Who Is Mark Gorton?
by Judd WileyMay 30th, 2008, 12:43 pm
BACKGROUND
We recently wrote a very critical post about Streetsblog.org, the radical, left-wing, anti-car website that promotes a bikeable/walkable utopia free of the internal combustion engine and all of its loathsome externalities.
Ever since, we’ve been assailed by Streetsblog readers, and have enjoyed every minute of it. Some have had very valid, well thought-out points, but most are the wildly entertaining “kick and scream” variety … Not interested in listening to opposing viewpoints, not interested in a vigorous debate of the issues, not willing to comprehend that people don’t like to be told how to live their lives.
This stimulating and ongoing debate has greatly spurned our interest in the powerful Streetsblog. We asked ourselves: Who are these fanatical revolutionaries who live and work and walk and bike all over New York City and want everyone else to do the same?
A long-time reader of ours pointed us to Mark Gorton, who founded and finances Streetsblog. After some research, we realized that this is in fact the Mark Gorton … boy genius, Ivy League graduate, hedge fund millionaire, entrepreneur, founder of the P2P file-sharing service LimeWire, and (as of March 2007) owner of a black Toyota 4Runner SUV that gets 17 miles per gallon.
What follows is a short biography of the man behind the activist powerhouse that is Streetsblog.
MARK GORTON
Mark Gorton is in his early 40s. He holds a BA in electrical engineering from Yale, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, and an MBA from Harvard. He worked as an electrical engineer at Martin Marietta (now part of Lockheed Martin), and then moved on to Credit Suisse First Boston, where he worked as a trader in the fixed income proprietary-trading department (bond trading).
In 1998, Gorton founded Tower Research Capital, and in 2000, Lime Brokerage, two financial services firms that use sophisticated hedging tools to analyze markets. There’s a lot of complicated mathematical gobbledygook here - all you need to know is that Gorton used the capitalist, free-market system to make himself a very, very rich man. In fact, Gorton himself is immensely proud of his money-making abilities, and enjoys telling people exactly how successful he is:
I’ve beaten the markets a half dozen times and will do it a half dozen more. … As a personal challenge, it doesn’t mean that much anymore. …
So he moved on to bigger and better things. In 2000, Gorton founded LimeWire, which developed a computer program that allows individuals to trade music, movies, software files, and more over the Internet. However, LimeWire - like Napster, Kazaa, and other file-sharing services – enables people to download or upload files without the permission of whoever owns the rights to that file. LimeWire is currently embroiled in a high-profile lawsuit over this issue, and the verdict isn’t in. But based on recent court decisions, things don’t look good for LimeWire.
Despite the accusations, allegations, lawsuits, court cases, and more, Mark Gorton has the time and resources to champion principles, ideals, goals, and movements that he feels passionate about. Sometime around the millennium, he discovered radical, left-wing, anti-car activism. As the story goes, one day Mark Gorton was riding his old mountain bike through New York City and “almost got killed.” He thought to himself, “This is stupid.” So he decided to change the world.
Gorton began pouring millions of dollars into radical, left-wing, anti-car causes. He founded The Open Planning Project (TOPP), a non-profit organization “to promote thoughtful urban planning and encourage increased public participation via open source technology development.” TOPP served as a platform for the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign (NYCSR), which vigorously promotes the anti-car agenda in New York. From TOPP’s website:
New York City is defined by its vibrant and diverse streets and neighborhoods. Unfortunately, our neighborhoods and business districts are buckling under increasing amounts of dangerous car and truck traffic. Children can no longer play on their own blocks, while parents worry about turning cars smashing into baby carriages. Senior citizens are losing their independence, shut up in their homes for fear of crossing the street. And shoppers and investors are being turned away by chaotic, traffic-choked avenues.
Gorton was so passionate about NYCSR that he penned its 15-page booklet, titled “The Problem with Traffic in New York,” in which he recommended enhancing NY streets with wider sidewalks, bike lanes, and street cafes. TOPP also served as a platform for OpenPlans, an extensive suite of web-based tools designed to give radical, anti-car activists “the resources they need to organize virtually to effect real world change.”
Gorton also founded the powerful Streetsblog, which has a large staff of reporters, bloggers, and even a film crew to chronicle what it sees as the problems of traffic. According to the New York Times, Streetsblog is “vital reading for a concentrated but influential group of urban planners, transportation advocates and environmental experts.” Editor-in-Chief Aaron Naparstek said that Streetsblog has “30,000 to 90,000 unique visitors each month.” The blog helps shape public policy, as evidenced by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent push for congestion pricing, which would have levied $8-21 per day for each vehicle entering Manhattan below 60th Street.
According to the New York Observer, Mark Gorton also became the largest individual supporter of something called Transportation Alternatives, an anti-car advocacy group founded by radical bicyclists in the 1970s. Transportation Alternatives supports a “green transportation hierarchy,” which gives preferences to modes of transportation based on their “benefits and costs to society” (as defined by Transportation Alternatives). It has a membership of over 5,000 well-educated, largely white, twenty-somethings who ride their bikes to work, and want everybody else to ride their bikes to work too.
Of course, Mark Gorton is not entirely anti-car in his personal life. According to a Bloomberg exclusive, sometime between 2000 and 2007, Gorton purchased a 2000 black Toyota 4Runner sport utility vehicle, or “SUV,” which is nicknamed “the LimeMobile” and gets 17 miles per gallon.
Yet despite his ownership of a fuel-inefficient SUV, Mark Gorton remains very committed to sending the internal combustion engine down the memory hole. He rides his bike six miles to work every day down Manhattan’s West Side Greenway (and wants everyone else to do the same). He dreams that one day his three kids will be able to ride their bikes down a car-free Broadway (and wants every other parent to have the same dream).
Next time you’re in New York - especially if you’re visiting the more hip, stylish, trendy, expensive parts of the city - keep an eye out for this youthful, energetic, brilliant entrepreneur. If he’s not too busy buying and selling microscopic pieces of American businesses, creating some new computer program that enables even faster file-sharing, overseeing the day-to-day operations of his left-wing anti-car empire, or saving the world, go up and introduce yourself to Mark Gorton.
Think about it. How often do you have the opportunity to rub shoulders with a man like Mark Gorton … a man who has enjoyed the best education money can buy … who has mastered the capitalist, free market system and amassed wealth and power beyond most Americans’ wildest dreams … who lives in one of the most expensive cities on the planet … who rides his bike every day to a business he owns and operates … who founded and financed an army of car-hating radicals … and who manages to keep a straight face while owning (as of May 2007) a Toyota 4Runner SUV that apparently guzzles gas at 17 miles per gallon.
If you’re lucky, this modern day titan will take you on a walking tour of the city he calls home, pointing out this person who parked his car illegally or that truck that rudely invaded what he deems the rightful space of pedestrians. He might be willing to share his vision of a brave new bikeable/walkable world, where cars have been taxed and regulated off all the streets, and where citizens live their lives exactly as Mark Gorton tells them to.
UPDATE: June 2, 2008, 5:10 pm
According to City Room at the New York Times, Bloomberg.com got it wrong about Mark Gorton!
He apparently didn’t own a 2000 black Toyota 4Runner SUV nicknamed the “Limemobile” as of March 2007, as we reported above (based on their exclusive story on Gorton). To quote City Room:
The editor of Streetsblog says that detail is based on an inaccurate Bloomberg News report.
We have no reason not to believe the editor of Streetsblog. Still, why would Bloomberg.com have invented such a very specific detail about someone it sat down with and interviewed? We can only speculate. But if Bloomberg.com is wrong, they should issue an immediate retraction and an apology to Mark Gorton for spreading false information about him.
One more thing. City Room says Commuter Outrage is “pro-driving.” Yes, we are. But we are also pro-subway, pro-bus, pro-motorcycle, pro-bicycle, pro-airplane, pro-walking. We are pro-all forms of transportation.
We believe American citizens have the right to make their own transportation choices. Not the government.
UPDATE: June 20, 2008, 10:30 pm
Oops, City Room has removed the Streetsblog editor’s vague “denial” from its post. Looks like the Bloomberg.com article was right all along!
The Streetsblog Truth Squad
- Part 1: Car Haters: Streetsblog
- Part 2: Pete at Streetsblog: “Few Ideas” at Commuter Outrage
- Part 3: Who Is Mark Gorton?
- Part 4: StreetsBlog: StreetCritiques
- Part 5: Pick Your Poison - Gas, Guns, or Elitism
- Part 6: Streetsblog’s Comment Moderation Policy: Waaaaaaaaaaa!
- Part 7: A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words
- Part 8: Bike Box?
Posted in Congestion Pricing, Environmentalism, Politics, Sport Utility Vehicles, Tax Increases, Tolls, Traffic Congestion, Uncategorized Rage |
this guy sounds like a real toolbox … and a hypocrite too!
if he started founding all these anti-car organizations in 2000, that’s the same year that his Toyota SUV was manufactured!!!!!!!! in other words he bought this gas guzzling behemoth after he began advocating against cars!!!!!!!!! there’s no other logical explanation.
unbelievable. hypocrisy like this needs to be exposed for the whole world to see
So let me get this straight … This guy basically financed the entire angry bicyclist automobile hater mvmt in NYC and he owns an SUV that he’s given a nickname to? That is hilarious. This guy deserves all the mockery that will soon be coming his way. He’s been using his own money to try to shape public policy and has essentially turned himself into a major figure in the NY transportation debate. I just went on Streetblog. The whole thing is about how cars and SUVs suck and should be removed from civilization. And their founding father drives an SUV. I laugh at the complete and total hypocrisy of their whole movement.
Why are people like this so dumb? Its easy to ride your bike everywhere when you don’t have anywhere to be. Its easy to “go green” when you’re a millionaire.
Avid Streetsblogger here. I’d just like to point out that there’s nothing left-wing about alternative approaches to transportation. Quite the opposite, actually.
Driving is being subsidized left and right. The gas tax doesn’t even come close to funding all the road construction and maintenance that’s going on. Free on-street parking is a gigantic gift to drivers. The cost of noise, pollution, injuries, and deaths is being absorbed by everybody. As a taxpayer, I am subsidizing somebody else’s driving habit. As a fiscal conservative, I resent that.
I have no interest in social engineering. I have no desire to tell you how to live your life. I’m just asking you to take responsibility for your actions. If you want to drive on public roads, don’t fantasize about gas tax holidays. If you want to park your car, buy or rent a spot at market rates.
Things are already beginning to sort themselves out in an entirely capitalist way, with foreclosures and decreased home values hitting the most remote, car-dependent suburbs first. Streetsblog and Transportation Alternatives are merely ahead of the curve. Nothing left-wing about it.
Hey, Vroomfondel, don’t confuse these reactionary dittoheads with facts.
I’m content to let them continue to be “outraged” while I filter thru their crawling traffic jams.
Vroomfondel.
Let’s get a few things straight here before we go any further.
First, of course driving and parking is subsidized. We know this. So is biking, walking, flying, riding, and every other form of getting from point A to point B. It’s subsidized with OUR MONEY. We pay about roughly 1/3 of our yearly salaries to the government in the form of income taxes. We demand something in return - the most modern and efficient subways, airports, buses, commuter rails, long-distance trains, bike paths, sidewalks, and yes, roads. If we’re going to pay the taxes anyway, we want the damn services – all of them, especially the ones that the vast majority of us use! And right now, whether you like it or not, the most popular form of transportation in America is the AUTOMOBILE. So of course it’s getting subsidizied.
Second, we’re not advocates of privatizing transportation without a massive reduction in the income tax. If and when the government reduces our income taxes to a much lower, flatter rate will we EVER entertain this business of paying “market rates” for highways, subways, parking, and all of the rest. If we keep the current tax rates, we want the damn services, including expanded highways, double-deckers, widened on-ramps, ample parking, etc. In fact, parking should be free of any charges whatsoever, since we already paid for the space with our taxes.
Third, Streetsblog, Transportation Alternatives, and all the rest are MOST DEFINITELY radical, left-wing organizations. One of the main tenets of left-wing politics is telling other people how to live their lives (usually with a heavy tax component). And so it is with Streetsblog. You want to take the tax money that all citizens pay to the government, and shift it all around to favor modes of transportation that YOU think would be best for us. You want to reform society in the image that YOU think would be best for society. Frankly, right now most Americans prefer to drive because all of the other modes of short-distance transportation suck. For instance: riding a stupid bike in sub-zero temperature to the point where your face freezes off, walking 10 miles in the blazing sun and passing out, or cramming into an already overcrowded subway car that doesn’t even extend to where you live. Trying to socially engineer us out of our cars through taxes, fees, fines, tolls, surcharges, and all the rest is most certainly a radical left-wing solution. It’s all about telling us what to do via taxation. As further proof, I don’t see ANY Streetsbloggers advocating for a reduction in the income tax to go along with their “market-based” solutions. You’re playing a very clever word game by trying to trick libertarian and conservative-minded Americans into thinking you’re fiscal conservatives. When I see the massive push for a reduction in income taxes, I’ll believe it.
Fourth, we don’t give a damn about those in foreclosure or those in “remote, car-dependent suburbs” who are being hit hard by the price of oil AS LONG AS the government uses their tax dollars to provide them with enough roads, commuter rails, airports, etc. to allow them to transport themselves to wherever they want to go. The way we see it, those people chose to live there. They chose to buy the cars. Not our problem if they have to pay more at the pump. We don’t care! HOWEVER, if the government is blowing all of the tax money they paid on pork barrel boondoggles, welfare for the riff-raff, and other stupidity, then we have a big problem. And, unfortunately, this is what’s going on right now. The government is taking money that should be going towards transportation and spending it on less-important things.
Fifth, we don’t “fantasize about gas tax holidays.” We want to get rid of the stupid gas tax, which is a penalty surcharge on top of an already existing sales tax. Gas should not be taxed at a higher rate than, say, cupcakes. Same goes for cigarettes, booze, porn, and all the rest. The government has no business socially engineering us towards or away from this or that. One consistent rate for everything.
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Fifth, we don’t “fantasize about gas tax holidays.” We want to get rid of the stupid gas tax, which is a penalty surcharge on top of an already existing sales tax. Gas should not be taxed at a higher rate than, say, cupcakes. Same goes for cigarettes, booze, porn, and all the rest. The government has no business socially engineering us towards or away from this or that. One consistent rate for everything.
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That “stupid gas tax” doesn’t come CLOSE to covering the external costs (health/environment/national security/etc) that gas guzzlers inflict upon the rest of us.
Once you start paying for the TRUE COSTS of piloting your Chevy Gargantuan, instead of socializing those expenses on the backs of the rest of us, then you can complain. Until then, you just sound like a whiny “liberul” looking for a handout.
Another Streetsblogger here,
So the one thing you could get on the guy is that he owns an SUV. Yeah, slightly hypocritical but did you ever ask how much he drives it? I bet he loads it up with the family only on the weekends for recreational purposes and it has less than 30,000 miles on it. Even an SUV with 4 people gets better gas mileage per person than a Prius with just one person in it. The guy is a millionaire, he could probably afford 20 SUVs and rent on parking spots in Midtown without a problem. I’m sorry but you point is pretty weak. If owned a Hummer I’d agree with you.
And Judd do you have any clue where most of the money from the gas tax goes? Yeah to roads! No gas tax, no roads/maintenance. I’d gladly pay 10 cents more tax for better roads even at todays high gas prices and I’m not rich by any means. And if you looked more carefully into the pricing of gas you would learn how much the oil companies manipulate the regional prices. I went on a road trip this past weekend and when we passed from one state with very high gas taxes to another with much lower taxes we saw very little difference in the price until we were 100 miles into that state. That is no coincidence. If you eliminated the tax the oil companies would just raise the wholesale prices. That’s why gas goes up so easy with the price of oil but comes down so slowly no matter what the drop in the price per barrel.
World market forces will pry you and me from our cars and there will be nothing you, me, the President, Congress or anyone else will be able to do about it. Better get used to it and go ride a bike and go for a walk. You might find out that you like it. I know I do.
Final the true master’s of social engineering have been the car and oil company’s. They have so completely embedded themselves into government it is truely difficult to tell who is working for whom. The result is that in most places in the US you have no choice anymore on how you can travel. It the highway or no way do to a purposely designed infrastructure that leaves you no choice but to drive. People even in good walkable suburbs think nothing about driving to a destination that could be walked in less than 5 minutes. There are even places where kids are bussed across the street to go to school because its too dangerous to walk. If that’s not total and complete social engineering, I don’t know what is. And guess who makes the buses and sells the diesel to get those kids to school?
Don’t let yourself be had or even worse, be their tool.
I’m a little confused. Are you saying that as a driver he’s not allowed to advocate for policies that make driving less convenient?
Full disclosure: I’m someone who believes in higher energy taxes but uses electricity in his own house.
It the highway or no way do to a purposely designed infrastructure that leaves you no choice but to drive. People even in good walkable suburbs think nothing about driving to a destination that could be walked in less than 5 minutes. There are even places where kids are bussed across the street to go to school because its too dangerous to walk. If that’s not total and complete social engineering, I don’t know what is.
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Everything about modern car-culture is a subsidized/socialist system.
From free onstreet parking, to the boondoggles of Boston’s “Big Dig”.
If motorists were to pay the TRUE COSTS of their chosen mode of transportation (and that price was reflected in fuel) they’d be paying well over $10 a gallon at current oil prices.
But Judd will never admit such blasphemous truths.
OK, I’ve heard enough out of the crazy convention. I can sit in silence no longer.
Loosen your tinfoil hats and repeat after me – there is no overarching government conspiracy to socially engineer the American public toward the automobile. There is no secret cabal between the government and car manufacturers to keep us addicted to foreign oil.
The fact that you people even entertain notions like this serves as blatant evidence that none of you have EVER worked for the government in any capacity. I worked for the government for years, and I can tell you, if this was really going on, it would be front page news in every newspaper in this country for the rest of your lives. The government can’t even keep the names of its spies secret. Something like this would take exactly 2.6 seconds to reach the ears of every American around the world.
But no, you’re correct, it makes perfect sense that the government is so in bed with oil and car companies that they have all conspired to socially engineer us toward a car and then given us COMPLETE CRAP roads and expensive as hell gas. That’s perfect logic considering that it’s premised on overlooking the fact that you can choose not to buy a car. Because you see business models centered around providing no service, being exorbitantly expensive, and pissing off your customers on a daily basis succeed so often in this country. But wait, isn’t that the point you made - that we don’t have a choice? Oh wait, I thought the point of Streetsblog is that you COULD choose the bikeable/walkable lifestyle? WHICH IS IT? You can’t have it both ways – either we are hopelessly dependant on cars - in which case Streetsblog may as well close up shop, or we do have choices and people simply don’t choose the lifestyle you elitists prefer?
Would those of you who are so in love with the idea that the government is socially engineering us toward suburban sprawl please tell me who develops the suburbs? If you said anything other than PRIVATE LANDOWNERS, you are wrong. The government doesn’t build roads to nowhere, private developers buy land and put subdivisions out there, and the government has to provide services. The roads may go in slightly before, or concurrent with construction, but the decision to build is made BEFORE the government gets involved.
The zoning argument is bogus too. If I own a city block in downtown Manhattan, I can build whatever I want on it in accordance with the zoning laws as long as I am willing to pay the taxes on the true value of the property. The government could care less if it’s Goldman Sachs or a quickie mart if you pay the taxes. And what the landowner decides to build on his land is what determines the traffic patterns around it. Some businesses will attract more traffic than others, that’s not a function of zoning laws.
Andy B makes a perfect point – which we already made weeks ago. Why should your SUV be taxed more if you drive less than someone in a Prius? You’re absolutely right - you shouldn’t be, especially if you’re Mark Gorton. Thanks for that enlightening bit of wisdom – we hadn’t thought of that.
Let’s talk about taxes. Right now about 1% of every federal tax dollar goes to road construction or maintenance. I can’t speak for New York, but in Virginia, roads are getting about 10.5% of state taxes, or $3.81 billion, this year. The projected revenues from transportation taxes and fees – guess who pays those, drivers - are $4.79 billion.
It doesn’t take a math whiz to see that WAY more money gets taken in from cars than is given back to cars. Guess where the rest of that money goes – it builds your metros and bike trails. So try again. No gas tax, no roads and maintenance … or metro, buses, sidewalks or anything else by your rationale. For the federal government, it’s even worse. The government took in $69 billion in excise taxes last year, and they only gave $35.5 billion back to the Federal Highway Administration. Before you say - well there’s more than gas taxes in excise taxes - we use about 140 Billion gallons of gas we are taxed at 18.4 cents per gallon. That’s $25.7 Billion. We also use 40 billion gallons of diesel every year - we get taxed at 24.4 cents per gallon there. That’s another $9.7 Billion. Do the math - that’s $35.4 billion that automobiles bring in before we even start to talk about their licensing and registration fees, inspection fees, sales taxes, tolls, parking, tickets or anything else. So your argument that drivers aren’t paying for their externalities is completely wrong too. Not only do they pay for their externalities – they pay for the externalities of all of the other forms of transportation. When you ride the subway or scoot along down your bike path, you might want to consider that automobiles paid for those, and then some.
Let’s talk about the flip side of externalities – let’s talk about the benefits you derive from the highway and road infrastructure even if you don’t use it. When you get hurt, how does the ambulance drive you to the hospital? When your apartment is on fire, how does the fire truck get there to put it out? When someone is in danger, how do the police get to the scene? How will the trucks that carry your food to the grocery stores – since you can’t grow your own food in a high rise – keep you fed and happy when you get your wish and the roads magically disappear? How do you “get out of the city for the weekend” when you don’t have roads to do it on? You people piss and moan about externalities – Oh boo hoo hoo, the noise …. you live in the largest CITY in the country – there is going to be noise with or without cars. Oh poor us, the pollution … what the hell do you think powers the subway you ride on – magic? It’s either diesel, or it’s electric and there’s some plant that’s polluting to run it. What you people never consider is that you benefit by all of that infrastructure too.
And for that matter, the next person who posts a comment and wants to talk about externalities, subsidies, the economic impacts of zoning laws, social engineering, or any other cockamamie idea had better be prepared to furnish facts and sources. And it needs to be better than some wild idea you concocted, or some Streetsblog funded “research”. I want objective evidence that proves your points. I notice that none of you ever address the figures or evidence we provide, you stick to your ideological talking points and throw out vague references to supposedly “common” knowledge – which is never supported by any facts that I can find. Here’s a question, how come all of the institutions – both public and private – that study this stuff for a living, meticulously document their research, make their figures available to the public, and make recommendations about what transportation the government should invest in, ALL include the automobile in any solution?
I’ve got news for you, market forces aren’t prying Europeans or Asians away from their automobiles (who do you think makes most of our cars ? – not the big three, but rather Europeans and Asians) despite their fancy mass transit systems, pedestrian friendly neighborhoods and gas that’s THREE TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE. We’ve still got a long way to go before market forces will do anything, and when they do act, it won’t be what you expect. Here’s what market forces are going to do. Market forces are going to force the government to reinvest in nuclear power, plants are going to go up everywhere, gas prices will continue to rise and auto manufacturers are going to invest huge amounts of money into battery technology to keep from losing their share of the market, they will develop viable electric cars, and people are going to be plugging their cars into their light sockets to recharge every night. That’s what is going to happen, like it or not. And that doesn’t require fancy wishful thinking – electric cars already exist, we’re already having the nuclear debate. You can not like it all you want, but we are never going to be like Beijing. Most people will never ride bikes regularly.
As for Mark Gorton – the whole point of the post isn’t just that he drives an SUV. The point is that he’s wealthy enough to do whatever the hell he wants. He doesn’t have to worry about commuting in from New Jersey or Connecticut, so it’s very easy for him to embrace a bikeable lifestyle. He can roll into the office whenever he pleases. The whole point is that this is a very wealthy man, who can do whatever he pleases, and is trying to impose his position on the rest of us. If he wants to ride bikes, fine, but it’s pretty easy to go green when you have plenty of it.
Lewis,
Your post is a rather unfocused rant that touches on a number of issues, and I don’t have the time or the inclination to address it all.
But I do want to bring up your claim that drivers are taxed in excess of the cost to maintain and build road infrastructure — a claim which is echoed in your post here. This claim is entirely false. In point of fact, taxes and fees associated with driving only pay about 65% of public costs associated with that activity. The rest is paid for by everyone, whether they drive or not. Just like corn.
You can read a detailed summary of the various studies available on this issue here. When I say that transportation modes should not be subsidized, I mean that driving should be about half again as expensive as it is at present. And again, that’s before you take into account the social and environmental costs of traffic.
Lewis,
You asked for numbers supporting my case. Here’s a link to a careful US-wide analysis of the cost of services and infrastructure provided to drivers vs revenue collected from drivers, peer-reviewed and published in a respectable journal, unrelated to Streetsblog or Transportation Alternatives (to the best of my knowledge): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2007.06.001
The money quote is right in the abstract: “The analysis indicates that in the US current tax and fee payments to the government by motor-vehicle users fall short of government expenditures related to motor-vehicle use by approximately 20–70 cents per gallon of all motor fuel. (Note that in this accounting we include only government expenditures; we do not include any “external” costs of motor-vehicle use.)”
About the rest of your post:
* You’re setting up a bunch of straw men:
- Nobody believes in a conspiracy to keep us addicted to oil. Instead, we’re looking at a mix of people who are stuck with investments in McMansions in the middle of nowhere, people who are unable or unwilling to image a less wasteful way of life, and politicians who are afraid to rock the boat. It doesn’t take a conspiracy; inertia, complacency, and cowardice are enough to explain the current state of affairs.
- Nobody wants to get rid of all roads, especially the local roads for emergency vehicles and deliveries that you refer to in your post.
- Nobody wants to pry people away from their cars. As you correctly point out, Europeans still have cars in spite of much higher fuel prices. What you neglect to mention is that they tend to ride a bike or use transit whenever possible. I’m not opposed to driving per se, just to unnecessary driving. I have a Zipcar membership and I use it when I can’t avoid it; that happens about twice a year.
* You’re resorting to a false dichotomy when you write “But wait, isn’t that the point you made - that we don’t have a choice? Oh wait, I thought the point of Streetsblog is that you COULD choose the bikeable/walkable lifestyle? WHICH IS IT?” Well, both. In a lot of towns and cities you’re better off without a car, while a lot of recent subdivisions will be defunct without cars. More importantly, when building new infrastructure we get to decide whether it will offer a choice of different modes of transportation.
* You are right when you say that private landowners develop the suburbs, but how do they pay for it? With loans, of course. A lot of them come straight from the government, and others are directly or indirectly (or even retroactively, as in the case of the Bear-Stearns bailout) backed by the government.
I seem to recall that the great move to the suburbs really took off when the government backed loans that were easy to get if you wanted to build a house in the suburbs, but virtually impossible to get if you wanted to renovate a four-story walk-up in Chelsea. (At the time, that sort of made sense because cities were still industrial and generally unpleasant while suburbs still had a town-like character as well as decent transit options, but I digress.)
I’m new to this blog and having difficulty see exactly what your point is. You guys are saying that traffic calming, bike lanes and wider sidewalks in NYC are bad because they would make life worse for suburban commuters?
Also, I’m still lost on the Gorton issue. Are you saying that because he’s wealthy (or an SUV owner) he shouldn’t be advocating for change? I don’t see anything underhanded about what he’s doing. Is there a secret agenda I’m missing? What if he were pushing for change that aligned with your views? Wouldn’t the point still hold that he’s wealthy enough to do what he wants and he’s trying to force his views on the rest of us?
Vroomfondel - Thanks for the study. We’ll take a look and perhaps do an entire analysis. Stay tuned.
Ian – You say “taxes and fees associated with driving only pay about 65% of public costs associated with that activity. The rest is paid for by everyone, whether they drive or not.” Where’s your source on this.
MD - Traffic calming! That’s a terrific euphemism for taxation and regulation - actually quite clever. If you’re new to Commuter Outrage and don’t understand what we’re advocating, read the FAQ and perhaps some of the other posts.
Regarding Mark Gorton. We aren’t saying he can’t or shouldn’t be advocating for “change.” It’s his constitutional right to think and say and do whatever he pleases as long as he doesn’t break any laws. Gorton, however, is funneling millions of dollars into projects that we at Commuter Outrage think are not in the best interests of the republic. Moreover, we think Gorton has completely lost touch with the harsh transportation realities of the everyday American, largely due to the fact that he lives the very privileged life of a New York millionaire. He can afford to ride his bike to work everyday and change his clothes at the office and all the rest because (A) he is rich enough to live close to work and (2) he owns his own business and can therefore breeze in and out whenever he pleases. The average American is not so lucky. We find Mark Gorton and everything he’s doing immensely funny and plan to make a complete mockery out of him. The arrogant statements about how smart he is. The fawning tribute in Bloomberg over his ability to buy and sell tiny slivers of American businesses that others created. The LimeWire lawsuits and the hilarity that they entail. The hypocrisy of advocating for a car-free city while owning a gas-guzzling SUV. Biking all over the place and telling others to do the same. It’s one big comedy. And we plan to keep covering Mark Gorton as long as he remains a major figure in this very important national debate over transportation. Every time he says something that needs to be challenged, we’re going to challenge it.
Judd,
Let’s keep it civil, shall we? Referring to “a stupid bike” and “welfare for the riff-raff” does nothing to advance the conversation.
Also, I’m posting in good faith; I assume you do the same. If I describe myself as fiscally conservative, don’t accuse me of word games. I’m only talking about my own opinions, and I have no doubt that I belong to a minority among the Streetsblog crowd. All I’m saying is that you don’t have to be left-wing to agree with a good chunk of their agenda. I would be happy to see a massive reform of the tax code, but I generally don’t talk about it because I don’t care too much about money. (And no, I’m not wealthy; I’m right in the middle of the middle class.)
Let’s retire that social engineering meme, okay? Any form of taxation creates financial incentives and disincentives, even your one consistent rate for everything. If you want to call all of that social engineering, then the term becomes meaningless.
Regarding a few specific points of yours:
>We pay about roughly 1/3 of our yearly salaries to the government in the form of income taxes. We demand something in return - the most modern and efficient subways, airports, buses, commuter rails, long-distance trains, bike paths, sidewalks, and yes, roads.
And a pony. I pay taxes, so I demand a pony in return. Seriously, implementing everything on your wish list would be impossible with the current budget. I agree that pork barrel projects are a disgrace, but your reference to them is still a red herring because the elimination of pork wouldn’t free up enough funds to pay for all this.
> In fact, parking should be free of any charges whatsoever, since we already paid for the space with our taxes.
Even if I were willing to concede that free parking on public space is a good idea, I would still object here. If all parking were free, it would just fill up and people wouldn’t have any reason to move their cars. Creating more parking wouldn’t help because more capacity just creates more demand (that’s also the reason why additional freeway lanes don’t do much to alleviate congestion). If you build it, they will come. Even worse, if you build free parking, they won’t leave
Look up Donald Shoup’s work if you don’t believe me.
> Fourth, we don’t give a damn about those in foreclosure or those in “remote, car-dependent suburbs” who are being hit hard by the price of oil AS LONG AS the government uses their tax dollars to provide them with enough roads, commuter rails, airports, etc. to allow them to transport themselves to wherever they want to go.
Hmm. Roads won’t help if they can’t afford the gas. Commuter rail wouldn’t work at low densities. That leaves airports. Are you proposing that they fly to work if they can’t afford to drive anymore? Let them eat cake, I say…
Judd,
I provided you a link in my comment above. Please read more carefully next time.
Ian - Ah there it is. My bad. So the $0.65 is from a 1994 study. Do you know if this data point is still current today?
Vroomfondel,
First of all, Lewis and I appreciate your comments. You, Ian, and a few others are clearly very smart, well informed, and willing to engage in a spirited back and forth over the issues. The fact that you care enough to devote time on the weekend to debating these very important matters is highly commendable.
Civility: Lewis and I post our opinions in a blunt and forceful manner. On Commuter Outrage, there are no sacred cows. We encourage people to post their comments in a direct and candid manner free of political correctness and the like. The only thing we won’t allow is profanity, obscenity, or bigotry. We take all of this very seriously, and our postings reflect our true feelings on these issues. When I say “stupid bike” in reference to riding a bike to work in the freezing cold because cars have been taxed and regulated off the road, I place the adjective “stupid” before the noun “bike” in order to reflect my visceral, knee-jerk, gut reaction to the complete absurdity of such a silly and dangerous situation. “Riff-raff” is a politically incorrect phrase used frequently on this site, usually in mockery of net tax takers on which the government bestows revenue we feel should go to transportation.
My Left-Wing Comment: If you say you’re a fiscal conservative, I believe you. Especially considering your interest in reforming the tax code and fighting pork barrel spending. We are brothers in arms on both of these issues. I apologize for mischaracterizing you as left-wing.
Social Engineering: I agree that if we have completely different definitions of this phrase we will get nowhere. Check out this comment from a week ago, where I go into the specifics on what I mean by “social engineering,” and differentiate it from what I term “social responsiveness.” The point is that the government often tries to movee people away from their existing attitudes and behaviors (social engineering), and less often acts in congruence with these attitudes and behaviors (social responsiveness). Lewis and I don’t think the government should be moving people away from their existing attitudes and behaviors, towards new attitudes and behaviors that they don’t want to adopt. If you know or can come up with better terms for these concepts, please let me know and I’ll use them.
The Pony: Well, if there are enough people who ride ponies to work, then the government should use the income taxes they pay to create the necessary pony trails, as long as these pony trails don’t require the demolishing of other forms of transportation that a larger number of citizens use.
More Capacity Just Creates More Demand: Let’s take the dense, crowded streets of New York (where there’s obviously no room to build additional lanes) out of the equation, for argument’s sake. If you look back historically, especially in places like California, the government has failed to increase capacity to meet demand. Tom McClintock has made some excellent points on this topic. Since 1974, for instance, the miles driven by Californians have increased 116%, while lane mileage has increased just 8%. This lag means that any small increase in capacity will immediately be filled because we’re so far behind in road construction. Plus, if we build more lanes and more people choose to use them, what’s the problem with that? As Sen. McClintock puts it, you’re essentially saying, “If you build more lanes, in X years they’ll be as crowded as ever.” Another way to say this is, “Don’t build more lanes, people will just use them.” Let’s think about what would happen if, say, 75% of New Yorkers wanted to ride bikes as their main means of transportation. Would it be fair to tell them “more capacity just creates more demand” and then try to limit bike lane capacity? If such a scenario ever came to pass, I’d be 100% in favor of creating enough bike path capacity to accommodate the 75%.
Gas Prices: If people can’t afford to live where they do because of the price of gas which is beyond the government’s control, they should petition their local government to build a commuter rail, or move somewhere closer to work.
Vroomfondel,
One more thing: I’d be very interested in looking at Donald Shoup’s research. Is there a must-read article that I should start with?
Lewis wrote:
Lewis. You are totally oblivious. Read Caro’s “The Power Broker.” Take a gander at the 1929 Regional Plan for New York City. Enjoy General Motors’ Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74cO9X4NMb4.
I don’t think any of this is a conspiracy. It’s just trillions of dollars in marketing supporting community-crushing corporate power empowered by big government social engineering to create the auto-dependent suburban sprawl that we’re now stuck with today.
I’m glad you like it. There’s a lot to be said for owning your own McMansion and getting to drive around in a vehicle the size of a small house.
Unfortunately the capitalist markets and plain old economics are going to make it increasingly difficult for you to continue to live there. It was all built on cheap oil and federal government subsidies that the Chinese may not want to pay for anymore.
No more subsidies for government subsidies for you guys, Lewis. Sorry.
Lewis, did you account for the trillion or so dollars we spent over the last six years establishing a police presence alongside our Middle East gas station? You might want to punch up some of those numbers as well. I’m not even going to get in to the monetary value of the Greenland ice sheet staying ice. But it seems like there should be some pro-rating for that too.
Lewis, that might be how it works for unsuccessful real estate developers or guys building a single home somewhere but for those of us who are actually making money in real estate development, I’d say, something like two-thirds of the game is the securing of government permissions, support, favors and subsidies. It’s almost Soviet out there, Lewis. You have no idea.
Building walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly, new urbanist stuff is getting easier every year. But for the most part all of the regs, the zoning, the subsidies and incentives are in building auto-dependent, big box, sprawl crap.
200 years later, our govt is still designed to settle the frontier. This is where your sprawl comes from. This is why it’s big govt social engineering. If Americans were left to their own devices free of big corporate and big govt interference, they’d be living in cities, towns, villages and on farms, much less dependent and enslaved to automobiles and cheap crude oil than we are today.
How is encouarging New York City to be more bikeable, walkable and transit-friendly bad for the republic? I just don’t see it.
As a guy who OWNS A CAR, I would love to see fewer of my fellow New Yorkers driving because when they are all out on the road in their cars, they are in my way. They are what’s known as “traffic.” I’d love for it to be easier for me to get around without a car. I’d love to have more viable choices in how I get around — more subway and bus service, better bike infrastructure and ferries. That’s an increase in my freedom, not an imposition.
Judd,
No need to apologize; “left-wing” is not an insult or an accusation in my mind. Besides, I’m sort of used to this kind of confusion because a lot of the things that I care about (open source software, civil liberties, people-centered transportation and development) have been made to look leftish by the reactionaries that have hijacked the GOP and parts of the media. In any case, I guess I’ve made my point — Streetsblog does not mean left-wing. Let’s engage each other on issues, not labels.
About capacity and demand: Regardless of how you feel about the desirability of motorized traffic, it seems to me that additional lanes are just a recipe for misery because in the end you’re back to the same traffic jam, only with more people in it, and that’s not even considering the extra pressure on feeder roads, destination parking, and other infrastructure, not to mention additional noise, pollution, and accidents.
About Shoup’s work: The standard reference is “The High Cost of Free Parking.” That’s a tome of 752 pages, but the executive summary is straightforward. Free parking has a number of detrimental effects, including unnecessary long-term parking because people have no incentive to move their cars. Drivers end up cruising for parking, which creates additional traffic as well as dangerous and annoying violations such as double-parking in bike lanes (my pet peeve).
Shoup’s solution is easy: Introduce a charge for parking, and choose it just high enough to make sure that there’s, on average, one free spot on each block. This eliminates the need to cruise for parking, and it generally reduces the stress level of everybody involved, without significantly reducing parking capacity.
That much is almost obvious. What really blew my mind, though, is that the rate that frees up one spot per block seems to be ridiculously low, around $2.75 per hour at peak hours. It’s an amazingly simple idea, and everyone wins.
Mark Gorton did a great interview with Shoup, available, where else, at Streetsblog
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/12/21/donald-shoup-plays-with-parking-fees-and-matchbox-cars/
Vroomfondel,
You know what … I’m going to buy Shoup’s book and read it because I’m a lunatic. Thanks for the recommendation.
Free parking on public space … Here’s a major problem that I deal with every day. Right now, many residents in Virginia’s Arlington and Fairfax counties (on the Orange Line Metro right outside Washington DC) drive their private cars to Metro stations, park their cars in the (completely inadequate) Metro parking lots, and ride the Metro into DC where they work. Parking costs $4.50 per day at East Falls Church, my stop. When you add in the cost of riding the Metro (upwards of $5.00 for many people), you’re approaching $10.00 per day to park your car and get to and from work. Living closer to the Metro station so you can bike or walk there and not drive is cost prohibitive. Condos sell for $800,000+ right next to the Metro where I live. Rents are exorbitant. Plus, the parking lot holds only about 500 cars (an eyeball estimate) and fills up between 5:30 and 6:00 AM, and even that early you’re lucky to find a spot. All of these factors actually incentivize driving! If your company provides free parking in DC, it’s actually cheaper to drive to work every day, even factoring in the price of gas.
One could argue that since the lots are filling up by 5:30 AM and people are willing to pay $4.50, that market forces are sorting themselves out.
But the government is not a private enterprise motivated by profit and loss and therefore doesn’t act like one. For instance, there’s no push to build the Metro parking lots upward, i.e. 3, 4, 5, 10 stories high. There’s no push to plaster the entire parking lot with advertisements to bring in more revenue. There’s no desire to incentivize drivers to get out of their cars and take mass transit (which would bring in more revenue at the end of the day) by reducing parking fees and fares so that riding the Metro was less expensive than driving (which it currently isn’t).
From my experience, there’s nothing smart, strategic, forward-leaning, or even socially responsible about the way the DC Metro conducts its business. It’s really about raising rates and fees to pay for the massive number of government workers, justifying the budgets for next year, punching in at 9 AM, leaving at 4 PM, and moving one day closer to retirement and a pension. I’d like to think that the $4.50 I pay every time I park at the Metro is the free market at its meanest and leanest. I suspect not.
I think parking at suburban commuter rail stations should be free and plentiful. Pay for it with our income taxes. Who cares if the lots fill up! The result would be fewer cars on the road, more people taking mass transit, less personal expenditures. Everyone wins. What do you think?
Gentlemen (and Ladies if there are any of you out there) ,
I apologize for the hiatus, I was out of town. I have some ‘splainin’ to do, so here we go in no particular order:
I’ll preface this answer by saying that I think it’s difficult to define the exact problem that I think all of us are trying to address. Transportation issues are in many ways inextricably linked with other issues like industry, labor, security, personal autonomy, energy and on and on. So if we’re not careful to define precisely what we mean, then it’s easy for this discussion to spiral out of control.
In line with that, my position is that automobiles DO pay their way if you define that as paying for the infrastructure (and infrastructure maintenance) that they require. It is not my position that automobiles don’t receive any subsidy at all, but this subsidy is tricky to determine. If you are trying to make transportation policy decisions based on which mode of transport requires the least subsidy, then public transportation would lose every time because these modes are much more dependent on subsidy than automobiles. In order to make a case for mass transit, you generally have to rely on what I’ll call soft costs – indirect costs that are difficult to calculate and most of the time are just anyone’s best guess or extrapolation – these are normally not tied to any receipt that you can account for. But I still stand beside my position that if you do the math that I did on my last post, the numbers don’t lie – the federal government’s gas tax is only $100 Million short of covering all of its expenditures on the Federal Highway Administration, and that’s before any other taxes or fees are added in, and in Virginia (I’ll admit I haven’t looked at New York), the DoT was funded by automobiles far in excess of the expenditures it gave to automobiles..
I asked for facts and figures, and Ian and Vroomfondel (who by the way has the scariest name of anyone on the site – it sounds like something I wouldn’t allow children to play around) were kind enough to provide some. I got back today and took a look through the studies cited. I made it all the way through Ian’s first study in the Streetsblog post, but the second link wouldn’t work. I went to the Delucci page and read through part of his study (it’s 2000 pages, give me a break about the whole thing), but didn’t finish it. I saw that VF was linking to Delucci too, so I didn’t read that whole study separately since I assume his positions are consistent in both places.
I’ll talk about my thoughts on these studies first, and then try to go back through and answer the other remaining questions or comments.
On the Subsidies for Traffic study, I will start by commending the authors for putting together a very detailed analysis. They took a lot of things into account, and I would say that they are getting very close to determining the “true costs” of automobile use. That said I still have some problems with the methodology used in this study.
First, I think that some of the costs for automobiles listed, while rational, shouldn’t be included if we’re talking about my point that the gas tax pays for the infrastructure and maintenance. You’re talking about a much bigger picture, and if gas tax is all you’re looking at, then you shouldn’t include all the costs for State Police, DMV, etc… I think what’s missing from this analysis, and something I would actually like to see, is a tally of the revenues next to the expenditures they were conceived to pay for.
What I mean by that is – the federal gas tax was conceived to do something very specific – fund the construction and maintenance of roads. I would like to see all of these things tallied up so that we know what the fees and tolls and taxes were conceived to cover. Some of these fall easily into that breakout – the bridge tolls look like they do this, but some of the rest don’t like the DMV fees. The DMV isn’t designed to pay for itself through the fees it collects, but you have it labeled as a cost without indicating that it was always intended that to be paid for by other funding sources.
The reason I would like to see it this way is that a lot of costs on this list (referring to the summary on p33) are things that aren’t necessarily supposed to be covered by fees levied on cars – state police, fire department, etc… I understand the inclusion, because a portion of their services go to help drivers, but it’s important to understand that the state doesn’t conceive these services based on the automobile, and hence doesn’t tax that way. The police and fire departments exist because there is a need for them regardless of automobiles, and their numbers and funding aren’t determined by vehicles on the road, they’re determined by population data and crime/fire statistics.
Second, I think the report unfairly skews the costs associated with automobiles without doing a full accounting of the revenues. For example, if we stick with the fire department example from above, there are revenue streams that this entity generates that aren’t accounted for. The Fire Department IS a bunch of trucks that race around to put out fires, so their existence and services are a product of all of the costs invested. If you look at Manhattan, there are an average of 701 “serious incidents” every year in that borough. The average property value per square mile in 1992 was $1.84 Billion. (I couldn’t find data old enough to go exactly with your study timeframe, so I took the average number of serious incidents for all years and the average property value per square mile in 2000 minus the average value per square mile for 1990 divided by ten – times two and added to the 1990 value for the two years until your report to get the average property value per square mile in 1992) If we assume that each block is a tenth of a mile, and each fire only endangers one one-hundredth of that block – which I consider to be a conservative estimate – then each of those fires endangers $1.84 million in property. Thus, the responses by fire department vehicles in 1992 saved $1.28 Billion in property. That saved property was taxed by the city and state, and led to revenues that aren’t accounted for. That’s a huge revenue, and it only covers one borough in NYC.
You may say that this is too attenuated and therefore outside the scope of your research, but I disagree. This is a direct revenue to city and state coffers that automobiles and their infrastructure make possible.
You’re also not considering the business and corporate taxes paid by businesses that are dependent on automobiles. Any food delivery, UPS or FEDEX, even grocery stores all derive their revenue, which in turn pays these taxes, from automobile use. So, in my opinion this data is heavily skewed to make the automobile appear more costly. The problem with the way you have it set up is that a lot of indirect costs that aren’t contemplated by the direct taxes, tolls and fees are accounted for (police, fire, DMV, etc..), but these indirect revenues are not.
My biggest critique of this though is that it should be cost-benefit, not cost-revenue analysis. I understand the difficulties encountered in compiling the report, and I understand that at a certain point, you start to enter the realm of speculation that you didn’t want to enter, but the bottom line is that by including costs like the DMV, you have already crossed the line. Since the DMV was never intended to be paid for out of the revenue sources you list, it skews the numbers toward heavy costs. But this fails to take into account the reason behind having different taxes – like income and property taxes – fund the DMV. The utility in having a DMV is to ensure some standard of safety in the licensing and use of automobiles, which protects everyone including pedestrians and bicyclists. So it’s valid for them to pay for a DMV, even if only policemen and firefighters will be licensed to drive. Ensuring that drivers understand the rules of the road and are operating safe vehicles helps to ensure that pedestrians don’t get run over. This admittedly isn’t easy to quantify, but I don’t see much utility to a comparison of costs to revenues.
This starts to touch on the indirect or soft costs – the social and environmental costs – which I will admit I am not a fan of. I noticed that you omitted them from the tally, which is commendable, but you still discuss them. The reason I don’t like the soft costs is because they are much more difficult to quantify than the indirect benefits. For instance, it is easy for me to see what UPS paid in business taxes to NYC and the state of New York last year. Then I could easily ask for an accounting of how many ground deliveries they made and tie those taxes to revenues which are in turn tied to individual deliveries. The indirect costs don’t work that way – pollution is a great example. How do you derive a number for the cost associated with pollution? You could point to things like the EPA (or the NY equivalent) and say that it’s tied to the operating cost of that organization, but that doesn’t tell you what the real cost is. Take carbon dioxide – I don’t agree with Global Warming and therefore don’t consider it a pollutant, but assume that it is. How do you measure the damage that it does? What specific damage has the CO2 from New York cars caused to the people of New York, and what was the cost to fix it? It can’t be tallied – it can only be estimated, and typically through poor methods. It’s the same thing with health costs – how many death certificates list “air pollution” as the cause of death? I’d guess probably none, but you’ll hear people advocate that this is an environmental and social cost associated with the automobile because air pollution can aggravate some conditions. Well, so can secondhand smoke. If air pollution doesn’t kill you – if a doctor can’t tell you that - then how do you know that it has a cost? Even if it does kill someone, how do you tally the cost of a person’s life?
If the point is that the roads should pay for themselves, I agree only to a point. We have to remember that the government is stepping in to fill rolls that aren’t well suited for private enterprise – so it doesn’t make sense to run roads – or any transportation infrastructure – as a private enterprise that has to cover its own costs. Now, I agree that it’s nice when roads pay for themselves, but I don’t think that’s always feasible, and mass transit would certainly suffer if we started to run all transportation this way. If we always had to evaluate gross receipts generated against costs imposed, many government programs would go away – education, defense, NASA, labor, virtually everything.
I’ll admit, I didn’t read much of Delucci’s study because he admitted up front that it wasn’t a cost-benefit analysis, it was just a tally of costs. So I have the same problems with that methodology that I do with this one.
To Ian’s point that driving should be half again as expensive as it is, I return to my argument about market forces – I don’t think that’s significant enough to stop people from driving. Until you start to see it in Europe and Asia, where they have the infrastructure to enable them to avoid automobiles, and they already pay a higher percentage of these costs, then you won’t see it here.
Now on to the rest:
To Vroomfondel’s point about my false dichotomy – I agree, and I believe I saw a recent post from Judd which was also in agreement, that the people should choose their transportation and city layouts. It isn’t lost on me that there has been a move toward planned community suburbs where they create an artificial pedestrian-friendly city center. My point with the comparison is that I don’t believe that the government is socially engineering people, and that if they were, you wouldn’t have a choice about your mode of transportation.
Vroomfondel and Capatilist made a point about loans being made to private landowners to encourage development. I acknowledge that this happens, but I disagree that it is social engineering to keep us chained to automobiles. Any businessman – as Capitalist especially should know – will always seek to externalize as many of his costs as possible. That doesn’t mean that they won’t build the subdivision or the big skyscraper downtown. In my opinion, this is one area the government SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN. If someone wants to build it, they should pay for it. But, the government doesn’t build to maintain dependence on cars, they give these loans and subsidies because they are gullible and want to use the jobs they created, or the dollars they generated for the economy as talking points in the next election cycle. How often do you hear them say – “we built this huge hotel and it brought 2000 more cars per day into the road system I neglect”? You don’t, they’ll give a $300 Million subsidy to Hilton hotels – which I think is wrong in many ways – and then they’ll talk about how many people work there, what a boon for tourism it has been, how much tax revenue it generates, and is projected to generate. I agree that this is a perfect scam, but I don’t think that private enterprise wouldn’t build if the government didn’t subsidize. I think that’s a bluff that the government falls for out of stupidity.
Capitalist – I realize that there is a lot of content here that you may not have read, so to catch you up, I don’t live in a McMansion or use a car to commute. I live two blocks from a metro and use it every day, unless I ride my bike when the weather is nice. I don’t know what else to tell you except that corporate forces totally dictate everything about your life from what you eat, to what you wear, to what you information you receive. As a capitalist, I assume you know that. If you’re point is that Government socially engineers the automobile into the American conscious the same way it engineers Coca-Cola and Nike – by getting out of the way – I completely agree. I will read your link and book though – but you’ll have to give me time, I do have a day job.
Capitalist – on the trillion dollars comment – if you’re going to use that, you’re entering dangerous territory because that oil doesn’t just go to automobiles. It touches virtually everything in our society. Personally, I don’t factor that in because it doesn’t make sense to – you’re making an ideological leap that wasn’t given as a justification for the war. The war in Iraq was waged (wrongly) on the premise of WMD, and is supposedly now being fought against terrorism. Neither of those things has anything to do with the oil wells. Now, I admit that strategically we are interested in the middle-east because of oil, but again, that’s not just automobiles – so how would you portion out those costs to every other activity in our society from transporting your food to lighting your house? I also don’t buy this argument because if we went into Iraq to get the oil, it makes no sense that our oil prices continue to go up. If we were there to take it and keep it cheap, then we’re catastrophically failing, which may be your point, but I disagree with this analysis since we don’t get very much of our oil at all from Iraq.
Capitalist – I disagree with you on what people would be doing. There are no laws preventing them from doing those things now, and there are plenty of places where people do live in those types of communities, but look at Judd’s latest post, our position is that you shouldn’t assume that everyone should do what you would do.
That’s it folks, let me know if I missed anyone.
Folks, one more thing - in response to your studies, I have some of my own. In the interest of fairness, I welcome a methodological critique on mine as well.
Judd,
I have to admit that I don’t know much about traffic patterns around commuter rail stations. My gut reaction is to agree with you that free parking at stations would be a good idea. I am, however, leery of the law of unintended consequences; for instance, I wouldn’t be surprised if this sort of parking ended up propping up otherwise moribund suburbs. All things considered, I’ll abstain on this one.
Lewis,
There’s nothing sinister about my handle. It’s a reference to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. If you haven’t read that one, drop whatever it is you’re doing and read it first. Vroomfondel is a minor character who appears in just one scene and speaks a grand total of six lines, but that’s enough to express his complete and utter cluelessness. It seemed like a good name for someone who likes to argue on the internet…
Vroomfondel - I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll pick it up.
very interesting, but if begs the question: who funds “commuter outrage”?
occam,
Read the FAQ
Oh, I read the FAQ, I just don’t buy it. Marc Gorton funds Streetsblog because he wants to drum up support for changes in transportation policy that benefit cyclists & pedestrians.
Considering how much money is at stake in your average federal transportation bill, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone from the opposite side decided they needed a mouthpiece too.
Well, you’re free to believe whatever you want to believe, and to marinate in your conspiracy theories.
occam -
If you know of a bunch of people with lots of money to throw at three guys who like to beligerently lampoon anyone they can - please send them our way. We’d all love to quit our day jobs.
All you need is Hiss, Kaag that is.
I would love to quit my night job running the grill at the IHOP in Potomac Yards.
Stay away from the turkey sausage this week.
G-d Bless.
See You at IHOP.
Mr Kaag