Politicians are reluctant to confront the economic and environmental costs of transport. The task: to reduce the demand for mobility. I probably don't write about transport as much as I ought to, and that was brought home to me at an event on The Future of Transport in Leuven in Belgium, at which I was also a speaker. There's a case for regarding transport as a climate emergency, given that it accounts for about a quarter of Europe's carbon emissions, and that in the last decade (unlike pretty much every other sector) emissions from transport have continued to grow sharply.
And before I continue, even if you’re a climate sceptic, this represents a significant policy issue: the transport sector (at least, the non-human powered transport sector) is 97% dependent on fossil fuels. As these become scarcer, more expensive, and more prone to interruption, we will have an incipient social and economic problem which is serious enough to prod policy makers. … Read full text of article
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Monday, August 2, 2010
Transport and the lock-in problem
Monday, May 31, 2010
Density without tears: Singapore's Transportation Secrets
Density. Sprawl. Car-dependence as a result of car use's gradual reshaping of our 
cities. The unintended consequences of a no-policy transport and land use policy can be catastrophic for many, in many ways. And once the damage has been done(see the map of last week's piece contrasting two cities of the same population size: Atlanta and Barcelona)it is not easy task to get the toothpaste back into the tube. But let's get to that another day. Today let's listen to Christopher Tan on Singapore's no tears transport policy.
- By Christopher Tan, The Singapore Straits Times
More vehicles, more trips, more people -- but gridlock remain a rarity. What gives?
Singapore is a city on the move. Literally. Furiously. In cars. In buses. On rail lines. At rates of expansion that would make most transport executives blanch.
Workers celebrate the final tunnel breakthrough for Singapore's Circle Line, a 33km orbital MRT line slated for completion in 2011
More and more people are moving - all the time. Three decades ago, they made 2.7 million daily trips. Now it's more than 11 million - in cars, buses and trains. Yet Singapore has little of the congestion that almost paralyzes so many cities around the world.
What's the secret? It's simple. Early planning. Timely action. Massive investment across many modes of transport.
Density without gridlock
Not that Singapore's situation is simple. This sovereign state is just 710 square kilometers -- a bit bigger than New York City. It has 5 million people -- more than double its population 30 years ago. Now, close to 1 million vehicles (of which 40,000 are from across the Malaysian border) zip around in a network of well-paved roads spanning 3,400 kilometers.
And in contrast to neighboring cities such as Jakarta, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur - and indeed, farther flung examples such as London, Paris and Los Angeles -- gridlock is a rarity in Singapore.
This is despite growing car ownership. Back in 1981, there were 163,355 passenger cars here. Today, there are 570,000. Yet Singapore's average car speed on arterial (main) roads during peak hours is 27 kmh (17 miles per hour), compared to as low as 16 kmh in London, 11 kmh in Tokyo and 5 kmh in Jakarta.
Clues to the formula
So, how has Singapore managed this seemingly text book success story on urban mobility?
Mr. Lew Yii Der, group director for policy and planning of the country's Land Transport Authority (LTA), says the the recipe "boils down to two important ingredients: a convenient and well-connected public transport network, and an effective set of demand management measures to regulate traffic flow and keep road congestion in check."
As a relatively young nation (gaining independence in 1965), Singapore's bureaucracy of scholars and technocrats had the advantage of learning from older, more established cities. Urban planning soon became the government's forte, and transport infrastructure a cornerstone of development.
Expanding on a blueprint drawn by the country's British colonial masters, policy makers began to build new roads -- lots of them. Starting in the early 1970s, Singapore opened the first of what today is a network of nine expressways crisscrossing the island, including such technological marvels as a 12-km long, largely underground expressway opened two years ago, and an upcoming (in 2013) link that not only goes underground but undersea.
But like all other modern cities, roads are rarely sufficient to move the masses. Singapore opened its first rail transit line -- 6 kilometers, five stations - in 1987. Today, the rail network spans over 150 km (94 miles), with 106 stations serving four mass rapid transit lines (one partially opened) and three light rail transit lines.
Major added investment -- $40 billion in Singapore dollars (U.S. $28.4 billion) -- is committed to expanding rail lines to 280 km by 2020.
With this ambitious expansion, the current balance in Singapore's average daily trips of 11 million (6 million by private transport, 3 million by bus and 2 million by rail) is likely to shift significantly toward public transit (even with some additional roads).
LTA Rail Group Director Mr. Chua Chong Kheng recalls: "Since the first steps were taken... on Oct 22, 1983, the government has invested heavily to ensure that the rail network form the backbone of an efficient public transport system."
Key ingredient: congestion pricing
Policymakers recognized early, in fact, that that a country as small and dense as Singapore cannot rely solely on road expansion. Demand for road space must be held in check. And the best way to do that, they discovered, are user charges.
Literally decades ahead of European cities, Singapore in 1975 instituted an "Area Licensing System" featuring stiff fees for any car entering downtown Singapore during business hours. In 1998, this congestion pricing system went high-tech with an electronic road-pricing system that requires any vehicle in Singapore (as well as those coming in from Malaysia) be fitted with a stored-value card reader.
As a car passes any of the city's 69 gantries (electronic checkpoints), the card reader charges a fee, which varies significantly depending on time of day. For someone driving into the city during the morning rush hour, tolls across multiple gantries often add up to S$10 a day.
Following Singapore's lead, congestion pricing for traffic-clogged cities has since been adopted by London, Oslo, Stockholm, and Milan. Mayor Michael Bloomberg also proposed the idea in New York City, but was overruled by the New York State Legislature.
Also key: paying for the right to use a vehicle
Singapore in 1990 inaugurated a second method for keeping auto use in check. Anyone who wants to buy a vehicle must first secure a "Certificate of Entitlement," valid for 10 years. Certificates are auctioned off twice a month.
The price today hovers around S$20,000 in Singapore dollars, but it has been as high as S$110,000. On top of that, Singapore motorists pay 44 cents in duty for every liter of fuel they use (roughly $1.75 a gallon in the U.S.).
Pulling it off
But how has Singapore managed to implement controversial policies such as congestion pricing and the expensive auto "certificates of entitlement" when several other cities have tried launching similar systems but failed?
A unified local government with strong leadership has surely been a major factor.
But there have also been persuasive politics. The LTA, for example, softened the blow of the auto certificates of entitlement by lowering car registration taxes which had previously been a stunning 200 percent of the value of new vehicle. And trains and buses have relieved the crush on the roads -- "an effective public transport system that is a viable alternative" to driving, in the words of LTA Director of Road Operations Dr. Chin Kian Keong (who was also one of the authors of the road pricing system).
Observers do not disagree that the public transport system is on the whole effective. But they point out that commuter complaints about packed trains and long bus arrivals have grown louder in recent years, largely because of Singapore's population growth.
Not only that, road traffic has grown noticeably heavier in the past five years.
The city has initiated a slew of responses, including higher driving charges, more frequent train service, more bus lanes -- plus the S$50 billion worth of rail and road projects scheduled for completion by 2020.
Transport Minister Raymond Lim has an ambitious goal: to increase the percentage of public transit trips during morning rush hours from 59 percent in 2008 to 70 percent in the next 10 years. To do this, he acknowledges that public transport has to be as convenient and nearly as speedy as driving.
Analysts applaud the efforts, but some say more needs to be done immediately. Transport researcher Dr. Lee Der Horng, an associate at the National University of Singapore, says: "I am concerned by the peak-hour capacity on our public transport system, and the increased congestion levels on our roads."
Member of Parliament Lim Wee Kiak, who also heads a policy-monitoring committee, believes Singapore may face a serious transport crunch if not more is done between now and 2020. "We have an acute problem now that needs fast solutions in the short and medium term," he notes.
Despite the complaints, a Gallup world poll of 20 cities in 2008 found that Singaporeans were the most satisfied with their public transport system. Whether they will still be so in the next few years remains to be seen.
# # #
Expert Viewpoints
Thomas Downs
Chairman, North American Board of Veolia Transportation. Former president/CEO of the Eno Transportation Foundation, CEO of Amtrak, and New Jersey Commissioner of Transportation.
Thomas Downs There is a strong story here. Singapore shows the advantages of long term comprehensive planning. Transportation infrastructure demands such a long term horizon, something that much of the developed world ignores, and much of the developing world feels it cannot afford.
Singapore also has shown the value of using road pricing and access management to fund capitol investments. It pays off by linking the real price of mobility to the future needs of the entire system. While the author does not mention the obvious gains in environmental outcomes for Singapore, by meeting significant population growth with a balanced transportation system, it is meeting its carbon reduction targets and promoting its own energy independence.
The limits of the Singapore story is the relative simplicity of the political processes in Singapore. It is it's own city, state, and nation all rolled into one. Most of the failures in the cities mentioned are not planning or vision failures. They are political failures. Complex governmental structures -- competing local jurisdictions -- are the primary cause of the gridlock that transportation faces globally. Local and state issues of who is taxed and who gets the money are the real challenge in making the Singapore model a workable one.
We can learn a lot from Singapore about how long range planning benefits a region. Perhaps we can use their experience to spur us on to overcome the political stagnation that has kept us from solving these problems, because Singapore has shown us that they can be solved.
Peter Newman
Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University in Perth, Australia; author of Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems: Principles and Practices
Peter Newman
In the 1980's I was involved in an intense debate about whether Toronto was the next urban paradigm for developed cities because it had decided not to build freeways but to put its money into urban rail. I was challenged by a freeway supporter in an article Toronto: Paradigm Lost. I replied in an article Toronto: Paradigm Regained that history will show by how many other cities will follow this paradigm. Today it is obviously working as the gloss of urban freeways has worn off and urban rail is resurgent everywhere.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in Singapore which has in particular become a paradigm for how to build a sustainable city in the high density Asian tradition -- which is over half the world. As Christopher Tan says it demonstrates the obvious value in early planning and timely action, especially in urban rail investment.
Having just spent a month in Singapore I share Christopher's concern about the growing problem of traffic however.
And I would like to correct a few statistics as this is our game and the new data from Jeff Kenworthy is just completed on Singapore.
Singapore has an average speed of its traffic of 31 kph in 2005 (down from 35 in 1995) which is better (just) than London at 30 kph, and quite a bit better than Tokyo 24 kph and Jakarta 24 kph. Its public transport is significantly better than any American or Australian city but is only around the average European city.
Singapore's boardings per capita dropped between 1995 and 2005 from 408 to 353 whilst European cities on average went up from 380 to 447.
Why did public transport drop in Singapore? Train boardings went up 16% but bus boardings went down 25% as service levels were reduced by 11%. This appears to have happened because the bus services are not subsidised, nor is the MRT but it is much faster than the traffic (42 kph) so is being extended to many new lines as demand outstrips supply. Because the road congestion system is so effective at keeping traffic moving (especially at peak times when it costs so much more) then many people have moved to cars rather than wait for buses (which average just 19 kph). In the evenings we were taking an MRT train which came every 6 minutes but the linking bus was often an 18 minute wait so we would take a taxi.
Perhaps it is time for Singapore to join the rest of the world and subsidise its buses to enable a better service level otherwise it may struggle to retain its status as the paradigm of the Asian sustainable city.
Julie Wagner
Julie Wagner, based in Switzerland, is the Trans Atlantic Fellow for the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. She previously serviced as deputy planning director for long-range planning in Washington, D.C.
Julie Wagner When American and European urban policy makers turn to Asia for insightful learning, the intent is not to learn anything "sustainable." For Americans, Europe is often cited for its innovative approaches in both transport (such as congestion pricing and high speed rail) and land use (such as restoring urban cores and preserving its historic fabric). For Europeans, the U.S. is commonly referenced for its public/private partnerships in transport, local financing tools, and the role of philanthropic-minded city builders.
The conventional wisdom about "Asia" is that it's a region with hyper-growth at hyper-speed. What we see are cities such as Shanghai growing from 300 skyscrapers in 1996 to over 3000 in 2006 and embracing our addiction to cars. Yet as this article shares, Singapore offers sustainable, Asian-based policy and planning lessons for Europe and the U.S. to weigh.
In studying the transportation strategies in cities such as London and Milano, Singapore clearly takes us a step further to advance sustainable transport goals. In fact, it could be argued that Singapore demonstrates how a society functions when social policy objectives take a back seat to environmental ones. The name "Certificate of Entitlement" couldn't be more fitting as it clearly delineates drivers on the road by income. On the other hand, even with the adoption of congestion pricing, some European cities are still choked in traffic. While an entitlement approach would almost impossible to enact politically anywhere else, the Singapore approach is a stark reminder that additional hard-hitting policies are necessary if cities are to have a more even spread across their transportation modes.
Rich Varos
Varos is Director of Intelligent Transportation Solutions for IBM.
For the first time in history, digital and physical infrastructures are converging. Tiny sensors can be deployed in everything from roadways and livestock to even natural systems such as rivers and bays. Advanced analytics can turn the mountains of data supplied by those sensors into actionable intelligence.
As such, we need to stop focusing on pieces of the problem by simply adding a new bridge, widening a road, establishing commuter lanes or encouraging car-pooling.
While all of these traditional methods are still critical, we need to look at relationships across the entire system. By infusing intelligence into the entire system -- our streets, bridges, intersections, signals and tolls -- we can improve our commutes, give better information to city planners, increase our productivity and raise our quality of life.
You're wondering, how does this work? Data collected from cameras and sensors can be linked to databases that track information on speed, traffic volume, incidents, weather or emissions. This information can be analyzed and leveraged to produce new capabilities impossible only a few years ago such as predictive traffic modeling, congestion charging and real-time monitoring.
In Stockholm, a dynamic toll system based on the flow of vehicles into and out of the city has reduced traffic by 20 percent, decreased wait time by 25 percent and cut emissions by more than 10 percent.
City planners in Kyoto, Japan, simulate large-scale traffic situations involving millions of vehicles to analyze urban impact. The system can optimize traffic lights to reduce jams and predict the effect that a new shopping mall or traffic regulation will have on a community's roads.
In Singapore, real-time data from sensors embedded in the roadway, combined with existing probes like GPS systems in taxis and public transportation, are helping to predict traffic flows 15, 30 and 45 minutes ahead of time with greater than 90 percent accuracy.
If we move beyond the old way of doing things and prepare our transportation network for the 21st century, we will improve our quality of life and lay the groundwork for a new era of economic growth.
# # #
About the author:
Christopher Tan is a senior correspondent with The Straits Times newspaper in Singapore, and prepared this article for our colleagues at CitiStates. Thanks to Christopher and CitiStates for permission. (Photographs courtesy of Land Transport Authority.)
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Shoup on how parking can make a street great
Donald Shoup has extensively studied parking as a key link between transportation and land use, with important consequences for cities, the economy, and the 
environment -- and that is exactly why World Streets is pleased to welcome this thought-provoking contribution on parking as an instrument for creating great streets and cities that at once offer quality of life and an economy that works.
- By Donald Shoup, Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA How Can Curb Parking Contribute to Making a Street Great?
Performance Parking Prices
A city can (1) charge performance based prices for curb parking and (2) return the revenue to the metered districts to pay for added public services. With these two policies, curb parking will help to create great streets, improve transportation, and increase the economic vitality of cities.
Performance-based prices can balance the varying demand for parking with the fixed supply of curb spaces. We can call this balance between demand and supply the “Goldilocks principle” of parking prices: the price is too high if many spaces are vacant, and too low if no spaces are vacant. When a few vacant spaces are available everywhere, the prices are just right. After the city adjusts prices to yield one or two vacant spaces in every block (about 85 percent occupancy), everyone will see that curb parking is readily available. In addition, no one can say that performance parking prices will drive customers away if almost all curb spaces are occupied.
Prices that produce an occupancy rate of about 85 percent can be called “performance-based” for three reasons. First, curb parking will perform efficiently. The spaces will be well used but readily available. Second, the transportation system will perform efficiently. Cruising for underpriced curb parking will not congest traffic, waste fuel, and pollute the air.
Third, the economy will perform efficiently. The price of parking will be higher when demand is higher, and this higher price will encourage rapid parking turnover. Drivers will park, buy something, and leave quickly so that other drivers can use the spaces. Cities can achieve all these goals by setting curb parking prices to yield about an 85 percent occupancy rate.
Local Revenue Return
Performance prices for curb parking can yield ample public revenue. If the city returns this revenue to pay for added public spending on the metered streets, citizens are more likely to support the performance prices. The added funds can pay to clean and maintain the sidewalks, plant trees, improve lighting, bury overhead utility wires, remove graffiti, and provide other public improvements.
Put yourself in the shoes of a merchant in an older business district where curb parking is free and customers complain about a parking shortage. Suppose the city installs meters and begins to charge prices that produce a few vacancies. Everyone who wants to shop in the district can park quickly, and the city spends the meter money to clean the sidewalks and provide security. These added public services make the business district a place where people want to be, rather than merely a place where anyone can park free if they can find a space. Returning the meter revenue generated by the district to the district for the district’s own use can help to convince merchants and property owners to support performance prices for curb parking.
Suppose also that curb parking remains free in other business districts. Everyone complains about the shortage of parking, and drivers congest traffic and pollute the air while they search for curb parking. The city has no meter revenue to clean the sidewalks and provide other amenities. In which district would you want to have a business?
Performance prices will improve curb parking by creating a few vacancies, the added meter revenue will pay to improve public services, and these added public services will create political support for performance prices.
Parking Increment Finance
Most cities put their parking meter revenue into the city’s general fund. How can a city return meter revenue to business districts without shortchanging the general fund? The city can return only the subsequent increment in meter revenue–the amount above and beyond the existing meter revenue–that arises after the city begins to charge performance prices. We can call this arrangement parking increment finance.
Parking increment finance closely resembles tax increment finance, a popular way to pay for public investment in districts in need of revitalization. Local redevelopment agencies receive the increment in property tax revenue that results from the increased property values in the redevelopment districts. Similarly, business districts can receive the increment in parking meter revenue that results from performance parking prices.
More meters, higher rates, and longer hours of operation will provide money to pay for added public services. These added public services will promote business activity in the district, and the increased demand for parking will further increase meter revenue.
Performance Parking Prices in Practice
Some cities have begun to charge performance prices for curb parking and return the meter revenue to its source. Redwood City, California, sets meter rates to achieve an 85 percent occupancy rate for curb parking downtown; the rates differ both by location and time of day, depending on demand. The city returns the revenue to the metered district to pay for public parking structures, police protection, and cleaner sidewalks.
Merchants and property owners all supported the new policy when they learned the meter revenue would pay for added public services in the downtown business district, and the city council adopted it unanimously. Performance prices create a few curb vacancies so visitors can easily find a space, the added meter revenue pays to improve public services, and these added public services create political support for the performance prices.
The Parking Manager shall survey the average occupancy for each parking area in the Downtown Meter Zone that has parking meters. Based on the survey results, the Parking Manager shall adjust the rates up or down in twenty-five cent ($0.25) intervals to seek to achieve the target occupancy rate.
Revenues generated from on-street and off-street parking within the Downtown Meter Zone boundaries shall be accounted for separately from other City funds and may be used only within or for the benefit of the Downtown Core Meter Zone.
Sections 20.120 and 20.121 of the Redwood City Municipal Code
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Most cities keep their meter rates constant throughout day and let occupancy rates vary in response to demand. cities can vary their meter prices to keep occupancy about 85 percent. The goal is to balance supply everywhere, all the time. Most cities also limit the length at meters so long-term parkers won’t monopolize the curb spaces. But after Redwood City adjusted meter guarantee the availability spaces, it removed limits at meters.
This unlimited-has turned out to with drivers who can for as long as they pay. The demand-meter rates create the most convenient spaces, and long-term tend to choose the cheaper spaces in off-street lots.
Other cities have also begun to adjust their meter ensure the availability of curb parking. The U.S. Department Transportation has awarded grants to Chicago, Los San Francisco to test performance prices for curb Washington, D.C., has already started them. Pasadena Diego return meter revenues to enhance public services metered districts. We can call the balance between demand and supply the “Goldilocks principle” of parking prices.
Any city can use a pilot program to test Goldilocks prices for curb parking. All the city has to do is allow business district that requests a pilot program to have cost the city anything, because the meters pay for Dirty and unsafe streets will never be great, so the initially use the meter revenue to pay for clean-and-safe.
Many communities may value clean and safe more highly than free but overcrowded curb parking. community is clean and safe, the parking revenue urban amenities such as street trees, underground public transit improvements. Parking on a great street may not be free, but it will be convenient and worth the price.
# # #
About the author:
Professor Shoup is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He has 
been a visiting scholar at Cambridge University and the World Bank, and has served as Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA. His influential book, The High Cost of Free Parking, is leading a growing number of cities to charge fair market prices for curb parking, dedicate the resulting revenue to finance public services in the metered districts, and reduce or remove off-street parking requirements. His research on employer-paid parking led to passage of California’s parking cash-out law, and to changes in the Internal Revenue Code to encourage parking cash out. He can be reached at shoup@ucla.
This article was adapted with permission of the author from a chapter in Planetizen Contemporary Debates in Urban Planning, edited by Abhijeet Chavan, Christian Peralta, and Christopher Steins. Washington, Island Press, 2007, pp. 52–56.
Monday, May 10, 2010
And what if, instead, you share your car?
Next generation carsharing hits the street
The concept of "organized carsharing", in which people join groups which allow them to put their own cars at their members' disposal for short-term rental, is one that has been around for 
decades and which has really taken off over the last dozen years. But of late we are seeing a new kind of carsharing paradigm emerge: in which people rent out their own vehicles on a flexible basis to anyone belonging to a member group, with the whole thing orchestrated by a package of software services and set of operational and legal obligations, with the end result of that your car goes to work for you (finally!). This is peer-to-peer carsharing and after years of being an item of occasional discussion among cognoscenti is now starting to hit the streets in earnest.
- Dave Brook, Carsharing.US
A couple of months ago I had in mind 2 "next big things" - car2go and peer to peer (p2p) carsharing. I've held off writing about p2p in anticipation that RelayRides would go live and I could talk about it as it actually works not as a hypothetical. (Full disclosure, I'm consulting with RelayRides.)
Since then p2p carsharing and car rental has been all over the internet — Spride, Gettaround in the US; Whipcar and Wombat Car Club in the UK. (For what it's worth, there's a parallel movement to peer to peer car rental going on, as well — Spagg for example, and there are similar p2p car rental companies in Germany and Australia.)
What is peer to peer carsharing? It's traditional carsharing using privately owned 
vehicles temporarily made available to a carsharing company for others to drive. Like traditional carsharing the vehicles are decentralized, they're available by the hour, and they include gas and insurance in the rates (ideally full insurance coverage, not state minimum coverage).
But first, a point of clarification: some of the services that claim to be carsharing don't actually meet what I would call the minimum requirements for calling themselves carsharing — most importantly lacking "unattended access", through a lockbox or electronic technology. If you've got to meet the owner to exchange keys at the beginning and end of the trip I just don't see how that will provide sufficient convenience of access for drivers.
Here's why I think unattended access important: if you want to claim to be carsharing I want to be sure it will deliver the benefits that so many of us have worked so hard to establish over the years — fewer cars on the road, fewer parked cars, VMT reductions, increased use of transit, bicycling and walking. If not, why should local governments support carsharing? Car rental, even so-called hourly car rental, has never demonstrated these benefits. (Because of the lack of unattended access, in my mind, this excludes Spride and Whipcar as real carsharing at the present time) leaving RelayRides and Gettaround as the only bona fide peer to peer carsharing services.
Why is peer to peer so attractive?
Well, it's certainly a good deal for car owners, who can easily make several thousand dollars a year from their car ("Don't work for your car, make your car work for you," as Spride says.) Need I say more?
For the carsharing member (driver or renter in p2p terms), some adjustments will be necessary — it seems likely that in most cases instead of knowing a couple of favorite vehicle locations near your home or office, you'll have to go on the internet (or ideally smart phone) to locate the cars that are available during the timer period you have in mind; and there may be a little anxiety finding the location the first time, particularly in cities.
For the carsharing company it transforms a major expense (leasing or owning the fleet) into a variable cost that they only pay when the car is actually making money. And, the lower cost structure means that carsharing can be feasible in less dense, more suburban locations (i.e. lower hours per day utilization), increasing the benefits of carsharing beyond the center city and close-in neighborhoods of the relatively few cities in the US that presently have carsharing. That's the heart of why I think is peer to peer a next big thing.
A side benefit of p2p is that, in the same way that using carsharing instead of owning a car (or 2) can be a transition to car-lite lifestyle, renting a car out to others may also serve as a transition to a car-lite lifestyle for vehicle owners.
Why now?
Until now the hangup in getting peer to peer off the ground has been insurance. The issue has been figuring out whether there's an issue (and how to resolve it, if there is) about where/when the vehicle owner's personal auto insurance policy ends and the carsharing policy begins in the event of a claim. Apparently, the economic climate has loosed up the insurance underwriters' grips on the reins at insurance companies. (Whatever it takes, I guess...)
Another reason may be the explosion of interest in the iPhone and smart phones in general, which I think will make finding and booking p2p vehicles much easier and more spontaneous than having to log on to a carsharing company web site at home or work. And, no doubt, the down turn in the economy got the juices flowing with all sort of unorthodox start ups.
Finally, in this survey of peer to peer carsharing, I would be remiss not mention the unsung pioneer in the peer to peer carsharing world: a little community car club in the UK with the unlikely name of Wombat Car Club. They figured out the insurance years ahead of anyone else and have a very generous payment plan for car owners. Thanks for leading the way.
# # #
About the author:
Founder of Carsharing Portland, the first commercial carsharing company in the US 
in 1998, Dave Brook is a consultant in carsharing and new mobility services to start up companies and government agencies. He occasionally posts articles on carsharing in North America and the world to his website www.Carsharing.us, in which this article was posted on 9 May 2010.
For more on P2P C/S:
* Gettaround - http://gettaround.com/
* RelayRides - http://www.relayrides.com/
* Sambil (= ‘Co-car’) http://www.sambil.se/
* Spride Share - http://spride.com/
* Whipcar - http://www.whipcar.com/
* WOMBAT Car Club - http://www.wombatcarclub.co.uk/index.asp
Several of these providers offer explanatory videos on their site.
Monday, December 28, 2009
(From our 2009 archives and worthy of your attention)
"Transport Refugees – Victims of Unjust Transport Policies"
The term “refugee” if used in the context of transportation 
would normally be understood to mean “the movement of refugees”. But what we fail to comprehend is that for various reasons it is our own transport systems, and the values and decisions that shape them, that are making many of us “refugees” in our own cities? It does not have to be this way.[Back on July 22nd of this year we published some extracts of this important thinkpiece, which has recently become a subject of vigorous discussion in our Sustran Global South Forum, specifically in the context this time of the continuing push by certain authorities to ban rickshaw pullers in Dhaka from plying their trade. This tendency of many authorities to try to concentrate on buying and building expensive imported technologies, instead of innovating, improving and working with what they have ,is something of a phenomenon we are seeing in many parts of the world, North and South. Spend a bit of time here with Sudhir and Bert. It will not be time wasted, pointing us to valuable lessons good not only for Dhaka, but Detroit and Dar es Salaam, Dortmund and Djakarta, and beyond. (And if your time today does not allow you to read the full article here, may we urge you to check out their World Streets 22 July summary here-.)]
Transport Refugees – Victims Of Unjust Transport Policies
Becoming “refugees” in our own cities
According to international refugee law , a refugee is someone who seeks refuge in a foreign country because of war and violence, or out of fear of persecution "on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group”. Authors draw parallel from the term “refugee” in order to emphasize the growing social discrimination and exclusion of vulnerable road users while making transport decisions.
The authors have investigated various documents and news reports to argue as to how we are increasingly becoming victims of our own solutions and thus becoming refugees in our own lands. In the subsequent sections, the authors have tried to explore various issues in order to prove this facet, while the WHO (2009) in the latest study provides a very good summary of victimization of vulnerable people.
“Our roads are particularly unsafe for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists who, without the protective shell of a car around them, are more vulnerable. These road users need to be given increased attention. Measures such as building sidewalks, raised crossings and separate lanes for two wheelers; reducing drink-driving and excessive speed; increasing the use of helmets and improving trauma care are some of the interventions that could save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. While progress has been made towards protecting people in cars, the needs of these vulnerable groups of road users are not being met” 
The externalities of transport
Outdoor air pollution alone causes an estimated 800,000 deaths each year. Research from the East & West Center based in Hawaii, U.S. on commuter’s exposure to PM 10 while walking in Hanoi (2006) are as high as 495 µg/m3. The Health Effects Institute hospital and household studies in Ho Chi Minh City (2007) found a strong link between air pollution, especially ozone and NO2, and health impacts on young children in the form of acute lower respiratory illness.
In a 2009 survey, one in every five people in Hong Kong said they were considering leaving the city because of the air pollution. One in 10 was either seriously considering leaving or already in the process of leaving. Also results indicated that severest health effects aggravated by air pollution are associated with income with poor people as major sufferers.
The WHO in a 2009 study estimates around 150,000 deaths occurring in low-income countries each year due to climate change from four climate-sensitive health outcomes – crop failure and malnutrition, diarrheal disease, malaria and flooding. 85% of these excess deaths were found in younger children.
According to latest WHO estimates, nearly 1.27 million people die in road traffic crashes every year. In addition, road crashes cause between 20 million and 50 million non-fatal injuries every year and are an important cause of disability. Important aspects to be noted are:
Data from many cities (Pakistan, Nepal, Thailand, India and Philippines) suggest that average ambient noise levels range from 50-100 with 112d b being maximum. Research on noise pollution is indicating that it causes more deaths when compared to heart disease. There is growing evidence that noise pressure levels exceeding 50 db(A) during night time are related to the development of high blood pressure and exceeding 65 db(A) during day time increases the risk for heart attacks in men. Research (footnote 6) indicates that, In a German city “Cologne”, for every third household moving out of city, noise and air pollution in the city was a crucial reason. It is to be noted that people walking, cycling and using public transport face the highest exposure thus are at greatest risk.
• High share of “vulnerable group” in the traffic accidents. In fact, in low-income countries of South East Asia over 80% of those killed are vulnerable road users
• Over 90% of the world’s fatalities on the roads occur in low-income and middle-income countries which has 48% of vehicles
• 32% of countries in world have national or local level policies on walking and cycling
• 50% of world’s population lives in countries which do not have speed limits on urban roads (of less than or equal to 50 kph) and for the countries which have some sort of speed limits, enforcement is very poor (in a rating evaluation only 9% of countries scored 7 or more in the range 1-10)
• Projections suggest that road traffic fatalities would be the fifth leading cause of death by 2030 with an estimated 2.4 million fatalities per year
Urban sprawl induced development
Asian cities undergo a “push-pull” phenomenon. Many people are abandoning the cities in search of better quality of life and environment and moving out of such cities (push), on the other hand, there are still a high number of people migrating into such decaying cities in order to make a living (pull). Also, the trend of ‘slush and burn development’ is on the raise in many Asian cities. Private real estate developers are developing various periphery business districts and new commercial areas while abandoning the old decaying sections of the city in order to generate the economic boom. This kind of development needs to be understood in context of poor people.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization report points out that the overwhelming majority of the hungry live in the developing world with 65% of them in just seven countries - India, China, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Majority of such poor migrate to cities and live in slums next to major corridors. Some reports indicate that Asian cities currently accommodate nearly 60% of total world’s slum population. In Delhi, approximately 45% of population are clustered into slums and live in inhuman conditions and have to face transport discrimination daily.
Sometimes the cleansing, densification and beatification process carried out for city development (sometimes solutions such as transport focused development which induces sprawl along public transport routes) creates more victims then solutions. Major benefits accrued by land because of such transport development are squeezed by rich people thus further marginalizing the poor.
Reports from Mumbai indicate that 1,5000 million INR Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) is being opposed the very expert committee which was authorized by government. Reports indicate that the reason being possible damage to the livelihood of local people as well as the burden it will add to an already-densely populated area. Some reports indicate that from a city like Chennai alone about 100,000 people will be shifted out of the city as part of a clean-up. A news report quotes Jeb Brugmann as saying
“I have studied migrant communities in several places and one thing that stands out is that they all have a unique psychological profile — they are risk-takers with a strong entrepreneurial drive. Shifting these people to the margins, cutting them off from resources and opportunities is only a recipe for revolution,”
Several research papers have documented the impact of rail system on Bangkok land market. It is true that Bangkok has seen some transformation because of improvement in public transport facilities. But not many people have documented the impact of such projects on vulnerable people. ADB’s Urban Transport Project in Bangkok has documented some impact of the ADB’s urban transport project. Nearly 1220 households had to be relocated. The Performance Evaluation Report notes that
1. Increase in commercial area around the corridors ( exploitation of land for commercial reasons)
2. Of every 100 vehicles on the roads that benefit from the project road, 45% of the persons in them are estimated to be bus passengers.
3. Although the information is patchy, the main conclusion is that the relocation has not improved the lives of the relocated people because of project. The main issues were increased travel distances to work and separation from relatives. There were indications that a portion of the resettlers had become worse off: 49% had economic problems, and 44% took more time to travel, with only 9% taking less time.
With such increasing challenges, research from India and China indicate that people spend more on transport then on housing, health and education. With increasing prices, people tend to consume less food in order to afford higher transport costs.
Subsidizing the rich at the cost of the poor and the underprivileged
In 2008, increase in fuel prices severely affected governments that subsidized fuels. Fuel subsidies cost annually about 0.1-15 billion USD across various countries. The Indonesian government acknowledged that “with the increasing fuel subsidy, the government’s ability to fund programs which are oriented to the improvement of lives for the poor has dramatically reduced. These programs include education, health facilities, National Program for Community Empowerment, small business credit facilities, and the development of infrastructure. On the other hand, the fuel subsidy is mainly consumed by those who are not targeted by the program. As much as 40 percent of high income families benefit from 70 percent of the subsidy, while 40 percent of the lowest income families only benefit only 15 percent.”
The Elite and poor Neighborhoods in New Delhi
A recent walkability survey in Delhi by CSE, points out the deficiency in investment planning. It evaluated pedestrian facilities in a low income neighborhood with a high income neighborhood and found that- In Govindpuri (low income neighborhood) where about 100 persons walk per five minutes during peak hour had poorly designed if any foot facilities and in Aurangzeb Road (high income neighborhood) lined with ministerial bunglows, where only 3 persons were seen walking in ten minutes during the morning peak hour, has well designed and spacious footpaths.
Banning Cycle Rickshaws in New Delhi
In May 2006, the High Court of Delhi passed an order directing the municipal government to stop granting licenses for cycle rickshaws on Delhi roads, complete a ban on use of cycle rickshaws in Delhi's Chandni Chowk area, and introduce compressed natural gas buses in the area to replace the rickshaws. The reason citied was high congestion caused by cycle rickshaws. Estimates suggested that cycle rickshaws save more than 10 million motorized trips daily across the capital. Infuriated by the authority’s unjust intervention, many NGO’s fought the battle in judicial courts.
Many studies were quoted in the exchange. According to the latest reports, the Delhi High Court took an exception to the ‘unrealistic approach’ of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) in banning cycle-rickshaws in parts of the capital and slammed it for not fixing a limit on the number of cars a person can possess.
It suggested - ‘We find the guidelines are unrealistic. Why are you so enthusiastic in banning cycle-rickshaws? Why don’t you issue guidelines limiting the number of cars a person can have in the city?’
Though the court battle is still on but the condition of cycle rickshaw drivers have deteriorated over time due to harassment by authorities and fellow motorists. According to a survey by ITDP, the majority of cycle rickshaw drivers (54%) were landless laborer and over 30% were small/marginal farmers with majority of them illiterate. Their earnings from running the cycle rickshaw was around 2$-6$ per day.
It is to be noted that there has been no reports on reduction in congestion at the places where ban took place.
Banning Cycle Rickshaws in Dhaka
One of the main reasons of Cycle rickshaw growth in Dhaka has been the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), decision on September 1, 2002 to ban two stroke auto-rickshaws. The demand for informal public transport and short trip lengths (<5km)
DUTP – 1998 report showed that the Rickshaws took only 38% of road space while transporting 54% of passengers in Dhaka. The private cars on the other hand, took up 34% of road space while only transporting 9% of the population.
HDRC study captured the before and after impacts of Cycle rickshaw ban. Few of the conclusions are presented below a. Average monthly net income of rickshaw pullers decreased by 32%, from 3,834 to 2,600 taka
b. The amount of money sent back to their villages also declined following the ban. Before the ban, on average rickshaw pullers spent 64% of net income and sent the rest (36%) to his village. Following the ban, the amount spent in Dhaka decreased by 27%, while the amount sent to the village decreased by 41%.
c. Pullers compensated for loss of income by reducing food consumption, particularly of fish, meat, and cooking oil: for NMT pullers overall, 85.9%d ecreased their consumption of fish, 87.5% decreased consumption of meat, 65.1% decreased consumption of cooking oil, and over half (55.3%) decreased consumption of vegetables.
d. There was an increase in the number of income earners in the family from 1.24 to 1.37. This suggests that some children have been taken out of school to compensate for lost income, or that the burden on wives of the pullers have further increased as they must earn money as well as do all the family and household labor.
Sharifa Begum et al. did research on income and poverty aspects of cycle rickshaw drivers and concluded that a. urban rickshaw pullers in Dhaka come from very poor economic backgrounds consistent with the characteristics of chronic poverty
b. rickshaw pulling provides a route for modest upward mobility for those chronic rural poor who come to the city for work.
c. rickshaw pullers are susceptible to systematic health risks; deteriorating health, combined with health shocks, can impose a significant burden on the urban poor, dragging down the pace of upward mobility during their lifetime.
d. rickshaw pulling represents an unsustainable livelihood, as the initial welfare gains taper off with length of involvement in the sector.
e. intergenerational mobility of rickshaw-puller households is constrained by very limited schooling and the poor range of occupational choices for children.
Before and after studies conducted on some roads proved that there was no travel time gain for fuel dependent vehicle was achieved due to rickshaw ban but instead over the years the travel times for buses did undergo significant deterioration with a 26.1% increase of travel times. Also for shorter trips, there was significant increase in travel time due to non availability of transport-mode.
It can be derived from various research reports that banning cycle rickshaws do not serve any purpose and instead efforts should be made to improve the life of such people by offering them security and benefits. Banning is not a solution as it does not improve the congestion of city, road safety and life of such drivers but instead restricts the accessibility, mobility and increases motorization and environmental damage.
How about the old & persons with disabilities?
There are nearly 207 million aged (65 or>65 years) people in Asia (constituting approx 6% of total population). With mandatory retirement age of 55-60 years , and with huge proportion of older people being poorest people all their life with no savings , aged people become dependent on families as governments in many countries don’t play an active role in providing benefits across various dimensions. From the transport sector, in many countries it does not provide any relief but acts as a catalyst in aggravating the problems. Consuming polluted air for major part of life and travelling in torturous transport services over the later part of the years inflates the problems. Inefficient public transport services with encroached non-motorized facilities by traffic leaves them with little options. Research indicates that very few old people access public transit services in developed countries but its opposite in Asia.
The old people who manage to use public transport facilities often find themselves in mercy of crowded fellow passengers for getting a seat. Deprived of accessibility and mobility over the years, people are left to fend themselves from high motorization externalities.
Some Asian governments provide little transport-finance incentives such as
1. The Government of India has provided a 50% discount for bus transportation for older people (in one state free transportation is allowed on city buses)
2. In Nepal, the elderly get a 25% discount on transportation courtesy Nepalese Municipal Authority.
3. For the elderly in Thailand, only half price is charged for third-class journeys from June to September
Reports suggest that only about 15% of the loco motor disabled in India are able to use public transport. The term “barrier free” movement is yet a vision in Asian cities (exceptions include some developed cities such as Hong Kong and some Japanese cities). Experience from Philippines suggests that only 2 percent of children with disabilities have access to elementary education with the major barrier being “absence of accessible transportation”.
The following is an excerpt from the Persons with Disabilities Act from Malaysia, Philippines and India -
Malaysia (2008) - Access to public transport facilities – “Persons with disabilities shall have the right to access to and use of public transport facilities, amenities and services open or provided to the public on equal basis with persons without disabilities”
Philippines - Batas Pambansa Bilang 344 (National Law), Accessibility Law in 1983: purpose of enhancing the mobility of persons with disabilities by requiring public utilities to install facilities to make transportation accessible. Enactment of Republic Act 7277 provides in Section 25 thereof for a barrier-free environment
India (1995) - the act emphasizes the need for access of children with disabilities to school. It further suggests a. adapt rail compartments, buses, vessels and aircrafts in such a way as to permit easy access to such persons;
b. adapt toilets in rail compartments, vessels, aircrafts and waiting rooms in such a way as to permit the wheel chair users to use them conveniently.
c. installation of auditory signals at red lights in the public roads for the benefit of persons with visual handicap;
d. causing curb cuts and slopes to be made in pavements for the easy access of wheel chair users;
e. engraving on the surface of the zebra crossing for the blind or for persons with low vision;
f. engraving on the edges of railway platforms for the blind or for persons with low vision;
g. devising appropriate symbols of disability;
h. warning signals at appropriate places.
Though many cities provide subsidies in tickets, in-accessibility of public transport terminals and vehicles proves to be a major barrier. Even with the passage of such laws, transport in many cities is yet to become disabled friendly.
Recent news reports from Indonesia suggest that “Instead of requiring level footpaths and ramps, lawmakers voted unanimously this month to demand disabled people wear signs announcing their condition so motorists won't run them down as they cross the street.” Though the reports are yet to be confirmed by authors, but if this is true then it indicates further marginalization of persons with disabilities.
And the women?
Marginalization of women in transport can be understood from the fact that gender specific travel data is rarely collected at national and local levels and with such a mindset, rarely it may happen that the “women” were involved in the project design thus making the modes, mindset and infrastructure are rarely feminist sensitive. The transport challenge faced by women stretch across various dimensions such as safety, equity, accessibility and mobility. Transport opportunities often forces women to make restricted choices in employment as they have limited options in accessibility. For example, in one of surveys conducted in Dhaka, About 58% of women regarded the present bus service as overcrowded and accessibility difficult.
Sharifa et al. researched that many of rickshaw drivers in Dhaka who had switched jobs ( due to variety of reasons) had reduced monthly income. The wives of such drivers showed increase in incomes thus indicating more stress and hard work. Experience from Pakistan also indicates the similar story. Reports indicate that “uncivilized behavior” of some of the public transporters and unavailability of public transport are the main reasons for restricted trips.
One of the interesting findings of Metro Manila Urban Transportation Integration Study (1996) was that the trip production rates of women over the years (contrary to the logic where people expect increase) have decreased. In 1980, trip production rates were 2.17 (women) and 2.28 (men) which changed to 1.78 (women) and 2.40 (men). Perhaps due to growing inefficiencies in the transport system, the women were the victims with restricted mobility whereas mobility of men increased.
In one of the surveys in Delhi, it was found that women either travel by foot (54%) or use buses (39%) for work purpose. Important thing to note here is the incidence of women spending 2-3 hours in commuting (17%). This creates high impact as they not only need to undergo longer work hours but also work at home and manage the family chores. Sad part is that they are wasting more time travelling lesser distances then men because of the inefficient transport systems.
What about the people living on streets? Research from Delhi indicate that at any given time, there are 10,000 homeless women in Delhi who live on streets as there are insufficient shelters (3) available for use by homeless women. Such women are not only exposed to the increased risk of illness and starvation associated with life on the street, but also heightened vulnerability to violence.
Does our transport system help them or victimize them further?
Clearly our transport system has become more and more injurious to health and inequitable. Over the years, we have tried to compartmentalize and segregate many of the problems of transport and tried to derive piecemeal / quick fix technical solutions without much success. Congestion costs as accessed by various researchers from various cities range from 1-8% of GDP. Current transport and city design severely restricts the accessibility and limits people earning capability.
Already the citizens are avoiding non motorized trips and shifting to motorized trips in order to escape the discrimination in accessibility and mobility. Several researchers have established that Asian cities which are conducive for walking and cycling with large number of trips with length less than 5 km are increasingly accessed by motorized modes. The cities are yet to invest huge amounts of money on pedestrian accessibility as they are yet to acknowledge pedestrians as road users. Thus it can be concluded that In spite of decades of investment on roads and infrastructure, cities are yet to realize solutions. The problems have magnified and so called solutions have become counterproductive.
There is a huge disconnect between policies, practices and proposed solutions. Past decades of inefficient policies have made us victims of our own solutions. Transport services in cities instead of providing relief; aggravate the problems and causes marginalization of vulnerable group. Increasingly people are getting dissatisfied and becoming “refugees” in their own cities. Thus top of pyramid solutions create more unrest and victims and the need is to plan and provide solutions for vulnerable people.
Transport Planning focused on such refugees would provide equitable solutions!
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The orginal article will be found here - http://cai-asia.blogspot.com/2009/07/transport-refugees-victims-of-unjust.html
Note - this study quotes many websites, research papers and news articles. Please contact the authors in case you would like to have the full references.
About the authors:
Bert Fabian has worked on transport and environmental issues in the last 10 years and has been with the CAI-Asia Center for 7 years. He enjoys the outdoors and cycling in his spare time. Email: bert.fabian@cai-asia.org
Sudhir Gota – a former highway designer has abandoned designing roads to work on sustainable transportation issues. He enjoys doing research. Email: sudhir@cai-asia.org
Both are from Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wanted: Crowd-Sourced Transportation Analysis
(An open thread for collaborative tool building)
This is the second of a two-part article by Charles Komanoff, activist, energy-economist and policy analyst, looking at goals and tools for finding the right strategy for implementing some form of congesting charging measures in New York City's crowded streets. He invites comment on his proposed "Balance Transportation Analyzer" tool.
Wanted: Crowd-Sourced Transportation Analysis
- by Charles Komanoff. Reprinted from NYC Streetsblog with the author's permission
My recent post refuting David Owen's attack on congestion pricing ignited a long, rich thread. Here's one comment, from "Jonathan," that struck a nerve:[A] cordon-pricing plan … which doesn't charge center-city residents could result in an increase in those residents' automobile use. If the streets are free of outer-borough traffic, more of my Manhattan neighbors might drive to work, or simply make extra automobile trips within the cordon that without CP [congestion pricing], they would have made by subway or taxi.
Jonathan's right: Any Manhattan cordon-pricing scheme will lead to an uptick in car trips that start and end within the charging zone. It's one of those "rebound effects" that congestion-price modeling needs to account for, and which I've taken pains to incorporate in my Balanced Transportation Analyzer pricing model.
Indeed, I daresay that the BTA handles just about every issue ever raised on this blog about congestion pricing. How many transit users will switch to cabs? Will variable tolls really flatten rush-hour peaks? Won't faster roads lure back the trips killed off by the toll (Owen's conundrum)? And many more.
Technically, the BTA is a spreadsheet. But I think of it as a vast mansion, whose 46 interlinked "rooms" (worksheets) are stocked with precious data and ingenious algorithms for cracking open questions like these:* How does congestion on weekends compare with weekdays?
* How sharply do traffic speeds rise as volumes fall?
* Which boroughs and counties stand to pay the most with congestion pricing?
* Will a cordon toll lead to more bicycling, and will that improve public health?
* Can decommissioning vehicle lanes increase congestion pricing's benefits?
* Which will boost transit use more: lower fares or better service?
* How many fares does a cabbie get in a ten-hour taxi shift, with and without pricing?
Multiply that list a hundredfold and you get a sense of the BTA's hidden treasures.
I say "hidden" because, except for a few mavens like "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, who calls it "the best [modeling] tool that I have seen in my nearly 40 years," the Balanced Transportation Analyzer remains largely untapped by advocates. To me, it's as if we're all starving while this rich storehouse next door goes to waste.
Which prompts me to ask: 1. Why is the BTA so underused?
2. Is our community missing out on a valuable tool?
3. What should we do about it?
Let's make this an open thread, with emphasis on what can we do together to make the BTA more accessible and useful to New York's livable streets community. (The model is adaptable to other cities, so those of you not from NYC are also invited.)
As for Jonathan's question: the BTA shows that over the course of a typical weekday, 72 percent of all vehicle miles traveled inside the Manhattan Central Business District are by cars, trucks and buses that have crossed into the CBD, either at 60th Street or across the Hudson or East Rivers, and thus would pay the congestion toll. The remaining 28 percent of VMT is mostly by medallion taxicabs (22 percent). Cars and trucks that stayed within the cordon zone and couldn't be tolled accounted for just 6 percent of all CBD traffic. (All this is derived and shown in the table at the bottom of the BTA's "Cordon" worksheet.)
This tells us that: 1) Even if "intrazonal" traffic rises sharply, as Jonathan fears, it will add relatively little VMT because it's such a small share of overall cordon traffic to begin with; and 2) rather than fret over the free pass for intrazonal trips (which are impractical to toll with current technology), congestion pricing needs a strategy to stop a surge in taxicab use from filling the newly freed road space.
The plan currently advocated by Ted Kheel and myself does just that. It combines a 33 percent surcharge on all three taxi-fare components -- mileage, waiting time, and the "drop" -- with time-variable car tolls of $3/$6/$9 on weekdays and $2/$3/$4 on weekends (trucks pay double, reflecting their greater bulk, while medallion cabs are exempt from the toll but pay the surcharge). Under this Kheel-Komanoff Plan, intrazonal VMT is predicted to rise by approximately 120,000 miles a day -- 40,000 by cars and trucks, 80,000 by taxicabs. But cordon VMT by vehicles coming from outside, and thus tolled, falls far more, by 450,000. This yields a net drop in cordon travel of 330,000 VMT, an 8 percent decline that, the model predicts, will boost average travel speeds within the CBD by around 20 percent.
The point of this post isn't to advocate for a particular plan, however. It's to show that rebound effects and other asserted congestion-toll pitfalls can be modeled and, with the right plan, accommodated.
The figures are based on 2007 traffic levels. Current volumes are probably slightly less. While a decrease in "baseline" traffic cuts into the benefits of congestion pricing, both the saved time and new transit revenue predicted for Kheel-Komanoff are still striking. And, yes, if you want to test our pricing plan (or your own) with reduced baseline traffic, the BTA even has a switch to adjust the volume.
# # #
* Click here to read comments and reader contributions on Streetsblog
* Click here to read the original posting in Streetsblog
The author:
Charles Komanoff “re-founded” NYC’s bike-advocacy group Transportation Alternatives in the 1980s, helped found the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in the 1990s, and co-founded the Carbon Tax Center in 2007. Charles’s writings include books, articles, and landmark reports such as Subsidies for Traffic, Killed By Automobile, and the Kheel Report on financing free transit in New York City. Charles lives with his wife and two sons in lower Manhattan
Monday, October 19, 2009
Saudis terrified we might actually reduce oil dependence
(World Streets launches campaign for compassionate aid)
Thanks to environmental writer and columnist Jay Bookman for this heads-up, and right behind him the New York Times, World Streets now has a new thing that keeps us up at night. Any reduction on our part of oil consumption, say through some of the projects and measures being pushed by World Streets and others, is (do we have this right?) a form of theft. Fair is fair we would say, so let's get together and work this one out. Get out your checkbooks. Compassionate capitalism.
From the New York Times of 14 October:
Saudis Seek Payments for Any Drop in Oil Revenues
- by Jad Mouawad and Andrew C. Revkin
Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.
The oil-rich kingdom has pushed this position for years in earlier climate-treaty negotiations. While it has not succeeded, its efforts have sometimes delayed or disrupted discussions. The kingdom is once again gearing up to take a hard line on the issue at international negotiations scheduled for Copenhagen in December.
The chief Saudi negotiator, Mohammad al-Sabban, described the position as a “make or break” provision for the Saudis, as nations stake out their stance before the global climate summit scheduled for the end of the year.
“Assisting us as oil-exporting countries in achieving economic diversification is very crucial for us through foreign direct investments, technology transfer, insurance and funding,” Mr. Sabban said in an e-mail message.
This Saudi position has emerged periodically as a source of dispute since the earliest global climate talks, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. It is surfacing again as Saudi Arabia tries to build a coalition of producers to extract concessions in Copenhagen.
Petroleum exporters have long used delaying tactics during climate talks. They view any attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by developed countries as a menace to their economies.
The original treaty meant to combat global warming, the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, contains provisions that in Saudi Arabia’s view require such compensation.
Mr. Sabban outlined his stance at climate talks in Bangkok this month.
Environmental advocates denounced the idea, saying the Saudi stance hampered progress to assist poor nations that are already suffering from the effect of climate change, and that genuinely need financial assistance.
“It is like the tobacco industry asking for compensation for lost revenues as a part of a settlement to address the health risks of smoking,” said Jake Schmidt, the international climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The worst of this racket is that they have held up progress on supporting adaptation funding for the most vulnerable for years because of this demand.”
Saudi Arabia is highly dependent on oil exports, which account for most of the government’s budget. Last year, when prices peaked, the kingdom’s oil revenue swelled by 37 percent, to $281 billion, according to Jadwa Investment, a Saudi bank. That was more than four times the 2002 level. At one point in 2008, the average gasoline price in the United States surpassed $4 a gallon.
Saudi exports are expected to drop to $115 billion this year, after oil prices fell. American gasoline prices are hovering around $2.50 a gallon.
The one-year swing in the kingdom’s revenues shows that oil prices are likely to be a bigger factor in Saudi Arabia’s future that any restrictions on greenhouse gases, said David G. Victor, an energy expert at the University of California, San Diego.
Mr. Victor dismissed the Saudi stance as a stunt, saying that the real threat for petroleum exporters came from improvements in fuel economy and rising mandates for alternative fuels in the transportation sector, both of which would reduce the need for petroleum products. “Oil exporters have always, in my view, far overblown the near-term effects of carbon limits on demand for their products,” Mr. Victor said. “For the Saudis this may be a deal-breaker, but the Saudis are not essential players. In some sense, one sign that a climate agreement is effective is that big hydrocarbon exporters hate it.”
A recent study by the International Energy Agency, which advises industrialized nations, found that the cumulative revenue of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would drop by 16 percent from 2008 to 2030 if the world agreed to slash emissions, as opposed to the projection if there were no treaty.
But with oil projected to average $100 a barrel, the energy agency estimated that OPEC members would still earn $23 trillion over that period.
Mr. Sabban, however, cited an older study by Charles River, a consulting firm, which found that the losses in revenue for Saudi Arabia alone would be $19 billion a year starting in 2012.
The Copenhagen talks were a major point on the agenda of the last OPEC conference.
But not every oil-exporting country is falling in line with the Saudi position. Some have been trying a different approach that has earned the backing of environmental groups. For example, Ecuador, OPEC’s newest member, said last year that it was willing to freeze oil exploration in the Amazon forest if it got some financial rewards for doing so.
The Saudi negotiator said that the compensation mechanism was an integral part of the global climate regime that has been in place since the 1990s and that was not up for renegotiation.
“It is a very serious trend that we need to follow and influence if we want to minimize its adverse impacts on our economies and our people,” Mr. Sabban said in an e-mail message to other OPEC officials. “That does not mean we would like to obstruct any progress or that we do not want to join any international agreement. We will do that if the deal is fair and equitable and does not transfer the burden to us.”
# # #
Thanks to Jay Bookman for his good heads-up on this important news. He maintains a very interesting blog specializing in foreign relations and environmental and technology-related issues. which you can check out at http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog\
And here you have our editor, overcome with emotion as he tries to figure out how World Streets is ever going to find the wherewithall to compensate for our actions leading to all those big number reductions in oil imports. (He really should have thought of that first.)
New York City Congestion Pricing Wars:
Ideas vs. politics vs. indifference
This is the first of a two part series by New Yorker Charles Komanoff, an activist, energy-economist and policy-analyst, taking on the loud (and so far powerful) opposition to the concept of bringing road pricing to provide some relief to New York City's crowded streets. We are pleased to reprint this short piece with the author's permission, as published last week in the pages of our diligent Streetsblog New York colleagues, on the grounds that this debate has implications that stretch far beyond that great city's crowded streets.
We particularly recommend that you take a few minutes to review the Comments that follow this piece. Many of which are informative and quite thought provoking. They provide a good idea of the mental landscape in that city. Click here to view those comments.
Paradox, Schmaradox. Congestion Pricing Works.
- by Charles Komanoff
We're used to seeing bizarre patterns of thinking on the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, but an op-ed in Friday's Journal took it to a new level: “How Traffic Jams Help the Environment.”
Still more bizarrely, the author was New Yorker writer David Owen, promoter of the commonsensical idea that urban density is energy-efficient, hence big cities are green.
For some reason Owen has taken a dislike to congestion pricing, and it has led him to construct an elaborate Rube Goldberg argument to prove that congestion pricing leads to more driving: If reducing [congestion] merely makes life easier for those who drive, then the improved traffic flow can actually increase the environmental damage done by cars, by raising overall traffic volume, encouraging sprawl and long car commutes.
What a lovely paradox … and how ridiculous, as Owen could have discovered by giving London’s congestion pricing experience (or Stockholm’s or Singapore’s) more than a cursory glance.
As any student of urban traffic now knows, London’s cordon pricing scheme cut traffic within the charging zone an average of 15 percent, raised travel speeds 30 percent, and greatly expanded bus ridership and cycle commuting — with little increase in traffic outside the zone or other negative effects. (http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/Impacts-monitoring-report-2.pdf)
Nearly seven years on, the reasons are fairly obvious: * Raising the price to drive into the center of London made car commuting less attractive.
* The gain in driving speeds attracted some new trips but not so many as to cancel the lost ones.
* Bus transit benefited from a virtuous cycle in which improved speeds attracted riders, further reducing traffic and also financing service improvements which attracted still more riders, further reducing traffic, etc.
* Ditto for cycling, though here the synergy was via safety in numbers.
All this was intuited back in the day by Transport for London staff, including Jay Walder, who has subsequently become the new MTA chief. The only uncertainty was the extent to which new car trips attracted by the time savings would undercut the reduction in trips from the congestion charge.
As it happened, some “induced traffic,” as Owen might have termed it, did materialize, but at far less than the one-for-one rate he assumed in his article. Without it, the drop in traffic might have been 20 percent or more. But the actual equilibrium, a settled 15 percent reduction in cordon traffic, was robust enough to achieve the desired results: faster travel by every mode, greater use of transit, and less VMT (vehicle miles traveled). Congestion pricing is indeed green.
To trace Owen’s error, look no further than his hypothesis: “If reducing [congestion] merely makes life easier for those who drive …”
Emphasis added; the “merely” is quite important. When the reduction in traffic is caused by a congestion charge, life is not just easier for those who continue driving but more costly as well. Yes, there’s a seesaw between price effects and time effects, but setting the congestion price at the right point will rebalance the system toward less driving, without harming the city's economy.
What's that right price point, then? It's not quite rocket science to figure it out, though it does take some thinking (not to mention continual tinkering if exogenous reductions in road capacity erode the original congestion benefits, as TfL reported recently). It's a subject Ted Kheel and I have in fact been thinking about for quite a while now, and if you would like to do some thinking about it too, start with our Balanced Transportation Analyzer -- http://www.nnyn.org/kheelplan/BTA_1.1.xls --and contact us with questions or criticisms (email: kea AT igc.org).
In his piece, Owen linked former Londoner and current MTA honcho Walder with the idea of congestion pricing. One can't help wondering whether he or the Journal intended it as a pre-emptive strike against a possible renewed push for congestion pricing in New York City. Whatever the motivation, it’s disappointing to see a writer who has rightly urged Americans to “live closer” peddling the defeatist — and false — notion that the price of urban virtue is eternal gridlock.
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* Click here to read the original piece in Streetsblog (with Comments)
The author:
Charles Komanoff “re-founded” NYC’s bike-advocacy group Transportation Alternatives in the 1980s, helped found the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in the 1990s, and co-founded the Carbon Tax Center in 2007. Charles’s writings include books, articles, and landmark reports such as Subsidies for Traffic, Killed By Automobile, and the Kheel Report on financing free transit in New York City. A math-and-economics graduate of Harvard, Charles lives with his wife and two sons in lower Manhattan
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