Well, here’s the thing. I’ve been contemplating what to do as my BA economics thesis next year and I keep running to the same thought process “Boy, I sure wish I could crowdsource thesis ideas.” I’ve gotten so used to the whirring of the internet in the background of my mind, I keep wishing I could ask the internet:
What burning transportation question do you want an answer to?
So I’m going to do it. I’m going to crowdsource my thesis ideas. I need YOU- you lovely transportation nerdy people. I need your ideas. What do YOU want to see studied in-depth for a year? This is an economics thesis, so this can be any testable question. Maybe “How much do transit riders value reliability vs. speed?” or “How much money would I have to pay the average American to get them to ride their bicycle to work?” or “Does rural transit funding decrease unemployment?”
Feel free to get crazy here and dream as big as you want. It’s my job to scale this down into a project that’s doable in nine months. But here’s some guidelines:
- Keep it about transportation. Within transportation, anything goes. Particularly active transportation/transit but also highway funding, HOT lanes, etc…
- But don’t be afraid to bring in social, environmental, or political subjects related to transportation.
- Think about what you’d go to see a lecture on, just because you were curious. Or what question you wish you had statistics on when talking to elected officials or funders.
- Remember, I can do experiments. DREAM BIG. Think of this as receiving a grant to get a trained economist (albeit still learning) to study YOUR idea for nine months.
What is the effect of rural transportation systems on unemployment? Does offering rural subsidized buses pay off in gained employment and/or shopping?
Oops, should have read all the comments before submitting my idea. Same general ballpark. ;)
I am an old Reed grad and a quant by training and background…now working in banking. What I have always thought interesting about transportation, particularly different modes of transportation, is the economics of choice and how individuals make the decision to use a particular mode e.g. bicycle versus tram versus walking. Clearly the distance, geographic distribution and interest of of destinations (“gravity”) is a variable. Is there a combination of gravity and transportation modality that can produce a fossil-fuel-free transportation solution that is optimal? Taking an a particular urban gravity profile as a given how does one quantity the trade-offs in choice of transportation (shadow prices) and is there a local solution that is good but not as good as a less central-tending global solution? At the most fundamental level: what are the choice characteristics of non-fossil fuel modes of transportation which cause fossil fuel modes of transportation to dominate and, most importantly, how far do the choice characteristics of non-fosill fuel modes of transportation need to change before switching occurs?
* “Park and ride” lots and transit mode share — is it cost effective for a transit agency to spend $X million on a new 200 car parking lot, or can they get more bang for the buck and higher ridership by making space for 10X that many bikes on board their vehicles? See my discussion on this topic here; I also refer to this with respect to Caltrain, parking and bikes here and here.
* Maybe Related: Should park and ride lots be subsidized? What’s the demand for these lots in various metro areas with transit service? Who pays for the lots?
Effect of inclusion of sharrows in the MUTCD upon claims of miles of bicycle infrastructure in southern cities.
There are a lot of people who take it as self-evident that bicycle helmet use has a positive public health impact. The BTA, for instance, came out with a statement that said basically that it’s obvious that helmet use should be promoted. But what does the data show? Does it impact public health? If so, does the economic benefit of that impact outweigh the money spent on helmets, and on promoting helmet use?
Ooh, my thoughts exactly but I didn’t dare bring it up. My favorite question is, how many people get permanent brain damage from cycling? Nobody seems to know, but everybody cites it as a reason to wear a helmet. And how many get permanent brain damage from other things, such as a stroke? Stroke, incidentally, is prevented by daily exercise such as walking or cycling to school and work…
What timing you have! Just yesterday I went to the Transportation Options bicycle brown luncheon and got an idea for you. Heidi Beierle did her master’s thesis at UO (available here) about how bicycle touring impacts economic development in rural communities. During the question and answer period, an interesting need for an economic study came up. I was asking her if she (or anyone else) had any quantifiable numbers to back up the assertion she made that the money spent by bike tourists in many small towns had more economic impact than say, a tank of gas purchased by a car tourist in fewer towns. So anyway, that’s my idea. : )
I would love to see some stuff on how employer-provided transit subsidies actually affect ridership / mode share. This is something that does get studied, but I don’t know if there’s much depth in most studies. I’d love to see comparisons between “transit passes distributed as a matter of course”, “transit passes distributed if requested”, “transit passes subsidized”, “transit passes only taxfree” etc, basically all the different levels. Also who they tend to affect — younger people, people who live closer, etc.
Also, I’m always interested in bikes-on-board vs bikes-at-stations stuff. Caltrain and TriMet both have been known to say that people should buy two bikes if they need one at both ends — how does that actually work for people who do it, compared to taking a bike on board, or compared to other options such as transit or walking? What does it cost? What about storage? Time?
Given the economic, social and health benefits of implementing the Dutch model of road design, which encourages urban journeys to be made on foot or by bike and longer journeys to be made by public transport, how long would it take for the cost of building such infrastructure to be paid back through economic benefits?
I’d love to see someone compare the shopping/spending of shoppers using different modes of transportation in the US. This has been done in Europe (I’m sure you can find the citation – or several citations) but I don’t think anyone has done it in the US. People traveling by bicycle spend less per trip – but shop more frequently and end up spending more than people traveling by car. Does this hold true in the US? I don’t remember where transit riders and walkers fit in (I’m most interested in bikes, just a prejudice I have) but that would be very interesting. Here in Seattle, our two biggest department stores have a transit tunnel with light rail right in their basements, but they do not use this at all in marketing. How many shoppers arrive by light rail, and how much do they spend compared to drivers?
We really need this for walking and transit in particular, at least for urban areas! We have a few studies/anecdotes we can point to for bike infrastructure & mode share, but when it comes to walking and transit hubs, it’s pretty lonely out there.
What provides the highest net economic benefit for a city: having most commuters drive, ride transit, or bike?
How expensive would driving/gas prices need to get to change behavior?
How/how high could we legislate higher gasoline taxes to pay for infrastructure/reduce driving?
Which infrastructure improvements would most increase bicycling among the 60-70% of “worried/wary” potential cyclists?
How does more cycling reduce costs for cities?
I’d be interested in seeing a what-if economic analysis of cost and benefit as bike ridership doubles, triples, etc.
For instance, if it doubles would that necessitate an increase in transportation infrastructure improvements to bike/ped lanes on bridges, more bike carrying capacity on bus/trains. What If it quadruples? Would that necessitate building separate bike highways?
I think Alta P&D did a study that estimated the total economic activity of bicycling in Portland to be $90 million..If bicycling activity doubled what would be the economic contribution?
I have one more. The first was a macro-scale analysis. This one is a micro-scale analysis that I think about quite often.
What is economic impact to a person and/or family when they’re car-free? If they don’t have to make a car loan payment, insurance payment, and pay for gas, maintenance and parking?
Maybe they have more disposable income to support local businesses, pay for education, buy a house, etc.
Can bikes help low-income people avoid poverty? Or does the stigma against
bikes in low-income communities hinder social mobility more than that savings (versus car ownership) of bikes might help? Can bikes increase upward mobility?
We need an analysis of the bicycle advocacy scene in the US.
Everything from Critical Mass to the nerdy-wonky-plannies.
Then we need to find out how much NHTSA spends on safety for cycling.
We get PDF pamphlets and drunk driving gets millions of PSA dollars. At this juncture what is the return on a DD PSA?
What would be the far-and-wide reaching implications in Portland and the tri-county region of a no-fare public transit sytem?
Lily thanks for asking for our questions. I emailed Michael Anderson about this yesterday…
From: Harlow, Craig
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 5:06 PM
To: Michael Andersen (michael@portlandafoot.org)
Subject: Tri-Met Fare Jumpers
Michael,
This story in the Merc put me in mind of something. http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2012/01/31/trimet-gets-tough-on-fare-jumpers
Along the lines of the visionary thinking of Toward Car-free Cities, I was wondering about a new local dialogue about free public transit.
A Tri-Met driver told me last night that since the transfer times have been shortened, he’s seeing a much higher number of riders simply boarding without much effort at even discussing fares, let alone paying—or only partially displaying their expired transfer tickets and cruising right through and ignoring the driver–and he feels intimidated and helpless, and has become complacent about it.
I was reminded of a news story from 1 or 2 years ago about a US city—I can’t remember which, though I seem to remember it was in Texas?—that was going to implement a changeover to a universally free public transit system. Despite my best Googling, I can’t find it. Did I dream it? What I recall from the story was…
• In a down economy, let the general tax base fund transit to cost is no barrier to everyone getting around town to their jobs, job interviews, school, occupational training, health care appointments, etc.
• Some operational costs will drop due to removal of fare collections, inspections, and associated overhead, maintenance, etc.
• The cost to the general tax base will be offset/replenished by higher employment rate, ergo payroll taxes; reduced unemployment claims; reduced demand on public and non-profit social services, etc. etc etc.
• Society benefits from a lower crime rate and associated public costs, lower drop-out rate, and an overall better-stimulated local economy
I found this Florida study from 2002 about the pros/cons of no-fare public transit: http://www.dot.state.fl.us/research-center/Completed_Proj/Summary_PTO/FDOT_BC137_38_FF_rpt.pdf
And this! http://www.freepublictransit.org/index.php?pr=Success_Stories
FWIW,
Craig Harlow
How could the projected CRC budget be spent in a way that yields the largest amount of job creation?
If a bike registration program were set-up, what % of existing cyclists would stop cycling, what % of potential cyclists would be completely turned off from cycling to not even want to try in the first place, and in general how much money would be lost simply due to the idea of registering bikes. How does this compare to the revenue that would be generated, and $ required to operate such a program? Also…how many people would be affected that own multiple bikes?
I want to know about the CO2 footprint of bicycling instead of driving.
Say for example 1hr of bike riding at 13mph = 563 calories
1 hamburger = 359 calories
1 hamburger = 5lbs of emitted CO2 (excluding methane).
(((563/359) * 5) / 13) = .6 lbs of C02 per mile.
Prius ~ 50mpg
gasoline = 19lbs / gallon burned
EROI of gasoline 8:1 (to refined product)
transportation to pump: neglible
((19 * 1.125) / 50) = .4275 lbs of C02 per mile
my question is where does the economics meet the ecologics (sp)
Carbon output seems the most common metric for these things, but so much of our struggle is to work towards harm reduction in transportation.
If we are to follow R. Crumb’s ideas about our future* could we way that culture and capital delivered via the bicycle should always lead us towards a better chance of our species salvation?
* http://www.lagunabeachbikini.com/wordpress/wp-content/images/2010/critical-thinking/RCrumbFuture.jpg
maybe ill try asking a more clear question later. Thanks and good luck!
How about exploring the relationship between transit, urban planning, and population density gradients? I’ve always been curious what the optimal distribution of different housing types would be when transit is developed. Make different assumptions about the distributiono of people’s preferences for large yards, private entrances, flats vs townhouses, acceptable walking/biking distance to a transit station, etc.
I think there’s a lot of great research out there, but what I see as a problem is actually getting people to understand and access the research. I would love to see a project where you make the current research more accessible and relevant to non-wonks. Instead of launching into your own erudite research, could your thesis be making a comic or website that explains some specific issues in a highly readable way? I would love to see a comic about how public transportation vs. cars are funded, or a website that collects user info about how they get around and how much they spend on transportation. You’d be good at making both those things!
Qualitative interviews: How does home income affect decisions to use a car/bike/public transit if you look at people who don’t bike to work but want to bike. My hypothesis is that people with money have more choices, and more money tends to lead to more multi mode choices. Thus, how could a city adjust for the classism and get people to work on bikes and transit that want to be on bikes and transit.?