Pie Fight

My SUV is fuelled by the lamentations of your women

At Angry Bear, some stats on the negative externalities of SUVs. From comments:

Michelle White addressed some of these issues, but looked mainly at the safety impacts in the Journal of Law and Economics in her article "The 'Arms Race' on American Roads: The Effect of Sport Utility Vehicles and Pickup Trucks on Traffic Safety."

From her abstract: "The results show that light trucks are extremely deadly. For each 1 million light trucks that replace cars, between 34 and 93 additional car occupants, pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists are killed per year, and the value of the lives lost is between $242 and $652 million per year. The safety gain that families obtain for themselves from driving large vehicles comes at a very high cost: for each fatal crash that occupants of large vehicles avoid, at least 4.3 additional fatal crashes involving others occur."
           Nordy | Homepage | 10.17.06 - 2:38 pm |

The American commuter

Kevin Drum has the breakdown on how americans get to work.

Yet another reason why my lovely girlfriend doesn't have to worry about me trying to get her to move to the US

According to commenters on this Tapped post, some schools in the US ban children from riding their bikes in. And one commenter says that othe parents have complained to the school that he is endangering his children - by letting them walk to school! Join the carpool, you madman!

Adios, Master of the Route

The last 38 ran yesterday, and by Christmas, there won't be a single routemaster left in London.

"Only a ghastly dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster," said Mr Livingstone in 2001. He was right.

Simple Simon

Simon Hoggart is taking time out of his busy social schedule to blast cyclists. Project for tomorrow: write him a letter.

And step on it!

Random interesting quotation:

Nowhere has...progress in the last decades been more staggering than with regard to the ease and speed of transportation and communications. It has been remarked that the thirteen days that it took Sir Robert Peel in 1834 to hurry from Rome to London in order to be present at a cabinet meeting were exactly identical with the travel time allowed to a Roman official for the same journey seventeen centuries earlier. The best travel speed on land and sea throughout recorded history until close to the middle of the nineteenth century was ten miles an hour, a speed rarely attained on land. In 1790, it took four days in the best season to go from Boston to New York, a distance somewhat exceeding two hundred miles. Today the same time is sufficient for circling the globe, regardless of season.

Public beats private again

According to an article in Monday's StAAAAAN-durd, the southeastern trains service into Kent et al has improved hugely since Connex, who used to run it, was sacked for incompetence and the administratoin of the service was taken back over by the governement. Customers say that while service has improved, staff attitudes have improved even more.

Great news, right? The Gubment doesn't seem to think so. They've banned Southeastern's managers from talking to the press. Wouldn't want the media focusing on stories where public is better than private now, would we?

Transport blog's best

It's closed up shop, but Transport Blog looks to have a fine selection of posts in its "Best of" section.

Business does things better than government, right? Right?

From the letters section of today's Guardian, two snippets showing the negative effects of deregulation on the transport industry. The more I hear of dereg, the more I suspect it was part of a policy of destroying certain supportive aspects of society. And society, after all, was something that didn't exist, according to Lady Thatcher.

Bus use in Britain is rising thanks to Ken Livingstone's improvements to services in London (Britain catches on to the bus, April 27). More people are taking buses in London than at any time since the 1960s. Outside London, bus use continues to decline. It is disingenuous for the Confederation of Passenger Transport to cite a few exceptions as if they were the general rule. Livingstone has been able to improve bus services because he can regulate routes, timetables, fares and service quality. Outside London, none of this is possible, because bus services have been deregulated.

The government could enable transport authorities outside London to regulate bus services using powers for "quality contracts" under the Transport Act 2000. It is consulting on how to speed up their implementation.
Tony Grayling
Associate Director, Institute for Public Policy Research

Catching on to the bus system of transport is not the difficulty, it is actually catching one on time and being able to rely on that happening that is the problem. If people could be reasonably sure that the bus will be on time, then more would use them. They would then be a more attractive option for local journeys than finding somewhere to park and pay the growing fees.

There should be a process where the local passenger transport executive can ensure that bus companies keep to their contracts.
Alan Pearman
Rotherham

Is the congestion charge bad for bidness?

John Lewis has come out against expansion of the congestion charge into the West End, arguing that it lowers retail sales by 5% - 9% (see letter below). If anything will hold back the charge, this is it. And as much as I'm in favour of the QOL and environmental benefits of the charge, we do have to make sure that it doesn't overly hamper the city's ability to make money. 'Cause baby we sho need that money.

The Guardian's reputation for giving its readers the facts will not have been helped by its coverage of the John Lewis campaign for a re-examination of the London congestion charge (Business Notebook, April 22). You speculate that "John Lewis is raging against [the] charge because the partnership is run by a bunch of Tories". Wrong. The partnership, a scrupulously apolitical organisation, is run by a bunch of shopkeepers. We recognise the environmental benefits of the charge and are not campaigning for its abolition. But we are saying it isn't just about cars: it's about economic vitality too. I'm surprised that you dismiss so lightly the findings of Michael Bell, professor of Public Transport Operations at Imperial College. Your hunch that no one would be deterred from the West End by a £5 levy is roundly contradicted by his findings, based on a rigorous and independent examination of trading figures and of the views of a large sample of our customers. His conclusion was that the negative impact on our sales was between 5% and 9%. This is the only in-depth study of the impact on the retail sector of the mayor's strategy.

The Guardian surely can not be arguing that policymakers should ignore the possibility that congestion charging, however admirable in other respects, is doing serious harm to one of London's most important economic sectors. And it is not the case that "John Lewis is alone among the major retailers in whining about the charge". True, we are the only big shopkeeper taking a strong public position in London but we know that we have the tacit support of many of our competitors who, for understandable reasons, have chosen to not break cover. However, in Edinburgh, all major retailers are publicly united in opposition to the city council's plans to go down the path pioneered by the London mayor.

We are not raging at the mayor. We want to continue the dialogue begun with him and to make our research available to him so that we can together work towards the continued health of one of the most vibrant retail areas in Europe.
Sir Stuart Hampson
Chairman
John Lewis Partnership