Traffic is the answer!richardmasoner via flickrMeant to mention these two pieces last week, but things fell apart, as they say. (Do “they” say that, or is it just me?)
Both relate to the connection between cars and public transportation, and both are a bit counterintuitive.
The first, an op-ed by David Owen in the Wall Street Journal, posits that traffic jams are a boon to public transportation because they piss drivers off and “turn [them] into subway riders or pedestrians”—and that congestion pricing is counterproductive because it makes driving a more pleasant (albeit expensive) experience:
Advocates of congestion-fighting strategies usually argue that traffic jams waste gasoline. That’s true, but the energy waste and carbon output attributable to idling cars is smaller than that attributable to the overall transportation network. There’s nothing green about fighting congestion if, by distributing traffic more efficiently, it results in an overall increase in traffic volume and extra miles driven by vehicles avoiding the fee areas.
I suspect squadrons of transit thinkers have plenty to say about this, but my quick reaction is this: never has a traffic jam made me want to go hop on a subway. When a traffic jam breaks, all I want to do is drive fast, and far, and reclaim the road. And I’m a fan and user of public transportation. I hope there are indeed people out there who think, “By gosh, this road sure is prone to traffic jams. I think I’ll walk next time.” But something tells me it’s not happening as often as Owen would like to think.
Or is it? Because the other piece is about parking garages in transit-oriented developments, and how more garages are being built—and in a sustainable way—so that people can drive to the train.
Parking garages have become key to the success of transit lines, developments that emphasize transit, and suburban town centers — all popular with environmental groups and others who support reduced dependence on the automobile.
Without abundant parking near transit stations in suburban areas, people won’t bother to hop on subways and trains, says Martin Stein, president of the 1,200-member National Parking Association, which is meeting near Washington, D.C., this week.
“The perception of convenience is very important,” Stein says.
So to sum up: Traffic jams are necessary to convert people to public transportation. And then cars and parking garages are necessary to make transit convenient. Partly that sounds like common sense, and partly it sounds like—well, we are just the teensiest bit addicted.
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Comments
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gaiapunk Posted 4:05 pm
19 Oct 2009
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cyclelicious Posted 9:35 pm
19 Oct 2009
I think you'd expect a parking industry group to say more parking is needed for transit. In my area (SF Bay Area), the suburban stations are indeed surrounded by monstrous parking structures, but there are other, lower impact ways to get people to transit. In San Francisco, for example, most people WALK to and from BART and Muni stations. Systemwide, 35% of BART riders drive to the station, while in the suburban areas that number is more like 80% and above.
What parking does is enable transit oriented suburban sprawl. I guess it's less evil than just building more highway lanes, but it's still encouraging the type of development patterns that resulted in the great real estate bubble of 2008.
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HatchSZ Posted 11:08 pm
20 Oct 2009
I am not a fan of car parks around transit stations. The immediate area around a transit stop should have as much retail and density as possible IMO. I do understand the need to get some people in the suburbs to at least take transit into the core city, but still it rubs me wrong.
It's like building rail right down the middle of the a highway to save land acquisition costs--both show the primacy of the automobile and degrade the convenience for the transit user.
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splashy Posted 12:48 am
21 Oct 2009
Safety is a priority with women. They don't want to have to deal with being attacked, groped, run over, or otherwise risk life and limb just to go to the grocery or get to work. Solve those problems and they will use their vehicles less. For instance, have separate biking trails that go to places they need to go, like grocery stores, businesses, and libraries - so they can get to them without having to run a gauntlet of cars.
Basically, we are addicted to not getting wet, cold, too hot, and being safe.
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