September 17, 2016

The Extra Dimension #15: Transportation – Individual Car Ownership

1 hour 9 minutes

All your favorite Nexus hosts gather to talk about the dominance of the car in transportation, and what it means for both individuals and society as a whole.

Transportation Miniseries

Cycling

Public Transit

Long Distance

The Future

Overview

Pros

No physical effort

Door to door

High speed/shorter commute

Can get to places inaccessible to other forms of transportation

Longer distances

Can carry things like groceries or pets

Most convenient from an individual perspective

Cons

No physical effort

Have to be focused on driving for the entire commute

Pay for gasoline

Pay for insurance

Pay for maintenance

Traffic

Encourages living further from work/school

More pollutive per person than public transportation, walking, or cycling

Cars spend most of their existence parked – not being used

Inefficient for society as a whole (much better and more efficient uses of space, moving people, etc.)

Leaves behind segments of the population who cannot drive – particularly the very young and very old

Neutral

Don’t have to interact with people

Pay for huge amounts of car infrastructure via taxes

Links

The future of commuting – Vox

The utter dominance of the car in American commuting – Vox

How working women, cheap cars, and Starbucks killed carpooling – Vox

Driving to work alone is still the most dominant form of commuting.

Percentage rose slightly since 2000, mostly because there is less carpooling.

There are more cars per household than before, and the number of cars a person owns is the best predictor of the likelihood of driving to work alone.

Less people per household, which affects carpooling a lot because most carpools are within a household.

Lower gas prices and more fuel-efficient cars.

Women entering the workforce has an interesting effect: more income per household means they can afford more cars; spouses often have different work destinations; women are more likely to do other chores along their commute, which makes carpooling infeasible.

Suburbs: when you live in an area where you have to drive no matter what you want to get to, carpooling is infeasible.

Even with recent trends away from driving alone, they aren’t moving back towards carpooling.

Income isn’t really a predictor anymore of whether a household owns a car or not.

Decreasing cost of car ownership.

Cars last a lot longer than they used to, so it’s really easy to get a used car.

Long commutes make you fat, tired, and miserable – Vox

Having a long commute by car is associated with poor health, but it usually isn’t a direct cause.

Less likely to exercise.

Less likely to make food at home.

Purchase more non-grocery store food (like fast food.)

Sleep less.

Even if you exercise, long commutes are associated with higher blood pressure and chronic neck or back pain.

People with long commutes are also generally more stressed and less satisfied with life.

Most people with long commutes choose them because they want a larger house or a better neighborhood, but they are almost never enough to offset the drawbacks of the commute.

Carpooling is a great way to prevent the stress part of a long commute, because you are socializing with people instead of simply losing a couple of hours. But what if your carpool buddies don’t want to listen to the podcasts you like?

Young people are driving less than their parents. But why? – Vox

The many reasons millennials are shunning cars – The Washington Post

Young people drive way less today than young people in the past.

The dip in driving came at the beginning of the recession, when jobs were scarce and gas was expensive. So it was thought that this might just be a temporary change.

As we have gotten further from the recession, it seems like it is a permanent trend: Generation Y prefers to do less driving than Generation X.

Likely contributing factors:

“Americans reaching driving age today have no living memory of consistently cheap gasoline.”

In addition to gas prices, auto insurance costs have also risen, as the cost of repairs has gone up.

It is more difficult to get a permit/license when you are very young now.

As student debt has gotten bigger, paying that back eats into car payment funds.

There is a greater preference to live near city centers. In some cities, the higher cost of living is offset by easy access to public transportation and more walkable neighborhoods.

Information technology has made it way easier to live without owning a car. It is easier to use other forms of transportation like public transit or car sharing. It is also easier to stay home when your social life is largely online.

If you are in the habit of being productive on your phone while in transit, driving is much less appealing.

Even so, the car’s dominant position isn’t going anywhere soon.

Highways gutted American cities. So why did they build them? – Vox

» 60 Years of Urban Change: Midwest

If the highway system were built from scratch today, would it go through city centers? Probably not. So why did cities agree to do it?

Local governments were offered lots of money if they built highways, but they didn’t get a lot of control over where they went.

The car industry successfully framed highway building as a public responsibility.

Shifted from building privately-owned toll highways to publicly-owned highways funded by taxes on gasoline (well, 43-74% funded by gas).

Perception has stuck around that highways are self-funding, even though they’re not.

Allowed highways to expand much more quickly.

1939 World’s Fair model built by GM called Futurama showed big, wide highways that are only accessible by on- and off-ramps.

Credited with introducing the concept to the American public.

Promised to solve the traffic congestion problems of the day.

A 1947 map and 1955 document called the “Yellow Book” outlined the paths the interstate system would take – both through the countryside, and city centers.

Contributors to the document included members of the auto industry and highway engineers.

Notable lack of urban planners; the profession barely even existed at the time.

The majority of funding came from the federal government, because Eisenhower was really enthusiastic about the project; he wanted it to facilitate troop movements and mass evacuations in the event of a nuclear attack.

States were essentially getting highways for free, as long as they agreed to the routes in the Yellow Book.

Suburbs were starting to get big, so highways were seen as ways to bring commuters into the city centers.

Highways were used to get rid of “urban blight,” aka low-income, often African-American neighborhoods.

Some neighborhoods were able to prevent highways from coming through, but they were almost always higher income and had more political capital.

People displaced by highway construction had to move to other highways, leading to overcrowding and increases in crime rates.

Those who could afford it moved to the suburbs, taking tax money away from the cities that the highways were supposed to serve.

Once seniors are too old to drive, our transportation system totally fails them – Vox

Curbing Metro Mobility’s Growth | streets.mn

About 80% of American seniors live outside of urban areas, where driving is the only viable form of transportation.

Harder to get goods and services.

Isolated from friends and family. This can affect health in a number of ways.

Nobody to monitor and give health advice.

Psychological effects of isolation.

Society misses out on seniors who would volunteer their time if they could get places.

Our population is getting older.

Drivers past the age of 75 are much more likely to be involved in a fatal crash – partly because they are more likely to die as a result of a crash, but also because of slower reaction times and poor eyesight.

We need a better solution than public paratransit shuttles, which you have to schedule long ahead of time, and typically arrive within a wide window of time. Also, some disabilities which disqualify you from driving do not qualify you to use paratransit.

Possible solutions:

Multi-use neighborhoods that are accessible by wheelchair.

Elder village model.

Organization that provides services to the elderly so they can stay in their homes.

Both paid staff and volunteers.

Subsidized Uber.

Self-driven cars.

The “fundamental rule” of traffic: building new roads just makes people drive more – Vox

Expanding road capacity doesn’t alleviate traffic; people just drive more, and it remains congested.

This is because you are not charged to use roads, so using them more is the most logical thing to do.

Even improving public transit doesn’t solve the problem; the people who take transit instead of driving are replaced by other people who drive more.

The only method that has effectively reduced traffic is congestion pricing: charging for road use at peak traffic times.

It is a bit regressive, but so are current systems for funding roads.

Why free parking is bad for everyone – Vox

Donald Shoup of UCLA: charge for parking anywhere where # of cars > # of spots to park.

Reasons why it’s currently free:

Parking meters emerged a few decades past the invention of the car.

“It’s hard to start charging people for something that the government owns and had been free.”

Space is finite, and therefore parking spots should be considered a limited good.

Lots of costs to maintain, which shafts those who don’t use cars.

~$1750 to build, ~$400 annually to maintain.

Building standards of many dense cities require parking space to be included, costing around $30k-$50k. The price is passed onto the consumer.

The unused lots of buildings forced to comply is wasted space.

So many govt decisions to allow for free parking makes a world in which a car is necessary to have.

People looking for *free* spots adds to congestion as well as CO2 emissions.

Free parking = larger demand for parking -> more miles driven.

Suggested Solution: charge for parking based on “market price.”

If a spot is occupied >80%, raise the price on the meter by $0.25/hour, <60% lowers by $0.25/hour.

One Scientifically Proven Thing Actually Makes People Happier – YouTube

Attributions

Free Music Archive: Jahzzar – Magic Mountain

Free Music Archive: Jahzzar – Last Dance

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This episode of The Extra Dimension has a Fringe episode. You should really listen to The Fringe #395: TED #15 — You’re Not Posting All That, Are You?!

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