Category / Lifestyle

by Adron

I Was Asked, “What do you do to fight…?”

What do I do to fight to improve our lives, our communities our city and our society? That was the question, paraphrased. My response,

“I don’t drive, don’t consume any oil products directly and try to minimize air travel and use rail or other means for longer distance trips when possible. Minimizing oil usage is difficult in these times since it has been pushed into the cornerstone of so many daily products: from diapers to the automobile.

I also make a point to support local co-ops that provide freshly grown food within 50-100 miles of where I live. I cook, sometimes eat out and eat foods that aren’t genetically modified. I’m actively involved in groups working to stop lawsuits to eliminate organic foods (Monsanto has tried in numerous states to sue any farmers that don’t use Monsanto’s genetically modified seed). I will work with and help anybody else as I can to stop these types of lawsuits, these absurd notions of “patenting life“, etc.

I stay in reasonable physical condition merely by living healthy, eating well and staying active. I cycle, I walk and generally I live actively. It goes a long way in making a happy life.

I work diligently to promote better lifestyles than the consumption based, debt oriented, auto dependent fiat currency based modes that are currently – for now – prominent in the United States.

I work in community groups to support children being able to ride their bikes to school, to ensure that neighborhoods are built reasonable with walkability – i.e. human beings in mind – so that no matter the limitations at least 99% of the populace can get to a grocery store, to a school, to a nearby park safely without the necessity of a car or other transportation requirement.

I work with economic development groups to align job location (albeit sometimes companies just don’t give a flying hoot) a reasonable distance from where the workforce is. It’s insane to think anybody travels more than 5-10 miles to work. Nobody should have to travel more than 1-3 miles to work. In the coming years, it will become economically, environmentally and emotionally unreasonable to do such things. In addition, if we keep transforming the way we live utilizing what we’ve learned from history – and trying new techniques to live, locate, get to work and other such ideas people in general won’t find it acceptable to travel such egregious distances to work anyway. (Imagine gas at $15 bucks a gallon, reflecting a more realistic unsubsidized cost of exploration, losses, costs, etc, then tack onto that the cost of roadways actually being reflected in tolls and other taxes to maintain them, we leap from a few pennies a mile of direct taxation to about a buck a mile of costs/taxation, etc). Meanwhile transit, biking and walking are all exponentially cheaper, easier to manage and more resilient to these high costs – especially for the general population.

I also produce and attempt to write on a regular basis an effective way to live without all the incredulous waste and servitude of a debt based, auto dependent lifestyle (sometimes here, sometimes elsewhere). In addition to writing I also work with videographers to put together other material that shows how easy it is to live well, without making huge changes. Just by merely thinking through the day better and stepping away from the “regular” lifestyle.

I petition and advocate at Government (because I won’t work for them), I work with companies, especially companies that give a hoot (and there ARE a LOT of them), I work with individuals and I work with my local community neighborhood groups & others to do the above things.

Simply, I try to right the wrongs, educate and improve what we as a society are doing today. All while trying to repair the damage that is already done. I do so through no use of force, only through passion and education. So maybe, if it isn’t my children, somebody’s children can have a better life. Because the immediate next generation (and the millennials) have been handed a lump of coal.

…so that’s what I mean by fighting.”

This all got me thinking. Maybe I should update my manifesto a bit. Thus, an updated Manifesto.

This thinking also got me wondering, what other things could I do? What do you do? How do you squelch the apathy and improve things in your community?

Cheers, Transit Sleuth.

by Adron

Let’s Talk About Cost of Commute, Transit & Trimet Fares

Using & Owning a Car

First things first, let’s talk about how much out of pocket costs it is to use a car to commute to work. The way most average US Citizens travel to and from work.

Item Lowest 20% of Income Earners Second 20% of Income Earners Third 20% of Income Earners Fourth 20% of Income Earners Highest 20% of Income Earners
Total $2,856 $5,058 $7,310 $9,571 $15,198
Purchase $987 $1,954 $2,940 $3,774 $7,442
Gasoline/Oil $991 $1,624 $2,182 $2,829 $3,508
Other $879 $1,489 $2,188 $2,968 $4,248
Figure 1: 2006 household cost of owning a vehicle per quintiles of income.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

…and just a few more stats about how insanely expensive it is to drive.

2007 Model 10,000 Miles per Year 15,000 Miles per Year 20,000 Miles per Year
Small Sedan 50.5 cents 41.4 cents 37.4 cents
Medium Sedan 61.8 cents 52.5 cents 48.2 cents
Large Sedan 74.2 cents 62.5 cents 56.8 cents
4WD SUV 81.5 cents 66.6 cents 59.6 cents
Minivan 69.2 cents 57.6 cents 52.2 cents
Figure 2: Yearly cost per mile of various vehicles based on number of miles driven
Source: American Automobile Association

Even though we won’t talk about the other costs of driving remember that you’re only paying for about 30-50% of the cost of your driving to and from work. The rest of the cost of driving, maintaining the Interstates, Highways and roadways, plus free parking, subsidies and oil region stabilization adds a tremendous cost that isn’t taken out of pocket at the time one actually drives to and from work – or wherever they’re driving to. Nor does it cover the cost of the 35-50k killed per year, the 90-130k injured per year and the $100’s of billions of dollars in medical cost. I’ve also not added in the hundreds of billions of dollars in debt incurred by the Government to pay for infrastructure such as bridges and roads or the write offs that oil companies take for oil exploration and discovery. If one wants to get idealogical and talk about other costs like the ways and blowback from terrorists that is largely due to our over utilization of foreign energy sources for this, you can put the percentage you’re actually paying at 20-40%. But as I said, I digress, let’s just talk about what we pay out of pocket on a daily basis to own, maintain and pay at the pump to drive.

Suffice it to say, that $0.55 cents of “recovery” cost the Government allows one to write off is purely the average cost they grant you take based on out of pocket expenses. So now that we’ve clarified these very real costs of having automobile infrastructure let’s think about what the daily costs of NOT using a car are.

Let’s work with the lowest cost auto option, that of the poorest income earners in the United States. That’s 2,856 + 987 + 991 + 879 which equals $5,713 per year, equating to an average per day cost of $15.65. So we’ll use that baseline as the average cost of a resident of the United States to get around everyday for their costs. This is an EXTREMELY low cost estimate, the actual cost upon society is closer to 3-5x that much, but we won’t use that. I’ll only be using this low number to do the calculations on. Keep in mind also, that the lowest income bracket, that 20% of the population earns is less than $20k per year. After taxes $20k is about 17600 in hand. In most states, keep in mind another 6%-21% is taken out via sales taxes and other costs, lowering this amount even more. Putting the actual cash income of the lowest 20% of the population somewhere around $16,600 (I rounded up a few bucks just to make it more obvious that this is a big deal). Now take that amount and let’s figure out how much cash this family has in hand to pay for these automobile expenses. That’s $16,500 in cash split between 365 days giving the family $45.20. Take away the average cost of transit, $42.50 – $15.65 gives you $29.55 to live on per day and you see why the bottom 20% have almost zero chance at changing their circumstances based on this horrifying juxtaposition of suburban American lifestyles. The only saving grace, is the median household size is 1.96 people for this income. But take that as you will, it’s still a horrible situation to be in, and owning a car will pretty much guarantee that you will be damned to this income bracket for the rest of your life. In other words, this automobile dependent lifestyle that the US has created (and trust me, it has been “created”, it is absolutely NOT a market driven or free-market driven choice that people have made of their own cognition, it’s systematic policy throughout the United States).

Let’s Talk Transit

Alright, now we’re talking business. I wrote all of the above and did all of the research to get that information so that we’d have context for the costs of transit compared to living an automobile dependent lifestyle. Let’s take a look at out of pocket fares. This is the only real cost, such as those I’ve detailed in the above automobile section, that the end user of transit has to pay. So here’s a collection of large and small transit agencies throughout the United States.

San Francisco MTA

http://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/transit/fares-passes
Single Ride (i.e. no transfer) $2.00 (Subsidies are easily 60-70 cents per dollar, transfers are allowed for 90 minutes after purchase)
Cable Car $6.00 (Which is net operationally and capital sustainable – i.e. subsidies amount to a few cents per dollar) During the hours of 9pm to 7am the cable cars are $3.00.
Muni Only: $66.00 (does not include any of the other agencies in the Bay area)
Muni & BART: $76.00 (does not include any of the other agencies in the Bay area)

Seattle’s King County Metro

http://metro.kingcounty.gov/fares/index.html
All-Zone Regular Fare: $2.25, Rush Hour $2.50, All-Zone Rush Hour $3.00 (Transfers are allowed only on Metro buses, you must pay each transit system you board, you must pay transfer cost associated with this, etc – example: transfer to Sound Transit express bus, Metro fare listed plus 25 cents. Also note this does include Washington State Ferries or Sounder Commuter Rail – additional costs apply to each of these systems)
A monthly pass, which has an odd structure – see here: https://www.orcacard.com/ERG-Seattle/common/images/ORCA%20Card%20Order_Value%20Form.pdf – ranges from $81 for regular fare inside Seattle King County area to $189 dollars, which covers all rides up to $5.25 each (ferry & commuter rail riders usually need this). It’s a tricky system that takes some explanation to understand.

New York MTA

http://web.mta.info/metrocard/mcgtreng.htm
Single Ride Fare: $2.75 Minimum Purchase on a Pay-Per-Ride MetroCard is $5.00 w/ a 5% bonus. i.e. $20 purchase gets you $21 dollars toward fares. New Fare Card fee for new MetroCard is $1.00 for each card purchased.
7-day Unlimited Fare Card: $30 Unlimited rides until midnight, after that regular fares apply.
30-day Unlimited Fare Cards: $112 Unlimited rides until midnight, after that regular fares apply.

Los Angeles Metro

http://www.metro.net/riding/fares/
Base Fare, Every Boarding: $1.50
Metro-to-Muni Transfer: $0.35 cents
Freeway Express Add-Ons: $0.70 Zone 1, $1.40 Zone 2
Metro Silver Line: $2.45 (Connects South Bay, San Grabriel Valley & Downtown LA via a pseudo BRT style route http://www.metro.net/projects/silverline/overview/)
Day Pass: $5.00
7-day Pass: $20.00
30-day Pass: $75.00

Vancouver Canada’s Translink

http://www.translink.ca/
Single Ride Fare
Day Pass $9.75
Monthly 1 Zone $91
Monthly 2 Zone $124
Monthly 3 Zone $170

Trimet

http://trimet.org/fares/index.htm
Single Fare, good for all transfers for 2 hours $2.50
Day Pass: $5.00
7-day Pass: $26.00
14-day Pass: $51.00
30-day Pass: $100.00

Half Price at The Worst!

Ok, this now makes it simple to compare transit to auto ownership and usage. If we take the most expensive transit option, living and commuting into Seattle from the far metro area of Tacoma or ferry trip from Bremerton, at a monthly fare cost of $189 dollars that gives us a yearly cost of $2268 dollars. Comparing that to the auto cost of $5,713 really shows how much damage we do to the poor in this country by forcing ourselves into an auto dependent culture. Remember also if you aren’t poor, that just means you’re screwing yourself out of THAT MUCH MORE MONEY! Because transit is still the same cost for you, so if you’re auto-dependent that means you’re spending several thousand dollars per year, minimum, on JUST DRIVING ALONE. That is money that can’t be spent on video games, food, health insurance, entertainment, travel, seeing other countries and other things that actually make life better for you. Just think about that for a minute and let it stew in your gray matter. That’s some SERIOUS cash that’s being burned. There ARE indeed alternatives, but you have to find them instead of living the average life of an american. You have to take the lead in getting more out of your life. You only live once, are you sure you want to spend such a huge amount of money on something that actually doesn’t improve your life in any dramatic way except to shackle you to a single, set, limited lifestyle?

Want Even Lower Costs & More Cash in Your Pocket?

If you’re lucky enough, or strive a little and work yourself into the situation, you can live without a car and without transit. You can go the walking and biking route. Human powered transportation is the cheapest by orders of magnitude. We’re talking about less than half the cost of the cheapest yearly transit. A few hundred dollars per year of costs, often even less. All this and living without the dependencies of automobiles or transit will make you stronger, mentally quicker (yes, there are studies), your children will learn better and faster, you’re breath better and have more energy. On top of all that it’s proven that when healthier you will be able to taste food, wine, beer and chocolates better than any soul that isn’t healthy. Is there any greater argument for moving to a truly healthy lifestyle as being able to truly taste food in every way? I don’t know about you, but truly being able to enjoy food, sweets, wine beer and the finest things in life is a huge argument for me to stay as healthy as possible. Living a human powered lifestyle is one huge step toward living that way at just a few hundred bucks a year!

I could go on for days about how excellent this lifestyle is, but I have a few other quick topics to broach. So I’ll leave this topic with this spectacular video.

Trimet Fare or so high!

First off, that statement is patently fales. Sometimes Trimet fares are higher than other cities, sometimes Trimet fares are lower than other cities. The fact is though, Trimet fairs pretty well in comparison to most other agencies, especially compared to other agencies of larger cities and similar sized cities. No city is completely cheaper than Trimet in every way. When looking at these fare costs, be sure to actually look at the cost in an apples to apples comparison. Such as Los Angeles might seem cheaper at first glance, it’s only a $1.50 to get on a bus (or light rail vehicle). That’s great, but likely you’ll have to come back to where you started, which means another $1.50. If you do that in less than 2 hours, it’s more expensive than Trimet, as you can make a round trip in 2 hours on a $2.50 ticket. However, if you start in the morning and come back in the evening it’s actually cheaper, because with Trimet it will cost you $5.00 for an early morning trip in and a later trip out exceeding 2 hours.

The day passes are also often argued and fussed about here in Portland, which is patently absurd too. Our day passes are ridiculously cheap. No other system out there has an actual unlimited day card for $5.00 that includes an entire metropolitan area. Los Angeles, again seems like it might, but keep in mind that day pass only includes the LA Metro, if you go to most of the locations outside of that, Newport Beach for instance, you’ll be adding on addition fares to cover the trip. Seattle’s King County Metro I believe cuts off the cost at a certain amount during the day, but their site is so horribly organized I couldn’t find out what the limit is. (still one of the worst sites on the Internet, they obviously didn’t hire an information architect – I’m sure there is some idiot bureaucrat as I’ve heard sitting around making poor decisions)

Monthly passes also vary, as do 7-day, 30-day or monthly passes. Some places are a bit higher, some are lower, but none offer a comparable monthly pass that covers all transit except Seattle. However Seattle’s monthly pass for the entire metropolitan area is $189 dollars. A slightly larger amount over Trimet’s $100 amount.

So simply, just shush about this whole notion that fares are out of control. They’re nothing remotely close to out of control. Hidden auto-costs, and auto-costs in general are something that’s out of control. If you want to argue that point, I’m all for collecting information and finding out ways to get rid of our destructive dependence by so many americans on the automobile. I’m even happier to collect information and put information together on how people can improve their lives. So drop the silly “fares are too high” nonsense and let’s do something constructive.

A Last Note

I didn’t write this blog entry to say that I support Trimet’s fare structure, nor any other agencies. Personally I think they’re all too low and kind of a mess. Trimet’s recent move to centralize the cost structure on a single price for a single ticket, single day, 7-day, 14-day or 30-day fares are a welcome relief compared to the previous structure. I do look forward to the day when we can more easily just charge people an amount based on our phones, usage and other metrics. If anything I wrote this as something to fire up anyone and everyone who has thought about dropping their car and improving their lives. But in the end, I had to point out that transit costs are absurdly low, even for the poor.

So get out there, live your life the best you can, and I wish you all the best; auto-dependent, bikers, cyclists, transit users, walkers and everybody! Cheers!

Summary

  • Want to improve your life?  Get rid of your automobile dependence. Sell your car, if you need a car once in a while, get a ZipCar, rental car or borrow something. No need to own a car. Owning makes you dependent, it draws out cash for gas, insurance, break downs and other maintenance.
  • Want real options for a rich life?  Get a transit pass. Take a train. Buy a bike. Slow down. Find ways to live by walking around your community or walking to work!

I promise any option besides car dependence will open up a world, a massive world with more options, more things to see, more art, more time with your children, more time to live, more time to be healthy, alive and in this adventure we call life. It will improve your community, your community connections, your options for a house, an apartment, living options and more. You’ll have the choice to travel, even on median or lower incomes, you could see parts of the world you never imagined. You could even see the city or town and the heart of what makes those places exciting more often, or even just see them for the first time by dropping auto-dependence.

References & Links:

by Adron

Tactical Urbanism, 18-Wheeler Drives into Streetcar…

Recently I was curious about one of the streetcar disappearances  To put it more simply, why did it say “technical problem” on the reader board with no known streetcar arriving or operating. Streetcars and electrical motors that power the streetcars are some of the most reliable, capable, powerful and long lasting components that humanity has ever put in a motorized vehicle. So why had the street had “technical problems” again? It seemed this happens on a somewhat frequent basis, contrary to the fact that the streetcars (and most electrical rail vehicles) are some of the most reliable vehicles on earth!

I passed this thought back of my mind. I was on my bike, it didn’t matter to me or prevent me from doing the things I needed to do at that very moment. So I continued onward, unobstructed. Then a few nights later I stumbled across this blog entry by Hart Noecker “Veloprovo: Flower Petals and Parklet Fun – Round One” (read his blog entry, as it contains a lot of great info that pertains to the rest of my blog entry). I then find this video and pictures of why the streetcar was out of service!

…and the pictures…

18-Wheeler smashed into Streetcar

18-Wheeler smashed into Streetcar

Smashed up Streetcar

Smashed up Streetcar

…and keep this in mind. This is EXACTLY why I took this photo a few mornings ago and labeled as I did. Some might have thought, “oh you’re such a jokester…” but no, seriously. The majority of incidents in Portland over the last decade have been almost entirely related to trucks killing cyclists. Sure there is the errant car, but considering trucking is a small percentage of traffic (7-15% depending on day, hour, etc) but contribute to about 50-80% of fatalities for the year…  that’s pretty messed up.

Murder Wheels of 18-Wheeler

Murder Wheels of 18-Wheeler

I wrote this “murder wheels” somewhat tongue in cheek. But in reality, more than a few people have been crushed by large trucks in Portland. The fact  is that in the last decade pedestrians, drivers, cyclists, children & others have all been killed by these big trucks – and often because of this very inability they have to NOT be able to maneuver  Many of these trucks do NOT even need to come downtown. Many of them are NOT actually even delivering something to downtown. They’re risking everybody’s lives. Entire cities, vastly bigger and more active than Portland exist that do NOT allow these trucks. Instead the focus in those cities is on people and what people actually want and need. What we don’t need is these massive trucks traversing downtown.

In this case above that Hart captured, how much damage is that? I’d bet it is somewhere between 10-25k dollars of repair damage to the individual streetcar, the truck also didn’t make its delivery, is probably a $1000 loss, it stopped traffic which could have caused somewhere between 5-20k in delay costs, and the riders that couldn’t travel, probably several thousand in revenue for the streetcar and even more in loss effort and revenue for local businesses. Overall, it was easily a quarter of a million dollars when one thinks of the holistic problem that occurred because someone couldn’t handle their truck.

How much has to come out of the city budget now? What would have happened if someone was on a bike when that driver screwed up like they did and smashed into the streetcar? I’ll tell you what would have happend. Your son, or daughter, mother or father, grandpa or grandma, whomever was on that bike would be dead. D. E. A. D. Horrible enough for you yet? Well, I got to feeling a little bit better by watching the exasperated and exuberant Jason Roberts. He actually helped to fix a part of Dallas. Yup, that’s right. A city that is known for being wretched on so many levels, unlivable in many place and downright inhumane by most civilized nation’s standards. But he helped to start bringing livability back into a neighborhood.

The simple fact is, we shouldn’t be putting up with things like massive trucks charging around downtown. We can live better, safer and healthier without this nonsense. If Robert can do it in Dallas, Texas we can sure as hell fix this issue in Portland! As Robert says, SHOW UP!!! Per Hart’s blog entry, come help with tactical urban parklets! Until next time, I’m off to sleuth up some more history, more ideas & plan the next move towards better living.

Cheers,

Transit Sleuth

by Adron

Automobiles Are Great!

This started as a comment, mostly motived from this blog entry “the thing about guns“. This entry however has nothing to do with guns, but one of our other massively glaring problems in society here in the United States. This is the remark that brought this up…

“If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing….Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not.”

Actually the US is really bad at that too. The feds spend 3% of the budget on roads, then another 3% in incurring debt to build roads. Then the other 50% of those road project costs are put on the states. Thus, the feds start huge road projects and then bum them off to those least able to pay for it. These road projects, surprising are only the Interstates.

Now step into the other road situation, all the local roads and highways. Responsibilities of states & cities/counties. That’s usually 5-10% of their budget, which taken in totality, means the country spends far more than 3% on this just from taxes – combine the city, state, and federal budgets and you have a massive amount of money spent to make car usage easier. Why do I bring all this up? Because the Us continues to perpetuate this as a “market driven choice” and it is in fact absolutely not. What does this choice bring us?

  • Dramatically higher incidents of cancer. Which kills dozens of thousands of people every year.
  • Dramatically higher incidents of benzine poisoning. Which also kills thousands and thousands every year.
  • Dramatically higher incidents of poisoning. Which kills dozens of thousands of people every year.
  • Pedestrians are endangered by our general road designs, which some places are fixing, but not many. Add several thousand more dead people. This is often children, elderly, and others while simply playing or slipping slightly into a roadway in a neighborhood or off a sidewalk. Something that should and could be entirely prevented.

That’s just the beginning. The small beginning mentioning just a few issues of our auto-dependency and the fact the US completely ignores it as a MAJOR problem. This little list above is just the things that can be directly correlated and connected to automobile usage, primarily of the combustion driven kind. Maybe some things will decrease when we get more electric vehicles out there such as cancer, benzine and poisoning. One can hope. But let’s not stop there.

Last year over 33k people were killed in cars. The year before that, 36k and the year before that 32k and before that 34k and before that… you get the point. Since the 1920s the deaths have gone up and stayed between 21k-62k per year. Direct, crash related deaths. Per capita they’ve decreased, which is good, but we still exceed 30k per year. Which means over the years, millions have been killed prematurely, a great majority of those people are young people too. More… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

That doesn’t include the 5k+ dead pedestrians every year or the 1k killed in unrelated incidents with cars every year that are still directly related to some form or another of crash.

Let’s take on another statistic. I’ve just been talking about the people who now lie dead. The dozens of thousands of dead per year, that sometimes die quickly and sometimes die agonizingly slow deaths. But what about the 3-5x as many people who are now on disability because of an automobile related incident? The now maimed, forever on disability. These people who are missing legs, arms, fingers, or worse. The two ladies waiting at a street corner, entirely innocent who were slammed into by an out of control cabbie. Lost their legs, laid screaming for help on the sidewalk after in traumatic pain and suffering. Because of one negligent fool. Now forever damned to be disabled for no reason. Well over 90k people per year are added to these ranks every year in the United States. Totally billions of dollars in costs to the medical system & taxpayers. A horrible toll for a war let alone merely trying to live one’s life. But alas, this happens and continues, unabated in every part of the United States.

All of these stats point to a massive death count, there are few things that kill more people in the United States than the automobile & it’s use. All of these stats also don’t even reach into the outer affects of auto dependency, our necessity to “stabilize” regions where oil is found. The destruction that happens because of that industry, but I won’t go on about those thousands, hundreds of thousands, or hell – millions of people that are dead because of that. But one can assuredly know they are in large part related to the United States’ obsession with the automobile.

So in the end, that’s a lot of writing I did. Which I do like to write, and research, but the whole point of this is. The United States is notoriously bad at not fixing very obvious problems. Roadways, automobiles and related killings and permanently disabling people are a prime example. Hopefully, one day the United States starts to wake up to this massive problem.

Just wanted to put throw in two cents, and put the gun violence problem into perspective. It’s a very small part of the absolutely massive issue the United States continues to ignore every day. The United States, simply, needs to get more focused on living & working better. Because right now, we’re really falling behind the developed nations of the world in huge ways.