Walkin' the Line

I’ve been stewing about the Central Corridor light rail line in Saint Paul. When officials came to their senses (somewhat—no full credit from me until we see the actual results) and announced on Tuesday the possibility of three more stations, I felt reprieved from writing a post on this subject. Alas, I can’t stop myself from weighing in.

It was determined, based on a federally-required cost-benefit calculation, that the spacing for certain stations along University Avenue would be one mile apart. These particular stations happen to be located in the lowest income, most transit-dependent neighborhoods. This means up to a half mile walk, if you live on University or another street intersecting the station. For some, the walk can be even longer. Planners like to draw circles with stations in the center, showing the ½ mile service area. But that’s as the bird flies. If people had wings they wouldn’t need the rail line.

The logic behind the mile-apart decision was that the rail line must meet federal standards for cost-effectiveness. Not a bad idea, although it creates some strange incentives, as highlighted by Net Density. But why was the decision made to space these stations more widely in order for the line to qualify as “cost-effective?” I hunted around quite a bit, and could not find the answer to that question.



So I went straight to the source and looked at the how the calculation of cost-effectiveness is made. I reached this conclusion: the cost-effectiveness modeling is done in a black box that few people know or understand. Quantitative models, by virtue of being number-oriented, masquerade as technical and objective in nature. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves; they are in fact laden with values (and other non-data-driven assumptions), values that are never made explicit because they’re buried in complicated numerical formulas.

The evaluation criteria for the stations included nine considerations, and as the transportation planners like to point out, “transportation service equity was not a criteria” (sic). It’s not just that equity was not a criterion; the criteria themselves were weighted against an equitable outcome. The criteria included considerations such as proximity to major employment centers and development potential. Lower income neighborhoods are often lower income precisely because they lack these attributes.

The cost-effectiveness calculation itself gives preference to some transit users over others (namely, the majority by virtue of being the majority) under the guise of a supposedly objective measure. Cost-effectiveness is a function of total user-benefits, measured as mobility improvements for all transit and highway users. A 2005 survey by the Met Council showed that half of LRT users would have made their trip by driving alone if LRT had not been available. A little more than 20% said they’d take the bus, and just under 10% said they couldn’t make the trip. Using aggregate benefits tilts the index towards the needs of people who would otherwise drive because they are the biggest share of the aggregate. Moreover, the benefits for drivers derive from different factors than the benefits for non-drivers. The benefits for drivers, who walk little or not at all, don’t wait, and don’t transfer, come from faster train times. For those reliant on transit, however, the opposite is true. Their total travel time is very long—they walk, they wait, they transfer.

So the calculation works like this (illustrative example). Suppose there are 100 drivers, and their travel time is five minutes faster because of fewer stations. This totals 500 minutes in benefits. Twenty people who could not make the trip without transit walk 20 minutes more with fewer stations (400 minutes in benefits.) Five hundred is more than four hundred. The drivers win.

I understand that getting people out of their cars is important, and that there are many different views on this subject. But let’s not pretend that the design and calculations are an impartial, objective, “best” way to do transit, stripped of value judgments. Kudos to folks like the District Councils Collaborative, the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability, and the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative for their efforts in getting decision-makers to acknowledge that.

Notes: thanks to the many readers who emailed me with comments on my first post. You made great points! Don't be shy--share them!

The Scorpion Sting I: Haiti

Day twelve and counting. An estimated 375 aid groups have registered in Haiti. One billion dollars have been pledged by the international community. Larry King raised $9 million from the safety of his stage desk (and his notes, without which Larry couldn’t interview Chatty Cathy). Hollywood hosts Hope for Haiti, pleading for donations.

Where is all of this money going and what do we have to show for it? Don’t get me wrong; I promptly made my donation to Doctors Without Borders. But as I watched the news reports, I began to wonder whether we’re in the midst of Katrina II, on a far more desperate scale…. maybe a materialized circle of Dante’s Hell.

Just like Hurricane Katrina, aid and donations fund the relief effort not the victims. This is a crucial distinction. Not to pick on Katrina Aid Today, but let’s use it as an example. With a $66 million grant, it established 138 offices in 34 states (that’s a minimum of 138 employees). 73,000 households were helped and $137 million was “leveraged” for the families. By my math, that means that the administrative costs were somewhere on the order of one dollar for every two dollars that went to the families (at best, depending on what “leveraged” means). Each family came away with $1,876. How much did each aid worker make?

With the rush of aid workers to Haiti, how much has been accomplished? A grand total of 132 people have been recovered from the ruins. The people most in need are not getting food and water. Aid workers admit that the food in the pipeline is a small fraction of the need. Even the food that has arrived is getting to only 100,000 people because there are not enough trucks and diesel fuel to deliver it. People are dying waiting for surgery because of lack of supplies, or after surgery for lack of food. Limbs are being amputated with nothing more than motrin for pain reliever.

Really, it’s not okay. Of course there are a million reasons that make this aid and recovery effort extraordinarily difficult, including the fact that Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world with minimal infrastructure to begin with. The infrastructure it did have was devastated by the quake. A good recount of all of the logistical problems can be found here.

Even in better times, aid in Haiti tends to serve the aiders more than the aidees, as Author Amy Wilentz points out in her blog the NY Times. “One estimate shows Haiti with more N.G.O.s operating per capita than any other country in the world, but those groups are not achieving that much, which is a terrible moral burden for a lot of development workers there, believe me.”

So my question is: if we face all of these logistical and historical problems with aid, why are we running recovery efforts as business as usual?  Why use limited capacity to bring things in that don't need to be brought in, when taking out will do--namely, medical care?

Why are we flying in doctors when there’s no electricity, water or supplies to provide needed medical services? Even for the lucky few who get care, there are unresolved questions about how they’ll get the follow-up care and surgeries they need to survive. And just as the U.S. military has vastly improved airport capacity to about 140 flights a day, many flights return empty (a possible reason some carriers have jacked up their rates so high). Why not airlift those who need medical help? After all, this is how we handle medical needs in war zones.

Hmmm…what country has great medical and transportation infrastructure and is close to Haiti (in fact, a mere 600 miles)???

Why, oh why, do we continue to conduct business in usual ways against such impossible odds? Do you know the story of the scorpion?

A scorpion was traveling across country and came to a lake. Unable to swim, he waited by the shore. A turtle swam by and so the scorpion asked for a ride across the lake. The turtle was shocked. “Do you think I am stupid? You are a scorpion and will sting me and I will die!” The scorpion applied logic—“Dear turtle, if I sting you, and you drown, then I will drown as well.” The turtle saw the logic in the scorpion’s plea. The scorpion hopped on the turtle’s back and they set off. Midway across the lake, the scorpion stung the turtle. As the turtle floundered, he cried, “Why did you sting me? Now we both shall die!” The scorpion replied simply, “Because I am a scorpion.”

note: all photo credits to Julie Remy, doctorswithoutborders.org