Here’s an interesting article in Wired (sadly, my last free one of the month – Wired is one of the few magazines I might actually consider subscribing to) about an analysis of transportation data in L.A. What’s different about it is that they used cell phone data to understand not just longer commutes and trips to and from school, but also all the short trips people take near home for errands, chores and quick shopping. A conclusion is that public transportation, at least in L.A., is much slower and less convenient for these. It makes sense. In my neighborhood, in Philadelphia, these are going to be 95% walking trips, because there is only street parking on both ends, and giving up your spot on the street would not be worth it, not to mention making your trip slow and inconvenient. So free parking on both ends is a big contributor to this, and free parking obviously requires a lot of land, and once you devote all that land to free parking, your neighborhood is no longer walkable and you can’t go back.
Tag Archives: transportation
Costa Rica
Costa Rica is planning to go carbon free by 2050. The trick is that most of their electricity is already hydroelectric, so what is left is to electrify their transportation system and then use that electricity to run it. This exact recipe won’t work everywhere, but the lesson is that electrifying opens up options for how to generate that electricity down the road.
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh hyperloop
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is apparently studying the idea of a hyperloop that could theoretically make the trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in half an hour. Initially they are looking just at freight. The larger context is that the Pennsylvania Turnpike has the right of way, is not doing well financially, charging trucks to carry freight is the core of their business, and they are worried about some killer app coming along. Good for somebody at a dinosaur organization like this to have a little bit of vision and actually get a real study funded.
Of course, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are not really connected in a socioeconomic sense other than being part of an anachronistic and mostly irrelevant political entity. Philadelphia is part of the Boston to DC metro corridor, and Pittsburgh is somewhat isolated but part of a loosely defined region that might include Cleveland, Cincinnati, even Chicago and Detroit if there were really good rail links in place. Put a really fast rail link in place between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and now you could buy a super cheap fixer up house in Pittsburgh and commute to your job in New York or Chicago.
platooning trucks and buses in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is going to start allowing “platoons” of up to three autonomous trucks or buses following a human-driven lead vehicle. The only concern seems to be what to do if human car drivers choose to insert themselves between the platooning vehicles.
August 2018 in Review
Most frightening stories:
- In certain provinces with insurgent activity, the Chinese government is reportedly combining surveillance and social media technologies to score people and send those with low scores to re-education camps, from which it is unclear if anyone returns.
- Noam Chomsky doesn’t love Trump, but points out that climate change and/or nuclear weapons are still existential threats and that more mainstream leaders and media outlets have failed just as miserably to address them as Trump has. In related news, the climate may be headed for a catastrophic tipping point and while attention is mostly elsewhere, a fundamentalist takeover of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is still one of the more serious risks out there.
- The U.S. government is apparently very worried about a severe cyber attack. Also, a talented 11-year-old can hack a voting machine.
Most hopeful stories:
- There are some new ideas for adjusting GDP to account for natural capital and ecosystem services. There are also ideas to better account for “intangible products” like software in GDP. And R&D is a good investment that the U.S. could do more of.
- While the U.S. uses a few less straws and pats itself on the back, there are serious ideas in other countries for tackling the root problem of packaging.
- Vancouver has successfully combined green street and complete street concepts. The American Society of Landscape Architects has also compiled some helpful resources on this topic.
Most interesting stories, that were not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps were a mixture of both:
- Google Lens can identify a plant or animal from its picture, and the subway body scanners from Total Recall are now real.
- There are some neat high-tech camp stoves out there that can burn almost anything with very little smoke and even charge electronic devices.
- I found a good article about making box plots in R.
AAA study finds car ownership better than ride sharing
My headline above is true, but misleading. What AAA really did is answer the question under what conditions owning a car is cheaper than ride sharing, and there are some. AAA found that owning a car can be more cost-effective than ride sharing…for people who drive about a thousand miles a month, have “free” parking, and choose a used car. That may indeed describe the average suburban American, and I am not criticizing people who choose that life style. But in my opinion, many people do not choose it but default to it without realizing other options are possible.
I live in a dense city (in a single family home with a small front and back yard, not a high rise apartment.) My family walks for most work, school, and shopping trips. Street parking is cheap but scarce, and garage parking is very expensive (you can’t have cheap, abundant parking and high density together.) Ride sharing has been a great innovation for the occasional trips where a car is the best option, and particularly great for getting home from somewhat far-flung places where calling a taxi used to be a very unreliable and expensive option. We simply don’t worry about getting stranded places any more, which used to be the single most annoying thing about not owning a car. I guess that means we take a few trips now that we wouldn’t have in the past, and if enough people are doing that it explains why ride sharing has increased traffic a little bit – and why that is a good thing.
Anyway, my point is that the AAA conclusion is not a general one that would apply to my situation. And my situation is one that anyone can choose to be in, maybe not tomorrow but if you want to live in a high-density, walkable residential area you can plan that and make it happen within a few years.
the stats on Uber and Lyft
A new report provides interesting data on ride sharing nationwide. We all knew they were shifting rides away from the traditional taxi industry, but they are also resulting in more traffic on the road for a few reasons. First, they are taking trips away from traditional public transportation and from walking in major, high-density cities. And second, people are taking trips they otherwise wouldn’t have taken. The evidence that they are putting downward pressure on car ownership rates does not appear to be strong, at least so far.
I have a few reactions. From a purist economic perspective, if people are choosing to take trips that were too expensive or too inconvenient before, that is a positive improvement in those people’s lives. If the traditional taxi and public transportation models are too slow, dirty, inconvenient and/or expensive to compete, they need to figure out how to step up their games. My sympathy is limited, but I would rather see traditional public transportation adapt than disappear. I have no love for taxi dispatch companies, but I do have sympathy for the small-time owner operators that borrowed large sums of money to invest in a regulated taxi medallion. Governments really ought to buy those medallions back at the market price before Uber and Lyft came on the scene (and then throw them away forever). Fewer walking and/or biking trips is not good for people’s health for both physical activity and air quality reasons, but there city governments need to step up their infrastructure and planning games if they want walking and biking to be truly safe and inviting ways to get around. A final note is that even if traffic does not go down in the near term, any decrease in parking demand will be a positive for dense cities.
Ride sharing has improved my life immeasurably. I choose to live in a dense city and choose not to own a car. Before ride sharing was available, I often had trouble getting a taxi home from certain neighborhoods when I needed it, got cheated by drivers who pretended not to understand where I was going or refused to give change for cash-only payments (which were the only option). Taxi service has improved a lot now that they have some competition. Buses and commuter trains too are slow, dirty, and unreliable, although they too have improved recently. So I think a lot of people’s lives are better and I think the public will continue to demand this technology.
June 2018 in Review
Most frightening stories:
- The Trump administration is proposing to subsidize coal-burning power plants. Meanwhile the long-term economic damage expected from climate change appears to be substantial. For one thing, Hurricanes are slowing down, which means they can do more damage in any one place. The rate of melting in Antarctic ice sheets is accelerating.
- The U.S. has slipped behind China in life expectancy.
- 60% of Syrians have been displaced by the war.
Most hopeful stories:
- The emerging understanding of cognitive bias could allow human beings to actually learn from our mistakes.
- A new estimate indicates that “stranded fossil fuel assets” could mount up to global wealth losses on the order of $1-4 trillion. Oil companies are starting to look ahead to a possible peak and decline in demand. In some states, natural gas companies are fighting the nuclear power industry, which is already in a tailspin. Elsewhere, offshore wind power may now be cost-competitive with natural gas. And in absolutely shockingly hopeful news, the U.S. Congress may have a realistic, bipartisan plan for a carbon tax.
- New York City is banning styrofoam.
Most interesting stories, that were not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps were a mixture of both:
- Explicit taxes to fund wars were the norm in the U.S. right up to the Vietnam war.
- In technology news, Google and Airbus are considering teaming to build a space catapult. The Hyperloop might be a real thing between Chicago’s downtown and airport.
- Just under 0.1% of migrants crossing the U.S. border are members of criminal gang such as MS-13. About half of border crossers are from Mexico while the other half are mostly from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Some are fleeing violence or repression, while others are simply looking for economic opportunity.
Chicago Hyperloop
The Chicago Tribune has a video of how the Hyperloop will supposedly get people from the (Chicago) Loop to O’hare airport in 12 minutes. The City’s press release says the project will be funded entirely by private investors. The construction timeline? It will be “finalized during the process”. I’m a little skeptical, but winning a competitive bid process for a major city does suggest the Hyperloop is more than a pipedream. It almost makes me want to move to a U.S. city that is willing to plan for the future, which in this case means catching up to modern world class cities that have efficient rail links from their downtowns to their airports.
May 2018 in Review
Most frightening stories:
- The idea of a soft landing where absolute dematerialization of the economy reduces our ecological footprint and sidesteps the consequences of climate change through innovation without serious pain may be wishful thinking.
- Lake Powell is in increasingly deep (actually shallow, ha ha) trouble.
- The American Academy of Pediatrics says climate change is already killing children.
Most hopeful stories:
- There are some new ideas for detecting the potential for rapid ecological change or collapse of ecosystems.
- Psychedelics might produce similar benefits to meditation.
- Microgrids, renewables combined with the latest generation of batteries, are being tested in Puerto Rico.
Most interesting stories, that were not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps were a mixture of both:
- I learned about the stag hunt, a cousin of the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory.
- Uber Air is looking a little more real. There are other ideas for autonomous urban helicopters too.
- Connecticut is the latest U.S. state to join the National Popular Vote Compact.