Transportation

Many public sector mavens watch like the Dow Jones average the shares of workers using various modes of transportation on work trips to see how their favorite mode is doing.  One shouldn’t be surprised when a certain hyperbole creeps into the interpretation of the trends.   But in reality not a whole lot is changing, despite many assertions of ballooning growth from some sectors.   read more »

Which would you rather have in the view from your house? A thing about the size of a domestic garage, or eight towers twice the height of Nelson’s column with blades noisily thrumming the air. The energy they can produce over ten years is similar: eight wind turbines of 2.5-megawatts (working at roughly 25% capacity) roughly equal the output of an average Pennsylvania shale gas well (converted to electricity at 50% efficiency) in its first ten years.  read more »

Righteous cries of outrage and anger dominate Florida these days, as unreasonable assaults upon common sense seem to roll with regularity out of the governor’s office. Recently, Governor Scott   published a list of Florida’s higher education faculty, matching salaries to names.  This act was disingenuously styled as an effort towards transparency, but it was really a good old-fashioned right-wing poke at the eggheads.   read more »

As we indicated in the last article, solo automobile commuting reached an all time record in the United States in 2010, increasing by 7.8 million commuters. At the same time, huge losses were sustained by carpooling, while the largest gain was in working at home, which includes telecommuting. Transit and bicycling also added commuters.  This continues many of the basic trends toward more personalized employment access that we have seen since 1960.  read more »

Much in the way that fax machines, Fed Ex, and home computers changed residential living several decades ago, portable technology is now changing how we spend our time when moving from place to place. To better understand traveler behavior in the digital age, our DePaul University team has been tracking how passengers on intercity trips engage with technology. We’ve compiled data using (ironically) hand-held electronic devices on 112 air, bus and rail departures encompassing 18,000 passengers.  read more »

Despite higher prices and huge media hype over shifts to public transit, the big surprise out of the 2010 American Community Survey has been the continued growth over the last decade in driving alone to work. Between 2000 and 2010, driving alone to work increased by 7.8 million out of a total of 8.7 million increase in total jobs. As a result, this use of this mode reached 76.5% of the nation's workers, up from 75.6% in 2000. This is the largest decadal share of commuting ever achieved for this mode of transport.  read more »

With its vote on September 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee ended the rail boosters’ hopes of getting a meaningful appropriation for high-speed rail in the new (FY 2012) fiscal year. It probably also dealt a decisive death blow to President Obama’s loopy goal of "giving 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail."  read more »

In response to the outcry by job creators about proposed new Nitrogen Oxides emission regulations, the Obama Administration has suspended a planned expansion of these rules.

The Public Health Risks of Densification  read more »

In April of 2011 the California High Speed Rail Authority held a meeting of potential investors and vendors interested in participating in the proposed Los Angeles to San Francisco high-speed rail project. Project sponsors have insisted they could gain substantial private investment for the project. The Authority indicated that the meeting drew 2000 attendees at the Los Angeles Convention Center, which supporters indicated was proof of the interest of private investors in the project.  read more »

In recent years there’s been a resurgence in intercity bus travel, driven by the rise of low cost, non-stop service linking tier one cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC with other regional hubs in their surrounding areas. This is a lively and diverse market, particularly on the east coast, with providers like Megabus, Bolt Bus, Greyhound, and a host of so-called “Chinatown” buses.  read more »