patrick.net

@Seaside

I'm in just about the same situation as your wife, so I'm sure you know how I feel when I read books like this one and think about the oppression that is car culture. Do RE agents look at you funny (or patronizingly) when you tell them what your needs are?

But I think you're putting the cart before the horse when you say that I'm "lucky to live in Tokyo" -- it's the opposite! I *have* to live in a place like Tokyo because most of the homes and jobs everywhere else are closed off to me. Believe me, I'd prefer to live in the US, but personae non gratae like myself can't find jobs or homes in most cities. It would have been possible before WWII, and will be again (hopefully) someday, but not now.

@MarkinSF

It makes little sense to form a transportation system around private automobiles. They just sit around taking up precious space 95% of the time, and the traffic is hellish with everybody in a car.

This is one of the main theses of the book! A huge amount of space is taken up by automobiles even when (especially when) they aren't moving.

Calculate the area (in ft^2, m^2, etc.) taken up by an automobile and multiply it by the number of cars in a given city. Now imagine that all that area, multiplied by the average number of stories in a building, could be just given to the residents as extra living space, for free.

Not a big deal if you're in the countryside, but in the cities, things will become a lot less cramped!

@PKennedy

The fact that the cost of driving is practically fixed regardless of how many miles you drive is another big problem, indeed, and it works just like free parking. There's no disincentive to drive less once you have a car, so people drive excessively. Do any auto insurers make their rates proportional to miles driven in a year? How about local/state car ownership taxes? They should be -- it would do a lot to keep people from driving too much and would unclog the roads.

I wouldn't ever want to live under a government that has that much power to observe people's movements, but if it were somehow possible to tax cars per trip rather than per mile or per year of ownership, it would be even better. People would stop their short 1-mile drives immediately, and save the car for the long trips that require it. Everybody would benefit from that, particularly homeowners who don't like hearing automobiles driving past their house all day long!

pkennedy says

I believe first mass production line of cars though was in the US.
Big difference of course! But the gist is we became very dependent on cars very fast.

Sure it was, and it took just several years to completely change US. It only proves how fast it can be changed back.

My transit pass is $70 per month. My daily commute is about 15 miles, 30 miles round trip. If it was only for commuting, it'd be about 10-11 cents per mile but sometimes I use it to go downtown especially if a cocktail or a parking hassle (or both) is involved, so it works out to about 8 cents per mile.

Michigan,

I own four vehicles. Since I live in suburban sprawl I use the car for shopping, etc. However for commuting, the traffic and cost compared to a transit pass are huge disincentives to drive in those situations.

Regarding the insurance, you can get a lower rate if you drive less. I am all in favor of paying mile-by-mile, that has been proposed as putting the liability insurance into the gasoline tax as a way to achieve that. For the meanwhile though, I get a reduction from my insurance company for putting less than 7500 miles per year on the car. It is a little bit more than $20 per reduction for liability and uninsured motorist. I don't have collision on those cars because they are already depreciated.

That's "a little more than $20 per month reduction", ie, savings of about $250 per year per car....

@Michinaga
How to keep the government from keeping an eye on you, yet charge for these trips? Gas tax. Like in Europe. Per mile tax right there.

@michaelsch
As far as the train, I agree with you, I think SF ace is missing how many commuters there are between SF and LA. There are flights leaving every 30-60 minutes from oakland and san jose, just on southwest! If you could have a train that dropped you off in the heart of LA vs the outskirts, this would more than make up for the slightly longer trip.

Here is how it will be ruined, and how airlines will destroy it: They will ensure that people demand stops in their cities. Every stop will add 15 minutes or so. Get 3-5 extra stops, and you're set, you've destroyed it's viability. If they can manage Sacramento, SF, San Jose, LA, SD, they might be okay. Add in 3-5 more stops and you're going to screw everyone.

pkennedy says

Add in 3-5 more stops and you’re going to screw everyone.

May be, but if you have a train every 30 minutes and only half of them make local stops it will still work. After all there are not too many places to stop between LA and Bay area.

@PKennedy - Indeed, gas taxes would do it. Hadn't thought about how much of an impact they'd have, but with European prices, it would be a big help.

As for high-speed trains, wouldn't one solution be to have express trains at multiple speeds, the fastest of which makes only the biggest stops, down to a near-local one that stops at all the big cities? One line on the famous Japanese bullet train has a main line that runs through the Osaka-Tokyo corridor, and the fastest train on that line only makes a few stops (Kyoto, Nagoya, and maybe five or six more; the conventional local train must make well over 100 stops). I think it costs about $130 to take that route at top speed; it's about 500 miles and takes 2 1/2 hours. The regular train would be about $75, but take eight hours.

All kinds of bribery and backroom dealing went on when this thing was first built in the 1960s, and there are several lines of questionable necessity that just happen to stop in the hometowns of certain politicians, but it works pretty well. And there was a lot more private property that required the railways to convince individuals to sell; nearly the whole route, as opposed to the US where there'd be more open land. Investing in the real estate that's scheduled, or even rumored, to be in the way of a future train line is a black art in itself.

Man, a train from SJ to SF in like 15 minutes!

Even every 30 minutes, if the ride goes from 2:45 min to 4 hours due to a few extra stops, that is starting to cut into it's feasibility. Even if it's still "faster" than a plane, people will be less likely to adopt it.

pkennedy says

Man, a train from SJ to SF in like 15 minutes!
Even every 30 minutes, if the ride goes from 2:45 min to 4 hours due to a few extra stops, that is starting to cut into it’s feasibility. Even if it’s still “faster” than a plane, people will be less likely to adopt it.

I mean only half of trains will make local stops. The rest will do it in 2:45. Also local stops should not be long. Extra 10 minutes per stop is more than enough. Not all of them need to make all local stops. If a train makes 2 it's still about 3 hours. Other local stations may be served by other trains.

Also, you have much more space on a train than on a plain. Easy to add a table, internet connection, power outlet and you can be at work while riding the train. Add a cafeteria.

Don't forget, you need to clear the railroad ahead of you, before you can launch a train past it. That isn't necessarily easy or fast. If you're traveling at 150 miles per hour, you need distance between you and the next train. It's a logistics thing, but I think having that many high speed trains on the tracks, doing strange things like making extra stops could cause issues. Issues which will likely require "safety" measures, which will require slowing down, and/or other tactics.

Also there is a big difference between getting up at 5am (quick shower, drive to station, get on) to get into the city for a 9am meeting,and getting up at 3am. Sure it's more comfortable and less stressful, but time is time.

@PKennedy - You're worrying too much about the logistics. Just import a team from Japan Railways lock, stock, and barrel; everything will be fine! Extremely tight, to-the-second schedules on the Shinkansen, and there's never been a fatality. THere might never have been a crash; I'm not sure.

yeah, I was going to say that the Japanese have their sh-t together.

Shinkansens stop in the station for exactly two minutes. If you can't make it fully in/out the door when it closes, too bad, you'll have a chance to finish your egress/ingress at the next station.

Not really, but they don't mess around.

Also, expresses are planned to blow through stations where the local is waiting (with doors open for local passengers to board) on sidetracks. Pretty intelligent system. Used to live in Kichijoki which has a direct express to Shibuya via the Inokashira line. As long as I made the 8:50 express, I was guaranteed of getting to my 9:30AM shift (which was important cuz if I was late 1 minute there would be hell to pay).

Takes 26 minutes (with four stops along the way) and costs ~$2. 9 miles by surface streets. In Bay Area terms this is Cupertino to Great America in distance.

(edit: ah, Sunday morning teaching english conversation to college kids in Shibuya. Man I loved that shift. Got paid $125 for something I'd do for free )

Another aspect of how "car culture" intrudes into every part of your life. Look at most houses built over the last decade, how many of them around you have a 3-car garage dominating the front face of the house? I see tons of them, all with the entry door (with small porch) shoved off to the side like an afterthought. I like the term "snout" for the 3-car garage, and no house I ever own will have one.

Real Men park in the Yard!

Vicente, that reminds me, don't some municipalities calculate garage space differently from living space when figuring property taxes, with the garage space being cheaper? It would be pretty ridiculous for someone who can't drive a car to have to pay more tax because he converted a useless garage into a regular room!

Yes, and I've seen some laughable attempts to "game" that garage thing. One rental we were looking at even said in the ad that one room was a garage despite having the door replaced by a wall. I believe they were using the space for non-garage purposes but claiming it as garage space on taxes.

Houses where a very short driveway ends in a snouty part of the house still look pretty sad to me. I like old-style houses where the front of the house was good-looking, maybe even had a largish porch to hang out on. The "carriage house" if present should be around the side/back where decent people don't have to look at it. Cars up on blocks OK by me, but should be in the back yard not front.

pkennedy says

I believe first mass production line of cars though was in the US.
Big difference of course! But the gist is we became very dependent on cars very fast.

America was very much a developing society when the automobile was first being mass produced about a hundred years ago. So American society developed around the advantages offered by the car as transportation. America also had a lot of real estate to cover from a transportation stand point. This is especially true from the mid-west to the pacific coast. Europe was already a well-established society and it was more difficult for their society to accommodate personal transportation. The long established cities in Europe often had more narrow streets that were designed to carry foot traffic and horses whereas cities in America were built with cars in mind. It may be true to say as Americans we are more car dependent than in many other countries but that is more a reflection of how our society developed than of a conscious or purposeful choice. It's simply in our social and economic DNA.

Lydia, why did you move to a car-oriented town instead of a big city when you came to the US?

I bike to work just as your husband does; weather is another example of car-centrism. If the roads are too dangerous for cars, work itself will be cancelled, but in a rainstorm -- no problem for a weather-proof car, but a special kind of hell for anyone on a bike -- you're expected to come to work even if you get soaked to the bone on the way. Give us lockers where we can storea spare set of dry clothes, at least! (A locker is many fewer cubic feet than a parking space, so, employers, don't claim that you don't have the money.)

I visited your site, and must give you credit for letting potential clients display search results by Walk Score (few real estate agents offer that!), but if you'll forgive the impertinence, I don't think I would want to buy a house through someone who "can't imagine" what life is like for me every day and what life was once like for your 20-year-younger self. If you're hoping to pull in customers with this first post of yours, perhaps you could try being less insensitive.

Michinaga, we moved to our area because the city life isn't really for us, and we actually had a family friend who invited us to stay at her house for a bit until we saved enough to find a place of our own. We've been here ever since, and it's basically become our home.

I also did not mean to offend, as I was just looking back at our first years here.

Fireballsocal says

I for one couldn’t imagine life without my transportation. I own both a truck and motorcycle as well as several offroad only ATV’s. I had also not thought about this situation from the OP’s perspective. Electric vehicles will be good and cheap enough in the next 10 years that transportation will be available when oil gets to be cost prohibitive. Gasoline at $4.50 a gallon jump started that several years ago. I don’t think that neighborhoods will be ghost towns because gasoline got too expensive. Transportation will just evolve from the combustion engine to electric/fuel cell/Mr. Fusion. Taxes pay for most public parking and even if parking wasn’t paid for via the goods sold, those goods would still have to pay for a bust stop or train depot right?

This is a long thread and I lost interest in most of the replies - but the point I see as important from the OP is this: we have built an infrastructure that more or less requires we accommodate cars for EVERYTHING. Zoning laws require specific minimum parking or you can't have a business. Often, housing tracts require minimum lot size with the intention of creating "green" and "space" or a certain bucolic lifestyle resulting in the un-bucolic forced car use, wider roads, and also fewer businesses close enough to walk to, and no PUBLIC green space, just useless (or near useless) front lawns. Not to mention, this minimum lot sizes that are I suppose meant to "save the land" actually do the opposite - they serve to eat up more land, faster! Same number of homes on bigger lots equals more land wiped out.

There's a quote I heard that I love on this subject. Afraid I don't have the attribution. "We should take all the zoning laws to the town squares of this country and burn them - if only we could find some town squares".

This is not "SF liberal" talk. This is just acknowledging that people are given no other choice but to drive everywhere, and it is the built environment that we have created that is the cause of that lack of choice. Why is it built this way? Mistaken planning ideas, development profit pressures (easy and cheap to carve up open land and build cookie cutter), and yes, even the car-gas-tire lobby (look it up).

I for one would like better built environments. Some of our best cities are the oldest. Wonder why? They were built "pre-zoning".

Tenouncetrout says

That’s only a “REAL” problem in NYC.

Every where else, its really a matter of people willingness to be Screwed by the businesses they patronize or the places they choose to live.
I don’t pay to park period, That’s what I pay taxes for.

I damn sure ain’t paying to park where I work.
And I’m sorry you lost your license, your car got repoed or you can’t afford gas anymore.
But every job requires a car. Do you really expect people with means of transportation to take the Bus?

Just to add to that a bit since I do agree with TT. I do not believe that just because one is destitute and can't afford a car means everyone else should be forced to pay extra to park theirs. That's what we already pay taxes for, and prices in the mall/store, etc...

If cars were owned by only 1% of the society I could see the OP, but when almost everyone has one.... this is a non issue.

Would this be different if were were still driving horse and buggy's?

I didn't think so.

I mean, did people used to have to pay to park their horse, etc?

I didn't think so.

Nomograph says

He spends twice that amount every year on weed.

Probably!

ChrisLA says

Tenouncetrout says

That’s only a “REAL” problem in NYC.
Every where else, its really a matter of people willingness to be Screwed by the businesses they patronize or the places they choose to live.

I don’t pay to park period, That’s what I pay taxes for.
I damn sure ain’t paying to park where I work.

And I’m sorry you lost your license, your car got repoed or you can’t afford gas anymore.

But every job requires a car. Do you really expect people with means of transportation to take the Bus?

Just to add to that a bit since I do agree with TT. I do not believe that just because one is destitute and can’t afford a car means everyone else should be forced to pay extra to park theirs. That’s what we already pay taxes for, and prices in the mall/store, etc…
If cars were owned by only 1% of the society I could see the OP, but when almost everyone has one…. this is a non issue.

To me it's not about paying for parking. That's not an issue nor is it a solution. It's the issue of massive amounts of tax dollars being diverted toward one specific type of development - CAR oriented, strip mall and suburban hell - rather than other more beneficial development models.

I would like to see more mixed use, variable densities, more public transit (not buses but light rail, trains, subways), and less green field big box and strip malls, with suburban residential tracts that are nothing but rows of houses with nothing else. Our local governments have rubber stamped and even encouraged this scourge for 60 years or more. Same goes for massive commercial tracts and office parks. It's not a good model, it creates more problems than it solves, and frankly, it is aesthetically awful.

The problem is most people don't even have the OPTION of not driving everywhere. So many of you like your cars, fine! I love my muscle car and enjoy driving with the top down. But there are days I would like to leave it in the garage and go to work, go shopping, go out and about. In most of the U.S., that is not even a possibility without extreme measures (rent a limo).

The good news is there has been proven success with something called new urbanism. I think the proof is in the fact that these new urbanist developments immediately become some of the most expensive RE in the areas they are built. This is because it is DESIRABLE.

Tenouncetrout says

I don’t pay to park period, That’s what I pay taxes for.

I didn't know you were a socialist. Maybe we get the gubbermint to give us free gasoline too!!

Yes, that is an excellent book. And it's widely read among policy makers here in San Francisco.

Also worth checking out: Howard Kunstler has written and done a lot of presentations on this topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZeXnmDZMQ

Damn.

I drove past a filling station near my home with a sign showing 4.00.9 per gallon of 87 octane, on my way to Arco station with $3.89.9 per gallon. My running fuel expense is up to $349 for the past thirty days. That's for three drivers, includes a Prius and a natural gas Honda ($2.37 per gallon on this morning's fillup), no commuting outside of our city, and one commuter who commutes on public transit instead of driving... and it added up to $349 just for fuel for the past 30 days.

Damn.

sybrib says

Damn.

It's going to get worse. A lot worse.

MarkinSF: You say "worse, a lot worse", I say "better, a lot better". People are adaptive. We saw this in the last price spike. Bus ridership went up dramatically, efficient car sales went up, guzzler sales went down. As the price of oil soars adaption and innovation will occur. There will be transient pain but long term things will be fine. People will move closer in to the city centers, bicycling and public transportation will grow etc. So, at least for my values, things will get better with high gas prices, not worse :)

What is more likely though is that prices will come back down again. My hunch (or conspiracy theory) is that the swings in oil prices are intentional. Raise prices for a period to take massive profits but lower them before too many people adapt and change behaviors or buy gas sippers.

A large portion of the population doesn't think very critically, deeply or long term and will bitterly complain about gas prices while filling up their SUV or F150 for the 20 mile daily commute never even seeing the irony. I think for people like this you can safely keep the prices inflated for several months sucking cash out of their pockets like crazy then bring prices down so they don't trade in the beast for a sipper or move closer to where the work is. Repeat over and over ...

BTW, I believe that the solution to high oil prices is to tax the oil and pay the collected tax back to the taxpayers as a dividend. Yes, it sounds crazy but I think it makes economic sense. I wrote that up a while ago here: http://kiatoa.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-taxing-resources-makes-them-cheaper.html

kiatoa, I don't think taxing oil sounds crazy - I've been rooting for that to happen for years. Driving is way too heavily subsidized in the US.

" Are we to believe that the costs associated with maintaining and cleaning rest rooms are heartlessly unfair to people that don’t need to pee?"

In Prague we did need to pay for that too! Even at McDonalds there was an extra cost of using the restroom. (I think some of them were taking in close to $1000/day).

I think a lot of people out here miss out on the fact that even if you reduce costs for someone it will not necessarily reduce prices.

The only thing that really would force prices down is competition, and I really do not see that simply making people pay more for parking would do anything than be another added tax. This to me seems like a non issue, or something too trivial to matter considering the other bigger items government needs to solve.

sybrib says

Damn.
I drove past a filling station near my home with a sign showing 4.00.9 per gallon of 87 octane, on my way to Arco station with $3.89.9 per gallon. My running fuel expense is up to $349 for the past thirty days. That’s for three drivers, includes a Prius and a natural gas Honda ($2.37 per gallon on this morning’s fillup), no commuting outside of our city, and one commuter who commutes on public transit instead of driving… and it added up to $349 just for fuel for the past 30 days.
Damn.

Today a week later the price was up to $4.05.9 at the same Chevron. A regressive tax on people who must drive to work for their jobs, at a time when wages are stagnant. Sure is what it feels like.

Sounds like a lower standard of living.

Sounds like for those who have a job to drive to, less money for other expenses.

Like childcare.

Or tuition.

Or housing.

Hey sybrib,

Gas prices are going higher so home prices will follow the suit, just like someone here says "listing price is going up so actual price will also go up".

There is a partial solution to the problem: carpooling. Nothing wrong with it. Done it before, may wind up doing it again.
I know lotsa folks who do it, and even more who could, and maybe would, if they thought they had to.

It's more than just saving gas. It's reducing the stress of daily driving, reducing wear and tear (and ownership cost) on one's own vehicle, grounding us in the reality that we live in society and not in a bubble.

Ever hear the story of the Bay Bridge Casual Carpooler who met their spouse that way?

The United States wants access to Osama bin Laden's three widows and any intelligence material its commandos left behind at the al-Qaida leader's compound, a top American official said in comments broadcast Sunday that could add a fresh sticking point in already frayed ties with Pakistan.
Information from the women, who remained in the house after the commandos killed bin Laden, might answer questions about whether Pakistan harbored the al-Qaida chief as many American officials are speculating. It could also reveal details about the day-to-day life of bin Laden, his actions since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the inner workings of al-Qaida.

source: news.yahoo.com

sybrib says

I have a cool-and-hip-tech-job in Silicon Valley and live in suburban sprawl. My partner and I own free and clear four vehicles, but I take public transit to work because it is faster than sitting in traffic, and more flexible than having a carpool partner. Besides I don’t need a carpool partner to get access to the carpool lane anyway as two of my vehicles have the carpool lane stickers, and one of them is NOT a hybrid so its sticker is not set to expire soon.

That's an exception to the rule, not the rule. Out here in LA transportation is horrible. Most people do need cars to work. And if you go out into more rural areas it's even more of a must.