The Cost of Driving

The true cost and impact of our modern transportation system is hidden in plain sight, obscured by its sheer size and central role in our daily lives. So entangling is the relationship between society and its means of transport that we often lose sight of the distinction between them. Looking around at our environment, especially if we live in the city, there is little that we can point to that is not largely defined by the needs of the automotive systems. 

The human cost alone of our automobile based system is truly shocking. Worldwide the roads consume lives at the same rate –roughly one million every year -as did the concentration camps of World War II. The wounded number tens of millions more. In addition there are the large numbers of people debilitated by air pollution and associated impacts of the internal combustion engine.  And yet these costs, as vast as they are, are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the human resources committed to the system. Each one of us is required - on a daily basis - to operate the vehicles that support the infrastructure. Simply put, there is no other single economic activity that requires so much human labor to accomplish.

Environmental impacts are at least as troubling, especially the challenge CO2 emissions may pose for humanity in general, and for developing countries in particular. The entire ecosystem of the planet is put under pressure by the enormous weight of carbon emissions. Wildlife habitat is degraded in direct proportion to the enormous size of our transportation infrastructure. 

One quarter of the developed world’s urban landscape, a third of its energy resources, and countless human lifetimes are spent keeping the system in motion. It is a system so pervasive that it forms a backdrop for most of the dilemmas of the modern word. From the spiraling inflation of urban housing prices to the increasingly fractured urban and suburban landscapes, the car is implicated in much of what is troubling about contemporary American society. Additionally , the enormous demand for fossil fuels is at the root of many today's most challenging geo-political dilemmas. By any measure the financial costs associated our transportation system exceed those of almost any other national endeavor such as health care, defense, or education.

Establishing the true cost of the present system is more than an exercise in accounting. The cost, when fully recognized, creates urgency in our search for solutions and alternatives. If we avoid examining these impacts it is largely because they appear to be the price of living in a modern world dependent on the availability of a flexible and reliable  personal transportation network. 

As viable alternatives develop these costs should be more closely assessed. Both as a reminder of the problems we are trying to solve, and to help avoid repetitions of older patterns.