Thread: A future freed from traffic and pollution in cities... but only if private-sector technology companies and cities / regulatory teams work in partnership...
This thread is my attempt to pull together some conclusions after spending several days with transit agency leaders and the @USDOT FTA at the recent @APTA_Transit conference in Nashville.
As a manufacturer of electric buses (@Proterra_Inc), I’m certainly biased in favor of zero emission, high passenger density solutions. But if cities are going to radically improve in transport efficiency, all of us tech companies need to advocate for a system, not just a sale.
Any solution that increases passenger density, reduces passenger car VMT, or eliminates sources of combustion is part of the system. The KPIs should include the ratio of passenger miles / car VMT, dollars / passenger mile, and pollution / passenger mile.
The system should start with sidewalks. Right of way for the non-driver comes first. If you don’t have safe streets for pedestrians, you’re stuck in car culture. Doesn’t matter if those cars are taxis, ubers, teslas or fords... cars and cities don’t mix.
Cars are tools to get to cities, not move within them. And if we eliminate the need for cars in cities, we can move the needle on climate change. Most people live within cities, and within a few decades 75% will live in cities. Cities are the main effort in climate change.
We now have enough evidence to show that car sharing isn’t a system, it is just a tool within a system. If car sharing isn’t deployed within a system of mobility, traffic, VMT, inequality and traffic all get worse.
Example - the SF Bay Area. You can’t walk a block without running into a car-sharing startup, and Uber’s and Lyfts are extremely popular. And traffic is worse than ever before.
Why? Because ride share is just a taxi summoned by an app. No one would design a city assuming taxis can handle the needs of the entire city. Cars take up too much space per person, and stop & starting to unload one passenger at a time is gridlock.
Another example, ride share at airports is getting worse, not better. When you’re the only one hailing an Uber it is awesome. When everyone hails an Uber it is gridlock. Sounds a lot like driving your own car, if it is just you on the open road, it’s great.
Not trying to bash Uber / Lyft, just making the point that no single transportation solution scales on its own. I love what ride hailing has done for first / last mile to the transit hub.
Don’t build more parking decks near mass transit hubs. Build apartments, offices, dedicated ride hailing drop off points, bus stops, bike racks and scooter share parking areas. That’s a system approach.
Scooters are another example. They are an awesome tool. Small, zero emission, low cost. The right tool for the job when you’re too far to walk, but too close to waste a taxi or Uber ride. But we can’t carpet bomb cities with scooters, we need a system.
A system = regulation. Regulation isn’t a bad word, it is the rules of operation in a system. The public agency doesn’t need to operate all of the services, but it needs to enforce the regulations.
Why? Because cities are a common good economic problem. The tragedy of the commons occurs when regulation is lacking or ineffective. If we didn’t have any regulation in city transport, you could drive your car or motor cycle through a city park as a short cut, for example.
Traffic / congestion is a regulatory problem, not a tech problem. If you think private sector AV or any Silicon Valley company will solve traffic, you don’t understand the economic concept of market failures and the essential role of regulation in solving tragedy of the commons.
We have traffic because we have no efficient way of rewarding the behavior we want or discouraging the behavior that abuses the common good. If you drive your car in congested area, regulation and infrastructure should discourage you, or encourage you with a better alternative.
Making cars more efficient with AV will not solve traffic. It just increases the capacity of a road, like adding lanes to a road. LA has 16 lane freeways, so more road capacity for cars is just more capacity that will be absorbed in a tragedy of the commons.
Flying EVs will not solve traffic. They may be a part of a system, but all you’re really talking about is a new type of helicopter. I’m guessing flying EVs will carry the wealthiest passengers, because overpowering gravity will always be more expensive than ground transport.
I think the city transit agency could be the network operator for the city transport system. Transit agencies should not think of themselves as bus companies or train companies. They are the regulated operator of a monopoly, like a utility. A network operator.
They can access infrastructure funding, staff to comply with civil rights laws re: accessibility and they can subsidize different services as needed to balance the system. By nature, infrastructure is hard to fund with a private sector business model. It’s a community asset.
They are also accountable to the general public, and that’s important given the externalities and diverse stakeholders. The city of the future is built around a world class transit agency. This utopian future could exist with what we have today. (But you have to vote...)
No reason to wait. Imagine being able to ride your bike safely to the train station. Or taking an electric bus from your local coffee spot to the airport or the transit hub. Or saving $1000 / month because a car payment, parking, gas, insurance are no longer essential.
Eliminate a street lane and replace it with a protected bike lane. Get rid of a parking space and stage 20 electric scooters there. Connect Google Maps to the transit payment system to allow seemless multimodal. Eliminate all tail pipe emissions, reduce GHG by 80%+.
The tech tools already exist. But time is of the essence. We’re so far in the danger zone on climate crisis, unhealthy air & economic waste from congestion that we can’t afford to wait for “magic.” We’re cooked (literally) before tunneling, AV, HSR, VTOL, AI magically save us.
