The High Cost of Car Ownership

Cars. Photo by EveryCarListed P.(CC BY-SA 2.0)

Every day at The Overhead Wire we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. Each week, we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

Walkable neighborhoods not just about distance: Current measurements of walkability include the distance to things and are measured by access to destinations. But the choice of whether to walk for transportation can be determined by how pleasant and inviting the route is. A new study from the University of Colorado at Boulder shows that people are more likely to walk if their route is engaging. Being able to see more visually interesting things matters and it seems that if we combined the two we find public health improves overall. (Katy Marquardt Hill | CU Boulder Today)

Cost of car ownership: The rising price of cars is making car ownership much harder for many Americans. And the cost of operations including maintenance and insurance and fuel is rising as well. This is leading more people to consider not purchasing a car or making other transportation choices. (Kailyn Rhone | New York Times)

Buy America rule impacts Maine housing construction: A provision in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) requires home builders using certain government funds to source 95% of their materials from the United States. But this provision originally for transportation makes housing much more complicated as some components to can’t be found here. Waivers are also hard to come by and could mean 6 months of added project time which affordable housing developers just don’t have. (Hannah LaClaire | Portland Press Herald)

Street safety is less driving: A new report from Street Light Data intimates that vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and the reduction thereof, is the single most important factor in determining a street’s safety. City streets are safer, but now they are getting more crowded with delivery trucks and even now autonomous taxis. The best way to continue down a safer path could then be tied to better urban planning that reduces the need to drive at all and the risks that entails. (Briant Novinska-Lois | SSTI)

Why long term climate choices are hard to make: Experiments have found that people will accept small increased amounts of discomfort for a reward. While not sustainable long term, the short term benefits them. This idea is similar to our current climate predicament. We know that every small policy decision we make impacts climate change but will not significantly move the needle. A philosopher argues that to chance course those decisions shouldn’t be considered individually but as part of a larger package to create more significance. (Luke Elson | The Conversation)

Quote of the Day

The middle-income down payment assistance program offers a higher assistance level than the H2O program. But that comes at a price, and the price is a deed restriction. And we’re just assuming that when people see those two options side by side, it’s just not a competitive comparison.

–Hollie Hendrikson, of the City of Boulder in Boulder Reporting Lab discussing the city’s plan to end a middle income down payment program.

This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Jeremy Wells to discuss his book his book Managing the Magic of Old Places: Crafting Public Policies for People-Centered Historic Preservation. We chat the impact of old places on people’s emotions and the current state of the preservation profession. 

Want more links to read? Visit The Overhead Wire and signup.