[sustran] Driving Forces-further thoughts

ITDP mobility at igc.apc.org
Sat Jun 26 05:15:52 JST 1999


I finally had a look at james Dunn's book, Driving Forces.

Its not very profound and full of ridiculous statements but there are a
few valid points which   are worthy of discussion, such as:

a. the external costs of driving in the WRI study and some others are
exaggerated in the cases mentioned.  I agree that parking lots in
private shopping centers do not constitute a subsidy to drivers, (except
for tax breaks they might get for providing the parking) as these costs
are reflected in the costs of rent and products at the shopping center.
'External costs that are actually paid by other motorists is also
analytically not very neat.

Of course, this accepts that a considerable amount of the external costs
of driving are valid.

b. he may also be right that the benefits of motor vehicle trips and
road enhancements are also not entirely quantified.  There probably are
some economic development benefits in some cases, not in others.
reducing travel times and costs can increase the market area of some
firms making possible greater returns to scale and can also minimize
warehousing costs in some cases.  Old Keynesian arguments about broader
social benefits of social overhead capital have been well criticized
recently but may retain some validity.

c. point that urban dispersal may have lowered housing costs is possible
and deserves to be addressed.  Certainly japan which is the most public
transit dependent OECD country also has the highest housing prices among
OECD countries.  this really needs to be addressed by us.  I've been
arguing that land rents (capturing agglomeration economies) are not
equivalent to transport costs from a growth perspective (land rent is
profit, and hence savings/investment, while transport costs are
'consumption).  Public policies encouraging higher density investment
into the built environment making possible agglomeration economies
should be explored by us as well as growth controls.

d. conspiracy theories about the destruction by GM of traction companies
in the US being responsible for the loss of pubic transit ridership are
probably exagerated and a minor factor, since transit ridership also
fell in cities where this did not occur.  there are much larger
structural forces at work here.  U.S. policy since the New Deal was
trying to stimulate consumption to get us out of the Great Depression
and cyclical economic crises, and a whole host of polices stimulated
auto and housing consumption.

e. He's also right to criticize some anti-highway advocacy folks for
having a 'synoptic' point of view, particularly regarding the land use
debates, meaning that they assume there is some decision-making body or
should be some decision-making body which has the power to reshape urban
form in some ideal way, rather than ideal urban form emerging out of a
superior decision-making process.

f.  critique of some of the costs of sprawl literature based on
empirical data showing that costs are pretty similar is probably not
controlling for land costs and pricing distortions for all sorts of
urban services but nonetheless was interesting.

g. true that travel times to work on average are not increasing nearly
as significantly as one might think or by international standards and
dispersal of economic activity may have something to do with this.
American exceptionalism here is quite interesting, but not very
informative for developing countries.

The strengths of the book are his review of the legislative history of
major US transport sector policy changes, some of which was new to me
anyway and interesting.  Particularly interesting that large sections of
the highway lobby support gas tax increases if earmarked to roads, and
even if not entirely earmarked if they yield more money for highways.
As a political scientist rather than an economist or a planner, you
would expect this part to be the strongest, and it is, though
oversimplified and positions are misrepresented in some cases.

His positions are also not straight forward pro-highway.  He calls for
some good things;
tightening CAFE standards, abolishing the earmarking of gas tax revenues
all together.

The book is full of errors, oversimplications, and complete
misrepresentations, but these points at least were worthy of more
serious consideration.

Problems with the Book

As Eric Bruun points out, he completely exaggerates the power of the
anti-highway forces, though it is very flattering that he things we are
so powerful.   If only it were true!  He makes some positively
ludicroius statements about anti-car activists 'taking their cars away'
and 'Americans could lose their automobiles and still suffer global
warming.'  This sort of thing makes the book difficult to consider
seriously.  he also takes on the weakest points of us anti-car folks,
rather than the strongest points.  John Pucher's points about his
ignoring the validity of many other negative externalities such as
safety etc. are of course correct.  He's very hostile to all traffic
demand management measures, somehow forgetting that traffic congestion
is disfunctional for motorists as well as non-motorists, and his
understanding of congestion pricing theory is fairly limited.  He shares
the falacy that somehow 'cars' are more modern or the way of the future,
whereas many vehicles he would consider 'backward' no doubt, such as
bicycle taxis and cycle rickshaws were actually invented after the
automobile, street cars are from a similar period, and all are over a
hundred years old.  One could argue that cars are in fact a bit obsolete
not in terms of their use but in terms of their economic importance,
with the value of Microsoft now greater than all but 12 countries.  With
so much economic power concentrated in these new technology industries,
the lobbying power of the auto industry is probably declining, which is
probably the only reason we are making any progress. He uses rather
transparent rhetorical devices of exaggerating the two extreme views in
order to appear to be embracing the reasonable 'middle'.

Its not a very profound book but does provide a minor service to those
of us concerned about more sustainable transport systems in challenging
at least some weak points in our arguments.

Best,
Walter Hook

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