Now that we have some bodies, let's talk!

One of the topics that particulary interests me, as you may have been able to tell from my May post is transport mode shift. Specifically, a shift away from dependence on private vehicle (e.g. car) transportation for short trips towards "active" modes (walking, jogging, cycling, in-line skating, etc.) is about as close to a "silver bullet" as any Western politician interested in resource limits and promoting healthy citizens could hope for. Most developed countries have problems with economies addicted to oil and many do not like the autocratic regimes and corruption that tend to thrive off oil profits or the pollution that comes out of cars into waterways and the atmosphere. Not to mention that oil is a limited natural resource, and the alternatives to power cars all have their own problems (more on this in a later post). At the same time, developed countries have domestic problems with chronic diseases (cancer, obesity, heart disease) that most medical professionals agree would be reduced with physcial activity. So in effect, more cyclists and less cars means less cancer, less obesity, less financial support for corrupt regimes, more efficient use of oil, less greenhouse gas emissions, social justice and so on... It's actually quite challenging to think of a societal problem that a bit of cycling couldn't help.

So why does New Zealand only discuss this issue when the body count gets high?

To answer this, let's start with some background. New Zealand is a very young and very sparsely populated country. Indigenous Maori populations only arrived about 800 to 1000 years ago - before them it was only the birds and trees. Europeans trickled in begininng in the early 19th century, and today there's only a tad over 4 million people in a country the size of Japan (which has 120 million). Cows still eat grass (though this is changing thanks to global demand for milk).

Both being young and being sparsely populated have strongly influenced urban development patterns. NZ's biggest cities (Auckland, Christchurch) grew in the 20th century, when cars were somewhat common - the result is giant suburbs around a very small city centre. The sparse population provides less conflicts over land use, which promotes suburban sprawl. Compare this to any city in Europe, which developed when transport was either by foot, barge or horse, so the city has a denser urban form.

Hence, in Copenhagen it's very common to travel by bicycle or foot, while in Auckland cars rule the road (we'll leave out public transport for another day). Something like a puny 1% (if that) of trips in New Zealand are taken by bicycle.

Those 1% of trips are concentrated in the cities, where cycle commuting tends to save both time and money (not to mention all the other benefits above) since vehicle dependence results in congestion. Enter the conflict between road users and cyclists. I've left out pedestrians deliberately because, as a recent report commissioned by the Auckland City Council points out, cyclists are the odd ones out when it comes to infrastructure provision. Although the city has since removed this report (I'll try and post a copy here), Auckland has something like 1200 km of road for vehicles, 2200 km of footpaths for pedestrians (though this is a bit misleading since it counts a footpath on each side of a street as two separate paths), and a measly 70 km of cycleways (over half of which are bus-priority lanes that cyclists are allowed to use alongside the buses)! So cyclists are forced to either share footpaths not designed for cycling with pedestrians, or brave the road and share with the cars (or buses).

Some physics shows the true power relationships: bike hits pedestrian, usually the pedestrian ends up worse off, but both can suffer minor injuries. Fatalaties are very rare, indeed, but i'ts quite common for the law to forbid cycling on the footpaths! Now what about bike hits car (or bus)? Now we have some bodies, so let's talk!

The discussion is actually quite amusing, mostly because it avoids discussion of the key benefits of more cycling, and is a great example of unproductive finger pointing and misrepresentation (if only this issue was of global interest, it might challenge the nonsense rabbiting going on in the US healthcare reform process for the supreme BS award).

Take, for example, Forrest from Remuera: "This accident appears to be due to driver mishap but I have little sympathy for cyclists and their requests for more respect from motorists...[cyclists] give the impresion of being arrogant road users who think their wishes are paramount and nobody else matters."

How about SMR from Auckland Central: "If they [cyclists] think their arogance will win against a 2 tonne car, good luck to them."

And one of my favourite shillings of BS, duly repeated by Ryansway in Wellington: "Cyclists need to stay off the roads and stop pretending they are motor vehicles. Cyclists don't pay registration fee's so they don't have the same entitlement as a motor vehicle."

Huh?

Actually this behaviour may be easy to explain. Remember those numbers? Only 1% of Aucklanders commute via bicycle. That means 99% of road users have very little actual experience on one side of the debate. On the other hand, most cyclists also own cars or ride the bus (and thus pay road maintenace taxes). One of the reasons why I find Ryansway's faulty logic so amusing is that if one was to follow it further, then we need to start taxing pedestrians, vagrants, tourists and others who touch the roads in order to pay for maintenance and construction caused by stress and capacity demand from 2-tonne cars, big trucks, and buses.

Although I could go on and on debunking faulty logic or presenting amusing anecdotes of my experiences as a commuting cyclist, the main point I want to get across is that here is one issue where action against the popular position (which is clearly pro-car) would significantly improve societal outcomes for all. And in a democracy, where everything that is done must be populist, it's going to be a severe uphill ride in a hurricane headwind to see the benefits of mixed-mode

Now to answer the question posed earlier about why these discussions only occur after horrific events. Like most issues around environmental limits, such as global warming, the benefits and costs require second-order thought and reflection (because many of the costs and benefits are public goods, not private), but people find it difficult to go beyond first order simplifications of cause and effect. And there's no better way of starting some first-order finger pointing than with some horrific event.

For example, a driver "stuck" behind a few cyclists identifies the first-order cause and effect (if cyclists were not on the road, I would save about 10 seconds on this trip), but does not reflect on second-order logic, such as "if these cyclists were not on the road, they're likely to be in their own cars, which would add to congestion, stormwater pollution, air pollution, fuel costs, and car accidents. And if that were the case, not only could my trip still take 10 seconds longer (congestion), the fish I eat would contain an extra molecule or two of toxic metals (stormwater pollution), I'd lose a few nanoseconds off my life (air pollution), my petrol would cost more, and I'll be at a marginally higher risk of injury from a car accident."

If this is how we debate intertemporal costs, we're doomed

When it comes to debates, most of us aren't experts in a particular enterprise, line of thinking or ideology. So, to get the views of the masses, things must be simplified. Presenting things as a zero sum game (someone wins, someone else loses) is a common technique for this. And so it's always "the economy" vs. "the environment"

So when the NZ Herald asks "Will [New Zealand's proposed] emissions trading scheme have an effect on the economy?", it's a leading question pointing to a fictitious zero sum game.

The "correct" answer is "of course!". But the answer to the opposite question "Will a scrapping of NZ's proposed emissions scheme have an effect on the economy?" is also "of course!". The whole point of an emissions trading scheme (or carbon tax) - or lack of either - is to affect the economy.

Therefore, the conflict is the effect on today's economy vs. the economy of future generations -- and this is not a zero sum game. Much of the economic argument for closing externalities (via ETS or taxes) from greenhouse gas emissions is because future costs of doing nothing (e.g. international treaty liabilities or other more indirect costs like loss of ecological services, increased environmental refugees or adaptation costs) are much higher than the costs of reducing emissions today. This was the main conclusion of the often-cited Stern Review from the UK. Politicians (who do not balance short-term and long-term needs very efficiently) score points by pushing these costs onto future generations because today's citizens are their bosses.

The real danger is what is shaping up to be the worst outcome, wherein politicans compromise and increase short-term costs in order to gain small reductions in greenhouse gases today (e.g. the 10-20% reduction on 2005 that the NZ government appears willing to agree) that will have negligible effect on reducing the future costs of climate change (the IPCC, an extraordinary collaboration bringing together the best science availiable, says we need 50 to 80% reductions on 1990 levels). So it looks like politics-as-usual is going to deliver a lose-lose scenario for both today and the future.