(00:00:00) Our topic during this hour is alternatives to the automobile. The first speaker is marshaled low of worldwatch Institute and later in the are will talk with Studio guest Cynthia MacArthur about bicycle Transportation, but first a martial law, she's a senior research researcher Associated at The worldwatch Institute, which is a nonprofit organization in Washington DC that analyzes Global problems. Marcia Lowe is the co-author of worldwatch Institute state of the world 1990 report and other papers including one on the bicycle vehicle for a small planet. She spoke in Minneapolis at a conference sponsored by the center for transportation studies at the University of Minnesota. Her speech is called alternatives to the automobile transport for livable cities. Here is Marsha Lowe. (00:00:50) I think that many of you might be familiar with the work of a person by the name of Tom tolls who draws political cartoons for the Buffalo News, I believe and lately he's taken to making quite a few comments on Americans relationship with their automobiles that I think are quite amusing and one that I'm thinking of is a series of frames in which people are discussing the problems of transportation and they first talked about air pollution and they go into traffic congestion and then into the amount of pavement that seems to be taking over our cities and more and more space given over to cart parking lots and highways Etc. And then in the second to the last frame one person says in the problem is we depend too much on automobiles and everybody else is yeah. We depend too much on automobiles. We need to depend Less on automobiles. And then in the last frame there's total silence in her Visions looks at each other and then the little man in the bottom of the little man talking to a little bird says Funny how this discussion always ends right there. And I think it's a pretty true common. It's really become somewhat of an icon in our culture and to the point that few people dare to come out and imply that instead of just technologically improving the audible meal. Maybe we ought to move away from it just a little bit and reduce our dependence on it and indeed a well-known Transportation scholar that you many of you have probably read actually said in a report that maybe we should just roll up our windows turn on our air conditioners in our car stereos and enjoy that extra free time in the car that extra idle time because congestions and going away. And in fact, I understand that this is happening and that people some people not only have cars car phones and and fax machines but also little coffee machines and small microwaves in their car and and I understand this is called car. Kooning. Well, it's fun to laugh and sort of poke fun at ourselves and maybe even romanticize this funny relationship. And certainly I think we've all come across the phrase love affair with the automobile. But in fact the problems are very very serious and it may not be such a problem Downtown Minneapolis. But in many of our major cities in the u.s. Congestion is really nearly paralyzing and air pollution is becoming very health threatening in a number of communities and cities are generally in places becoming more and more unlivable. And of course for most of the concerns in many of our minds right now are the fact that our dependence on foreign oil basically to fuel our driving habit has driven us to the very point of war in the Middle East and that is certainly probably the most compelling reason today for doing a little bit of soul searching. And in fact, I was at a transportation conference in Colorado about a month ago that gathered together a number of Transportation consultants and other professionals planning professionals. And the question was actually raised in the conference. Does the automobile have a legitimate place in the transportation transportation systems of the future and I would submit that absolutely the car does have a very very important role in transportation and should continue to do so in the future but not in its current role because at the current rate and with resource issues and social issues in the current state that the role of the automobile cannot be sustained and it's in its current capacity and the paper that you have on your tables like this. It's not a one-to-one ratio of papers to people but this paper is all about diminishing the role of the automobile just to the point that it is part of a broader more balanced transportation system and today I will summarize. Eyes what is covered in this paper? Basically with presenting for ways to provide alternatives to the automobile in American cities to complement the automobile and just to run through the four ways before I get into each of them. The first is to improve and expand mass transit systems. The second is to make it safe and practical and convenient for people to walk and ride bicycles for the appropriate trips. The third is to carefully guide future Land Development in order to contain sprawl and the fourth is to remove the massive subsidies of driving that are in effect hidden and make Auto users pay the true costs that they impose that they're driving imposes on society. And before I go into these four Alternatives, I'd like to briefly mention the transportation solutions that are usually proposed and many are simply technological improvements to the automobile technology itself. Like to show why these measures while they're very worthwhile Endeavors by themselves. They are inadequate to solve transportation problems, for example, enhancing fuel economy and reducing emissions from automobiles. These are two very very crucial goals extremely important important and we should be pursuing them. But if these measures are not accompanied by measures to create alternatives to driving then any progress we make in these areas is just going to be overwhelmed by the amount of driving as in the case of the catalytic converter, which is dramatically reduced emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide from cars, but it is partly been offset by driving in this country are increasing by about seventy four billion miles each year additional miles last year 96 cities in the United States home to about half of the country's people violated their Federal standards for health levels of ozone. And 41 cities were in violation of the carbon monoxide standard. So we're definitely backs aligning on the Clean Air progress that we've made which everyone I think is well aware of and also the catalytic converter converter actually slightly increases the emissions of carbon dioxide which is you know is particularly worrisome because carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas that is responsible for more than half of the global warming effect. Another reason technological solutions alone are inadequate is that none of them can address all of the problems of depending too much on automobiles. We may well create more fuel efficient and less polluting cars, but they will still contribute to traffic jams and we may invest billions of dollars into smart cars and intelligent vehicle Highway systems, which which do have the capacity to increase the ability to use our existing Road space, but because this technology aims as it's very goal to accommodate more cars and more driving in direct proportion to its success. It's going to undermine whatever progress we make on these other fronts, so and that's not to dismiss these systems at all, but just to just to be a gentle reminder that they need to be accompanied by true viable alternatives. So clearly in order to confront all of the problems of dependence. We need to create Alternatives and I'd like to start on the first way which is to expand and improve public transit the different public transit modes very in the fuel that they use the pollution. They create the space that they take up but all of them out perform the single occupant automobile and all of these counts if a person decides to take mass transit instead of instead of driving alone to work it can cut this trip can cut hydrocarbons emissions by about 90% And the carbon monoxide and nitrogen nitrogen oxides by about 75% as you know vehicle occupancies in this country. And actually it's pretty much true of major cities throughout the world during rush hours. The vehicle occupancy is a private cars are really low in the last census figures that are available Nationwide 1980. It was 1.15 people in each car in Trending downward. Of course, you can't Trend much farther downward and and I think it's definitely true than much of the United States there isn't there isn't much else in terms of a public transport alternative than sharing your car with other people because in much of the u.s. Bus and train lines just don't exist. So public transport saves on fuel use and emissions and also on City space because Rail lines and buses can move a lot more people in a small amount of space than single occupant automobiles, especially express bus lines in the case of buses. And I think that they need to be considered very seriously as an attractive option in competition with Highway transport. But of course cost is a limiting factor in very understandably so but unfortunately what happens is that when decision makers are making their choices between an option to improve mass transit versus expand a highway or somehow improve and expand an automobile facility that all the mass transit costs are fully calculated but not the automobile related costs and I'll go into this in a little bit more detail later, but I'm talking about the costs of Roads probably most of you realize that the cost. That of Highway building and maintenance is not fully covered by Road user fees and not through gasoline taxes. But only about two-thirds of it is in the rest comes from General revenues traffic police. No removal, of course air pollution. These are all massive costs of an automobile based system that are not calculated into these so-called costs of of choosing a transport facility. And once again the cost of the latest thing on our minds policing the Gulf region is enormous cost that that really should be calculated in to what we're what happens when we're so dependent on oil with the military even before Iraq invaded Kuwait 14 billion dollars a year went toward keeping up the military capability in the Gulf just to police our oil interests and indeed if War breaks out the National Defense Council has estimated that it could cost as much as a billion dollars a day and this is the monetary cost. Of course in addition to lives. It's really a very very heavy toll to pay but more about these out of subsidies later. And for now, I'd like to turn to the second category of Carl turn it events, which is facilitating cycling and walking. These two modes of transportation are really the most appropriate way to make short trips particularly in the center of a city their economical. They're clean a safe space. They don't require any fuel or other than the person's most recent meal and yet very few cities. If any actually adequately address the needs of pedestrians and cyclists, but there are several ways to do this and I think that the most effective is for one thing keep motor traffic from commandeering Urban space and this is something that Western European countries are much more advanced in than we are at this point, but safety for bicyclists often calls for separate facilities may be a bridge over a bad intersection or what or separate bike lane or even a separate path. It can be necessary but more often I think it's much more effective and and experience has proven so in European cities to just make the motor vehicle. Share the road space Marshall other users of the road many European cities use a technique or a whole bundle of techniques called traffic calming or some collet traffic taming in some residential neighborhoods in the Netherlands and West Germany. They have for years been using the actual design of the street to slow down the traffic and make sure that the that using Landscapes will please trees and other speed barriers that the cars can't commandeer the the entire breadth of the street and it makes it much more open for cyclists and pedestrians and makes them much more minimal environment for other users of the road. These measures are gathering popular popularity in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy and Japan in Denmark. They're so popular that the local residents themselves are often very willing to pay for the measures. Just as a note in the Netherlands, which is a very wealthy country people who are very much our peers in terms of living standards Etc. These measures combined with special facilities for bicyclists have created a system in which 30% of work trips are made by bicycle in Dutch cities and sixty percent of school trips are made by bicycle. And again, I'd like to emphasize that it's not an example taken from China or elsewhere in the developing world where it's a little bit harder to imagine ourselves in that context. It's very much people who are professional peers Etc who are biking to work in a system that really promotes that and makes it convenient. Well in the u.s. It's not quite so yet, although we are making progress. And people often say well the u.s. Is Big there are longer distances. But of course nobody commutes from San Francisco to New York every day in our day-to-day commutes are often very very bikeable. Very manageable distances even for walking and we also in this country have this strange phenomenon where people really do appreciate the value of bicycling to keep fit and on that's very evident in the popularity of stationary exercise bikes. Then you have this sort of curious phenomenon that people drive to the health club nor to ride them. But in fact, if you look around the world at cycling societies than other ones, Japan Denmark parts of West Germany, Switzerland Sweden. There are a number of them. It's not trip length. It's not flat terrain or climate or living standards or culture anything else so much as its public policy that very aggressively and very deliberately promotes the use of bicycles and makes it convenient and easy for people and the three ways to do that are as I said to keep motor traffic from commandeering the street space to make sure there are continuous rate routes throughout the city for cyclists not so that you give them a really nice bike path that goes halfway to their their destination and then they have to fight traffic the rest of the way. We really create a bikeable city and a very important last one is to integrate bicycling with mass transit and this is something that is very very popular in Japan and Western Europe. In which plenty of secure bicycle parking is provided at The Rail stations and bus stations so that people can if they don't live within walking distance of their station. They can bike there leave their bike securely and find it. They're intact at the end of the day when they come back to it and even better is systems that allow the allow the cyclists to bring his or her bicycle right on the train or the bus and that way neither the workplace nor the home has to be within and within a very short distance of the transit station because you can bike at both ends. So even though walking and cycling are often considered only for short trips and very understandably so they can satisfy a very much larger share of the transportation burden if they are integrated. Well with mass transit. This is called bike and ride as opposed to park-and-ride. It's is as I mentioned it's very popular in Japan out of a total of just over 7 million commuters about 15% of them either ride their bikes to Stations or all the way to their workplaces in the suburbs and smaller towns of Western Europe tend to 55% of the Railway passengers arrived at the station by bicycle. And indeed if you if you travel in Western Europe, you'll notice in many cities that are hundreds of bicycles parked outside. The Rail stations, very impressive and even in this country. It is catching on although much much more slowly, but there are bike and ride facilities in Atlanta Boston, Milwaukee San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC to name some of the Well, there are signs that bicycling is gathering legitimacy in this country. The number of commuters people bicycling to work doubled in the past five years up to 3.2 million in four out of the six past years bicycle sales domestically have have exceeded automobile sales. And for those of us who have been yelled at by a car drivers when we're cycling to work by Third militant car drivers who tell us to get off the road or get on the sidewalk or otherwise many of the US cities now have have police officers themselves patrolling the streets on bicycles. In fact, they're right around a hundred cities in the United States that have cops on bikes it started as an experiment in Seattle in 1987 where the police force found that bicycles were much more effective in Catching criminals and gridlock traffic and also sneaking up on drug drug transactions and And patrolling city parks and there really are a number of advantages aside from that such as being more in touch with the community that the police officers are patrolling. So now there are cops and bikes in Boston Dallas Miami Beach LA and about ninety six other cities in the u.s. At least there is also a lot of congressional support or at least there's some very strong Congressional support in some pockets and I guess you probably may know that two of your Congress people Sabo at Martin Sabo and Jim Oberstar have been very very active in bicycling initiatives on the federal level and they've succeeded recently in securing a position of full-time paid staff position at the Department of Transportation for a bicycle coordinator. And I think even perhaps more significantly they've also secured 1 million dollars in funding for a national bicycle study that will will gather some very crucial data. On real and potential bicycle use in this country and also survey the experiences in other countries that have been very successful in promoting cycling and the study is intended to look at these successes and see how they will apply in the u.s. There's all very encouraging Well now I would like to move on to the third element in a strategy to provide useful alternatives to the automobile. And that is to carefully plan and guide land use and this is really the key to what all I've said before because it basically determines whether or not the other Alternatives I mentioned cycling and walking and public transit are appropriate or even feasible. And in many urban areas in the United States, we've basically built our settlements around the automobile and Roads and parking lots sort of expanded on it road-building treadmill as the demand grew so did the supply and sort of Roads became packed 22 capacity as soon as they were completed but to Australian researchers have just completed a 10-year study their names are Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy. They've spent 10 years studying 32 of the world's major cities and Gathering data on the density levels and on the commuting preferences in each of these cities As you move from Phoenix and Perth Australia in US cities down through Eastern Europe and then to the very dense highly populated Asian cities, you find that almost as a rule private car use goes straight down public transport use goes straight up and so does Clean walking one interesting thing. There is somewhat of an exception in Amsterdam where it's surprising that only 14 percent of the workers use public transport to get in into work and that is because of the role of bicycling in that country. That's it. So stated here is 28% but the more recent figure is higher more like 30. Well, it's not only density. Of course that makes a difference in people's travel choices, but in terms of land use I think that the European capitals provide very very useful experience in purposeful land use controls in the form of zoning and tax incentives even bands on low-density projects Etc that have created very efficient compact livable cities. They've concentrated further development around the rail lines around the rail stations along the rail corridors, they've mixed land uses with shopping and homes and services businesses and use the zoning changes to correct imbalances and housing and jobs in order to eliminate long long commutes and sprawled communities that we have and none of this would ever happen overnight, of course, even if we committed ourselves and and sort of as a as a society committing ourselves to the idea that land use control And be in the best interest of the whole of society, but it isn't too late for very honorable oriented cities to take that route and a very very good example of that is Toronto, which many of you are I'm sure aware of it. I think it's a very useful illustration of a an extremely automobile oriented City much like US cities that made a very purposeful commitment to turn around and they've done so quite successfully by building a new Subway. This is in the last two or three decades in Toronto and very very intentionally concentrated further development around the rail stations in along the Rail lines to the point that half of all the Apartments built in Toronto since 1954 within walking distance of the rapid transport system and that 90% of the new offices are adjacent to Rail stations. And now the overall density of Toronto is much is is very similar to that of several European major cities. Much more Compact and despite increasing Auto ownership public transport use has increased in Toronto by about 80% in a little over two decades, which is quite a phenomenal feet. Well, finally I would like to move to the fourth point of making drivers pay more of the true cost that they're Auto use imposes on society in effect internalizing those costs in the u.s. One very big example of that is free parking fewer than 10% of employee of employees Nationwide pay for their parking and this is a tax-deductible expense for the employers who provide this parking and it could be worth up to 300 sometimes four hundred dollars a month in some of the and some of the bigger cities and whereas Transit passes if they are provided by the employer or only reimbursable up to are tax deductible will up to $15. So that is a very that's something in our federal tax code that really needs revising to to remove this disbenefit of employers promoting Transit versus driving to the Office alone in parking for free and it makes sense to remove the subsidy just as an example in a study of workers that were commuting to the LA Civic Center in Los Angeles employees who paid for their parking were 44 percent less likely to drive alone to work and a hundred and seventy-five percent more likely to use public transit. Then their colleagues who parked for free. It's really quite a dramatic difference. and the same also goes for not only parking but corporate write-offs for tolls and gasoline the Port Authority in New York s debates that half of the commuters rushing into Manhattan and at rush hour from New Jersey about half of them are enjoying these corporate write-offs for gasoline and tolls A reasonably high gas tax is really very very necessary because the cost of the fuel expresses itself in the air quality and War in the Gulf Etc. And again, the the cities of Europe have much more reasonably assess fees for this in the form of gasoline taxes on the order of one to two dollars per gallon. There are a number of researchers in this country looking into the issue of automobile subsidies and their estimates of the total subsidy range between 450 and 550 a gallon for what the price of gasoline should be. And of course this is this is politically infeasible in the Europe. I mean just to reassure us that it's politically infeasible here in Europe. It's not even that high it's usually on the order of one to two dollars per gallon, but there is a very very strong argument even in the light of the present presently high price of oil and higher gasoline taxes is a very Long-term argument for a very Hefty gasoline tax and to not only use that text to discourage discretionary driving but also to apply the revenues to really building up all viable Alternatives like expanding Transit service. Another way to do this is with a sizable tax on new cars, which could act as a disincentive to people's third and fourth and sometimes, you know, the second third fourth vehicles and household and in addition to that and expanded very convenient Transit service could also achieve the same goal of Of discouraging this discretionary automobile buying in fact in any could save households a lot of money who a lot of them need to buy a second or third car just for one person to commute in these taxes could be tied to the emissions that the car produces or its fuel economy. There are a number of ways to do it and there are also a number of ways to overcome the regressivity of it want once the regressivity of the Texas is determined which I wouldn't be surprised. If if it is if carefully looked at Gasoline taxes did turn out to be regressive there are ways of overcoming that for low income communities for low-income automobile users, like gasoline coupons at the pump low-income energy assistance in the household Etc. Well, I would like to wrap up with just sort of taking a stab at the giving an answer to the question. What would future cities what would the future look like is cities were a little bit less dependent on the automobile. And I encourage people to sort of try to Envision a new picture of how cities could be different if we really committed ourselves and it sort of runs like this that the very Heart of the City would be reserved for people on foot and public transport passengers arriving by Metro trolley and used as you proceeded out from the center. Then the space would be shared by people on foot people on bicycles people on the trolleys and and then with slow automobile traffic that's not allowed to dominate and especially around the city's densest core and then the convenient Bus and Rail services that would actually be a faster mode of travel than the slow automobiles. And express public transport routes with link outlying areas to each other into the downtown and car parking would be progressively less restricted as you as you moved away from the city center. And most people would make short trips or most short trips that they could either on foot or by bicycle and longer ones by combining a bicycling trip or walking to a transport station a Metro a trolley and many long drives and short airplane flights would be replaced would be replaced by train trips for Intercity travel and therefore automobiles main function would be to make only those trips for which these alternatives are not viable or not even convenient such as when you're carrying a car load of children or things you have a lot of stops to make you're making a recreational trip or whatever but the point would be that the automobiles are there for the trips that they're appropriate for but did you not dependent on them and that you have a useful alternative Marsh Aloha worldwatch Institute and the bottom line is is that that's really what an image of a more livable future for cities would look like in certainly a more sustainable one in the light of the current of current realities. And in effect what it means is that if cities really are to achieve the dream of clean efficient and reliable transportation that was once promised by the automobile. What we're going to have to do is steer instead toward more sustainable Alternatives. (00:30:53) Thank you Marsha first we got to give you a hand ready to move to the question and answer part of this program. And as I mentioned there are microphones out here before we do that. However, I'd like to recognize the three state legislators that are in the audience Senator Steve Novak is sent to Clarence / first and representative Phyllis Kahn. I should mention they all three are members of The Advisory board for the center itself and in one way or another through the oil overcharge money. You should really thank them for the luncheon, I guess because that's that's where the subsidy came from. Well, let's see. Use the two mics and we have quite a bit of time left at least 20 minutes. We got a nice early start and so let's have the first question. Go ahead Matt. My name is Matt. You were I'm a retired Professor from civil engineering at the University. First of all, I did commute by bicycle 13 miles round trip for many of the years. I taught here, but I'm an unabashed automobile lover also, so I'd like to talk about a few things that you mentioned. First of all you were mentioning that the gas tax provides only about two-thirds of the cost of our Highway operations and construction, but on the other side, no one ever mentions that we feel we have made the break-even point if the fare box collects enough to pay for the operation. Nothing is said about the capital cost of mass transit and those comparisons often get lost in public debate, but I agree wholeheartedly with you that we have to have more economic. Incentives to get out of the automobile. Thank you. Thank you Matt. There's another question or comment over there. Well, I have a question about for normal u.s. Metropolitan area as I think the Twin Cities maybe in terms of having a bus system No Light Rail and fairly spread out Suburban situation given that we aren't going to implement all the changes that you've suggested simultaneously. Could you suggest a not necessarily a timetable but in order of priority and kind of keeping in mind the the political feasibility perhaps of which of these are the ones that we should address first and in moving eventually towards full implementation of the things you're suggesting. (00:33:41) That's a little difficult for me to to address some here as a stranger in your city. But um, I think that we really can't overemphasize really the value of an integrated approach and as hard as that is to swallow and I know that people like to just go ahead and set one priority and go for it. But I really think that we Doom ourselves when we do that and and there's certainly plenty of examples all out enthusiasm for say a Transit line that had very very low ridership much lower than it was projected. And I think it's because with one hand you're saying take the metro and then with the others hand you're saying, oh just drive you can park for free it the gas will be cheap Etc. And so I really I really hesitate to sit to just sort of set out One path that we should start out with and then let the other things come in because I think that the success of each of them really kind of depends on our commitment to the others and I'm really sort of trying to lay out a very broad-based perspective for that reason, (00:34:53) you mentioned the phrase love affair with the automobile and I guess in some cases that may be well-founded your physical environment is probably better in your car than at home and the sound system. Maybe the TV reception may be better in your car than it homie. How do you propose to break the mindset that a lot of us have that? It's a god-given right for cheap gasoline and to spend time with the automobile or our economic sanctions. The only route to go. (00:35:18) Well, I think it's really interesting when you when you start talking about the love affair with the automobile and I've certainly certainly not one to deny the affection people after their cars. In fact, I think my husband it was really really sweet on his little Toyota truck. Sometimes it gets more attention than I do probably but I think that we go a little bit overboard when when we think that it is totally a psychological thing and that we need to somehow lure Americans out of out of a mindset which I mean, we're all human and know how difficult it is to change the mindset and I really believe that it's a matter of providing adequate Alternatives because it's not so much I think for the general public not so much the actual automobile itself, but what the automobile confer confers on us Speed flexibility the the freedom to go where we want when we want without making extra stops for other passengers Etc. It's those things that appeal and yes, of course people love cars to I'm really I really appreciate this fact very much how much people are attached to the vehicle. But I do think that people will base their decisions on making their travel choices on how much time it takes them how convenient it is and how much it's going to cost them and if we even out the system so that gasoline isn't unreasonably low price because it really is at this point where we're basically giving people a free ride because the cost of that use of gasoline is in no way reflected in even a dollar fifty gasoline. Once we even those things out then the automobile won't be the default mode of attractive Transportation because the the Alternatives will offer some of those benefits as well. You touched a bit on Intercity train travel. It supposed to short airplane trips, and I was wondering if how would you address that in addition to the increased use of trucks to do Intercity Transportation as opposed to trains. You mean an increase recently in the US or The last 40 50 years. I mean just basically addressing Freight transport by Highway vs. Rail again. I think this is a situation where we can learn from the experience of European countries, which have gone through a period of more truck-based more Highway transport and then gone back to to trying to get more Goods on the rails for a number of reasons for the damage to the highways for the pollution from diesel trucks, etc. Etc. I personally feel that it's a much better way to go to get as much Freight on rayless as is appropriate and that if we replaced passenger transport the short airplane flights with effective efficient rail transport, we'd be much better off. (00:38:21) I have a question on other Alternatives one of the Alternatives that seems to me that's current at this time that you didn't mention as a possibility of telecommuting. Would you give us some views on what you think about that as an alternative? (00:38:35) What's interesting? I'm actually maybe a little more qualified to answer that then you think I'm living in North Carolina now in my my Institute is in Washington DC and I've been doing this for about five months now. So I telecommute I communicate with my office via computer modem in the telephone. I think it does have potential for reducing the amount of commuting trips. I think overall it doesn't mean that I travel less throughout the day. In fact, I might travel a little bit more to get out of my office and and it is an increasing Trend. There's no doubt about it. There's there's more telecommuting and there are a number of people working on this topic to try to facilitate telecommuting on a wider basis. In fact, the White House itself is actually looking into this. But I think we have to remember that it's sort of a select group that has telecommuting at as an option and while it holds a lot of potential for that group there. There's a very very great share of the work force that doesn't work with computers and modems and really can't can't work at home. I think it should be actively encouraged for the people that it applies to certainly but I think in terms of the overall picture, it's not going to make a big dent in in traffic congestion or in the amount of driving. (00:39:54) Alex wagon are from University of Minnesota. I very much appreciated your insightful analysis. I think there's some other further issues and benefits in terms of the of the direction that you're suggesting that we move and that has to do with things that are a little bit more difficult even more difficult to quantify. There are a number of commentators and social scientists that have argued that a number of our social problems are tied to the fact that we as a society are moving more and more into a state in which we're disconnected from each other that various social networks with which we've traditionally participated in small communities in the past are not available to us anymore. Now in a major contributor to the breaking up of those social networks is our transportation system and our Reliance on the private automobile. There's some very interesting very fun articles and books to read on this one that I've Recently looked at us by Ray Oldenburg on the great good place and he argues very persuasively for the importance of local public places where people living in their communities have access to and where people run into each other in their community. So in a more traditional Society if you have to walk that four blocks to the grocery store and there's the coffee shop or a cafe there and so forth. You're much more likely to interact with people in your community and develop social networks. It's very difficult to quantify that and there's not really very much research that's been done on the effects of specific dimensions of our transportation system. But I think that that's also an important factor and you alluded to that in several different places and talking about not allowing the car to take over public space and that whole concept of public space and it's implication for our social. Action I think is a very significant (00:41:55) one. Thanks for the comment. (00:41:58) I'm John delery from the Metropolitan Transit Commission and like to touch a little bit again on your comment which fascinates me to about how he could look at ways to get more traffic out of relatively short airline travel and into trains again. I've been thinking the same way myself that instead of spending a lot of money in the Twin Cities on a major new airport. For instance. We should be looking at a pair another path where we take a similar investment and put it into improved rail transportation in some of the major markets. I read in the airport study that a lot of the big growth in airline travel in the next coming decades is projected to be relatively short distance airline travel. I think they call it commuter airline travel in the study. My question is this if you thought about say in markets like we have in the midwest Twin Cities to Chicago Twin Cities too far Go it's a hundred and sixty miles to Duluth (00:42:57) how fast by train how fast is fast enough (00:43:03) is (00:43:04) inner-city. The question simply put is (00:43:06) is Intercity rail that's going to attract significant travel from airline in the future. Is it need to compete with automobile travel time, or does it need to compete more closely with airline travel time or is there a middle ground? Thanks. (00:43:22) That's an interesting question. I haven't really addressed it from that angle in terms of how fast it needs to be. There's somebody else who would like to comment on that. I would welcome it (00:43:31) gets Buckeye with Minnesota Department of Transportation. Hmm. Excuse me. We are currently studying the potential for developing high speed rail between the Twin Cities and Chicago and we're looking at basically three Technologies one being an upgrade of Amtrak 225 miles an hour operation the other being tgv the French train, which operates around a hundred 85 miles an hour and the third being the maglev with speeds up to 250 to 300 miles an hour. And we hope that to try to answer that question how fast is fast enough and currently we're looking at the sense of the market sensitivity the market potential given those different speeds and basically the value of time that people passengers place on their travel will help us determine that kind of question (00:44:36) Linda Dolan from Minnesota Department of Transportation traffic engineering my question is unfortunately we've all aged in the last hour and a half. We've been here and by the year 2020, there's going to be a large majority of drivers who are 55 65 75 years old and older what other Alternatives do you propose for these people biking and walking is great, but I don't see very many people doing that at that age. What kind of Alternatives would you give them? I actually wouldn't assume that people people who are able to people elderly people who are able to operate an automobile. I wouldn't assume that they're not able to walk and ride bikes, but I think it's a very valid comment and and of course we do need public transport Transit that is that addresses the needs of the handicapped on the elderly. We fortunately do have some national legislation that has passed that that that is designed to achieve that it's it's I think I understand somewhat controversial because of the burden it places on local Transit Agency that the bill was passed and and the demand is made but of course no money accompanies it no allowance of companies that for helping Transit agencies to achieve that but I think that the the short trips that are appropriate for cycling and walking I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily assume that elderly people can't make them and And certainly not that public transit can't meet their needs as well even better than driving an automobile themselves. (00:46:12) I'm Bob Sykes. The department landscape architecture at the University here. I was struck by your example of what the cities would look like in the future and it I started thinking about alternative Technologies, which I know you were thinking that technological fixes may be inappropriate. But if you look at the way our cities operate today, they don't really operate with a lot of with most of the transportation connections being made downtown. There's a lot of slushing around particularly in Western cities Western US cities in the Suburban areas, and there's really no other transportation system as well suited to serving that kind of a physical construct as the automobile and I was wondering if you had looked into the pot or would even suggest that we do look into the possibility of alternatives are new Analogies and transportation such as the taxi mm personal Rapid Transit, which the University of Minnesota is a CO venturer in will be demonstrated here in Chicago in the near future. Thank you. (00:47:19) Well, I certainly don't want to be viewed as anti-technology and I was maybe I didn't come across clearly, but I'm trying to emphasize that that many of even the automotive improvements are especially the automobile improvements that are being made are very very worthwhile. And I'm just really trying to emphasize that they that these important crucial measures need to be accompanied by Alternatives as well. And I certainly wouldn't dismiss people mover Technologies or or other things that we haven't seen in place yet. But but are very very worthwhile pursuing. I'm I'm not familiar with the University of Minnesota's work on a people mover or a personal Rapid Transit thing, but I would certainly be interested in looking at it. I think that You make a good point that the that the u.s. Does have traffic patterns that aren't repeated in Europe or other good examples that we look for for the city center. And so in that case, I think that you're absolutely right. We need to look at at very u.s. Oriented Technologies for them as well (00:48:21) Marsha. Into martial law a senior researcher at The worldwatch Institute in Washington. She's author of several worldwatch reports including one called The Bicycle vehicle for a small planet. Another is alternative to the automobile transport for livable cities. She spoke in Minneapolis at a conference sponsored by the center for transportation studies at the University of Minnesota field recording by Marty busman at the University of Minnesota media resources, and the person moderating the question and answer session. There was former Minnesota Transportation commissioner dick Braun who now heads the center for transportation studies at the yield. Cynthia MacArthur was in the audience when that speech was given. Yep. Cynthia is director of the Minnesota Community bicycle safety project and is in the studio now interesting to hear that a second time. Was it for you Cynthia? (00:49:16) Yeah. It was good. I enjoyed enjoyed her speech. (00:49:19) Well, one of the things that's happening. I believe either today or tonight is the Minnesota bicycle Advisory Board is going to be deciding on a nine year plan to increase the amount of bicycle transportation in Minnesota. What what do you think are some things that need to be done? And what do you think are some things that are reasonably accomplished in (00:49:37) Minnesota? Well, I think that we have done quite a bit in the state in terms of supporting bicycling but we need to do some things at a state agency level and at a city level that encourages more of an integration of the bicycle into planning implementation and delivery of programs. And so What the what the recommendations are going to be from the bike Advisory Board are a culmination of many years of inquiry and discussion and writing to recommend to the state some of the things that we see that should be done to help improve biking. We many people might say we have a very good system good good environment. We have lots of trails and we've got a lot of support and a lot of programs but there are some real big problems in encouraging and making bicycling as a transportation mode more viable and easier and so we need to do some work in that in that area (00:50:49) bicycling. I would assume in Minnesota is more recreational activity than it is an actual functioning Transportation activities. And that (00:50:57) well, I think that generally when you when you first think of bicycling you think of it as a recreational or a fitness Peace and I would I would think that most people incorporate that that component of it. The interesting thing. Is that even though we end today is a good example of it being a winter day and cold you might think. Oh gosh biking isn't a very viable thing for Minnesota. We really do have quite a long season we have from oftentimes April March April to November this year for bicycling and so there are a lot of people that would like to commute or and we do have a small population that commutes but we need to do some things that increase the convenience in the he's 4 for (00:51:45) commuting. How do you integrate bicycles and Automobiles on the same roadway or is that not feasible? You have to have totally separate bicycle areas. (00:51:55) No II think that we can really draw from our European friends and their bicycling experiences. And share the roads. I think that we have a mentality here amongst car drivers, especially that the automobile is the king or the queen of the road and we get irritated as as automobile drivers if anything is impeding even another automobile our ability to go from from one point to the other and a lot of times in the bicycle Community. People will say well let's get separate Lanes. Let's get separate routes, but in Europe, we you don't see that you can't expand in Europe. You've got so much space and they've got so many roads and and and so and they have been more supportive of a variety of Transportation modes. So people learn very early from the time they start out being pedestrians that they will be sharing the traffic environment with a number of people in a number of ways and they do that with a lot more cooperation than I see here and I see that both as a bike commuter and as a bike drive a car driver I see that we just we have a problem with the perspective. For instance. It's kind of a misconception that the bicyclist is the slowest moving thing on a road. If you're sharing it, you know with a car oftentimes an 18-wheeler is slow if it's especially if it's going down a street where there are stop lights that can be a real Bugaboo to be (00:53:23) behind, you know, you can be backed up in traffic. The cars will be backed up moving at about 2 miles an hour and a bicyclist slides down there and 22 very very quickly. So but the unpredictability as a motorist and is a bicyclist, I always worry about the unpredictable predictability of the other. (00:53:39) Well, that's where a lot of my work comes in in terms of being an educator and and working with with bike safety education. We do have we I always say we can have the best roads in the best facilities, but if people don't understand how to how to ride safely and be predictable both in cars and in on bicycles, we do have a problem and you will see people interpreting the laws people often don't realize that the bicycle is a vehicle it has the same rights and responsibilities as a as a car. So if there's a stoplight the bicycle should stop is along with the car on the other hand if the bicycle has the right away than the car needs to yield to it. (00:54:23) One of the Cynthia MacArthur is with us. She's a director of the Minnesota Community bicycle safety project one of the interesting comments. I thought from Marshall owes talk was that public policy is the single biggest determinant in bicycle as in The bicycle as a transportation mode. What do you think about (00:54:42) that? Well, I think that we can do a lot of things on on sort of individual levels to make our own situations easier, but we really do need some broad based policy recommendations and support to implement some of the things that really are quite easy and quite inexpensive to implement. She talked a lot about how much the automobile is subsidized and and and how integrated if you think about the automobile and all of the and all of its aspects in our economy. It's quite heavily subsidized and supported and promoted and if we did even maybe an eighth of that with other modes like bicycling we could really improve improve the environment for for bicycling and making it For and and easier for people to do when and and how they choose to do (00:55:44) it how practical is bicycling if you got to drop off the kids at daycare pick up groceries on the way home and Cetera. (00:55:52) Well, I think that is it's a good question and I think like Marcia was saying sometimes the automobile is just the the best vehicle to use. I had a woman call me the other day who wanted some information on bike safety because she she drove her car to the daycare center dropped her child off and took the bike with her and then and left the car at the daycare center and biked into her her work and I thought that was a very creative way of handling a situation where she can reduce the automobile use and and her in the parking situation was either downtown or at the University. So it was a real incentive not to use the car there. So I think individuals can can Their own situation and and find ways to reduce or incorporate more bicycle reduce their automobile use and increase their bicycle (00:56:48) riding. We have only about half a minute or so left Cynthia for those folks who have no plans to use their bicycle at all during the snowy months here any advice on what they should do to keep it in reasonably decent shape for next (00:57:01) spring. Well, I'd get it a good tune up and hang it by its Wheels and (00:57:08) hang it by its Wheels upside down upside down upside (00:57:11) down. Yes of the wheels aren't touching and keep fit. (00:57:15) What's the matter with hang with letting it sit on the ground the (00:57:17) floor? Well, the tire is on the ground can deflate and and ruin the tires make them uneven when you re re are them in the spring. (00:57:28) Okay. Well Cynthia, thanks so much for coming in on your lunch hour. And you thank you. We should have very much Cynthia MacArthur. He was director of the Minnesota Community bicycle safety project as we talked about Transitive modes to the automobile during this midday broadcast today.