Episode Summary

  1. There’s a lot of different ways to make complete streets. Pittsburgh’s Bike(+) plan shows they’re willing to use a variety of strategies to enhance existing infrastructure. This gives the community more affordable options for transportation, sooner.
  2. Car culture is popular for a reason. Considering the 12cs, how do mobility projects address these cs?
  3. Seattle isn’t seeing the same Uber/Lyft usage they use to. Venture capital looking to regain losses, and tight labor market position public transportation as a viable options (so long as the service delivers)

New advisory bike lanes in Pittsburgh as they continue to make progress on their Bike(+) strategic plan. (3 min read and 47 page pdf)

12 factors that influence mobility choices. (4 min read)

Ride-hailing dip in Seattle (6 min read)

Episode Transcript

Hey everyone. I’m Kyle Gulau. On this show, patterns of development, we take less than 10 minutes each week to deconstruct what's going on in real estate, architecture, and urban planning.

First up this week, the city of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania continues to make progress on its strategic Bike(+) plan.

They are implementing a new road configuration on the Southside, taking a street currently with 2 lanes for cars down to 1. The extra space creates wider bike and pedestrian lanes on either side of the street. With only 1 lane for cars, as automobile drivers approach each other they will yield to anyone in the bike lane, move into the bike lane, pass the other automobile, and continue on.

The advisory bike lane strategy is part of the Bike(+) plan. Bike(+) is the label used in the strategic plan to include not only traditional bicycles but other methods of personal mobility (e-bikes, scooters, electric wheelchairs, and other low speed vehicles).

The city of Pittsburg has mobility goals:

  1. No one dies will traveling on city streets
  2. All households can access fresh fruits and veritable with 20 minutes of travel that doesn't require a private vehicle.
  3. Walking and biking are the most joyful mode of transportation for short distances.
  4. No household must spend more than 45% of income  for basic housing and mobility (feels like they snuck this one in)
  5. Pittsburg streets and rights of ways reflect the values of the community

The plan includes a map of the existing bike(+) network, documentation of gaps, and plans to fill the gaps in the network with proposed new routes and strategies to enhance existing infrastructure.

My favorite part of the plan? Well, two parts: Considerations for collecting data including real time bike counters, partnership with local institutions to collect qualitative data, and development of a dashboard of KPIs related to demand and safety.

And the consideration for storage. As I continue to try and not drive a car the biggest question is where can I lock this thing up? I've actually caught myself driving around locations in a car to scout out where I could park my bike later. Sheesh.

Ok so. Pittsburg's got a plan, highly recommend checking it out. Plans like these are a correction to the typical car-first mentality that's been the common way of thinking for decades.

But that dogma exists for a reason. In a 2019 study, respondents who drove for a majority of their trips were significantly more likely to report "satisfactory" daily travel routines than those who relied on shared transportation.

Of course car transportation is likely to be the most satisfactory because almost all planning decision revolve around considering an automobile and of course if people only ever drive and they don't know much else how would they have any other experiences to compare?

Ram Pendyala, director of Arizona State University’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and a co-author of the study is quoted saying, “A narrative we hear quite often is, ‘Well, people actually hate being so car-dependent; they hate spending hours and hours stuck in traffic. If only we provided nice alternative modes of transportation, we would see folks shifting in droves!’ … For that strategy to really work, though, we need to prove the original premise that most [drivers] are miserable — and they’re not.”

So people are generally happy with using their car. The team that worked on the study considers 12 dimensions that influence how people as they consider transportation options:

  1. Convenience, or how easy it is to get where they need to go
  2. Comfort, both physical and psychological, which includes safety concerns
  3. Coolness, or how stylish and attractive a mode appears — or how shameful a road user views the alternatives to be
  4. Cleanliness
  5. Cost-effectiveness (including time savings)
  6. Clarity, or how easy and simple it is to utilize a given mode
  7. Conscientiousness, or how mode choice will impact one’s neighbors and community
  8. Climate-friendliness
  9. Coverage, or how well distributed access to the mode is across the community throughout the day and night
  10. Customizability, or how easily the mode can be adapted to a user’s unique needs
  11. Celerity (which is basically a GRE-level synonym for “speed”)

And when you think about a car, a car checks basically all of those boxes. And even with the comprehensive nature of plans like Bike(+), a majority of these factors aren’t addressed. Cars are popular for a reason. But! That’s not a bad thing. The bad thing is, in my opinion, that car first mentality has deprioritized the investment and consideration of alternatives.

Our last article this week, in the Seattle region, ridehailing has seen a dip in their numbers. Uber and Lyft numbers are rebounding even slower than public transit, based on a recent glimpse into the data in the Seattle Times.

As working remote has disrupted commenting patterns, venture capital increased appetite for return on investment (Ubers prices are up 45-90%), and opportunities to make more money elsewhere have presented themselves (specifically Seattle's 16/hr minimum wage) ride hailing...ride sharing...aren't as popular as they used to be.

Which brings us to our patterns of the week.

  1. There’s a lot of different ways to make complete streets. Pittsburgh’s Bike(+) plan shows they’re willing to use a variety of strategies to enhance existing infrastructure. This gives the community more affordable options for transportation, sooner.
  2. Car culture is popular for a reason. Considering the 12cs, how do mobility projects address these cs?
  3. Seattle isn’t seeing the same Uber/Lyft usage they use to. Venture capital looking to regain losses, and tight labor market position public transportation as a viable options (so long as the service delivers)

That’s all for this week. Talk to you soon.