U.S. total motor vehicle costs (Roseland 115):
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| There's nothing wrong with capitalism... |
$20 billion in taxpayer subsidies
$290 billion in social/enviro. damage
$415 billion in costs borne by drivers
And yet, Cervaro (in Wheeler) says that the real-dollar costs of driving and parking are declining (p. 116). How can that be, you might ask, with rising fuel costs, longer commutes, and increasing regulations on emissions? I asked the same question, so I looked into it. Turns out, it’s all possible with a little help from subsidies.
Here are a few statistics/concepts from the book Suburban Nation:
• 8-10% of GNP is from government subsidies towards highways and parking.
• Cost of these subsidies is passed along to ALL citizens (regardless of vehicle ownership/use) in the form of higher (income, property, sales) taxes.
• Transit spending creates twice as many new jobs compared to highway spending.
• Gasoline now costs ¼ of what it did in 1929 (in real dollars).
• Trucks consume 15x the fuel compared to rail for equivalent freight hauled.
• The U.S. government pays $300 billion in various subsidies for trucking.
• It takes 15 lanes of highway to move as many people as one lane of track.
• Estimated economic inefficiencies from subsidized auto use total $700 billion annually.
• Pew Foundation: 60% of those polled favor a 25-cent/gallon gas tax to slow global warming.
Essentially, in the case of automobile dependence, the U.S. government is the pusher and we are the addicted users. So how can we kick the habit? A few ideas...
Five key policies to overcome auto dependence per Newman and Kenworthy (Wheeler 123): 1. Traffic calming - remove barriers for cyclists and walkers; results in reduced accidents and less pollution
2. Improve transit alternatives
3.Improve land use – mixed use, higher density
4. Growth management – prevent sprawl
5. Economic Incentives
*And my addition: ELIMINATE AUTO SUBSIDIES
Check out this (somewhat dated, but still relevant) article on road pricing in the Economist. The idea is painfully simple and not new: charge people that drive at peak times, by themselves, and/or that drive more frequently on heavily-traveled roadways.
Another crazy concept: building more roads only relieves congestion temporarily, and actually leads to even more traffic problems, because it fails to deter driving behavior or offer alternatives. “Conventional solutions such as increasing roadway capacity or improving vehicle design, often reduce one problem but exacerbate others, particularly if they increase total vehicle travel” (Roseland 120). Stop building more roads already!
"Many important revolutions result from more effective use of existing technologies and resources, rather than new technology" (Roseland 117). In the case of autos, "new technologies" like innovative design, cleaner fuels, and better roads will only increase use. We need to eliminate subsidies and let pricing mechanisms of the free market take their toll (roads, that is).
OK, you get to teach class tomorrow. Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteHow would you write road pricing legislation in the U.S. to get it past Congress?
Indeed. The thought about building more roads in order to decrease congestion hits home with the recent "improved" widening of the 45/46 Bypass in Bloomington. If you build it, they will come. If you don't build it, maybe they will get sick of being stuck in traffic jams and advocate for alternative transportation?!
ReplyDeleteChrissy - Thanks for writing this post. I was wondering what Roseland was referring to as, "automobile subsidies." I agree with you that some subsidies, such as those which artificially lower gas prices, really are hypocritical.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I look at "road subsidies" as more legitimate. Roads are public goods and, as such, no private entity would have an interest in building/maintaing them. The issue is not that we spend too much on roads, its actually that we spend too little. Federal spending on infrastructure has steadily decreased since the 1960's and, as a result, we are now left with an obsolete, dangerous network of roads, bridges, and other infrastructure. There's an intering article about this in the Economist:
http://www.economist.com/node/18620944
Very interesting post! building more road space to increase to reduce congestion has shown that it does not solve the congestion problem long term. Maybe we should use traffic calming instead to solve the long term problem. Though this would seem to work against congestion issues, it may influence people to start to stop driving. The traffic calming on 10th street seems to have done this.
ReplyDeleteEek. Thanks (or no thanks) for those eye-poppingly sad-face statistics from Suburban Nation.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think of (my pet interest) agricultural subsidies and how they basically just smear badness onto so many aspects of our lives (both in America and beyond).
I think the thing is that policies like subs. are really sticky- in that we are STUCK with them even though they're severely outdated and the problems they once sought to address have morphed into new ones.
I agree that maybe we'd find it a little easier to live in a rough equilibrium with our surroundings if we'd stop subsidizing everything that makes us sad, overweight, unhealthy, and antisocial. Okay clearly I'm a fan of the over-broad statements, but...
AWESOME POST. Subsidies frustrate me to no end because we are convinced that we need them in order to make things affordable (both for the producers and the consumers). In reality though, I think that by using subsidies we are just moving around money to cover costs that ultimately get paid for by... who? We subsidize so many things, and the environment ends up bearing the burden of these "cheaper" prices. I think that people are beginning to wake up to this fact and are more aware of the value of ecosystem services the environment provides for us, but our economic system is so entrenched that although we can do studies that put a dollar value on the services the environment provides, we still want our subsidies for oil, agriculture, etc... because we value the immediate "reduced" costs, and like to ignore the long-term (and likely more important) costs of not taking care of our planet.
ReplyDeleteChrissy,this is a great post. I couldn't help thinking about my own experiences with increased traffice issues when reading about your blurb about building more roads causes more problems. My boyfriend lives in Cincinnati, and I visit him often. Every time I go down there, they are reconstructing or adding more roads. I wonder if they have ever heard of this concept before....
ReplyDelete