12-16-2020, 07:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-16-2020, 07:40 PM by danbrotherston.)
(12-16-2020, 04:58 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(12-16-2020, 04:12 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Honestly, I've never understood this. Owning a car if you don't need it (every day) is vastly expensive.
Indeed. it is. Owning a nice car (rather than a basic one) is also expensive. As is living in a nice place, riding a nice bike, wearing a nice watch or vacationing in a nice location. These are really, at least to some extent, luxury goods rather than essentials. But people are, in general, willing to spend money on such luxuries -- which specific ones, depends on the individual.
And I'm OK with that. A car parked in the garage is better than one being used for a daily commute.
I'm not suggesting that people aren't willing to spend on luxuries, but I think there are two big points,
1) People don't perceive cars as a luxury, they see them as an essential good.
Frankly, I fully understand why, our society is car dependent. Living downtown makes it possible to live without a car, I do it, but it is an inconvenience at best, and at worst, feels limiting to my mobility, especially in winter when I must worry if the sidewalks will be safe.
2) People have very little idea how much they spend on their cars. Most of it is a sunk cost on insurance, depreciation, and maintenance. So I doubt many people have ever done the "how much is this trip costing me" calculation.
Ultimately, I don't think many people would spend the real cost of a car on the luxury of having a car, if we weren't forced to by the car dependent nature of our city. But obviously this is only my opinion.
For me, having the car share partially mitigates the problems, but obviously this only applies in a couple of areas of the city, and wouldn't on Courtland.
I'm not going to say I don't prefer a car in a garage to one used for commuting, but ultimately, having a car in a garage still has an opportunity cost and an economic one.