Telecommuting: count the benefits

According to this article in reuters - Telecommuting found to boost morale, cut stress - 46 studies on telecommuting find it not only good for employees and their employers but also for the urban communities they live in.

And that's the best part for our purposes here: they found that telecommuting cuts down on traffic and eases congestion in metropolitan areas. If your boss needs convincing, here's some ammunition for you!

So pass this article around to everyone in your office, especially the "big bosses"!

Dylan: "Don't follow leaders/Watch the parking meters"!

In LA Traffic Panel Discussion - Volume II, Tom Rubin, former "Administrator for Public Transport" in Southern California says the following,

So what we have is a situation where if we made a decision we aren't going to add capacity, we have to either use what we have smarter, or as has been said [by Mr. Moore], ration it through various means. And this being the United States, where capitalism--I don't think--has totally completely died, tolls are very realistic. And tolls, particularly time of day tolls, will encourage people to change their behavior.

"One of the things that has happened that is the single most significant thing that has happened in U.S. transportation is work-at-home. You take a look at all the model splits: how many people are driving, how many people are car pooling, how many people taking transit, time after time after time, year after year, area after area, there are only two things that are going on: single passenger vehicles and work-at-home. And as the technology increases and as that way of work increases, that is going to change as well more and more.

"We are responding to it, but it's not a question we can't do it, we can't add capacity. We can. The problem is that we have decided NOT to."

Don't you find it especially miffing that this former beauraucrat, who's probably partly responsible for the current mess, and who does not even admit it or take responsibility for it, much less apologize for it, is not even smart enough to leave the word "capitalism" out of it when proposing such a bad idea of "tolls" as the only realistic solution to making people "change their behavior"? At least, he should be smart enough and leave the word "capitalism" out of it! I guess he doesn't realize how he's giving himself away completely by having said that.

I'm telling you. This is the last person in the world you should listen to for solutions to this problem. He is exactly the kind of person Dylan was referring to when he sang, "Don't follow leaders/Watch the parking meters"! Follow him and your "parking meter" is going to go UP, WAY UP, in the form of "tolls" designed to make you "change your behavior."

Does he mean to say that you cannot educate people in America?

Does he mean to say that you cannot appeal to their sense of civic duty?

Does he mean to say that NO ONE in L.A. would give up driving for the good of the entire urban community?

If so, then it is hopeless, completely hopeless. Because it is a fact that there will always be enough people in the world with enough cash to pay ALL the tolls in the world, and NOTHING, NOTHING IN THE WORLD --not the high price of gas, not tolls of ANY kind-- will ever deter them from driving.

Have they ever tried? Have they ever mounted a citywide campaign in all media to educate drivers and appeal to their sense of civic suty to help solve the problem?

Have they ever offered L.A. drivers a REALLY GOOD and REALLY RELIABLE altervative to driving?

He is also overlooking the fact that the driver demographic in L.A. is not only made up of commuters and truck drivers and service van drivers and bus drivers and people running errands, but also of TOURISTS and BUSINESS PEOPLE in car rentals. Thousands of them pour into L.A. every day, and they would be willing to pay any toll they have to pay to get where they are going. The out of town trucks just passing through on their way north or south on the interstate freeways, will have to pay tolls unless you limit their access to the freeways going through town to nighttime.

Tolls would be self-defeating, tax regressive, and in the end, useless. They would have to raise them more and more to REALLY make some people change their behavior.

I only have one thing to tell you. Or better yet, I'll let Bob Dylan himself tell it to you: "YOU DON'T NEED A WEATHERMAN TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS!"

Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues



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LA Traffic Panel Discussion - Volume II: "NO" to adding capacity, "YES" to tolls?!?

Here's the second part of that LA Traffic Panel Discussion: Ever-Lasting Gridlock? that took place at the L.A. Press Club on March 29 of this year.



And here's my response:

Mr. Johnston starts out with a very basic question:

"Why is it that when there's more traffic it moves more slowly?"

Mr. Moore, the USC professor of civil engineering and "expert on the technical side," replies:

"What transportation engineers really focus on is flow.

"At very low densities and high speeds, you got low flow, and you got very densities and very low speeds and you got low flow. And it's that region between jam density and no density at all where your flow would be theoretically maximized. And that's for most folks a low level of service. That's in the neighborhood of, say, 35 miles an hour--faily congested conditions in the minds of most folks. So when I'm driving around in the freeways, I'm thinking in terms of flow. [...]"

Mr. Johnston then asks why the 101 always gets jammed from Cahuenga to downtown.

Mr. Moore replies that "what you're seeing is a period of extended demand that exceeds capacity." That's why. And you have only three options:

"[1] You can add capacity--That's an option. That's expensive.
[2] You can better manage the capacity you have.
[3] We can try to suppress the demand.

Short of that I don't see any avenue for improvement. [...]"

Got it?

That's the technical assessment. In other words, the choices are stark. Expect to drive not faster than 35 mph on freeways in L.A. because at such high densities (a lot of cars on the freeway), drivers drive too defensively and cannot keep up higher speeds.

Then Mr. Johnston asks, "What about the issue of... if we build more roads, we simply generate more traffic."

Mr. Rubin "would be happy to take that." Here's his answer. Read (or listen) CAREFULLY.

"We can build our way our congestion. We have just decided NOT to!

"The problem we have is,... these are taken so seriously: the cost restrictions and the [sic] restrictions, that it becomes almost impossible in this day and age to think of adding capacity in an urbanized area. In many cases it can be done and it has been done successfully. But the limitations are there. And you add the statutory requirements.

"At the present time, in an area undergoing congestion, which therefore has some air quality problems [....], it is virtually impossible to get permission from the federal government to either build a new freeway or add general-purpose lane capacity to existing freeways. What you can do is add an HOV lane. That's the exception. So in many cases, we have seen HOV lanes being added, not necessarily because they're the best solution, but because it's the one thing you can build [...]

So what we have is a situation where if we made a decision we aren't going to add capacity, we have to either use what we have smarter, or as has been said [by Mr. Moore], ration it through various means. And this being the United States, where capitalism--I don't think--has totally completely died, tolls are very realistic. And tolls, particularly time of day tolls, will encourage people to change their behavior.

"One of the things that has happened that iis the single most significant thing that has happened in U.S. transportation is work-at-home. You take a look at all the model splits: how many people are driving, how many people are car pooling, how many people taking transit, time after time after time, year after year, area after area, there are only two things that are going on: single passenger vehicles and work-at-home. And as the technology increases and as that way of work increases, that is going to change as well more and more.

"We are responding to it, but it's not a question we can't do it, we can't add capacity. We can. The problem is that we have decided not to."

Let me get this straight:

We can add capacity, but we have just decided NOT TO in order to tax people with tolls to change their behavior?!?

If anybody out there gets any other conclusion from what he said, let me know! Because every which way you look at it, that's the ONLY conclusion one can get from what he said.

If I understand this correctly, in a country where capitalism "[hasn't] totally completely died," they CAN but they have decided NOT to add capacity. Why? In order to TAX you and make you change your behavior that way!

It may be a very "capitalistic" solution, but it's not a very fair and not a very "democratic" solution. We all know what would happen if tolls were implemented as a cure for traffic congestion. The rich and the upper-middle-class, and to a large extent the middle-class, would get to ride the freeways in absolute comfort at whatever speed they want. But the minimum-wage earners and the poor would have to take the streets to get to work, thus spilling the congestion from the freeways onto the strets. Tolls implemented to cure congestion, as Mr Rubin sugests, would be a form of regressive taxation that would affect the minimum-wage earners and the poor. Just like the high price of gas has not affected high and middle-income bracket wage earners but it has affected the the minimum-wage earners and the poor, tolls would affect the minimum-wage earners and the poor.

Moreover, can you imagine the jams, the congestion, before every toll booth? In L.A.? Are you kidding me? Not everybody would have a fast-lane electronic tag to get through the toll booth fast enough. Want proof? To take the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, you have to pay toll. Almost always, at certain times of day, there's an unbelievable JAM right there before the toll booth. And to require every car to purchase a tag would really mean that only those of high or middle-income level would be able to fork out the extra $50 or $60 a month to purchase a tag just to drive on a freeway. So THEY, the minimum-wage earners and the poor, would create a jam before the toll booth every day.

DO NOT LET THEM SELL YOU SUCH A DUBIOUS, SHODDY BAG OF GOODS, SUCH AN IDIOTIC IDEA.

You already pay enough tax to maintain freeways and roads. DO NOT let them now TAX YOUR RIGHT to drive on those freeways and roads. You should OPPOSE this idea with everything you've got. Pressure them to come up with REAL solutions, not IDIOTIC ideas.

See? This is what happens: politicans, under pressure from the electorate to find solutions to problems, put then pressure on these beauraucrats and academics, so-called "experts," to come up with solutions, and this is "the best" they can come up with: IDIOTIC IDEAS.

I deal at greater length on this issue in my posting Would taxing the Modern Hell (rush hour) turn it into the Modern Heaven (traffic-free cities)? as a response to Nobel Prize winner economist Gary Becker of the University of Chicago, who's one of the original proponents of this idea of tolls to cure congestion.

He may be a "Nobel Prize winner," but he should know that he is proposing an idiotic idea. And, as an economist, he should know that tolls would be a form of regressive taxation on lower-income earners and the poor.

Moreover, I think that to frame it in these dire, stark, black-and-white terms -- IT'S EITHER NO MORE CAPACITY OR TOLLS, MAKE YOUR CHOICE! -- is rather pathetic from people from whom we should expect REALLY CREATIVE SOLUTIONS. (For a really creative approach to solving the traffic congestion problem on the Westside, see my post: WESTSIDE SOLUTION AT A GLANCE)

DON'T YOU THINK?
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Technology used right to make a difference in traffic

Just yesterday, I read this article on Yahoo News about the technology being used on campuses to alert students in case of an eventuality, an emergency or impending danger on campus.

(See Texting, Facebook used to alert students).

How does it work? Simple. Here's a quote from the article:

"NEW YORK - When a masked freshman came to campus at St. John's University with what police said was a loaded rifle sticking out of a bag, the school alerted students via cell-phone text messages within 18 minutes.

And when a suicidal gunman was reported to be on the loose at the University of Wisconsin, the school sent out mass e-mails and took out an ad on Facebook to warn students."

This is American ingenuity at its best. This is what it's all about.

Actually, the campus, St. John's University, "purchased its inCampuAlert text-messaging system from a California company called MIR3 Inc. over the summer." So the system was developed in California.

Here's a good one for you--well, for the powers-that-be, the politicians, and the taxpayers.

Why not set up a system in the whole L.A. area to alert drivers or suggest routes?

Actually, I was driving around L.A. one day a month or two ago, when I heard a radio station, STAR 98.7 to be exact - www.star987.com- asking listeners to sign up for their traffic update to your cell phone via text messaging.

And this website - www.traffic.com- offers all kinds of traffic alerts and ways to get them from a hotline to text messaging.

And -- what'd'y'say, what'd'y'know! -- Rand McNally, the map company, is also getting into the act with traffic alerts direct to your cell phone: www.randmcnally.com/traffic

So it is already in place, it seems, and radio stations and websites like traffic.com seem to be the pioneers here, the frontrunners on using technology to keep the public informed.

Perhaps the L.A. transit authorities could set up the system in conjunction with the radio stations or supplement their existing one.

We've talked about electronic bulletin boards on freeways that display important information. I noticed that there are many of those cropping up everywhere, especially along the 105 and the 605. That's a good sign of improvement. But this system would be (or is?) a lot better. You would get an update right on your cell phone before you leave for your destination or as you get on your way and adjust your route accordingly.

Like we've said over and over on our postings here on this blog, this problem has no single solution but multiple solutions that working together in concert will make an impact on traffic. Technology, used creatively and effectively, must be a key ingredient of that multi-layered solution.

This is the first in a series of posts on how technology--existing technology, not pipe-dream futuristic stuff--can help improve traffic. A lot of the technology is already available. It's up to YOU and the powers-that-be to make it happen...
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WHY L.A. traffic sucks: L.A. drivers' "sense of entitlement..."

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WHY L.A. traffic sucks #10: Pesky, annoying quirks: L.A. drivers on cell phones!":

I wondered when you'd get around to the subject of L.A. Drivers. L.A. traffic sucks because L.A. drivers have a sense of entitlement that leads them to believe that waiting for pedestrians, slow or lost drivers, tourists, emergency vehicles or for more than one cycle for the light to change - no matter how far back in line they are - is for suckers. And don't try to merge in front of one in traffic on the freeway. They take it as a personal affront.

Posted by Anonymous to L.A. traffic sucks: Let's fix it! at 5/12/2006 03:22:44 PM

italianesco replies:

Thank you, first of all, for reading the blog and now for your very, very incisive and apropos comment. Why L.A. drivers make L.A. traffic suck? YOU'VE SAID IT! IN A NUTSHELL! I don't think anyone could put it any better than that! Thanks again...
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