carless

Other Comments
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...13514?v=glance
Short Blurb
https://geography.about.com/library/misc/blan.htm
Car-free Advocates
https://www.climatechangeconnection.o...r_asphalt.html
Washington Free Press
https://www.washingtonfreepress.org/4...lt_nation.html
NYT
https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/2...20jacksot.html
e design
https://www.state.fl.us/fdi/edesign/n...ws/asphalt.htm

I recently read Asphalt Nation by Jane Holtz Kay, it's long at 350 pp and cross referenced, footnoted, and extensively researched. I like the personal thoughts mixed in with stat's and the little stories. I am astonished at the following tidbits:
~The "Big Dig" in Boston was 2 billion dollars a mile.
~We invest in highways and airports, we subsidize trains.
~"The suburban commuter pays only 25% of the cost to a central city, long haul trucks do 20x as much damage and pay 40%
~The gas tax pays 60% of road cost, the rest from general taxes.
~70% of all law enforcement activity are focused on traffic issues.
~A billion dollars invested in mass transit creates 7,000 more jobs than road construction.
~The first freeway was in LA in 1937.
~2 million cars are sold every month, U.S. has 1.7 per person.
~Traffic experts motto "If you build it, they will come".
~Car companies spend 11 billion a year promoting cars.
~The average household makes 6 trips in the car per day, excluding work commutes.
~1/2 of elderly citizens live without public transportation.
~9% of Americans have no car and are the lowest economic group.
~Automobiles cost $6000 a year directly and $4000 a year indirectly.
There is more, but this one saddened me-
By revoking licenses of recalcitrant fathers, officials have the most success in collecting debts. The message is: absent fathers are more closely bonded with their automobile than their kids.

pedex

Scary isnt it, and they are all addicted to a non renewable resource and a system that only works as long as the energy is cheap.

lilHinault

Yes it's a very good book! She's got a web site also, I admire how she had some student or someone ask her if she drives, she said she does, and realized she could do without her car and got rid of it. Gutsy move for an upper middle class respectable type in the US. She walks the walk.

ArizonaAdam

Cool, it's in my Amazon cart. I hope you're getting a take.
Adam

ViciousCycle

Richard Heinberg's The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies is a book that anyone who likes Asphalt Nation would like. However, it takes on a broader subject: instead of automobiles specifically, it looks at fossil fuels. The book is heavily researched yet highly readable. The Party's Over a good book to recommend to anyone. Unlike Asphalt Nation, car-lovers may find themselves quickly drawn into The Party's Over.

Pampusik

That sounds like a great book... I'll add it to my next book order.

Where does the $4k/yr of indirect car ownership costs come from?

carless

No, I never thought of that, but I wouldnt want to make money off a forum.

carless

The 4K is the authors estimate of the social cost's of owning a car. Police, highways, pollution, obesity, I would assume thats an educated guess, how do you quantify injuries in $ figures?

carless

This book looks interesting, is it the definitive peak oil book? I want to read one very good source, and it appears there are dozens of good books.

pedex

hey carless, check out michael ruppert, matt simmons, and howard kunstler.....all have peak oil related books

Out of all of them matt simmons is the only one that has done extensive reserach into actual oil field stats, more so than anyone else with a published book. Simmons is a former investment banker and just stepped down from running his company who's specialty was evaluating oil fields for investment purposes, he's also one of GW Bush's energy advisors. Just be prepared for some rather brutal and honest appraisals of what the real situation is, it isnt pretty, some of the info in his books is enough to make me wanna storm washington DC and kill some people to be quite honest.

humancongereel

the cost of hospital bills and government health care spending (pitiful as it is in this country), maybe?

ViciousCycle

The Party's Over is a very good peak oil book -- the amount of research and facts that went into it are very solid. I would reccommend it over Kunstler's The Long Emergency. The Long Emergency is a good read, but it can sometimes get a bit too speculative. The Party's Over is chock full of information about energy. (It had a few surprises for me. For example, when I was in school, I was taught that nuclear energy could be the the source of limitless energy if we could handle its dangers -- but The Party's Over talks about how it's not limitless. Once we exhaust our uranium reservers, nuclear power will not at all seem limitless....)

ivan_yulaev

Well, when I got my insurance appraisal from being hit by a car, I said, "Oww man, my neck hurts 30,000 dollars..."

ctyler

Thanks. I order her book as well. Can't wait to read it.

Dahon.Steve

I wonder how many Americans are actually in the lowest economic group that have cars. This is a good question because the motorcar left me living right on the edge. Seriously. Making 20K and driving a new car in any major metropolitan city, you probably have the same descretionary income as someone in the lowest economic group. At 30K a year, a new car would put you right on the edge.

Since it costs 7K a year to own a new vehicle, somone making 12K a year (poverty level) is one the same economic level as someone who owns a brand new Honda at 20K!

carless

Asphalt does bring home the fact communities are designed around cars and not people.

77Univega

-- Here is a Five Minute Oil Guide from Esquire magazine:
https://www.smartmoney.com/esquire/in...ry=20051020oil

carless

That's good, not what you expect from Esquire.

cavit8

For folks who ar interested in books like Asphalt Nation, check out Detour Publications.
https://www.detourpublications.com/