Tokyo Demonstrates the True Cost of Cars

Japan’s well respected car industry sells cars the world over, but at home it’s a different story. Car ownership is low in Japan for obvious reasons like having a good public transit system and high speed trains for intercity travel. In the capital city of Tokyo car ownership is amongst the lowest in the world thanks to the cost of owning a car itself. Tokyo’s lack of cars all comes down to refusing to buckle to the influence of large automobile companies.

Yet the much bigger reason for Tokyo’s high quality of life is that Japan does not subsidize car ownership in the way other countries do. In fact, owning a car in Tokyo is rather difficult. For one thing, cars are far more enthusiastically inspected than in America or most of Europe. Cars must be checked by officials every two years to ensure that they are still compliant, and have not been modified. That is true in Britain too, but the cost is higher than what a Ministry of Transport test costs. Even a well-maintained car can cost 100,000 yen to inspect (or around $850). On cars that are older than 10 years, the fees escalate dramatically, which helps to explain why so many Japanese sell their cars relatively quickly, and so many of them end up in East Africa or Southeast Asia. On top of that there is an annual automobile tax of up to 50,000 yen, as well as a 5 percent tax on the purchase. And then gasoline is taxed too, meaning it costs around 160 yen per liter, or about $6 a gallon, less than in much of Europe, but more than Americans accept.
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The Largest GPS Bicycle Reminds us Bicycles are Rad

The most efficient form of transportation is the bicycle, and to remind us how great the two wheeled vehicles are a couple drew a giant bike in Europe. They used a GPS to record their trip as they rode through multiple countries, and that meant riding in giant circles to create the wheels. Along the way they shared their enthusiasm for two wheels.

You can see the map of their route on their site (linked below).

As a reminder that transport alternatives to the car exist, we have cycled 7237 km to draw the shape of a huge bicycle across 7 countries of western Europe.

We hope that our mad endeavour might motivate others to ditch their car in favour of the bicycle for daily transport needs. We sincerely believe that bicycles can take us a long way in our battle to tackle climate change and environmental breakdown.

As a side note, with this project we have set an unofficial world record for the largest ever made GPS drawing (7237 km). We beat the previous record of 7163.67 km, which was obtained by multiple means of transport. We also beat the previous unofficial record for the biggest GPS drawing undertaken by bike, which was 4106 km. Far more importantly, we are quite happy to have drawn the biggest bicycle ever!

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Thanks to Craig!

Let’s Startup Airships

Silicon Valley millionaires keep trying to solve problems that don’t exist like juice pressing and “smart” appliances. So when thinkers in the valley promote solutions to actual problems it’s a breath of fresh air. And in this case, it is air. Airships to be precise.

It’s well known that air travel is really bad for the planet and so is shipping. But what if we combine the best of those industries instead of the worst? Then we get airships. A sustainable future will include airships so it’s good to see monied individuals seriously considering airships.

The physics of airships are unbelievably seductive.

All aircraft are subject to four forces: thrust and drag in the direction of travel, and lift and gravity in the vertical direction. For an aircraft in steady flight, the vertical and horizontal forces are in balance.

For an airship, which gets lift from lifting gas (aerostatic lift) instead of from wings (aerodynamic lift), the amount of lift is proportional to the volume of lifting gas. The drag is proportional to some combination of cross-sectional area and wetted area—in any case, it increases with area.

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Hop Aboard the Free Transit Movement

streetcar

Our contemporary financial approach to moving people around a city subsidizes individual automobile use, which leads to more car use and worse mobility for everyone. An easy solution to this problem that’s gaining popularity is to change what mode of transportation get subsidies. The most direct way to stop subsidizing cars is to make public transit truly public by not directly charging for it (and instead charge selfish transport solutions).

We’ve previously looked at how free transit also improves the economy (unlike cars).

The fare-free movement turns that funding model on its head. Advocates believe public transit, like other essential services, should have never been a user-pay system in the first place. After all, we aren’t charged a fee to drive down a city street, walk down a city sidewalk or sit in a city park. Our property taxes pay for those basic amenities.

As Montreal urban planner and social economy expert Jason Price, co-editor of the 2018 book Free Public Transit wrote: “We don’t pay for elevators, do we? And rightly so. The very idea is preposterous. Yet the public transit system plays the same role in the city, only sideways.”

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Thanks to Mike!

The Benefits of Free Transit

he benefits of free transit helps more than just riders, it can help a whole city. We already give free road access to car owners and provide them with rights of way, so let’s do the same for all people. Why create an artificial divide between people trying to get from one place to another? Of course, many public transit systems are already receiving finical support from governments, but they are still based on an outdated model that ignores the benefits that public transit brings. Including financial:

Free fares also remove the financial cost of creating ticketing systems and enforcing them. In Boston, an extension of a free fare trial was in part inspired by a $1 billion new ticketing system, Mcarthur says—a serious investment when bus fares bring in only $60 million annually. A single-route bus trial in the city revealed an unexpected benefit: faster boarding time. “That means faster and more reliable journey times, and improved overall service,” Mcarthur says. “If you’re a public transport agency, a lot of money is spent trying to get dwell time down.”

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