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
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@gmail.com>
To: "TRB Health and Transportation" <h+t--friends@chrispy.net>, mbrenman001@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?GaryOn Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 1:26 PM, <mbrenman001@comcast.net> wrote:Unfortunately, congestion and road pricing have economically regressive effects on low income people.
Marc Brenman
Social Justice Consultancy
mbrenman001@comcast.net
240-676-2436
From: "Megan Wier" <Megan.Wier@sfdph.org>
To: h+t--friends@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@sfdph.org
www.sfphes.org
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