Photo: Penn State.

But there's not as much in the way of hard studies of the effects of land use as we might like -- mainly because it's been a non-issue, so far as most of the country is concerned, for much of recent history.

Aiming to address this (and acting under a congressional mandate), the Transportation Research Board recently completed a study that has now resulted in a very large report: "Driving and the Built Environment: The Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO Emissions."

The report is actually five mini-papers, and at nearly 200 pages long it makes for a lot of reading. But the findings reported in the introduction give an idea of what it's all about.

The authors conclude that compact development is likely to reduce VMT: "The effects of compact, mixed-use development on VMT are likely to be enhanced when this strategy is combined with other policy measures that make alternatives to driving relatively more convenient and affordable." No surprises there.

Finding No. 2 is: "The literature suggests that doubling residential density across a metropolitan area might lower household VMT by about 5 to 12 percent, and perhaps by as much as 25 percent, if coupled with higher employment concentrations, significant public transit improvements, mixed uses, and other supportive demand management measures."

They note that were you to move the residents of Atlanta to an area built like Boston, you'd lower the Atlantans' VMT per household by perhaps 25 percent.

Better land use results in reductions in energy use and carbon emissions, the authors report, from both direct and indirect causes. (Direct causes would be a reduction in VMT; indirect include things like longer vehicle lifetimes from reduced use and the greater efficiency of smaller or multi-family housing units.)

But one of the crucial pieces of data included in the report is this:

As many as 57 million new housing units are projected to accommodate population growth and replacement housing needs by 2030, growing to between 62 and 105 million units by 2050 - a substantial net addition to the housing stock of 105.2 million in 2000.

Critics of smart growth efforts or rail and transit investments often wave off the potential gains from building differently by noting that so much of the current housing stock is of the sprawling, single-family home, auto-oriented sort. Convincing the people who currently live in such places to give that up for something different, they say, is sure to be an extremely difficult sell.

But that's not the issue. No one is suggesting we rip down all of suburbia. Rather we, or at least I, am pointing out that between now and mid-century, the country will very nearly have to build itself all over again to accommodate population growth. In addition to the 100 million homes now in America, somewhere between 62 and 105 million more will be built.

The critical question is what the balance of that new construction will look like. The TRB report suggests that if 75 percent of this new construction is of a more compact variety, that emissions could be reduced 10 percent or more from the baseline scenario (and that is not taking into consideration the deployment of cleaner electricity generation and other potential sources of savings).

Ed Glaeser argued -- and this is kind of hard to believe -- that land use shifts from building high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston would not provide much in the way of benefits, since, he guessed, only 100,000 or so people in each city would move from the suburbs to the central city. But this entirely misses the point.

Houston and Dallas may each double their current housing stock between now and 2050. Where are those homes going to go, with what climate impacts? That's the critical question.

Demographic shifts and changes in energy prices are sure to encourage some households that are currently living at low densities to move to more compact developments, and that's a good thing. But that's not the main reason to begin focusing on the significant available savings from smarter land use decisions.

The main reason is the growth that America will continue to face. It's difficult to imagine that the nation can double its housing stock while building in a sprawling fashion without facing major environmental costs and economic difficulties. Land use patterns will need to change. And as this report documents, there will be considerable advantages to facilitating that change.

Transportation Alternatives documented failure-to-yield violations at the rate of 24 per hour, per intersection. Photo: TA

Transportation Alternatives is out with a new report today, "Chaos to Compliance" [PDF], documenting the sky-high rate of moving violations on city streets, and the NYPD is sticking to its script. Here's the police response to TA's report, which appeared in the Post:

"Contrary to the report, the NYPD posts traffic enforcement resources where they are needed most," said Inspector Edward Mullen. "Traffic related fatalities in New York City are down 15.5% so far this year, and down by more than 35% since the Bloomberg administration took office in 2002."

"We expect to end the year with fewer than 260 traffic-related fatalities compared to 393 in 2001, and 1,360 in 1929, when highest number of traffic-related fatalities was recorded," he added.

But there's not much evidence to support the implication that NYPD has caused the decline in traffic deaths (going eighty years back, no less), as opposed to changes in street engineering or advances in emergency care. "The fact is, NYPD doesn't know the violation rates for the most dangerous driving behaviors," said TA's Wiley Norvell. "They don't know how many drivers are speeding, running red lights, or failing to yield. Because they don't, it's impossible to attribute New York City's decline in traffic fatalities to enforcement."

To get an accurate sense of whether enforcement is deterring dangerous driving, police first need to measure the rate of compliance with traffic laws. How do you do that? Chaos to Compliance suggests it's not that complicated.

TA stationed observers at four intersections during the morning and evening rush. At each intersection, two people stood at fixed points and catalogued the number and type of violations that occurred at pre-determined locations.

Here's what they tallied at 96th Street and Broadway:

• An average of 117 violations an hour
  
• Drivers disregarding traffic signals 44 times an hour -- a total of 350 incidents
  
• Drivers disregarding traffic signs 23 times an hour -- a total of 180 incidents
  
• Drivers disregarding roadway markings 16 times an hour -- a total of 127 incidents
  
• Drivers failing to yield to pedestrians 14 times an hour -- a total of 113 incidents
  

Equipped with information samples like this, NYPD could deploy its traffic enforcement resources more effectively and bring the same level of rigorous analysis to traffic violations that the agency has used to reduce violent crime the past two decades.

NYPD's TrafficStat program, which is presumably what Inspector Mullen was referring to when he said that police deploy "traffic enforcement resources where they are needed most," identifies problem areas where crashes tend to occur but doesn't capture any data on actual violations. Meanwhile, as TA reported in Executive Order, NYPD has abandoned the practice of accident-prone location deployment, a metrics-based enforcement strategy the agency could quickly re-adopt. NYPD's public information office has not returned Streetsblog's inquiry as to whether police intend to bring the practice back.

While the candidates for Manhattan DA pledge to reduce vehicular crime and increase pedestrian safety, the NYPD's commitment to those goals is still an open question. All we can say is that they won't acknowledge the lawlessness on city streets, and they don't appear interested in measuring the type of behavior that causes 260 traffic deaths every year. "It’s frustrating that we’re not using data in an informed way to bring those deaths down to zero," said Norvell.

A new report on the costs of aging roads [PDF] has gotten a lot of attention over the past week, with both Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the Washington Post touting its conclusion on the danger of "deficient roadways."

On its face, the report sounds like an argument for prioritizing road repair and modernization over new construction, which is certain to be a flashpoint as Congress works on a new federal transportation bill. But some of the upgrades that the authors suggest rely on outmoded assumptions about driver safety -- not to mention pedestrian safety, a concept never mentioned in the report.

Here's an excerpt:

Numerous solutions -- some simple, some complex -- could help make the roadway environment safer for users. These improvements include structural changes such as adding or widening shoulders, improving roadway alignment, replacing or widening narrow bridges, reducing pavement edges or drop-offs, and providing more clear space in the area adjacent to roadways.

Adding or widening shoulders for bike lanes or pedestrian paths is one thing, but the notion that driving can be made safer by widening and straightening roads (or "improving roadway alignment," as the report puts it) has been debunked by "Traffic" author Tom Vanderbilt, transportation planner Eric Dumbaugh, and others. In fact, making roads more complex and curvy can often serve as a deterrent to unsafe driving practices, particularly on urban streets.

But the report, commissioned by the Transportation Construction Coalition (TCC), seems to have concluded that urban areas don't need to be considered separately from interstates.

"Although this study did not break out costs by class of roads, interstate highways are built to higher safety standards than other roads," the authors state -- as if a new four-lane freeway through Chicago or Brooklyn would be a reasonable safety-enhancement move.

Roger Henderson, an engineer at Henderson Consulting in North Carolina, said the report made a solid attempt to link transportation and public health but made "a critical mistake" in treating all roads in the same way.

The report seems to argue, Henderson said in an interview, that "federal money should be spent to cut down trees and move poles away from the roadway. I agree completely when it comes to interstates, but this is the wrong study to make conclusions in any urban setting."

The report's sponsorship may have had an effect on its conclusions, Henderson added. Indeed, the TCC is an alliance of unions and trade groups that -- as as the Post succinctly put it -- "has a vested interest in funding for road construction."

Taking its origins and questionable assumptions into account, however, two maps in the report tell an interesting tale of the regional toll exacted by traffic.

The map above depicts road-related crash costs for every million vehicle miles traveled on state roads, and the map below depicts road-related crash costs for every existing mile of roadway.

The southeastern states of Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee rank in the top 10 on both maps, earning them the status of "worst road-related crash problems," according to the TCC study.

By contrast, California and most of the northeast corridor rank high in crash costs per roadway mile (see below) and much lower in costs per million VMT (see above). The study's authors, who hail from the Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation, attribute the trend to "traffic density" -- making a powerful argument for giving special attention to expanding transit options, including high-speed rail, in California and the northeast.

Still, without an alternative to driving in highly developed areas, simply repairing roads isn't enough.

The DCP study follows DOT's release last summer of a Request for Expressions of Interest to gauge the potential of a public bike system. City officials characterized the new report as a research document akin to a feasibility study, not an indication that bike-share implementation is imminent.

With New York's streets crammed to capacity at peak hours and subways and buses handling historically high levels of ridership, now is an opportune moment for bike-share, which can be implemented quickly and at modest expense. A network of public bike stations as dense as Paris's Vélib would make existing transit options more attractive and relieve crowding on packed trains and buses. Consider these examples from DCP's report:

Over 14,000 northwest Brooklyn residents (Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Fort Greene, etc) work in northwest Queens (Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside). While the distance between these areas is short, insufficient transit means that 42% of these commuters drive to work each day. In addition, for some households, the introduction of a bike-share program may help them avoid or postpone the purchase of a car, as trips to transit or other short trips could then be made by public bicycle.

A subway commuter living on the Upper East Side and working in lower Manhattan or Midtown currently walks to the Lexington Avenue subway (4/5/6), one of the most congested subway lines in the city. With a bike-share program in place, that commuter might bicycle to an express stop or choose to bypass the 4/5/6 all together and bicycle to 63rd or 59th Streets where transfers are available for the F and N/R/W trains. Similarly a bike-share system would allow a Morrisania or Mott Haven resident working at Columbia-Presbyterian, City College or Columbia University, to bicycle to the D train instead of taking a bus or the crowded 2, 5 or 6 train into Manhattan and turning around to go back uptown into work.

The report proposes a phased roll-out, starting where demand would be most intense and expanding to cover all of Manhattan and significant portions of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. The map comes after the jump.

TA recommends longer crossing times than DOT's Safe Streets for Seniors program currently employs.

With New York's 65-and-older population projected to nearly double to 1.35 million by 2030, last year DOT launched its Safe Streets for Seniors program to tackle the worst problem areas for the city's elderly. Targeting 25 zones with high rates of senior pedestrian fatalities, the DOT pilot is the first of its size for a city transportation agency in the U.S. But is it doing enough?

In a report released yesterday, Transportation Alternatives pushed for an expanded program that better reflects where seniors actually walk. The main thrust of "Walk the Walk" [PDF] is that the safety zones should cover areas with big senior populations in addition to areas where fatal crashes have occurred. Its recommendations lay out a strategy to boost not just the safety of older New Yorkers, but their access to common destinations like grocery stores, parks, and houses of worship. 

TA highlighted these key findings in its press release:

• The fatality rate of senior pedestrians is 40 times greater than that of child pedestrians in Manhattan.
• Of 10 high-density senior census block groups in the Lower East Side, only one was included in a Safe Streets district.
• Safe Streets for Seniors pedestrian improvement areas do not clearly provide safe connections from high senior density housing to the destinations seniors like to visit the most, such as stores with fresh produce.

DOT is considering expanding its program beyond the current 25 pilot areas, and may weigh additional criteria when selecting the next round of target zones. “We are constantly looking for ways to improve the safety of children and seniors on our streets, which is why we launched the Safe Routes to Schools and Streets for Seniors programs," said DOT's Seth Solomonow in response to the report. "These initiatives, which increase crossing time at intersections, improve crosswalks and expand pedestrian space, are the largest traffic-calming initiative of their kind anywhere in the nation.”

Average commute times, in minutes, according to the US Census Bureau

The study, from the Manhattan-based Center for an Urban Future, examines a number of factors that are driving away the city's middle class. Many New Yorkers, for example, endure commutes that are among the longest in the US. Like commuters from St. Albans, Queens, who spend 51.7 minutes during an average trip to work -- nearly twice the national average of 25.5 minutes. (See page 28 of this PDF.)

Meanwhile, more and more "outer borough" New Yorkers are relying on the bus.

Between 1998 and 2006, 81 percent of the increase in bus ridership across the city occurred outside of Manhattan. The number of people in Manhattan riding city buses rose by 11 percent, but this was far less than the increase in Queens (24 percent), Staten Island (23 percent), Brooklyn (22 percent) and the Bronx (18 percent).

This should be a wake-up call to electeds, including mayoral aspirant Bill Thompson, who continue to dismiss viable transit-funding proposals like congestion pricing and bridge tolls, which will also clear traffic and speed commutes. While pandering to the motoring minority makes for sure-fire headlines, the Ravitch plan, now set to be voted up or down by state lawmakers in the coming weeks, would boost bus service even before proposed tolls on East and Harlem River bridges take effect. This is exactly what working class New Yorkers need.

Much of the report deals with making the MTA's own operations more energy efficient, but the overriding message is that transit is inherently an instrument of sustainability: The agency can be at its greenest by extending access to transit, expanding capacity, improving performance, and ensuring that new development is transit-oriented.

I've combed through the synopsis of the report [PDF], and the legislative agenda it lays out does not skimp on ambition. The policy recs run the gamut from the current federal stimulus package to state legislation on bus enforcement cameras to New York City parking meter rates. It hits several items on the livable streets agenda and should prove to be a useful barometer of progress going forward. The major takeaway: New Yorkers and others who rely on the MTA need legislators to step up and deliver on these sustainability goals.

I'm still working through the full report, but I can say that it heats up on page 53 of this PDF, with "Transformational Recommendations" for smart growth and transit-oriented development in the region. Highlights from that section posted after the jump.

Smart Growth/TOD Working Group: Top Recommendations

• The MTA should capture two-thirds of all new vehicle miles traveled (VMT) generated within its region through 2030. To achieve this, the MTA should advise communities and collaborate with them on how to create and expand feeder and distributor lines and eliminate gaps in the regional transit network.
• The MTA should promote clustered development throughout its region, seeking to draw two-thirds of all new development to within a quarter-mile to a half-mile of transit access within the MTA network.
• The MTA should take the lead in closing the "last mile" transportation gap by improving access to transit through robust, flexible feeder and distributor services, as well as pedestrian and bike improvements.
• The MTA should develop a systemwide TOD program that articulates principles and guidelines for TOD project development and should assist communities, developers and stakeholders throughout the region in planning these community-based initiatives.

TSTC stats compiled from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and US Census data

Though senior fatality rates are high across the region -- people aged 65 and older accounted for 30 percent of pedestrian deaths during the three-year study period, yet comprised less than 12 percent of the area’s population -- Manhattan was "the most dangerous place in downstate New York for older people to walk." Between 2005 and 2007, 50 people aged 65 or older were killed on Manhattan streets, an average of 8.27 deaths per 100,000 seniors. The same period saw 1.82 deaths per 100,000 people under age 65.

Nassau County ranked as having the second most dangerous downstate pedestrian environment for seniors, followed by Staten Island and Brooklyn. Queens and the Bronx ranked seventh and eighth, respectively.

"Clearly, older tri-state residents are suffering disproportionately," said William Stoner, AARP New York’s Associate State Director for Livable Communities. "Making our streets safe and livable to accommodate our aging population will require taking a close look at the infrastructure of our communities."

TSTC applauded efforts like DOT's Safe Streets for Seniors, and suggested similar programs for other areas, particularly in Long Island and Connecticut. See the TSTC web site for complete report data and county and borough fact sheets.

Given this preventable public health crisis right in their own backyards, we're expecting public calls to action from incensed local electeds any time now. C'mon Alan Gerson, where's the Safe Streets for Seniors bill? When's your camera-ready rant scheduled, Anthony Weiner? Anyone?

"The federal government can promote better jobs, protect taxpayers, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by simply taking some lessons from states and cities," said Greg LeRoy, Executive Director of Good Jobs First. "These well-established safeguards are consistent with President-elect Obama’s stated goal of reforming programs to make them more transparent and cost-effective."

The study deals with five federal programs: the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program; the Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment Act; the Department of Commerce’s Public Works and Economic Development Program; Industrial Revenue Bonds as allowed under the Internal Revenue Code; and the Department of Agriculture’s Business and Industry Guaranteed Loans Program.

The report, which could hardly be more relevant than it is today, may be downloaded here.

Photo: Michael Hinton/Flickr

In the post, headlined "Study Finds Cyclists Disobey Traffic Laws," the report authors call for greater helmet use and adherence to traffic laws. Again, all well and good, but leaving it at that reinforces the perception that cyclists would be much safer if only they obeyed the letter of the law. It's easy to hear echoes of NYPD's insistence, in the waning days of the Giuliani administration, that "cyclist error" was to blame in three quarters of deadly crashes. A follow-up study conducted by the advocacy group Right of Way [PDF] found otherwise:

Through careful reconstruction of crash circumstances, we were able to assign responsibility in 53 of the 71 fatal bicycle crashes during 1995-1998 for which we obtained police crash reports. We determined that drivers were highly culpable in 30 cases, partly culpable in 11 cases, and not culpable in 12 cases. Driver misconduct was thus the principal cause in 57% (30 out of 53) of the cases and a contributory factor in 78% (30 plus 11, or 41, out of 53).

Another way to view the Hunter College findings is that rates of traffic violations among cyclists are symptomatic of a system designed mainly to accommodate cars. In other words, cyclists follow the rules more when they feel safe. (City Room cites TA's Wiley Norvell to this effect, toward the bottom of the post.) This has been borne out on Ninth Avenue, where according to DOT's data the incidence of sidewalk riding declined from five percent to below one percent after the protected path was installed.

As Norvell told Streetsblog, "A lot of the traffic violations we see out there happen on streets that have absolutely no provision for the safety of the cyclist."

Building upon PlaNYC and DOT's Sustainable Streets, World Class Streets focuses on improving the public realm by concentrating on plazas, complete street design, and Summer Streets-style pedestrian and cycling events. Together these measures aim to transform New York streets into "an environment that is enjoyable as well as functional" for pedestrians, cyclists and transit users of all ages.

For the report, Gehl Architects and DOT conducted a "Public Life Survey," gathering a wealth of data that identifies overcrowded sidewalks, streets without seats, excessive scaffolding, isolated public spaces, and a low ratio of stationary activities as shortcomings to address. "Often the most crowded areas (such as sidewalks near subway stops and street corners) are the places where most obstacles exist," it observes, also noting that "a vastly disproportionate amount of space is allocated to parking cars than to public seating spaces." One telling example is Main Street in Flushing, Queens, where pedestrians outnumber vehicle passengers by a ratio of two to one, yet pedestrians must squeeze into less than one-third of the space.

Among other interesting tidbits in the report:

• Stroget in Copenhagen has 444 cafe seats per 1,000 yards, vs. 15 on Broadway (p. 15).
• Just six percent of pedestrians on Broadway are either under the age of 14 or over 65 (p. 31).
• Sixty percent of storefronts in the Lower Manhattan survey area had closed metal gates on a Sunday at noon (p. 35).

Accusing city higher-ups since Robert Moses of asking only "how the cars can be really happy," Gehl said today's DOT has finally recognized that streets should accommodate a multitude of uses. "New York has wonderful, wide streets compared to other places," he told the audience. Thanks to these relatively spacious streets as well as unique urban density, cultural vitality, parks, and waterways, he said, "New York can have the best streets in the world."

A new city street design manual -- due out this winter -- will set technical guidelines for DOT and all city agencies to implement the changes advocated by World Class Streets. Meanwhile there are miles of bike lanes to create, sidewalks to widen, pedestrian refuges to build, new bike racks to install, and recalcitrant drivers to educate.

Advocates cheered the news. "More bike lanes and safer designs like Ninth Avenue are really starting to pay off," says TA's Wiley Norvell. "These numbers really show the huge latent potential for biking in NYC. We can't wait for 2009."

DOT paired its announcement with a safety message for cyclists and, yes, drivers:

"This unprecedented increase shows we are well on the way toward our goal of doubling the number of bike commuters," said Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. "As these numbers rise, cyclists should take all safety precautions, while drivers must be vigilant when sharing our streets with this growing population."

Meanwhile, fueling what could become a heated intercity rivalry, bike counts just came out of Portland touting a 28 percent increase in cycling this year, bringing bike commute mode share up to eight percent.

More background from DOT on its screenline count, after the jump.

DOT first conducted screenline counts of cyclists in 1980 and has been doing so annually since 1984.  Counts were historically taken once a year, during the middle of the week for a 12-hour period from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. In 2007, DOT expanded the time window to 18 hours and added two additional counting dates. The 18-hour count showed that over a quarter of cyclists counted use City streets earlier in the morning and later in the day than previously believed. While commuter cycling has doubled over the past six years, DOT has found that some facilities have gotten much more popular.  The cyclist volume on the Williamsburg Bridge has quadrupled from 2000-2008 to 4,000 cyclists on a typical day.

DOT's NYC Commuter Cycling Indicator makes use of the most robust data available to estimate the trends in commuter cycling.  While not every commuter cyclist in New York is counted in the screenline, the count locations are high usage areas where trends are easily spotted. The screenline count looks at cyclists crossing the four East River bridges, those entering and exiting the Staten Island Ferry's Whitehall terminal, as well as cyclists crossing 50th Street on each avenue and the Hudson River Greenway.

This growth in cycling follows two years of DOT efforts to rapidly expand and improve New York's bicycle network. DOT added 140 miles of new bicycle routes to the on-street bicycle network in 2007 and 2008.

Graphic: NYCDOT [PDF]

DC-area blog WashCycle points us to this recently released survey from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [PDF]. The stats on Americans' bicycling and walking behavior are a little behind the times -- from phone interviews done in 2002 -- but there are reams of data compiled from nearly 10,000 questionnaires.

Some of the most interesting nuggets concern perceptions of safety -- like the fact that bicyclists are much more likely to feel unsafe on bike lanes than on bike paths -- which buttress Jennifer Dill's research on cyclist behavior.

On the walking side, suburban residents who walk are much more likely to feel threatened by the "potential for crime" than city residents are. But even crime-fearing suburbanites agree: Motorists are the number one threat to pedestrians:

Graphics: NHTSA

A new report from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign names five New York City streets among the region's 10 most dangerous roads for pedestrians, based on the number of fatalities from 2005 to 2007. Making the list were:

• Third Avenue, Manhattan: 10 fatalities
  
• Broadway, Manhattan: 10 fatalities
  
• Grand Central Parkway, Queens: 9 fatalities
  
• Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island: 9 fatalities
  
• Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn: 8 fatalities

TSTC found that two Long Island routes, Hempstead Turnpike in Nassau County and Sunrise Highway in Suffolk County, were the most deadly in terms of raw numbers, with 15 and 12 fatalities, respectively. Roads in New Jersey's Atlantic, Burlington, Middlesex and Ocean Counties rounded out the list.

"The most dangerous roads are either extremely busy urban roads, such as 3rd Avenue in Manhattan, that handle many pedestrians and cars," said TSTC analyst Michelle Ernst, in the media release accompanying the report, "or, as with the case of Sunrise Highway in Suffolk County, they are major suburban roadways dotted with retail destinations but designed exclusively for fast-moving car traffic."

During the three years covered by the study, there were 147 pedestrian deaths in Brooklyn, 128 in Manhattan, 95 in Queens, 53 in the Bronx, and 26 in Staten Island. Narrowly missing the regional top 10 list were First and Seventh Avenues in Manhattan and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. Each saw seven fatalities.

TSTC acknowledged city DOT efforts to improve pedestrian conditions, but gave lower marks to New York State.

"It’s upsetting that roads on Long Island have more pedestrian fatalities than roads in dense urban areas, where people tend to walk much more," said Ryan Lynch, Senior Planner and Long Island Coordinator for the Campaign.  "It’s clear that the New York State Department of Transportation isn’t providing safe walking routes for Long Islanders. This needs to change."

Borough and county fact sheets are available on the TSTC web site, and Mobilizing the Region has further analysis.

What makes the report notable are the numbers it contains. It's jam-packed with quantifiable benefits that would result from increased investment in infrastructure that encourages and supports pedestrians and cyclists.

For instance, the report's authors write:

• Increasing the bicycle and pedestrian share of trips of one mile or less from its current 31 percent, to 40 percent under a Modest Scenario, or to 70 percent under a Substantial Scenario, would result in 28 billion or 49 billion reduction in miles driven, respectively.
• Modest increases in bicycling and walking for short trips could provide enough exercise for 50 million inactive Americans to meet recommended activity levels, erasing a sizeable chunk of America’s activity deficit.
  
• For the price of a single mile of a four-lane urban highway, approximately $50 million, hundreds of miles of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure can be built, an investment that could complete an entire network of active transportation facilities for a mid-sized city.
• The financial value of improved mobility, fuel savings, greenhouse gas reductions, and health care savings amounts to more than $10 billion annually under our Modest Scenario. For the Substantial Scenario, benefits would add up to more than $65 billion every year. These benefits dwarf historic spending for bicycling and walking, which was $453 million per year for 2005–2007 under SAFETEA-LU, and a mere $4.5 billion cumulative federal investment in these modes since 1992, when bicycling and walking first received documentable federal funding.
  
  

Reconnecting America just released a report [PDF] that ties in neatly with the Build for America launch earlier this week. "Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race" chronicles how cities and metro areas eager to invest in transit have been stymied by inadequate federal funding and policies that favor highway construction. Nationwide, plans for $248 billion worth of transit projects are on the drawing board, but getting them through the convoluted federal pipeline will take the better part of this century unless policies change:

...the federal government spends about 80 percent of federal transportation funding on highways and just 20 percent on transit. A relatively small portion of transit's 20 percent is spent on the construction of new fixed-guideway systems -- about $1.6 billion a year over the last half-dozen years -- while the rest is spent on maintenance and on buses. The federal government typically pays for half of total project costs. At the current rate of federal investment, it would take 77 years to construct all of the projects that have been proposed.

More about the obstacles to transit funding after the jump.

Ironically, the increased demand for transit has made it more difficult to win federal funding for projects. Congress has provided more money for transit during the past decade, but available funding has been outstripped by the increased demand. The Federal Transit Administration, in response, has made the federal funding process ever more competitive in order to ensure that only the best projects get funded. The result, however, is a longer and more difficult process that drives up the cost of projects, with the result that there are fewer projects in the funding "pipeline."

The federal funding process for highways is much quicker and easier than the process for transit, and the amount of money that the federal government provides for each road project -- called "the federal match" -- is typically much greater. Federal statute requires local governments to put up 20 percent of the funding for most road and transit projects -- called "the local match." But road projects receive a much larger federal match -- sometimes more than 80 percent -- while the federal match for transit was decreased from 80 percent to 60 percent in 2004, and now averages about 50 percent. 

The relatively low level of transit investment in the U.S. stands in sharp contrast to funding in other parts of the world. China, for example, is dedicating $88 billion for the construction of 1,062 miles of rail from 2001 through 2015. India has announced it will spend $56 billion to expand its rail system over the next five years. Over the 12-year period covered by the last two federal transpor- tation bills the U.S. dedicated about $19 billion for new construction.

Following yesterday's Build for America launch and last night's presidential debate, the Regional Plan Association released a major report today recommending an array of public transportation improvements for New York City and northern New Jersey, adding its name to the ever-growing list of orgs and officials calling for federal investment to spur and sustain economic growth in the coming decades.

Over a dense 53 pages, "Tomorrow’s Transit: New Mobility for the Region’s Urban Core" [PDF] lays out dozens of projects, large and small, that would improve transit access and performance, with a focus on underserved and, in many cases, high poverty areas. The report, as breathtaking in scope as the $29 billion five-year capital plan unveiled by MTA head Lee Sander last March, also proposes augmentations to long-planned mega-projects like the Second Avenue Subway, and stresses links between modes to maximize coverage and efficiency.

Proposals are categorized by cost and level of need, as determined by existing transit service, income levels, and rates of auto ownership.

Follow the jump for highlights.

• Bronx: Extend the Second Avenue Subway to the Third Avenue corridor and Co-op City; provide added service on Metro-North at six Bronx station stops on the Harlem and Hudson River lines; offer peak express service on the Dyre Avenue line; and establish ferry service from Soundview.
  
• Brooklyn: Convert the Atlantic Branch of the LIRR to subway service and connect it to the Second Avenue Subway; build a Utica Avenue branch off the converted Atlantic Branch of the LIRR; extend the Nostrand Avenue 2 and 5 lines to Kings Highway; extend the Canarsie L line to Spring Creek Towers/Starrett City; and establish high speed ferry service from Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bay Ridge.
  
• Manhattan: Implement no-fare rides on the 34th Street, 42nd Street and 50th Street cross-town bus routes; extend the Second Avenue Subway west along 125th Street; construct a station entrance on the east end of the First Avenue L station; and establish a midtown Bus Rapid Transit or light rail route loop.
  
• Queens: Convert the LIRR Atlantic Branch to subway service; connect Queensboro Plaza and Queens Plaza and the E, F, G and V at Court Square; and begin Bus Rapid Transit on Queens Boulevard.
• Staten Island: Proceed with Hylan Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit; establish ferry service from southern Staten Island; and establish a bus lane along the full length of the Staten Island Expressway.
• New Jersey (Hudson County and Newark): Extend currently planned Bus Rapid Transit routes in Newark to include cross-town and Sumner/Mt. Prospect Avenue corridors; construct a new Hudson Bergen Light Rail Station at Grand Street and 17th Street in Hoboken; and extend the Hudson Bergen Light Rail to Route 440.
  

In addition, the RPA recommends a number of complementary measures, including parking and land use reforms, transit-oriented development, and congestion pricing.

"Tomorrow's Transit" was composed over the course of a year in conjunction with area transportation experts, NJ TRANSIT, the MTA and New York City DOT.

Maybe not officially, but the agency's minimum residential parking requirements are a big inducement to car commute. That's the implicit finding of a new study by University of Pennsylvania planning professor Rachel Weinberger (and others, including yours truly), released today by Transportation Alternatives and a who’s who of leading planning, transit and environmental groups. The study, "Guaranteed Parking -- Guaranteed Driving" [PDF], compares Park Slope, Brooklyn with Jackson Heights, Queens, and finds that, despite Park Slope having higher car ownership, Jackson Heights residents are 45 percent more likely to drive to work in the Manhattan Central Business District and 28 percent more likely to commute by car in general.

And it isn't because Jackson Heights has no transit options. Commuters in both neighborhoods are served by multiple subway and bus lines, and the ratios of transit trip times to driving times are comparable. Additionally, other proven predictors of travel choice suggest Park Slope commuters are more likely to drive, not less. Park Slope is wealthier, denser and has higher home ownership. It also has a higher proportion of government employees. 

The study's key research finding is that in Jackson Heights, 31 percent of car owners have a parking spot at home, compared to only 5 percent of Park Slope drivers. The study concludes that because of this, Park Slope car owners, who do not want to lose their coveted curbside spots, are less likely to drive to work.

The reason for the parking disparity is that much more of Jackson Heights has been built since 1963, when the city zoning code introduced residential parking requirements. The finding has far reaching sustainability implications, since the Department of City Planning requires driving-inducing residential parking for between 40 and 150 percent of new dwelling units.

In August, Weinberger teamed with Transportation Alternatives and other groups concerned about parking reform to issue "Suburbanizing the City". That study estimated that the city's parking requirement would generate a billion miles of new traffic a year by 2030. "Guaranteed Parking" substantiates that finding, and provides more evidence that New York City zoning regulations promote driving to work, even when viable transit options are available.

A new report from Transportation Alternatives comparing carbon emissions for NYC transportation modes finds that drivers account for 60 percent of the city's transportation-related CO₂, while accounting for just 31 percent of all commuting trips.

"Rolling Carbon: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Commuting in New York City" [PDF] reveals that the average New York City commute generates about seven pounds of carbon dioxide per round-trip, for a total of 1,750 pounds of CO₂ annually. Though this ranks us among the "greenest" US commuters in the aggregate, the report notes that individual impacts vary widely, depending on mode and distance. To that end, "Rolling Carbon" breaks down per-mile emissions for public and private conveyance, from Escalades, taxicabs and Priuses to trains, buses and, of course, bikes and feet.

Other report findings include:

• Driving alone causes the emission of about five times the amount of CO₂ (over 4,000 pounds per year) as is caused by taking the subway (about 820 pounds per year).
  
• If just 5% of all people commuting by private car or taxi switched to transit, walking or cycling, the result would be a decrease of 150 million pounds of CO2 emissions per year -- the equivalent of planting trees on an area 1.3 times the size of Manhattan.
  

Accompanying the report is a new killer app: RollingCarbon.org features a personalized Carbon Calculator for New Yorkers to determine emission levels generated by their commutes, and how many annual tree plantings would be needed to offset the trip. As illustrated by the chart above, pedestrians, cyclists and skaters are in the clear.

New pedestrian space borders Sara Roosevelt Park on Forsyth Street. (The buffered zone is for parking, not biking.)

Redesigns of Chrystie and Forsyth Streets have started to materialize, giving cyclists and pedestrians a glimpse of changes to come. New bicycle lanes on Chrystie Street may be the most widely anticipated aspect of DOT's planned changes to the Manhattan Bridge access area, but they are only part of a broader effort to calm traffic and increase pedestrian safety on the Lower East Side.

Forsyth Street has already been transformed in several important ways. In late September, about 50 parking spaces were cleared from the west side of the street, and angled parking on the east side was converted to conventional curbside parking. The formerly two-way stretch between Delancey and Grand Streets was converted to one-way uptown.

These changes liberated a lane for the new 10-foot-wide pedestrian path along the edge of Sara D. Roosevelt Park from Hester Street to Houston Street. DOT plans to convert the painted path into a proper sidewalk sometime in 2009, according to its Safe Streets for Seniors report released last month [PDF]. The document indicates that parking will again be permitted on the west side of the street, shifted one lane further toward the center.

Meanwhile, Chrystie Street has already been resurfaced in preparation for its new treatment. Bike lanes, pedestrian islands, narrower motorist lanes, less parking, and designated left turning lanes will make Chrystie a more complete street. The measures should help lower the average of 172 crashes per year recorded from 2001-2006 on the seven-block stretch.

The next logical step for the highly traveled, nearly unbroken straightaway of Chrystie Street would be a protected cycle track à la Copenhagen or New York's own Ninth Avenue. DOT opted not to pursue a cycle track, despite the fact that members of the Community Board 3 transportation committee advocated for the idea. A protected cycle track is, however, scheduled to be installed on adjacent Grand Street. Like Chrystie Street, much of Grand Street has recently been resurfaced but currently has no lane markings whatsoever.

Photo: Gideon Shapiro