[sustran] Re: ground impacts of transportation

Sunny sksunny at gmail.com
Tue Apr 4 13:07:56 JST 2006


Dear Daryl,

I appreciate your intelligent work with numbers. But if you see the 
developing world the $15 you have assumed per hour is impossible to earn 
by many people. There are people living on a mere $1 a day or mostly 
less than that. If car travel is encouraged more then these people will 
slide into oblivion and if the earning member of such family is dead in 
a car accident then the others in the family are financially orphaned, 
in some cases but not everywhere these destitute folks might even turn 
into anti social elements.

On the environmental side, I have visited you website and it is really 
awesome tht your creative thinking has gone by leaps and bound far than 
the others. But please allow me to show what actually is required for a 
developing country in terms of transportation

Fast - as it says fast but in terms of time, high speeds do not satisfy 
this objective but steady speeds do.
Convenient - is frequent, affordable to all the classes of the society 
and comfortable i.e. not getting packed like a over stuffed DHL Parcel
Clean - Not letting our children face the consequences of the pollution 
we do, the system can be environmentally benign when the demand for fuel 
reduces and less             fuel is burnt
Safe - Less non-motorists being killed, weather is not a problem here
Achievable - The system should address the MDG and help in poverty 
alleviation and reduce the vertical inequality.

If a developing country could achieve the above objectives with minimum 
infrastructural investment then such a transportation would be suitable 
for a developing country. And from my understanding I strongly believe 
that cars can never be a solution even though they may come in any 
different model or any paraphernalia. Please give me your comments on 
this and I hope the others who read this will also comment on this.


Sunny

> This attached spreadsheet illustrates why cars are gaining in market share
> in developing countries, they have far greater VALUE than muscle powered
> transport, and contribute LESS environmental impact.  
>
> Even if you value your time at zero; if you walk and plan on traveling more
> than 317 miles in your life (but less than 32,253 miles) it pays to invest
> in a bike for favorable environmental impact reasons alone.
>
> If you walk, and plan on traveling more than 8755 miles in your life, then
> it pays to invest in a car for favorable environmental impact reasons alone
> - even if you place no value on your time.
>
> If you travel by bike, and plan on traveling more than 32,253 miles in your
> life, then it pays to invest in a car for favorable environmental impact
> reasons alone - even if you place no value on your time.
>
> If you place a $15/hour value on your time, then the bike takes only 91
> miles to justify the impact of production vs walking, and the car only
> 2,361miles.  The car compaired with a bike is justified for those who value
> their time more than $15/hour if they plan on more than 7275 miles of
> travel.  
>
> NOTE -- this analysis ignores the added value obtained if the car is used to
> transport it's full capacity of 5 persons -- the impact breakeven point vs
> walking or biking is MUCH faster if the car is used to it's full capacity.  
>
> I hope that some of the experts on this list can provide numbers so I may
> include air, bus, and train on this chart, and see the comparisons to cars,
> bikes, walking, and ETT.  
>
>   



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