New Geography

Tag: transit

  • Opposition to High Speed Rail Grows

    The St. Louis Post Dispatch characterizes high speed rail as a “bridge to the 19th century,” in noting its opposition.

    I couldn’t have said it better, though I tried in my Wall Street Journal Oped (“Runaway Subsidy Train”). As usual, some of the best lines in this article fell on the “cutting room floor,” as editors can allow only so many words. The two most important points were:

    • Significant community opposition is developing. Within the last 10 days there have been community and neighborhood protests against new high speed rail lines in France, Italy, Spain and Hong Kong. Further, opposition to the greenhouse gas belching Mag Lev (magnetic levitation) extension from Shanghai to Hangzhou (China) has blocked that project. There is a burgeoning opposition to the swath that high speed rail will cut through the communities on the peninsula south of San Francisco.
    • A traveler using high speed rail from Orlando to Tampa who gets caught at a rental car counter line might not save any time over driving even if the train reached the speed of light.

    The biggest problem with high speed rail is that it requires huge expenditures of public funding in a market (intercity passenger transport) that does not require subsidies. Much of the impetus comes from generous donations to political campaigns by vendors who live off public funding and by a naive cadre of virtual sheep who believe anything that runs on rails walks on water.

  • 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

  • Traffic Congestion in Atlanta

    I was pleased to have the opportunity to have an op-ed produced on transportation in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on January 17. The op-ed, entitled “Arterial system needed” argued that the most important thing the Atlanta metropolitan area could do to reduce traffic congestion would be to develop a decent arterial street system, something that, unbelievably, does not exist today. Regrettably, the permitted length of the op-ed did not permit much elaboration of the point, or mention of other important issues.

    In metropolitan areas with effective arterial street systems (such as Los Angeles), there is usually a surface alternative to a grid-locked freeway. A skilled driver can use these alternate routes and avoid much of the frustration of congestion. This may or may not improve travel times, but it is certainly better for the psyche. In Atlanta, there are few alternatives to the freeways and even the freeway system itself is very sparse.

    The principal elaboration for which I wish additional space had been available had to do with the role of transit. Many Atlanta officials are of the view that transit is the solution to traffic congestion. Many of them join pilgrimages to Portland (Oregon), where planners are only too happy to reinforce this view, with their doctrine to the effect that transit has transformed their urban area. The reality is that, after nearly 25 years of major transit improvements, transit’s market share in the Portland area is about the same as it was before.

    There are proposals to expand the MARTA transit system and tax from the core counties of Fulton and DeKalb to suburban counties. It is hard to imagine a more counterproductive policy approach. This would shower the overly-costly MARTA system with a stream of revenue with which its out of control costs per mile could escalate. The additional cost to taxpayers and riders would be far in excess of any potential benefits. MARTA’s principal problem is not lack of funding; it is rather insufficient cost control.

    The reality is that to reduce traffic congestion, transit would need to attract a large share of urban trips. In fact, however, whether in Paris, Portland or Atlanta, the transit system that could compete for most metropolitan trips has not yet been conceived of, much less developed or even proposed. Because of the necessity to travel from every point in an urban area to every other point, this is simply impossible. The vast majority of travel demand in all major urban areas of the United States and Western Europe is for personal mobility – automobiles – simply because there is no choice in their modern, affluent economies.

  • “Planning Pool:” Length of Year Increases 800% in 2008 from Previous Year?

    The Canadian planning blog “Planning Pool” congratulated the Charlotte, North Carolina light rail line, noting that it “experienced an 800% increase in ridership last year” (“Transit Success in Sprawl City,” December 4).

    The impressive increase was made possible by comparing apples and oranges. Last year (2008) the Charlotte light rail service operated all year, while in the previous year (2007), service operated fewer than 40 days (the line opened in late November). Following its logic, the “Planning Pool” missed an even bigger story: apparently 2008 was 800% longer than the previous year (an increase from fewer than 40 days to 365).

    Of course, it’s either apples or oranges and, one way or the other, a revision is in order.

  • High Speed Rail: Not One Big Happy Family

    California High Speed Rail Commission member Rod Diridon is chafing at all of the competition that has been created by the billions committed by the federal government to high speed rail. According to a New York Times report, he called many of the proposed systems around the country “vultures” and told an American Public Transportation Association meeting “If I can borrow a term from our good friends in labor, they are a ‘Do not patronize… And I cannot say it any stronger”. Consistent with that view, Diridon urged that the federal government be asked to commit all of its current $8 billion in funds to the California project.

    There may be even more disturbing news for Diridon: new competition has appeared on the horizon. A report (page 23) by the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute (both of Canada) suggests that:

    “Using the Edmonton – Calgary example as a template, judgmentally adjusted for distance, geography and relative land values, we estimate that a full high-speed link would cost about $4 billion. If the cost were shared equally between Canada and the United States, the Canadian total would be about $2 billion.”

    Why stop at that? How about getting a quarter each from Zimbabwe and the Honduras? It would certainly make it less expensive for Canadian taxpayers. Perhaps our friends to the North simply made a typographical error, but perhaps not. Stranger things have been proposed.

  • Why the feds should stay out of high-speed rail (and most transportation)

    Set aside for a minute whether high-speed rail (HSR) makes sense or not on a cost-benefit basis. Regardless of whether it does or not (and some smart people are arguing not), I’d like to make the argument that federal funding has no place in HSR. Instead, it should be left to individual states or regional state coalitions.

    The federally-funded interstate system was originally conceived for defense purposes – rapid mobilization – after Ike saw the German autobahns. Freight and people movement were obvious beneficiaries, over short, medium, and long distances. It is a comprehensive network that crosses state lines, which argues for federal involvement. The government made the minimal investment it had to make – road beds – and people/companies paid for vehicles and fuel. Fuel was taxed to pay for it all. If EZ-tag technology had been available at the time, I suspect they would have tolled it all instead to pay for it.

    Airports followed a similar arrangement: government provides the landing strips and terminals while private companies provide the vehicles and fuel. Passenger ticket taxes pay for the infrastructure. As airports are a local decision, they are (mostly) paid for locally, although regulated federally for standardization and safety.

    HSR is targeted at medium distances only, making it more of a state/regional decision (i.e. a small collection of states). It also requires huge subsidies, as the government provides the track, cars, and energy. There is nothing directly related that can be taxed to pay for it (like fuel taxes for roads and passenger ticket taxes for airports). You could try to tax the rail tickets, but if they were fully priced they would not attract nearly enough riders. So no matter how you slice it, in the end the government (i.e. taxpayers) will be paying the majority of the cost of moving each passenger. The infrastructure cost cannot be covered by direct user fees, as demonstrated in other countries.

    Rather than compare HSR to the interstate highway system, the better analogy would be airports. Imagine if California said, “Feds, give us money to build a few airports in key CA cities and provide a subsidized government-run airline to provide frequent intra-state service where tickets are priced way below cost.” Put that way, people would recognize the idea as absurd, and tell California to do it themselves if they think it’s such a good idea.

    The problem is that a simple program that made sense at the time – a federal gas tax to build an interstate highway system – has evolved into a Frankenstein monster of massive federal involvement in enlarged urban freeways, local rail transit, and now high-speed rail – areas where they simply do not belong. Local transportation planners have shifted decision making from “What are the best cost-benefit investments we can make to move people in our area?” to “How to do we grab our ‘fair’ share of the federal pie, regardless of whether or not the project is something we would consider with our own money?” And that is leading to a lot of boondoggles being built around the country, culminating recently in the famous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska.

    The answer? The feds need to get out of the transportation business beyond minimal maintenance of the interstate highway system (the basic four lanes – not the expanded urban freeways). Let local entities make local decisions on transportation investments, including funding, and a whole lot of waste will magically disappear.

    This post originally appeared at Houston Strategies.

  • Transit Captures Little of Driving Decline

    Over the past year, transit ridership has risen and that is a good thing. At the same time, driving has declined, due to both higher gasoline prices and the economic downturn. Some analysts have implied that people are giving up driving and using transit instead. An analysis of just released transit and urban roadway usage indicates no such thing. During the fourth quarter, the transit increase from a year earlier represented just 0.7 percent of the driving decline. This is even lower than the 2 to 3 percent figures registered in the first through third quarters. Of course, the principal reason why people do not substitute transit for driving is that it is not available for the overwhelming majority of urban trips.

    The latest data is available at: http://www.demographia.com/ut-hwytr2008f.pdf.