https://cepr.net/press-release/cut-gas-price-inflation-six-c…
Make Public Transit Free:
Tell Drivers They’d Save Money by Driving the Speed Limit:
Encourage Remote Work:
Encourage Shorter Work Weeks:
Encourage Electric Vehicles and Charging:
Pay People Not to Drive:
Make Public Transit Free:
This gets talked about from time to time in a variety of policy contexts, but there are reasons to think that it won’t do much good.
The main reason is that there’s not a lot of evidence that cutting the fares of mass transit to zero will do much to get people out of their cars. There are two main reasons, which were nicely summarized here:
First, while ridership on the free lines usually goes up, generally the boost comes from those who might typically bike or walk, rather than pulling people out of their cars.
Second, riders — including those with low incomes — consistently say that what really matters to them is whether the bus comes frequently enough to be useful.
“Low-income riders are just as time sensitive, if not more time sensitive, than middle-income and upper-income riders,” said Zabe Bent, director of design at the National Association of City Transportation Officials. “And a lot of that is because they’re one missed bus away from losing their jobs or getting a reprimand on their job, or late fees or childcare penalties.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/15/inflation-free-publ…
The latter factor is relevant because making mass transit free means depriving mass transit of farebox revenue. And that makes it all the more difficult for mass transit to offer service that’s frequent and reliable enough to be an acceptable substitute for people who are currently driving.
Second, riders — including those with low incomes — consistently say that what really matters to them is whether the bus comes frequently enough to be useful.
If they even come at all.
At my former hospital, had an orderly that rode the bus which he got on about 2-3 blocks from home and stopped right out front of the hospital. Then they changed the routes and dropped his semi-rural neighborhood entirely. So he was walking about 2 hours to get to work. Many times someone would drive him home but not often enough. The nursing staff got together and bought him a scooter (and driving lessons).
JLC
The nursing staff got together and bought him a scooter (and driving lessons).
Idea #7: get a scooter or use the app-based public scooters like Lime and Bird
Of course this might reduce your gas expenses but add scooter fees. Lime is $1 + $0.30/min…$4 for a 10 min ride so it better save you a gallon or so of gas.
Mike
When I visited NYC we didn’t get a rental car. We simply walked and used the subway. It was great. But NYC is dense.
Austin has a light rail line that gets some use but its not entirely helpful to be honest. I remember an eon ago when I was living in Cedar Park and working for AMD (opposite end of town). They made an arrangement with Cap Metro for a special bus line from the downtown station to the campus twice a day to encourage us to use the rail. But here is the thing. I would have to drive slightly north to Leander, hop the rail, go through all the stops, get off at the very end of the line, walk a few blocks to the bus, hop the bus, then get to work. That total commute was about 30 minutes longer than me driving in a mess of traffic. So an extra hour per day total.
Funny how AMD talked up about the in-train WiFi and how you could work during your commute. But timed the busses to keep you at work a standard day. In effect trying to get an extra hour of work out of you.
Nobody took the train.
Now there are bus lines from park and ride centers to downtown and to the UT Campus. They get a lot of riders. They are quite useful for those people. But we still have a ton of cars on the road.
I think this is why work-from-home, for jobs that can do it, are going to be the normal for a long time now.
I think this is why work-from-home, for jobs that can do it, are going to be the normal for a long time now.
Absolutely!
I read an article about “return to the office” a few days ago where one employee pointed out that “the only thing he gained by being in the office was the time spent commuting”.
intercst
Idea #7: get a scooter or use the app-based public scooters like Lime and Bird
Whenever we go downtown, those things are a public nuisance. The people that ride them cause 2 major problems: 1 - they just drop them off anywhere so you wind up with piles blocking sidewalks and 2 - they seem to think traffic rules don’t apply to them. Last time I saw, the city was talking about banning them.
JLC
Whenever we go downtown, those things are a public nuisance. The people that ride them cause 2 major problems: 1 - they just drop them off anywhere so you wind up with piles blocking sidewalks
This one is easy enough to solve. Rent them by the hour, and the rent continues until they are returned and locked back in to a certified rack/location. Then they will be back where they belong.
and 2 - they seem to think traffic rules don’t apply to them.
This one is harder. I suggest more traffic control police and liberal use of the death penalty.
They missed a really big one-
Check you vehicle’s tire-pressure and make sure tires are at the recommended levels.
Most modern vehicles have a TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System), so there’s already a warning system if the levels are really out-of-whack. But, there is still a gap between that TPMS warning and properly inflated tires.
Check you vehicle’s tire-pressure and make sure tires are at the recommended levels.
I don’t have to check tire pressures anymore. I can see the pressures anytime on the car’s display.
PSU