Could horses replace cars?

[Jaepheth]

Would it be feasible for today's society to switch back to using horses for daily commutes and using cars only for long road trips? Would this be a positive step environmentally, or would breeding that many horses produce enough methane and/or CO2 to negate the benefit of getting rid of the cars they'd replace?

I'm thinking that if an effort on a large enough scale were made that a lot of the costs associated with horse ownership would come down such as food and blacksmith services as the scale of those services would be greatly increased. Though according to this blog horse shoes may be unnecessary.

I would assume that with the lower speeds involved and drunk riding not being nearly as dangerous to others as drunk driving (since the horse is presumably not the drunk one) that fatalities and thus insurance costs would come down.

Perhaps requiring diapers and using a diaper collection service would not only keep street cleanup taxes to a minimum but also help reduce our dependence on petroleum based fertilizers.

It'll help with depression due to the "OMG ponies!" factor.

Using the numbers in the aforementioned article and this article the cost of owning a horse today, minus stabling fees (since the horse is used daily and I assume people's garages would be converted to a form of stable for the horse(s)), would run somewhere around $1,400 - $2,000 USD per year (not counting insurance) So let's say insurance for horse riding turns out to be 2/3rds that of car ownership (arbitrary) for me that would be about $4,200 per year (quick estimation from All-State) which comes to a grand total of around $6,000 per year which seems comparable to owning a car.

So what sayeth SDN?

[Sea Skimmer]

As a direct replacement, hell no. A horse has far too limited of endurance and carrying capacity in single day. Most people’s commutes would exhaust a horse just going one way and would take multiple hours.

The reality is over any distance a horse would work day to day, you could probably just ride a bicycle down our preexisting paved roads. The horse is far more useful when you don’t already have pavement everywhere. Frankly far too many people are too stupid to properly ride and take care of a horse on a day to day basis anyway.

On the matter of DUIs, I don’t think you can get one riding a horse, you most certainly can get one while driving a horse and buggy. Horses aren’t very smart, you can literally make one work its self to death (unlike a donkey which will simply refuse to work after a point) and you certainly could induce one to do something stupid and fatal.

Shitloads of trolleys would be the logical replacement for cars, their immense proliferations is what first made urban sprawl and commuter lifestyles possible in the US. They can share a right of way with a road, they can handle far greater curvatures and grades while having lower stopping distances then full scale trains, and the track is far cheaper owing to the low weight and modest speeds. Hybrid buses would cover the more remote areas, and all these systems would feed into normal trains for maximum capacity and higher speeds for distances over about 10-15 miles.

At one time you could travel all the way from Philadelphia to Chicago through interlocking trolley systems. At one point France has nearly every town over 2000 people in the entire country connected by meter gauge railway as well. That wasn’t quite the same as a trolley system, but its close enough. Trolleys, despite the lower quality and often narrow gauge of track also can (and in many areas still do) haul considerable quantities of freight.

[spongyblue]

One reason: You cant pimp your horse.

[Bounty]

One reason: You cant pimp your horse.

Oh yes you can.

[Singular Intellect]

Horses aren’t very smart, you can literally make one work its self to death (unlike a donkey which will simply refuse to work after a point)

Humans can be worked to death as well (death camps ring any bells). Does that arguement make them stupid as well?

[Ma Deuce]

Horses aren’t very smart, you can literally make one work its self to death (unlike a donkey which will simply refuse to work after a point)

Humans can be worked to death as well (death camps ring any bells). Does that arguement make them stupid as well?

The difference is, you don't really need to coerce a horse to work itself to death, it will willingly keep working until it's handler tells it to stop. Speaking of which, donkeys are indeed smarter than horses, and have a larger brain despite being physically smaller (a horse brain is only about the size of a large grapefruit, even on the largest breeds).

[Sea Skimmer]

Humans can be worked to death as well (death camps ring any bells). Does that arguement make them stupid as well?

Seems you might be if you don’t understand the difference between an animal simply walking until it collapses, and a human being beaten and starved for months who understands that if they simply don’t work they’ll be executed anyway. Get the distinction?

[Coyote]

Horse-drawn trolleys would be the new ideal, as mentioned. Let the city collect taxes for the expensive upgrade and vets costs of a small herd of horses that can be used to transport many hundreds or thousands of people a day.

Oddly enough, in the post-collapse society being discussed of late on the board (post-oil collapse, that is) new jobs would be created, albeit most unglamorous: poop scoopers on the streets. The modern sewer systems are not equipped to handle that much equine poop. They'd probably hire illegals to do it, thus creating the next fesetering boil of discontent for society to wrangle with once the post-oil civilisation adjusts.

[Sea Skimmer]

Even people in the 1870s thought horse drawn trolleys where unnecessarily cruel to the animals…. For modern use replacing cars they’d be too slow and too low on endurance.

But you figure even if we run out of oil, we’ll always be able to obtain or create some kind of packaged fuel, gas or liquid, and that will be much more economically used in trolleys then buses. IIRC trolley track, while not as good as first class railroad track, has something like 1/10th the rolling resistance vs. a rubber tire on asphalt.

In many areas, say within about 20 miles of cities, the trolleys will simply be electrified with regenerative breaking (the power goes back into the catenary and is used by other units still in motion). Being quite lightweight, trolleys can run well on only 750v or so electrification with a fairly low current, so installing all the overhead wires is not a particularly great expense besides the basic track.

One interesting way of powering a trolley is a fireless steam locomotive. You have a steam engine with a boiler but no firebox, which is charged with boiling water under pressure. This can supply enough steam for a trip of about 8-10 miles, after which the water can be replaced in a few minutes. Some locomotives using this principal are still in use today, mostly at chemical plants, when electric or diesel locomotives, let alone normal steam engines, present an excessive fire hazard.

[TrailerParkJawa]

There are almost a million people living in San Jose alone, about 7 million for the entire Bay Area. Dealing with all the horse shit would be a major issue. If I recall correctly in the old days, places like San Francisco or Boston did have problems with how to deal with all the horse dung.

This is all assuming people would have a place to store horses which they don't.

[Sikon]

A horse can consume on the order of 20 Mcal per day (such as ~ 15 pounds of hay daily). The exact figure depends on factors like the horse's weight, exertion, and other variables, but the preceding is good enough for a rough, approximate estimate. Biological creatures are rather inefficient in their energy intake relative to motive power provided.

That's ~ 84 MJ per day of biomass consumption for the horse.

For perspective, consider inexpensive $999 to $5000 electric motorcycles illustrated in another thread, such as the one traveling ~ 64 kilometers on a charge of ~ 3.1 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

For example, if a person travels 10 kilometers per day with such, the electricity used in recharging their electric motorcycle would amount to a mere ~ 1.7 MJ per day. Compare to the horse figure.

Though nuclear power has advantages over biomass for inexpensive electrical generation, even generation with biomass power plants to recharge electric motorcycles would work better than using the same amount of biomass to feed horses.

And it avoids horse shit everywhere.

In fact, when cars were first introduced a century ago, one of their advantages often discussed was the environmental aspect of freeing city streets from coatings of manure sludge. (Shoveling isn't perfect).

EDIT: I see diapers were suggested. Well, in itself that's possible, though most people don't seem to bother with clean-up even with dogs if in someone else's front yard.

Besides, although a horse can temporarily reach ~ 30 mph, it can't sustain more than a much slower trot for long (contrary to some unrealistic movies with riders constantly galloping long distances), unlike the faster electric motorcycle.

Of course, electric motorcycles aren't necessarily going to be implemented much either, only being one option, considering various other possibilities as implied in the other thread, but the observation here is that horses wouldn't become the dominant form of transportation.

[Broomstick]

Would it be feasible for today's society to switch back to using horses for daily commutes and using cars only for long road trips?

For most people, no.

I'm thinking that if an effort on a large enough scale were made that a lot of the costs associated with horse ownership would come down such as food and blacksmith services as the scale of those services would be greatly increased. Though according to this blog horse shoes may be unnecessary.

Untrue.

Horse shoes would be necessary for any horse spending extensive times walking/running on hard surfaces such as roads. Not shoeing them risks severe hoof damage, which in horses can be deadly (Barbaro was put down due to hoof problems, not his broken leg). Back when I worked with horses we also use to use special shoes in winter that provided them more traction on icy/slick surfaces. Even on soft surfaces, any horse that regularly carries a burden (such as a person) can use shoes to reinforce their hooves which were evolved to support just the horse, not horse+person.

The only horses that can safely go unshod are those spending almost all their time on turf and are only occassionally ridden.

I would assume that with the lower speeds involved and drunk riding not being nearly as dangerous to others as drunk driving (since the horse is presumably not the drunk one) that fatalities and thus insurance costs would come down.

On the other hand, parked automobiles do not occassionaly and spontaneously decide to kick passersby.

For all that they're docile and obedient, horses are also big, powerful animals. Nevermind malice, they can hurt you without intending to just by stepping on your foot.

since the horse is used daily and I assume people's garages would be converted to a form of stable for the horse(s))

Interestingly enough - in the part of Chicago I used to live in, most of the garages were converted horse stables.

would run somewhere around $1,400 - $2,000 USD per year (not counting insurance) So let's say insurance for horse riding turns out to be 2/3rds that of car ownership (arbitrary) for me that would be about $4,200 per year (quick estimation from All-State) which comes to a grand total of around $6,000 per year which seems comparable to owning a car.

Even with car payment, I don't think I spend $6,000 on my car. Now that it's paid off, it's even cheaper than that.

And you're low-balling costs. Horses eat a LOT and working horses (which you're describing) need more than just grasses. You'll need to pay for food (in a city there won't be enough room to grow grass for your horse), farrier services, vet care, possibily daily medications for your older horse, grooming tools (which wear out over time), tack (saddle/bridle/harnesses - which also wear out over time), and so on. Unlike a car, you can't just "drive" your horse home and park it. You may need to walk it to cool it down. They require daily grooming. The tack requires frequent, perferably daily maintainace. You have to worry about them eating stuff they shouldn't, getting injured, and stuff like that. Sort of a like a really, really big 4-6 year old.

In the old days, horse ownership, particularly in the city, was not something the lower classes could do for economic reasons, and even for the middle/merchant class it was frequently more practical to rent a horse or carriage when needed rather than maintaining one. Neglect was a serious problem for city horses.

And that's not even considering the shit problem.

[Wanderer]

As a Horse Owner myself, I like to point out that average Joe should not be working with horses.

Horse have one mindset; "Is that going to eat me". Until they are satisfied you or something pose no threat to them, they are quite edgy and will lash out if you approach them.

As a matter of fact, I know plenty of experienced trainers with broken bones or even been killed because a Horse got spooked for one reason or another and lashed out in panic.

This is a dangerous and time consuming work that average Joe won't have the means to do.

[Count Dooku]

The current system of city-streets is a little more inviting to bicycles than horses. Cities and suburbs just don't have the room to take care of all those horses.