American Transportation

The 250th anniversary celebration of the US seems like as good a time as any to think about how the US stacks up globally in terms of this blog's focus of urbanism and transportation.

To be clear, by "globally" I mean here against other Westernized, industrialized countries. If we want to claim to be the wealthiest, best, most shining-city-on-a-hill country in the world, we should be comparing ourselves to people who are in similar circumstances and do urbanism in a model that's based on similar wealth and a similarish social organization. I am not here to debate the value of a traditional Micronesian village as an urbanist space or to try to distinguish between the various ways that societies have organized themselves and their spaces across time and space and declare one or the other superior. Rather, I'm suggesting that there are certain standards that we look for in Western societies, of which the US is one, in their social, geopolitical, and spatial organization, and then looking at how the US might compare to its apparent peers.

And since this is around July 4, I'm going to look at how the US is doing on urbanism along three Jeffersonian axes: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

1. Life 

Let's start with a big, long list: nations by traffic-related deaths. 

Obviously, there's per capita here, which the US looks middle of the world pack in, just under the global average. But look at the countries above us and below us, and think about their wealth. And then adjust the same list by per billion km of driving. Well, you lose a lot of countries for lack of data. But we look good compared to say a Belgium, a New Zealand, and a South Korea, each of which are higher--but then there's Canada and most of Europe well below. 

This is not intended to be conclusive data, but rather an indication: in terms of allowing, promoting, and sustaining the fundamental guarantee of "life," the US is not doing its best.

And that's just actual deaths. 

There's a good argument to be made that specific deaths from traffic (while obviously to be minimized) are neither the only nor even the most significant life impacts of transportation and urban design. 

There are significant health and environmental benefits from reducing car use. Conversely, cars produce massive negative externalities--that is, beyond the direct effect of a car going somewhere, other social and environmental effects happen to those who are not necessarily behind the wheel or in the vehicle, and these tend to be bad.

Now, how does the US stack up? Well, a lot of those negative externalities are global (i.e. climate change) but not all of them are. And the US has a lot of good programs that help with environmental problems caused by car-centric design, such that it actually comes out pretty well on things like global air quality rankings. 

So overall, this is a matter of something that the US could do better on rather than something that's absolutely tanking. The design isn't always great: this type of road is not designed well for life.

And neither is the highway right next to it.

And despite that I would say Milwaukee, where the pictures come from, is better set up for urban design for life than most of the US.

So a middling grade--but goodness could we do better than middling if we prioritized this.

2. Liberty

I've posted about freedom and liberty in urban design and transportation before, multiple times. So I don't want to belabor the point too much. 

But honestly, I feel freer in a city where I can go where I want without a car than in one where I can go where I can take my car anywhere.

And this car is limiting my freedom as a pedestrian, of course.

But let's be fair: there's lots of places in the US that do provide some of that freedom. I think of these 14th Street Station patrons as pretty darn free to wander NYC.

And while this meerkat is caged, the people who visit him in the DC Zoo have admirable mobility and freedom.

This dockless bikeshare in Seattle is a great example of urban freedom (even if, like the car on the sidewalk, a pedestrian might disagree).

And I think these Chicagoans are having a wonderful time walking in the street, which is more freedom than they always have but still.

Basically, we know how to build cities in the US that are free to roam and free to wander--but it's not our default urban design.

This is our default design (though this in particular is Louisville, KY).

And the thing is: that's not unheard of internationally either.

This Dutch street is just as parked up.

And presence of a bus aside, this Toronto street ain't so great a design either.

So it's not like we're uniquely doing this poorly--but the degree to which it's the default in our city design is a problem. And the most annoying thing is that it didn't have to be this way. We rebuilt our cities like this; we used to have different, less car-centric systems.

Perhaps we are all, truly, Waiting for the Interurban.

3. The Pursuit of Happiness

This is of course a difficult one to grapple with, because I cannot deny the number of people for whom the car itself is a symbol of both happiness and its pursuit.

And I also don't want to discount the people for whom other elements of our urban design that I don't tend to talk about as much are important as well: the big house with its fenced yard and space.

Say, the house I grew up in as a child.

But I do also want to emphasize that, as with the car-centric design and freedom, I think the pendulum has swung too far in how we build our cities. We tore out the interurbans in Seattle; likewise, we zoned out the possibility of building more of these little apartments (just down the street from the house above):

I grew up in a house with a yard--next door to a multifamily apartment building. I don't think the kids there had a worse childhood than I did. We could catch the same buses, go to the same schools, eat at the same restaurants, shop at the same stores.

But for a long time their building was only there because it was grandfathered in; any new construction in our part of town had to be like my house (Seattle is doing a bit better on that now, but still not enough in my opinion). And that's the flaw: there's nothing wrong with people wanting the house, as long as that isn't used as a reason to stop the existence of the apartment as well--especially as we experience a massive housing shortage across the country and indeed the world.

And it is a worldwide problem: the pursuit of happiness through homeownership (whether that's house ownership or not) and even just stable renting is a problem worldwide, and so I don't want to pretend that the US has failed here more than anyone else.

And while other countries have tried things like social housing, that hasn't always been a panacea, and even the places that have done so haven't stemmed the tide of rising prices and demand.

This quintessentially Dutch street isn't exactly filled with new buildings. We're not the only ones who need more.

Everyone needs to build more, and build better, in order to allow for that pursuit of happiness for our ever-growing population.

But we have to be smarter about how we build: and the US is one of the biggest offenders in terms of building out into the wilds instead of infilling or building up. Again, there are exceptions, but by and large we sprawl. And that makes for longer commutes (and longer potential commutes even if individuals find better jobs) which have their own impacts on happiness.

So overall, what do I think of how the US is performing on these three metrics?

We're clearly lagging on life--and it's reflected in the underlying life expectancy data. 

We're doing better on freedom and the pursuit of happiness--but partly because those are less objective measures. And also partly because everyone is doing less well on some of the elements of those two.

And after all, if this is supposed to be a time of American exceptionalism, of making America great again, of America First--should we really be happy with doing better relatively only because others are doing it badly too?

We can be better at how we build our cities--and we owe it to ourselves now and in the future to do so as soon as we can.

Get Your Kicks (Off Route 66)

 Since I do a fair amount of travel in the US, and as much as I can get away with outside of it, I wanted to talk today about the roadtrip, and how it compares to two other modes of long-distance travel: the plane and the train, probably unsurprisingly.

Specifically, I want to focus on the freedom and pleasure aspects that so frequently get attached to the idea of the roadtrip in American literature and culture. Which forms of transportation allow you the greatest freedom? Which provide the greatest chances for random discovery? And which will allow you relaxation and pleasure if this is your vacation (whether frequent as in Europe or rarely taken as in the USA)?

1. Freedom depends on flexibility

I would argue that the plane is the great loser in the question of which form of transit gives you the greatest freedom. You cannot easily change where you are going on a plane, and they are pretty much inherently point-to-point travel: you can't get off the plane early unless you're skiplagging, and even that is just skipping a connection, not getting off midflight (hi, DB Cooper, if you're still out there). 

Not an exit point.

It might seem like the car wins here, and it is true that if I'm driving I can take the car wherever the road will let me. 

Burnin' rubber in the Mustang can indeed be flexible.

But while this is true, I have a lot less flexibility in what I do while I'm driving the car. If I'm inattentive, let alone watching Harry Potter while driving, bad things are going to happen. "I am the captain of my soul," but also I am captaining a vehicle that will run into things if I don't stop it.

A train seems less free: it runs on literal rails. I have to go where it goes, just like a plane.

But that's a very US-Amtrak-small network approach. If the train network is like the Dutch NS (complaints from the Dutch aside) or the London Overground (same point about local objections), it works much more flexibly. 

I got off here randomly, just to take a picture of the sign for my London blogs about transit. I then walked across the neighborhood/town and got back on another train to go to another place.

So in a decent and well-designed (even if not perfect!) system, the train gives me a significant degree of flexibility and freedom as well.

And lest someone complain that the Overground is not intercity (it kinda is, depending on your definition of what a city is), I think the same applies to National Rail, for all its flaws.

And on the train, I can read, watch Harry Potter, or zone out to my heart's content. I am free to just be, not to direct the vehicle.

A view I would not be able to stare at if I drove from Paris to Amsterdam, but which I spent quite a bit of time watching while taking the train.

2. Random activities are also about flexibility

Surprise! The plane loses here too! While I love the little Blues Brother display in Midway Airport in Chicago, otherwise I'm not doing a lot of serendipitous discovery while flying from place to place.

This plane is going to Toronto Billy Bishop Airport, and good luck stopping.

There's a Bluey episode about a roadtrip, and they spend some time stuck behind the so-called Grey Nomads, RVing seniors, and then take a detour (along with said Nomads) to a roadside attraction. It's cute! It's true! You can detour off your route for random informational signs or to see what everyone else is visiting.

But beware! Sometimes those random places are actually pretty far from the interstate or equivalent. Sometimes the best thing you're seeing is the gas station you needed to stop at for fuel. And sometimes it's really cool. 

The same applies to a train, at least if the train schedule means you won't lose all your time if you get off at a stop. If you're on the once-daily California Zephyr, it's more like a plane. If you're on the 147 train-daily Amsterdam to Haarlem route you're pretty good to stop if you want. Or if that's too close (they are much closer than any 2 California Zephyr stations), consider the 10 daily high-speed Paris to Amsterdam trains. 

Random park? Cool. Got there on a train.

3. Relaxation can't require focus

Look, maybe you're someone who feels like they're most relaxed behind the wheel of a car. I'm just going to suggest that maybe you could let someone else do some of the work? 

Only 2 people on these trains need to be paying attention (give or take).

It's two per on these planes, too. Well, and the flight attendants.

I hope to God all these people are paying attention (sorry for the crowded street--for related reasons I don't have many photos of cars on the interstate).

Driving a car can be fun, and certainly people do do it for fun! But driving as transportation is not the same as driving for fun. It's a method of long-distance transport that requires your attention, your focus, and your dedication (or your life). And yes, you can play your own music in the car--but can I recommend a pair of headphones?

Driving also produces lock-in that actually can reduce your likelihood of stopping for all the random things that otherwise might be the advantage of a car: when I'm behind the wheel, I'm focused on driving safely and getting myself to my destination, so I don't really have time or focus to pay attention to what might come up. On a train I can flip through my phone to think of whether I want to get off at another station; unless I'm a passenger I better not be doing that in a car!

In summary: yes, cars can and do provide noticeable advantages over trains and planes in terms of your ability to simply pull over and do something. But they provide noticeable disadvantages in terms of attention and stress, and the need for focus detracts from some of the other feelings of freedom. There's nothing wrong with taking a long roadtrip, but it would be a real blessing if we in the US would provide some greater opportunities to take a traintrip--and of course, there's a reason really long trips are usually by plane.

Lagging Behind

This week, I have a more somber point of view to pass along. The US already lags behind the world both in construction of transit and in costs for transit construction (which are no doubt linked). The tariffs that have recently been yo-yoing about (but always to a higher rate than prior years) are not going to help. The cancellation and attempted recission of transit approvals will make things actively worse. So today I want to talk a bit about the ways we're already behind and why that matters.

I don't mean to be all doom and gloom, so I'm also going to point out how we could totally do this here--if we change course.

1. Don't Be Afraid of Overlaps

US transit agencies seem all too often to focus on the bare question of whether there is any arguable form of transit available in a given place or corridor, and not on quality of provision; indeed, coverage of a given area appears at times to preclude additional coverage or additional modes. Something like the density of transit in central Paris, London, or Amsterdam seems impossible; and lest we think this is purely a legacy in those cities (as it is in American cities like New York), all of these cities have built major improvements to their central city transit in relatively recent years, in each case substantially overlapping with prior transit but also unlocking major new advantages in connectivity and capacity.

Welcome, the line formerly known as Crossrail.

What could this look like here in America? Imagine an actual expansion to the Chicago L, or a "Grand New York Express" that truly interconnects the boroughs that currently have less robust connections. LA and Seattle are making some steps in this direction (albeit from much lower transit baselines), but imagine those coming faster, connecting already-served areas with faster transit, and using less light rail and more high capacity lines.

2. Rethink Where Transit Belongs

Worldwide, major transit projects happen in a lot more kinds of cities than they tend to in the US. Just look at France's trams (which have just kept growing since that link from 13 years ago). We tend to think that trams, trains, metros, etc. can only exist in very large cities but the international models show that we could do so much better. Imagine the Quad Cities with a tram; smaller cities have them. 

Well, we don't necessarily have to imagine; we can remember. Because this isn't so much ridiculous as historical. We know it's possible because it used to be true, and while we do have a more car-centric world now, so do those other cities. Their streets have cars too!

Quite a lot of them in fact.

3. Ask why things cost so much

There are some legitimate reasons for transit projects to be so expensive. There are some...less compelling ones. For this, I'm indebted to the work of the Transit Costs Project. We probably can't do much about labor costs sometimes being higher without exploiting workers. But we can certainly try more default designs and fewer bespoke ones so that design and build costs go down, from station layout to engine/car design. We could stop contracting out everything and develop in-house solutions that reduce overruns and build design expertise. And we could stop pretending it inherently costs more to tunnel here than in places with deep archaeological pasts and active vulcanism--or if it does, we could at least ask what is making that true.

Tariffs probably won't help with that, given the costs of things like steel and aluminum go up, but yah know...

If we can control costs a bit, it will help us build in more places and stop fearing overlapping modes. Those in turn can make transit something we have in more places and that is more convenient to use--and that can help us catch up.