Changes in transport costs.

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Stevek76
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Stevek76 »

The ifs link I posted further back also discusses such externalities but in the finer context of where they occur and road pricing.

The costs are highest, dramatically so, in built up and urban areas which isn't surprising given the higher congestion & higher density of people to feel the adverse effects of air/noise pollution & get run over. It's only really co2 emissions that are even

Subsidy is somewhat hyperbolic but I don't think inaccurate, particularly when considering elements such as parking where storing motor vehicles in the public road (or on the pavement) is widely tolerated often for free or, at most, for a charge well below the market rate of the land taken.
Carlton green wrote: 20 Aug 2021, 8:50am One aspect of all of this that has not been discussed is the cost to society of the removal of motorised personal transport, my instinct is that the cost will be massive compared to the cost of keeping it.
Since no one's talking about the complete removal of motor traffic that's a bit of a strawman.

Charging a fair price for usage isn't removal, even if causes since behaviour change. As noted this is largely a matter for urban areas, rural usage of cars isn't really a major issue with the exception of co2 probably being undervalued.

As far as cities go, the evidence base is fairly extensive that 'bashing' motorists is actually the only really effective way to get them out of cars. Some of that's chicken/egg with the limited road space, you cannot create quality routes for cycling and public transport without taking it from private motor traffic. However the space left will still be clogged up so congestion charges have a net benefit in filtering out the unnecessary trips and supply side constraints such as converting on street motor vehicle parking into cycle hangers and greenery also have a role to play.

As for electoral viability. It's been proven time and again that, in urban areas, motorist bashing is actually a vote winner if the politicians have the will to see the changes through.
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Jdsk
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Jdsk »

Stevek76 wrote: 20 Aug 2021, 12:50pm
Carlton green wrote: 20 Aug 2021, 8:50am One aspect of all of this that has not been discussed is the cost to society of the removal of motorised personal transport, my instinct is that the cost will be massive compared to the cost of keeping it.
Since no one's talking about the complete removal of motor traffic that's a bit of a strawman.
Having repeatedly pleaded for an integrated transport policy can I add that the solutions and the timescales will (and should) differ enormously in different niches.

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Jdsk »

Jdsk wrote: 17 Aug 2021, 2:59pm "Transport for the North boss calls for debate on raising cost of driving":
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... st-driving

"There needs to be an “honest conversation” about making driving more expensive in order to subsidise public transport, according to the new head of the north of England’s strategic transport body."
Stevek76 wrote: 17 Aug 2021, 5:59pm Yes, saw that, very much needed. Leadership at the national level would be good here but, as noted, English councils do already have considerable powers to raise the cost & restrict supply for driving which comes with the bonus that they get to keep the proceeds.
Well put. In the absence of national leadership I'll settle for local initiatives.

With independent evaluation, of course.

Jonathan
Stevek76
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Stevek76 »

Agreed, I was more meaning to give the rather more reluctant councils a shove.

Much of this is politics of course, both local and national government want to claim the credit but deflect all the political flak from the motoring lobby onto each other.
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Carlton green
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Carlton green »

Jdsk wrote: 20 Aug 2021, 1:01pm
Stevek76 wrote: 20 Aug 2021, 12:50pm
Carlton green wrote: 20 Aug 2021, 8:50am One aspect of all of this that has not been discussed is the cost to society of the removal of motorised personal transport, my instinct is that the cost will be massive compared to the cost of keeping it.
Since no one's talking about the complete removal of motor traffic that's a bit of a strawman.
Having repeatedly pleaded for an integrated transport policy can I add that the solutions and the timescales will (and should) differ enormously in different niches.

Jonathan
That’s about right Jonathan, whilst there is a need for change the way in which it happens is exceedingly important and needs to reflect the wide spectrum of social needs and locations.

I would not agree that it’s a straw man and I think it important that the costs of changes are properly understood. I also don’t think it reasonable to include externalities with respect to motoring in some stand alone type of accounting. If we wish to include externalities then include them for all things: all journey types, all manufacturing, all purchases of goods and services, all recreational activities and all employment.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Stevek76
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

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Changes require understanding the costs of possible futures, not hypothetical ones where private motor vehicles are removed altogether. Certainly compared to a situation with no motor vehicles they have brought large gains in mobility and accessibility, however they are now a classic example of a 'tragedy of the commons'.

As for externalities, they are typically included as much as practicable and where not insignificant, including the benefits of greater travel potential*; travelling by car+ sized private motor vehicles just stands out as something that externalises an unusually large cost.

I think it's a good example of how utterly ingrained car culture is that many struggle to believe that their various taxes don't cover all this.

As noted though such costs are very heavily skewed by location and also things like car type. Eg. Empirical evidence is that road wear is roughly proportional to the 4th power of axel weight; a large 2t car causes 16 times more damage than a 1t small 'city' car.


*Usually over estimated since models tend to underestimate the amount of induced car demand.
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Carlton green
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Carlton green »

Stevek76 wrote: 22 Aug 2021, 2:06pm
Changes require understanding the costs of possible futures, not hypothetical ones where private motor vehicles are removed altogether. Certainly compared to a situation with no motor vehicles they have brought large gains in mobility and accessibility, however they are now a classic example of a 'tragedy of the commons'.

As noted though such costs are very heavily skewed by location and also things like car type. Eg. Empirical evidence is that road wear is roughly proportional to the 4th power of axel weight; a large 2t car causes 16 times more damage than a 1t small 'city' car.
Yep, common resources seem to end up being abused and it is a tragedy.

I’m all for cars being smaller and lighter, see my earlier posts. In discussing road damage I’m now wondering about the relative impact of Buses, they weigh circa 15 tons so must be relatively quite damaging? As we all know bikes plus rider weigh relatively little (under 100kg) so the damage they do to the road must approximate to zero.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Stevek76
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Stevek76 »

Yes, cycle wear is non-existent, hence cycle paths usually falling apart from damage from other sources first (weathering, errant tree roots, driver parking issues)

And yes, buses can be quite substantial, this can often be seen on narrow bus lanes where no variation in wheel path can cause quite extreme rutting. Also one of the many reasons to view posh bus as faux tram solutions with considerable scepticism.
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pwa
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by pwa »

It is often said that cars and vehicles smaller than cars cause very little wear to road surfaces, with most damage being caused by larger vehicles, big HGVs being the worst.
Carlton green
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Carlton green »

A none Cycling forum that I’m a member of had comments from several people about commuting distances and times. A few responses showed long duration commutes that they had done for a long time, distances covered were both large and small. To my mind it is a personal and social nonsense to daily commute for say an hour each way, but of course I appreciate that sometimes circumstances push us to do less than ideal things in our personal lives.

One change in transport cost is to effectively soft cap the resources that each of us can spend - note I’m not talking taxes or money here. I’ve mentioned car size limits before and also constraints on commuting distances. Long duration urban commuting hadn’t been on my ‘radar’ before but again constraints on commuting time seem not too unreasonable and worth exploring.

I’m not in favour of vague external costs but the roads we share, the environment we share and the air we share have a collective value and we should share it equitably or at least work towards doing so.

Now if we want to talk environmental damage flying shouldn’t be ignored, but that’s maybe another topic as are particularly long journeys for pleasure purposes.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Mike Sales
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Mike Sales »

Carlton green wrote: 23 Aug 2021, 10:57am
I’m not in favour of vague external costs but the roads we share, the environment we share and the air we share have a collective value and we should share it equitably or at least work towards doing so.

Now if we want to talk environmental damage flying shouldn’t be ignored, but that’s maybe another topic as are particularly long journeys for pleasure purposes.
Yes, it is very difficult to put a value on accidental deaths, or early deaths from air pollution.
The DfT standard Cost Benefit Analysis does though, when they try to justify road building.
Here is a discussion paper from John Adams which makes some powerful points.
1




The role of cost-benefit analysis in environmental debates John Adams, UCL
For 9 December 1994, Green College, Oxford


Executive Summary
Far from resolving controversy, cost-benefit analysis generates it. Why?
• It attempts the impossible: people cannot provide meaningful answers to the contingent
valuer's questions.
• It is biassed in favour of `development': the attempt to value costs in terms of the losers'
willingness to accept compensation is unworkable in practice; the use of willingness-to-
pay measures understates the costs of development.
• It entrenches conflict: it seeks to capture, in monetary form, the values of the contending
parties at the start of an argument, and settle the dispute by computation.
Consensus can be built out of conflict only if people can be persuaded to change their values.
Before computers and those who feed them with `values' can be useful in making decisions there
must be agreement about what is valuable. Changing the values of participants in environmental
debates is a messy and protracted process of argument, discussion, negotiation and compromise.
http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uplo ... ebates.pdf
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Carlton green
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Carlton green »

That’s the problem isn’t it, we talk in terms of compensation in recompense for damage and taxation to discourage behaviours which the rich can then continue to pursue regardless. If someone wants to change behaviours then a range of tools are needed, and they certainly should include things that personal wealth does not allow people to work their way around.

Compensation is for something that should not have happened in the first place and the distribution of sums raised by environmental taxes will be open to question - hopefully it is used to improve the environment and correct damage.

IME the biggest contributor to motorist miles is commuting, as such that is an area for environmental groups to attack with demands for employers to have transport plans for their employees. In families in which multiple members are employed some significant commuting might be inevitable but I think it a reasonable social expectation that at least one family member should live relatively near to their place of work.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
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mjr
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

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Carlton green wrote: 23 Aug 2021, 3:57pm IME the biggest contributor to motorist miles is commuting, as such that is an area for environmental groups to attack with demands for employers to have transport plans for their employees. [...]
It is, but total mileage has fallen faster than commute mileage over the last 17 years, so maybe it's a higher proportion now than many may think: according to the National Travel Survey, of an average 7400 miles per year per car owner, 2700 was for commuting in 2019, which is 36%, up from 29% in 2002.

But it looks like motorists commute almost twice as far as average, which surprises me given how many people from around here take the train 100 miles to London. Of the average 6500 miles per person travelled per year, 1276 are commuting, but 1165 are visiting friends, 800 shopping, 591 holidays, 435 day trips and 568 escorting children.

So there's plenty of scope across all activities for switching and the legal frameworks for challenging shopping and holiday motoring are at least as strong as for challenging commuting.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Carlton green
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by Carlton green »

And there we have another absolute nonsense with people commuting vast distances by rail, ok it might be better than them driving but it still is a load on the planet.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Changes in transport costs.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

But whilst every "centre" in the country (political, economic, cultural) are colocated then basically every company wants to be there, and there simply isn't space for people as well.

We should build a new parliament building, fit for modern times, elsewhere in the country, and use Westminster only for state openings. Modern parliament would of course also feature hotel style suites for MPs who live a reasonable distance from the new location, and hotel room style accommodation for those who live close, but might need the occasional night over after a late debate.
Secure networking into said accommodation, as well as vetted and employed staff to look after the facilities (on the basis that many MPs couldn't find their buttock with a map, I suspect they need it).
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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