Annals of Motordom – 21

An occasional update on items from Motordom – the world of auto dominance

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SINGAPORE SECRETS

In every lecture, I always try to ask the question: “Where is there a place that has effectively addressed congestion by building more roads?” 

I actually have had a few suggestions (Canberra, anyone?) – but typically there’s a rueful laugh and we move on.  Or occasionally someone will mention Singapore, recognizing that its form of government allows it to get away with things we couldn’t contemplate in Canada or the States.

But here’s an article by Christopher Tan that delves into how Singapore does it: “More vehicles, more trips, more people — but gridlock remains a rarity. What gives?”

The answer: “It’s simple. Early planning. Timely action. Massive investment across many modes of transport.”

Well, not so simple, really.  But basic:

Two important ingredients: a convenient and well-connected public transport network, and an effective set of demand management measures to regulate traffic flow and keep road congestion in check. … Demand for road space must be held in check. And the best way to do that, they discovered, are user charges.

Details here – plus comments from experts.

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IN 1922: CARS ARE HEALTHY!

From Ezra Goldman:

U. S. Senator Royal S. Copeland, former Health Commissioner of New York City cited in Motor,  July, 1922:

Of course motoring bestows its greatest benefits on the person who drives the car. Not only does the driver get the full benefitof open road and fresh air, but he gets actual physical exercise in a form best calculated to repair the damages wrought by our modern existence. The slight physical effort needed in moving the steering wheel reacts on the muscles of the arms and abdomen.

Most of us get enough exercise in the walking necessary, even to the most confined life, to keep the leg muscles fairly fit. It is from the waist upward that flabbiness usually sets in. The slight, but purposeful effort demanded in swinging the steering wheel, reacts exactly where we need it most. Frankly I believe that steering a motor car is actually better exercise than walking, because it does react on the parts of the body least used in the ordinary man’s routine existence.

This sounds like an argument that mousing and typing is sufficient daily exercise as is getting up from the sofa to get a beer from the refrigerator.

From John C. Long Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 116, The Automobile: Its Province and Its Problems (Nov., 1924), pp. 18-21

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While we’re scavenging the past, here’s an intriguing piece in the New York Times this weekend – on why Arkansas was one of the few states to actually go into default in the Depression.   Road-building debt, floods and droughts, apparently – not that anything like that could happen now.

In the 1920s, Arkansas made a push to build roads for the nation’s fast-expanding automobile industry, hoping to pull the state into the modern age. Local road districts took on the task, borrowing money and building what they could, but the result was more a financially troubled mishmash than a statewide network, so the state eventually stepped in, said Ben Johnson, a history professor at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia.

The state borrowed more money to expand roads as well as taking on the debts of the local road districts …

In 1927, the Mississippi River system flooded, covering a third of Arkansas and destroying infrastructure (including some of those precious roads) and miles of cotton fields, a key product in the state.

And so, by the early 1930s, after the crash of the stock market and another natural disaster — this time, a cotton-withering drought — Arkansas was looking at a catastrophic ratio of debt payments …   Arkansas could not make its bond payments.