Fw: Sprawl in Hungary (fwd)

[Todd Litman]

Let me make a few points in response to Mr. Coxes comments:

CONCERNING IDEOLOGY
I don't think that most critics of automobile-oriented transportation
planning consider cars and roads equivalent of the "Great Satan." Many of
us believe that automobiles have a role in a balanced transportation
system, but that current transport policies result in excessive driving,
and that given more optimal transportation and land use markets that
provide viable choices, fair and efficient pricing, and rational
investments consumers would choose to drive less and be better off as a
result. The point is not that cars are "bad", but rather that they impose
significant costs on society.


CONCERNING ROADWAY COST RECOVERY
According to the "1997 Federal Highway Cost Allocation Study," USDOT
(www.fhwa.dot.gov) current vehicle user charges (fuel taxes and
registration fees) only cover about 70% of total roadway costs, indicating
that these charges would need to increase by about 43% to achieve full cost
recovery. That is, the price of fuel would need to increase to about
60-cents per gallon just to cover road expenditures.

It is true that the highway cost study did include some transit
expenditures as part of road system costs (which can be justified on
least-cost principles, since transit investments are often cheaper than
building new urban highways, and because automobile dependency reduces the
efficiency of public transit). On the other hand, it omits a number of
additional facility costs and tax exemptions currently provided to
motorists. For example, the costs of local traffic services and municipal
parking subsidies are not included, and many states that apply general
sales taxes to most consumer goods exempt fuel. 

There are a number of other external costs imposed by driving, including
parking subsidies, uncompensated accident costs, the opportunity cost of
roadway land, traffic congestion (traffic congestion is usually defined
only in terms of delay to other motor vehicles, but pedestrians and
cyclists are also delayed by traffic), and a number of negative
environmental impacts. These are discussed in our paper "Transportation
Cost Analysis" a summary of which is posted at our website,
http://www.vtpi.org. It summarizes the results of a number of studies on
the full costs of various modes of transportation.

The 1982 Federal Highway Cost Allocation Study examined the issue of
whether local roads should be funded by users or through general taxes and
concluded that once basic access is provided to an area there is no good
reason to continue general tax funding. This implies that there is
virtually no justification for general tax funding of current roadway costs.

A few automobile advocates have criticized these studies, arguing that
motorists pay their fair share of costs, but virtually none of the critics'
reports are published by peer-reviewed journals, while many of the
comprehensive cost studies are. For a discussion see our paper "Evaluating
Criticism of Transportation Costing".

INEVIDABILITY OF SUBURBANIZATION
Although most developed cities have experienced suburbanization, there is
some question as to how inevidable this is and how much it reflects free
market choice. Just as automobile use is underpriced, resulting in
excessive driving, lower-density development is underpriced, resulting in
excessive suburbanization. Examples of land use market distortions that
favor lower-density, urban fringe development include dedicated highway
funding that encourages automobile oriented solutions to transportation
problems, zoning laws that require generous parking and lower density
development, mortgage interest payment income tax deductions, and failure
to charge residents for the higher public service costs associated with
lower-density locations. 

As a result, residents of higher-density older neighborhoods tend to
overpay their public service costs, while residents of lower-density, newer
residences tend to underpay (see Subhrait Guhathakurta, "Who Pays for
Growth in the City of Phoenix? An Equity-Based Perspective on
Suburbanization," Urban Affairs Review, Vol. 33, No. 5,
www.urbanfutures.org/j102898.html, July 1998, pp. 813-838; Robert Burchell,
et al., The Costs of Sprawl - Revisited, TCRP Report 39, Transportation
Research Board, www.nas.edu/trb, 1998). To put this another way, the
current land market fails to provide with effective price incentives,
because it does not return to individual consumers the savings that result
when they choose lower-cost locations. This encourages suburban development
over urban infill.

There are also some self-fulfilling prophesies at work. As more
middle-class households move to suburbs, urban neighborhoods become less
desirable places to live. But note that this has little to do with physical
conditions, rather it represents economic and social trends that favor
suburbs over cities.

This is not to say that in a less distorted land market everybody would be
living in highrise apartments, but it does suggest that some, perhaps much,
of suburbanization reflects a LACK of consumer choice and FAILURE of the
market, not true consumer preferences as Cox claims. The growing popularity
of loft apartments, neotraditional development and gentrified urban
neighborhoods indicates that given even moderatly attractive conditions,
some households would prefer moderate- to high-density residences.

ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF AUTOMOBILE DEPENDENCY
There is both theoretical and emperical evidence that excessive automobile
dependency has negative economic development impacts, since it imposes many
costs on governments, consumers and society overall, and it tends to
require a large amount of imported goods. A more balanced transportation
system could provide more economic stability to developing countries such
as Hungary. For discussion see "Automobile Dependency and Economic
Development" posted at our website.


Sincerely,

Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
E-mail:  litman at vtpi.org
Website: http://www.vtpi.org



>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 20:11:48 -0600
>From: Wendell Cox <wcox at publicpurpose.com>
>Reply-To: sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org
>To: sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org
>Subject: [sustran] Fw: Sprawl in Hungary
>
>> Sorry for the discordant view... but...
>>
>> I understand that a lot of people think of autos and roads as being the
>> equivalent of the "Great Satan," but that does not change the facts.
>> Contrary to the claims in the "sprawl in Hungary" article...
>>
>> The highways in Calif and Texas, not to mention across the US were paid
>for
>> by users --- through taxes assessed on fuel alone for the purpose of
>> building the roads. These taxes are specific to fuel, and not charged on
>> other commodities. A small percentage of user fees is tolls. Data for the
>> past five years is available at....
>>
>> http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-us$93&c.htm
>>
>> There is some general taxation support of roads, but it is approximately
>> canceled by the diversion of user revenues to other sources, such as mass
>> transit. Moreover, virtually all general taxation support of roads is for
>> LOCAL roadways, not for the motorways that are the backbone of the
>national
>> system.
>>
>> It is an inventive argument to connect sprawl to the S&L crisis. While
>some
>> weak connection might be made, the fact is that suburban expansion was at
>> its weakest in the 1980s, and much of the development would have occured
>> without the S&L crisis. The problem was that the national insurance
>program
>> was poorly administered... it was one of our most unfortunate government
>> failures, and we have had a few. A couple of larger ones have been the
>> abysmal failure of central city education and explosion of central city
>> crime rates from 1960 to 1990, which in and of themselves were of
>sufficient
>> concern to drive millions of people out of the central cities into the
>> suburbs. One would hope that the same will not occur in Hungary, and that
>as
>> a result, the inevitable movement to suburbs that is attendant to
>increased
>> affluence will simply reflect preferences in the market, rather than the
>> "bleeding" that has resulted from government failure in US central cities
>> (FYI, the city of St. Louis will show a population of 325k in 2000, down
>> from 857k in 1950 --- virtually all US inner cities have declined in
>> population, though the trend has been masked by annexation in some).
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Wendell Cox
>> --
>> WENDELL COX CONSULTANCY: International Public Policy, Economics, Labor,
>> Transport & Strategic Planning
>>
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>>
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>>
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>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: ITDP <mobility at igc.org>
>> To: <FriendsofITDP at igc.org>
>> Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 10:02 PM
>> Subject: [sustran] ITDP's latest TransportActions
>>
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>> > Winter, 2000
>> > > *   Hungarian Sprawl:  Another S & L Crisis in the Making?
>>
>
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Sincerely,

Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
E-mail:  litman at vtpi.org
Website: http://www.vtpi.org