[sustran] A bias against NMM

[Kerry Wood]

Oh Dear...
 
> Point out the size of the externalities and the fact that 90-95% or
> more of the public on which externalities and government costs fall
> are drivers or those who ride in cars.  That leaves only 1-2% of the
> overall costs to fall on those who don't drive or ride.


This reminds me of JK Galbraith's comment that economists are
economical, amongst other things, with ideas.

It has been known for centuries that free access to communal grazing
land leads to over-grazing. If all the animals are half-starved each
household will maximise their benefit by running (say) two beasts. They
could gain still greater benefit if all households ran only one,
well-fed, beast, but the difficulty was to get agreement and avoid
cheating.. In the end, the solution was often to privatise the common
land, without compensation. Another solution might have been to charge
those with grazing rights by the beast, then share out the profits
equally. Oh, and ear-tagging.

If we are 'all' users of cars (despite the fact that no more than about
two thirds of the population have driving licences, and fewer have
cars), then it is even more true that we are all users of electricity.
So why bother charging for the stuff? That this is a Marxist idea is
neither here nor there: what matters is that it is inefficient, and that
electricity - and cars - are used on such a huge scale that inefficiency
really matters. 

We are talking subsidies here - big ones. Whether those subsidies are
paid out by the government - the usual method - or are unpriced costs
(clean air and water, deaths and injuries, resource depletion, 'free'
parking and so on) makes no difference. Some of those
subsidies/exteralities cannot be quantified accurately, but that makes
no difference either: better to be 20% or 80% right - or whatever the
figure is thought to be - than 100% wrong. 

If motor vehicle user were charged external costs, the first effects
would be the cost of setting up the bureaucracy to run it all, and that
poor people would find that they could not afford to go to work. But
then the secondary effects would cut in: car sharing; trip chaining;
more use of cycling, walking and public transport; less use of Urban
Assault Vehicles; cleaner exhausts; less congestion (remember that small
changes make a big difference) and so on. And in the longer term,
perhaps even an assumption in passenger transport and urban planning,
that transport users face their full costs.

And the poor people who cannot get to work? That is a problem and it
demands a solution, but a transport solution will subsidise the rich
more than the poor. Taxation, social security or minimum wage solutions
are all options.


-- 
Kerry Wood
Sustainable Transport Consulting Engineer
76 Virginia Road, Wanganui 5001, New Zealand
Phone and fax (+64 6) 347 2307		Mobile  021 115 9346