New Geography

Tag: commuting

  • Urban Economies: The Cost of Wasted Time

    Much has been written in recent years about the costs of congestion, with ground breaking research by academics such as Prud’homme & Chang-Wong and Hartgen & Fields showing that the more jobs that can be accessed in a particular period of time, the greater the economic output of a metropolitan area. Greater access to jobs not only improves economic growth, but it also opens greater opportunities for people and households to fulfill their aspirations for a better quality of living.

    Congestion costs are principally the cost of wasted time, which the most recent Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) Annual Mobility Report places at $15.47 per hour. It is important to understand that much of this cost is not because the car is not moving. It is rather because time that could be used more productively is being consumed.

    Steve Polzin of the University of South Florida has raised a related issue that has been virtually absent from urban planning discussions in a Planetizen blog entitled “The Cost of Slow Travel.” Noting that transit travel time is considerably slower than auto travel times, Polzin broadly estimates that slower travel on transit costs the nation $44 billion, which is two-thirds the $66 billion. Polzin does not suggest that this is a final, “take to the bank” lost productivity number, but does suggest attention to the issue.

    Such thinking is long overdue. Wasted time is wasted time. Most wasted time occurs with respect to travel during peak periods, when most people are commuting to or from work. The $66 billion in wasted time by automobile translates into $550 per commuter per year in the United States (Based upon 2007 commuting data from the American Community Survey). The cost of wasted time for transit is 12 times as high, at $6,500 per commuter, using Polzin’s estimate. Of course, as Polzin is quick to point out, these are not final figures. However, they are a starting point for important (and perhaps “inconvenient”) economic research that has been largely kept off the agenda up until now.

  • How the new Apple iPad (and other mobile tech) changes the commuting equation

    Apple’s much anticipated iPad tablet computer was announced today, albeit to some mixed reviews. While the iPad itself may or may not succeed, the overall technology trend line is clear: increasingly rich mobile access to the Internet and email. Oddly, this Business Week columnist thinks the iPad may lead to more telecommuting, when what it really favors is tipping the balance for commuters from driving to transit, where the usually “dead” commuting time can become really productive. Most people are already spending more than two hours a day on email and the Internet – why not put those hours at the beginning and end of the day while commuting so you can spend less time in the office and more time with your family?

    A decade ago, the workplace was much more call and voice-mail driven, which matched up just fine with long driving commutes and cell phones. But the shift has moved strongly towards email and other data-driven communications (texting, Twitter, Facebook, collaboration applications, etc.). Most messages have multiple recipients and can expect to have a string of replies – something voice mail simply can’t handle. People are trying to do this data-driven communication while driving, with very bad effects that are leading rapidly to a comprehensive legal ban.

    As more people realize the productivity advantage of a transit commute, I think there could be a substantial shift. But it might not be quite what you’d expect. Mobile productivity favors one long ride in a comfortable seat – no transfers, no standing ‘strap-hanging’ (like on a subway or full light rail or local bus), and minimal walking (which is not only incompatible with mobile productivity, but also has weather risk and is especially hard on women in heels). That argues for express buses over trains. I recently met with a friend that lives in Manhattan but works in Connecticut. Does he take the subway and then ride the train? Nope – a luxury shuttle bus with wi-fi picks him (and the other Manhattan employees) up right near his apartment and drops him at the front door of work. Point-to-point express buses are the future of commuting. All you need are a couple dozen people that need to get from the same neighborhood to the same job cluster on roughly a similar schedule to justify a daily round trip – and they can all be productive the whole way, whether through individual 3G data connections on their devices or wi-fi on the bus (by far the cheapest option).

    While the climate-concerned may cheer increased transit use, an ironic side effect may actually be increased sprawl. When commuting is truly unproductive time, as driving is, people really hesitate for it to be more than an hour a day, which puts a pretty hard limit on how far home can be from work. But if you can be productive on a bus doing work you’d have to do anyway, you might consider two or more hours a day commuting (as my Manhattan friend does) and look at exurban communities you wouldn’t have even considered before, especially if they have more affordable or newer houses with better amenities and public schools.

    This is the commute of the future, and cities that offer it conveniently, affordably, and comprehensively (all neighborhoods to all job centers) through some combination of public transit, private buses, and HOT lanes will continue to grow and thrive in the coming decades, while those that don’t, won’t.

    This piece is a cross-post from HoustonStrategies.com

  • Falling Off Bicycles in Portland

    It has become customary for the fawning print media to lazily repeat whatever information is provided them by the urbanist lobby. The result is all manner of puff pieces that report as reality what is nothing more than hopes, or even delusions.

    The latest puff piece is about Portland and is in today’s Wall Street Journal. The article indicates that 8 percent of Portlanders commute to work by bicycle, based upon data from a bicycle advocacy group. That number is more than five times the figure reported by the United States Bureau of the Census, (which is not a bicycle advocacy group). In 2007 (latest data available), 1.5 percent of Portland metropolitan area workers commuted by bicycle according to the Bureau of the Census.

    It is, of course, possible that there is confusion about the definition of Portland. Domestic migration is the principal subject and it is clear from the data cited that the article is citing metropolitan area data, rather than municipal (city of Portland) data.

    However, even if we allow that the editors might have erroneously substituted municipal for metropolitan data and that the advocacy group bicycle market share of 8 percent applies to the city of Portland; it would still be off by at least 100 percent. The Bureau of the Census data indicates that 3.9 of workers rode bicycles to work in 2007 in the city of Portland.

    Of course, it is always possible that three quarters of metropolitan Portland’s bicycle commuters have fallen off their bikes or that, if the editors were confused as to the difference between metropolitan and municipal, that half have fallen off.

  • Skepticism Towards Congestion Pricing in San Francisco

    If there’s one place in America most likely to adopt congestion pricing, you would think it would be San Francisco. The combination of affluence, deep-seated environmentalism and a tradition of progressive politics would lend itself to adopting the program. But even residents there are skeptical.

    Congestion pricing is the practice of charging commuters a fee for driving through a congested downtown area during peak commute times. In San Francisco, they are discussing a payment of between 50 cents and $5 to be assessed to drivers who commute between 6–9 a.m. and 3–6 p.m. The argument is that by doing so, you reduce congestion and raise public coffers to be poured into public transportation. In London, traffic was reduced 21% and public transit increased 36% when congestion pricing was adopted (it’s also been adopted in Singapore and Stockholm).

    But SF is no London when it comes to public transportation. Anyone who has ever stuffed themselves into a city bus headed for points westward after work knows it is not nearly as reliable or as comfortable as “the tube.” It seems like there would have to be a rise in the standards of public transportation there to really make it effective – and money for that would not be available for some time given California’s budget circumstances.

  • Commuting Patterns in Chicago

    You may have read our recent commuting case study of the Los Angeles region written by Ali Modarres. Ali put together some detailed commuting pattern maps of the area.

    Here’s another similar commuting map of the Chicago area. It’s interesting to note the major difference in commute times of neighborhoods often in close proximity. Obviously, distance to jobs matters, but so does the occupational make-up of the neighborhood.