Tag Archives: driving

Early signs: higher gas prices lead to less driving

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With gas prices moving upward, there are some signs that this is already changing driving behavior among Americans:

Drivers bought about 2.4 million fewer gallons for the week of April 1, a 3.6 percent drop from last year, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks the volume of gas sold at 140,000 service stations nationwide…

Before the decline, demand was increasing for two months. Some analysts had expected the trend to continue because the economic recovery was picking up, adding 216,000 jobs in March…

Instead, about 70 percent of the nation’s major gas-station chains say sales have fallen, according to a March survey by the Oil Price Information Service. More than half reported a drop of 3 percent or more — the sharpest since the summer of 2008, when gas soared past $4 a gallon. Now it’s creeping toward $4 again…

The decline is somewhat puzzling because Americans typically curb their driving only as a last resort, after sacrificing other forms of discretionary spending, like shopping for new clothes, or going to movies, concerts and restaurants.

Economists and others have been talking about this for a while: what exactly is the price point of a gallon of gasoline where Americans might drastically change their transportation patterns? In this earlier post, I briefly discussed the claim that the Obama administration actually wants higher gas prices as this would lead to greener transportation choices such as mass transit or bicycling or car pooling (or other options).

But if gasoline prices stayed relatively high (so they don’t really go down like they have after some of the temporary spikes in recent years – see the weekly average in the US going back to 1990 here or a graph showing prices going back to the mid 1970s here), it might lead to all sorts of changes. This could include everything from buying smaller cars (as the story above suggests is happening) to more Amtrak riders to longer semi trailers to rethinking patterns of sprawl.

A proposal to rid European Union cities of cars by 2050

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The European Commission, part of the European Union, recently proposed getting rid of “conventionally fueled cars” in all EU cities by 2050:

Top of the EU’s list to cut climate change emissions is a target of “zero” for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU’s future cities.

Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their cars and onto “alternative” means of transport.

“That means no more conventionally fuelled cars in our city centres,” he said. “Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour.”

The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a “crazy” restriction on mobility.

“I suggest that he goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum,” said Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the BDA.

“If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker.”

Mr Kallas has denied that the EU plan to cut car use by half over the next 20 years, before a total ban in 2050, will limit personal mobility or reduce Europe’s economic competitiveness.

This would be a radical change, even in countries with lower rates of car ownership and more mass transit use compared to the United States. I can only imagine the outcry if such a plan were introduced in the United States.

It is interesting to see that one British commentator brings up mobility and the economy. I would think mobility is more of a proxy for freedom, the ability for an individual citizen to hop into a car and drive wherever they want. This idea is particular prevalent in America where freedom is paramount and the suburbs are built around this idea of driving where one wants. I’m not sure about the economic issue: surely, cars and related industries (gas, maintenance, insurance, etc.) are an important part of the economy. But I am more skeptical that such a ban would lead to a “new dark age.”

Chicago suburbs consider more roundabouts

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The roundabout has had a sort of renaissance in American traffic and road design in recent years. While many Americans might consider roundabouts to be European, there are more being built in the Chicago suburbs:

At least 10 roundabouts have recently been considered or launched in the Chicago area. The intersections consist of a center island surrounded by a one-way lane of traffic where drivers yield to circling cars without the instruction of stop signs or traffic signals.

South Holland in 2008 was one of the first in the area to build a modern roundabout. Another was finished in Lincolnshire in November. Kane County is planning one west of Elgin. Another proposal was recently unveiled for Chicago’s West Lakeview neighborhood, and the Illinois Department of Transportation is looking to convert the despised Cumberland Circle in Des Plaines into a modern roundabout as well.

Because the design forces vehicles to slow down and eliminates left-hand turns, the possibility for multicar accidents is much lower than at a traditional intersection, safety experts say.

In addition to the safety improvements, I recall reading that roundabouts also accommodate more traffic. Instead of having cars stop (at either stop signs or traffic lights), there is more continuous flow.

It is also interesting to read how suburban residents seem afraid of these roundabouts: how does one drive through them? Perhaps suburban drivers all have seen how Clark Griswold (played by Chevy Chase) got stuck in a London roundabout for hours in European Vacation. At least at the beginning, this unfamiliarity may contribute to the reduction of accidents: people have to slow down in order to figure out their next course of action.

In the long run, this is a good reminder that driving habits and behavior are very much conditioned by what we are used to. This reminds of Hans Monderman, the Dutch traffic engineer, who went to great lengths to get drivers to readjust their behavior (and the American way of just adding traffic signs doesn’t help – read about it in Traffic).

(As a side note: speaking from experience with a roundabout in northern Indiana that I drove through for several years, it is pretty easy.)

Federal budget issue: increased fuel effiency, reduced revenues from the gasoline tax

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Amidst discussions about infrastructure and the price of gasoline, Obama’s administration has called for an increase in transportation spending. But where exactly the money will come from to fund this increase is unclear:

[Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood] said Obama is not in favor of raising the gas tax in a “lousy economy.”

The new tax would be necessary, in part, because the gasoline tax used to fund the highway trust fund is collecting less revenue than projected due to increasing fuel efficiency.

The exchange between Sessions and LaHood degenerated into a shouting match, with the Transportation secretary emphasizing that infrastructure can be improved and jobs created while paying down the debt.

This is one negative consequence of increased fuel efficiency: less gasoline will be purchased so without a gas tax increase, revenue from this source falls. This might call for some new ways to derive tax revenue from driving. How about more tolls? Or taxing drivers per mile driven?

Charlotte columnist suggests suburbs will face four problems

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American suburbs contain the majority of United States residents (and this figure is likely to grow in the latest 2010 Census figures). And yet, there are a lot of questions about what the future of suburbs will be. A columnist/editor in Charlotte suggests suburbs will face four problems in the near future:

Demographics. Population trends favor urban-style, multifamily development. Gen Y’ers have a clear preference, at least for now, for urban living. Meantime, aging boomers will be selling houses and moving to condos or apartments. As illness and infirmity hit, many will have to give up driving. They’ll want walkable neighborhoods.

With the foreclosure crisis, the single-family home market will be sluggish for years. The nation is overbuilt on large-lot suburbia, and underbuilt in cities. The Urban Land Institute’s “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2011” has this advice to investors: “Avoid commodity, half-finished subdivisions in the suburban outer edge and McMansions; they are so yesterday.”

Fuel prices. Remember when $4-a-gallon gas walloped the economy in 2008? Now, gas prices are over $3 again. Gas prices are likely to keep rising, and already, transportation is the No. 2 cost for average U.S. households. With pay and jobs sinking, more people are likely to want to live where they can drive less.

Carbon footprint. If we’re to avoid creating even more destructive changes in the world’s climate (more droughts, floods, blizzards or heat waves) for our children and grandchildren to live with, more of us will need to live in tight-knit, walkable cities. It turns out city dwellers have a much smaller carbon footprint.

Suburbs on the brink. Although some first-ring suburbs are thriving, others aren’t. Many suburban neighborhoods are seeing rising poverty and crime, dead or dying malls and derelict strip centers and big-box stores. We can’t just abandon them to blight.

These are all possible issues. Some thoughts about each concern:

1. We will have to see what Generation Y and the aging Baby Boomers want in the long term. Will they want to move back to cities or will they be okay with denser suburban development?

2. Fuel prices are up and American driving is down. What happens if most people can access electric cars within 10 years?

3. Carbon footprints – are people convinced that they should change their personal, residential choices based on this evidence? Do Generation Y members choose to live in cities for this reason or for other reasons such as proximity to entertainment and culture.

4. Inner-ring suburbs are experiencing many of the issues that we once thought were limited to cities. Interestingly, a number of these issues are spreading beyond the inner-ring.

The columnist suggests we need to fight the suburban blight, marked by “separate municipalities outside a city, regardless of age or form…development with a specific pattern, typically built after 1945: single-use zones (stores separated from offices and housing, single-family houses apart from apartments); lots a quarter-acre or more; car dependent.”

There are several other issues that many suburban communities face:

5. Budget crunches with the economic crisis leading to a downturn in housing growth. Not much money is coming in and this will lead to cuts in services and amenities.

6. More suburbs reaching build-out and facing questions about whether denser development can fit within a community dominated by single-family homes.

6a. Will American suburbanites want denser development that may threaten their property values?

7. Increasing minority and immigrant populations that challenge the white majority that has dominate American suburban life. Stories like that of a controversy over a proposed mosque in DuPage County could become more common.

8. Of course, lots of empty houses or homes with reduced values (here or here). This limits people’s ability to move, the ability of communities to collect money, and builders and lenders to make money.

Has America reached a saturation point for driving?

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The Infrastructurist sums up some recent arguments that suggest “America has reached a “saturation point for vehicle ownership and travel.”

If this is all true and it ends up being a sustained trend, what does this mean for American culture? From the advent of the mass-market automobile in the 1920s, Americans have spent much time and resources with their vehicles. Getting a driver’s license was a rite of passage, perhaps the main one our culture has for teenagers (though perhaps it is being replaced by going to college for some). Car companies advertise incessantly and tie their products to American values (this recent Dodge Challenger commercial featuring rebel Americans dispersing the British redcoats with their vehicles is quite appropriate here). Fast food restaurants depend on drive-thrus. Could this all change? Perhaps this all depends on whether driving behavior has plateaued or is actually decreasing. If the younger generation doesn’t drive as much, it will take time for them to replace the figures from older Americans who do drive more.

And the other interesting question is whether this is the beginning of the end of suburbs: if new generations don’t want to drive as much, what does this mean for low-density development? Is this really going to lead to a new urban era with a movement to large cities or simply denser suburbs where the amount of driving is reduced but never disappears completely?

Why American road sign lettering will change: better readability

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The Infrastructurist sums up the research behind the change to federal policies about road sign lettering. Road signs in coming years will need to be changed to move away from all CAPS in order to improve readability, particularly at night:

The shift reflects years of research into how drivers—particularly the elderly—react to road signs. In the late 1990s researchers at Penn State’s Pennsylvania Transportation Institute compared traditional highway signs to those with mixed-case Clearview lettering. They sat people age 65 to 83 in the front seat of a Ford Probe and approached a sign until the person could read it, repeating the tests with various fonts in both daytime and night.

The results, as the name Clearview suggests, were clear. Mixed-font Clearview was readable from roughly 440 feet away, whereas typical all-cap lettering was readable only at a distance of 384 feet. By expanding the interior spaces of certain letters, Clearview also reduced halanation—the process by which letters blur together late at night. In darkness Clearview became readable at 387 feet, against 331 for the standard highway font style.

All told the researchers found a 16 percent increase in readability with Clearview. On a typical 55 m.p.h. highway this translates into “two more seconds to read and respond to a sign,” they concluded in a 1998 report.

While this will cost money in the short term, it should lead to an improved driving experience. But it is also interesting how an issue like this can become fodder for political debates about how much money the government should be spending.

Americans walk less than other countries

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The Infrastructurist sums up some recent research that shows Americans walk less than residents of other countries. Explaining why this is the case is interesting:

The report’s lead author, David R. Bassett of the University of Tennessee, blames America’s poor performance on its auto obsession and lack of public transportation…

The researchers found no association between daily steps and living environment (e.g. urban, suburban, or rural)…

For the year 2009 alone, the top five walking commuter cities were Boston (14.1 percent commuted by foot), Washington (11.1), San Francisco (10.3), New York (10.3), and Philadelphia (8.7). The city with the lowest commuter walking share for the year was Fort Worth, at 1.2 percent. Freemark comments:

“As the chart shows, automobiles have a majority share in all cities except New York, Boston, Washington, and San Francisco. Unsurprisingly, these are dense cities and the places in the United States with the most complete transit systems.

These arguments make sense at face value: driving and setting would seem to play a large role. However, the first research study’s finding about driving may indicate that driving just trumps other factors for most Americans: whether Americans live in cities or suburbs or rural areas, driving is the preferred mode of transit.

Additionally, perhaps the number of people living in large cities with established and effective mass transit (the five top walking cities cited above) is simply not enough to counter all the drivers in other places.

A complete ban on cell phone use in cars?

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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggests banning all cell phone communication in the car might be needed to reduce accidents and injuries:

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he believes motorists are distracted by any use of mobile phones while driving, including hands-free calls, as his department begins research that may lead him to push for a ban.

LaHood, whose campaign against texting and making calls while driving has led to restrictions in 30 states, says his concerns extend to vehicle information and entertainment systems such as Ford Motor Co.’s Sync and General Motors Co.’s OnStar.

If LaHood pushes forward with this, it will be fascinating to see how people, companies, and interest groups respond. One analyst suggests in this article that these practices are already ingrained and would be very difficult, if not impossible to change. Perhaps people will even suggest it is their “right” to use a cell phone in the car. However, the government could enact certain regulations tied to certain incentives that might help people (and lower levels of government) make this choice. All in all, this could be a very interesting cultural battle between safety and individualism.

A reminder: it wasn’t that long ago that no one could talk by phone while in the car.

Trying to give people warm feelings about traffic tickets

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I think it is safe to say most people don’t like receiving traffic or moving violation tickets. Could there be a way to help people feel better about receiving these tickets? Cambridge, Massachusetts is trying to improve the image of driving tickets:

But the city of Cambridge, Mass., is looking to cultivate a Zen-like demeanor among parking offenders with the New Age-themed tickets it’s handing out these days.

“It’s trying to debunk the idea that all parking tickets are a hostile action, because I don’t think they are,” Susan E. Clippinger, the city’s transportation chief, told the Boston Herald.

According to the Herald, the parking ticket makeover in Cambridge — home to Harvard and MIT — is part of public art project by the city’s artist-in-residence, Daniel Peltz. In addition to the 40,000 new parking tickets Cambridge printed, the city is incorporating mood-enhancing imagery in its approach to parking enforcement, as the Herald notes: “There are new street signs explaining traffic rules in offbeat ways; ‘10,000 Excuses,’ a mural of excuses given by ticketed drivers; and plush, stuffed ‘soft-boots’ to give the ultimate parking penalty a warmer, fuzzier feel.”

An interesting program. One thing that may work in their favor: changing up the signage and typical protocol might shake people out of their complacent driving behaviors.

What about trying another tact: framing the tickets as part of a larger campaign of public safety. Could drivers be placated a little if the tickets came with an explanation about how driving within/at the rules saved lives, injuries, and money (and tax dollars)? This would give the often solitary activity of driving a more communal focus: we need people to obey the traffic laws and regulations to help everyone get where they need to go safely. If you break the rules, it is not a “victimless crime.”