Parking, parking, parking -- Chicago | A rare opportunity to reverse a really bad decision

Parking meter sign in Chicago.

In the pre Trump days the line was that "social security is the third rail of politics," that you try to mess with it you get burned.  Locally, I joke the issue is parking.

Chicago has lots of structural deficit issues, primarily a massive pension liability, and over the years the young Daley Administration in particular the choice as to employ stratagems to fix massive budget deficits. 

The biggest was to sell off, well lease off, parking meters for 99 years.  The contract is onerous, requiring the city to pay the concessionaire for closed streets, like for festivals, or taking out parking spaces for bike share stations or to add to the public space.  From the Bloomberg article "Morgan Stanley’s $2.5 Billion Parking-Meter Sale Roils Chicago Council":

For almost two decades, Chicago has been stewing over a $1.15 billion deal to Chicago Parking Meters, LLC Selected as Winning Bidder for the 36,000 parking meters to an investor group led by Morgan Stanley. Now, with the meters set to change hands, the city council is seizing on an opening to push back.

The original purchasers have already made their money back and then some, and look to sell of the next 57 years of the concession for $2.53 billion.  Mayor Johnson put in a bid to buy it back, but for some reason he backed off ("Mayor Johnson finally explains his decision to bid $3.2B for parking meters before walking away," Chicago Sun-Times).

The City Council has to approve the transfer, and they are looking for concessions.  Meanwhile,  Alderman Jason Ervin proposed the creation of a public infrastructure trust/bank funded by the city's pension funds, to buy back the contract and to make other public infrastructure investments ("We should vote no on the parking meter transfer for the sake of a better investment policy," Chicago Tribune).

That's actually a good idea.  

North Dakota's State Bank ("The ‘Secret Sauce’?: Understanding the Success of the State Bank Of North Dakota," Government Finance Research Center, UIC) and the Quebec Pension Fund, CDPQ--Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, have been successful at intra-state/province investment.  

The pension fund is building the REM transit system in Montreal--but they got a super sweet deal from the Province that's as outrageous as the concessions made on the original parking contract in Chicago.

The REM in Montreal launched its second section earlier this year.  People really ride it.

I worry some about these kinds of set ups because while they need accountability and transparency mechanisms, at the same time there needs to be a hard wall against political meddling.  

E.g., you don't want Aldermen able to force through loans, the way they have veto power over development within their wards?  

Or, when the US Government gave a massive loan to GM during the Great Financial Crisis, local dealers under threat from consolidation called their Congressional representatives to lobby to keep their franchise.  Etc.

Chicago's track record on infrastructure doesn't make me hopeful they can make the turn from a corrupt orientation to an above board infrastructure bank, but I'm hopeful.  E.g., when Norway created its Sovereign Investment Fund, it drew upon the experience with Mideastern states, oil revenues, and investments with the aim of yielding real investment rather than wasting the money ("Stop Calling All Wealth Funds Sovereign: Father of Norway’s Fund," Bloomberg).

Maybe Chicago should hire people from Norway to run their bank...

To me, they shouldn't have sold off the parking meter concession to begin with.  And it's rare to be given the opportunity to reverse such a bad decision.

Donald Shoup, professor famed for his innovations in parking policy, dies

Donald Shoup, a professor at UCLA, is best known for his magnum opus, The High Cost of Free Parking, and his work on more careful charging for parking as a way to better use scarce resources, and to use the revenues for community improvements.  The basic points:

1. Parking cash-out. [Allows a developer to not include parking on site in return for a cash payment]
2. Eliminate requirements that force real estate developers to accommodate a minimum number of parking spaces per construction project, a practice that Shoup viewed almost as “an established religion” in the planning profession. 
3. Charge drivers for parking on city streets and in city lots, setting the price to ensure one or two open spaces on every block. 
4. Make the practice of paying for parking politically popular by dedicating the revenue to additional public services. “So, if anybody puts a dollar in a parking meter, it comes right out the other side to clean the sidewalk or repair the street or plant trees,” Shoup explained.  ("Long road to success," UCLA webpage)

-- original journal article from 1997
-- full text book on Dropbox
-- preface from the book
-- Parking Reform Network
-- "Donald Shoup Wasn't Just About Parking. He Was About The Economics Of Public Goods," California Planning and Development Report

I crossed paths with him in person only once, when he participated in a DC "Great Streets" conference, where under then DDOT director Dan Tangherlini, they aimed to foster urban revitalization through streetscape improvements.

He addressed parking as a public good for a long time...

We were also on the same e-list, and I interacted with him on a couple issues.

Photo: Robert Gauthier, Los Angeles Times.

On transportation demand management and stadiums and arenas, basically free transit access with ticket.

And sidewalk networks and improvements--he advocated that when a house was sold, if it didn't have a sidewalk or the sidewalk was in desperate need of repair, it should be replaced at that time, or that if repaired earlier, postponing payment until sale which he called "pay on exit" ("How L.A. can fix our scary sidewalks for the Olympics," Los Angeles Times).

I'm sure he was a thought leader involved in other urban planning matters too.

He will be missed.

Really good points about the high opportunity costs from devoting precious street space to urban parking instead of other uses

 Matt Elliott writes weekly in the Toronto Star about city urbanism issues.  The current column, "Toronto parking fines may shortly skyrocket. This is why we should embrace the cost," is about how the city is considering significantly increasing the fines for parking illegally, which he supports.  He goes on to suggest a bunch of different ways to use the space:

But taking the amount even higher is justified too, because we’re not just talking about parking here. We’re talking about how we allocate — and value — our limited public space. 

Over the last few years, Toronto has been late to the party in discovering that there are better things we can do with our streets than providing car storage. 

The CaféTO program that was established during the pandemic and then made permanent, for example, saw about 2,400 parking spaces converted to allow for restaurant patios during the 2022 season. As parking spaces, the Toronto Parking Authority reported, they would have generated about $2.7 million in parking revenue, or about $1,125 a space. As patios, they generated restaurant sales of about $180 million, or $75,000 a space. 

 Parklet at Izzy's Steakhouse in San Francisco.  Photo: Audrey Kuhn, Eater SF

Meanwhile, along King Street, removing about 180 on-street parking spaces allowed for a transit corridor that shortened average travel times by five minutes and increased ridership by nearly 17 per cent. (The benefits were later blunted by lax enforcement, but an improved traffic agent program has helped bring them back.) 

The King Street Pilot Project converted sections of the curb lane into patios with furniture and planters

And in an increasing number of well-documented examples across the city, swapping parking for dedicated bike lanes has led to more cyclists, safer cycling and no measurable negative impact on businesses. 

And let’s not forget that devoting two lanes of a four-lane road to parking for large chunks of the day is usually not a great trade-off for most drivers either. I heard from a reader who lives along Queen West recently who was delighted by the city recently reducing the hours where on-street parking is permitted on the street in response to nearby construction. It’s a temporary measure, but residents have noticed traffic is flowing better.

... But still, the overwhelming conclusion from recent history should be that on-street parking comes with a massive trade-off. Without parking, we can use our streets for other things, like patios, bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and making more room for transit and traffic to move. 

 Toronto sidewalks come in a variety of sizes. Pictured: 1781 Danforth Ave. in the city's east end, has a sidewalk 5 metres wide. Photo: Dave LeBlanc. "How Wide is Your Sidewalk?," Toronto Globe and Mail

That’s not to say there’s no place for parking at all, but the price of parking — and especially the penalty for not paying that price — should account for that trade-off.

Also see "Wider sidewalks and fewer cars: Why Toronto’s plan for Yonge Street is the future of cities," Toronto Globe and Mail. 

Paris mayor plans to triple SUV parking tariffs to cut air pollution

-- "Paris mayor plans to triple SUV parking tariffs to cut air pollution"

From the article:

Paris will hold a referendum on 4 February asking residents to vote for or against a specific parking tariff for heavy, large and polluting SUVs. Earlier this year, Paris held a similar vote on whether to ban rented electric scooters and subsequently became the first European capital to ban them. 

If Paris votes yes on parking tariffs, the cost of on-street parking for an SUV or 4x4 car will rise to €18 (£15) an hour in the centre of Paris and €12 an hour in the rest of the city, officials said on Friday. The prices will apply to vehicles weighing more than 1.6 tonnes with a combustion engine or hybrid vehicles, and more than 2 tonnes for electric vehicles. The move will not apply to Paris residents’ parking.

... David Belliard, a deputy mayor of Pacoris for the Green party, said: “SUVs cost between €6,000 to €7,000 more than a standard car and all the studies by car firms show that they are bought by the wealthiest people with high incomes … This measure, if applied, will be directed at the richest people in order to finance the transformation of our public space to adapt to the climate crisis, so it’s a form of social redistribution.” 

He said if a person drove into Paris in an SUV and had to pay €36 for two hours’ parking, this would be an incentive to use another form of transport. “It is about sending a strong signal to those who drive these huge cars – or aspire to – that in the future it’s going to cost you more. We invite them to use other means of transport, there are alternatives.”

A Ford F-350 truck can be almost as wide as two DC rowhouses.

DC.  22 years ago, with the election of Anthony Williams as mayor of DC, there was a reinvigoration of the urban planning function in the city.  The first big initiative was to do "neighborhood plans" for each neighborhood area.  I don't remember the exact definition.  And my neighborhood was the first.

While lauded in planning circles, the initiative was pretty circumscribed, focused on directing how agencies spent their monies, but with no changes to how agencies budgeted and planned.

Anyway, someone, not me, suggested changing the residential parking permit system to charge more for larger vehicles.  Like SUVs.

It's still not done, although I think the car registration fee in DC does a form of this.

But not paid for parking (parking meters).

US car culture is complemented by a weak transit system.  It's hard to do something like this in the US, because our mobility system is centered around the car.  

For example, Paris has an amazing transit system which continues to expand ("Paris is getting a whole new Metro network. And it’s huge," CNN).  The amount of track miles that is being added to the existing system (800km) is just a bit smaller than the total track of the DC area Metrorail system, with 68 new stations being added, which is not quite 70% of the total number of existing Metrorail stations.

In most US cities, transit is an afterthought, an inefficient way to get around, and it is not constantly expanding and improving.

Parking space requirements, car versus moped, Harmon's Supermarket Brickyard, Salt Lake City

 

Also see:

-- "Further updates to the Sustainable Mobility Platform Framework," 2018

There's been a lot of reporting of late on communities reducing parking requirements, and a new book by Henry Grabar ("Book Review: 'Paved Paradise,' by Henry Grabar," New York Times).  

But Donald Shoup's High Cost of Free Parking was published in 2005.

Seattle eliminated parking minimums in its Downtown in the late 1980s, and extended this concept to transit station areas and neighborhood commercial districts around 2006.

DC's historic districts have an exception to parking minimums.

I have come to understand why this is so difficult.  The reality is that most communities are so automobile dependent that every new development generates lots of car trips.  Most trips aren't capturable by sustainable modes.

By contrast in a city like DC with a transit system, multiunit buildings near transit stations generate 25% or fewer trips by car.

To and from origin stations can be difficult: More on the Silver Line and intra-neighborhood transit (tertiary network)

The initial Purple Line series on driving complementary improvements across the transit network ("Setting the stage for the Purple Line light rail line to be an overwhelming success: Part 1 | simultaneously introduce improvements to other elements of the transit network") missed some items, which I added in later updates ("Codifying the complementary transit network improvements and planning initiatives recommended in the Purple Line writings").  

One item was creating intra-neighborhood shuttle services to move people to and from new transit stations without them having to drive.

21. Create intra-district shuttle services within the catchment area of the individual light rail stations to get people to and from light rail stations without having to drive.

FRED, short for Free Ride Everywhere Downtown, is the San Diego-specific offshoot of Circuit Transit. City of San Diego photo ("Hail, FRED! San Diego’s subsidized shuttle will give free rides downtown for another year," San Diego Union-Tribune).

Note that the original PL series on Silver Spring did discuss an intra core shuttle system to complement their parking structures and to allow for converting Fenton Avenue to a sustainable mobility corridor.  But at the time I didn't think to extend this tertiary transit concept to the transit sheds of other PL stations.  

The San Diego electric shuttle service FRED, was mentioned as an example. Another example is the taxi collectif program of the STM transit system in Montreal, which operates at end of line stations.

In last week's piece on the opening of the second phase of the Silver Line ("Metrorail Silver Line phase two opening this week"), and in the original piece ("Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?") I never did add a similar point.

Although I did here, "Tysons (Corner) 10 Years after the plan to make it more walkable: the necessity of implementation mechanisms" (2020).

This comes up in a letter to the editor to the Post ("Why I won’t take the Silver Line to Dulles"). The author makes the point that it's not easy to get from his house to a subway station, especially for trips to the airport, which include luggage.  From the letter:

Taking the Silver Line to Washington Dulles International Airport is impractical because I don’t live within walking distance of a Metro station. Instead, I’d have to walk 10 minutes to a bus that runs every 30 minutes, or take a taxi or a ride-hailing service to a Metro station. I can’t drive my own car because overnight parking is allowed only at four stations: Greenbelt, Huntington, Franconia-Springfield and Wiehle-Reston East. According to Metro’s website, “each of these stations has between 15 and 17 spaces allocated for multiday use of up to 10 days. Availability is on a first-come, first-served basis.” That’s a total of fewer than 65 spaces for the 15 million passengers Dulles serves each year, along with people who use these spaces when they travel from Reagan National Airport or Union Station.

 I have many pieces on airport transportation related issues:

-- "Manhattan Institute misses the point about the value of light rail transit connections to airports | Utility and the network effect: the transit network as a platform ," 2020
-- "Airport transportation demand management in flux," 2019
-- "Transportation demand management, transit: Los Angeles Airport (LAX) and Logan Airport, Boston," 2019
-- "London's Stansted Airport provides digital information on transit options," 2019
-- "Why not a bicycle hub at National Airport?, focused on capturing worker trips but open to all," 2017
-- "A brief comment on ground transportation at National Airport vis a vis VRE rail service," 2016
-- "Revisiting stories: ground transportation at airports (DCA/Logan)," 2017
-- "Airports and public transit access: O'Hare Airport and the proposed fast connection from Downtown Chicago," 2018
-- "More on airport-related transit/transit for visitors," 2013

but I don't always acknowledge the issue that it can be a PITA to get to and from an airport with luggage, from your house to a station (and back).  

As any transit user knows, once in a great while every transfer works beautifully, with little if any waiting (e.g., I still remember an amazing bus from BWI to Greenbelt Metro, Metro to Petworth, bus at Petworth station, which let me off a couple blocks from home, although mostly I could walk three quarters of a mile to and from Takoma Station provided I didn't have too much luggage, then again, in a fit of pique, once I walked from National Airport late at night, to Capitol Hill in DC, to get a car share).

An intra-neighborhood shuttle, an element of what I call the tertiary transit (sub)network, would address the problem.  Some examples exist, especially in Tempe, Arizona.  Most function more in terms of facilitating access to commercial districts. 

-- "Earth Day and intra-neighborhood transit," 2009
-- "Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited because of new San Diego service," 2016
-- "Why microtransit isn't likely to be a source of great profits for private firms: labor," 2019

Interestingly, an Instagram feed about Salt Lake City history recently had a feature on jitneys.  

Then and now, jitneys (like ride hailing) are often seen as a substitute and competitor to public transit.  Often this is true. 

OTOH, they can complement and extend public transit too, by providing links between transit stops and stations and your origin and destination points.

More parking at stations as the solution?  OTOH, the letter writer, Charles Carron, being automobile centric in his thinking, argues that the solution is more parking at stations:

If Metro wants high ridership on the Silver Line to Dulles, it should offer plentiful reserved multiday parking at a variety of stations, perhaps charging for the number of days the vehicle will be parked. Though it might take years to build additional garages to meet all of the demand, Metro could offer outdoor parking now by leasing sections of underused shopping center parking lots and shuttling passengers to the nearest Metro station.

The solution is shuttle/jitney service to and from stations, rather than building more parking. 

Tertiary Network concept.  The transit network framework I worked out is an extension on how Arlington County, Virginia, in their 2005 Transportation Plan, defined a Primary and a Secondary Transit Network.  

I extended the concept to multiple scales.  Within a Metropolitan Area at the metropolitan, suburban and center city scales, and primary, secondary, and tertiary within each subnetwork.

Beyond the Metropolitan scale to regional (two or more metropolitan areas); state, multistate, sub-national districts, national, and international.  

From "Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited because of new San Diego service" (2016):

Center City (DC) Primary Transit Network: Core of the WMATA system in DC (31 stations); streetcar system; Downtown Circulator bus service; foundational "main line" WMATA bus services; bus rapid/express transit.

Center City (DC) Secondary Transit Network: the other 9 subway stations in the city; streetcar lines; other WMATA bus service within the city; water taxi service if added, depending on the routes.

Center City (DC) Tertiary Transit Network: intra-neighborhood bus services including limited access shuttle services that are primarily for employees but also open to others if doing business with them (i.e., Washington Hospital Center to/from Brookland Metro, federal agency shuttle services), university shuttle services like the Georgetown University Connector shuttle service, for students and employees--usually an student id is required to board, etc.

SmartCar as a city car

The Mercedes produced SmartCar has been discontinued, because the company is undertaking different initiatives to meet US fleet mileage requirements.

This car was used in the Car2Go one way car sharing program that Mercedes launched in the North America and Europe.  

It was a great program but in reality, would only work in a few places ("Car2Go dying: further effects from the rise of ride hailing and damage to the sustainable mobility platform/mobility as a service paradigm"), so it could never scale the way a large corporation like Mercedes would want, and they shut it down, although it still operates in some cities in Europe.

This photo of the car in a local supermarket parking lot in South Salt Lake City shows one of the key advantages of the SmartCar as a city car--it's small and easy to park.  It got great gas mileage and the electric versions were a dream.

The problem with the market for cars in the US is that it isn't particularly differentiated, with different vehicles for different purposes.

So sure a small car makes sense "for the city."  On the other hand, people tend to buy "one car" to meet a maximal number of their likely and intended uses.  So people aren't going to buy a small car for the city uses when they want a bigger vehicle to accomplish longer trips, carrying more people, etc.

Plus, car dealers aren't motivated to sell small cars because they don't make much money off them (not unlike how bicycle shops aren't motivated to sell low cost city bikes compared to expensive road bikes).

But then that's why the one way car sharing application was so great for cities like DC and Seattle.
 

A great note from a parking vigilante in the Sugar House district of Salt Lake City

Image from a NextDoor discussion thread.  These notes are being posted on people's car windshields.

My joke is that if social security is the third rail of national politics, then parking is the third rail of local politics ("DC as a suburban agenda dominated city," 2013).

Living in DC without a car for so many years disabused me of the belief that a property owner owns the street space in front of their house.  Of course, not having a car meant it didn't matter to me either.

In our outer city house in DC, we have the equivalent of about three parking spaces in front, and except when we used rental cars or car share vehicles, we didn't use the space.  (Which likely encouraged our one next door neighbor to buy lots of cars like VWs and park them outside, although they do have some on-site spaces.)

We have a garage but it was sized for cars c. 1929 and we never tried to use it for parking.  Probably one car could fit in if it were parked in the middle.

Still, I've had plenty of arguments about this, especially when it came to Car2Go, the one-way car sharing program.


Revel scooter parked on a street in New York City.

Now, it's an issue with Revel sit down e-scooters too.  A NextDoor discussion in the Fort Totten neighborhood includes a back and forth on this and "the right to the parking space in front of my house".

Of course, there are the arguments in Professor Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking about the value of street parking space which is much higher than the $35/year permit fee per car in DC--some blocks, like mine, because supply is greater than demand, don't even have permit requirements.

In any case, like in Toronto, permit fees should be higher with each additional car.  They aren't in DC.  And permit fees should be higher based on the size of the vehicle, something suggested in my old H Street neighborhood's inaugural community planning initiative for the then new planning director Andrew Altman, back in 2001.

---

I participated in a supermarket focus group a couple weeks ago, and in response to the question "does anything about what we do bother you?" I said all the supermarket loyalty programs focused on gasoline discounts ignore their customers who use transit or bicycle.

One of the other attendees said "I never thought of that before."

Why would she?  She drives.  And driving is natural.

People don't recognize automobility as a privileging.  Then again, there is so much other intersectionality to worry about.

-- "Supporting car sharing vs. privileging car owners and the use of the public space," 2011
== "Car share users are getting abused by the cities that ostensibly support car sharing as a form of sustainable mobility," 2016

People on Streets, continued

("People on streets" refers to a phrase from the lyrics of the song "Under Pressure.")

I've written a bunch lately about "new" initiatives in prioritizing people over cars:

• King Street in Toronto has been prioritized for streetcar movement
• 14th Street in Manhattan has been prioritized for bus movement
• Alexandria, Virginia is going to test making the 100 block of King Street pedestrianized, as it abuts their Waterfront district

And the failure to pedestrianize Oxford Street in London, because of opposition by the local borough to proposals from the citywide Mayor of London ("Sadiq Khan explains why Oxford Street isn't being pedstrianized." Time Out London).

And suggestions that opportunities for pedestrian activity enhancement are there for the taking in:

• Dupont Circle including a proposal for a two block pedestrian section of 17th Street if only on weekends
• Silver Spring.

Last week, San Francisco implemented previous plans to prioritize streetcar movement on Market Street, which includes "banning cars."

-- "Car-free Market: What happens to the side streets? And where will they ban cars next?," San Francisco Chronicle
-- "Market Street is now car-free: What street should be next?," San Francisco Chronicle
-- Better Market Street Project
-- "San Francisco's hallmark, Market Street is now car-free," CNN

The CNN article is good in terms of a more thorough discussion about the benefits in terms of accessibility, sustainable mobility, and safety.

I've come across vintage postcards that indicate at one time Market Street had four streetcar tracks, two in each direction.

And I came across an article about improvements for pedestrian movement around Grand Central Station, New York/Manhattan, which are being developed as a result of proffer requirements for a new very tall building proximate to the station.

-- "Midtown tower One Vanderbilt will make Grand Central area a pedestrian haven," New York Post

This Gothamist article details the improvements.)

In return for a special agreement allowing a building size doubling what was allowed under zoning, SL Green the developer has committed to $220 million !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in transit-pedestrian related improvements, including a transit hall on the ground floor of a part of the new building, which will provide connections to the coming Long Island Railroad trains that will be brought to the station as a result of the East Side Access Project.

Interestingly, the kinds of improvements outlined around Grand Central, focused on facilitating movement in and out of the station for both subway and railroad connections, implement an approach to "horizontal and vertical movement of pedestrians" outlined in the Regional Plan Association publication Urban Design Manhattan, which dates to the late 1960s.

DC and the War on Cars...  The Post this week has an article on Union Station ("Is D.C. waging a war on cars?") and proposals to reduce the amount of parking provided there.  While plans for redevelopment and expansion call for a reduction in parking, according to the article area planners call for even further reductions.

Ironically, I don't agree.

For 15 years I've been recommending that DC create "transportation management districts" to better manage mobility with a focus on enhancing sustainable mobility within sub-districts of the city.  To some extent, DC's Business Improvement Districts to a bit of this.  But not to the extent to which it could be done.

While I write a pretty hardcore anti-car position, that's just because most everyone else argues vociferously in favor of the car.  I've come to accept that we need to plan for automobile movement and parking, of course with the aim of reducing it as much as possible.

Key to this is the ability to "share parking" across a district.  To do this, you have to have some parking, which can be pretty rare in some areas of the city.

What I propose is a system of integrated public and private parking, parking wayfinding systems in digital and analogue forms, cross-district valet parking stations, and electric shuttles to provide support to intra-district mobility.  (See item #5 in this piece on Silver Spring, which outlines the overall approach.)

DC really screwed up as this relates to Capitol Hill and the Eastern Market.  Property it controls, the development now called 700 Penn, has a parking structure, which was intended to support Eastern Market and the area, but DDOT pushed for a parking reduction.  And didn't insist that the parking structure portion of the project be city controlled.  The developer "jobbed out"--outsourced the management of the parking for the building--and it is almost impossible to achieve any social/planning goals as a result.

It would be a shame if this same kind of opportunity is lost with Union Station.


More on Union Station.  Sadly, my recommendations never went anywhere in the Union Station environmental impact assessment process.

I suggested that the mess that is on the front of the station--a mix of tourist buses, taxis and ride hailing vehicles, and private automobiles should be shifted underground, using the way bus services are shifted underground at Denver's Union Station, the bus station in Brisbane, Australia, etc.  But extended to include passenger pick up and drop off by "for hire vehicles" and private automobiles.

More on transit prioritized streets.  When I used to look at this more closely in terms of DC, specifically H Street NE and Georgia Avenue NW, which are major bus service routes, I found that about 40% of the total people movement (15,000 people on H Street, 20,000 to 25,000 people on Georgia Avenue) was on buses.

That's about 300 bus movements for a 23 hour day versus about 25,000 individuals. Granted that includes trucks and other service vehicles too.  But most of the car movements are single occupant vehicles.

The King Street streetcar has daily ridership between 80,000 and 90,000 people.

Transportation demand management and DC's National Zoo

Transportation demand management is a process for optimizing "movement of people and goods" by fostering decision making that gets people to make choices that are good for them individually as well as for the transportation system.

The National Zoo in DC is a good example of how difficult it can be to do this, because different organizations often have conflicting goals ("That massive parking garage planned for the National Zoo? Forget about it," Washington Business Journal). From the article:

The Smithsonian Institution has canceled plans to build a 1,285-space central parking garage at the National Zoo. …

The National Capital Planning Commission reviewed a concept plan for the project last year. The Smithsonian said at the time that the zoo’s 888 spaces across multiple surface lots are filled to capacity by midday 100 days out of the year. While the zoo is Metro accessible, more visitors drove there in 2016 than in any of the previous five years. But fewer than two-thirds of those drivers actually parked at the zoo, leading to congestion and less available parking in adjacent D.C. neighborhoods.

1.  From a transportation standpoint, DC wants to reduce the number of cars moving to and from the Zoo, to reduce traffic and congestion, especially by people likely to be less familiar with the streets.

2.  The National Zoo makes a lot of money from charging $25 to park cars and they'd rather make this revenue than encourage people getting to the Zoo in other ways.

3.  WMATA, the operator of Metrorail, is focused on revenue generation, rather than transportation as a utility.

Whereas it's "cheaper" to drive with multiple people because the marginal cost for each additional rider is zero, that isn't the case with transit, where the cost to travel multiplies with the number of people, even though from a TDM perspective this is counterproductive and disincentivizes use.

Last year's Metra Lollapalooza pass.

The Chicago Tribune has an article, "Metra to sell ride passes for Lollapalooza," about how METRA, the passenger rail service in Greater Chicago, is offering a special transit pass for attendees of the Lollapalooza concert.

They are offering a two-day pass for the days during the week for $15, entitling passholders to unlimited rides after morning rush (after 9:30 am). Already the agency offers a $10 weekend pass, good for unlimited rides on Saturday and Sunday.

In Orange County, California, the local transit agency provides Express bus service to the County Fair--$4 round trip--but people who ride the bus can get a special admission price of $4, a savings of $10 off the normal adult ticket price.

Some transit agencies offer special weekend group or family pricing, entitling two adults and multiple children to ride for one reasonably priced fare.

The Montreal system has a group fare for one adult and 10 children--obviously for class trips and such--of $17.  While the Melbourne transit system offers free travel for school groups from 17 to 35 people.  The Victoria passenger rail system offers a Family Traveler ticket that entitles two children to come with each adult.  Depending on the time of day this may be either free or comes at an additional cost of $4.

In Hamburg, holders of an annual pass can bring one adult and up to three children along for no additional charge for weekend travel.

In Salt Lake City, transit access is included in tickets to sports events at the University of Utah, while Metrolink in Southern California, Caltrain in the SF Bay region, and Metro-North/Long Island Railroad in Greater New York organize special promotions and travel access for sports events.


In DC, it would be worth exploring transportation demand management opportunities with student, group, family, and tourist travel.

Sharing/Sustainable Mobility News

=========
Update and re-dating from Thursday

Mobike announced they are leaving the DC market too ("Mobike becomes second dockless bike operator to pull out of DC," Washington Post).  While I was somewhat derisive of the claim by ofo that without scale they couldn't function, Mobike made the same point and it is legitimate.  That 400 bikes isn't enough to cover an entire city, especially when they are required for equity reasons to cover the entire city, but most of the demand is in the core.

Also, mattxmal shares with us a great piece ("The Scooter Wars will be a bloodbath — and Uber will win," Recode) by the CEO of the former Sidecar ride hailing business, which was unable to compete with Uber, and so the company sold its assets to GM.  He makes the point that with modes like e-scooters, companies like Uber have an advantage because of the ability to use the same app and share users, the point I made in this piece, "I finally figured out why mobility services are buying other mobility services: they're acquiring customers already familiar with smart mobility," but also the fleet of drivers to pick up scooters and re-charge them as well as to redistributed freshly charged scooters the next day.

The article provides some links to articles which discuss the economic model of the businesses ("How to understand the financial levers in your business," TechCrunch about Bird).

Although to me, these articles indicate it's not a business deserving of big valuations. And I do think he's wrong in arguing that his company lost out to Uber because of Uber's aggressiveness, rather than their superior capitalization. It was both, sure, but without money you're out of the game.

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1. Parking as mobility.  I need to keep augmenting my Sustainability Mobility Platform framework, although it's tough, with yes, even parking ("Still paying full retail for downtown parking? The car next to you might be getting a better deal," Boston Globe). From the article:

Transforming “parking” into “mobility” sounds like a marketing gimmick — like KFC dropping the “fried.” But when you talk to enough industry players, you understand that letting people reserve spots ahead of time, or pointing them to areas where on-street parking is likely available, will drive mobility by reducing the number of cars circling in search of parking. One study in SoHo in New York City found that 28 percent of cars on the road were cruising for metered parking. …

In the Back Bay, Cornelius Hurley, a professor at Boston University School of Law, uses the SPOT app to rent a space he owns behind his condo. Charging $3.50 per hour, he and his wife have earned a couple of thousand dollars over the past two years. He’s also become friendly with two renters, and, as an environmentally conscious person, he’s had the satisfaction of knowing he’s taking at least one circling car off the street — all with very little risk and effort, he noted.

IT and telecommunications through an app like SPOT does allow for some generation of "free money" by otherwise making monetizable a slack asset.

Also see "Ace Parking says Uber, Lyft have cut parking business up to 50% in some venues," San Diego Union-Tribune.

GeekWire photo by Nat Levy.

2. In Seattle, Drive Now is integrating access to car sharing vehicles as well as ride hailing within one program/one app. The ride part is called Reach Now Ride ("BMW's Launching an Uber Competitor in Seattle, WIRED. ; "Testing BMW’s Uber and Lyft rival, ReachNow Ride: Candy, fancy water and a ‘Do Not Disturb’ button," Geekwire).

Because the parents of Car2Go and ReachNow have merged the services, it will be interesting to see if the services will remain independent, cross-fertilize each other, etc.

3.  Car2Go has launched in Chicago as of yesterday.  Unlike in DC, you won't be able to park a car at a parking meter and leave it without paying, because of how the City of Chicago leased off its street parking for 75 years to a hedge fund.

If Car2Go is to get "free access" to street meters, they'll have to negotiate a separate agreement.  Right now cars are park-able in residential spaces, through an agreement with the City of Chicago.

One-way car share is a key element of creating a multi-layered MaaS environment in cities.

Interestingly, the rate is 25% cheaper than in DC for the small SmartCars-- 29 cents/minute, where it is 41 cents in DC.  I surmise it has to do with paying less money for access to street spaces.

Plus, some Alderman shrunk the pilot area by excluding their districts out of a fear the cars would compete for spaces, even though the research finds that the cars "add to inventory" by supporting households that reduce car ownership.

4.  GM's Maven car sharing program is giving GM car owners and lessees the ability to do peer-to-peer car sharing ("GM now lets car owners rent out their vehicles to make money," USA Today). Getaround is an independent service that does the same thing.  This is interesting.  It does provide a means for people to make some money from an otherwise "stranded asset."

GM takes 40% of the revenue.  From the article:

The service, Peer Cars, allows those who own or lease a 2015 model or newer GM vehicle to list their vehicles on the Maven app for rent to others when the owners aren't using the cars. The owner keeps 60 percent of the revenue from renting the car and Maven gets the rest.

The income's likely to be marginal and to appeal to only a small segment of the market, but that the capability is being offered is pretty significant.

5. Ofo is dialing back on dockless bike share. In an article ("Ofo is the first to pull out of the District") in the Washington Post, ofo blames DC for not being agreeable, that they need thousands of bikes to be successful, and the pilot program was limited to 400 bikes.

I think the complaint about DC was more comparable to Ivanka Trump claiming that she is now devoting her time to public policy and so her fashion brand was a distraction and therefore she's shutting it down, rather than because of declining sales.

Ofo is exiting markets all around the world ("Ofo's big wobble shows the Chinese bike-sharing bubble has burst," BusinessInsider, registration required).  Other companies are shuttering or dialing back as well.

Again, access to bikes, for the most part, isn't the limiting factor in biking as transportation. It's a willingness to bike for transportation. Since a lot of people don't take biking seriously, without a willingness to cycle regularly, there isn't much of a business for dockless human powered bicycles, especially on the part of frequent users.

6.  Dockless e-scooters and e-bikes more likely to have legs.  They serve trips either faster or longer or both, and seem more sleek and modern than human powered bikes.

Likely this segment of the dockless market may be able to succeed, even as the industry consolidates, while the marketing of dockless regular bicycles will fall by the wayside. Even so, it's likely to remain a niche business not justifying the huge inflow of venture capital to the segment.

From the Baltimore Sun article "“Bird electric scooters have landed in Baltimore. Now the city is trying to figure out how to regulate them":

Bird bills itself as a “last mile” scooter rental service, offering a solution for traveling routes that are too short to drive but too long to walk. The machines can be rented, using a mobile app, for $1 to start plus 15 cents a minute.

Drew Bassini, 23, works for Morgan Stanley in Harbor East. “I’m on my lunch break so, as opposed to walking or riding my bike, it’s preferable to get there quickly and not expend too much energy,” he said. “A scooter can get me from point A to B quicker.”

The shiny new scooters have quickly proved a popular mode of transport downtown. Jeremy Collins, 23, said he now sees more scooters than bikes.

“I think it’s great and much needed, especially for a city trying to rebrand as a world-class city,” Collins said.  “Baltimore really needs to work on mobility and getting around, and the scooters offer a low-cost, easy-to-use way of doing that.”

Someone wrote a letter to the editor complaining ("Scooters annoy already"), while the paper editorialized in favor ("Bird scooters — Baltimore's latest invasive species").

7.  Greater dockless bike share success in smaller Chinese cities.  Lacking transit options, and with much less car ownership penetration, dockless bike share use is skyrocketing outside of China's big cities ("How HelloBike is beating Mobike and Ofo in China's smaller cities," South China Morning Post).

This model isn't likely to be successful in the US because such places aren't particularly dense and average trip distances are long.

That being said, I've thought for awhile that states could take a systematic approach to bike sharing for larger cities and use the same system across multiple in-state markets.  E.g., port the bike sharing system in Salt Lake City to Park City, Ogden, Logan, etc.

8.  The Eno Center for Transportation releases report on taxing ride hailing services, Taxing New Mobility Services: What’s Right? What’s Next?.

As a car share user, I do resent that ride hailing trips, at least in DC, are taxed at a lower rate. While the raised the issue of taxing ride hailing trips as a way to "provide parity" compared to taxis, they didn't consider the MaaS environment more broadly.

From the report:

There are four main questions cities and states are trying to answer when they levy taxes and fees on TNCs. Some reflect a rational nexus between the fee charged and the needs created and benefits incurred by the service. But that is not always the case.

1. Can TNC taxes and fees offset negative effects of urban congestion?
2. Should TNC taxes and fees fund infrastructure and public transit investment?
3. Can TNC taxes and fees provide parity with traditional taxi services?
4. Should TNC taxes and fees create funding streams for regulatory costs and community needs?

Seems like the answers to all these questions ought to be yes, with the expansion of question #3 to include taxing parity across mobility services more generally.

New York City sustainable mobility news

1. Toronto Transit Commission's Andy Byford was brought in to run the New York City Subway system and "fix it." The city often gets blamed for the problems, but the system is run by the state, with some funding from the city. Still, because it is so essential to the success of the city, it ought to be a higher agenda item for the mayor.

-- "Can Andy Byford Save the Subways?," New Yorker Magazine
-- "New subway chief Andy Byford still hasn't met with Bill de Blasio," New York Post

In this June 1, 2018 photo, an Enterprise CarShare vehicle occupies a parking space in one of the new designated Carshare areas, on New York's Upper West Side. New Yorkers are at odds over a new program that's taking away hundreds of public spaces and doling them out to companies that rent out cars by the hour. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)


2.  According to the Associated Press ("Road rage: NYC turns parking spots into car share-only zones"), NYC has instituted dedicated street parking for car sharing services.  The article discusses resentment on the part of car owners. From the article:

The two-year pilot program is pitting proponents of car sharing, who see it as an efficient alternative to car ownership, against car owners, who fear fewer spaces will force them to circle the block even more.

"Parking is not an easy thing to find. Period," said Jerry Armer, whose Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, neighborhood has seen 18 on-street spaces gobbled up for car sharing.

In his neighborhood, at certain times of the day, it isn't unusual to have to circle for 30 minutes for an open spot, only to wind up a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) from home. New Yorkers also deal with the scourge of alternate-side-of-the-street parking, which involves having to move your car once or twice a week to make way for street cleaners.

The pilot program has elicited some grumbles over the price these for-profit companies are paying for exclusive use of these hard-to-get spots: almost nothing.

Zipcar and Enterprise are each paying a one-time $765 fee for the curbside spots and $1,000 to $1,200 per year for each space in the city-owned lots. Residents of city-owned public housing also will receive discounts on car sharing services.

It doesn't mention that NYC residents don't have to pay for residential parking permits.  Nor does it mention a previous AP article about how Hoboken uses car sharing as a way to manage parking supply ("Car sharing program finds home in crowded Hoboken," 2012).

But it does mention that car share vehicles tend to support 10+ households without cars.

3. Central Park goes car free.  "Last automobile drives out of Central Park as park goes car-free," New York Daily News, although the transverse roads that connect west to east remain open to cars.

4. For many months I've been meaning to mention that Prospect Park in Brooklyn, another Olmsted park, went car free in January ("Prospect Park is car free at last," Village Voice).  The discusses the long period of evolution, not unlike what happened in Central Park, of both accommodating the car and then "nibbling back" on car access, first on Sundays, then including Saturdays, and then off-peak hours during the week, until the final decision to go car free on the Prospect Loop was made last fall, effective January 2nd ("Prospect Park to permanently go car free," New York Post).

(The VV article linked to an article addressing privatization of public space, "The death of the Olmstedian vision of public space," Journal of Leisure Research, (2000), which is relevant given the bulk of writings on successful urban parks tout privatization.)


5.  In response to criticism, New York City DOT is upping their response to the April 2019 closure of the L subway line for repair.  Earlier plans provided for bus lanes on 14th Street in Manhattan, but not making the road an exclusive transitway.  They've changed their tune.  From the New York Daily News story, "Ferries, 80 buses per hour to help accommodate commuters during L train shutdown":

The move to make 14th St. a mostly bus-only street for 17 hours a day marks a big shift from a city plan that would have restricted traffic only during the morning and evening rush.

Although I think it was imperative to also use higher capacity buses, even bi-articulated buses ("Revisiting stories: the L Subway Shutdown in NYC and what to do"), but they are not doing that. From the article:

Buses will play a significant role, too, in shuttling riders across the East River.

"80 buses per hour, accommodating 4,200 riders," Byford said. "80 buses per hour will form an intense bus shuttle across the Williamsburg Bridge."

Articulated buses could increase that capacity by up to 50% and bi-articulated buses even more.

The MTA says its new ferries will also help, carrying up to 1,190 riders on eight boats per hour.

6. I still don't think a streetcar makes sense for NYC, ("Will a BQX light rail along the waterfront in Brooklyn and Queens have extra-normal economic impact?") although Paris and London do use trams as part of their system.  (The Docklands Light Rail system in London runs on dedicated tracks.)

According to the Village Voice ("So Is the BQX Dead Yet or What?," Mayor DeBlasio hopes President Trump could come up with the money.  I wouldn't hold my breath.

-- "Tech sector needs BQX to reach potential in Brooklyn and Queens," Crain's New York Business

7. Mayor DeBlasio agreed to fund a lower cost transit pass for low income residents. ("New York City's $89 Billion Budget Includes Discount Transit Fare Plan," NYT). From the article:

Mr. Johnson had pushed hard to get the mayor to agree to include funding for subsidized MetroCards, an initiative known as “Fair Fares.” The program will begin in January, with New Yorkers whose income is below the federal poverty line — about $25,000 a year for a family of four — qualifying for MetroCards at half the regular cost. It is estimated that about 800,000 people could be eligible for the subsidy, although far fewer are expected to enroll in the first year.

9. New York City is expanding the ferry system ("NYC Ferry service is getting a major expansion," Time Out) which is the only element of the transit system controlled directly by the city.  They'll be adding two routes, and three new vessels each with a capacity of 350 passengers, compared to the 150-person capacity of each boat in the 17 boats in the current fleet.

Commuter Emily Mueller enjoys a drink at the ferry bar on her way home to north Brooklyn on the evening ferry. Village Voice Photo: David Williams.

Before the recent agreement by Mayor DeBlasio to fund a lower cost transit pass for low income residents, advocates criticized the transit focus on ferries as helping the well off, especially because under mayor DeBlasio, the ferry fare is equal to the subway fare,$2.75, making it heavily subsidized.

From the Village Voice article "Foamland security: ferry riders say DeBlasio's subsidies spare them subway trauma":

Ferry riders are, by and large, higher-income New Yorkers taking advantage of subsidized ferry rides to avoid subways and buses — not because it’s a faster commute, but because of the ferry’s creature comforts such as elbow room, concessions, alcohol, WiFi, and the fresh sea air.

“The time factor has nothing to do with it for me,” explained J. Scott Klossner, a 53-year-old freelancer currently working for the Today show who takes the Rockaway route, even though it adds almost 45 minutes each way to his commute.

“I can get a coffee, a bagel, everyone is nice. The opposite is true of the A train: Everyone is a fucking asshole.”

London as a counter example: pricing ferry commuter rides as a premium service.  On my walking tour of London with former TfL official Ivan Bennett, we talked about the ferry services there, called the River Bus. In planning for river  transit, TfL differentiates between commuter transportation and tourist services.

-- TfL River services
-- London River Services map and guide, Tfl (speaking of branding, it uses the same design style as other London transit services)
-- London River Services map, 2018

Ferry trips on the Thames tend to be slower than rail, but nicer, with coffee service and newspapers. He argues that they should be marketed and priced as premium services, with the extra revenues used to support other aspects of the transit system.

(By contrast, some of the NYC Ferry routes can be faster than rail, because they provide service in areas underserved by the subway.)

That seems like a sensible approach for pricing ferry/water taxi service in London and elsewhere.

While the individual fare is higher than riding the Underground--2x to 4x higher than a single fare, they've slacked off raising River Bus fares, and because of the Crossrail cash crunch, expansions to the system have been delayed.

The false promise of ride hailing as a pro-city transportation mode

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Reprinted from Monday with new date because of the addition of the experience with parking in San Diego.  I meant to write about it, but I forgot.  It's very interesting.
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Except for one thing, measurable impact on demand for parking as reported by Ace Parking of San Diego, there really isn't anything new here, as I have written many times about these issues already.  But it's nice to sum it up.  The SD item is the new #1, and the other points have been renumbered.

1.  The San Diego Union-Tribune reports ("Ace Parking says Uber, Lyft have cut parking business up to 50% in some venues") on analysis by Ace Parking, the major private parking firm operating in San Diego, a company that is also active in other markets including DC, of the impact of ride hailing services on their parking business.  From the article:

In a September email buried deep in an environmental report, Ace Parking CEO John Baumgardner laid out the ugly truth facing the parking business. At San Diego hotels serviced by Ace Parking, overnight parking has declined 5 percent to 10 percent. At restaurant valet stands, business is down 25 percent.

And, most dramatically, nightclub valets are seeing a 50 percent drop off.

Homegrown Ace Parking — one of the largest parking companies in North America and also a fixture in San Diego’s political and business scene — is feeling the impact from Uber and Lyft, the wildly popular ride-sharing services that allow people to leave their cars at home.

For consumers, the bright side may be lower parking prices. In downtown San Diego, city planners are looking at the decline as they update parking guidelines — which could lead to changes in how much future parking is built.

Will parking companies go away? “Is this an existential threat to my business model? Or, is there a way to pivot and continue to provide a necessary service?” said Keith Jones, the third-generation managing partner of the Ace Parking empire, in a recent interview.

Jones likes to talk about “journey management.”

“Ace is hyper-focused on integrating new technology within our parking operations so we help consumers and cars,” he said. “We are pushing the parking and transportation industry to be connected in a way that makes parking smart.”

I like the point about shifting to "journey management."

2.  Most people driving ride hailing vehicles make less than minimum wage according to an MIT study ("MIT study reveals sad reality for majority of Uber, Lyft drivers: Median income far below minimum wage," WCVB-TV). From the article:

Drivers make a median hourly profit of $3.37 before taxes, the study found.

The report said that drivers incur a median cost of $0.30 per mile and that nearly a third of drivers incur expenses exceeding their revenue. At tax time, the standard mileage deduction could mean that there is untaxed revenue in the billions of dollars for these drivers.

-- The Economics of Ride-Hailing: Driver Revenue, Expenses and Taxes, MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research

NOTE THAT UBER DISPUTED THIS STUDY AND THE RESEARCHER RE-RAN THE NUMBERS. NOW HE SAYS THE FIGURE IS $8.55 HOUR WHILE UBER'S NUMBER IS $13.05.  See "Uber drivers per hour profit revised in disputed MIT study," San Jose Mercury News.

This shouldn't be a surprise.  Taxi driving is mostly resorted to by people with limited options.  Having to pay a good chunk of your earnings off the top to the software firms that run the service reduces margins.

Interesting, GM's Maven car sharing program is offering a high cost e-vehicle rental for people offering ride hailing services ("Maven Gig, GM’s car-sharing service for Uber and Lyft drivers, comes to Austin: Just in time for SXSW," GM Verge blog), after Uber made the decision to get out of the rental business because it was a money loser. From the article:

Someone who’s interested in driving for any of these on-demand services, but doesn’t own a vehicle, can rent an electric Chevy Bolt through Maven Gig starting at $229-a-week. The weekly price includes insurance, maintenance, and electric vehicle charging. There is no membership fee.

Maven first launched its gig worker product in 2016 in San Diego and San Francisco. Since then, it has been introduced in Los Angeles, Boston, Phoenix, Washington, DC, Baltimore, and Detroit. Maven says its customers have logged 170 million miles driving for various on-demand apps.

What’s different here is how closely Maven says it will be working with the city of Austin to ensure there’s an adequate electric car-charging infrastructure in place for drivers to use this service.

3.  Ride hailing reduces the use of transit. ("Ride-hailing is pulling people off public transit and clogging up roads," Technology Review). From the article:

A study by the Boston-based Metropolitan Area Planning Council found 42 percent of trips taken via ride-hailing services in Boston would have been completed on public transit had the option not been available. Another 12 percent of people would have walked or biked. Plus, most people use ride-hailers end-to-end, rather than mixing the service with other modes of transport.

4.  Ride hailing use is induced by venture capital subsidies which makes the cost of a ride less than actual cost ("You're not paying enough for Uber," Boston Globe). From the article:

A new study of 944 Boston-area passengers by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council shows that ride-hailing apps are adding to vehicular traffic; people are using them for lots of trips that they otherwise would have made by transit or bike.

This isn’t just happening because Uber and Lyft offer efficient service. It’s because the fares that customers pay don’t come close to covering the ride-hailing companies’ costs — much less the external costs to society of drawing more passenger cars into an already congested road network. ... In 2015, according to one transportation consultant, Uber passengers were paying only 41 percent of the cost of each ride.

5.  Ride hailing is a form of "inducing demand" and therefore increases congestion ("Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities," Associated Press).

6.  Chicago has instituted a fee per trip on ride hailing, which they use to fund sustainable mobility improvements ("Emanuel says Uber, Lyft fee hikes will pay for better transit cameras," Chicago Tribune; "Emanuel claims ride-hailing industry costing Chicago taxpayers $40 million per year," Chicago Sun-Times).

This seems like a reasonable mitigation measure.

7.  Transit consultant Jarrett Walker argues that there is less than meets the eye with microtransit ("Microtarnsit: What I think we know," Human Transit blog). The key point is the cost of labor to run a vehicle, and the ratio of passengers to drivers. The fewer the passengers, the more costly the service. He makes the point as I have that microtransit isn't new, in terms of either being an on demand service or contracting it out, and having an app doesn't make scalar changes to the mode.

David Aragon, an operation manager and one of the drivers for Free Ride Everywhere Downtown (FRED) waits at a local apartment building for his next pick up in the downtown area. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune).


... speaking of San Diego, I do think there is a place for microtransit along the lines of the FRED e-shuttle operating in the Downtown ("Revisiting stories: FRED Downtown shuttle in San Diego," 2017) and supporting "park once, visit many places" consumption within the district.

8.  Meanwhile Uber takes aim at medical transportation ("Uber, Lyft try solving one of medicine's biggest problems: getting people to medical appointments," Chicago Tribune).

Again, not much new, and typical of firms aiming to make a good deal of money from government contracting (like Electronic Data Systems, the firm founded by H. Ross Perot, which had preponderate amount of business from state governments for IT systems).