Getting people out of their cars in auto-centric cities will likely take both carrot and stick policymaking, according to a new survey from The University of Texas at Austin and Arizona State University.
The survey found that 68% of people surveyed were happy with using cars for non-commute trips. And while many of these drivers want to live in neighborhoods with a mixture of businesses and residential and healthy transit, they still prefer the convenience of driving their own car. Furthermore, the report found that more car use for non-commute trips generally led to increased satisfaction with their travel situation.
"It's important to get cars off the road to reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, but the data show that this will be a challenge in cities that rely heavily on single-occupancy vehicles," said Chandra Bhat, director of the U.S. Department of Transportation on Data-Supported Transit Operations and Planning at UT Austin and one of the leaders of the study published today in Transportation Research Record.
Why It Matters: Policymakers have been working for decades to reduce the number of cars on the road but haven't been particularly successful. Massive investments and programs to increase transit use have been mostly futile, the researchers said.
The conventional wisdom in transportation planning is that people who drive more are generally unhappy with this outcome and would prefer robust transit. This study finds that this is not quite the case; many people in car-centric cities actually appear to enjoy the solitude and “switching off” associated with their driving routines.
So, Now What: This study comes in the wake of a massive federal infrastructure bill that will invest billions in alternative transportation modes. The researchers say these investments alone aren't enough to draw people out of their cars.
The researchers posit that in addition to massive investments in transit that will make other modes competitive with cars in terms of convenience, policymakers will also have to find ways to make driving less appealing than other forms of transportation. That could come in the form of increased parking fees and other fees that make driving more expensive.
“We hope that the deep insights provided by this study on the powerful appeal of the private automobile and its role in elevating how people feel about their daily travel routine will help guide transportation investment and policy decisions towards a more sustainable mobility future,” said Ram Pendyala, professor and director in Arizona State’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.
The Data: The researchers surveyed 3,365 people in Austin, Atlanta, Phoenix and Tampa. These cities are more car-centric with fewer transit resources than places like New York, San Francisco or Boston. Nearly half of the people surveyed reported driving for more than 80% of non-commute trips.
More than 76% of the respondents were white, and more than 60% of them had at least a bachelor's degree. Women represented more than 58% of respondents.
The authors also wrote an editorial about their survey, which can be found here.
