Give us the road rather than the rail

Residents of Tigard, OR suggested in a poll by the Tigard News that they would rather widen 99W from 5 to 7 lanes than build parallel light rail, and they don’t really want growth via density. They want new developments.

I foresee a dustup.

The comments, as always, are interesting.

HT to Peter Gordon.

Air quality, congestion, and pricing

One of my former students posted this story from the Wall Street Journal to Facebook yesterday. ARGH. Does the WSJ do no research in its reporting any more? So a time delay will shift drivers to transit but a charge for driving wouldn’t? Are WSJ reporters not required to understand basic econ anymore?

Congestion can be either good or bad for air quality depending on the geographic distribution of alternatives, the fleet, and the context into which the emissions enter. Congestion charging can in theory price trips onto the road under hypercongestion (the famous backward-bending demand curve), and thus may allow for greater VMT. But this is not true even in theory if the charging scheme is priced for VMT reduction or rationing rather than optimizing flow–those are different things, and the New York pricing plan was zone-based, so it most likely would have eliminated trips, not increased them! Higher throughput might affect emissions via flow optimization, but it is not apparent from either monitors or lab experiments that idling among a smaller number of cars/trips is objectively better for air quality than fast throughput from a larger number of cars/trips (and there may be a substitution effect in the traveling fleet that most people think is an air quality benefit; or there may be a freight effect which would not produce benefits [1]; we don’t know). Different types of emissions also vary with engine cycle, so it may be wash in total but a trade in emissions type.

Studies prior to the implementation of London’s cordon toll predicted fairly large reductions in emissions [2]. After the charge’s implementation, monitors throughout the metro area demonstrated significant and progressively distributed improvements in pollutant concentrations [3,4]. Now, it’s not likely that we can attribute all of that change to the cordon toll, as accompanying the toll were rapid increases in bus supply (so much so that train trips also went down concurrently following the implementation of the cordon toll; I suspect that congested trains were traded for less-congested buses for short trips, particularly after the transit bombings in July of 2005).

Traffic calming, transit-oriented, density-based efforts in Paris—without the concomitant tolling efforts that London put down—have been found to increase emissions substantially, so New York may not be doing itself any favors with unpriced congestion [5]. Concentrations in some congested areas, like San Francisco, have not been improving as quickly as in other places. It may be that these simply reflect that when air quality is generally good in high-growth areas, reductions occur marginally more slowly than in places where concentrations are comparatively high. (IOW, it’s hard to improve on good.) However, it can also be that worsening congestion has caused higher emissions and that is being reflected in some regional monitors.

Some of the smartest transportation people in the world are at New York universities, but why would we actually CALL THEM to get some ideas for this WSJ peice? For most of these people, it wouldn’t even a long-distance phone call for the WSJ reporter. See? Look at this list! This is a dream team of people to ask rather than just talking out of your backside. BAD WSJ.

But then, as my friend Chris Redfearn once noted, discussions like this require people to keep more than one idea in their heads at once. If we are throwing around the “dubious” term, congestion on transit–and this exists virtually everywhere in the world that isn’t in the US–is most definitely NOT good for the environment: see Mexico City, see virtually every Asian city over 10 million people, and the many scooter engines on the road rather than transit trips.

[1] Marr, L. C. and R. A. Harley. 2002. Modeling the effect of weekday-weekend differences in motor vehicle
emissions on photochemical air pollution in central california. Environmental Science and Technology, 36:4099–4106.

[2] Beevers, SD, Carslaw DC. The impact of congestion charging on vehicle emissions in London. Atmospheric Environment. 2005 Jan ;39(1):1-5.

[3] Atkinson R, Barratt B, Armstrong B, Anderson H, Beevers S, Mudway I, et al. The impact of the Congestion Charging Scheme on ambient air pollution concentrations in London [Internet]. Atmospheric Environment. In Press, Accepted.

[4] C, Beevers S, Armstrong B, Kelly F, Wilkinson P. Air pollution and mortality benefits of the London Congestion Charge: spatial and socioeconomic inequalities. Occup Environ Med. 2008 Sep 1;65(9):620-627.

[5] Bouf D, Hensher DA. The dark side of making transit irresistible: The example of France. Transport Policy. 2007 Nov;14(6):523-532.

So how much is too much user charge for mobility?

I’ve subjected you to numerous rants about transport finance–including the fact that I think we over-invest in this sector–along with a question that haunts me…viz: who pays if transport system users don’t?

I sat down and frittered around with some numbers. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy derived some estimates for the out-of-pocket cost burdens for all major US taxes. I entered their data into a spreadsheet and then compared the estimated total burden for low-income households (which includes existing excise taxes) with estimates of a) system-wide HOT lane proposal for Washington, DC and b) a comprehensive, zone-based toll estimated for Paris designed to cut traffic by 25% (a big-ish toll, about $6 per zone). This is the result. The expected increase in total burden from HOT lanes is pretty small; the zone-based toll, however, is pretty large. c) and d) show the estimates of emissions charges compared to total tax burden. Those are really pretty marginal in the larger scheme of things.

Keep in mind these are just out-of-pocket costs. When you add in the benefits of congestion and emissions reductions, some estimates find progressive social welfare gains from pricing, even before you count revenue allocations. London’s cordon toll is pretty high and covers a fairly large swath of the urban environment. But the measured reductions in emissions following the cordon has resulted in sizable and steeply progressive air quality benefits for lower income areas of London.

So if we price the freeway, will the poor suffer? There is no easy answer to this question.

And another colleague weighs in on congestion pricing in LA

Peter Gordon also weighs in on the question of congestion pricing on the 710 in Los Angeles.

Actually, we should be precise, as this is a research blog. This is a value-pricing, not a congestion pricing scheme. Congestion pricing generally reflects an scheme that prices the whole facility. Travelers must chose between using the facility and paying, or not using the facility at all.

Value pricing concerns a subset of lanes that travelers may opt into. They can stay in the free lane and deal with congestion (or no), or they can pay into lanes that have been priced.

Marlon Boarnet on equity and toll roads

Marlon Boarnet has been one of my intellectual role models since before I went to graduate school. In today’s LA Times, he does a nice job of pointing out how superficial assertions about the equity of toll roads do not hold up. Bottom line: on public goods that are subject to congestion, there are only two things that discipline or ration use: out-of-pocket money costs and/or time costs. We can’t assume that favoring one or the other necessarily leads us to one conclusion about social equity. We can be pretty sure that impoverished families do pay proportionally higher out-of-pocket costs. We also can be sure that time burdens are also disproportionate, and we should never assume that less affluent individuals’ time is “free.”

In addition to Marlon, one of my colleagues from Industrial Engineering, Jim Moore, also weighs in intelligently, as does Kathryn Phillips–who is UCLA grad, like me–with Environmental Defense Fund also writes well here.

Large Eco-Village approved in the UK

The Architect’s Journal features a 195-unit Eco-Village, designed by Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) for the South Gloucester market. The development has everything, including a cafe and a creche (a bit too BF Skinner for me, but whatever) and a set of carbon neutral homes.

The part of this that makes me a bit sad is that while it’s a great idea, of course, the actual building designs are unattractive. Now, maybe it’s just me, and maybe I don’t understand the light and the context of the area (I’ve never been there), but I really wish architects would apply a vision to the available technology. Everybody thinks these innovations are a good idea; why can’t they be beautiful as well?

Congestion and the walking city

Paul Krugman notes on his blog that while he is favor of NYC’s move to turn Times Square into a walking only area, he’s not sure who the move is for, as “nobody goes there-it’s too crowded.”

Krugman references my favorite quote about congestion from Yogi Berra. As Brian Taylor pointed out in a very good paper in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Berra captured an essential conundrum from urban economics for urban planning newfound efforts to “contain sprawl.” That contradiction comes down to a) congestion is a sign of a successful place within cities (the “it’s too crowded” part), at the same time b) that same congestion and place intensity provides the demand for decentralization–the “nobody goes there” part.

This contradiction makes it difficult to deliver on the “congestion relief” promises that many people make on behalf of compact urbanization— one of the key elements of sustainable city ideas. Los Angeles may be everybody’s favorite whipping boy for auto congestion, but DC, New York, Boston and Chicago all have congestion both on the road and elsewhere: there’s never a seat any Starbuck’s off DuPont Circle, for example, and the sidewalks are uncomfortably crowded in New York at certain times of day. The Mexico City subway or the trains in Japan–or in most global cities other than LA—are simply jammed.

I’m not saying that auto congestion is the same for the environment as these other forms of congestion–it’s not–but as Taylor points out, places that we sustainable urbanists love–like New York–have pretty bad traffic congestion, and that traffic congestion is part of the place’s vibrancy and a measure of its success–not its failure.

Thus our sustainable cities of the future are likely to be crowded–very crowded if population growth continues. Most Americans, even those who live in New York, have no idea what real megacity crowding is like. The the demand for decentralization will grow stronger as we densify, even as we try to pack a whole bunch of amenities into our compact, walkable new developments, so long as there is income and wealth to support purchasing more space in a crowded world.

Taylor, Brian D. 2006. “Putting a Price on Mobility: Cars and Contradictions in Planning,” Longer View, Journal of the American Planning Association, 72(3): 279-284.