Deborah Salon

Mobility, Poverty, and Gender: Travel ‘Choices’ of Slum Residents in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract A survey of 4375 slum residents in Nairobi, Kenya, reveals that the majority cannot afford any of the motorized transport options in the city. They cope by limiting their travel outside their settlement and, if they do travel, by often ‘choosing’ to walk. As compared to the non‐poor, poor households are systematically worse off. But the burden of reduced mobility is borne disproportionately by women and children. Using joint‐choice modelling to empirically explore the travel ‘choices’ of Nairobi’s slum residents, we show that women, men, and children in this population face distinct barriers to access. We conclude that policy aiming to improve mobility and transport access for the poor needs to grapple not only with the crucial issue of affordability but also with specific constraints faced by women and children.

Opportunities for Value Capture to Fund Public Transport: A Comprehensive Review of the Literature with a Focus on East Asia

A good public transport system is often one of the defining features of a city, attracting residents, businesses, and tourists. However, even in the case of the world’s great public transport systems, fares do not fully cover costs. Substantial government subsidies are required to build, maintain, and operate most public transport systems. One of the challenges faced by cities is where this money should come from.An often‐discussed option is known as land value capture. Successful public transport systems lead to increasing land values. Value capture is the concept that government should be able to capture at least part of this increase in land value along public transport corridors, and use these funds to subsidize the system.Our goal is to use findings from the existing literature to shed light on when and how value capture strategies could be used to finance public transport systems in East Asian cities. We review three related strands of literature: evidence of the land development impacts of public transport, estimates of land value increases attributable to public transport, and case studies of the use of value capture mechanisms to finance public transport. We then draw upon this literature review to identify specific recommendations for the implementation of value capture in a variety of contexts.

Local climate action: motives, enabling factors and barriers

Background: Despite the relative lack of climate action at the national level in the USA, local climate action is happening. Our focus is on the motivating reasons, stakeholders, and institutional enabler and barrier factors that are directly relevant to making local climate action happen. Results/Methodology: We report here on the results of a two-phase study of local climate action in California (USA): a set of in-depth case studies, and a subsequent web-based survey of all cities and counties in the state. Conclusions: The motives for local climate action often came from within communities and include both tangible local co-benefits of action, as well as the concept that climate action is the ‘right thing‘ to do. Important factors that enable action include strong local champions, supportive residents, and state and national policies and actions. Important barriers to action include lack of local-government staff time and financial resources.

Impact of Bus Rapid Transit and Metro Rail on Property Values in Guangzhou, China

An effective transport system can increase access and raise land values; thus, governments should be able to capture part of this price premium for transit access. These revenues could be used to fund further investments in public transit or other projects. Reliable measures of the price premium for transit access can help guide governments in setting policies to capture value. Guangzhou, China, has an extensive metro rail system and the highest-capacity bus rapid transit line in China. This study examines the effects of these two public transport systems on the prices of apartments in the city by using a unique set of data collected from a mainstream Chinese real estate website. Ordinary least squares, spatial regression models, and quantile hedonic regression were used to estimate the price premium for transit access. The findings suggest that proximity to the metro and the bus rapid transit line has a substantial and statistically significant effect on apartment prices that varies by district and the amenities provided.

Transportation sustainability in the urban context: a comprehensive review

ABSTRACT Although the term “sustainability” did not gain traction until the 1980s, concerns about the consequences of transportation technology started long before. This paper reviews the literature on urban transportation sustainability using three frameworks. First, urban transportation can be unsustainable environmentally, economically, and socially (the three pillars of sustainability). Second, sustainable strategies tend to fall into two paradigms. Sustainable Transport Technology improves current patterns of modes and trips by consuming less resources and generating less waste. Sustainable Travel Behavior and Built Environment takes a more holistic approach that targets more sustainable travel choices, recognizing that changes in the built environment that currently constrains those choices are also essential. Third, the Planner’s Triangle helps explain commonly encountered situations where inherent tradeoffs can impede win-win-win strategies across environmental, economic, and social domains. The paper concludes with future research directions and concluding thoughts about urban transportation and sustainability.

Determinants of pedestrian and bicyclist crash severity by party at fault in San Francisco, CA

Pedestrian and bicyclist safety is of growing concern, especially given the increasing numbers of urban residents choosing to walk and bike. Sharing the roads with automobiles, these road users are particularly vulnerable. An intuitive conceptual model is proposed of the determinants of injury severity in crashes between vehicles and nonmotorized road users. Using 10 years of crash data from San Francisco, CA, we estimate logistic regression models to illuminate key determinants of crash severity for both pedestrian and bicyclist collisions. The analyses are separated by party at fault to test the novel hypothesis that environmental factors affecting driver speed and reaction time may be especially important when the driver is not at fault. Pedestrian results are broadly consistent with prior research, and offer considerable support for this hypothesis. The strongest predictors of injury severity include pedestrian advanced age, driver sobriety, vehicle type, and a set of variables that help determine driver speed and reaction time. Bicyclist results were weaker overall, and the distinction by party at fault was less important.

Inclusion of Regional Transit Emissions in Local Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Comparison of Methods with Examples from Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco Bay Area, California

Methods to attribute greenhouse gas emissions from transit vehicles across cities in a multijurisdictional region are explored. Four methods and one submethod are proposed, tested, and evaluated with real-world data from the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, serving the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, serving the Portland area. Each methodology is evaluated on the basis of the likely availability of necessary data, ease of calculation, policy implications, and accuracy. Method 1 allocates emissions on the basis of each jurisdictions total population and employment as a share of population and employment from all of the regions jurisdictions that have transit access. Method 2 allocates emissions on the basis of each jurisdictions share of vehicle revenue miles traveled within the jurisdiction. Method 3 allocates emissions on the basis of each jurisdictions share of linked transit trip origins and destinations weighted by trip distances. Method 4 allocates emissions on the basis of each jurisdictions share of boardings and alightings. The methods have clear differences in the amount and type of data and the complexity of calculations required. These differences can be readily compared with the data and analytical resources available to a region to provide a partial ranking of methods. Questions of fairness, accuracy, and policy incentives are complicated by theoretical challenges in assigning responsibility for transit service as well as by the unique urban and transportation contexts of each region. Each region will need to select the method that is most appropriate for its unique circumstances in order to achieve intraregional consistency.

Applying Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading to the Light-Duty Vehicle Sector

The threat of global climate change induced by human production of greenhouse gases is becoming more intensely debated every year. With international agreement on the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997, nations are beginning to assess their options to meet the commitments that they have made. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions control, the passenger vehicle sector presents a significant challenge. Every liter of gasoline burned produces approximately 2.3 kg of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. Although all known methods of greenhouse gas emissions control come with some associated costs, a properly designed emissions trading system is a promising policy tool to deal with this increasingly significant environmental problem in a costeffective manner. The issues involved with measurement of the greenhouse gases produced by passenger vehicles and their incorporation into an intersectoral emissions trading system were investigated. It is suggested that direct emissions measurement may not be necessary for these vehicles to participate in such a program, and an alternate emissions estimation methodology is described. Finally, an emissions trading implementation plan is discussed. By that plan vehicle manufacturers are given credit or responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions of the vehicles that they sell, with the emissions annualized over the projected lifetime of the vehicles.

Pavement Condition and Residential Property Values: A Spatial Hedonic Price Model for Solano County, California:

Transportation agencies invest billions of dollars every year in resurfacing roadways, ostensibly to improve the travel experience. When locally funded, one justification for increased expenditure on the pavement surface is that it could increase property values. We evaluated this approach directly, using hedonic regression to estimate the relationship between pavement condition and residential property value in Solano County, California. We hypothesized that improving pavement condition would positively affect property values in two ways: directly as an indicator of neighborhood blight and indirectly through its effect on traffic conditions and noise. We estimated this relationship for the County as a whole and for each city within the County, controlling for spatial autocorrelation. The estimated relationship is small in magnitude and often not statistically significant. Although there are certainly reasons to improve pavement condition, our results suggest that increasing property value may not be one of them.

Can Location Value Capture Pay for Transit? Organizational Challenges of Transforming Theory Into Practice

Successful public transit systems increase the value of locations they serve. Capturing this location value to help fund transit is often sensible, but challenging. This article defines location value capture and synthesizes lessons learned from six European and North American transit agencies that have experience with location value capture funding. The opportunities for and barriers to implementing location value capture fall into three categories: agency institutional authority, agency organizational mission, and public support for transit. When any of these factors is incompatible with a location value capture strategy, implementation becomes difficult. In four of the cases studied, dramatic institutional change was critical for success. In five cases, acute crisis was a catalyst for institutional change, value capture implementation, or both. Using value capture strategies to fund transit requires practitioners to both understand agency organizational constraints and view transit agencies as institutions that can transform in response to changing situations.