Photo: Fire Monkey Fish/Flickr

Last week, the Brookings Institute, one of Washington’s oldest think tanks released, Transit Access and Zero Vehicle Households, a report that looked at transit access for the country’s most dependent populations and ranked each major American metropolitan area on how well they provided bus service to this population.

Los Angeles ranked second in terms of providing access to car free households.  99.1% of car-free Angelenos live in a neighborhood with some access to transit, a higher percentage than New York, San Francisco or any American city east of Honolulu.

This announcement led to some pretty heady headlines such as Los Angeles Tops List of Cities For Carless Residents in LAist, Los Angeles Public Transit Access Top Among Major Metropolitan Areas, Besting Even New York in the Huffington Post, and Car-loving L.A. may actually be a public-transit paradise in the Los Angeles Times.

Sounds great, the only problem is that the Brookings Report doesn’t actually say any of those things.  There’s a reason Saturday’s Bus Riders Union event wasn’t a victory party.  What the report does say is that L.A.’s transit system has service in a lot of different residential communities, more than every major city outside Hawaii.  Here are other important notes from the study.

• In the greater Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana car-free residents only have access to 34% of the jobs within a ninety minute transit ride.  In other words, the bus may come, but it doesn’t provide access to the major job centers in a quick and reasonable way.  That’s good for being ranked fifty third amongst the top 100 metro areas, settled snugly between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, both in Pennsylvania.
• The study looks at only number of routes, not service levels, when deciding whether a community is served by transit.  In other words, someone living within walking distance of Union Station and someone living near a Big Blue Bus stop that comes once an hour would both be considered “served” by transit in their community in this report.
• The report is based on data from 2008.  While that’s not long enough ago to call the entire report into question, L.A. Metro has seen some pretty severe service cuts since 2008.  The Bus Riders Union estimates that 12% of the bus service hours have been cut in the past couple of years.  That has to impact the number of communities that are served by transit.
• One major conclusion of the report is that transit agencies need to do a better job providing service to the emerging job centers in America’s exhurbs (think the Westside or Valley), suburbs, or wherever jobs are concentrated.  Given L.A.’s rather poor ranking in providing that service, it’s clear that there’s still a lot of work to do in the City of Angels.

None of this is to say that the report doesn’t have value.  It does.  That there are 700,000 car-free families without access to transit is a disaster, and Brookings rightly calls America out for that lack.  But by looking at selected data to paint an overly cheery picture of Los Angeles’ transit circumstances doesn’t do anyone any favors, and could indeed to quite the opposite.

Many intersections with red light cameras are marked, but that's not enough to appease drivers intent on breaking the law and getting away with it. Photo: Tampa Tribune

A new study shows that, despite their supposed reputation as government revenue collectors, red light cameras are saving lives.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that red light cameras prevented 159 deaths between 2004 and 2008 in 14 of the largest cities in the U.S., and that 815 deaths would have been prevented had cameras been operating in all U.S. cities with a population of over 200,000.

Says the IIHS:

The researchers found that in the 14 cities that had cameras during 2004-08, the combined per capita rate of fatal red light running crashes fell 35 percent, compared with 1992-96. The rate also fell in the 48 cities without camera programs in either period, but only by 14 percent.

Based on that comparison, the researchers concluded that the rate of fatal red light running crashes in cities with cameras in 2004-08 was 24 percent lower than it would have been without cameras. That adds up to 74 fewer fatal red light running crashes or, given the average number of fatalities per red light running crash, approximately 83 lives saved.

The study also found that crashes in cities with red light cams declined even at signalized intersections where no cameras were present — leading to a projected total of 159 lives saved — while collisions in cities that used no cameras showed a slight increase.

The IIHS says criticism of the cameras is overblown and ignores the human toll of traffic collisions. A Washington Post story on the IIHS report notes a AAA survey that found just eight percent of D.C. drivers in opposition to red light cameras. Yet the merits of lifesaving traffic tech tend to be drowned out by the vocal minority. “Somehow, the people who get tickets because they have broken the law have been cast as the victims,” says Adrian Lund, president of IIHS. “We rarely hear about the real victims — the people who are killed or injured by these lawbreakers.”

Most of those victims are not the drivers who cause the collisions. Nearly two-thirds of those killed by red light runners in 2009 were occupants of other vehicles, passengers in the red light runners’ vehicles, pedestrians or cyclists.

As if to prove Lund’s point, the Post reports that two Virginia lawmakers have proposed legislation restricting cities’ use of red light cameras in their state. In contrast to AAA’s New York branch, which recently panned efforts to step up automated speed enforcement, AAA Mid-Atlantic supports red light cameras, and has denounced the Virginia bills.

(Graphic: ITDP)

A report released today by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy [PDF]
highlights the new wave of parking policy innovation that could pay
huge dividends for sustainable transport and livable streets. If your
city aspires to make streets safe, improve the quality of transit, and
foster bicycling, then your city needs a coherent parking policy.

"There
was a 35-year parking coma during which the federal
government, cities, and environmentalists forgot why parking was
important," said John Kaehny, who co-authored the report with Matthew
Rufo and UPenn professor Rachel Weinberger. "This study shows people
are starting to wake up and understand
that parking is one of the most important influences on how cities work
and
what form of travel people choose to use."

The early 70s
parking limits beat back the cycle of more car storage, wider roadways,
and greater sprawl that decimates urban areas. The underlying idea was
simple: Manage the supply of parking, and you can reduce the demand for
driving. Yet in America this notion has gone largely unheeded, even in
cities.

Instead, the authors note, parking policy is
typically divorced from transportation policy and goals like reducing
congestion or encouraging walking and biking. In most of our urban
areas, planners determine parking volumes using suburban standards,
drawing heavily on ill-suited recommendations in "Parking Generation,"
a manual published by the Institute for Transportation Engineers. The
product is abundant, cheap parking — much of which sits unused most of
the time.

Fully 99 percent of car trips in America end in
free parking, an incentive that crowds out all other modes of
transportation. "Even when the price of parking is free," said
Weinberger, "it’s far from free."

The resulting congestion
impedes the effectiveness of transit. Traffic volumes and
double-parking make bicycling less pleasant and more dangerous.
Walkable environments give way to curb cuts, dead walls, and
land-devouring parking facilities that spread destinations farther
apart. The whole vicious cycle is heavily subsidized, with the cost of
parking absorbed into the price of everything from housing to movie
tickets.

"In a time of economic distress, we can’t afford
to continue these policies,"  said ITDP’s Michael Replogle. "Continuing
to subsidize parking is very costly for all of us."

Surface parking in downtown Minneapolis. (Photo: ITDP/Zachary Korb)

The
good news is that some cities are introducing more rational parking
policies guided by coherent goals. The ITDP report pulls together case
studies of several places where these reforms are underway –
information that the authors hope will spur other cities to take
notice. "American parking policy is like bike policy a decade
ago," said Kaehny. "Cities are doing lots of different and interesting
things. But they aren’t sharing what they learn in an organized way,
nor are the feds helping spread the word about what is working and what
isn’t."

In San Francisco and New York,
programs to bring the price of curbside parking more in line with
off-street parking are reducing the incentive to cruise endlessly for a
cheap spot. In Portland, planners have reduced parking requirements for
new development near transit lines, helping to improve walkability and
increase ridership.

Boulder provides an intriguing
study in parking management as an economic development tool. This small
Colorado city is one of the only places that introduced new parking
policies during the 80s and 90s. After deciding they couldn’t compete
with suburban malls by imitating them, local merchants led an effort
that effectively capped the volume of downtown parking and directed
revenue from parking facilities to improve transit, walking, and bicycling.

Other cities will be able to replicate the innovations in the report, said UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking.
"Weinberger, Kaehny, and Rufo show how cities can begin to repair the
damage caused by decades of bad planning for parking," he said. "The
case studies of six cities that have reformed their parking policies
provide clear blueprints that any city can adapt to fit the local
circumstances."

When Vice President Joe Biden visited Minnesota's New Flyer bus company to tout the economic stimulus law's $8.4 billion investment in transit, hopes were high for a boom in cleaner-burning vehicle production -- which made for some bad press when the nationwide transit funding crunch forced New Flyer to lay off 13 percent of its workers.

But the recession hasn't dampened the economic potential of hybrid bus production, as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) laid out today in a new report [PDF] on the industry. In fact, EDF found, transit bus companies share enough skills and regional foothold with the auto industry -- the map of bus makers pictured above could be mistaken for a map of automakers -- to pave the way for fuel-efficiency advances that would ultimately benefit all vehicles.

After noting that 32 percent of American transit buses do not rely on gas or diesel to run, today's report continues:

The bus industry serves as an important entry point for advanced vehicle technologies, especially in new vehicles that require refueling infrastructure and other major changes. For instance, since transit agencies have a well-defined base of centrally managed fleets, they are ideal for testing and proving plug-in hybrid and all-electric buses — thus leading the way for the passenger car industry.

While U.S. bus companies are well-positioned proving grounds for cleaner-burning vehicles, their export potential remains low, according to the EDF report. That's largely because the largest market for transit buses is China, where demand is expected to grow by 12 percent annually over the next decade -- double the projected growth rate in North America -- and where production standards are markedly lower.

"Emerging countries’ lower technology levels and standards appear to prevent them from competing in industrial country bus markets, while industrial countries’ higher production costs and standards appear to prevent them from competing in emerging country markets," EDF concluded.

Even so, there is a limited opening for bus supply companies to prosper on a global level. About 12,000 of Indianapolis-based Allison Transmission's 14,000 sales have come in China, and Firestone, which produces bus suspensions, has operations in China and India.

The National Academy of Science’s new report
on the hidden health costs of U.S. reliance on fossil fuels has
generated high-profile media coverage around the country, most of it focusing on the $62 billion annual estimate for coal rather than the $56 billion projection for vehicles.

(Photo: SILive.com)

But Greenwire’s write-up is particularly interesting, if only for its responses from the National Mining Association and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative and climate-denying D.C. think tank that has taken $2 million from Exxon Mobil this decade. From the Greenwire piece (sub.req’d.):

"Energy production from fossil fuels causes air
pollution, which damages people’s health and welfare. That was big news
– in the 1970s," Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, wrote in an e-mail. "Did we really need a
346-page study with more than 50 expert contributors to tell us that?" …

"That aside, without energy, we’d all freeze in the dark," Lewis added.
"The net cost of not having energy vastly outweighs the supposed
‘hidden’ costs."

Interestingly,
Lewis’ quip about "the net cost of not having energy" was similar in
substance from the that of the Mining Association, which asserted that
"the health and welfare benefits" of burning coal for electricity
"clearly outweigh the cost."

MARTA train in Atlanta, Georgia, where officials are studying the link between transit and job growth.

How could federal job creation programs be greener? Making access to public transit a priority would be one way.

A report called "Uncle Sam’s Rusty Toolkit," released today by Good
Jobs First, details the group’s finding that federal job-creation
programs fail in several key ways to meet "best practices" standards
already used by states and cities — including locating work sites in
places accessible to public transit.

The group’s press release stated, in part:

"The federal government can promote better jobs, protect taxpayers, and
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by simply taking some lessons from
states and cities," said Greg LeRoy, Executive Director of Good Jobs
First. "These well-established safeguards are consistent with
President-elect Obama’s stated goal of reforming programs to make them
more transparent and cost-effective."

The study deals with five federal programs: the Department of Housing
and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program; the
Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment Act; the Department of
Commerce’s Public Works and Economic Development Program; Industrial
Revenue Bonds as allowed under the Internal Revenue Code; and the
Department of Agriculture’s Business and Industry Guaranteed Loans
Program.

The report, which could hardly be more relevant than it is today, may be downloaded here.

Photo: Michael Hinton/Flickr

A Hunter College study on cyclist behavior is making the rounds today, getting a long post on City Room.
The data measure the extent to which cyclists take safety precautions
and follow traffic laws. Helpful stuff to know, except that the
findings are presented in a way that feeds into the worst stereotypes
about cyclists and a blame-the-victim mentality toward traffic injuries
and deaths.

In the post, headlined "Study Finds
Cyclists Disobey Traffic Laws," the report authors call for greater
helmet use and adherence to traffic laws. Again, all well and good, but
leaving it at that reinforces the perception that cyclists would be
much safer if only they obeyed the letter of the law. It’s easy to hear
echoes of NYPD’s insistence, in the waning days of the Giuliani
administration, that "cyclist error" was to blame in three quarters of
deadly crashes. A follow-up study conducted by the advocacy group Right
of Way [PDF] found otherwise:

Through
careful reconstruction of crash circumstances, we were able to assign
responsibility in 53 of the 71 fatal bicycle crashes during 1995-1998
for which we obtained police crash reports. We determined that drivers
were highly culpable in 30 cases, partly culpable in 11 cases, and not
culpable in 12 cases. Driver misconduct was thus the principal cause in
57% (30 out of 53) of the cases and a contributory factor in 78% (30
plus 11, or 41, out of 53).

Another
way to view the Hunter College findings is that rates of traffic
violations among cyclists are symptomatic of a system designed mainly
to accommodate cars. In other words, cyclists follow the rules more
when they feel safe. (City Room cites TA’s Wiley Norvell to this
effect, toward the bottom of the post.) This has been borne out on
Ninth Avenue, where according to DOT’s data, the incidence of sidewalk
riding declined from five percent to below one percent after the
protected path was installed.

As Norvell told Streetsblog, "A
lot of the traffic violations we see out there happen on streets that
have absolutely no provision for the safety of the cyclist."

It may seem paradoxical to some, but researchers at the University of South Whales in Australia shows that the more people that bicycle on the roads, the safer cyclists are.  The study included research from cyclists in
Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, 14 European countries and 68
Californian cities.  Put briefly, the study concludes that the more cyclists there are on the road, the more likely that drivers will recognize them as part of the transportation system and be aware of their presence.

Dr. Julie Hatfield, an injury expert from
UNSW, explains what she calls the "Virtuous Cycle" of more people biking in Science Daily,

"The likelihood that an individual cyclist will be struck
by a motorist falls with increasing rate of bicycling in a community.
And the safer cycling is perceived to be, the more people are prepared
to cycle."

If we accept the researcher’s findings that to improve cyclist safety we need to get more people cycling, it raises questions about the effects of advertising campaigns built around encouraging safe cycling.  Remember the City of Los Angeles’ award winning advertisement that compares cyclists to insects who need to be trained? 

Dr. Chris Rissel, co-author of a 2008 report on cycling safety with Dr. Hatfield, tells Science Daily that these types of advertiesments help keep people off their bikes and make the streets more dangerous.

"We should create a cycling friendly environment and accentuate
cycling’s positives rather than stress negatives with ‘safety
campaigns’ that focus on cyclists without addressing drivers and road
conditions. Reminding people of injury rates and risks, to wear helmets
and reflective visible clothes has the unintended effect of reinforcing
fears of cycling which discourages people from cycling."

Photo:Los Angeles Streetsblog/Flickr

• Tell us the story about the commuter
  rail that doesn’t exist (voted down yet again). Would it run near your
  neighborhood, if it did?
• Tell us about the successes. Does
  the city leadership have the right idea? Are there projects run by
  nonprofit organizations or businesses worth mentioning?
• Tell us about the champions of sustainability in your city. Who’s already doing it the right way?

Essays should be 500 words. Accepted entries will be rewarded with $100 and publication on a new urban sustainability web site.

Further details and the entry form are here.

Column one indicates responses for all those surveyed. Columns two, three and four show responses among those who identify as Republicans, Democrats and Independents, respectively. The poll was taken last February.

Other polls cited in the study show that Americans favor drilling for oil in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge (50-43 percent) and believe developing new sources of energy is more important than protecting the environment (60-34 percent) — though 73 percent believe global warming is a very serious or somewhat serious problem.

More questions and responses after the jump. You can download the entire report here.

In New York, it was the 2006 release of Growth or Gridlock, which pegged the annual price of traffic at $13 billion, that set off a public debate about congestion pricing that continues to this day. In London, the business group London First issued a similar report spurring Mayor Ken Livingstone to adopt a congestion charge. Now Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council has released "Moving at the Speed of Congestion" [PDF], which estimates that excess traffic costs the region $7.3 billion per year.

Chicago is already in the process of implementing performance parking and launching its first BRT routes (using federal funds that New York would have received
if Albany had approved congestion pricing). The new report indicates
that local policy makers will be urged to go further, perhaps in the
direction of congestion pricing, though not necessarily a London-style
cordon.

"The report shows that if we do look at pricing it has to be with a
regional focus, not just in the city," says Mandy Burrell of the
MPC. "There needs to be a menu of solutions that work collectively
across the region."

"Moving
at the Speed of Congestion" eschews specific proposals, but the authors
do note that an effective solution to the region’s congestion problems
won’t be limited to tolling highways:

Congestion mitigation strategies that focus
solely on increasing expressway speeds, perhaps by increasing expressway prices, could inadvertently divert traffic to
arterials. Instead, a coordinated strategy to increase travelers’ transportation options, while reducing traffic levels and
increasing speeds on both expressways and arterials, will be
necessary.

What sort of traffic mitigation ideas might surface following the release of the report? For now, the MPC is focused on improving Illinois’s capital plan, an omnibus spending package that has not been renewed since 2004. The state legislature is currently debating a new plan, including funding for Chicago’s bevy of local and regional transportation agencies.

Historically, the capital plan has diverted big chunks of money to a mishmash of member items and pork. The result? Two thousand miles of new lanes have been added to the region’s highways and arterial roads over the last 20 years, while average rush-hour commute times have doubled.

The MPC wants future spending to be based on set criteria, like curbing the amount of money people have to spend at the pump, and the length of time they spend sitting in traffic. "We should be prioritizing transportation
projects that reduce commutes and connect job centers," says Burrell. "Too often the projects that end up in the plan
aren’t the ones that reduce congestion, because the plan doesn’t have
stated goals."

The report suggests that one such goal should be to provide Chicagoans with more transportation options:

While some would say congestion is the result of people
choosing to drive, it is equally accurate to view congestion
as the result of a lack of choice. A prime example is a mass
transit network that more efficiently moves people to and
from home, work, stores, schools, and other transportation
hubs to give people more choice in how to get around.

Photo: Metropolitan Planning Council

The LADOT and the Los Angeles Dodgers have struck a deal to bring transit back to Dodger Stadium on game day.

Starting with the first game after the all-star break and continuing through the rest of the season, buses will run from ninety minutes before gametime until roughly 60 minutes afterward. Shuttles will run every 8-10 minutes. If those 25 cent fares for DASH buses seemed to pricey, there's good news. Because LADOT is using a charter bus service that doesn't have fare boxes, the service will be provided for free.  You can read the LADOT's full report here.

It's been almost 15 years since the Dodgers, the only team to be partially named after a mode of transit, lost their transit service and this deal between the DOT and Dodgers is no guarantee it's going to stay. The proposed service is a pilot program that unless it attracts 1,000 riders per game could be discontinued by next season. The Dodgers discontinued a Friday night only service that drew only 400 riders in 2004.

The LADOT explains the service in a report to the City Council:

The route is proposed to begin at the Patsaouras Transit Plaza at Union Station (or at an alternative location in front of Union Station if the plaza proves to be.too congested) where it will connect to regional MTA bus and rail services, including the MTA Red, Purple and Gold Lines, Metrolink and Amtrak. The proposed route would exit the Transit Plaza on to northbound Vignes Street and turn left (westbound) on Cesar Chavez Ave. towards Dodger Stadium. Along the route the Dodger Shuttle service would make two intermediate stops on Cesar Chavez Ave.lSunset Blvd. The first intermediate stop is at Figueroa St., where the shuttle would connect with MTA Lines 2, 4, 55,60; Metro Limited Lines 302, 304 and 355; and Metro Rapid Line 704. Additionally, a connection would be made with LADOT's DASH Lincoln Heights/Chinatown service. The second intermediate stop is at Marion Ave. where the service would connect with MTA Lines 2 and 4 arriving from the west. The shuttle route would then continue along Sunset Blvd. before turning right onto Elysian Park Avenue. The route would then enter Dodger Stadium property and travels clockwise around the stadium arriving at the Stadiurn Transit Plaza. The return trip would utilize the reverse routing.

The city deserves the full kudos for bringing transit back to the Stadium. The city's report indicates that the Dodgers aren't willing to chip the $170,000 it would cost to run the service for the entire season. The lowest paid player on the Dodger roster, Blake DeWitt, makes $390,000 a season. The Dodgers have promised to promote the new service.

The deal must be approved by the City Council. A committee hearing is scheduled for later this week.

Photo: Fred Camino

As gas and oil prices continue to climb, a new report by Common Current ranks Los Angeles 12^th on a list of the 50 largest cities in providing alternatives to oil dependence. Because L.A. being ranked so close to the top ten seems a little high, we should note that the ranking is partially based on how much heating oil is used per capita.

According to Warren Karlenzig, author of "Major US City Preparedness for an Oil Crisis" the key to surviving an oil crisis is having alternatives to single passenger automobile travel.

"There are cities with less than 1-2% public transit commute ridership, compared to NewYork City, which has close to a 55% rate. It’s no mystery who will be feeling the pain of high gas prices the most. Some employers and potential employees considering relocating to the Sunbelt and other ‘car-only’ cities should take into account the total expenses such locations will have on their budgets and employees."

When asked specifically about advice for Los Angeles, Karlenzig urged Angelenos, "Do not let public transit slip through the cracks."

In addition to transit, Karlenzig urges cities to invest in zoning for more in-fill and mixed use development, develop policies that encourage car-pooling and working from home and better maintainsidewalks and bike facilities. Despite its high ranking on the list, all of these suggestions are something Los Angeles could more firmly embrace.

Common Current, is a privately held economic development consulting firm working with government, business and non-governmental organizations based in California.

Photo: ABC News

There are currently over one million senior citizens living in New York City. While they represent only about 13 percent of the population, they account for 33 percent of pedestrian injuries and fatalities. Discriminatory by Design (pdf), a report released today by Transportation Alternatives, finds that street design, and in particular the width of a street, is a major contributing factor in negatively influencing pedestrian and driver behavior.

The study focused on the Upper East Side, an area with a high concentration of elderly residents as well as wide cross-town streets that are crossed by thousands of pedestrians and vehicles each day. Within this neighborhood, Transportation Alternatives and Rachel Krug, a doctoral student at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, observed vehicles and pedestrians at 18 locations, 6 wide crossings and 12 narrow crossings (30 feet).

The team found that senior citizens begin to show signs of distress and engage in dangerous crossing behavior -- such as speeding up their walking pace, walking unsteadily, standing in the street before beginning to cross and crossing before the signal has changed -- at wider crossings to compensate for the fact that they walk at slower speeds. Coupled with the fact that 95 percent of vehicles observed during the study period did not yield to pedestrians, the study concludes that wider streets present unacceptable risks to elderly pedestrians. These risks have an overwhelming impact on the well-being and quality of life of senior citizens.

To reduce these risks, Transportation Alternatives recommends that the city re-time pedestrian signals to accommodate senior average walking speeds of 3 feet per second (currently the signals are timed for speeds of 4 feet per second) and implement measures such as leading pedestrian intervals and curb extensions that would protect senior citizens from turning vehicles. The study also calls for a public awareness campaign to educate drivers and the public as to what it is like to be a senior pedestrian.