How should you Divvy it up?

Recently, Divvy - Chicago's bike-share program - set records for usage and signed on Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois as a new corporate sponsor.  The program, which launched last year, seems to have hit all of its milestones for roll-out, so hopefully we will see even more stations and bikes crop up across the city this coming summer.  Two months ago, as the weather finally showed some relief from our brutal winter, I signed up for an annual membership in order to both test out the system and hopefully reduce the cost of my commute.  Here are some of the lessons I have learned in this short amount of time.

1.  At my current pace, by the time winter rolls around (and assuming I do not use the service over the winter), the service will have cost me about $0.35 per ride compared with $2.25 per ride for CTA or $4.25 per ride for Metra.

2.  In the central loop and near north area, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Divvy station.

Roosevelt to North/
Halsted to the Lakefront

North to Peterson/
Western to the Lakefront

The station density remains high as you go north of North Avenue up to Peterson and west to Western Avenue, but drops off as you go south of Roosevelt toward Hyde Park.

South of Cermak

West of Western/
North of Cermak

If you want to find one south of Cermak, or west of Western (except for the aforementioned Hyde Park) you are out of luck.

3.  The station works intuitively for a member with the key fob, and takes only a bit more doing for a one-time rider who have to pay by credit card then enter a code at the dock for the bike they want. (This is based upon my survey of people taking one-time rides, and my one-time use of the similar stations in the Toronto bike-share program.)  The bikes, however, have significant weight and require the user to lift them out of the dock.  I do not have enough sample size to determine if there is a size of person that this would restrict from safely using them, but it is not easy.

4.  Do NOT use Divvy if you have a time-sensitive appointment.  If you return a bike to a station that has no open docks, then you have to go to a nearby station, which depending on the location could be two blocks, a half-mile, or a mile.  If you do this, get on the phone with Divvy immediately so that you stop the clock on your ride to avoid overages.  Also, the map at each station tells you which stations are close, but not which stations have openings, which leads to....

5.  Effective use of the system for more than just casual recreation almost requires a smartphone with station app.  When I get off the Metra train at LaSalle Street Station, I have only two stations within reasonable walking distance, and one of them regularly has no bikes at it after a certain time in the morning.  As the train pulls in, I look to see which one has bikes, and then I can plan accordingly.  Without that, I would be scrambling to find bikes.  At the end of my commute, I need to do the same to see which of the two stations near my office have spaces available.  Supposedly, if you cannot find spaces at the stations nearest your office, you can leave the bike in a secure location of your building and Divvy will pick it up (the only secure location in my building is on the 5th floor, so I have not tested it), but it's a hassle to have to visit multiple stations before finding that out.  Without the app, you need to get on the phone with Divvy to find out that information.  That leads me to...

6.  The station information is often inaccurate.  This inaccuracy comes almost exclusively from repair issues: docked bikes that do not work but show up as available, and docks that show as open but cannot accept bikes due to a failure.  Even the phone support staff cannot always see the difference between a failed dock or bike and a functioning one.  I ran into the unfortunate circumstance where I showed up at a station with a failed dock, but was told there was space available by phone support.  When I travelled to the next closest station, I ended up in the same circumstance, and all that they could do was point me toward the next closest station to that one.  I ultimately ended up a half-mile from my destination, which was right next to the original station (and the primary reason I chose to use Divvy over another mode of transport).

7.  With regard to phone support, they have the ability to immediately stop the clock and help you avoid overages, but they can do little else.  When I got caught in the pickle above, and asked if they could do the workplace pickup for me at the client meeting I had, they said the best they could offer was to get a truck to me in "a couple of hours" and that I could not leave the bike even in a secure location.  The only help they could provide was to keep pushing me further and further from my destination until we found a station with space.

All in all, Divvy provides an adequate commuting option, and probably a more-than-adequate leisure cruise for the tourist.  The bikes will win no land-speed races, but I have had 100% success with finding a functioning bike, and about 85% success in finding my first choice of station (with the help of the app).  I would not recommend the bike for middle of the day rides to time sensitive events (like doctor's appointments or client meetings).  The bikes tend to flow with the north side commuter, and so they end up largely in the city center, leaving few spaces to park them.  You are better off on the CTA, walking, or even cabbing if time is of the essence.  If you have time to spare, or if you are following normal commuting patterns (especially those of the north side or west-suburban commuter), then you can reliably make it to your destination on time, even during peak travel periods.  I highly recommend the app to make that easier, but for that purpose, you can get by without it.

I look forward to Divvy expanding into more neighborhoods to make it a true citywide service.  I also expect that they will get better with managing the information within the system to avoid some of the empty and full station issues.  As a Chicagoan, I take a little pride in the fact that we have started off so well, but much work remains.

Friday Five: May 16, 2014

Locally, we have heard much about a proposed "super-agency" that would handle public transit issues across the entire Chicago metro region. The article notes a prime reason why that would make sense: suburban and urban communities have differing value systems related to transit, often resulting in bad decisions.
Cities to suburbs: Where's the transit love? Suburbs to cities: Where's the bus?
"Like a lot of other cities in this country, Seattle’s public transportation story is a sad tale of post-recession budget shortfalls, outdated urban planning, and a not-so-efficient bus system with a PR problem. And like a lot of other cities, its problems run deeper than just figuring out how to keep the buses running."

We continue to pay for two generations worth of those bad decisions. The concentration of emissions represented by freeways creates pollution issues that extend beyond the vehicles traveling along the route. These areas typically house those of more limited means, increasing the social inequity associated with fossil fuel usage.
Air quality monitor near I-5 Anaheim finds higher pollution level
"Monitoring instruments have typically been placed away from major roads and pollution sources because they are intended to gauge regional air quality. Now, the EPA is ordering local regulators to measure and factor in the dirtier air being breathed by tens of millions of people across the country who live within a few hundred feet of a major road.
The data will be valuable to local planning officials, who must consider the environmental impacts of siting developments near traffic, and give more leverage to clean air advocates."

An increasingly disturbing trend is that those who can least afford to drive their own vehicle, must now do so because of the push to gentrify urban areas and displace local inhabitants instead of building with them. As the poor get forced to suburbs with less availability for public transit, this will only get worse.
The demographic paradox of who bikes and walks to work
"The report, based on some of the ACS questions that critics want the Census to drop, identifies some other expected patterns: The South has particularly miniscule numbers for both biking and walking to work (likely a product of both climate and sprawl). Men are more likely to bike to work than women. And those who do bike tend to leave for work later than other commuters, and they need less time to get there (19.3 minutes on average, compared with the typical 26-minute commute for most of the rest of us)."

Thankfully, in addition to requiring the monitoring of roadways, the EPA has received legal reinforcement of its plans to regulate emissions as a path to improving public health. There is hope that sanity may yet prevail.
Another big EPA court victory - this time on soot pollution
"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the EPA acted properly in 2012 when it further restricted allowable soot emissions. It was the Obama administration’s third big environmental legal victory in a month. And experts say that bodes well for the administration’s efforts to clamp down on climate-changing emissions from power plants."

I find it heartening that although embroiled in a bitter re-election campaign, the governor of Illinois continues to move on greening and local food movements, even drawing attention to the issues through the governor's mansion.
Chickens winging it at Illinois governor's mansion
"The chickens, which peck at flowers, recycle plant waste and provide manure for the gardens, live in a donated coop that's inside a fenced-in enclosure. The poultry's part of an ongoing sustainability effort."

Happy Friday!

The shrinking economics of suburban living

This last weekend, I had occasion to drive through the suburbs around my part of the city. Truth be told, my community comes as close to suburban living in the city as you can get: tree-lined streets, two SUV in every driveway, commuter rail instead of the “L”. Every time I drive through these suburbs, I see more and more examples of the level of automobile-dependency they have. Every task requires a car. Except for a few, rare cases, even a trip to the park requires a car. Little league, a run for ice cream, a trip to grab a gallon of milk…all these require firing up the minivan.

It came as a bit of a surprise, then, to see the Holly Richmond’s post in Grist yesterday that highlights a Sightlines Institute’s map comparing the layout of Seattle with the layout of Bellevue, WA. The stark contrast in the map highlights the suggestion that getting places in the suburbs takes too much time and effort to allow for walking. Even getting one-half block as the crow flies could take as much as a mile’s travel. This places a strain on resources, and requires that those who live there have the means for both the home ownership costs and the cost of multiple vehicles to support their family of four.

Sightline Institute

This would pose problems enough for the middle, upper middle, and upper classes as the cost of maintaining roads and providing fuel continue to escalate ahead of inflation. The biggest issue comes from the fact that – as Marty McFly experienced – today’s shiny new suburb houses tomorrow’s lower and lower-middle class worker. Cities (and Chicago is definitely one of them) want to push their poor away from crumbling neighborhoods so that new money can come in and rebuild. This forces long-time residents of these communities to less desirable areas, and today, we increasingly see these isolated and transit-poor communities fitting that bill.

This phenomena starts with the generation coming into its own not wanting the same trappings their parents wanted, and ends with a new generation forced to deal with a future they do not have the resources to support. A majority of millenials (although not so easily pidgeon-holed) desire to live in areas where they can easily walk to meet their needs, and take transit to gain experiences. They like the energy of dense communities, and they increasingly see the value of raising families in these locations. As older Americans seek to retire and more to points more comfortable, they face the reality of selling their homes at depressed values, which means those getting pushed out by rising prices in the city must succumb to life in the suburbs to make ends meet. Unlike the city, however, the support infrastructure for lower-class survival does not exist. This places more strain on those who can least afford to cope.

The answer comes in two coincident activities: include the working class in neighborhood revitalization, and abandon the suburbs. The suburban experiment has failed, and many of them need their own form of revitalization - the kind that comes from a bulldozer and a wrecking ball. Several, especially older, suburbs actually once stood as small towns, with beautiful main streets, and all the joy of small-town life. I do not speak of these, for they generally allow for people to survive with limited vehicle transportation, and they can easily adapt to modern, economic living. Those, like Bellevue, that form nothing but a rat's maze bent on isolation instead of integration, they need to go. This only happens if those whose neighborhoods feel the weight of gentrification have the opportunity to participate in the growth of where they live. The safest and most resilient areas of the country mix incomes in housing and development. The grand failures of public housing that sought to isolate classes contributed to the failure of communities, but when people of different classes coexist, their communities tend to survive.

We must fairly judge each time on its own merit. When the suburbs started to develop, fuel was cheap, and we had little (but not no) idea that we would create unmanageable behemoths. The point is not to denigrate those who moved there or live there, the point is to realize that we are at a point where we need to plan for how to abandon them and turn them into productive land again: whether that means land for growing, manufacturing, or living in a much more efficient way. We cannot, however, hold onto them as if they must be saved - our urban centers must be saved...our suburbs must be allowed to peacefully fade away.

Daily Decisions: How did I get here?

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

Tonight, I took a tap class for the first time in almost a decade, and it felt great.  Although there is a "feed your soul" sort of personal quality of life moment associated with doing this, my decision today had to do with how to get to the class.  Let's look at my three main options for this kind of commute and see how the balance of quality of life compared with the economic and ecological impact.

Starting point:  my house on the Southside of Chicago
Ending point:  the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue
Event time:  6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.

Option 1:  Drive
Departure time = 5:10 p.m. (25 minute drive + 5 minutes parking and walking to car)
Return time = 7:45 p.m. (20 minute drive + 10 minutes leaving, walking and retrieving car)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles
Cost per mile = $0.35-0.45 (in my 2001 Toyota Prius)
Parking = $5.00 - $18.00 (street vs. garage)
Total cost of trip = $15.50 - $31.50
Gasoline used = 0.78 gallons (the Prius gets about 38 mpg in winter)
CO2 emissions = approximately 7 kg (8.92 kg/gallon per EPA)
Activities in transit = listening to music, sports radio, or news

Option 2: CTA (103rd St bus to the 95th Red Line Station; transfer to Red Line to Jackson)
Departure time = 4:25 p.m. (10 min. wait + 10 min. bus + 5 min. wait + 45 min. train + 5 min. walk)
Return time = 8:35 p.m. (same travel + 5 minute leaving event)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles (9 by bus, 21 by heavy rail)
Total cost of trip = $5.00 ($2.50 each way including transfer)
CO2 emissions = approximately 4 kg (using values from Figures 2 and 3 in this DOT document)
Activities in transit = reading online magazines, texting friends and family, doing crosswords, reading

Option 3: Metra (Rock Island Line to LaSalle Street Station)
Departure time = 4:20 p.m. (10 min. walk + 30 min. train + 5 min. walk...last train for event was 4:30)
Return time = 8:20 p.m. (10 min. leaving/walk + 20 min. wait + 30 min. train + 5 min. walk)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles (almost all by commuter rail)
Total cost of trip = $7.65 ($3.825 each way)
CO2 emissions = 7.8 kg (using values from the Appendix of this DOT document)

Given the options above, I chose Option 3.  I did not choose it because it was the most environmentally friendly way to travel, nor because it was the least expensive.  I chose it because it combined the cost effectiveness with the reliability.  On Option 2, those times heavily depend on the frequency of operation and could vary significantly, especially on the return trip.  For Option 1, traffic could have held me up, but in general, I would spend less time in transit, but at a significant cost.  It should be noted that the environmental performance of my single-occupancy vehicle travel is heavily influenced by the car I would have chosen to drive.  If I had driven a mini-van or SUV getting less than half of the gas milage, I would have had more than twice the environmental impact and slightly greater cost.  All in all, there is no perfect solution to the question right now.  If we can shift vehicle travel to all electric vehicles, that still does not improve the cost of parking or owning a vehicle.  Lastly, the per passenger mile data that feeds into this analysis comes from current ridership, which is under capacity.  Performance would be improved greatly if more people used the service.

This analysis can be done (and in the future I will revisit it) for many different types of trips.  What makes sense for one type of travel (in this case, short duration event travel), may not make sense for others.