Steven can plan

Via EcoVelo and Noel Hidalgo, the UK’s Telegraph plots (see their chart) rainfall against temperature and the number of Barclays Cycle Hire bikes in use.

The conclusion: When it’s warm and clear, the bikes are in use!

Photo by Charlene Lam.

The most bikes recorded in use over the 4 days for which data is shown was 1,650. If Chicago suddenly had 1,650 new bikers*, it would make the bicycle mode share jump by 11 percent!

*It would be interesting to know exactly how many users of bike sharing programs did not prevoiusly ride a bike. See statistics on Chicago commuting modes on the American Fact Finder, a service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

I came back to Chicago today after a trip to New York City.

The first thing I did when I arrived was imagine all the things that I want to change based on what I saw and learned in New York City. Someone told me this is travel grief, states of emotion and motivation in order to effect change.

What was the first thing I saw?

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has three types of ticket vending machines (TVM) in the O’Hare Blue Line station. One is the common TVM that can create cards with cash value, add value to existing cards, or add value to Chicago Cards (with cash). The second TVM did all of this and accepted credit cards. The third TVM issued single or multi-day passes (I don’t remember if it took credit cards).

The vending machines in the New York City subway perform the functions of all CTA three machines AND all accept credit cards. Since 1999.

There’s more. I tried to keep a list. As I process my 500+ photos, I’ll be reminded of the ones I forgot to write down.

Everyone asks, and I always tell. But I’ve never blogged about it.

I’m the Bicycle Parking Program Assistant at the Chicago Bicycle Program, in the Chicago Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) Division of Project Development.

According to the Chicago Municipal Code, I tag abandoned bikes. After 7 days, a CDOT crew removes them to Working Bikes Cooperative.

I arrange for…

• The installation of bike racks, including at Chicago Transit Authority train stations
• The maintenance and removal of bike racks
• The removal of abandoned bikes

I also manage the Chicago Bicycle Program website, Facebook Page, Flickr account & group, and Twitter.

I’ve written several papers on congestion and road pricing*. The most common type seen in the United States is HOT (high occupancy tolling) lanes. This is where drivers can pay to use uncongested lanes; drivers who carpool may use the lane for free or at a discount. Transit buses can always use the lane for free.

From the University of California Transportation Center comes new research on paying for roads with congestion versus paying for roads with sales taxes and their respective burden on poor residents.

Will research show that more people will benefit from paying sales tax to support a transit system than from paying (all kinds of) taxes to support a highway?

Their finding is that funding transportation with sales tax is less fair than funding with congestion pricing. In the latest issue of Access, Lisa Schweitzer and Brian Taylor write:

This analysis has focused on one side of the ledger: the question of who pays. But transpor tation systems have both costs and benefits. Indeed, the access benefits of travel are transportation’s raison d’être. So while regressivity can be viewed as a cost of road pricing (and of most other ways of paying for roads), pricing confers transportation benefits that other transpor tation finance mechanisms do not. Tolls and taxes can both pay to build a road. But congestion pricing can also reduce traffic delays, fuel consumption, and vehicle emissions, often to a surprising degree. Sales tax finance for transportation, by comparison, does none of these things.

I think the appropriate direction of this research should next discuss and examine the fairness of using sales taxes to provide operational and capital funding for transit. In Chicagoland, the Regional Transportation Authority is partially supported by a local sales tax. While sales tax financing for road building may not reduce traffic delays, fuel consumption, or vehicle emissions, supporting a reliable, robust and expansive transit network can do all of those things by reducing the number of single occupant vehicles on the road.

*Oddly I haven’t posted any of them here.