Transportation Experts

Do We Suddenly Hate Driving?

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:30:00 GMT

I hate driving, actually. The only reason I do it is because my 10-year-old needs someone to cart him around the city. I consider myself as a weirdo on this front because I know most people love their cars.

A new study from U.S. PIRG and Frontier Group indicates that I may be more normal than I thought. It argues that "the driving boom" -from the end of World War II to 2004--is over. "Americans drive fewer total miles today than we did eight years ago, and fewer per person than we did at the end of Bill Clinton's first term," it says.

United States policy on transportation hasn't caught up to this phenomenon, the report argues. Plans for expanded roads and highways that were cooked up a decade ago are still in the works, even though the users might not be there to make them worthwhile. What's more, driving is down most dramatically among millennials, the generation aged 23 to 30, and the people who will make the most use of those roads over the next 50 years. Their habits tend to favor city-living (i.e., walking, transit and biking) and car sharing.

This trend is good news for the transportation community, which has been stuck in a dilemma of needing more money to fund roads and bridges but having nowhere to go for it. My National Journal cover story last week illustrates the difficulties of trying to fund transportation with the help of the private sector. Government officials see public-private partnerships as their only option for infusing cash into a state, but the long-term deals that involve tolling and concessions require the public to foot the bill for decades.

If PIRG's projections are right, the cost of maintaining our infrastructure won't be quite as high as some economists project. But with fewer drivers also comes less gas consumption. That's good for the environment but bad for the highway trust fund, funded by fuel tax and drivers' use of roads.

With decreased driving, the investment framework (be it public or private) might have to shift towards alternate forms of transportation. That idea has its own unique problems. When has anyone ever made money on a transit system?

Is PIRG on the mark in terms of its projections about reduced driving? How does the data change the way we should think about infrastructure? Will millennials' driving behavior increase when, like me, they have to start carting children to baseball games and martial arts classes? Is there a business opportunity to be developed in the country's overall change in behavior? If driving continues to decline, how far would that go toward solving the infrastructure funding shortfall?

(By the way, the study is co-authored by U.S. PIRG's Phineas Baxandall, a commenter on this blog, and Frontier's Tony Dutzik.)

Deron Lovaas responded to Do We Suddenly Hate Driving? on May 24, 2013 03:06 PM

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:21 GMT

A Dynamic, Changing Economy and Society First of all, there's nothing about the emerging trend that Baxandall and Dutzik have done yeoman's work analyzing that is "sudden." This sank in for me when I saw a bar graph from Pisarski and Cambridge Systematics displaying annual VMT growth rates averaged by decades. There were 6 bars, starting with the 1950s, and they looked like a staircase going down. In the '50s, growth was nearly at a blistering 5 percent per year. By the 2000s, it was almost down to one percent. Steadily, the rate has decelerated. This is why I thought...

Phineas Baxandall responded to Do We Suddenly Hate Driving? on May 23, 2013 05:16 PM

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:21 GMT

It's About Waste, Not Hate The data on driving don’t tell a story about people who “suddenly hate driving.” They show a long-term decline in vehicle miles that should raise concern about whether governments are building the wrong stuff. After six decades of almost uninterrupted increases in driving, we’ve now seen eight years in a row in which Americans on average have reduced their driving miles. Our largest generation, the Millennials are rising into adulthood and leading the trend toward less driving. Millennials will be the chief users of whatever new projects get approved today, and they will chiefly foot...

James Corless responded to Do We Suddenly Hate Driving? on May 23, 2013 03:19 PM

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:21 GMT

Time to adapt to the new reality To answer your provocative question: No, “we” don’t suddenly hate driving. Some (like Fawn) do, certainly, while others enjoy it. The truth, though, is that most of us don’t choose to travel, or take one mode or another, because we love it. We do what we have to do to get where we need to go, if we absolutely have to go, based on cost, time, convenience, traffic, geographic setting, availability of options, physical ability, etc. Nor is the decline in the average miles driven per person especially sudden. It has been building...

Gabriel Roth responded to Do We Suddenly Hate Driving? on May 22, 2013 10:43 PM

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:21 GMT

But do we not drive to save time? Data available from all periods and all countries indicate that people travel more when their incomes increase, and travel less when they become poorer. Should we not expect these effects to apply in the US today? Most transport planners do not care much whether Fawn “hates driving”; they want to know how much she values her time, and the time of her 10-year-old child. It seems that she drives for the same reason that most of us do — to make the trips she has to in the time available to her....

Keith Laughlin responded to Do We Suddenly Hate Driving? on May 22, 2013 04:24 PM

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:21 GMT

We Need a New Policy for a New Day No, most people don’t suddenly hate driving. It’s more complicated – and more profound -- than that. We are in the midst of a major cultural shift that reflects the fact the automobile no longer holds the exalted position at the center of American culture that it enjoyed in 20th century America. In post-World War II era, the car was king, far flung suburbs represented the American dream and federal transportation policy adopted in 1956 encouraged both. When I turned 16 in 1967, I got my driver’s license the very...

Laura Barrett responded to Do We Suddenly Hate Driving? on May 20, 2013 06:39 PM

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:21 GMT

P3s Must Be Accountable to Public U.S. PIRG's latest study confirmed what many of us who are parents of teenagers or twenty-somethings already know - the Millennial Generation drives less than we did. In fact, the Driving Boom, a 60 year phenomenon, is over. Americans are driving less than they did eight years ago, and as a result are using less oil. But even more significantly, according to U.S. PIRG's study, Americans took 10% more public transit trips in 2011 as compared to 2005 and are commuting more often through walking and biking. Gamaliel's project, Transportation Equity Network (TEN), has...

David Pickeral responded to Do We Suddenly Hate Driving? on May 20, 2013 01:28 PM

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:03:21 GMT

Has anyone ever made money on transit? Once upon a time urban, suburban, and, even, rural mass transit enterprises generated solid revenue. For example, companies such as the Pacific Electric Railway Company in Los Angeles, Interborough Rapid Transit in New York, and Capitol Traction (later DC Transit), right here in Washington, were very profitable enterprises from the late 19th all the way through the middle of the 20th century. These private companies built and operated a lattice network of metro, heavy rail, light rail and, eventually, bus and trolleybus lines that offered essential service for both commuting and personal trips...

Oops! Judge Slams Local Public-Private Deal

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:30:00 GMT

A weird thing happened a few weeks ago that I would never have noticed had I not been putting the final touches on a feature story for National Journal magazine on public-private partnerships. (See this week's issue for that story.)

In what locals hailed as a victory against 58 years of toll hikes, a circuit judge in Portsmouth, Va., ruled unconstitutional a $2.1 billion agreement between Virginia's Department of Transportation and two global infrastructure firms to create a new under-river tunnel connecting Portsmouth and Newport. Under the deal, tolls to traverse the tunnel were set to increase from $1.59 to $1.84 per car in 2014, although that tolling schedule is now in doubt.

The ruling left the lawyers and government officials who negotiated the agreement scratching their heads. No one saw it coming. It was a classic case of David and Goliath. The deal with the Australian firm MacQuarie and Swedish firm Skanska had been in the works for years. Former Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, and the current Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, both wanted it to happen. Virginia's transportation department and the attorney general's office are preparing an appeal, which will likely wind up in the Supreme Court of Virginia.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs--including one flamboyant city council member and several business owners--are still trying to figure out how to pay their attorney, Patrick McSweeney. That kind of situation is not unusual, McSweeney told me last week, fresh off his victory. Locals often don't know where to go or who to fight when big infrastructure deals like this one are announced in their area.

The judge reasoned that the public-private partnership under question had exceeded the bounds of allowable government because it imposed a financing system on travelers and residents that could not be rectified for decades to come. That's a lot of electoral cycles. The Virginia law on which the deal was based "gave unfettered power to the Department of Transportation to set toll rates without any real or meaningful parameters," said Judge James A. Cales, Jr.

I have argued that private-sector deals like this one are the wave of the future as federal funding for infrastructure continues to shrink. But now I'm starting to wonder. What if the laws in this country, and perhaps its citizens, stubbornly won't let that kind of privatization happen?

Should tolls be subject to public referendum? Does it make sense to go to court, as Portsmouth residents did, to stop a major public-private deal from going forward? How can public-private partnerships be crafted such that they don't run afoul of public opinion and/or the law? How much freedom should government have to negotiate with the private sector?

Robert L. Darbelnet responded to Oops! Judge Slams Local Public-Private Deal on May 17, 2013 07:05 PM

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:46:53 GMT

Public Scrutiny Essential The use of public-private partnerships (P3s) as a financing method for new transportation projects is a trend that is increasing in popularity in states and localities across the country. Many times, these P3 projects are meeting state and local needs that have been previously identified by both government and the private sector. However governments bring these projects to fruition – either through legislative adoption or voter referendum – they need to be accompanied by a robust public review and evaluated through a process that is fully transparent. The price of tolls, or even the necessity of placing...

Gabriel Roth responded to Oops! Judge Slams Local Public-Private Deal on May 15, 2013 10:40 AM

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:46:53 GMT

Setting future road toll levels Toll setting involves difficult issues. I’ll try to answer two of the questions, and ask a few myself. As the $2.1 billion tunnel was designed to last for “decades to come” it seems reasonable to set tolls for a lengthy period. Or at least to set the conditions governing the toll levels. Or would Judge Cales permit the government to reduce the toll soon after the facility was built, as happened in Bangkok some twenty years ago? If such changes by governments were possible, why would investors risk their money in public-private partnerships? However, misbehavior...

Waiting for Foxx

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:30:00 GMT

President Obama's nominee for Transportation Secretary, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, puts an end to speculation about who will fill the shoes of the outgoing secretary Ray LaHood. (What happened to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa? He must be destined for other things.)

Last week's nomination of Foxx also sparks other questions.

Policymakers in Washington, D.C. are less familiar with Foxx than they were with LaHood, who spent 10 years in Congress before taking the helm of the Transportation Department. Yet Foxx is like LaHood in that he has no special expertise in transportation issues, but he has a fair amount of experience in government. A Charlotte native, he worked for the House Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department before he returned to Charlotte, where he sat on the city council and eventually became mayor.

The only thing we really know about Foxx's transportation inclinations is that he fought for a light rail and streetcar system in Charlotte. If this fascination with rail turns out to be a passion for Foxx, it could be a huge boon for alternate transportation advocates and urban enthusiasts. "The fact that Foxx comes from a major central city is also a huge benefit. It means he understands urban needs, which aren't just highways," wrote urban planner Dan Malouff on his Greater, Greater Washington blog.

It is unclear how Foxx will handle the highway and road network, which makes up most of the surface transportation budget. But that probably doesn't matter. The Charlotte Observer pointed out in an editorial that Foxx's thin transportation resume is not unusual. "Since 1966, when the post was created, fewer than half of the country's 16 transportation secretaries had expertise in the field."

Foxx probably won't have to worry about surface transportation immediately, as Congress is largely responsible for coming up with a way to fund the highway and transit bill when it expires at the end of next year. If Foxx follows LaHood's lead, he will stay far away from the budget debates on Capitol Hill and weigh in only on proposed policies that could thwart the administration's plans. Of course, there may not be much left to fight for. Congress has already managed to thwart the administration's infrastructure plans by cutting funding for everything it cares about, like high-speed rail, and repeatedly rejecting the White House's $50 billion stimulus and infrastructure bank proposal.

What does Foxx's urban experience bring to the table for the Transportation Department? Does it matter that he knows little about highway funding formulas and infrastructure loan programs? What should Foxx be fighting for in the administration and in Congress? What can he learn from LaHood's experience? How should he handle the big issues coming up this year on water resources and passenger rail?

Gabriel Roth responded to Waiting for Foxx on May 7, 2013 04:58 PM

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:15:55 GMT

But do streetcars help the poor? Secretaries of Transportation are appointed to execute the policies of those who appoint them. As both Obama and Foxx are keen to spend taxpayer money on developing 19th century technology, the match should be a good one. Hopefully, the federal congress will deny the funds necessary for such waste. Laura Barrett and other “transit” advocates — who have been remarkably successful in getting 20% of public transportation funds spent on modes that provide only 2% of passenger-miles — deserve to be congratulated on this appointment, which will mainly benefit unionized transit workers. Fawn reported...

Laura Barrett responded to Waiting for Foxx on May 6, 2013 05:39 PM

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:15:55 GMT

High Hopes Transportation fans like Gamaliel, home of the Transportation Equity Network (TEN), and other transit advocates were thrilled to see Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx nominated for Secretary of Transportation. We are hoping that Foxx's experience as a transit-oriented mayor will guide his work as USDOT head. The two year transportation authorization bill, MAP-21, signed into law last July has some serious shortcomings. As Transportation For America put it: "The bill dedicates zero dollars to repairing our roads and bridges, cuts the amount of money that cities and local governments would have received, makes a drastic cut in the money available...

Walking Back From the Sequester

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:30:00 GMT

Rule Number One in Politics: Do not mess with an elected official's local airport or their flight home. With this tenet, we continue the saga of the Federal Aviation Administration and its (good?/bad?) handling of the automatic budget cuts that were set in place earlier this year by sequestration.

Facing the first week of intermittent furloughs of air traffic controllers, which led to airline delays, Congress fought back.The Senate didn't even have to take a vote last week to pass legislation giving the FAA the authority to move money around within the agency to stop the furloughs. The House passed the bill 361-41. President Obama reluctantly signed off, facing outcry from the public about flight delays and accusations from Republicans of political gamesmanship.

The move marks Congress's first step in undoing the cuts that came to be when Republicans and Democrats failed to reach agreement on a broader budget framework. The FAA fix represents a small slice of the overall sequester, but aviation is also the most visible of the government programs being trimmed. It is unclear whether similar populist protests will work on less noticeable programs.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama considers the legislation an exception to the overall rule of not picking winners and losers from the sequester cuts. But in Congress, it is clear that when push comes to shove (particularly at a flight departure gate), partisanship goes by the wayside. Everyone wants to change the scenario, even though Republicans continue to say that the sequester isn't doing any harm and Democrats continue to shy away from mitigating the damage for which they blame Republicans.

It's the start of a beautiful friendship. "Throughout this process, my House and Senate colleagues and I insisted that we put the American people first. I'm glad that all parties came together in the end to do that," said House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., on Friday.

So are we. Despite the White House naysaying, does the FAA sequester bill open new opportunities to mitigate the budget cuts in other ways? How important is the legislation to the FAA and the Transportation Department? What are the harms of keeping air traffic controllers on the job while cutting elsewhere? Are sequester-related harms unique to aviation? What other sectors within transportation could be helped in the same way? Is the new FAA law an admission that the sequester doesn't work? How can infrastructure be supported more efficiently with a smaller budget?

Mike Perrone responded to Walking Back From the Sequester on May 2, 2013 10:24 AM

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:36:10 GMT

Band-Aids Don’t Fix the Problem If last week taught us anything at all, it is that when lawmakers actually decide to right a wrong, it is not only possible but doable in a relatively expedient manner. For six long days, it became abundantly clear that the furloughs were causing major problems and severely impacting the ability of aviation safety inspectors, systems specialists, aeronautical specialists, administrative personnel and thousands of other professionals at the FAA—men and women who are the backbone of safe and efficient air travel in this country—to perform their jobs. As the furloughs went into effect last week,...

Nicholas Calio responded to Walking Back From the Sequester on May 1, 2013 12:08 PM

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:36:10 GMT

FAA Fix Victory for Passengers, Economy The quick resolution of the sequester’s effects on air travel serves as an illustration of how integral a fully operating airspace is to our nation’s economy. Passengers and shippers spoke up in support of the "Don’t Ground America" campaign to stop unnecessary delays resulting from air traffic controller furloughs. This effort demonstrated to the White House, Congress, DOT and FAA that delaying flights harmed passengers, shippers, jobs and the economy. The outcry was loud and clear and Congress acted swiftly and accordingly to end the furloughs and delays. Even with a fully staffed air...

Greg Principato responded to Walking Back From the Sequester on April 29, 2013 10:03 AM

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:36:10 GMT

End to Furloughs is Bittersweet The following is a statement from ACI-NA Board Chair David N. Edwards, Jr., the CEO of Greenville-Spartanburg Airport District. Airports Council International – North America (ACI-NA) is relieved that air traffic controller furloughs will soon end, returning our nation’s air transportation system to full capacity. The travel and financial impacts over the last week for passengers, airlines, and airports were substantial, and if such impacts continued there would have been a devastating negative economic effect on our nation. However, we are very disappointed that the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) was used to pay for...

Earmark Woes Resurface

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:25:54 GMT

Transportation chiefs in Congress were a bit stymied over the last two years when they crafted a surface transportation bill that didn't have earmarks. House Republicans were resolute in their determination to get rid of the legislative goodies that have given elected officials a bad name. But it also made a transportation legislator's life that much more difficult: It's hard to write legislation about maintaining roads, bridges, runways, and transit without identifying the specific areas that need tuning up. It's even harder to pass it.

Lawmakers have a similar challenge before them this year in the Water Resources Development Act, which authorizes the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct water-related projects such as flood control, port improvements, and river cleanup. Some transportation experts point out that WRDA, which dictates the country's major water infrastructure projects for the next five to 10 years, is actually nothing but earmarks.

"How do you move a WRDA bill forward when historically it's been line after line, naming a project, naming a study," Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said at a National Journal event last week. "We're trying to figure out a way to live through the moratorium on earmarks, which is very difficult."

Read more about Shuster's interview with National Journal here.

You can view Shuster's full interview here, which covers a wide variety of topics.

On WRDA, Shuster's first concern is reining in the Corps such that projects don't extend 15 years or longer without results. He also wants to make sure Congress doesn't hand over its authority on water projects to the executive branch, an easy trap for lawmakers who are handcuffed by budget constraints and the no-earmark rule.

Shuster is just getting started, and we'll eagerly wait to see how he navigates those impediments. Some of the federal streamlining he envisions for the Corps mirrors language in last year's surface transportation bill, which helps. And it will be a warm-up for the highway and transit reauthorization debate next year, where the same problems remain.

Did transportation get unfairly shafted in the rush to ban earmarks, which were really intended to combat questionable appropriations practices? Is the WRDA bill worse, in terms of looking like a pile of earmarks, than a surface transportation bill? Are there lessons from last year's highway and transit bill negotiations that can help lawmakers drafting a water resources bill? What other issues that could cause problems in that process?

Kurt J. Nagle responded to Earmark Woes Resurface on April 22, 2013 10:59 AM

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:33:46 GMT

America Needs A New WRDA Now The short answer to your first question is yes, water resources projects did get unfairly caught up in the earmark ban. There are significant differences between projects that have gone through extensive analysis to determine federal interest, national transportation savings, environmental reviews, etc., compared to the “pet project” earmarks the ban was truly targeted to eliminate AAPA believes that WRDA should address three key areas that would result in real benefits for the nation. First is bill language that would ensure the federal Harbor Maintenance Tax (HMT) revenues are fully utilized each year. Second...