Transportist: April 2024

Welcome to the latest issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow on Mastodon or RSS.

This month

• Tolled Motorways vs. Road Pricing

• We need to reinvent urban spaces

• Research

• Posts

• News

Some follow-on media

• CNN: Lessons for Baltimore: How Minneapolis recovered from its I-35W bridge collapse 17 years ago

• SMH: The Baltimore disaster shocked Sydney. Could we see a similar tragedy here?

• The Australian: Could the Baltimore bridge disaster happen here?

Tolled Motorways vs. Road Pricing

Holly Tregenza For ABC News wrote:

Sydney Councils and Drivers Say Tolled Motorways Causing Rat-Running and Damage in Neighbourhood Roads

David Levinson from the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney said local roads were paying the price. 

"The existing tolled motorways are under-utilised because the tolls are too high, and as a consequence local roads are over-used, compared to a social-optimum," he said. 

…

The review found the average speed on tolled roads in Greater Sydney is 69 kilometres per hour, while on local roads it is 38kph. 

The speed limit of Sydney's M5 is 100kph.

Mr Levinson said the time saved to cost ratio was not enough to get drivers off local roads. 

"People who are at all financially conscious are going to avoid motorways if they have a reasonable alternative on local roads," he said. 

"So we're not using this resource that collectively we've paid a lot of money for as efficiently as we could to benefit society as a whole."

He said fuel costs were also not enough to convince motorists. 

"They might consume slightly more fuel on a local street with stop and start traffic, but it's not enough to change their behaviour if they even notice it," he said. 

Mr Levinson said the alternative strategy was to apply a cost to all roads, a solution the Minns government has said it would not entertain. 

"If you were to have a universal distance based charge, you remove the distortion between motorways and local streets because the relative price differential has decreased," he said. 

"There is a lot of things that you want to incentivise with the way you allocate these costs to road users, but I don't think the costs can disappear unless it starts raining gold coins." 

See the Independent Toll Review for the full discussion of proposed changes.

We need to reinvent urban spaces

Caroline Zielinski wrote for Cosmos Magazine:

… Who rules the world? Car drivers, it seems

Another significant influence on the field of urban science has been a focus on cars.

David Levinson, Professor of Transport at the University of Sydney, says a rise in personal vehicles from the early 1900s ushered in new regulations, such as traffic lights, narrower footpaths and more roads “to rein in pedestrians for the benefit of car drivers”.

The rise in personal car ownership led to the development of the suburbs, and the lifestyle that goes with it, such as people commuting further to work. This, in turn, led to the building of more highways, resulting in increased urban sprawl.

Walkability and cycling took a back seat, with many cities (especially in America) building roads with multiple lanes and higher speed limits, but few sidewalks and crossways. As a result, pedestrian deaths have been rising, with a recent investigation by the New York Times delving deep into factors behind this trend, one of which is the priority given to cars.

“Traffic signals, for example, were designed to help cars avoid hitting other cars and pedestrians from hitting cars — not for ease of walking around the city,” Levinson points out. “Cities today are designed for 95% of people, and not for the bottom 5%, which includes those with disabilities, children and the elderly.”

More evidence planting trees in cities can save lives

Walking speeds themselves are set according to studies performed by healthy, young university students, whose speed rate may be faster than the average person’s, Levinson adds.

Smartphones are also altering the way we move. Distracted walking due to smartphone use is on the rise, resulting in growing concern over pedestrian safety and well-being. One of Levinson’s studies looking at this issue found that “groups of people, phone users, and often followers of phone users, walk significantly slower than solo walkers uninfluenced by phone”.

This phenomenon is influencing city design, with one city in China introducing a 30 metre ‘cellphone lane’ for pedestrians. Closer to home, what began as a trial has become a permanent fixture in Melbourne: pedestrian traffic lights installed in the footpaths of Melbourne’s CBD in a bid to alert distracted walkers before it’s too late.

Research

• Rayaprolu, H. and Levinson, D. (2024) Co-evolution of public transport access and ridership. Journal of Transport Geography Volume 116, April 2024, 103844. [doi]

Posts

News and Links

• Idris Elba 'dreams big' with Sierra Leone eco-city plan for Sherbro Island

• Hallelujah! Physical Buttons Could Make a Comeback Due to New Safety Regulations

• Xiaomi delivers its first EV model.

• China’s best self-driving car platforms, tested and compared

• This is why don’t have flying cars by Joe Scott.

• California HSR Needs $100 Billion to finish

• SFO Museum

• Self-Guided Mobility Aid for Individuals with Sight Loss

• Waymo Enters LA

• Apple cancels “Apple Car”.

• New Zealand petrol stations had a February 29th bug taking them offline.

A Russian Joke. Illustrated by Dall-E. [A large train station with many empty benches. A Russian walks up to someone seated on an otherwise empty bench and says "move".]