A new report from Florida’s National Center for Transit Research looks at how transit can save energy. The report’s lead author, Steve Polzin, has been mentioned here before. Some of the findings are more surprising than others.
Transit uses about the same amount of energy as driving, the report finds, and transit in most places (including most Florida cities) uses much more. It has become more energy efficient in the past couple of years, but that is mainly because budget cuts have forced transit agencies to cut marginally productive routes. Expanding transit is not the key to saving energy, the report suggests; making better use of transit’s surplus capacity is.
The report also examined the effects of transit service on personal travel choices. People who live “in proximity to transit” use less energy not because transit is energy efficient but because they travel less: about 12 miles less per day per adult. This means nearly 20 miles less auto travel, 2.4 miles more transit travel, and 5.5 miles more of other modes (walk, bike, ferry, taxi, air).
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Advocates of transit-oriented development can’t crow about these results, however, because they apply mainly to low-income people. People in households earning more than $70,000 a year who live in proximity to transit actually travel more than people with similar incomes who live away from transit. Much of this additional travel is air travel. Maybe people who live in dense, inner-city neighborhoods just have to “get away” more than people who live in the suburbs.
“The ability of transit investment and/or land use policy to create environments similar to those that now require less travel is dependent on both the willingness of additional persons to be attracted to those environments and the extent to which travel behaviors change to reflect those of current urban residents who have access to transit,” says the report. The report adds that infrastructure changes needed to make neighborhoods more transit-friendly also have energy costs.
Density advocates like to argue that people living in dense areas drive less and higher gas prices mean people will live in denser areas. They are missing a lot of critical factors about how cities work. Among others, transit’s share of commuting depends mostly on having lots of jobs near the hub of a hub-and-spoke transit system, not on population density (else Los Angeles would have higher rates of transit usage than New York).
The Florida paper did not consider some more in-depth questions about living in proximity to transit. What is the impact of 12 miles of less daily travel on such people? Do they end up paying higher housing and consumer costs? Are low-income people in such neighborhoods more or less likely to increase their incomes over time? Unless planners are willing to confront such issues, they should drop all of their dreams of turning American cities and suburbs into little Manhattans.
Maybe people who live in dense, inner-city neighborhoods just have to “get away†more than people who live in the suburbs.
Oh, wow – a conclusion not supported by the evidence or following from the premise. Who knew?
Fear of density aside, likely that wealthy people are able to consume air travel and consume more vacations. Many studies of urban energy usage find that transport energy use is less, naturally. But the wealthy in cities even out their lower transport energy consumption by consuming more products and electric gadgets, such that the wealthy in cities have a similar per capita consumption of energy as the far-flung rural areas where auto dependency increases their transport energy usage.
And here’s something equally nonsurprising…erm…odd: the cover of the report that is liked so much refutes the assertion above that Transit uses about the same amount of energy as driving, the report finds, and transit in most places (including most Florida cities) uses much more, and further refutes the erroneous claim in ~pp 17-24 and specifically claims that the preferred mode here is less efficient than the disparaged mode here. Shocking, surely, this appearance of hasty generalization/conflation.
DS
Florida is a poor model for studying mass transit. Because of Florida’s newness (most developed places are barely 100 years old) and growing of age during the rise of the automobile, most Florida cities, including the largest such as Miami, do not have a dense urban core sufficient to efficiently support mass transit. Maybe objective reports such as this one will slow the one size fits all approach advocated by the new urbanists who think that we should embrace mass transit (that goes no where near where you have to go) and walkability (in a state where the average daily temperature is over 80 degress 8 months of the year).
Another study that relies on the BTS claim that every single man, woman and child in this country averages 16,000 miles per year (44 miles per day) in cars/SUV’s/vans/light trucks, etc.
I’m still waiting for an explanation of why that is a believable figure other than ipse dixit on the part of BTS. Remember, for every person who does not travel 44 miles per day in a vehicle, someone else has to make up the difference.
If the passenger mile figure for these vehicles is vastly inflated, then the supposed energy efficiency of these vehicles plummets.
Andrew said: nother study that relies on the BTS claim that every single man, woman and child in this country averages 16,000 miles per year (44 miles per day) in cars/SUV’s/vans/light trucks, etc.
JK: They do not say that. They say the average of all people is whatever number they report.
I suggest you look at an actual report as they usually explain how they got the number. I would expect this sort of number comes from US Census or state DMV reports of actual odometer readings.
Thanks
JK
Dan, I’ll trade you my 700 square foot vintage 1br/1ba apartment in the inner-city (population density of the entire city is over 7k/mi2 and probably more dense here) for your 2000+ square foot house on .18 acre with its attached garage, balcony, open porch and brick veneer, fireplace, four bedrooms and multiple baths.
Seriously.
When do you want to trade?
I would love to be free of neighbors constantly walking on top of me and dropping shit and having sex at all hours of the night.
I would love to be free of the constant noise and the almost complete lack of privacy.
I would love to have a yard and garden again.
I NEED to get the f*** out of this dense city. It’s claustrophobic. It’s stressful.
Come on Dan.
You think cities are so great.
Trade me places.
Sorry Frank, but this is where Dan goes strangely silent and excuses himself. The average progressive wants his ideology to apply to everyone, except himself.
Metrosux, this link is for you
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=107926172562722#!/group.php?gid=107926172562722&v=wall.
I wonder how much that Fascist Road(tm) I-90 through Montana looses per trip, let alone the even more deserted I-15 through there does, subsidized handsomely as they are, by gas tax payers driving down their neighborhood street in suburbia anywhere.
JimKarlock:
The BTS reports well over 4.5 trillion passenger miles in cars/light trucks/SUV’s/vans per year are supposedly driven. The numbers I provided follow simply from this total. Dividing by 300 million provides the number of miles per American per year. Dividing that by 365 provides the amount per day. It appears this number was actually arrived at by looking at fuel burned, assuming a number of people per vehicle, and making some assumptions about fuel economy.
My personal suspicion is that the fuel economy is overestimated. I find my own fuel economy from random driving around town mostly by my wife hovers around 13-14 mpg unless we take a long trip on a highway, in which case we get around 23.5 mpg. My van is “supposed” to get 19 mpg in city driving, 26 mpg highway. That is a huge difference on the city side – 25%!
There are other ways to reaosn through the figure and question it. For example, if there are around 130,000,000 people driving or being being driven to work 250 days per year an average of 29 miles, that only works out less than 9 passenger miles per day per American for commuting. That means we need to dream up other activities which account for 35 passenger miles per day per American to agree with the BTS figure. 24 million kids being driven by a parent 10 miles to round trip to school 180 days per year only works out to an additional 1 passenger mile per day per American.
What would those activities be? Is it believable that shopping trips, visiting friends, driving to Church, business travel, and leisure/vacations average out 34 miles per person per day by car when commuting only gets us 10?
I wonder how much that Fascist Road(tm) I-90 through Montana looses per trip
It’s not a valid question, because the gas tax paid is not promised to any particular street or highway. It’s used as needed for projects. But you knew that already.
Why not wonder how much the average streetcar, “high” (TM) speed rail, or light rail losers per trip instead?
Because you hate cars and mobility, that’s why.
Frank, there is no need to hand-flap flappity flap.
I said the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise. That was the claim. Nothing else.
No need to spam to distract away from that. None. No need. I made no other claims. No need no make shhhtuff up about what I claimed.
Why is there no need to make stuff up about what I claimed upthread?
There is no need to make stuff up because it is easy for thinking people to scroll upthread and see that I claimed nothing about anything you typed. Nothing.
People can check for themselves to see your attempt at an assertion is hooey. Hokum. Bunk. Bogus.
Here, let me repeat it so all the spam doesn’t lose the point that people made stuff up about what I claimed:
Thank you for letting me repeat the mention of the unsupported assertion. Further, shortly thereafter I proposed alternatives from the literature as to why the increased suggested additional travel is air travel may be higher – wealth.
Let us note there is zero mention, addressing, attention, refutation, anything of any point I made.
I made three points, two points about weak, unsupported claims in the post.
None of the three points were addressed. None. Zero. Just hand-flapping. Dissembling. Flap. Flapflap. Flapflapflap…
DS
Whenever I need to decide between Randal’s arguments and Dan’s hateful, leftist rhetoric, I’ll go with Randal, thank you very much. It is people (and I use that term loosely) like Dan who work overtime to make our lives a living hell. It is people like Dan who engineered traffic light timing so that when I drive the speed limit, it is a perpetual stop and go from red light to red light. Triple A didn’t do it, that’s for sure.
With these things in mind, I have nothing but contempt for planners and their lofty opinions and quasi-sophisticated language.
Danny Boy is just all over the place in his comments. He loves the attention and considers himself the Number One commentor on this website. If you ignore him, he acts like an ass until you have to rebuke him and give him attention.
If you challenge Danny Boy on substance, he takes great umbrage and acts like his comments are really intellectual. Note that he tries to demand much a thousand times more respect than he himself shows to anyone else.
Since Danny Boy had to beg the Antiplanner to delete comments critical of him, he now snuggles up to the Antiplanner attention as much as he can, and he is getting up early every morning to post the same butt-kissing off-topic message over and over again.
Right on Andy. It’s a real shame that the Antiplanner coddles Dan and prevents rightful criticism of him. I noticed, on the other hand, that highwayman can pretty much say whatever he wants. I’d like a more evenly applied policy here. If highwayman can call people a**hole and tell them to STFU(he did so recently), then we should be able to call Dan a liar when appropriate.
Metrosucks;Gas sales tax paid is not promised to any particular street or highway. It’s used as needed for projects.
THWM: That’s cross subsidising, then again roads are there regardless of economic conditions.
Metrosucks; Mr.Setty you hate cars.
THWM: Though you some how think that by hating rail and mobility for other people. Is some thing to take pride in?
First:
Then:
What a lying sack of s***. Clearly anyone can scroll up and see that you ALSO claimed that the conclusion was not supported by the evidence.
Just what is “the evidence”? Hmm? Please provide “the evidence” that does not support the claim that MAYBE (an important word since the premise and the conclusion must be statements, capable of being true and false) people who live in density need to get away more than people who live in the suburbs.
I have far more need to get away here than I did in suburban Portland. I had far more need to get away in downtown Portland than I did in suburban Portland. Yes, this is anecdotal, so I’m looking forward to you providing empirical evidence (“the evidence”) that does not support this claim. Oh, and don’t forget that “maybe” discussed above.
As far as spam, or unwanted posts, seems like the peanut gallery is crying loudly that your posts are unwanted. Still don’t understand why an educated elite who *almost* earned a master’s degree would stoop to argue with the low-wattage types and cheap sockpuppets here.
If you disappeared, so would the sockpuppets. Truth be told, I would miss none of you.
Andrew: The numbers I provided follow simply from this total. Dividing by 300 million provides the number of miles per American per year. Dividing that by 365 provides the amount per day.
JK: Why not look at some real data: TRANSPORTATION ENERGY DATA BOOK: EDITION 29, Table 8.2 gives the vehicle-mile per capita as 9,766
Andrew: My personal suspicion is that the fuel economy is overestimated.
JK: Whose version of fuel economy? You will find more in the TRANSPORTATION ENERGY DATA BOOK
Andrew: There are other ways to reaosn through the figure and question it….that only works out less than 9 passenger miles per day per American for commuting. That means we need to dream up other activities which account for 35 passenger miles per day per American to agree with the BTS figure
JK: Again, TRANSPORTATION ENERGY DATA BOOK: EDITION 29, Table 8.8 gives the the average commute length at 12.7 miles.
Thanks
JK
Sigh. I’m forced to use IE because this site isn’t compatible with Vista. I spent much time typing, only to somehow have the much longer post disappear.
What a lying sack of s***. Clearly anyone can scroll up and see that you ALSO claimed that the conclusion was not supported by the evidence…Just what is “the evidenceâ€? Hmm? Please provide “the evidence†that does not support the claim
Frank, your limp childish quibble and low-quality mischaracterization notwithstanding, there is no evidence because there is no evidence. Unless you have some evidence to back a claim made by someone else. Let us know if you are privy to the evidence no one else is. If you want to grasp and state I’m a liar because I should have written not supported due to no evidence, then bring your bad self’s reign of killa rhetorical terra down upon the communist planna.
That is: there is no evidence urban residents choose to spend hundreds of dollars to Maybe…just get away instead of simply walking or driving to the freedom of the wide-open ‘burbs.
DS
FYI, here are some major sources of transportation information:
National Transportation Statistics, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation
Commuting in America
TRANSPORTATION ENERGY DATA BOOK
National Transit Database
Feel free to add to this list (Please credible sources only, nothing from the greenies or Victoria BC)
Thanks
JK
Yet again, for the 423rd time, Dan demands evidence while he has provided none.
Danny Boy, why are you so obsessed first with “hand flapping” in front of your computer, then obsessed with things being “limp”?
It is so funny how Liberal Professional Planners think they are saving the world because their own calculations pretend to show they can reduce carbon by 5% by spending the entire national discretionary budget for the next 20 years, yet in their next breath they say the world will end if carbon isn’t reduced 70% in ten years. What a bunch of hypocritic losers.
Danny Boy, why are you so obsessed first with “hand flapping†in front of your computer, then obsessed with things being “limp�
The hand is flapping when he reads the environmental impact statement for the latest light rail fantasy, and then the other thing goes “limp” when he goes to the Antiplanner and reads the rebuttal, sending his mind into furious “making up sh-t” mode to discredit Randal.
I don’t believe you’re a communist planner. I have nothing against the planning community, although obviously many here are ready to slam you and planning. Do you see slamming you in every post? How many shots do you see me taking at communism?
Talk about mischaracterization.
What a hypocrite.
If anything is limp, it was your professorial “quibble” over me not explicitly citing the dictionary on a blog discussion board. Talk about limp childish quibble!
I’m just sick and tired of your bullshit, Dan.
For someone so against Rand, you sure are an egotistical bastard.
Again, you demand evidence but provide now. You haven’t addressed the substance of #16. “A conclusion not supported by the evidence…” Whatever.
Limp.
It bears repeating: Still don’t understand why an educated elite who *almost* earned a master’s degree would stoop to argue with the low-wattage types and cheap sockpuppets here.
Unless you have a personality disorder and can’t help yourself.
I don’t get it either Frank. You clearly stated “maybe”. You didn’t rush in and declare that it was God’s own truth. That’s what Dan does. But maybe he’s seeing red from all the bad news about transit coming out lately.
Whenever there is a serious substantive discussion by planners and anti-planners on this web page discussion board, Danny Boy always jumps in and throws hand grenades to disrupt it.
Since Danny Boy is overwhelmingly the most frequent posters, he easily disrupts any serious discussion. Once in a while people ignore him enough to have a few hours of serious discussion, but then Dan is back with lotion and hand flapping to disrupt it.
Danny Boy pretty much makes serious conversation impossible.
Somebody needs to do us all a favor and treat Danny Boy mercilessly like he treats all other commenters…..
Danny boy is probably a paid blogger to disrupt criticism of smart growth because of the billions being made fostering it on the public, with light rail being the posterchild.
Thanks
JK
Jim Karlock:
I’m well aware of the figures and sources you cite.
Please note I am discussing miles per American – every man, woman and child from 0 to 115. Not miles per vehicle or miles per commuter or anything else. The 4.5+ trillion passenger miles claimed is 44 miles per day per American – I am questioning if this passes the smell test.
So that 25.4 mile round trip commute you cite (other sources cite 29 miles round trip) needs to be multiplied by 130,000,000 commuting in cars times an assumed number of work days per year (I assumed 250 – some people work less, like teachers for 190 days and government workers with 6 weeks vacation and 12 holidays and 12 sick days, and some work more especially those getting paid overtime) and then divided by the total population of about 300,000,000 in the year the figures mostly seem to be available for in a uniform manner (2007). When you do that, you get about 9 miles of commuting per day, per American.
Frank, your mischaracterization and limp try at calling me liar is BS. That’s what is BS, plus your making stuff up about what I wrote and hand-flapping like I detailed above. That’s BS. But all of us except the stooges and your sockpuppets knew that already (and it can be argued the sockpuppets are a distraction to hide the BS).
So, now that we’ve clarified the BS, let’s remember all this spam was to distract away from the original points. So let’s return to them:
Let us also acknowledge that Andrew has a problem with some numbers cited in the report as well, as that might be getting lost in the scurrilous, dishonest spam as well.
DS
Sounds like Comrade DS is upset right now. Poor baby. Here’s a carbon credit, remember to inhale.
A related article from the excellent New Geography site is this by Owen McShane, The Public Transport Revolution – Why does it never Arrive?
The first three paragraphs follow:
Since the oil spike in the early seventies, enthusiasts for public transport have predicted that high prices for petrol would trigger a public transport revolution as people finally broke their “addiction†to the motor car and changed their travel mode to buses and trains.
Since then, price bubbles have increased public transport use, and lowered car miles traveled. But these changes have proved to be short-lived. More drive more.
Yet standard theory says that people respond to prices. Surely people should respond to increased petrol prices by changing their mode of travel. But why hasn’t it happened in the past? More importantly, will it magically happen in the future?
It’s an excellent article. I like New Geography and their common-sense, no progressive BS approach to transportation. The fact is that people love their cars, period. I can relate to the points made in the article CP linked to.
Surely Mr “limp hand flapper” aka Dan will have something negative to say here, though.
Andrew said: Jim Karlock:
Please note I am discussing miles per American – every man, woman and child from 0 to 115.
JK: That is call miles per capita.
I’ll let you argue with the feds about the numbers.
PS: don’t forget the average car has 1.6 people in it. There are breakdowns of occupancy by trip purpose.
Thanks
JK
Clearly Danny Boy recommends that if you repeat the same point 3-4 times and still nobody agrees with it, then you have to bold your stupid comment to make it more convincing.
After that Danny Boy will be using many exclamation points!!!!!!! On every sentence!!!!!!
WHAT WILL HE DO AFTER THAT???????
“But all of us except the stooges and your sockpuppets knew that already (and it can be argued the sockpuppets are a distraction to hide the BS)”
I’ll come clean. I have made another alias. It is SpamPolice and was aimed at getting metrosucks and highwayman to STFU. Two or three posts. Didn’t work. Gave it up. I don’t have any other aliases, and I authorize the Antiplanner to corroborate my story. He can check the IP I post from and the IP other users post from and divulge the truth that I am only posting under the alias “Frank”. Even the most basic textual analysis would show that I’m not posting here under any other noms de plume. So you can stop with this silly hand flapping.
No. A conclusion was not made. The statement was conjecture as evidenced by the word “maybe”. You have not disproved the conjecture with empirical evidence; that this report doesn’t support it is irrelevant to the conjecture.
The Antiplanner did not use the word “fear”. That’s your projection. The conjecture was that perhaps people who live in density need to “get away” more than those who live in the ‘burbs. The implication is that density is stressful. That’s backed up by empirical evidence here, here, here, and here just to list a few.
In the conjectural statement, the Antiplanner did not use the word “wealthy”; true, he had been talking about households with incomes over $70K a year, but in a city, I’d hardly call that wealthy (my household grosses about $80k a year in this top-20 US city, and after I pay a 20% premium to live in the city, which includes ludicrous rent–for 700 ft2–and outrageous food prices AND student loan payments–for actually completing a MA–there ain’t much left. Wealthy my a$$.) More anecdotal evidence: I haven’t been on an a plane in three years (how big is your CO2 footprint from flying to planning conferences?) and have often dreamed about getting on a plane to escape the dense city, but can’t afford the tickets.
You’ve essentially set up a straw man by labeling $70k a year household income in expensive cities as wealthy. What a joke.
Frank, you want to show that the airline travel is to get away from density. That was the implication.
Do try again. Show it is not for business or skiing, but that the amenities of the city are no balm for the feared and loathed density that somehow – even though airline travel is affordable – there isn’t enough money to move to the soothing balm of the American Dream’s suburb. Focus and don’t thrash about. Focus on the claims that were made, not what you wish they were.
chuckle
Dan
“Frank, you want to show that the airline travel is to get away from density.”
No. That was not my original point.
The Antiplanner’s original post was “Maybe people who live in dense, inner-city neighborhoods just have to ‘get away’ more than people who live in the suburbs.”
Regardless of the mode, I believe the conjecture is compelling: many who live in density have to get away more than those living in the suburbs.
Keep chuckling. It’s backpedaling at its finest.
Hey Dan, do you use the high density or low density KY?
JK: Don’t forget the average car has 1.6 people in it. There are breakdowns of occupancy by trip purpose.
THWM: Though the auto industry it self uses the figure of 1.2 people per car.
THWM: Though the auto industry it self uses the figure of 1.2 people per car.
Citation please
Thanks
JK
Speaking of some commenters grasping at straws and pathetically whining about lying when stuff isn’t copied perfectly:
“Frank, you want to show that the airline travel is to get away from density. [That was the implcation]â€
No. That was not my original point.
The Antiplanner’s original post was “Maybe people who live in dense, inner-city neighborhoods just have to ‘get away’ more than people who live in the suburbs.â€
Regardless of the mode, I believe the conjecture is compelling: many who live in density have to get away more than those living in the suburbs.
>eye roll<
I hear more Junior Colleges are offering Reading Comprehension and Rhetoric classes these days. The conjecture is compelling: there is an excellent chance the spam on this site is generated from poor reading comprehension skillz (definitely from poor rhetorical skills). That or dishonesty.
Either way, LOLz-worthy. Thanx fer teh laff!
DS
Maybe you should check your capitalization before you suggest someone take classes.
Maybe you should also finish your master’s degree.
And great rhetoric, by the way. That eye roll really showed me!
JK; Citation please
THWM: Mercedes-Benz
Look Dan, if you’re having trouble performing in the bedroom, there’s no reason to take it out on the rest of us. There is help, you know. No shame in asking to discuss your options with your doctor.
Keep it classy fellas.
bennett:
You’re asking a sockpuppet to keep it classy. Srsly.
—————-
So, now that we’ve clarified the BS, let’s remember all this spam was to distract away from the original points. So let’s return to them:
Let us also acknowledge that Andrew has a problem with some numbers cited in the report as well, as that might be getting lost in the scurrilous, dishonest, dissembling spam.
DS
Stop embarrassing yourself, planner.
Hey Danny Boy!
We have only heard from you seven times on this topic. Do you have any points to make, even if nobody finds them worthwhile? If so, don’t hide your brilliant ideas, but rather please use bold, italics, all caps, and curly queues so that we can see them through your faux intellectual tripe.
And we all send our sympathy to you now that your anti-capitalist hero OBL was personally killed by your high-speed rail hero BHO in a shootout on Wii. You are obviously in the denial stage of grief.