Automobile « The Transport Politic

A Tollway in Dallas and the Absurdity of Building Duplicative Infrastructure

May 16th, 2012 |

» Even as Dallas finishes work on a new light rail line, plans for a new highway along a parallel corridor advance.

This summer, Dallas’ Orange Line will be extended five stations northwest of downtown. The light rail service will expand what is already the United States’ longest such network and improve connections between central Dallas, the suburb of Irving, and — in 2014 — Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Yet billions of dollars in new construction have barely increased transit use; just 4.2% of the city’s commuters use public transportation to get to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Car Sharing 2.0 Leaps Forward in Paris

October 4th, 2011 |

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An Autolib' station under construction in Paris

» An all-electric, point-to-point system could revolutionize how we think about the automobile and significantly reduce the need for private cars in our cities.

American urbanites have already become quite familiar with the concept of car sharing through the rapid expansion of companies like ZipCar and I-Go; the ability to rent a car at a reasonable price at any time from a location within walking distance of home or work has dramatically reduced the need for at least some people to own private vehicles, since it covers the gap in service not provided by transit: Trips that are out-of-the-way, that

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Ridesharing as an Alternative to Transportation Capacity Increases

June 8th, 2011 |

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» To what degree can we rely on people getting into strangers’ cars to reduce the congestion on our highway networks?

Outside of the biggest, densest cities, transit generally underperforms; with smaller populations, less significant destinations, more diffuse congestion, and far more available parking, there is often little motivation for people to abandon their cars in favor of jumping on the bus or the train. As a result, the work commuting mode share for public transportation in most metropolitan areas in the U.S.is less than 5% (only five regions have shares above 10%).

Carpooling, on the other hand, attracts more than

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Transit Mode Share Trends Looking Steady; Rail Appears to Encourage Non-Automobile Commutes

October 13th, 2010 |

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» Results of the 2009 American Community Survey show major declines in carpooling, significant increases in biking.

Just how effective have new investments in transit been in promoting a shift of Americans towards public transportation? Has the recent livable communities movement resulted in increased commuting by bike or by foot?

The Census’ American Community Survey, released at the end of last month with the most recent 2009 data, provides a glimpse of what can change over nine years. These data are approximations in advance of the much bigger (and more accurate) sample set that is Census 2010, whose results will be

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