Transportation Reform and Public Health
A bicycle commuter in Copenhagen, Denmark (cc photo by DavidDennisPhotos)
It’s pretty clear that if people drove less and walked or biked more, that they’d be healthier. But how to quantify that result. Well it looks like some clever regression analysis exploiting state-by-state differences in gasoline prices and changing state gasoline tax policy has given us a rough-and-ready answer:
Charles Courtemanche, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has produced a study suggesting that permanent hikes in gas prices may slash obesity rates. The amount is hardly nominal: A sustained $1 increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline equals a 10% dip in the nation’s obesity rate–that’s about 9 million fewer obese people clogging up health care systems and costing society (and themselves) money. “The price of gas is a powerful lever when it comes to medical expenses and mortality rates,” Courtemanche says. “There’s a savings in this for all of us.”
And of course the short-term price-elasticity of gasoline consumption in the United States is currently not so high so many communities have built in a way that doesn’t provide a great deal in terms of attractive alternatives. An increase in gas prices that was driven by higher gasoline taxes, with the revenue used to fund improved transit alternatives, could produce a bigger impact than this. I’m not necessarily going to hold my breath for this happen, but it’s still the case that, as Elana Schor says, transportation reform is health reform. The nature of the built environment shapes our lifestyles, and that has a powerful impact on health outcomes.
86 Responses to “Transportation Reform and Public Health”
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July 20th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
once you:
a) move out of the city, or
b) stop being young enough to think you’re invulnerable, or
c) have to wear decent clothes to work, or
d) live in a place where temps stay 90+ for 5 months a year, or
e) live in a place where the roads are barely able to handle two-way car traffic.
…you will realize that biking is not an alternative.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Here we have a classic example of liberal idiocy. Instead of telling fat people to eat less, this guy would rather penalize EVERYBODY to get a theoretical result. Gad.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
cleek,
Wrong. I meet three of those situations (I’m in a town of 10,000 people who does dress up for work and I’m var from invulernable) and either bike or walk to work.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Well, sure, bike riding is great for public health, except for the part about getting hit by cars or other bikes.
When I was a kid, kids in the San Fernando Valley biked everywhere. Today, with the population density 50% to 100% higher, almost nobody other than people with multiple DUI’s bikes. It’s too dangerous now.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Re: once you:
a) move out of the city, or
b) stop being young enough to think you’re invulnerable, or
c) have to wear decent clothes to work, or
d) live in a place where temps stay 90+ for 5 months a year, or
e) live in a place where the roads are barely able to handle two-way car traffic.
…you will realize that biking is not an alternative.
Let’s see:
I am 42, work at a place where decent clothing is required and live in a city where the downtown streets are quite congested. (Though it only occasionally gets to 90 here and I do not live in the country). I bike to work. The congestion in the city streets is actually a plus by the way since it slows the traffic down and that makes biking safer not riskier.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I:
a) live out of the city (12 mile commute in to downtown)
b) am old enough to resent my mortality
c) wear office professional clothes
d) live where 90 is a pleasantly cool afternoon
e) share the road with the most dangerous drivers in Texas
and I bike to work.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
…you will realize that making excuses is always an alternative.
Fixed your typo, there.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Right, but look; you don’t have a car, and seem to walk/bike a lot …and yet you are a fatty. You know why? Because you eat garbage. I would bet the decrease in obesity is linked to food prices going up because of gas prices, and people having less money to spend on food because gas costs more…If you want to raise revenue and increase the nations health…then by all means continue championing a tax on junkfood
But stop being such a dishonest weasel and stop grasping for any argument, no matter how dumbasserly, that disfavors cars…
July 20th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Dave- Biking in Austin? That’s brave. I used to do it, but those drivers were pretty scary. The other thing that was scary is how often stuff falls off people’s trucks. Growing up on the East Coast, I always thought “it fell off a truck” meant it was stolen. In Austin, it is apparently literal. I cannot count on my hands how many times I’ve seen a refrigerator lying in the middle of MoPac.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
There’s nothing inevitable about 1a or 1d: i.e., living in the Sun Belt and/or moving to the suburbs.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Nothing wrong with biking to work–I do it a fair amount (25 miles round trip, roughly).
But as always I can’t help but wonder whether the comparative effectiveness research that Yglesias favors when he thinks it will mean less health care spending for old people and less profit for drug companies and doctors would really support transit spending as medical spending. The answer pretty clearly is no, isn’t it? And yet he’s willing to say it would, which is suggestive of how all this is going to work, isn’t it?
July 20th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Well, sure. If a fascist government forces its citizens to walk everywhere, I’m sure they’ll turn out being fit.
After all, for a hundred years Democrats forced Africans to work out every day in the fields, and those strapping young bucks were as healthy as could be.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
I don’t think the cost of gas is the issue as much as urban density and available alternatives to the car. I walk to the subway, walk from the subway to my office, walk my kid to school, walk to the grocery store and to run other errands, etc., because that’s how people in Manhattan live, not because it’s expensive to drive. Building communities that facilitate walking to the places people go regularly (an issue that Matt has addressed before) or revitalizing older cities where this would be possible is one answer to solving both the obesity epidemic and global warming. However, imposing a gax tax might be the added incentive people need to build or move to such communities. (The walking/urban density/fitness connection is one of many reasons I am hanging on for dear life in Manhattan, even though the cheaper suburbs beckon.)
July 20th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
shooter242, the point isn’t that gas tax increases are the best approach to improving health (although that is nice). Rather, it’s that it’s tricky to capture the health benefits of commuter cycling per se while keeping the whole “correlation does not equal causation” cliché in mind (i.e., cyclists also might eat more healthily). The point of the research is to find variations in cycling caused by something which doesn’t cause other confounding variables.
As for young people thinking they’re invulnerable, why is it that bicycling and elevating your risk of a car crash is youthful hubris, while driving and elevating your risk of arteriosclerosis is rational?
July 20th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“while driving and elevating your risk of arteriosclerosis is rational?”
Next time you’re at your doctor, ask him this question: “what’s the worst thing for my health?” He’ll probably say: “your television.” Overall, inactivity will harm your health more than anything. Walking just a mile a day makes a big difference. I work on orthopedic implants (knee, hip, spine), and almost all of our patients are people who didn’t exercise. Yes, there are a few trauma cases, but they are pretty rare. Everyone else is just fat and lazy. Watch the TV all your life, and you’ll be paying me down the road. Get out and do something every day, and I’ll lose money, but you’ll live a much better life. I can find another line of work, can you find another body? Trust me, I’d prefer that you be healthy and I work in another field.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I’m going to keep posting these links until forever:
Reports from a mysterious land where bike trips outnumber car trips
Normal people wearing normal clothes riding bikes
July 20th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Bike commuting is probably just a very small component of this effect. Likely most of the effect comes from less eating out and the additional walking associated with using public transit.
On one minor point:
Here we have a classic example of liberal idiocy. Instead of telling fat people to eat less . . . .
What kind of idiocy is it that thinks all we have to do is tell fat people to eat less?
July 20th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I’d also add that driving is the worst thing you can do for your back. It combines sitting down and not exercising with unhelpful vibrations. The vibrations have a negative effect on blood flow into the vertebral discs. In the spinal field, we have an unusually high number of long-haul truckers. The best occupation for spinal health: stripper. Pole dancing is great exercise. But it’s kind of weird going to strip clubs with spinal surgeons. “Wow! Take a look at her lumbar lordosis! And a nice kyphotic-lordotic transition at the neck! I’m in love.”
July 20th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Realistically, if it gets hot where you live more than a tiny bit, and you are expected to not smell at work, then biking/walking just isn’t feasible unless your work site has showers, or you live very, very close to work.
Ponder this: You walk into a travel agent to book a vacation. The agent is noticeably damp, and smells bad. Just how likely are you to plan out a trip with this agent?
July 20th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
> d) live in a place where temps stay 90+ for 5 months
> a year, or
> e) live in a place where the roads are barely able to
> handle two-way car traffic.
>
> …you will realize that biking is not an alternative.
I guess MY technically doesn’t meet the requirements of your (d), since Washington DC has at least one month where the daytime temperature is in the high 90s/low 100s, which exceeds and therefore does not meet the usual definition of “90+”. Still..
And of course MY has written extensively about the dangers of biking on badly-designed DC streets.
So your point is?
Cranky
July 20th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
“isn’t feasible unless your work site has showers”
Obviously never done it, have you? There’s always a bathroom. Ride in your riding clothes and change in the bathroom when you get there. Wash your upper body and legs at the sink, and keep deodorant and a towel in your cubicle. Not so hard. I’ve done it many times. People might think it’s weird, but trust me, they won’t complain.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Matt isn’t in a public facing job – with what he does for a living, it really doesn’t matter whether he sweats on the way to work.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
“it really doesn’t matter whether he sweats on the way to work”
As long as there’s plumbing where you work, there’s a bathroom, so it doesn’t matter anyway. If there isn’t plumbing where you work, you probably work in either construction, logging, mining, or farming. In which case, it doesn’t matter what you smell like. And if you’re spreading manure, it really doesn’t matter.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Oh hey, another post about how Matt Yglesias hates cars. I think we went a whole day without one.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I love the cries of outrage at the idea of raising gas taxes. Remember when idiot conservatives were championing the highways because they are “self-funded” via the gas tax? Except that of course it isn’t:
http://enr.ecnext.com/coms2/article_intr090610HighwayTrust-1
So we need to raise gas taxes anyways, to fix that hole in the highway budget. But look at all the dishonest conservatives trying to weasel a free lunch out of taxpayers. Losers.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
A bathroom with a sink doesn’t cut it for the person who has to face the public.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Respectfully, no, fostert, a birdbath will not suffice. You are talking about the self-image of downtown corporate types, and you are not likely to persuade many of them that sponge-bathing, naked to the waste, in a public restroom is a suitable option.
If your health club has a shower, that’s an option that might accommodate 100 or so commuters for the morning rush; though if like many of us you are carrying a few extra pounds, and it’s a warm morning, you are apt to continue sweating even after you’ve showered.
Still, if people only rode bikes to work on cool mornings, they’d save money, be more fit, and help the environment ever so slightly.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
I’m squinting at 60 and bike to work.
As for sweat and smell, it takes a good long time to transform mere perspiration into B.O.
July 20th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I’m a hardcore, hardcore urban cyclist who doesn’t own a car and commutes year round in Chicago and even I think Yglesias is getting ridiculous with this stuff. After more than 50 years during which most of America has been built in such a way as to make it impossible to do without a car, idly raising the prospect of a “transportation reform as health reform” project that would be on par with the Great Leap Forward is ridiculous.
The public policy role here needs to involve education, traffic law enforcement and generally doing no harm. It would be nice if we hadn’t built regions full of tens of millions of people into which it would be physically impossible to retrofit mass transit, but, you know, we did. And whether or not Matt “zeal of the convert” Yglesias wants to admit it or not, the reason we did is that the public likes things pretty much the way they are.
July 20th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Oh, and by the way, sweat and stink isn’t really an issue if you wear nice merino wool, which you only have to wash once or twice a week no matter how much you sweat in it.
July 20th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
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July 20th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
“Respectfully, no, fostert, a birdbath will not suffice. You are talking about the self-image of downtown corporate types, and you are not likely to persuade many of them that sponge-bathing, naked to the waste, in a public restroom is a suitable option.”
Yeah, but those corporate types have their private shower in their office, two maids, a secretary/sex slave, some Thai girl to towel them off, and Bruno to give them a blow job. And then a hairdresser to make them look good after. We aren’t talking about the corporate guys, we’re just talking about about those who actually want to be human all by themselves.
July 20th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
bike to gym
workout then shower
walk bike across sprawling complex to office
change into suit
start business day
caveat – on Monday I usually drive to the office
with my clothes for the rest of the week in tow
I am important enough to: be able to show up at the building in shorts, have a bike rack installed, and a closet and bathroom in my office to utilize when changing
July 20th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
@#8: MattY may indeed be a ‘fatty,’ but he does not appear to be obese (though I am not privy to his BMI.) The hope is that a better transportation policy encouraging more walking/biking and less driving would help move some of the legion obese into the ‘merely fat’ category. Maybe it’d even help some ‘fatties’ become ’skinnies,’ too. And certainly walking more would lead to health benefits, regardless of whether it helps with dramatic weight loss.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:05 am
I don’t know what planet some of you people live on. I live 30 miles north of where Matt does, and if I rode a bike to an office in the summer, I’d be completely soaked by the time I got there. Fortunately for me, I work out of a home office, so it’s not really an issue.
Surprisingly few people have access to shower facilities at (or near) work, so that’s not really much of an option either. Large parts of the US are not, in fact, like the Netherlands (in terms of average summer temperature).
July 21st, 2009 at 12:24 am
“Surprisingly few people have access to shower facilities at (or near) work, so that’s not really much of an option either.”
You don’t get it do you? You can make yourself corporate spiffy in the bathroom if you have to. Any Thai girl can teach you how to do it. The only issue here is the delicate brains of those who feel the need to dress that way. And it’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just tat those guys have such delicate brains that they can’t imagine it being done that way. Your attitude is only protecting weak people who don’t know how to do things for themselves. The corporate guys are wimps who always need their mommies. The rest of us are real people who can do these kinds of things all by themselves. Grow up, and learn how to ride a bicycle.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:32 am
After pointing out that it took more than 50 years of public policy to get us here, Some dude says that “the reason we did is that the public likes things pretty much the way they are.” And concludes that retrofitting is impossible and a Great Leap Forward is ridiculous, therefore we ought to aim no higher than to do no more harm.
Even W, apparently, set higher standards than that. Or was at least forced to accept them.
It was public policy that got us here, and public policy can get us out. Or do you really want to argue that some guys were sitting around in the late 40s, and somebody floated the pipe dream of how great it would be one day when we could all spend an hour each way sitting in traffic.
I am not so naive as to believe that we can undo 50+ years in 50 days, or even weeks, but we can undo it, one step at a time, given the political will.
Matt may be a mad zealot, but “maddest of all, [is] to see life as it is and not as it should be.” But then again, I race the Rolling Asylum down Lamar and onto the Drag on a regular basis.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:43 am
In live in the midwest and, as I said above, I bike commute some. I’m lucky, my office has a shower. My former employer didn’t provide a shower, so I’d join a nearby gym each riding season (no, I don’t bike to work in the winter; it gets cold here, and it snows, and the days are very short, and I guess I’m a wimp). The suggestion that I paid cash each month just because I’m delicate is funny. I sweat when I ride, particularly when it’s hot, as it often is in July and August in my town. I spend about a half hour cooling off–drinking and reading my emails and interoffice paperwork–before I shower. A quick splash in the bathroom isn’t going to do the trick.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:47 am
I think I may need to use smaller words for fostert. In the summer, if I ride ten miles on my bike (which I do for exercise when I’m not jogging), I am soaked from sweat. head to toe, clothes drenched. So no, a sink is simply not suitable, and if you think it is, you’re just not paying attention.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:48 am
“The rest of us are real people who can do these kinds of things all by themselves.”
Well some things are more complicated. Try washing in a small spring in the middle of the desert. The amount of water you get is exactly what you can hold in you hands. You can come back, but you’ll have to wait until the spring produces that amount of water again. Aborigines can do it, why can’t corporate executives? Corporate Executives too scared? Too afraid that they might only be human? Come on, they need some fucking guts in them. They need to learn how to wash their hands without mommy’s help. And I’m not some random redneck, I’m an Ivy League educated engineer. But even we are considered dirt by the financial people. They think they’re gods and we’ve always known that when you flunk out of engineering, you go to finance. Nobody deserves ten million dollars for making one good guess. Hell, people do that in the lottery all the time, and they don’t get anointed as financial saints. Why should some idiot who failed out of engineering school get that judgment for one good guess?
July 21st, 2009 at 1:22 am
A cool front came through today, so highs this week will only be in the upper 90s. Bathing seems like a reasonable expense associated with commuting by bicycle. Public policy could take this into account. In fact, it now does:
“… employers who provide bike parking, bathing facilities, tune-ups, or other support for bicycle commuting, can deduct up to $20 month per participating employee from their own taxable income.”
Public policy could go further, for instance and actually require bathing facilities for all new office construction. Or require convenient offsite alternatives. But “I’m hot and bothered” is a weak search for any available excuse, avoiding a solution, no matter how small your words get.
I can shower and commute by car, or commute by bike and shower in the gym a couple of blocks from my building. The walk from the gym is actually shorter than the walk from the parking garage. On average, alarm to work is faster by bike than by car.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:24 am
“I think I may need to use smaller words for fostert.”
Umm, the only words you used were to say that people got sweaty when they are biking. I like to bike, and I’m well aware of how much sweat I produce. I bring lots of water because of that issue. And I’m aware that people don’t like the smell of me at that point. Message taken, already received. But that’s a message that’s been understood for at at least 50,000 years. Glad you brought your knuckles off the ground and finally acknowledged it.
But you don’t get the fundamental point: you can clean yourself at a sink completely. I’ve done it India many times because my hotel didn’t have a working shower. This idea that it is impossible to do it is totally wrong. And how many hundreds of times do I need to do it before it’s proven wrong? A complete wash at the sink is completely possible. All it takes is information (from a Thai girl) and a willingness to do it. Our corporate executive friends lack the willingness, so they will smell. It’s just that simple. It’s possible, so possibility is not the issue. The fact that a corporate executive doesn’t have a blow job before it and some hot Thai chick doing it for him is why the corporate executive can’t do it. They need their mommies, and we don’t.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:41 am
It was public policy that got us here, and public policy can get us out.
Yeah, and public policy is a lot easier to implement when the public agrees with its goals. I am a hardcore cyclist who rolls through Chicago winters. I think it would be wonderful if more American cities were like Copenhagen, but they’re not and there’s no demand to make them so. Public policy aimed at penalizing car use on the scale required to make transit policy function as heath policy would be at best the worst sort of technocracy and at worst some sort of Maoist nightmare. The best we can do right now is stop making the problem worse; cities like Chicago and Boston with actual functioning mass transit systems can barely keep them running, so the idea that we’re going to do anything substantial to get transit in Sun Belt cities is utterly fucking absurd.
James Robertson, it sounds like you either have some kind of physical problem or just sweat way way more than most people; you shouldn’t assume that cycling to work is as big a problem for everyone as it would be for you.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:45 am
All you bikers out there, sue the polluters. Your life on a bike is affected by Global Warming. You will likely get two extra weeks of inclement weather. Probably slip one too many times because of extra wind or rain. Form a biker association and sue the CO2 polluters, I think you bikers are entitled to about $500 to $1500 per year depending upon your weather zone. Sue.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:51 am
“And how many hundreds of times do I need to do it before it’s proven wrong?”
Travel to the developing world. There’s lot’s of places, so just choose one. You’ll find out that everything can come clean, even what you did with that prostitute while your wife was out. And it can all be done with 10,000 year old technology. If you can heat water and have women who’ll beat clothes with rocks, that’s all you need. They can scrub out a semen stain from your wife’s delicate silk dress that you had the prostitute wear, and even our forensics experts won’t find it.
Look James Robertson, travel a little bit before you mouth off. You probably haven’t even had a single gun pointed to your head. You really don’t know what the world is really like. Your washed up in it, but America makes you feel cuddly and warm. But it’s not like that in the real world. The real wold is quite a bit different. You want guns for everyone, but do you really? How about $20 AK-47’s in Phnom Penh? Like that? Any terrorist can but them there, and where do they end up? Do yo really want to tell the parents of the last soldier killed in Iraq that the guy who killed him got a great deal in Cambodia on his gun? I sure don’t, but if you really want to push the Second Amendment thing, yes you do.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:15 am
LoL @ all the people who think living 3 blocks from town square is really any different from ‘living in the city’.
And no, most people do not consider Macguyvering a shower in a gas station sink to be a realistic addition to their daily experience.
You people would be fucking laughable if you think these are politically tenable responses. You may be able to brow-beat folks in an internet forum with this BS, but you’re not going to convince most people.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:25 am
OOOh. Editing might have been nice on that last post. But then again, can you edit my math? I don’t think so.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:17 am
“And no, most people do not consider Macguyvering a shower in a gas station sink to be a realistic addition to their daily experience.”
I’d assume not, but if they didn’t actually have a shower, they might think differently. You may be one of the those dumbasses who can’t survive even in an urban environment without your mother holding your hand. But I know differently. I’ve had some rough situations, but I can survive in rural ares where I don’t know the language. Think you know more about rural Laos? Drop yourself in and see how you do. Try it, I have friends there who can pull you out if you’re scared. Maybe you’ll learn what an AK-47 looks like from the wrong end. But probably not, if you have cigarettes, they have pot. And I’m talking about the police. That’s something to learn about how the police work there. But one thing you will learn is how to shower like a soldier. Take a bucket and some soap and shower yourself. If you’re too stupid to figure that out, then you ain’t smart enough to get killed. Welcome to the United States Army, motherfucker.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:34 am
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July 21st, 2009 at 6:41 am
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July 21st, 2009 at 6:53 am
Why not fund healthcare reform with a gas tax?
July 21st, 2009 at 8:09 am
If I stand naked at the men’s room sink scrubbing my crotch everyday, I will be sent to “The Wellness Center” to have a little talk with the man with the glassey eyes and the insincere smile.
It is possible to get “spiffy” with just a sink, but in places where it is not necessary, it is not accepted.
July 21st, 2009 at 8:26 am
fostert – this isn’t the third world, and Americans are not going to develop a sudden joy for using a sink and forgoing the shower. You can explain the possibilities all you want, and it won’t matter: Americana will not willingly descend to a lower level of lifestyle.
That last point is something that Matt, and the entire “cut energy emissions to the bone” crowd should consider as well. A quote from Joseph Tainter’s “The Collapse of Complex Societies’ might help here:
… which means that there won’t be a joyful return to washing from a public sink.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:05 am
A sedentary lifestyle is responsible for obesity. Though I normally have to work to keep from being underweight, on the two occasions I’ve been fat, it’s because I wasn’t active. Once, because my ears were off, and I got dizzy and nauseous from movement, and once during a depression. The more active I am, the more I eat, and the better I sleep.
This is true for just about everyone.
A short bicycle commute to work may not be enough to offset an otherwise sedentary lifestyle.
Everyone doesn’t have to bike. There are trains, and buses, and carpooling. Even a twenty minute walk to a transit stop everyday would be more exercise than a lot of Americans are getting outdoors. By the way, there aren’t any fat people in my working class neighborhood, and I don’t see many fat people around town anymore. Maybe some of you need to look around more, and test your assumptions about the current make-up of U.S. society. Things change.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:05 am
I wonder how many actually clicked through to read the article.
…
…
Followed by a detailed example of how, after having to address last year’s gas prices, attitudes have shifted:
Well, reading is hard work – let’s just make fun of Matt’s weight instead.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:18 am
#55 posts a great reason to oppose this. If people eat out less, that’s taking money out of the private sector – where it might do some good – and handing it to the Congress – where it will be spent on exciting earmark programs.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:43 am
UNPUBLISHED STUDY ALERT
Please get real data then come back kkthxbye
July 21st, 2009 at 9:45 am
that’s taking money out of the private sector – where it might do some good – and handing it to the Congress – where it will be spent on exciting earmark programs.
If by earmark program you mean the bankrupt highway trust fund, then yes that’s what will happen and wouldn’t it be a good thing for the highways not to go bankrupt? Oh wait, you want a free lunch don’t you?
July 21st, 2009 at 9:53 am
Benny, I’m quite convinced that Congress can waste money on mass transit – or health care, or defense, or anything else you care to focus on – as much as it can on highway building.
I don’t want a free lunch – I want liberals to stop expecting things from government that it has no track record of being able to deliver. The less the Feds do, the smaller the opportunities are for corruption. And the more that’s done by state and local officials, the higher the odds are that ordinary citizens have of being able to have a say that matters.
In my area, I’m on a traffic and safety committee. We meet with local officials from the county highway dept, and we get a hearing. That doesn’t mean we get our way, but it does mean that we get listened to. With the Federal Highway dept? Don’t make me laugh – I have zero chance of having any impact on anything they decide to do.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am
James Robertson Says:
July 21st, 2009 at 9:18 am
#55 posts a great reason to oppose this. If people eat out less, that’s taking money out of the private sector – where it might do some good – and handing it to the Congress – where it will be spent on exciting earmark programs.
Right, because it is always the situation that when people decrease their expenditures in one area, they don’t increase them in another. We ought to outlaw sales and lower prices, as well.
And it certainly wasn’t the case in this situation that an increase in spending on fuel led directly to a decrease in eating out…
July 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am
“fostert – this isn’t the third world, and Americans are not going to develop a sudden joy for using a sink and forgoing the shower. You can explain the possibilities all you want, and it won’t matter: Americana will not willingly descend to a lower level of lifestyle.”
No, it’s not the third world, and I live in the most sophisticated world in the most sophisticated world on the planet. I’m an Ivy League engineer who can hang outwith the Aborigines in Australia. I believe that ancient technology can offer insights into new technology. That’s why I hang out with ancient cultures. I don’t ask that our culture adapt ancient cultures. I simply ask that modern cultures might accept the ancient ones as their equals.
Americans will never accept theses concepts, despite the fact that America grew up with those concepts. They will reject those ideas, yet somehow they cling to old ideas. They say it’s wrong to use horses as transportation, yet they still think black people are a different species. How do you work with such people?
But as for the lifestyle, I don’t even live it. I’m not one of those hip bike rider dudes, I’m just an old guy who rides a bike. I’m as unhip as can be. It’s just a way to get somewhere. It’s simply practical, and I have a practical way to deal with it. Nobody likes washing in the sink, but everyone can. And if that’s what you need to do, then do it.
And do Americans want to have a more simple lifestyle? Certainly not. They didn’t like fighting World War II either. So what do you think? Americans can’t do it? Or Americans will suck it up and do it? I’m guessing Americans can make the changes to do it. We’ve obviously done it before. But if you think you aren’t as strong as those people, then just bail out, we don’t need you. Who needs the weak?
Republicans have a concept that the value of a person is measured by the value of what he owns. I don’t believe that. And I believe that the value is in what a person can do. We can do more, and we don’t need more things for ourselves. We need better things for our children. And not toys. They’ll cry about it like they always do, but they need two things: love and education. We have the love thing covered pretty well (hopefully), but not so much on education. But ask yourself, why would you deny education to the child you love? Oh yeah, you send them to private school. And then you lobby the government to get subsidies for your private school. And it’s all because you didn’t want your child to see black kids. If your child hung out with black kids, your racist ideology might fail. Hell, these kids might think that black kids are actually human beings. FOX news wouldn’t approve of that.
So James Robertson, what world is this? In India, they elected a Dalit, a Muslim, and a Sikh as Prime Minister. And two women as well. They are the Third World, and they are much more open minded than we will ever be. As fucked up as they are, they are still way beyond the white trash world you want to live in. Yeah! Let’s burn trash in our front lawn! Woohoo! Somewhere in your crazy world is a Bible. Read what Jesus said. Maybe you could apply that to the real world. Maybe you could possibly have some compassion for the people your people (and mine) screwed. Probably not, you’ll just read Joshua and want to kill everyone who doesn’t look like you.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:15 am
I want liberals to stop expecting things from government that it has no track record of being able to deliver.
You can want in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first. Well I want conservatives to stop being ignorant liars, but that’s not going to happen. It seems to me that the Federal government has about 50 year record of administering the highways. But you want more “local control”? I’m sure you’re all in favor of raising sales and property taxes to offset that highway money then? Or is it that you want a free lunch and demand what goes in the sandwich?
July 21st, 2009 at 11:08 am
You know, there is only one concept. You can learn it anywhere, but Australia is the best. Because the aborigines are the strangest people you’ll ever meet. So look them in the eye and ask yourself: are these people worthy of destroying? If the answer isn’t no, then you have some explaining to do. If you answered yes, then you don’t deserve to live. I won’t kill you (probably), but I certainly won’t mourn your death. If you can’t recognize the concept that humans deserve to live, then you simply aren’t human. And if you think Rupert Murdoch is somehow better than the average aborigine, then you aren’t a human. I have nothing against Mr Murdoch, and I really do think he’s human, but I don’t like the concept that other people aren’t considered human. And Mr Murdoch really thinks that. Fortunately,Australia is improving its attitude. Otherwise, I’d have a 7.62mm round for Mr. Murdoch’s head.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:30 am
fostert, I actually tried biking into work for a time, and the problem is that I smell without obsessive showering. Even with additional deodorant and washing myself up in the bathroom (I’m not entirely sure why people are so opposed to it here, it’s not like he’s saying you should bike 20, 30, 40 miles at a racing pace), I smelt rather bad.
My boss called me in at one point and explained that if I kept it up, I wouldn’t be working there any longer.
I think that’s the main problem, even with some of the jerkish comments above; unless you’ve got a boss who does something like that, they’re likely to fire you because you might still stink.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:49 am
I wonder how many actually clicked through to read the article.
I wonder why the authors of the study didn’t do other correlation tests. I’d be interested in finding out how many working class people are thrown out of a job per $1 rise in the price of a gallon of gas. Or how many people actually start sharing rides. Maybe we can work on getting people to carpool more before we start calling for massive, centrally planned changes in the way hundreds of millions of people spread over an entire continent live.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:49 am
As ever, Shorter James Robertson: “fuck you, I got mine.”
July 21st, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Maybe we can work on getting people to carpool more before we start calling for massive, centrally planned changes in the way hundreds of millions of people spread over an entire continent live.
Better yet, we can go back in time to 1935 and just stop the massive central planning before it ever started. Then we can have a central-planning free utopia of walkable, bikeable, streetcar cities connected by long-distance rail.
Oh, that’s not what you meant? You mean you like central planning when the plan is highways? Oh…
July 21st, 2009 at 12:19 pm
The way to fix a tragic mistake is not necessarily to make the same tragic mistake in inverse form.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
#55 posts a great reason to oppose this. If people eat out less, that’s taking money out of the private sector – where it might do some good – and handing it to the Congress – where it will be spent on exciting earmark programs.
I must have missed the bill that instantly transfers all the money I don’t spend eating out into the Federal Treasury.
I guess that means I should be eating out a lot more often.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
The way to fix a tragic mistake is not necessarily to make the same tragic mistake in inverse form.
“The same tragic mistake in inverse form” isn’t necessarily a tragic mistake at all.
Besides, what we have here is an ongoing tragic mistake. Merely stopping the centrally planned construction of highways would shift the balance an awful lot toward walkable cities…
July 21st, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Yes, it would be a tragic mistake. You should think very carefully about the scale of human suffering that would be caused by telling 350 million people that their lives are organized around a huge fuck-up and that starting now we’re going to shift resources from allowing them to live as they always have to making them live a way they aren’t familiar with.
What exactly are we going to do with the highways and all the communities (ie the vast, vast majority of them) that rely on them? Are they just supposed to disappear once Ray LaHood decrees that Atlanta should turn into Portland? And if not, how is their ever-increasing congestion supposed to be solved if not by centrally planning new ones?
The answer to bad central planning isn’t good central planning; it’s rebuilding local communities one by one. Start with your own and stop imagining that Big Daddy Washington is going to make everything better. It’s not going to happen.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Yes, it would be a tragic mistake. You should think very carefully about the scale of human suffering that would be caused by telling 350 million people that their lives are organized around a huge fuck-up and that starting now we’re going to shift resources from allowing them to live as they always have to making them live a way they aren’t familiar with.
What human suffering? Does building a light rail line cause endless human suffering? Does NOT building a new freeway cause endless human suffering? What are you talking about?
And “people are familiar with it” is a terrible argument. People get used to new things all the time. There are people alive today who were once used to transit oriented streetcar cities. They adjusted fine. They might even live long enough to adjust back again.
It’s not as if we’re talking about doing it overnight, barricading the highways, confiscating all the automobiles, and herding people by freight car back into newly built housing projects in the city.
We’re only talking about not CONTINUING the fuck-up. Stop building useless new freeways that just encourage an endless cycle of congestion and sprawl. Phase in some combination of gas taxes, VMT taxes, and tolls at a level sufficient to actually pay for the upkeep of the existing roads. Tax congestion and pollution and put the money into rebuilding public transportation services. As the opportunity arises, demolish freeways that dissect and disrupt our urban centers.
Just like the shift that got us here, the shift back will be gradual, not overnight. And fully driven by adjustments in the “free-market”. Communities will slowly shift and and adjust themselves. By the time it happens, people will be familiar with it, and they won’t be able to imagine any other way (just as you apparently can’t now).
But unlike 1956, we can go into this with our eyes open. We’re not selling the country out to vague, auto-industry inspired visions of an auto-utopian future. We know what sustainable, walkable, transit-oriented cities look like. We know they work. We’re actually aware of and watching out for the development consequences and the relevant externalities this time.
That’s kind of the whole point.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Charles Courtemanche, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has produced a study suggesting that permanent hikes in gas prices may slash obesity rates. The amount is hardly nominal: A sustained $1 increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline equals a 10% dip in the nation’s obesity rate
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I find it interesting that there is no link to this famous study where you can see any data. Also, it’s totally counter intuitive. Gas prices have been on a generally upward trend in this country as have obesity rates.
1990
avg price of gallon of gas 1.75 (in 2009 dollars)
US obesity rate 11.6%
2009
avg price of gallon of gas 2.75
US obesity rate 25%
July 21st, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Have you been to America? Are you aware of how sparsely populated most of the country is? Do you seriously think that a country that took 20 years to complete the Big Dig and can’t even maintain the New York and Chicago subway systems in decent working order is capable of the kind of engineering and construction work that would be required to replace any meaningful part of the highway system with light rail? Especially when there’s essentially no constituency for it? This is utopian bullshit. Tend your own garden.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:45 pm
The answer to bad central planning isn’t good central planning; it’s rebuilding local communities one by one. Start with your own and stop imagining that Big Daddy Washington is going to make everything better. It’s not going to happen.
I have absolutely no idea what this is in response to. Obviously we’re talking about rebuilding communities one by one. But equally obviously, a lot of the rebuilding will need to be done with federal funds. Just like the dis-building was done.
There are no “central planners” in the sense you seem to think. This isn’t some arrogant room full of bureaucrats in DC idly redrawing Atlanta’s street grid. We’re talking about local planners in Atlanta requesting funds to help with a project they think will help.
The trouble, in fact, with the current system is precisely that outdated and one-size-fits all rules in Washington make it so much easier to build new freeways than new transit projects. Things would be different if local communities had more say.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Look, while I think it’s nice to know that biking can help some people lose weight, it’s clear that none of you have looked at the major scholarly research on obesity. Obesity doesn’t kill people, inactivity and bad nutrition does. BMI is a poor proxy for individual health. Even in doctor-controlled study environments, we can’t make 95% of fat people thin. More importantly, fat people who exercise are healthier than thin people who don’t. The ‘obesity epidemic’ hysteria is pushed as a major population shift, but the feds changed how they measured obesity overnight in 1998, making many Americans ‘overweight or obese’ without their gaining a pound. Perhaps the increasing rate of depression, which can have weight gain as a side effect, is changing American weights. We also have more people getting meds with weight gain as a side effect. Perhaps fat people die earlier because of the reality of discrimination by medical personnel. Working out will give you a longer life, but self-righteous beliefs about your moral superiority will not.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Have you been to America? Are you aware of how sparsely populated most of the country is?
What in the world does sparse population have to do with it? Nobody wants to build subways in rural North Dakota. The point is to end the dysfunctional funding process that makes sprawled out exurbs artificially desirable, and build better cities, so more people can move back and live in them.
Do you seriously think that a country that took 20 years to complete the Big Dig and can’t even maintain the New York and Chicago subway systems in decent working order is capable of the kind of engineering and construction work that would be required to replace any meaningful part of the highway system with light rail?
Yes. Obviously America can’t do shit. Three cheers for mediocrity! What a great argument.
(Also, “replacing the highway system with light rail”? WTF? Do you have any idea what you’re even talking about?)
July 21st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Anything that involves a moratorium on freeway construction and the construction of light rail on the scale required to lower highway use would be a centrally planned federal project, whether it was called that or not. That you don’t seem to realize this shows how little you’ve thought about these issues.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Anything that involves a moratorium on freeway construction and the construction of light rail on the scale required to lower highway use would be a centrally planned federal project, whether it was called that or not. That you don’t seem to realize this shows how little you’ve thought about these issues.
There’s central planning, and then there’s federal funding. Those ain’t the same thing. Try again.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:57 pm
“Replacing the highway system with light rail” is the clear implication of what you’re talking about. Unless you’re proposing that people walk from the suburbs to work, which you may be given how incoherent your utopian bullshit is. Stop mouthing political talking points about “better cities” and start thinking about concrete, asphalt and steel.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:58 pm
“Federal funding” IS “central planning,” as you’d know if you had the least clue what you’re talking about. Do you really think the feds just give bags of money to cities with no input into projects or requirements for how it’s spent?
July 21st, 2009 at 2:11 pm
“Replacing the highway system with light rail” is the clear implication of what you’re talking about. Unless you’re proposing that people walk from the suburbs to work, which you may be given how incoherent your utopian bullshit is. Stop mouthing political talking points about “better cities” and start thinking about concrete, asphalt and steel.
The point of transit oriented development is that (more) people don’t have to live in suburbs 30 miles from work. You don’t need to replace the highways with anything, you just need to work on the infrastructure and services within cities, and let the rest take care of itself.
You’re still stuck thinking in terms of automobiles, and the existing built-environment, where everything has to be miles away from everything else, and separated by vast stretches of freeway and parking lots.
Sneakers, trains and bicycles allow more things to be actually people-sized.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
“Federal funding” IS “central planning,” as you’d know if you had the least clue what you’re talking about. Do you really think the feds just give bags of money to cities with no input into projects or requirements for how it’s spent?
Those are NOT the same thing, as a moments reflection should tell you. Obviously local projects have to meet certain federal standards to get funding, but they are not centrally planned. They are locally planned. That’s a very different thing from “central planning”. It’s an important distinction that you seem to be ignoring.
And again, we’re arguably talking about LESS “central planning” as you call it, because most of what’s needed in that area is just revising the federal rules so they don’t artificially privilege highway projects.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
[...] might also cut back on our waistlines (and, accordingly, our medical bills). Christopher Steiner (via Matt Yglesias), writes in Forbes: Charles Courtemanche, an economist at the University of North [...]
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I commute on the subway in DC, and yet I still get sticky gross when going to work in the humid summer. But I’m not going to drive as an alternative. But that’s beside the point.
How many times have you ridden your bike through a fast food drive through? I am not tempted to eat fast food on my commute because I’m mostly underground. On my way home, at the stop near my home I pass two grocery stores that make it easy for me to make healthy dinner choices. When I lived in the suburbs and drove to work, it was so easy to swing by the drive through. While I do not agree that “transportation policy is health policy” per se, I do believe we make driving and eating poorly waaaay too easy and something to do while our brains are turned off.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
[...] less to get around leads to less obesity. Obvious, but often overlooked in the [...]