Opportunity to Encourage Healthy Travel Behavior in Post-Coronavirus World

As a transportation demand management (TDM) professional, I have been preparing for the new normal. The below illustration captures the current situation in the middle and two potential choices for the new normal. Since most non-essential workers are working from home instead of driving, the new normal will be the perfect opportunity to encourage these workers to try healthy modes of transportation. I do not want to return to the old normal where most people drive alone. What would happen if we went forward instead of going back to the old normal?

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Transit and Driving by Returning to Old Normal in the New Normal

Due to continued physical distancing (purposely not using social distancing) after stay-at-home orders are lifted and likely safety concerns about riding transit that will prevent “choice” riders from returning to transit, the new normal where most Americans return to driving alone will likely have more traffic congestion than during the old normal. Since most stay-at-home orders in the US have not been lifted, I decided to review Chinese data to understand what could happen in the US. Yes, I realize China had a lockdown and the US never had a lockdown (stay-at-home order is not lockdown).

While I have not seen post-lockdown data from China yet, the below graphs show that private car usage has dramatically increased during the lockdown. The top graph, which comes from this Institute for Transportation and Development Policy article, shows that many bus and subway riders before the lockdown started using a private car during the lockdown. I am concerned that few of these motorists will decide to return to riding the bus or subway after the lockdown ends. This could result in China’s air quality being even worse after the lockdown than before the lockdown.

Source: https://www.itdp.org/2020/03/26/post-pandemic-chinese-cities-gradually-reopen-transport-networks/

Source: https://report.amap.com/share.do?id=8b3056bb717c2c250171862b71b4102a

Unfortunately, transit may not have enough space or frequency to allow these motorists to ride transit again. As the below figure from this International Transport Forum’s COVID-19 Transport Brief shows, physical distancing will limit the passenger capacity of transit for the foreseeable future.

Source: https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/respacing-cities-resilience-covid-19.pdf

While transit agencies say the recent service cuts are only temporary, I am concerned that the service cuts will become permanent as the budgets for transit agencies do not quickly return to pre-coronavirus funding levels. Since Oregon transit agencies depend on payroll taxes, I am especially concerned about their budgets because of record unemployment claims. I keep hearing transit agencies compare the current situation to how they cut service during the Great Recession. As the below graph shows, 2020 has had more weekly unemployment claims already than any week during the Great Recession!

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/business/economy/coronavirus-unemployment-claims.html

Walking and Biking in the New Normal

Since this post is getting long and I need to eat dinner before an evening event, I plan to stop writing for today and move this section to a new post. Thanks for reading my blog!