Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Reduce commute times a top priority?
Smart Growth American claims that its survey shows that reducing commute times is the top priority of American urban residents. Yet there are several problems with this claim.
Commute times have not changed significantly since the Census Bureau first started measuring them in 1960. If they are too long, why haven't people moved closer to work in the last 40 years? The answer is that people make their home locations based on lots of criteria, and work location is only one of them.
Patricia Mohktarian of the University of California (Davis) has found that people prefer to be some distance from work -- an average of 18 minutes, she found. This is a little less from the actual average of about 24 or 25 minutes, but not significantly.
The reality seems to be that people have a weekly "travel budget" -- an amount of time they are willing to spend en route. Actions taken to reduce travel times will just lead to more travel. For example, relieving congestion may lead people to move a little further away since they can now travel further in the same amount of time. Somehow forcing people to live within, say, 12 minutes of work would simply lead them to drive six or more additional minutes somewhere else.
Ironically, of course, Smart Growth America says their poll shows we should make more investments in public transit even though there is no evidence that such investments have much of an effect on commute times at all.
Commute times have not changed significantly since the Census Bureau first started measuring them in 1960. If they are too long, why haven't people moved closer to work in the last 40 years? The answer is that people make their home locations based on lots of criteria, and work location is only one of them.
Patricia Mohktarian of the University of California (Davis) has found that people prefer to be some distance from work -- an average of 18 minutes, she found. This is a little less from the actual average of about 24 or 25 minutes, but not significantly.
The reality seems to be that people have a weekly "travel budget" -- an amount of time they are willing to spend en route. Actions taken to reduce travel times will just lead to more travel. For example, relieving congestion may lead people to move a little further away since they can now travel further in the same amount of time. Somehow forcing people to live within, say, 12 minutes of work would simply lead them to drive six or more additional minutes somewhere else.
Ironically, of course, Smart Growth America says their poll shows we should make more investments in public transit even though there is no evidence that such investments have much of an effect on commute times at all.
Steal this subway
Dave Barry says that the solution to traffic congestion is for all tourists to take a Philips screwdriver with them whenever they go to Washington, DC and steal parts off of the DC subway. They can then reassemble them at home and relieve traffic congestion. Or they can go to prison, which would also relieve traffic congestion. Either way, it is a very funny article.
