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.
Juan Matute, deputy director of the Institute for Transportation Studies, expressed his support for fare-free transit in a new Streetsblog LA article. Metro CEO Phil Washington announced a new task force that will plan and implement a fareless transit system pilot program in Los Angeles County. The COVID-19 pandemic has cut fare revenue to an all-time low due to decreased ridership, back-door boarding and half-price fares. Metro described the pilot initiative as a “moral obligation to explore how a fareless system can aid those that have been hit hardest by the pandemic.” However, some have expressed concern over Metro’s proposed 20% bus service cuts, which would diminish the benefits of free transit service. The article cited data shared by Matute on social media that illustrated that Metro is among the state’s best-suited agencies to attempt fare-free transit.
Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to the Voice of San Diego about some of the issues associated with single-family zoning. In San Diego, Mayor Kevin Faulconer is pushing housing reforms that would make it easier for developers to build rent-controlled apartments near transit but would not change the single-family zoning that applies to most of the city. Excluding single-family areas near transit from the program might be politically wise, Monkonnen said, but the collective benefit of allowing more people to live near transit should outweigh the concerns of people who don’t want their neighborhoods to change. “A big problem for California is we have never allowed single-family neighborhoods to change, and so people are overly concerned about what would happen if we did,” he said. Allowing California residents to build four homes on any single-family lot would be a big step toward addressing the state’s housing crisis, he said.
Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, spoke to the San Diego Union-Tribune about the city’s transit plans. San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata, who spent two years working on a transit expansion plan when the pandemic started, said he is determined to push forward with the $177 billion proposal. Ikhrata will present the plan, which includes 350 miles of new rail track, to the SANDAG board of directors. The plan has faced pushback from some who have said that the pandemic will radically change commuter patterns, threatening to render the plan obsolete by the time it’s under way. However, Manville argued that much of the pandemic’s impact will be temporary. “Right now, most of the economy’s still closed and you’ve got jammed roads,” he explained. “It seems hard to believe that in 20 years there will be no point to having mass transit to San Diego’s job centers.”
A New York Times article offering tips for safely riding public transit cited Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning and public policy. Many essential employees who cannot work remotely or don’t drive have continued to ride buses, trains and ferries, the article said. “It is mostly riders without other options who are coming back to public transit so far,” said Taylor, director of UCLA Luskin’s Institute of Transportation Studies, which is studying the effects of the pandemic on public transit ridership, operations and finance. The article advised riders to avoid rush hour, seek open air when possible, stay away from communal surfaces, minimize conversation, keep possessions off the floor and pack hand sanitizer, among other recommendations.
Professors Brian Taylor and Martin Wachs of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin co-authored a Streetsblog article calling for transportation equity as public officials decide how to move forward on transit projects in a pandemic-battered economy. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, L.A. Metro has reeled from revenue losses, raising questions about whether some planned rail and road construction projects should be postponed or even canceled. Taylor and Wachs argue that priority should be given to improving bus service in lower-income communities where most carless families live. “People of color and those from low-income households are more likely than others to depend on transit to get to health care, schools and jobs. Equity demands improving transit service where they live,” they wrote. They added that expanding transit operations creates stable, unionized jobs with health and retirement benefits, which are much needed in the current economy.
“Transit Crime and Sexual Violence in Cities: International Evidence and Prevention,” a new book co-edited by Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, has just been published. The book presents case studies from 18 cities on six continents to demonstrate the widespread incidence of crime in transit environments, primarily targeting women and young people. “Sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence in public spaces are everyday occurrences for women and girls around the world and a threat to the overall sustainability of the city,” wrote Loukaitou-Sideris and co-editor Vania Ceccato of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Concerns about physical safety aboard public transit systems can deter individuals from fully participating in school, work and public life, they noted. The book identifies urban planning improvements to safeguard passengers and ensure that cities become more accessible and therefore more sustainable. Contributors to the book, published by Routledge, represent several disciplines, including environmental criminology, architecture and design, urban planning, geography, psychology, gender and LGBTQ studies, transportation and law enforcement. In the book’s foreword, Juma Assiago of UN-Habitat’s Safer Cities program wrote that the publication “contributes to our quest for safer, inclusive, resilient, equitable and sustainable cities and human settlements.”
A new UCLA study found that being a woman, identifying as LGBTQI, having a long commute, or waiting in poorly lit areas significantly increased the likelihood of being sexually harassed on public transit.
In the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies report, “Transit Safety Among University Students,” Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning and researchers sought to better understand the characteristics of individuals and circumstances that increased their risk of harassment during their public transit journeys.
Professor Loukaitou-Sideris reported the findings during the Lewis Center’s April 3 InterActions LA conference, which brought together researchers, transit agencies and community activists around the topic of women’s safety in transportation.
The study surveyed 1,284 students from UCLA and the California State University campuses of Los Angeles and Northridge. According to the report, this population was chosen because university students are typically more transit-dependent than the general public, and because their young age may make them more vulnerable to victimization. Los Angeles was one of numerous cities studied as part of a global research project.
Much of the preexisting data on perceived safety and incidents of sexual harassment on transit in Los Angeles did not identify such characteristics as gender, sexuality and race. This study also uniquely delved into when in the course of a transit journey — walking to or from a station, waiting for the bus or train, or on the actual vehicle — sexual harassment occurred.
According to the study, 72% of respondents experienced some form of harassment on a bus, compared to 48% on rail, with women experiencing far more numerous instances than men. However, very few students (10%) reported the experience to either law enforcement or transit agencies. And more than half of women reported changing how they dressed or adjusting their travel patterns, such as riding only during daytime or waiting in well-lit areas.
Because women make up more than half of transit riders in the United States, Loukaitou-Sideris said it’s imperative to prioritize their safety.
“Their safety is an important concern that we need to tackle if we want to have more women riding transit and — for women who are already captive transit riders — riding transit more comfortably and without fear,” she said. “I think everyone deserves that in our transit systems.”
Safe Transit During COVID-19
The challenges that women and vulnerable populations face have only been magnified by the current COVID-19 crisis. Under statewide and local “safer at home” orders, it is frequently low-income women of color who are still traveling to work to provide essential services to the rest of the region, according to the other panelists at the InterActions event, including speakers from Pueblo Planning, Los Angeles Walks and Alliance for Community Transit-Los Angeles (ACT-LA).
“COVID-19 has revealed that our transit system is a lifeline,” said Mariana Huerta Jones, senior coalition and communications manager at ACT-LA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring equitable access to public transit infrastructure and funds.
During the InterActions presentation, Huerta Jones said public transit is often the only transportation option available to low-income residents working in jobs deemed essential in industries such as grocery stores, hospitals and sanitation.
Ensuring Women’s Safety
Other InterActions speakers like Monique López, founder and social justice planner at Pueblo Planning, spoke about the importance of including the voices of marginalized communities when crafting policy recommendations. And Daisy Villafuerte, advocacy and engagement manager from Los Angeles Walks, discussed grassroots efforts to improve transit experiences.
Presenting the next steps from LA Metro’s recent “Understanding How Women Travel” report, Meghna Khanna, senior director of the Countywide Planning and Development Department, and her team found that safety is still the biggest concern and barrier to riding transit for all women riders. While 60% of women felt safe traveling on Metro during the day, that number decreased to 20% at night.
Khanna and her team at LA Metro found that women frequently mentioned increased police presence as a solution that would help them feel safer on transit; however, not all transit riders agree.
“For many people of our community, more police doesn’t mean more safety. It can actually mean the opposite. It can mean racial profiling, harassment, criminalizing of poor or houseless individuals,” Huerta Jones said.
Solutions beyond policing — such as increased service frequency, improved cleanliness around stations, and the presence of non-police transit ambassadors — are just first steps in ensuring women can use transit without fear.
Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to the San Diego Union-Tribune about the threat that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to plans to expand public transit in San Diego. A tax proposal for ElevateSD, a $24-billion plan to expand public transit and build a new commuter rail system, may be postponed as ridership plummets and fare revenue dwindles due to the pandemic. The government planning agency has announced that it will wait until the pandemic subsides to release a blueprint for the plans. Widespread unemployment, economic upheaval due to the pandemic and new fears about riding public transit may be obstacles to securing the two-thirds voter approval required for such a tax increase. “If you were an opponent of public transit finance, could you pounce on COVID as a new talking point to try to derail a ballot initiative?” Manville asked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone takes a shot at that.”
A New Geography article on the links between car access and poverty summarized the conclusions of a paper co-authored by Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville. The paper, which was published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, argued that proximity to transit does not necessarily correspond with transit use and effectiveness. While 89% of workers live “near transit” in Los Angeles, only 5% of Los Angeles commuters use transit. Furthermore, Manville and co-authors David King and Michael Smart found that U.S. households without access to vehicles have a 70% greater chance of being in poverty than those that have access to vehicles. In addition, they found that the incomes of households without vehicles rise at a lower rate than households with vehicle access. The authors pointed to door-to-door access as the ultimate solution and concluded that universal auto access would lead to less unemployment, less poverty and higher standards of living.
