Nearly 8 in 10 people claim to be concerned about the environmental impact of driving, but even when walking, biking or public transit are viable options for them, three-quarters of Canadians will still choose to drive. This according to a survey conducted for WWF-Canada, which polled 2,002 people in the country.
WWF blames urban sprawl, inconvenient public transit, and lifestyles that are organized around and dominated by the vehicle. Yes, yeah, and yup. It’s “car culture” in Canada. But should that be surprising?
Take urban sprawl for example. Most people don’t move to the suburbs because they want to get away from it all. They move there because the farther away a house is from the city, the cheaper it gets. That’s good for people who can’t afford to shell out the average price of a home in Vancouver of over $600,000.
But those people still have to travel into the city to work. That means driving in and out every day, battling traffic, idling for long periods of time, and paying more money in gas, insurance, and taxes.
Then there’s inconvenient public transit. A city like Vancouver is too expensive to own a home in, but there aren’t any really viable public transit options into the city. At least Toronto has GO Rail Transit, which connects the GTA to the downtown core.
Even though I live in the city, I still have a car. But since I’m working downtown now, I thought it would be cheaper to take the transit. After all, parking taxes in the city will soon be the highest on the continent when the HST kicks in.
Although the first two days went fairly well, this morning I spent 10 minutes waiting for a bus that decided not to show up for its designated time of 6:30am. With just 20 minutes left to get downtown I ran back home and got into the car. So clearly public transit takes the sense of control away from commuters.
Then there’s the cultural aspect of driving. You can’t eradicate a century of nation-building on the back of the automobile overnight. Canada is a big country with low population density. Things are really really far away from each other. Having a car is part and parcel to one’s sense of accomplishment in life, just like the job, the mortgage, the significant other and the offspring.
The only way to really get people out of cars is to create disincentives for them, such as Vancouver is busy planning, like enacting road and bridge tolls, and raising taxes for drivers. But that isn’t really doing anything but punishing people who live far from their jobs and can’t afford the premiums. All that really does is decrease the quality of life for Joe Blow in the suburbs. The guy in the Ferrari downtown is going to cope just fine.
The problem with trying to get people out of their cars is that we’re looking at an issue that affects everybody, but you can’t make decisions that blindly affect everybody without taking into account individual needs. Trades workers will always need to drive cars and trucks to transport tools, bring supplies, and haul materials. For people living in rural or suburban areas, public transit is either nonexistent or isn’t an option at all.
It would seem that the kind of people who favour a car-free existence are those who find such a lifestyle entirely self-serving already. Perhaps they live in the city and bicycle to their desk job. Or maybe they already live downtown and transit isn’t really an issue in highly serviced areas. Whatever the case, getting people to drive less needs to be a personal decision, not something contrived by the people we elect to keep the roads repaired and not tolled.
There’s another strong incentive for people to drive. A significant portion of the expense of driving has already been paid whether they drive or not. You don’t get a partial refund on the cost of purchasing and insuring a vehicle if you reduce your driving. Gasoline is expensive, but so is buying and insuring the car and you’ve already paid for that. There’s a strong motivation to “not let spent money go to waste” even if it’s use isn’t logical. You tend not to want to walk out of a terrible film fifteen minutes into it. Why not? You can’t get your money back by enduring two hours of boredom, so why wouldn’t you just leave? It’s not a rational decision.
I don’t see an easy way to deal with that odd incentive though.
.
I hate to say it, but if you need to discourage driving due to the costs of dealing with congestion, the most effective way to do that is to make driving expensive. Costs are a most effective way of altering our behaviour. The downside is that increasing costs makes people’s lives more difficult. There’s no way around that.
…
..
But there’s one more interesting thing about your problem with transit that morning. The problem was that transit was not reliable for you. (Or rather was less reliable than your car.) Your problem would not have occurred if transit had been more reliable.
It’s also interesting that your statement politicians are elected “to keep the roads repaired and not tolled”, seems to assume the premise of your argument. Why would you not say that they’re elected “to keep the trains (buses) on time”? That would seem to be more relevant to your problem.
That’s not completely true. We get a break on our insurance because we’ve insured it as a “leisure vehicle.” Since insurance is mandatory by law, sometimes you have to lie a little.
Not just more difficult, but potentially impossible. That’s the scary part.
have all basic services built into a 10 minute walk from all housing and driving will be reduced, at least in the summer.
We should go by transit genius Elizabeth May’s plan,where we all live in massive apartment buildings (arcologies?) built close to a rail line.
Vancouver could try the old incentive Seattle tried about twenty years ago, giving people and companies a tax break for organizing and using car pools.
It’s more positive than using punishment by raising taxes and fees.
I’ve often dreamed,as a former commuter from Abbotsford,of a LRT line built up the center of the so-called “freeway”, from Chilliwack to Vancouver.
Gas prices went DOWN this long weekend (at least in Calgary).
Another reason to drive, could be the last time this ever happens!
Happy May Long to all.
you are using research from the WWF? Quality and unbiased source eh?
survey of their own members perhaps?
I’m much more worried about the economic impact of WWF supported legislation, how about recent revelations from Spain – regarding the real costs of “green” policies.