Tag Archives: Transit

Governing transit: the regulated public utility

Public utilities, from Chris Potter. CC BY 2.0

Public utilities, from Chris Potter. CC BY 2.0

The MBTA is struggling, but they’re not the only transit authority facing both near and long-term challenges. The MTA in New York is trying to find the funds for its capital plan; WMATA is facing systemic budget deficits while trying to restore rider confidence in the system.

For-profit corporations such as airlines aren’t the right answer to govern transit in an American context. So, what kind of structure could work?

Writing at Citylab, David Levinson made the case for structuring American transit operations as regulated public utilities, able to pull the best elements of private sector management and pair them with the fundamentally public purpose required for urban mass transit.

David cites seven key elements of this model:

  1. Competitive tendering for services
  2. The ability to raise fares (with regulatory approval)
  3. Using a smartcard as a common platform for fare payment
  4. Specific contracts with local governments to operate subsidized service
  5. Ability to recapture land value through land ownership and real estate development
  6. Access to private capital markets
  7. Local governance, funding, and decision-making

These elements aren’t substantively different from the elements of German public transport governance reforms outlined by Ralph Buehler and John Pucher: competitive tendering for many services, increased fares, investments in technology to improve capacity, efficiency, and revenue. Public regulation oversees these efforts to operate the core business more efficiently.

Lisa Schweitzer (USC Professor focusing on urban planning and transportation) offered extensive feedback on her blog (in several parts). All are worth reading, I’ve linked to each and included a short summary and/or quote:

1. On the regulated public utility concept: “First of all, even though quangos [a British term: quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations – what we’d usually refer to as a public authority] are somewhat insulated from voters and politics, they still have play with budgetary politics, and those games are where lots of stupid enters into transit provision.”

Schweitzer identifies three main problems with applying the concept to transit. First, unlike water or electric service, the demand for transit use isn’t universal. Aside from a few dense cities, there isn’t necessarily a built in customer base. Second (and related to the spotty demand for transit service), some jurisdictions can/do opt out of transit service, hurting the overall network. Third, unlike water or electricity, there are many different levels of transit service.

2. The challenges of competitive tendering: the devil is in the details for how to successfully structure operations contracts: “And that’s a really the key point for competitive tendering and service quality gains you hope to achieve: if you are going to to do this, you need to be clear on service expectations. The reason the cable guy gets to treat you like crap is that’s not part of the franchise agreement which centers on channels and rights for particular sports events–not customer service response times.”

3. Farecards and technology: Schweitzer notes that most transit agencies already offer smart farecards, but perhaps a regulated utility would have more incentive to invest in technology to collect additional revenues or adopt policies (such as all-door boarding, or proof of payment) that would speed operations and improve efficiency. This is really a matter of institutional incentives rather than simply adopting farecards.

4. Capital cost recovery: While Levinson argues that new transit lines should only be built if they can break even on fare revenues and value capture from adjacent land, Schweitzer counters that this formulation depends on the mode and the type of transit line:”Right now, you have jurisdictions with people who are very avid about wanting rail transit. We must have rail now.”

“You want a train? Fine. Either let us build 70 100-story apartment complexes next to the station (if it pencils for us) or you pay whatever portion of the capital and operating costs that apartment complex would have covered for the utility. Your choice. Again, rich districts can have their single-acre lots if they want, and they can have their trains if they want them–even if nobody wants to take the train and they just use it as decoration. They just can’t stick the rest of us with the bills for those trains.”

5. Asset values and access to private capital: This isn’t exactly a silver bullet. For as well as competitive bidding worked for London’s buses, the similar deal for the Underground flopped:” The Metronet-London Underground deal came about in 1998 in part because the transit provider, Transport for London, was financially stretched and their capital stock decayed. This is a big deal: taking over large capital stocks is risky, let alone doing so because you have to bail somebody out. It means you probably have crumbling assets with an uncertain price tag to fix.”

In London’s case, one rail company delivered on their agreements while another operator came back to the public for additional funds and eventually went into bankruptcy: “While newspapers blamed the public sector partner for failing to manage the contracts properly, the public audit on the deal cited Metronet’s own corporate governance and poor management as the primary reason for the failed partnership.”

6. Local funding: While Schweitzer sees the virtues of local funding, there are risks to completely forgoing federal funds. If there is a chance to reform things, it will likely involve the feds: “If we really do believe that there are normatively better ways for cities to be, then there is a role for federal governments to play in setting standards and incentives.”

David, freed from the space constraints of Citylab when writing via his own blog, responded in depth:

1. The regulated public utility model: “I imagine like most reforms, it would be phased in, tested, refined, and revised in the various laboratories of democracy. Some city has to go first, some other city has to go second, and hopefully learn from the first, before every last city does.”

2. Competitive tendering: “…the answer is quite complicated about how to configure to maximize consumer welfare, and experimentation is probably required. Just giving the system away is certainly not the answer. Having the franchises be of a limited duration (5-7 years, e.g.) is better than a 20-30 year franchise. This is feasible for buses where the capital is the ultimate in mobile capital. It would be much harder for a traditional utility where the infrastructure is expensive, embedded in the ground, and long-lived.”

In other words, it’s a lot easier to structure a deal for competitive contracts for bus operations than it is for fixed, naturally monopolistic rail services – both in terms of structuring the deal, and in terms of attracting operators.

3. Farecards: “I would go further and say we should have pre-payment via stop-based farecard reader, i.e. all significant bus stops should have arterial BRT like payment”

4. Capital cost recovery: “Capital investments are new stocks while operating expenditures are continuing flows. From a public policy perspective, continuing with existing commitments (which may be an implied social contract) may be more important than making investments that bring about new commitments. Thus new commitments (such as new rail lines which have irreversibly embedded immobile capital) should only be undertaken if we believe at the outset (admittedly a forecast, which have problems) that they have cost recovery.”

5. Asset values: “Investing in new infrastructure is a lot riskier than investing in already built infrastructure (thus the early financiers of the Channel Tunnel got wiped out twice, similarly the Dulles Greenway and many other privately funded pieces of new infrastructure that were either more expensive than expected, or built too far in advance of demand.”

The broad concept of a regulated public utility has a lot to recommend: it threads the needle between the public purpose inherent to modern transit, while also pulling the best elements from private enterprise and the benefits of running a service-oriented business like a business.

While demanding additional efficiency from transit operators, German public policy worked in concert with these reforms – traffic calming, dense development around transit stations, and increased taxes and fees on car-based transport both improved transit’s attractiveness and also provided new revenue sources.

As Dr. Schweitzer notes, the single biggest take-away from Levinson’s article is the concept of transit as a public utility in the first place. Getting over that mental hump can open doors to plausible reforms.

What might those reforms be? In addition to Levinson’s list, Ralph Buehler and John Pucher offer their lessons from the German experience:

  • Encourage regulated competition; take advantage of private sector expertise
  • Collaboration between local governments, transit operators, and labor unions
  • Focus on profitable services – not to ignore ‘equity’ services. Jarrett Walker would refer to this as a focus on ‘ridership’ routes instead of ‘coverage’ routes – and building political consensus around this isn’t an easy task!
  • Collaborate with other transit operators; encourage easy exchanges between systems for passengers, interoperable systems, etc.
  • Improve service quality; focus on customer service.
  • Increase transit’s competitiveness with complimentary public policies – for example, increased fees on driving/owning a car, encouraging dense development near stations, etc.

All in all, the list is quite similar to Levinson’s.

However, in Germany, the push towards some of these reforms came from the outside (EU regulations); existing transit operators viewed them as a threat forcing reform and a new focus on customer service, efficiency, and overall quality – all while working to reduce costs. Similar to an airline facing bankruptcy, German operators used the EU mandate to find common purpose with their unions to improve efficiency and reduce overall costs.

Both Schweitzer and Levinson sing the virtues of local funding, but reform of this magnitude might require outside stimulus. In the same vein as Schweitzer’s defense of federal experimentation in policy, the federal government is well suited to fill that role. However problematic the federal focus on streetcars may be, the federal focus has certainly shifted the attention of local governments; the TIGER grant process shook up the traditional relationship between the FTA serving a few transit authority grantees. The projects might not be the best investments in mobility, but it does reveal the potential for the feds to drive change in transit governance.

Airlines: the strengths and weaknesses for corporate transportation governance

CC image from Christian Junker.

CC image from Christian Junker.

David D’Alessandro’s review of the MBTA’s finances came to a stark conclusion: “A private sector firm faced with this mountain of red ink would likely fold or seek bankruptcy.” That red ink is thanks to a systemic operating deficit; yet as a provider of a key public service, the MBTA was also “too big to fail” and therefore cannot simply cease operations. Likewise, though municipalities and public authorities can declare bankruptcy, they seldom do.

However, there are examples of transportation operators declaring bankruptcy in the face of systemic deficits: airlines. Comparing for-profit airlines to subsidized urban transit might seem like a stretch, but consider the similarities:

  • Both provide a transportation service
  • Both require capital-intensive operations
  • Both are historically a low-margin business; transit has been largely subsidized for generations in the US; historic profitability for airlines is slim-to-nonexistant.
  • Labor is a significant cost for both; both featured highly unionized workforces.
  • Both are sensitive to swings in energy prices
  • Both include a high level of coordination with the government (regulations, funding for facilities, etc)

Reform proposals for the MBTA set goals for reducing operating costs, but didn’t necessarily give the MBTA the tools to reach that goal. Compare that to the major airline reform – the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Prior to deregulation, all air routes needed approval from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). Matt Yglesias explains:

Passenger aviation clearly needs some regulation for the sake of passenger safety, pollution control, and the community impacts of airports. But in the early decades of the industry, CAB went far beyond that to regulate what fares airlines were allowed to offer and which routes they were allowed to fly. This became a classic case of regulatory capture. Airlines cared a lot about the actions of CAB while ordinary voters had bigger fish to fry. As a consequence, the board ended up creating a cozy cartel where airlines didn’t compete much and certainly didn’t compete on price. With price competition off the table, airlines invested lavishly in offering a high level of service. Labor unions got in on the act, using their clout to force managers and owners to share with workers some of the excess profits generated by CAB.

Removing regulatory approval for new routes unleashed new competition, dramatically lowering airfares for consumers. Airlines explored new route network concepts, eventually leading to the dominance of today’s hub-and-spoke system. Existing airlines still had to work within their cost structure, based on the old regulated business model. Soon, many airlines also faced a sea of red ink. Faced with the same choice David D’Alessandro saw for the MBTA, many airlines either ceased operations or entered bankruptcy.

Today, airlines use bankruptcy as a tool to lower labor costs by renegotiating contracts. Yglesias, writing about the 2011 bankruptcy of American Airlines, notes “the real aim of the filing, in the words of S&P 500 analyst Philip Baggaley is to ’emerge as a somewhat smaller airline with more competitive labor costs.’ ”

While the MBTA Forward Funding plan set goals to reduce operating costs, it did not include the tools to make those cost reductions happen. Using bankruptcy as a tool to reduce structural costs, as airlines have done, might technically be available to a public authority like the MBTA, political pressure often prevents this course of action.

In a look at sustainable transit funding, Ralph Buehler and John Pucher study the fiscal sustainability of German public transport systems. The abstract:

Over the past two decades, Germany has improved the quality of its public transport services and attracted more passengers while increasing productivity, reducing costs, and cutting subsidies. Public transport systems reduced their costs through organizational restructuring and outsourcing to newly founded subsidiaries; cutting employee benefits and freezing salaries; increasing work hours, using part-time employees, expanding job tasks, and encouraging retirement of older employees; cooperation with other agencies to share employees, vehicles, and facilities; cutting underutilized routes and services; and buying new vehicles with lower maintenance costs and greater passenger capacity per driver. Revenues were increased through fare hikes for single tickets while maintaining deep discounts for monthly, semester, and annual tickets; and raising passenger volumes by improved quality of service, and full regional coordination of timetables, fares, and services. Those efforts by public transport agencies were enhanced by the increasing costs and restrictions on car use in German cities. Although the financial performance of German public transport has greatly improved, there are concerns of inequitable burdens on labor, since many of the cost reduction measures involved reducing wages or benefits of workers.

The outcomes aren’t all that different than those achieved by airlines utilizing bankruptcy. Unlike either US airline deregulation or the MBTA’s Big Dig deal on transit expansion as mitigation for a massive increase in urban highway capacity, German reforms also included policies aimed to shift the market in favor of public transportation. Fares and schedules are coordinated though a verkehrsverbund, or transport association.

Setting fares, coordinating routes and timetables sounds awfully similar to the Civil Aeronautics Board. However, because air transport is expected to operate profitably and urban mass transit is not. The middle ground is a structure that can combine the best elements of a for-profit corporation (“run it like a business”) with the public purpose of a government agency or public authority. Writing at Citylab, David Levinson makes the case for governing transit as a regulated public utility, operating as a business and billing the public for the full cost of services:

Like any other enterprise, transit should be successful and cover its costs. This is entirely feasible if we change the model of transit finance from a branch of government to a regulated public utility, as is done in much of Europe and Asia. A public utility provides a service, and in exchange, it is compensated for that service. The compensation comes from consumers (e.g. users, riders), and from the public for any unprofitable services that it wishes to maintain for other (e.g. political) reasons.

Just as the public sector pays the electric utility for street lights, it should pay the transit utility for services that the government insists on but that the transit provider cannot charge users enough for.

The public utility model provides a more realistic model for mass transit than airlines do. The lack of an inherent profit motive makes the direct comparison for airline governance a mis-match; yet there are elements of the private corporation that would inherently benefit public transit, thanks to the similiar roles for airlines and transit agencies.

Lessons for transit agency funding, finance, and governance – MBTA

It’s been a rough winter for transit in Boston. The agency’s general manager resigned; they’re buried in 90 inches of snow – it’s a natural disaster in slow-motion. All of those problems are piled on top of the MBTA’s structural deficiencies, outlined in this 2009 review of the agency’s finances. The review, led by former John Hancock CEO David D’Alessandro, paints a bleak picture.

Prior to 2000, the MBTA was backward-funding – sending a bill to the state to cover the organization’s annual operating deficit. A reform program sought to make the MBTA fiscally self-sufficient by dedicating a portion of the state’s sales tax revenue to the agency in exchange for a requirement that the MBTA balance their budget every year. This requirement to balance the budget every year would serve as an incentive for the MBTA to control costs and grow revenues.

Often, similar conversations emerge around WMATA, noting Metro’s lack of a dedicated funding source. However, the MBTA case study shows that dedicated funding alone isn’t a silver bullet. There are other elements to the MBTA’s structural deficit beyond funding.

The MBTA blueprint for self-sufficiency was based on several bad assumptions: The plan called for the MBTA to decrease operations costs by 2% a year. In actuality, they increased by an average of 5% per year. Fuel and energy costs account for a large portion of the shortfall as oil prices rose dramatically (and unexpectedly). Sales tax revenues were expected to grow at 3% per year, the actual growth averaged to 1% per year. The net impact, even with rising fare revenue, is a sea of red ink:

Cumulative impacts from the MBTA funding plan, showing large net negative impacts from the baseline.

Cumulative impacts from the MBTA funding plan, showing large net negative impacts from the baseline.

There are two different kinds of error here: one is a failure to account for uncertainty in the forecast. Sales tax revenue is strongly influenced by the larger economy; fuel and energy prices are similarly based on much larger and unpredictable energy markets. The size of the error also increases with time from the original plan. Error in the MBTA’s fuel cost assumptions gets larger with each successive year from FY01 to FY08 – beware the cone of uncertainty.

The second type of error stems from wishful thinking. While it’s nice to plan on reducing operations costs, and there’s value in budgeting accordingly in order to set a goal to do so, it’s not clear that the legislation had a clear idea for how the MBTA would reduce those costs. Another analysis from the MBTA shows binding arbitration between the MBTA and labor unions imposed substantial wage increases with no regard for the MBTA’s operating deficit. In that light, assuming the MBTA’s operating costs would decrease seems like wishful thinking at best.

The D’Alessandro review notes that the MBTA’s headcount is actually down, yet wages are up. The agency showed progress in reducing costs, but they “could not pare staff below the number needed to move hundreds of thousands of riders across hundreds of routes each workday.” Baumol’s Cost Disease in action – increasing costs without a corresponding increase in productivity.

To meet the requirement to balance their annual budget, the MBTA sought to lower their annual debt service payments by refinancing their debt to push the principal into the out years and lower near term payments. Much of this refinancing simply ‘papered over’ the agency’s structural deficit. Again, the faulty assumptions of the financing plan exacerbated that structural deficit.

The MBTA’s debt load is also a major issue, one that dates back well before the Forward Funding plan. As a part of a 1991 consent decree to get approval for Boston’s Big Dig, the courts required a broad array of transit expansion projects as “environmental mitigation.” The decree did not identify any funding for those projects. Now, the MBTA has a massive amount of debt, of which approximately 2/3rds is dedicated to prior obligations before the Forward Funding agreement or towards state-mandated expansion projects.

(It’s worth noting the decision-making priorities involved in the Big Dig – the massive tunnelling project was only approved because the transit mitigation projects, backed by transit advocates as a way to hitch their wagon to omnipresent highway funding – yet those projects were never fully funded and now play a large role in exacerbating the agency’s stability. Imagine a project that simply removed the Central Artery and ‘replaced’ it with the long-imagined North/South rail link instead; or where the response to the Big Dig proposal was focused on re-defining the project itself rather than just tacking on ‘mitigation’ transit expansion.)

D’Alessandro’s conclusion is stark: “A private sector firm faced with this mountain of red ink would likely fold or seek bankruptcy.”

Yet, at the same time, the MBTA is “too big to fail.” Transit provides a critical service for any large city’s economy. Given the subsidized nature of public transit in the US, any reform must involve the public sector.

Airlines provide an interesting point of comparison: While US airlines operate for-profit businesses, the nature of air transport is deeply intertwined with the public sector. However, US Airlines are private, for profit corporations. Unlike the MBTA, they can seek legal protections to restructure their business through bankruptcy – and every major airline has done precisely that over the last decade. Airlines used bankruptcy to reduce operations costs from long-term labor agreements. German transit agencies have achieved fiscal stability using similar tools.

Unfortunately, the simplified narrative in the wake of the T’s failure to function normally in the face of Boston’s record snowfall has been to set up a false dichotomy between transit system expansion and system maintenance. In spite of the Big Dig deal, the challenge isn’t between expansion vs. maintenance, but between the political governance and funding mechanisms and the technical requirements to operate and maintain the system.

This political challenge isn’t limited to transit. Highway spending is overwhelmingly focused on expanding the system, at the expense of maintaining the system we already have. Angie Schmidt at Streetsblog put it bluntly: More money for transportation won’t matter if we don’t change how that money is spent.

Don’t rule out elevated rail in cities

Toronto is looking to Honolulu for transit inspiration – looking to tap into the potential for elevated rapid transit to improve the city’s transit expansion plans. However, key city officials are extremely concerned about the impacts of elevated transit to the city. Skepticism is good, any may be required to ensure that elevated rail is successfully integrated into an urban environment, but it shouldn’t be an automatic disqualifier for the kinds of improvements that make rapid transit possible. From the Toronto Star:

Toronto chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat cites the shadow that a structure like the [elevated Gardiner expressway] casts on the street below. She also brandishes one of the chief arguments for building Toronto’s LRTs in the first place.

“From a land use planning perspective, if our objective in integrating higher order transit into our city is to create great places for walking, for commerce, living,… elevated infrastructure doesn’t work so well for any of those objectives,” she said.

It’s true that making elevated rail work in urban areas is a challenge, but it shouldn’t be so easily dismissed. Of particular concern is the willingness to equate the visual impact of the six-lane Gardiner Expressway with a potential two-track elevated rail structure. The other key concern is the equivocation of grade-separated transit with at-grade light rail.

Toronto seems full of transit terminology confusion these days. Embattled Mayor Rob Ford has been pushing for subways as the only kind of transit that matters (SUBWAYS SUBWAYS SUBWAYS!) regardless of context or cost. Meanwhile, the transit agency is looking to implement a ‘light rail’ project that features full grade separation and an exclusive right of way – in other words, a subway. Ford opposes the light rail plan in favor of an actual, tunneled line with fewer stations and higher cost. Much of the rhetoric seems focused on equating light rail with Toronto’s legacy mixed-traffic streetcar network.

However, just as Ford’s dogmatic insistence of subways at any cost is irresponsible, Keesmaat’s suggestion that at-grade LRT can accomplish the same transit outcomes as grade-separated LRT can is equally misleading. Remember the differences between Class/Category A, B, and C right of way (from Vukan Vuchic, summarized here by Jarrett Walker), paraphrased here:

  • Category C – on-street in mixed traffic: buses, streetcars, trams, all operating in the same space as other street users.
  • Category B – partially separated tracks/lanes: exclusive right of way for transit, but not separate from cross-traffic. Vuchic dubs this “Semirapid Transit.” often seen with busways or light rail.
  • Category A – right of way exclusive to transit, separated from all cross traffic: This is required for rapid transit. Examples include subways/metro systems and some grade-separated busways.
Transit system types by class of right-of-way.

Transit system types by class of right-of-way. X-axis is system performance (speed, capacity, and reliability), Y-axis is the investment required.

The distinction matters because the quality of the transit service is substantially different. Service in Class A right of way will be faster and more reliable than Class B, at-grade LRT. Part of the planning challenge is matching the right level of investment (and ROW category) to the goals for the system. However, even with the need to balance transit goals with those for urban design, planners like Keesmaat shouldn’t categorically dismiss the possibility of building Class A transit facilities.

Part of the confusion might be from the technology. A catenary-powered rail vehicle can operate in Class A, B, or C right of way, and fill the role of streetcar, light rail, or metro – all with little change in technology. Consider San Francisco, where Muni trains operate in all three categories – in mixed traffic, in exclusive lanes, and in a full subway. The virtue of light rail technology is flexibility, but that flexibility can also confuse discussions about the kind of transit system we’re talking about. The vehicle technology isn’t as important as the kind of right-of-way. Indeed, many of the streetcar systems that survived the rise of buses precisely because they operated in Class A and B rights-of-way.

Keesmaat certainly appreciates the difference between the kind of regional rapid transit you’ll see in Honolulu and at-grade LRT:

“The Honolulu transit corridor project is really about connecting the city with the county…. It’s about connecting two urban areas. That’s very different from the context we imagine along Eglinton where we would like to see a significant amount of intensification along the corridor,” said Keesmaat.

At the same time, the kind of transit she’s describing and the kind of land use intensity aren’t mutually exclusive at all – quite the opposite.

densitytable2withcap

Subways are nice, but require a high level of density/land use intensity. Payton Chung put it succinctly: “no subways for you, rowhouse neighborhoods.” Payton cites Erick Guerra and Robert Cervero’s research on the cost/benefit break points for land use density around transit lines. This table to the right shows the kind of density needed to make transit cost-effective at various per-mile costs.

The door swings both ways. Rowhouse densities might not justify subways, but they could justify the same Class A transit if it were built at elevated rail construction costs. Finding ways to lower the high US construction costs would be one thing, but given the systemic increase of US construction costs, using elevated transit would be a good way to extend Class A rights-of-way to areas with less density.

Instead of categorically dismissing elevated rail, work to better integrate it into the urban environment. Consider the potential for the mode to transform suburban areas ripe for redevelopment. Wide rights-of-way along suburban arterials are readily available for elevated rail; redevelopment can not only turn these places into walkable station areas, but also help integrate elevated rail infrastructure into the new built environment.

Keesmaat’s concerns about elevated rail in Toronto stem from the impact on the street:

“The Catch22 with elevating any kind of infrastructure – a really good example of this is the subway in Chicago – not only is it ugly, it creates really dark spaces,” she said.

It’s not just the shadow but the noise of elevated transit lines that can be problematic, said TTC CEO Andy Byford. If you build above the street you’ve also got to contend with getting people there, that means elevators or escalators.

First, it’s not clear what Byford is talking about: accessing subway stations also requires elevators and escalators. The nature of grade separated rights-of-way is that they are separated from the grade of the street.

Keesmaat’s concerns about replicating Chicago’s century-old Els are likely misplaced. No one is building that kind of structure anymore – and a quick survey of newer elevated rail shows slimmer, less intrusive structures. Reducing the visual impact and integrating the transit into the cityscape is the real challenge, but the price advantage and the benefits of Class A right-of-way cannot be ignored. It’s not a surprise that the Star paraphrases UBC professor Larry Frank: “On balance… elevated transit should probably be considered more often.”

Transit fare media, technology, and fare policy – lessons from Europe

As WMATA moves forward on their next generation fare payment system (selecting Accenture to manage a pilot program), there are a few lessons to learn from transit operators around the world. During my most recent trip to Europe, I had the chance to use a number of technologies, showing the direction that operators like WMATA are interested in going with their next generation fare systems.

The wonders of technology:

Part of WMATA’s reasoning to replace the existing fare system is the need to accomodate a wider arrange of fare systems and fare structures. When WMATA experimented with their peak-of-the-peak rail fare surcharge, the additional coding to implement the fares introduced a noticeable lag for customers tapping their SmarTrip cards at the faregates.

At the same time, technology is not fare policy. Customers and advocates have been asking for unlimited ride pass products that mesh with WMATA’s distance-based fare structure. They’re now offering a ‘short trip’ pass available on SmarTrip cards, but it still doesn’t offer the full coverage of the rail system’s price points (no sense in getting this pass if most of your rail trips are shorter and thus cheaper), nor does it include bus fares. WMATA indicates that they’ve reached the technical limits of what the current SmarTrip card technology can do.

Beyond those current limitations, the NEPP is also interested in making SmarTrip cards useable for proof-of-payment systems. The DC area’s existing commuter rail operators currently use paper-based tickets, manually checked by conductors. Maryland’s Purple Line and DC’s streetcar introduce two more candidates for proof-of-payment in the regional transit mix – both of which would benefit from easy SmarTrip card connections to the existing faregate-based rail system. The NEPP’s goal is to provide the required back-end systems for all of these capabilities.

Two versions of the OV-chipkaart. CC image from Elisa Triolo.

Two versions of the OV-chipkaart. CC image from Elisa Triolo.

Consider the Netherlands. The Dutch don’t have a particularly large country, and they’ve managed to implement one single farecard for the entire country. The OV-Chipkaart (literally, ‘public transport chip card‘ – so much for cutesy branding) is used by all of the public transit agencies and private operators in the Netherlands, as well as the national rail operator, Nederlandse Spoorwegen. For all trips, regardless of mode (or the presence of faregates), you must check in to board/enter and check out to alight/leave. Transfers are handled automatically. Customers can load money onto the cards and pay as you go, or load pass products from any of the partner agencies (such as these examples from GVB in Amsterdam)

The use of check-in/check-out on all modes (including surface transport like buses and trams) is the kind of fare policy that takes advantage of the technology. It enables mixing different collection systems together (such as faregates and validator targets). The busiest national rail stations are equipped with fare gates (though most are locked in the open position for now), while smaller stations have simple pylons with validators. For surface transit without large stations, validators for check-in/out are located near all doors.

Fare media and fare policy are not the same:

Technology is part of the challenge, but it alone cannot overrule fare policy decisions. WMATA is an excellent case, where the technical capabilities of the SmarTrip platform limit the complexity and type of unlimited ride passes, but that doesn’t explain fare policy decisions that penalize transfers between modes. This is a policy decision, not one based on technical limits.

Integrating fares across a transit network is critical in shaping the behavior of users. New York has big ideas for infill commuter rail stations that could make better use of existing infrastructure for transit purposes, but without an integrated fare system (so that intra-city regional rail rides are cost-effective for passengers compared to the subway) the idea will never reach its full potential.

T+ ticket for Paris Metro and RER. CC image from josh.

T+ ticket for Paris Metro and RER. CC image from josh.

Consider Paris, where all transit is part of the same fare structure. From the passenger’s standpoint, there’s no difference between using the RER vs. the Metro within the city. The T+ ticket is easily available to visitors and makes use of the universal faregates shared by the Metro and RER. This unification of technology enables a unified fare policy, but the specific policies allow and encourage passengers to use RER services within the city.

Paris has a smartcard, branded as NaviGo. The first version was available only to residents, but worked for the Metro, RER and the Parisian bikeshare system, Velib (something New York is hoping to do with the MTA’s planned open payment system).

Oyster Card. CC image from David King.

Oyster Card. CC image from David King.

Consider London, where the addition of rapid transit service, branding (inclusion on the Tube map; use of roundel and other brand elements), and fare policy to legacy commuter and mainline rail infrastructure created the Overgroud. The Overground is now expanding, thanks to its success. London’s Crossrail project will share some of the same principles but with new tunnels akin to the Paris RER.

London’s smartcard, Oyster, takes advantage of the system’s technical ability to simplify a complicated fare system for users. Capping daily fares at the price of an equivalent day pass ensures that passengers using pay-as-you-go (particularly visitors) won’t get stiffed. It helps those unfamiliar with the system, demystifying the fares and zones. Like other unlimited use products, it encourages use of the system.

Buying a fare card:

As great as these products are, they’re not always easy to obtain. The Paris NaviGo isn’t marketed to visitors. In other cities, cards are available through ticket vending machines, but those TVMs likely won’t accept American magstripe credit cards. We can hope that recent fraud will speed the transition to pin-and-chip credit cards.

Beyond just chip and pin, American transit agencies like WMATA and New York’s MTA are looking for using contact-less credit and debit cards to collect fares directly. Even London is looking to end the Oyster card as a separate fare media, meshing the daily fare cap, only tracking based on the use of bank-provided cards.

Concerns for Future Technology:

Each of the European fare card systems has plenty of criticism. However, none of the problems with London’s Oyster card seem as severe as the issues with Chicago’s new Ventra card (replacing the older contactless Chicago Card). Ventra’s rollout has been plagued with errors, but the more concerning are Ventra’s wide range of hidden fees. From a system under the transit agency’s control, such fees are alarming – but it’s hard to see how you could avoid similar fees in a fully open payment system – such as London’s proposal – where the banks are issuing the fare media.

There’s also a concern about the ability of transit agencies to continue to offer useful unlimited ride pass products if they turn over the production of all fare media to banks and other payment providers. Good technology can’t magically craft good fare policy, but the two are linked.

Integrating retail uses into transit stations: opportunities to increase revenue, improve urban design and passenger experience

Integrating retail uses into transit stations presents several opportunities for transit agencies like WMATA looking to increase ridership and revenue. Such retail uses also have the potential to help development projects around stations, providing a key link between the transit station and the surrounding TOD.

Combining retail and transit isn’t exactly a new idea; train stations have often been retail hubs. They provide a node that attracts potential customers like a magnet. Rapid transit with full grade-separation is an additional layer for a city’s transportation network. Shifting passengers between the street layer and the rapid transit layer both requires space (e.g. a station) and creates the opportunity to enhance that space with amenities.

In-station retail offers obvious financial benefits, including a key revenue stream for agencies looking to diversify beyond fares alone. In-station retail also provides an amenity for passengers. The retail itself doesn’t need to be wholly contained within the station, either. Retail spaces can be integrated into station structures and transit agency property while improving the urban design of the area and drawing in non-transit customers.

Revenue: In-station retail offers a potential revenue stream for transit agencies. It won’t be a major revenue stream compared to fares, but it can be significant. Looking to Hong Kong’s MTR, famous for integrating development into and around transit stations, in-station retail (separate from MTR’s malls and other properties) generates approximately $270 million annually for MTR.

Obviously, Hong Kong’s real estate market is unique, and such results won’t necessarily scale in other places. However, other transit providers do pull significant revenue from renting space. Transport for London earned $95 million in gross rental income in 2013. In percentage terms (1.3% of of TfL revenue) it might not seem that different from WMATA, but  consider TfL’s very high farebox recovery and low operating subsidy as well as additional revenue from London’s congestion charge.

London is also interested in increasing revenue from in-station retail, taking advantage of the real estate assets they have and the number of passengers passing through. The desire to grow non-transport revenue isn’t unique to transit agencies, either. For example, consider the desire of airports such as Dulles to grow and diversify their revenues, both as a hedge against business cycles and as a means to improve the experience of passengers.

Passenger Experience: In-station retail isn’t all about revenue, it’s also about improving the experience for passengers. For airports and mainline rail stations, this is a given. Even the FTA’s own joint development guidance recognizes the different retail needs for intercity transit stations.

Some of the recent renovations to Rotterdam Centraal show the opportunities to integrate retail into the main concourse of a rail station. The station renovation widened many platforms, all of which are connected by a single connecting concourse below grade. The wide platforms are not only comfortable for passengers waiting for their trains, but also ensure enough space on the concourse level between stairways for substantial retail.

Mezzanine level retail spaces in MTR's Kowloon Bay station. CC image from Wiki.

Mezzanine level retail spaces in MTR’s Kowloon Bay station. CC image from Wiki.

Station retail focused on passengers can work for regular rapid transit, as well. In Hong Kong, MTR’s in-station retail includes both street-fronting retail bays as well as indoor spaces within the stations, targeting passengers as they make their way from the street to the platform. The type of retail in stations isn’t particularly exciting; convenience stores, bank branches, dry cleaners, and quick service food joints. These are nonetheless useful retail establishments, particularly for regular commuters.

Retail in the mezzanine/ticket hall of the Saint Lazare Metro station in Paris. Photo by the author.

Retail in the mezzanine/ticket hall of the Saint Lazare Metro station in Paris. Photo by the author.

Retail can be retrofit into existing stations as well. In Paris, several Metro stations include small retail spaces, often in the mezzanine. Similar to London’s plans to grow revenue via additional retail offerings, the spaces reserved for old (and now unnecessary) ticket booths can be converted into retail.

Urban Design: In-station retail isn’t just about providing money to the transit agency or convenience to the passengers. It also provides the opportunity to seamlessly connect the layers of the city – the street-level to the rapid transit system.

In London, many of the Underground’s sub-surface stations include a substantial headhouse with a presence on the street. Old steam-powered lines of the District Railway were built via cut and cover construction and kept near the surface with periodic open cuts to provide ventilation. The District Railway (now part of the Underground’s Circle and District lines) also didn’t follow existing street rights of way.

Aerial of Earl's Court Station. Note the railway in the open cut and the station buidlings above the tracks, presenting an unbroken street wall along Earl's Court Road. Image from Google Maps.

Aerial of Earl’s Court Station. Note the railway in the open cut and the station buildings above the tracks, presenting an unbroken street wall along Earl’s Court Road. Image from Google Maps.

Earl's Court Underground station along Earl's Court Road, with street-facing retail. Image from Google Streetview.

Earl’s Court Underground station along Earl’s Court Road, with street-facing retail. Image from Google Streetview.

Tunneling outside of existing street rights of way along with the use of open cuts for the tracks means that the stations are structurally similar to liner buildings along overpasses. Earl’s Court station provides a good example, where the station’s headhouse and other development above the tracks creates an unbroken street wall for pedestrians, as well as retail spaces fronting the street within the old station headhouse.

This arrangement benefits all parties. TfL gets rental revenue from retail tenants. Retailers are leasing a space not just focused on Underground passengers, but with street-facing access for pedestrians walking nearby. The station’s architecture meshes seamlessly with the surrounding  neighborhood. The rail infrastructure has a relatively large footprint, but you wouldn’t know it from walking down the street.

Lessons: WMATA’s proposed FY15 budget includes a limited amount of operating revenue from joint development; other presentations from the agency indicate an annual revenue stream of approximately $15 million dollars. In the context of a $3 billion budget, that’s not a lot.

WMATA fy15 budget revenues

In terms of urban design, in-station retail need not be limited to stations. Elevated structures around the world show the possibilities for integrating transit infrastructure into good urban design – and it’s not all about minimizing the footprint of the rail infrastructure.

WMATA is currently shopping several joint development opportunities to developers and potential partners, most of which take advantage of existing land-intensive uses (bus bays, surface parking, and some plain old vacant land) next to existing stations. Given the relatively large footprint of the entrances to the new stations in Tysons Corner and Reston for WMATA’s Silver Line, there’s an opportunity to mesh this kind of joint development into future expansion projects from the start. Comstock’s Reston Station development is a good start.

This isn’t just an opportunity for additional ridership or revenue, but can also serve as a catalyst for quality transit-oriented development.

Even more signs that the Silver Line is coming…

We still don’t have word on a start date for WMATA’s new Silver Line service to Tysons Corner, but more and more signage for the service is appearing in the rest of the system.

New signage, complete with (SV) bullets at Federal Center SW Station. Photo by the author.

New signage, complete with (SV) bullets at Federal Center SW Station. Photo by the author.

This signage is from the platform pylon near the base of the escalators at Federal Center SW.

Via Twitter, Dan Malouff (@BeyondDC) took note of the new (SV) bullets on one of the narrow pylons used for Metro’s side platform stations, wondering if the bullets are using a different typeface from the rest of WMATA’s signage:

The answer is: sort of. The graphic standards (which I stumbled across via googling for this post) for the Rush Plus signage changes note that the bullets use Helvetica Bold, while the rest of the text uses Helvetica Medium.

The importance of more & wider doors for future Metro railcars

CC photo from Stephen Evans

CC photo from Stephen Evans

This week, WMATA awoke to a nice present sitting under the tree. The first of the 7000 series railcars is here. These new cars will expand the fleet, increase the system’s capacity, and replace the oldest railcars in the system. All worthy ends, and all goals that the 7000 series will help meet.

However, like the economists pondering the economic inefficiency of Christmas, I can’t help but wonder what the 7000 series could look like if the gifts under the tree were exactly what you wanted. In that regard, the 7000 series design falls short. The good news is that there will be more railcar procurements in the near future.

The key shortcomings of the 7000 series are not technical (yet! we will need to see how they perform once in service), they are based on policy and assumptions about what a WMATA railcar is. Engineering-driven technical changes include a slight repositioning of the door locations and improved car body crash energy management.

At the same time, the assumption of the car design is to avoid changing the fundamental WMATA rail car concept (three doors per car, lots of seating for a commuter/metro hybrid). This means that the aesthetic changes to the 7000 series aren’t just about the end of Metro Brown. The altered door spacing and adherence to the original concept (three doors per car, three windows between each door) makes for awkward proportions – all in the name of leaving the original concept unexamined.

The good thing about assumptions is that they’re easy to change — once you change your mind. In California, BART struggles with the same legacy of operating a rapid transit/commuter rail hybrid. Despite the shortcomings of BART as a planning/construction agency, BART the operating agency is moving in the right direction. BART’s new rolling stock makes a couple of big changes, such as adding an additional door per car, embracing the rapid transit reality for the system.

Embracing the status quo is easy for any institution. That inertia is hard to overcome. Contrast BART’s changes to the most recent railcar procurement in Chicago, where the biggest changes are in the technical systems and seating layout.

I outlined some key ideas for the 8000 series in a previous post, but I wanted to put some numbers together to make the case for one of the most visible changes: wider doors, and more of them. The chart below summarizes the key dimensions from a selection of railcars:

Railcar Door Comparison

A Google docs spreadsheet with the above data is available here.

I chose the cars on this list for a variety of reasons. I mentioned RATP’s MP-05, used on the now fully automated Line 1 in Paris, and Toronto’s Rocket in a previous post. BART’s inclusion shows both old and new cars, demonstrating what can be gained from change. Using BART as a comparison point for WMATA is also useful due to the similar age and history of the two systems. And, as a counterpoint of traditional mass transit, I included examples of relatively new cars from New York’s A and B division.

Each of these examples represents a somewhat pragmatic choice; I wanted to include others but could not easily find online specifications on door opening widths. Basic dimensions on car/train length is easy to find, but door opening width is harder. Transport for London is one exception, with excellent online information from the agency itself, rather than from third parties. London’s new S7/S8 cars would be a good example to include, but TfL has not yet updated their rolling stock information sheet to include them.

Online sources:

The table shows  the impact of both the total number of doors, as well as the width of the doors. WMATA’s 50 inch doors are relatively narrow; all of the other examples are at least a few inches wider. The one exception is New York’s R160, but the R160 makes up for those narrow doors with overall numbers: Four door openings per 60′ rail car, compared to WMATA’s three doors per 75′ car. Each door on the MP-05 in Paris is 1.65 meters wide, showing how wide you can go – wider than WMATA by more than a foot.

The big reason to add doors is to improve/reduce station dwell time. The rightmost column illustrates the benefits of many wide doors: more space available to move between the train and the platform. When an 8-car WMATA train arrives at a platform, passengers must squeeze into 16.67% of the train to board/alight. Contrast that to the MP-05s used on Line 1 in Paris, where 32.9% of the train is available for passengers to pass through from train to platform. To put it another way, if WMATA wanted to offer that same permeability between the train and platform without changing door width, they would have to double the number of doors.

Line 1 in Paris is an exceptional case, where RATP is attempting to squeeze every last bit of capacity out of century-old tunnels. In the traditional rapid transit cases, each of the New York examples is greater than 25% door width to platform length. Toronto’s Rocket shows what WMATA would need to do to get to that standard: four doors per car, and modestly widen the doors to ~60′ per opening.

BART’s new rail cars won’t achieve the 25%+ of Paris, New York, or Toronto; but adding the third door to their new rail cars will beat WMATA at 19.3% and offer a substantial increase from the two-door model.

A simple re-evaluation of what WMATA’s assumptions about what a  rail car is can go a long way towards the goal of maximizing the capacity of the existing system.

Urban tramways and surface transit priority – Paris

The biggest drawback to any surface transit line is the inherent conflict at the surface with other modes: cars, bikes, pedestrians, etc. This is an inherent element of competing for the same real estate as other priorities. When space on the surface is simply overtaxed or too contested, urban transport networks can add layers – but usually with great expense. With their tramways, the French manage to blur the lines between upgraded legacy street-running tram networks and the American conception of light rail as a kind of rapid transit.

In France, transport planners work to maximize the efficiency of surface transit operations to provide cost-effective transit network expansion. Standardization and relatively low costs allow a wide range of cities  (including the Paris region) to afford investments in new services.

Two of the Paris tramways illustrate the flexibility of the mode and the opportunities for efficient surface transit: The T2, operating on a repurposed rail right of way; and the T3, the first modern tramway in the city since the 1930s.

T2 at the Belvedere station. Note the alingment within the old rail right of way; La Defense skyscrapers in the background. CC image from Wiki.

T2 at the Belvedere station. Note the alignment within the old rail right of way; La Defense skyscrapers in the background. CC image from Wiki.

Community gardening spaces in unused right of way adjacent to the Belvedere T2 station. Photo by the author.

Community gardening spaces in unused right of way adjacent to the Belvedere T2 station. Photo by the author.

The T2 Tramway makes use of old SNCF rail right of way, but uses trams to allow for surface-running extensions at both ends of the line. The old suburban rail line closed in 1993, with the replacement tram service beginning in 1997. The line has since been extended in 2009 (into Paris) and in 2012 (north of La Defense).

The line’s  regular and frequent service has proven to be popular, carrying 115,000 riders daily. After blowing the initial ridership projections out of the water (as well as the ridership for the old suburban service that ended in 1993), the offering of frequent service along the same line (4 minute peak headways) shows what a difference a solid, frequent service plan can bring. In 2003, RATP had to lengthen the platforms (to 65m) to accommodate double-length trains.

Between the dedicated, mostly grade-separated right of way, platform/train length, and train frequency, the level of service comes as close to the Paris Metro (most Metro station platforms are 75m long, save for the busiest lines and key transfer points) as you can get while remaining on the surface.

Looking across the T2 platform to a Transilien train at Puteaux. The fence forces passengers to use the faregates to get on a Transilien service. Photo by the author.

Looking across the T2 platform to a Transilien train at Puteaux. The fence forces passengers to use the faregates to get on a Transilien service. Photo by the author.

The line’s heritage as a mainline railway is on display at the Puteaux station, where a cross-platform transfer is available to the L and U Transilien services. A fence along the platform forces those wishing to transfer to use faregates, meshing the tramway’s proof of payment system with the faregates found on the Metro, RER, and many of the suburban train stations.

The 2009 extension of the T2 brought the line into Paris, proper (incidentally, connecting to the T3 at Porte de Versailles, one of the areas of Paris slated to allow taller buildings), leaving the old SNCF right of way in favor of running on city streets. True to the standards established with other tramways, the trams are always given their own, dedicated right of way (often with grass tracks, both as a nice urban design touch and as a way to keep cars and trucks out).

Paris T3, showing street section with grass tracks. Photo by the author.

Paris T3, showing street section with grass tracks. Photo by the author.

At Porte de Versailles, riders can transfer to the T3 line. The modern tramway takes advantage of wide Parisian streets. Station platforms provide ample space compared to the legacy platforms in Amsterdam; two lanes of traffic in each direction move freely; sidewalks are wide with ample space for walking. Unlike the T2, the construction of the T3 involved removing car capacity in favor of transit.

Stop spacing is fairly close by American standards, but not for Paris – 500m on average. Similar to the T2, trains operate every 4 minutes during peak hours. Compared to the previous bus service along the route (averaging 15 kph), RATP claims the T3 is faster, averaging 19-20 kph (about 12.5 miles per hour). By comparison, almost no WMATA bus routes in the core of DC get above 10 mph average in the AM rush hours, and the PM rush is worse.

Not only does the T3 represent an improvement in speed and reliability over previous bus services, but it also adds capacity over bus. Like the T2, the T3 is also popular, exceeding ridership estimates. Riders strain the system, and operating along the surface, adjacent to traffic presents risks to speed and schedule adherence, despite signal priority for transit. Perhaps fewer stations with wider spacing would provide for faster average speed, but aside from that kind of change, it’s hard to see how you could squeeze more out of surface transit than the T3.

At the same time, the T2 shows the flexibility of tramways, allowing for mixed operation on surface streets as well as dedicated, grade-separated right of way. Where well-placed existing right of way (like the T2) isn’t available, there is also the option of pursuing a Premetro strategy, taking advantage of incremental implementation of full grade separation. The same vehicles can be used in both schemes; allowing flexibility not usually available to a Metro system or suburban rail.

Urban tramways and surface transit priority – Amsterdam

As impressive as the European subway and mainline rail networks are, recent expansions and improvements to surface transit networks are also noteworthy. Examples include upgrading legacy tram networks and building new networks on existing streets, as well as new uses for old mainline rail rights of way. Each example shows different methods of providing priority for surface transit.

In Amsterdam, the challenge is to provide priority for high-capacity modes along constrained city streets. The methods of providing surface transit priority complement efforts to create a pleasant walking environment and to preserve the city’s urban design and historic canal network. Together, these policies present a virtuous cycle – prioritizing transit, biking, and walking makes each of those modes more efficient and thus a better alternative to driving; which in turn lowers opposition to limiting the role of the car, making it easier to implement priority for surface transit.

Not all of this prioritization is the result of active choices; Amsterdam’s city streets vary tremendously in width. The city’s canals limit available street space, providing a natural limitation on cars within the historic city. Unlike other cities, Amsterdam largely did not remove its pre-war network of trams. Thus, the city retains the benefit of the old infrastructure network, but does not have the option of easily recrafting large rights of way with entirely modern tramways, as we see with modern tramways in France. Today, the network is extensive both inside and outside the historic city core.

Center-running tramway in Amsterdam. Photo by the author. Image links to Google Streetview of approximate location.

Center-running tramway in Amsterdam. Photo by the author. Image links to Google Streetview of approximate location.

Within the historic core, many services often converge on a core trunk line located along the broad avenues without canals. In the case above, the trams use a dedicated, center-running transitway (many of Amsterdam’s older trams do not have doors on the left side of the vehicle). Passengers load from side platforms on islands in the street.

The remainder of the street cross-section (visible on the far side of the above photograph, and in Google Streetview) includes one travel lane and a bike lane in each direction. In the tree zone, several parking and loading spaces are included along the street. I witnessed several loading vehicles double-parked in the travel lane, but the physical divider between the transitway and the general traffic lane is low enough that a car can easily navigate around a loading vehicle; car traffic in general is low enough that this does not greatly congest traffic or transit.

Gauntlet track in Amsterdam's Tram Network. Image from Google Streetview.

Gauntlet track in Amsterdam’s Tram Network. Image from Google Streetview.

Other links in the network run perpendicular to the city’s rings of canals; old narrow streets sometimes require gauntlet track. These streets represent the Dutch movement towards shared environments; the rails and pavement tell pedestrians where the trams run, but pedestrians walk all along the street and move out of the way as trams pass. Car traffic is allowed, but generally limited to service/delivery vehicles without limiting transit service – an outcome possible due to the general limits on car traffic.

Amsterdam tram in mixed traffic, with floating bike lane and on-street parking. Photo by the author.

Amsterdam tram in mixed traffic, with floating bike lane and on-street bike parking. Photo by the author.

Other streets involve streetcars in mixed traffic. The example above shows the tram platform ‘floating’ away from the curb to allow the bike lane passage along the street (at the expense of sidewalk width). On the far side of the street, there is a painted bike lane (red/maroon) and extensive in-street bike parking. An older Google Streetview of the same location shows that space used for on-street car parking; it also shows the wider sidewalk (with enough room for two-seat tables in sidewalk cafes), thanks to the trams in the other direction utilizing a station just around the corner.

Dedicated tramway near the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Note the allowed taxi usage of the transitway. Photo by the author.

Dedicated tramway near the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Note the allowed taxi usage of the transitway. Photo by the author.

Where the space is available, trams are given dedicated right of way. This example, near the city’s Museumplein, features a center-running transitway, landscaped buffer, general traffic lanes and bike lanes differentiated by color. The image also demonstrates the city’s policy of allowing taxis to make use of transitways to speed the journeys of shared-use vehicles.

On-street parking is available, but it isn’t really on the street – parking occurs by the car mounting the angled stone curb in designated areas. In the immediate foreground of the image above, you can see the outlines of an empty parking space (designated by gray pavers). Thus, when not in use, the empty parking space becomes part of the sidewalk rather than part of the street.

All of these different kinds of prioritization (along with the famous Dutch investment in cycling infrastructure) come together to influence the city’s transportation behavior. One of the key slides in this presentation from Rene Meijer, deputy director of traffic and transport in Amsterdam, shows not just the city’s mode share, but also the varying mode share based on the distance of travel:

Mode share for Amsterdam residents, both pre trip and per km.

Mode share for Amsterdam residents, both pre trip and per km.

As you might expect, most trips are shorter trips; longer trips will require modes suited for longer trips (rail; transit; car). Walking comprises 24% of all trips, while only accounting for 2% of the distance covered.

Amsterdam Mode Share by trip distance.

Amsterdam Mode Share by trip distance.

Breaking trips into reasonable distances, you can see how each mode has strengths in certain distances. The white bars show walking dominating short trips (up to 1km), where biking then explodes. For longer trips in the window of 5km to 20km, transit (with priority) and car travel both grow. Also, while intercity rail and transit are presented as separate modes here, actual behavior may involve similar kinds of trips, thanks to the integration between the two modes within the Dutch rail network.

The chart does not differentiate between destinations; I would hypothesize that transit performs better for trips to destinations that are well-connected to the transit network, and the same is true for auto trips. The Netherlands have good highways, but they wisely do not penetrate the historic city core, nor would one volunteer to drive along Amsterdam’s canals when so many better options exist. Even at very long distances, the difference between trains and cars likely depends on differences in origin/destination: the kind of land use, the ease/difficulty of auto/transit access, and so on.

Just as the Dutch have invested in bikes and unsurprisingly end up with strong bike usage, the same can be said of transit. While the optimal distance of effectiveness for bikes and transit likely overlaps a great deal, Amsterdam shows ways to meet both goals.