Alex Marshall is a Senior Fellow at The Regional Plan Association in New York City. E-mail him at alex@alexmarshall.org.
Traveling At Good Speed
Transportation policy shouldn’t be reduced to average commuting times.
Years ago, I drove 35 minutes each day from Virginia Beach to Norfolk to a job as a schoolteacher. Because I lived blocks from a freeway and the school was blocks from an off ramp, I was able to drive at 60 mph almost the entire way. Not a bad commute—but a tiring one. When you drive at high speed on a freeway, you need to pay attention or you may kill someone, yourself included.
Now I live in Brooklyn, and I commute 45 minutes to my office in Manhattan. This involves a 15-minute walk to the subway, a five-minute wait for the train, and a 20-minute subway ride, plus a five-minute walk to work. This is longer than my old 35-minute commute by car but it’s less tiring. I enjoy the morning (and evening) walk. I can read or watch TV (my newest bad habit) on my iPhone while on the subway—or talk to strangers, which is something I enjoy.
I make this comparison to point out that, when it comes to transportation, time is an elastic, subjective, almost mystical thing. One minute spent traveling one way is not the same as another. Yet we seldom acknowledge this. This squishy side of transportation has little place in serious policy discussions at city council tables and in legislative chambers. It isn’t easy to start talking about how transportation feels.
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via Governing
