One externalitiy -- unpaid cost -- of cars and sprawl, is cancer

It’s been more than a dozen years since the metaphorical alarm was first sounded, and yet the residents of Fort Chipewyan still don’t know what’s killing them.
What they do know is that there are still elevated rates of cancer in the northern Alberta community. They also know that nothing's been done to address the issue, despite community leaders asking for further investigation for years.
“It’s like a silent killer. You don’t know what it is that’s out there, what’s causing you to get sick,” said Chief Allan Adam, leader of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation since 2007. Adam was in Ottawa last week campaigning, once again, to get answers for his community.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/12/17/features/downstream-oilsands-death-cancer-comes-too-often 

UK to spend £27.4bn over next five years on roads

On the back of new chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement of £27.4bn in investment for the UK’s roads in today’s budget, the Department of Transport has published its strategy for revamping the UK’s motorways and “A” roads. 

The funding will go towards the both the enhancement and repair of existing roads as well as completing a raft of prominent new projects around the country.

https://www.cityam.com/budget-2020-government-announces-27-4bn-roads-revamp/ 

New Zealand car drivers are subsidized by rate-payers

But a surprisingly large amount don’t seem to know that driving does as well – 90% of roads in New Zealand are not fully funded out of fuel excise, but draw on local rates money as well (the exception being State Highways). Most times you drive your car you are not paying your own way, but are being subsidised by ratepayers.

https://talkingtransport.com/2020/03/08/free-public-transport/ 

Half of new oil production in US requires subsidy at $50 price

"We find that, at recent oil prices of US$50 per barrel, tax preferences and other subsidies push nearly half of new, yet-to-be-developed oil investments into profitability, potentially increasing US oil production by 17 billion barrels over the next few decades."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0009-8.epdf? 

British Columbia giving taxpayer gift of $5.35 billion gift to Gas company

The “right” fiscal framework amounts to a bouquet of government subsidies for B.C.’s largest carbon polluter, including tax reprieves, tax exemptions and cheaper electricity rates for some of the largest and most profitable multinationals in the world — the LNG Canada quintet of Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi Corp., Malaysian-owned Petronas, PetroChina Co. and Korean Gas Corp. 

At a technical briefing for media, a B.C. senior government official pegged the province’s total financial incentives for the project at $5.35 billion.

https://thenarwhal.ca/lng-canada-project-called-a-tax-giveaway-as-b-c-approves-massive-subsidies/ 

Anti-business tax to support cars - let's get cars off welfare

Densely populated metropolitan areas like New York City have become ground zero for clashes among cars, bikes and trucks competing for limited parking spaces. For delivery companies, the tight fit means racking up huge parking fines as a cost of doing business.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ups-hit-with-22m-in-nyc-parking-fines/amp

Trolls still asking "who will pay for #freepublictransport?" while EU votes €24 billion for gas

Energy projects on the 4th PCI list are eligible to receive up to 50% of funding from the EU through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). Among the 151 projects included on the list, 55 new fossil gas projects have sparked the greatest backlash. 

"This decision could unleash €24 billion in finance for climate-wrecking pipelines and €1.7 billion for new LNG (liquified natural gas) terminals, which eclipses the €7.5 billion of new resources due to be raised to tackle the climate crisis through the EU's plans for a 'Green Deal,'" said Clemence Dubois, campaigner at climate group 350.org.

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-votes-for-more-gas-infrastructure-angering-climate-activists/a-52351386

No money for #freepublictransit, but $260B needed to clean up oil mess

Cleaning up Alberta's fossil fuel industry could cost an estimated $260 billion, internal regulatory documents warn.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/11/01/news/alberta-regulator-privately-estimates-oilpatchs-financial-liabilities-are-hundreds

100,000 oil wells need clean up in Alberta, Canada

The number of wells in the province slated to be remediated is about 3,000. However, there are more than 100,000 unproductive wells that will need to be cleaned up.

"The mess continues to grow," said Mark Dorin, who has had a problem well for more than a decade on his family's land near Didsbury, a town located 80 kilometres north of Calgary. For several years, the well was leaking gas into the air. His mother, Shirley, said it impacted her health when she would be out in the yard.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5089254? 

Drivers do not pay for roads

A report published earlier this year confirms, in tremendous detail, a very basic fact of transportation that’s widely disbelieved: Drivers don’t come close to paying for the costs of the roads they use. Published jointly by the Frontier Group and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, “Who Pays for Roads?” exposes the myth that drivers are covering what they’re using.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/ 

Academic study shows how US law favors autos and driving

A century ago, captains of industry and their allies in government launched a social experiment in urban America: the abandonment of mass transit in favor of a new personal technology, the private automobile. Decades of investment in this shift have created a car-centric landscape with Dickensian consequences.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3345366 

Externalities are costs incurred by for-profit firms that are not accounted for

A new report shows that Dublin is the 17th most congested city in the world, with motorists spending an average of eight days and 21 hours sitting in peak traffic a year.https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2020/0129/1111720-traffic-congestion-report/

How much would you charge your employer for 8 days and 21 hours of your time? This is what we are giving free to the oil-auto-and-sprawl for-profit industries.

Roads do not pay for themselves

Highways do not—and, except for brief periods in our nation’s history—never have paid for themselves through the taxes that highway advocates label “user fees.” Yet highway advocates continue to suggest they do in an attempt to secure preferential access to scarce public resources and to shape how those resources are spent.

https://frontiergroup.org/sites/default/files/reports/Do-Roads-Pay-for-Themselves_-wUS.pdf