Transportation Cost and Benefit Analysis - VTPI

VTPI - Transportation Cost and Benefit Analysis - updated January 2009

A major conclusion of this study is that a significant portion of transportation costs are currently either fixed or external, and so are inefficiently priced. This price structure provides an incentive to driving more in order to “get your money's worth.” Motor vehicle travel would decline significantly if prices reflected full costs. This overuse reduces social welfare and economic efficiency.
Inefficient pricing squanders much of the potential benefits of motor vehicle travel. Vehicle owners have little incentive to limit driving to trips in which benefits exceed total costs, resulting in wasteful travel behavior that reduces transport system performance. Underpriced driving results in congestion increasing until it constrains further traffic growth. Problems such as pollution and community degradation are virtually unavoidable with current pricing. VTPI Report

Regina, SK - Car culture comments

http://www.carfreelifestyle.com/

Changning, China: Free Transit takes 10,000 vehicles off the road

Thanks to the free public buses, the number of passengers have increased from 10,000 to 50,000 per day, squeezing the survival space for illegal transportation. Meanwhile, transportation authorities have estimated that the number of private vehicles (including cars and motorcycles) on the road have dropped by 10,000 units per day.

The reduction in traffic flows, according to the local authorities, could help Changning city cut some 30,000 liters of fuel consumption per day. Economic Observer

Free public transit reduces road costs

Advocates of the private auto and highways often argue that highway fuel taxes should be used only for road construction and maintenance. But think. What if investment in public transit reduces the need for road construction and maintenance. Isn't that better?

If mass transit in Canada were free for everyone, ridership would explode. Each year more people would take transit than the last year, thus justifying an increase in service and therefore attracting more people onto the buses and out of their cars. With this kind of feedback loop, it is feasible that between 50 and 70 percent of Canadians in cities of 20,000 people or more would choose to use mass transit as their primary transportation....

...If a universally free transit system is established and used, it will provide a great increase in the number of people that can travel on a given road at a time. Therefore the maintenance and upgrading costs of road infrastructure per capita will be dramatically reduced because each individual person requires a smaller portion of the road. http://www.hitmenforhire.com/node/59#

How to pay for free public transit

The oil industry is the most profitable and well-established industry in the world, they don’t need more subsidies! Oil companies have already benefited from more than 100 years of government support, they have accumulated trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure and capital, and they continue to earn hundreds of billions of dollars a year year. The oil industry already has a massive advantage over competing sources of energy. Governments should be working to level the playing field and encourage clean energy instead of protecting the interests of oil companies. Read more...

Is Public Transit an Essential Service?

If you think that public transit is not important to the whole of society, then just wait for a strike. Suddenly, all those politicians who are against fully funding it discover how important it is. The blog "Challenging the Commonplace" took a look at their logic. Here are some excerpts:

If the Feds declare public transit an essential service... which looks to be about to happen, then mustn't the feds ensure public transit is provided to ALL Canadians, not just those in Ottawa?


However, IF the feds declare public transit an essential service in Ottawa, then it also sounds logical that public transit, as such, is an essential service to everyone, no matter where they live.

Am looking for consistency here - which, I realize, is a tough chore given the Harper Govt's record. - Chrystal Ocean



I don't understand why Health Canada allows the use of automobiles. There are more deaths and injuries to our citizens from automobile accidents than from listeria or plastic baby bottles. I think they should be pulled from the roads and streets.
Seriously. They cost us about $200 Billion to supply services to accomodate them and they foul our air, they make too much noise, they create far too much stress and they require too much energy. In the US, Americans kill themselves and each other 47,000 times a year. One road averages about a million dollars.
Add on police surveillance,parking lots and a few others like crime, courts and coroners adds up to about $398 Billion from the public purse.
Public transit is essential but it needs some redesigning and innovative thought.
8000 people were stranded at a Sky Train on Boxing night in Vancouver.I don't know how they all got home but I'll bet none of their fellow Canadians owning 4WDs, SUVs, pickups,etc. thought that they could help out. They were still complaining about their streets not being cleared fast enough so they could drive in to Horton's for their morning donuts and coffeee while idling away.
So don't get me going about public transit because I will tell you how angry about the lack of it for the love of automobiles.
Just how many more of these darn things are we going to allow on our planet anyways?
Essentially, the problem with transit is automobiles. - ml johnstone

Garden City Alliance for Sustainable Transportation

Garden City Alliance for Sustainable Transportation

Four years ago, Randy Ouellette promised his co-workers that if gas ever got more expensive than 75 cents a litre, he'd ditch his car.
In December 2004, he was living in London, Ont., when gas hit the target, and Ouellette kept his promise.
...He estimates he is saving thousands of dollars a year in car payments, insurance, repair and fuel costs. But more importantly, he's enjoying the physical and emotional benefits of at least two brisk walks a day. Read more...