Transportation agencies in the U.S. spend billions of dollars each year expanding highways to ease gridlock. Yet commute times have increased 20% over the last 50 years and traffic congestion is still worsening, according to a several reports. New research confirms congestion pricing may be the best path toward any kind of relief. New York’s program, which launched in January amid plenty of controversy, looks like a promising example.
TDM
Advanced models can’t replace sound judgment
The investments made by transportation agencies are often guided by increasingly sophisticated models and forecasts, which strive to account for more factors and become more accurate in predicting travel patterns. These improvements, while promising for the future, also highlight the many ways that most agencies’ existing models miss the mark. Values-based decision-making can help agencies achieve the outcomes they have set out in their long-range plans more effectively than relying on models alone.
To reclaim downtowns from traffic, require developers to offer strategies for cutting car use
The dominance of parking has devastated once-vibrant downtowns by turning large areas into uninviting paved spaces that contribute to urban heating and stormwater runoff. It has driven up housing costs, since developers pass on the cost of providing parking to tenants and homebuyers. And it has perpetuated people’s reliance on driving by making walking, biking and public transit far less attractive, even for the shortest trips. Why, then, does the U.S. have so much of it?
Researchers warn traffic studies could face more legal scrutiny
Local governments often rely on traffic impact analyses to review and approve projects, charge impact fees, and ask developers to go above and beyond the basic requirements. These traffic studies, however, are often based on “junk science,” and may not hold up in courts much longer, according to a new Viewpoint article published in the Journal of the American Planning Association.
A new playbook is emerging for managing local travel demand
Over time, transportation demand management has shifted from mainly reducing single occupancy commute trips to something more encompassing, a larger shift toward active and shared transportation for all types of trips made by all types of people.
“Dear diary, I took the bus today!” – Cost-efficient travel behavior influencers
“Soft” transportation policy measures can influence a significant reduction in personal car use, according to a new research. Six psychological variables that can affect travel behavior: attitudes; emotions; habits; social, cultural, and moral norms; knowledge and awareness ; and capability and self-efficacy. The results show that interventions that focus on social, cultural, and moral norms have the most significant effect on travel behavior.
Post-COVID travel patterns—a survey by the MassINC Polling Group
In a recent public opinion survey conducted by the MassINC Polling Group, Massachusetts residents expected to travel less in the future due to COVID-19’s impact. However, many residents expect to increase their trips by car and decrease trips by transit. A majority of residents polled are open to the idea of drastic changes to the transportation system.
“Spillover” effects reinforce VMT effects from transit and parking subsidies
We know that employer-provided free parking tends to increase auto-commute trips and that employer-provided transit passes tend to reduce auto-commute trips. Research is less clear about the effect on vehicle-miles traveled, however, in part because we don’t know whether or how such employment practices might affect non-work travel. A new paper using travel survey data from the Seattle area, sheds new light on the VMT question.
Researchers look at the transportation future as the country reopens
As the economy recovers from COVID-19, how can we emerge with a better, stronger, and more resilient transportation system? Three recent reports analyzing the impact of the pandemic on transportation and personal attitudes toward transportation may offer some clues.
Teleworking’s hidden environmental costs
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shelter-in-place orders, more Americans are teleworking. This has drastically reduced VMT and air emissions. Policymakers may be tempted to try to encourage teleworking post-COVID-19 in order to keep the traffic down and the air clean. But as we’ve reported before, telework is probably not a great strategy for emissions reduction, due to several rebound effects. Teleworkers tend to live farther from job centers, in lower-density environments, leading to longer, more auto-dependent commutes when they do go into the office, as well as higher levels of non-work VMT.