A car to get them off welfare and improve their lives in Baltimore
- Source: Toll Roads News.
The Baltimore Sun's transport report Michael Dresser has a great story this week about a Baltimore charity called Vehicles for Change (VfC) that is enriching the lives of transit-dependent people by getting them a car. 24-year old Karyn Wilmer a single mother with a 2-year old calls a 1998 Honda she got from VfC "almost a miracle for me," the car has so radically improved her life. The car had enabled her to get work because transit to the workplace was impossible.
Recipients of the donated cars said that their new mobility enabled them look after children better and to shop better.
Vehicles for Change organized a promotional event recently called "Walk in their Shoes" in the car recipients left their cars at home for one day and retracted their walks and transit rides on typical trips they had to make when carless.
Reporters and officials traipsed along on the long walks to the bus stop and then waited around for the buses which rarely ran to schedule, then the awkward routine of folding the stroller and hoisting it and child up into the bus while maneuvering coins and bills for the fare.
The Sun report quotes a survey that showed 70% of recipients of cars said they made thousands increase in income in the year after they'd got a car. Children benefited in less monetary ways, being able to be taken more places than transit makes convenient.
Recipients rent the cars typically for $75/month. Often after a couple of years they've made enough extra income to be able to afford their own. A good rent payment record is accepted by local banks as a credit positive.
No comment from the transit enthusiasts or those who want to "get people out of their cars."
OUR (Toll Roads) COMMENT: Carlessness in the modern world is a form of transit-slavery, a scourge which true progressives and liberals will oppose. Programs like Baltimore's Vehicles for Change enabling people of limited means to get cars deserve support.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/commuting/bs-md-no-car-20111003,0,1...
http://vehiclesforchange.org/
testimonials from grateful recipients of cars: http://vehiclesforchange.org/testimonials.html
TOLLROADSnews 2011-10-06
- Thanks to Paul Minett for the heads up on this
PS. I cannot understand why this terrible treatment of a seemingly well-intentioned (?!?) idea is not getting more ironic comment and attack. "Carlessness in the modern world is a form of transit-slavery, a scourge . . . " indeed.
Posts
Is this really any different from a not uncommon situation where a family member gives another their used car, maybe for a small payment, or requirement to have the brakes done etc.?
ReplyDeleteThough probably most of the clients of this program would not inherit a vehicle from a previous - and possibly more economically-struggling - generation, it seems quite problematic if the end goal is based on "....Often after a couple of years they’ve made enough extra income to be able to afford their own..."
So my suggestion is that this org. should get some help to do a 2.0 version based on finding 10 to 20 people in area a couple miles max. in diameter who can share a vehicle (or one smaller one, and a truck, etc.) supported by a low- or high-tech carsharing system. The other surplus vehicles can go to truly rural-based clients with any income used for folding bikes, Greyhound or Amtrak tickets, and so on.
No doubt. This would be a far more useful approach. THanks Todd.
ReplyDeleteSome may remember it was only a a few years ago that Amory Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institute) calculated that GIVING low income people households a Prius would have a net societal benefit.
ReplyDeleteDave
Yet another example of Amory's "lively mind". The dogs bark, etc. etc. (Nough said.)
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is any dispute that a car will improve people's lives if they have inadequate alternative transport options. What I do believe is that a society has a duty to provide transport options which will enable people to avoid having to own a car, and that if this is done then overall societal welfare will be inversely correlated with car ownership other things being equal.
ReplyDeleteDave Brook said that giving poor people a Prius would improve overall societal welfare as if this was unexpected. Surely giving poor people anything would improve overall societal welfare ? Some free marketeers might say that it would be better to give them the money and let them choose what they spend it on, and although I'm not a free marketeer I'd agree in this case.
Incidentally there is a similar scheme in the UK involving mopeds rather than cars and targeted at young people in rural areas, called "Wheels to Work".
However when I once saw an article about the scheme giving the viewpoint of one of its beneficiaries I noticed that the person in question could have got to work and back by train given a very minor improvement in the local train service, and said so in a letter to the relevant magazine which was published.
My basic objection to the scheme is that in areas where public transport is inadequate it undermines the residual market, and if this leads to service cuts there is no assurance that the gain in welfare for the beneficiary is not outweighed by the loss for remaining users. And this is before one even considers pollution, climate change, danger etc.
Simon Norton
Here, here! Exactly right. The real benefit to the households is having improved transportation options. Probably in most places in Europe a transit pass would actually be more useful. But it's good example of "resource allocation" - the nonprofit (NGO) gets the cars for free through donation and puts them to good use. That's great. One could argue that bus and train companies actually have a similar "unused" resource - empty seats. But designing a special program to help fill those seats at their marginal cost would be quite a challenge.
ReplyDeleteDave
I have to say Dave that I am not at all sure about that. It surprises me, given that you are one of the important innovators of the concept of CarSharing, that you did not think about this as something which could be handled through a concept which would combine the car, CarSharing, and ride sharing. Now that is, with a little support from our friends, could make a contribution both in terms of mobility, affordability and environment. For my part I would love to get involved in a project which would combine CarSharing and ride sharing for poor people and poorer sections of the country. For example in my home state of Mississippi where there is a lot that could be done with such an approach to poor whites and poor blacks who for sure would be offered better mobility and fewer cars.
ReplyDeleteI dare say that in areas like West London the lack of a car can cause problems, but I should be surprised if these problems were ever so big as to cause major loss of employment opportunities, which, we're told, is happening in Baltimore.
ReplyDeleteAt the Conservative Party conference an announcement was made that unemployed people will be punishable with loss of benefit if they refuse jobs within 90 minutes commute. In other words, this is considered a reasonable commuting time by our government. I am sure that one can get pretty much anywhere to anywhere within a sector of London in this sort of time.
That isn't to say that we don't need big improvements. Transport campaigners have proposed a light rail network for North-West London which would link several important areas, including the industrial estates in Park Royal mentioned by Dave Holladay. And as he says, our planning system has allowed developments such as hospitals in transport discriminatory locations.
Coleshill Parkway is interesting in another way. When it opened it had buses every 15 minutes to Birmingham Airport, fanning out to provide 4 services, each hourly, to different surrounding towns. I cited it as an example of good practice in rail/bus coordination, as against (say) East Midlands Parkway station which has no buses at all except an occasional service on route 65 -- the route between Nottingham and East Midlands Airport goes past nonstop. Now, following local authority cuts, the service between Coleshill Parkway and Birmingham airport is down to half hourly, all journeys to places beyond require a change at Coleshill, 2 of the 4 routes have disappeared completely and a 3rd is now only occasional.
I have commented on the contrast between the 5000 pound bribe for those with 25,000 further pounds to spare to buy an electric car, and the cuts to bus service support, which in Cambridgeshire has been about 5 pounds per person per year. In Hartlepool, which summarily abolished all bus subsidies, there is a case of someone who has to pay 11 pounds EVERY DAY for a taxi to visit a frail relative and as a result can only do so 3 days a week.
One could argue that concessionary bus passes are a way of making socially worthwhile use of spare capacity on buses.
Finally I'd like to mention an article on commuting in the US that I came across through another e-group: . The comments on it, both from the UK and the US, are worth looking through.
Simon Norton
I heartily concur with Eric Britton's suggestion that carsharing and ridesharing should be included in the transportation options a low-income household is offered. I suspect that many households don't really need a car, just better access to transportation options. Others, particularly those with difficult commutes would find a vehicle beneficial
ReplyDeleteIf vehicles are offered to these households they should certainly be encouraged to enroll them in a P2P carsharing scheme, as well a dynamic ridesharing system, such as Avego. This would enable them to earn a little extra cash while getting on with their lives. Whether they have the bandwidth to manage all this technology, in addition to keeping the car running, is another question.