The Commuter Problem Part 1: It Sucks No Matter How You Cut It

"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit) 01/30/2014 at 09:40 • Filed to: The Commuter Problem, Commuter Culture, Public Transportation, Public Infrastructure

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Commuting sucks. Throughout the evolution of the automobile and the cultures that have adopted it, this has transformed from something that didn't exist to an innate fact. During that evolution, the automobile underwent its own transformation - as a glorified novelty to a legitimate means of transportation to a strange yet perfectly harmonized hybrid of the two (well, a toy if not exactly a novelty)...back to a simple means of transportation. The novelty and toy aspects - the fun aspects - were bred out of the overwhelming choices of most American car consumers. As commuting became the primary use of the car, the consumer started valuing what a car can most mitigate from the stresses of that commute. Unfortunately, that isn't much. It has lead to a lot of ballyhoo as to whether or not !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! There is a very, very basic problem inherent to commuting, and it needs to be solved.

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Unfortunately, a solution is far more elusive than you might think. What's traditionally thought of as practical solutions in fact have many of the same exact inherent problems as automotive commuting. I take the freakin' bus/train every damn day, I think I would know.

This is something that's been on my mind for years . Perhaps the biggest problem isn't that it's just a car problem, but a multi-faceted problem - of cars, of mass transit, and if I had to pick only one specific reason, of the massive urban planning failure that characterizes the average American urban center. Yes, I'm going to do a lot of complaining. But I'm hoping that in the process I'll make a few people think about the problem, and maybe start to think of some practical solutions. And because complaining isn't frankly useful without at least some suggestion of solutions, I'll propose a few too - but that's for a later article.

Right now, let's get to the bitching!

It's Not Population Spread, It's Destination Spread

Which city is more efficient to commute in - a large, sprawling city of roughly 25 miles in diameter with huge suburbs - but the vast majority of the suburban population have jobs 5 minutes away - or a small, compact city 10 miles in diameter with no suburban ring - but much of the population lives in one half and has to go over to the other half for work?

Urban sprawl is a part of the problem, but it's just that - strictly one part of the problem. In fact, it might be more useful to define urban sprawl not in terms of population distribution but in destination distribution - in other words, commuting patterns. Let's take a look at the one American city I'm most familiar with: Denver, Colorado.

This is the Westminster "suburb" of Denver, focusing on the Denver-Boulder Turnpike (Highway 36, and not an actual turnpike anymore save for single-occupant HOV access) and Federal Boulevard. As you can see, it's very densely-packed with residential taking up the vast majority of the zoning. I put "suburb" in quotes because it's actually not that far from Downtown - let's zoom out a bit to see:

See, it's pretty close to the I-25/I-70 interchange which will take you straight to downtown jobs or just about anywhere else in the city. Of course, that's a big part of the problem - with so many people coming in from Westminster (or other parts) trying to get to downtown (or other parts), traffic jams are an obvious inevitability.

But what about public transportation you say?

There's Not Enough of It

Here are all the bus stops Google found me:

Yes, it looks like quite a bit, but when you consider how much land area (and housing) is supposed to be served by those bus stops, it's not a lot. Furthermore, not all of those bus routes actually serve where people need to go. The worst part is when you have to actually drive to the bus or train - but we'll get into that in a bit.

It's No More Convenient than Automotive Commuting ( At Best )

...Which is about 1% of the time.

Let's take a look at the Seven Hills area, which is a community in Aurora, CO at the fringe where city meets prairie; Seven Hills not only serves as home to those who work at nearby Buckley Air Force Base but for many people who simply want to be away from the city (or military spouses who work elsewhere). It's largely defined by the borders of Hampden Avenue and Tower Road up to where you either run into Buckely AFB to the north or nothing at all to the east:

Let's say you want to go downtown. If you use a car all you have to do is take Hampden Ave down to I-225 and it's smooth sailing (well, traffic jams) from there:

If you elected to take public transportation, your best bet would be to take a bus to the Regional Transportation District (RTD) LightRail Network - they "conveniently" have a major terminal at Parker Road and I-225 that takes you straight to downtown. So you would have to first find a bus stop:

So if you don't happen to live right on that specific corridor of bus stops, you have to walk your ass over to it, then wait for the bus. Yes, RTD does publish their bus schedules, but keep in mind - you're now on their scheduling and convenience. I can tell you from personal experience, this isn't the most fun thing in the world.

But once you're on the bus, it's smooth sailing from there. All you have to do is just ride it out to the LightRail Station - while it takes its meandering route stopping at each station along the way:

But now you've finally reached the LightRail station, so now all you have to do is wait because RTD isn't smart enough to figure out how to make the train schedules and bus schedules actually mesh together (a bit of a practical problem given the number of bus routes served anyway). And then you can finally go downtown while the train stops at its own stations. And when you're done in LoDo you get to do the same in reverse.

Congratulations, you've completely defeated the purpose of trying to save time with public transportation ( at best ).

Public Transportation involves Automotive Commuting

Or maybe you simply don't feel like waiting for the bus, or maybe a bus route is too far removed from where you live. Don't worry - RTD has a number of (under-serviced, but not under-utilized) Park-N-Rides at your disposal! Sticking with the Seven Hills example above, you can get in your car and park at the Park-N-Ride located at Parker Road and I-225, taking the same LightRail station serviced by said Park-N-Ride. It even includes such amenities as a parking garage.

Unfortunately everybody has the same idea - so if you're commuting during typical rush hours, you're out of luck because that Park-N-Ride is jam full and you're left looking for another one. Fortunately there are Park-N-Rides at I-25 and Hampden (open parking), DTC Boulevard and Arapahoe Road (parking garage) and Lincoln Avenue and I-25 (also a parking garage). They're only about, oh, 10, 12 and something like 20+ miles away. Compounded by the fact that you'll also be fighting traffic along the way.

Congratulations, you've completely defeated the environmental purpose of public transportation ( at best ).

Public Transportation Isn't Any Less Stressful ( At Best )

And all of the above have their own stress factors. Having to modify your sleeping schedule so you can catch whenever the bus happens to come along. Having to waste time simply sitting on the bus, or waiting for the bus or train. Being stuck in traffic so you can drive to the bus or train because you want to avoid traffic (and dealing with the time sacrifices entailed therein too). Being crammed into buses or especially trains at or even beyond full (or sane) occupancy, or missing the train due to over-occupancy.

None of these are faults inherent in public mass transit per se - they're faults in how we've put them together , which is mostly an ad-hoc "lay 'em where we can" process. Unfortunately because it's become so ingrained into the very municipal infrastructure, it's going to be extremely complicated and extremely expensive to rectify this. That's not to say it's not possible - in fact, perhaps with gradual change we'll finally reach parity with our European counterparts. We'll examine how (and further infrastructure problems in detail) in future articles.

puddler > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 01/30/2014 at 09:42

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i was really stressed until i got a job within walking distance.

Tom McParland > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 01/30/2014 at 09:52

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Great read...but most of your images got nibbled. Open the editor and then just "re-save" usually fixes it.

davedave1111 > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 01/30/2014 at 09:56

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It's actually very simple to solve commuting problems: all you have to do is prioritise solving them over other things. The core problem, particularly in the US, is the amount of time people consider reasonable to spend commuting; things aren't bad enough for most people to bother doing anything about it.

Personally, at least here in London, I'd like to see most of London limited to vehicles with engines no bigger than 25cc for one person, 50cc for multiple people, at least during commuter hours. As soon as you get all the big heavy vehicles off the road, people can safely ride mopeds, drive microcars, ride bicycles, or whatever solution presents itself. I'm pretty sure average commuting speeds are under 30mph in most big cities on the planet, so it's not like you'd need a big engine to go faster than that if the roads were relatively clear.

Casper > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 01/30/2014 at 10:20

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The problem is unrealistic or poorly conceived solutions being pushed by people who don't really understand the issue, but have some special interest in pushing a specific agenda.

Public transport like buses are fundamentally flawed because of how the proponents view them. They imagine a bus full of 50 people being moved from one place to another in a single vehicle and say "yep, that's much more efficient than 50 cars". Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Rarely is the destination of the bus the final destination for any of the people on board and rarely are the buses more then 20% full in many areas. This means you are now running buses that consume the space of 3-4 vehicles, and increasing traffic congestion by significant margins, for a handful of people... who will then get off the bus to get onto another bus or wander the city crisscrossing streets and adding to pedestrian congestion and reducing the vehicular systems efficiency. It never pans out. The only way it works is if applied to a singular destination everyone is actually going to, such as an airport and all the same issues apply to light rail. Trains may not add to congestion directly, but suffer the same problems and do cause congestion in the form of parking/terminal pedestrian traffic.

Small vehicle transport doesn't work either. There's a myth that if you could remove all the large vehicles from the road, the road would be less congested. The concept works somewhat at a very small scale (neighborhood or very central down town) but fails in real works scales involving miles and miles of travel. The average delay and congestion is created by the average driver, not some rare massive transport truck. Even if everyone were moved to scooters, you would have congestion... but also higher rates of serious accidents. Currently accidents are rarely life threatening and generally just involve a tow vehicle showing up to clear the mess. In places with high density of motorcycle or scooter transit, there are much higher rates of injury and death while commuting. Each time a serious injury occurs, a massive delay is incurred as police shut down the location to investigate. Further, scooters and motorcycles (and even small cars) don't work well in poor weather (I know, I ride most of the year). Even at 30 MPH a scooter is more dangerous than a full motorcycle at 60 MPH due to the suspension and tire setups. As soon as the weather turns south, rain, leaves, snow, or even just lawn clippings, become a massive hurdle for the average scooter trying to navigate traffic without virtually coming to a stop. This means now the average speed has been reduced further of the system, accident and fatality rates have increased, and you still have congestion. Not really a solution.

The real solution is decentralization. Telecommuting and remote offices work for many business types, especially in online retail and corporate environments. The biggest hurdle is the lack of understanding and natural decrepit transition rate of large corporations/government bodies. The key is to force the transition. The archaic 1950's office building idea with an autocratic leadership sitting in an office at the top of the building is going away and with it the artificial constraints of needing employees in the same physical location as the management. For many business structures the transition isn't easy and they lack personnel/leaders with knowledge of how to properly organize a modern business, but as they retire/die the environment modernizes around them.

As soon as a tipping point is reached in the decentralization of offices and government, traffic will plummet. Currently in many cities over 95% of traffic during rush hour is local business and government (duh). It is estimated that over half of most businesses staff can be moved to offsite or telecommuting. In government it's even higher. Doing so reducing traffic by a virtually proportional amount while also not costing anything to the infrastructure to implement.

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 01/30/2014 at 10:30

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Great read.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > puddler 01/30/2014 at 10:31

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Yeah, it's the best

TreeWeezel > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 01/30/2014 at 11:43

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If you take 20 minutes to figure out your public transportation, you're set stress-free for years. You'll complete many books, becoming wise enough to laugh at all car ratracers who disparage you. Not having to park more than makes up for the leisurely pace and menial fare of a bus. (If not, you aren't in a real city) There can be a dealkiller like a circuitous route, but in general the more people use it the better it gets, while the roads just get worse and worse.

On infrastructure, there might be a lot of working squares who live in a house in a former cornfield but whose employment is needlessly downtown. Pretty much all cube/office/business operations, anything that is dead-weight to the culture and foottraffic of a city, would be better located in a former cornfield.

Korea Miéville > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 01/30/2014 at 13:36

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I feel that self-driving cars are the commuter's best hope. Once they go into wide use, cities with congestion problems will — hopefully — turn HOV lanes into computer-controlled lanes, in which cars' operation and speed will be controlled and regulated for maximum efficiency. Incompetent and antisocial driving will be eliminated, and cars will be able to move along safely at high speeds since traffic will be completely coordinated. Meanwhile, non-computer-controlled lanes will still be available to those who want to maintain control of their vehicles.

Aloha Milkyway > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 01/31/2014 at 09:47

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Commuting in Metro Manila is worse. Yes it's cheaper than bringing a car but I'm more than willing to pay more just so I'm in the comfort of my own car. I'm seated in my airconditioned cocoon listening to my tunes. I feel safe inside and I don't run the risk of getting mugged or having my bag slashed. I'd rather have a 2 hour travel time than an hour and 30 minutes of standing in a cramped metro train, walk to a shuttle station and walking a good 2 kilometers to get home

UltrasonicBlueMica > Casper 02/05/2014 at 08:07

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You put up some very good points, although I have to disagree about Government's role in traffic. (at least Federal. Local and State may be another matter) I am a Federal employee now, and it has been by far the most flexible of any of my engineering jobs. Telecommuting is highly valued and utilized. It truly is the solution in my eyes as well. (Ironically it's much much easier to actually get work done without the distractions in an office) We are also typically located in areas serviced by public transit.

Casper > UltrasonicBlueMica 02/05/2014 at 10:00

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Federal is far more flexible than state, I'll give you that. They were forced to look into being more flexible because of their budget issues earlier on and typically engineering type positions are the easiest to flex along with things like software developers, data specialists, etc. Positions that do not rely on a physical presence and typically have all their required information digitally stored already.

Being near public transit doesn't mean much if no one in their right mind would use it. For instance around here the only mass transit that could be used would be the bus. There are very few people working in sensitive areas that would be crazy enough to take their laptop onto the bus with them, not to mention the significant increase in most employees commute doing so. It works better in a large city like New York or LA where traffic is already terrible.

Biggus Dickus (RevsBro) > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 08/01/2014 at 01:23

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Looks like Shanghai!