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>et>,
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:
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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