Mobility Lab Express
          July 15, 2014 - Issue 42
 
"Traffic jams occur when demand for our infrastructure exceeds supply. Transportation demand management (TDM) offers fiscally responsible programs that promote better use of our existing infrastructure."
- Lois DeMeester, CEO, Mobility Lab and DS&MG
 

Yes, Virginia Interstate 66 is a mess. 

 

Commuters are right to decry the congestion along this stretch of interstate, where travel times from Northern Virginia into D.C. are the longest in the region.

Chris Hamilton, bureau chief, Arlington County Commuter Services

 

But reports from Dr. Gridlock in the Washington Post that the state and federal governments are considering plans to add additional lanes onto I-66 are not only maddening, but they fly in the face of everything we've learned about induced demand.

 

With years of evidence to back it up, induced demand was defined beautifully in a recent story in Wired, which explained that because "increasing the supply of something (like roads) makes people want that thing even more ... the ways we traditionally go about trying to mitigate jams are essentially fruitless."

 

In other words, it's impossible to build ourselves out of congestion because the roads themselves cause traffic.

 

HOV-3 and TDM will work, will be more cost efficient, and are better long-term solutions for everyone. Find out more about how and why here.

 

In This Issue
RESEARCH: Demand-side Transportation Strategies Are Secret to Arlington's Success
RESEARCH: Bike Parking Overtakes Auto Parking in Some Places
POLICY: "Drivers For Hire" Like Uber Will Be an Exciting Evolution
PARTNER SPOTLIGHT: Conveyal
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Hot Stats

Paul Mackie, Mobility Lab's communications director, recently saw most of downtown Boston by taking a two-and-a-half-hour tour on Hubway, Boston's excellent bikeshare system. 

  

For a total of $6. 

 

In the old days, it would have easily cost $30 or so to take a bike tour of any city.

  

He took out five different bikes over 150 minutes in order to keep each bike rented for less than 30 minutes, thus avoiding any extra fees.

 

 

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A handful of recent press reports have detailed Arlington, Virginia's ability to remake itself - in little more than a generation - from an aging suburban bedroom community into a thriving urban place that has grown by tens of thousands of residents and workers. All the while, auto-traffic and congestion have been kept at bay because people have adopted transit, walking, and biking as a way of life.

 

Research shows Arlington gets greater utility out of its transportation system because of its focus on transportation-demand management. The county's TDM programs remove more than 40,000 single-occupant vehicle trips per day from the D.C. region's roads by shifting them to other modes. By comparison, I-395 and I-66 carry a combined total of 37,000 passenger vehicles in eight inbound lanes during the three-hour morning rush period.


Read more about Arlington's TDM structure hereLike us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

 

Not only are quality bicycle-parking facilities an effective way to encourage and influence bicycle-ridership numbers, but they also are a more efficient use of land and maximize resources. One automobile parking space can accommodate 10 bikes.

 

Particularly in areas of density with scarce parking generally, it can make sense to provide bike parking as a complement to (or replacement for) car parking. The goal is to maximize foot traffic.

Paul Goddin, urban-affairs reporter,
 Mobility Lab

 

In Los Angeles, some buildings are being constructed with more bike parking than automobile parking. Arlington, Virginia's transportation-demand-management team gives a great deal of attention to bike parking in buildings that go through the county's site-plan process. And in Washington D.C., one condominium project called Elysium Fourteen will be built entirely without auto parking.

 

Elysium Fourteen may be simply an experiment, but it's hard to ignore that bike parking is proliferating and auto parking is being removed in many urban areas. A subtle rebalancing is underway, and this trend could have big consequences on how our cities look in the future.


Read more here. Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

 

As the sharing economy continues its impressive march, Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar are furthering innovation in transportation. More options for the public at reasonable prices is a good thing. 

Howard Jennings
Howard Jennings, managing director,
 Mobility Lab

 

However, one point of contention that Mobility Lab and our close partner, the Association for Commuter Transportation, continue to be vocal about is how these companies continue to erroneously and irresponsibly use the term "ridesharing." And journalists continue to go right ahead in using the term as well, seemingly simply because that's what the companies are calling themselves.

 

In terms of the broader public good, these transportation services are not "ridesharing" in the classic sense of multiple people sharing a vehicle to a common destination, so it is unclear whether they actually reduce congestion or add to it, even though they provide mobility. More research is needed to figure this out.

 

Additionally, as regulatory battles continue around the country, the confusion created by these companies calling themselves "ridesharing" companies does not serve the public good. And in some areas, it has threatened to draw public service ridesharing agencies and individual carpoolers under unwarranted regulations.

 

Read more hereLike us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

 

PARTNER SPOTLIGHT: Conveyal

As part of  Conveyal's work on the Arlington Transit Tech Initiative, the D.C.-based tech company has been thinking a lot about how to help people better understand and incorporate different transportation options into daily routines.

  

But changing routines can be challenging for both obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.

 

A combination of personal motivation and circumstance determine whether information, education, and outreach help people consider, say, taking the Metro instead of driving a car. But under the right conditions, triggers help us cross the threshold from intention to action. These triggers could include information tools (like apps, maps, or posters) or 

reminders about possible transit options (from friends, the media, or 

government agencies).

 

Mobility Lab is partnered with Conveyal to build a product that will provide travelers with personalized information that reflects their transit needs, pulling in the most cutting-edge trends happening at the intersection of the transportation and technology industries. We are, it goes without saying, excited about the possibilities. See much more here.

 

Please Send Us Your Feedback
We hope Mobility Lab Express, our events, and the research and case studies at our website will be go-to resources for you. In fact, we invite you to share your stories of how transportation-demand improvements have been made in your communities. How are you "moving people instead of cars?" We may publish your feedback, and together we'll strengthen transportation for all! 
 
Simply respond to this email or click here
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Please check out much more at mobilitylab.org, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

 

Mobility Lab is a research-and-development initiative for "transportation demand management
- moving people instead of cars." Based in Arlington, Virginia - which has one of the largest TDM programs in the U.S. and removes 45,000 car trips from the county's roads each work day - Mobility Lab seeks solutions, stories, and partnerships from all over the world.

 
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