Transportation Education

 

Over the years there has been a major change in our education about transportation in our country. The first kinds of education dealt with cars and the mobility it afforded. For years the car industry dominated the transportation discussion, coming out with new cars and new ads every year.

 

Recently this has changed, and I think that it should change more. We have become more aware of the dangers of driving, and are trying to educate drivers, especially teens, to avoid these dangers. Some of the newer topics discussed in television ads and in driver education courses are texting and talking on the phone when driving, drinking and driving, and buckling seatbelts.

 

What I think is that there needs to more education of drivers on other sustainability issues. I think that there needs to be more information present about the dangers of climate change, the possibility of an oil shortage and air quality. Right now there is a mandated displaying of gas mileage for cars in dealerships, but I think that it should go beyond this. This would be difficult, however, as car and oil companies will do whatever they can to promote the current system and

Car Sharing

One program that I believe will be a lot more prominent in the future of the transportation industry is car sharing. Car sharing is a way for someone who does not own a car to make trips that can only be made by car. It is a sure way to decrease total vehicle ownership, which increases the available parking, and can be more affordable to users. Some argue that it also decreases total vehicle miles traveled, but that is not known. While it does decrease travel for people who would have owned a car, it increases travel for people who would not have.

This technology works by simply becoming a member and getting access to the vehicles, which are parked in assigned spots. When you want to take a trip you simply take one and bring it back to a spot when you’re done. The time and mileage are counted and you are billed for the usage of the car. It is simple, and only becomes more accessible as more people buy into it.

This is one advancement that I see as becoming popular with the development of the driverless car. Right now the only place where car sharing is viable is in densely populated cities, where parking is in walking distance of many houses. In the future, if driverless cars become an option, you could simply call up and request a car from the company. The car would come and pick you up at your house, making the whole program much more accessible to all people.

All in all, car sharing is something that could potentially lower emissions, increase transit ridership, and save customers money.

Telecommuting

One relatively recent innovation to the transportation network is telecommuting. This is when a person, instead of going to work, will work from home and communicate with coworkers over the telephone or internet a few times a week. This innovation is supposed to help the sustainability of the system by decreasing the amount of cars on the roads, especially during rush hour, when most commuting occurs. While many claim that traffic demand will decrease, there are still arguments that it could actually increase.

The most cited positive of telecommuting is that it decreases the number of work trips, and moves trips to an off peak time. Working from home  affords the commuter time to make necessary trips at any point throughout the day, so that they do not add to congestion.

The main argument that travel will not decrease as much as expected is that there will be more trips that have a single purpose, which used to be chained to the commuting trip. Basically, more errands that were previously done on the way to or from work become sole reasons for leaving the house, and become trips of their own. There are some who claim that the free time that telecommuting affords will lead to more trips, such as dropping the kids or spouse off and coming back, and may lead to less productivity. Also, working from home gives other users of the automobile more opportunity to use it, as it sits idle in the driveway.

Another argument against telecommuting’s greatness is that it may take trips away from mass transit lines. These trips may also be taken from carpools or vanpools, which might be abandoned with smaller ridership. This does not really achieve the goal of telecommuting, which would be to get cars off the road.

It remains to be seen what impact telecommuting will have on the transportation system. As of right now, there are not enough telecommuters to really have an impact on sustainability. The estimates range from 10 to 30 million Americans, but these are people who telecommute as little as once a week, so the impact is minimal.

Sandy’s Devistation

Even though it’s been two weeks since Sandy hit, commuters into New York City are still feeling its devastation.  Subway lines are still flooded, causing major disruptions to the traffic patterns. There are many people who are forced to leave much earlier and come home much later in order to avoid ridiculously long traffic lines, and to get to work on time.  There are estimates that the average commuter’s travel times have doubled, and that those that use multiple modes have experienced even more delays.

There is no way of measuring the losses, but there certainly are many. Workers’ productivity goes down as they arrive late, or not at all, and are more distracted, as they begin to do some household chores such as pay bills, at the office. Also, there are not as many people buying goods in the city, because fewer consumers are going in there.

There is something to be said for New York’s transportation system, though as the city is still up and running, even when one of its main components, the subway, is missing. This shows how good the bus system is. In most cities, if the main line of transportation were taken out, there would be much difficulty in replacing it so that people can still get to work. In New York though there is a more diverse system of travel, and people have been switching routes with only travel time increases.

This disaster begs the question of why did city planners not see that something like this could happen? Maybe subways in coastal cities are not as sustainable as previously thought if they can be flooded by something like this. I think that they should have had a better plan of getting the water out of the tunnels. Hindsight is 20/20 though, and it is possible that this storm was larger than what the engineers predicted and built for. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/11/storm-sandy-commuters-idUSL1E8MB0VI20121111

New Urbanism

One response to the increase in cars on our roads is the implementation of the idea of new urbanism. This is the practice of engineering an area to facilitate other means of transportation, such as mass transit or foot travel. Most of them are designed using standards that were prominent before the rise of automobiles, when people little choice other than to walk where they were going. The idea first came about in the 1980’s and has recently become more popular, as people are realizing that we need to stop our unsustainable ways. Currently, there are over 600 towns and villages planned with this new urbanism in mind under construction in the United States. These places are characterized by having some kind of green or square directly at the center, around which people most people gather. Everything in the town is usually a reasonably walkable distance from this center area. The housing is very diverse, to accommodate people of many socioeconomic statuses, and traffic calming methods are usually used on the road network, slowing down traffic to a safer speed, and making the neighborhood more pedestrian friendly.  These places promote using your own power to get where you need to go, rather than jumping in a car. This makes for areas that are less likely to produce pollution harming our environment and wasting our oil, making them more sustainable.

The biggest problem with these communities is that they are difficult to build in an existing city area. Most places here in the United States are already built up in unsustainable ways. It is hard and takes a lot of money to convert these areas into areas where new urbanism can be employed. It is for this reason that most of the new urbanism in the world is being used in edge cities, which are areas the sprout up outside of large developed cities, and in developing countries. Another argument against this practice is that the consumer and the free market want the automobile, and that places that use new urbanism are not making their citizens happy because people want cars. I think that this is not a big issue, though, because our government does many things that people do not want, but are forced to do for the benefit of the area and the future.

New urbanism is something that can and I think should be used as a model when we are designing new and developing communities. It is a practice that is more sustainable than most of the designs of the past, because it has phased out the need of a car, and made foot travel a much more viable option.

www.newurbanism.org/

Amtrak Ridership Increases

According to this article, Amtrak again topped its previous highs in ridership and revenue this year, growing by 3.5% and 6% respectively. This is good news for the company, as publicly funded organizations such as Amtrak are being looked at closely and have become a topic for the presidential election. Currently, revenue from tickets sold only account for about half of the $4 billion budget. The rest come from outside sources, such as the federal government.

Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman is optimistic about the future, saying that “ridership will continue to grow”.There are many reasons for this. Recently, Amtrak began testing new trains that run at new top speeds of up to 160 miles per hour. These higher speeds will contribute to faster trips, and less delays, making it a more attractive option. One reason for the increased ridership is that trains are taking trips away from airlines for shorter flights. Trains are becoming faster while planes become more expensive, and can be quite tedious with post 9/11 security increases. Overall, trains can be a better option than air travel, because of a increase in fuel economy and a decrease in price, and it should be viewed as a positive that trains are taking away trips from flights.

Pricing of Transportation

It is generally understood in economics that, as the price of a good increases, the demand for that good decreases. This principle can also be integrated into the world of sustainable transportation. If you make a segment or a whole mode of transportation more expensive, people will be less inclined to take a trip on that segment or mode. Transportation engineers use pricing in a number of different ways to do just that: limit the number of trips.

One aspect of our current transportation system that is not sustainable is the congestion that our roads produce. Too much time and fuel are wasted while sitting in traffic and doing nothing. Congestion-free pricing is a way that some cities are choosing to combat this lack of efficiency. This method institutes a fee to drivers who use a certain stretch of road, at a certain time when that stretch is usually congested. The effect of this is that some people avoid using this particular segment at that time by car if it can be avoided. The rest of the travelers deem the trip necessary enough to pay the charge.  The price is engineered so that the traffic on the road is low enough that the congestion is reduced to a point where the road is efficient again.

Another way that engineers typically use pricing to influence the way that the system is used is through parking fees and fines. By instituting a charge or a fine for people who park in a certain area, an engineer can influence how many people use cars in a certain area. Again, this makes the entire trip more expensive, so that this mode of transport is less attractive. An example of this would be here at Lafayette. In order to limit the number of cars on campus, the school charges a significant amount of money for parking, and fines anyone who parks here illegally. Of course some people will pay this, either because they have enough money or they absolutely need it. Many people, however, will be dissuaded from bringing cars.

One last way to effectively make our transportation system more sustainable is to put a price on pollution emissions. The advantages of such a tax would be that people would actually be taking responsibility for exactly what they contribute to the environment, and there would be a very real reason to stop producing this pollution. There are problems with this tax however. For one, there is the problem of what price to put on what emissions. The biggest hindrance in this method is an effective way to measure a car’s outputs. There are many factors that go into how much pollution a car produces, such as what kind of vehicle, and how it is maintained. Another problem is the method of measuring, and what privacy rights citizens should have. For instance, most people would not want their movements being monitored, but the main way to check emissions is by evaluating travel distance. There are some kinks to be worked out, but this method is where transportation pricing should be headed.

With all of these methods of pricing vehicles in order to limit trips and reduce congestion and pollution there is a question of social equity. The people who would gain the most would be the richest percentage, who will only have to pay a little more, and would benefit from parking, congestion free roads, and would still produce pollution while the poorest people would be the ones whose transportation would be affected. I agree problem needs to be addressed, and transportation engineers do take this into account, but I also believe that actions need to be taken in order for our systems to become more sustainable. Pricing is one option that makes sense by reducing inefficiencies, while also generating some revenue that can be put back into the transportation network.

The EcoDemonstrator

Earlier this month, Boeing and American Airlines showed off their newest advancements in the aviation world. They flew the 737-800 ecoDemonstrator at Washington Reagan National Airport in mid September. This plane is the experiment of Boeing and several other partners in testing a series of “environmentally progressive” technologies. Among these advancements is its alternative jet fuel, which is made partially from used cooking oil. In addition, Boeing has developed, with FAA funding, an adaptive wing trailing edge, which deflects into an optimal shape during each phase of a flight. This improvement will make the plane fly more efficiently, decreasing the amount of fuel that the plane will consume, as well as limiting the noise produced during takeoff. Other modifications that were designed to help with the issues are a variable-area fan nozzle, an active engine vibration control system, and a flight trajectory optimization system. Also, the tiles included in the plane are made from recycled material.

This provides an example of how the government has effectively worked with private industry to engineer a win-win situation. On one hand Boeing has built an aircraft that can use less fuel, which helps their costs, and the plane also has less of an impact on the environment, which is good for the public. One airplane is not enough to put a dent in our problems, but it highlights something that could be done to provide larger solutions. I believe that public private partnerships are something that can help in making our transportation system something that is sustainable into the future. They can provide an extra push to get industry to try and reduce their environmental damage, and to try to get us on the right track.

Traffic Calming

Examples of Traffic Calming Measures

I think that most people would agree that the way we drive in residential areas, especially neighborhoods, is unsustainable. Every year too many people get killed or injured by motorists going too fast or just not paying attention around pedestrians. Traffic calming can be an answer to this problem. Traffic calming is the practice of putting horizontal or vertical deflections in the roadway, in an effort to get people to slow down and take their surroundings into account. It was first used in the Netherlands in the 1960s when angry homeowners put potted plants and furniture in the street to deter speeders. The process then caught on in Germany, and eventually spread to other countries, such as Japan, Australia and the USA.

In the past, studies have found that traffic calming proves to reduce crash severity, noise, and pollution in the immediate area. As with any function that provides a good to society, however, it has its drawbacks. The most common disadvantages are that traffic calming devices slow emergency vehicles, may cause congestion on surrounding routes, and can cause inappropriate driving, yielding more noise, pollution, and crashes. This only means that there is room for improvement in the engineering of these methods. There are many different designs that can be used. Each provides its own service, and has its own disadvantages.

Implementing traffic calming devices puts the needs of pedestrians before the needs of motorists, which is necessary anywhere there is a lot of foot traffic. Pedestrians are completely defenseless against any type of automobile, and traffic calming is one way to level the playing field and protecting them. Other than slowing traffic down, calming a street can increase pedestrian safety by making crosswalks shorter, making people more visible, and giving cyclists their own way, out of the same lane as cars. These measures are starting to become more popular as cities are trying to become more pedestrian accessible, and less automobile oriented. I would say that these methods are sustainable, and a step in the right direction in trying to limit crashes, specifically involving pedestrians.

trafficcalming.org

Mobility as a Responsibility

It’s not just the government’s job to worry about things such as the atmosphere, pollution and becoming sustainable in the years to come. It’s also the responsibility of everyone who adds to the current process. In the 20^th century, everyone viewed transportation as a commodity to be enjoyed. People would regularly take drives just to drive, with no destination in mind. Now, however, as we realize what we are doing to the environment, everyone has to take responsibility for these things. There are different ways and scales of dealing with these issues, but the most important way is that the population does their part in fixing the problems we have created.

In our sustainable transportation textbook, the author relates our situation to the “tragedy of the commons”. I think that this is a great analogy, because it is essentially the same thing. In the tragedy, everyone in a town was using a public lawn for all their needs, namely letting their cattle graze. Soon, so many people were doing it that all the grass died, and no one could use it any more. It wasn’t any one person’s fault, so no one took responsibility. It is a tragedy because it could have been prevented quite easily. If someone had had the foresight to recognize that this was going to happen and regulate the use of the common, it would not have happened.

This is similar to our current situation. No one feels that it is their fault that there is climate change or an oil shortage or crashes, so they keep on driving unsustainably, when in fact everyone is to blame for contributing to these factors that make our current system unsustainable. I think that it is everyone’s job to step up and do their part in order to preserve our way of life for the foreseeable future. The way to do this though is to make everyone better informed on the issues. Especially those in positions of leadership.

Sure, I would say that the government needs to make policies that send people on more sustainable paths, and to educate the public about sustainability, but eventually it falls on the masses to take charge and not sit passively about in an unsustainable world.