Transportation policy should aim to reduce congestion, says Alan Pisarski, author of Commuting in America. Yet too often it is actually aimed at “making things get worse — slower!”
“We can’t make it faster but we can try for reliably slower,” Pisarski quotes one transportation planner as saying. “These should be embarrassing if not pathetic goals,” he commented at the Preserving the American Dream conference in San Jose last week.
“Imagine if such goals were applied to schools or hospitals.”
In much of the U.S., notes Pisarski, more than 25 percent of workers commute across county lines to get to work. Click chart to see a larger image.
Pisarski argued that the appropriate goal for transportation should be “to reduce the effects of distance as an inhibiting force in our society’s ability to realize its economic and social aspirations.” You can download his PowerPoint presentation (850KB); if you would like a copy of the DVD of his presentation, email the American Dream Coalition.
High Cholesterol: Cholesterol is a fatty substance which coats and generic cialis in usa protects nerve fibers in the spinal cord. It is just generic version cialis viagra cheap of the branded medicine. Following this a online viagra blood test can be conducted to look for other Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS),” the company states. The development of sync-sound technology and new, lightweight 16mm cameras allowed documentarians like Maysles generic levitra sale to get up close and personal with their subjects and take their audiences behind the scenes not all is as it seems.
Pisarski expects household incomes and wealth to increase, and points out that, as incomes increase, so too does household travel. But he also points out that impaired transportation systems can reduce people’s ability to earn incomes.
Pisarski reports that he has recently observed transportation planning processes in several states and urban areas. In each case, interests outside the agencies that are supposed to deal with congestion have raised congestion as a major issue, while the agencies themselves dragged their feet in trying to do something about it.
There are “no owners of the problem” and the public has little or no access to information, says Pisarski. At worst, agency planners regard congestion as a “tool” to achieve their goals. At best, it is simply not high on their priority list: in Atlanta, congestion relief was given an 11 percent weighting in evaluations of alternative transportation projects.
Pisarski argues that metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) should spend more time working on congestion relief and less on environmental issues. “Let me know when you have more freight economists than you have environmental analysts,” he tells MPOs.
Instead of trying to change behaviour, we should rely on technological fixes to transport problems. Instead of focusing enormous resources on biking and walking, we should recognize that freight transport is crucial to any urban economy. Instead of relying on long-range plans, create systems that can harness market forces to improve transportation.
More detailed solutions will be provided in Pisarski’s second conference presentation tomorrow.
It is hard for us who think we know the answers to the problem to keep quiet about our great ideas. Pisarski said new technologies lack a constituency and he is correct.
In case anyone wants to know some answers to reduce congestion, improve mobility, and enlarge service areas you could read my previous posts. I will save you the trouble and repeat some of my ideas:
1. Personal automated transport on three levels – robotaxis for neighborhoods and up to 10 km (technology from DARPA Urban Challenge finishers), small personal elevated monorails for suburb to suburb trips, 1 to 50 km and speeds up to 125 mph (see higherway.us and the PRT companies on the Links page), Evacuated Tube Transport ™ for intercity trips at speeds up to 3000 mph (see http://www.et3.com).
In the short term, stop building barriers to transport such as dead ends and cul-de-sacs and build more through streets, one-way streets with synchronized traffic signals, bridges and overpasses.
We already have personal transport.
We just need to fix the damn roads.
Thanks
JK
“Pisarski argues that metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) should spend more time working on congestion relief and less on environmental issues. “Let me know when you have more freight economists than you have environmental analysts,†he tells MPOs.
Instead of trying to change behaviour, we should rely on technological fixes to transport problems. Instead of focusing enormous resources on biking and walking, we should recognize that freight transport is crucial to any urban economy. Instead of relying on long-range plans, create systems that can harness market forces to improve transportation.”
Two comments on this.
Congestion relief is an environmental issue. I think that the common fallacy needs to be tackled head on – that the environment is about the fluffy thing, perched on a branch in the forest. With too much this, that, or the other (or a lack thereof) the fluffy thing will fall off its perch and break its neck.
The environment is mostly about the built environment. It is at least as important to bypass villages, in order to stop heavy lorries trashing the quality-of-life of the residents as it is to protect the countryside, including the bit that the road is going to be passing through. Vehicles in traffic jams are burning petrol and diesel to go nowhere, which is a ridiculously inefficient way to travel.
There is no reason why we cannot have walking, cycling and good freight management. (Cycling and walking is inexpensive, as the user brings their own bicycle/sneakers). Indeed they are complimentary, since in a well-managed freight system, the articulated lorries are kept at the edge of the town or city, and the freight is transferred to smaller vehicles. This is good news for cyclists and walkers, who no longer have to share their streets with articulated lorries. It is also good news for the freight companies, who can then turn their vehicles around much quicker. The template for this system in the UK is Bristol, where such a system has worked very well. It is now coming to Bath, UK, where I live.