Robin Chase is founder and CEO of GoLoco, an online ridesharing community. She also founded and leads Meadow Networks, a consulting firm that advises city, state, and federal government agencies about wireless applications in the transportation sector, and impacts on innovation and economic development. Robin is also founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest carsharing company in the world.
She served on Governor Deval Patrick's Transportation transition team, and Boston Mayor Menino's Wireless Task Force. Robin lectures widely, has been frequently featured in the major media, and has received many awards in the areas of innovation, design, and environment. Robin graduated from Wellesley College and MIT's Sloan School of Management, and was a Harvard University Loeb Fellow.
One fast and low cost method to reducing death and injury among the traveling public would be to have wireless internet connectivity on all public transportation. 1. It would reduce distracted driving-related accidents by providing an alternative for those who are currently driving and communicating with friends, family, and work colleagues while driving, 2. It would attract new public transit riders, reducing VMTs and therefore all types of vehicle-related accidents, by offering a significant and long-term competitive advantage of transit over personal driving. Accidents per passenger mile on transit are dramatically lower than those completed by car. It’s a… Read more
Gabriel Roth writes "Most of us can walk as much as we want to." In fact, this is not the case, many people would love their children to walk to school but find that the way is too dangerous with inadequate sidewalks and little protection from cars. I hear from people across America who tell me they would like to make more trips by foot or by bike for short distances but find the roads just too unsafe. He also implies that it is cheaper to live in Texas where there hasn't been any smart growth than in Maryland where… Read more
The ability to maximize the public benefit by requiring openness and flexibility could be a key differentiator between public and private infrastructure if the government took advantage of it. I am unmoved by the claims that the private sector alone can provide a high quality, well-maintained infrastructure. Both public and private institutions can accomplish that. But the willingness and ability to maximize public benefit and participation lies in the public domain alone. The private sector’s goal is to maximize profit and give you exactly what you’ve agreed to pay for. Contractual relationships are constructed to provide a particular prescribed service… Read more
Create Platforms for Innovation One more point I forgot to make. These times need rapid innovation, and we typically think of the transportation sector as being unable to move quickly because there is so much of it that is embedded in the built infrastructure and existing rolling stock (such a great image for vehicles of all kinds). But there is a recipe for experimentation, iteration, and ultimately successful innovation. Loosen regulatory requirements for small scale experiments. Just as we do not require food carts to have unisex bathrooms and washing facilities for employees, we need to enable exceptions for the… Read more
As usual, lots of excellent advice before me. In particular, Todd Littman, Jon Marz, and Steve Winkelman make some excellent points with well-researched responses (as does the Moving Cooler report). New ideas: We need to focus on two fundamental goals of the upcoming Transportation ReAuthorization bill. We need to meet the needs of the climate. We need to meet the needs of the people. 1. The climate. Steve Winkelman suggests that for each and every project -- and I would add policy and financing mechanism -- “we must Ask the Climate Question as to whether those investments will increase or… Read more
So many people have weighed in. I agree with those advocating for permitting the tolling of federal highways as one more possible option for solving our infrastructure financing crisis. A few new points: · Existing fuel taxes do not cover on-going maintenance of this now built roads. We know this because the gas tax hasn’t been raised for 18 years and their has been significant inflation. And we also know this because there is an enormous backlog on all types of roads required to bring them up to a state of good repair. Bill Graves: Has the trucking industry evaluated what… Read more
What is striking to me is the tussle, the expectation of enormous push-back to come from the car and highway industries, as this country tries to move -- not away from cars -- but towards a more balanced transportation path that provides more options. Today, 87% of all trips are done by car. This won’t serve us well in our future that will be more urban and older. The challenge is the timing delay between what people think they want today (more of the status quo) and what they will want in 15 years (more non-personal-car options). We know changing… Read more
Technology – platforms, information, devices, and networks – is a key part of making intermodalism a reality. Users (people or freight) need to know the schedules, requirements, and opportunities, need to book capacity and to make payments seamlessly, not only between modes but between states and perhaps countries as well. A requirement for this to happen is “openness.” Openness means different things in different situations, but without it, becoming intermodal and interstate on a large scale, quickly and efficiently is very very difficult. Open platforms mean that others can build on them and improve and extend them over time. Open… Read more
First, I want to thank and commend the Commission for an excellent report. You presented the financing realities (past and current) in a compelling way. I hope members of Congress, and the general public educate themselves so that we can move beyond the disfunctional status quo toward long overdue reform. I'd like to respond to your response about the technology to be used for the VMT tax. There are about 200 million vehicles in the United States, and it will take 25 years for the fleet to turn over. Over the last 15 years, the automobile manufacturers have yet to… Read more
A VMT tax can and should be a cornerstone to this nation’s economic recovery, something that just about everyone supports because the benefits will be pervasive and transforming. I’m not just referring to a solvent transportation fund, but to the creation of a nation-wide mobile internet. What happened last week was a common reaction of politicians taken by surprise with the issues of raising gas taxes, exploring mileage-based user fees, and introducing congestion pricing. But time and knowledge always brings them back to the same conclusion: there are no good alternatives. We have to improve and provide for the… Read more
James May's comment about the improving fuel efficiency within the airline industry over the last decade reminded me of this blog entry I wrote in February last year. Logan airport acheived a 17% percent reduction in CO2 emissions in 6 years with a totally different approach, one not based on fuel efficiency, but rather on asset utilization efficiency: more passengers per airplane. An approach I'd advocate for motorized transport. You can read the details here. http://networkmusings.blogspot.com/2008/02/achieved-17-reduction-in-co2-emissions.html … Read more
I err on the carbon tax side of this discussion, but I do appreciate the economic efficiency of cap and trade. Specific responses to earlier points: Bob Poole on the revenue neutral aspect: A “dividend” as James Hansen calls it doesn’t necessarily mean revenue neutral. I see this as a very clever linguistic spin on what could more bluntly be thought of as a “carbon ration.” Each person is this country will allocated a certain dollar amount of carbon for “free.” Heavy consumers of carbon despite a carbon tax, will not find themselves in a revenue neutral position. This “excess… Read more
Gabriel: Many good points. Dollars available are always limited. All projects are not equal. We can find bad projects with political backing among transit projects just as easily as among highway ones. Over the next few years I’d prioritize new projects by financing those that give the largest reduction in CO2 emission per dollar spent. That reduction could be achieved any number of ways -- changing modes; changing fuels; changing vehicles; changing connectivity – with size of demand/impact of the project directly measurable through generation of the largest reductions in VMTs or gallons of fuel burned. Modeling demand is unfortunately… Read more
The Department of Transportation, like all parts of government, is the result of decades of program accretion, and very little program dissolution. It is clear that there are too many special and small interests that have outlived the logic of their creation. With the next Reauthorization Bill at hand, a new administration in the Whitehouse, a crumbling transportation infrastructure that demands reinvestment, and an economy and real estate market in shambles, it does appear that we are at a moment for evaluation and realignment. We all agree that transportation is central to all economic activity, and affects both our daily… Read more
Here is a piece from streetsblog on the transit operations topic: "Hire a construction worker, fire a bus driver" http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/01/23/hire-a-construction-worker-fire-a-bus-driver/… Read more
In response to Gabriel Roth's suggestion about doing research on alternative ways to finance roads that protect privacy: I concurr that we need more demonstration projects on how we might make the transition from gas taxes to road user fees, and also that we must address head on the issue of locational privacy. We cannot and should not rely on notions of "trusted third parties." For more on this issue, go here: http://networkmusings.blogspot.com/search/label/privacy I've also given a lot of thought and effort to ideas about how we can leverage the impending investments in wireless technologies in the transportation sector (for… Read more
I decided to try to think outside the box – or maybe this is just hanging on the lip: halfway in and halfway out. The value of tax rebates as spending stimulus is controversial. Will the money be spent or saved? Will it be spent on foreign-built goods and therefore less valuable than a dollar spent by the US government? Will those rebate dollars create jobs? Here is a proposal that might address the rebate and infrastructure spend priorities. 1. The US government declares that a carbon tax will be applied on all goods and services starting January 1, 2010.… Read more
Those posting before me have given an accurate assessment of the situation (shovel-ready does not mean a “good” use of funds) and excellent advice (rational and transparent guidelines for projects that actually further national goals of CO2 reduction, energy independence, economic development). It is not every day that you get to spend a fast-tracked $800-odd billion dollars. Therefore, I offer up a few points. -- Money is one of the few tools the federal government has to goad states to follow its national goals. [Regulation and taxes are the other dominant, and less pleasant, tools.] Let’s not squander these many… Read more
Here is an amusing video short of what 2014 might look like if we choose to invest in highways and get $5/gallon gas: http://blip.tv/file/1643573/… Read more
We can build subways and light rail. We can throw billions of venture capital and taxpayer dollars at solar, wind, and genetically engineered power. We can mandate fuel-efficient cars and energy-efficient housing. But, as every venture capitalist so inelegantly asks, "will the dogs eat the dogfood?" Most of them won't. Not as long as gas prices stay low and carbon is not taxed. This fundamental uncertainty – what will be the future price of oil? – makes planning and purchase of hard assets, factories, and infrastructure incredibly difficult and very high risk. Since it is in the news, let's use… Read more
Here's why the answer is "yes" to more emphasis on transit relative to the last 50 years. We need to evaluate transportation infrastructure alternatives based on what demand will be like at project completion. Five to ten years from now we can predict that: even more people will be living in urban areas, a higher percent of our population will be older, the price of fossil fuel will be higher, and carbon will be taxed in some form. the cost of driving will be higher due to congestion and road pricing, the cost of parking will be higher. we will… Read more
Related Link: http://www.networkmusings.blogspot.com
