John Pucher on Transport Policy

Choice quotes from this lecture by John Pucher:

For every hour that you spend cycling, you are adding more than one hour to your expected healthy lifespan, while for every hour they sit in their cars, they are subtracting from their expected healthy lifespan.

[...]

The average Canadian works for two months financing their car. Two months, you are enslaved to your car. But not me. I’m car free.

(Now just think about that. Cars are much cheaper in Canada than in Singapore. How much extra time does the average car-owning Singaporean work per year to finance his/her car?)

There’s lots, lots more in that video. But if you are one of those car addicts who thinks driving a private car is a sacred “Singaporean Dream“, then you’re just not going to accept that the healthier, more socially responsible, and cheaper option is the better one. One of the points Pucher emphasises throughout is that a successful pro-cycling policy requires traffic calming measures. Now just try to imagine the outcry from supporters of the above “Singaporean Dream” at any mention of narrowing roads or deliberately putting islands in the middle of roads to slow motorists down. We worked so hard to buy a car, and now you’re telling us we can’t race through the streets? That’s it, we’re voting for the opposition!