Month: January 2014

[B’ Spokes: There is a lot of interest among those in Government to support tourism. The reason is simple, it’s outside money spent locally. What I will assert is the reverse of tourism is overly supporting the automobile because it’s local money that goes away from the localities and the state.]
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Via The Union of Concerned Scientists
Vehicle owners, on average, spend almost as much on gas as on the vehicle itself—benefiting oil companies and virtually no one else.
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The results are clear. Your gas money doesn’t support your local gas station, nor does it benefit you financially, even if you own oil company stock. Most of the money you spend at the pump goes directly to one place: oil companies.
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Out of the more than $22,000 spent on gas over the lifetime of an average vehicle bought in 2011, oil companies rake in about $15,000.
Of the remainder, 14 percent of the money spent on gasoline goes to taxes that help pay for roads and transportation services, 10 percent to refining costs, and 8 percent to distribution and marketing.
Gas stations average only three to five cents of profit from each gallon of gasoline sold. They make more profit off the bottled water and candy you buy inside than off the fuel you buy outside.
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You gain virtually nothing in return—even if you own stock in oil companies
Regardless of how many shares you may own in oil companies, your oil use does not benefit your bottom line.
Say you have $20,000 invested in ExxonMobil, the largest publicly traded oil company in the world. If you spent $1,700 on gas from ExxonMobil over the course of a year, your fuel purchase would yield far less than a penny in stock earnings. Even if you had $1 million invested, you would still get less than one cent in return after spending almost $2,000 on gasoline.
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https://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/smart-transportation-solutions/better-fuel-efficiency/where-your-gas-money-goes.html

By Lloyd Alter, Treehugger.

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For most Gen Y buyers, also known as Millennials, skipping a vehicle purchase is preferable to forgoing technology. Smartphones, laptops and tablet devices compete for their dollars and are higher priorities than vehicle purchases, said Joe Vitale, an automotive consultant with Deloitte. Financing, parking, servicing and insuring a vehicle all add up to a commitment that cash-strapped Millennials aren’t ready to make, he said. “A vehicle is really a discretionary purchase and a secondary need versus an iPhone, mobile phone or personal computer,” Vitale said.

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Driving isn’t fun anymore.

Finally, it has to be pointed out that driving just isn’t as much fun as it used to be. The roads are clogged, the parking is hard to find, you don’t pick people up by cruising down Main Street anymore, you can’t fiddle with your car because they have turned into computers. To get all anecdotal, I used to take my Volkswagen Beetles apart on the side of the road if I had to fix something. I used to drive everywhere and never had trouble finding parking. I still have a sports car (an 89 Miata) but I never use it in the city, I bike everywhere year round. It’s faster, cheaper, good exercise and frankly, a lot more fun than driving in downtown Toronto. When we go anywhere now, I let my wife drive so that I can look at my iPad and catch up on my reading.

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© The Atlantic

https://www.treehugger.com/cars/its-not-economy-stupid-young-people-really-are-turning-their-backs-cars.html

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[B’ Spokes: I’ll note that now I am driving a bit I find using my bike routes a lot more pleasant then the typical car route. Being a cyclist has more benefits then what first meets the eye. 😉 ]

By Lloyd Alter. Treehugger
We have been writing so much lately about helmet laws and people on bikes getting squished that you might think that cycling is dangerous. In fact, the opposite is true; Karin Olafson suggests in Momentum Magazine that bicycling is a form of preventative health care. She writes:
"The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified the positive impact of making cities more bike-friendly: “integrating health-enhancing choices into transportation policy has the potential to save lives by preventing chronic diseases, reducing and preventing motor-vehicle-related injury and deaths, improving environmental health, while stimulating economic development, and ensuring access for all people.” The CDC also recognized that a lack of efficient transportation alternatives to driving and a fear of biking in heavy traffic only encouraged people to continue to drive all or most of the time."
She claims that with safe bike routes that encouraged people to ride, "billions of health care dollars saved."
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https://www.treehugger.com/bikes/bicycling-form-preventative-health-care.html

By LYNNETTE HINTZE, The Daily Inter Lake
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onducted by the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research and graduate students from the University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation, the study found that multiday cyclists spend $75 per day and stay an average of eight or more nights as they pass through Montana.
“What I think people are realizing is that adventure tourism groups are pretty big,” said Jan Brunk, who with her husband, Ron, owns Glacier Cyclery in Whitefish. “It’s been going on in Whitefish and Flathead County for years. What I think is that the pundits have gotten ahold of it, and it’s a good thing” for the state’s economists to understand.
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https://www.dailyinterlake.com/business_and_finance/local_montana/article_337f83f4-8646-11e3-8eee-0019bb2963f4.html