Car Insurance Car

Eric Britton, Robin Chase and others have written eloquently about the urgency for making massive changes in our transportation system. What will offset a big chunk of that car use is pretty clear: a lot more walking and cycling, increased use of public transportation, ridesharing, plus a dash of carsharing!



My guess is this will probably involve some high tech solutions - cell phones and social networking services, electric bikes, etc. - but mostly it's going to be a lot more old fashioned shoe leather and bike tires on the pavement. But right now we have a lot of wonderful solutions and a big gap between what we're doing and where we want to be.



But what combination of factors will motivate a large number of people to change their these transportation habits is a mystery. Carsharing is indeed a "missing link", but it's only one of a number of "missing links" in the chain.





Recently, the City of Portland is sponsored the latest in a series of Sunday Parkways bike rides, attracting thousands of people, families, and kids for a ride through several neighborhoods. Cross streets are controlled and it's a veritable party attracting thousands of people over a 5+ mile circular route. The other part of event is scheduling community groups, food vendors and musicians of all kinds to set up in the parks along the route. It is truly inspiring to see so many people on bikes and it seems can't help create awareness and experience of cycling in a broader section of the population than the "hard core bike commuters". It's a small, but I think important step in the cultural shift in our thinking and transportation habits. You can see a nice Streetfilms video of the first event last year here.



The start of such a shift was reflected in an interesting essay by a Canadian newspaper columnist who characterized the change in the change in their attitude about cars from "object of desire" to "necessary evil". I think this captures one of the cultural shifts perfectly - for so many people cars are now becoming a necessary evil.



Another cultural shift I've been thinking about could be a basic change in the type of cars we own - instead of the maximum car we can afford, we would spend our money on the minimal car we need for 90% of the trips we take. This minimal car wouldn't have to be a "econobox". Daimler has shown there's a market for a $15,000 city car and Europe has got a wide variety of upscale microcars! For now, car ownership in the US is probably too cheap and awareness of the impacts of ownership too limited to see this happening very much.



What's needed now is some good minds to think about the intermediate steps to facilitate this cultural shift and conditions to promote them. With the passage of climate change legislation in the US and a new commitment to addressing environmental problems, the next decade is going to be interesting.

My postings has always been sporadic but none more so than recently. My wife and I were on a 3 week trip to India - our first ever - and it was a stark reminder that most of the rest of world operates under conditions a lot more basic than our gold plated lifestyle. I was also struck by the progressive policies (a ban on plastic bags in Himachal Pradesh for example) and active discussion about climate change in the newspapers.

The transportation system in India was already at capacity - trains were long and very crowded; buses were packed for 12 hours a day; roads were narrow, bumpy and travel was slow. And we could see that even relative prosperity was resulting in rapid expansion in the number private cars - not only the local brands - Maruti Suzuki and Tata but also the traditional "Asian" brands like Honda, Toyota and even new brands like Hyundai, Honda, Toyota and Chevy (!) were in evidence.

For better and worse, the Tata Nano, the $2000 car, has captured the imagination of world. But there were lots of other awfully-darn-small cars already in India, as well as the infamous autorickshaws everywhere. The good news about these autorickshaws in Delhi, at least, is that the city has mandated that all of them, and all buses, be converted to compressed natural gas (CNG).

Remarkably in the few weeks we were there I came across this op ed piece from the Times of India that mentioned carsharing - Can India Really Afford Cheap Cars? by Martin Wright, the editor of the UK-based Green Futures magazine. In the discussion the author wonders if an battery electric Tata Nano would be possible possible and then goes one step further:

You might not be able to afford an electric Nano — but why own something that you don't use every day? So what about a state-sponsored Tata Zero Carbon Car Club, of the sort springing up across European neighbourhoods, giving people the benefits of using a vehicle when they need it, without the hassle and cost of owning one when they don't? It could help cut congestion, too: all the evidence suggests that car club members drive less than private car owners — because they don't feel they have to justify their hefty investment in their vehicle by using it in preference to the bus or metro.


It's worth remembering that India has some street cred in the alternative transportation sector as well - it's the home to the Reva EV (sold in the UK as the G-Wiz). For now most of the carsharing going on in India will continue to be taxis! But what next?