 200k. That doesn't make it class warfare. One side didn't force the other into their spending habits. There is absolutely nothing T. Boon Pickens did that made it harder on Joe Plumber. It is simply the way things are in this country and others I might add.
For it to be class warfare there needs to be a planned aggression on the part of one class to the other. In the case of somewhere like India that has or had a cast system one class suppressed the other and kept them from advancing. Economics not the ruling class has made things hard on the working poor.
You can purchase a motorized scooter to decrease the cost of car ownership or even a motorcycle so there are ways to cut back. But if the person claiming class warfare willingly walks into debt trying to be like someone they aren’t then it is their fault the percentage is so high. It might even be blamed on Madison Avenue but it is hardly class warfare it is more of a case of not following “Buyer Beware”.
It is not a case of people can’t do better because I rode a motorcycle to commute to work for 8 years paying a fraction of the insurance and a fraction of the fuel costs of most of my fellow workers. They had the same choices I did and I am not more educated than most of them nor was I lucky.
I guess I simply don’t get the class warfare thing. There is more of a class warfare between full time utility cyclists and recreational cyclists.

I never said cars weren't expensive. I said that the percentage against someone making $15,000 a year is naturally going to be higher than one making 60k or 200k. That doesn't make it class warfare. One side didn't force the other into their spending habits. There is absolutely nothing T. Boon Pickens did that made it harder on Joe Plumber. It is simply the way things are in this country and others I might add.
For it to be class warfare there needs to be a planned aggression on the part of one class to the other. In the case of somewhere like India that has or had a cast system one class suppressed the other and kept them from advancing. Economics not the ruling class has made things hard on the working poor.
You can purchase a motorized scooter to decrease the cost of car ownership or even a motorcycle so there are ways to cut back. But if the person claiming class warfare willingly walks into debt trying to be like someone they aren’t then it is their fault the percentage is so high. It might even be blamed on Madison Avenue but it is hardly class warfare it is more of a case of not following “Buyer Beware”.
It is not a case of people can’t do better because I rode a motorcycle to commute to work for 8 years paying a fraction of the insurance and a fraction of the fuel costs of most of my fellow workers. They had the same choices I did and I am not more educated than most of them nor was I lucky.
I guess I simply don’t get the class warfare thing. There is more of a class warfare between full time utility cyclists and recreational cyclists.

Except, as cooker already suggested, by subsidizing expensive automobile transport, and letting less expensive mass transit languish, we do have the effect of "planned aggression on the part of one class to the other." This is a case of class warfare by your own definition, although I'm not sure this terminology is very helpful or useful.

If people have little choice but to buy into the private car system--since those who could afford to subsidize mass transit refuse to do so (in fact basically they refuse to pay any taxes at all, a la the Tea Party)--there is genuine class warfare.

I never said cars weren't expensive. I said that the percentage against someone making $15,000 a year is naturally going to be higher than one making 60k or 200k. That doesn't make it class warfare. One side didn't force the other into their spending habits. There is absolutely nothing T. Boon Pickens did that made it harder on Joe Plumber. It is simply the way things are in this country and others I might add.
For it to be class warfare there needs to be a planned aggression on the part of one class to the other. In the case of somewhere like India that has or had a cast system one class suppressed the other and kept them from advancing. Economics not the ruling class has made things hard on the working poor.
You can purchase a motorized scooter to decrease the cost of car ownership or even a motorcycle so there are ways to cut back. But if the person claiming class warfare willingly walks into debt trying to be like someone they aren’t then it is their fault the percentage is so high. It might even be blamed on Madison Avenue but it is hardly class warfare it is more of a case of not following “Buyer Beware”.
It is not a case of people can’t do better because I rode a motorcycle to commute to work for 8 years paying a fraction of the insurance and a fraction of the fuel costs of most of my fellow workers. They had the same choices I did and I am not more educated than most of them nor was I lucky.
I guess I simply don’t get the class warfare thing. There is more of a class warfare between full time utility cyclists and recreational cyclists.

I think it's pretty obvious that there actually is class warfare, and to paraphrase Warren Buffet, his class is winning. We've spent a ton of public money creating an obscenely expensive transportation infrastructure that requires a large personal investment just to be able to use that infrastructure. Many, many people simply have to drive in order to get anywhere, as much as I hate to say it. Outside of core areas of large cities, there is simply no option to sucking it up and paying the myriad of expenses associated with owning and operating a car. The cruel irony is that, in those very same areas where a car-free existence is actually possible, the real estate is so expensive that, again, only the well-off have access to it, unless people are willing to live on top of one another like rats. Millions of our citizens are doomed to a life of incessant poverty, no matter how hard they work, just so the wealthy and what's left of the middle class can drive their SUVs at will.

Several weeks ago, Glenn Beck, alluding to the film "It's a Wonderful Life," compared the US under Obama to Potterville. I would argue that the policies of our more "conservative" elements of our leadership, those who favor cutting taxes for the wealthy while gutting any public expenditures that might improve the country at large, are the ones who are actively making that dreary nightmare vision a reality.

I wonder if that reasoning couldn't be applied to housing and food as well. I suppose you could add cloths also. What is obvious is those making or having more money will be spending less by percent than someone making a basic living.

Well, somethings are harder to cut the costs of than others. I buy most of my clothing at the Thrift Shop, Salvation Army or Goodwill so clothing is not one of those things. It does amaze me though what rich people pay for cloths at those high-end places. Food can also be economized if you avoid processed foods. A 25# bag of rice is very inexpensive for example. Housing can be another story though, it is real hard to find affordable housing where I live, that is for sure. Fuel is not something you can get cheaply from standard sources (there is cheap fuel out there, my brother-in-law makes his own biodiesel quite inexpensively). I think it is mostly housing and transportation that are the big burden for the poor, and bicycles can certainly help with that (and as you point out in another post, motorized two wheelers can as well).

Well, I would argue with you about the class warfare issue but I'll save that for P&R.

That's true, but the whole point of the cited article is that impact is magnified in the case of transportation because the US as a whole favours an expensive transportation system, as the cited author is pointing out, and everyone has to play along. If the country put more public money into public transport instead of highways, and more poor people had access to it, the portion of personal income dedicated to transport would be lower, and the poor would benefit the most.

If you want to discuss food and housing as examples, an analogous situation would be if building apartment blocks or grocery stores was discouraged and more people were forced by lack of access to those resources, to buy or rent detached houses and eat at restaurants. That would increase their food and housing costs and the poor would have the hardest time adapting to that.

Unfortunately that exists too, zoning laws are probably the single biggest weapon used against "undesirables", and guess who has the most say in creating zoning laws? The people with the money to buy the politicians that think the way they do. In many parts of the country they build lollipop subdivisions and the commercial zones are miles away...with no mass transit and no way to readily walk to them. Many of the working poor in my area get shoved into trailer parks on the out skirts of town that are miles from any amenities except the occasional convenience store.


I live in what used to be a rural area, we have experienced rabid growth along with all the zoning garbage. The 1100 acres across the road from my 40+ used to be a tree farm for pulp wood. It was sold to developers for a golf course community, now I cannot put in a well, I am supposed to maintain a certain type of road access to the state road at the front of the property, they have attempted to have my property rezoned to "protect" their interests. The zoning would have restricted my property from most if not all farming operations other than horses and even then would have limited the number. FWIW the property I live on has been farm land for over 100 years and has been in my wife's family for over 75. Currently it is land locked and cannot be developed.

Class warfare is very much alive in the US and is only going to get worse as the economy continues to stagnate.

Aaron :)

You realize, don't you, that no matter how hard everybody in California tries to find a job, at the end of the day more than 12 % of them won't have a job, and another large fraction will be working for wages that won't support an individual, let alone a family?

According to those of a certain ideology, those folks are just lazy and unwilling to work. I'd like to hear them explain why the numbers of shiftless people seem to increase during hard times.

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It is not a case of people can’t do better because I rode a motorcycle to commute to work for 8 years paying a fraction of the insurance and a fraction of the fuel costs of most of my fellow workers. They had the same choices I did and I am not more educated than most of them nor was I lucky.
I guess I simply don’t get the class warfare thing. There is more of a class warfare between full time utility cyclists and recreational cyclists.

I'm glad that you have proved that people can't do better because you rode a motorcycle for 8 years. I'm sure that because you did it, everyone can, including children, those who live in snowy climates, those disabled, those who are chicken (like me:eek:), etc.

It is definitely a class issue. Right now, the richer suburbanites (the voter statistics illustrate this) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) elected a right wing mayor Rob Ford, who has declared that "the war on the car is over." His plan? To tear up the tracks for a light rail system in Toronto that has already been subsidized by the provincial government, in order to make room for cars. What does he want to do instead of light rail? To build a much more expensive (hidden) subway extension that would cover only a fraction of the distance that the light rail lines would have covered.

This way suburban GTA'ers can continue to congest the roads, spew out their pollution into the streets, and increase the speed of climate change.

Today in our city, in order to purchase a lot of the basics, one has to travel a considerable distance around town as compared to years ago when one was able to shop in a more centralized location.

Locally, many people today find it difficult to grasp the concept of not owning a vehicle, where as my grandparents never had the need to own a motor vehicle their entire lives.

According to those of a certain ideology, those folks are just lazy and unwilling to work. I'd like to hear them explain why the numbers of shiftless people seem to increase during hard times.

No doubt jobs are harder to find here right now. But, just to offer a devil's advocate argument, they did extend unemployment benefits to 3 years. It's not too much of a stretch to say that some of those folks could have found a job if they could not fall back on that benefit. I'm not saying more poeple become lazy, just that some small percentage who already are might find it convenient to ride out the whole 3 years instead of working in a restaurant. I still think a lot of people, myself included, would rather work if possible.

One side didn't force the other into their spending habits. ... It is simply the way things are in this country.

This is the gist of the cited article. It isn't "simply the way things are". They became the way they are because of choices by individuals and government, and those choices disadvantaged the poor.

This is the gist of the cited article. It isn't "simply the way things are". They became the way they are because of choices by individuals and government, and those choices disadvantaged the poor.

I don't think apathy equates to class warfare does it? Who is at war with whom? So do any of us believe there was a conscience decision made by some group to intentionally discriminate against the poor? As in law the question becomes intent? If the problem is because of our form of government or ideology is that the same as class warfare? I don’t think so. Everything that happens in our lives cannot be ascribed to someone else as if we have no input into anything that happens ourselves.
Yes we as a nation have set upon a course of action that has hit the poor and working poor hard but would they not be hit just as hard by housing, food utilities and taxes? We at one point spent a goodly sum of money on railroads that were to crisscross the country and it was lauded as a great accomplishment. But it was a direction the majority in a democracy felt was worth going. Republic for sticklers. When Henry Ford brought the Automobile to the common man there was no intent to discriminate against the poor. A horse and carriage or wagon was not a inexpensive investment at the time either.
The automotive age simply followed the lead the consumers wanted to go and the rest is history. I would like someone to point out intent for this warfare.
If we are having class warfare who are the two sides? Who sits up at night looking for ways to punish the other side? Who is intentionally keeping the other side down? Where in the world can we find a system that doesn’t have wealthy and poor citizens?
Like I said you might prove apathy but I am not sure a direct connection can be made to say one class has intended to harm the other unless the fact someone is poor can be blamed on someone who is not.

I'm glad that you have proved that people can't do better because you rode a motorcycle for 8 years. I'm sure that because you did it, everyone can, including children, those who live in snowy climates, those disabled, those who are chicken (like me:eek:), etc.

It is definitely a class issue. Right now, the richer suburbanites (the voter statistics illustrate this) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) elected a right wing mayor Rob Ford, who has declared that "the war on the car is over." His plan? To tear up the tracks for a light rail system in Toronto that has already been subsidized by the provincial government, in order to make room for cars. What does he want to do instead of light rail? To build a much more expensive (hidden) subway extension that would cover only a fraction of the distance that the light rail lines would have covered.

This way suburban GTA'ers can continue to congest the roads, spew out their pollution into the streets, and increase the speed of climate change.

So you are saying children, the infirmed, the ones living in snowy climates and the timid would have an easier time without cars? Couldn't the same thing be said about bicycles as motorcycles or scooters?

And if I get it right your suburbanites make more money than urban dwellers and even if more than 50 percent of the population now lives in the city proper or at least the metropolitan area somehow suburbanites get more votes? Because it would seem it was supposed to be one person one vote so the majority must be city dwellers as well?

Wasn't there a contention in an earlier forum in car free that the Suburbs were getting pretty hard during the economic downturn? Con both contentions be correct?:innocent:

No doubt jobs are harder to find here right now. But, just to offer a devil's advocate argument, they did extend unemployment benefits to 3 years. It's not too much of a stretch to say that some of those folks could have found a job if they could not fall back on that benefit. I'm not saying more poeple become lazy, just that some small percentage who already are might find it convenient to ride out the whole 3 years instead of working in a restaurant. I still think a lot of people, myself included, would rather work if possible.

Where do you see 3 years of unemployment? Best I have seen offered is 99 weeks, that is just under 2 years. Have you ever been unemployed during a recession or anytime? If I were to get laid off right now I would get roughly $476 a week before taxes. Now why in the hell would I want to take a job working for minimum wages that would only pay $290 a week for full time work? I would also have the problem of being considered over qualified for most entry level positions and many companies won't hire you for a minimum wage job if you have much if any prior job experience, I know I have tried.

Also of interest is the income distribution in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States).

Aaron :)

So you are saying children, the infirmed, the ones living in snowy climates and the timid would have an easier time without cars? Couldn't the same thing be said about bicycles as motorcycles or scooters?



I'm not sure what you are trying to say here; do you mean to say that children, the infirmed and the people who live in snowy climates are better off _with_ cars? And how are you comparing cars/motorcycles/scooters, all fuel-burning- emitting benzene, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, heavy metals, etc., conclusively linked to leukemia & cancer in children, respiratory disease, water pollution, all likely lethal to pedestrians and cyclists under operator error, and all requiring vast resources to create, use, and maintain-

to bicycles?

:innocent:

Ha, now I know who the problem is, those rich Asians.:lol: Look at the household income for that demographic?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/84/Race_6_figure_household_and.png/180px-Race_6_figure_household_and.png

Looks like they fit in with the ritch suburbanites? :lol:

So you are saying children, the infirmed, the ones living in snowy climates and the timid would have an easier time without cars? Couldn't the same thing be said about bicycles as motorcycles or scooters?

And if I get it right your suburbanites make more money than urban dwellers and even if more than 50 percent of the population now lives in the city proper or at least the metropolitan area somehow suburbanites get more votes? Because it would seem it was supposed to be one person one vote so the majority must be city dwellers as well?

Wasn't there a contention in an earlier forum in car free that the Suburbs were getting pretty hard during the economic downturn? Con both contentions be correct?:innocent:

No, I am not saying that children, infirm, etc. would have an easier time without cars. I made that comment as a response to the idea that we "should" all be riding motorcycles to save money.

Good question about the urban/suburban ratio. It is my understanding that the population of the suburbs in Toronto outnumbers the population of city dwellers. But I am not positive about that; I couldn't get accurate information on an internet search.

Since Canada is not suffering the economic downturn nearly as intensely as the US, at the present time, our suburbs are not suffering. People are still buying their lots well outside the city limits and taking the long commute into work. I don't know how they do it....:twitchy:

I believe that in order to give everyone a fair chance at a good life, there has to be other options besides car use in order to be able to have a decent standard of living. In my mind, I believe people should have an option to drive, take an efficient train/bus, or ride their bikes on safe bike lanes. At present, there are too many tax dollars going towards one form of transportation: one that happens to be expensive, polluting, and a major user of urban space in the form of highways and parking lots.

I saw a craigslist posting a few weeks ago. Two bikes for sale, don't need them anymore, I have a car. Sad.

that's not sad that's pathetic!!!

I think it is generally accepted that the lower down the socio-economic ladder you go the more people spend on the necessities of life such as food, accomodation and heating as a proportion of their income whereas the higher you go up the less people spend proportionally.

The figures quoted only confirm that in the US, for many a car is a necessity.

The definition of poverty.

One more of the many reasons we no longer live there.

No, I am not saying that children, infirm, etc. would have an easier time without cars. I made that comment as a response to the idea that we "should" all be riding motorcycles to save money.

Good question about the urban/suburban ratio. It is my understanding that the population of the suburbs in Toronto outnumbers the population of city dwellers. But I am not positive about that; I couldn't get accurate information on an internet search.

Since Canada is not suffering the economic downturn nearly as intensely as the US, at the present time, our suburbs are not suffering. People are still buying their lots well outside the city limits and taking the long commute into work. I don't know how they do it....:twitchy:

I believe that in order to give everyone a fair chance at a good life, there has to be other options besides car use in order to be able to have a decent standard of living. In my mind, I believe people should have an option to drive, take an efficient train/bus, or ride their bikes on safe bike lanes. At present, there are too many tax dollars going towards one form of transportation: one that happens to be expensive, polluting, and a major user of urban space in the form of highways and parking lots.

From what I've seen of Toronto, there are a number of features that differentiate it from many US cities, like an excellent rail system and generally greater population density, making it easier to support more transit and more alternatives.

I'm a little more familiar with mid-size Canadian cities compared to the mid-size US city I currently live in. When I first moved here, I noted that in most suburbs (where all the shopping is...), no one -- I mean, absolutely no one -- walks or bikes. When I did some walking in that area, people stared at you ... That kind of suburb and the decaying city center were common features of US mid-size cities, but unheard of in Canada. These days, things are changing a bit, but change is slow.

Certainly, there are lots of cars in Canada and there's probably more fossil fuel consumed per capita in Canada, but you don't feel that everything, from the design of houses to the layout of streets, is all built around the automobile. Poor people in Canada can usually take a bus or train to work. When I first moved to Des Moines, I quickly discovered that transit or walking to work (as I used to do in Canada...) was completely out of the question.

No, I am not saying that children, infirm, etc. would have an easier time without cars. I made that comment as a response to the idea that we "should" all be riding motorcycles to save money.

Good question about the urban/suburban ratio. It is my understanding that the population of the suburbs in Toronto outnumbers the population of city dwellers. But I am not positive about that; I couldn't get accurate information on an internet search.

Since Canada is not suffering the economic downturn nearly as intensely as the US, at the present time, our suburbs are not suffering. People are still buying their lots well outside the city limits and taking the long commute into work. I don't know how they do it....:twitchy:

I believe that in order to give everyone a fair chance at a good life, there has to be other options besides car use in order to be able to have a decent standard of living. In my mind, I believe people should have an option to drive, take an efficient train/bus, or ride their bikes on safe bike lanes. At present, there are too many tax dollars going towards one form of transportation: one that happens to be expensive, polluting, and a major user of urban space in the form of highways and parking lots.




To be clear my response was to the contention that there was no alternative to car ownership like there is to housing, food, clothing, education, Medical care or whatever. If the contention is that cars take a bigger percentage of the poor and working poor’s income so does housing and the rest. The statement was made that you could cut back on housing, food and clothing but not transportation is in car expenses. I simply said there were other options if someone had to have motorized transportation that was less than car ownership. There are options if, as people are so happy to point out in becoming car free, someone is willing to look into those options.

As I said the idea that someone is willing to subsidize what they do and not want to subsidize what they don’t do is not class warfare it is apathy or even being self centered. But in life there is no guarantee that those that have will freely support those who have not. Should they care and should they want to provide for more mass transit? More than likely the answer is yes but there is no reason to expect that they will without a fight. One of the chances you take in a democracy is when 51 percent of the populace supports something the 49 doesn’t like. Doesn’t make it warfare it makes it a disagreement.

The situation in Toronto is that around 1999 a former conservative government under a rural premier redrew the boundaries of the city to include more suburban areas, as a deliberate ploy to outnumber more liberal downtowners with more conservative suburbanites. The plan was to get his conservative buddy elected mayor in order to facilitate a bunch of cost-shifting from the province onto the city, to make it look like the province was being more fiscally responsible. The Canadian constitution gives provinces authority over city boundaries, so although the majority of citizens in both the city and suburbs were opposed to this gerrymandered merger, it went through. After it was all over and the new conservative buffoon of a mayor had rolled over and let the city take all the garbage the province dumped on us, he belatedly wised up and had a public spat with the premier, calling him a liar and promise breaker.

Next we did get a liberal mayor for a few terms, but this year we once again elected a conservative buffoon. Not that all conservatives are buffoons but these two guys are. The first one, Mel Lastman turned out to have a whole second family - fathering two kids with a lover/employee while keeping up the charade of a happy marriage - that he had kept hidden for years.

The latest buffoon, Rob Ford, has a history of a DUI arrest, and he and his wife have made 911 calls to report on each other, and he is barred from volunteer coaching at his local school due to temper tantrums. His first act as mayor was to declare that “the war on the car is over” and try to cancel a network of streetcars in protected lanes connecting the suburbs to each other and downtown that has been planned over several years. Since the province is commited to kicking in a lot of the capital, many contracts are signed, and some work is underway, the cancellation if it goes through is is likely to cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars in lost external contributions and penalties. Ironically it will hurt his suburban supporters the most, as inevitably the roads will get more congested and the streetcars would have been a lot faster and more convenient.

Doesn't make it warfare it makes it a disagreement.

You're a very literal fellow. "Class warfare" is a metaphorical term that likens the entrenched and systemic conflict of interest between wealthier and less wealthy segments of society to war. It doesn't mean there has to be a declared or deliberate actual battle or planned agenda of oppression or rebellion, although in many cases that may exist behind the scenes.

You're a very literal fellow. "Class warfare" is a metaphorical term that likens the entrenched and systemic conflict of interest between wealthier and less wealthy segments of society to war. It doesn't mean there has to be a declared or deliberate actual battle or planned agenda of oppression or rebellion, although in many cases that may exist behind the scenes.


I think it is more of a political term. Political terms are mostly a form of name calling. It is tossed about concerning tax breaks. It is tossed about because of the decay of some of our inner cities. It is tossed about because people moved to the suburbs and now it is tossed about because of how much the poor spend on cars?
There are rich and there are poor people. The fact does not mean there is any class warfare unless envy and apathy equal warfare. The rich think about the rich not the poor. There is no struggle when one side doesn’t even recognize the other.

But let us say there were a class warfare because of cars and their prevalence in American transportation who created that form of transportation? Wasn’t it the majority that was the working class? Even according to the published data in an earlier post the wealthy are a minority in this country so who is participating in this warfare brought on by cars? Is it the middle and working class against the poor?
Identify the combatants and discuss how they created this class warfare. Waving a hand and saying “they, them or the powers that be” simply will not work anymore. Unless you now contend it is between the Suburbs and Urban dwellers? In most cases they are considered the same class.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. From someone in the Peace Corps:
"
Pondering the meaning of “middle class” as being used in today’s election campaign reminds me of when, after sitting in on a lecture at Hunter University in New York City, I attended a meeting of the Socialist Party being held in a nearby classroom. I noted the constant reference made at the meeting to the “working class.” Finally, I asked, “Just who is the working class? Most of us, including the rich, work for a living. Does it mean anyone who works?” The answer, “You just know if you are a member of the working class.”
So that’s it, you are what you say you are. Thus anyone who calls himself “middle class” is “middle class,” including many of the rich and the poor. "

Full article is here. http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/new-economy/2010/10/26/class-warfare-2/

And I might add that the very term sounds just a bit like Karl Marx, not one of Gracho"s brothers however.

It wasn't my intention to write a treatise on class warfare, just to point out the definition of the term. If you want to know how or if it applies to transportation, that was the whole point of the OP linked article.

The situation in Toronto is that around 1999 a former conservative government under a rural premier redrew the boundaries of the city to include more suburban areas, as a deliberate ploy to outnumber more liberal downtowners with more conservative suburbanites.


The latest buffoon, Rob Ford, has a history of a DUI arrest, and he and his wife have made 911 calls to report on each other, and he is barred from volunteer coaching at his local school due to temper tantrums. His first act as mayor was to declare that “the war on the car is over” and try to cancel a network of streetcars in protected lanes connecting the suburbs to each other and downtown that has been planned over several years. Since the province is commited to kicking in a lot of the capital, many contracts are signed, and some work is underway, the cancellation if it goes through is is likely to cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars in lost external contributions and penalties. Ironically it will hurt his suburban supporters the most, as inevitably the roads will get more congested and the streetcars would have been a lot faster and more convenient.

Thanks, you stated the situation much more clearly than I.:thumb:

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here; do you mean to say that children, the infirmed and the people who live in snowy climates are better off _with_ cars? And how are you comparing cars/motorcycles/scooters, all fuel-burning- emitting benzene, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, heavy metals, etc., conclusively linked to leukemia & cancer in children, respiratory disease, water pollution, all likely lethal to pedestrians and cyclists under operator error, and all requiring vast resources to create, use, and maintain-

to bicycles?

:innocent:


I think I was refuting the contention that people can lower the effect of housing, food, clothing, medical care and other daily living expenses but not car expenses. Or was mine the only post you read and not what I was responding to? :lol:

The latest buffoon, Rob Ford, has a history of a DUI arrest, and he and his wife have made 911 calls to report on each other, and he is barred from volunteer coaching at his local school due to temper tantrums. His first act as mayor was to declare that “the war on the car is over” and try to cancel a network of streetcars in protected lanes connecting the suburbs to each other and downtown that has been planned over several years. Since the province is commited to kicking in a lot of the capital, many contracts are signed, and some work is underway, the cancellation if it goes through is is likely to cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars in lost external contributions and penalties. Ironically it will hurt his suburban supporters the most, as inevitably the roads will get more congested and the streetcars would have been a lot faster and more convenient.

I've heard what Rob Ford wants to do and I'm amazed he would dismantle hundreds of millions in rail infrastructure and replace it with buses!! Don't believe for a second his "Subway" plan to replace the street cars because that would cost billions!

Once the street cars are taken down, at the who knows what cost, Toronto will have to spend tens of millions on new buses that will need to be replaced every 16-18 years. It's a sad joke.

I've heard what Rob Ford wants to do and I'm amazed he would dismantle hundreds of millions in rail infrastructure and replace it with buses!! Don't believe for a second his "Subway" plan to replace the street cars because that would cost billions!

Once the street cars are taken down, at the who knows what cost, Toronto will have to spend tens of millions on new buses that will need to be replaced every 16-18 years. It's a sad joke.

It is easier for those that have seen what happened after LA and the Metro area lost the Red Cars disaster. There is just something about light rail that seems to make people feel more comfortable about mass transit. You can ride the Bus in San Diego or you can ride the tram. People on the tram just look happier than those on the bus. Not scientific I know but just what I have abserved.

I have spent the day on one of the San Diego Trollys and it was great for a $5.00 day pass. http://www.sdmts.com/Trolley/Trolley.asp

It is easier for those that have seen what happened after LA and the Metro area lost the Red Cars disaster.
Thanks, that would be an example of class warfare.

I've heard what Rob Ford wants to do and I'm amazed he would dismantle hundreds of millions in rail infrastructure and replace it with buses!! Don't believe for a second his "Subway" plan to replace the street cars because that would cost billions!

Once the street cars are taken down, at the who knows what cost, Toronto will have to spend tens of millions on new buses that will need to be replaced every 16-18 years. It's a sad joke.

Hard to believe Canadians would vote such a fool into office. Let's hope they're not becoming more like their neighbours to the south.

Thanks, that would be an example of class warfare.

Ok, and then tell me what class is at war? Or how is that an example? How is it different than when VHS put Beta max out of business?

You do realize that the Red car line was primarily funded by the uber rich like Huntington and it was primarily designed to service the expanding suburbs and outlying areas and they did it without government aid? It wasn’t until the PE was taken over as a “Public” agency that it was dismantled. The public MTA sold out the Red Car line and even if GM and Pacific City Lines may have made them the offer it was not the Rich people like Huntington and his friends but rather the voters and their representatives that should bear the burden of guilt.
So I ask again, who is at war with whom? If the working class embraced private vehicle ownership and thus the expansion of the freeway system did they not create their own weapon of destruction? And yes I am local to the area and know much of the history even if not till towards the end.

There is just something about light rail that seems to make people feel more comfortable about mass transit. You can ride the Bus in San Diego or you can ride the tram. People on the tram just look happier than those on the bus. Not scientific I know but just what I have observed.

People are probably happier in trains than they are in buses because they're not stuck in traffic with all the cars. If you get on a train, you can be reasonably sure it will get to your stop at a given time and arrive at your destination at a given time. You can't make such assumptions with a bus. If car traffic is bad, the train system doesn't notice. If you're waiting for the bus, on the other hand, you're screwed.

That Ford guy in Toronto sounds like a complete idiot, BTW. (I'm tempted to allow myself to feel smugly superior, but then I remember the composition of the US congress....)

Ok, and then tell me what class is at war? Or how is that an example? How is it different than when VHS put Beta max out of business? Historical events have of course multiple causes and a lot of complexity, so one has to try to parse them out and look at partial causality. One subtext in the dismantling of the public transit in many cities is that GM and Firestone had a vested interest in seeing private cars dominate transportation, as there would be more profit in selling vehicles and tires to individual households than to municipalities. Thus they had an incentive to run the public transit systems badly.

Buses Were First Step to Ending Streetcar System
GM first replaced trolleys with free-roaming buses, eliminating the need for tracks embedded in the street and clearing the way for cars. As dramatized in a 1996 PBS docudrama, Taken for a Ride, Alfred P. Sloan, GM’s president at the time, said, “We’ve got 90 percent of the market out there that we can…turn into automobile users. If we can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars.” And they did just that, with the help of GM subsidiaries Yellow Coach and Greyhound Bus. Sloan predicted that the jolting rides of buses would soon lead people to not want them and to buy GM’s cars instead. http://environment.about.com/od/fossilfuels/a/streetcars.htm

Except, as cooker already suggested, by subsidizing expensive automobile transport, and letting less expensive mass transit languish, we do have the effect of "planned aggression on the part of one class to the other."


A couple of corrections. First, most roads were built and operated with funding coming from "user fees", with the exception being the Interstate system, which was subsidized because of a perceived military and economic need. Now the politicians haven't had the wherewithal to increase the user fees to keep pace with demand and have actually further eroded the purchasing power of the funds by spending them on other things... so that situation has changed in recent years.

Now transit is another matter entirely. First no transit system has ever been created anywhere that was able to pay its own development costs, which is not true of roads. Second and most importantly no transit system in the US (and quite possibly the world though I less certain of those) have ever been able to even cover their own operating costs...

A modern economy is dependent upon road infrastructure for the movement of motorized vehicles that deliver the goods and services upon which that economy operates. Transit simply can not provide the same functionality nor can it ever hope to match the flexibility of the road vehicle. The simple fact is that autonomous vehicle transport is much more economically viable both because of the lower initial costs as well as the greater flexibility in routing choices and the ability to adapt to changing environmental factors.

While there are specific and limited situations where transit can provide superior service, it is inherently a much more limited mode of transport and should therefore only be applied in the limited situations where it makes sense.

Today in our city, in order to purchase a lot of the basics, one has to travel a considerable distance around town as compared to years ago when one was able to shop in a more centralized location.

Locally, many people today find it difficult to grasp the concept of not owning a vehicle, where as my grandparents never had the need to own a motor vehicle their entire lives.

Could that simply be because populations were much smaller and densities were much higher and also because the choice simply didn't exist then?

Suburbs (and the resulting decline in population densities) were created because people, when given the choice by the technology, preferred them. Your grandparents (or great grandparents depending upon your age) also didn't have electricity, or possibly even indoor plumbing... Neither are really an option that most people would choose.

The simple fact is that autonomous vehicle transport is much more economically viable both because of the lower initial costs as well as the greater flexibility in routing choices and the ability to adapt to changing environmental factors.


Facts are neither simple nor complicated they're just facts. Anyone who puts an adjective in front of the word 'fact' is probably just trying to con you.