Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation (40 page)

  
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“The Alameda Corridor: A White Paper,”
School of Policy, Planning and Development
, University of Southern California, June 2004.

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New York Metropolitan Transportation Council.

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American Trucking Association.

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According to Operation Lifesaver, a rail-industry-sponsored organization culling data from the Federal Railroad Administration, there were 2,280 collisions between motor vehicles and trains at highway-rail crossings in 2014, killing 267 and injuring 832—the highest number of crashes and deaths since 2008. Still, the long-term trend has shown great improvement. There were 9,461 collisions, 728 deaths, and 3,292 injuries at crossings in 1981.

             
Better safeguards led to this improved record, although only a third of the nation's 200,000 railroad crossings have flashing lights and moving barriers. Even those measures are an imperfect solution, as those crossings—which tend to be the busiest—still account for half of the car-train collisions every year. Drivers routinely go around the barriers or ignore warning lights as if they were merely inconveniences. Underpasses and overpasses that physically separate cars and trains are the only foolproof solution (other than closing a crossing entirely) but are usually deemed too costly or impractical.

             
According to Operation Lifesaver, a rail safety nonprofit founded by the rail industry:

       
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A typical 100-car freight train weighs the same as 4,000 automobiles combined.

       
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When a vehicle-train collision occurs, it is equivalent to a car crushing a soda can.

       
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Approximately every two hours, either a vehicle or a pedestrian is struck by a train in the U.S., an average of twelve incidents each day.

       
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More than half of all grade-crossing collisions occur where train speeds are 30 miles per hour or less.

       
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About two-thirds of all collisions at crossings in the United States happen in daylight.

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Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority.

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Survey Results for Containers Lost at Sea—2014 Update
, World Shipping Council.

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“EPA Bans Sooty Ship Fuel off U.S. Coasts,”
Scientific American,
August 12, 2012.

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“Prevention and Control of Ship and Port Air Emissions in China,” Natural Resources Defense Council, October 2014.

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European Commission, Climate Action.

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Global Warming on the Road: The Climate Impact of America's Automobiles, Environmental Defense Fund, 2006. According to the report, global automobile emissions generate 10 percent of humanity's carbon footprint, with America responsible for almost half.

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United Nations International Maritime Organization.

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“Air Quality Report Card,” published by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

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Compared to 2005, emissions at the Port of Los Angeles had dropped 87 percent for diesel particulate matter, 85 percent for particulate matter less than 2.5 microns, 87 percent for particulate matter less than 10 microns, 31 percent for nitrogen oxides, and 97 percent for sodium oxides. Source: Air Quality Report Card, Port of Los Angeles, 2014.

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Time and cost averages were supplied by John Slangerup, director of the Port of Long Beach, based on March 2015 rates.

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Knatz retired from the port in 2014 when the incoming mayor of Los Angeles sought to remake his predecessor's leadership team. Knatz continues to work on port issues as a University of Southern California professor, a member of the governance coordinating committee of the U.S. National Ocean Council, chair of the World Ports' Climate Initiative, and with
other professional organizations, as well as through her ongoing work with the Ladies of Logistics.

CHAPTER 8: ANGELS GATE

  
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In later years the Marine Exchange became a nonprofit operation independent of the chamber of commerce.

  
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The standard measure of a container ship's capacity is the TEU, the twenty-foot equivalent unit. So the
MSC Flavia
is listed as a 12,400-TEU vessel. There are a variety of container sizes in use around the world but by far the most commonly used—the standard, in practice if not in name—is the 40-footer. That container is the equivalent of 2 TEUs, so a vessel with a 12,400-TEU capacity can carry up to 6,200 standard containers.

  
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According to the Tioga Group, as reported in “What's Needed to Ease Drayage Gridlock? Cooperation,”
Journal of Commerce,
March 31, 2014.

CHAPTER 9: THE BALLET IN MOTION

  
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Most major ports in the U.S. have transmodal freight yards somewhere close by, which unload the forty-foot standard shipboard containers into larger fifty-three-foot boxcar-sized containers, using the same sort of gantry cranes as the ports employ. This allows shorter, more efficient trains to be built for freight movement nationwide. There are several within a few miles of the Southern California ports, serviced by the drayage fleet.

CHAPTER 10: THE LAST MILE

  
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UPS. This is a daily average.

  
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For 2015. From “Essential Financial and Operating Information for the 100 Largest For-Hire Carriers in the U.S. and Canada,” ttnews.com.

  
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“At UPS, the Algorithm Is the Driver” by Steven Rosenbush and Laura Stevens,
Wall Street Journal
, February 16, 2015.

CHAPTER 11: PEAK TRAVEL

  
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New Directions, 2013.

  
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“Beyond Traffic,” U.S. Department of Transportation.

  
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“The 3-D Printing Revolution” by Richard D'Aveni,
Harvard Business Review
, May 2015.

CHAPTER 12: ROBOTS IN PARADISE

  
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Climbing Mount Next: The Effects of Autonomous Vehicles on Society
by David Levinson, Nexus Research Group, University of Minnesota.

  
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“95 percent of All Trips Could Be Made in Electric Cars,” GreenCarReports.com, January 13, 2012.

  
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“Parking in Mixed-Use U.S. Districts: Oversupplied No Matter How You Slice the Pie,” Rachel R. Weinberger and Joshua Karlin-Resnick, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, August 1, 2014.

  
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“Parking Infrastructure: A Constraint on or Opportunity for Urban Redevelopment?” Mikhail Chester, Andrew Fraser, Juan Matute, Carolyn Flower, and Ram Pendyala
, Journal of the American Planning Association
, 2015, 81(4).

  
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“Driverless Cars and the Myths of Autonomy,” David Mindell,
Huffington Post
, October 14, 2015.

  
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“Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers,”
Occupational Outlook Handbook
, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed online, November 2015.

  
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“The Big Shift Last Time: From Horse Dung to Car Smog” by Andrew Nikiforuk, TheTyee.com, March 6, 2013.

  
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“The Driverless Debate: Equal Percentages of Americans See Self-Driving Cars as the ‘Wave of the Future' Yet Would Never Consider Purchasing One,” Harris Poll, March 24, 2015.

             
The poll found that “Americans are split on whether self-driving vehicles are safe for those inside them, but majorities see them as a danger to pedestrians and fellow drivers.”

CHAPTER 13: THE NEXT DOOR

  
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“Hit-and-Runs Take a Rising Toll on Cyclists,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 29, 2014.

  
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Hammer Conversations, Seleta Reynolds and Janette Sadik-Khan, March 26, 2015.

  
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According to Janette Sadik-Khan.

  
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New York City's Red-Light Camera Program: Myths vs. Realities
, New York Department of Transportation, 2012.

  
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Data from Houston Police Department, reprinted in “Crashes Doubled After Houston Banned Red Light Cameras,” Streetblogs USA, August 12, 2015.

  
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According to
Beyond Traffic: 2045
, published online by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2015, even a relatively small 5 percent ridership on mass transit has an impact on traffic congestion: “By one estimate if public transportation services in the 15 largest metropolitan areas in America were eliminated and their riders shifted to private vehicle travel, it would result in a 24 percent increase in traffic congestion and cost our economy more than $17 billion annually.”

  
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Who Drives to Work? Commuting by Automobile in the United States: 2013
, American Community Survey Report by Brian McKenzie, U.S. Census Bureau, August 2015.

  
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“Frequently Asked HOV Questions,” Federal Highway Administration.

  
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Modes Less Traveled—Bicycling and Walking to Work in the United States: 2008–2012
, American Community Survey Reports by Brian McKenzie, U.S. Census, May 2014.

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“Pedometer-Measured Physical Activity and Health Behaviors in U.S. Adults,”
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
, October 2010.

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“Physical Activity in an Old Order Amish Community,”
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
, January 2004.

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Mobility Plan 2035
, Los Angeles City Planning Department, May 28, 2015.

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The Decline of Walking and Bicycling
, National Center for Safe Routes to School.

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“City of the Future,” National League of Cities, Center for City Solutions and Applied Research, 2015.

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Some critics complain that tolls, whether or not they are designed to discourage congestion, are a regressive tax that takes a greater proportion of the income of the poor than the rich (as opposed to a progressive tax, such as the U.S. income tax, which imposes higher rates on those with higher incomes). The critics are right about the regressive nature of tolls, but the entire system in use now—paying for roads through gasoline taxes, property taxes, registration fees, and, in many states, sales taxes—is already entirely regressive. A study that compared the impact of all these funding mechanisms for roads found that toll lanes were the least regressive tax because drivers still had the option to drive in adjacent free lanes: paying the tax was a choice, unlike the sales tax or the gas tax.

             
The study's authors also argued that tolls were an inherently fairer method of paying for roads because they only targeted drivers. Sales and property taxes are less fair, the argument goes, because they impose the costs of driving on all taxpayers, even those who don't drive. This is a
complicated and debatable position, however, as even non-drivers benefit from the goods movement and delivery of services that roads make possible. Source: “Just Road Pricing,” by Lisa Schweitzer and Brian D. Taylor,
ACCESS
, Spring 2010.

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“Too Big for the Road,”
Governing
, July 2007; “The Hidden Trucking Industry Subsidy,”
TrueCostBlog.com
, June 2, 2009; and “Overweight Trucks Damage Infrastructure,” Associated Press (via
USA Today),
September 10, 2007.

APPENDIX

  
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According to the nonprofit group PursuitSafety, police car chases lead to one death a day in the U.S., and about 150 of those deaths every year are innocent bystanders. The data on this is uncertain and tough to come by, as reporting of car chases gone wrong is strictly voluntary for police departments, and PursuitSafety asserts that the official tally kept by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is therefore incomplete.

             
Even the incomplete statistics have generated concern and reforms. Many police agencies around the country have adopted restrictions on car chases in recent years in an attempt to reduce the risk of crashes, particularly for innocent bystanders, but also to avoid using dangerous, potentially lethal tactics for minor crimes. In years past, more than 90 percent of police chases were in response to nonviolent crimes—the sort of crimes for which police officers would not normally use deadly force. A 2008 data base analysis by the International Association of Chiefs of Police broke down the reasons for police chases by percentages: