I get the message, but the numbers seem rather dubious. The "walking costs less than biking" seems to imply a meaningfully different set of infrastructure / waste inherent in one mode over the other. But I can say from personal experience that walkers and bikers use virtually all of the same infrastructure, while neither contribute meaningful wear-and-tear relative to general environmental degradation.
That's before you get into the necessity of motorized mass transit in a modern age. Buses and cars (and trains and planes and ships) aren't luxuries. They're fundamental to modern living, even in the most efficient urban environments. Without some truly exquisite urban planning and extremely egalitarian housing, you're simply not going to be in a position to walk or bike everywhere you need to go in a given week. Thus "buses cost $1.50 for ever $1 they cost you" seems to miss the substantive implicit costs (time, most notably) to the individual were they to not travel using a motorized vehicle.
The graph seems to imply a primitive approach to living (ie, everyone should walk to keep down social costs) that anyone intending to put the standard of living into practice would discover is significantly more expensive if not entirely impractical. There doesn't seem to be any kind of economics-of-scale or efficiency of technology included in the above.
TL;DR; This isn't compelling propaganda to anyone who isn't already :anprim-pat:
walkers and bikers use virtually all of the same infrastructure
They fucking shouldn't though. Both should have great infrastructure that keeps bikes and pedestrians separate until the bike rider is ready to get off their bike and wheel it to their destination.
Both should have great infrastructure that keeps bikes and pedestrians separate
Ha! We're lucky when we get either/or. Half my streets don't have sidewalks and turning the old MKT rail lines into bike trails, rather than toll roads, was just about the most progressive thing this city has done in 40 years.
But I can say from personal experience that walkers and bikers use virtually all of the same infrastructure
Do they? Most places I've lived bikes can use roads or designated bike paths, but generally not pedestrian paths unless designated otherwise.
We have bike trails in Houston, but joggers are all over them. We have a few bike lanes in downtown, but they're relatively short and they all link up to the bike trails anyway, so its functionally all the same traffic.
Either way, the notion that bikers use 8x the social spending as walkers feels like horseshit to me.
Either way, the notion that bikers use 8x the social spending as walkers feels like horseshit to me.
I could believe it - this is Canadian data and I've sure as shit seen Canadian bicyclists mowed down by automobiles on unsafe roads. I'd assume that gets divvied up between the two modes of transport in the "externalities" :doomer:
It's also confusing, like "if walking costs me $1" who am I paying this dollar to? How am I paying. Is it just in relation to time spent. idgi
It’s also confusing, like “if walking costs me $1” who am I paying this dollar to?
You could look at it from the perspective of personal expenditure (shoes / calories / etc). But biking is vastly more efficient than walking, so it seems like you're almost being penalized getting in more mph.
who am I paying this dollar to
The government it’s called taxes
You pay your taxes, society pays using those taxes. “Society pays” is the value you get back from services.
We’re gonna ignore things like MMT for the sake of this graphic lol
https://thediscourse.ca/scarborough/full-cost-commute
This is the source I think
