Bike-Friendly Business Districts

One of the newest trends in sustainable transportation is biking, more specifically Bike-Friendly Business Districts (BFBD's.)  BFBD's are areas in a city, or an entire city if possible, that have extra lanes for biking only, more bike racks and places to park bikes as well as businesses that are bike friendly.  There are many reasons why biking is a good alternative to driving, but now the benefits are starting to reach to the business as well.

When consumers use bikes to get around they typically will stay closer to home because of biking distance limitations.  When this happens they support local businesses more, which is better for the economy.  they typically will shop more in fact because they see every store at a slower speed and are able to have a better understanding of what is available.

In an update report on transportationissuesdaily.com, the question was asked about how hard it is to create BFBD like the ones in the East Village of NYC.  For some places where many have been biking for years, BFBD's are easy, it is just about officially setting up more bike parking (and bike valet's in some places.)  Some areas have had a flat 10% discount for costumers who arrive on bike, which has actually been as effective as expected.  It seems this is because most people who will shop on bikes will do so with or without a discount and not many are willing, or able to come from other districts.

It seems to me that BFBD can be a positive addition of any business district, as long as there are enough residents close by who can ride and bike to and from the store and there are safe ways for those bicyclists to get to and from the stores without having to compete to much with busy traffic.


For more information on BFBD read the following links:

http://www.transportationissuesdaily.com/whats-working-at-the-newest-bike-friendly-business-district/
http://www.transportationissuesdaily.com/emerging-trend-bicycle-friendly-business-districts/
http://www.transportationissuesdaily.com/nine-reasons-to-create-a-bicycle-friendly-business-district/

Cashless Tolls, Good or Bad

This past Thanksgiving weekend I was driving through New York, specifically the Yonkers and Bronx area, on my way home when all of a sudden with no warning there was a toll booth.  What made this toll booth odd was there were were NO cash options and we did not have an EZ pass on the car we were driving.  These cashless toll roads are becoming more popular around the country from major highways in Texas and Florida to California and New York.  In fact the new Scudders Falls Bridge, which spans the Delaware River for I-95, will soon be replaced with a cashless toll.  For those cars that do not have any EZ Pass system, like mine last weekend, a camera takes a picture of the license plate and a bill is sent home.  These are just part of the overall implementation of more technologies in transportation discussed in William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation chapter 21.

According to traffic planners working on projects like the Scudders Falls Bridge the new cashless tolls help reduce cost to run toll systems and speed up traffic. While this is true, there are some critics.  One of the biggest critics are tourists.  The big issue with tourists is that many will use a rented car and are unaware of the areas new tolling systems are will drive right through them.  The rental company then later gets the bill and will pass it on, sometimes with up to a $25 "administrative" fee.  One way that this is being combated is renting transponders that cashless toll systems use so that the renter can use the tolls and pay for them at the end of their trip.

I think that overall, while it may be a hassle to some people, in the long run this system will work.  Hopefully as more toll roads become cashless, more people will buy the transponders which is simple; EZ Pass only costs $10 per car with no other fees besides the tolls themselves.  Once a majority, or everyone with cars has transponders, then all toll booths can go cashless, saving money and speeding up traffic.

For more information please check out these two articles:

http://www.buckslocalnews.com/articles/2012/08/13/yardley_news/news/doc50285b6909974643223619.txt?viewmode=fullstory

http://www.elliott.org/the-navigator/cashless-toll-roads-another-hazard-for-car-renters/


What do you think?

CNN Predicting Transportation Change in Near Future

In a headlining article on CNN.com, CNN experts are predicting that the next 10 years will be a time of drastic change for the transportation industry.  Experts are predicting there will be changes in each of the big three transportation sectors; rail, air and automobile.

According to Brett Snyder, airline consumer expert, the trend of low-cost airlines will continue as they are the ones make most of the money.  But they will evolve to charge passengers for every from using the bathroom to possibly having standing-room-only sections on flights.  This could turn dangerous as those who can afford to pay will suddenly have all of the amenities while others will have little to no amenities or flying options, thus segregating the airline industry.  I think that the current model with most airlines sticking to tradition charging and services with some ultra-low cost airlines giving travelers cheap options is working and should remain the same.  If there is too much evolution to cheap flights, then the airline industry may not be able to sustain itself.

The article also address the importance of the new laws in California and Nevada allowing for driverless cars to be on the roads.  This will allow for more research and development and implementation according to some.  it is predicted that the current timeline shows that non-experimental driverless cars will be used within the next 5 years in states that allow it.  This could potentially be huge for the auto industry and driverless cars have the possibility of making roads more efficient and safer and thus more sustainable.

The article also touched on the use of rail lines in the near future.  The article points out that "more passengers have used Amtrak this year than ever before in it's 41-year history."  This is believed to have happened because of better service and better funding as the country looks for ways to improve it's transportation network.  It is even predicted that traveling between major cities by train on a daily basis will soon become a normal thing.  This could potentially make drastic changes to the transportation network of the future.  If the train industry begins to catch on again, then there is a possibility that if there is enough of a demand then more rail lines and stations will be built, thus further improving the rail industry.

It is clear that the US transportation industry is headed for some major changes, I am just not sure where they are headed, and how positive they will be.

What do you think?

For more information, check out the article yourself.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/27/travel/future-travel/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Thanksgiving Crashes Down Where Safety is Enforced

The week that revolves around Thanksgiving can always be a hectic one with traveling both for the holiday itself and the pseudo holiday that is Black Friday.  Because of this traffic is more congested and there are typically more incidents.  One state chose to take action this year and combat the annual traffic and accident nightmare.

This year Illinois implemented a new "Drive to Survive" campaign using both media PSAs and stricter enforcement to decrease motor vehicle crash fatalities by 63%.  In 2011, Illinois had seven crashes and eight fatalities with no special campaign and only two crashes and 3 vehicle fatalities over the same time period this year.  Illinois Transportation Secretary Ann L. Schneider says the improvement can be attested to "significant progress in recent years to improve traffic safety and reduce fatalities....and Thanksgiving holiday weekend was no exception."

For more information you can read the article below:

http://www.chillicothetimesbulletin.com/article/20121127/NEWS/121129694/-1/opinion

I think that this is finally an example of how a combination of enforcement and PSAs to decrease traffic incidents.  It seems other places typically try and have just PSAs or just enforcement.  I believe that a combination of every viable option is necessary, and this is proof.

What do you think?

Human Barriers, Helping Pedestrians??

Picture of human barriers near Lincoln Financial Field on game night.

Above you can see a picture that I took a while back leaving a Sunday night Philadelphia Eagles game.  The game was against the rivaled New York Giants so the crowds were expected to be higher than usual.  The area around the stadium has a lot of pedestrian traffic coming from the dozen or so massive parking lots that supply parking to most of the stadium.  Because of this, for this game the city lined some of the curbs around the stadium with pedestrian barriers.  This was obviously done to prevent pedestrians, especially ones under the influence of alcohol, from attempting to cross the street and obstruct traffic, or worse, be hit by a car.

While I think that in some cases this type of pedestrian protection is great, and I do believe that this may have helped, I think it also could have, and may have caused some issues.  For one thing, the barriers then corral pedestrians into the crosswalks, which cause a back up in pedestrian traffic.  This in fact causes pedestrians to then hope the barriers and walk in the roads.  I know this because I was one of those pedestrians who chose to jump over it at a point where the road was actually closed off to vehicular traffic.  I also witnessed several drunk pedestrians try to climb over them and fall, landing almost directly on their faces (luckily I saw no injuries.)

My point is, while these barriers were placed to make everyone safer and keep vehicular traffic moving, from what I saw they did more harm then good.

What do you think? 

Speed and Crashes

Chapter 14 of William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation discusses the role that speed limits play in sustainable transportation.  Black discusses how motors consume more gas and produce more emissions as speeds increase as well as congestion.  What I think the most important part about speed and sustainability is the number of crashes, both fatal and nonfatal, that occur because of the speed limits.

First off I would like to preface this post by saying that as a writer I can not write this post from an unbiased perspective as I live in a family who has lost family members due to driving accidents and almost lost more that was directly due to speeding.  I also find myself speeding quite a lot so I am pointing out that I am a hypocrite in many cases.

From William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation chapter 14, page 165.

The above chart is a break down of fatal and nonfatal crashes on the various classifications of roadways in the US.  According to Black, no real connection between speed and fatalities can be made in most cases.  I for one though would have to disagree.  There are many cases in which drivers are driving too fast and can not control themselves when presented with an obstacle or a possible incident, thus crash.  One could then say that those drivers were probably speeding and going above the speed limit and I would attend to agree with this statement.  So the real question is not if there is a correlation between the speed limit and crashes, but if there is a correlation between crashes and drivers exceeding the speed limit.  I would certainly think that there must be a correlation between these two things, as it is one of the main reasons not to speed.  For example, my mother was in a major car accident that led to several injuries.  The accident only happened because a teenage driver was speeding at 45 miles an hour in a 25 mile and hour speed zone over a hill and could not see her stopped for pedestrians and rear-ended her.  If the driver had been traveling the correct speed, the one that was designed for the hill, then the accident would either not have happened or not have been as serious.

The question then is how can we better enforce speed limits.  I think there are a few ways that this can happen.  One is to make fines for speeding higher enforcement must go up.  By enforcement I mean not having a car parked in plain view of everyone because many times that causes cars to suddenly slow down to speeds much slower then they need to.  As someone who regrettably does speed, I know that I slow down if I think I am being watched and would certainly slow down if it meant several hundred dollars in tickets as opposed to getting a ticket for a "dirty license plate" which I did receive once.

What do you think about speed and safety?

Policies Must Change

Chapter 13 of William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation, entitled "A Contimuum of Policies" is the first chapter the book's section on policy in sustainable transportation.  The chapter begins, as always with a quote, this time from Daniel Sperling who in 1995 said, "Government policy toward motor vehicles is fragmented and increasingly misguided, resulting in small environmental benefits being gained at exorbitant cost."  While I agree that there are certainly some bad decisions being made in policy throughout the country, and the world at various different levels, it is not always the fault of those in charge.  For example, the lowest level of policy makers for transportation are towns, cities and counties.  These policy makers can affect the level of sustainability in transportation by controlling land use by zoning, controlling some aspects of public transportation and controlling parking.  Some of these actions can take years to take place and can sometimes even conflict with themselves.  It is also hard for even a large county to properly make decisions as they run on what are usually small budgets and  little resources and can not make effective changes.

For many states, the same problems that have plagued local municipalities and counties have made it difficult for states to make major changes.  While they do have more resources and more power, states still have small populations relative to the rest of the nation and thus, can not make effective changes.  This seems to hold true for every state, except for California according to Black.  Because Southern California has had such horrible air quality problems since it's initial population, California has been one of the only state to pass effective and sustainable clean air and emissions acts and has essentially set itself to be the standard for the rest of the country.  California has even recently continued toward a more sustainable transportation future and has become the first state to legalize computer driven cars on the road.  Even though there are none on the commercial market, this will allow for the research to be completed.

I think for the rest of the country, and the world to properly begin to make sustainable transportation solutions, many aspects of how the state of California runs it's policy making should be studied and used elsewhere.  What do you think?

Reliable Urban Planning- Can it happen?

As sustainability and transportation sustainability become a bigger and bigger issue, urban planning, along with land use planning and design, is becoming much more common in many areas.  At one point everything naturally happened and evolved, if there was a thoroughfare, a population increased and all the needs of a population such as stores, entertainment and amenities would pop-up as well nearby and communities would become, to a certain level, self-sustaining.  But with the change in the world economy and how our civilization runs itself, such communities now must be planned to try to make transportation more sustainable.   One of the biggest ways that planners try and make transportation more sustainable is by reducing the number or required trips, or the number of wasted trips.

William R. Black goes into great detail about this Urban Planning in chapter 11 of his book Sustainable Transportation.  Black discusses the different models, including the gravity model, that have been used to model traffic flow and how people will move.  But as Black points out, there are new theories every day and no model as been definitively proven as one that works right.  It seems that it is pretty much impossible to affecting and accurately predict or model how  people will move.  For example, a model can not accurately predict that I may need to first drive over to Giant, then get a call and have to drive across to a friends house to pick them up, then once again go back to Giant because I forgot something, then head across town to a different store, then go to work...you see where this is going.  Along with this modeling, urban planners are now attempting to use zoning and new construction to build sustainable communities that harbor more sustainable transportation such as walking and can basically be self sustaining.

One example of this is the currently under construction City Center in Washington, DC.  The several block site will have apartments, condos, offices and retail.  It is being designed to be a green community type area that would have a lot of foot traffic and could potentially have people living, working and shopping in a several block area that self sustains itself.  the problem with this is that you can not decide who lives there and the rent is high because it is in downtown DC.  This will attract the upper class who can easily afford to travel wherever they wish.

This brings us to another issue that Black brought up.  Black brought up the issue that no matter how close you build what someone may need in a trip or how short you make the travel time, a human still may not go there or may take a longer travel time just by human error, a want to move about more, or the necessity to make multiple trips to different areas.

So the basic question is, can Urban Planning even help?  I do think that Urban Planning can help.  For example there are communities that area able to be relatively self sustaining such as Celebration, Florida which was built by Walt Disney Corporation.  While the community is based as close to the workplace of almost all of its residence and it has many of the amenities such as retail and health services, each house still has a 2-3 car garage which leads one to believe that there are many more trips leaving, or even around Celebration then initially designed.  I think that planing such as this can help, but it is impossible to plan for the human factor and impossible to plan and model the human races ever changing needs, especially when any infrastructure change can change those needs.

What do you think?

Pricing-Turn the Problem Into the Solution

You don't have to be a genius to know how bad our current economy is.  So many would think that the cost of traveling, especially via personal car is already high enough with the rising cost of gas, along with high prices cars, tolls and maintenance.  Many would look at this as the problem in transportation and is making it less sustainable.  But in fact, transportation authorities could turn this problem into the solution.  If certain aspects of the transportation industry were more expensive, it could force people into more of a multi-modal transportation system that relies on many different forms of transportation, thus making the system as a whole more sustainable.  This is exactly what chapter 10 of William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation entitled "Pricing and Taxation" is about.  Black even starts the chapter with a quote from Lee Schipper in 1996 saying "Any policies or strategies to reduce the problems of transport without strong pricing components will only produce weak results" (Black, 117.)

Black continues throughout chapter 10 by discussing several different ways that charging fees can be used to help make a system more sustainable.  These include congestion-free pricing, which are basically toll toads, congestion-free areas which areas in central business districts such as London and Singapore where cars are charged fees to drive through them, and various taxes for pollution, fuel and use.

While almost anyone would agree that at the surface, charging more does not sound like a good idea.  But in my mind I think that all of the different proposed ways of using taxes and fees to both make money and keep people off the road is a good idea.  While some would say that these fees could cause less business, I think that most business will stay afloat as most trips should just shift onto other, mostly more sustainable, forms of transportation.  I think that if driving were to become a luxury again, then the transportation system would adjust to make due to the necessary trips.  It would also encourage more sustainable villages and districts where more necessities are located close to each other to reduce the number of trips in general without decreasing business.

What do you think?  Do you think making personal transportation such as cars is a good idea?

Solutions-Policy and Technology

The domain of the policy-making unit must be congruent with the domain of the causes and effects of the problem with which the policy deals.  This is often called the principle of subsidiarity.

-Herman E. Daly and Joshua Farley (2004)

This is the quote that William R. Black starts off the 8th chapter with in his book Sustainable Transportation entitled "An Introduction to the Range of Possible Solutions."  In this chapter Black does not propose any specific solutions to the problem of our current unsustainable transportation system to any great extent, but simply proposes that there are two basic ways that one can look for solutions.  One can look to improve the transportation system via either policy changes or changes in technology according to Black.

Break Down:

Policy:

One way for the transportation sector to become more sustainable is for the government to create new policies.  These policies could range from changing the required average gas mileage on vehicles to how transportation systems are designed and tolled, to where funding goes and how the money is raised.  There are a million different ways to make policy changes to make transportation more sustainable, it is just a matter of finding the right combination.

Technology:

Along with the right combination of policy changes, technology changes must also exist.  These technology changes would most likely come from the private sector, with possible funding or help from the public sector.  These technologies would include smarter cars, better, safer forms of transportation that are more efficient as well.  Just like policy changes there is a multitude of technology advancement that can be made to make transportation more sustainable.  In fact, it is practically impossible to compile a list of all viable changes and advances that could be made.  While most of these are not aimed at fixing the entire problem, a combination of many of them could help fix the problem if done correctly and in time.

To conclude this summary I will refer back to Black's ending to chapter 8.  Black states that there are obviously many ways for both technology and policy changes to help fix our unsustainable transportation network, it just requires a population that is willing and able to implement these changes.  Some can be as simple as asking, or forcing, people to drive less like in the 1970's during the oil crisis, while others take more time and are much more complicated.  But until people step up and decide to do something, a list of ideas will do nothing.

A Reminder on Sustainability Part 2

Last post I reintroduced the idea of sustainability and sustainable transportation for those who may have lost sight in what it is.  This post I would like to revisit William R. Black's Chapter two of his book Sustainable Transportation entitled "The Historical Problem of Sustainability in the Transport Sector."

Black begins that chapter by setting a standard that "On their face, nearly all transport modes are sustainable. This is true whether we are looking at a horse and rider or a Cadillac Eldorado, a sailboat or a 747 airliner. The problem is the coupling of these various transport modes with excessive demand" (Black, 13.)  What Black is stating is that any has the potential to be sustainable and work, but only at a certain level, then once the demand for that system or the number of users for that system reach a certain level, it becomes unsustainable.  Black continues to go into many examples over the course of the human race where this is true.  The first example of this is the Mediterranean  Empires where the use of plank timber and horses became unsustainable.  Today it is almost impossible to find trees that produce plank timber because they were completely used for various uses including ships.  The use of horses throughout the Mediterranean causes an almost impossible to manage fecal matter build up as well as so much dust that there was a constant level of particulate matter in the air.  Later on in the time of the British Empire the same problem with wood and ships arose again as there was not enough available timber to continue to produce the number of ships that were needed.  The horse droppings issue also continued in the 18th and 19th centuries in every major city in the world as the cities became overrun with horses for travel.  Black continues to discuss the newer transportation technologies that include trains, planes and automobiles, as well as ships.  All of these systems would be sustainable at a low use level, but due to the size of the world and it's demand, none of them are sustainable in just about every category of sustainable transportation from safety to emissions to fuel consumption.

So what is the problem here?  The problem is that at every turn the human civilization has run into a major sustainability problem with it;s choice of transportation modes.  Even our current system has already been deemed completely unsustainable, with it's inevitable collapse in the foreseeable future.  So what has to be done?  The transportation sector needs to begin an extreme overhaul on itself.  It must begin to adapt to new technologies that might make some aspects of the system more difficult, but are more sustainable in the long run.  The system also needs to be more diversified and able to adapt so that future ideas do not become the sole type of transportation and thus become unsustainable.  A wide variety of sustainable transportation modes being used in moderation is the only way our system can continue to work.

A Reminder on Sustainability Part 1

With all this talk of sustainability and sustainable transportation, it can be hard to focus on what sustainability and sustainable transportation is, even when William Black in his book, Sustainable Transportation, gives a detailed and exact definition of what sustainability, especially when paired with transportation is.  I would like to take this time to lay out the aspects of sustainable transportation according to William Black in Chapter one of his book.

William Black uses the first chapter to define sustainability via several different definitions.  Black first quotes the Brundland report of 1987 that defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Black 3.)  This definition does not need to be changed much, if at all, to be a definition for sustainable transportation.  Black continues to discuss the many different ways that one could define sustainability and sustainable transportation but this is how I would define it:

Sustainable transportation is the multi-modal use of various transportation systems that do the following:
1.) Conserve non-renewable resources as to keep the cost of these resources economically affordable for current and future generations
2.) Utilize renewable resources, but at a rate that is slower than the regeneration rate
3.) Manage pollution to keep it at a level that can be repaired by the Earth's Natural systems in a timely fashion
4.) Make transportation available for all who need it without excluding a class or minority of people
5.) Make transportation efficient in time so that it is not a hindrance on society

While that is not the entire definition of sustainable transportation and does not include every facet, it is a good base understanding that can be applied and used when one is discussing sustainable transportation, in my mind at least.

What do you think?  Did I miss anything?

Congestion Pricing, Not a Bad Idea

Diagram of how properly located parking can help retain travel in CBD's after congestion pricing is implementet id   Courtesy of Professor Aly Tawfik. 

The past few classes we have begun to talk more about solving the problems of the world and particularly America's unsustainable transportation system and in William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation, Black goes into detail about how one of the ways solutions to basically every aspect that makes transportation unsustainable can be solved, or at least improved via pricing.  This pricing would vary from an increase in taxes or cost of transportation modes to tolls.  One of these tooling options is knows as congestion pricing.  Congestion pricing is currently being implemented in Singapore and London, where roads int he Central Business Districts (CBD's) are tolled via automated systems to try and demotivate people from traveling into what is generally considered the areas of highest congestion.  While some criticize this system I think it is a great idea.

Many will criticize congestion pricing or tolling roads in CBD's because it can take business away from those in the CBD due to the decreased travel.  But I think that if it is done correctly, then there should be less economic loss then there is economic and sustainable gain, if not no loss at all.  As Professor Tawfik explained in class, typically free parking should be provided just outside of the tolling area to allow outsiders to park near the CBD and taker public transportation or active transportation into the CBD.  This helps decrease the loss in traffic and business.  I also think that once there is less congestion, it will be easier to get around the CBD and park.  This could potentially increase business for stores and businesses that rely on ease of access to their property.

Overall I think that congestion pricing or tolling works and is a great idea.  It makes those who truely use the system pay for it more.

What do you think?

Not Tolling Roads for the Wrong Reasons

I have recently read an article in the Orange County Register about an approved expansion of a major highway.  The project will include the expansion in both directions of I-405 from Euclid Avenue and I-605.  this is a highly congested area of Orange County that is in dire need of transportation management to help alleviate congestion.  For the purposes of my next argument I would like to avoid discussing the issue of induced traffic and work with the current practice that adding a lane to a major highway can help since both options in this case included adding lanes, that is a different conversation for a different day.

I am extremely confused at the decision that was made by the Orange Country Transportation Agency (OCTA.)  I am not confused that they voted 12-4 to allow the expansion, I am confused that they voted down the proposal to include tolls on some of the lanes of the expansion.  It is estimated that these toll roads would decrease the current 57 minute and 54 minute northbound travels times in the general-purpose and carpool lanes respectively to 29 in general-purpose and 13 in the express lanes.  This alone should be a good reason to want to add tolls.  But the reason the board did not vote to include the tolls is mainly because they could not decide how the estimated $1.5 billion in toll revenue over 20 years would be spent.  The admitted reasoning behind their choice surprises me.  If they were to turn down the expansion entirely due to the idea that there is such a thing as induced traffic I would understand.  But the OCTA still chose to expand the road anyway with no tolls with the money coming from a previously approved half cent sales tax.  My main argument is that there are many ways, especially in California, that the money could be spent that could be decided later on at a more appropriate time.  I am further driven to believe this with the following quote from Chairman Paul Glaab.  Glabb was quoted in saying, "A lot more people are going to move in so it will become congested, and that's why some members wanted to go with the option that includes the toll component because we have proved in Orange County that our constituents will pay a premium in order to decrease the time they're spending in traffic."  Basically, Glabb, who is also the mayor of Laguna Niguel, is admitting that there would still be enough willingness to pay the tolls to justify approving the toll roads.  It just confuses me when in many other parts of the world, more tolls and costs are being added onto driving to try and make the system more sustainable, yet some are still being voted down, not because of the cost for drivers, but because of what seems like bureaucratic reasons.

The article can be found here:

http://www.ocregister.com/news/toll-375363-lane-lanes.html

Transportation Costs Rising

I recently found an article on Business Insider that presented an interesting piece of information.  According to the article, transportation (along with housing) costs have been steadily increasing "like clock work," but income has not.  The article states that according to the Center for Housing Policy, in the 25 largest U.S. metros, housing and transportation has gone up 44% in the past decade, while income as only increased 25%.  Te same report claims that for every dollar that is added to a persons income, they spend roughly $1.75 more on housing and transportation.

I also found this article on seattlepi.com about why in Seattle alone it is getting much more expensive travel.  The article describes eleven ways in which traveling will get more expensive ranging from higher gas prices and higher tolls to higher registration fees.  The increases are hitting every mode of transportation from personal vehicles to ferries and buses, even electric cars.

These two articles got me thinking.  Why is the cost getting so much higher?  It is not just because of the price of oil because these increases are across the board in many places.  I think it has to to with a growing country and a failing infrastructure that needs to money to stay afloat.  As I have stated several times, the US infrastructure could use several trillion dollars in improvements.  And while these all are not coming at once, repairs need to be made, and the money needs to come from somewhere.

As for now I am okay with the cost of driving, especially in metropolitan areas, increasing because hopefully it will spur a growth in public and more sustainable transportation, but overall this is not a good sign for the future.

For further reading please see the two articles:
http://www.businessinsider.com/housing-transportation-costs-are-rising-2012-10

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/transportation/article/10-ways-your-transportation-costs-are-going-up-3478560.php

MTA Hikes

As anyone could probably notice from my other blog posts, that I am a big proponent of finding ways to save money for both the government and the users of our transportation system.  Recently I read this article online about several proposed MTA rate increase.  Each of the proposals vary slightly, some charging more for daily use and some more for long term/unlimited passes while some are a combination of both.

I find this rather funny that I read this article about raising fares just after going through the list of many different ways to entire people to use public transportation as opposed to cars.  Now while I understand that  the MTA does need increases in revenue to make improvements and repairs, but I think that the money could be raised differently.  I think this because I run under the assumption that raising the cost of something will cause less people to use it, thus could drive more people to not use the public rail system.  Luckily these proposals would also increase rates for using MTA owed bridges so it might be more costly to drive across these bridges, but the changes may affect users of the rail more then those driving.

In my opinion I think the best way would be to increase fares just on the bridges to encourage more users of the rail system and raise the cost for single trips.  If someone plans on taking a single trip on the MTA they most likely will pay the extra dollar, while people who use it every day, the majority of the traffic, would not be affected.

What do you think?

For  the full artcile please click here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/mta-fare-hike-2013-unveils-four-proposals-125-monthly_n_1966975.html

E-Tickets...finally

The MTA has announced that they are currently looking into and planning on developing an E-ticket program that would allow passengers to purchase tickets ahead of time and present them upon arrival.  Two different systems are being considered, one that involves per-purchasing a ticket then printing it out, and the other is a bar code that can be displayed via a smart phone and scanned by the conductor.  Either of these systems would make it much easier for the average user to take a train.  This would decrease the wait time for tickets for those who still would rely on the paper, bought at the station tickets, and would allows those who use the new system to bypass the lines entirely.  This could also alleviate stress as people would not need to worry about showing up early for a train and could essentially show up right as the train is about to leave and still get on without being charged extra. The MTA expects the system to start user testing in mid- to late-2013.

I personally think that this is a great idea...yet is also a bit late.  While I knew there was no electronic ticketing system, I was actually surprised once I thought about it.  Our world is constantly being integrated with mobile technologies and this is the next logical step, but other transportation sectors have already been using electronic tickets.  The aviation industry has been using e-tickets for several years now and it would seem to me that that air travel requires more security and planning ahead where e-tickets would be more easily hackable or not necessary for lines.  It just seems to me that this is the next logical step for train transportation and I am surprised it has taken this long for an e-ticket system to be even thought of.

Either way I am excited to see how it turns out.

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20121013/NEWS01/310130010/MTA-plans-e-ticket-app?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|PoughkeepsieJournal.com|s

Chevy Volt...a good start

With all the talk that everyone has been involved in about global warming, the soon to be oil crisis and the general fact that our current transportation system is unsustainable, I thought I would like to make a comment about one type of transportation that seems to be heading in the right direction, the Chevrolet Volt.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia (wiki/Chevrolet_Volt)

For those of you who don't know the Chevy Volt is a combination electric and gasoline powered car.  The Volt is the most fuel efficient car with a gasoline engine in America as rated by the EPA.  The mileage rating is slightly confusing because of the system that it runs on.  It is officially rated at 93 miles per gallon equivalent  which takes into consideration both the gas and electric engine.  How it works is initially the electric battery runs the engine until the power is drained, then the gas engine kicks in have and helps the electric until the destination is reached.  One can simply plug in the car anywhere they go to recharge the battery.  I even saw one this past weekend plug into a normal outlet with a special adapter at parking lot at a farm.

The question now is, is this helping us?  Is it leading us in the right direction?  I think it is.  Most cars in the US have fuel mileage int he 20's and 30's and SUV's are in the teens.  So to see a car with an almost triple digit MPG rating is exciting to me.  Now I know that this is not the final solution and I know that this is actually not really making a dent.  We still need transportation modes that are independent of oil entirely and ones that can run on electricity not generated by fossil fuels.  But it is certainly a step in the right direction.

What are your thoughts?


For further reading please check out these websites:

http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car/faq.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt#Fuel_economy

Deadline Nearing, Where's the Money?

The Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port Security Bond Act of 2006, which was approved by California voters as Proposition 1B on November 7, 2006, allows for $2 billion to be spent in various sectors of the transportation in California.  I recently read an article online about this act and how the deadline for construction to start on a group of projects associated with this act is approaching fast.  Through this act the Trade Corridors Improvement Fund has a set a number of over or underpass projects in Riverside and San Bernadino County's, an area known as Inland that have yet to be started.  These over/underpasses are located in a heavy transit area where traffic is stopped on major roads every time trains cross the roads.

The theory behind these renovations is that when there are less rail road crossings in populated areas, then traffic is decreased due to less stoppages and dangerous emissions will decrease because less trucks and cars will be idling while waiting.  These changes can also decrease the delivery time goods because of this decrease in road traffic.

The only issue is that 14 of these projects have yet to start and if they do not start by the end of 2013 they lose their funding.  If these jobs are not started, $114.5 million in state bond funds to help build an estimated $535.6 million worth of rail road grade separations.  The reason these jobs have not gone through is that there is still an issue finding the funding for these projects.

This can seem very confusing to me, and I am sure it can be confusing to others as well since this funding is supposedly already guaranteed from the bonds.  This is what I think is a major part of the problem that we are having in this country.  This country needs trillions of dollars of improvements in its infrastructure and could also use the economic boost that would go along with it and there is always an issue with where the money comes from.  I understand that money does not grow on trees, but I think that the system becomes messy and complicated when acts are passed that do not already have the money in place for them.

The good news behind this is that when these 14 projects are put in place the Public Works Department will not be able to handle all the work and will need to sub-contract out the work to other companies, thus adding more work to the area.

For further reading please read this article:

http://www.pe.com/local-news/transportation-headlines/20121007-inland-construction-deadline-bearing-down-on-inland-rail-crossing-projects.ece

or the web page for the Trade Corridor Improvement Fund:

http://www.catc.ca.gov/programs/tcif.htm

Less Roads, Less Traffic

Chapter Seven of William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation discussed urban sprawl and congestion.  In class we also discussed this topic and induced traffic was brought up by the end of class.  Induced traffic is the topic of an article posted by Professor Tawfik by the Seattle Time's Eric Pryne in his article entitled "When roads are widened, travel can rise drastically."  Induced traffic is the basic theory of "if you build it, they will come."  If a new lane or road is built, traffic may actually increase according to this relatively new theory.  Pryne's article discusses the widening of a bridge on interstate 90 that has actually caused an increase in traffic congestion, not a decrease.

I have taken this information and have thought about a different yet very similar theory that was also discussed in class.  The theory is that if you REMOVE a lane of travel, the number of trips could decrease and in fact decrease enough to cause less congestion.  I think this is currently happening on Lafayette College's campus.  With the current quad construction, the stretch of High Street/Sullivan Road near Acopian and Markle Hall is currently set at one way traffic into campus, but one must drive around South College Drive or down Sullivan Road toward the Fishers to get off campus.  While one would think this can cause more congestion and traffic, it seems to have done the opposite.  There seems to be less traffic on all roads.  In my opinion this is an example of the opposite of induced traffic.  Basically, since there are less options there is less of a demand.

I also think that once the Quad construction is done this reduced traffic will continue due to the lack of driving options around campus, especially since there is a lack of parking.

What is your opinion?

Injuries Vs. Fatalities

So right off the bat, here are some quick statistics on traffic related accidents.  Throughout the world there are roughly 1 million fatalities per year with 70 million injuries.  For the US there is roughly 40,000 fatalities per year and 2.5 million injuries per year.

After discussing the issue in class and reading over William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation it seems that there are two different ways to try to increase safety.  One is to try to prevent automobile deaths and the other is to try to prevent automobile injuries.  The difference is while one tries to prevent major accidents in situations that lead to fatalities while the other tries to make cars and systems safer so that when accidents happen, there are less injuries.

Surprisingly enough, much of this decisions on safety are based on cost.  There are relatively specific numbers on the cost of an accident and who bares these costs (seen below.)  Car companies, legislators, and transportation engineers look at this data to decide what type of safety measures should be taken.

Personally, I think that avoiding death is a much better decision as opposed to avoiding injuries because injuries are going to happen no matter what anyone does.  Accidents will happen because many are dependent on human error, which I feel can not be stopped in an economically sustainable way.  But fatalities are certainly something that can be reduced both via transportation engineers and automobile manufacturers.

What is your opinion?

Cost Break-Down of an accident courtesy of Professor Aly Tawfik

An Alternative Needs To Be Found

This week in class we have been discussing and reading about the world's dwindling oil reserves. Now as a civil engineering major I have been reading and discussing this fact for almost 4 years now, and more if you count high school sustainability classes. But I think it is still shocking how few people seem to know how much oil is left and how much of a crisis we are on the verge of being in. And the amount of recoverable oil left in the ground is not even the only issue with oil reserves.

The big issue is the growing use of automobiles in the world. Currently the world has used roughly one third of it's oil supply. But that is just with the number of automobiles that have been in use since the beginning. A big problem is that while some countries are leveling off or even decreasing the use of personal cars, other developing countries are expanding. As seen below, the number of vehicles per capita will drastically increase over the next 50 years.

When you look at the data, you can see that while the US is expected to have a similar vehicle per 1000 people ratio (around 70-80%), the numbers for countries like China and India are going to skyrocket from less than 10% to 50 and 25% respectively. Many will counter this data with numbers that show how cars are becoming much more efficient and alternative fuels are being developed. But I do not think this is enough. We will eventually run out of oil, which means higher costs for many oil based products, not just transportation.

What do you think our next step should be? Should we try and stop the growth of personal automobiles? Or should we just find ways to make them efficient enough?

The following images are courtesy of Google Public Data Explorer.

Let's Give Them More Colors

For those of you who do not know, my uncle worked for NJ DOT for many years and the number one thing he complained about was a lack of respect from drivers on the road.  He would tell me how most drivers see the yellow flashing lights on the top of a truck, even a plow, and dismiss them because they know that DOT can not arrest them and they are not as important as the red/blue/white combination that emergency vehicles such as police and EMT's.

While this may not seem like a big issue, it can be.  Just this Friday, 9/21, a DOT worked was killed in Missouri while helping direct traffic around a previous accident.  The article can be found here.  The worker was hit by a drunk driver with a BAC of .184.  While this clearly was a result of drunk driving it brings up the issue of visibility, especially at night, of construction or emergency detours.  In my opinion I think that if the detour had the red and blue flashing lights, the drunk driver would have noticed these lights and recognized them faster.  This would also apply for sober drivers.  Drivers associate the red and blue lights as a more important and official disturbance in traffic and generally react faster in my opinion.

What do you think?  Do you think using red and blue lights with more DOT projects and emergency traffic changes would be effective or damaging?

We should all slow down

After reading chapter four in William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation, I think that is is practically impossible to say that driving fast is good for the environment.  It seems to me that they were doing the right thing in 1973 when the government passed the National Maximum Speed Law.  The law prohibited speeds greater than 55 miles per hour on any road.  This was done in response to the oil crises, but also could still help with emissions and urban air quality today.  Please reference the below graphs courtesy of William R. Black's Sustainable Transportation, chapter 4.

As one can see from the above graphs, as average trip speed increases the amount of pollutants being released into the air decreases, then bottoms out and increases again.  The point at which cars begin to become more hazardous again ranges depending on what is being released and what criteria you are looking at.  But it is clear that driving above 60 mph is never good for both fuel economy and toxic gas release.

My question to you is this.  Do you think that a standardized speed limit that keeps cars running at a more efficient level is worth it?  Could a system be put in place that monitors cars speeds and rewards those who stay below the requested efficient speed levels?

Transit Priority in San Francisco

After reading Willaim R. Black's Sustainable Transportation: Problems and Solutions chapter 3 on sustainable transportation planning I decided to do a little research and see who was doing what.  I found throughout my research that San Francisco runs its traffic planning by one rule that many planners do not, the rule of transit priority.  It is a very simple concept that can mean a lot.  Simply put, the new traffic plans must set public transit and other forms of traffic before personal automobiles.  As discussed in this blog post, the city is currently installing transit priority traffic lights that use GPS systems located in transit buses to keep the lights green for buses.  This decreases both travel time for those using the transit system and decreases the amount of environmental damage done by idling buses.

I think that this is a brilliant idea.  I personally believe that many people do not use public transportation because it takes too long to the desired destination because of the frequent stops and ability for large buses to get stuck in traffic.  Hopefully, decreased travel time will entice more people to use the public transit buses which should decrease traffic overall as there would be less people using their cars.

What do you guys think?

Ticket's Please, Soap Please

I'll be totally honest, when Professor Tawfik emailed the class saying we did not have a lecture Wednesday  I was happy. I had a decently bad cold that was not making life any fun and making it quite difficult to concentrate.  This got me thinking about communicable diseases and viruses such as the common cold, the flue, pink eye, and various others and how they interact with our current transportation system.

Now many people can have a cold and get to work, or school on their own via personal transportation and only affect those they directly work with.  But there are even more people who every day rely on public transportation such as buses and trains to get everywhere they need to be whether they are contagious or not.  I say contagious because most people know that you can feel fine, but have a virus in you that can spread to others and not even realize it.  All it could take to infect an entire bus is for someone with a cold to get on the a bus in the morning and grab the handrail as they climb the steps.  Once this happens anyone else who grabs that handrail, sits in the same seat, or even sits near them could get the virus.  Obviously public transportation systems are cleaned.  According to Akron, Ohio's Metro website, each bus is cleaned "thoroughly" at the end of each day. (link at bottom of page)  While this certainly would help, it does nothing for pathogens that are passed throughout the day.

My question for everyone is, would it be worth installing hand sanitizer on buses, trains or at the bus/train stops?  This would obviously amount to a decent cost for any city, even a small one to retrofit dispensers in hundreds of places.  But if used properly, the number of miss work days could add up to a significant amount, thus improving the community greatly.  What do you think?

http://www.akronmetro.org/metro-riding-faqs.aspx

Predicting Urban Sprawl

After a brief discussion in class pertaining to Urban Sprawl, I decided I wanted to do a little more research on the subject.  After a brief web surfing session I found an interesting article on Nasa's web page about urban sprawl and how NASA and other private companies are helping local planers.  You can find the article by clicking here.  As one can see in the picture below, urban sprawl can be quite drastic in many areas.  While the Baltimore area grew over 200 years, there are many other clear cases of similar sprawl that occurred over an even shorter time period.

Map of urban sprawl around Baltimore, Maryland over 200 years courtesy of USGS.

What is interesting about the historical imaging that we have access to is that it can be used in future urban and transportation planning.  The problem used to be that there was no way for local planners to get all this information and properly analyse it.  But now there is a program through UConn called Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO).  This program can take past and current urban data to predict various urban sprawling scenarios to help urban planners plan for the future in a more sustainable way.

NEMO is just one f many different programs that uses historical data as well as actual areal imagery to help planners see how urban sprawl is affecting areas in categories such as population density, forest fragmentation and percentage of impervious surfaces.

How else do you think aerial images could help the transportation sector?

The Model Failed

Our last class session we spoke about traffic modeling.  We discussed the numerous demand inputs that the models need to be able to analyze real world situations so that traffic routes can be determined.  This got me thinking about my daily commute home from work every day this past summer.  Below I have attached a photo of just a roughly one mile section of road that I had to drive.  My route took me from rt. 22 to rt 206/202 and then bypass over the Summerville Circle.  In the picture I have color coated the traffic congestion that I drove through.

Color description of Summerville Circle Delay Traffic at any given time of day.

This small, 1 mile section of two different highways usually took me at least 10 minutes on a good day and put me in many merging situations that almost caused crashes.  The traffic is entirely caused by back up at the Summerville Circle.  Despite the fact that I was not going on that circle, traffic going onto it was back up all the way to the beginning of the red line on rt. 22 as seen above.  Some people may say that an extra few minutes does not mean much.  But this is a huge problem.  The emissions out of each vehicle stuck in this traffic adds up, especially when there are several situations exactly like this on my route home alone.  Plus, time adds up.  The amount of time wasted in traffic is astronomical and needs to be changed.

My only question is, who modeled this?  Why should a someone who is not going onto a circle be affected by traffic that is back up on two different on/off ramps?  Upon further inspection most would notice that there is a free lane that travels around this traffic.  The problem is it also grinds to a halt because of the traffic in the lane next to it that is stopped as well as because of the many other drivers trying to merge in and out of it because of the off ramp to the circle.

I fully understand that traffic is always going to exist.  And in some ways I am sure that it is necessary.  But I do not understand how idiotic how a simpler solution to this could not be found in the complicated modeling process done to design roadways.

My question to everyone else is this.  How much time, money and effort should be spent on solving problems such as this?  Is there an economic benefit in doing so?  And do you think that enough people care?

A Lack of Real Demand

I was reading a blog post by my good friend Stephy on our class discussion about demand and supply in the transportation sector.  She mentioned how she was happy that while she cold not think to deep about it, her classmates did.  The post can be read here.

I wanted to make a comment, but also one different enough to warrant my own post.  I would have to completely agree with Stephy, and also empathize with her because I was in the exact same position.  As we got into the conversation I thought of more answers for both demand and supply but it took the spark of the rest of the class.  Now one must remember that both Stephy and I are senior Civil Engineering students who have had experience with both supply and demand, and transportation topics before.  Yet we still had this issue.  It made me realize that most people probable don't really know what they want or what goes into designing transportation systems, also known as the demand.  While I don't expect that average Joe, or Jane, to understand the complexities of transportation engineering, it certainly would be easier to design systems if the general public worked better with those who have the power to make changes.

I say this because it is obvious that a major change, one that will affect everyone in major ways, is going to happen in our lifetime.  (If you could not tell that this is a running theme in my posts then I suggest you read the others more carefully.)  Any major change in the infrastructure, especially in the US, needs to have a huge support system from the general public or it will never work.  For instance, say the people of a city blindly demand more public transportation.  The city then sees an opportunity to improve traffic and happiness, a factor in quality of life, and adds a new rail line.  But if the people of the city generally did not want trains, and instead wanted a more flexible bus system, then the demands of the city were not truly met.  Now I know that this is a crazy example, but I still think that it is applicable.  My point is, I think the general public needs to be more educated on what demands are used in the transportation system of demand and supply.  If this were to happen, then not only would the people be able to better help those who take surveys and evaluations of what the population needs, but the general population would probably react better to both major and minor changes in transportation.  (If you have ever spoken to locals who feel even the slightest bit affected by the most minor changes in traffic plans then you know what I mean.)

So in conclusion, my challenge is for more public education of the demand and supply system for the transportation sector to allow for more free flowing thought and faster, more efficient, and less hated changes.

The future looks bleak...and expensive.

Not to sound like a self named prophet standing on a milk crate in the middle of a city screaming the end is coming, but the end is coming, for affordable petroleum-based transportation.  The cost of oil and gas as increased dramatically over the past decade or so, and shows no sign of getting cheaper.

Gas Prices around the world courtesy of motherjones.com

In fact, prices will continue to increase as oil becomes more scarce until oil is too expensive for any practical use.  Now many see this as a reason to go out and buy a hybrid car, then an electric car, or maybe not buy a car at all and rely on public transportation if possible.  But this will not solve the problem.  Oil is used in every transportation sector from personal transportation to commuter and mass transit to the ever necessary shipping and delivery of every day goods across the world.  The cost to drive to work will be pointless if one can not even afford to buy a box of cereal for breakfast or a clean pair of clothes to wear.

Large scale shipping seems to be an issue that very few are thinking about.  The entire would could go out tomorrow and start using electric cars and the mass transit systems could run off electricity generated from non-petroleum sources, but our world's shipping solutions would not be solved in the least bit, not to mention overseas personal transportation.

This is not something that is going to start affecting our great great grandchildren.  This is something that is going to affect me, you and everyone else in our generation.  And it is about time that we start making serous adjustment and advances in alternative fuels. 

Infrastructure Spending can help economy

There is no denying that our county, just like much of the world, if going through a tough economic battle.  There are as many would tell you, many different things the government could do (or not do) to get us ou  t of these trying times.  There are also just as many would would tell you how all those ideas are wrong and would send us spiraling into a deeper depression.  Well here's one more crazy idea from an engineer who doesn't really think it's crazy at all. Infrastructure Spending.

The U.S. infrastructure could use at least $2-3 trillion of improvements by various estimates.  These improvements would go towards roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, mass transit, shipping and various other items such as dams and power plants.  These are are vital to both the everyday lives of Americans and the long term future of our civilization. (Have you ever head on Rome's great social service system? No.  But you sure have heard of their great roads.)

While many, including me, say that to much government spending is bad, this type of spending is good, and here is why.  As long as the spending of the trillions of dollars of money works under the various "Buy American" Acts, requiring government money to be spent on US products, the spending will cause a multiplying affect.  The improvements to the infrastructural will create thousands, if not millions of jobs.  Instead of spending money on social services that help people get by and maybe help pay for a little bit of college, construction jobs can lead to full time employment along with benefits and a good life style.  The trillions of dollars would then be put right back into the hands of working Americans that can then lead to more jobs in every other sector of the economy.  This is called Keynesian Economics.  For a more formal and lengthy explanation of this, see this article in Business Insider titled Yes, It's Time For A Massive Infrastructure Spending Program.  For a further debate on this style of stimulus see this video from Fox News.

Truthfully, no one knows how a massive overhaul of the U.S. infrastructure would affect the economy.  But it IS something that is needed before it completely crumbles and this style of economics has been proven to work in the past.

Tango Traffic-what is it...and do we need it

Tango Traffic

http://tangotraffic.com/

Tango Traffic is a traffic website and 24-hour TV station that I recently found late night.  In fact it was 2 of my brothers who found it and kept it on because of the good rock music they were playing.  Basically, Tango gives constant traffic reports for the Philadelphia area with more cities to come.  During the day it seems that there are live shows and traffic reporters giving their analysis to the current traffic.  But when I have watched the channel, there seems to be just a random shuffle between all the traffic cameras in the Philly area.  The website also has a blog with articles as well as links to all the traffic cams, weather as well as public transportation informations and scheduling.

Now some people may think that this is amazing and a great resource.  But at the same time some would look at this as a waste of money, resources and usless.  In my opinion, I think that if used right, this could be a very valuable website.  The best way to use this site would be too use the site and station for research, especially if you were new to the area.  You could esily see traffic patterns that include when and where congestion is and where upcoming construction will be so that your commute can be as short as possible.  And if that doesn't work...they play a good mix of classic rock.

Does transportation run us, or do we run transportation.

I think that this is actually a pretty difficult and complicated question.  If you look at it from a day-to-day situation, I think that transportation runs us.  At any given moment, unless of course you are beyond rich and have anything and everything at your disposal, you are limited by how you can move about the world.   For example, if you are in a city, with no personal car, you are limited to public transportation or active transportation to get your from point a to point b.

BUT, if you look at it from a global perspective and over more than just a one or two day time scale, I feel that we controll transportation.  The world is always changing and so are the means that we use to get from one place to another.  The Eisenhower administration is a great example of this.  Before this time, most long distance transportation was via train due to a lack of good roadways.  But Eisenhower built countless miles of roads and highways and completely changed America to be dependant of personal automobile transportation.  While on a day-to-day plan we are forced by this decision to use cars, we as a county, and as a world, have decided to let cars become our main source of transportation.