THE FULL COSTS OF THE CAR I

THE FULL COSTS OF THE CAR - I November 1994

A collection of excerpts and articles compiled by:
Auto-Free Ottawa,

Comments, additions and inquiries may be forwarded to the above.

OUR BELOVED CARS~WHAT A PRICE WE PAY
DIRTY FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE - John Whitelegg
MARKET COSTS AND EXTERNALITIES
"WIN-WIN TRANSPORTATION" REPORT
HOW TO KICK THE CAR HABIT - Doug Woodard, St. Catharines
THE COSTS OF SPRAWL
THE MATHEMATICS OF DRIVING IN NEPEAN - Ken Toews
Making the Car Pay Its Way: The Case of Minneapolis Roads
The Costs of the Car: A Preliminary Study of the Environmental and Social Costs Associated with Private Car Use In Ontario
Car Crashes Cost $9 Billion in Ontario

I. OUR BELOVED CARS~WHAT A PRICE WE PAY

The Going Rate: What It Really Costs to Drive reveals that if
the hidden, subsidized costs of our private-vehicle-dominated
transportation system~at least US$300 billion a year~were instead
passed on to the motoring public, it would raise the price of
gasoline by several dollars a gallon.

Why is public transit in the US so poor? Why do European cars
get so much better gas mileage? There are no controls, no
incentives to limit the ever-increasing rise in automobile use
precisely because the costs are not borne by the user.
Americans drive 2 trillion miles a year: double the distance of
those in other industrial countries. With less than 5 percent of
the world's population, we consume a quarter of the world's oil,
half of which is burned in motor vehicles. We drive more and
more: per capita motor vehicle use has tripled since 1950. And
one car is just not enough: in 1990, there were 23 million more
vehicles than licensed drivers.
Some costs are conspicuous: freeway speeds averaging less than
31 mph result in lost time, lower worker productivity, more
accidents, wasted fuel, and increased auto maintenance.

Americans spend $200 million a day building and rebuilding the
nation's roads. Gas taxes and other user fees covered only 60
percent of the $33.3 billion spendt on building, improving and
repairing roads in 1989.

Also not covered by user fees is the $68 billion spent annually
on services such as highway patrols, traffic management, and
traffic accident policework. Truck owners pay only 32 percent of
national highway disbursements, yet it is estimated that a 50-
ton, 4-axle truck can cause an estimated $6 per mile worth of
damage to a rural arterial highway.

Other costs of our automotive obsession are associated with the
47,000 people killed in motor vehicle accidents each year. These
deaths, and 5 million additional injuries annually, result in
medical expenses, lost work time, and other costs not directly
covered by user insurance.

Parking costs are a normal cost of operating a motor vehicle.
Yet free parking, e.g., at the mall, effectively subsidizes this
expense. Shoppers who walk or take public transportation pay for
spaces they do not use, while drivers are deprived of a reason to
carpool. Ninety percent of all commuters park at no cost and
receive this fringe benefit tax-free.

Other hidden costs are the security costs of importing oil.
Motorists use half of the imported oil, and arguably should pay
half the $50 billion annual cost of maintaining a US military
presence in shipping lanes. (This figure excludes the costs of
the Persian Gulf War.)

Another impact is land loss. In the US, more than 60,000 square
miles have been paved over~including wetlands, scenic areas, and
historic areas, not to mention farmland. Nearly half of our
urban land is covered with asphalt.

In response to regulation, efforts have been made to lessen
automobile emissions. But any improvements have been offset by
more miles and vehicles driven. The costs are real: acid rain,
chronic health problems, forest damage and reduced agricultural
revenues.

Motor vehicles have a major role in global warming, climate
change, and ozone depletion. Unchecked, they will have
incalculable, perhaps incomprehensible, effects.

How can we stabilize automobile use and reduce its effects?
Shift the costs of motor vehicle use to the drivers. Imposing
user charges that reflect the full costs of driving will almost
certainly have direct and lasting effects.

One method is increasing existing state and federal fuel taxes.
Fuel tax revenues expand directly with fuel consumption. One
proposal is a phased-in tax on fossil fuels, reaching $60 per ton
of carbon in the year 2020. It would cut US carbon dioxide
emissions to 80 percent of the 1990 level by 2005 and hold it at
that level indefinitely. This would translate to a price
increase of 20 cents per gallon at the pump. Another idea is to
raise charges on trucks according to weight-per-axle and annual
mileage. They would then share the cost of road maintenance more
equally.

Pay-as-you-go is another concept. Levying road tolls based on
time of day helps reduce congestion. In Hong Kong, electronic
number plates are scanned by sensors at the toll site, and bills
are sent out monthly to each driver. Similar systems are in
place in San Diego and Dallas. "Congestion tolls" would range
from 25 cents to $1.25 for a 10 mile urban trip.

True medical costs could be incorporated into insurance premiums,
or insurance taxes paid at the pump could be placed in an
insurance fund.
And employer-paid parking can be reformed; companies could offer
a tax-free travel allowance instead of free parking.

Significant public policy changes are also needed. Reforms in
zoning and land use planning should result in a balanced
transportation system. Zoning can be used to encourage densities
suitable to public transit. The Going Rate's authors note:

European cities are living proof that a high standard of
living is compatible with a reduced need for cars and that
the key is fairly high residential densities combined with
mixed zoning and integrated public transportation planning.

A doubling of residential population density is associated with a
25 to 30 percent reduction in the number of miles people need to
travel by car. Densities of over seven housing units per acre
are needed for cost effective bus service; nine for light-rail
service. Communities must design for bikes and pedestrians. ~
Joel Ohringer

The Going Rate: What It Really Costs to Drive is available from
World Resources Institute Publications, P.O. Box 4852, Hampden
Station, Baltimore, Maryland 21211, USA. US$9.95 plus $3
shipping and handling. For more information, contact World
Resources Institute, 1709 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC
20006. (Adapted from In Context, No. 33)

II. DIRTY FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE - John Whitelegg

A new report from the respected Environment and Forecasting
Institute in Heidelberg, Germany puts the car right back at the
centre of the transport debate and raises fundamental questions
about a society increasingly adapting itself to the car.
The German analysts take a medium-sized car and assume that it is
driven for 13,000 km a year for 10 years. They then compute its
financial, environmental and health impacts "from cradle to
grave".
Long before the car has got to the showroom, they find it has
produced significant amounts of damage to air, water and land
ecosystems. Each car produced in Germany (where environmental
standards are among the world's highest), produces 25,000 kg of
waste and 422 million cubic metres of polluted air in the
extraction of raw materials alone, say the Heidelberg
researchers.
The transport of these raw materials to Germany and around the
country to factories produces a further 425 million cubic metres
of polluted air and 12 litres of crude oil in the oceans of the
world (for each car). The production of the car itself adds a
further 1,5000 kg of waste and 75 million cubic metres of
polluted air.
Calculations of the impact of a car in use make the generous
assumption that the car has a three-way catalytic converter and
uses 10 litres of lead-free petrol for every 100 km. Over 10
years, the Heidelberg researchers believe that one car will
produce:
44.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide;
4.8 kg of sulphur dioxide;
46.8 kg of nitrogen dioxide;
325 kg of carbon monoxide;
36 kg of hydrocarbons.
Each car is moreover responsible for 1,016 million cubic metres
of polluted air and a number of abrasion products from tyres,
brakes and road surfaces;
17,500 grams of road surface abrasion products;
750 grams of tyre abrasion products;
150 grams of brake abrasion products.
Each car also pollutes soils and groundwater and this
calculated for oil, cadmium, chrome, lead, copper and zinc.
The environmental impact continues beyond the end of the car's
useful life. Disposal of the vehicle produces a further 102
million cubic metres of polluted air and quantities of PCBs and
hydrocarbons.
The sum of these different life cycle stages produces some
insights into the penalties societies must face if they become
car dependent. In total, each car produces 59.7 tonnes of carbon
dioxide and 2,040 million cubic metres of polluted air. Each
car, say the Germans, produces 26.5 tonnes of rubbish to add to
the enormous problems of disposal and landfill management faced
by most local authorities.
While this detail is impressive (and wholly absent from the
environmental claims of motor vehicle manufacturers and motoring
organisations), it is still not complete. Some of the more
startling revelations are in the researchers' wider analysis of
social and environmental costs.
Germany suffers from extensive forest damage attributed to acid
rain and vehicle exhaust emissions. The Heidelberg researchers
calculate that each car in its lifetime is responsible for three
dead trees and 30 "sick" trees. [...]
The Heidelberg researchers say that over its lifetime, each car
is responsible for 820 hours of life lost through a road traffic
accident fatality and 2,800 hours of life damaged by a road
traffic accident. Statistically, they suggest, one individual in
every 100 will be killed in a road traffic accident and two out
of every three injured. Translated into vehicle numbers, this
means:
Every 450 cars are responsible for one fatality;
Every 100 cars are responsible for one handicapped person;
Every 7 cars are responsible for one injured person;
And into production data:
Every 50 minutes a new car is produced that will kill someone;
Every 50 seconds a new car is produced that will injure
someone.
Land use data are also brought into the equation to show that
Germany's cars, if one includes driving and parking requirements,
commandeer 3,700 sq km of land~60% more than is allocated to
housing. Every German car is responsible for 200 sq metres of
tarmac and concrete.
The total impact of the car over all the stages of its life cycle
also produces a quantifiable financial cost. The Heidelberg
researchers estimate this to be 6,000 DM per annum per car (about
$5,000) and covers the external costs of all forms of pollution,
accidents and noise after income taxation are taken into account.
This is a state subsidy equivalent to giving each car user a free
pass for the whole year for all public transport, a new bike
every five years and 15,000 km of first class rail travel.
The car is thus revealed as an environmental, fiscal and social
disaster that would not pass any value-for-money test. More
importantly, the car can now be seen as a disaster in itself. It
is ownership as well as use that is the problem of the car and a
car used sensitively (if that is possible) is still a problem for
energy, pollution, space and waste. The balance sheet's bottom
line is enormous societal deficits and penalties and an
assumption that we will all continue to pay the bill.
Reference: Oeko-bilanz eines autolebens. Umwelt-und Prognose-
Institut Heidelberg. Landstrasse 118a, D69121, Heidelberg,
Germany. John Whitelegg is head of the Geography Department at
Lancaster University and director of the Environmental Research
Unit, Lancaster University. (Oct 93)
John Whitelegg, Eco-Logica Ltd., Transport and Environment
Consultancy, 713 Cameron House, White Cross, Lancaster, LA1 4XQ
(0524) 842655, Fax: 0524-842678.

III. MARKET COSTS AND EXTERNALITIES

Excerpts from the Going Rate: What It Really Costs To Drive,
World Resources Institute, Washington D.C., 1992.

Making motor vehicle users bear their fair share of the total
costs of driving would help curb the problems stemming from our
current transportation system~congestion, excessive air
pollution, growing greenhouse gas emissions, and endangered
national security, to name a few. But, for several reasons,
motor vehicle users rarely face the full costs of their driving
decisions.
Government taxing policies frequently shift some of the direct
costs of driving away from drivers. In this way, drivers fail to
bear directly a significant fraction of road construction and
repair costs, the costs of providing highway services, and the
costs of providing commuter parking. In the case of
externalities such as air pollution, climate-change risks, and
noise, everyone shares the costs, but those who impose the costs
pay only a fraction. Finally, some categories of costs paid by
drivers don't bear any direct relation to their driving decisions
or the costs of these decisions.
To the extent that the price of driving~as reflected, for
example, in the price of cars, gasoline, and road fees~does not
include all of these costs, people drive more than they otherwise
might and shy away from competing transportation systems~such as
public transportation or bicycles~that can provide comparable
services at lower social costs.
The enormity of the problems spawned by the use of cars and
trucks in the United States demands a full accounting of these
unborne social costs. Without such information in hand, the
comparative advantages and drawbacks of using, say, tolls,
service charges, or fuel taxes to incorporate these costs into
driving decisions will be hard to assess.

U.S. MARKET COSTS

Annual costs of capital and operating investments in road
construction and maintenance: $71 billion
Annual parking subsidy: $85 billion

EXTERNAL COSTS
Estimated external costs (including air pollution, climate
change, security costs of importing oil, congestion, accidents,
noise, land loss) are $126.3 billion.

PARKING
Parking costs should be considered part of the normal costs of
owning and operating a motor vehicle. Yet, parking is supplied
free to many motorists, effectively subsidizing the use of cars
and trucks. The obvious example is the suburban shopping mall:
customers park free. People who drive to the mall pay the
parking fees only indirectly through the prices of the services
and goods sold. Shoppers who walk or take public transportation
to malls are thus paying for parking spaces they do not use.
Most employers in the United States also provide free parking.
Approximately 86% of the American workforce commutes to work by
car, and over 90% of all commuters park for free at work. In
all, close to 85 million Americans enjoy free parking space at
work.
What is the dollar value of these unborne costs to commuters?
Assuming a $1,000 per year average national value for a parking
space, the nation's 85 million recipients of free parking enjoy
an annual parking susidy of about $85 billion in addition to
other parking subsidies. [...] ending employer-paid parking would
reduce the number of solo commuters between 18 and 81%, depending
on local circumstances and transportation alternatives, and it
would cut the number of cars driven to work by 15 to 28%.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Increased fuel taxes, increased taxes on
trucks, parking and tax reform, tolls and time-of-day pricing of
roadways, reform of zoning and land use.

IV. "WIN-WIN TRANSPORTATION" REPORT

For a copy of Charles Komanoff and Brian Ketcham's 100-page
report on the full costs of "Win-Win Transportation" is available
from Komanoff Energy Associates at kea@igc.apc.org or
Transportation Alternatives, 92 St. Mark's Place, NY NY 10009
(212) 475-4600.

V. HOW TO KICK THE CAR HABIT - Doug Woodard, St. Catharines

Informed people have long agreed that the mass use of cars
imposes intolerable costs on society and on individuals.
Pollution Probe's 1991 study The Costs of the Car estimates that
each car costs the public $2000 more than the taxes and fees paid
by its owner, and this does not cover the more indirect costs of
urban sprawl. The car does not impose only financial burdens,
but it distorts and degrades our entire social structure by
ensuring that a high proportion of social interaction are with
people who we will seldom or never see again, providing a social
environment in which irresponsibility pays.

But mass car use has gutted our urban transit systems, made
bicycling inconvenient and dangerous, and bloated our cities to
sizes too large and scattered for comfortable walking. Anyone
trying to kick the car habit now does so almost alone and has to
pay all the costs of a nonconformist up front, while the car
junkies fit comfortably into the accepted pattern of our society
and are heavily subsidized. There is a terrible temptation to buy
a car to fit in with the standard lifestyle and to enjoy the
privileges of mobility and access which in our society are
reserved for car owners~but then if one does, the cost of each
extra kilometre driven seems trivial, and one is gradually and
almost irresistibly drawn into the standard pattern of heavy car
use.

Some have proposed that car use downtown in rush hours be
forbidden, or that special permits should have to be displayed on
a car used downtown in rush hours, or even (and now we're getting
somewhere!) that the car driver's bus pass should have to be
displayed on any car driven downtown in rush hours. All these
ideas are at once too severe (because they don't allow for
special circumstances, emergencies, and visitors from outside the
city) and too weak, because they don't change the car-use system
and the pressures that people feel to keep up the car habit, and
they don't, except for the last mentioned, strengthen the
alternatives to car use.

Suppose that we required any car owner living in an area served
by urban transit to present a transit pass good for one year when
renewing his or her car registration for the year. Then the
transit system would be well financed and always available, while
the car owner's marginal cost of using public transit would be
zero. Whenever he or she was sitting frustrated in a traffic jam
breathing exhaust fumes, or searching frantically for a parking
space, the transit pass would be burning a hole in the owner's
pocket, saying, "I'm here! Get rid of all this aggravation!"

If we suppose that car use by urban dwellers would be reduced by
half without cutting the number of cars, each driver would save
on average about $300 to $400 per year in insurance (assuming a
competitive market in insurance and a little government
regulatory encouragement to see that insurance savings were
passed on to car owners with transit passes rather than car
owners in general), plus about $400 per year in gas and
maintenance. In St. Catharines, a year's supply of bus passes
costs about $500. So our hypothetical urban car owner is already
ahead about $200 to $300, and we haven't counted parking yet.
The higher transit costs in big cities like Toronto would be
compensated for by the saving of their very high parking fees. As
a taxpayer and citizen, our car owner would save about $1000.

How does it work out for the transit system? St. Catharines
Transit's annual budget is just over $8,000,000, about half paid
by fares and the rest by city and provincial subsidies. If St.
Catharines has the average Ontario proportion of cars, its
citizens would own about 75,000 of them with say 60,000 in the
area served by urban transit. Transit revenues would go up by
about $30,000,000, which is to say they would be multiplied by
almost five. This would pay for doubling frequency and doubling
route mileage at the same time. Replacing 7,000 km per car
carrying 1.3 people means that we have to replace 564,000,000
person kms of capacity. Our 400 extra bus drives and their
equipment would supply about 640,000,000 passenger kms with no
standees. Even allowing for traffic concentrated in rush hours,
no increase in farebox revenues and no increase in bus passes
bought by those who were not car owners but assuming
proportionate public subsidies as at present, the civic and
provincial treasuries would still be ahead.
It is important to remember that back in the 1930s when almost
everyone took the bus or trolley, transit systems made profits
from farebox revenues, and fares were no more proportionately (or
less) than they are today. If we can get back to mass transit
use, we can get back to transit profits. And if we make marginal
costs to the user favour transit over the car, we CAN get back to
mass use of public transit as the preferred system.

Would this make good provincial policy? What do you think?

VI. THE COSTS OF SPRAWL

>From Mark Roseland's Towards Sustainable Communities. National
Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, 1992.
(Free copies available from (613) 992-7189)

To encourage people to use the transportation system more
efficiently we need to adopt land use policies which reduce our
needs for transportation and let us meet those needs in more
energy-efficient ways.
Our needs for transportation arise directly from the way land is
used in our communities. Through zoning and other techniques,
land-use patterns and densities dictate travel volume, direction,
and mode. In Canada and the U.S., our dispersed land use
patterns are typified by the low-density suburb.
The problem with the low density land use pattern is not just its
high energy use. Newman ("Suffocate City", Consuming Interest,
June/July 1991, pp. 13-18) notes that this settlement pattern has
a complimentary set of environmental problems that all stem from
its dispersed land use:
high per capita auto emissions (both smog and greenhouse gases
are directly related to the amount of gasoline used);
high per capita water use (e.g. for lawn irrigation);
high land requirements in both the block size and the road
system required to service it (road provision is much greater in
low density areas than in medium areas);
high stormwater pollution from the extra urbanized land (low
density areas have double the stormwater pollution of medium
density areas);
high domestic heating energy due to the lack of a shared
insulating effect when buildings are grouped (50% differences are
found);
poor recycling rates due to large cost involved in collection
compared to a compact housing system (European cities have four
to six times the recycling rates of North America);
high physical infrastructure costs (utilities, pipes, poles,
roads, etc.); and
high social infrastructure costs (cars are required for
participation in social life).

Land use planning initiatives are often motivated by the
recognition that transportation planning and traffic management
initiatives will eventually be thwarted or simply overwhelmed by
growth unless accompanied by long-term efforts to reduce the need
for travel. Today there is also increasing recognition that to
address problems such as air and water pollution, energy
conservation, and infrastructure costs, land use planning
initiatives are essential for moving toward sustainable
communities.

The effectiveness of compact urban development can be fully
achieved only if governments remove the conflicting incentives
posed by other policies accurately reflect the true
environmental and social costs of private vehicle use~from the
health costs of air pollution to the military costs of policing
the Persian Gulf~would give an enormous boost to more efficient
urban land use and raise revenue for investment in a broader
range of transport options.

Despite the absence of supportive national policy frameworks,
municipal and local governments can do a great deal to create
more energy-efficient travel patterns by concentrating activities
in specific areas and developing a mix of land uses in those
areas. Our objectives should be to:
create travel patterns that can be effectively served by more
energy-efficient travel modes, such as public transit, bicycling,
and walking; and
reduce the average length of daily automobile trips where other
modes are not feasible.

VII. THE MATHEMATICS OF DRIVING IN NEPEAN - Ken Toews
(ar367@freenet.carleton.ca)

The value of any system is a relationship between its costs
and benefits. The automobile's perceived benefit is its speed and
resulting convenience: 0 to 60 in 6 seconds give an impression
of unrestrained freedom.

What is relevant is the car's actual speed. I'm going to
give you a 6-step formula to figure out how fast you really
travel in your car.

Step 1: Have a passenger record the speed your car travels at
one minute intervals. Do this for a week or so to get a realistic
average. Include the time at red lights as well as the time you
spend moving. With this data you can determine your average
speed.

Step 2: Once you know your average speed you can divide that
speed into the total number of kilometres you drive each year.
This will give you the number of hours you spend driving your
car.

Step 3: How much time you have to work to earn the money you
spend on your car is relevant. According to the C.A.A. it's about
$7,000 a year. If you don't keep accurate records use the C.A.A.
figure. Calculate your after-tax hourly rate and divide it into
$7,000. That gives you how many hours you have to work to own
your car.

Step 4: Now consider all the time you spend tending your auto
in one year. The time in lineups for oil changes, the wash on
Sunday afternoon, changing a headlamp or anything else that you
do because of your car.

Step 5: Total your number of hours driving, number of hours
working to earn the money to buy your car and pay for the related
bills, and finally the number of hours tending your car.

Step 6: Last step: divide the total number of hours into your
total kilometres driven per year.

If you are like most people in Nepean your average speed
(from step 1) will be about 30 km/hr or less. Your actual speed
which includes all the time you spend on your car ( Step 3 and
Step 4) will probably be less than 15 km/hr. Actual studies that
include all auto related costs have shown that cars cannot exceed
a real speed of more than 5 miles per hour.

Other studies undertaken by Pollution Probe indicate that in
Ontario we subsidize the auto system $8 billion a year. This goes
to a system that kills 3 and maims 2,000 people every day in
Ontario alone.

Now let us get back to the original contention; the value of
any system is a relationship between its costs and benefits.
Considering the real speed with the real cost, it's a wonder we
have designed our cities around cars. (Originally published in
Marketplace Magazine, February 1993)

VIII. Making the Car Pay Its Way: The Case of Minneapolis
Roads
John Bailey (johnb@yoyo.micro.umn.edu), 1992.

Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 1313 5th Street SE, Suite
306, Minneapolis, MN 55414, 612-379-3815, Fax: 612-379-3920.

IX. The Costs of the Car: A Preliminary Study of the
Environmental and Social Costs Associated with Private Car
Use In Ontario, October 1991.

Pollution Probe, 12 Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2S1
416-926-1907, Fax: 416-926-1601.

X. Car Crashes Cost $9 Billion in Ontario

An Ontario government study The Social Cost of Motor Vehicle
Crashes in Ontario, estimates that car crashes cost Ontario $9
billion annually. Ministry of Transport of Ontario argues that
the study can be used to justify expenditures to improve road
safety. The Better Transportation Coalition believes that the
study shows that despite anti-drunk-driving programs and seat
belt laws, the slaughter on roads continues. It is time to face
up to the fact that cars are inherently dangerous and that we
need to increase funding for other modes of transportation.
For copies of the study, contact: Ministry of Transport of
Ontario 416-327-9200.

We have also come across European research which strongly
indicates that reducing speeds to 30 km/h and lower dramatically
reduces the number of fatalaties, and that cities with a lot of
road-kilometres per person have more car-caused deaths than those
with fewer road kilometres per person.
(Better Transportation Coalition Update, Vol. 1, No. 4, Sept/Oct.
94)

Last Modified: March 25, 1996 by Richard Guy Briggs for Auto-Free Ottawa

(afo-info@flora.org)