The indirect cost of roads

David C. had an interesting piece last month on Greater Greater Washington [Funding Amtrak is more cost-effective than subsidizing roads] that analyzed the price of transportation, and concluded that only looking at direct government subsidies fails to ascertain the true costs incurred by different modes.

Using the relative government transportation budgets as a jumping off point, David C. compares the relative efficiency of the $1.6 billion spent on Amtrak (FY 2010) and the $96.4 billion spent on highways (FY 2007):

Amtrak’s federal grant, constituting just 0.05% of federal spending in 2010, is once again under attack. Its critics perennially point to the railroad’s 24¢ per passenger mile (ppm) government subsidy, compare it to the 2¢ ppm direct subsidy for driving, and call Amtrak a waste.

Comparing these direct subsidies, though, tells only part of the story. When indirect subsidies are considered, Amtrak’s total subsidy comes out to a little less than 44¢ ppm, but motoring’s subsidy rises up to almost 5645¢ ppm.

By “indirect subsidies”, David C. is referring to costs not directly covered by drivers, such as air pollution, traffic congestion, and a certain percentage of the cost of car accidents (anything not covered by driver’s insurance policy)—to name a few of many.

Now, “externalities” are difficult to build an argument around. Rather than a simple bullet point, we’re asking undecided readers to let us deconstruct their world view and replace it with something more complicated and difficult to understand. It’s an easy task for critics of Amtrak to say “taxpayers subsidize each train ticket on X route by Y dollars.” It’s much harder to explain why policy dictating that every department store have X square feet of dedicated parking per Y square foot of retail space is making their purchases Z more expensive. Or figure out the dollars and cents cost to increased instances of asthma found in children who live near highways—and are thus exposed to higher concentrations of vehicle exhaust.

Still, it’s important that smart transportation advocates continue to build that case. That’s why I was particularly interested in this map produced by the Guardian, showing road fatalities between 2001 and 2009. While it’s not, strictly speaking, a measure of indirect financial subsidy, it’s a powerful tool for showing external costs to overreliance on automobiles.

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Posted by NARP