Gregory Pierce

Getting the Prices Right

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Underpriced and overcrowded curb parking creates problems for everyone except a few lucky drivers who find a cheap space; all the other drivers who cruise to find an open space waste time and fuel, congest traffic, and pollute the air. Overpriced and underoccupied parking also creates problems; when curb spaces remain empty, merchants lose potential customers, workers lose jobs, and cities lose tax revenue. To address these problems, San Francisco has established SFpark, a program that adjusts prices to achieve availability of one or two open spaces per block. To measure how prices affected on-street occupancy, we calculated the price elasticity of demand revealed by over 5,000 price and occupancy changes during the programs first year. Price elasticity has an average value of –0.4, but varies greatly by time of day, location, and several other factors. The average meter price fell 1% during the first year, so SFpark adjusted prices without increasing them overall. This study is the first to use measured occupancy to estimate the elasticity of demand for on-street parking. It also offers the first evaluation of pricing that varies by time of day and location to manage curb parking. Takeaway for practice: San Francisco can improve its program by making drivers more aware of the variable prices, reducing the disabled placard abuse, and introducing seasonal price adjustments. Other cities can incorporate performance parking as a form of congestion pricing. Research support: University of California Transportation Center.

Automobile Ownership and Travel by the Poor: Evidence from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey

Income, or the lack of it, influences household transportation decisions and the ways in which individuals travel. Low-income households are less likely to own cars and more likely to travel by modes other than the automobile. Less is known, however, about the specific determinants of travel among the poor, which was the purpose of this analysis. This study used data from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey to examine the relationship between income and automobile ownership and the role of automobile ownership in explaining person miles traveled. An analysis was then made of whether these determinants varied by income group. The results indicated that low-income adults rapidly convert rising income into additional mobility at faster rates than higher-income adults. Further, automobile ownership increases person miles traveled for all adults; however, it is particularly influential in increasing the travel of low-income adults. Households accrue greater marginal benefits by moving from zero to one vehicle than by purchasing additional vehicles when they already own one or more. These findings underscore the importance of automobile ownership to the mobility of low-income households and suggest an important role for policy in facilitating low-income auto ownership.

A Driving Factor in Mobility? Transportation's Role in Connecting Subsidized Housing and Employment Outcomes in the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Program

Problem, research strategy, and findings: We evaluate the role of transportation in improving the employment outcomes of participants in the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) for Fair Housing Voucher Program, a 10-year demonstration project designed to enable low-income families to improve their outcomes by moving out of high-poverty neighborhoods. We use longitudinal data from the MTO program to assess the role of transportation—automobiles and improved access to public transit—in moving to, and maintaining, employment. We use multi-nomial logistic regression to predict changes in employment status as a function of change in automobile availability and transit accessibility, controlling for other potential determinants of employment. We find that keeping or gaining access to an automobile is positively related to the likelihood of employment. Improved access to public transit is positively associated with maintaining employment, but not with job gains. Although we cannot say for certain whether car ownership preceded or followed employment, it is clear that having a car provides multiple benefits that facilitate getting and keeping a job. Takeaway for practice: Policies to increase automobile access among low-income households—even in dense urban areas—will most clearly enhance job gain and job retention. While auto programs are unpopular with many planners, they would improve the lives of low-income families who currently have the least access to cars. In addition, supporting moves to transit-rich neighborhoods may help households maintain consistent employment.

Climate Change and Social Protection in Bangladesh: Are Existing Programmes Able to Address the Impacts of Climate Change?

Bangladesh is generally considered to be one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, with flooding, droughts and cyclones being the most common annual disaster events. This article provides an overview of existing social-protection programmes and government policies in the context of longterm adaptation to climate change related to sudden onset disasters, and evaluates their effectiveness in addressing related vulnerabilities and promoting food security in climate-vulnerable regions in the country. 1 Climate-change-induced vulnerabilities in Bangladesh According to the latest estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), while climate change will pose significant threats to human well-being on a global scale, poor countries like Bangladesh face a disproportionate risk. The World Development Report estimates that developing countries ‘would bear some 75 to 80% of the costs of damages caused by the changing climate … [and] [e]ven 2°C warming above preindustrial temperatures – the minimum the world is likely to experience – could result in permanent reductions in GDP of 4 to 5% for Africa and South Asia’ (World Bank, 2010a: XX). South Asia in particular will be heavily affected due to the impact of climate change on water resources, for instance during the monsoon season, in which ‘70% of annual precipitation [occurs] in a four-month period’, as well as the medium- and long-term effects of the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Low-lying coastlines will also be affected; under severe climate-change conditions, ‘rising seas would submerge much of the Maldives and inundate 18% of Bangladesh’s land’ (ibid.: 6). It is projected that climate change will result in significant and perhaps rapid increases in temperature in Bangladesh. Winter temperatures are expected to rise more than summer average temperatures, and winter rainfall is projected to decrease, while summer rainfall will probably increase. Flooding may become more intense in some years. Overall, it is projected that extreme weather events such as heatwaves and very heavy rainfall are likely

Unreliable Water Access in U.S. Mobile Homes: Evidence From the American Housing Survey

Unreliable water access significantly impairs household health and welfare. While press and policy reports suggest that residents of mobile home communities in the United States experience unreliable water access, scholarly examination of this issue has been lacking. Using data from the 2011 American Housing Survey, we first present descriptive evidence of disparities in water service reliability and then construct a binary logit regression model assessing the correlates of reliable provision. We find that living in a mobile home unit, and especially in a mobile home park, is significantly and negatively correlated with water service reliability. Our findings demonstrate the need for future research to assess the mechanisms of water service reliability within mobile home parks, as well as the relationship between living in a mobile home and other dimensions of household water security.

The Political Economy of Water Service Privatization in Mexico City, 1994–2011

This paper chronicles the implementation of water service privatization to combat severe water shortage in Mexico City, also known as the Distrito Federal (DF), from 1994 to 2011. Initially, the DFs administration successfully employed private actors to provide more extensive and efficient service while retaining public control of infrastructure. Privatization in the DF was unique in its competitive service structure and the support provided it by the citys populist government. However, political manoeuvring stalled progress in contract governance, network extension, and regional coordination, suggesting the need for more robust accountability structures linking municipal and national political outcomes to household service delivery. An improved theoretical understanding of how stakeholders can collectively manage common pool resources in the urban environments of middle-income countries is also essential.

Beyond the Strategic Retreat? Explaining Urban Water Privatization’s Shallow Expansion in Low- and Middle-income Countries:

This article explains changes in the literature on urban water privatization in low- and middle-income countries and demonstrates the need for a revised research agenda. Since the Great Recession, privatization practice has subtly evolved, but scholarship has been slow to follow. This period of shallow growth is characterized by phenomena that have gone largely understudied: direct negotiation between private firms and cities, the greater role of domestic firms, privatization by coproduction, and a new geography. This study proposes a typology for planners to assess whether and where different forms of privatization may enhance water service in this new era.

Multimodal travel and the poor: evidence from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey

Abstract Most travel behavior studies focus on discrete mode-choice outcomes. They predict the likelihood of traveling by a single mode (e.g. solo driving, carpooling, taking public transit, walking, and biking). Yet qualitative studies focusing on low-income households suggest that their mode choice does not fit neatly into a single category; they regularly “transportation package,” use multiple modes of travel in a single day. The authors use data from the 2009 National Household Travel Summary to examine the extent to which individuals’ engage in multimodal travel and to determine whether low-income individuals transportation package more than higher-income individuals, controlling for other factors. The authors find that multimodal travel is less – not more – prevalent among low-income adults than higher-income adults. However, there are important differences in the number and mix of modes that appear to be influenced by income. Moreover, low-income multimodal travelers took far more trips than even higher-income unimodal travelers. This finding suggests that providing viable avenues for multimodal travel may enhance low-income individuals’ mobility, particularly if they face barriers to automobile access.

The Drive to Work: The Relationship between Transportation Access, Housing Assistance, and Employment among Participants in the Welfare to Work Voucher Program

Transportation enables low-income individuals to find and travel to employment. This article analyzes the relationship between access to automobiles and public transit and employment outcomes of low-income households. We use longitudinal survey data from participants in the Welfare to Work Voucher Program, which was conducted in five US metropolitan areas between 1999 and 2005. Multinomial logistic regression shows that baseline access to automobiles has a strong positive relationship to follow-up employment but public transit access and receipt of housing assistance do not. Our findings suggest that enhancing car access will notably improve employment outcomes among very-low-income adults, but other assistance will have, at best, marginal effects.

Hidden Costs and Deadweight Losses: Bundled Parking and Residential Rents in the Metropolitan United States

Abstract There is a major housing affordability crisis in many American metropolitan areas, particularly for renters. Minimum parking requirements in municipal zoning codes drive up the price of housing, and thus represent an important potential for reform for local policymakers. The relationship between parking and housing prices, however, remains poorly understood. We use national American Housing Survey data and hedonic regression techniques to investigate this relationship. We find that the cost of garage parking to renter households is approximately