Category Archives: Transportation

No money, no Illiana Expressway

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According to Illinois officials, the Illiana Expressway project has been halted:

Illinois Department of Transportation officials decided “in light of the state’s current fiscal crisis and a lack of sufficient capital resources, the Illiana Expressway will not move forward at this time. Project costs exceed currently available resources,” a statement from the governor said.

The move is not surprising, given Acting IDOT Secretary Randy Blankenhorn opposed the road when he was chief of the Chicago Metropolitan Area for Planning.

“We see no evidence the Illiana would lead to sustained job creation over the long term,” Blankenhorn said in 2013. “There is potential it would expose the state to significant financial risk.”…

Rauner is feuding with Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton over the Democrats’ budget and how to solve a massive deficit.

This has been quite the controversial project and there have always been questions about the initial funding and ongoing costs. New highways are costly and Illinois doesn’t have much money to spend. Yet, now we get to find out whether this is simply another bargaining chip in the ongoing budget battles in Springfield. While we’ve seen a lot about the Chicago area politics of this expressway, what does Madigan think about it? Will the claims that the highway would be a boon for economic development be resurrected at some point?

Autonomous vehicles to intensify motion sickness

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A new study suggests self-driving cars will make motion sickness worse:

For adults, motion sickness will be more of an issue in self-driving vehicles than in conventional vehicles. Some are expected to experience motion sickness often, while others may actually feel sick every time they’re riding in an autonomous vehicle, a study by researchers at The University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute revealed…

Mr. Sivak and his co-researcher Brandon Schoettle looked at the three main factors that cause motion sickness (conflict between vestibular and visual inputs; inability to anticipate the direction of motion; and lack of control over the direction of motion) and determined that they are elevated in self-driving vehicles…

It’s become evident that self-driving cars will replace traditional cars in the future, and when this happens, all adults (who are most prone to motion sickness) will be passengers at all times. Mr. Sivak clarified that being a passenger in an autonomous vehicle will be quite different than riding along in a train or other mode of public transportation, for, unlike trains, self-driving cars will be subject to more lateral acceleration/deceleration as well as longitudinal acceleration/deceleration that is drastically less smooth. The small windows won’t help either.

The other major factor in the increased prevalence of motion sickness is what adults will do whilst in cars instead of driving. In an opinion survey of 3,255 adults from the U.S., China, India, Japan, Australia and the U.K., respondents named reading, talking/texting, sleeping, watching movies/TV, working and playing games as the activities they’ll engage in while riding in self-driving cars. According to the study, almost all of the activities mentioned worsen the frequency and severity of motion sickness.

An interesting side effect of a new technology. But, this means that automakers can/should include virtual reality devices to ease the ride – they won’t just be cars but rather entertainment pods! Everyone can be like the kids of today who ride in the expensive minivans and SUVs watching their split screen entertainment systems while holding their tablets and smartphones…

Considering a robot superhighway from Mexico to Canada

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If driverless cars are in the near future, why not a superhighway of autonomous trucks linking Mexico and Canada?

The project is currently being considered by members of the Central North American Trade Corridor Association (CNATCA), and would consist of a robot-only corridor running along Route 83 through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and on into Manitoba.

One of the main reasons for a robot road like this, according to Marlo Anderson of the CNATCA, is that North Dakota produces a lot of oil right now, and doesn’t have a great way to get it all where it needs to go. Sure, there are trains, but there’s not enough space to be had. That, and the jury-rigged cars that carry the oil keep exploding. Trucks can help ease the pressure, especially if they don’t need drivers…

There are plenty of problems to solve before any of this would be possible though, including self-driving car laws in half a dozen US states, some way of having driver-less robo-rigs cross borders into and out of the United States, and security in place to make sure no one tries to exploit that system. But robot roads like this one—if it happens—could pave the way to wider acceptance of self-driving vehicles that really do take care of it all themselves. Even if we’re not ready to have them on the road with us just yet.

Advantages include safer roads, no time restrictions on the trucks, lower labor costs, and presumably cheaper goods and/or more money to be made. Disadvantages include lost trucking jobs, a long period of time to put this all together, and perhaps the biggest hurdle for now: what exactly would such a highway cost to build and maintain? Do we need a fleet of herding vehicles to service the trucks and highway?

I wonder what the final arguments regarding this might look like: perhaps safety on the trucking side (how can you argue with a safer driving experience?) versus the steady erosion of jobs greased by free trade (this time to autonomous vehicles).

Testing a pay-per-mile tax in Oregon

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Looking for more revenue, Oregon is starting a test program of paying for miles driven rather than gasoline used:

The program is meant to help the state raise more revenue to pay for road and bridge projects at a time when money generated from gasoline taxes are declining across the country, in part, because of greater fuel efficiency and the increasing popularity of fuel-efficient, hybrid and electric cars.

Starting July 1, up to 5,000 volunteers in Oregon can sign up to drive with devices that collect data on how much they have driven and where. The volunteers will agree to pay 1.5 cents for each mile traveled on public roads within Oregon, instead of the tax now added when filling up at the pump…

Private vendors will provide drivers with small digital devices to track miles; other services will also be offered. Volunteers can opt out of the program at any time, and they’ll get a refund for miles driven on private property and out of state…

Drivers will be able to install an odometer device without GPS tracking.

For those who use the GPS, the state and private vendors will destroy records of location and daily metered use after 30 days. The program also limits how the data can be aggregated and shared. Law enforcement, for example, won’t be able to access the information unless a judge says it’s needed.

 

I suspect a number of governments will be interested in how this test works out. One big hurdle to overcome would seem to be privacy, though government tracking of vehicles may not be far off anyhow (through cell phones, insurance company monitoring devices, black boxes, toll booths/devices, license plate readers, etc.). The argument about deincentivizing electric or hybrid cars doesn’t really hold up because these vehicles still use the roads and add to the maintenance burden. Yet, ultimately this will be about revenue: is this a better model for bringing in the money needed for roads?

Expedia’s 2015 Road Rage Report

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It may be all about marketing but a new survey from Expedia looks at what makes American drivers mad:

Data from this year’s effort indicated that “The Texter” generates the most fury among pre-established categories of American drivers, earning scorn of 26 percent of 1,000 respondents.

Rounding out the top five, “The Tailgater” (13 percent) ranked second, narrowly edging out “The Left Lane Hog” (12 percent), “The Crawler” (10 percent), and one of my least favorites “The Multitasker (7 percent)…

In addition to evaluating the most deplorable driver behaviors, the report also found that the least popular in-car behavior is “back-seat driving,” cited as the biggest pet peeve by 52 percent of survey respondents.

The “Reluctant Co-Pilot”—the passenger who won’t help navigate—ranked second (12 percent), followed by the “Radio Hog” (10 percent), “The Snoozer” (8 percent), and “The Shoe Remover” (7 percent)…

Respondents offered multiple reasons for driving misbehaviors including running late and being provoked by other drivers. Rudeness behind the wheel also can be attributed in part to where people drive—the Expedia 2015 Road Rage Report indicated that New York City (42 percent) and Los Angeles (32 percent) topping the list.

This is why we need self-driving cars: these kinds of road rage emotions will disappear. Of course, other kinds of road rage could develop such as getting angry or annoyed with your autonomous vehicle (akin to getting mad at your web browser that takes two seconds to load a page), still getting mad at traffic and congestion (couldn’t driverless cars actually increase traffic?), and the boredom that comes with sitting in a vehicle without having to drive (though you could do more work).

Tolls to “never” go away on Illinois tollways

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The acting secretary of the Illinois Department of Transportation recently discussed the ongoing presence of tolls on Illinois highways:

Acting Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Randy Blankenhorn Friday answered the question that’s been on commuters’ minds since the state’s first three tollways opened in 1958: When will the tolls go away, as promised.

“Never,” Blankenhorn told a gathering of Kane County leaders. “The existing tolls are going to be on the tollway. That’s the way it’s going to be. The truth is unless we are willing to put significantly more state and federal money into the system, tolls are going to be the way we fund the system. It’s not going to be the only way, but it’s going to be part of the package.”…

Blankenhorn, calling himself “a user fee kind of guy” stuck to his support for existing and new tolls throughout his answers. The history of borrowing money to fund all segments of transportation, including ongoing maintenance, must end, he said.

“We’ve got to be able to pay for maintenance as we go,” Blankenhorn said. “We need a stable funding source that grows. User fees, I think, have to be part of this solution. If we don’t do something soon, we will have 5,000 miles of roadway in Illinois that will be in need of immediate repair. How long do we want to fund infrastructure on cigarette taxes and gambling?”

Given that the federal government nor states seem particularly interested in big infrastructure/highway funding (and even if they wanted to, money isn’t exactly flowing these days), I would guess that tolls will continue to grow. You the driver want a road, particularly a new one that cuts through already-developed areas? Be prepared to pay tolls.

Self-driving semis to bring safety, limit unwanted jobs – and lower the costs of products?

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Wired sums up some of the advantages autonomous semis might offer but leaves off a third possible advantages: cheaper shipping costs which leads to cheaper goods.

In 2012 in the US, 330,000 large trucks were involved in crashes that killed nearly 4,000 people, most of them in passenger cars. About 90 percent of those were caused by driver error. “Anything that can get commercial vehicles out of trouble has a lot of value,” says Xavier Mosquet, head of Boston Consulting Group’s North America automotive division.

So it’s no surprise some of the country’s largest freight carriers have in recent years started equipping their vehicles with active safety features like lane control and automatic braking. The economic case for these measures—the predecessors to fuller autonomy—is clear, says Noël Perry, an economist who specializes in transportation and logistics…

Another point in favor of giving robots control is the serious and worsening shortage of humans willing to take the wheel. The lack of qualified drivers has created a “capacity crisis,” according to an October 2014 report by the American Transportation Research Institute. The American Trucking Associations predicts the industry could be short 240,000 drivers by 2022. (There are roughly three million full-time drivers in the US.)

That’s partly because long haul trucking is not an especially pleasant job, and because it takes time and money to earn a commercial driver’s license. The shortage will get worse, Perry says, thanks to a suite of regulations set to take effect in the next few years. A national database to collect company-performed drug and alcohol tests will make it harder for drivers who get in trouble at one job to land another. Speed limiters could keep trucks to a pokey 64 mph. Mandated electronic reporting of hours driven will make it harder to skirt rest rules and drive longer than allowed. These are all good changes from a safety perspective, but they’re not great for profits.

Safety is good and more meaningful jobs might be helpful – though losing a bunch of driving jobs won’t look good to many. But, what about the added benefit of cheaper shipping costs in the long run? Perhaps it will take some time for this technology to become cheap and widely adopted. Yet, if trucks can drive themselves and drivers don’t need to be paid, can’t these trucks run all day long making runs back and forth? And imagine if they could utilize greener technologies as well, limiting fuel costs. Americans like their cheap consumer goods and having everything shipped by semi just a little bit cheaper on store shelves may help Americans enjoy self-driving trucks even more.

Drivers, companies adjusting to changes in car insurance due to autonomous vehicles

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A recent survey asked Americans why they would buy an autonomous car and cheaper car insurance was second on the list:

Of the 1,500 US drivers the Boston Group surveyed in September, 55 percent said they “likely” or “very likely” would buy a semi-autonomous car (one capable of handling some, but not all, highway and urban traffic). What’s more, 44 percent said they would, in 10 years, buy a fully autonomous vehicle…

The leading reason people are considering semi-autonomous vehicles isn’t greater safety, improved fuel efficiency, or increased productivity—the upsides most frequently associated with the technology. Such things were a factor, but the biggest appeal is lower insurance costs. Safety was the leading reason people were interested in a fully autonomous ride, with cheaper insurance costs in second place. (Reasons not to want a robo-ride include fear of hacking, distrust of the technology, and good old love of driving.)

This is unexpected, because how insurance will shake out usually is on the “tricky things to be figured out” side of the ledger, alongside how the government will test and regulate the vehicles. The current insurance business model—car owner has insurance to protect himself from the risk of causing a crash—doesn’t make sense if the computer’s in charge. And if we can make cars that rarely crash, do we even need insurance? We certainly won’t need to spend as much on it (currently about $800 a year, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners)…

So yes, we’ll be rewarded financially for giving up the wheel. But in the long run, as fully autonomous cars take over our roads, the insurance companies will have to adapt. They can’t argue against saving lives, but “they’re very, very concerned,” says David Carlisle, chairman of the board of auto industry consultancy Carlisle & Company. “If the car can’t wreck anymore, those premiums have got to go down drastically.”

Sounds like a shake-up is coming for the car insurance industry. And if the business becomes a lot less profitable, how many firms will want to participate?

Another thought for those potential buyers of autonomous cars: how long would it take in car insurance savings to make up for the extra technology needed in the car? This could be like the current hybrid or electric car situation where the premium for such vehicles would take years in gas savings to cancel out.

Trying to move Los Angeles toward a less auto-dependent, greener, more sustainable city

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To say the least, Los Angeles has a reputation as a car-friendly (and/or dominated) city. Some people are hoping to change that:

The most explicit attempt to capture the shift in the zeitgeist is the notion of the “Third Los Angeles,” a term coined by Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne. In an ongoing series of public events, Hawthorne has proposed that L.A. is moving into a new phase of its civic life. In his formulation, the first Los Angeles, a semi-forgotten prewar city, boasted a streetcar, active street life, and cutting-edge architecture. The second Los Angeles is the familiar auto-dystopia that resulted from the nearly bacterial postwar growth of subdivisions and the construction of the freeway system. Now, Hawthorne argues, this third and latest phase harks in some ways back to the first, in its embrace of public transit and public space (notably the billion-dollar revitalization of the concrete-covered Los Angeles River). Hawthorne’s focus is not specifically environmental. But a more publicly oriented city also tends to be a greener one. This is partly because mass transit and walking mean lower carbon emissions. And more broadly, willingness to invest in the public realm tends to coincide with political decisions that prioritize the public good, including ecological sustainability…

On all of those fronts, there are signs of change. One of the most obvious counter-examples is CicLAvia, the kind of phenomenon that makes Jacobs acolytes swoon. Launched in 2010, it’s a festive event during which miles of streets are closed to cars and swarmed by bikes. Taking place every two to three months, and rotating among different neighborhoods (Echo Park, the Valley, South L.A., etc.), each occasion attracts a diverse crowd of tens of thousands of people. They are the type of feel-good events—some might even call them utopian moments—where strangers smile at each other and ordinary life feels suspended. Traffic lights blink, and even cops whiz by on two wheels, wearing endearingly dorky helmets. In every sense—the car-shunning, the enthusiastic proximity to strangers, the exploration of different parts of the city—CicLAvia is antithetical to the guarded, privatized, auto-carved Los Angeles of lore.

CicLAvia remains a special occasion, but everyday transit is slowly improving as well. Banham wrote that the freeway “is where the Angeleno is most himself, most integrally identified with his great city,” and he predicted that “no Angeleno will be in a hurry to sacrifice it for the higher efficiency but drastically lowered convenience and freedom of choice of any high-density public rapid-transit system.” In 2008—pushed in part by unbearable traffic—Angelenos proved him wrong. On that Election Day, citizens of Los Angeles County voted for Measure R, which imposed a half-cent sales tax to support funding for transportation projects, including the expansion or construction of 12 rail and bus rapid transit lines. It is expected to generate $40 billion in revenue over 30 years. This choice stands in stark contrast to the famous Proposition 13, the 1978 California anti-property-tax law which has wreaked havoc on the state’s budget for public investment ever since. Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of the L.A.–based organization Climate Resolve and a former commissioner at the Department of Water and Power, told me, “The day we voted for Measure R, we voted for a new Los Angeles.”…

Starting in the early ’80s, the city got more serious about conservation, as seen in its mass conversion to low-flow toilets. The city has been responding to the current drought on a number of fronts. It has significantly reduced its own water use, especially in the Parks Department. It has offered a rebate to homeowners who replace their lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping, as well as rebates for installing rain barrels, among a variety of other measures. (It remains to be seen how the city will implement the new mandatory state restrictions.) The Department of Water and Power is also preparing a new Stormwater Capture Master Plan, and L.A. has a target of reducing imported water use by 50 percent by 2025. According to Andy Lipkis, executive director of the influential nonprofit Tree People, even in a drought, the proper technology can capture significant amounts of water—3.8 billion gallons per inch of rainfall. Mayor Garcetti just launched a corny public awareness campaign urging conservation. Contra Mulholland, the new slogan is “Save the drop.”

Early Los Angeles was a streetcar leader and the metropolitan region today is the densest in the United States (meaning that it is spread out but it is pretty dense in its spread). Yet, truly transforming the region away from reliance on cars requires a lot of work including: building mass transit (buses might be best given the roads but building light rail and subways could be more powerful in the long run even if they are incredibly expensive at this stage), approving denser development (not an easy task in a region where property values are incredibly important), developing a vibrant downtown that also includes housing units, and perhaps finding ways to deincentivize development on the metropolitan fringes.

Perhaps the best thing that could happen to Los Angeles in this area of green sustainability is the continued improvement in vehicles. Radically transforming Los Angeles may be a hard sell but slowly increasing MPG, introducing new power sources (fuel cells, hydrogen, etc), getting older cars off the road, and eventually having autonomous cars could be very helpful. Of course, those changes are not ones really made at the city or metropolitan region level but the guidelines of the state of California and the federal government may just go a long way.

Identifying the pockets of carless Chicagoans

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With more Americans living alone and significant transportation costs for middle-class Americans, where do the carless Chicagoans tend to cluster?

So where do those carless Chicagoans live, and how many of them are there? A lot, it turns out. If you break down Chicago by cars and household size using 2012 census numbers, these are the only groups of more than 100,000:

One person, one vehicle 193,174
One person, no vehicle 168,004
Two people, one vehicle 135,143

Along the northern lakefront, around half the households don’t have a car; there are pockets in the Near North Side and Lake View over 60 percent. In one Edgewater tract, it’s over 70 percent. It’s not the highest percentage, though—there are two tracts in one of the poorest stretches of the South Side, between U.S. Cellular Field and 47th Street along the Dan Ryan, above 80 percent.

As you move north and west and the city gets less dense, the percentage of carless households drops off. There’s an exception, though: one tract in Logan Square, adjacent to the California Blue Line stop, where 41 percent of households don’t own a car. The “twin towers” transit-oriented development that’s going up at 2293 N. Milwaukee, and causing controversy as it goes, will live right next to that tract.

If I had to guess, this is related to income, age, more expensive parking options (for example, having to pay for a garage spot as opposed to plenty of street parking), and housing types (single-family homes which are more attractive to families versus apartments, condos, etc.). How well would these clusters line up with where the Creative Class lives?

The headline suggests that this is has led developers to respond with what they are proposing and building. Yet, the article doesn’t say much regarding these changes. For example, how about more shared streets like have been proposed for a few spots in Chicago? How about more bike lanes in these areas? How about more high-rise housing? If these population clusters hold and developers are indeed responding, these could be very unique places in a few decades.