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Cost break down for the state of Massachusetts, the area covered: > Using publicly available data, the authors put the annual public tab at $35.7 billion, whic

Cost break down for the state of Massachusetts, the area covered: > Using publicly available data, the authors put the annual public tab at $35.7 billion, which amounts to about $14,000 for every household in the state. Those that do own vehicles pony up an additional $12,000 on average in direct costs.

Someone 3y ago
I think the public massively funds personal car usage, but don’t think it’s as high as portrayed here. Also FTA: “Beyond those for individual drivers, road maintenance, snow removal, and policing, there are less-obvious ones, such as those associated with […] lost productivity from sitting in traffic” All other things staying equal, those costs may increase when replacing cars with something else (e.g. bicycles and public transport) “The team also went through the overall state budget and those of various agencies like the Department of Conservation and Recreation to calculate all the money going to roads” Part of those costs are for transporting goods (e.g. to shops), or for maintenance due to wear from public transport. There also are costs that won’t fully go away if people stop driving cars (for example, they may get stuff delivered bro their homes instead of fetching it themselves. That may induce fewer public costs, but it won’t induce zero public costs)
- civilitty 3y ago
  The whole road cost argument doesn’t make sense to me. The problem is density, not mode of transport - we all need roads! The common denominator access requirement for all housing is a fire truck and ambulance for safety and delivery trucks to make space livable with bulky items like furniture, which also account for most of the wear and tear. The money nondrivers pay in taxes for roads aren’t a subsidy to drivers, it’s the cost they pay for the safety and convenience we expect from modern civilization
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    You need a lot more road for everyone to have individual cars than you do just for deliveries and emergency vehicles. http://lncarden.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/3/6/28369831/1419566_orig.png http://lncarden.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/3/6/28369831/1419566_...
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I don't see the data outside of GIS databases, but I'd be willing to bet that in a lot of (most?) places a significant majority of roads [ADDED: total mileage] are 2 lane roads to home and business endpoints. Add in the fact that you're going to have an interstate/etc. highway system even if you only had truck traffic and the wider roads are mostly denser suburbia main routes and areas within cities.
  - Timshel 3y ago
    Less traffic might mean you don't need a 4 lanes road and less maintenance maybe ? You don't think it would impact budget ?
    - civilitty 3y ago
      I’m sure it would impact the budget but based on the state of roads here in California, the vast majority of the damage seems to be from trucks. A lot of those four lane roads can’t be sized down without blocking emergency vehicles’ basic mobility. They’re sized for worst case scenarios and at least in my small hometown, for example, meant to allow large numbers of emergency vehicles to move quickly between suburban sprawls in case of large fire or earthquake.
      - Timshel 3y ago
        Yes truck does most of the dammage on specific axes and they probably could be limited to even less, you don't need 40t trucks in city center. Unless you are on a narrow one way street (not common in the us I believe) I would say that congestion is the limiting factor for emergency vehicule mobility. And there is quite a lot of study that wider street do not reduce congestion.
        civilitty 3y ago
        > Unless you are on a narrow one way street (not common in the us I believe) I would say that congestion is the limiting factor for emergency vehicule mobility. And there is quite a lot of study that wider street do not reduce congestion. Congestion is a separate problem from road design and it's not the limiting factor most of the time. Emergency vehicles need a grid of arteries with two lanes in each direction so cars can pull over in normal traffic conditions to let them through. These arteries lead into smaller 1 or 2 lane roads which don't see much traffic so there's little risk of the emergency vehicle getting impeded. In the suburbs of my city, for example, these arteries are placed every 1/2 mile to every mile depending on population density, which super-stroads every four-ish miles. Areas with real congestion like main thoroughfares and city cores need different solutions like specific road designs (no center dividers) so that emergency vehicles can move onto oncoming traffic.
  - throw0101a 3y ago
    > The money nondrivers pay in taxes for roads aren’t a subsidy to drivers, it’s the cost they pay for the safety and convenience we expect from modern civilization There were roads before cars and trucks: > Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as “jaywalkers.” In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as “road hogs” or “speed demons” and cars as “juggernauts” or “death cars.” He considers the perspectives of all users—pedestrians, police (who had to become “traffic cops”), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for “justice.” Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of “efficiency.” Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking “freedom”—a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change. * https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic Various goods and services managed to be delivered even before cars/trucks. FedEx is experimenting/using cargo bikes for example: * https://curbsidecycle.com/blogs/blog/fedex-launches-first-north-american-fleet-of-cargo-bikes-for-last-mile-logistics https://curbsidecycle.com/blogs/blog/fedex-launches-first-no... The 'extra' use by personal vehicles and non-essential transport trucks adds to shortened lifespans and higher maintenance costs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tim333 3y ago
Those average direct costs seem rather high. I think I spend more like $3000/yr for quite a nice car.
- spicymaki 3y ago
  > I think I spend more like $3000/yr for quite a nice car. You are lucky! Currently the average cost of a new car is ~$48k. Not including fuel, if I priced out a car to around $40k and took a loan at 5% interest for five years. I would already be looking at about $10k a year. Add in insurance, fuel, excise tax, registration, inspection, etc. it would go up to ~$13k for the first 5 years. My fifteen year old car costs about $6,000 for me this year (with repairs, oil changes, and fuel costs, insurance, etc.). If I lived in an urban environment with good transit like NYC it would cost me about $2k-$3k a year in commuter costs if I traveled by bus and subway every day round trip.
- ghaff 3y ago
  As someone who has owned cars for decades and drives them basically until they're not economical to keep running, that seems low. Just simple division (no time value of money) for a new $40K car for 10 years is $4K/yr. Maybe you bought used and didn't spend too much more on maintenance and maybe even got a bit of a trade-in but I think that's in the ballpark. $1K/year for insurance is probably low for more urban people. Excise tax/registration/inspection probably a few hundred more. And even a fairly modest 5K miles per year is about $700/yr. just in fuel at today's prices. And add at least something for oil changes and other maintenance even if just routine.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > a new $40K car for 10 years is $4K/yr Well no, because the new 40K car doesn't evaporate after 10 years. You can sell it for some money or just keep using it longer to bring your yearly average down. Also nobody needs a new 40K car. If you can afford it want to enjoy that, have fun. But if you're trying to bring transportation costs down, buy a used 10K car and drive that one for ten years.
- throw0101a 3y ago

Someone 3y ago

I think the public massively funds personal car usage, but don’t think it’s as high as portrayed here. Also FTA: “Beyond those for individual drivers, road maintenance, snow removal, and policing, there are less-obvious ones, such as those associated with […] lost productivity from sitting in traffic” All other things staying equal, those costs may increase when replacing cars with something else (e.g. bicycles and public transport) “The team also went through the overall state budget and those of various agencies like the Department of Conservation and Recreation to calculate all the money going to roads” Part of those costs are for transporting goods (e.g. to shops), or for maintenance due to wear from public transport. There also are costs that won’t fully go away if people stop driving cars (for example, they may get stuff delivered bro their homes instead of fetching it themselves. That may induce fewer public costs, but it won’t induce zero public costs)

civilitty 3y ago
The whole road cost argument doesn’t make sense to me. The problem is density, not mode of transport - we all need roads! The common denominator access requirement for all housing is a fire truck and ambulance for safety and delivery trucks to make space livable with bulky items like furniture, which also account for most of the wear and tear. The money nondrivers pay in taxes for roads aren’t a subsidy to drivers, it’s the cost they pay for the safety and convenience we expect from modern civilization
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  You need a lot more road for everyone to have individual cars than you do just for deliveries and emergency vehicles. http://lncarden.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/3/6/28369831/1419566_orig.png http://lncarden.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/3/6/28369831/1419566_...
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I don't see the data outside of GIS databases, but I'd be willing to bet that in a lot of (most?) places a significant majority of roads [ADDED: total mileage] are 2 lane roads to home and business endpoints. Add in the fact that you're going to have an interstate/etc. highway system even if you only had truck traffic and the wider roads are mostly denser suburbia main routes and areas within cities.
- Timshel 3y ago
  Less traffic might mean you don't need a 4 lanes road and less maintenance maybe ? You don't think it would impact budget ?
  - civilitty 3y ago
    I’m sure it would impact the budget but based on the state of roads here in California, the vast majority of the damage seems to be from trucks. A lot of those four lane roads can’t be sized down without blocking emergency vehicles’ basic mobility. They’re sized for worst case scenarios and at least in my small hometown, for example, meant to allow large numbers of emergency vehicles to move quickly between suburban sprawls in case of large fire or earthquake.
    - Timshel 3y ago
      Yes truck does most of the dammage on specific axes and they probably could be limited to even less, you don't need 40t trucks in city center. Unless you are on a narrow one way street (not common in the us I believe) I would say that congestion is the limiting factor for emergency vehicule mobility. And there is quite a lot of study that wider street do not reduce congestion.
      - civilitty 3y ago
        > Unless you are on a narrow one way street (not common in the us I believe) I would say that congestion is the limiting factor for emergency vehicule mobility. And there is quite a lot of study that wider street do not reduce congestion. Congestion is a separate problem from road design and it's not the limiting factor most of the time. Emergency vehicles need a grid of arteries with two lanes in each direction so cars can pull over in normal traffic conditions to let them through. These arteries lead into smaller 1 or 2 lane roads which don't see much traffic so there's little risk of the emergency vehicle getting impeded. In the suburbs of my city, for example, these arteries are placed every 1/2 mile to every mile depending on population density, which super-stroads every four-ish miles. Areas with real congestion like main thoroughfares and city cores need different solutions like specific road designs (no center dividers) so that emergency vehicles can move onto oncoming traffic.
- throw0101a 3y ago
  > The money nondrivers pay in taxes for roads aren’t a subsidy to drivers, it’s the cost they pay for the safety and convenience we expect from modern civilization There were roads before cars and trucks: > Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as “jaywalkers.” In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as “road hogs” or “speed demons” and cars as “juggernauts” or “death cars.” He considers the perspectives of all users—pedestrians, police (who had to become “traffic cops”), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for “justice.” Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of “efficiency.” Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking “freedom”—a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change. * https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic Various goods and services managed to be delivered even before cars/trucks. FedEx is experimenting/using cargo bikes for example: * https://curbsidecycle.com/blogs/blog/fedex-launches-first-north-american-fleet-of-cargo-bikes-for-last-mile-logistics https://curbsidecycle.com/blogs/blog/fedex-launches-first-no... The 'extra' use by personal vehicles and non-essential transport trucks adds to shortened lifespans and higher maintenance costs.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

tim333 3y ago

Those average direct costs seem rather high. I think I spend more like $3000/yr for quite a nice car.

spicymaki 3y ago
> I think I spend more like $3000/yr for quite a nice car. You are lucky! Currently the average cost of a new car is ~$48k. Not including fuel, if I priced out a car to around $40k and took a loan at 5% interest for five years. I would already be looking at about $10k a year. Add in insurance, fuel, excise tax, registration, inspection, etc. it would go up to ~$13k for the first 5 years. My fifteen year old car costs about $6,000 for me this year (with repairs, oil changes, and fuel costs, insurance, etc.). If I lived in an urban environment with good transit like NYC it would cost me about $2k-$3k a year in commuter costs if I traveled by bus and subway every day round trip.
ghaff 3y ago
As someone who has owned cars for decades and drives them basically until they're not economical to keep running, that seems low. Just simple division (no time value of money) for a new $40K car for 10 years is $4K/yr. Maybe you bought used and didn't spend too much more on maintenance and maybe even got a bit of a trade-in but I think that's in the ballpark. $1K/year for insurance is probably low for more urban people. Excise tax/registration/inspection probably a few hundred more. And even a fairly modest 5K miles per year is about $700/yr. just in fuel at today's prices. And add at least something for oil changes and other maintenance even if just routine.
- jjav 3y ago
  > a new $40K car for 10 years is $4K/yr Well no, because the new 40K car doesn't evaporate after 10 years. You can sell it for some money or just keep using it longer to bring your yearly average down. Also nobody needs a new 40K car. If you can afford it want to enjoy that, have fun. But if you're trying to bring transportation costs down, buy a used 10K car and drive that one for ten years.
throw0101a 3y ago