Traditional neighborhoods and commuting in the San Francisco Bay area

Neo-traditional designs, proponents argue, reduce dependency on the automobile and provide attractive environments for walking, bicycling, and transit riding. This paper explores the extent to which this proposition holds for seven traditional neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area that evolved around early streetcar services. Matched-pair comparisons of modal shares and trip generation rates for work trips are made between these neighborhoods and newer auto-oriented suburbs, controlling for the effects of income and, to a lesser extent, existing bus service levels. Pedestrian/bicycle modal shares and trip rates tended to be considerably higher, in some cases five time as high, in transit-oriented than in the paired auto-oriented neighborhood. Transit neighborhoods also averaged around 70 more daily transit work trips per 1,000 households than auto-oriented neighborhoods, though trip rates varied considerably among neighborhood pairs. Higher residential densities were also found to have a proportionately greater impact on transit commuting in transit-oriented than in auto-oriented neighborhoods. The paper concludes that in order to yield significant transportation benefits, neo-traditional development must be coordinated with larger regional planning efforts and public policy initiatives to reduce automobile dependency.     

TOD与可持续发展

以世界几个城市的交通发展案例为基础,探讨TOD的实施及其发展趋势.首先以巴西库里蒂巴、圣保罗,瑞典斯德哥尔摩,美国旧金山湾区为例,探讨了TOD的3D原则:高密度开发、多元化土地利用和良好的设计.强调TOD不应局限于对公共交通车站和枢纽的开发,而是由一个点的开发到以公交为导向的走廊,进而发展至整个区域.以瑞典斯德哥尔摩、...     

Views on transit tax financing in the U.S.

Transportation - Although much has been written about the economics of transit tax financing, public views and opinions toward alternative tax sources have received comparatively short shrift. This...     

Transit pricing research

Several decades of research on transit pricing have provided clear insights into how riders respond to price changes in both the transit and automobile sectors. For the most part, riders are insensitive to changes in either fare levels, structures, or forms of payments, though this varies considerably among user groups and operating environments. Since riders are approximately twice as sensitive to changes in travel time as they are to changes in fares, a compelling argument can be made for operating more premium quality transit services at higher prices. Such programs could be supplemented by vouchers and concessionary programs to reduce the burden of higher fares on low-income users. Also, cross-elasticity research suggests that higher automobile prices would have a significantly greater affect on ridership than lower fares. Most research on transit fare structures shows that the common practice of flat fares is highly inequitable, penalizing short-distance and off-peak users. Free fare programs have proven quite costly for each new transit user attracted and have rarely lured motorists to transit. Free fares limited to downtowns have been more successful than systemwide free fare programs. While prepayment schemes have met with success in the U.S. and Europe, honor fares have suffered from excessive revenue losses in at least one case in the U.S. Some of the more noteworthy fare policy successes in North America have been Bridgeport's combined pass-fare program, Allentown's deep discounts, Ottawa's major fare reduction and differentiation, and Columbus's substantial midday discount. As paratransit and other new transit alternatives to conventional bus continue to emerge, new, more differentiated fare practices can be expected in the future.     

建成环境对步行和自行车出行的影响--以波哥大为例

哥伦比亚波哥大以可持续的城市交通系统闻名,包括其密集的自行车道网络以及Ciclovía系统——为骑车者和行人预留的道路空间,可在星期日和节假日休闲出行使用。探讨此类设施以及建成环境的其他属性——城市密度、混合用地、可达性以及与公共交通车站的距离——如何影响步行和自行车出行行为以及Ciclovía的使用。结果表明,道路设施设计要素例如道路密度、连通性、与Ciclovía车道的距离,与体力活动相关;而建成环境的其他属性如密度和用地混合程度,对体力活动影响甚微。这可能是由于波哥大建成区的大部分街区均在非机动交通出行占绝对优势的时期演变发展——紧凑、用地混合、交通可达性水平相似。由此可见,影响非机动交通出行的因素是设施设计而非一般的街区用地属性。     

Time‐of‐day transit pricing: comparative US and international experiences

Experiences with time‐of‐day transit pricing in the U.S. are reviewed in this article and compared to those in other countries. Emphasis is placed on examining ridership, financial and efficiency impacts associated with time‐of‐day pricing, along with highlighting innovative approaches to implementing fare differentials. American time‐of‐day fare structures have been about evenly split between off‐peak discounts, peak‐period surcharges, and programmes involving differential rates of fare increases between peak and off‐peak hours. Although most American operators introduced time‐of‐day differentials to encourage ridership shifts to the off‐peak period, available evidence suggests that they have been only marginally successful in doing so. Off‐peak users were generally found to be far more fare‐sensitive to discounts than peak passengers were to surcharges. Only in a handful of American cities were significant efficiency and financial benefits from time‐of‐day pricing recorded, though in those few places, they tended to be substantial. The most successful American programmes have been those which collect fares on the basis of bus runs and direction of trips (rather than the exact time) and which aggressively market their programmes under the aegis of ‘bargain fares’. It is concluded that useful lessons can be gained by sharing policy insights from experiments with differential transit pricing in both the US and elsewhere.     

Flat versus differentiated transit pricing: What's a fair fare?

Virtually every U.S. bus system today charges its customers flat fares. Recent trends, however, suggest that passengers are traveling farther and proportionally more during peak hours, factors which have contributed toward transit's cost spiral. As deficits continue to soar and available funding tightens, current pricing rationales must be seriously questioned. This paper assesses the efficiency and equity impacts of three California transit agencies' fare structures. Short-distance, off-peak patrons are found to heavily cross-subsidize long-haul commuters. Fares differentiated by distance and time-of-day, in contrast, could improve the transit industry's fiscal posture while eliminating differences in payment rates. Barriers to their implementation remain formidable, however, both in terms of current fare collection capabilities and political acceptability.     

Normative framework for transit fare policy-making

This paper presents a normative model for transit fare policy-making. Key elements of the model are: establishing service policy and ridership objectives, developing an overall financial philosophy, making fare level decisions, making structural pricing decisions, and designing implementation strategies. In general, the overall objectives of a transit agency regarding service quality and ridership levels should be the main impetus behind any fare program. Identifying where transit lies on the continuum of being a public versus a private service should frame the overall financial philosophy of a transit agency. From this the specification of farebox recovery targets should follow. Deciding upon structural aspects of a fare program perhaps represents one of the most important and most frequently overlooked steps of the process. Specific cost-based and value-based fare strategies should be considered. Implementation involves making the adopted fare strategy work. Key implementation issues are: fare payment and collection techniques, necessary service changes, marketing and promotional programs, and consensus-building. The model presented calls for feedback among these steps to allow an iterative, yet comprehensive, approach to fare policy-setting.     

Suburbanization of jobs and the journey to work: A submarket analysis of commuting in the San Francisco bay area

Inrecent years, a debate has brewed over whether the decentralization of employment has been beneficial from a regional standpoint. In this article, we focus on one aspect of the debate: how the relocation of office workers from a downtown to a suburban location affects commuting patterns and mode choice. From a survey of 320 former downtown San Francisco workers who now work in the suburbs, we found that the average distance traveled remained essentially unchanged and that the average commuting speed increased. The most dramatic change, however, was the switch from public transit to drive-alone commuting. In the aggregate, we estimate that the change in job location was associated with nearly a threefold increase in vehicle miles traveled to work. While from a personal standpoint, employees seemed better off since they got to work faster and more comfortably, from a larger social and environmental perspective, the costs could be significant. More detailed analyses of commuter submarkets revealed that the transportation impacts vary considerably depending on whether the original residence was in the suburbs or central city and whether relocated workers had moved their residences in recent years. In general, those who remained in San Francisco and became reverse commuters were worst off whereas those who moved their residences out of the city were much better off in terms of job access. The article concludes that road pricing would be the best way to force motorists to internalize the external costs of increased drive-alone commuting. Second-best options would be to introduce development impact fees or employer-based trip reduction regulations.