Peak oil

Though not the most important factor in our giving up the car, the threat of peak oil and fast-rising petrol prices is definitely one of my/the considerations.

Despite the occasional optimistic report declaring world peace is only just around the corner - and the price of barrel of oil will sink to a 'normal' level of $40 - I can't see it myself.

It's not a case of 'why is all the oil found in the world's trouble spots', it's more a case of 'why the world's trouble spots are found where there is oil.' The answer is patently obvious: money, greed, guns.

Coupled to this, charts showing oil discovery slowing and extraction rates growing make oil's finite nature all the more stark.

And all those 'viable' alternatives, which sanguine economists believe we will calmly transition to, well I'm not sold on that either.

So in a scenario of ever-increasing and accelerating proportion of your household budget going on petrol, any steps you can take to insulate yourself from this ought to be taken.

If you can access services, shops, education and employment, all without use of a car, then your vulnerability to rising prices is reduced.

It may not be necessary to take these steps just yet, but being prepared is better than not.

Of course it doesn't reduce your vulnerability to the rising price of goods and services, driven by additional costs in the manufacture and distribution.

It doesn't insulate all the people who I rely on to stock my shelves, teach my kids and drive my train.

When these people are faced with crippling transport bills, because they cannot afford to live within walking distance of a station - or worse - their place of employment is not near public transport links - then we are all in trouble.

But at least we have governments prepared to make the hard choices about what kind of infrastructure will meet our needs in the future. I'd hate to think they were simply going to throw all our money on giant road projects.

West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil $/barrel

Giving up the car - Day 3 to 6

Well, can't say I've missed the car too much so far, though I have had a relatively uncomplicated week. Monday & Tuesday, work was easily accessible by public transport and Wednesday I worked from home.

The kids seem to be getting used to walking and cycling everywhere - even Matthew (7), who is notorious for moaning about everything has said how "walking is really good exercise, and so is playing on the Playstation coz it exercises your fingers" !

• Walked: 6.3km (To date: 12.9km)
• Cycled: 2km (To date: 9.6km)
• Money saved: $19.20 (To date: $333.30)

Je flâne

Britauthor, Will Self has become a flaneur, apparently: a gentlemanly stroller of the city streets.

He walks for miles, experiencing the people and places of London unseen by the 'windscreen-based virtuality' of most passers through.

It has no doubt alerted him to the poor esteem in which pedestrians are held by city planners. Cities, despite being full of people, are well and truly designed with the motor vehicle in mind.

But this is changing, and many town planners I know will talk passionately of a pied-a-terre and of urban villages; trying to put ‘people’ not ‘cars’ at the heart of city designs.

It will be a slow process. There are many decades of vehicle-based urban infrastructure already in place, with huge inertia built-in to both the thinking of city leaders and of the ‘people’ themselves: so accustomed to a voiture-a-terre we have become.

And despite the benign visions of post-modern liberal urban planners, billions continue to be sunk into an urban infrastructure where walking is not even part of the thought process.

In an end-piece in last weekend's Courier-Mail, Kathleen Noonan recounts Self's transformation into a flaneur. She too seems too lament the ironic inaccessibility of a city to its people.

Noonan declares "Brisbane City Council should employ a flaneur to experience the city at street level, at a human pace, to advise planning changes."

As a part time flaneur (well, perhaps not gentlemanly) I absolutely concur.

Though Brisbane is one of the more accessible cities I have lived in, it remains replete with frustrations for pedestrians [and cyclists], which for the most part, would not entail an entirely new urban planning paradigm to sort out.

1. Inequitable traffic light timing: Too often a couple of hundred pedestrians are made to wait before crossing a CBD intersection, whilst a mere dozen single-occupancy vehicles rush through. (Think Edward Street at its junctions with Anne, Adelaide and Queen Streets.)
2. Bikeways and footpaths that are interrupted by busy roads with no pedestrian / cyclist right of way. (Two particularly poor examples are on Kedron Brook bikeway, intersected by Shaw Road and Melton Road at two exceptionally busy sections.)
3. Convoluted pedestrian routes across major arterial roads. (One particularly laughable example is crossing Gympie Road at its junction with Murphy Road. A pedestrian must cross a zebra crossing and wait at three sets of traffic lights to cross one road. What should be a 30 metre crossings becomes a 150m hike which can take up to 5 minutes.)

These are three examples I know intimately, but there are doubtless thousands of others across the city.

But sadly it wont be just a case of employing a flaneur. We already know what and where the issues are, and how they can be resolved.

In all these examples, pedestrians and cyclists have been considered, but then promptly ignored in favour of the sole guiding principle of transport planning: never impede the motorist: Their time is far more important than yours.

Just a walk in the park

Still no great need for the car.

I played some pre-season rugby season touch football down at the park (2.5km by bike) and then did some shopping for BBQ lunch with friends in the afternoon.

Carrying significant amounts of shopping can be a pain, especially when you need to buy wine and beer at the same time. It wouldn't all fit in my Queensland government TravelSmart bag, so sorry, the milk and bread had to go…

Giving up the car - Day 2 - Penny

Today was a little more challenging. It was the hottest day we'd had in almost a year and I had to cycle to the rugby club to do my voluntary duties for club sign-on (4.75km) then on over to the school for a swimming carnival in the afternoon (1.75km). At least the temperature had cooled for the ride back home (1.1km).

• Walked: 0km (To date: 6.6km)
• Cycled: 7.6km (To date: 7.6km)
• Money saved: $3.80 (To date: $314.10)

Giving up the car - Day 1- Penny

First day without the car and I was working from home. I walked the kids to school (2.2km return) and picked them up again in the afternoon (another 2.2km return). Friday nights are back up to school for swimming training (add another 2.2km return). At least I didn't feel guilty about not using the treadmill today.

Cancelling the comprehensive car insurance gave us a refund of $307.

• Walked: 6.6km (To date: 6.6km)
• Money saved: $310.30 (To date: $310.30)

The Great (Air)Train Robbery

Now we are sans l'auto, when we pack my Mother off to the airport on Saturday, she must go by train, specifically, the AirTrain.

A short walk to the station and 25 minutes on the train drops you off right at the terminal door: no mucking about in the traffic on the Airport Drive/Gateway intersection and no tearing your hair out trying to find a parking space.

The AirTrain is both convenient and… er… well it's just convenient. It ain't cheap.

Her 25 minute journey will cost a whopping $14.20 (concession fare). And she'll have to carry her own bags, because if I tagged along as porter, it would set me back a cool $29.50 return. (Added together, it would be cheaper to hire a large car for 24 hours.)

So I'm sorry, but she'll have to go by taxi. The cabbie will pick her up from the door, load up her suitcases and take her to the airport directly. All for around $3 more than a single AirTrain concession fare ($5 more if you include the taxi levy charged by the airport).

The AirTrain is not part of the CityTrain network and was built and is owned and operated privately.

Its Defenders claim the fares represent the true cost of running the lines and trains.

Benchmarking? Ever heard of it? I can understand setting the fares at a point where it's cheaper for - say 4 people - to travel from the city to the airport in a shared taxi. But current AirTrain fares are set where that threshold is around 1.5 people.

But AirTrain are happy with their numbers. The congestion chaos that is now the Gateway/Airport Drive intersection is pushing customers on the trains and the high fares.

Brisbane Airport Corporation (the owners of AirTrain) is fast becoming the robber baron of Brisbane.

You've got to pay for the trolleys; you've got to pay premiums for taxis and car parking; soon you'll have to pay to breathe.

AirTrain represents the worst excesses of the greed of Brisbane Airport Corporation. It is quite happy to tear up town planning principles and stamp all over the local Council and community. It is also quite happy to abuse its monopoly position of sole air services provider to the city by charging premiums for its customers to get there and access services.

We want choice in our airports.

Weighing it all up

We have worked out it costs us around $6837 per year to own and operate our vehicle. It is broken down as such:

Item	$ (pa)
Repairs and service	734
Comprehensive insurance	460
CTP / Rego	762
Depreciation*	2381
Total (fixed costs)	4337
Petrol	2500
Total (fixed and variable costs)	6837

This makes transport expenditure roughly comparable to the annual cost of groceries (excluding alcohol, probably).

To make this work, we therefore need to rent cars, hire taxis and access public transport for less than $6837 per year.

$6837 potentially goes a long way. A back-of-the-fag-packet calculation for instance, shows that this is the equivalent of around 180 days - or half a year's - worth of car hire (long term deals and petrol excluded).

Assuming that over a year, we would want to hire a car for maybe 1 weekend in 3, this would only cost us around $1600-$1800 per year. Throw in the extra public transport fares and the odd taxi ride, and I reckon there's still change left over.

In summary, convenience [when we compare ourselves to the Joneses] will scupper this plan, not money.

Cold hard cash

Whilst there is undoubtedly an element of idealism involved in this trial, it is also about cold hard cash. We believe that it will prove to be better value.

Significantly, when you buy a car, you must generally select for the highest common denominator.

So, for example, if you have 2 children and like to go off camping, you require a large vehicle (possibly an SUV), despite the fact that for probably 95% of your trips a small, 1.1 litre vehicle is sufficient.

In reality—and this is directly relevant in our situation—you tend to compromise.

4 years ago, when we first moved to Australia, we bought a 2.6 litre V6 Magna. This proved both too big for most of our needs and in the end too small and too two-wheel-drived for the more fun things in our lives.

Thus we had significant money tied up unproductively.

Multiply this over an entire city, and there must be huge amount of wealth allocated inefficiently.

So for us, if a vehicle is required, the option of taxi or car hire will allow us to select a vehicle appropriate for our journey.

Thus, we can choose to spend $130 per day on a 4WD when needed, otherwise it's just $35 for a Nissan Colt or a few bucks for a taxi journey.

Furthermore, the fixed costs of owning a vehicle are often comparable to that of running a vehicle. In our situation, petrol represents only around 1/3 of the annual cost of the vehicle. The marginal cost of fuelling it up and using it are low, so encouraging you to use it, once you've got it.

So the answer does not lie in simply not using the vehicle, but in not even owning one.

This is the service economy, beloved of environmental thinkers like Amory Lovins.

Instead of owning fixed assets, households and firms will lease them. So you won't own your television, but rent it. We won’t own a car, we will simply access one when needed. The advantages are manifold:

• you have access to the latest technology that will improve both the quality and efficiency of the product available to you
• you are not directly responsible for the maintenance of the product
• you are not responsible for the disposal of the goods

And in the broader economy:

• the supplier of the goods is in the best position to judge when it is most efficient to take goods out of circulation and replace with new
• the supplier is often in the best position to take back [and recycle] goods that are no longer required in circulation

Situational analysis

Andrew (35): Works in Brisbane CBD 5 days per week. Employer promotes flexible working options. Currently catches the train to work 100% of the time (10 minutes walk at either end). Is [relatively] fit and has no mobility impairments.

Penny (32): runs own software training business, predominantly in an inner-southern suburb, reasonably well served by train and south eastern busway. Often provides onsite training for clients in metropolitan Brisbane in a suburb that may or may not be well-served by public transport. Is fit and has no mobility impairments.

James (9): Attends local state school, approximately 1km away. Can comfortably ride his bike to school and back unaccompanied and has good road sense. Currently gets to school in a variety of ways: walking, cycling and lifts in the car.

Matthew (7): Attends local state school, approximately 1km away. Could comfortably ride his bike to school, but his road sense is still underdeveloped and could not be unaccompanied. Currently gets to school in a variety of ways: walking, cycling and lifts in the car.

No car Brisbane

Faced with another mammoth repair bill ($1290), we have decided to ditch the car.

Well, at least trial it for 4 weeks...

We believe it is possible, without there being any major impact on our quality of life. And we believe it would be more affordable.

We will:

• Walk and cycle more than we all already do
• Take public transport more than we currently do
• Take taxis and hire cars, where a vehicle is necessary (for business and pleasure)
• Simply not travel as much
• Slow down a bit

We will have to plan ahead a bit more; booking taxis, cars and planning trips and major shopping to coincide with use of a vehicle.

However, in our favour:

• I walk to the station and catch the train to work every day and don’t use a car
• My wife’s employment is mostly near public transport (but not always so)
• Brisbane remains reasonably well served with public transport
• Though we chose to live where we do because of the train line, perhaps more fortuitously we live near the airport and so have 3 or 4 car hire businesses within 5 minutes walk
• The kids mostly walk and cycle to school

There will be a few tricky things. Rugby training and away games will cause some thorny problems. Also visiting friends who don’t happen to live near public transport, will be hard... and time consuming I suspect.

This blog will follow our success… or otherwise...