Transport Link

THE HIDDEN COSTS OF CAR AND TRUCK USE IN NEW YORK

ESTIMATED FOR THE YEAR 2000

Traffic congestion, air pollution, traffic noise, water pollution, energy depletion, global warming, unregulated disposal of cars and trucks, damage to our roads and utilities by heavy trucks, all are hidden costs of car and truck use. They are the harms done to society and to our economy that many have grown to accept.

Not only is there a growing body of information about damages from each of these hidden costs, we can quantify these costs in dollar terms. While the recognition of hidden costs is not new, our ability to quantify them is. There is a growing movement to require government to evaluate all projects on their full costs and benefits to society, direct and hidden. This has been reported in many publications (including Transport Link) and has now been officially recognized by the U.S. DOT in their guidelines on least-cost transportation planning.

New York already suffers heavily from too many cars and trucks trying to move on its limited roadway system. New York City Transit has complained that congestion was the reason it could not deliver timely bus service; NYC Transit actually blamed congestion for the loss of a quarter of its ridership prior to the elimination of two-fare zones and discounted passes.

Congestion losses, in terms of reduced productivity for businesses — wasted time for all motorists — are estimated to total $8.3 billion a year in New York City and nearly $22 billion for the region in the Year 2000. The New York State Department of Transportation has estimated that congestion increased the cost to deliver freight by about $10 billion a year in the New York portion of the metropolitan area in 1995, increasing the cost of doing business and discouraging people from staying in the region.

New York City will continue to be in severe non-attainment for safe levels of ozone and fine particulate emissions in the Year 2000. Cars and trucks cause more than half the region’s ozone problem. Motor vehicles also cause half of New York’s toxic air pollutants, including fine particulate emissions at street level from diesel trucks and buses. Auto pollution attacks the human respiratory system, causing serious health problems, especially among the young and old for people suffering from chronic respiratory disorders such as asthma.

Asthma is the biggest cause of school absenteeism in the nation and is several times more prevalent in New York’s low-income areas. Diesel particulates are known to cause cancer. Acid rain eats away at New York’s buildings along with harming the region’s wildlife and food crops.

While new car technology is helping to reduce tailpipe emissions, these gains are overwhelmed by the increase in car and truck use. In order to meet federal clean air health standards, New York must reduce vehicular activity by about 1% per year from 1990 levels. Instead, car and truck use region wide is actually growing by more than 2% per year. Any action that will increase auto use will undermine this goal. The health and property damage from automotive air pollution in New York City will total about $7.3 billion a year in 2000.

Traffic noise is perhaps the most pervasive automotive irritant to most New Yorkers. It is hard to find a place you cannot hear cars and trucks roaring by. The result is loss of sleep, inability to concentrate, reduced productivity and general irritability. The cost, in terms of damage to health and lost productivity, will total about $1.9 billion in losses each year in New York City, or about 50-cents per New York resident per day.

The most costly harms produced by cars and trucks are the physical damage to bodies and property. Traffic accidents, death, injury and property damage will total about $10.3 billion in losses each year in New York City and nearly $28 billion regionally in 2000. Most of these costs are not borne by accident insurance. They constitute losses to businesses which suffer lost productivity, including the need to hire and train additional staff, and the pain and suffering of accident victims themselves, a large proportion of whom are non-motorists in New York City.

Heavy trucks rumbling through New York’s crowded, pot-holed streets causes damage both to roadway surface, the utilities under the road and, because of their close proximity to our streets, vibration damage to nearby buildings. Heavy trucks will continue to be responsible for all of the $294 million in vibration damages suffered by New York City property owners each year. New York’s poor street conditions likewise create problems for motorists. Auto drivers will continue to suffer another $455 million in vehicle damage each year as a consequence of pavement damage from heavy trucks (much of this cost is transferred to auto repair shops).

And, there are other costs not yet quantified in dollar terms: storm water runoff of road salts and toxic organics that are a major source of uncontrolled water pollution, the damage and clean up costs of oil spills, greenhouse effects of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and CFC’s, the value of land devoted to highways and removed from our tax roles, the value of free parking of cars and trucks which amount to untaxed subsidies to motorists, the cost of disposing of ten million car and truck chassis and a quarter billion tires each year nationwide, the social costs to those deprived of auto access, the foreign policy and defense costs of protecting our supplies of imported oil, and a similar array of hidden costs due to the manufacture of vehicles and the storage and refinement of petroleum products. Taken together, these costs may total nearly $1 trillion a year in damages to our nation�s economy and to its citizens.

These costs will total nearly $30 billion in damages in New York City alone in the Year 2000 if no reductions occur in the use of cars and trucks. More than half will continue to be borne by non-motorists, people who do not own cars, rarely drive and who generally depend on walking and transit for mobility.