-=> Quoting Ken Peck to John O'Neill <=-
KP>Actually these are just the tip of the iceburg.  The costs of building,
KP>maintaining, and ever expanding the system of streets and parking 
facilities
KP>adds considerably to your tax bill and the cost of goods and services you
KP>buy.  Someone in Washington state took a bond issue for streets and 
ridges
KP>and translated the bond issue into equivalent bicycle alternatives.  It 
seem
KP>that they could buy a bicycle (and provide helmets) for every man, woman, 
an
KP>child over about the age six in the city, build an extensive system of 
ike
KP>trails, provide bicycle safety training for the residents over the years 
t
KP>would take to pay off the bonds, and other such goodies . . . and still 
have
KP>several million dollars left over.
One could almost make the same statement for access to public transit.
Just very soon a new express toll road will be opening. It was started
under a previous government, but as with many such projects, was
actually on the books some twenty years ago. I was at one of the kiosks
the "private" consortium that built the road had set up in a downtown
mall to publicise it and drill the poor saps that were there. I was not
and am still not convinced this road is a "zero-cost" road, even if the
cost of building it is to be covered by the tolls. Tax payers are still
on the hook. Funny, but there's always fuss over putting money into
bicycle or public transit infrastructure, but road building is treated
as a necessary evil. Curiously, with a very minor tax increase, or
better still, re-alotment of tax money, every resident in the Greater
Toronto Area ( a population of about 4.5 million ) could be supplied a
free transit pass each year. What's even more ironic, is that while our
public transit system is falling apart, and cyclists are putting up with
more car traffic, we now have a new high-tech toll expressway, and an
express train service to a new casino - go figure?!
KP>And then there are hidden environmental costs.  Well, not exactly hidden.  
I
KP>Dallas we are beginning a very expensive lake dredging operation on one of
KP>our lakes.  It is being filled with sludge that is the runoff from all the
KP>streets and parking lots that have been built upstream over the past 
ouple
KP>of decades.  And, of course we have no idea what the medical costs of the 
ai
KP>pollution are (unless one happens to have asthma or emphesema.
Here in South-Central Ontario, we have already been feeling the effects
of high auto use. In the summer, a number of beaches have been closed
due to excessive runoff overwhelming the sewage system; rivers and
streams are getting all the nasties that get washed off of the roads and
parking lots, etc.
Other hidden costs are in terms of higher mainenance and servicing costs
per capita for low-density, auto-dependent development. Within the core
of the city of Toronto, a large number of people travel by bicycle,
mostly due to the density typical of an older city. By contrast, the
outer surburban areas are much more car dependent. Much of that car
traffic flows into to Toronto, though there is still sufficiently good
transit, that about 30% do travel by subway or GO train.
KP>Nor have I factored in the costs related to the medical treatment and
KP>rehabilitation of people injured in car wrecks.
Sadly, these are often taken as un-avoidable... I recently saw a British
documentary on TV Ontario, called "A is for Accident" which looked the
auto crashes and some of their causes. No surprises here. And the irony
or the tittle was quite apparent - all the "accidents" were preventable!
Phil
___
 X SLMR 2.1a X The bicycle: cheap, convenient and fast...
--- Maximus/2 3.00
---------------