Transportation in the Coronavirus Era - webinar notes
23 April 2020
https://www.ride-healthy.com/webinars
Intro: How are other cities responding to and planning for transportation in the Coronavirus Era?
What might happen to mode share after the lockdown has ended?
What do we need to be thinking about at this time to plan and respond accordingly?
Come and hear our three panelists share their current thinking on the transportation challenges that we are facing and how they’re responding and planning ahead. We will also discuss biking's unique role in the Coronavirus Era and how we can support more people to take up riding at this time.
Our aim is to provide useful and insightful panel discussion for transportation professionals.
Webinar raw notes from Patrick Morgan -
Seleta Reynolds, GM LA DoT
LA speeds are up 20-30 percent
In China traffic volumes 80 percent of pre pandemic
People are shifting from PT to driving
Will trap people in poverty if we don't help them
Bike ridership is down 13-15 percent
We could
need to be centred on lived experience of
purchase and distribute e-bikes, free access to EVs
Universal mobility
Remove barriers to employment, to help people out of poverty
Temp bike lanes in LA?
Three areas of work:
1. Harm reduction – relaxed parking enforcement, waived fees for taxis
Physically distance staff
Back door boarding, free PT
New miniature transit
Moving unsheltered people to shelters
Take people to hospitals
Medical transport, to free up hospitals
Large scale delivery services for older adults
Comnpanies don't want to give contractors PPE, would make them employers
Treating bike share as essentail transport services – frequent cleaning etc
Cone sat food drops, mobile testing centres
Tactical urbanism resources are used at testing centres etc
2. Expedite projects that have community buy in – push back is maximum in the first month after construction
Bottleneck is the quality of pavement / street surface. Can't build bike lane until street is repaved (neglected, deferred maintenance)
Tactical urbanism
Low income neighbourhoods – city to impose projects without giving residents dignity, double down on mistakes
Black Lives Matter list of 55 things – including transport. Slow streets are not on that list.
Prioritise social justice, need to be fed, don't want to die.
Slow streets doesn't centre the needs of those communities.
Play streets can work where there's community led support
3. Speculative projects, temporary, bus lanes, protected bike lanes
Seed funding transport management organisations TMOs
Commute services are returning
e.g 1984 LA Olympics, transport worked because people WFH, shifted working hours
Expedite that
Way we measure env impact of projects
Used to add car parking to mitigate
Universe wanted to press pause
Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your pre-pandemic agenda
Get more people biking on those short trips
Remove barriers
Disabilities, older people, women (faer of assault on PT), people policed out of public spaces – calling DoT to get access to testing
Universal basic mobility
Take a broader view on who we serve and how.
Lots of companies are making money e.g.
remote delivery, contactless delivery
We tax those companies indirectly by writing parking tickets
Delivery shifted to nighttime hours in LA Olympics
What are essential service
balance for-profit use of public infra – capture value from private compainues e.g dleivery companies
Level the playing field and build a more equitable funding model
Can smell the ocean, 11 mi away. Never happened before
Cognitive dissonance
When we step outside, there's beauty waiting for us, but also tremendous pain and frustration
Appreciate the moment and use it to go forward
Tim Papandreou, Emerging Transport Advisors
How can we get people using PT again?
Some businesses will disappear.
Use cases make sense
Not the same for everyone, everywhere
Something for everyone
Elephant in the room – hidden subsidies
Reasons you cant bike – congestion, need to confront these
Close the gaps
Slow shared streets
Cross subsidise, shared mobility companies to make services available
Do they want shared space mobility (PT)
Need benefits of sole driving, but smaller form factor
Getting cities and companies to work together, cooperate
Need contactless systems
Get ride of beg buttons
Need the most convenient, least emissions – maybe a bike, scooter or cargo bike
Struggle to get projects through
Some barriers are lifted, window of opportunity
If you don't have political support before, you won't have it now
Advocacy groups have stepped in to reclaim space
This is a time for tactical urbanism: see, test, do
Reach out to groups that traditionally haven't used bikes
virtual training, bike training
Try new things
100 cities are simplementing something – emergency lanes, slow lanes, tactical gap closing
Paris, Milan are going big. Oakland, 75 miles of lanes
This is the moment to roll out bike lanes
Try things out
Get partnerships in place now, mobility companies etc
Use this time to break down barriers
Shift from a no culture, to a yes and culture
Figure out different ways to fund transport (not fuel tax)
Taxes are for things we don't want, subsidies are for things you ewant to encourage
but in transport we have it backwards
Need a reset – if you are taking up this ake space, at this time, noise, emissions, you pay this much
Make the playing field level
Get paid if you walk or bike in peak time
Risk is we further exacerbate inequity
What cities can do in allocating right of way / street space, how cities fund and charge – opportunities for change
Now we subsidise driving by providing too much street space
Take a moment
Humanness – cats, kids appearing on Zoom calls
Let's savour this, give gratitude
Tap back into our humanness
Karina Ricks, Pittsburgh
Who do we need to focus on for our vision?
Small businesses and employers
Slow streets – slow rolls, maybe one-way, bring along local shops and buisnesses. Thye employ most, have the multiplier effect
Market economy, shop local
Address inequity
WFH less viable for lower paid jobs
Free bike share – had best March ever
Shared mobility builds community
How can we use these devices to ove more than single riders
Transport children, packages = cargo bikes
Consider removing petrol tax as the basis for funding transport
Subsidise diversity
Pittsburgh Mobility Collective, integrated mobiality, can you take shared micromobility to transit without paying a transfer penalty, Single system. Need more accountability and transparency for shared mobility
Partnerships with providers
re-imagine how we do transport
Universal Basic Mobility
Pandemic aside, Look at how fabulous our cities are – cleaner air, humane streets, sense of peace
If we can figure out sustainable transport we can have healthy streets, human-centred
Take a moment to pause and etch it in our memories
Public memory is short . Find ways to memorialise this