Case Study: Anecodotal But Typical Individual Commuting Choice

 A family member lives in Chicago, and mentioned in passing a drive/transit decision with trade-offs.  They already have a car, and are not likely to consider a car-free lifestyle, so that decision already makes this commuting decision one of incremental cost.  I suspect this is a very common situation.

Scenario:  Commute to work, about 5 miles each way, more or less normal business hours.  The route has options for car (of course), train (decent), and cycling (poor - no protected lanes and fairly fast road segments).


Option 1 - Cycling:  This one is not much desired, due to safety concerns but also societal expectations.  "A man coming in sweaty or unkempt is 'that cycling guy' at the office.  A woman doing the same is unprofessional and not good at her job."  Perhaps this is a societal issue we should fix?

Pragmatically, an e-bike ride is possible, if the risk is embraced.  She thinks it'd be as fast as driving, or faster, for a confident-to-aggressive cyclist.  So, that's 20 minutes or less - 12 miles per hour, average, which is actually a pretty good feat for most cyclists in most cities.  This option is essentially free.


Option 2 - Driving:  This option adds $300 per month for parking, plus another few bucks per day of gas and maintenance (note that this cost is usually discounted, even given the marginal view of accepting the car itself as a sunk cost).  The drive typically takes 20 minutes each way, which means 12mph average, though peak sections are much faster.  With parking and such, it's a 30 minute trip at most.

Option 3 - Train:  The stop is pretty close, less than 5 minutes away.  Headways are 7-10 minutes.  Travel time is 41 minutes.  So, a "safe" estimate is one hour.  The cost is pretty low, less than $100 per month.


Here we see our typical urban issue.  The car is faster, so by Downs-Thomson Paradox thinking, it's not surprising that driving is the more popular option, even though it costs more to the individual, and far more to society overall (likely 5 or 10x more, really).  The default decision is to add $300 to the monthly budget, on top of the insurance/registration/permitting of the vehicle itself.  Sure we can do better?


IF, and it's a big IF, we had cycling infrastructure that's as good as driving roads, it'd be safer and faster to cycle than to drive.  Even if cycling were only an option for nice-weather days, it'd provide a back-up option on any day and cost savings on nice days.

With cycling as a priority over cars, the run to/from downtown should have few if any stops for cyclists.  The average speed for a cycling highway could easily pick up several mph, further reducing the time (and this pays double on hot days, with less time in the sun and more breeze along the way!).


IF, and it's not as big an IF, we had automated trains, the options would improve:

- First, trains could be smaller, and half the size means twice as often. Today, fewer, bigger trains are the norm primarily for the same reason that delivery trucks are large, and that's because the personnel cost is a major fraction of the operating cost.  If we automate trains, then they can easily be smaller.

- Second, more frequent trains reduces headways, which increases ridership.  But smaller trains provide another option for running express and local trains on the same lines.  Instead of one train making 10 stops -- 7 along the suburban feeder and 3 downtown, say -- two trains could each serve 3 or 4 suburban stops plus 3 downtown.  This means that for those running about downtown, headways cut in half again (on top of the smaller, more frequent train doubling above).  Now instead of 10 min headways in the burbs, they are 5, and downtown every 2.5.    Plus, with half the suburban stops the 40 minute trip might drop to 30, or even 20.  After all, smaller trains can empty and fill more quickly.

- Third, with better service the usage level will rise.  This means that more frequent trains can be justified to carry the added load, rather than adding back cars to each train.  Maybe each Express would serve only 2 stops in the suburb, and 3 stops downtown, and get higher speeds along the way.  Now it's a 15 minute commute.


Other positive-feedback options arise with more frequent, smaller trains.  It'd be pretty easy to add a little more space, for more comfortable seating, for wheelchairs, or for bikes, if the goal wasn't to maximize ridership per train to cover labor costs easily. 


This is what it would mean to invest in transit and cycling.  Why do we presume that we will have AV autos in "just another year or two", but for some reason the much more constrained train environment is "a decade away"?  This is not a technical problem, but at worst one of priority and investment, and more like simply one of marketing.

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