In The Common Good

http://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2015/05/transit-new-urban-commons.html/m=1

Buses stuck in traffic
Baltimore, Maryland
Photograph by ArchPlan Inc
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

Hello Everyone:

Blogger needed to clean out the drop box folder again and came across a rather fascinating article by Klaus Philipsen on the state of transportation in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland.  The title is in question form, "Transit-the New Urban Commons?" and asks as cities compete for the car and suburb adverse millennials with such inducements as bike lanes, walkability, and transportation options, how should Baltimore respond?  Mr. Philipsen quotes a stinging comment from the travel website Trip Advisor, Baltimore isn't a city known for its efficient public transportation system. (http://www.tripadvisor.com)  He then proceeds to answer the question, "In Baltimore, this verdict should actually set off a whole array of alarms.  How about the equity alarm? The opportunity alarm? The congestion alarm?  The economic competitiveness alarm?"  How should Baltimore, and cities with similar woeful transportation, respond?

Bus interior
Baltimore, Maryland
Photograph by ArchPlan Inc
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

Klaus Philipsen begins by writing, "The equity alarm should be especially shrill given that the concentration of poverty in inner city neighborhoods has been in news so much lately."  Income equity, a likely key point in the 2016 Presidential election cycle, is very broad subject that includes transportation.  The key factors for easing the inequities are access and mobility that stem from income disparities regularly seen in major American cities.  Seema Iyer, the Associate Director of the Jacob France Institute which runs the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance said, Transportation is the critical factor to get out of poverty (http://www.bniajfi.org)   More a statement of the obvious than a revelation, however, bad transportation enhances the disparities.  Again, not a grand conclusion, but inefficient transportation is not something that should be allowed to continue where, according to one federal judge, the inner city functions as "an island reservation for...all of the poor of a contiguous region

The response to this alarming situation should not come down to choice between catering to millennials or the poor.  Rather, transportation should serve the commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons), "...the place where all classes and races meet and be an active equalizer between the segregated and unequal communities of a metro region."  This happens in very few metropolitan regions, where rail transit serves as the equalizer.  Buses rarely meets this challenge.  Mr. Philipsen suggests that most of his hometown's buses underscore this point.  Therefore, he asks, "...does Baltimore's transit system mitigate or exacerbate inequality?  Is it as bad as Trip Advisor makes it seem?"

Baltimore light rail at BWI Airport
en.wikipedia.org

Once again quoting Seema Iyer, Mr. Philipsen share her findings about commute times in Baltimore, High commute times are key indicators of communities in stress.  Ms. Iyer defines high commutes times as over 45 minutes.  Specifically, the low-income communities has the longest commute times, this would seem to indicate discriminatory practices by the transit system.  Thus, the transit system would most likely be concentrated where riders live.  For example, Baltimore's inner city neighborhoods have a great number of bus lines, however, Mr. Philipsen asks, "Why is commute time especially high from those communities?

"Comprehensive Opportunity Map"
Baltimore area
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

Klaus Philipsen writes, "The answer lies with transit operations themselves but also with land use and how commute times are determined."  For example, the low skill jobs, warehouses and distribution centers, are located out in the suburbs, where land is cheaper instead of closer to the inner city where the low income residents live.  This puts these opportunities out of reach of low-income residents who need them.  Mr. Philipsen cites a Brookings Institute finding for employment access in the DC area:

Transit does a better job providing high-skill residents access to high-skill jobs than it does to mid-skill residents to mid-skill job and low-skill residents to low-skill jobs. (http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/11~media/...)

At the core of the long commute is a "...spatial/demographic mismatch" which can leave so many low income residents literally stranded in their communities.  Klaus Philipsen suggests three alternative ways the problem can be remedied:

• improve transit
• relocate people or
• relocate jobs.

Shall we have a look at each one?

"U.S. Travel Modes to Work"
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

Improved Transit: This seems like the obvious solution, door-to-door service. However, "...the further out one needs to go, the more likely a transfer will be required to service that is not likely to be robust."  While frequent bus service traveling through the denser inner cities, it does not mitigate the problem of overcrowding, unreliability, and cringe inducing slowness, when compared to the more efficient and speedy commuter lines from the suburbs to the financial districts.  This does read as discriminatory practices against the poorer communities. Mr. Philipsen writes, "Attempts to have a version of express buses in poorer communities as well have been started in Baltimore under the name Quickbus, essentially a bus that stops less often and duplicates a local service in the same corridor."  Other cities have successfully implemented two-tiered bus service (local/express).  The takeaway, bus service does not have be the equivalent of getting one's teeth pulled, slowly, without an anesthetic.  There are a myriad of ways to successfully implement improves to disenfranchised communities in Baltimore and elsewhere.

"Transit Commute Mode Share"
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

Moving to Opportunity: another deceptively simple solution-move where the jobs are.  This might be feasible for mid-skill and high-skill workers but for low-skill workers in the inner cities, packing up the house and children and moving to where the jobs are is not feasible. The eponymous federal program (http://portal.hud.gov), "...the practice of relocating people to neighborhoods with better access has lately languished and never reached its full potential."  This program has been placed under the microscope by those who wish to make the move less attractive and by those who live in the opportunity areas.  Relocating low income people also brings with it other sets of problems.  The need for top drawer transportation in the outlying would still be there but it would create a more diverse ridership however, there are limits to transit's reach.  Mr. Philipsen writes, "A recent study shows that many newer are built like suburbs, not to mention the actual outside of cities."

"Top 25 Urbanized Areas by Total Transit Trip
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

 Job relocation: moving the jobs to where the people are-a reverse of the postwar trend of moving to where the jobs are.  Klaus Philipsen writes, "Low skill distribution or service jobs inside the core cities along with some type of renaissance of manufacturing may not be as far-fetched as it sounds."  This is particularly in the "legacy cities" (Detroit and Buffalo for example), which have ample surplus land.  One solution is that distribution centers could be relocated to or near population centers, a prerequisite for companies offering same day delivery.  Urban manufacturing could also experience a renaissance thanks to 3-D printing.  From a sustainability perspective, far-flung, low-slung communities are not completely tenable for a number reasons.  From a transportation perspective, "...one of the effects of this type of land use is that it leaves the poor hiking along arteries without sidewalks or decent transit, effectively disconnected from a large potential workforce." Merely expressing interest in job access equity and shorter commutes is not enough, this has to be coupled with environmental and economic reasons.

Baltimore light rail
heritagetrolley.org

   Whatever options cities pursue, one thing is certain, transit is the great equalizer in reducing the socio-economic disparities and heal the scars of decades of discrimination, segregation, and bad feelings. Diverse and integrated transit equals a successful city.  Let Mr. Philipsen explain, "Successful cities have better transit and a broader constituency across all races and income levels reaching from student to senior. By contrast, cities with poor transit are places where transit in general, and bus in particular, are treated as a mobility option of last resort which is used only by the poor and to be avoided by everyone else."

"Everyone else" does not have the luxury of a car as transportation option.  The irony of the situation is that cities with poor public transit options routinely brag fleets of corporate, residential, and student shuttles which creates a "...redundant, inefficient and costly solution."  Mr. Philipsen also observes that these private transit services are a thinly disguised form of racism which clog the streets; "depriving public transit of ridership needed to flourish."  The bottom line is crystal clear, efficient, reliable, and safe public transit is in the common good.

Baltimore Red Line Station
baltimoreheritage .org

The absolute necessity of good transit for the well being of a city is continuously emphasized by civic leaders across the spectrum.  A multitude of studies have demonstrated that transit is the one of the best medicines for what ails a city, including Baltimore. (http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/11~media/...)  It is not just about pleasing the millennial crowd or providing equity to those in poverty, safe, reliable, efficient transit is crucial to the viability of dense job centers clustered in small parts of many states.  Case in point, Maryland, where the job centers are focused on 1.2% of the land area but hold 43% of all jobs. (Satori, "Transportation, Opportunity and Equity," 2013)  Baltimore's spectacular downtown is one of those job centers and the biggest one.

East Baltimore
webblogs.baltimoresun.com

Thus, "opportunity mapping" (http://www.appam.org/assets...) asserts that opportunity can swing both ways.  Opportunity was originally defined as, "the metrics that characterize an area in regards to opportunities an individual has for a quality life with access to education, jobs, retail and entertainment, opportunity can also be defined as the metrics that indicate whether or not economic centers or job hubs are able to flourish."  To put it one way, opportunity can be seen as the means to acquiring a certain social capital that can lead to a better life.

Perhaps one way to approach the goal of better transit is to understand how a specific system or geographic location rates using various metrics used by the transportation industry, planners and urban analysts. Klaus Philipsen has assembled some comparison results for Baltimore.  He notes, "Depending on what gets measured and who the competition is, the following studies and charts show, that Baltimore's transit is far being the one of the worst in the country."  Cheerfully he continues, "In some measures, the Baltimore metro area actually scores pretty well:"

"MTA: Percent of Service Provided On Time"
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

 Job access: the University of Minnesota conducted a survey of large American cities based on job access, measured by the jobs with a transit time of thirty minutes.  (http://ao.umn.edu/research/america/transit/2014/maps/index.html)  Baltimore ranked fourteen behind Minneapolis, Denver, and the "usual suspects" (i.e. New York, Boston, et cetera) but ahead of Miami, Phoenix, Houston, and San Diego.  A 2011 Brookings Institute study on job access place Baltimore above Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Minneapolis but very distant from Denver and Portland, Oregon with more aggressive light rail plans. (http://www.brookings.edu/about/programs/metro/job-and-transit/metro-profiles)

Mode share: the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute found that for 2001 Baltimore ranked among the top seven American cities for mode share of transit, and right behind Philadelphia, ahead of Pittsburgh and Seattle.  However, ten years later, the city slipped in the rankings because the rail lines in the above three cities surpassed Baltimore.  Despite this, a 2010 National Transit Database placed Baltimore in the number thirteen slot in terms of annual transit trips.

Agency evaluation: how did Baltimore's Metropolitan Transit Authority do against its peers?  The National Center for Transit Research evaluated the city's transit agency using such metrics as: "Service Supply/Availability, Service Consumption, Quality of Service, Cost Efficiency, Operating Rations and Vehicle Utilization."  How did the Baltimore MTA do against its peers?  Dead last among eight large agencies in the Northeast but near the bottom compared to the WMATA in Washington D.C.  Klaus Philipsen notes, "The study uses 2004 data."

MARC Train
baltimore.cbslocal.com

Light Rail: in 2011 the Transportation Research Board analyzed eight light rail transit in eight metropolitan areas: Phoenix, Sacramento and San Diego, Portland, Oregon, Dallas, Denver, Saint Louis. and Salt Lake City-each carrying 20 percent or more of the the area's total fixed-route passengers.  Baltimore was not part of the survey. (http://trrjournalonline.trib.org/doi/abs/10.3141/2419-06)

"MTA Customer Satisfaction Rating"
archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com

Metro Rail: Mr. Philipsen writes, "In terms of heavy rail (Metro) Baltimore ranks #11 of 15 systems in the country, behind Miami Dade's Metrorail and ahead of the Tren Urbino of San Juan.

Transit Score: the Transit Score index (http://www.gizmag.com/walkscore-transit-rankings/22350/) is the best helpful measure for quality of transit systems but as Mr. Philipsen notes, "...it wasn't put together by a transit agency and applies the user and not the provider perspective."  On a scale of 23 (the lowest) to 80 (the highest) Baltimore came in at number nine with 57 points.  New York was the number one city with 80 points, my hometown of Los Angeles ranked 11 with 49 points, while Raleigh, North Carolina scraped the bottom, ranking 25 with a paltry 23 points.

Final thoughts: the negative perceptions of Baltimore's mass transit system may not adequately illustrate its actual task or performance.  In this respect, like the much maligned Los Angeles MTA, the Baltimore MTA shares the bad reputation. What both cities, as well as sister cities, need to pay attention to is how the perception of a bad reputation can translate into falling ridership numbers.  What will be the future direction of transit systems with perceived negative reputations?  Do they cater solely to the millennial crowd, excluding those in under served neighborhoods who depend on mass transit to get to work?  Will municipalities, state, and federal agencies find a cost effective way to expand transit lines or just give up?  As opportunities for work and school expand, it will become absolutely incumbent on civic officials and planners to find a way to bring the people to the opportunities or vice verse.  Thus, a well planned and executed transit plan can ease the effects of socio-economic inequality.