Annals of Motordom – 36
An occasional update on items from Motordom – the world of auto dominance.
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PEAK CAR
From Australian Broadcasting:
Australian and world peak car use per capita was in 2004 and since has shown a slow decline. It marks an end to car dependence. Teenage car use has dropped markedly. Figures suggest a big cultural shift as well as structural change within cities.
In the transcript, some remarkable new research from Peter Newman:
… peak in car use per capita began in 2004 across the world. I don’t know what was in the water that year but it started then. And US cities are now showing absolute declines in many cases, but the per capita peak happened in 2004 in Australian cities as well.
Our data, which we’ve only recently put together, shows that there were major increases in the ’60s of around 40%, and the ’70s around 20% to 30%, and the ’80s the early 20s%. It now dropped to 5% increase between ’95 and 2005, so we were beginning to pick it up as well. And then we saw that a number of cities, like London, Stockholm, Zurich, Vienna have all declined. Atlanta has gone down 10%, Houston 15%, LA, San Francisco. These are major changes and quite historic.
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FORM FOLLOWS PARKING, cont.
Show me your parking bylaw, and I can pretty much bet on what your city will look like. After the parking ratio has been established, and then the portion of site required for cars pretty much determines what the building will look like, not to mention all the other impacts under the category of urban sustainability.
The Sightline Institute has been taking a more in-depth look at the impact of parking, notably in a current issue of the Sightline Daily:
… a look at how Northwest municipalities deal with parking at drinking establishments. Who gets it wrong, and who gets it (almost) right? The answers may surprise you.
Despite its vaunted reputation for sustainable urbanism, Vancouver, BC may have among the worst parking mandates in the region (code, p. 9). Calculated based on the amount of floor space open to the public, the baseline requirement for businesses that sell liquor for on-site consumption is 1 parking space per 60 square feet (5.6 square metres). …
Vancouver’s parking laws seem almost directly at odds with British Columbia’s toughest-in-the-region alcohol-impaired driving enforcement.
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THE COST OF DRIVING
Richard Campbell has some numbers, taken from Money:
In spite of the increase in gas tax, Vancouver drivers will still spend much less than in several other Canadian cities.
Here’s the breakdown of costs per city:
Calgary – $8,987.54
Toronto – $7,880.00
Montreal - $7,625.20
Vancouver - $7,408.16
Of note, parking is much less expensive and there is no plate registration fee. In Alberta, this looks like in amounts to $70-80, Ontario $69-70 and a whopping $400 in Quebec. With no fee there, that could leave space for a Vehicle Levy. There is AirCare here, though.
UPDATE: Trace Acres at BCAA adds a correction:
Not sure where they got the idea that we pay no vehicle license fee in B.C. When you renew your insurance, you pay an annual “license fee”… According to ICBC, the license fee is based on vehicle weight… As outlined in this regulation, the fee starts at $46 and ratchets up to a maximum for $142, according to vehicle weight. For example, for my Prius, I paid $53 this year.
License fees are also charged on motorcycles, motorhomes and trailers. 100% of license fee revenue goes to the province.
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GOOD TIMING
On Friday (July 29), when President Obama announced even stricter standards — in fact, the largest increase in mileage requirements since the government began regulating consumption of gasoline by cars in the 1970s — the chief executives of Detroit’s Big Three were in Washington again.
But this time they were standing in solidarity with the president, who was also surrounded by some of Detroit’s highest-tech — and most fuel-efficient — new vehicles. …
In the end, though, Detroit was faced with an undeniable political reality: there was no graceful way to say no to an administration that just two years ago came to its aid financially.
“This was no time to fight these regulations,” said one Detroit executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of the closed-door negotiations. “And you’re starting to see these fundamental shifts in the market that play a huge role in this,” the executive said in advance of Friday’s announcement.
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