I want my PMV! Car-like Motorcycle-like Safe-definitely

Here’s the question: if you currently drive a car to work and for errands, would you prefer to drive a motorcycle-carlike vehicle that is one-quarter of a car? That is, one-quarter the cost, one-quarter the fuel consumption (easily 100 miles to the gallon), requires one-quarter the space to park at one-quarter the cost of regular parking, and pay one-quarter the cost of tolls.

OK, it’s true that its top speed might be 30 mph, with an average speed of 20 mph. But what if you could be traveling only with other lightweight vehicles traveling at similar speeds. [The average speed of cars is most cities is between 10-15 mph. In suburban areas you might be adding 5 minutes to your trip.]

Are you saying yes? Are you focused on the one-quarter the price part? And one-quarter the space to park?

I have this theory that lots of Americans would choose this option. And even more if they access to a second car, owned by them or shared nearby, that they could use on the small percentage of trips where they need a bigger and faster car.

Last week I got to ride (not drive) in one of GM’s eight EN-Vs (electric networked vehicles, pronounced “envy” – what an excellent name).[Video with the trend/business explanation; video with the EN-V/people dance performance]. It was enormously fun. My guess is that this vehicle will not be sold for ¼ the price of their regular cars, but some models could be. So I wondered:

Why would people switch? Because
 63% percent of all trips (and 75% of all work commute) they take are already alone in their car
 they would reduce the 18% of their income they spend on their car today
 they would not be beholden to price spikes in fossil fuels
 they want to find parking everywhere
 they want to be in the uncongested lane

Why do people not do it today?

 Well they do, particularly in Asia
 Here in America none of us relish the idea of going up against truck traffic, SUVs, or regular cars
 Motorcycles, as we know them, are scary (for some) to drive, you get wet and cold, and they are incredibly dangerous (60 times the fatality rates of regular cars – because of speed and the going head to head with much heavier vehicles).

Personal motorized vehicles would address an enormous number of problems associated with today’s cars: cost, congestion, pollution, CO2 emissions, parking. And I think consumer’s would choose them, based on cost, convenience, reliability, autonomy.

The problem lies with the extreme difficulty of enabling transitions. Two suggestions to get us there:
1.Take some lanes or some roads and make them accessible only to light weight and low speed vehicles (bikes too could travel these lanes, and we could split current lanes in half and get as many as 4 times the vehicles (and people traveling) in the same amount of space). These lanes could be used starting today by bicycles, motorized and electric bikes and small motorcycles. Think of all the people who would buy these vehicles and switch to these lanes if we gave them a lane of traffic.

2. Change the regulatory and safety requirements for these vehicles in line with the lesser accident risk. This would mean a lower cost to introduce new types of vehicles that meet the qualifications. And maybe even no driver’s license (!). In Europe today there are small engine electric vehicles that people can drive to get to work when their license is revoked. And in the US, we similarly don’t require licenses for small engine motorcycles.

Are you ready? What do you think? Would you switch?

And for the record, in dense metropolitan areas, it would still be faster to walk shorter distances, and take transit in dedicated lanes or rails, and never ever have to worry about parking.

See here for photos of lots of microcars
And here to take a virtual tour of the microcar museum.

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Cars are like 2-liter Sodas

Two-liter sodas are meant for parties: to be consumed by lots of people on special occasions and in a short period of time. If you buy a 2-liter soda under other conditions, you usually end up drinking too much yourself or letting some go to waste.

Cars are like that. Despite the fact that we usually drive alone, and that we don’t drive 24, or even 12, and not even 6 hours a day, cars are only sold in the big gulp size. And so, we consume them too much in our efforts to get our money’s worth, and lots of our car’s value goes to waste.

Traditional carsharing lets some people consume just the amount of car they want. But small-minded documents (leases and insurance documents) make it illegal to share your own car with someone else for money, or to formally pay an individual to use their car.
If we want to have fewer cars in cities and towns, and fewer cars mined out of the ground, stored on our streets, and returned to landfills, we need to create the insurance and regulatory means by which this kind of just-right consumption is possible.

Ditto for sharing car rides, for which it is also illegal in most countries to pay for the driver’s time and effort in addition to defraying some of his car costs. A California start-up Spride Ride has found a legislator who is trying to address some of these problems, but it is one state, and even that bill isn’t going far enough.

Legislators and policy-makers around the world: realize that some people want single-sized servings of cars and rides – or maybe even the opportunity to buy a 6-pack of individual servings – but only some of us want the 2-liter bottle. And unless you think the government or big business can provide those individual car-servings in every geography and to every desiring population, you’d do best to get rid of those barriers so that some us can serve up our excess car capacity and sell it to our neighbors.

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The inevitability of choosing cars

Infrastructure is destiny. And our insurance, safety, and legal systems, as well as our land and road use requirements are the infrastructure that that pushes us inevitably towards cars.

When we need to travel, most people in most countries have three transportation choices before them:

1. Walk or bike in unsafe conditions
2. Take mass transit that is infrequent, low quality, unreliable, and not point to point
3. Own their own car that delivers on demand, safe, and point to point travel
•These cars must be owned and driven by one person or household; sharing cars or rides for money is not legally allowed nor supported by the insurance industry.
•Commercial and residential real estate developments require accommodation for cars but not for other forms of transportation, and these car accommodations are almost always mandatory, not optional.

Is it any wonder that as soon as people can afford one or are old enough to drive one, the car is the mode selected? This is as true in Delhi as it is in Detroit. Some countries are better than others – the Dutch and Danish for example.

What can be done?

1.Make sure that there are safe walking and biking possibilities. I would further encourage the development of roads that are restricted to low speed and low weight vehicles. We accommodate not only feet and bicycles, but any vehicle that is relatively clean, slow, and light weight – with minimal safety requirements or licensing necessary. It doesn’t make sense that New York City will allow bicycles and pedicabs to use certain streets, but not lightweight and non-polluting CNG auto rickshaws that travel at similar speeds. We would see a boom of innovation and creative vehicles that can deliver more safe, convenient, point to point and personal travel options for this category of roads.


2. Redefine mass transit. In rich countries today, we have drawn very hard lines between personal and commercial vehicles, with the result that willing people with their own cars can not fill mass transport gaps in exchange for money. Typically this is illegal and our insurance systems won’t support it. I can’t formally pay you $5 to pick up my mom and take her somewhere – even if you are going there yourself. I can’t let you drive my car in exchange for money. Once money is involved – and why shouldn’t it be? – current laws define this endeavor as a commercial one and apply significant safety and legal structures that just don’t make sense. If we want to see more innovation in the transportation sector; if we want to enable more people to satisfy their needs without owning a car, we must let small scale efforts flourish. Once a “small” business becomes a large one, we can apply safety and licensing laws that make sense for large volumes where risk is magnified. At small volumes, these rules are overkill.

3.Change the rules (insurance, licensing, parking) that assume one owner/one adult/one building unit/one car. We need to make sure that people can buy, or rent, or consume fractions of cars and parking spaces. If we don’t change these rules, we are forced to buy, consume, and park whole cars, whether or not that is what we want.

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Brilliant Strategy for Transition to Road User Fees

Everybody in transportation knows that we need to move from a gas tax to a road user fee in order to finance transportation infrastructure. Regular people – that is, everybody else – hate this idea and doesn’t get it. A colleague has come up with what I think is a genius political approach that I describe in the second half of this post. The first half describes the problem.

THE PROBLEM. This is what the public says:

I’m already paying for the roads through my taxes. [Actually, you are paying with 18 year old prices since the fuel tax hasn’t been changed in that long. In the meantime, the costs have increased enormously. And compared to the price and volatility of the gas itself, the taxes are not that significant a percentage. ]

It works great. Why touch it? If the amount of money raised is the problem, just raise the tax. [Well, 1) you can’t just raise the tax, which is why it hasn’t happened in 18 years even though we are experiencing a crisis in our transportation infrastructure which is crumbling and ancient. If you’re lucky enough to do any traveling to Europe, you’ll note that our airports, train stations, trains, roads, and sidewalks are so much worse than what you see there. We are looking like the poor, ragged cousin. And if the fuel tax is broken as a means of raising money, as we move to more fuel efficient vehicles and alternative fuels, it will get increasingly broken.]

Paying by the mile is an unfair and regressive as a tax. What about the miles I drive out of state or on private roads? What about poor people? [Today’s gas tax has all those same problems. Some of the road user fee implementations could correct some of those problems.]

What about my privacy? I don’t want the government to know my every move. [Good point, read this that I wrote earlier]

THE SOLUTION. Here is a strategy that can get political buy-in and offer us a transitional path toward adopting road user fees. I’m thinking it is pretty clever and viable.
Put together a working group of legislators and outside stakeholders to discuss how we pro-actively address the impending transition to electric vehicles. Here is how the logic can proceed:

1. Everyone is willing to agree that EVs should pay their fair share, and that the gas tax system let's them off the hook.

2. It is far better to pro-actively come up with an appropriate solution before there are lots of them. With the tax expectation in place, people can buy EVs with full knowledge, rather than government trying to change the rules after this has become a significant market with a significant constituency.

3. The bill itself should be lightly worded. Owners of electric vehicles need to pay for miles driven within the state according to some referred-to rate plan (which definitely needs to adjust with inflation). The simplest means would be an odometer reading at time of inspection. Other mechanisms that result in the appropriate payment, as approved by the state, would also be allowed.

4. To be fair, any driver/vehicle can choose to opt in to this new method of road user fees, instead of paying gas taxes.

Implications: We have a platform for experimentation on this new payment method, and working it through the entire system with low volumes. We start with the lowest common denominator for payment (odometer reading) that side steps privacy and technology concerns. However, other technology solutions could come online and be approved by the state (payment with GPS using smart phones, or with other in-vehicle devices – those built in to the car or those retrofitted on existing vehicles). Having multiple payment options will ultimately provide consumers with an array of choices that many people will find more appealing. Some solutions will address the privacy issues. Some will be able to track out-of-state versus in-state miles. Just about every other option could be a preferred choice over the crude odometer reading because it will reduce the distance taxed. As time goes on, there would likely be all sorts of methods for payment and collecting of the data that use a wide range of devices, evolve over time, and take the burden of devices and refreshing them away from the state.

That is the gist. I think it is a brilliant strategy that should have few detractors now, gives a slow easy opportunity for working the new payment mechanism through the collections systems, and opens up the path for any kind of vehicle, to opt into the system.

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Transportation, Innovation, & Policy

I will be on a panel with "Ministers and industry leaders" at an OECD forum in Leipzig. As preparation for the discussion, I was asked to answer the following questions about transportation, innovation, and policy.

How can innovation help tackle the key challenges of climate change, energy supply, demographic change, urbanisation, traffic growth, congestion, and changes in the global economy?

I'm tempted to say that it is ONLY through innovation that we will address these challenges. The status quo delivers business as usual, and this leads us to where we don't want to go. Yes, there are many solutions that exist today that will help, and new products, services, and infrastructure that have yet to be developed. We need to think of innovation broadly. Innovation is not just developing alternative fuels. Innovation is also deliver up business models, marketing approaches, and political calculus that can make these existing solutions widely accepted and acted upon.

What innovations are required to get to a sustainable future?

I think a lot about the transition. Many of us have ideas about what the end game should look like, but I think we need more focus on how we get from exactly where we are today, to that future. What is the transitional path? Or at the very least, what are the first few steps.

We need to provide people worldwide, in all their various markets, means that provide them better access and mobilty than they experience today at lower cost, greater convenience, and reduced carbon footprint than they do today.

People are rational. If we provide them that choice, most people will choose the cheaper, more convenient way -- and let us make sure that this choice reduces carbon and congestion.

For me, the heart of the solution is dramatically more options. Today, most people have very few transportation choices: walk or bike in dangerous conditions, take over-crowded and inconvenient public transport, or "take control" and buy your own car to take you point to point. These few options necessarily lead us up the chain to increased car ownership and all the related negative consequences. We have to offer many more options so that cars are not the only solution. And we need to provide these options that suit people at all life stages, and income.

What are the policy innovations needed to allow new technologies and practices to flourish?

1. Stop subsidizing car parking, congestion, and pollution -- both in relationship to individuals as well as in infrastructure cost/benefit analyses about where to make the next infrastructure investment.

2. Allow owners of private vehicles to accept money in exchange for renting out their own vehicle, driving other people in it, or accepting money from people ride-sharing. We need to recognize that sharing cars and maximizing the number of people using each vehicle and getting mobility satisfaction out of each car is vastly preferred over the current single owner status quo.

3. Create a government insurance fund, into which innovators can buy insurance with capped liabilities, can buy insurance for their innovations while experimenting with low volumes. Once the innovation is successful, volumes build and traditional insurers will want to take over.

4. Consider creating low weight/low speed roads that have fewer safety restrictions on vehicles so that innovation and experimentation of vehicle types can flourish (and perhaps motorized and non-motorized transport can co-mingle safely).

5. Make sure that all government technology procurement in all sectors come with requirements for openness: open up data sets (as appropriate while protecting personal privacy) for public transport, traffic, etc., require that government procurements be based on open devices (open standards, multi-purposed), open networks, open standards, internet protocols, and open source. Government funded technology purchases, in all sectors, can then be leveraged and multi-purposed by innovators, providing them with low-cost access to a range of important inputs.

6. Make sure that transportation technology systems are integrated with the technology used in the rest of the economy. ie., electronic payment systems should use established methods; devices and spectrum allocations should not be for transportation use alone.

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Mom Driving Update (2)

It is almost exactly one year since my mom (84) totaled her car and began a new life without the driving crutch. I wrote earlier about her path towards acceptance: relief, accommodation, reality sets in, satisfaction.

Here is a quote from an email she wrote me this morning about her day yesterday:

"I have made a lot of wonderful friends since I gave up my driver's license. I am getting out more to movies, eating out and visiting with neighbors."

See! Our lives actually can get better when we drive less and share rides.

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Does Everyone in America Own a Car?

I got asked to write the 500 word answer to the above question that was going in a US Information Service publication called "20 Answers" (I think). It was a very curious challenge. Anything you write, when limited to 500 words, ends up feeling biased and a bit like propaganda. There are some great paragraphs in there. I like this piece! You can also read it at its source, the america.gov website too.

It is true that 95 percent of American households own a car, and most Americans get to work by car (85 percent). It wasn’t always this way, nor is it likely to stay this way.

Until World War II and into the late 1940s, many Americans did not own cars. People lived in cities and towns, and 40 percent did not own cars but used public buses, trolleys, and trains. Soon after the war, a surge in low-cost, mass-produced houses occurred outside cities to accommodate returning soldiers and their growing families. The new housing pattern was accompanied by the National Interstate Highway System, which was started in 1956. During the next 50 years, 46,876 miles (75,440 kilometers) of highways were built across America.

Americans could live in affordable suburbs in houses built on cheap land, and they could get to distant jobs with cars. Today, only 5 percent of Americans use public transportation to get to their jobs. However, this pattern of life is changing.

It has been 50 years since America embarked on this plan that influenced how we live and travel today, and we have experienced some shortcomings. Car-dependent travel and infrastructure are poorly suited for the dense urban areas in which increasing numbers of Americans live. As in other parts of the world, Americans seek to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and address climate change through alternative-fuel and fuel-efficient vehicles, but we realize these new cars alone will not meet all travel needs of Americans: The young, the old, the poor, and those living in dense urban areas need other options.

In 2001, car ownership peaked (1.1 cars per licensed driver). By 2008, the average number of miles driven in the United States fell for the first time in history, declining 3.6 percent from 2007, and the number of trips by public transportation rose to a 50-year high. It is too early to tell if this change was the result of high fuel prices in 2008.

More people are choosing to live in cities where they don’t need a car. New York City has the lowest rate of car ownership, with only 50 percent of households owning cars. Good sidewalks and public transit and safe bicycle networks are a priority in these cities. In July 2009, New York City completed the first phase of a plan to make the city more friendly to bicycles by adding 200 miles of bike lanes separated from car traffic within the city.

During the past decade American cities have seen the rise of a service called car sharing. Shared cars owned by private companies are parked throughout dense metropolitan areas and university campuses. Members rent them by the hour or day instead of owning cars. The advantage to members is that they pay only for what they use; they don't have to worry about maintenance, parking or insurance expenses, and they can choose a car that fits a specific trip (a pickup truck, four-door, or two-door vehicle).

In New York City, more than 100,000 people are sharing about 2,000 cars. This service dramatically reduces the number of cars and parking spaces needed to satisfy the needs of a large population. Each shared car replaces 10 to 20 privately held cars and is used by 40 to 50 people.

Looking to the future, it is likely we will see a reduction in the number of car trips Americans take and a rise in the number of trips they take by foot, bicycle, public transit, or train. Car sharing will become common, and more people will take advantage of carpooling (many people sharing the same trip).

Wireless technologies and smart mobile phones will make it easy to quickly find different ways to travel; see schedules; compare speed, cost, convenience, and carbon emissions; and choose the best method for each trip. America's transportation picture once again will be highly diversified.

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A transportation statement heard around the world!

US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announces: "Today, I want to announce a sea change... This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized."


GASP.Pause. A moment of thinking I'm going to faint. And then huge applause!


You can read all about it on his blog (and see videos of the speech). He continues:

We are integrating the needs of bicyclists in federally-funded road projects. We are discouraging transportation investments that negatively affect cyclists and pedestrians. And we are encouraging investments that go beyond the minimum requirements and provide facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.

To set this approach in motion, we have formulated key recommendations for state DOTs and communities:

* Treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.
* Ensure convenient access for people of all ages and abilities.
* Go beyond minimum design standards.
* Collect data on walking and biking trips.
* Set a mode share target for walking and bicycling.
* Protect sidewalks and shared-use paths the same way roadways are protected (for example, snow removal)
* Improve nonmotorized facilities during maintenance projects.

Here is the new federal policy.

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What’s your plan for $5/gallon gas?

Here are some beautiful maps of why you, personally, should care. These maps show what percent of the average household income is going towards transportation. All those people who live in the pink areas are spending between 20-28% of their income on transportation! and
those dark red areas are where people are spending MORE than 28% of their income!!!!!

Here is what it looks like when gas is $1.63/gallon, as it was in 2000.

And here is what it looks like when gas was $4.18/gallon, as it was in 2008.


Yikes! and wow! and @#$!@#@#$!!!!
Note that households that are car dependent really take a huge hit. The people who are living in areas with high quality transit are doing well. So, back to the question at hand:

If you are a family, what’s your plan for $5/gallon gas?

If you are a town, what’s your plan?

If you are a state, what’s your plan?

If you are the country, what’s your plan?

You can look at these maps for many metro-areas across the US at htaindex.org, and also see what this looks like when the average cost of housing is added in. Now those maps are really scary!

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Is the gas tax a user fee?

Here is my answer for the National Journal Transportation Blog.

"User pays" was the foundational concept and an interesting one to reflect on. The question notes that current gas taxes inadequately cover even simple maintenance requirements on existing roads, yet the phrase resonates strongly with drivers. They sincerely believe that they have paid for all that is required with their gas taxes at the pump.

If the road user really paid what driving costs to maintain, what driving costs to widen and build new, what driving costs in police forces, emergency personnel and equipment, lifetime effects of accident road deaths and injuries, watershed destruction, groundwater and run-off pollution, excess asthma rates, higher incidence of heart disease and negative effects for those living near highways, congestion, and CO2 emissions (etc, my list is truncated), we wouldn't be in the unfunded situation we are in today.

Also, if "user pays" included all those "externalities" (so many things in quotes), it would seem perfectly appropriate for the gas tax to include pedestrian and sidewalk improvements, mass transit, electric charging stations, and environmental remediation efforts because all of those things are attempts to mitigate the real and costly negative impacts caused by the car-driving users.

At the end of the day, if we take political realities into account, the one thing I ask for is for drivers to truly understand what their fuel tax is actually paying for, and what is quietly and covertly being subsidized by their other taxes. Because we haven't included these costs in the gas tax, we are using local, state, and government money brought in from other sources to cover the difference. When we say we don't have enough money for education, or welfare, or parks, or elderly programs, we need to recognize that this shortfall is in part because we are paying for all sorts unfunded car-related expenses with non-gas-tax dollars.

To read how other experts weigh in on this, go to the National Journal Transportation Blog.

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Holland first city with distance tax

The Dutch lead the way in transportation once again. They look to be the first country in the world to move from a fuel tax to a distance tax, with the cabinet presenting a plan to be voted on.

According to the DutchNews.nl story, the highpoints are "If the legislation is passed by parliament, motorists will start paying tax on every kilometer they drive" and that the "tax will be higher during the rush hour and for more polluting vehicles." Exactly right and as it should be, payment based on distance, emissions, and time of day. I've been saying for a while that movement from a gas tax to a distance tax is inevitable, and here is the start.

What interested me comes from the comment section. Unhappy people worry that it is regressive, represents double and increased taxation, is the end to their privacy, and is another step in the big brother government. These are all common concerns. A careful government presentation of the effort would dispel some of the false assumptions, and dealing head on with the privacy continues to be imperative.

I don't know whether the switch will mean higher road taxes. In the US, it should mean that. Today our transportation infrastructure is financed through gas taxes, and these haven't kept up with inflation. In fact, they remain unchanged at a national level for the last 18 years. That doesn't work! Our infrastructure is literally falling down.

The stimulus money, if well spent, would help a small amount. As a measure of the backlog of projects, we can look at the submissions for $1.5 billion in discretionary transportation projects that was in the ARRA (stimulus). The submissions from states were due September 15. The result: 1,381 applications seeking a stunning total of $56.9 billion -- 38 times the money available! It should be pretty clear that states are desperate for more money for transportation investment.

On the issue of privacy, I've blogged about how to address it many times.

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21 Ways I Reduced My Carbon Footprint

Change takes time. Here below is the list of my path from what was not measured, but likely a typical carbon footprint (around 20 tons per year for an American) to a smaller carbon footprint today. I think I'm down to around 6 tons a year. Goal is about 2 tons per capita worldwide. Below is how I progressed over the last 20 years.

Today minus 20 years
1. Bought a fixer-upper house in dense urban area 5 blocks from subway.
2. Vacation locally (most of the time)
T- 18 years
3. Stopped eating meat (most of the time). Cook most meals from scratch.
T- 15 years
4. Enrolled children in local schools.
T- 14 years
5. Emphasis on Christmas & birthday presents that were consumable or practical.
T- 12 years
6. Installed automatic setback thermostat (55 degrees at night, 65 daytime). Knit a lot of sweaters for whole family.
T-10 years
7. Didn’t buy second car, used carsharing (Zipcar)
T- 9 years
8. Husband got a local job, now commutes by bicycle 100% of the time.
T- 8 years
9. Increase emphasis on second hand or hand-me-down for toys, books, clothes, bikes.
T- 7 years
10. Stopped eating fish (except sardines, I love them so).
T- 5 years
11. Kids stop asking to be driven to school on cold, wet or snowy days because answer is usually no.
T- 4 years
12. Switched all light bulbs to CFLS.
13. Turn temperature of water heater down to ‘warm’.
T- 3 years
14. More carpooling (GoLoco).
15. Greater commitment to biking for errands.
16. Finally put insulation in roof.
17. Wash laundry in cold water and dry clothes on line (my husband getting me over my greatest hypocrisy.) Reduced summer utility bill by 50%.
T- 2 years
18. Bought a farm share at local farm for produce.
19. Curiously also plant small kitchen garden.
20. Started driving the speed limit. On highways too (that’s right).
T- 1 year
21. Selected “green” supplier of grid electricity offered by our utility (wind farm in upstate NY, only 10% more expensive).
Future:
22. Replace inefficient appliances with way more efficient ones when they finally die. Front loading washing machine, dishwasher, refridgerator. Insulate and seal old house more, replace a few more old windows, solar hot water on roof, find or build more efficient housing.

This effort will be on-going. My biggest challenge, like environmental evangelists around me, is my air travel. I do a lot of it. I keep track using Dopplr, but I don’t believe in offsets (see CheatNeutral for a beautiful explanation of why).

What's your plan or path? What other good ideas?

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Creating an Open In-Vehicle Technology Platform

A nice interview conducted by Vincente Everts in Amsterdam at PICNIC last week on the whys and wherefores of creating an open in-vehicle technology platform.

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Open Platforms, Smart transportation & smart grid

Nice Treehugger podcast interview with me that explains my vision on the how and why of open platforms for cars, the connection to the smart grid, and how creating a mobile internet can become an engine for economic development. Phew, all that in 15 (?) minutes.

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Frightening stats on elder & teen driving

I found this table when I was looking into Massachusett's Graduated Licensing Program because my 18-year-old son decided he'd like to get a driver's license. It is shocking isn't it?! Twenty-two percent of 16&17-year-old drivers get in accidents in each year! Wow. But then, I read this statistic from a Boston Globe article on elder drivers:

"But elderly drivers, who typically have a small orbit, cause
almost four times as many fatal accidents as teenagers when you take
into account miles driven, according to a Carnegie Mellon study."

Double wow.

More reasons on why it is time to focus on more transportation options that don't involve cars.

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Mom driving update (1)

Some of you will remember that my mom (age 84, pictured above carrying the torch in the Florida Senior Olympics) totaled her car about one month ago (no injuries involved).

Here has been her progress. If I had more time, I can see the article/book now “The 4 stages of Car Separation,” as received by email from my mom.

Relief
“I will enjoy life more now that I don’t have to worry about driving.”

Accommodation (my mom is very social and sociable. She was able to get herself rides quickly).

“so far is it going well, I have a woman who will pick me up for golf and we will go to lunch after it or eat inside which is lovely. Tonight I am going to a party whereby I will ask one person that lives a little distance from here but goes to the club once a day to take me one day a week and bring me home. I met a lady from my church and she will arrange for me to get there and return from the early service, or I could go with Ada my neighbor that goes weekly to the ll o-clock service.”

Reality Sets in
“I figured out if I use the drivers I have, it will cost me over three hundred dollars a month which is a lot of money. I have a friend from the club that says he will take me twice a week …and a friend that will take me to golf, and… the lady that takes me to church will let me off after church. It still adds up to that much money. It is five dollars a trip. I can use the Council of Aging but I know there is waiting for them”.

And my reply to her:
“Mom, I know $300/month seems like a lot to you, but that equals $3600 a year which is a deal,and cheaper than owning your own car. Really! Don't let the price stop you from going where you need to go.

Insurance $1200/year ??
Gas $40/mo? -- $500/year
Maintenance -- $300/year
Depreciation ($20k for a new car, lasts for 10 years)-- $2000/year

Total: $4000k/year --- if not MORE. The average per car per year is $8000. This is really what you were paying. You just didn't notice it because it dribbled out little by little.

You are paying LESS than you did before. Enjoy the rides. You can afford it. You were already paying that.”

And so my mom, is exactly like the rest of America, and like myself, who can hardly believe what we really are paying to get around with our own personal cars.

Can we all get to the fourth stage?

Happiness & Satisfaction

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My mom just totalled her car

I just got a phone call that my 84 year old mother had a car accident: early afternoon, traveling about 35 mph on a divided two-lane road, lined with retail and parking in a commercial district, about a half a mile from her house. She dozed off after exersize and a big lunch, wrapped the car around the telephone pole that crushed the car, narrowly missing her head.

Car totaled. She is fine and no one was hurt.

An excellent wake up call for her. And for her family. And why not for the nation? As long as we invest heavily and almost exclusively in a car-dependent environment, with no good alternatives for safe walking, biking, shopping, or quality transit, we will continue to see such accidents across America, and many without the happy ending.

As long as we continue to believe that the status quo is just fine, we will continue to have seniors (and juniors, and the poor, and the wise, and the economical, and the impaired) without options.

And for the record, her car gets 40 mpg. Fuel efficiency isn’t going to solve this problem.

What does it take to wake us up?


See 5/27/09 Mom update

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Openness if we want Intermodal

Just blogged on this topic for the National Journal. Basically, if we want to be able to go between feet, bikes, carsharing, bus, transit, rail, private parking (and for freight to be similarly multi-modal), we need to use open platforms, open devices, and open up networks paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Type rest of the post here

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Which DOT programs should be axed?

I am also blogging at National Journal, where the most recent question was which DOT programs should be axed. I played nicely. My response is here.

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Where Do Cars Belong in 21st C America?

Right now the transportation world seems polarized into two camps. Depending on where you live, what your past is, and who your patrons are, the vast majority of experts seem to place themselves into one of the two sides. And it does feel like a polarity. Trying to avoid characterizing these as 1 vs 2, A vs B, loaded names vs loaded labels – how about columns? Darn, there is still left to right. It seems impossible to be balanced.


Because of America’s past -- cheap fuel; government spending priorities (the interstate highway system and federal funding for highways) and tax incentives (home mortgage interest deductions fueling sprawl); lots of land; and lack of foresight about adverse effects (in addition to climate change, see below) – we find ourselves today with this reality:

Ninety-two percent of American households have access to a car and 87% of trips are taken by car.

The benefits of cars: fastest, most convenient, cheapest and often only alternative to get from A to B for the current built environment in the US.

The costs of cars:
- high cost of participation in the system (middle income Americans spend about 22% of their annual incomes on cars and the lowest 20 percent income bracket spend 42 %);
- escalating number of hours, number of affected roads, and parking lots classified as congested;
- 46k traffic deaths and much larger number of injuries,
- high rates of asthma, obesity, and other adverse health affects;
- loss of farmlands, wetlands, water resources and other negative land use impacts;
- 50% of the population unable to participate directly because they do not have a license or own a car;
- 20% of CO2 emissions.

As we move toward the future, in which we are both an active player – infrastructure can be destiny – and passive recipient of unfolding demographics, we can make some confidant predictions about some aspects of 2025. And 2025 is where we will fully feel the results of decisions made over the next four years around government infrastructure spending priorities, tax incentives, and regulations.

In 2025:

• 80% of our population will live in metro-areas
• 18.1% will be older than 65 (up from 12.4% in 2000)
• Fossil fuels will be more expensive (increased world demand & reduced supply)
• Carbon taxes (whatever form they take) will shape energy demand & type

If we turn this into Tom-Friedman-speak, and try to describe America in 2025, it will be urban, older, fossil-fuel efficient. Therefore, the bulk of our transportation investment dollars should go to meet the needs and desires of this population shape.

Urban means less car dependent because there is no space on the roads or in parking garages to accommodate the 1 driver to 1.1 cars ratio we find in America today. We see this reality in the more free-flowing cities of New York City (50% car ownership) and Boston (75% car ownership) and its opposite in the most congestion cities like Atlanta.

Older means less car dependent if we don’t want to spend increasing portions of local budgets on transporting the aging around to meet their routine food, medical, and social needs.

Fossil-fuel efficient means that yes, all motorized transport will prefer fuel efficient and alternative fuel sources.

But government and planners cannot forget or neglect significant minority groups, poorly defined here as “non-urban,” nor dismiss the occasional need of even the most committed urban environmentalists for a car sometimes. So, we shouldn’t be talking in terms of being pro-car or anti-car, or thinking about solutions that will only work in rural America, or only work in urban America (hmm, I feel like I’m echoing a certain President).

But we do need to move from our increasingly broken status quo that is almost entirely car-dependent to one that reduces both the burdens of today’s car-dependent costs (remember that list above) and looks ahead to meet the needs of our future. Moving this country and the world toward cleaner transportation fuel and better vehicles is absolutely critical, but low carbon cars alone will not solve today’s problems nor meet tomorrow’s needs. President Obama, legislators across the US and around the world, I repeat: low carbon cars alone will not solve today’s problems nor meet tomorrow’s needs. For that, we need to improve the balance, and enable more Americans to lead car-independent routine lives. Not no cars and highways, just fewer and better ones.

Sources
http://www.bts.gov/publications/highlights_of_the_2001_national_household_travel_survey/html/executive_summary.html
http://www.apta.com/research/info/online/aging.cfm
http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/usinterimproj/
www.bls.gov/cex/csxann02.pdf

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