Tag Archives: transportation

parking benefit districts

This article explains why eliminating minimum parking requirements is such a good idea, and suggests the idea of parking benefit districts as a way to get past misguided political and neighborhood opposition.

Eliminating existing requirements currently on the books in almost every city, namely that housing builders install lots of off-street parking spaces, is a key strategy for housing affordability. Most people wouldn’t guess it, but parking requirements (or “quotas”) raise the rent—and not just by a little, but by a lot. Here’s a full rundown of how they do so, but some major ways include:

  • Parking quotas raise the cost of building housing, especially inexpensive housing, and they suppress the number of apartments and houses that can fit on a lot—often by a quarter to a half.
  • Parking quotas block adaptive reuse of old buildings, such as vacant warehouses, to housing.
  • Parking quotas disperse housing by suppressing housing units per city block, which exacerbates sprawl and therefore distances traveled, which makes transit less practical and driving more common. And driving is expensive.

I’m all for it. The only concern I can think of is that neighborhoods with higher-cost parking (likely to be more desirable, richer, less diverse neighborhoods in most cities) would get greater benefits than other neighborhoods. So it seems like maybe a portion of it could stay in the neighborhood, and a portion could be shared across all neighborhoods in a city or even metro area that agree to the policy.

This is both a great example of progressive policy innovation, and a market-based way of aligning peoples’ economic incentives with the best policies. So it should be able to gain support across the political spectrum. But the article also talks about how bureaucrats at existing transit agencies can be an obstacle to this sort of policy (as they can to other good ideas like flexible bus routes). This is sad. In my ideal world, there would be a single agency in charge of getting people from point A to point B and using space in the most efficient, safest and healthiest ways, open to innovation and stakeholder input.

August 2016 in Review

3 most frightening stories

3 most hopeful stories

3 most interesting stories

  • Bokashi is a system that essentially pickles your compost.
  • There is an unlikely but plausible scenario where Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, could become President of the United States this fall. Speaking of implausible scenarios, I learned that RIchard Nixon made a serious attempt to pass a basic income bill in 1969.
  • Here is a short video explaining the Fermi Paradox, which asks why there are no aliens. Meanwhile Russian astronomers are saying there might be aliens.

more on taxi medallions

The value of a Philadelphia taxi medallion has plunged from a peak of $545,000 in July 2014 to $50,000 in March 2015. That’s a pretty shocking collapse in less than a year, and it’s pretty much all due to UberX.

Since coming to Philadelphia without regulatory approval in October 2014, Uber has pulled the safety net out from under taxi drivers and claimed their place in the city. In the Philadelphia metro area, Uber says, it now has more than 12,000 active drivers – who have taken a ride in the last 28 days – and more than half a million active riders who have used the app in the last three months. In July, Uber pledged $2.5 million to expand its service in the suburbs and subsidize surge pricing, those times when prices jump for passengers in high-demand areas. This came after SEPTA announced that a third of its Regional Rail cars would be off the tracks for the summer due to fatigue cracks in a beam and the need for emergency repairs.

For a while, the PPA tried to keep Uber at bay, refusing to legalize UberX, which allows drivers to use their own cars and personal insurance to shuttle passengers.

But in July, with the Democratic National Convention bringing in 50,000 visitors and SEPTA’s Regional Rail line in turmoil, the PPA conceded to Uber. It agreed to legalize UberX as long as the company paid $350,000 – rather than the millions in fines it had initially slapped on the company – when the state legislature comes back in session and passes regulatory legislation.

As a person who chooses to live without a car, Uber X has made my life a lot better. Taxis were an okay way to get around the busiest part of the city, and to get from the busy part of the city to the airport and back. But they were never a good way to get from a less busy part of the city back to the busy part. I got stranded many times in out-of-the-way places and/or in bad weather, when I would call for a taxi and be told by a surly dispatcher that none were available, or even after being dispatched they just never showed up. Add to that the payment hassles where you had to try to keep small change in your wallet because they often wouldn’t change a 20 and were unable or unwilling to take credit cards. Miscommunications and misunderstandings about where you wanted to go. With UberX, all of this is almost 100% solved.

Now, I will say that some taxi drivers are wonderful people. They work long hours under risky conditions. Many lift heavy luggage and are kind to children, the elderly and disabled. The problems I mention above are not the drivers’ fault for the most part. By limiting the supply of medallions, the government has produced an artificial shortage of transportation. There just weren’t enough taxis to go around, so they stayed in the busy areas where they had a better shot at making a profit and the underserved neighborhoods stayed underserved. The dispatching companies made sure it was hard on the drivers – they had to pay to lease a car for their shift, then fill it up with gas, then try to pick up enough fares to break even, and then enough to make a living. When they are honking at me or trying to run me over in a crosswalk, I try to remember that they are the victims of perverse incentives in a broken system.

So I really don’t feel too bad for the dispatching companies. They could have improved their service, or one of them could have invented UberX. But they didn’t, they just assumed nothing would ever change and they were creatively destroyed. I don’t feel too bad for the drivers who used to lease cars from the taxi companies, because they can just switch to Uber (at least until the cars start driving themselves in a couple years, I don’t think driving any vehicle is a good long-term career choice for any human at this point). I do feel sorry though for the independent driver who saved and borrowed to buy their own taxi medallion at a high price, only to find that it is now worthless and they are in debt. Although I dislike almost everything about the industry, there was an understanding that it was an industry regulated by law, and the rule of law is supposed to apply to everyone equally. I can understand some affected people feeling like the law suddenly is not being enforced evenly on all parties, and they are left holding the bag. It seems like they might have some legal recourse against the regulatory agency that chose not to enforce the law.

July 2016 in Review

3 most frightening stories

  • The financial crisis triggered by U.S. banks in 2008 may have been a major factor behind a resurgence of right-wing politics in Europe.
  • Household chemicals may have adverse effects on the developing brain, including a contribution to the risk of “neurodevelopmental disorders that affect the brain and nervous system including autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, intellectual disabilities, and other learning and behavioral disabilities”.
  • The CIA is just not that good at spying.

3 most hopeful stories

  • There are new tools for considering ecosystem services and biodiversity in development decisions.
  • Uber Pool could be a game changing technology that ushers in a new kind of flexible transportation system.
  • The problems of a civilization in overshoot can seem overwhelming, but one thing you can do is convert your lawn to a sustainable ecosystem. Moss is an option. Also related to this, some ecologists are paying more attention to soil.

3 most interesting stories

  • I was a little side-tracked by U.S. Presidential politics. Nate Silver launched his general election site, putting the odds about 80-20 in favor of Hillary at the beginning of the month. The odds swung toward Trump over the course of the month as the two major party conventions took place (one in my backyard), but by the end of the month they were back to about 70-30 in favor of Hillary. During the month I mused about NAFTA, the fall of the Republic, the banana republic, The Art of the Deal, how to debate Trump, and Jon Stewart,
  • It’s really okay to cook pork chops medium rare.
  • It’s really hard to predict earthquakes. Many scientists think it is impossible, but once upon a time they thought that about predicting weather.

transportation megaprojects exceed cost estimates by 28%

According to this Danish study, worldwide transportation “megaprojects” exceed their projected costs by an average of 28%.

  • In 9 out of 10 transportation infrastructure projects, costs are underestimated.
  • For rail projects, actual costs are on average 45% higher than estimated costs (sd=38).
  • For fixed-link projects (tunnels and bridges), actual costs are on average 34% higher than estimated costs (sd=62).
  • For road projects, actual costs are on average 20% higher than estimated costs (sd=30).
  • For all project types, actual costs are on average 28% higher than estimated costs (sd=39).
  • Cost underestimation exists across 20 nations and 5 continents; it appears to be a global phenomenon.
  • Cost underestimation appears to be more pronounced in developing nations than in North America and Europe (data for rail projects only).
  • Cost underestimation has not decreased over the past 70 years. No learning that would improve cost estimate accuracy seems to take place.
  • Cost underestimation cannot be explained by error and seems to be best explained by strategic misrepresentation, i.e., lying.
  • Transportation infrastructure projects do not appear to be more prone to cost underestimation than are other types of large projects.

public buses vs. Uber Pool

This article talks about the idea of shifting from public bus systems to Uber Pool, and comes out against it.

Uber Pool’s cost disadvantage over public transit might disappear if a new pilot program in Boston catches on. This month, Uber announced that it would introduce monthly Uber Pool passes—like transit passes—for just $2 per ride, or less than the MBTA’s $2.25 fare. While these temporary low fares are no doubt a money-losing loss leader, if UberPool fares are anywhere close to the price of public transit it would seem like we’re probably looking at a massive shift from public transit to these sorts of ride-hailing services. And wouldn’t that be a good thing, if it’s both faster and nearly as cheap?

But here’s where the importance space-efficiency comes in. When one person switches from the bus to Uber, two things happen. One is that they get a faster trip almost by definition: A vehicle that makes many stops (the bus) is going to be slower than a vehicle that makes few or no stops (the Uber) unless the bus has some other advantage, like transit lanes that allow it to avoid traffic congestion. And the vast majority of American bus lines are given no such benefit.

The second thing is that they switch from a very space-efficient vehicle, where they probably take up only a few square feet on the road, to a very space-inefficient vehicle, where they take up many, many times more.

It seems to me there is a middle ground here. A technology like Uber Pool, whether in private or public hands, could put the right size vehicles on the right routes at the right times. On some routes at some times, that might be a golf cart, and at others it might be a double decker bus. A system like this could be very flexible and adaptable.  Of course, using our own muscle power for as many trips as possible is also an important part of the equation and if we really want to be sustainable we need to design our towns and lives so that is the best choice for the majority of our daily trips. Communication technology and even virtual reality are another part of the equation because they could allow us to have the personal interaction we need in our work and social lives without physical distance being a factor.

transportation, electricity, and carbon emissions

It’s interesting that as the U.S. has made the switch to more natural gas and less coal, the carbon emissions of electricity generation and transportation have drawn essentially even, where power plants were the much larger emitter in the past. But you can imagine that if transportation begins to electrify on a significant scale, this distinction will be harder to make.

Are you safer on the crumbling D.C. Metro or on the highway?

Well, this is kind of embarrassing. On the surface, the D.C. Metro is one of the country’s more modern and efficient transit systems, at least compared to the trains and subways I am used to riding in Philadelphia. And most major U.S. cities don’t have a comprehensive and reliable system like Philadelphia’s, dirty, old, slow, and laden with bad attitude as it is. So it’s embarrassing that not only can we not build the new infrastructure we need to help the economy operate efficiently and grow, we are letting the infrastructure we have fall apart apparently.

Embarrassing though it is, this little ironic piece (which never admits to being irony, and there are actually people online arguing over whether it is real) points out that if safety is really the main concern, to the point that some are suggesting shutting down the D.C. Metro, car and truck travel should also be banned. In fact, shutting down the nation’s most dangerous transit system and forcing people to drive would be statistically certain to kill people.

Since 2009, 14 Metro riders and employees have died in collisions, derailings, and other incidents. On an annual basis, that translates to about 0.48 fatalities per 100,000 weekday riders.*

However, Secretary Foxx noted that this is exceeded by the fatality rate of car crashes in every single American metropolitan area for which data was compiled in a recent report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In San Francisco, 3.75 people died in automobile crashes per 100,000 residents in 2014, a rate 7.8 times higher than the fatality rate on Metro. In Raleigh, NC, the automobile crash fatality rate was 7.50 per 100,000, or about 15.6 times higher than the fatality rate on Metro. And in Dallas, the automobile crash fatality rate was 12.02 per 100,000, or about 25.0 times higher than the fatality rate on Metro.

It’s not acceptable to have people dying due to negligence and preventable accidents, but this does illustrate the double standard where we accept the commonplace violence on our roads and streets as a necessary evil, assuming it is not preventable. We are also just desensitized to it, whereas the occasional transit accident or plane crash is a shock and gets a lot more media coverage paradoxically because it is not that common.