Search: “equity”

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HOT lanes and equity

November 4, 2010 / / 0 Comments

The following is extracted from a paper I wrote about I-15 Express Lanes (first phase in 1998) and Managed Lanes (second phase, still under construction). Read the paper, Implementing value pricing on a highway in Southern California.

Equity

Political support is necessary for any value pricing application. Mayor Jan Goldsmith’s story of political maneuverings gave that indication. Implementing value pricing is politically difficult to implement because of the high opposition from the public. This is because of the costs borne by the user. In the case of I-15 Express lanes, all users have the opportunity to use the express lanes if they ride the bus, a motorcycle, ride with a friend or coworker, or drive an exempt low-emission vehicle. There are several tollways around the United States and the world which don’t have a free alternative.

Weinstein and Sciara (2006) suggest that we should avoid defining whether or not the HOT lane concept is equitable, but instead how to address perceived equity issues. The pair have written two reports for planners who will potentially work on value pricing projects. Both reports are cited in this section.

It has been found in the I-15 Express lanes application that users who never use the express lanes, and only use the main lanes (free lanes) occasionally benefit from the lane shift of users to the Express lanes. (Supernak, et al. 1998)

Another concern is that low-income drivers, who cannot afford to pay for the express lanes, will disproportionately benefit high-income drivers (Weinstein and Sciara 2006, 179). This debate between rich and poor drivers has emerged under the title of “Lexus lanes”, but the arguments calling HOT lanes a fast lane for the wealthy are unfounded:

a. Users from all income groups use the express lanes on I-15 and find it fair. The final report’s (Supernak 1999) attitudinal survey found that within all income groups, a majority of respondents approved of the FasTrak tolling of solo drivers in the I-15 HOV lanes.

b. As a mitigation measure to this perception, the Express lanes operation is paid for entirely by toll revenue, which also pays for increased express bus service. Oddly, though, Calfee and Winston (1996) found that the way toll revenues are used does not affect commuters’ willingness to pay (WTP), suggesting that these two mitigation measures do not affect public perception.

Works Cited

Calfee, John, and Clifford Winston. “The value of automobile travel time: implications for congestion policy.” Journal of Public Economics 69 (1998): 83-102.

Supernak, Janusz, Jacqueline M Golob, Kim Kawada, and Thomas F Golob. “San Diego’s I-15 Congestion Pricing Project: Preliminary Findings.” Institute of Traffic Studies, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, 1998.

Weinstein, Asha, and Gian-Claudia Sciara. “Unraveling Equity in HOT Lane Planning: A View from Practice.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 26 (2006): 174-184.

Igniting the discussion on equity

February 20, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I want to have more conversations about transportation equity

My master’s project is all about it. You might have read me talking about it a little here two weeks ago. A then I shot off a post with some key quotes I’m using about the topic in my project.

The purpose of the map is to show the difference in distribution between 2008 and 2009.

This post, though, is all about the graphic above. A lengthy conversation has begun in the comments on the Flickr page. I want more people to get talking about why 2008 might look the way it does, and why 2009 looks the way it does. Perhaps you need a little background on 2009: I made sure to visit the most underserved Wards you see in 2008 and ensure they receive new bike racks in 2009.

A big question is why people in those areas aren’t asking for bike racks. Does no one there ride a bike to the store? Or maybe they do but don’t know how to request a bike rack or know the purpose of one? Maybe they got a bike stolen and need some tips on proper locking.

Those are all questions I want my project to answer – and I’m working hard 20 hours per week to answer them! But I want more questions. I want ideas that point me to look in new directions. If you don’t like my response, tell me.

Bike parking is almost always mentioned in nationwide bike plans as a necessary way to complete the urban bicycling network. Mia Birk, “famous” bicycle planner, and principal at Alta Planning and Design in Portland, Oregon, says that bike parking is part of “the tool kit for successful 
bicycle infrastructure in cities.” Another Portland entity is aware of equity: BikePortland.org.

What’s going on here? Photo by Eric Rogers.

Quotes about transportation equity

February 12, 2010 / / 0 Comments

My master’s project involves a discussion about equity. Equity of bike parking distribution is the main focus of my project.

I picked up some great books at my school’s library. Here are some selected quotes (many of which I’ll use in the project’s paper).

  • “Transportation improvements distribute nonuniformly over space, implying that they affect diverse populations disproportionately” (Berechman).
  • “Geography defines the contours of the equity analysis in two important ways. First, since investment in transportation infrastructure is geographically specific, there is inherent competition and conflict between places” (Hodge).
  • The “costs and benefits of transportation policies may take place in different time periods” (Bae and Mayeres). For example, “mega projects are often built with excess capacity aimed at satisfying future needs. Such a pattern imposes inequitable intergenerational transfers, favoring the future rather than the present generations” (Berechman).
  • “Indirect benefits…represent real impacts that probably benefit some people more than others. It is exceedingly difficult, however, to trace through the benefit stream of these broad impacts” (Hodge).

And my favorite: “Transportation is an unusual public service in that it is not consumed for its own sake but, rather, as a means to another end. Thus, the value of the service depends primarily on how well it provides access to other places” (Hodge).

My professor last semester said the same thing, actually, and then we had a huge discussion trying figure out situations where this isn’t true. The only thing our class (well, the professor himself) could come up with was joyriding (driving aimlessly in a car). But is joyriding really transportation? The trip origin and destination are the same and the trip has no purpose.

I thought of the transportation system at Walt Disney World, but I eventually withdrew my support – although the goal of that system is to make it easy for guests to spend more money, the system has a legitimate role in giving access to places inside and outside the “pay area.”

Sources

Bae, Chang-Hee Christine and Inge Mayeres. “Transportation and Equity.” Donaghy, Kieran P, Stefan Poppelreuter and George Rudinger. Social Dimensions of Sustainable Transport: Transatlantic Perspectives. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. 164-192.

Berechman, Joseph. The Evaluation of Transportation Investment Projects. New York City: Routledge, 2009.

Hodge, David C. “My Fair Share: Equity Issues In Urban Transportation.” The Geography of Urban Transportation. Ed. Susan Hanson. Second. New York City: Guilford Press, 1995.

A kludge to build a rental registry in Cook County 

April 4, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Chicago should have a rental registry, a database of dwelling units that are rented to tenants, for at least two reasons:

  1. The city can know things about the rental units, including how much they cost, where they are, and if any are vacant and could be occupied if only people knew they were available and how to get in touch with the owner.
  2. The city can know who the owners are and contact them to issue citations or advise them, or fill out for them, emergency rental assistance during pandemics and other times of necessity.

Building and administering a rental registry from scratch would be very expensive – probably tens of millions to start and more than one million annually.

I propose a kludge that uses existing databases and modifies existing standard operating procedures amongst a small group of Cook County and Chicago agencies. A kludge is a workaround. It has other meanings and an uncertain etymology.

An ideal rental registry helps solve at least four problems:

  1. Identify who owns a rental home
  2. The number of rental units are in a building
  3. Rental price
  4. Rental unit availability [see my other blog post about counting vacant units]
A 9-unit apartment building in Little Italy is undergoing renovation.

The kludge has four parts

1. Incorporate data about the number of units declared on Real Estate Transfer Tax forms (which in Cook and many other counties are transmitted to the Illinois Department of Revenue digitally).

There is already a city office that reviews or audits these forms looking for instances where the buyer or seller incorrectly claimed certain exemptions from RETT, because of how the city can lose revenue. That office can also enforce that the number of units was correctly entered on the form. 

2. For banks that hold city deposits, amend legislation to require that their newly issued or refinanced mortgages specify the number of units in the required submitted documentation. The ordinance that regulates banks that hold city deposits was amended a few years ago to require that they report how many loans they issue in Chicago for both commercial and residential properties.

Databases 1 and 2 are checks for each other. 

3. “Hire” the Cook County Assessor’s Office to create and operate the database for the unit count data from 1 and 2 (likely as an augmentation of their existing database).

The database would also store any data the CCAO collects through the commercial valuation data they obtain from third party sources as well as from the owners who volunteer it (Assessor Kaegi is already collecting and publicly publishing this information). 

At this point, with features 1, 2, and 3, we are assembling a pretty broad but incomplete record of where rental units are. It will be come more complete over time as properties transfer (sell) and the details of the transfer (sale), and the properties themselves, are recorded.

It doesn’t have a clue as to the rental prices. 

4. The Cook County Assessor’s Office creates new property classifications. Property classifications allow for the comparison of like buildings for the purpose of establishing assessed values for all properties that are not tax exempt.

One of the most common classifications in Chicago is “2-11”, for apartment buildings with two to six units. This means that, generally, the value of the ubiquitous two-flats and three-flats get compared to other each other and sometimes to four-flats, etc.

I suggest that there should be a few new property classifications, but I have only one idea so far: classify limited equity and Chicago Housing Trust properties differently. 

Bickerdike is one organization that built a lot of limited equity row houses and detached houses in the 1990s and 2000s but I am not aware of a publicly accessible database identifying them.

These houses represent permanently affordable housing and we should have a better system to track them!

This screenshot of part of a spreadsheet is the apartments data that the Cook County Assessor’s Office collected for the 2021 tax year. 

How broad is the kludge?

  • Using the Real Estate Transfer Tax data from 2022 Q1 to Q3, there were 3,550 buildings in Chicago having 22,217 units transferred. (I don’t know how many were arms length transactions, meaning they were sold to new owners.)
  • In the CCAO’s apartments data collected for the Rogers Park Township, there is semi-detailed information about 715 buildings that have seven or more apartments comprising 18,541 units. Details include the unit size breakdown by bedroom count.

Chicago has 556,099 rented dwelling units in buildings with two or more units (according to the ACS 2021 1-year estimate). In my limited analysis I’ve already found data about 7.4 percent of them, and that’s only for part of the city [1].

Notes, limitations, and updates

[1] There may also be duplicates between the buildings in the RETT database and the CCAO apartments dataset.

These databases would not have information about detached (“single family”), single-unit semi-detached (rowhouses and townhouses), and condos used as rentals. This severely limits the coverage of information. As it stands, Chicago Cityscape has data coverage of unit count information for about 37 percent of multi-family (apartment) buildings.

5th Ward Alderperson Desmond Yancy proposed an ordinance that would establish a rental registry (O2023-0004085). The rationale for such is shown in the screenshot below. (Go directly to the ordinance’s PDF.)

Screenshot of the proposed rental registry benefits.
composite image with two CTA trains and the text "Move Chicago"

Move Chicago

September 21, 2022 /

We have an opportunity to promote transportation change. With the decision of nearly one third of City Council deciding to not run for re-election, the field is open for candidates to commit to transformative improvements in transportation access in Chicago.

This platform was originally written for the 2019 mayoral election by Yonah Freemark, Lynda Lopez, and Steven Vance. The majority of the issues brought forth in 2019 remain in 2022; some have been modified by Steven.

These ideas are free for mayoral and alderperson candidates to take or borrow as they please.

Key goals

Equity

We need transportation options that work for all of Chicago—South, West, and North Sides—and that meet the needs of people no matter their wealth or abilities.

Sustainability

We need a transportation system that minimizes pollution, helps us reduce our carbon footprint, and ensures we protect the special environment of Chicago.

Livability

We need transportation that improves our communities, builds local business, saves lives, and promotes public health.

A transportation platform for 2023

Here are the key issues the next mayor of Chicago must support if we are to achieve a sustainable transportation future. 

1. Better bus service citywide

Over the past decade, ridership on Chicago’s buses has declined dramatically. At the heart of the problem is that bus service simply isn’t reliable enough. Buses are the most-used transportation mode in Chicago, but riders must leave for work up to two hours early to be able to take two or three rides, waiting significant time in traffic, in boarding, and between rides. We need better options. As a candidate, I will commit to:

  1. Creating $100 million in new annual revenues to spend on bus service expansion within one year; this will increase bus availability by approximately 12%. Revenues can be derived from an increased fee on ride-hailing trips that end in and near downtown and other areas with high-quality transit service, and an increase on the property transaction tax paid by the largest sales, and potentially a downtown parking surcharge.
  2. These funds will increase the number of buses on most routes throughout the city and ensure people wait less time for the next bus. Many bus routes end before 8 pm, so we will double the number of routes with all-day service at least every 10 minutes, with the goal of bringing 90% of all Chicagoans, and 100% of Chicagoans in neighborhoods with incomes below the city average, within a maximum ten-minute walk to all-day, frequent transit within two years.
  3. Directing CTA to implement all-door boarding and proof-of-payment on all buses within one year, which will speed buses by reducing the amount of time they wait around for passengers to board.
  4. Directing the Chicago Department of Transportation to work with CTA to triple the number of intersections with Transit-Signal Priority and bus stops with bus bulb-outs and boarding islands to prevent buses from being stuck merging back into car traffic.
  5. Building at least 20 miles of bus lanes in the city within two years, in order to speed buses. Corridors will be selected to maximize travel time savings for commuters with the longest journeys to work, such as travelers who reside in the Far South Side of the city.
  6. Working with the Illinois General Assembly to allow CTA and Pace to use cameras on board buses to cite motorists who are blocking bus lanes.

[At the time this platform was originally written, “ghost” buses were not prevalent. The issue is caused by CTA being unable to provide every scheduled run due to workers not showing up for work. The commitment to resolve this situation is not listed here because the solution is unclear. In the interim, the CTA must adjust the schedule to show the number of runs it predicts it can actually provide.]

2. An integrated CTA and Metra system with fair fares

Chicago was built around its commuter rail lines, especially on the South Side, yet most of the city’s residents rely exclusively on the CTA because Metra is too expensive and inconvenient. Transit fares are still expensive for many residents, and revised fare policies can make using it more equitable. As a candidate, I will commit to::

  1. Immediately begin negotiations with Metra leadership to integrate CTA and Metra services, which may involve identifying new revenues to support expanded service. Integration includes developing a unified branding system, reworking schedules to simplify transfers, and treating Metra stations as transfer hubs.
  2. Securing a unified fare structure within one year for CTA and Metra throughout the city that ensures that customers can transfer for free between the services and maintains the same fare (including converting Metra’s monthly passes to 30-day passes that CTA uses) for both services within the city limits.
  3. Collaborate with state legislators and suburban county boards, which help oversee Metra, to develop a new service plan for Metra’s services in the city within one year that will increase the number of Metra trains stopping at most stations daily, such as the Metra Electric and UP-North. This plan will be implemented in full within three years.
  4. Implementing a “fair fare” within one year that ensures that low-income families throughout our city have access to cheaper single-ride tickets and monthly passes. See how it works for the 271,000 New Yorkers who use this and read about how to support Active Transportation Alliance’s advocacy.
  5. Implementing a fare capping system on Ventra within one year that ensures that low-income families who cannot afford a CTA or Metra monthly pass at the beginning of the month can pay for it “as they go.”

3. Making more room for more walkers and bikers

The City has made good progress in recent years making our neighborhoods more friendly for residents to walk and bike. But there’s a lot more to do, especially on the city’s South and West Sides. As a candidate, I will commit to:

  1. Implement the strategies of the 2022 Climate Change Action Plan to make sure that the air quality of our city continues to improve and we take our part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
  2. Plowing city sidewalks. The City of Chicago plows all roads in Chicago and the Chicago Transit Authority plows some of the sidewalks around its stations and bus stops, but relying on thousands of property owners to individually remove snow from the sidewalks that front their properties has meant inconsistently plowed, and unsafe and inaccessible, paths to and from transit facilities. (Better Streets Chicago)
  3. Making Vision Zero—the goal of eliminating road traffic fatalities by 2026—the primary motivator for street design and enforcement in Chicago. Prioritizing saving lives as we’re redesigning streets to make them narrower, expanding the use of traffic calming designs, and lowering speed limits.
  4. Instructing the Chicago Police Department to end its abusive over-ticketing of cyclists on the South and West Sides in order to encourage—not punish—biking throughout the city. In addition, change the City code to allow for riding on uncrowded sidewalks and explore decriminalizing it altogether.
  5. Adding at least one “people plaza” and one pedestrian-only street—dedicated space for walkers and bikers—in every community area within three years. Working with the city’s Small Business Improvement Program to encourage the development in these areas of “pop-up” local retail and food providers in neighborhoods with low access to such amenities. In addition, instructing the Department of Planning and Development to review each community area for streets that are appropriate for the “Pedestrian Street” zoning designation, which is used to improve and preserve the walkability and people-friendly form of a street, and propose new ones.
  6. Identifying ten major intersections per year that are poorly designed for bikers and pedestrians, and committing funds to redesigning and reconstructing them within a year. Example intersections that are currently difficult to cross and deserve improvements include 87th Street and Cottage Grove in Calumet Heights; the Dan Ryan overpass at the Red Line station at 47th Street; Ogden Avenue and Cermak Road in Lawndale; and Elston and Lawrence Avenues in Albany Park.
  7. Doubling the number of miles of protected bike lanes within two years, and doing that again within four. Installing at least 50 bike corrals—where people can park their bikes securely—per year in both residential and commercial areas.
  8. Implementing a “Bike Grid Now“: streets designed for 10 MPH traffic on a networked subset of 10 percent of Chicago’s streets.
  9. Working with city council to develop a new program that encourages businesses and families to purchase electric and cargo bikes to replace car- or truck-based travel in order to reduce emissions, potentially through small subsidies or reductions in business permit costs. Denver follows the example of cities in France and Germany to help families and businesses buy these bikes.
  10. Selecting and funding at least ten miles of streets each year for renovations that will add new street furniture and street trees. Urban trees provide shade for pedestrians and lower surface temperatures.

4. Creating new high-quality transit lines

While Chicago has a large transit system, we haven’t expanded it much for decades which means we haven’t been able to respond to the problem of jobs and housing being developed away from each other, and people have to take multiple transit rides each day.

Many choose to buy and drive a car, which is eight times more expensive than relying on transit to commute. The last new line—the Orange Line—opened in 1993. As a candidate, I will commit to:

  1. Identifying and securing funding within two years for a new high-quality transit route—potentially using frequent, all-day, two-way service along an existing Metra line—that will connect communities from Little Village to Albany Park. Working with communities to prevent displacement of both existing renters and homeowners around stations.
  2. Selecting three major routes for high-quality bus rapid transit, such as North Michigan Avenue and Garfield Boulevard, within one year, including dedicated lanes and top-notch stations. Corridors will be selected based on their ability to improve service for communities with the longest commutes to work and with the highest rates of poverty. Beginning construction within three years.
  3. Direct the CTA to resume planning several Chicago ‘L’ extensions, including the Brown Line from Kimball to Jefferson Park, the Circle Line, and a West Loop Subway.
  4. Advance planning on the Crossrail Chicago link, which would allow Metra services to be expanded and improved, for the benefit of riders throughout the city.

5. Committing to equitable transit-oriented development

We’ve seen a lot of interest in new development around our transit system in recent years, but most new apartments built have been unaffordable to our city’s residents. As a candidate, I will commit to:

  1. Working with the city council to revise regulations related to new projects near transit within one year to allow for Transit-Served Location density bonuses to apply in all business, commercial, and downtown classes. For the entire history of the TSL/TOD ordinance, density bonuses have only applied in “-3” zoning districts; the Connected Communities ordinance, however, has a new “parking swap” bonus.
  2. Modify the Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO) to require that builders and buyers of high-cost single-family housing contribute fees to the city’s affordable housing fund to help close the City’s affordable housing gap. Currently, only multi-family buildings have to contribute funds to the ARO. Fees would be higher for houses near CTA and Metra stations.
  3. Set parking maximums in TOD areas for non-residential developments; the Connected Communities ordinance adopted in July 2022 set parking maximums only for residential developments. This strategy will reduce the cost of construction and reduce nearby pollution and traffic.
  4. Working with the city council to develop requirements that employers provide employees pre-tax benefits to purchase transit passes and allow workers to opt-out of parking in exchange for funds to buy a bike or buy funds for transit use.
  5. Developing a Transportation Demand Management program to encourage commuters to switch out of their cars. The program will require that all new major developments near transit are designed for at least 70% of commuters to get to work by walking, biking, or transit. The Connected Communities ordinance allows for the transportation commissioner to set rules for TOD projects.
  6. Instructing the CTA to develop a new customer-focused group within the agency whose purpose is to build transit ridership; this group will ensure that CTA’s services are understandable for people from across backgrounds—linguistic, ethnic, or otherwise.

6. Stopping wasteful projects before they get off the ground

In Chicago, we have to prioritize: We only have so many funds to spend on transportation—so we have to make sure we pick the right projects. As a candidate, I will commit to:

  1. Ensuring that the reconstruction of North Lake Shore Drive does not rebuild the highway that is currently there, but is instead reconnects the city with the lakefront. I will instruct the Chicago Department of Transportation, and work with the governor and Illinois Department of Transportation, to consider the option of eliminating the highway altogether or, if that is infeasible, replacing it with a pedestrian-friendly boulevard, as it was originally designed to be.

Notes

10-10-2022: I removed the recommendation about spending down the CHA reserves money because there has not been recent reporting on if that funding source still exists.