The Democrats may have lost control of the House, and with it control of the nation’s transportation agenda but all is not lost. While the presumptive chair of the House Transportation Committee, Florida Congressman John Mica, is a high speed rail buff, it’s now choppy seas ahead for passenger train system construction.

Innovating our transportation system is a must, but it doesn’t have to happen simply through big ticket expenditures. For the foreseeable future, cars will rule the day, so it’s a very good time to look at the costs of America’s auto-dependence and ways to get past it. We think that Mica could score an early win and butter up progressives and urbanists alike by putting car sharing at the center of his agenda. Without the costs or the baggage of high speed rail, it shouldn’t be a tough sell.

Car sharing programs have taken off in cities across the U.S. and they’re spreading to college campuses and beyond. Members join a service like Zipcar, and when they need a set of wheels, they can reserve a vehicle paying only for the time that are using it, with parking fees, gas and tolls covered by the company. Car sharing schemes are so effective that, on average, a single car share vehicle can take 15 personal cars off the road.

If promoted properly, car sharing can reverse can slow the drain on society caused by the automobile, while spreading the benefits as far as possible.

How much do cars cost our society?

On Planetizen, Todd Littman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute corrals a damning set of figures about the automobile’s cost to society.

* According to the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey, in 2008 U.S. motorists spent on average approximately $2,700 per vehicle on ownership expenses (purchase, registration, insurance, etc.) and $1,400 on fuel and oil, about $4,100 in total.

*That year, governments spent $181 billion to build and maintain roadways (more if you include traffic services such as policing and emergency response), or about $730 annually per registered motor vehicle. Less than half of these roadway expenses are paid by motor vehicle user fees, the rest are borne through general taxes.

*Expanding urban highways typically costs $0.50 to $1.50 per additional peak-period vehicle-mile, so accommodating an additional urban automobile commuter without increasing congestion, for example, adding 20 lane-miles of urban highway, typically costs $10 to $30 per day in additional construction and operating expenses.

Littman also details the impact of vehicle parking, both from a cost and spacial perspective. The cumulative impact of the data are quite frightening, though the article is worth a read in its entirety.

For someone who doesn’t own a car, it’s hard to imagine pumping this much money into vehicle infrastructure after reading such a scathing critique of car culture. For car owners, it probably seems a bit much when the numbers are all added up.

High speed rail, in this context seems like a bargain, and in Mica, high speed rail advocates may not have the enemy that the anti-transit Republican wave might have some believe.

Yonah Freemark writes on The Transport Politic that Mica has been an ardent supporter of true high speed rail plans, where trains travel at fast speeds, unlike the Wisconsin proposal which would increase the frequency of traditional passenger rail cars along shared freight tracks, traveling at less than 100 miles per hour.

In October of 2009, Mica released a statement on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee website that said,

“We cannot take the funding to be invested in high-speed rail – $8 billion in stimulus funds, $50 billion in the pending surface transportation bill – and try to fool people by giving them anything less than true high-speed rail service.”

According to the Center for Public Integrity, Mica has deep ties to America’s Class 1 freight rail operators and they have donated lavishly to his campaigns.

Via Think Progress, quoting from the CPI:

Likely Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (FL): Mica, the likely incoming chairman of the committee dealing with the country’s transportation infrastructure, has been a magnet over the past four years of PAC donations related to the industries the committee regulates. That includes $40,000 from BNSF Railway Company, $33,000 from Union Pacific Corporation, and $25,000 from CSX Corporation.

Don’t expect high speed rail to die under Mica, but don’t be disappointed if it takes a back seat to other transpotation priorities. The car, however, is not going anywhere, and if Mica wants to tow the GOP party line, its likely that he will need to extoll the virtues of the personal automobile as the best way to get around. A winning campaign mantra was that high speed rail was too expensive and that money for rail projects is better spent on crumbling roads, as was the case with Wisconsin governor-elect Scott Walker, as well as Ohio’s Governor-elect John Kasich. If it’s roads, roads and more roads the GOP wants, we should look at ways to use the roads in smarter ways, and that is car-sharing.

So how might Mica promote car sharing?

City governments have already turned to car sharing programs in New York and San Francisco to replace their municipal auto fleets. Federal agencies could enroll their employees in car sharing programs to cut down on the number of vehicles they own and maintain. The downside of this, however, is that government agencies buying American-made cars is a convenient handout to automakers who would see their profits decline if agencies stopped buying and replacing their cars on a regular basis.

Another way to promote car sharing would be to push for the national adoption of personal car sharing, a scheme that was recently adopted in California with the ratification of AB 1871 in September. The new California law allows people to use their personal vehicles in car sharing programs, freeing them from accident liability if someone else crashes. The program also lets people who lend out their cars keep a percentage of the money other members pay to use their cars, and startup, Spride, has already thrown itself into the personal car sharing game.

So, if we’re going to be auto-dependent–somewhat unavoidable whether we pump money into alternative modes of transportation, or whether we starve the beast–it would be great to see the federal government take steps to to promote car sharing as a way to reduce the negative impacts of cars.

While we like to get high and mighty about the need for transportation innovation, such as high speed rail, there are simple, cost effective ways to improve the day to day transport picture for millions of Americans. If our GOP-controlled transportation committee is serious about cutting government waste, improving our energy independence outlook and reducing the carbon footprint of transportation, there are simple ways to do it. High speed rail is not a waste of time or money, but it is one of a litany of transportation alternatives that should be explored. Car sharing is at the forefront of alternatives to outright ownership, and it’s a booming trend among young people, as the Shareable Magazine/Latitude Research study below points out.

We have to do something about transportation infrastructure in this country, so let it be car sharing–for starters. By standing still, we’re actually moving backwards as the rest of the world sprints ahead.

The New Sharing Economy