New Geography

Tag: Transportation

  • How We Should Navigate the Florida Archipelago

    Leafy, timeless rural routes and monotonous, flat highways have characterized Florida’s network of state roads since the early 20th century. Vacationers in the Sunshine State either stick to the interstates – often a hot, frustrating parking lot – or consign themselves to the stop-and-go, confusing local roads. Future Corridors, the state’s vision of a future, integrated road network, is set to finish its conceptual phase this year, and promises to radically revamp the state’s road system. Since this vision will quickly harden, it deserves a close look by a broad portion of the state’s population to see if it truly addresses the state’s needs or, like so many Florida initiatives (the state’s notorious voting system comes to mind), becomes an ignominious reminder of provincial politics at its worst.

    Begun in 2006, Future Corridors contains some progressive, sophisticated thinking. Taking existing corridors and redesigning them to segregate shorter trips, trucks, and transit makes sense and should have happened a long time ago. Such managed use lanes are already popular in California, Texas, and elsewhere. The study also looks at enhancing rail systems for both freight and passenger service.

    Florida is already a maze of country roads, rail lines, commercial strips, turnpikes, and interstate highways, with little remote wilderness left. So enhancing, multiplexing, and otherwise modernizing the existing corridors is practical and efficient, and will conserve the state’s inner beauty.

    Smoothing out the lumpy traffic flow will also improve the state’s economy. Florida consumes more than twice the goods that it exports in terms of freight, and its tourist-business throughput is more than that of many nations. Its boom/bust economic oscillations, however, mean that road-building comes in fits and spurts, and is not necessarily tied to real-time needs. To get from Gainesville to Jacksonville, for example, you still have to journey upon twisty, peculiar roads built in the 1930s.

    Florida’s home-grown turnpike, built in the 1970s to funnel tourism, is impossibly congested in some areas today. As population has swelled, it has changed into a local alternative to traffic-choked arteries for short trips and commutes, as well.

    Future Corridors isn’t just about highways, however. Besides its beaches, Florida’s signature characteristic seems to be the ubiquitous, homogenous, low-grade commercial strips that have overtaken our once-quirky roadside culture. Along these main drags, the American narrative can be read in all of its glory: they are the great equalizers, where all institutions are reduced to blue or red logos 300 yards before the turn lane. Decried as the aesthetic horror that they certainly are, these highway markets remain, nonetheless, emblems of the American dream. Anyone with a car can access everything; emporiums are born, flourish, and die. They are transformed quickly and without sentimentality into newer offerings. These strips have transformed much of the state’s coastline into a continuous, multi-stranded conduit of consumption for the masses. The Future Corridors proposal calls for more rural highways in Florida and opens up more land for this kind of development.

    Florida’s future, regardless of its new road plan, inevitably will include more of these strips, not fewer; more traffic and highways, not less. Nevertheless, the state’s environmentalists and urban intelligentsia are already forming positions against much of the vision. As the first regions — Tampa-Orlando and Tampa-Jacksonville — are rolled out, 2013 will prove to be a dynamic year of controversy. As state government battles environmental and urbanist boosters, it seems like a California-like trajectory is already set, with some critical concerns sadly cast aside.

    Florida currently suffers from “hourglass” transportation planning. On the bottom of the curve, short, regional toll highways and roads are built to enhance local connectivity, but connect only feebly to the rest of the state. On the top, the federal interstate highway system dumps huge quantities of people into the state from the Midwest, the east coast, and the South. In the middle a statewide, home-grown transportation system built to handle this volume has been notably missing.

    Competing regions have little incentive to link up with each other. Tampa and St. Petersburg, for example, continue to squabble for small economic advantages, instead of looking at the bigger picture. Meanwhile, the nation’s Department Of Transportation is only mildly interested in state connectivity issues. The gaping hole in statewide transportation planning has never been adequately filled, as any tourist sitting on I-75 in the springtime can attest.

    Future Corridors is the latest incarnation of Florida’s long, mostly inept growth management strategy. The Department of Community Affairs, a state-level regulatory bureaucracy, replaced the previous laissez-faire ethos. It survived until 2011. The regulators represented an impediment in a state that is developed largely by outside economic interests, so they were done away with. With a new bubble growing, these interests salivate over future developable land that will be made available by road-building activity. Thus, growth management continues in a sort of feudalistic twilight, where political connectedness replaces the public process with the tacit support of the citizens.

    Politicians come and go, so the new process may not continue past the next election. In the meantime, public advocates for the state’s future would do well to advance their own vision of the future, which should include several key ideas.

    For starters, the state would benefit from a twenty-first century transportation network that is digitally connected. Planning a trip in Florida is a bit like planning a sailing trip without a weather report. Traffic jams, road construction, and other obstacles seem to crop up without warning, causing trip or meeting delays or even postponements. Delivering real-time digital information to travelers might be out of the cost and logistical range of individual regions, but the state could feasibly invest in a system that updates a driver’s handheld device to help reroute traffic flow and forecast problems ahead.

    And no argument about wilderness preservation or road construction carries any weight until the state’s notorious safety issues have been addressed. Whether it is traffic accidents, pedestrian fatalities, or gruesome bicycle clashes, Florida’s roads consistently make the list of the most dangerous roads in the nation. Buried deep in DOT PowerPoints are meek statements about safety, but little has been done. While Florida beckons the world to its door for vacation, its reputation is marred far worse by poor roads than it is by junky, bland, retail, and it must be fixed.

    More strategically, however, a road system should reflect the new notion that Florida’s urban clusters constitute a single large megapolis, unified in demography, economics, and culture: the so-called “Florida Archipelago”. Geography is responsible for the weblike settlement pattern, and this geography should be enhanced by a safe and effective transportation system, rather than be treated as an obstacle to be ignored or plowed over with ruthless technology. Corridors should be planned to take advantage of this spread-out nature. Intensifying urban activity where it makes sense, and intelligently intertwining agriculture and wilderness into the planning process, could create a vibrant, robust tropical megapolis.

    Finally, the state’s transportation system should help reconcile the growing affordability gap in housing, which is glaring in Florida. A thin line of very high-priced vacation homes hug the coastline, subsidized by people living in less risky locations. This arrangement exacerbates the affordability gap in housing. Meanwhile, rural road networks are often disconnected and poorly maintained. Public transit is ineffective and perennially used as a political plaything, rather than a serious attempt to reduce car dependence for those who would most benefit from it – the low income and the elderly.

    Paving over Florida’s interior will close rural areas that remain within the cost of living of the state’s retirees, and it points to a future that will increasingly resemble overpriced, highly regulated California. And with more and more dependence upon toll roads, the state’s transportation system will, if it continues on this trajectory, further separate the haves and the have-nots.

    Urban feudalism is the top-down, urban-centric, affluent-class authoritarianism that seems to be overtaking the future of Florida and of America. Historically the state has been able to escape this fate, partly because it has a diversified lower middle class, along with service and construction workers. In the past, the rich came to the state mostly when on vacation. This era appears to be waning, however.

    Florida’s working-class population will be squeezed tighter if policies create rising costs that move people further from their jobs. As Florida’s new growth strategy, Future Corridors, moves from concept into planning stages, the broadest conversation among citizens and the planners will do the most good in the long run.

    Richard Reep is an architect and artist who lives in Winter Park, Florida. His practice has centered around hospitality-driven mixed use, and he has contributed in various capacities to urban mixed-use projects, both nationally and internationally, for the last 25 years.

    Photo by Adam Fagen: Roadside Gator in Monroe County, Florida, along the park road to Flamingo, Everglades National Park.

  • Time to Acknowledge Falling Private Car Use

    The prospect of falling car use now needs to be firmly factored into planning for western cities. 

    That may come as a bit of a surprise in light of the preoccupation with city plans that aim to get people out of their cars, but it is already happening.  And it is highly likely to continue regardless of whether or not we promote urban consolidation and expensive transit systems. 

    But not necessarily lower resource consumption
    Of course, as day-to-day travel savings are made by households these can simply result in other forms of consumption, offsetting any resource savings.  This should not be surprising.   Final demand embodies resources consumed right across the production and distribution chain.  Savings from lower transport spending (including commuting) – an intermediate input in the chain – that lead to lower prices translate into increases in discretionary spending (assuming constant or rising incomes). 

    Hence, the reduction in resource use and pollution sought by subsidising public transport and promoting higher density living may simply be spent on resource-intensive appliances, recreation, entertainment, and inter-city and international travel.

    Look to the fringe to look to the future
    Putting that inconvenient equation aside, long-term plans for cities should avoid simply projecting past behaviours into the future. Instead, we might look to changes at the margin that signal the issues, discoveries, and events that might determine the long-term outcomes we are interested in. 

    So let’s look at what’s happening at the margins of car use, focusing for the purpose of illustration on Auckland.

    First, travel demand
    The New Zealand Travel Survey has been conducted since 2003.  The results are published on a two-yearly rolling basis.  Using Statistics New Zealand population estimates I have calculated annual “per person” measures for Auckland from 2003 to 2011.  There are some sampling issues and qualifications regarding the survey that mean motor cycle and bicycle use statistics for Auckland are not considered reliable enough to use. Even given sampling error, the balance point to some significant and consistent shifts.

    For example, total travel (measured as annual kilometres per resident) appears to have peaked around 2007 (Figure 1). In fact, recorded travel declined by 15% over the period.  Public transport has done better, down 12% overall but actually increasing 13% between 2007 and 2011.

    Figure 1: Aucklanders’ Travel by Mode, 2003-2011

     

    More telling, though, has been declining car use.  The first column in Table 1 shows changes over the whole period.  The second column shows changes between the 2007 travel peak and 2011.

    The fall in car dependence since 2007 has been marked among passengers (-23%).  Perhaps that means fewer discretionary trips are being taken. This and a 14% decline in driver kilometres and 17% fewer trip legs confirms what the vehicle counts say – cars are being driven significantly less in Auckland  (particularly inner Auckland) now than they were five or ten years ago.

     
    		Period

    2003-11
    Peak
    2007-11
    Driver
    Km
    -4%
    -14%
    Hours
    3%
    -12%
    Trip Legs
    1%
    -17%
    Passenger
    Km
    -33%
    -23%
    Hours
    -18%
    -17%
    Trip Legs
    -8%
    -22%
    All Car Users
    Km
    -16%
    -17%
    Hours
    -5%
    -13%
    Trip Legs
    -3%
    -19%

    Possible reasons:

    1.      We know already that an ageing population reduces car use.

    2.      Public transport is playing a growing but so far minor role (up from 3.7% to 3.9% share of all kilometres travelled).  An average 76km per person growth in public transport use since 2007 hardly offsets the 1,810km average contraction in distance travelled by car.

    3.      Lower real incomes and higher fuel prices play a part.  A sharp contraction since 2007 suggests that economic conditions have an impact on motoring far more immediate and influential than trying to reshape the shape the city and how people live in it might.   

    4.      The decentralisation of jobs, recreation and entertainment, professional services, and consumer services – including retailing – mean that people can get more done closer to where they live.  Trying to turn this clock back by pushing commercial activity back into the central city and then providing subsidised public transport to access it seems somewhat obtuse in the light of this development.

    Second, car purchases

    The Ministry of Transport publishes new car registrations (which include imported used cars).  It also provides data on the total  vehicle fleet since 2000.  

    Long-term registration statistics are interesting when related to national population data (Figure 2). Apart from a hiccup in 1991 growth in registrations was more or less continuous from 1950 until 2003.  Since then there has been a sharp decline.  Time will tell whether this is cyclical or signals a long-term shift.  It is noteable, though, that 2009, 2010, and 2011 figures fall well below trend.

    Figure 2: Trends in New Car Registrations

    This slowdown in new car registrations is reflected in two ways.  First, it is reflected in total fleet size, for which data are available from 2000 (Figure 3). This shows that  2007 was a turning point in total numbers, consistent with evidence that driving in Auckland peaked in that year.  That’s presumably good for the environment.

    Figure 3: New Car Registrations, New Zealand 2000-2011,

    Second, with the slow-down in imports, the fleet has begun to age (Figure 4).  That’s presumably bad for the environment, as older cars are less efficient and generate more emissions.

    Figure 4: New Zealand’s Ageing Car Fleet

    Third, fleet changes
    Fleet composition is changing as growth slows. The average CC rating of newly registered vehicles in 2000 was 2,127.  This climbed to 2,191 in 2005, but fell to 2,033 in 2011, an 8% fall in six years. 

    If this is a sign of things to come an increase in the turnover of vehicles would boost fleet efficiency over the medium term even without taking account of the greater engine efficiencies being delivered and gains among electric and hybrid vehicles

    Add to that the prospect supported by these numbers of increasing differentiation among vehicle styles (Figure 5).  At one end sits the large weekend recreational vehicle, perhaps falling as a share of new vehicles – or at least being down-sized.  At the other is the increasingly popular city runabout or smart car, and in the middle  the family sedan, the work horse with an engine size now likely to be well under 2,000cc.  

    Figure 5: Changes in Engine Size of Newly Registered Vehicles, 2000-2011

    So what does this all mean?
    There is evidence accumulating to suggest that significant changes are taking place at the margin of transport demand and car dependence.  If this is a sign of things to come it raises questions about long-term road expenditure, about dire predictions of road congestion, and about the benefits of adopting expensive land use and transport measures designed to force people out of their cars.

    Already, within a more constrained economy, people seem to be making their own decisions to reduce car dependence.

    In terms of city planning, it suggests that decentralisation may be more sustainable than the compact city protagonists make out.  In this respect, is interesting that motorway traffic counts show that significant reductions in inner city vehicle flows are offset by gains (albeit much smaller) in outer parts of the city – even as measured distance travelled falls. 

    And Auckland definitely needs to rethink assumptions behind spending plans for major road and rail infrastructure – and confront the risks and costs of getting them wrong. 

    And, incidentally, it’s about time New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment updated its report card on trends in the environmental impact of vehicle travel – which only goes up to 2007, a year which may prove to be a turning point in long-term travel behaviour.

    Phil McDermott is a Director of CityScope Consultants in Auckland, New Zealand, and Adjunct Professor of Regional and Urban Development at Auckland University of Technology.  He works in urban, economic and transport development throughout New Zealand and in Australia, Asia, and the Pacific.  He was formerly Head of the School of Resource and Environmental Planning at Massey University and General Manager of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation in Sydney. This piece originally appeared at is blog: Cities Matter.

    Aukland harbour photo by Bigstockphoto.com.

  • Will Driverless Cars Help us Drive Less?

    The war on automobiles is real. Backed by a legion of city officials, environmentalists, and new urbanists, the argument to mitigate vehicle usage has so far been an easy sell – at least in planning circles. Their assumptions echo concerns about the trajectory American cities – the downfall of rural life and open space to name a few.  The problem is the trifecta of pollution, congestion, and urban sprawl. Out with cars, they propose – people could ride high-speed transit instead of sitting in traffic.

    But technical innovation could make this proposal more like a plea. Google, along with GM, Ford, and Daimler are now designing cars that drive themselves, making private vehicles more efficient, flexible, and thereby more irreplaceable. The US is not alone. Manufacturers in Japan and Germany are coordinating with their national government to launch their autonomous cars within the next decade. IEEE, a group of technology professionals, says that self-driving vehicles would comprise 75 percent of the global traffic stream by 2040. 

    “Currently, a car spends 96% of its time idle,” says Koushik Dutta of ClockworkMod. He says there’s an unforgiving economic incentive to make sure an airplane is always in use, since they spend almost their entire lifetime in operation. To leave a plane idle is inefficient and unprofitable; similar logic applies to parked car. Some predict the autonomous vehicle technology will decrease this idle time as households begin to link their commutes in one car, rather than one car per person. Sergey Brin, Google’s cofounder, believes the technology, now tangible, will be on the market in five years.

    But what precisely is this new technology? As it turns out, much of it is not new; a number of automated features can be found in today’s cars: timed braking during collisions, motion sensors that detect distance between the vehicle and what’s in front of it, and adaptive cruise control. Many of the latest features have applications that use advanced sensors to self-park and prevent drifting to adjacent lanes and self-park.

    Unprecedented is the use of a network for vehicles to communicate with one another. A study finds that if vehicles use sensors alone, highway capacity can increase by 43 percent, and if all of the vehicles use both sensors and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, the increase swells to 273 percent. Additionally, networks can facilitate information exchange between vehicles and road infrastructure (V2I). With live data streams, cars will be able to inform one another about oncoming traffic, and perhaps even instinctively reroute the car onto less congested roads.

    The move to driverless cars will make the private vehicle much more attractive compared to other modes of travel. This is particularly important for older drivers whose ability to drive has diminished; the coming of driverless cars brings them back onto the road. Less reliant on their friends and family as chauffeurs, boomers may happily embrace the ability to travel further and more frequently.

    This appeal will extend to all generations. The driverless car offers the current conveniences of the private auto – such as door-to-door travel, safety, and status – while reducing its level of risk and mental stress. Also, the stigmas of driving are eased; self-driving cars are expected to be more eco-friendly, time-efficient, and user-friendly. Once on the market, driverless technology will change lives by saving lives. Advocates of self-driving cars believe that with less human operation and more automated maneuvering on the road, fewer accidents will occur.

    But before autonomous cars can save lives, it must squirm through some political barriers. For one, city officials in large metropolitans are glued to the idea that the best communities exemplify mixed used, high-density, transit-oriented development. Hoping to reverse the still far from over exodus to the suburbs, cities like Los Angeles are banking on public transit to revitalize its inner-urban areas. Though public transit ridership has increased in the last two decades, its market share of ridership has being declining. Metropolitan officials hope that millennials, who tend to be more cognizant of mankind’s carbon footprint, will reverse the trend. It is, however, difficult to imagine why any future generation would enjoy the conveniences of taking transit if a car ride can be just as untroubled. Driverless will make vehicle ownership much more attractive. Public transit will lose its status as an amenity. One of the chief advantages of public transit is the fact that one can ride it stress free without worrying about maneuvering to the destination. With driverless cars, this advantage is superseded.

    Congestion may increase because more vehicles will find the frustrations of wading in traffic mitigated. Time in congestion can be replaced with a book, movie, perhaps even a nap. But there’s also the possibility that more households will link their trips using one shared vehicle, decreasing the number of vehicles on the road. Some suggest this may help Americans come to terms with letting go of the private vehicle and, instead, embrace the idea of having one household vehicle, a prevailing trend across the rest of the world.

    Transportation planners often promote tolls as revenue sources because building high-occupancy and toll (HOT) lanes. The concept is deemed equitable since it links the payers with the users, begetting a sustainable funding model. Much of the funding for these projects is based on the congestion premium – what people will pay to avoid a crammed highway. This is useful in determining how much to price a toll or high-occupancy lane. But since driverless technology will likely lower this premium, the revenue of these lanes may be overvalued.

    With the pieces in place, the journey to driverless cars is vastly feasible. In September 2012, California Governor Jerry Brown enacted a state measure to legalize driverless technology in cars running on public roads; at any given moment, a dozen driverless cars are operating somewhere in California. Currently, each vehicle is manned by two testers and marked by a distinguishable license plate. In the future, the vehicle will only be required to have a one driver. And not too far is the idea of a completely unmanned vehicle, what some call the robocar, which will revolutionize not just our mode of travel but our relationship with time and distance.

    Jeff Khau graduated from Chapman University with a degree in business entrepreneurship. Currently, he resides in Los Angeles where he is pursing his dual-masters in urban planning and public policy at the University of Southern California.

    Retrofitted driverless Lexus photo by WikiCommons user Steve Jurvetson via Mariordo.

  • The Drive-It-Yourself Taxi: A Smooth Ride?

    Despite a corporate sponsor that paid handsomely for the naming rights, Londoners stubbornly refer to our bikesharing system as ‘Boris Bikes’, in a nod to our colourful Mayor, Boris Johnson. But what will we call our new drive-it-yourself taxis? My suggestion: ‘Boris Cabs’ – and they are now a reality here, thanks to Daimler’s car2go service, if you happen to live in one of three small and separate sections of town. But why did a one-way carsharing system have to limp into London, when more than a dozen other cities have welcomed these arrangements with open arms? In the US, car2go first appeared in Austin, Texas, and since then has moved into Washington, D.C, Miami, Portland Oregon, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle. It operates in Canada and, on the Continent, in Paris and Amsterdam, among other locations. So why no splashy launch across England’s Capital, and no images of a smiling Boris cutting a ribbon?

    First, roads in London are balkanised. Our regional transport agency (Transport for London) runs the main arteries, and they provide little on-street parking, the mother’s milk of one-way carsharing. That leaves the local streets in the the domain of the 33 boroughs that are each independent municipalities. Car2go is making a brave attempt to get off the ground here by starting with hundreds of cars (the press release reports 500; in practice,170 are in operation two weeks after the launch) in disconnected sections of town, something it has not resorted to anywhere else. Its standard practice is to strike a city-wide deal with whoever’s in charge of on-street parking, and no single agency fits that bill here. What’s the rush? Well, BMW is hot on their heels with its competing DriveNow system, with staff in London well into the advanced stages of planning.

    Second, there is genuine uncertainty about the impacts”. Will we take drive-it-yourself cabs to work, and avoid the crush on the Tube? It would be a very different experience than traditional carsharing — London is said to be Zipcar’s second-biggest market after NYC — which doesn’t work for the daily commute. In the Zipcar model (soon to be the ‘Zipcar by Avis’ model?) you take a car on a round-trip basis and pay by the hour, like filling a parking meter. The novelty of this new generation of drive-yourself cabs lies in their flexibility: as with a taxi meter, you pay by the minute for just the time it takes you to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’, then drop the car off and forget about it.

    What does this mean for traffic congestion? CO2 emissions? What about the cute blue-and-white Smart Fortwo-model cars now parked in your neighbourhood – will they mean less parking for private car owners? Not bloody likely. The expectation is that, in time, enough private car owners will switch to using the fleet’s cars, meaning that on balance fewer cars will need to be parked. But try explaining this to car2go’s new neighbours who are not familiar with the subtleties and will be the ones dealing with the growing pains as we feel our way forward.

    Transport is a long game, so it will be years until we properly understand the impacts of drive-yourself cabs. My research suggests that likely impacts are:

    1) A much larger market than traditional carsharing (about four times as many subscribers)
    2) A roughly 4% reduction in personal car ownership
    3) About a 1% decrease in car driving vehicle miles travelled (including personal cars, traditional carsharing, and drive-yourself cabs)
    4) About a 1% decrease in the number of public transport journeys

    We can be reasonably certain that some surprising impacts will be revealed during field trials, and if at some future point London’s authorities are not happy with the knock-on effects there’s nothing to stop us from regulating the industry like any other. But for the moment we don’t understand it well enough to do anything other than let the operators experiment and keep tabs on what’s happening.

    We just don’t know what the impacts on traffic levels and CO2 will turn out to be, and, frankly, it’s unfair to – as some suggest – hold the industry to a no-net-traffic/CO2 standard. We don’t do that to Black Cabs or [advance-booking-only] minicabs, or indeed to the automotive or urban transport sectors more broadly. A fairer standard, admittedly more complex to administer, would be to assess whether net value is created after accounting for effects on traffic levels, emissions and more. In other words: get the prices right, just like the economics textbooks say.

    The question that needs thinking through is what would transport in London look like if drive-yourself taxi systems went viral and we came to depend on them. What happens, for instance, when instead of 500 of these cabs there are 50,000, and the necessary communication links go down? How would the transport system work if on-road congestion became replaced by virtual queuing to get access to a car? And what about times when the system is under stress, like when a hurricane is approaching, for instance. Is it OK to just flip the switch off on the whole fleet? Who would make this decision, and what guidelines would they follow?

    If the history of the car in cities has taught us anything, it is that we need to be humble about our ability to forecast the future. So what is the way forward for Boris Cabs in London? Start with a small fleet and short-duration contracts. Be clear on the objectives and flexible on the implementation. Keep our options open. It will be an interesting ride.

    Scott Le Vine, AICP is a research associate in transport systems at Imperial College London and a trustee of the shared-mobility NGO Carplus, which serves as the UK’s carsharing trade body. He authored the recent study Car Rental 2.0: Car club [carsharing] innovations and why they matter.

    Flickr photo: Car 2 Go in the 1700 block of Q Street, NW, Washington DC on Easter Sunday, 8 April 2012 by Elvert Barnes Photography

  • Is the Acela Killing America?

    Has the finance industry trainjacked America?

    By all accounts the Acela has been a success. Thought it is far from perfect and constitutes moderate speed rail for the most part, it seems to have attracted strong ridership. A midday train was totally packed on both the BOS-NYC leg and NYC-DC leg the last time I rode it. I didn’t see an empty seat anywhere. Which is pretty amazing given how much more expensive it is than the regional, and frankly not that much faster. It does seem to have accomplished its mission of more closely linking Boston, New York, and Washington.

    The question is, is that actually a good thing? Or has the improved connectivity the Acela brings had unforeseen negative consequences? I believe you can make an argument that the Acela has actually helped birth the stranglehold the finance industry has over federal fiscal and monetary policies, and thus has hurt America.

    I don’t have time to fully develop that here, but to anyone who has been following any of the many excellent sites tracking the financial crisis over the last few years, it is obvious.

    There is now a near merger between Wall Street and K Street. During the financial crisis, the government and the Fed have kept Wall Street well supplied with bailouts and nearly free access to capital that allows them to literally print risk free profits by recycling in the free loans into interest bearing government debt, all while Main St. businesses and homeowners have borne the full brunt of a credit crunch, state and local governments fiscally starve, and infrastructure funds dry up. Finance industry insiders have now obtained a near lock on the position of Treasury Secretary. When a president like Bush dares to appoint someone with actual industrial experience, Wall Street’s displeasure is made manifest, and it generally succeeds in undermining him. New laws like Dodd-Frank strangle new entrants to the field while enshrining the privileged status of the too big to fail. The fact that it allows government to seize these “systematically important financial institutions” shows not the industry’s weakness but its strength, as big banks de facto function as instrumentalities of the state, but with profits privatized and losses socialized. Not a single major figure in the events causing the financial meltdowns has gone to jail or even been prosecuted (only a collection of ponzi schemers and insider traders who, despite their criminality, had no systematic impact – the crisis blew up their scams, their scams did not cause the crisis). The list goes on.

    The geographic proximity of New York to Washington, with quick trips back and forth on the Acela, facilitates this. Clearly, you could get back and forth on the shuttle without it, but given the Acela’s popularity, it does seem to have some big benefits in shrinking the distance between New York and DC. I’d argue this has been unhealthy for America. If true high speed rail ever came to the NYC-DC corridor, who knows what might happen?

    Perhaps you don’t agree and will feed me to the dogs for this post. But I think it’s very clear that transportation networks have vast impact on the structure of society, not just how people and goods get from Point A to Point B. The interstate highway system is proof of that. Indeed, advocates of high speed rail (and I’ve been a qualified one myself, supporting it clearly in the Northeast Corridor but being skeptical about most others) boast of the positive transformational effects of HSR as one of the reasons to build it. But as with the interstate highway system, we need to be aware of the hidden risks as well.

    The Acela is perhaps living proof that high speed rail can reshape America. It is literally helping rewrite the geographic power map of America. Unfortunately, at this point don’t think that’s been a good thing.

    This piece originally appeared at The Ubanophile.

  • Hong Kong’s Decentralizing Commuting Patterns

    Hong Kong is a city of superlatives. Hong Kong has at least twice the population density of any other urban area in the more developed world, at 67,000 per square mile or 25,900 per square kilometer. The Hong Kong skyline is rated the world’s best by both emporis.com (a building database) and diserio.com, which use substantially different criteria. This is an honor that could not have been bestowed on any city outside New York for most of the 20th century.

    No world city is better suited to mass transit than Hong Kong. Hong Kong may also be the best served — it has the transit usage levels to prove it. According to Hong Kong 2011 census data, 87 percent of combined transit and car work trip travel in Hong Kong is by transit, though this is a small decline from the 90 percent of 2001. This is the highest transit market share of any high-income world metropolitan area.

    Change in Work Access Patterns

    Between 2001 and 2011 Hong Kong’s employment increased nine percent. Most of these new workers (38 percent), however, did not travel to fixed work locations in Hong Kong. Reflecting continuing decentralization and the impact of information technology, 62 percent of the new workers (1) worked at home, (2) had no fixed place of work or (3) worked outside Hong Kong, especially in Macau and the province of Guangdong, principally in Shenzhen (Figure 1). The 2001 and 2011 census data is summarized in the table below.

    HONG KONG WORK ACCESS: METHODS: 2001 AND 2011
    2001 2011 Change % Change Share: 2001 Share: 2011
    MASS TRANSIT   2,091,552  2,226,818    135,266 6.5% 70.4% 70.1%
    Bus & Coach  1,400,770  1,188,897  (211,873) -15.1% 47.2% 37.4%
       Large Bus   1,118,388     938,467   (179,921) -16.1% 37.7% 29.5%
       Minibus (Public Light)      226,646     217,219      (9,427) -4.2% 7.6% 6.8%
       Residential Coach       55,736       33,211    (22,525) -40.4% 1.9% 1.0%
    Rail     690,782  1,037,921   347,139 50.3% 23.3% 32.7%
       Metro (Original MTR)      495,128     697,475    202,347 40.9% 16.7% 21.9%
       Suburban Rail (Original KCR)      195,654     297,416    101,762 52.0% 6.6% 9.4%
       Light Rail              –         43,030     43,030 NA 0.0% 1.4%
    CAR & TAXI      232,978     333,192    100,214 43.0% 7.8% 10.5%
    WALK      335,859     266,574    (69,285) -20.6% 11.3% 8.4%
    OTHER      123,455       68,509    (54,946) -44.5% 4.2% 2.2%
    TRAVEL TO HK FIXED PLACE OF WORK   2,783,844  2,895,093    111,249 4.0% 93.8% 91.1%
    WORK AT HOME      185,367     283,497     98,130 52.9% 6.2% 8.9%
    FIXED PLACE OF WORK   2,969,211  3,178,590    209,379 7.1% 100.0% 100.0%
    NO FIXED WORK PLACE      188,998     247,916     58,918 31.2%
    WORK IN HONG KONG   3,158,209  3,426,506    268,297 8.5%
    WORK OUTSIDE HONG KONG       94,497     120,858     26,361 27.9%
    WORKING RESIDENTS   3,252,706  3,547,364    294,658 9.1%
    EXHIBIT
    Travel to Work in Hong Kong   2,783,844  2,895,093    111,249 37.8%
    Home, No Fixed Place, Outside HK      468,862     652,271    183,409 62.2%
    TOTAL   3,252,706  3,547,364    294,658 100.0%
    Source: Hong Kong Census, 2001 & 2011
    No Fixed Place of Work: Access method not determined

     

    The Shift from Bus to Rail: Transit’s overall share of work trip access was 70.1 percent in 2011 (all methods). This is a slight decline from the 70.4 percent in 2001. Over the last decade, Hong Kong has substantially expanded its urban rail system, including major improvements such as a new tunnel under Hong Kong Harbor and the new West rail line (former Kowloon Canton Railway) to Yuen Long and Tuen Mun. I wrote a supporting commentary in the Apple Daily (Hong Kong’s largest newspaper) supporting the rail expansion program in 2000.

    The results are apparent in the ridership data. The rail work access market share rose nearly 10 points to 32.7 percent. At the same time, the bus market share dropped nearly 10 points to 37.4 percent. Overall, in a modestly growing labor market, transit added 135,000 new one away work trips.

    Car Commuting Up: Cars and taxis experienced a much larger percentage gain, largely as a result of starting from a much smaller base. The car and taxi work trip access market share rose from 7.8 percent to 10.5 percent. Overall, approximately 100,000 more people commuted one way by car to work in 2011 than in 2001. The median incomes of car and taxi commuters are the highest, at more than twice that of rail and bus users.

    More Working at Home:Hong Kong’s working at home grew the most of any category, rising 53 percent from 185,000 to 283,000 daily. As a result, working at home now accounts for 8.9 percent of work access, compared to 6.2 percent in 2001. Hong Kong’s reliance on working at home was greater than that of the United States in the early 2000s. Over the last decade Hong Kong’s 53 percent increase in working at home was well above the 41 percent increase in the United States. In Hong Kong, 33 percent of new employment was home-based work between 2001 and 2011. This is greater than in the US, where 20 percent of new jobs involved working at home as the usual mode of access between 2000 and 2010.

    The Decline of Walking: Given Hong Kong’s intensely high densities, it may come as a surprise that there was a huge loss in walking to work. Nearly 70,000 fewer people walked to work in 2011 than in 2001, as the walking market share dropped 21 percent. In 2011, commuters who walked (and those who used light rail) had the lowest incomes. In 2001, more people walked to work than either travelled by car or work at home. By 2011, fewer people walked to work than travel by car or work at home.

    There was also a nearly 55,000 loss in work access by other modes (such as ferries, motorized 2-wheelers and cycling).

    Finally, Hong Kong separately categorizes workers without a fixed place of employment and does not obtain information on how they access work. This category experienced an increase of nearly 60,000 from 2001 to 2011.

    The Decentralization of Hong Kong’s Labor Markets

    The distribution of employment changed little over the 10 years, with Hong Kong Island and Kowloon sectors retaining two-thirds of the jobs. These two areas also have more than one-half of the population.  Even so, the Hong Kong labor market followed the global pattern of decentralization.   More people traveled outside their home areas in 2011 than in 2001. Among resident workers living on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon, there was an 18 percent increase in working outside these home sectors. Further, the increase in people with no fixed place of work reflects greater mobility and labor force decentralization.

    Jobs-Housing Balance? Not Much

    The high density of jobs and population, its short trip distances, its extraordinary transit system and its high transit market share would seem to make Hong Kong a poster city for the jobs – housing balance ("self containment") that urban planners seem so intent to seek. The data indicates no such thing.

    Hong Kong’s 18 districts illustrate a comparatively low rate of self containment. Only 21.4 percent of working residents are employed in their home districts, including those who work at home. This is only slightly higher than in highly decentralized suburban Los Angeles County, where 18.5 percent of resident workers are employed in their home municipalities. With far lower population and employment densities and a 50 percent smaller geographical size, the suburban municipalities of Los Angeles County (city of Los Angeles excluded, see Note below) nearly equal the local-area jobs-housing balance of the Hong Kong districts (Figure 4).

    This tendency to work away from home districts contributes to Hong Kong’s extraordinarily long average commute times. In 2002, the average work trip was 46 minutes, longer than any high-income world metropolitan area except Tokyo. By comparison, Dallas-Fort Worth, with a similar population and a population density less than 1/20th that of Hong Kong, has an average work trip travel time of 26 minutes. Los Angeles, with its world-class traffic congestion has a work trip travel time of 27 minutes, principally because its automobile dominant commuting is much faster than Hong Kong’s world class, rail based transit system.

    These data, both in Hong Kong and Los Angeles, show that, within a metropolitan area (labor market),  people will tend to seek the employment that best meets their needs, just as employers will hire the people best suited to theirs. Within a labor market, this can be anywhere, subject to the preferences of people and employers, not of planners. This is the basis of former World Bank principal planner Alain Bertaud’s caution that a city’s economic efficiency requires … avoiding any spatial fragmentation of labor markets.

    The Mistake of Trying to Emulate the Unique

    It is a mistake to think that urban planning can emulate Hong Kong. Besides its superlatives, Hong Kong did not become so dense as a result of urban planning or the unfettered preferences of people (market forces). Hong Kong’s uniqueness is the result of unique geo-political influences. This history forced an unprecedented accommodation of millions in a small space, especially in the third quarter of the 20th century when it stood as a capitalist island in the midst of a Communist sea.

    Hong Kong is unique and will be for a long time.

    Note: The city Los Angeles has a very high jobs-housing balance (61 percent). However, this is largely due to its huge geographic size (more than 40 times the average suburban jurisdiction).

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.”

    —-

    Photo: West Rail Line, Tin Shui Wai Station bus interchange, Yuen Long (by author)

  • Higher Gas Tax Unlikely to Gain Support in Congress

    Although some infrastructure advocates are hoping to use the current budget negotiations to win support for an increase in the federal gasoline tax, the idea is unlikely to gain support in Congress or the Administration.  While  the 2010 Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction commission proposed raising the federal gas tax by 15 cents/gallon as part of a broad deficit-reduction plan, neither House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) have endorsed the idea.  Nor is an increase in the federal gasoline tax popular among  the rank-and-file.  Most lawmakers see the pressure to raise it as coming only from a narow coalition of liberal advocacy groups and transportation stakeholders that stand to benefit from increased federal transportation spending.

    Nor is the Obama administration eager to advocate a gas tax increase whose burden would fall most severely on the middle class —precisely the constituency it  wishes to protect from the pain of any further tax increases.  Given this perception, it is almost certain that a federal gas tax increase will remain off the table in the current fiscal cliff negotiations  and probably throughout the next session of Congress as well.

    Look instead for the states to assume a larger share of responsibility for funding their transportation needs. An early harbinger may be the state of Arkansas whose voters recently approved a half-cent statewide sales tax increase to back a $1.3 billion bond issue to fund highway construction over the next ten years. The measure has been called "the largest infusion of new tax dollars into a state transportation system in recent history." Local  referenda supporting public transportation also have appeared on the ballot in numerous states.  According to the Center for Transportation Excellence,  last November voters approved 70 percent of such initiatives.

    In addition to greater local financial participation, look for a shift in emphasis from federal funding to public and private financing of large infrastructure projects. The shift will be fueled by a vastly expanded TIFIA lending authority —by more than 600 percent, from $122 million in FY 2012 to $750 million in FY 2013—and by a large reservoir of equity in pension funds and private infrastructure investment funds looking for attractive investment opportunities. (TIFIA stands for the Transportation Infrastructure Financing and Innovation Act).

    This means an expanded role for tolling, for TIFIA and private sources of capital can only be used to finance facilities that are backed by a dedicated stream of revenue to cover interest payments on the loan and the loan repayment itself.   Tolls are viewed by many as a fairer way to pay for new and reconstructed highways and bridges because, unlike the gas tax,  they are paid only by the users of the particular tolled facility. In other words, drivers in Montana will not be required to pay for a road or bridge built for and benefiting mainly  the residents of say, Texas.  

    The likely prospect that  financing will replace stagnant or dwindling federal funding, dominated discussion among financial practitioners at ARTBA’s Public-Private Partnership Conference in Washington on October 10-11. Participants were encouraged to hear that 19 projects worth $27.5 billion have already submitted letters of interest for TIFIA loans in the past three months. Four more projects totaling $1.9 billion have been announced since October.  More applications are certain to follow as it becomes clear that the Highway Trust Fund no longer can continue to serve as a source of investment capital for transportation infrastructure.

     

    In sum, rather than hoping for an increase in the gas tax, the transportation community should look forward to three new trends as the most likely response to the perceived inadequacy of current  transportation revenue:  greater financial participation by state and local taxpayers,  a shift in emphasis from federal funding to private and public financing, and an expanded use of tolling.

  • Finally, A Vegas Train That Makes Sense

    Las Vegas Railway Express has signed an agreement with the Union Pacific Railroad to operate a conventional speed train from Fullerton, in Orange County to downtown Las Vegas, according to a story by Michelle Rindells of the Associated Press.

    This is not to be confused with the proposed Xpress West (formerly DesertXpress) high-speed rail line which would operate from Victorville to Las Vegas, expecting riders to drive through Los Angeles Basin traffic congestion to get to the station. Further, unlike Xpress West, the Las Vegas Railway Express train would require no financial assistance from taxpayers for its largely leisure travelers. As we indicated previously, our analysis concludes that XpressWest revenues are unlikely to be sufficient to repay a proposed federal loan. This could expose taxpayers to a loss of $5.5 billion or more — approximately 10 times as great as taxpayer losses in the Solyndra federal loan guarantee debacle.

    The Las Vegas Railway Express promoters intend to take the full financial risk, as do most entrepreneurs who start businesses. Moreover, the Las Vegas Railway Express train would operate only when demand is substantial, with all trips between Thursday and Monday. The first trip is tentatively scheduled for New Year’s Eve, 2013.

    Here’s hoping the train is successful and that the owners make at least a competitive return on investment, while providing employees commercially funded (not subsidized) jobs, paying, not consuming taxes and with revenues earned from willing customers, rather than relying on public funding. And just as important, if they fail, taxpayers will not be left holding the bag. That’s how things should work.

  • Election: “Stop Portland Creep” Resonates in Suburbs

    Election results from all three of Portland, Oregon’s largest suburban counties indicate a reaction against what has been called "Portland Creep," the expansion of the expansive light rail system without voter approval and the imposition of restrictive densification measures by Metro, the regional land-use agency.

    Portlanders in the three largest Oregon counties (Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas) have previously voted against financing light rail extensions, however the transit agency has found ways to continue the expansion and now operates five lines, with a sixth under construction. While urban rail aficionados tout the success of the Portland system, transit use by commuters has fallen significantly in relative terms from before the opening of the first light rail line. At the same time, working at home, which does not need billions in taxpayer subsidies, has caught up to and passed transit (Figure).

    The electoral events of the past 60 days could severely limit future expansion.

    Clackamas County: Chicanery and its Price

    In a September 2012 election, voters in Clackamas County approved a measure by a 60% – 40% majority requiring that any commitment of funding to rail would require a vote of the people. Perhaps fearing a negative result in the election, the pro-rail Clackamas County commission hastily approved $20 million to support the under construction Portland to Milwaukie (Clackamas County) light rail line.

    Things were to become substantially more difficult for light rail in the November election. In Clackamas County, the two incumbent commissioners on the ballot, both of whom voted for the $20 million bond issue, lost their seats. Voters rewarded their chicanery by replacing them with anti-rail commissioners, leaving the Clackamas County commission with a 3 to 2 anti-rail majority. The Oregonian characterized the election as "a referendum on light rail."

    John Ludlow, who defeated Clackamas County commission chair Charlotte Lehan by a 52% to 48% margin, told The Oregonian:

    "I think the biggest boost my campaign got was when those commissioners agreed to pay that $20 million to TriMet" for Portland-Milwaukie light rail four days before the September election. I think that put Tootie and me over the top." 

    "Tootie" is Tootie Smith, a former state legislator who unseated commissioner Jamie Damon in the same election by a similar margin.

    Washington County, Oregon: Taxpayers Take Control

    Meanwhile, light rail has run into substantial difficulty in suburban Washington County. In September, voters in King City approved a measure to require all light rail funding to be approved by the voters. In the more recent November election, voters in Tigard, the 6th largest city (50,000 population) in the metropolitan area, voted 81%-19% to subject all light rail expenditures to a vote of the people.

    Clark County, Washington: Voters Say No

    Portland’s transit agency also had its eye on expanding light rail service across the state line and the Columbia River to Vancouver, in Clark County, Washington. The plan was to build a new "Interstate Bridge" (Interstate 5) across the river, which would include light rail. The voters of Clark County were asked in a referendum to approve funding for the light rail system and turned it down soundly according to the Columbian, by a 56% – 44% margin.

    But there was more. For some time, citizen activist and business leader David Madore has been working to stop both tolls on the new bridge and light rail service. Madore was elected to the board of commissioners of Clark County at the same time that the light rail referendum was being defeated. Madore, like the two other Clark County commissioners, also hold seats on the transit agency board.

    Tri-Met’s Death Spiral?

    Further, Tri-Met’s dire financial situation could be another barrier to future expansion. As John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute has shown, Tri-Met’s fringe-benefit bill is astronomically high, at $1.63 for each $1.00 in wages. This is more than five times the average for public employers, according to US Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis data. Charles refers to Tri-Met as being in a "death spiral" and says that:  

    "The agency is steadily devolving from a transit district to a retirement and health-care center, with unsustainable fringe benefit costs that now far exceed the mere cost of wages."

  • Honolulu Rail Project Legal Problems Mount

    According to the Hawaii Reporter, Honolulu’s rail transit project has lost a major legal test in The Federal Ninth Circuit Court, as Judge Wallace Tashima ruled in  HonoluluTraffic.com v. Federal Transit Administration et al that the city of Honolulu had violated federal environmental law on three counts.

    The plaintiffs included are a coalition of environmental, civic, political and taxpayer interests, including former Governor and mayoral candidate Benjamin Cayetano, University of Hawaii Law professor Randall Roth, Retired Judge Walter Heen, retired businessman and transportation expert Cliff Slater, Dr. Michael Uechi, Hawaii’s Thousand Friends, Outdoor Circle and the Small Business Hawaii Entrepreneurial Education Foundation.

    The plaintiffs and defendants differ strongly on the impact of the ruling, and the defendants are to return to court in December seeking a permanent injunction against the project.

    University of Hawaii Engineering Professor Panos Prevedouros told the Hawaii Reporter that the decision would require environmental planning revisions that could take up to 2 years.

    This setback is in addition to a previous unanimous Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that had already required construction to be suspended and which could delay project for at least a year, according to the Hawaii Reporter. The Supreme Court in Kaleikini v. Yoshioka, ruled that the city of Honolulu failed to comply with the state’s historic preservation and burial protection laws when it did not complete an archeological inventory survey for the 20-mile route before starting construction.