[sustran] Cities and Transportation: Choices and Consequences

Todd Litman litman at vtpi.org
Thu Feb 21 10:57:13 JST 2002


Dear Colleagues,

I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the "Cities and
Transportation: Choices and Consequences" conference in Vancouver, BC
earlier this week, which brought together some leading international
researchers concerned with transportation and land use policy. I'll
summarize some highlights below.

One speaker emphasized that transportation improvements, such as highway
projects and increased transit service, tend to be politically easy but by
themselves tend to be ineffective at solving most problems. As a result,
they are vulnerable to criticism of cost inefficiency. Pricing and land use
reforms can be highly effective at solving problems, but are politically
difficult. So, either we continue implementing ineffective and costly
solutions, or we overcome the political barriers to innovations such as
pricing and smart growth development.

As an example, Professor Martin Wach pointed that parking pricing has more
influence on travel behavior than virtually any conceivable improvement in
transit service quality. Charging for parking or Parking Cash Out reduces
automobile trips by 10-20%, more than twice as much as huge transit
investments being implemented in the Southern California region. He
emphasized that without pricing, virtually all other transportation
improvements are more costly, or to put it more positively, virtually any
transportation improvement can become more effective and cost effective if
implemented in conjunction with pricing strategies, such as road tolls,
parking pricing and distance-based road charges.

Professor Susan Handy showed land use factors that affect non-commute
travel choices. Her data indicates that most households have considerable
flexibility in travel choices for some types of trips. For example, most
households perform several shopping trips each month, and can choose
between shopping destinations that are close or farther away for some of
these. Where walking/cycling conditions are good, households  walk/cycle
for more trips. 

Dr. Tony Graying described UK experience with bus transit reform, which was
privitized throughout the country except in London 14 years ago. His
research concludes that this policy experiment indicates that privitization
tends to reduce subsidy costs but also reduces transit service quality, and
therefore ridership. London was the only area in the UK that experienced
growth in bus ridership, he argues, because public ownership allows better
network planning and coordination, which was lost in other regions. His
conclusion is that to make transit attractive relative to cars, it is
important to retain control over transportation planning and transit
service quality if privitization is implemented. He identified the
following key elements of a bus transit strategy:
* Planned network
* Whole journey planning (land use accessibility, pedestrian/cycling
conditions, driver courtesy, etc.)
* Priority transit routes
* Accessible vehicles
* Good connections
* Excellent information
* Effective marketing
* Affordable fares


He described a really cool new interactive Internet based model that
predicts the travel impacts of various transit policies, including changes
in transit service, speed and price, and changes in the relative price of
driving ("Virtual Learning Arcade - London Transport",
http://vla.ifs.org.uk/models/mets22.html, Institute for Fiscal Studies,
2001). Although it is simple to use, it was developed with the help of
Professor Phil Goodwin, a leading UK transportation economist, and is based
on sophisticated, state-of-the-art modeling.

Based on this analysis, Dr. Graying concludes that:
* Reducing London Underground fares provides no benefits (since it is
already operating at capacity).
* Reducing bus fares provides modest net benefits (value for money).
* Increasing bus service provides better net benefits.
* Speeding bus service (through transit priority measures) provides
excellent net benefits.
* Congestion pricing also provides net economic benefits.


In reference to implementing new approaches a leading Canadian
transportation planner (Professor Richard Soberman) stated "What can't be
done should not be defined by what hasen't been done", which I think is
good advice for those of us interested in seeing new approaches tried.


Sincerely,

Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
E-mail:  litman at vtpi.org
Website: http://www.vtpi.org



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