A new report from USPIRG, The Innovative Transportation Index: Cities Where New Technologies and Tools Can Reduce Your Need to Own a Car, examines “technology-enabled transportation services” which, its authors suggest, “make it easier to conveniently get around without owning a car.” The report’s Executive Summary begins
“Rapid technological advances have enabled the creation of new transportation tools that make it possible for more Americans to live full and engaged lives without owning a car.”
There’s no doubt that car ownership isn’t required for living a “full and engaged” life. In fact, in some cities car ownership can be more of a hassle than a convenience. But are these tools, like Uber, Zipcar, bike share, and apps like NextBus really what makes a car-free lifestyle possible, or are there other factors at work?
To get a better understanding, we looked up the numbers on zero-car households for the top 20 (of 70) cities included in the Innovative Transportation Index (percentage of households that don’t own cars in parentheses):
- Austin (6.5)
- San Francisco (31.4)
- Washington (37.9)
- Boston (36.9)
- Los Angeles (13.6)
- New York (56.5)
- Portland (15.3)
- Denver (11.7)
- Minneapolis (19.7)
- San Diego (7.4)
- Seattle (16.6)
- Dallas (10.1)
- Columbus (10)
- Chicago (27.9)
- Houston (10.1)
- Miami (26.7)
- Milwaukee (19.9)
- Tampa (6.6*)
- Nashville (8.5)
- Orlando (4.9**)
The result is a mixed bag. While cities like New York, Washington and Boston, where more than a third of households are car-free, appear in the Innovative Transportation Index’s top 20, so do cities like Austin, Nashville and San Diego, where fewer than 10 percent of households do not own cars. It’s not clear that new transportation technology is having much of an impact in reducing car ownership.
Given that many of these new technologies are only a few years old, we thought we’d also look to see what direction these cities are headed in. Austin, Columbus and Dallas, for example, may not be leading the pack of cities with the most zero-car households , but could they be headed in that direction?
As it turns out, they’re not. In fact, Austin, Columbus and Dallas are among only a handful of cities where the number of zero-car households is shrinking.
But what happens if we rank the cities above by percentage of zero-car households, cut out the bottom 10, and compare it to public transit ridership***, walkability and pedestrian safety rankings?
Now we’re seeing more of a pattern.
It’s pretty clear that living without a car is more common in places that offer robust public transit, dense, mixed-use development patterns, and streets that are safe and inviting for walking and biking. That’s not to say that technology-enabled services don’t help reduce car reliance. It’s just that transit is much better at it. Consider this: in the New York metro region, 99 percent of zero-car households are located near a transit stop. In the Bay Area it’s 98 percent; in the Washington D.C. and Chicago areas, it’s 96 percent, and in Greater Boston, 93 percent. But this phenomenon isn’t limited to the country’s most walkable, transit-accessible regions. Of the 21,624 car-free households in Nashville, 85 percent are within a half-mile of a transit stop, and 69 percent are within a quarter-mile.
*Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA. **Orlando-Kissimmee MSA. ***Transit ridership statistics based on metro areas, not individual cities.
Uber, etc have not provided what is needed to live without a car in the sort of places where most Americans now live, and will be forced to live for several decades.
That would require large scale dynamic carpooling. Something that has the potential to do more to reduce the cost of living in the short run than just about anything else.
You can read about what is required, and what Uber actually provides, here.
https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/uber-uber-alles/
The way most of the U.S. is built, unfortunately, public transportation uses more energy and cost more than one person in an SUV. The only advantage to the user would be that our increasingly broke federal, state and local governments would pay for it. This pattern of development will take decades to correct. We need something else in the interim.
No, a personally-owned vehicle IS required for a full and engaged life in the real world.
You might want to delve into the USPIRG numbers. For example, they note peer-to-peer vehicle access but only recognize commercial enterprises and not the informal access that overwhelms their meager numbers. Academic researchers do recognize the borrowing of someone’s available car to commute or travel, and quantify it. You have to approach this with a skeptical mind.
Also, I believe that the VMT total has matched the prior “peak”. Can’t rip out or re-purpose those lane-miles of roadway if just as much driving is going on as planned.
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[…] Without Good Transit, Better Transportation Tech Can Only Do So Much to Reduce Car Ownership (MTR) […]
You can’t look at any feature out of context. For some people, the high insurance costs and high tolls prevent them from getting a car. Or, it could be the lack of a dedicated parking space. Or, it could be the “delivery” culture – you can get almost anything delivered to you, from groceries to takeout to furniture.
Larry Littlefield writes: “The way most of the U.S. is built, unfortunately, public transportation uses more energy and cost more than one person in an SUV. ”
This is quite simply and utterly FALSE! In fact 79% of Americans live in urbanized areas. Brookings did a study in 2011 of the top 100 Metro areas and found out amazingly that ALREADY 70% of Americans in those Metro areas live only 3/4ths mile from a transit stop! This is with the existing Rail, LightRail and public transit in 2011. Unfortunately due to the lack of frequency, connections, local/express and especially last mile support only 30% of Americans could reach a job in less than 90 minutes!
This could be remedied by restoring the public transit operating subsidies from the Federal government which were in effect under both Republican and Democratic presidents until Reagan…
Given the current land use, having truly effective transit that covers over 50 percent of the potential non-walking trips (origin and destination within half a mile of each other) would be fantastically expensive. However things could be a lot better in the New York metropolitan area by integrating the various transit modes. Better use of existing equipment and other than possibly a premium service surcharge having a common zone fare system modeled on the New Jersey Transit bus zone system applicable to all transit with free transfers within the zones purchased. Rail would be integrated with bus using rail as the frequent backbone.