Tag Archives: driving

Hoping to retire the myth of widening roads to reduce traffic

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Eric Jaffe provides a reminder that traffic is not lessened if there were just wider roads:

“Wider Roads = Less Traffic”—The most enduring popular traffic myth holds that building more roads always leads to less congestion. This belief is a perfectly logical one: if there are 100 cars packed into one highway lane, then building a second should mean there’s 50 cars in each. The problem, as transportation researchers have found again and again, is that when this new lane gets added the number of cars doesn’t stay the same. On the contrary, people who stopped driving out of frustration with traffic now attack the road with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.

While residents of heavily congested metro areas have a suite of four-letter words to describe this effect, experts call it “induced demand.” What this means, simply put, is that building more road eventually (if not always immediately) leads to more traffic, not less. Fortunately, local leaders are starting to distinguish reality from myth when it comes to induced demand. Unfortunately, the best way to address it—congestion pricing—remains all-but politically impossible in the U.S. That pretty much leaves one thing to do: deal with it.

A congestion tax is one way to deal with the issue: make people think twice about driving into heavily trafficked areas. At the same time, broader solutions could be employed: planning communities and regions that don’t rely so much on solo driver trips (such as through denser development); increasing funding to mass transit and providing more regular service and/or more options; and finding other ways to cut incentives on driving such as increasing gasoline taxes or paying per mile for driving. Of course, these broader approaches may be asking too much as Americans still like the option of driving. But, it may take some bold politicians and municipalities to try congestion pricing and show that it can work before it is widely adopted.

In other words, you may be able to show studies that demonstrate how this myth isn’t true but perhaps Americans dislike the truth – and the solutions that go with – even more.

Explaining the drop in DUI arrests and crashes in the Chicago suburbs

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The roads in the Chicago suburbs have been safer since 2007:

DUI arrest totals last year in 79 suburbs were about half what they were in 2007, despite only a small drop in police staffing. There were 6,955 arrests last year, compared to 12,166 in 2007, according to annual state-funded surveys compiled by the Schaumburg-based Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists.

Meanwhile, those same suburbs in six counties reported 1,555 crashes involving alcohol-impaired driving in 2007, according to Illinois Department of Transportation crash reports. By 2009, that number was down to 1,012 alcohol-impaired crashes, and it has hovered near that mark ever since, with 1,065 crashes in 2014, the reports show.

What is behind this?

“It’s the economy,” said Don Ramsell, a Wheaton-based attorney who specializes in drunken driving defenses. “It’s so obvious it’s ridiculous. Alcohol is a feature of people’s disposable income, and most people have a lot less of that these days…

Lake in the Hills Police Chief David Brey chalks up the decline in the number of arrests to “more and more people making a conscious effort to take a cab or have a designated driver.”…

Ramsell and AAIM Executive Director Rita Kreslin say lean budgets might have something to do with fewer DUI arrests. Both said police officers have told them they’re under less pressure to make DUI arrests because of the time and expense of following up in court.

Three different explanations: people have less money to spend on alcohol, drinkers have become smarter about using alternative transportation, and police departments may have been devoting less attention to this area. Getting this explanation right could be consequential as communities and police departments think about their budgets. In contrast, simply throwing out possible explanations (probably based on anecdotal evidence) may serve particular interests.

Still, good news overall for the safety of suburban roads. Now we can see whether the trend lasts and this might provide evidence for the explanations given above.

Compared to unprotected sex, Americans underestimate risks of driving

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A recent study looks at how Americans compare the risks of driving and unprotected sex:

Imagine that a thousand people—randomly selected from the U.S. population—had unprotected sex yesterday. How many of them will eventually die from contracting HIV from that single sexual encounter?

Now, imagine a different thousand people. These people will drive from Detroit to Chicago tomorrow—about 300 miles. How many will die on the trip as a result of a car crash?…

If you’re anything like the participants in a new study led by Terri D. Conley of the University of Michigan, the HIV estimate should be bigger—a lot bigger. In fact, the average guess for the HIV case was a little over 71 people per thousand, while the average guess for the car-crash scenario was about 4 people per thousand.

In other words, participants thought that you are roughly 17 times more likely to die from HIV contracted from a single unprotected sexual encounter than you are to die from a car crash on a 300-mile trip.

But here’s the deal: Those estimates aren’t just wrong, they’re completely backward.

According to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, you are actually 20 times more likely to die from the car trip than from HIV contracted during an act of unprotected sex.

While the rest of this article goes on to talk about perceptions of sex in the United States, these findings are consistent with others that suggest Americans don’t see driving as a threat to their safety. Driving is one of the riskier behaviors Americans regularly engage in: more than 30,000 Americans are killed each year in vehicle accidents. (It should be noted that this figure has dropped from the low 50,000s from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Driving today is safer than in the past.) Yet, Americans tend to like driving (or at least what it enables) and find it necessary in their daily lives (by social and political choices we have made) so those deaths and car accidents are acceptable losses.

Of course, it may not be long before even having to acknowledge our difficulties in weighing risks is no longer a problem due to driverless cars that eliminate all vehicle deaths.

“Young people today don’t see a car as freedom; they see it as a trap.”

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A new book argues driving does not appeal much to millennials and this will have important consequences:

Sam Schwartz, New York City’s Koch-era traffic commissioner, has a simple thesis in his new book, “Street Smart”: “Millennials are the first generation whose parents were more likely to
complain about their cars than get excited about them.

As kids, “millennials were driven through more traffic jams, more often, longer, and farther, than any generation in history.”…

What’s freedom to kids today? A walk, a bike ride or a short car ride — and, more often, a smartphone.

It’s all wonderful, then, that people are changing their behavior — except for the fact that the country needs for people to keep driving ever more miles so that it can fund its highway and transit infrastructure. Remember: Just as not everyone needed to default on his mortgage to cause a housing bust, not everyone needs to take the bus instead of a car to cause a roads bust…

One thing is clear, though: Even if presidential candidates are too afraid to talk about this stuff, they sure shouldn’t run against cities, when the voters are running toward them.

Less driving may just be a symptom of larger changes: living in denser areas (cities and suburbs with entertainment and cultural options within walking or mass transit distance), less public life outside the housing unit even with increased interaction with people through smartphones and the Internet, changing priorities in how to spend money for individuals (why would I pay for a car when spending that money elsewhere – say on experiences or the latest technology – gives me more desirable options?) and the government (it may be very difficult to maintain all those roads), and a declining interest among all Americans to simply drive (with a whole host of economic, political, and social influences here). At the same time, large social changes like these require time to work their way through a large society.

Drivers pay less than what the roads cost

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One report suggests the gap between what drivers pay and what roads cost continues to grow:

A report published earlier this year confirms, in tremendous detail, a very basic fact of transportation that’s widely disbelieved: Drivers don’t come close to paying for the costs of the roads they use. Published jointly by the Frontier Group and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, “Who Pays for Roads?” exposes the myth that drivers are covering what they’re using.

The report documents that the amount that road users pay through gas taxes now accounts for less than half of what’s spent to maintain and expand the road system. The resulting shortfall is made up from other sources of tax revenue at the state and local levels, generated by drivers and non-drivers alike. This subsidizing of car ownership costs the typical household about $1,100 per year—over and above the costs of gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees…

There are good reasons to believe that the methodology of “Who Pays for Roads?” if anything considerably understates the subsidies to private vehicle operation. It doesn’t examine the hidden subsidies associated with the free public provision of on-street parking, or the costs imposed by nearly universal off-street parking requirements, which drive up the price of commercial and residential development. It also ignores the indirect costs that come to auto and non-auto users alike from the increased travel times and travel distances that result from subsidized auto-oriented sprawl. And it also doesn’t look at how the subsidies for new capacity in some places undermine the viability of older communities…

The problem with the subsidies currently propping up driving is that they’re often hidden: If they were made more explicit, policymakers would likely rearrange their priorities. The problem of pricing roads correctly is one that will grow in importance in the years ahead. It’s now widely understood that improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency and the advent of electric vehicles is eroding the already inadequate contribution of the gas tax to covering road costs. The business model of companies such as Uber and Lyft likewise hinges on paying much less for the use of the road system than it costs to operate. The problem is likely to be even larger if autonomous self-driving vehicles ever become widespread—in larger cities it may be much more economical for them to simply cruise “free” public streets than to stop and have to pay for parking. The root of many existing transportation problems—and the problems to come—is that the prices are all wrong.

Americans like their cars and policies have reflected that for decades. But, owning the “average” car is not cheap – there are a number of expenses that many drivers would say consume a decent amount of their budget. The real issue may not be increasing the gas tax – and with gas as cheap as it is right now, this would be as good a time as any to fix that – or limiting subsidies. The real goal may need to involve having less need for cars and roads. Having electric cars might help society in some ways but it doesn’t solve the problem of paying for roads (see the pilot programs for a per-mile driven tax). Electric cars may enable sprawl to go on for decades.

In the end, perhaps we need to figure out to build and maintain roads more cheaply…or we are left with two options I imagine a lot of people (not necessarily the same ones) will dislike: getting cars off the road or upping the cost of driving by quite a bit.

Two questions regarding the “Zen commute”

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I’ve seen numerous stories in recent months about creating more calm, Zen commutes. Here is a recent example:

“We can say, ‘OK, I’m going to be in the car for an hour,'” said actor Jeff Kober, who teaches meditation in Los Angeles. “‘Now, what can I do to improve my quality of life during that hour?'”

Resist the urge to relinquish that hour to an inner monologue of traffic complaints, work worries and side-eye looks at coughing riders. Instead, treat it as a time when you can incorporate more contentment, either by getting more meditative or taking measures to create your own oasis.

“Because we’re essentially captive, why not make it into something really productive?” said Maria Gonzalez, who teaches the benefits of mindfulness in business as founder of Argonauta Strategic Alliances Consulting in Toronto…

Experts say, however, that it is possible to change how you embark on, endure and exit your commute.

Even as these practices might limit the negative health consequences of commuting, there are two unanswered questions that came to my mind:

  1. Are mindful drivers safer drivers? There have been major campaigns in recent years to limit the distractions of drivers. If drivers are mindful or being Zen about things other than driving, isn’t this a problem? We still want drivers to focus on the driving, whether stressed while doing it or not.
  2. The bigger issue, of course, is why so many people have long commutes where they are so stressed and harmed. The average American commute is around 26 minutes (and supercommuters are limited) due to a variety of factors: Americans like cars, residences are spread out, our government promoted highways over mass transit, and so on. If we really wanted to deal with the problems of commuting, the Zen part seems like a band-aid on an issue of having people relatively far from their workplaces. Or, maybe this provides more reasons to promote telecommuting and working from home.

Signs to slow down for children are not recommended

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Despite the well intentioned efforts of parents, posting signs instructing drivers to slow down for children do not help:

While Smith’s actions came from a protective place, his efforts may be fruitless, as there’s little evidence to support the effectiveness of advisory signs in regard to changing driver behavior or making children safer. In fact, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program firmly discourages the use of signs that read “Caution — children at play” or “Slow — Children.” One reason, points out Slate, is common sense. “If the driver does not notice the characteristics of a neighborhood as they drive down the street, why would they notice a sign as they pass it, or remember it for more than a few seconds once they have passed it?” an engineer from an online forum noted on the website.

There’s also the possibility that a sign emphasizing the presence of children in one location may imply that an absence of warning would mean no kids are present in another. And finally, such warnings could falsely convey that the street is a play area. The same principle applies to neighborhood stop signs, which encourage drivers to actually speed up in between them.

One proposed solution:

“It largely comes down to awareness,” Janette Fennell, founder and president of KidsAndCars, a nonprofit safety organization, tells Yahoo Parenting. “Drivers often have an ‘It can’t happen to me’ mindset when speeding, and most people overestimate their driving skills.” But lowering the speed limit even a little helps reduce the number of accidents and increase the survival rate of victims, according to research published by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. “I’d estimate that a person is about 74 percent more likely to be killed if they’re struck by vehicles traveling at 30 mph than at 25 mph,” study co-author Brian Tefft told Wired.

Here is a better solution as even speed limits can only do so much: more road diets. In many places, streets are far too wide for what is needed for typical traffic. This gives drivers the impression that they have a margin of error. And, having nothing in their path – ranging from speed bumps to stop signs to parked cars – only contributes to driving faster. If you really want people to slow down when driving through residential neighborhoods, we should: (1) narrow streets, (2) have regular street parking, and (3) plant trees closer to the roadway. All of these things would give drivers more consistent indicators that they can’t drive as fast. Drivers may not like this as it feels more closed in and they have to pay attention more (will someone open a car door? How far do I get over if a car is coming from the opposite direction?) but it will slow them down.

Making these changes would take a major effort as many streets have been built extra-wide for decades. Yet, we have often privileged the car when designing roads and one of the consequences is faster driving and increased risk for pedestrians and others utilizing roadways.

A more radical solution that wouldn’t require changing many roads? Promoting driverless cars that closely control how fast vehicles move.

A Chicago congestion tax reveals regional issues in addressing traffic

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Looking for revenue and to reduce traffic, a congestion tax may be on the table in Chicago:

According to Michael Sneed in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke recently persuaded Mayor Rahm Emanuel “to study the feasibility and logistics of collecting a congestion fee from suburbanites who drive into the city.” The move could raise millions for the city and keep cars off city streets, easing congestion.

A panel has since been tasked with determining how such a fee would be collected, where it could be collected, and the costs of operating such a program…

In the Sun-Times, Burke was quoted as saying a congestion tax has been “extremely successful” in European cities such as London. There, drivers pay a charge for being able to enter certain zones from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. Cameras monitor the zones and drivers who don’t pay are fined.

About 194,000 vehicles drive to Chicago’s main business district each day from elsewhere in the city and the suburbs, according to a Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning study conducted before Feb. 2010.

Traffic is a major problem in the Chicago region; see a recent report as to how many hours are lost each year. A congestion tax could be part of a comprehensive answer to this. However, it would be silly to expect this tax on its own to solve all the problems. Having effective mass transit across the region would help. If you want people to drive less, they need to have viable train and bus options. Having denser development near job centers throughout the region would help. Promoting Chicago’s core may be good but it also means concentrating more people from throughout the region on a single place. Promoting more bicycling and walking would help. Simply adding more lanes and roads does not necessarily help.

The other interesting part of this story from the Daily Herald are the predictable negative reactions from suburban leaders. They don’t want suburbanites to be penalized for going into Chicago. Yet, solutions to these issues have to be at the regional level. If suburban leaders don’t want a congestion tax, what are they willing to give to improve transit throughout the region? Can everyone contribute some money to help all residents of the region? The efforts of individual communities – even Chicago if it is just acting alone – won’t be enough.

LA plans to add bike lanes, reduce driving lanes

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The city of highways has approved plans to reduce driving lanes and provide space for biking and other transportation options:

The City Council has approved a far-reaching transportation plan that would reshape the streetscape over the next 20 years, adding hundreds of miles of bicycle lanes, bus-only lanes and pedestrian safety features as part of an effort to nudge drivers out from behind the wheel.

Not surprisingly, in the unofficial traffic congestion capital of the country, the plan has set off fears of apocalyptic gridlock.

“What they’re trying to do is make congestion so bad, you’ll have to get out of your car,” said James O’Sullivan, a founder of Fix the City, a group that is planning a lawsuit to stop the plan. “But what are you going to do, take two hours on a bus? They haven’t given us other options.”

For Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Mobility Plan 2035, as the new program is being called, is part of a larger push to get people out of their cars and onto sidewalks that began with the expansion of the mass transit system championed by his immediate predecessor, Antonio R. Villaraigosa…

Mr. Garcetti compared people who fear that removing lanes will make the streets horrific to lobsters boiling slowly in a pot: The changes may make traffic 15 percent worse instead of just 5 percent worse each year, he said, but the situation is already becoming untenable.

Perhaps only in Los Angeles would residents file lawsuits to ensure their ability to sit in big traffic jams. According to one recent study, LA area residents lose on average the second most hours a year to traffic (first is the Washington D.C. area). Of course, there is no guarantee that these changes will quickly make things easier for drivers as well as for all travelers. Yet, adding more lanes does not usually help traffic; it simply serves to add more drivers to the road.

There are some allusions in the article to the issue of social class. We might think that more mass transit options would help lower-income residents as owning a car is expensive (maintenance, insurance, gas, parking). And bicycles are pretty cheap. Yet, is urban biking primarily something desired by middle- to upper-class residents who could afford cars but want greener options? Biking often also requires a certain density so that rides aren’t too long. Thus, even good bike options may not help many people who have to travel more than 10 miles each way to work. It can also be difficult to get wealthier residents to ride buses.

While it would take much more than this plan to transform LA’s transportation network and self-understanding away from the car and highways, it will be interesting to see if this plan can keep nudging the needle toward other options.

Four options for road diets

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Watch planner Jeff Speck explain how four different road diet strategies might work. Here is an example of one approach:

40-footer lane insertion

(Jeff Speck / Spencer Boomhower)

This time we focus on a 40-foot street with two 12-foot lanes of opposing traffic and two parking lanes at the curb. Many cities have adopted 12-foot lanes with the assumption that they move more traffic; in fact, as Speck has argued at CityLab before, they present a major safety hazard for cities by encouraging faster driving. He recommends slimming them down to 10 feet—a design configuration that leaves room for a bike lane and makes the street safer, even as it more or less preserves traffic flows.

This is a reminder of some of the paradoxes of road design. Provide bigger lanes and more lanes and cars tend to drive faster and traffic increases. Narrow the lanes and drivers have to slow down and pay more attention, leading to improved safety. And all of this might actually free up space for other uses – like bike lanes or more pedestrian space.

If you want more on such techniques, read Speck’s Walkable City.