During last week’s meeting of the Metro Board of Directors, staff presented their transit service proposal for the remainder of the current year. As highlighted by transit advocates throughout LA, Metro’s plan would reduce bus service by 20% from 7 million annual hours to 5.6 million annual hours this year, with an eye toward what is internally being called a “new normal” service cut of 8% from pre-Covid levels beginning next summer. If adopted, these cuts would be disastrous for transit riders in Los Angeles both during the immediate Covid recovery period and potentially for years afterward.
For more and more Angelenos, the pandemic does not correspond to an ability to remain sheltered safely at home. Rather, as places of business gradually reopen, workers in low-income service sector jobs in particular are being compelled to return to stores throughout the region. From the lowest depths that it hit when quarantine orders were at their strictest, system ridership on Metro has rebounded 25% already and can be expected to rise further for the simple reason that buses are a lifeline for Angelenos.
Given that, and the fact that buses are supposed to be running at less than full capacity so that riders and operators can safely distance from one another, the upshot of these cuts is clear: Metro is telling riders that they should find other means of travel. While for many riders the cost of car ownership is an expense that they cannot easily afford, in particular during these economically dire times, that does not mean that a bus rider today will not take Metro up on that and become a permanent car driver tomorrow. This is exactly the death spiral for bus ridership that Metro’s NextGen bus reorganization plan was intended to stop, which is why it is so disheartening now to see Metro preparing instead to undercut NextGen and accelerate the decline of the transit network.
The NextGen plan comprehended the vast disparities in bus ridership that exist between the counties busiest travel corridors in the LA basin and those in outlying suburban neighborhoods. That is why it sought, for the first time in Los Angeles, to redirect existing bus service hours to create a frequent all-day network on streets where demand was the highest. But NextGen cannot be achieved from a service level deficit like Metro is proposing. Although staff said that they would add back service hours over time according to the NextGen plan, the simple fact is that the proposed budget leaves us fighting to claw our way back to the poor service of the pre-Covid baseline and makes that frequent all-day network an unfulfillable promise.
Metro has said that the cuts are prudent financial management and that they are not giving up on the NextGen plan. But their actions tell a different story. At the same time that Metro is cutting bus service, they are also voting to accelerate unfunded capital rail projects, like the northern extension of the Crenshaw line, that will cost billions of dollars and that have groundbreaking dates decades in the future.
As riders and advocates, we can’t fail to notice that the checkbook is open wide for future rail construction and closed for the present day bus service that hundreds of thousands of Angelenos rely on. Further, without Metro providing any evidence that it cannot afford a gradual ramp up back to 7 million service hours or what it would cost the agency to get back to pre-Covid service, how can the public judge whether these drastic cuts are truly merited?
Later this month, Metro is planning to formally adopt the budget, with its bone-deep cuts to bus service. Transit advocates and riders have been clear that a vote for this budget is a vote against public transportation in Los Angeles, and not just in the near-term. By signalling so clearly that the quality of transit service is on the chopping block, Metro will have contributed to the longer term movement of riders away from the system. Angelenos who have left the system will be the first to tell Metro: even if you make the buses free, it takes good service to make transit worth it.
When Metro merely mitigates for inequitable impacts of already formed projects, Metro sustains economic disparities to resources and opportunity throughout greater LA.
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Today, Metro attempts to achieve equitable outcomes by minimizing disparate impacts on new projects. Metro projects routinely include mitigation measures to compensate for the parts of a project they see negatively impacts communities that Metro defines.
Compensation plus systems change is needed to address inequity’s root cause. Discriminatory public policy like redlining starts with exclusionary thinking and abets discriminatory outcomes when applied to investments over time. Rather, Metro can achieve fair (read: equitable) outcomes by acknowledging the role its legacy has played in the past. In their Equity Platform Framework, Metro acknowledges that “historically and currently, inequity exists and has been largely defined by race and class – as well as age, gender, disability, and residency. Metro commits to working with historically underserved communities to establish meaningful equity goals.”
Once Metro’s choices reflect a trend of more equitable outcomes then Metro can more genuinely engage with the public to shape and fulfill initiatives that not only lower travel burdens butalso transform underserved communities’ access to resources and opportunities. Metro’s 10-year strategic plan (Vision 2028), which the board adopted in 2018, further commits the agency to equitable outcomes. Here, the author of this article recaps Metro’s prior missteps and reviews the agency’s current attempts to more equitably serve LA’s residents and visitors than Metro has in the past.
How has Metro involved equity in the past?
Since April 1993, the state of California has authorized Metro to plan, fund, build, and operate LA County’s transportation system [1]. However, Metro has not always carried out its duties fairly. In fact, over the last three decades Metro has gone from being sued for overlooking its most vulnerable customers to now mitigating for inequitable outcomes of Metro initiatives. Next, Metro should prospectively apply equity to transform greater LA into a thriving region.
Below is a summarized timeline of how Metro has involved equity in the past.
I. Mandated compliance with Bus Riders Union/Metro consent decree
Long before Metro’s founding in 1993, LA transportation officials ambitiously sought to grow a rail transit system that effectively outshined their efforts to cultivate a robust and reliable bus network. In the early 1990s, LA County bus riders — who overrepresented LA County’s population of people of color — shouldered the burden of the regions’ investment in growing a rail network (arguably still the case today). For instance, in 1992, Metro’s buses “carried 94 percent of the agencies ridership, yet the agency dedicated less than a third of its annual budget to bus operations.” At the same time, an overwhelming majority of the agency’s budget (71 percent) went to budding rail programs “that served only 6 percent of Metro’s ridership” [1, p. 163].
While the total number of rail riders was limited by a scant rail network at the time (only Metro’s Blue line was open by 1992), transportation officials willingly decided to invest in rail transit to an extent that dwarfed their investment in bus transit. Rail transit generally costs transit agencies more than bus transit to build and operate because of the many expensive components of rail transit like installing steel tracks and electrical power systems. Although bus passengers in the early 1990s were crowding onto Metro’s buses, transportation officials failed to invest in ways that would directly alleviate overcrowded buses by buying more buses or by operating buses more frequently and reliably in dedicated bus lanes, for example. In spite of this paradigm, LA’s transportation officials in 1994 proceeded to propose a fare increase whose burden would fall heavily on Metro’s bus riders, while simultaneously spending on expensive rail expansion.
In 1994, the Bus Riders Union (an organized coalition of bus riders) and their attorneys from the NAACP’s Legal Defense Funds (LDF) successfully stopped Metro’s proposed fare hike. In 1996, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Hatter Jr. ruled that such a fare hike would result in “disparate impacts” to the Metro’s bus riders who were over 80 percent people of color. By comparison, people of color comprised of less than 60 percent of LA County’s population at the time [1]. Now popularly known as the ‘consent decree,’ this court order precipitated a cap on Metro’s transit fares for 10-years (which has since expired in 2006) and required Metro to buy more buses to alleviate overcrowding. Significantly, this intervention shifted Metro’s attention to address the needs of their current (mostly bus) riders who overwhelmingly represented low-income communities of color, which remains the case today.
II. Indirect attempts to apply equity in planning
In the first decade of the 2000s Metro remained the rail, bus, and highway agency it had already been for more than three decades. Metro’s 30-year (long-range) transportation planning (LRTP) document from 2009 reflects transportation officials’ continued rail building ambition. It also shows how relatively little investment and attention Metro pays to enhance walking and biking infrastructure, which enable basic human-powered mobility. Metro’s 2009 plan dedicates a mere one percent of the agency’s planned investments over 30 years to improve biking and walking linkages to transit (see 2009 LRTP, Figure F) — outspent twice over by ‘Administration and Other’ costs and thirteen times over by ‘Street and Road’ costs, which until recently have been designed with a singular focus: how to make it easier to drive a private automobile.
Source: Metro’s 2009 Long Range Transportation Plan, p. 15
The 2009 LRTP does not address nor ameliorate mobility disparities based on race and income. Although the 2009 plan includes a ‘job accessibility’ metric to show mobility disparities, Metro fails to address the implications of these disparaging metrics. The 2009 plan accepts weak outcomes like taking three decades to achieve small gains. For example, Figure 11 of the 2009 plan (copied below) shows that Metro will take 30 years to lower transit commute times to under an hour for a small additional (12 percentage point) share of transit dependent neighborhoods, which have mostly carless, low-income, or senior households. The 2009 plan ignores the remaining 41 percent of work trips from transit dependent neighborhoods that will take more than an hour by transit for, at least, another 30 years.
Source: Metro’s 2009 Long Range Transportation Plan, p. 54 (red underline added for emphasis)
Secondly, the same ‘Environmental Justice’ section of the 2009 plan overstates the positive impact the 2009-plan proposed projects could have on communities of color. For at least 30 more years (through 2040), around half of LA County’s African American, Hispanic, and Asian American ‘subgroups’ and around 70 percent of ‘non-Minority subgroups’ will remain over an hour away from work by transit — an outcome that reflects the need for transportation officials to focus more meaningfully on changing their relationship with policies that govern housing and job growth, which underlie people’s need to travel. Finally this 30-year plan focuses heavily on work trips largely sustaining difficulty for people whose access and independence relies on transit.
III. Broadening the agency’s engagement with local officials and advocates
In the current decade, Metro accounted for city-controlled infrastructure by committing Measure M funds to cities through two programs: the ‘Multiyear Subregional Program’ (MSP) and continuing the ‘Local Return’ program. Metro also lowers cities’ costs of applying for state transportation funds by assigning Metro staff to write grant proposals for cities. Metro offers this service, called Technical Assistance, to cities free-of-charge.
In the years leading up to 2016, Metro officials built a broad-based coalition that included local officials and advocates to campaign for a sales tax measure, which officials expect will raise $120 billion over 40 years for transportation purposes. Subsequently, Metro’s CEO convened a Policy Advisory Council to help develop the 2020-50 Long Range Transportation Plan “and other work plans and policy areas that the Metro Board may request.” When the measure passed, coalition members representing local jurisdictions, consumers, and other transportation providers gained seats on the Metro Policy Advisory Council (PAC). Members of the PAC’s ‘consumers’ constituency group especially advocate for social equity.
In 2018, Metro Board adopted a 10-year strategic plan (Vision 2028), which validates equity’s importance to fulfilling Metro’s mission. In the plan Metro commits to prioritize communities with need, but stops short of designating who in the agency would guide and how they would hold the agency accountable to its equity commitment. At a public meeting in February, Metro CEO Phil Washington alluded to hiring an officer to champion equity for Metro. We support this notion and urge Metro to hire a CERO – Chief Equity & Race Officer – with multiple staff to define equity and set performance measures, which reinforces all four pillars of the Equity Platform Framework and helps fulfill Vision 2028 strategic goals.
Also in 2018, Metro directors promised to prioritize investments to communities based on need by adopting the Equity Platform Framework. With the framework, Metro challenges its staff to approach every decision with the goal of achieving equitable outcomes countywide. Immediately, the framework should impact how Metro redesigns Metro’s bus network (NextGen), develops a 2020-50 Long Range Transportation Plan, deliberates which projects to accelerate, designs a congestion pricing program, and distributes Measure M’s Active Transportation Funds.
What’s next? Centering equity at the outset of every initiative
When Measure M was on the ballot almost three years ago, voters were told that its passage would help ease congestion in traffic-choked Los Angeles. Since its passage we’ve seen the unprecedented rail construction across the region, but still the average LA driver spends 100 hours stuck in traffic every year. What are some other solutions?
Congestion pricing is one traffic management tool. It uses price to incentivize would-be drivers to travel differently at busy times of day by charging actual drivers a fee for using certain routes. Just as gasoline prices go up before long weekends to prevent a gasoline shortage, traffic congestion prices would fluctuate to address high-demand — in this case, vehicle demand for road space. Case studies show that in addition to alleviating traffic, congestion pricing reduces greenhouse gas emissions and traffic crashes — a trifecta of important benefits for LA County.
Last December, LA Metro’s chief executive officer, Phil Washington, and his staff introduced the LA Metro Board to congestion pricing as a potential way to fill a $26 billion funding gap to complete a suite of 28 LA Metro projects that the LA Metro Board seeks to finish before the 2028 Olympics and Paralympic Games in LA. Last month, Mr. Washington and the LA Metro Board took a different approach and focused on the concept of charging drivers as one possible and very bold way to get rid of vehicle congestion in LA and possibly even fund free transit. Yet details on how that would happen are still being discussed.
Metro offers low-income drivers a one-time subsidy when enrolling in the ExpressLane program, if applicants are able to prove their eligibility. Metro also seeks to mitigate the health burden imposed on low-income communities situated next to freeways by committing proceeds of toll revenue to city active transportation and transit projects serving communities within three miles of the toll lanes. This last point is an important component to a successful congestion pricing model: investing in accessible and reliable transportation choices for people to get around without driving their car.
Cordon pricing — Drivers pay program operators a fee to drive into a designated area. Cordon pricing programs exist today in Singapore, London, and Stockholm. Cordon pricing models work when lots of drivers routinely enter a centralized (business) district with many transportation alternatives to driving. For instance, the Bay Area bridge tolls are a form of cordon pricing to enter San Francisco from other cities. Because jobs in LA are concentrated in numerous districts across the county, a cordon pricing model could be less appropriate in LA than other models. Downtown LA is the only jobs-rich area with many viable transit alternatives to driving. LA Metro estimates a cordon pricing program centered on downtown LA could generate up to $1.2 billion per year in revenue.
Source: Transport for London
Corridor pricing — Drivers pay program operators a fee to drive at a steady speed in any lane on a priced road corridor. LA ExpressLanes are a miniature version of a corridor pricing program. As with ExpressLanes, fees would be distance-based and time-based: digital signs present drivers with a cost to the next major exit when entering the facility (calculated behind the scenes by cost per mile) and electronically charge drivers once they pass sensors as they exit the facility. Because many road corridors become congested all over LA, a corridor pricing model, if implemented correctly, could present people in LA with impactful health and safety, among other, benefits. As the Metro research paper on this topic suggests, appropriate test corridors in LA could include portions of the I-101 freeway where it parallels the Metro Red Line and I-10 freeway where it parallels the Metro Expo Line. Agencies have not yet released revenue estimates for the corridor pricing model because too many variables remain undefined at this point in time.
Source: All Singapore Stuff
Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) pricing — Drivers pay road operators a fee to drive in excess of drivers’ allotted share of vehicle miles traveled. Agencies in California, Oregon, and Iowa have tested this model of pricing. Oregon’s test calculated the number of miles driven in a “congestion zone.” Although technology exists to implement this kind of pricing model, the model has not yet been implemented because of political challenges (Metro research paper). Because this model charges motorists according to miles driven independent of geography this model holds the greatest potential for alleviating traffic over a larger area. However, this model must thoughtfully consider land use and housing patterns in the region, as Los Angeles is increasingly seeing its more affordable places to live moving further away from job-rich areas. Revenue estimates for a region bigger than but principally including LA County reach as high as $10.35 billion per year. For comparison, Metro estimates Measure M generates $860 million in revenue per year.
What could congestion pricing accomplish?
Less traffic — Principally, the goal of congestion pricing is to alleviate chronic traffic on priced roads. As Metro’s congestion pricing primer paper states, traffic reduced by 20 percent in Singapore and 30 percent in London. In Stockholm, traffic reduced to 22 percent (down from 30-50 percent). As shown in LA Metro’s latest ExpressLanes performance report, drivers in LA’s ExpressLanes and bus riders who rode on the Metro’s Silver Line in the ExpressLanes traveled at speeds above LA Metro’s desired monthly average speed of 45 miles per hour.
Reduce air pollution — In addition to breaking-up vehicle congestion, congestion pricing could eliminate “elastic” vehicle trips that could be replaced by some other mode of travel. This lowers the total number of vehicle miles traveled, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions overall — a win for our planet and California’s legislative goals, to say the least. Over time, overwhelming driving (and parking) costs could incentivize widespread healthy, sustainable, and affordable living that seldomly requires car travel and hardly justifies car ownership.
Diminish disparities — Congestion pricing quickly and annually raises such large amounts of money that the revenue collected could transform how public agencies, including LA Metro, invest in transportation. When public agencies spend toll revenue in smart and equitable ways — by first spending on ways that improve transportation options in historically disinvested communities, people in the LA region as a whole enjoy more and higher-quality access to jobs, services, and life-enhancing opportunities. Public revenue raised by congestion pricing could be used to counteract decades of institutional neglect of vulnerable communities. At LA Metro, congestion pricing revenue could be used to do more than ask current staff to develop equity-informed recommendations to Metro Board. With Metro’s allocation of revenue raised by congestion pricing, Metro could hire equity-focused staff to teach and enforce equitable decision-making agency wide.
Criticisms
But to keep LA moving, we need viable and reliable alternatives to driving
True — successful implementation of any congestion pricing program requires prior and/or simultaneous implementation of viable transportation alternatives to driving alone. Congestion pricing models complement LA’s ongoing sales tax-funded initiatives. Congestion pricing models influence travelers demand for driving and its alternatives, including public transit. Meanwhile, LA’s sales tax-funded initiatives increase the supply of public transit service. Since over seven in ten people in Southern California “ride transit rarely or never, if one out of every four of those people replaced a single driving trip with a transit trip once every two weeks, annual ridership would grow by 96 million — more than compensating for the losses of recent years” (Manville, Taylor, and Blumenberg, 2018).
But would pricing roads divert traffic to other streets
Congestion pricing would serve as the incentive (on priced roads), while travel time on unpriced streets would simultaneously serve as the incentive (on unpriced roads) for drivers to travel differently. Drivers who might avoid priced roads by diverting onto unpriced roads might face long drive times that would themselves serve as an incentive to consider traveling differently.
But congestion pricing adds to the financial burden on low-income drivers
True — congestion pricing would add to drivers’ financial burden only if congestion pricing operators do not implementcountermeasures to subsidize low-income drivers’ access to priced roads. Congestion pricing subsidies would extend (to low-income people who drive) a moral minimum mobility benefit that American society currently denies low-income people by not subsidizing their gasoline taxes or any of the (at least 9) other regressive ways we pay for transportation. Utility companies such as LADWP make sure people can access utilities regardless of income with lifeline services that subsidize low-income households’ access to water and electrical power, for example. Research shows that automobile access is as essential as utilities are to sustaining a lifestyle that can overcome economic disparities. The vast majority of drivers who need to drive and have means to pay congestion prices can instead help to achieve equitable outcomes with congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing, again, is only one tool in the traffic management toolkit. Using money as an incentive to change behavior requires thought and intention. Charging a toll to drive poses a choice on the traveler per trip. But behavior can only change without penalty if viable alternatives exist. Congestion pricing is effective when travelers can access and afford (in both time and money) to take transit, ride a bike or scooter, carpool, walk, or something else. We support thoughtful and intentional traffic management tools that do not impose additional burdens onto people who already have the fewest transportation choices.
Next steps
Get involved — LA Metro Board members will deliberate whether to commission a 2-year study on implementing a congestion pricing pilot someplace in LA County at the following 3 board meetings. These public hearings will take place in the Metro Board Room at One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90012, 3rd Floor at the following times.
Metro is underway in their NextGen Bus Study to propose a redesign of the entire Los Angeles County Bus Network. NextGen marks the first time in 25 years that Metro will comprehensively re-examine the service it provides, even down to fundamentally rethinking what public transportation can and should be in the 21st century. It is expected the findings from this study will lead to launching a new bus network in the Fall of 2019.
While technology does provide opportunities for the transit sector to better tailor the experience of riding public transportation to the changing expectations of an increasingly-connected world, one thing that hasn’t changed in 2018 is that the quality of bus service will determine how people feel about going Metro.
Over the past 5 years, that quality has been trending downward. Since 2013, Metro’s average bus speed has declined by 15%. Meanwhile, today, rapid buses, originally envisioned as a stepping stone to Bus Rapid Transit, are on time just 66% of the time. As might be expected, average daily boardings have also fallen over the same period, as passengers seek faster and more reliable rides. The bus network carries 20% fewer riders today than it did in 2014.
Achieving NextGen’s goal of reinvigorating Metro’s ridership will require going beyond cosmetic measures like redesigning individual bus lines and marginal adjustments to frequencies. Metro needs to show riders that buses can be trusted to get them where they’re going in a reasonable amount of time. Given where the starting point is – a Metro presentation this month announced that nearly 80% of bus trips originating in the downtown area took at least twice as long as the same trip by car – any substantial solution must find a way to incorporate bus-only lanes on a greater number of LA’s streets.
Bus-only lanes are not a new concept in LA. The original El Monte Busway along the 10 freeway opened in the 1970s. But since then finding the political will to build and maintain high-quality bus lanes has been a halting process. Metro doesn’t have authority over what happens on city streets. The layout of the county, with its many interwoven municipalities, makes coordinating bus lanes along lengthy corridors a daunting challenge.
Take the example of Wilshire, for example. LA’s iconic thoroughfare from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica hosts the region’s busiest bus lines, and, on part of its length, it also has bus-only lanes. But the effectiveness of those lanes has been hindered by the refusal of specific cities and neighborhoods to allow transit-only lanes in their communities.
The lanes stop abruptly in Beverly Hills, Westwood, and Santa Monica, leaving buses stuck in some of the county’s worst traffic, and potentially wiping out the increased speed that they could be achieving by traveling in dedicated lanes. As one of the county’s largest distributors of tax revenue, Metro needs to be willing to use the substantial leverage it has at its disposal to encourage cities to accept bus-only lanes.
Design also plays a major role in the success of a bus-only lane. Using Wilshire again as an example, buses occupy the rightmost traffic lane, leading to frequent conflicts with backed up lines of cars turning right. In general, bus-only lanes should seek to separate buses from the movements of single occupancy vehicles as much as possible. On mixed traffic roads, that means giving buses the center lanes, allowing them to avoid delays. Having center-running bus lanes requires a greater commitment from Metro and the cities, as it necessitates providing some space for passengers to get on and off the bus safely on a platform in the center of the street. But this type of investment is what should be considered normal on LA’s most heavily traveled transit corridors – which are also the ones that experience the most significant traffic delay.
Design and corridor choice are only part of the battle for high-quality bus-only lanes. The continued effectiveness of these lanes relies on active management by Metro, largely boiling down to the enforcement that accompanies them. People driving single occupancy vehicles, as CEO Phil Washington noted on his way to a recent Dodgers game, can often be found in bus-only lanes, leading to traffic jams that negate the investment and scare riders away.
Transit-only lanes need to be clearly marked, and an expectation should be set that only authorized vehicles will be allowed to use the lanes. This type of enforcement, which focuses on improving the speed of a bus ride rather than on monitoring riders, should be a greater point of emphasis in Metro’s bus system.
Expanding bus lanes has never been an easy proposition. But the breadth of the responsibility that Los Angeles voters have placed in Metro’s hands, a sweeping mandate to expand transit use, reduce traffic, and improve the sustainability of our region, demands difficult action be taken. It is time for the LA Region to get serious about bus lanes.
Close your eyes and picture the last minivan commercial you saw. You may remember seeing a cleancut, youngish, but not too hip woman, handling life with ease behind the wheel. And that’s because our societal culture (and mainstream marketing) assumes, encourages, and expects women to be the primary members of the household that are running errands (trunk space!), managing kids’ travel needs (safety!), and making more trips because of it (mileage!).
And more often than not, this is true.
Of the few data points available for how women in the U.S. and Los Angeles travel, we know this: Women travel in similar modes than men, but travel shorter distances and make more trips. Women, particularly low-wage and shift workers, are also more likely to travel during off-peak hours (outside of the morning and evening “rush hour” periods). And minivan commercials aside, women are also more likely to use public transportation.
So why isn’t our transportation system better designed for half the population, who are making more trips?
Transportation is a Women’s Issue
Three panelists discussed these very issues at a March 7 panel, “Transportation is a Women’s Issue,” hosted by UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) General Manager Seleta Reynolds, Metro Deputy Executive Officer Stephanie Wiggins, and UCLA Luskin urban planning professor Dr. Evelyn Blumenberg are all transportation leaders in their fields of public agencies and academia.
Just having an all-female panel on transportation planning is exciting. Transportation planning and engineering is a traditionally male-dominated field and, like most fields, implementation tends to reflect the perspectives of those in the position of making decisions. Even within transportation advocacy, particularly bicycle advocacy, the dominant perspectives have traditionally been from white men.
“Planning has always been gender-neutral, but what isn’t measured gets lost.” – Stephanie Wiggins
Panelists discussed three primary challenges to shifting this application: lack of comprehensive data (and lack of using available data) that reflects travel patterns outside of the 9a-5p two-way weekday commute; industry-wide funding and performance measures focused on the travel “peak” (morning and evening weekday rush hours); and, especially in Los Angeles, the types of trips that women tend to take are still best served by car.
“If what you are solving for is the peak, the peak, the peak, then you’re never going to have a system that has reliable, frequent, comfortable service at the times of day when women need it the most.” – Seleta Reynolds
We also see anecdotally and in limited data available, that parenthood impacts women’s professional and travel patterns more significantly than men. While we increasingly see women in the workforce, we still see traditional gender splits in different-sex parental households. Women tend to remain the primary caregivers, both inside the home and for outside travel such as school/child care, appointments, activities, and household errands.
“The share of women in the labor market has dramatically increased, but women are also still responsible for much of the unpaid labor associated with household tasks – and it’s difficult to accomplish both with transit” – Dr. Evelyn Blumenberg
Panelists also discussed the need to address safety, both actual and perceived, when designing transportation systems that serve women. Sexual harassment, system and physical design, and off-peak transit service were discussed as important lenses through which to update how we look at our transportation systems.
To view video of the whole panel, please click here.
A Better System for All
So where does this leave our minivan-driving moms? And more importantly, what about our many moms who are getting to work, school, doctors, and soccer games without a car?
We can start with our goals.
If we continue to prioritize our transportation system improvements based on commute patterns, we are missing the needs of a majority of our system users. Dr. Blumenberg reported that only 16 percent of total trips are work commutes. Let’s think about shifting our transportation goals from solely reducing peak hour congestion to equitable outcomes for all system users. Not only will this serve our drivers, riders, rollers, and walkers who need it most, but will also create a more effective and efficient system that can potentially improve regional economies and public health by easing the burdens of travel that are disproportionately shouldered by women.
Then let’s get the data that informs these goals. What are the travel patterns we see in women and female parents? What are the needs? Who is asking women what they (really) want? During the UCLA panel, Stephanie Wiggins talked about Metro’s upcoming NextGen redesign of the Countywide bus network–and how the team was originally all male. She changed that.
It is important to support women leaders in transportation planning, just as it is important to listen to women consumers of our transportation systems. There exists both quantitative and qualitative evidence for a new way of planning and investing in our transportation systems. Investing in Place continues to work with our grassroots partners to amplify these qualitative perspectives through storytelling videos. We look forward to sharing these stories in the coming months.
It’s not your imagination: your bus trip is taking longer than it used to. Since 2013, local bus speeds have fallen about 5%, and rapid bus speeds are down more than 10%. Despite the branded limited-stop service, rapids now average about the same speed as locals. Buses are also running late more frequently these days. One in three rapid buses are late in 2017, an increase of over 30% from 2013.
Rapid Bus Speeds and On-Time Performance Are Down Since 2013. Source: Metro Staff Report
Speed and reliability are major factors in deciding whether or not to take transit. After all, time spent on the bus is time not spent at work or at home. Even for drivers, the perception that buses are slow and not likely to show up when you need them forms a barrier to trying transit. These should be key focus areas for Metro as the transit agency endeavors to reinvigorate its bus network. Metro is already preparing to conduct a multiyear analysis of the network that will inform a potential systemwide “reimagining and restructuring,” but do we really have to wait years before we begin to address bus speeds?
Reversing the bus slowdown will likely require a toolbox approach, implementing separate fixes for the individual causes of delay. One tool that Metro has already tested is what’s known as all-door boarding. All-door boarding, or ADB, is simply the practice of allowing passengers to enter transit from either the front or rear doors. ADB is already in effect on Metro’s rail lines, but has been tried out only on a limited basis for buses.
Throughout the bus network, passengers are generally required to enter through the front doors, tapping their TAP card or paying as they board. This single entry point can significantly increase the amount of time a bus has to wait at a given stop, slowing down service and potentially leading to delays. Generally speaking, the primary justification of front-door boarding is that it ensures a high rate of fare compliance. The experience of other cities, though, should give us reason to doubt that this perceived benefit really exists.
In February this year, the National Association of City Transportation Officials and TransitCenter released a whitepaper called “Better Boarding, Better Buses: Streamlining Boarding & Fares” that analyzed the impact of all-door boarding in North American transit systems. In San Francisco and New York, two of the study cities that opted for a wider implementation of ADB, fare evasion not only did not increase, but it actually declined.
San Francisco implemented all-door boarding across its bus network in 2012, and, according to NACTO and TransitCenter, it remains the only U.S. transit agency to institute systemwide all-door boarding. Since ADB was instituted, the program has proven to be a major success, speeding up buses throughout the city and standardizing the time it takes to board passengers. In SFMTA’s final report evaluating the program, the transit operator found that ADB reduced passenger boarding time by 38% at the busiest stops and helped improve reliability. Bus speeds were up 2% across the network.
In New York City, the municipal rapid network, called the Select Bus Service, experienced even more pronounced changes in passenger boarding time after the implementation of all-door boarding. On some lines, boarding now takes half as long as it used to.
These cities are examples that show ADB can be scaled to include all rapid buses or even the entire network. But Metro can also look to its own pilot programs to see the potential of ADB. In 2015, Metro studied the impact of all-door boarding on the Wilshire rapid route, the busiest bus line in the county. During the pilot period, Metro’s data found that dwell time per passenger fell 32%, and staff estimated that additional time savings would be possible by requiring customers to have a loaded TAP card when they boarded. In its final evaluation, Metro’s report listed a number of additional benefits, including less crowding for passengers and reduced risk of injury as the bus began moving.
At the moment, all-door boarding is allowed only on the Orange and Silver Lines, the system’s Bus Rapid Transit routes. ADB was approved to continue indefinitely on the Silver Line in February after a pilot program found it to be extremely successful at improving on-time performance. Building off the experience of the Wilshire pilot, Metro required patrons to buy their fare before boarding, and now only TAP cards can be used on board the Silver Line.
Silver Line On-Time Performance Dramatically Increased With ADB. Source: Metro Staff Report
Not only have Metro’s pilots proven that ADB works, they have also shown that it is extremely popular with riders. In evaluating the Wilshire pilot program, staff noted that ADB creates, “the perception of better service, which heavily influences a passenger’s decision to use transit.” Two-thirds of survey respondents found that boarding was “much faster” and nearly 90% of respondents said it was faster overall. A remarkable 82% of riders said they wanted to see ADB implemented.
In describing the lessons from case study cities, NACTO and TransitCenter emphasize that ADB should be implemented across bus networks to provide customers with a convenient and simple riding experience. If Metro has concerns about the logistics of a full-scale implementation, the rapid network, which has been hit harder by slowdowns and delays, would make an ideal next step in expanding ADB. It would also help provide the perception of BRT quality service on the rapid bus routes. ADB can be quickly instituted and would immediately begin to show results for Metro’s customers. At a time when every tool is needed, we shouldn’t hesitate to provide popular and effective solutions to help resuscitate our ailing bus service. For riders, every minute counts.
Richard France assists clients with strategic planning, visioning, and community and economic development. He is a strategic planner at Estolano Advisors, where he has been involved in a variety of active transportation, transit-oriented development, climate change resiliency, and equitable economic development projects. His work in active transportation includes coordinating a study to improve bike and pedestrian access to transit oriented districts for the County of Los Angeles, and working with the Southern California Association of Governments to host tactical urbanism events throughout the region. Richard also serves as a technical assistance provider for a number of California Climate Investment programs, including the Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities, Transformative Climate Communities, and Low Carbon Transit Operations programs. He has also taught at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Richard received a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and his M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA.
Accelerator for America, Milken Institute
Matt Horton
Matt Horton is the director of state policy and initiatives for Accelerator for America. He collaborates with government officials, impact investors, and community leaders to shape infrastructure, job creation, and equitable community development efforts. With over fifteen years of experience, Matt has directed research-driven programs and initiatives focusing on housing production, infrastructure finance, access to capital, job creation, and economic development strategies. Previously, he served as the director of the California Center at the Milken Institute, where he produced research and events to support innovative economic policy solutions. Matt also has experience at the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), where he coordinated regional policy development and planning efforts. He holds an MA in political science from California State University, Fullerton, and a BA in history from Azusa Pacific University. Additionally, Matt serves as a Senior Advisor for the Milken Institute and is involved in various advisory boards, including Lift to Rise and WorkingNation.
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Madeline Brozen
Madeline is the Deputy Director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at the Luskin School of Public Affairs. She oversees and supports students, staff, and faculty who work on planning and policy issues about how people live, move, and work in the Southern California region. When not supporting the work of the Lewis Center community, Madeline is doing research on the transportation patterns and travel needs of vulnerable populations in LA. Her recent work includes studies of low-income older adults in Westlake, public transit safety among university students, and uncovering the transportation needs of women, and girls in partnership with Los Angeles public agencies. Outside of UCLA, Madeline serves as the vice-chair of the Metro Westside Service Council and enjoys spending time seeing Los Angeles on the bus, on foot, and by bike.
Office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass
Luis Gutierrez
Luis Gutierrez, works in the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, as the Director of Energy & Water in the Office of Energy and Sustainability (MOES), Luis oversees issues related to LA’s transition to clean energy, water infrastructure, and serves as the primary liaison between the Mayor’s Office and the Department of Water and Power. Prior to joining MOES, Luis managed regulatory policy proceedings for Southern California Edison (SCE), focusing on issues related to equity and justice. Before joining SCE, Luis served as the Director of Policy and Research for Inclusive Action for the City, a community development organization dedicated to economic justice in Los Angeles. Luis holds a BA in Sociology and Spanish Literature from Wesleyan University, and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Cal State LA.
kim@investinginplace.org
Communications Strategist
Kim Perez
Kim is a writer, researcher and communications strategist, focused on sustainability, urban resilience and safe streets. Her specialty is taking something complex and making it clear and compelling. Harvard-trained in sustainability, she won a prize for her original research related to urban resilience in heat waves—in which she proposed a method to help cities identify where pedestrians spend a dangerous amount of time in direct sun, so they can plan for more equitable access to shade across a city.
For over almost two decades, Jessica has led efforts in Los Angeles to promote inclusive decision-making and equitable resource allocation in public works and transportation funding. Jessica’s current work at Investing in Place is grounded in the belief that transparent and strategic prioritization of public funds can transform Los Angeles into a city where inclusive, accessible public spaces enrich both livability and well-being. As a collaborator and convener, Jessica plays a role in facilitating public policy conversations and providing nuanced insights into the interplay of politics, power, and process on decision-making and fiscal allocations.
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