Re: Cost of bicycling: graphical followup

Rich wrote: 
The Wogster wrote:

Now how about the car, high initial cost, high carrying costs, a car is a pit you endlessly pour money into. ..... Other then speed, unless your stuck in traffic, there are no benefits.


Except for the fact it's "all weather" (rain, snow, sub-zero temps).

I live in Canada, I have seen weather that can stop cars, just take a hill, add about 30mm of freezing rain on it, and a nice layer of wet snow, considering that those conditions usually result in thousands of collisions, most of them minor, and it's not as all weather as many people think. You can dress to cycle in just about any weather, including sub zero temperatures.....

And it can carry an entire family. 

Depends on the size of the family......

And 10 bags of groceries.

Which could also be carried by bike, buying smaller amounts at a time, which actually can be a bike benefit, rather then buying large amounts of processed food in big packaging, your more likely to buy more useful foods, often that come in smaller natural packaging, that can go into the compost bin, instead of the land fill bag.

And can go 1000 miles in one day.

Most people don't go 1000 miles in one day, heck most Americans use the car simply to go to the corner store for more beer, junk food, and cigarettes which is why the average American is getting heavier. They are eating crap and getting no exersize.


A car can meet all your transportation needs. Which is why almost everyone (in the U.S. anyway) that can afford one has one.


There is just one problem with that car, it's expensive for the user, but most of it's costs are still hidden. For example look at your city budget for road maintenance, that's a pretty big number, and most of that maintenance is because there are so many cars going over the same piece of asphalt. Ask your employer's book keeper how much it costs for maintaining that back 40 acres of parking lot, if they are honest, that's a big number too. Lets not forget the health costs, first the cost of the fact that most Americans are fat, and the percentage that are obese is steadily rising, the number of people with obesity induced type II diabetes is at an all time high, and increasing. Want some more numbers, suppose there were no cars, no driveways and no garages in houses, wanna guess how much land that would free up.

Now, lets look at smog, shall we, all those cars pumping NOx, CO and CO2, into the air, that can't be good, tbis past summer, they had a smog alert that started in June and only had about 3 days break before finally ending in September....

W











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