14
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Meta-analysis: Effective strategies in reducing car dependency
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- Title
- Which Car-Cutting Strategies Really Work - And Which Ones Will We Accept? - Streetsblog USA
- Published
- Sep 5 2023
- Word count
- 797 words
Streetsblog recently published an interview with transportation researcher Dr. Kimberly Nicholas about a recent academic paper she co-authored with Dr. Paula Kuss, "A dozen effective interventions to reduce car use in European cities: Lessons learned from a meta-analysis and transition management" (2022). Based on over 800 studies and case studies, the researchers identify "12 effective interventions to reduce urban car use and support climate goals." Critically, these interventions both "restricted car use (push) and encouraged alternatives (pull)." In other words, cities need to highlight a mix of attractive benefits of reducing car dependence as well as force some of these necessary changes. To be effective, interventions must address both physical infrastructure and policy. These findings are applicable to North American cities as well.
From the interview:
While I don’t like using the car that much, it’s near to impossible to use public transportation only when commuting between urban and rural areas. Especially if you have different work locations on the same day. With the flexibility that is asked of modern workers, as well as the focus on efficiency, I don’t see change happening soon. The car dependency that is mentioned seems to me a symptom of our current way of living; striving for continued economic growth and efficiency.
I experience anti-car measures in my city, but it doesn’t keep me from needing a car to be able to get to work in time. It’s sometimes more inconvenient though.
Freeing ourselves from car dependency does not mean literally no one drives. It means that we are not dependent on automobiles as a mode of transport, which currently, we are.
There are always going to be edge cases of workers who decide that driving is more convenient for them. The point of reducing car dependency is to lower that quantity from 90% (pretty much where we're at right now) to something much more balanced. With fewer cars on the road, traffic improves even if you're still driving. (This is both because of raw quantity and because it allows bad drivers—who often don't want to drive—to choose a different mode.) Automobiles are our single most inefficient way of transporting people: per vehicle-mile traveled (VMT), they are horrible at moving us around compared to conventional rail, light rail/trams, subways/metros, and buses. This is because they have extremely low capacity relative to their size. For shorter trips, they are blown out of the water by cycling and walking. The reason we consider cars the most "effective" form of transport is because we have systematically designed our transportation networks exclusively around a car-dependent lifestyle. However, this is not a universal constant. Within and around cities, there is no reason that we cannot improve public transportation networks to cover everywhere people would reasonably want to go within walking and/or cycling distance of their final destinations.
If your city has truly bad public transportation, that's because they've intentionally divested from it. In addition to funding, there are a number of technical and policy approaches that cities must take to improve the effectiveness of transit. Most likely, your city hasn't made sufficient effort to align transportation with land uses; that is, take people where they actually want to go. They may still have archaic, unscientific parking minimums for developments; they may not have bothered to create any rapid transit corridors; they may simply be prioritizing the wrong modes for certain corridors; their stations may not be accessible, significantly reducing boarding efficiency; they may not have consolidated timetables to make transfers efficient; and so on. It's completely possible to change all of this. Strong Towns has many useful resources to help municipalities escape car dependency.
Rural transportation is a different subject. This article is specifically about cities and to some extent about suburbs surrounding cities. Rural farm communities also don't have to be "car-dependent" (and they shouldn't: not everyone can safely drive), even if rural residents will still drive more per capita than urban residents. However, that conversation requires a specialized approach. Strong Towns also has some number of resources on this subject. See the Small Towns and Rural Design Guide.
Thanks for the thorough reply. You write very activating and while you don’t need to convince me, I do have to say you make good points.
I do agree that the way transportation is organized on a macro level heavily stimulates car use. It will take a lot of political will to change this I would guess.
For some context, while I didn’t actively wanted to sound cynical, I imagine it might’ve come across like that. Without doxxing myself too much I actually live in a region with very good public transport, however even then my commute will go from 20-30 mins to 60-90 mins one-way. Another example is that a trip by train will take 3 hours and by car 2,5-3 hours depending on traffic. However, if a train is late, if a connection is missed, you can easily add 30-60 mins to your itinerary. These inconveniences make me decide on using the car sometimes, especially after such an experience with public transport, or if I absolutely can’t be late. Whenever I can I do gamble on public transport though, as it’s better for the climate.
I’d call this the luxury or comfort factor in the equation. You’d want the precision and comfort of the Tokyo subway to make this factor play less of a role.
Yeah, you have to get to work on time, and you're going to take whatever mode lets you do that most effectively. Can't blame anyone for taking the car if it's literally 3x faster than the environmentally friendly alternative. That's why it's important for us to invest heavily in public transit infrastructure, as it can be made more efficient than automobile traffic in many situations and ultimately has better societal and economic returns than personal car use. But this is a matter of public awareness and policy; as a rule of thumb, people just do what's most convenient. That's why incentives like frequent transit scheduling increase ridership, and why de-incentives like congestion pricing fees decrease automobile use.
Switzerland has a famously reliable train network which operates on a "pulse" (timed-transfer) system, or the Taktfahrplan (clock-facing schedule): trains always arrive at stations precisely every 15 or 30 minutes. Schedules for pretty much all transit modes (train, tram, bus) are coordinated so that transfers can happen efficiently. This makes it easier to understand the system and plan multi-leg journeys. I'll have the chance to visit the country later this year and am interested to see how it works for my routes.
There are some problems with this system, and it isn't suitable for every mode. For example, a subway is better off coming as frequently as possible (every 5 minutes or less). A clock-facing schedule actually slightly sacrifices max speed in order to improve consistency and reliability, which is an interesting tradeoff. But it's a great system for regional rail. If you show up at a train station knowing that it'll arrive when it claims, and that your connection will be trivial and won't be missed, you're more likely to take transit! And while inter-city rail might not offer this frequency, you can coordinate inter-city schedules so they line up too (just every hour, or two hours, or however long).
In addition, one of the simpler and cheaper ways to massively improve transit is just to give buses their own dedicated lanes that cars and trucks aren't allowed to drive in. This can reduce travel times by 30% and improve bus capacity by 5x or more. (Implementation of dedicated bus lanes may see transit use increase by up to 50%.) Neither better scheduling nor dedicated lanes requires much or any concrete to be poured; just with a bit of clever thinking (and some paint), the system can be that much better! Of course, additional improvements like level (accessible) boarding for trains and buses, lightweight rolling stock, grade separation for rail, electrification (of rail in particular), and much more are the next steps in making the system greater. As it stands, even a lot of "excellent" transit systems (for the US) are lacking in many of these things. There's work to be done!
Improving systems in this way is ultimately a job for transportation agencies, but as constituents it's important for us to be vocal about our support for these systems and to elect public officials who want to improve things, not just embrace the status quo. That's why I like chatting about transit on forums like Tildes!