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Category Transportation

Let’s Talk About Soundview

In New York City, one common argument against congestion pricing (or in fact, against any policy designed to further the interests of anyone outside an automobile) is that because outer borough residents are all car-dependent suburbanites, only Manhattanites would benefit. For example, film critic John Podhoretz tweeted: “Yeah, nothing easier that taking the subway from Soundview or Gravesend or Valley Stream.” Evidently, Podhoretz thinks these three areas are indistinguishable from the outer edges of suburbia: places where everyone drives everywhere. But let’s examine the facts. Soundview is a neighborhood in the Southeast Bronx, a little over 8 miles from my apartment in Midtown Manhattan near the northern edge of the congestion pricing zone. There are three 6 train subway stops in Soundview: Elder Avenue, Morrison Avenue, and St. Lawrence Avenue. Soundview zip codes include 10472 and 10473. In zip code 10472* only 25.7 percent of workers drove or carpooled to work according to 2023 census data; 59.6 percent use a bus or subway, and the rest use other modes (including walking, cycling, taxis and telecommuting). 10473, the southern half of Soundview, is a bit more car-oriented- but even there only 45 percent of workers drive alone or carpool. 41 percent of 10473 workers use public transit- still a pretty large minority by American standards, and more than any American city outside New York. In the two zip codes combined there are just 45,131 occupied housing units, and 24,094 (or 53 percent) don’t have a vehicle. In other words, not only do most Soundview residents not drive to work, most don’t even own a car. Gravesend, at the outer edge of Brooklyn over 12 miles from my apartment, is served by three subway stops on the F train alone: Avenue P, Avenue U and Avenue X. It is also served by […]

Decriminalizing Jaywalking: The Early Data

In recent years, three states have legalized or decriminalized jaywalking: Virginia and Nevada did so in early 2021, and California legalized jaywalking at the start of 2023.  The traditional argument for anti-jaywalking laws is that they protect pedestrians from themselves, by limiting their ability to walk in dangerous traffic conditions. If this argument made sense, we would have seen pedestrian traffic fatalities increase in less punitive states. For example, if jaywalking laws were effective, California’s pedestrian death rate would have increased in 2023 (when jaywalking was legalized). Instead, the number of deaths decreased from 1208 to 1057, a 12 percent drop. (Relevant data for all states is here). Although pedestrian deaths decreased nationally, the national decrease was only about 5 percent (from 7737 to 7318). On the other hand. the data from Nevada and Virginia is less encouraging. As noted above, jaywalking was decriminalized in those states in 2021, so the relevant time frame is 2021-23. During this period, pedestrian deaths increased quite modestly in Virginia (from 125 to 133) and more significantly in Nevada (from 84 to 109). On balance, it does not seem that there is a strong trend in either direction in these three states- which (to me) supports my previously expressed view that Americans should be trusted to walk where they like rather than being harassed by the Nanny State.

Congestion Pricing: Traffic Solver or Sin Tax?

The goal of congestion pricing is not to penalize car trips but to smooth demand over a more extended time to reduce congestion. Unfortunately, many new congestion pricing schemes seem designed to ban cars rather than manage demand for car trips. This article appeared originally in Caos Planejado and is reprinted here with the publisher’s permission. Congestion pricing aims to reduce demand for peak-hour car trips by charging vehicles entering the city center when roads are the most congested. Charging rent for the use of roads is consistent with a fundamental principle of economics: when the price of a good or service increases, demand for it decreases. Charging different rates depending on the congestion level spreads trip demand over a longer period than the traditional peak hour. The goal of congestion pricing is not to penalize car trips but to smooth demand over a more extended time to reduce congestion. Unfortunately, many new congestion pricing schemes seem designed to ban cars rather than manage demand for car trips. Congestion pricing then becomes more akin to the “sin taxes” imposed on the consumption of tobacco and alcohol than to traffic management. The traffic on urban roads in a downtown area is not uniform during the day but is subject to rush hour peaks, while late-night road networks are usually underused. The use of roads in the downtown area is similar to other places like hotels in resort towns. Hotels try to spread demand away from peak season by reducing prices when demand is low and increasing prices when demand is high. When resort hotels charge higher prices during weekends and vacations, it is not to discourage demand but to spread demand over a broader period. Well-conceived congestion pricing for urban roads works under the same principles as the pricing of hotels. […]

Do People Travel Less In Dense Places?

Every so often I read something like the following exchange: “City defender: if cities were more compact and walkable, people wouldn’t have to spend hours commuting in their cars and would have more free time. Suburb defender: but isn’t it true that in New York City, the city with the most public transit in the U.S., people have really long commute times because public transit takes longer?” But a recent report may support the “city defender” side of the argument. Replica HQ, a new company focused on data provision, calculated per capita travel time for residents of the fifty largest metropolitan areas. NYC came in with the lowest amount of travel time, at 88.3 minutes per day. The other metros with under 100 minutes of travel per day were car-dependent but relatively dense Western metros like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and San Jose (as well as Buffalo, New Orleans and Miami). By contrast, sprawling, car-dependent Nashville was No. 1 at 140 minutes per day, followed by Birmingham, Charlotte and Atlanta. * How does this square with Census data showing that the latter metros have shorter commute times than New York? First, the Replica data focuses on overall travel time- so if you have a long commute but are able to shop close to home, you might spend less overall time traveling than a Nashville commuter who drives all over the region to shop. Second, the Replica data is per resident rather than per commuter- so if retirees and students travel less in the denser metros, this fact would be reflected in the Replica data but not Census data. *The methodology behind Replica’s estimates can be found here.

traffic and development

One common NIMBY argument is that new development is bad because it brings traffic. As I have pointed out elsewhere, this is silly because it is a “beggar thy neighbor” argument: the traffic doesn’t go away if you block the development, it just goes somewhere else. But my argument assumed that new development would in fact bring traffic wherever it occurred. A new study by three North Carolina State University scholars suggests otherwise. The study concludes that “rural locations are more likely to experience an increase in traffic due to increased development as compared to urban land uses.” (p. 19). This is because “locations that did not experience a significant traffic increase… had a higher traffic volume before development”. (p. 20). This might be because those areas were “already highly saturated, which served as a major disincentive for the migration of traffic” (id.) So in other words, if I am understanding this paper correctly, an already-congested area will not get much more congested with new development, because people react to congestion by going elsewhere or using slightly different routes. By contrast, when a basically uncongested area gets new development, the new development does not create enough traffic to scare off drivers.

Will congestion pricing hurt cities?

In a series of recent posts, Tyler Cowen has taken the view that congestion prices in major downtowns are a bad idea. This is what one might expect of a typical New Jerseyan, but not a typical economist. The writing in these posts is a bit squirrelly (or is it Straussian?), but as best I can make out, Tyler is deviating from the mainline economic views of externalities and prices by arguing a few points: Urban serendipity and growth are high-value externalities quite distinct from the usual efficiencies of combining large amounts of capital and labor in downtown office towers. Occasional visitors to the city find very high value there (presumably via a long-right-tail distribution) including by creating demand for new goods Congestion pricing will (a) decrease the number of people in the city, (b) particularly high-value visitors. He also makes some specific critiques of the mechanism design of the proposed NYC congestion charge. It’s worth getting that right, but let’s leave the technicalities aside here. Tyler’s points – as I’ve summarized (or mangled) them – seem like a mix of reasonable and wrong, although in several cases difficult if not impossible falsify. I’ll tackle these points in a completely irresponsible order. 2. Distinguished visitors On the second point: Diminishing marginal returns is enough to give Tyler’s argument the benefit of the doubt. The first visit to a symphony or subway likely has a bigger inspirational impact than the seventh or seven-hundredth. And outsiders may bring insights to the city in an Eli-Whitney-and-the-cotton-gin way. But for consuming new goods? Perhaps visitors’ demand is enough to sustain new imitations of low-end consumer goods (like a McDonalds in Chennai, if there is one). But for narratives of urban creativity, I prefer Malcolm Gladwell’s account of Airwalk shoes or Peter Thiel’s identification of […]

Louisville and density regulation

Lydia Lo and Yonah Freemark have an interesting new paper ? EditSign on zoning in Louisville on the Urban Institute website. They point out that of the land zoned for single-family housing, 59 percent is zoned R4, requiring 9000-square-foot lots, which means no more than five houses per acre. From a transportation standpoint, this is not ideal. Even the most cursory Google search reveals that a neighborhood should have at least eight or ten units per acre to support minimal bus service. This is because if only a few people live near a bus stop, only a few people will ride the bus. So Louisville’s zoning generally prohibits density high enough for decent bus service. Similarly, from a housing supply standpoint, such zoning is not ideal either. Obviously, a development with 5 houses per acre contributes less to regional housing supply than one with 10 houses per acre. Much ink has been spilled over the evils of zoning places for nothing but single-family housing. But perhaps the density of housing is just as important as its form.

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