Hi Gary, you might want to take a look at Tom Sanchez' and my 2007 book, The Right to
Transportation, from the American Planning Association, where we discuss many of these
issues and offer some recommendations. Also, in Spring 2012, Island Press will publish our
new book, "Planning as if People Matter: Governing and Equity," where we extend
some of the concepts to other forms of infrastructure, directed at the planning
profession. You might also want to take a look at the excellent work done by Public
Advocates, Inc. in San Francisco, and The City Project in Los Angeles, working with and on
behalf of organizations like Urban Habitat and the Bus Riders Union.
Good first steps include excellent mass transit systems, especially buses, that cross
jurisdictional lines easily.
Reducing and eliminating economically regressive flat taxes like per gallon gasoline,
sales taxes, congestion pricing, and tolling are good ideas.
Eliminating the extravagant transportation subsidies provided to higher income Anglo
commuters would be a good idea. For example, each Golden Gate Ferry ride in San Francisco
Bay from Marin to SF costs about $28, but the charge to riders on monthly passes is about
$5.28. This is an example of how the issues are broader than cars.
Deepsixing the idiocy of California High Speed Rail is another excellent idea. That system
would have no benefits whatsoever for low income people, while sucking off investments
that could go to improving mass transit bus services, which are undergoing severe cuts.
In terms of your example of long commutes to jobs for low income people, a partial
solution would be to have metropolitan planning organizations include such issues as
employment around airports in their plans. Last year, Bay Area Rapid Transit tried to run
a line to Oakland International Airport with no stops at the minority and low income
neighborhoods along the way. The San Francisco Metropolitan Planning Commission bears some
responsibility for these Bay Area transportation problems.
Means testing benefits such as Medicare, Social Security, and farmer welfare are good
ideas.
Making the income tax system more progressive would be very good. High income people and
corporations like GE should pay their fair share of taxes.
Eliminating the legal fiction of corporations as persons would be excellent.
Keeping jobs in the US would be very good. An example of this is the recent idiocy of
having $400 million in New San Francisco Bay Bridge parts built in China, when they could
have been built at the ex-NUMI factory in the East Bay, and at the ex-Oakland Army Base
and ex-Alameda Naval Air Station.
Gentrification is a very complicated concept, with pros and cons. It crosses racial lines.
For example, in Anacostia, a neighborhood of Washington, DC, middle class
African-Americans are gentrifying a traditional working class African-American
neighborhood, because of the good housing stock, proximity to downtown DC, and good views.
These are just a very few ideas and considerations in response to your excellent
questions.
Marc
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Toth" <garytoth51(a)gmail.com>
To: mbrenman001(a)comcast.net
Cc: "TRB Health and Transportation" <h+t--friends(a)chrispy.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 9:12:34 AM
Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] Health Impact Assessment of Road Pricing
So Marc, what is your solution? I have heard many others rise concerns about
gentrification over the years, but few solutions. As a silly old engineer, I am left to
conclude that the default solution is to allow neighborhoods to continue to suffer because
that depresses the price of the housing stock.
Seven or eight years ago, I had the good fortune to sit at a lunch table with two major
advocates of minorities and low income populations. Since as an engineer just learning
about the good and the bad associated with Smart Growth, New Urbanism, Context Sensitive
Solutions ... I shared my concerns with these two folks who had devoted their careers to
supporting social equity. Their answer:
The solution to affordable housing and social equity is to not stop making
improvements/investments that raise property values and rebalance the transportation
system. NO NO Absolutely NO, I was told, the solution is not to perpetuate
"slums", it is TO MAKE EVERY OTHER PLACE WALKABLE AND MIXED USE. Who are we
kidding -- I was told -- "do critics raising the gentrification flag honestly believe
that folks are better off where they are."
When I went back to my work at NJ Department of Transportation, the meaning of what these
two folks told me became more clear. One of the problems my office had to solve was how to
deal with the ordeal that low income wage earners faced in commuting 90 minutes to two
hours from "affordable" neighborhoods in inner cities to the job supply in car
oriented suburbs. Low income workers often had to take two to three buses because of the
suburban densities and car orientation -- the result of pricing the system to advantage
middle income car owners. When they got to the work site, they were dropped of onto a high
speed 100% car oriented arterial designed to cater to the middle class car owners -- and
literally, their were several fatalities a year, involving workers trying to dash across
the roadway to get from the bus stop to the worksite. It became clear that the system was
planned, designed and priced -- rigged -- to further disenfranchise this already
struggling segment of our population.
So, I ask again, what is your solution if it is not rebalancing the system by pricing,
smart growth, and multimodal transportation? Does your analysis about the Boston to
Washington corridor reveal how many of the unemployed and minimum wage families can afford
multiple cars and whether they can afford the gas to make those 500 mile commutes? Am I
wrong in presuming that minimum wage folks are less likely to own Prius's and more
likely to own -- if at all -- a gas guzzler?
Please consider this a serious question. As a transportation engineer, I am still trying
to learn who to deal with the inequities of a car oriented transportation system.
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 6:15 PM, < mbrenman001(a)comcast.net > wrote:
Hi Gary, this is based on a per trip cost, due to lack of discretionary income to pay for
tolls. A twenty to fifty year period is just too long to make useful estimates for. The
pricing estimates are almost always too low, by 40 to 200% percent, for large projects,
and the ridership estimates too high. Both of these factors were in evidence in the Cal
High Speed Rail project. In the case of San Francisco, the study cited, very few low
income people still live in the city, since rent control (another initiative that seemed
like a good idea at the time) is destroying the housing stock and raising rents through
the roof to the moon. Seemingly good initiatives like light rail down Third Street to Bay
View/Hunter's Point are creating gentrification that is driving out the last
African-American community in SF.
Those who like congestion pricing, tolls, and cordons say that much of the revenue from
them will be devoted to better mass transit, but this has happened nowhere in the US, and
in only a couple of cities in Scandinavia. And California, even the Bay Area, isn't
Scandinavia...In the US, the tolls go almost entirely to paying for the tolling system,
including the salaries of those who administer it, the private contractors who provide the
electronic sensing equipment and software, and the law enforcement officials who enforce
it.
If you want to see evidence of how tolls work in practice, drive north-south on the East
Coast. One can easy pay over $30 in tolls from DC to Boston, one-way. If I'm
unemployed or earning minimum wage, how will I pay that? And gas and insurance and
maintenance. I might get forced onto a “chinatown” bus. This will still cost me about $48
one way. Lower income people already pay a higher percent of their family income on
transportation than higher income people. Imposition of congestion pricing, tolls, and
cordons just sticks it to them more. One end result is less social and physical mobility,
and less ability to get to jobs. One can say, well, those folks should just take public
transportation. But shouldn’t they have the same choices as other people in the US? And
many jobs, shopping, and educational opportunities can’t be accessed by public
transportation without a huge investment in time. So lower income people forced onto
public transportation often become time poor as well.
Marc
From: "Gary Toth" < garytoth51(a)gmail.com >
To: "TRB Health and Transportation" < h+t--friends(a)chrispy.net >,
mbrenman001(a)comcast.net
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 2:51:50 PM
Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] Health Impact Assessment of Road Pricing
Marc, is your conclusion based on a study of the overall life cycle of how congestion
pricing can change land use and transportation infrastructure over a 20 to 50 year period,
or is it based on the immediate per trip cost? Also, if you are citing a study, did that
study evaluate how many of the lower income folks are commuting in from the suburbs, as
opposed to already living within the "priced zone" and therefore who might
benefit from a re-pricing of the trip into the center?
Gary
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 1:26 PM, < mbrenman001(a)comcast.net > wrote:
<blockquote>
Unfortunately, congestion and road pricing have economically regressive effects on low
income people.
Marc Brenman
Social Justice Consultancy
mbrenman001(a)comcast.net
240-676-2436
From: "Megan Wier" < Megan.Wier(a)sfdph.org >
To: h+t--friends(a)chrispy.net
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 10:18:27 AM
Subject: [H+T--Friends] Health Impact Assessment of Road Pricing
Hi everyone -
I wanted to share the following report summarizing the findings of a
health impact assessment (HIA) of a potential road pricing program in
San Francisco conducted by the San Francisco Department of Public
Health's Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability as I thought it
may be of interest to the list. The HIA was completed this Fall with
funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research
Program. A summary and detailed technical report of the findings are
available at:
http://www.sfphes.org/HIA_Road_Pricing.htm .
For the HIA analysis, SFDPH used a variety of methods to assess
potential transportation-related health effects - including air
quality-related premature mortality, traffic noise-related annoyance and
heart attacks, injury to pedestrians and cyclists, and health benefits
from active transportation – and evaluated health-related equity effects
and associated economic value. The HIA found that transportation system
operation in San Francisco has substantial health burdens and benefits
today. Health burdens are expected to increase in the future owing to
increasing motor vehicles on local roadways and increasing population
densities in already congested areas. However, there are also estimated
increases in active transportation (walking and biking) that bring some
health benefits and save lives. Road pricing, if implemented, could
moderate but not entirely eliminate the changes associated with a future
under “business as usual” that includes increasing populations and
traffic and no new policies or funding to manage the transportation
system. Road pricing could also generate significant economic value by
reducing transportation-related adverse effects and increasing walking
and biking. HIA recommendations include increasing congestion pricing
fees where they can reduce health risks (e.g., on spare the air days)
and investing in targeted infrastructure to reduce pedestrian and
cyclist injury and increase active transportation.
Thank you, and happy holidays!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Megan L. Wier, MPH, Epidemiologist
Program on Health, Equity and Sustainability
San Francisco Department of Public Health
phone: 415-252-3972 , fax: 415-252-3964
Megan.Wier(a)sfdph.org
www.sfphes.org
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609-397-3885
</blockquote>
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Gary
609-468-2943 (c)