Tag Archives: driving

Americans need a lot of money to achieve the American Dream

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Two estimates of how much money it takes to live out the American Dream suggest that many Americans will struggle to do so:

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The “American Dream” costs about $3.4 million to achieve over the course of a lifetime, from getting married to saving for retirement, according to a recent analysis from financial site Investopedia. 

Meanwhile, median lifetime earnings for the typical U.S. worker stand at $1.7 million, earlier research from the Georgetown University has found. 

Such figures underline the financial pressures that many families face trying to afford a middle-class life as expenses like child care, college tuition and buying a home continue to climb. The Investopedia analysis tallies the average cost of achieving other aspects traditionally associated with the American Dream, such as owning a house and raising two children to age 18. 

Another analysis, from USA Today, found that funding the American Dream costs about $130,000 a year for a family of four. Median household income stands at about $74,450, according to the Census Bureau.

One key facet of the American Dream is that it is supposed to be available to all. That never meant everyone would achieve it, particularly as Americans often emphasize individual hard work and taking advantage of opportunities. But, it should be reachable in a society where many Americans value and see themselves as middle-class.

Perhaps this is why there is a market or demand for particular experiences that provide part of the American Dream or a taste of it. One traditional marker of the American Dream in the United States is owning a home. This is displayed on TV, illustrated in toys, and promoted by presidents. If people can just own a home, they have a strong case to make for attaining the American Dream. Or, consider the freedom of driving down the road in your vehicle to wherever you want. This experience offers a taste of the larger American Dream.

If large numbers of Americans cannot obtain the American Dream now and in the coming years, this could mean the Dream becomes redefined. Maybe it will have different elements. Or, perhaps it will be more commonly viewed as attainable only by some. It could be a status symbol of the elite. Or, new policies and conditions could renew aid and efforts toward achieving the American Dream. Politicians could run on this idea while grassroots movements could promote it.

Moving forward with a congestion tax for entering Manhattan

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A state board recommends vehicles entering Manhattan south of 60th Street pay the first congestion tax in the United States:

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Under the plan, passenger car drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street during daytime hours would be charged $15 electronically, while the fee for small trucks would be $24 and large trucks would be charged $36.

Cities such as London and Stockholm have similar programs in place, but New York City is poised to become the first in the U.S.

Revenue from the tolls, projected to be roughly $1 billion annually, would be used to finance borrowing to upgrade the city’s mass transit systems…

Officials say that in addition to funding needed transit improvements, congestion pricing will result in improved air quality and reduced traffic…

“The Traffic Mobility Review Board’s recommended credit structure is wholly inadequate, especially the total lack of toll credits for the George Washington Bridge, which will lead to toll shopping, increased congestion in underserved communities, and excessive tolling at New Jersey crossings into Manhattan,” Murphy, who filed a federal lawsuit over congestion pricing in July, said in a statement.

In the US city with the highest rate of mass transit usage, this makes some sense. The roadways are crowded. Mass transit systems need money. At least some of the vehicles entering the city can afford the fee.

At the same time, Americans like to drive free. Cars and driving are an essential part of American life, whether cruising down a highway or delivering many goods via truck. Many will not be happy to pay extra to drive down taxpayer roads into parts of the city when it used to be free.

If this goes forward in Manhattan, how soon until it comes to other American cities? Those places may have fewer alternatives to driving but the revenue – and other benefits – might be hard for other places to pass up.

Zipper merges work great at…McDonald’s?

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Highway drivers sometimes struggle to use full lanes to merge when a lane is closing or ending. This is known as the “zipper merge.” Thankfully,McDonald’s has helped show Americans they can do it?

McDonald’s has several advantages in encouraging a smooth zipper merge process:

  1. A shorter runway to merging. You often go around a turn, order, and immediately merge. In contrast, highway merges can sometimes be seen from a mile or more away and some want to block all that space.
  2. A physical separation of the lanes before merging. The vehicles are ordering before merging and the need to have a display board and speaker means the lanes cannot be crossed into. Even if a driver wanted to block the other lane, the physical barriers make that difficult.
  3. People want to get their food. While driving on the highway, the goal is to get somewhere quickly. Different motivations.
  4. Might it matter that McDonald’s is private property while highways/roadways are more of open or public space?

Some of these principles could be applied to highways. Imagine temporary physical barriers between the lanes to force a merge closer to the end of the lanes. Or, reminders that blocking lanes has (legal?) consequences even though it is more public space.

From Carmageddon to Highway-Fire-Mageddon to new transportation options in LA

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Whereas construction closed down a significant Los Angeles highway in 2011 (and a follow-up in 2012), a fire has now closed down a mile stretch of important highway in Los Angeles:

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The situation poses a commuting challenge that L.A. has not seen in years, with hundreds of thousands of commuters facing detours and heavier-than-normal traffic. Starting Monday, some worked from home and others took mass transit, but many simply endured the delays.

The closure caused gridlock in some areas, but there was general sentiment that L.A. survived the first morning and evening commute without too much chaos thanks in part to warnings sent to residents’ cellphones…

Federal, state and local agencies are scrambling to determine what happens next after the sudden closure of the mile-long section of the heavily trafficked freeway between Alameda Street and the East L.A interchange, a key east-west route through downtown. Mayor Karen Bass said that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg called and reassured her that federal officials were aware of the impact from closing one of the busiest freeway corridors in the country.

“Losing the stretch of the 10 Freeway will take time and money from people’s lives and businesses,” Bass said. “It’s disrupting in every way. Whether you were talking about traveling to and from work, or your child care plans, and the flow of goods and commerce, this will disrupt the lives of Angelenos.”

Los Angeles and the region depend heavily on highways. This is true of all metropolitan areas in the United States but Los Angeles is famous for its driving and its lack of mass transit within a sprawling region.

While I am sure the focus here will be on getting this highway going again as soon as possible, why not think as well as future transportation options? The initial Carmageddons in Los Angeles went rather smoothly but this is another chance to think about additional travel options and building an adaptable and redundant system. If for a variety of reasons residents of the region cannot drive to work or where they need to go, do they have viable alternatives? Fires like this are rare but individuals face all sorts of challenges in getting where they need to go.

More broadly, can more people in the region regularly shift their transportation away from driving alone to other options? As the population of the region grows, the traffic is not going away. Roads do need to be maintained. Accidents will happen on the roadways. When I rode the LA subway on a recent visit, it worked okay one-way (the return trip was derailed by a long delay that pushed me to walking several miles) but it had limited options of where I could go. Are many people willing to ride buses and other forms of mass transit when they might drive?

The highway detours will end at some point but will driving return to normal immediately? Probably yes…but there will likely be more opportunities to consider other transportation options in the years to come.

How many roundabouts can the suburbs have?

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Roundabouts are slowing spreading in Lake County, Illinois:

The Lake County Division of Transportation (LCDOT) closed Darrell, Neville and Case roads in Wauconda to through traffic for 110 days to construct a roundabout and realign the intersections…

This is the ninth roundabout in the Lake County Division of Transportation system. The $8.1 million project is the first of three roundabouts to be built as part of the Darrell Road corridor improvement.

Suburbanites are used to traffic lights and stop signs. Adding roundabouts or diamond interchanges presents a new dimension to driving. The roundabout offers the possibility of a smoother journey – if there is not too much traffic – but requires a different level of attention as there are multiple yield points.

Suburbanites can come to like roundabouts with experience. But, local drivers will likely need some time to get used to them. I am curious to see how many roundabouts will eventually populate the suburbs. They are likely not possible in many places due to existing land uses. However, if they help move traffic, are safe, and people can drive through them, we will probably see more of them in the Chicago region.

The United States has somewhere between 700 million and 2 billion parking spots. Is that enough? (/s)

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One expert recently put some numbers to the amount of parking in the United States:

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According to Donald Shoup, an urban planner and parking research pioneer at the University of California, Los Angeles, the government doesn’t track the number of parking spaces. But speaking with WSJ, he estimates that on the low end, the U.S. has at least 700 million parking spaces, and on the high end, the estimate is more like 2 billion. That works out to somewhere between 2.5 and 7.0 parking spaces per registered vehicle in America.

As this article goes on to note, some believe that is way too many parking spots. (Hence, the /s tag on the post title.) All of that parking takes up a lot of space, continues to further the commitment in communities to driving, and has negative environmental consequences.

At the same time, I could imagine many drivers in the United States like having all of this available parking and might even want more spots. In a car-dependent society, people need a place to park. People expect to be able to find parking quickly and close to their destination. If parking is limited and/or costly, drivers will express frustrations. Some might note that even if they wanted to use other forms of transportation (and avoid parking issues), these are not always available or convenient.

Commitments to reduce the number of parking spots in the United States long-term probably requires a lot of small changes to different parts of planning and communities. Just as a quick example, increased mass transit use and service would help reduce the number of drivers and reduce the need for parking spots. But, that chain does not happen quickly and there are multiple levers to move. I wonder if one of the important moves would be for some key communities to change their parking guidelines, find that it works or is successful (and also enables other good opportunities for land use), and this becomes a model for others to follow.

More signs at start of school for drivers to slow down; do they still work weeks later?

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When school started in our area in mid-August, I noticed more signs on streets near schools asking drivers to slow down and pay attention because children are present. But, we are now weeks past this and I wonder at what speeds drivers are going.

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I am guessing the signs had limited effect, if any at all. School zones may be important to a few drivers, particularly with increased vehicular and pedestrian traffic at certain times in the morning and afternoon..

Many communities struggle with people driving fast through residential streets with speed limits of 20-30 mph. These suburban roads can often be wide, fairly straight, and have limited obstacles on the sides. Even the possibilities of children being present may not be enough to

Communities have multiple techniques to try to address this. There are warning signs, signs that flash the speed of oncoming drivers, and traffic control devices like speed bumps. The presence of crossing guards on foot and/or police vehicles can help reinforce the need to slow down.

As long as driving is the dominant mode of transportation and communities prioritize the fast flow of cars, it will be hard to slow down drivers around schools. Fewer students walk or bike to school than in the past but those who do and those who might if it could be safer would benefit from safer pathways.

Does smartphone use while driving make traffic worse?

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Driving while texting and/or using a smartphone could lead to more unsafe driving but might it also make traffic worse? Here are a few things I observed recently:

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-The delayed start from a traffic light. Vehicles at the start of the line may not move for a few seconds after the light turns green, even when the path is clear. This slows down the rest of traffic, particularly when there are a lot of traffic lights in a row.

-The increased distance between vehicles. If drivers think they need more margin because they are not fully paying attention to the road, vehicles will be further spaced out.

-Not paying attention to directions or turns might mean people have to cut across lanes or make alternative paths.

Since traffic can act like waves, then even a slight disruption can have a ripple effect.

If all drivers took the “most efficient” or “fastest” routes according to their apps, would these hits to traffic be cancelled out?

It might also be worth remembering that one of the appeals of self-driving vehicles is that they could better address these issues. They could better safe themselves and adjust to changes in conditions around them.

Vehicles are dangerous for humans – and lots of animals

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Traffic deaths are up in the United States but vehicles also harm lots of animals each year:

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But roadkill is also a culprit in our planet’s current mass die-​off. Every year American cars hit more than 1 million large animals, such as deer, elk, and moose, and as many as 340 million birds; across the continent, roadkill may claim the lives of billions of pollinating insects. The ranks of the victims include many endangered species: One 2008 congressional report found that traffic existentially threatens at least 21 critters in the U.S., including the Houston toad and the Hawaiian goose. If the last-ever California tiger salamander shuffles off this mortal coil, the odds are decent that it will happen on rain-​slick blacktop one damp spring night.

Driving is an ingrained and often unconscious part of American society and culture.

But, it has costs. It is expensive. Driving pollutes. It is part of sprawl. And it is dangerous to life, whether other drivers or pedestrians or animals.

There may innovative solutions. See the construction of bridges or overpasses over roads and highways that enable wildlife to cross roads without danger.

Yet, the danger to animals appears to be a cost Americans are willing to bear for what driving brings. Whether it continues this way remains to be seen.

The environmental consequences of big (electric?) trucks on the roads

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The United States depends on goods shipped by truck. This comes at an environmental cost:

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According to the Department of Energy, even though medium- and heavy-duty trucks account for only 4% of the vehicles in the United States, they consume 25% of total highway fuel and create nearly 30% of highway carbon emissions. Stricter standards on smog-forming emissions on trucks will take effect in 2027, which could force companies to turn to electric versions such as this Tesla fleet.

Since trucking is essential, even small improvements to gas mileage and emissions could go a long ways. I am not sure that having full fleets of electric trucks or even autonomous electric trucks in a few decades time would look that futuristic but it sounds like they could help.