[sustran] Re: [KyotoWorldCities] Equitable Transportation

[Gabriel Roth]

Eric -

My comment was made in the light of a recent exchange with the esteemed other Eric, which I reproduce below.

However, more fundamentally, many concerns about "Equity" in transport relate to income inequality, and with the reality that those with more money can get better deals. But this is fundamental to the market system, which enables some to be richer than others. What I meant was that objections to the market system (which has been found to be best at raising overall living standards) are better discussed elsewhere, not on a site dealing with roads and urban development.

I suppose I could have written more about "Equity" which, incidentally, is rarely defined by those who use that word. Do those who write about transport "equity" consider the equity of forcing low-income taxpayers to subsidize rail systems used mostly (in the UK and US) by those with higher incomes? Or the "equity" of requiring all in congested traffic to travel at the same, low, speed? Or of subsidizing high-cost unionized transit systems, while prohibiting low-cost, high-frequency, transit provided by shared taxis and associations of privately-owned minibuses?

This is why some of us have been focusing on trying to get the most benefits out of our roads by applying to them the pricing and investment criteria we use for the allocation of other scarce resources, such as food, water and telecommunications. Such policies would enable those with urgent needs to be able pay more to travel more quickly, as in the Singapore and Stockholm congestion pricing zones. Many know that Singapore and Sweden, that adopt such policies, are not the poorest countries in the world.

Best wishes -

Gabriel 

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But if the 1% include ambulances, food delivery vans, people trying to catch planes, police trying to catch law-breakers, is it "equitable" to restrict their ability to travel faster ?



On Jan 8, 2012, at 3:02 AM, eric britton wrote:

> So right Gabriel. So very right.  My response:

>  

> My best response (for now)

>  

> This is, if I may say it, an amazingly simple approach to transport policy and practice, in that once you understand and accept the basic principle a huge number of other good things follow. And you have only to look in one place to see if you have it -- and that is on the streets of your city. If the mayor, all public servants, and the top economic 1% of your community travel by the same means as the other 99%, you have an equitable system. Sometimes life is simple

>  

> That's my point of departure in the first day of my pondering this new initiative. But be sure, I shall be working on it, and your note of caution is extremely appreciated.

>  

> All the best/Eric

>  

>  

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On Feb 22, 2012, at 4:22 AM, Eric Bruun wrote:

> Gabriel
> 
> Would you care to elaborate on this?
> 
> Eric 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Gabriel Roth 
> Sent: Feb 21, 2012 5:28 PM 
> To: KyotoWorldCities at yahoogroups.com 
> Cc: NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com, WorldTransport at yahoogroups.com, sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org 
> Subject: Re: [KyotoWorldCities] Equitable Transportation 
> 
>  
> Eric -
> 
> 
> Thanks, but please count me out of this one. Most concerns about "Equity" relate to the market system, not to transport.
> 
> Best wishes -
> 
> Gabriel
> 
> 
> 
> On Feb 21, 2012, at 3:21 AM, eric britton wrote:
> 
>>  
>> 
>> From: Chris Bradshaw [mailto:c_bradshaw at rogers.com] 
>> 
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> This is a big elephant-in-the-room.  Is access to transportation equitable.  I raise this issue as one that the usual green-transportation agenda (more efficient cars, intelligent highways, better transit at rush hours) ignores.  The others that are ignored are: health/obesity; health/trauma; health/stress, sprawl, congestion, social/community capital.
>> 
>> I use the PED-CIVS acronym to identify those who the system ignores in favour of AAAs (active, affluent adults):  It stands for poor, elderly, disabled, children, ill/infirm, visitors, and "simplicists" (this last eschews car-ownership).  Your reference to the unemployed and under-employed suggests that I should add one: making it PED-CIVUS.  The IVUs are really those temporarily in the PEDCS classes.
>> 
>> The total in this group at any one time must be close to 50% (and will be higher as the aging occurs).
>> 
>> In transit, the engineer-planners use the term "transit captive" to refer to those without the means to driver whenever the transit service "displeases" them.  Their patronage, as a result, can be taken for granted.  It is only the AAAs whose patronage they have to compete for.  That is a distinction that is the opposite of what we need. [See Walker, Jarrett (2012), Human Transit, p. 44-45; or my essay: http://hearthhealth.wordpress.com/about/previously-published-works/feet-first-and-car-sharing-recent/transits-two-solitudes-%E2%80%9Cchoice%E2%80%9D-vs-%E2%80%9Ccaptive%E2%80%9D-riders-2009/]
>> 
>> So, count me in as part of your group you are organizing to monitor this important study.
>> 
>> Chris Bradshaw
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
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