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Wachs Expresses Skepticism About L.A. Monorail Project

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Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning Martin Wachs spoke to Forbes about the possible construction of a high-speed monorail in Los Angeles. Local officials are evaluating proposals for a $6.1 billion monorail that would aim to reduce traffic congestion in the city. Transit systems in Germany, Japan, China and India use monorails, but the Los Angeles project would be the first in the United States. Wachs is skeptical but open to the possibility that a monorail could work in Los Angeles. “When you actually work out the numbers and do a careful and thorough design, and consider that in most places where a transit route is being contemplated it’s being added to an existing network, it just hasn’t penciled out,” he said. Wachs recalled working with science fiction author Ray Bradbury on a monorail proposal that was rejected 50 years ago. “The world’s a better place for having people who are visionaries, but it also needs traditional engineers.”

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During the Pandemic, More Seek Shelter in Public Transit Systems

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A Transit California article put a spotlight on research from the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies that showed a noticeable increase in people seeking shelter in public transportation stops, stations and vehicles during the COVID-19 pandemic. A team led by Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris surveyed 115 transit agencies to produce a report investigating the intersections of the pandemic, transit and homelessness. Over half of the agencies said that they see at least 100 unhoused individuals per day on their systems, while 14 agencies reported 500 or more. “Homelessness in transit environments is a major challenge in the U.S. and in Canada, but especially in California,” Loukaitou-Sideris said. She noted, however, that the absence of reliable data makes it difficult to measure the magnitude of the problem. Loukaitou-Sideris’ team will continue its research into policy solutions to help people experiencing homelessness.

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Taylor on Catering Bus Services to Transit Riders

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A New York Times article about improving bus service cited a research report by Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin. Bus systems across the country are underfunded, resulting in slow, inconvenient and unreliable service. Proper investment could transform city buses into a cheap, accessible and sustainable form of public transportation. However, many transit agencies do not identify serving the poor or minorities as a goal, and instead cater to more affluent voters who are less likely to actually ride public transit. Taylor’s report suggests that public policy goals are often not aligned with “the needs of transit riders themselves, particularly the poor and transit dependent,” who wield little political or economic clout. The article suggests that transit agencies have been given a valuable opportunity to invest in bus systems because of the way the COVID-19 pandemic has altered Americans’ commuting habits.

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Luskin Summit on COVID, Public Transit and Homelessness

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In the Luskin Summit session “Transit Impacts: Fewer Riders, More Homelessness,” experts in urban planning and public policy discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the intersection of public transit and homelessness. Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke about the social service role of public transit and how the pandemic has affected ridership among different groups. Public transit ridership dropped suddenly and dramatically at the beginning of the pandemic but has been increasing slowly since, with returning riders more likely to be low-income and people of color, Taylor said. Conan Cheung, a senior executive at LA Metro, explained that the agency has made frequent service and fare adjustments based on changes in ridership and revenue during the pandemic. In a study of U.S. and Canadian transit systems, Associate Dean and Professor of Urban Planning Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris found that over half of the agencies reported that they see at least 100 individuals who are unhoused per day. Many agencies also noted the lack of clear policies and training on how to respond to and interact with unhoused people, as well as a lack of support from local and state governments in addressing homelessness. Steve Martingano of Denver’s Regional Transportation District shared how his department redirected funds from the police division to hire mental health clinicians, form a homelessness task force and hire a full-time outreach coordinator to address the issue of homelessness in public transit. — Zoe Day

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Blumenberg on Pandemic’s Impact on Transit Riders

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Urban Planning Professor Evelyn Blumenberg spoke to Time about mass transit systems across the country that are floundering amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Sinking ridership has fueled extreme budget shortfalls, forcing transit authorities to slash routes and delay scheduled expansions, the article said. Blumenberg, director of UCLA’s Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, said diminished transit services will severely impact Americans on the bottom rung of the income ladder. “Transit ridership has always been disproportionately low-income, non-white riders, immigrant riders,” Blumenberg said. “That composition is even more disproportionately poor, non-white and immigrants during the pandemic.” Congress is considering a new coronavirus relief package that is likely to include limited assistance for U.S. transit systems, the article noted, but it added that additional investments are needed to spur economic recovery and address inequality. 

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Taylor on Social Service of Public Transit

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Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Wired about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public transit services. Facing plummeting ridership, public transit agencies have cut services significantly to stay afloat. According to Taylor, transit usually serves two sets of people: those going into busy downtown areas and those who don’t have other transportation options. During the pandemic, ridership has declined among the first group due to stay-at-home orders, fears about transit as a vector for spread and the shift to remote work for many companies. As a result, the burden of public transit cuts has fallen on the people who need the system most, such as essential workers in the grocery, retail and health care sectors who continue to rely on public transit during the pandemic. “The social service aspect of public transit is even more prominent than it was before,” Taylor said.

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Taylor on Return to ‘Normal’ Transit Ridership

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Urban Planning Professor Brian Taylor was featured in a Ventura County Star article discussing the public’s hesitation to return to public transit. In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of people driving on freeways and using public transportation plummeted due to stay-at-home orders. While driving has almost returned to pre-pandemic levels, public transportation is experiencing a much slower recovery. Taylor said concerns about safety likely played a role in the recent decrease, but he attributed much of the ridership losses to the large increase in people working from home. “The question is, ‘Are we going to get back to normal?’ ” said Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin. “Well, what was normal? Normal was that we were having this erosion of riders, and that’s not necessarily the normal that the transit operators would want to get back to.”

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Manville on Steep Decline in Bus Ridership

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The New York Times spoke to Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville for a piece on the trends behind the yearslong slide in bus ridership in many U.S. cities. In addition to demographic shifts and the changing nature of work, Manville pointed to the rise of Craigslist, which has made used cars easier to find and cheaper to buy. In California, he added, a state law granting driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants may have reduced the pool of transit riders. Manville recommended making the true costs of driving more pronounced by raising prices for gas, parking and driving on congested roads, while building a system that gives advantages to public transit. “At the end of the day, we may never know what is driving this decline,” Manville said. “But I guarantee you that if you took a lane of Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles and gave it only to the bus, ridership would go up.”

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After the Pandemic, a Focus on Transportation Equity

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An article in the Hill on the post-pandemic future of public transportation featured research presented at this year’s UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium. The virtual learning series, hosted by the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, explored how the transportation sector can recover from the economic shock of COVID-19 in an equitable manner. The Hill cited two scholars who presented research during the symposium. Deborah Salon of Arizona State University shared results from a survey finding that many employees may prefer to continue working from home even after pandemic restrictions are lifted, decreasing commuter demand for transit options. Giovanni Circella of UC Davis pointed to a “massive shift” toward car travel among those who have reduced their reliance on public transit. “In the other direction, among those reducing driving, pretty much nobody is increasing the use of transit,” he said. 

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Matute on Expansion of Mobility Options

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Juan Matute, deputy director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke with Spectrum News 1 about a new electric-bike-sharing program in Santa Monica. Lyft will provide the e-bikes, replacing the human-powered bikes previously offered by the city. The new program is part of an expansion of services provided by app-based mobility companies. “Lyft and Uber see themselves as competing with people buying cars or people buying more cars per household, so they want to meet everybody’s full mobility needs,” Matute said. He also commented in a separate story on electric scooters offered for sale rather than short-term rental. As travel of all kinds has decreased during the COVID-19 lockdown, offering scooters for sale shows investors that these companies “can be nimble, that they have an opportunity to bring in revenue, to ride out this pandemic,” Matute said.

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