[Fwd: BIKE: The "road lobby"] - anybody want to be a DJ?

[Mike Dahmus]

Roger Baker wrote:

>
> On Mar 7, 2005, at 8:36 AM, Mike Dahmus wrote:
>
>> Folks, listen to me well:
>>
>> I have no problem responding with personal attacks when I have, in 
>> fact, been personally attacked. Whether the initiator is Roger (by 
>> ascribing devious motivations to me that he knows are a lie)...
>
>
>
> I try to be accurate. Could you please be more explicit, Mike? -- Roger

I find this disingenuous as I've told you before what I'm about to tell 
you now. You aren't trying to be accurate when you paint me as a 
toll-road-loving oil-peak-denying road-lobby-friend. You're too smart to 
be that stupid.

- I DO believe that oil is going to get more expensive. A lot more 
expensive. Hell, I bought a Prius as a hedge against rising oil costs. 
I've been investing whatever money I can spare in hedges against other 
energy costs.

- I DON'T believe that it's going to happen tomorrow, or this year. "a 
lot more expensive" isn't $2.50/gallon; it's $5.00/gallon or more. Note 
that in inflation-adjusted dollars, we'd have to break $3.00/gallon just 
to beat the previous record from the old oil shocks.

- I DON'T believe that even $5/gallon gasoline is going to prompt an 
exodus from the current suburbs. $5/gallon won't even result in a big 
increase in carpooling or transit usage, since both remain impractical 
for those people even when costs increase. At best, you'd see a move to 
trade in SUVs for more fuel-efficient small cars.

- I DO believe that $5/gallon gasoline OR tolls on commuting roads OR 
both will SLOW or even STOP the growth of NEW suburban development in 
those areas.

- I DO believe that there is currently enough population out there to 
support these toll roads' finances, even at $5/gallon.

- I DO believe that if the tolling of these roads is overturned, that 
the local politicians in Travis County and Austin will do what they did 
in 1998 and 2000 and put forward a bond package to sweeten the deal to 
TXDOT to get the roads built quicker, just as Round Rock and Williamson 
County recently did. This will exceed the old "we're just contributing 
for our share of right-of-way costs" gambit, as Round Rock and 
Williamson County already have done. Those bonds will then be repaid 
over 30 years by local property and sales taxes, as all such bonds are.

For those who have trouble understanding transportation economics at the 
micro (individual) level, I have this old commuting calculator available:

http://www.io.com/~mdahmus/biking/bikecommutecalc.php

First example: My trip to work when I drive (old Honda Civic hatchback 
gets roughly 36 mpg) versus taking the express bus at half-price 
(pre-bought tickets on smart-card), at current gas prices:

http://www.io.com/~mdahmus/biking/bikecommutecalc.php?triplength=20&gasprice=1.80&mpg=36&tirelife=50000&tireprice=50&carextra=0&biketriplength=11&biketubelife=500&biketubeprice=0&biketirelife=4000&biketireprice=0&bikeextra=1.0&submit=Submit

(I save 8 cents per day by taking transit - at a cost of about an hour 
of my time).

At $5/gallon, the equation changes thus:

http://www.io.com/~mdahmus/biking/bikecommutecalc.php?triplength=20&gasprice=5.00&mpg=36&tirelife=50000&tireprice=50&carextra=0&biketriplength=11&biketubelife=500&biketubeprice=0&biketirelife=4000&biketireprice=0&bikeextra=1.0&submit=Submit

(I could save $1.86 per day at a cost of about an hour of my time).

Still not incentive enough.

What about an SUV driver in the 'burbs? Well, they're not going to have 
a transit alternative as good as mine (the fact that it takes an extra 
hour actually puts me far ahead of most people who work out here in the 
big office complexes - for them it would be far worse) - so the credible 
alternative would be either a more efficient car or (unlikely) carpooling.

Their cost (see left side only) for a 40-mile round-trip commute in a 
vehicle getting 18 mpg:

$11.27 per day at $5/gallon

Switching to a more fuel-efficient vehicle (like my Civic) would cut 
that in half. As would carpooling.

At $6/day (new cost after switch), most of these people are going to 
continue to live where they live in the suburbs. Most suburban commuters 
can easily absorb this cost.



- MD