Transportation

Thanks to a new partnership between Capital Bikeshare, Bank on DC, United Bank, and the District Government Employees Federal Credit Union (DGEFCU), previously unbanked Washington, D.C. residents now have the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: sign up for a debit or credit card and access a growing regional network of shareable bikes. An announcement from DDOT reads, “The partnership was conceived to promote a healthy and environmentally-friendly form of transit, along with the benefits of financial stability and security.”  In exchange for opening an account with the participating institutions, Bank On DC account holders get a $25 discount off an annual membership for Capital Bikeshare (bringing the cost to $50). While it will be interesting to see if this reduced rate is affordable for the target population, the initiative is an exciting example of creative thinking and cross-sector collaboration.

Here at the Asset Building Program, we believe that helping people build their savings and assets will allow them to get (and stay) out of poverty. The recession has been hard on low and middle income Americans, especially those who commute to work in a car. When gas prices rise, they are forced to cut spending in other areas (food, medicine, education, etc) in order to pay for gasoline.

Last week I wrote about the New England-based program More Than Wheels, which helps people get low-interest loans on new or good used cars, and allows them to save money on repairs, gas and financing. Most of the commenters — especially those who live in rural areas — liked the idea of the program, but there were a few persistent questions and issues:

Are cars necessary?

In March 2010, Tammy Trahan’s 1993 Jeep Cherokee broke down on one of the New Hampshire back roads that made up her 90-mile daily commute. “I was in tears,” says Tammy, “I wanted to drive into the river.” As a single mom, the car was her lifeline, taking her to the job that kept her and her family barely afloat. But the car was also dragging her down. Because a bad divorce had left her with terrible credit, she’d paid such high interest rates that the car with a $9000 sticker price when she bought it seven years earlier ended up costing her $20,000 in payments.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's office released a mildly amusing list of 53 suggestions for surviving "Carmageddon," one for every hour the 405 will be closed this weekend between the 10 and the 101. In the hope that you'll stay off the streets — please! for God's sake! — the list suggests planting a tree, shopping online (from county-based stores, of course), throwing a block party.

After concluding some business in Frankfurt, Germany, recently, I found myself with a day to kill and decided to use it to tour the historic Cologne Cathedral, about 120 miles away. I could have rented a car and driven through traffic on the autobahn for about two hours, but instead I decided to walk a few blocks from my hotel and board Intercity-Express #616. The sleek bullet train left Frankfurt's magnificent nineteenth-century main terminal on time and sped along a super-engineered, beeline right-of-way completed in 2002 at a cost of $5.6 billion.

I am typing this in Seat 21 E, on American Flight 1243 from Washington National to Miami. It’s a packed Boeing 737, and the “E” in 21 E, a middle seat, might as well stand for “excruciating.” Flying these days amounts to a series of skirmishes for space. There’s the scramble for the overhead compartment; the flexing of legs and knees to limit the backward surge of the seat in the next row up; and, for me in 21E, the maneuvering of my left elbow to outflank the wily right elbow of 21D to gain command of the back fifth of the armrest.

I am very excited that Paul Glastris and the good folks at The Washington Monthly have published my latest piece, co-authored with my colleague Chris Leinberger of the Brookings Institution. It's called The Next Real Estate Boom: How housing (yes, housing) can turn the economy around.

If we accept that many rich people are going to find attractive this scenario of dramatically different settlement patterns that feature new aggregation – widely dispersed – the question then becomes whether information technology will ever become a global influence on the built environment, shaping the way the middle class and even the working class live, the way railroads, jets, and automobiles did.

Human settlements are always shaped by whatever is the state of the art transportation device of the time. Shoe-leather and donkeys enabled the Jerusalem known by Jesus. Sixteen centuries later, when critical transportation has become horse-drawn wagons and ocean-going sail, you get places like Boston. Railroads yield Chicago – both the area around the “L” (intraurban rail) and the area that processed wealth from the hinterlands (the stockyards). The automobile results in places with multiple urban cores like Los Angeles.