Costs of the Car

(sources are listed at the end of this page)

Personal

1. Accidents

Around the World
Total number of people killed on the roads around the world in 1989: 265,000. 8
Total estimated number of people injured: 10 million. 8
Every 30 minutes a new car is produced that will kill someone. 9
Every 50 seconds a new car is produced that will injure someone. 9
One individual in every hundred will be killed in a road traffic accident. 9
Two out of every 3 people will be injured in a road traffic accident. 9

Accidents involving children
Rank of cars among the causes of death for Canadian school children: 1. 10
Chances that a child under the age of 14 will be involved in a traffic collision: 1 in 10. 10
Chances that a traffic fatality is a child: 1 in 6. 10
If a child is hit by a car travelling at 50 kmh, there is a less than 10% survival rate. At 40 kmh, the survival rate jumps to 55%. And at 30 kmh the survival rate is 95%. 11

The costs of accidents
In 1988, 1,237 people were killed and 118,150 were injured in Ontario in car-related accidents. 21
The Ontario Ministry of Transportation has estimated that the societal costs of automobile accidents causing injury and death exceed $1.9 billion per year, including health costs, policing, repairs and lost wages. This is equivalent to roughly $380 per taxpayer. 13

Amount of police time used annually: 800,000 hours. 12
Amount of hospital care used: 150,000 days. 12
Number of emergency room visits: 74,000. 12.
Number of ambulance calls: 38,000. 12
Number of fire department responses: 9,000. 12
Total cost of traffic collisions in Ontario each year: $9 billion. 12

Accidents involving cyclists
Collisions with motor vehicles are the causes of only 12% of all bike accidents. However, they are the most dangerous. In 1991, 27 Ontario cyclists were killed and over 3,900 injured in collisions with vehicles. 14

2. Financial costs
Personal costs of automobile Ownership and Use. 13

   

Financial costs of the car - social

In Ontario
While revenue from car and fuel sales in Ontario are $3.5 billion a year, the costs of the car that everyone has to pay for total $8.3 billion a year. 4

Ontario Government Car-related revenue. (Annually, in $millions) 21
Corporate taxes   550
Provincial gas tax  1,400
Ontario's share of federal gas tax 880
Registration fees   614
Tire tax   40
Total:    3,484

Direct costs
Government Car-Related Expenditures in Ontario (Annually, in $millions). 21
Highway maintenance and construction 1,900
Interest on car-related Ontario debt  1,173
Road safety and testing   5
Health care - car accident victims  80
Health care for disease due to car-related air pollution 645
Policing - Municipalities   500
 - Ontario Provincial Police 226
Subsidies to auto and oil industries 20.3+
Court costs    not known
Car-related Ministry of the environment spending not known
Total:     4,549.3+

External costs
Hidden car-related costs (Annually in $millions). 21
Loss of farmland  1,000
Damage due to acid rain (20% is car-related) 13+
Plant damage due to ground level ozone 14
Global warming (16% is car-related) not known
Loss of time due to traffic congestion 2,000
Stress and decline in quality of life not known
Lost productivity - due to death  620
Lost productivity due to injuries  11
Total:     3,759+

3. Time
Average transit system speed in the GTA in 1990: 22 kmh. 1
Average road system speed in the GTA in 1990: 45 kmh. 1

Canadians own more than 12 million private automobiles, about 1 for every 2 Canadians. On average, these cars travel over 16,000 km/yr, a total of 200 billion km, or more than 1000 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Assuming an average speed of 50 kmh and that each vehicle is only carrying one person, that means that Canadians spend 4 billion hours in vehicles. At minimum wage ($7/hr) that's a value of $28 billion in lost productivity. 16
 

Costs of the Car - Societal

1. Pollution

Average transportation emission of carbon dioxide in urban Canada per year per person: 70,000,000 tonnes. 1
Total transportation-related carbon dioxide emissions in the GTA in 1990: 13,442 kilotonnes. 1
Total transportation-related carbon monoxide emissions in the GTA in 1990: 518 kilotonnes. 1
Total transportation-related nitrogen oxides emissions (that contributes to the greenhouse effect) in the GTA in 1990: 78 kilotonnes. 1
Total transportation-related volatile organic compounds emissions in the GTA in 1990: 73. 1
Average CO2 emitted due to personal car use every weekday in Metro Toronto: 17,000 tonnes. 3
10% of vehicles in use account for more than 50% of carbon monoxide emissions. 3
Percentage of the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect caused by motor vehicles: 16%. 3
In Southern Ontario, the 1991 combined loss of crops and ornamentals due to smog was estimated to be between 17 and 70 million dollars per year. 3

Info for calculating per person pollution production. 17
Approximate average fuel economy of Canadian vehicles: 12l/100km.
At speed above 100 km/hr, fuel efficiency decreases by approximately 1% for every 1 kmh increase in speed.
Average distance travelled: 20,000.
Carbon dioxide emission factor: 2.4 kg/litre.
Annual average Co2 emissions per car: 5.6 tonnes.
On average, one passenger on public transit produces approximately 8 times less Co2 than a single driver in a car over the same distance (based on a fully-loaded bus).

In Canada
Total 1991 air pollution from operating cars in Canada (not including the manufacturing of automobiles, disposal and waste, and extracting and refining oil) (22):
37% of all emissions of carbon monoxide
20% of all emissions of nitrogen oxides
23% of all hydrocarbon emissions
10% of carbon dioxide
2.5% of total particulates
 

2. Energy

Average transportation energy use in the GTA in 1990 per person: 47,891 megajoules. 1
Energy needed to manufacture a car, including materials, assembly and maintenance: 5,600 kwh of electricity and the equivalent of 19,700 kwh in fossil fuels are needed. 21
Percentage of the total amount of publicly generated energy that is used to manufacture cars in Canada: 11%. 21
Portion of energy consumed for transportation in Canada: 28%. 21

3. Land Use

The way we design our cities affects our transportation choices. As density decreases, our dependence on cars for personal transportation increases. As we need more cars, our need for space increases, which means we need cars to get around more... (1)
1993 Residential density (people/km2) in the City of Toronto: 6550.
1993 Residential density (people/km2) in North York (post-WW2 suburb): 3178.
1993 Residential density (people/km2) in Markham (recent suburb): 1690.

1993 automobile ownership in the City of Toronto vehicles/1000 people: 388.
1993 automobile ownership in North York vehicles/1000 people: 450.
1993 automobile ownership in Markham vehicles/1000 people: 555.

Annual transit rides per person in the City of Toronto: 199.
Annual transit rides per person in North York: 143.
Annual transit rides per person in Markham: 90.

In 1993 there were 5.5 road m/person in Markham, compared to 1.7 m/person of road in the City of Toronto. 1
In urban areas, up to 42% of the land in the downtown core may be used by the transportation system. 2

Value of the construction work purchased in Canada for road, highway and airport runways in 1990: $6,159,206,000. 5

Amount of land a pre-automobile city devotes to roadway: 10%. 18
Amount of land an automobile oriented city devotes to streets: 30%. 18

An urban expressway takes up to 10 acres a mile and 30 acres per interchange. 5

Square miles used for car use in the U.S. in 1988: 60,000. 19

4. Parking
Amount spent on parking lots in Canada in 1990: $193,843,000. 5
In the design of a typical parking lot, each car takes up 280 square feet of parking space, which works out to 173 cars per acre. 5
Parking a single car at home, at work and at a shopping mall requires on average 4,000 square feet of asphalt. 21
18 bicycles can park in the space of a car, while 30 can move along in the space of a single automobile. 20

5. Materials (1 or 2)
The average 1991 motor vehicle (including cars, vans and station wagons) includes:
643.6 kg carbon steel
106.4 kg high-strength steel
14.1 kg stainless steel
21.4 kg other steel
208.6 kg iron
102 kg plastics/composites
81.6 kg lubricants/fluids
61.1 kg rubber
70.7 kg aluminum
38.6 kg glass
22.5 kg copper
9.1 kg zinc
47.5 kg other materials
1427.7 kg total materials

Roughly 500,000 vehicles are disposed of each year in Ontario. 21
In addition, more than 7 million scrap tires are disposed of in Ontario each year, 60% of which end up in landfills. 21

by Regan McClure

1. Urban Planning, Public Transit and Related Initiatives for more Sustainable Transportation by IBI Group, Ontario RoundTable on the Environment and Economy, November 1995.
2. Sustainability Indicators: The Transportation Sector by IndEco Strategic Consulting Inc., Ontario Round Table on the Environment and Economy, November 1995.
3. Outdoor Air Quality in Toronto: Issues and Concerns, City of Toronto Department of Public Health, 1993.
4. Beyond the Car, Essays on the Auto Culture, Sue Zielinski and Gordon Laird (eds.), Steel Rail Press, 1995.
5. Statistics Canada, Report on Construction in Canada, 1991. (Numbers not indexed to inflation).
6. Get a Life: How to Make a Good Buck and Dance Around the Dinosaurs by Wayne Roberts and Susan Brandum, Get a Life Publishing, Toronto, 1996.
7. The Liveable Toronto Area, Transforming Transportation for Prosperity and Sustainability
8. European Conference of Ministers of Transport, Working Group on Transport and the Environment, Paris, 1989.
9. Heidelberg Institute, Germany, 1993.
10. "Safe Routes to School", Tom Samuels, Transmission spring/ Summer, 1995, p. 19
11. Derived from Statistics Canada Mortality Summary Volume I, II, 1986.
12. "The Costs of Speed, Hamish Wilson, Transmission, Spring/ Summer 1995, p. 13
13. Udo Stillich, the Liveable Toronto Area: Transforming Transportation for Prosperity and Sustainability. Toronto, Environmentalists Plan Transportation, 1994, p. 11.
14. Spokes Info: Bicycle Collisions: How to Avoid them, Ministry of Transportation, 5/10/93.
15. Transmission, Transportation Options, Toronto, Winter Issue 1995-96, p. 18.
16. Derived from Environment Canada State of the Environment Reporting Fact Sheet No. 93-1, 1993.
17. National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, a Strategy for Sustainable Transportation in Ontario, 1995.
18. Urban Transport Planning, Harry Dimitriou, Routledge, NY, 1993, p. 136.
19. Renner, M. Rethinking the role of the automobile, Worldwatch Institute, Washington, 1988.
20. Derived from environment Canada State of Environment Reporting Factsheet No 93-1, 1993/ Energy and Equity by Ivan Illich.
21. The Costs of the Car: A Preliminary Study of the Environmental and Social Costs Associated with Private Car Use in Ontario. Pollution Probe, Toronto, 1991.
22. The State of Canada's Environment, Government of Canada, Ottawa, 1991.