I hadn't thought about SNAP cuts significantly impacting inner city groceries

This article is inspired in part by the Washington City Paper article, "Oh, SNAP: How Program Cuts Are Impacting Food Access in the DMV." From the article:

“The number of people receiving SNAP has fallen in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia,” says Katie Bergh, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which tracks the impact SNAP cuts are having. Bergh, citing USDA data, tells City Paper that the number of people receiving SNAP in D.C. dropped by almost 7,500 between the law’s July 2025 enactment and March—a roughly 6 percent decrease.

Numbers are steeper in our neighboring states: “In Maryland, state data show the number of people receiving SNAP fell by more than 39,000 people between July 2025 and April 2026,” also about a 6 percent drop, says Bergh. “More than 17,000 were children.” Virginia has seen the worst with a roughly 13 percent decrease—that’s 111,000 people who are no longer receiving benefits—between July 2025 and May 2026. The federal government is also shifting a higher cost burden to states, which is making it harder for states—and D.C.—to balance their budgets.

It's always a struggle to have supermarkets, either full line or with a smaller set of items, operating in inner city neighborhoods.  

The costs are higher, including employee retention and losses due to stealing and fraud.  

Places without stores are called food deserts or food insecure places.  But this is deceiving because since people have to eat, they come up with ways to get to grocery stores, even if they have to go out of their neighborhood to do so.  

But this is something I noticed living in the H Street NE neighborhood back in the 1980s and 1990s.  People had ways to buy groceries.  Even though an independent opened in the neighborhood called MegaFoods, many didn't think it served them well enough, so they either protested, or continued to shop outside of the neighborhood.

Of course, many people use transit to grocery shop.  I hated using the bus for groceries.  Mind the subway less.  But mostly shopped by bike, putting the bags on my handlebars, and using my backpack--sadly it took me 20 years to figure out I could put my backpack on the handlebars too--imagine riding uphill from Capitol Hill to Manor Park with a watermelon in your backpack, not fun.

(Separately, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has an article on DC Central Kitchen, which is a social enterprise that in part addresses food access issues: "How DC Central Kitchen Keeps Expanding While Other Nonprofits Shrink")

Also see:

-- "Grocery stores in cities: the failure of the "15 minute grocery store"" (2023)

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Gross profit margins on groceries are minimal.  As it is, the average grocery store only makes 1.5% that is a penny and a haf per dollar of sales.  That doesn't leave a lot of room for error, or provide the ability to react when there are scalar changes in economic conditions.  Tariffs are making it worse.  Same with increased transportation costs because of the Trump Iran War.

This is why supermarkets would rather donate food to events and organizations and not money (I tried to get the grocery store cooperative in Salt Lake to fund grills at Sugar House Park and they said they had no money to give.).

Chicago: Yellow Banana's Sav-A-Lot stores on the brink of closure.  Yellow Banana is a grocery "start up" from a few years back that bought a bunch of Sav A Lot stores--a discount low number of items store operating primarily in low income areas.  Sav A Lot is a chain that has company stores and franchised stores.  

SAL was owned by Supervalu which sold it off to private equity before being acquired by UNFI.  The current owner is trying to sell off the stores, and function as a wholesaler/franchisor.  That's how YB got the stores they operate.

YB has/had seven stores in Chicago.  And they received money from the city to do so.  They had a lot of problems getting going, and the stores have to be operated for 10 years for the company to get the full amount awarded.

In the last year, the company's president died unexpectedly of a stroke, without anyone to replace him, and the "One Big Beautiful Bill" cut funding for the federal Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides a modicum of money to poor people to buy food--the amount provided is paltry, it's a crime.  Most people getting benefits get less than $200/month.

Customers shop at Save A Lot’s remodeled West 63rd Street store in West Lawn on April 9, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

According to the Supermarket News article "Yellow Banana ready to close 7 Chicago stores, loses tie with Save A Lot":

SNAP money at the six stores accounted for almost 50% of revenue, and SNAP sales have declined about 27% year over year.

Projections at the start of the year showed the stores were getting close to breaking even but would still lose in the range of $500,000, a figure the source said was not insurmountable. Then the SNAP cuts kicked in.

SAL, which had been providing the company with inventory on credit, pulled the rug and cancelled the franchise agreement.  

The company has been crushed by the loss of SNAP-related sales.

It's not news that the Trump bill has had a lot of negative effects, including one they think is positive, which is reducing the tax rate on rich people and corporations.

Sadly, this is not an unintended consequence.  It was intended.  And this is but one of the many fallouts from the Act.

(There used to be a SAL on Chillum Road in nearby Maryland, and on occasion I would bike there to buy groceries.  It's long since closed although they still have other stores in Prince George's County.  When you're buying shortening, why pay a lot more for it at a mainline grocery when you can get it at a store like SAL or Aldi?)

Also see:

-- "Save A Lot grocery stores could shutter abruptly this week," Chicago Tribune
-- "Save A Lot grocery operator gets an extension on City Hall-funded deal amid missed deadlines, lawsuits," Chicago Sun-Times

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Thoughts.  The margin issue is real.  That, plus lack of management expertise is why government owned groceries aren't likely to be successful.  And the least bit of problem in getting the store up and running and then operating--such as community opposition for any reason--makes it that much harder to succeed.

Recently, a more upscale grocer in Cleveland, Heinen's, closed its downtown store.  They said they lost $18 million over 11 years ("Heinen’s Cleveland location was losing millions," Supermarket News). And they sold alcohol too, which has higher margins.

Grocers in hard pressed areas probably need more subsidy than people realize, considering that 1.5% margin.  I know a cooperative in Connecticut had to close because they foolishly signed a lease requiring a percentage of gross revenue be paid to the property owner, even though $1 of additional revenue yields only 1.5 cents.

One such subsidy, and I'd have been against it before, is probably, "zero property tax" until the store shows a profit.

Repeating b.s. about everything being about race and class: bike infrastructure in Washington, DC

I owe Marc Fisher (I wrote about a similar controversy he fostered on historic preservation 18 years ago!, "Preservation takes it on the chin (updated)" 2006) thanks for getting me off my ass to write--I haven't blogged in months--although I had been on the cusp recently.  My "eating disorder" led me to consume not enough calories to be motivated to write and do other stuff.

His column, "The truth about bike lanes: They’re not about the bikes" asks the wrong question.  He writes about people complaining about the construction of bike infrastructure in their neighborhoods since fewer people are biking to work or in their areas.

The right question to ask is "in a city that was designed to optimize walking, biking, and transit" why don't more people use those modes?"

Ironically, GGW reports ("CaBi breaks all-time annual ridership record…in October") that DC's bike sharing system CaBi is experiencing record use.  I think that's ironic because it has taken 14 years to get to this point--the system was launched in September 2010 and has been expanding, albeit primarily in the city's core, where biking works best (more below on this).

At the same time this illustrates how change takes time, especially when you rely on trickle down--if you build it they will come, rather than purposive strategies that focus on increasing bicycling ("Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs," "Biking to Work Isn't Gaining Any Ground in the US | Bloomberg Opinion," Bloomberg) walking, and transit use by assisting people with making the change.

Versus

Fisher makes it out that this is a racial and social class issue, the same way he did about historic preservation.  Maybe I'm just a racist, but that's a facile take.  

Transportation demand management in the Walking City ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis" Muller) is about optimal mobility.

Also see the book, Reclaiming our Cities and Towns: Better Living Through less traffic by the founder of the concept of TDM; he realized that fewer car users meant less demand for expanding roadways.  Since when is forcing car use pro-race and pro-class?  From the article:

Rodney Foxworth, a longtime civic activist who now leads an anti-bike lane group, says the city “has a bias in favor of bike lanes no matter whether residents or businesses want them, and a lot of these lanes are being installed in Black, low-income communities. There is a nexus between bike lanes and gentrification.”

I have written about making sustainable mobility about race with frustration for 18+ years:

-- "Urg: bad studies don't push the discourse or policy forward | biking in low income communities (in DC) edition," 2014
-- "The co-existence of streetcars and churches elsewhere ought to counter anti-streetcar arguments by churches in DC today," 2014
-- "Why not get a bike?: 'He walked 17 miles a day to work until a stranger gave him a ride and changed his life forever'," 2021

So again, not realizing the right questions, bike lanes aren't about bikes.  They are about mobility and people throughput, just like more people ride a bus take up less room than 60 cars.

If I could ride until 63--for me, riding more has only been hindered by the onset of congestive heart failure and I hope to be riding short distances again, finally, within the next few months--so can older people in DC.  

Plus, for each person shifted to sustainable modes, that's one less car on the road, one less competitor for limited parking spaces, etc.

Plus it's cheaper ("AAA: Your Driving Costs: The Price of New Car Ownership Continues to Climb").  --over $1,000 per month.  For us, not owning a car supported $100,000 of our mortgage.

If anything it's about applying suburban ideas about bicycling ("DC as a suburban agenda dominated city," 2013) or transit ("Transit notes #2: Anti-transit opposition a form of defending automobility as a way of life," 2016) to urban areas.

Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs

I have always been big on differentiation in analyzing places and programs, but lately I've become aware that I may not be as thorough as I could be.

I've written hundreds of blog entries about bicycling and how to promote it as a real form of transportation, focused on but not limited to DC, which is a perfect city for it.

A big point I make with bicycling is that given the automobile dependency that's been fostered on the US given the predominate land use and transportation development paradigm, is that people have to be assisted in making the shift from driving to mostly bicycling.

Building infrastructure isn't enough.  Even great infrastructure can be empty much of the time.  If anything, that's an indicator that people need help to make the change.

Granted for "biking most of the time" a lot of conditions have to be congruent including distance from origin to destination, topography, weather.

I have a piece, "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs," and speaking of differentiation what I realize it that it should be organized in terms of mass/district/place based supports versus what we might call individualized and personal biking.

An example might be living in Capitol Hill, DC and riding around on various errands, trips to work, for recreation etc., within your neighborhood, versus living 4.5 miles direct to the University of Maryland, and riding there.  

Similarly, Capitol Hill has dozens of bike sharing stations, while the route from Takoma Park to University of Maryland does not.  In Manor Park, there are few bike sharing stations, so having your own bike makes the most sense.

==========

That entry updates "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs," with the addition of more programs, which I have included below, marked by an asterisk, but without adding much in the way of additional text.

Critical Mass of Riders/Place/District

1. Creating "sustainable mobility stores." Relatedly providing support and subsidies to bicycle shops.

3.  Cycling training

9.  Bike sharing programs ought to be an obvious opportunity for promoting cycling take up.

10.  Discounted bike sharing memberships on a means-tested basis.

12.  Campus specific bike share programs.  

Ciclavia in December 2014.  Los Angeles Times photo.

19.** Open Streets Programs/Community Cycling Promotion programs at the neighborhood and community scale, including promotion of biking through affinity groups.  I've written about both a lot but somehow neglected to include this as part of the comprehensive list.

Neighborhood and district rides at one scale, whole community rides at the others.  I am always amazed to see photos of such events and say "where did all the bikes come from?" because you don't see that many bicyclists riding to work or on errands.

20.**  Electric bike discount programs.  This has the advantage of "expanding" the distance and radius of the area in which someone is willing to bike.  Research shows it can shift people in significant ways from cars.

21.**  Free bicycle share trips to extend transit trips to reaching your final destination.  Columbia SC (bus) transit does this, as does Bogota. (First mile/last mile connection and access issues.)

23.**  Bike bus programs.  Often deployed in conjunction with "bike to school programs" ("I Started a Bike Bus, and You Can Too," Wired, 8 routes for the Montclair Bike Bus in New Jersey, "A cool way to get kids to school -- the bike bus" Boston Globe, ""‘It’s a bit of freedom’: traffic-stopping tech helps Glasgow school’s bike bus on its way"," Guardian).

Bike bus in Brooklyn.  Video at Reddit.

25.** Expansion and Improvement of Trails. Until I rode a trail for some distance after 20 years of  mostly being a street rider, I didn't realize how much mental energy is spent while street riding on safety measures and defensive cycling.  Separation from cars encourages more people to bike.  It lets you "shed" that mental load.

-- "Denver and Rio Grande Rail Trail in Davis County, Utah: a great foundation, full of (missed) opportunity" 2022

26.** Bike (sustainable mobility) Festivals.  I've written about college bike weeks and the Bike Rodeo that used to be sponsored by Utah Transit Authority.  Sometimes an Open Streets program includes some of these features.  Obviously it's a way to get people consider sustainable mobility.

More recently, Washington Area Bicyclists Association has sponsored such events for seniors specifically ("Older adult transportation block party").

Individually-focused

1. Creating "sustainable mobility stores".  Relatedly providing support and subsidies to bicycle shops.

2.  Cycle Borrowing programs.

3.  Cycling training

4.  Bike safety training for children AND YOUTH.

5.  Integrating cycling promotion programs into public recreation centers.  

6.  Other demographic focused cycling initiatives.

7.  Senior cycling promotion programs.

8.  Bikes as tools for improving access to jobs.

11.  Cycle access programs on college campuses and by large employers.

13.  Employer and college-assisted buying programs.

14.  Credit union loans to buy bikes.

15.  Bike donations for children.

16.  Bike bundling programs in public housing.

17.  Donating abandoned and unclaimed bikes to programs serving low income populations.

18.  Short term on-site bicycle provision.

19.** Open Streets Programs/Community Cycling Promotion programs at the neighborhood and community scale, including promotion of biking through affinity groups.  I've written about both a lot but somehow neglected to include this item in this listing.   

Neighborhood and district rides at one scale, whole community rides at the others.  I am always amazed to see photos of such events and say "where did all the bikes come from?"  This item is listed in this section more for affinity groups and community rides.

20.**  Electric bike discount programs.  This has the advantage of "expanding" the size of a district a person is willing to bike it.  Research demonstrates it's a good way to shift trips away from the car.

22.** Secure bicycle parking systems at the city and metropolitan scale ("Another mention of the idea of creating a network of metropolitan scale secure bicycle parking facilities").  Again something I write about a lot that should be integrated into this list.

24.**  Provision of secure bicycle parking, and lockers and showers in destination districts.  Zoning requirements to build them in office buildings and campuses of a certain size.  Or as a proffer/ community benefit. 

25.** Expansion and Improvement of Trails. I didn't realize until I rode a trail as opposed to street riding, how much mental energy is spent while street riding on safety measures and defensive cycling.  Separation from cars encourages more people to bike.

26.** Bike (sustainable mobility) Festivals.  I've written about college bike weeks and the Bike Rodeo that used to be sponsored by Utah Transit Authority.  Sometimes an Open Streets program includes some of these features.  Obviously it's a way to get people consider sustainable mobility.

More recently, Washington Area Bicyclists Association has sponsored such events for seniors specifically ("Older adult transportation block party").

October is National Energy Awareness Month

I didn't know that a number of years ago, the US Department of Energy designated October as National Energy Awareness Month.  

It's particularly appropriate this year given:

• the need to improve the reliability of the energy grid more generally and increased stress due to the rise in renewable energy sources and electrification of motor vehicles 
• heat wave related energy blackouts and deaths of people without air conditioning (blog entry)
• cold wave related energy blackouts, especially in Texas (blog entry)
• how failures in Texas this past winter led to massive price escalation throughout the Midwest because of natural gas production and distribution
• big increases in energy prices being likely this winter
• the seeming failure of energy grid privatization in Puerto Rico ("Who's to blame for Puerto Rico's power crisis? It's complicated, a report shows," NBC News), etc.

We'll see if this time Texas follows the recommendations of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concerning system reliability ("Feds call for more regulation of Texas power grid, natural gas industry," Austin American-Statesman).

The UK in particular and Europe more generally faces significant energy price escalation for a variety of reasons: (1) increased demand; (2) a drop off of investment in response to demand declines during the pandemic; (3) teething pains in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources; (4) fall off in renewable energy production, etc. ("Europe's energy crisis: Continent 'too reliant on gas,' says von der Leyen," Euronews).

(Separately, the UK has a Brexit-induced gasoline shortage, because there aren't enough truck drivers to take fuel to stations.  Although there is plenty of fuel. AP photo.)

For similar reasons, it's expected that energy prices will rise in the US this winter as well ("Home heating costs set to spike this winter amid global energy crunch," Sinclair Television, "U.S. home heating bills expected to surge this winter, EIA says," Reuters).  From Reuters:

Last year energy prices plunged to multi-year lows due to coronavirus demand destruction, particularly natural gas, the most popular U.S. heating fuel, which hit a 25-year-low. 

Depending where people live, the EIA said residential costs will rise to about $11-$14 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) for natural gas, about $2.50-$3.50 per gallon for propane, and $3.39 per gallon for heating oil. 

That compares with last winter's residential costs of around $8-$12 per mcf for natural gas, $1.50-$2.50 per gallon for propane, and $2.55 per gallon for heating oil.

Photo: "Insulate Britain: Who are the protesters and why do they keep blocking roads?," Big Issue.

In response to price rises in the UK, the advocacy group Insulate Britain has been demonstrating by shutting down major freeways ("Who are Insulate Britain and what do they want?," Guardian). 

More recent UK government home energy conservation programs failed and were cancelled ("Green deal scheme did not deliver energy savings, audit finds," Guardian). 

Photographer unknown.

The forthcoming rise in utility bills this winter  re-raises the issue of energy poverty.  

It would be very beneficial to have a massive home energy conservation initiative as part of a "Green New Deal" and President Biden's Build Back Better initiative which is having a hard time making it through Congress between the Republicans and the Democratic-lite Senators Sinema and Manchin.

Sadly, I doubt that energy conservation is much on the mind of Senator Manchin given how he earns millions each year from his investments in coal ("Joe Manchin’s ‘blind trust’ is an utter farce," Philadelphia Inquirer).

Photo: "Coming Up ‘Down the Hill’ On Peoria’s South Side," Belt Magazine.

Earlier in the year, I was shocked at an article in the Washington Post about people in Peoria's South Side neighborhood with monthly utility bills over $1,000 in the winter months, and I was surprised about reporting on how many low income households pay higher utility rates with "deregulation" rather than lower rates.

Energy conservation assistance programs for low income households should be an element of neighborhood improvement programs.  In response, I added "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," which suggests systematic energy conservation programs to address equity and energy poverty programs in low income communities, to my series of articles on creating neighborhood revitalization initiatives ("A once 'wonderful' part of Peoria eroded with blight and crime. Why these residents stayed," Peoria Journal-Star).

It's also a way to provide job opportunities.

But I forgot to mention the importance of trees in addressing summer heat.  The New York Times has a couple of important pieces on inequitable distribution of trees in cities ("Since When Have Trees Existed Only for Rich Americans?" and "Why an East Harlem Street Is 31 Degrees Hotter Than Central Park West") and the contribution to the heat island effect.  

Also see this blog entry and "Boston’s ‘heat islands’ turn lower-income neighborhoods from hot to insufferable," Boston Globe. (Although I remember high income areas of San Francisco being without many trees also, due to small lots and virtually 100% lot coverage by buildings.)

My piece on energy conservation as an element of neighborhood revitalization didn't mention the tree canopy as a way to address summer heat island issues, which will be of increasing importance going forward.  Therefore, tree planting programs should be an element of such programs as well.

The next time I re-write "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model" I'll add a section on a massive tree planting program.

Strong real estate markets, lack of supply have extranormal negative effects on low income households: confirmation by research

This isn't news exactly.  In the blog for years we've discussed how the strong residential real estate market has many effects, including (1) a repricing upward of Class B, C and D housing and (2) persistent demand for sub-standard housing, allowing property owners to stint on maintenance ("Understanding the DC housing market: demand for urban living, not the construction of new housing, is the driving force").

19. In the rental market, because of the demand-supply mismatch, substandard housing (Class B, C and D) rents for higher prices than would prevail in a weaker market. (This phenomenon of higher prices for less well maintained housing bleeds across the DC border into Prince George's County.)

Illustrating this fact, NPR reports ("Housing Conditions In This Low-Income Neighborhood Pushed Tenants To Sue The Landlord") in Prince George's County Maryland, that predominately Latino low-income tenants, with the support of CASA de Maryland, are suing the property owner and managers of the Bedford Station and Victoria Station apartments in Langley Park, for lack of maintenance.  

Comparatively speaking, PGC doesn't have a particularly robust set of tenant protections.  

In the past, there was a neighborhood stabilization program under previous County Executive Rushern Baker, called the Transforming Neighborhoods Initiative, and it included the Langley Park area.  I don't know what the status is of that program under his successor.  But Langley Park and additional neighborhoods were removed from the program, switched to a community led initiative rather than the more top-down TNI program, which shifted its focus to the most distressed communities in the program.

The NPR article mentions a journal article, "Do the Poor Pay More for Housing? Exploitation, Profit, and Risk in Rental Markets," published in the American Journal of Sociology (124:4, 2019), detailing the effects of strong housing markets on low income households.  The research results discussed in the article confirms my hypothesis as laid out in Item 19 above.  From the article:

This article examines tenant exploitation and landlord profit margins within residential rental markets. Defining exploitation as being overcharged relative to the market value of a property, the authors find exploitation of tenants to be highest in poor neighborhoods. Landlords in poor neighborhoods also extract higher profits from housing units. Property values and tax burdens are considerably lower in depressed residential areas, but rents are not. Because landlords operating in poor communities face more risks, they hedge their position by raising rents on all tenants, carrying the weight of social structure into price. Since losses are rare, landlords typically realize the surplus risk charge as higher profits. Promoting a relational approach to the analysis of inequality, this study demonstrates how the market strategies of landlords contribute to high rent burdens in low-income neighborhoods.

Code enforcement.  While often used as a displacement mechanism, some communities use regular inspections of rental properties as a mechanism for ensuring quality maintenance.  In Prince George's County, the incorporated city of Hyattsville does this, although I don't know if it is done every year, upon renewal of the rental license.

Upping code enforcement requirements on rental properties in the unincorporated sections of PGC would be an important tenant protection mechanism. 

Inequality in sociology and planning.  The journal article is devastating in its discussion of inequality as an area of study in sociology. 

It quotes extensively from a review by famed sociologist Arthur Stinchcombe of the book Inequality by Jencks et al.  Stinchcombe criticized the book for focusing on inequality as a failing of individuals as opposed to the result from power differentials between the well off and the impoverished, and class.

This schism -- personal failings versus power differentials -- shapes how inequality is addressed to this day in policy differences between Republicans and Democrats, the idea of the "deserving poor," and discussions of "structural racism," "multi-generational poverty," and investments in people or place versus people and place.

-- "Equity planning: an update," 2020
-- "St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 1: Overview and Theoretical Foundations," 2021
-- "St. Louis: what would I recommend for a comprehensive revitalization program? | Part 2: Implementation Approach and Levers" (forthcoming)

Why not get a bike?: 'He walked 17 miles a day to work until a stranger gave him a ride and changed his life forever'

There is an article, "He walked 17 miles a day to work until a stranger gave him a ride and changed his life forever," another one of those "person walks many miles daily to and from work, a person sees him, sets up a funding account and the person gets a car, etc. in reward for his perseverance" stories that comes up every so often (cf. "Heart and sole: Detroiter walks 21 miles in work commute" and "'Walking man' settles into new life, friends, waist size," Detroit Free Press).  From the first article:

Michael Lynn was running some errands on June 15 on a hot Oklahoma day when he noticed a shirtless young man walking down the side of a service road. Sensing that the man needed some assistance he pulled up beside him and asked if he needed a ride. 

The young man, Donte Franklin, 20, replied, "Yes, sir!" Donte was doing his daily, eight-mile walk to the Buffalo Wild Wings on the other side of town where he works as a chef. After his shift, he does the same long, eight-mile walk back home. 

To make it to work on time, Donte has to leave the house three hours before his shift starts. He walks an average of five and a half hours a day to and from work. And yet, "I haven't missed a shift at all," Donte told Fox News, adding that he's never been late.

While I think this is great, when I read these stories my first reaction is "why didn't this person get a bicycle?"  

I'm not the only one who has figured this out ("Spring Hill church, helping-hand organization delivering free bikes to homeless, low-income," Suncoast News, "Volunteering Enables Low-Income Ohioans to Get Their Own Two Wheels," Nation Swell, Bikes for All program, Seattle Bike Works, "Henrico church provides bikes to hundreds of low-income families," NBC12, Richmond).

Graphics from the Streetsblog post, "Low-Income Americans Walk and Bike to Work the Most"

His 2.5 hour walk would be a 40 minute bike trip.

I first wrote about this kind of stuff maybe in 2005 or 2006, after reading one or more articles about people reliant on bus transit getting to work hours before their shift, to be sure they'd be on time, given the vagaries of the bus system.

I started biking for transportation in 1990 for exactly this reason, to get to work faster and more reliably than if I were taking transit or walking (I did often walk to work when I first moved to DC, it was 2.3 miles each way).  Biking gave me more and better control of my time.

(And when I worked in Baltimore County, I didn't buy a car because it wasn't a permanent job.  I cycled to Union Station -- 5 miles -- took the train to Baltimore, 35 miles -- first took a bus, and then got another bike to ride from Penn Station to Towson, 8 miles -- and the return each day, although when I was tired, sometimes at night I'd take the Metro home from Union Station to Takoma.)

In "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs" I list model programs to assist people in making the transition to biking as transportation.  

#8 is Bikes as tools for improving access to jobs.  The Community Cycling Center of Portland has a program that outfits low income residents with bikes and all the requisite support equipment and training, so that they can cycle safely to work.  They've done this for 20 years! ("Ten years of Create a Commuter, Part 1" and "Ten years of Create a Commuter, Part 2," "This Bike is My New Best Friend").

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch ("Notable Gifts: Capital One donates 20 bikes, gear"), Capital One has supported a similar program there. From the article: 

Twenty bicycles donated by Capital One will provide greater access to jobs for participants in the Workforce Pipeline Program at Richmond’s Center for Workforce Innovation. Capital One volunteers assembled the bicycles with assistance from RideRichmond. Capital One donations also provided safety gear such as helmets for the riders and lights and locks for the bikes. 

... A regional study found that nearly 1,000 additional businesses and 18,000 additional jobs are located within 1.5 miles of the end of the bus line, Manion said. “We have had several participants that have lost jobs or been unable to get jobs because of this short distance."

The Sibley Bike Depot in Minneapolis-St. Paul is shifting from a youth-focused program to broadening its programming to include low income household access to biking for transportation ("Sibley Bike Depot introduces low-income adults to bicycling’s joys," St. Paul Pioneer-Press).

And in Canada where the Squeaky Wheels Bicycle Cooperative has a similar program ("How London, Ont., low-income essential workers are getting free bikes for their commutes," CBC-TV).

#2 is Cycle Borrowing Programs, where communities in London have programs that will lend people bicycles, locks, and helmets for a month or more, so that they can experiment with bicycling for transportation without having to first commit to buying.

#5 is Integrating Community Cycling Programs into community recreation centers.  There are bike co-ops and youth programs nonprofits.  Why not give such programs space in community recreation centers instead of them having to pay rent, and include training, community rides, and other programs as part of it.

-- "Low-income NYC high school students should get free bicycles, Citi Bike memberships: Comptroller Stringer," New York Daily News

#10 is Discounted memberships in bike sharing programs on a means tested basis.  In places with bike sharing programs, it would seem that low income people would be avid users of the system ("Study says look at price and incentives to get low-income residents on bike share," "New Study Finds Low-Income Workers Rely More on Bike Share," Better Bike Share Partnership).

Boston, Minnesota, and Chicago bicycle sharing programs offer discounted memberships for $5/year, a significant discount.  

Montgomery County, Maryland offers free membership to those who qualify, which was rolled into a broader "Capital Bikeshare for All" program similar to Boston and Chicago at $5, but still free for Montgomery County residents who qualify.  It includes free access to e-bikes for up to a 60 minute ride.  (Still, it shouldn't have taken 10 years to create such a program...)  Cincinnati has a free membership program too.

The bike sharing program in Salt Lake City is offering $1 memberships this year to "essential employees" as a post-pandemic inducement ("GREENbike offers $1 annual pass to essential workers in 2021," Utah Business).

#14 is Credit Union loans to Buy Bikes.  Community cycling programs could work with local credit unions to create programs to assist people in purchasing bikes, establishing credit, getting back accounts, etc.  

Virginia Credit Union, Unitus of Oregon, Providence Federal Credit Union in Oregon, the Clean Energy Credit Union for e-bikes, Affinity Plus in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Community Powered Federal Credit Union in Delaware, the UMass Five College Credit Union in Massachusetts, and the Seattle Credit Union are some of the credit unions offering this option.

#16 is Creating Bike Bundling Programs in Public Housing.  This is an idea I've had for 10 years or so, building a bike, lock and helmet into apartment leases, with the inclusion of high quality, secure bike parking on site.  But I've never managed to convince a public housing authority to try it.

#17 is Donating abandoned and unclaimed bikes to programs serving low income populations.  A number of places, including Boston, do this.  LA MTA started doing this too, with abandoned bicycles on its properties.

Although Montgomery County, Maryland does a variant, actively seeking donated bikes for this purpose.

NEW #19.  Adding bike access to transit trips to get to your final destination.  The Medellin transit system links to the city bike share system, so that a transit user can use a bike to finish their trip.  

The Comet bus system in Columbia, South Carolina is the only system I know that does this in the US ("Transit as a mobility integrator," Mass Transit Magazine).

Conclusion.  These kinds of initiatives should be much more widespread and combined into a "program."

And it would give bicycling, often seen as a "white thing" ("What riding my bike has taught me about white privilege," Quartz) a way to deliver equity and access in concrete and effective ways.

Although I have always been troubled by the white-black thing and biking  I started biking in part because of my own limited income--biking's cheaper than transit, at least in the DC area--and like my original point in this piece, wondering why people wouldn't get a bike to save themselves hours of time each day, saw biking as practical and utilitarian, not in racial terms.  People's self interest, regardless of race, ought to be propelling them to biking as a solution to transportation needs.

But maybe a lot of outreach is needed to make this connection ("SF’s low-income residents remain unsure about regional bike-sharing program," Mission Local, "Nice Ride loans out 140 bikes in low-income neighborhoods," St. Paul Pioneer-Press).  Although as argued here ad infinitum, such promotion and outreach is necessary for sustainable mobility in general, at least in the US.

Buying a car changes life positively versus the Sustainable Mobility Platform and mode layering.  There is an article in Gizmodo ("Buying a Car Improved My Life. It Shouldn't Have") about a guy in Baltimore writing about how a car made his life easier in Baltimore, despite Baltimore's acceptable Walk Score (65%) where he lived.  

Baltimore is pretty spread out, the blocks can be big, and transit infrequent.  While he bought a car, depending on the nature of his travel, he could have just as easily and for a lot less money, bought a bike, and had an equivalent improvement in his quality of life.

DC (and SF, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Inner Queens, parts of Boston and Chicago, etc.) shows the value of what I call the "Sustainable Mobility Platform" (also see "DC is a market leader in Mobility as a Service (MaaS)"). 

But to be fair, Baltimore is not one of those cities.

DC starts off with an urban design of the grid of blocks and streets, designed during the era of the Walking City, when mostly people walked.  

This urban design is equally supportive of transit and biking ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis," Peter Muller).

This urban design is the framework for the Sustainable Mobility Platform (which extends from what I originally laid out years ago as the transit shed/transitshed and mobility shed/mobilityshed, built on the term  "commutershed" by Robert Cervero).

(For more detailed discussion about how urban form can or may not support compact development and sustainable mobility see "GROWING SMART BY LINKING TRANSPORTATION AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT," Robert Cervero, Virginia Environmental Law Journal, 19:3 (2000).)

By layering walking, biking, transit--different modes and services (bus, streetcar, light rail, subway, railroad)--for trips of varying lengths ("Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited"), one way and two way car share, delivery, taxi and ride hailing, and the occasional car rental, you can construct a life where car ownership is not required, and you can use the money you save by avoiding owning a car for other things, like paying a mortgage.

But, most cities don't have this kind of framework in place. And few people have experience in living this way.  And the predominate land use and mobility paradigm doesn't support it. 

Have you noticed that most performance car ads are set in cities, with no traffic?

So when you mention biking or transit as a viable mode, they are totally flummoxed and resistant, because it is not part of their experience.  And they sure are unfamiliar with car sharing.

And a sustainable mobility framework is actively opposed by the interests focused on the maintenance of oil consumption and sprawl.

And surprisingly by residents, who believe that non-automobile centric mobility somehow calls into question their life and lifestyle choices, so they oppose sustainable mobility vociferously ("DC as a suburban agenda dominated city" "Car culture and automobilty: 5 stories of inside the box thinking,").

Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)"
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2"
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)"
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)"
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," 2021

In August 2020, I wrote a series of pieces about the need for focused neighborhood stabilization and improvement programs, particularly in weak market neighborhoods.  It recommended as a proposed model the reworking of the Main Street commercial district revitalization approach, but for neighborhoods, which the State of Pennsylvania has already done, calling it "Elm Street." 

-- Elm Street program, Pennsylvania Downtown Center
-- Elm Street Managers Handbook
-- Chambersburg Elm Street Neighborhood Plan 

Part 2 discusses packaging a set of remedies, so the programs can act expeditiously. To do that programs need to collect data and information and create maps showing the condition and state of properties, and identify potential solutions, including organizing community volunteer and self help/DIY initiatives such as the "Paint Ypsilanti" initiative that helped residents in the Depot Town neighborhood, when their houses were in need of a new paint job.

Part 3 discussed creating focused "community safety partnership" initiatives to manage and mitigate nuisances, and Part 4 discussed a particular example in Gloucester, Massachusetts involving shaming of a household that needed help in order to maintain their house and property which is large, old, and in need of serious maintenance.

Unfortunately, unlike how the "Main Street" commercial district revitalization program was fostered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, because they saw it as a way to help preserve historic buildings and towns, there just isn't a good national organization out there set up to take on, develop, and "spread" the Elm Street Approach across the county.

(Note that the Main Street model was developed from an initiative in Corning, New York, which started in 1964!!!!!!, where the town realized that to compete with new shopping malls, they ought to manage their downtown similarly, and they hired a downtown manager.  It still took 15 years from that point to develop the Main Street program.)

Energy efficiency programs to support low income residents.  There's nothing new about energy efficiency programs.  Most states have them.  HUD has programs that support energy efficiency retrofitting for seniors and low income households.  So do the Department of Energy including its Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs Office and the Environmental Protection Agency.  Even the USDA's Rural Development Program.  There are plenty of examples of nonprofit or social enterprise organizations working in this space.

-- Low-Income Energy Efficiency: A Pathway to Clean, Affordable Energy for All, Environmental Defense Fund
-- "Study Highlights Energy Burden for Households and How Energy Efficiency Can Help," Natural Resources Defense Council
-- ADVANCING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: Lessons Learned from Low-Income Residential Experiences in Industrialized Countries, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
-- Energy Efficiency for Low Income Households, European Parliament
-- "Low-Income Households Pay A Lot For Energy. Efficiency Can Help Cut Costs," Alliance to Save Energy

El Paso Electric Power plant.

Although it has been getting a renewed focus lately, because energy efficiency is seen as reducing electricity demand enough to take the edge off of load and generation problems resulting from extreme weather such as what happened in Texas in February ("Cold wave: the Texas power debacle disproportionately impacts the less well off") and currently, with hotter temperatures ("Gov. Greg Abbott downplays electric grid concerns as Texans are told to conserve," KXAN-TV).

Infographic, American Public Power Association

While it could be a stand-alone piece, since reading some pieces about how Baltimore's low income residents tend to have very expensive electricity plans ("Retail electricity deregulation mostly benefits companies at the expense of consumers" and "Why the Poor in Baltimore Face Such Crushing ‘Energy Burdens’," Inside Climate News) and a terrible story about low income people in Peoria having $4,000+ electricity bills ("OFF THE GRID: A flood of federal aid often fails to reach America’s poorest families," Washington Post), I think a fifth piece should be added to this series, because energy efficiency issues are particularly pressing in low income neighborhoods.

Helping people avoid $4,000+ electricity bills is a way to reduce the financial precariousness of low income households.

Minnesota Power Pyramid of Conservation, residential version

Other reporting.  Since the March piece ("Retail electricity deregulation mostly benefits companies at the expense of consumers") there's been more reporting on this topic, supporting the idea of a renewed emphasis on energy conservation as a strategy to support low income households..  

Low income households use more energy and pay more.  First, a study ("Measuring social equity in urban energy use and interventions using fine-scale data") published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that low income households and people of color spend significantly greater amounts on energy than higher income households ("Tackling 'Energy Justice' Requires Better Data. These Researchers Are On It," NPR).  From the article:

The researchers found that in low-income communities, homes averaged 25 to 60 percent more energy use per square foot than higher-income neighborhoods. And within all income groups except for the very wealthiest, non-white neighborhoods consistently used more electricity per square foot than mostly-white neighborhoods. The results were even starker during winter and summer heating and cooling seasons.

"This study unpacks income and racial inequality in the energy system within U.S. cities, and gives utilities a way to measure it, so that they can fix the problem," says Ramaswami, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University who's the lead investigator and corresponding author of the study. It's part of a larger project funded by the National Science Foundation to promote 'equity first' infrastructure transitions in cities.

This seems to confirm the real world experiences reported in Baltimore and Peoria.

Energy conservation programs don't do a good job reaching low income households.  Second, Yvonne Abraham, a columnist at the Boston Globe, writes ("Energy efficiency is a low-hanging fruit to combat climate change. So why can’t everyone get access to it?") that energy efficiency programs in Massachusetts tend to extraordinarily benefit higher income households, that lower income households need more help, more outreach in order to reap the benefits.  From the article:

Though Mass Save is available to every ratepayer in the Commonwealth, those who live in affluent towns are more likely to take advantage of it: Participation in places like Bolton, Carlisle, and Hingham is up to seven times greater than in Lawrence, Fall River, and New Bedford. 

 “The program as designed works really well for single-family homeowners who have money to spend to make their homes more efficient, and who speak English,” said Eugenia Gibbons, Boston director of climate policy at Health Care Without Harm. For others, not so much. 

 It takes time, trust, and money to participate in Mass Save: time to apply for a visit and to meet with a consultant; trust that the energy utility, which administers the program, is really offering you something for free, with no catch; and money to pay your share of the subsidized insulation and boiler bills. All three are in short supply in places where blue collar workers, immigrants, and renters are concentrated. Language barriers widen the gap...

Those who live in less advantaged places need Mass Save the most: They’re spending as much as 15 percent of their disposable income on energy bills; they tend to live in older, draftier, less energy-efficient housing; and they suffer from poorer air quality and its attendant maladies, including asthma. 

We have to fix this, and not just for the sake of the underserved people who are paying into the system but not getting its benefits, though that is reason enough. Reducing fuel consumption anywhere in the Commonwealth serves everyone: It is crucial to our quality of life, and the planet’s survival.

It turns out a recent effort in the UK to promote energy conservation both as a jobs program and to reduce household energy costs was junked soon into the program because of mismanagement ("UK government scraps green homes grant after six months," Guardian).

This point is similar to those made in Parts 2 and 4 of the series, that there need to be programs packaged to implement and deliver revitalization solutions at the district/neighborhood and household scales, and that the programs need to be very proactive in trying to reach people.  

Not unlike the current issues with vaccination and the reticent, although the issues are subtly different, but also just in the ways the programs are designed.  For example, USA Today reports on success in Minnesota and failures in Michigan, which come down to how the programs were designed ("Michigan bet big on mass vaccine events for COVID-19. It didn’t work out as hoped").

Provide heat pumps?  Third, a piece in the Guardian ("Poorer households in UK should get free heat pumps, say experts") suggests that one way to promote energy efficiency for low income households is to just give people heat pumps.  From the article:

Households on low incomes should be supplied with free heat pumps in order to kickstart the market for low-carbon heating equipment and meet the UK’s climate targets, experts have told the government. 

 Heat pumps can currently cost thousands of pounds to install, but the more that are installed, the faster that cost is likely to come down. They are widely regarded as the best way to replace the UK’s gas boilers and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from homes...

About 14% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating the UK’s poor housing stock, most of which is also draughty and energy inefficient. The group also called for insulation to be made available to people on low incomes.

It reminds me of programs focused on assisting people in transitioning from coal furnaces and ovens to gas and electricity.  Utility firms to this day have programs that finance the purchase of furnaces, etc.

PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a neighborhood revitalization model also. There should be renewed and refocused attention paid to energy conservation programs benefiting low income households.  One example is the PUSH Buffalo community organization's Green Development Zone.  The GDZ is comparable to various "ecovillage" initiatives (I can think of some in DC, Cleveland, and elsewhere) in the 1990s and early 2000s, as a revitalization effort.

It's designed to promote green jobs, equity, to achieve environmental goals, etc.  It's also a way to deliver energy conservation programs in low income neighborhoods (PUSH Buffalo’s Green Development Zone: a Model for New Economy Community Development, Building A “Community Growth Machine”: The Green Development Zone as a Model for a New Neighborhood Economy).

You could argue that the Green Development Zone is:

1.  another way to position a neighborhood-based stabilization and revitalization initiative and deliver programs ("HOW PUSH BUFFALO MODELS HOLISTIC, EQUITABLE AND GREEN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT," NCRP)

2.  that can be integrated with the "Elm Street Approach" that the series suggests

3.  with a greater focus on building economic benefits within the neighborhood for the residents (Community Economic Development Handbook: Strategies and Tools to Revitalize Your Neighborhood  by Mihailo Temali, "Lessons from CNN story on Allentown, Pennsylvania,") and 

4.  while building into the program more directly, equity and environmental justice.

Note there are other examples, including the Evergreen Energy Solutions division of Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, which also has a focus on solar energy.

Most states require utilities to provide programming along these lines (Supporting Low-Income Energy Efficiency: A Guide for Utility Regulators, American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy), and that's great, but the idea here is to implement programs at scale in terms of neighborhoods, districts, cities and counties.

Retail electricity deregulation mostly benefits companies at the expense of consumers

 Just before the recent weather related debacle in Texas ("Talk and lying versus doing: The electricity crisis in Texas is produced by state regulatory failure" and "Cold wave: the Texas power debacle disproportionately impacts the less well off"), I was surprised to read a story about how many low income households in Baltimore were paying extremely high electricity rates as a result of deregulation ("Why the Poor in Baltimore Face Such Crushing ‘Energy Burdens’," Inside Climate News), which I meant to write about.

From the article:

Nationwide, low-income individuals like Jenkins—defined as those making less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or $25,760 per year before taxes in 2021—can put anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of their earnings toward energy costs and sometimes far more, according to a recent report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. 

This exceedingly common, but often overlooked, reality can perpetuate cycles of poverty and lead to personal or familial ruin. 

By contrast the average household spends just 3.1 percent of its income on energy, although that ratio ranges widely depending on geographic location and the type of fuel used, the ACEEE study found. Researchers typically consider anything over 6 percent to be an unaffordable energy burden regardless of income. The report also found that energy burdens in Baltimore can be especially heavy, as 25 percent of low-income residents there spent more than 21.7 percent of their 2017 income on energy.

Apparently, through various deceptive marketing programs, and sometimes short term inducements, people end up switching to higher priced providers ("Maryland Thought Deregulating Utilities Would Lower Rates. It’s Cost the State’s Residents Hundreds of Millions of Dollars.," Inside Climate News)

In our household, I'm the person who deals with energy choice, and I was proud of the great rate we got in DC, 7.5 cents/kwH (from a BG&E subsidiary, which happens to be owned by the same company), which is a couple cents cheaper than the standard rate.

I never understood how people could be deceived, so long as they knew the base rate from the utility distributer, in DC's case that is PEPCo, and it usually ran from 8.9 cents to 9.4 cents.  

Now it's even lower, less than 7 cents/kwH, with a slight upcharge during the winter months, according to the comparison information compiled by the DC Public Service Commission, the utility regulator.

Many resellers offer a short term lower rate, but don't commit to the lower rate for the entire contract period.  Therefore, don't pick them.

The reality as a recent WSJ article disclosed ("Deregulation Aimed to Lower Home-Power Bills. For Many, It Didn’t"), is that most consumers pay more for electricity (and natural gas) as a result of deregulation, rather than save money.  We shouldn't be surprised.  Deregulation is mostly for the benefit of business, not consumers.

And like in Baltimore, low information consumers, often minorities, bore the brunt of the higher costs.  From the article:

From 2010 to 2019, retail electricity providers in 13 states and the District of Columbia charged $19.2 billion more than what regulated utilities would have.

A quick review of the DC PSC information finds only one or two companies from more than one dozen that offer rates comparable to PEPCO's base rate.  Although some offer a greater percentage of renewable energy sources, at a higher cost, and some people may be willing to pay a higher rate, because of their concerns about climate change.

There is an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun by former Governor Parris Glendening, saying utility deregulation had been a mistake ("Energy deregulation was a mistake in Maryland").

WRT Texas, interestingly, a Dallas Morning News consumer columnist, Dave Lieber, writing "The Watchdog" feature, had pointed out the serious problems with the way that Texas' electricity market was set up and managed for years, to no avail.

-- "No surprise Texas’ electricity system is a national laughingstock. Only customers cared, until now"

When I first came to DC in the late 1980s, and worked for a consumer group, back then many newspapers had reporters assigned to a "consumer beat," and they covered issues like these regularly.  Now very few newspapers provide this kind of oversight on a regular basis.

Although as Dave Lieber proved, even with attention, many businesses fail to change their practices.

Another example, Warren Buffett's predatory finance operation for mobile homes ("The Mobile-Home Trap," Seattle Times).