POLITICAL PARTIES, THREE-AXES, AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT (Part 1 of 6)

I contributed to a series of posts about the politics of transport with David Levinson at The Transportationist. Here is part one. (Link fixed)

How Much Money Do You Really Save Switching to Transit?

The American Public Transportation Association released their August transit savings report, which means my social media feeds are swamped with claims that people can save large sums of money every year if they just switched to transit from owning a car. These reports are issued regularly, and I'm always surprised that they get some people so excited each time they are released. Could it be true that the average individual will save $10,064 per year if they just get rid of their car and switch to transit? That's the claim this month.

There are three ways to look at the $10,064 per year difference. First, people are really dumb and don't realize that they are just throwing that amount of money away each year. Second, the value that people get from owning a car is worth more than $10,064 more than transit annually so they are happy to pay it. Third, the APTA numbers are wrong. I don't think the first explanation is true. If it is, then what does it mean for transit policy that $10,000 per year in cash isn't enough to get people to switch? The second is plausible but will have strong income effects. The third option is probably the best one.

APTA uses the AAA guidelines for estimating auto costs. The key aspects of the AAA estimates that distort the APTA calculations are that AAA assumes a purchase of a new car for financing and depreciation, with five year terms for loan repayment and depreciation, and that the driver averages 15,000 miles per year. These are not realistic assumptions.

If you drive 15,000 miles per year you are covering a lot of ground and almost certainly doing most of it on highways. Average annual VMT in the US is now about 9,300 and has been declining since the mid-2000s. Just as a matter of practicality, it is nearly impossible to substitute a lifestyle with 15,000 annual miles driven with one where transit is used for all trips. To do so would require relocating home, work, shopping, etc. Someone who can switch from driving to transit is someone who doesn't drive much. Let's say that if you average 6,000 miles per year (estimate based on 2/3 of US average, and the average local transit trip being under five miles) you are a good candidate for getting rid of your car. Then assume (using data from page 6 of this report) that AAA's per mile operating costs of 16.3 cents the operating costs are $978 per year. Add the cost of a brand new sedan of $4,516 per year and the cost of a new car, including financing and depreciation, is $5,494, or about $460 per month. This is still higher than transit by quite a bit, but it is a lot lower than APTA claims.

It is certainly possible to own and operate a car for less than $5,500 per year, but even if that is the baseline number. For local transit you will spend $75-115 per month on an unlimited pass. If the pass is $90, then cash savings per month are $370, or $4,440 per year. This is still substantial even if still overstated. But it is far less than $10,000. It is not unreasonable to think that people value the speed and accessibility autos provide at more than $4,440 per year. They may even want more transit options but at present are acting completely rationally by not using transit.

So bully for APTA for getting people excited about transit savings with their reports, and these are advocacy reports that should be treated as such. I just wish they would no longer be reported as matters of fact. If we are to believe APTA's numbers we should ask what is so terrible about transit that people are willing to pay so much to avoid it. Transit is, of course, mostly not terrible. We know that if transit represents good value people will take it. For most people most of the time it does not represent better value than driving, however.

Who Blames Roger Rabbit?

Mixed traffic streetcars are all the rage right now. Just in the past week Tuscon, Arizona started operations and Washington, D.C. started training for new lines. Dozens of other cities are planning or proposing similar systems. These are almost all bad projects because the trains operate in mixed traffic. The D.C. system, while on it's first day, highlights some of the problems:

On a day when the District wanted to show how four streetcars operating together for the first time on H Street Northeast would blend with the usual traffic flow, the system encountered the kinds of problems that have raised questions about whether streetcars will be able to efficiently move people once passenger service begins this year.
...
Starting at the intersection of H and 3rd Streets Northeast, the first streetcar, piloted by D.C. native Saundra Harrison, lurched into traffic on its fixed track shortly after 10 a.m. 

“Today I guess there are just more people watching,” said an excited Harrison, who has been operating the streetcars on the isolated Anacostia test track.

Her excitement was short-lived. She maneuvered the hulking red and gray vehicle just a few blocks before she had to stop. A fire truck and ambulance were blocking the tracks in the heart of the H Street commercial district, tending to an injured pedestrian.

 Of course keeping a clear lane is a matter of enforcement, but I'm starting to think that Roger Rabbit is to blame for such blind support for mixed traffic streetcars, and that's a shame.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was a movie that helped popularize the myth that there was a grand conspiracy, masterminded by General Motors, to demolish the streetcar systems of the U.S., in particular the Red Cars (error fixed) in Los Angeles. This conspiracy myth has been popularized for decades. It is not true. It follows that if the main reason streetcars disappeared is because of nefarious action on the part of an auto company, then simply building new streetcar systems will help regain what was lost. This if/then scenario assumes away operational deficiencies that are the true reason streetcars failed. Which leads to today's mixed traffic systems.

If the dominant narrative about the decline of streetcars focused on operational problems (including not enough fare revenue to support maintenance) I doubt there would be the enthusiasm for mixed traffic streetcars we see today, and perhaps we could focus on more important public investment for transit. We should blame Roger Rabbit.

From the Wayback Machine: 1992 was the year when everything changed (but not really)

I'm doing a bit of research on historical trends in transport planning, and part of this is trying to figure out the periods when we thought we figured it all out and things were going to change. Every few years we go through phases with lots of claims about how Things Are Different Now For Our Cities. Back in 1992, according to the Wall Street Journal, New Jersey was at the forefront of the nation's shift towards mass transit:

NEWARK, N.J. -- The conventional wisdom for solving the nation's transportation problems, from traffic jams, to deteriorating highways, to pollution, has always been simple: throw money at them. So why has New Jersey canceled $1.2 billion in new highway projects?

Backed by $5.65 billion in federal funds from a new six-year, $151 billion transportation bill, New Jersey officials are making an all-out effort to wean commuters from their autos and the crowded highways. Instead of spending on road projects, they have decided to gamble on mass transit, doubling the state's investments to $580 million in the fiscal year beginning July 1. They plan to tie the state together with low-pollution rail systems-and hope that tens of thousands of commuters use it. And if commuters don't, they'll find the highways even more crowded due to the lack of spending.

Despite Americans' longstanding love affair with the car, some say New Jersey is showing the way to a nation increasingly fed up with traffic and pollution. "We are watching New Jersey closely," says A. Ray Chamberlain, executive director of Colorado's Department of Transportation.

The story goes on to note that Colorado had just cancelled a large road project and did build some bike infrastructure.  There was also a description of the "life style changes" that were occurring and a new penchant for some ridesharing services:

Nonetheless, New Jersey's optimistic planners contend that the changes in its transportation policy will bring big changes in life styles. More people will share rides to work. Others will become telecommuters, linked to their offices through computers and telephone lines. And as more people use improved mass transit, suburban families may be able to shed their second cars.
The planners cite life-style changes in Portland, Ore., which froze the number of parking spaces downtown and built a light rail line. Since opening in 1986, the rail line has attracted more than $800 million of office, retail and residential development near train stations. "A lot of people are riding transit to downtown, and they are coming downtown not just for work but also for shopping and recreation," says Keith Bartholomew, staff attorney for a nonprofit land-conservation organization in Portland.
Lawrence Dahms, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission of the San Francisco Bay Area, also points to life-style changes. He says that in the mornings, commuters now line up along streets in Oakland and Berkeley to get rides to downtown San Francisco. By teaming up, the drivers and their passengers can use the high-occupancy vehicle lane approaching the Bay Bridge and save about 25 minutes compared with motorists driving alone. Mr. Dahms also says new Amtrak train service between San Jose and Sacramento has caught on fast, with ridership far above expectations.

These types of stories are compelling, but the above WSJ story could be written today almost verbatim, and there is no shortage of other similar stories from other years. For whatever meager gains we have realized toward transit, walking, cycling and shared vehicles, we haven't gotten very far for the amount of money and effort expended.  

 

Celebrating Transit for Others

This post is cross-posted at Streets.mn.

Light rail is in the news this week because of the opening of the Twin Cities' Green Line. I noticed this ribbon cutting picture in the Star Tribune's coverage:

I noticed that the people taking credit for the new line (which is what a ribbon cutting photo-op is for) are excited white people. They are not representative of transit ridership by any stretch. So I looked for other recent light rail line openings. Here is the Houston Red Line from a few months ago:

From Phoenix, Arizona a while back:

Salt Lake City's Trax extension last year:

Bayone, New Jersey:

They celebrated Dallas's DART with cake:

And then (because they were full of cake?) the guys celebrating DART made the train drive through the ribbon:

These are not systematically chosen photos. They are just the first few I could find through Google that were confirmed recent light rail openings. 

Perhaps it doesn't matter than those taking credit for new transit systems are very different from the riders who rely on the systems daily. It certainly isn't a very diverse group taking credit. I suspect it does matter, however. Here is a chart from Tom Sanchez's work on equity analysis of transportation funding (also see Moving to Equity, on which he was lead author):

The takeaway is not that all transit or transport decisions should be made by key users. Rather, the decision making and credit taking people are much more likely to be white (and wealthier) than the typical user. In terms of transit, few of those cutting ribbons are even regular transit users. Perhaps if the entire planning process reflected the communities being planned than the current public process could be reconsidered. It would at least be nice to have the communities who are supposedly benefiting from these new investments share the stage and enthusiasm with the ribbon cutters. Transport planning, especially transit planning, is not something that should be done unto others. 

Transportation in Transition, Again and Always

In 1982 Milton Pikarsky and Christine Johnson published a paper titled "American Transportation in Transition."

Here are the opening paragraphs:

Today, the United States is in a transportation crisis which is of a chronic nature. It may not be sudden like the gas lines of 1974, but it is consistent and the pressures of this crisis are deepening. And because its gradual nature allows people and institutions to adjust, the crisis changes the transportation system more fundamentally than transitory gas lines or transit stop pages.

The current picture of public transportation is bleak. Indeed, each new wrinkle in the financial problems faced by the transit industry brings warnings that a breakdown of public transportation service could initiate a domino effect resulting in an urban economic collapse.

And the conclusion:

Private citizens will have to adjust to the fact that traditional transportation is likely to cost more. To reduce some of those costs, they may have to become vanpool riders or drivers, participate in neighbourhood auto mobile cooperatives, or occasionally rent automobiles or use taxis as alternatives to purchasing second cars. A variety of private transportation providers may once again become party to the transportation social contract. There is evidence that developers, too, may become party to the contract. In an attempt to make their suburban residential and commercial space more attractive, many developers are underwriting bus or shuttle services or arranging van- and carpools.  

Given the position and needs of the various principal actors, it is likely that private employers and providers will become much more involved with the direct provision of surface transportation in the future. In the best and worst of extremes, an individual could face a variety of options and a maze of prices depending on the mode, time of travel, destination, and the number of people travelling. The solution to these new transportation problems may define the future role of the public sector. Rather than owning and operating systems, the public sector may become more of a travel information broker, a facilitator, a technical adviser, and a manager of a set of service contracts.  

There is little question that the process of renegotiating the transportation social contract has begun. Each party is slowly exploring and carving out a new niche. The process will be long and progress slow. We feel certain that at the outcome, when we speak of public transportation, our concept will have grown to include a range of services and providers; rapid rail, bus, vanpools, commuter clubs, subscription services, taxis, jitneys, apartment shuttle, the private automobile, and the rental auto mobile, each serving the trip length, type, and density that is most cost-efficient. 

This piece is over 30 years old. I agree with just about all of it, and I argue many of the same things today. With all of the excitement about ridesharing and transportation network companies it is worthwhile keeping in mind such services are neither revolutionary or new ideas. Perhaps they are finally here to stay, or perhaps not. (I suspect they are, likely with different companies than exist now, but I'll save my reasoning for another time.)

Public transit's demise has been predicted for a long time, as well, and transit operates in a world of permanent financial crisis. Transit finance may not be ideal, but our transit systems have survived and many have improved. Overall, though, transportation is still in transition, and we are still expecting the next big thing to show up.

There Isn't a Surge in Transit Ridership

Mike Smart, Mike Manville and I wrote an op-ed in today's Washington Post.  The recent APTA ridership report claims that transit ridership is surging, and we argue that this is simply not true:

But the association’s numbers are deceptive, and this interpretation is wrong. We are strong supporters of public transportation, but misguided optimism about transit’s resurgence helps neither transit users nor the larger traveling public. Transit trips did rise between 2008 and 2013. But so did the U.S. population, from 304 million to 316 million, as did the total number of trips made. Simple division suggests that, if anything, transit use fell between 2008 and 2013, from about 35 trips per person annually to 34. Many numbers look impressive without denominators, but anyone who examines transit use as a rate — whether as trips per person or share of total travel — will find that transit is a small and stagnant part of the transportation system.

We argue:

So there is no national transit boom. Why does this matter? The U.S. transportation system is deeply troubled. The country has difficulty financing improvements to its aging infrastructure, and heavy reliance on driving creates congestion, increases carbon missions, pollutes our communities, and is a leading cause of injury and death. No one should pretend these problems are spontaneously solving themselves because Americans have decided en masse to ride transit instead of driving. 

Nor should we misdiagnose problems caused by too much driving as problems caused by too little transit. Building transit systems is not the same as having people ride them, and people riding transit more is not the same as people driving less (plenty of transit riders are people who used to walk). Additionally, transit is not the only viable alternative to using a car. The environment is helped when drivers switch to buses but also when drivers switch to bikes.

Do read the whole thing for a more complete argument. I actually find the recent transit ridership statistics deeply troubling and suggestive that transit might be losing core riders at the expense of system expansions. This, of course, needs additional research, but we should not think that our current approach to transit is working well. We should be outraged at how little actual effect the billions and billions and billions of dollars of investment have produced. We can and should do better with our public transit investment.

Santiago and Transport Innovation

A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days in Santiago, Chile. This is a really underrated city that should be much higher on people’s lists to visit. The city is in the central valley of the country and is surrounded by mountains. The layout is fairly flat and easy to walk around. In some ways it reminds me of bits and pieces of California, which to my mind is a good thing. A couple of standout features include the La Vega Marquette, which is one of the “world’s best markets” according to a few travel guides. Another unique piece are the "cafes with legs" downtown that have servers dressed like they are going out to nightclubs. It’s quite a scene.

Beyond the regular cultural attractions as to why someone might go to Santiago, such as the castle in the middle of town, the city has a really interesting group of transportation policies that are of note. It even seems that Santiago has a willingness to experiment in ways that other cities haven’t.

In certain circles of which I may or may not run, Santiago is best known for their bus service experimentation where drivers were paid under one of two systems. They were either paid a fixed wage, or they were paid by the total number of passengers transported. This is innovation! It also may not be the best approach. According to this paper passenger dwell times decreased as bunching declined, but drivers drove much more aggressively and caused many more crashes. The lesson is that bus drivers should not be incentivized to pick up as many passengers as possible as this leads to inefficient and deadly competition. These compensation policies have changed.

I was extremely impressed with the downtown commercial area, which has converted (? I think converted but maybe they were always this way. In any event the paseos of Santiago are well known.) all streets to pedestrian streets. There are some cross-streets open to vehicle traffic. This is a great place to walk around. The cafes have standing tables where the street would be, there are other vendors and seemingly plenty of places to sit and linger. In my walking about (which was over 13 miles for the day, so I feel like I saw a nice slice of the city) I never was overwhelmed by curb cuts or space devoted to parking.  This may be a problem elsewhere in the city, but not where I was.

Santiago also has these awesome running man countdown clocks, which encourage RUNNING before time expires. Sort of like a video game. I watched cycle after cycle, but it does seem that you die if you don’t make it across the street in time.

I can’t say that the interior mall just off the centro was as successful. It was empty and prime space was occupied by a strip club, which was bad in the sense that it occupied lots of wall space that was just empty and had no windows—no free shows. A different outdoor mall north of the centro was a fairly typical upscale outdoor mall that you might find in the US, but had lots of bike parking in the interior:

There were lots of cyclists. Most were dressed like people but a surprisingly (to me) large share were dressed in the fancy bicycling outfits so common in the US.  I was staying in a relatively upscale area, so my observations may be skewed a bit, but overall lots of bikes, and mostly mountain bikes ridden by young adults and seemingly middle class folks. It is a very good city for biking.

Santiago takes their transit seriously now. A few years ago they reorganized the transit systems and built dedicated bus lanes through the center. See this post for details about the 2007 restructuring, which was major. The bus stops are impressive with lots of useful information and a meaningful presence on the street. The streets downtown have two dedicated lanes for buses and taxis, which is really how these things should be done.  

The freeways are tolled for free flow traffic. I was only on the freeways for my taxi rides to and from the airport, but I will attest that these trips were in free flow conditions. I don’t think there are any other cities that take this approach to the entire urban freeway network, and the fact that I didn’t know this before I went suggests that not enough people are looking to Santiago for research.

In parts of the city where the freeways run parallel to the river they have been covered with parks, which are then seamlessly integrated into the park system that runs along the river. The park along the river is great and good for running, cycling, walking or whatever. The have concerts, art installations and other good stuff there, too.

As a point of interest, here is the tallest building inLatin America. I stayed nearby.

So my advice is to go to Santiago.  It is a great city that really is at the forefront of many transport policies. I look forward to working with colleagues there about their transportation issues.

Should Voters Have Full Information When Voting on Transport Projects?

Voters are asked to vote on all kinds of transportation projects. In part this is because of declining federal support for projects, and local tax increases require voter approval. Elected officials are also hesitant to promote new taxes to fund projects without clear direction from the electorate. Usually new taxes for transport spending are passed. Yet there are many referendums on specific projects where taxes are proposed for particular investment. Without making any claims about the value of any of the individual projects, it is worth considering when projects violate the spirit and letter of the votes taken. I highlighted some examples pertaining to value capture previously, including the downtown Los Angeles streetcar, which may double in cost and provide less service than promised to voters. Califonia's high speed rail has also been criticized for not adhering to the specific systems and costs spelled out in the statewide 20008 referendum to raise a share of the cost of the project. See Lisa Schweitzer's piece in the LA Times for some details.

This isn't just a problem for transit projects, either, though maybe it is a problem that is worse in California because of a variety of populist legislative requirements. Here is another Golden State example. Today's LA Times reports that the 405 toll road project is in trouble politically. There are a few causes described:

At a meeting this month, crowds packed an Orange County Transportation Authority board meeting to denounce the lanes, which have been supported by Caltrans. City leaders expressed worry that the project would push traffic onto their streets, or that motorists traveling in the toll lanes would find it too difficult to pull off the highway and patronize local businesses.
The political shift over toll lanes has several causes. Some of Orange County's toll roads have struggled to attract drivers and each of the major corridors has been forced to refinance its debt to avoid possible default.
There has also been the sticker shock: Riding the 91 Express Lanes can cost nearly $10 each way at the most congested hours, an investment even for Lexus drivers. If the 405 toll lanes are built, the priciest one-way toll would cost $9.91.
As for the 405, much of the anger stems from what Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach called a "bit of a bait and switch." When voters approved a countywide half-cent sales tax, they were told funds would go toward adding one general purpose lane in each direction at a cost of $1.25 billion.
Instead, the proposal before the OCTA would add one free lane and one toll lane in each direction — but it would also convert an existing carpool lane in each direction into a second toll lane, with the added $220-million price tag paid through bond sales that in turn would be paid off by tolls.

So the project as implemented is not what the voters approved. It is substantially different, in fact. I have written about credible commitment as a barrier to road pricing before, but what is happening with these experiments in direct democracy are a bit different. Rather than voters opposing new taxes or fees because they don't believe the revenues will be used as promised the votes for specific projects are not held as binding. 

There are many problems associated with these types of direct democracy for allocating scarce resources. When voters vote on a project, be it rail, transit, roads, etc., they should have complete information. Since transportation infrastructure projects tend to go over budget frequently, which affects the scope of the projects, it is difficult for voters to accurately assess their support or opposition. Also problematic is the absence of recourse the voters have. By pushing tax and spending decisions to the ballot box elected officials insulate themselves from the severe problems that tend to arise. After all, it was the voters who approved the project, not Rep. So and So. 

Issues of representation, credibility and voter information have not been well examined in the context of local transport finance. As the federal role in transport finance is declining in the US, we need to figure out better ways of raising money for and spending on the infrastructure that we want and need. The experience in California is not encouraging for experiments in direct democracy for transport investment.

Boo!

Some days things happen that deserve to be booed. Today is one of those days when there are just a lot of crappy policy decisions in the news. It's like rooting for Minnesota Vikings. You know the games will end badly, the public will get hosed, and there really isn't much you can do about it. So you boo.

This is what I am booing today:

Bill de Blasio, front runner to be New York City's next mayor, is beholden to the rent seeking yellow taxi medallion holders. Booo! If you can find a special interest group who deserve less sympathy than the yellow cab medallion holders, let's hear about it. The medallion system should be smashed, not protected, and the green taxis may well turn out to be one of the best transit service innovations that help people in the outer boroughs to happen in years. David Yassky has been a great TLC commissioner and should be applauded for trying to actually make the city work better.

In Edina, Minnesota the city is using eminent domain to take a property so they can build a parking lot. Booo!

Tom Pendergrast, the Chairman of the NY MTA was on NY1 yesterday and made the bold and depressing claim that the MTA will never be at the cutting edge of technology. It will always be right behind the cutting edge.  Booo! The MTA is large enough to move the technological cutting edge with regard to most any aspect of transit operations. I get that the MTA is risk averse, but someone has to think about what the MTA can be and should be rather than just trying to do the things it already does marginally better.

Taken together these, and other similar stories, are all a troublesome adherence to the status quo. Our transportation and land use systems are currently not working well, and we should encourage public leaders to try new things--even if they may fail. A commitment to inefficient taxi systems, favoring parking lots over existing businesses and committing one of the world's largest transit systems to being a follower are not encouraging signs. Booo!

A Timeline of Los Angeles Transit Agencies

This timelime and diagram of Los Angeles transit agencies is impressive. It presents an honest history of transit agencies in Los Angeles and doesn't promote the false idea that there was some type of streetcar scandal or conspiracy.

There isn't any analysis in the timeline but a lot of information.

The case for (and against) public subsidy for public transport

David Levinson and I write about why and why not subsidize transit at Streets.mn. Here is one part:

Subsidy should be considered two ways: capital subsidy and operating subsidy. These are related, but different enough that they should be considered separately.
Capital subsidy can be direct or indirect (such as assistance with land acquisition), and these monies come from federal, state, metropolitan, local and sub-local sources. Traditionally capital subsidy has largely come from federal and state sources, though recently local sources through sponsorship (see the Emirates Airways gondola in London, for instance) or value capture have been used. Capital subsidy for transit expansion rarely, if ever, considers the effects capacity and network expansion have on operating subsidy, however. Since every transit system in the United States requires an operating subsidy, every service expansion increased the required operating subsidy and makes the financial position of transit agencies worse over the medium and long term.
Operating subsidies are from local, regional and state sources. The federal government placed severe limits on using federal money for operations in the 1970s, in part because most of the increases in subsidy went to total wages without any increase in productivity. The primary reason for operating subsidy for US systems now seems to be “that’s the way we do it here,” which is not a proper justification. Many of the cities around the world—and in North America if we look to Canada, where the Toronto system is required to maintain 75% farebox recovery in order to receive provincial subsidy for the remaining costs—have much higher farebox recovery, fewer operating subsidies and much higher ridership, which suggests a justification for less subsidy and higher fares: planning without prices leads to bad planning.

Eric Goldwyn on the Limits of BRT

Bus Rapid Transit is great, and I largely support BRT efforts around the globe. But as Columbia University Urban Planning PhD candidate (and my co-author on other work) Eric Goldwyn argues at The Atlantic Cities, BRT is subject to technological fetishism just like other transport modes. Drawing on research he did in Cape Town he concludes:

BRT has great potential to revolutionize the image and efficacy of public transport in the 21st century, but officials need to show greater sensitivity to city-specific context rather than chasing a technological ideal. What worked in Bogota is not working in Cape Town. Public transportation riders will be better served when their public servants continuously monitor, revisit, and tweak these new systems.

In other BRT news, Streetsblog Chicago interviewed Walter Hook of ITDP about ITDP's BRT scoring system to hopefully correct some of the problems discussed by Eric Goldwyn.

Privacy Concerns About Black Boxes in Cars are Overblown

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is very concerned about drivers' privacy. The group is strongly opposed to any type of "black box" device in cars according to this story in the LA Times. From the story:

Nate Cardozo, staff attorney for Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the black boxes track such information as accelerator pedal position, brake pedal position, engine rpms, vehicle speed and acceleration, whether seat belts are connected, whether air bags deployed, and a lot more.
The foundation's concerns include the fact that there is currently no cap on the amount of data collected and there are no limits on the kind of data that will be gathered, Cardozo said.
"The car manufacturers can use that data at will, including location, which has significant privacy implications," Cardozo said, which led to the scenario of a speed jaunt finding its way into the hands of an auto insurance company.

This argument is largely nonsense. Why should drivers be entitled to privacy? Are people who drive special, or do they just engage in enough questionable behavior that they need protection? After all, air travelers and rail passengers have to have al of their movements recorded and logged. Even transit users who use monthly (or season, if you are in Europe) passes have their activity recorded. What does the EFF say about transit? From their website (in full):

Who Controls Data About Public Transportation?

How should city transit authorities treat independent software developers who make use of public schedule data? What approach results in the best experience for their passengers and customers?
Two models appear to be emerging to answer this question. One, typified by New York City'sMTA and Washington, DC's WMATA, sees schedule and related data as valuable intellectual property, to be zealously protected, licensed and monetized. So far, the results of this approach appear to have been bad press, irate passengers, wasted money and stymied innovation.
The other model, typified by San Francisco's SFMTA and Portland's TriMet, holds that encouraging independent developers to make free use of schedule information can both save the city money and foster innovative applications. As SFMTA San Francisco BART's Timothy Moore told Streetsblog: "We've put BART in front of customers in so many places that we wouldn't be able to do on our own. We basically can't envision every beneficial use for this public data and frankly transit agencies in general don't have the vision. We don't have the time, we don't have the resources."
In 2009, we've seen interesting developments in each of these four cities:
In New York City, developer Chris Schoenfeld created StationStops, an iPhone app that provided schedule information for Metro North, NYC's largest commuter rail system. The app ran smoothly until earlier this summer, when NYMTA contacted Schoenfeld to claim ownership of the schedule data and demand $5,000 in advance "royalties" on Schoenfeld's revenue.
Schoenfeld wisely recognized this as nonsense: Copyright law simply does not apply to publicly-available factual information. But when he declined to pay the licensing fees, NYMTA sent a takedown notice to Apple, demanding that StationStops be banned from the iPhone. Apple, of course, complied.
NYMTA's extortionate actions censored a helpful and perfectly legal use of their data. The results have been bad for their reputation and bad for their passengers. Connecticut's Stamford Advocate put it well: the MTA "should just leave (Schoenfeld) alone and let him make an honest buck by providing a useful service."
In Washington, DC, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) seems to be working hard to learn exactly the wrong lessons from NYC's example. After an online petition drive by DC transit activists, WMATA reluctantly opened their data to developers earlier this year. But they also allocated $500,000 (yes, that's five hundred thousand dollars,) for a study which they say "will give us a firm idea as to the commercial value of intellectual property like scheduling information."
We'll save them the trouble: While it's possible they may be able to wrench some value from their trademarks (even though this tactic, too, has backfired embarassingly for NYMTA,) there is no economic value in their schedule information. Any attempt to restrict others' use of this data is baseless and counterproductive. They've already opened their schedule data — if they're smart, they'll keep it that way.
Here in San Francisco, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) has made great strides towards a first-rate open transit data system, and is setting an example that other transit authorities should aspire to. Schedule data has long been available from the SFMTA in the excellent Google Transit Feed Specification format. And websites like SFMTA Labs and theBART Developer Center encourage and help developers to make use of the data.
However, this silver cloud does have a dark lining: While SFMTA itself has refrained from sending baseless takedown notices, a corporation called NextBus Information Services (NBIS)hasn't been so wise. In 2008, developer Steven Peterson created an iPhone application calledRoutesy, which provides passengers with real-time updates of bus and train locations and arrival times. Then, last month, NBIS contacted Peterson, claimed ownership of the real-time arrival data, and demanded that Routesy be discontinued. When Peterson refused, NBIS asked Apple to ban Routesy from the iTunes App Store. Apple, of course, complied.
NBIS, like the NYC MTA, appears guilty of copyfraud. They've been unable to produce any proof that they do, in fact, own the data in question. SFMTA, to their credit, quickly clarified the situation, telling SFAppeal.com that "Muni owns the data in question and that the public is, of course, entitled to access it." Thanks in part to that statement, Peterson's lawyer was finally able to persuade Apple to restore Routesy to the iTunes App Store. (Though similar skirmishes with NBIS appear to be occuring in other cities.)
Finally, in Portland, Oregon, TriMet was one of the earliest transit authorities in the US to adopt an open data program and encourage independent developers. The result is a healthy and competitive application market that speaks for itself: Over 25 different mobile applicationsfrom different developers make creative use of the data. And, the open data program enabled Portland Airport to display real-time train arrival information at their baggage claims — with no additional work required on TriMet's part. TriMet's Bibiana McHugh explains: "Before, we would have needed to work with a technical team for the airport to make this happen, but with developer.trimet.org, we just make the information available once and our work is done."
If other government data-sets are any indication, the transit apps we've seen so far are just the beginning of what's possible. Just take a look at the impressive winners of Sunlight Foundation's Apps For America contest.
For reasons both legal and practical, transit authorities should follow the lead of SFMTA, TriMet and the Obama Administration's Data.gov, and allow independent developers to freely use their data. The results so far have been a better deal for passengers and taxpayers alike.

So public transit users will benefit from making data public, but drivers will be harmed. Sure, schedule data is different from vehicle data, but the data available from transit agencies is partly schedule data but also aggregated rider data, some of which can be traced to individual riders. EFF is right that transit riders deserve better service through innovative use of data. So do drivers! Marginal cost insurance is a good thing, not a bad thing. In addition, black boxes in cars can help assign blame in crashes more accurately so we can stop with the nonsense that a driver killing a pedestrian or cyclist was not the result of criminal driving. More data about usage can--no guarantee here as details matter--improve transport for everybody, including: marginal cost pricing, enhanced safety, lower cost travel for those who impose the least stress on transport systems, better routing and scheduling, stronger commitment to the user pays principle, punitive charges to lunkheads who shouldn't be driving, etc. Lastly, there is scant evidence that people (Americans, anyway) give a hoot about privacy in nearly all cases. How many actually use cash to pay for their EZPass? Put in the black boxes, I say, and make the data public while hiding the user ID. We will all be better off. And it will give researchers like me a lot to do.

Roy Benson is Right but the Wrong Guy to Ask

This story from OPB about a proposed bus rapid transit line in Eugene, Oregon quotes Roy Benson, an opponent of the investment, stating his business will not realize any additional customers:

It's a really poor use of public funds."
Roy Benson owns the Tire Factory, an automotive store along the planned route. As a business owner, he doesn't see any benefits of the new line.
"I'll probably never have anybody come here on the bus, and then buy four tires and get back on the bus to go home," Benson says. 

Roy is right about this. People aren't going to ride the bus to buy new tires for their cars. But it is silly to ask him about the project as his response isn't surprising or offer any insight as to costs associated with the project.

Part of the overall investment strategy for urban transport--transit in particular--is that there should be an associated sorting of economic activities that occurs as a result of new infrastructure and service. Roy Benson will likely consider moving his auto-oriented (and dependent) tire business to a location that offers better auto access, while businesses and developers that value pedestrian and transit access will gladly pay rents that reflect transit and pedestrian access. This type of retail and commercial sorting is not costless, but is expected and a reflection of a healthy market.

Transport Finance without the Feds: The Canadian Model

Transport planning and policy in the United States is dominated by the federal gas tax. Currently 18.6 cents per gallon of gas and 24.6 cents per gallon of diesel, federal gas taxes are used to guide preferred transport investment across the country. For the past forty or so years, the federal gas tax has, in the words of Lisa Schweitzer, been buying everyone’s lunch. Yet all is not well. The federal gas tax hasn’t increased in 20 years, reducing the absolute and relative buying power of the revenue. Increased federal regulations and interest groups limit what the gas tax can be used for, and a steady stream of other people’s money (federal dollars) creates incentives to spend on transport projects that offer few benefits. At an extreme, transportation projects are developed and financed by federal monies withouteven bothering to claim any transportation benefits.

The declining share of federal money for transport finance has many people worried that transportation policy and finance will devolve to the states. Such devolution of authority is viewed as a necessarily lousy outcome, especially by progressives. (Richard Florida even wants a cabinet position for a Department of Cities. We didn't get urban renewal right the first time, so let’s try again, but with even more authority.) From my perspective, the status quo for transport policy and finance cannot be objectively defended as a success. Looking at the period of about 1971 (the year Amtrak was formed is a good marker of the beginning of the current era of federal policy, but just about any year between 1964-1974 works) to present US transport systems declined in nearly all measures of productivity, economic performance, social welfare, or just about anything else you care to measure. For whatever occasional successes US policy has had, the nation has received an extremely poor return on investments made. We can do better.

An experiment devolving transport policy and finance to the states is likely to improve overall performance of all aspects of transport. For evidence we can look to out chilly northern neighbors in Canada, which does not have anything equivalent to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Transport policy is the responsibility of the provinces, and transit policy is the responsibility of the cities. So how do Canadian cities compare?

The table below is drawn from Paul Mees’ work. The city regions are sorted by transit mode share. Every major Canadian region has higher transit mode share than US cities except New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The simple correlation between density and transit share is .48, so density does not adequately explain the differences. (Paul Mees wrote the book on this issue.) Canadian transit systems also have much higher farebox recovery ratios than in the US. The Toronto system has to maintain greater than 70% farebox recovery is order to receive subsidy for the balance.

Last week a new report on Toronto area transport finance was published that explains the financing structures in place there and potential future monies. Here is a link to the report. The authors promote many taxes and fees, all of which are economically sound and focus on raising money for transport by charging those who benefit from a well-functioning transport system. Essentially, if the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area needs new transport investment to maintain and improve economic competitiveness then they can and should raise the money locally.

 Local control can also lead to service innovations. David Levinson highlighted TransLink in Vancouver. Here is how he described the agency’s service:

TransLink is the multi-modal transportation organization for Greater Vancouver, BC, and it is unlike what we see in the States. It is in fact, closer to the idea described in Enterprising Roads, a transportation utility with autonomy constrained by oversight.One of the key points to consider is that metropolitan Vancouver has a transit mode share of 21%, comparable with much larger Toronto and Montreal (though behind metro New York's 30%, it is well ahead of Seattle's 9%), despite ranking 34th in population. Some of that has to do with institutional factors and governance.

In addition to service innovation and the ambitious expansion plans in Toronto, British Columbia instituted a carbon tax a few years ago, though this may not survive a scheduled vote in May. There are certainly problems with the decentralized system. Some Canadians want a national transit agency. Fragmented governance in regions makes coordination difficult, and perhaps a stronger regional agency is needed. Most difficult, perhaps, is that many cities forego transit service all together.* However, eliminating unproductive transit so that resources can be used elsewhere is actually good policy. But by nearly every measure Canadian transport policy outcomes are superior to US outcomes. Whether US transport finance and policy devolves to the states remains to be seen, but it certainly isn’t something that should be dismissed as inferior to what we have now. It may well be better.


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*This sentence was removed as it is incorrect (I had bad info on this case, but the larger point remains):"The city of Guelph, for instance, has 120,000 people but no bus service. "

The LA Red Line is 20 Years Old: Is it a Success?

Los Angeles opened the first phase of the Red Line subway system 20 years ago. Here is a story from The Source about it. A midst the celebrations, how should the success of the rail investment be judged? Here are a few data points to consider.

Source: KCET

The above image is of transit ridership in LA County. These data include all transit modes. Overall ridership is about where it was in 1984 in absolute numbers. During the period of about 1996-2008 transit ridership grew faster than population growth, but overall ridership is not an obvious success story from rail investment. As the KCET story notes, and many scholars have confirmed, investment in bus ridership is critical for overall ridership numbers. The period of ridership increase in the above image is also when the LA MTA was required to improve bus service through a federal consent decree. See here for an overview.

So if ridership isn't a clear success, then what about development and land uses? Los Angeles finally got around to rezoning the area near Red Line stations last year. This can certainly be viewed as a failure of the city to not coordinate zoning codes with transit development, and maybe the city missed out on potentially dense development. This is far from certain, however, and it is more likely that the demand for rezoning came from regional growth pressure rather than simply transit access. If transit access were the primary influence on rezoning it would have occurred long ago.

As we celebrate the 20th year of Red Line service the clear successes are scarce. Transit ridership is falling below population growth, and transit service is supplied inequitably in too many areas of the county. Land development has not happened magically even though the population and economy expanded. Yet there are certainly anecdotes where positive outcomes exist, and perhaps in another 20 years it will all seem worthwhile. Of course, we probably shouldn't have to wait 40 years for the pay off from these types of investments.

Matt Kahn on Project Evaluation

In the above video Matt Kahn explains why many projects that do not pass muster in a benefit cost test still move forward. This NY Times article provides somereal world examples of the politics of rail investment in Los Angeles, especially how rail investment is not equitably spread around. From the Times story, Mayor Villaraigosa explains his support for a new rail line that doesn't stop in an African-American neighborhood:

But Mr. Villaraigosa also emphasized the benefits that the rail network — including a recently constructed light-rail line that carries passengers through the northern parts of South Los Angeles — would offer the area even if a Leimert Park stop was not built. He also noted his efforts to expand the Crenshaw line, which was originally designed as a bus line with a fraction of the money it now has.

“All of that happened because I drove it,” he said. “This was a busway before I made it into a light rail.”

The story does not make clear what the benefits of the rail line are expected to be, but I'm pretty sure that Leimert Park is better off with a busway that stops in the neighborhood than with a light rail line that does not. USC's Lisa Schweitzer explains why the residents of Leimert Park are upset:

“It comes out of this history in which the answer is always no,” she said. “When it comes to requests from South L.A., the answer is always no, we can’t afford it. And, conversely, when it comes to the West Side, the answer is always yes, because they’re so politically empowered and so wealthy.”

Too many transit projects are failures on economic and equity bases. For those of us who support transit, we need to be much more reflective about the investment choices we have made.

The Relative Size of Transit Systems

Twin Cities Metro Transit just celebrated its three billionth rider. Here is a Star Tribune article about this feat. That sounds like a lot of riders, except Metro Transit started counting upon its creation in 1967 1972.* At that time the Twin Cities had about 1.8 million residents. There are now over 3.1 million people.

As a point of contrast (but without making any larger point), three billion riders are about 15 months worth of subway and bus ridership in New York City, not including commuter rail.

*I wrote the wrong year originally. Metro Transit was created in 1967 but started current operations in 1972. It took 12 years for the first billion riders, 15 years for the second billion, and now 13 years for the third billion.

Let's Make a Deal: Give Poor Households Cars So Rich Households Can Take Transit

The Republican candidates for president this past cycle were widely criticized for taking the stance during the primary debates that no tax increase was acceptable. They all demurred at the offer of a $1 increase in taxes for a $10 decrease in spending. So I want to propose a similar idea to transit advocates. Is a small increase in driving by certain groups worth a large decrease in driving for other groups? Specifically, what if we subsidized car ownership and usage for low income people so that public transit would no longer have any social welfare component? I know this is provocative and I do not advocate for it, but am curious if maximizing the environmental benefits of transit are worth eliminating or dramatically reducing the social welfare benefits of transit. If poor people without cars get cars, based on current land uses, they will be better off in most cases. If we can then focus new transit investment on likely or potential riders who currently drive a lot, we may be able to reduce overall auto usage and reduce transport emissions.

Who will make this deal?