Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

LEARNING FROM FLIGHT

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Two weeks ago the last PART of THE PROBLEM WITH CARS went on line at Bacon’s Rebellion.

Our mail is running 60-40.

60 Percent say: “Right-on! Cars ARE the problem…”

40 Percent say: “No way! You will have to pry my cold dead hands off the steering wheel…”

I will not do that, but someone will.

With food and energy prices rising in the First World and food riots spreading in the “Developing World” where can citizens turn for answers?

The MainStream Media – as noted in THE ESTATES MATRIX – does prove some information. MainStream Media coverage of airline Enterprises – “restructuring” or “demise”? – presents the opportunity to learn from the most consumptive form of vehicle travel. Air travel also has the most unfair allocation of location-variable costs – pollution, noise, subsidies to encourage Mass OverConsumption…

Understanding the condition of aircraft Enterprises provides a good place to consider the question:

Can humans change settlement patterns, mobility options and governance structure fast enough to avoid Collapse?

Check out “The End of Flight as We Know It” in today’s Bacon’s Rebellion.

In answer to one question we have received today: Yes TRILO-G will have a chapter on “I told you so back when there was time to change.

EMR

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  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    95% of the population relies on and uses cars and other road transport. 95% times 60 = 57% so either 57% of your respondents are hypocrites, or else you have a population of responses that is atypical.

    RH

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Or Dr. Risse’s correspondents understand the problem but are forced to own and use a car because there are not yet car-free alternatives they can afford.

    The places where one does not need a car are snapped up by those who are willing and able to pay much more for shelter.

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    What does this have to do with the airplane issue?

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “there are not yet car-free alternatives they can afford.”

    Or, my analysis might be right.

    Anyway, that’s an interesting perspective. Do you suppose it might be that cars have an inherent cmpetitive advantage, considering all they do that transit cannot?

    (Don’t even bother to try to give me that old song about autos being subsidized – while asking for more transit funding.)

    If there are not carfree alternatives they can afford, what does that tellyou? That despite their many problems cars are actually efficient, all things considered?

    There maybe a day when we have universal personal rapid transit, but in the final analysis, that just means a private vehicle when you need it. In any case, that day is a long way off, unless we legalize jitneys, which strangely enough will be a solution that looks a lot like vans and SUV’s.

    RH

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “forced to own and use a car “

    Larry, have you ot a handy diatribe on “choices” here?

    RH

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Aside from an advertisement for his article on the problems of flight, what has this post got to do with flight?

    And we all know EMR hates advertising, right?

    Fuel prices have virtually killed private or general aviation. It’s a good proxy for what will happen with cars, eventually.

    RH

    RH

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “”forced to own and use a car “

    It’s not whether you own and use a car no more than it is if you use electricity.

    It’s how much you use it and how intensively you use it and for what purposes.

    We start with the idea that people MUST have a car to get to work – and that translates into: they have no choice .. once they must have that car.. they have no choice but to drive it every day at rush hour to commute 100 miles….

    The AVERAGE mileage in the US is about 12K a year. What does that say about the folks who drive less than that in terms of “balancing” out the ones that drive 24K or higher per year?

    We have quite a few folks who don’t drive every day at rush hour …

    in fact, we have folks who DO drive everyday at rush hour and they only put 8000 miles a year on their car.

    So … the huge .. purposely ignored, flaw is the concept that because one must own a car.. that they have “no choice” but to also “choose” to live 50 miles from where they work… and to do that commute every day .. solo.. at rush hour.

    Even folks who live right next to where they work.. will often own a car – but to compare that person to one who drives 10 times as much – to view them as “equal” in terms of road use.. is voluntary ignorance, an unwillingness to view the world as it really is…

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Understanding the condition of aircraft Enterprises provides a good place to consider the question:

    “Can humans change settlement patterns, mobility options and governance structure fast enough to avoid Collapse?”

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “So … the huge .. purposely ignored, flaw is the concept that because one must own a car.. that they have “no choice” but to also “choose” to live 50 miles from where they work… and to do that commute every day .. solo.. at rush hour.”

    Who “intentionally” made this huge mistake?

    The one who says that 95% rely on cars, or

    the one who says many are priced out of living where that is an alternative?

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    We need Apple to design a “Travel different.” campaign.

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “and for what purposes.”

    now you are catching on. If I simply leave the light on in the attic for a month, that’s a waste.

    But, if I turn on the blowers and heaters in the corn bin and use a meagawatt, that’s OK as long as the increase in the value of the corn is greater than the cost of the electricity. (And of course assuming there is no cheaper way to do it (right now) after all alternative costs, like solar).

    What we know is that people do make rational choices about where to live and how far to drive. This has been studied many times. MOST people won’t spend $1000 a month driving to save $200 a month on the mortgage and taxes. SOMETIMES people do this, but usually it is temporary. For example, I have a number of neighbors who moved to the country and commuted for a while, knowing that they would soon retire.

    Therefore, if the driver travels more and it is a profit to him, just as my corn bin is, who are we to decide otherwise, or that he should or should not have that profit?

    It isn’t that they don’t have any choice, but that given the costs and situation in place at the time, it is the most rational choice, under our present system.

    What you want to do is put a tax on rational choices, according to what you think is rational, a tax on externalities, if you will. Of course that tax is really just the cost of conservation, but we don’t like to admit that conservation has costs.

    If the onservation tax causes him to shift his (presently) rational behavior to a new equilibrium point, then that is a good thing – provided that the costs at the new equilibrium point plus the tax sum to less than the costs at the old point. If that is the case, then the “cost” of the conservation tax is actually a negative number and you have created a net social benefit.

    When you spend money, whether it is for driving or for a conservation tax, the purpose makes a difference.

    I could save energy by letting the corn dry naturally, but that costs money and causes waste because some of it will spoil, and therefore I don’t get as good a price for all of it. In that case the energy saings is a dead loss, not only to me but to society. They will pay more for their products because the rotten corn has to be sorted out.

    In other words, there might be externalities to my using electricity as I do, but the alternative externalities COULD be worse.

    ———————————–

    Yes, there may be alternatives as to where to live. But, are they really equivalent, or is it just a living space? Just yesterday some radio announcers were discussing local fuel prices. One said it had not affected her much because she drives a samll Miata. One said she drives a gas guzzling Mom-Mobile. She admitted that she deliberately chose it so that she could wrap her chldren in a lot of steel, she said. And, that they had chosen to live close to work.

    “We pay a fortune in mortgage and higher taxes, but at least we save a litttle on fuel.”

    Her exact words. For her, that was a rational decision, just as much as driving 30 miles is for someone else.

    She pays a fortune in mortgage and taxes. Where did THAT money go and what did it get spent on? After you figure out the energy footprint on that, THEN youcan decide if paying more and driving less was environmentally responsible, otherwise, you just don’t know. Paying more for mortgage and taxes is part of the cost of driving less.

    ——————————-

    Are you sure about that 12K? I thought it was more like 15-17.

    The average commute is 27 minutes. At 40 MPH average that’s 4500 a year. Commuting is about 20%-25% of all personal mileage so that would say 18k to 22k.

    ???

    Finally, congested traffic is a small amount of total traffic, and those people actually driving fifty miles are a small part of that. Even if you could single them out for punishmnent, it would not fix the problem at hand.

    We think that way too many houses have been built in Loudoun. Yet they have all been sold. So, while you can say that right now any one person who wanted to make a different choice could do so, the fact remains that if they all decided they couldn’t.

    For one thing, the price of all those empty homes would drop preciptiously, and that would change the rational equilibrim point. you would have to raise the conservation tax more and more to get people to do what yu want.

    RH

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Even folks who live right next to where they work.. will often own a car – but to compare that person to one who drives 10 times as much – to view them as “equal” in terms of road use.. is voluntary ignorance, an unwillingness to view the world as it really is…”

    I’m sure this is partly true, but it does not match my experience. my auto record show that I have driven a relatively constant number of miles every year, regardless of where I lived or worked relative to where I lived. I know this is also true for my Arlington brother.

    But, tying any of this just to how much they drive is missing the point. Even if I never drive, I still need and benefit from roads. I shouldn’t get a free ride, just because I don’t drive.

    To think otherwise is an unwillingness o see the world as it is.

    RH

  13. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “But, tying any of this just to how much they drive is missing the point. Even if I never drive, I still need and benefit from roads.”

    You DON’T get a free ride.

    1/2% of the sales tax goes for roads as well as taxes, tags, titles, on cars and insurance premiums.

    If you have a car and put zero miles a week on it – you STILL pay LOTS for it…

    What you want is that same person who does not drive.. to pay even more.. to build more roads for those that do drive a lot.

    right?

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “What you want is that same person who does not drive.. to pay even more.. to build more roads for those that do drive a lot.

    right?”

    Not at all. I think what you say is correct, and it is as it should be (more or less).

    I just think that we should recognize what you just said when we say drivers don’t pay.

    They pay all of these plus the gas tax etc.

    Now, could the ratios be better,in order to more closely align the varous kinds of benefits received with the various costs paid? Yes, but that does not mean that all of these should be eliminated in favor of a user only pays system. Do we know how to do this? no, but we haven’t tired, either.

    The bulk of income taxes are collected form people in acouple of middle brackets that are not very high, like $40 to $60k. Those people never get tax relief. Why, because that’s where the vast majority of money is. They only have alittle bit each, but there are a lot of them. It’s hard to cut in that area without doing serious damage to revenues.

    I think auto traffic is like that. You have a few big spenders that you can tax, but it won’t reduce overall mileage very much. If you really want to reduce VMT, you have to go where the bulk of the users are.

    That turns out to be all the people you don’t think drive very much. If you try to hit them,the way you propose to hit the big spenders, then I don’t think your idea goes very far.

    But as it stands, it doesn’t raise a lot of money, and it doesn’t solve the problem either. It just picks on a few people that may have made ratinal travel decisions that you jsut don’t understand.

    I don’t see the point, or the advantage, really.

    RH

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Would You fly to Singapore for Helth Care?

    “South Carolina-based Companion Global Healthcare added three Singapore hospitals to its network. The deal now allows Americans access to medical and surgical services at ParkwayHealth operated hospitals at pre-negotiated, in-network rates lower than those of U.S. hospitals.

    The deal between ParkwayHealth and Companion Global Healthcare is a step in the maturation of the medical travel industry, notes David Williams, consultant and cofounder of MedPharma Partners LLC.

    “Conceptually, hospitals halfway around the world will now have the same status to members as those just down the street, so that’s a big step,” he said. “It may be a bit of a wake-up call to the local hospitals in South Carolina, putting them on notice that they are facing a broader set of competitors.””

  16. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “I just think that we should recognize what you just said when we say drivers don’t pay.

    They pay all of these plus the gas tax etc.”

    they do not pay enough with their gas tax to provide the kind of added capacity that they want.

    The question is if BOTH the low-mileage AND high-mileage drivers pay the same basic amount in taxes, tags, etc – then virtually everyone is already paying for the basic benefits that roads bring to everyone.

    It’s .. who should pay for the added capacity necessary to provide congestion-acceptable daily commuting at rush hour.

    Who should pay these costs?

    Should the guy that drives his car 5000 miles a year and virtually none of it SOLO at rush hour – pay those costs?

    Should he be equally charged?

    What “benefit” does he receive for paying higher taxes for more rush-hour capacity that he does not use?

    That’s the Farmville argument.

    That guy pays the same taxes, tags, etc as the guy in NoVa but that guy works for 1/2 the salary and does not need 8 lane roads to get to work – yet the advocacy is for him to pay higher gas taxes so that expanded capacity can be provided to those who CHOOSE .. BOTH the higher salary AND the daily rush hour commute – instead of choosing the circumstances of the Farmville worker.

    So basically, you’re penalizing the folks who find a way…to NOT need rush hour commuting capacity to pay for those that make a choose that results in the need for additional infrastructure.

    But take the Farmville guy out of it and just consider two NoVa workers.

    One chooses to live in a more modest home 5 or 10 miles from where he works and his co-worker wants a bigger, nicer home but has to drive 50 miles to get it.

    One of them has a minor impact on the transportation infrastructure compared to the other guy.

    But the advocacy is for BOTH of them to pay EQUALLY to add rush hour capacity for the guy who CHOSE not to live locally in more modest circumstances.

    If you institute tolls .. BOTH will pay tolls but they will be in proportion to their use… so the guy that uses more will pay more.

    If you do just raise the gas tax – then you penalize the guy who chose the lesser commute by making him pay extra that will be spent to provide a better commute for the guy that drives further.

    And as long as you “subsidize” the guy who drives further – it is in his best interest to continue to take advantage of this “benefit”.

    Further, it encourages more folks to not live closer and to drive further because the cost of driving further is “shared” by all regardless of whether they drive far or not.

    HOT lanes will dramatically alter this equation and will more fairly allocate costs.

    The guy that drives further to afford a better home will now have to add the commute costs to that decision.

    He’ll have to decide where the cost-to-commute graph crosses the other line on the chart – the cost of the house.

    Those will be HIS legitimate costs and should not be anyone elses costs.

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    It’s .. who should pay for the “added capacity necessary to provide congestion-acceptable daily commuting at rush hour.

    Who should pay these costs?

    Should the guy that drives his car 5000 miles a year and virtually none of it SOLO at rush hour – pay those costs?”

    We are finally getting down to brass tacks. We agre everyone pays for some level of basic service. We agree that long distance drivers or hog car drivers also pay a premium above wht others pay for fuel tax – even if it is insignificant compared to the size of the problem.

    We agree that almost EVERY service has expensive problems in meeting peak load and the the usal solution is simply to NOT provide enough service. Even if you are charging more fo peak service there is a limit to what you can provide.

    Your assumption is that the long distance driver causes more congestion. it seems obvious, but I’m not convinced that this isreally true.

    If you took everyone who actually drives fifty miles and moved them so they only commute twenty-five, then would’t you still have the same congestion from 25 miles on in?

    And maybe less congestion from 25 miles out?

    The idea that you should charge the guy more who drives further because HE’s the one causing the peak hour problem – Well, to me that seems bogus. I can see the attracvtion in this argument: I just think it is wrong. The facts don’t actually support it.

    RH

    RH

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “One of them has a minor impact on the transportation infrastructure compared to the other guy.”

    Yes but you are doing it again. you set up the argument for roads and housing and then talk only about roads. To fariy compare costs you’d have to compare the whole system.

    One guy (unfairly?) affects road costs, the other (unfairly?) affects housing costs. If you look ata ALL the costs in your original example, you get a different answer.

    RH

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