PT: As predicted, the rationale for more driving (and priorizing road space for it) is underway – this one from our own Bob on whether to keep the Beach flow way:
Bob: This Bloomberg article suggests that the last thing we should be doing is removing road space:
…..The auto industry is already seeing a couple of positive signs in this regard. In the first two weeks of April. Cars.com’s unique visitors bounced back from late-March doldrums. According to a recent survey by the vehicle-shopping website, 20% of people searching for a car said they don’t own one and had been using public transit or ride hailing. They might buy a set of wheels to be safer from a pandemic that could linger well into the year, Cars.com Chief Executive Officer Alex Vetter said.
“Covid has pushed more people who don’t own a car to consider purchasing one,” Vetter said by phone. “The primary reason given was to avoid public transit and because of a lack of trust in ride sharing.”…
PT: Maybe if we try we can beat our previous record for carbon emissions.
Ridiculous / sad
Cars.com, huh? Then there’s this: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/04/25/the-worlds-car-giants-need-to-move-fast-and-break-things?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2020/04/23n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/458000/n The final paragraph: “The biggest concern may be that the virus changes attitudes to cars. On the one hand, fear of infection may put commuters off trains, buses or ride-hailing, and into automobiles. On the other, more home-working may reduce commuting of any kind, including with your own set of wheels. A prolonged recession could damage sales for good. Carmakers of the future may yet look back nostalgically to 2017 as their industry’s peak.” We can only hope.
Gees, does this perhaps suggest that “commute trip reduction” [CTR] should finally get some respect? Imagine the Province having a program, ready-to-roll-out when distancing is relaxed, to require and assist all employers to examine ways to reduce their “total annual employee commuting burden”?
For example, surveys are showing that “WFH” aka work from home or telecommuting has received an incredible boost during the pandemic, rising from below 4% to around 40% of the workforce. BC’s economy needn’t lose all that improvement when distancing restrictions are eased.
Another example: “closer commutes” is a simple strategy that could cut total commuting vehicle kilometres travelled by 5% to 10%. Surely in the “new normal” we could require all multi-worksite employers to analyze the potential for allowing employees to have shorter, greener, safer, cheaper, healthier commutes… BTW: better commutes have been shown to cut employers’ HR costs and boost productivity.
A customized-for-BC proposal has been sitting on the Premier’s desk since April. Funding it (<$3 million) would save the provincial economy hundreds of millions annually by reducing traffic congestion, cutting pollution and GHGs, boosting use of green and active transportation, and improving people's lives.
Or… we could slide back to single-occupancy-vehicles being dominant.
shift TransLink tax from hydro bills to a tax paid by employers based on the distance employees residence from the work placed—– a incentive to locate close to where potential employees
or hire local
Factor in the ‘solo person single shopping trip per week’ and what are the alternatives for a family?
They’ll use their car. Policy makers only care about peak hour commute trips.
This is why I’m not in favour of stretching SkyTrain out to Langley. I’ve called it a different kind of sprawl and some have been critical of that. But in the context of Langley, and the absurdly long SkyTrain reach with no network, it is clear that it is primarily a commuter system and will not serve the myriad other daily trips well. It is an expensive and limited fix for a much larger series of problems: the legacy of motordom, too much single family zoning close to the city, affordability, expectations of the white picket fence, subsidies for living farther away and the inevitable long commutes.
By it’s very nature, SkyTrain caters to the long commute and does little to nothing to move people over relatively short distances around their own neighbourhoods. And the lack of system wide inter-connectivity adds to that monolithic limitation. It would be better to radially connect the rapidly developing regional town centres with LRT and/or frequent express buses rather than undermine them by pushing development farther and farther out with SkyTrain. The geometry of a networked system lends itself to much more efficient development patterns than the gangly system we’re building out. It creates more opportunity to build up the missing middle and makes the regional centres more viable as downtowns in their own right.
SkyTrain to Langley is not entirely unlike the disasters of Nanaimo and Kelowna where they continued to build the fancy new mall beyond the last one and never figured out how to stop doing that.
Right on, ron vde
Another article from the NY Times, illustrating the uphill struggle transit and cities are going to have:
..After accounting for age distribution and health issues it was clear that risk not only of infection but of death broke between two groups: those in densely crowded areas, and everyone else. Large, densely populated areas like New York and Chicago had nearly twice the rate of transmission in the first two weeks of their outbreaks than the least densely populated areas we are tracking, like Birmingham, Ala., or the metro area of Portland, Ore. Yes, we did find that warming spring temperatures in some areas are helping to reduce transmission, but that effect is dwarfed by the impact of population density in our largest cities, particularly in the North…..
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/opinion/coronavirus-crowds.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
“…revealed that crowding and population density, whether in densely populated areas in New York City or a meatpacking plant in South Dakota, are the most important factors in determining the havoc the virus can wreak.”
Hmmm, South Dakota. A mecca of overcrowding.
What this article also seems to ignore is the transient factor. This is no small point. Even a few days of advanced warning plays a huge role. A week is a lifetime. Big dense cities are transportation hubs and small rural towns just are not. It’s not a surprise that big cites have largely been hit harder. It is more of a surprise that that isn’t mentioned. Again, wealth distribution is not mentioned. Is it that they weren’t looking? They haven’t made a point to rule it out.
The speculation on number of infectious contacts and fatality rates is certainly interesting. But even they don’t claim it to be the case – just a possibility. It certainly warrants further study.
The core of Vancouver rivals most any North American city for density. Yet there is no evidence of a significant outbreak here. What Vancouver had was an extra week or two of warning.