Why #carsharing and #bikesharing are a step in the right direction

Car sharing companies are growing. With public transit and bike sharing, car sharing allows people to live without owning a car.

The auto system is a very complex system that is uneconomic. In other words, it cannot afford to provide its service for the amount that people can afford to pay. Consequently it survives with heavy subsidy. Justifying the subsidy requires that the system have critical mass -- that it is seen as the "only" way to move people.

Car sharing depresses demand for new cars. This weakens one part of the complex system, creating a need for more subsidy. Eventually critical mass will be lost and the subsidy will be seen as a burden instead of necessity.

Could you have written this post? Yes, of course you could. Economics is not difficult, it is just full of disinformation. Contact fpteditors at gmail dot com and become a freetransit blogger.

Auto vs Streetcar - Externalities

Source: Richiardi and Quaranta, 2005. Per inquinamento atmosferico si intendono i danni alla salute umana provocati dai seguenti inquinanti: SO 2 , NO x , PM, CO, COVNM. To air pollution means the damage to human health caused by the following pollutants: SO 2, NO x, PM, CO, NMVOC.

The choices of mobility are characterized not only by the costs of the different means of transport, from large external costs, which are not the user but by society, or on a part of it. The case of the costs associated with air pollution, noise, congestion, accidents and related health care costs, and finally the release of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. From this point of view, public transport, characterized by much lower costs than other modes of mobility, starting the car, not only useful to people using it, but even those not using it. This is why we often speak of the need to increase the use of public transport. Matteo Richiardi nelmerito