Why do people drive so much? A look at the costs.

[futurebird]

I just created this graph for the wikipedia article on the Effects of the automobile on societies. (It's based on a similar graph in the book Transportation for Livable Cities By Vukan R. Vuchic, a great read for anyone interested in sustainable development.) The article still needs a lot of work, but I wanted to share what I added today.

Comments

[futurebird]

1) How can the 'rail' column claim 0 environmental costs? Rail is either diesel or electric and both result in carbon emissions.

I tried to put a thin little hairline in there, but the cost per-person, per-ride are literally so small that on this scale they vanish.

2) Same question for social costs and rail.

Ditto.

3) The out-of pocket sections for auto should include depreciation on the vehicle, insurance and maintenance.

There are captured in the below the line costs called "indirect user costs" -- I guess some people think about these things when they get ready to use a car, but there's a lot of evidence that people only really consider the direct cost of gas.

4) Time. I commute 45 miles a day. On good run, it takes me about 45 minutes. On a bad run, about an hour. I have often thought a high speed rail would be great up the corridor I drive. Today I calculated it out and realized that a rail system would probably not save me time and, in fact, would cost me more time unless I parked a car at the other end. Time may not be money, but it's damned scarce and damned valuable to me....
In any case, your graph needs to calculate in the value of time saved/spent by one system over the other.

It's hard to put a dollar value on this, so it's hard to put it in to the graph an a standard and methodologically sound manner. Likewise the "cost" of urban sprawl isn't in the graph, or the "cost" of lives lost in auto crashes.

5) In DC and Boston, the rail systems are fantastic but the costs of developing underground rail is huge! This graph can't accurately reflect the same costs in New York City and San Antonio. They are different scales and different cultures. Rail in NYC may be cheaper because it already exists. To establish it in San Antonio, you would need to amortize the costs of startup into the subsidies section.

This graph is just an average for "large american cities" over head costs of rail construction and maintenance are includes in the portion of rail and bus covered by "subsidies" YMMV (pun intended)