CommuterPageBlog

Baby Steps towards a Carpool Commuter Benefit?

I rather enjoy riding Metro to work. In fact, I have centered my search for housing based upon the proximity to the train. However, there was a time in my life that I was known to carpool a few days a week. If you aren't the driver, carpooling gives you the same benefits that transit does. Hopefully, if you are the driver, you are able to cut your costs of the commute by splitting it amongst those you drive safely and efficiently to end destinations. Your employer may even provide a preferred parking space for you.

Commuter Connections is thinking about taking carpool benefits one step further by PAYING YOU to carpool - that's right - $2/day. The pilot program will last 3 months. After all, if a program like this can be successful in cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles, surely it can succeed in the DC region as well. Stay Tuned!

Wendy Duren is a Business Development Manager at Arlington Transportation Partners, and commutes with Metrorail daily.

Pedestrians and Cyclists Count

Arlington County transportation programs BikeArlington and WALKArlington are looking for volunteers to help count bicyclists and pedestrians in Arlington County on May 7th and 9th.  This regular data collection is fundamental research, part of a national project to document walking and cycling as modes of transportation.  Building long-term support for walking and cycling requires collecting regular, high-quality data on usage and demand.  More information about the national project can be found at http://bikepeddocumentation.org.  Think of them as traffic counts - without the traffic.

Observations are made at shared-use paths, along sidewalks, and at on-road bike lanes.  Many of the sites are easily accessible by Metro, and Arlington will provide materials and easy-to-follow training.  Shifts are two hours long, morning (7-9 AM) and evening (4-6 PM) on Thursday, May 7th, and noon to 2:00 PM on Saturday, May 9th. In addition to tracking cyclists and pedestrians, volunteers may choose to record additional observations, such as the percentage of cyclists wearing helmets, or those wearing "normal" clothes.

To express interest in helping with this study, email David Patton at bikearlington@arlingtonva.us.

David Patton is a Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner for Arlington County.

Street Widening Ad Infinitum

Put your thinking caps on kids, because today's lesson in transportation planning is brought to you by the letter I and number 6.

A new report by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute titled Generated Traffic and Induced Travel - Implications for Transport Planning is about something called "generated traffic". Forgive the geeky transport talk, but according to the paper:

"Traffic congestion tends to maintain equilibrium. Congestion reaches a point at which it constrains further growth in peak-period [i.e., rush hour] trips. If road capacity increases, the number of peak-period trips also increases until congestion again limits further traffic growth. The additional travel is called “generated traffic.” Generated traffic consists of diverted traffic (trips shifted in time, route and destination), and induced vehicle travel (shifts from other modes, longer trips and new vehicle trips). Research indicates that generated traffic often fills a significant portion of capacity added to congested urban road."

After years of street widening construction, the street is much better to drive on because it's wider and traffic moves. But then have you ever noticed that a short time later, maybe just a couple of years, the street gets so congested again and traffic is nearly as bad as it was before the widening. What gives?! This is because others figured out the street was less congested and started driving on it too. But there were too many of them who did this. What to do? Expand it again! Then again! And again (ad infinitum)! It's only money and more congestion we're talking about. The benefits of widening I-66, or the "spot improvements" misnomer the project has been given, would only last a short time.

There's a choice and it's making itself clearer than ever before. Transportation demand management looks at lowering the demand for a street, not increasing its supply by widening it. Lowering the demand of a street includes providing increased transit service, creating bike and walk infrastructure so people have safe places to ride and walk, telework, and downtown congestion charging. These could be less expensive to do than street widening with the results lasting much longer.

Paul DeMaio, BikeArlington

Equality At Last

As we all wait anxiously at our mailboxes for our next round of stimulus checks to come to the rescue (don't forget to SPEND it this time) I have been informed of another reason why I should like this bill. For the first time pre-tax transportation benefits, transit and vanpool are on equal playing fields with those who drive to work and park.

Being new to the region, one of the things I was looking forward to was living in a city that had decent transit and trains. Soon I realized that due to my attraction to transit I also needed to add value to my Smarttrip card constantly and when does someone really have time for those lines? I'm still trying to figure out if I can purchase fares online without purchasing a fare card and have it load the next time I approach a vending machine - but I digress. Back to the new bill.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment ACT of 2009 will provide a bundle of savings and unprecedented tax savings for transit and vanpool riders. The new stimulus bill, signed into law on February 17 by President Obama, included a provision that will increase the monthly pre-tax transit and vanpool benefit amount allowable to employees by their employers. As of February 17, 2009, employers can provide employees with up to $230 in pre-tax dollars for transit and vanpool use to and from the work site. For those of you who don't know, the new act nearly doubles the tax-free transit and vanpool benefit amount from January 1, 2009 which set the limit at $120. This is good for me since my current commute is over the $120 monthly limit.

Of course, the new bill is not going to entice everyone to leave their cars at home and start using transit or vanpooling, nor would I want to share MY train with all of those new riders, but it's more about making it a comparable alternative. The new provision is set to expire on January 1, 2011, but like most things approved by Congress, once the people get it, it's hard to take away. It is expected that Congress will make the increase permanent. If your companies offer pre-tax benefits, make sure they are taking full advantage - if not, what better time to start than now!

Wendy Duren is a Manager of Business Development at Arlington Transportation Partners, and commutes with Metrorail daily.

Be Counted

In Arlington this week you may have noticed people with clipboards standing around watching your every move.  Yes, conspiracy theorists, Big Brother is watching you!  But don't fear.  Like they say: We're from the government and we're here to help.  

This is just the latest chapter of what the masterminds at WALKArlington and BIKEArlington hope will become a regular event, the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project.  No, we don't want to see some ID.  All we want to know is how many bikers and walkers are out there.  Think of it as an urban "Christmas Bird Count".  Arlington's first foray into the serious world of the NBPD was in September of 2008.  For that effort, a small army of volunteers from the Bicycle Advisory and Pedestrian Advisory Committees, Arlington Transportation Planning staff and George Mason University graduate engineering students fanned out to cover 19 critical sidewalk and trail nodes throughout the county.  The count follows a standard protocol of "cordon" counts (how many people ride or step over an imaginary line) taken during the same two hour windows on a Tuesday morning, Thursday afternoon and a Saturday mid-day.  In addition to our February count, we plan on repeating this again in May and July, giving us seasonal trends that we can track year to year.

The NBPD was created by Alta Planning & Design.  Their goal was to create a huge nationwide database of walking and biking numbers that can be statistically analyzed to glean important information that even today, believe it or not, exists as mostly speculation and conjecture:  To what degree do weather and day of the week affect people's walking or biking choices?  When are our local walking and biking "peak" hours?  Do they coincide with driving peaks or are they offset?  Do they even coincide with each other?  Do these change throughout the year or stay constant?  How are biking and walking numbers changing over time?  All these questions are important to local planners as well.  Knowing more about where Arlington's public is - and is not - biking or walking will give us a better grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of different parts of our non-motorized transportation network.  Knowing where the different modes are in demand and how they are changing will help us prioritize our (ever shrinking) resources and better target improvements to where they're most needed. 

This also gets to another important factor of bicycle and pedestrian planning.  Equity.  One step in creating a more level playing field for bikes and pedestrians is (figuratively) being able to speak the same lingo as the big boys with all the toys.  (That would be the Traffic Engineers, for those of you not following my weak analogy.)  Traffic engineering is (at its core) a numbers game:  Maximizing the trade-offs between these numbers and those numbers to come to some optimum outcome.  Without meaningful numbers there's no convenient way to factor in the needs of bikes and pedestrians against the needs of cars and asphalt.  Until now, most efforts at collecting bike and pedestrian data - both locally and nationally - have been ad-hoc and inconsistent in their methodology.  Collecting this kind of data in a rigorous way builds a foundation for future research efforts that will ultimately create the kind of powerful modeling tools that traffic engineers use to predict where new roads should be, how big they should be and what intensity of use to expect and when.

Some of our volunteers have started collecting additional details on their own about the people they're counting, such as bike helmet usage and gender or about their direction of travel.  Future data collection efforts will also include a random survey of sidewalk and trail users which will help gain additional insights into the decisions people make about how they go about their business.

PS: Arlington's ongoing NBPD project always welcomes volunteers. Let us know if you'd like to be a part of this important mission.

David Goodman manages WALKArlington and BIKEArlington.

What Others Do For Bike-Sharing

I was recently alerted to this presentation of the most popular types of bike-sharing programs that Alta Planning has put together.  It's a pretty good primer for those who are only just starting to hear about "this bike-sharing thing," but want to know more about what others are doing.  Check it out; it's only five pages (in .pdf format), but still gives you all the basics.  Plus, it has pretty pictures, including DC's own SmartBike program. 

Melissa Esposito is the Car-Sharing and Bike-Sharing Program Coordinator for Arlington County.

Happy holidays from the United Parcel Service

Amsterdam and Copenhagen, among others, have been delivering mail by bike for some time.  However, the US Postal Service has not quite embraced the idea (wait until gas goes back up to $4 a gallon again).  UPS, however, is starting to get the message.  This holiday season, they deployed bikes for their residential deliveries, reports the New York Times. 

The article explains that since most of UPS' deliveries are business to business, they have more of a challenge handling the influx of packages going to homes during the holiday season in a cost-efficient manner.  The bicycle trailer they use can only hold 15-20 packages -- but I imagine if they are entering a neighborhood where those deliveries are all spread out (versus a downtown area where they may be delivering that many packages to one building), it makes much more sense to go by bike.  It won't take much more time than driving and parking a truck every half mile or so would, and doesn't use gas or eat into vehicle maintenance costs, which are the things their accounting department cares about.  Things I care about include a less carbon being spewed into the atmosphere and a healthier work environment for the UPS drivers who are riding every day.  (Plus, look at those awesome built-in mittens to keep the driver's hands warm while riding and braking!) 

Way to go UPS!  Now, can you guys have a game of golf with USPS and get them to drink the Kool-Aid, too?  Thanks.

Melissa Esposito is the Car-Sharing and Bike-Sharing Program Coordinator for Arlington County and likes the low-tech solutions best.

Business Benefits of Transportation Services

In a recent blog I wrote about research findings indicating that Arlington’s business leaders consider Arlington’s transportation system and services to be the number one reason to locate a business in Arlington.  Today, I would like to go into some of the specific ways these business leaders say Arlington’s transportation services benefit their companies.

Having many transportation options plus transportation assistance services to help people understand and use these options has a positive impact on people’s ability to get to work and also affects the ability of companies to access customers, to get goods and so forth.  Arlington’s many transportation options and services make the commute less stressful on people and also reduce congestion on Arlington’s streets, thus aiding the flow of street traffic for customers and service vehicles as well. 

As the chart below clearly shows, this translates into many advantages for companies; and business leaders know that!  This results not only from a good location in Arlington, but also from the County’s commuting services that help companies and their employees find easier, cheaper ways to get to work.  This free assistance is provided to employers by Arlington Transportation Partners.

As we look at the list of business benefits enumerated in the chart:  employee recruitment and retention, customer access, employee morale and productivity, and so on, it is clear these are all things that are central to business viability and profitability.  It is no wonder that business leaders consider Arlington’s transportation system and services the number one reason to locate in Arlington.  Not to be cliché, but this is obviously a win-win for employees, employers, and the community as a whole.  The folks at Arlington County Commuter Services who provide these assistance services make a strategic difference in the life of our community, so check them out and take advantage of what they offer, compliments of Arlington County.

Howard Jennings is Manager of Research and Development for Arlington Transportation Partners.  Depending on the day, he teleworks, or walks or rides the bus to Metrorail to get to work.

Arlington’s Transportation Boosts Business Location Value

Arlington’s transportation system, with its broad array of options, is assuring that the County is a highly desirable business location and will remain so.  At a time when high gas prices are dampening the real estate market in the auto-dependent outer suburbs, Arlington’s advantage is only improving. 

In a mid 2007 survey, Arlington business leaders attested to the value of our highly diverse transportation system and services, even before gas prices topped the $4 mark. At that time, when gas was just over $3 per gallon, 88% of top business leaders who responded to the survey ranked Arlington County as a good place to locate a business.  No doubt today the rating would be even higher. 

Many factors figure into their ranking of a business location in a generic sense, and transportation tops the list.  When looking specifically at Arlington, our transportation system topped the list of Arlington-specific reasons the County is a good business location (40% of respondents).  Other factors, including location (31%), proximity to DC (20%), and amenities 17%) were also important; but our business leaders clearly discern that our diverse, sustainable transportation options are essential to providing good access to all of these by their employees, tenants, and customers.

 

The survey also makes it clear that business leaders value the comprehensive choices provided by our system:  rail and bus transit, roads, HOV lanes, bike facilities, and walkways.  What is especially gratifying is that they also recognize the value of SERVICES that help people know about these options, how to use them, and incentives available to do so.  And, they recommend putting hard dollars into these non-road facilities and services.  When asked how they would allocate Arlington County’s transportation dollars, they recommended a surprising 46% in non-road facilities and services:

53%:  Infrastructure - Roads

27%:  Infrastructure – bus, bike paths, walkways, etc.

19%:  Transportation services – Information-based support services that help you maximize transit use, bicycling, walking, carpooling, and so forth.

  Arlington has long charted a course that is different from the typical pattern of community development in America.  All three legs of the stool are needed to make this work:1) roads, 2) infrastructure for other modes, and 3) support services such as provided by Arlington County Commuter Services.  It is nice to see data showing that our business leadership is in concert with the public transportation policy needed to keep us competitive for the future.  No doubt challenging times are ahead, but Arlington is well-positioned to deal with them.  There is also good news right now for the thousands who commute into Arlington:  our money-saving services can help them ease the pain of long and expensive commutes.

Howard Jennings is Manager of Research and Development for Arlington Transportation Partners of ACCS. Depending on the day, he teleworks, or walks or rides the bus to Metrorail to get to work.

Another Traffic Study. Another Top Ten Congestion Ranking for the D.C. Area

From a story in this week's Washington Business Journal we learn of yet another study that ranks our region as one of the worst for traffic (D.C. One of Top Congested Areas in U.S. - Again, by Tierney Plumb, August 8, 2008). What we needed yet another study to tell us this?

This particular study was released earlier in the summer by Inrix out of Kirkland, Washington. They provide traffic information for your TomTom or Garmon and through MapQuest and other sources like Clear Channel's Total Traffic Network. So they sound like they know something about traffic. Based upon this experience, Inrix developed a 123-page study entitled the National Traffic Scorecard. Its jam-packed with information about the commuting experience of the 100 largest U.S. markets. And is it any surprise how high Washington ranks among the most congested regions?

Drive Time Congestion

1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana CA
2. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island NY-NJ-PA
3. Chicago-Naperville-Joliet IL-IN
4. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria DC-VA-MD-WV
5. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington TX
6. San Francisco-Oakland-Freemont CA
7. Houston-Sugar land-Baytown TX
8. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy MA-NH
9. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellievue WA
10. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta GA

And it's not just at drive time as we're #4 in "Overall Congestion (all hours, all days)" too. Inrix says that:

"Traffic congestion across the U.S. increased nearly 2% in 2007 over 2006 and there appears to be no relief in sight in 2008. With many drivers paying over $4 a gallon at the pump and roads clogged with traffic congestion averaging 60 hours a week across the nation’s 100 worst bottlenecks, traffic continues to have a major impact on consumers, businesses and the American economy."

Take a look at the study. There's a lot here. Inrix provides facts about the best and worst commuting and drive times by day and hour and tells us where the worst bottlenecks are. The data paints a dismal picture and makes Virginia's failure at coming to grips with needed transportation funding seem all the worse and short-sighted.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a Metro/biking commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.