Tag Archives: congestion

Working on parking issues in Naperville’s downtown: shuttles? Parking garages? Perceptions about available spots?

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This is an ongoing issue in Naperville: is there enough parking at peak times and, perhaps more importantly, do people think that there is enough parking? Here is part of the background to a discussion the city recently had about having shuttles to the downtown:

The topic came up again last year during the city’s strategic planning discussions, leading to planners’ latest look at the feasibility. Robles said they found the city’s cost per ride would be about $58, up from $45 in 2006 and the city hasn’t been hearing a demand from residents.

The issue, she said, seems to pop up every few years in part because some people have a perception there isn’t enough downtown parking. Including both public and private spots, there currently are about 3,300 downtown parking spaces.

A 2010 study showed on Friday nights – peak parking time – 77 percent of those spots tended to be full on average. The city will be doing a follow-up study this summer and Robles said she anticipates that occupancy percentage increasing into the lower 80s.

Reaching occupancy rates in the 80s tends to make people feel there isn’t enough parking, she said. But she hopes the city’s parking guidance systems that tell drivers how many spaces are really available in some facilities will help ease that perception.

Several thoughts about this:

1. I don’t think the “parking guidance systems” cited above are accurate all the time. For example, we drove into the Van Buren garage a few Fridays go because the sign said there was 45 spots available. We drove slowly, in a long line of cars, all the way to the top and all the back down again, finally finding a spot near the exit where someone was pulling out.

2. There is always street parking in the residential neighborhoods just north and west of the downtown. However, that would require a 5-10 minute walk for people. Is this the real issue: visitors (resident and non-residents) demand to park within a minute or two of their destination?

3. People perceive there is not enough parking when it occupancy is in the eighties percent range. This is fascinating: this still means that at least 1 of 10 parking spots are available and possibly as high as 1 out of 5. The issue of parking seems to be more about perceptions than actual availability.

4. Is this only an issue on Friday and Saturday nights between roughly early May and early September? In other words, how much parking does one build for 40 nights out of the year when those spaces will go unfilled at other times?

5. Has anyone ever tried to quantify for Naperville (or other places) how much business they might be losing by not having the sort of big box store/shopping mall parking lots?

6. Of course, this is not a new issue in Naperville. A few years ago, the city was considering building a three-level garage that would have replaced the Nichols Library lot but there was some opposition from residents (this parcel borders a residential neighborhood) and the city shelved the plans. Is building more garages really the answer in the long run?

New goal in Chicago: no traffic deaths in ten years

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The city of Chicago recently set an ambitious goal: there should be no traffic deaths in ten years.

The city of Chicago’s transportation department, headed by commissioner Gabe Klein, has released a new “action agenda” called “Chicago Forward.” It contains a goal that, as far as I know, has never to date been explicitly embraced by a major United States city:

Eliminate all pedestrian, bicycle, and overall traffic crash fatalities within 10 years…

[T]he city will be taking a multifaceted approach to traffic safety that includes engineering local streets to reduce car speeds; improving pedestrian and bike facilities; education; better data collection and evaluation; and increasing enforcement. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is strongly behind such measures even when they are politically unpopular, as was the case with a controversial speed camera bill that the mayor pushed through the City Council last month…

The idea of aiming for zero traffic deaths may be novel in the United States, but in Sweden, it’s national policy. In 1997, the Swedish Parliament passed the Vision Zero Initiative, with the “ultimate target of no deaths or serious injuries on Sweden’s roads.” Currently, the plan calls for an interim goal of reducing deaths and injuries to 50 percent of 2007 figures by 2020.

Has it worked? Zero is still some ways off – 2050 is the target date now — but the absolute number of traffic fatalities in Sweden continues to fall even as traffic is on the rise. And compared to the United States, their numbers are impressive: In 2009, Sweden had 4.3 traffic deaths per 100,000 population, while the United States had 12.3 (the European Union average was 11 in 2007).

I will be curious to see how this all works. Transforming a major city like Chicago in a short amount of time is difficult. Like most American cities, Chicago has sacrificed much for the automobile and even with higher gas prices and more calls for walkable neighborhoods, making quick changes to the transportation grid will require a lot of work. Additionally, traffic safety has a lot of moving parts, such as safety standards for cars, over which Chicago has little control.

I like the comparison to the efforts in Sweden. However, what happens when the target date approaches and the number has not dropped to zero – does someone get blamed, fired, or what? This is a laudable goal but perhaps this could turn into another public war: the war on traffic deaths!

It is hard to argue with safety. However, I imagine someone will raise a question about the possible costs of these measures…what will this war on traffic deaths cost? I also imagine someone could argue that boosting Chicago’s walkability and general pedestrian friendliness would lead to a better quality of life (as well as higher housing values), possibly making Chicago more appealing to younger and older generations who want to live in more urban neighborhoods.

Economy down, traffic congestion down

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A company that tracks traffic congestion suggests that congestion was down in a number of metropolitan areas in 2011 because of the economy:

Of the 100 most populous metro areas, 70 saw declines in traffic congestion while just 30 had increases, says Jim Bak, co-author of the 2011 U.S. Traffic Scorecard for Kirkland, Wash.-based INRIX…

Bak says the data show that the reduction in gridlock on the nation’s roads stems from rising fuel prices, lackluster gains in employment and modest increases in highway capacity because of construction projects completed under the federal stimulus program.

In some cases, the connection between job growth and increased congestion was clear. Cities that outpaced the national average of 1.5% growth in employment experienced some of the biggest increases in traffic congestion: Miami, 2.3% employment growth; Tampa, up 3%; and Houston, up 3.2%.

Cities that had big drops in congestion often were those that saw road construction slow considerably from 2010 to 2011 and those where gasoline prices were well above the national average at the peak in April 2011.

Does this fall into the small category of benefits of the economic crisis of recent years?

I would guess many metropolitan residents would be happy with less congestion but I would also guess they wouldn’t like the tradeoff of fewer jobs and higher gas prices. Of course, there have been discussions for years about how higher gas prices would limit driving. But does higher gas prices necessarily have to align with less growth?

Seeing traffic and congestion as a sign of success

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While some might generally consider traffic and congestion to be negative (see examples here and here), here is an alternative argument: traffic and congestion are one sign of urban success.

Congestion, in the urban context, is often a symptom of success.

If people enjoy crowded places, it seems a bit strange that federal and state governments continue to wage a war against traffic congestion. Despite many hundreds of billions dollars spent increasing road capacity, they’ve not yet won; thank God. After all, when the congestion warriors have won, the results aren’t often pretty. Detroit, for example, has lots of expressways and widened streets and suffers from very little congestion. Yet no one would hold up Detroit as a model.

After all, congestion is a bit like cholesterol – if you don’t have any, you die. And like cholesterol, there’s a good kind and a bad kind. Congestion measurements should be divided between through-traffic and traffic that includes local origins or destinations, the latter being the “good kind.” Travelers who bring commerce to a city add more value than someone just driving through, and any thorough assessment of congestion needs to be balanced with other factors such as retail sales, real estate value and pedestrian volume…

This doesn’t mean that cities should strive for congestion, but they should recognize that traffic is often a sign of dynamism. Moving vehicular traffic is obviously a necessary function, but by making it the only goal, cities lose out on the economic potential created by the crowds of people that bring life to a city.

Let me translate this argument into the suburban context in which I have studied. Most suburban communities would love to have thriving businesses within municipal limits. This brings in tax dollars, jobs, and a better image (a good place to do business, a vibrant place, etc.). But, for this to happen, this is going to require more people driving through and into the community. A typical NIMBY response to new development, particularly commercial property, is that it will increase traffic which threatens safety. There may be some truth to this but it is also about an image and whether the location is a residential space or something else. Additionally, many suburbanites assume traffic and congestion are city problems, not suburban problems, and therefore are unhappy when their mobility is more limited. A classic local example is Naperville: I’m not sure too many people in Naperville really desire having large parking garages in the downtown. At the same time, it is good that so many people want to come downtown and spend money. Ultimately, there are ways to limit this auto dependence and congestion in downtowns but you still need to plan for and accommodate the large number of cars.

All this suggests that there may be some contingencies regarding congestion:

1. There is a somewhere between not enough traffic and too much. These standards could be very different in different places. In quieter and smaller communities, I suspect the threshold is much lower. The character of a neighborhood or community is going to impact this decision. Perhaps there are even formulas that can predict this.

2. This is location dependent. Looking at congestion in a downtown area is very different than looking at traffic on collector roads or nearby interstates. Problems arise when transportation needs cross these location boundaries, say, when roads in a downtown are used to get to the other side of the community rather than to visit the vibrant downtown. The solutions for each location may be very different, and one size fits all policies may not be very effective.

Overall, it is unlikely that single suburbs or even small groups of suburbs can eliminate congestion and traffic on their own. It is not about getting rid of cars but rather successfully adapting spaces so that the cars are not overwhelming. We can think about ways to reduce congestion or ameliorate its occurrence in particular contexts, even recognizing that it may be a good sign.

Emanuel floats $2 congestion tax, parking lots fight back

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Chicago’s Mayor Emanuel this week floated the idea of imposing a $2 congestion fee for commuter parking and parking lot operators are not happy:

Parking industry executives said the mayor’s strategy, which City Hall officials said is intended to reduce traffic gridlock in the central business district and River North and encourage increased public transit ridership and investment, fails to address congestion issues across the Chicago region. They said Emanuel’s plan would create more problems than it would solve.

“We think highlighting parking taxes as a fix to a regional problem is missing the point,” said Marshall Peck, chief executive officer of InterPark, a major owner-operator of parking properties downtown. “The congestion of Chicago is primarily on the highways. Once you get off the highways in the morning, traffic is really not problematic.”

Many commuters and numerous traffic studies, however, would challenge the suggestion that downtown traffic flows well.

InterPark and other members of the Parking Industry Labor Management Committee have posted placards in their facilities showing the current taxes and how the top tax would increase 67 percent, from $3 to $5, under Emanuel’s plan. The companies are also distributing fliers to their customers encouraging city residents to tell their aldermen to vote against the proposed new fee.

There are some interesting ideas floating around here:

1. While a number of cities have looked into congestion taxes, they are still not widespread. In an American context, I presume this is due to their unpopularity.

2. This is just one possible idea among many others the City of Chicago is looking at in order to increase revenue.

3. Having parking lot operators suggest we need more regional solutions to traffic is laughable. The whole system as it is currently set up in most American regions privileges automobile traffic. So they want more people not to drive, potentially reducing their business? Additionally, many regions, such as Chicago, don’t really have metropolitan bodies that can enforce metropolitan solutions to congestion. To solve the problem in the Chicago region, the RTA, CTA, Metra, City of Chicago, State of Illinois, and dozens of municipalities would have to be involved and agreeable.

4. A number of people have argued that parking is way too cheap and this encourages driving. Congestion taxes then do two things: (1) raise revenue (2) reduce traffic by discouraging driving.

5. The parking industry is an interesting one as the long-term prospects for many surface lots is to make money while the company waits for a company to come along and make an expensive offer for the land.

6. Just how much are motorists willing to support the parking lot operators? Would companies and businesspeople really leave the city over a $2 charge?

Building intermodal facilities to relieve traffic congestion

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After examining a new report that Chicago has some of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the country, the suggestion is made not to add lanes to the highways but rather to build more intermodal facilities:

“This is a roadway that has 1950s technology that we are using for 2011 traffic,” said Don Schaefer, executive vice president of the Mid-West Truckers Association. “Aside from a few locations on the Illinois Tollway, there are very few roadways in the Chicago area that are engineered to handle 2011 traffic volumes.”

Adding highway lanes is unlikely to produce the capacity necessary to ease congestion, experts said. A partial solution involves building more intermodal facilities where truck trailers are loaded onto flatbed train cars and transported long distance by rail, then transferred to trucks for the last segment of trips.

One such facility is the sprawling CenterPoint Intermodal Center near Joliet, on the site of the former Joliet Arsenal. But even there, truck traffic is a problem on Arsenal Road leading to Interstate Highway 55.

“The state is building a new interchange to relieve traffic, but today truck traffic trying to get off I-55 southbound is backed up on to the highway,” Schaefer said.

While adding lanes may seem like “common sense,” studies consistently show that this simply encourages more traffic. Think about places have kept adding lanes like downtown Atlanta (I-75 corridor in particular) or the Los Angeles region. Traffic is still an issue during peak times and those roads are already at six or more lanes in each direction.

Intermodal facilities are an intriguing solution. A few thoughts about these:

1. Do most Americans even know what they are? If not, they should as many of their consumer items are routed through these facilities.

2. Part of the reason this article caught my attention is that just last week I drove right by the Centerpoint Intermodal Center which is just east of I-55 and just south of the Des Plaines River. The area was an interesting one: the large facility itself is surrounded by a number of warehouses and distribution centers, including Wal-Mart. When driving a car through such places, I tend to feel out of place as everything is a little bigger: the buildings, the space, the trucks. And yes, the ramp to get on I-55 northbound at Arsenal Road had a long backup of trucks.

Here is some more information on the CenterPoint Facility that just opened in 2010:

The facility will be a central spot where train containers from California, Texas and the Pacific Rim will be delivered for pick-up by trucks moving goods to warehouses and distribution centers throughout the Midwest.

CenterPoint already has an international intermodal facility in nearby Elwood. Combined, the sites will be the country’s largest inland port. In an era of high fuel costs and declining numbers of cross-country truck drivers, the facility is expected to be a more efficient, environmentally-friendly mode of hauling.

A third CenterPoint facility also is planned for Crete.

The $2 billion Joliet development – located on 3,800 acres south of Laraway Road between Brandon and Patterson roads – is the largest construction project in Will County.  It has created about 1,000 construction jobs.

3. What would it take to build more of these? One obvious question is where to put them. This one near Joliet is just outside the Chicago region and there is not much around it: an oil refinery and the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery. Most importantly, there are not a lot of houses nearby. If you tried to build these closer to cities, I’m sure there would be NIMBY issues. Imagine if someone wanted to build a new one near the Circle Interchange in Chicago – residents would complain and the price of land would likely be prohibitive. There are some older facilities embedded in the Chicago region; for example, there is one in Chicago just south of Midway Airport between 65th and 73rd Streets. You can see Union Pacific’s Chicago region facilities here.

But these facilities are needed, particularly in the Chicago region with its radial railroad system and many at-grade crossings. In recent years, the goal has been to relieve some of the rail traffic closer to the city which was behind the fight over whether Canadian National should be allowed to purchase the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern beltline railroad that runs around the city and on which CN wanted to run more freight trains.

The weekend of “Carmageddon” in Los Angeles

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Local highway construction doesn’t typically garner national attention. But there has been plenty of news for weeks about a key highway closing in Los Angeles:

Interstate 405, a freeway normally so clogged that locals like to joke that its name is shorthand for “traffic that moves no faster than 4 or 5 miles an hour,” is closing for 53 hours for a major construction project.

As crews worked feverishly to get the freeway open in time for Monday morning’s rush-hour, residents have been making plans for weeks to stay off local roads, lest they trigger what officials dubbed “Carmageddon.”

Such an event could back up vehicles from the 405 to surface streets and other freeways, causing a domino effect that could paralyze much of the city.

With warnings having been broadcast through television, radio, social media and flashing freeway signs as far away as San Francisco, much of the city’s nearly 4 million residents appear ready to stay off the roads.

As I have seen multiple stories about this, several thoughts came to mind:

1. It is a 53 hour closure, not the end of the world. This has been overhyped. People will survive.

2. Shouldn’t planners be lauded more for doing the work over a summer weekend? The preparation for the whole project actually sounds pretty good.

3. People don’t often think about roads until they are a problem. This is a good example of that.

4. Even though it may have been overhyped, this is still a legitimate social problem, particularly for emergency vehicles and other important highway users. This seems to be more common with highway construction: a long, well-publicized campaign to make sure that residents are made aware of what is to come. If people know what is coming, they are usually pretty good at making other plans. Like with many other social issues, public officials need to walk a fine line between overhyping this, like using the term “Carmageddon,” while also making sure that people are aware of the severity of the problem.

5. This would be a good opportunity to think about new transportation options in the Los Angeles region. As the map accompany the AP story shows, there are only a few routes across the Santa Monica mountains. The answer is simply not to construct additional highway lanes and more drivers will then use the highway.

6. This reminds me of some examples of cities that have eliminated highways, like the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, and traffic has adapted. Closing the highway for a short time is a nuisance but if the highway was closed longer, I bet people would adapt.

170 options for improving the Eisenhower

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The Eisenhower expressway is a key artery for traffic entering and leaving Chicago. The public is now invited to look at plans, including 170 possible improvements, that have been developed and could be put into practice in the future:

In response, highway design engineers have come up with 170 different ideas to reduce gridlock and accidents on the Eisenhower. The plan also focuses on improving travel options for mass-transit riders and bicyclists and pedestrians using nearby arterial streets…

The possible solutions include widening the Eisenhower to four lanes in each direction for the entire length of the highway to make room for “managed lanes’’ that would handle car-poolers, express buses or drivers willing to pay tolls to commute more quickly during rush hours, according to IDOT planners.

An expansion of CTA Blue Line rail service, from its current terminus in Forest Park to DuPage County, and other new transit services are also on the table, officials said. They include a possible light-rail line and designating a bus-rapid transit corridor that would be open to express buses traveling between the suburbs and downtown at least part of the day…

Major improvements are needed because traffic volumes on the Eisenhower are up to 180,000 vehicles a day, making it one of the busiest and most congested expressways in the Chicago region, officials said.

It sounds like there are a lot of options on the table. As the article notes, this is now an issue because this road is handling much more traffic than was originally intended and the traffic is not just one-way (in to the city in the morning, out in the afternoon) but now goes both directions. I can also imagine that all of this will stir up some discussion: special toll lanes? Construction that will go on for years? More money spent on mass transit? It seems like multiple solutions are needed included getting more drivers off the road as well as improving the traffic flow along this stretch.

Of course, a lot of this is for down the road as the planning has to take place and the money has to be found:

So far funding is available only to continue preliminary engineering, which is expected to be wrapped up in the spring of 2013, officials said. Design would then take several more years.

“Part of our analysis is to examine the financing options,’’ Harmet said. “We are a ways away from construction.’’

While the discussion could just center on the Eisenhower, this could also lead to larger conversations about the role of highways and mass transit within metropolitan regions. If the Eisenhower, and other local highways, are continually issues, perhaps new things have to be tried and transportation has to be dealt with on a more comprehensive level within regions (see a study like this for a broader metropolitan approach).

Good news about Chicago traffic and congestion – but due to new criteria

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A new report from a group named CEOs for Cities claims that Chicagoans spend the least amount of time in rush-hour traffic compared to other major cities:

The report’s ranking of mobility in 51 cities found that Chicago-area residents spend the least time in rush-hour travel. In Chicago and some of the other best-performing cities — including New Orleans, New York, Portland, Ore., and Sacramento, Calif. — commuters typically spend 40 fewer hours a year in peak-hour travel than the average American, the report said.

In metro areas with the worst urban sprawl — including Nashville, Detroit, Indianapolis and Raleigh, N.C. — residents spend as much as 240 hours per year in rush-period travel on average because commuting distances are much longer, said the report, which was produced with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation.

This seems to be contrary to other studies I’ve seen that suggest Chicago is quite congested. One reason this study might have different results is a new criteria in the methodology.

The report’s author criticized other mobility studies that focus on the amount of traffic congestion in a region without factoring in travel distance.

The Urban Mobility Report, issued every two years by the Texas Transportation Institute, is regarded by many experts as the authoritative voice on traffic congestion issues. The report consistently ranks the Chicago region as the second or third most-congested area of the nation. It does not account for travel distance.

I am left wondering whether travel distance an important factor to include…

The Infrastructurist comments on the disparities in the two sets of rankings.

Minneapolis and Seattle fight congestion

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USA Today reports on successful efforts in Minneapolis and Seattle to cut down on congestion on local highways. Some of the efforts include: building more bus lanes, building more light rail, encouraging employers to have flexible schedules, variable speed limits depending on traffic, high-occupancy vehicle lanes, and more.