On the Road: All Transportation Issues Solved!

(c) 2018      17 December 2018     Madison, Wisconsin

Transportation presents little problems and big ones. Here are some solutions using nerdy math-based reasoning and compassion. Take car horns. Please! In Madison, where the drivers are among the safest in the country, this may not be a big deal, but it is a pet peeve of mine. The sound of the car horn is appropriately obnoxious. So, in addition to helpfully pointing out your fellow driver's error in judgment, it distracts and stresses the rest of us. Do the math! How often does the responsible driver need to use their horn "as a reasonable warning"? I think once a year is more than enough. Here's the binary solution: horns should be single-use, like air bags. After you toot your horn, it wouldn't work again until it's reset at the shop.

Where do you stand on the "Idaho stop"? I love to drive, burn gasoline, contribute to global warming, and so on, but most of my commuting in good weather is by bicycle. So I think about the ethics and physics of stop signs for bicyclists. We should obey stop signs - it's the law, but it's hard to restart a bicycle from a stop. Do the math! Bicycling against rolling friction and wind resistance takes about 30 Watts of power at 10 MPH. Accelerating from 0 to 10 MPH in 10 seconds requires, as you may recall, power = energy/time =  1/2 mv² / t  = 120 Watts. When I'm driving, if I stop and start, I burn a little more gas and hasten the climate apocalypse, but it's not as personally meaningful a calculation. In Idaho some stop signs are equivalent to yield signs for bikes. If no other vehicles are present, a bicyclist reaching a stop sign can legally proceed with caution, but not a full stop. There are potential downsides: intersections are the most dangerous spots for bikes and it might degrade the car driving habits of bicyclists. Still, the Idaho stop may start a national trend. It's now the law in Delaware as well.

As I said, I like to drive, but when the weather is poor, I usually commute by bus. This sometimes gives me the opportunity to observe our lovely city ... through windows covered by bus wrap advertising! Don't get me wrong: I am grateful for the subsidies I receive as a bus rider. Do the math! Metro provides 13 million rides per year with a budget of $58 million, so a ride actually costs about $4, double the $2 fare. On top of that, my employer chips in so I get an annual bus pass for close to nothing. Bus wrap advertising brings in about $600k, contributing a nickel towards the cost of a ride. Although it's designed to let light in, from the inside the wrap is somewhat opaque and depressing. More of us should ride the bus for the sake of the environment. This would also get more cars off the road and thereby reduce the damned honking. So we should try to make the ride more pleasant. Less of the dark dungeon and more delicious sunshine. As a compromise perhaps Metro could only sell "partial wrap" advertising, which earns less revenue but leaves the windows clear.

Finally, let's talk about the gas tax. Hold on to your calculators ladies and gentlemen. There's a lot of noise about the state of the roads and the size of the gas tax. Do the math! According to AAA, it costs you 60 cents per mile to own and operate a new car. It's about half that for an old car with more repairs but lower depreciation. The federal and Wisconsin gas taxes of 18 and 33 cents per gallon work out to 0.6 and 1.1 cents per mile for a car getting 30 miles per gallon. By comparison, the additional operating costs due to bad roads - repairs and depreciation - are 6 cents per mile. As I noted earlier, you subsidize my bus riding, but you also subsidize my driving to the tune of about 3 cents per mile through property taxes and federal income taxes used for road construction and repair. Finally there's the cost to society of the coming climate apocalypse, which will amount to approximately one gazillion cents per mile. So, what should we pay for the gas tax? Indexing the Wisconsin gas tax to inflation ended in 2006. If indexing were still in place, we'd pay an extra 10 cents per gallon or 0.3 cents per mile. Let's pay it and fix the roads! Also, a recently proposed greenhouse gas tax of $40 per ton of carbon dioxide works out to about 1.2 cents per mile. Let's pay that also and try to avoid the climate apocalypse! I can put up with the honking.

(see http:... for sources and calculations)

Sources and Calculations

Horns

https://www.allstate.com/tools-and-resources/americas-best-drivers.aspx

https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/347/III/38/1

Idaho Stop

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/03/27/why-its-illegal-to-roll-through-stop-signs-on-your-bike-for-now

Energy consumption:

https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories/bicycling

De Groot et al. 1994 Power, muscular work, and external forces in cycling Ergonomics 37:31-42

            air friction Fa = 0.2 v^2 rolling friction Fr = 4N at 10mph = 4.5 m/s, Fa = 0.2*4.5^2= 4.0 N. F = Fa + Fr = 4N + 4N = 8N. P = Fv = 8N*4.5m/s = 36 W

Energy to accelerate from 0 to v in time t, P = (Ef-Ei)/t = 1/2mv^2/t = 1/2*100kg*(5m/s)^2/10s = 125 kg m2/s3 ,

Bus wrap advertising

https://madison.com/news/madison-will-keep-bus-wraps-despite-complaints-advertising-that-covers/article_19299da8-a56f-55ef-aac3-ef9d38556448.html

https://www.cityofmadison.com/metro/about/advertise.cfm

20181105 Personal communication from Mick Rusch, Madison: 2017 bus wrap ad revenue: $632k

Gas Tax

https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/blog/2018/05/22/the-facts-on-gasoline-prices

            4/1/2018 US avg 52.1 (fed + state), WI 51.3 cents

fed: 18.4 cpg / 30 mpg = 0.6 cpm WI: 32.9 / 30 mpg = 1.1 cpm

http://www.tripnet.org/docs/WI_Transportation_by_the_Numbers_TRIP_Report_2018.pdf

            Madison  costs of deficient roads: ~$2,000/yr / 15000 mi/year = 13 cpm 

            vehicle operating costs: $910/yr/15000mi/year = 6 cpm

https://exchange.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/18-0090_2018-Your-Driving-Costs-Brochure_FNL-Lo-5-2.pdf

approx 60 cpm

https://www.moneyunder30.com/true-cost-of-owning-a-car:

                        yr 1: $11.8k, yr 5: $7.5k, yr 6: $5.9k

indexing: https://www.wpr.org/gas-tax-indexing-how-bipartisan-idea-ended-bipartisan-unraveling

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/opinion/climate-change-fee-carbon-dioxide.html

http://www.rff.org/blog/2017/calculating-various-fuel-prices-under-carbon-tax

$40/ton CO2 = $0.36/gallon  = 36/30 = 1.2 cpm at 30 mpg

https://frontiergroup.org/reports/fg/who-pays-roads (2015)

Aside from gas taxes and individuals’ expenditures for their own driving, U.S. households bear on average an additional burden of more than $1,100 per year in taxes and other costs imposed by driving.  Including: An estimated $597 per U.S. household per year in general tax revenue dedicated to road construction and repair.

https://nhts.ornl.gov/

total  vehicle miles: 2,105,882 million. total households: 118,208,251: 17816 miles/household (2017)

so $597/household / 17816 miles/household = 3 cpm)