Headway unrealized until we slow down

We are in this planet toasting pickle because planners have designed cars into our forests, food, water and health systems. Now as a resource depleted planet asks for urgent solutions these same planners say we need to make transit an attractive alternative to get drivers to use it and stop generating green house gases. 30 minute headways are not really attractive. An axiom among transit planners is that 15 minutes is the maximum if you are going to seriously attract drivers. Transit systems must start a drive to double their service level to achieve the sort of ridership and other social benefits (air water health) we know them to be capable of delivering.

This expert way looks at headway (how fast a transit system goes between stops) and keeps the system in all its planet toasting glory and bring transit and other disadvantaged modes up to toasting par. Separated routes for bikes, grade separation for transit, etc to equalize headway with speed which surprising means more energy. But we end up with funding and NIMBY issues which result in incomplete systems and the O'Toole criticism of unfunctioning modalities stealing from drivers.

Another way is to take away planet toasting headway from drivers and share it with other modes. Road diets, bus only lanes, headway via intersection closures to automobiles for bike boulevards, fifteen and twenty mile per hour neighborhood and collector streets plus 25 mph arterials in the city limit, 50% of intersection closed to automobiles with pocket parks and play grounds that allow bikes and peds through in a system of traffic calming that's linked to the landuses of children and returns a sustainable return on investment of $2500 per resident in reduced road repair and stormwater mitigation, PAYD, unbundled parking, etc. are the types of solutions that share headway and cost across modes making choices more appealing.

This is not say that we end up like LA which proves that drivers can handle a infinite congestion, i.e. nothing the experts say for workable transit will work if autos continue to see expanded capacity. We need to realize that we in this mess because the experts don't know what they did and how to fix it. By slowing down traffic we can improve VMT (x=vt) and improve throughput since the carrying capacity is raised. It just takes a minute longer to go between freeways. But by seeing equivalent headway between modalities drivers can see an option that will have real financial consequences in the choices they make.

Pollution reduction needs bikable walkable cities

The problem of driving will worsen because Vehicle Miles Traveled are increasing. A roundtrip to the moon (RTM) is 477,736 miles. In 2000 in San Mateo County we did 35 RTM. In 2015 we will average 39.

Molly O'Meara Sheehan writes in Volume XXXVIII, Number 1 2001, of the Department of Public Information that: Studies in Europe show that pollution from motor vehicles can actually kill more people than do vehicle accidents. In Austria, France and Switzerland, the number of premature deaths brought about by particulate emissions from vehicles is about twice that from traffic accidents, according to a report in the Lancet medical journal.

Reducing particle emissions can improve life expectancy and deaths. But note that the WHO recommends controlling 1.8u particles instead of the 2.5u we control in San Mateo and at 50 particle density not 70. Particle pollution is toxic for us everywhere from schools to trails.

However ABAG and MTC say in Challenges and Choices For a Bay Area on the Move, that, nothing we do, can reduce levels of PM 10 pollution by 2035 ( page 13) After all the offsets are calculated in, we will be no where near the targets. The the offsets are all related to vehicle efficiency like hybrids and electric cars, and fuel types like hydrogen and ethanol, and pricing like toll lanes.

Thus the only real way is to severely reduce cars. Freight to rail can accomplish some of this. Walkable cities can ensure that only the fewest trips on the transportation pyramid should be possible by car.

Vehicle Miles Travelled

Why should bicyclists focus on Vehicle Miles Travelled?

Because of our speed- average less that 20 mph we can cover much less of the city than a car average speed 60 mph. Traveling five or ten miles in a a day is within the reach of most people. Thus cities that place all the landuse within 2.5 miles to 5 miles of a bicyclist are useful. Cities like Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Chicago have high bicycle populations because of the accessibility of travel destination in a small area.

Our bicycle speeds are still ten times faster than a pedestrian uses to cover a city. Cities designed around pedestrian and bicycle speeds are accessible by fossil fuel free transportation modes. Such cities are called slow cities. And ideally a slow city is based on the mobility speeds of a child.

Fast cities on the other hand take away the mobility choice of travelling fossil free. The result is that people have to drive for many of their trips- dropping the kids of at school, going to the movies, picking up the groceries, going to work. And with driving comes crowding, since every car is zonned for 7 spots at the end of these trips, and congestion, pollution and hostility to fossil fuels free modes of mobility which are now seen as impediments to traffic. These trips measured in Vehicle Miles Travelled or VMT add up.

MTC data shows that in the Bay Area
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/maps_and_data/datamart/stats/vmt.htm

in 1990 we covered 107,707,600/238712 VMT per day which is equal to 450 round trips to the moon (RTM) each day. An RTM is 238712 miles.

In 2007 data our VMT data of 154,172,000 equaled about 650 RTM

In 2030 our VMT of 202,756,400 will equal 850 RTM

San Mateo is about 20% of these trips. To accommodate all these RTMs engineers take away space from impediments. Thus bike and pedestrian infrastructure for access decrease.