"Federal Government's investment in electric vehicles in six months"

JK: That is NOT a car subsidy, it is a green subsidy.

Thanks
JK

"Studies appear to show that between fifteen and twenty-two percent of all the energy ever consumed by a vehicle is used in its manufacture"
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007800.html
.
Better cars = more sprawl.
For a list of autosprawl externalities:
.
http://freepublictransit.org/Externalities.php

Did they get it approved by ACORN?

Uh, what does ACORN have to do with this?

JK: That is NOT a car subsidy, it is a green subsidy.

Well its better than a bank subsidy or a war subsidy aint it Jimmy old pal?

If it was a green subsidy, wouldn't they have gotten bicycles instead? In calories, even an out of shape cyclist is about 30 times more energy efficient than the most efficient cars.

Show me a form of transportation that ISN'T subsidized (in addition to GM, I'm also thinking of the airline bailouts several years back).

They're all subsidized. Even walking.

We really shouldn't have bailed out the airlines, though. At least not without buying one for ourselves, as happened with the passenger rail collapse in the 60s. That ultimately turned out for the better even if it did take 40 years and an oil crisis for it to happen...

Paul Johnson Says: In calories, even an out of shape cyclist is about 30 times more energy efficient than the most efficient cars.
JK: Can you show us the numbers for this claim?

I have played with the numbers in the past and didn't get this kind of result. (Without numbers, these sorts of things are just meaningless claims.)

Another important number is the bike fatality rate PER MILE.

Thanks
JK

Don’t miss this:

Study Finds That Driving Has a Positive Effect on the Economy
http://www.oregoncatalyst.com/index.php/archives/2772-Study-Finds-That-Driving-Has-a-Positive-Effect-on-the-Economy.html

Thanks
JK

I can't vouch for these studies, but the methods and data seem reasonable on first glance:

Bicycle efficiency:
http://www.lafn.org/~dave/trans/energy/bicycle-energy.html

* bicycle efficiency mainly depends on what you eat; on average cycling about 67% more efficient (so less than 2x)

Fatality rates:
This wouldn't be that hard to come up with for the region using some reasonable assumptions. As a start though (notes this is based on 15 year old data):
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
(scroll down to fatalities per million exposure hours chart)
* Cycling about twice as safe as driving per hour of each for the cyclist. Of course, driving also imposes risks on others (including cyclists!), and this probably should be accounted for.

I'm not saying either of these studies is definitive.

JK:"Don’t miss this:

Study Finds That Driving Has a Positive Effect on the Economy"

ws:Having the highest GDP does not mean an economy is healthy, nor does it equate to a positive effect.

You already know this as we discussed this on another blog, but for those who don't:

States in the US with lower VMT per capita on average have a higher GDP per capita than states with with VMT per capita.

There is zero correlation -- zero -- that indicates that the more you drive the better your economy is. ZERO. It's pseudo-science what JK linked too (it came from Cascade Policy Institute).

(New York has the lowest VMT per capita of any state, Mississippi has one of the highest).

ws: There is zero correlation -- zero -- that indicates that the more you drive the better your economy is. ZERO. It's pseudo-science what JK linked too (it came from Cascade Policy Institute).

I didn't read the entire document but a quick read didn't show any rationale for causality. Why would driving more improve the economy--unless you happen to be selling gas?

Thanks Joe,

I don’t have time to go through the article, but his conclusion gives the impression of being well thought out:

The fossil fuel energy required to travel on a typical bicycle is compared to that of a typical automobile. Based on the mechanical energy used (by calculating the forces needed for steady motion) the bicycle is roughly 10 times more efficient. But since the auto must brake from a higher velocity it uses relatively more braking energy than a bicycle so the ratio of 10 becomes about 13.5. But while an auto engine is rated about 50% higher in thermal efficiency than the "human engine", in actual urban use the auto engine is about 40% lower in thermal efficiency and about 10% of fuel is burned during idling. Result: The bicycle is about 25 times more efficient than the bicycle. But when one considers that for every Calorie of food eaten, it takes perhaps 15 Calories of fuel to grow, transport, and cook that food, then the bicycle is only about 2/3 more energy efficient than the auto. But if one counts the energy cost of the extra time it takes to travel by bicycle, it's not clear that the bicycle is any more energy-efficient than the auto. But if one counts the energy expended bicycling as the energy cost of healthy exercise and doesn't count it as an input to transportation, then the bicycle is very energy-efficient.

Joe: Cycling about twice as safe as driving per hour of each for the cyclist.
JK: Of course the goal is to travel to a destination, not to spend time on a bike. Therefore we should measure safety per person per mile traveled, not by the hour.

Thanks
JK

Joe Broach Says: As a start though (notes this is based on 15 year old data):
kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm

Just scanning, I noticed this: John Forester's Bicycle Transportation (2nd ed, 1994, pg 41).

He spoke at the 2005 and 2007 American Dream Conferences. Here is a video of the 2007 one:
http://blip.tv/file/2668423

Thanks
JK

The auto has many externalities: costs that are not included in the prices. In the U.S., public transit is mostly publicly owned, so it is NOT subsidized, it is a public investment. Whereas the auto, fossil-fuels, and sprawl, are all driven by profit, and their externalized costs are passed to the taxpayer, the environment, invaded countries, and the future.

ws: Having the highest GDP does not mean an economy is healthy, nor does it equate to a positive effect.

You already know this as we discussed this on another blog, but for those who don't:
JK: And, on that other blog, I asked for your data. I am still waiting. Either here or at ti.org/antiplanner/?p=2046#comments

Thanks
JK

Having a "healthy" economy does not mean you have a "healthy" population.

As a matter of fact, how do dollars=happiness at all?

If you got $100,000 does that make one happy?
Or is the figure more like $1,000,000 the key to happiness?
Or maybe its only $5,000 to be happy?
Wheres the chart that equates happy to money?
JK?