• On Sept. 1, Texas will start charging electric vehicle (EV) drivers an additional fee of $200 each year—an amount comparable to what the state lost in federal and state gasoline tax dollars when an EV replaced a gas-fueled one, according to a 2020 report.
• Earlier this year, state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 505, which requires EV owners to pay the fee when they register a vehicle or renew their registration, according to The Texas Tribune. It’s being imposed because lawmakers said EV drivers weren’t paying their fair share into a fund that helps cover road construction and repairs across Texas. The cost will be especially high for those who purchase a new EV and have to pay two years of registration, or $400, up front.
• Other states have experimented with a Mileage-Based User Fee (MBUF) to make up for anticipated declines in gasoline tax revenue. Read more about those efforts in this story in InTransition.

Photo by Ed Murray

• Results of a study from the United Kingdom (UK) show an average 47% decrease in traffic volumes within low-traffic neighborhoods (LTNs) and a 1.6% decrease on the surrounding roads, suggesting that car-restricted areas effectively cut traffic without pushing it onto nearby streets.
• Researchers analyzed the impact that designated car-free streets have on traffic in the surrounding neighborhoods of London. The authors suggest some additional work may be needed to understand and address the needs of people with disabilities who sometimes rely on vehicle access.

In a blog post, the State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) cites several examples of permanent car-free streets in the United States, as well as studies on the impact of LTNs.

Photo by Ed Murray

Transit ridership has been slow to recover since a sharp decline at the start of the pandemic and ridership is expected to continue to be lower given the current trend of remote work, according to a new federal report.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed eight projects partially funded through the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Capital Investment Grants (CIG) program: Central Florida SunRail Phase 2 South, Charlotte Blue Line Extension, Denver Eagle Commuter Rail, Fort Worth TEXRail, New York Second Avenue Subway Phase I, San Diego Mid-Coast Corridor Project, Seattle University Link Extension, and Silicon Valley Berryessa Bay Area Rapid Transit Extension.

Sponsors of two of the eight projects that completed a Before and After study—Charlotte and Seattle—reported capital costs were 14 percent and 9 percent lower than predicted “due to an unexpectedly favorable bid environment and untapped contingent funds.” Both sponsors reported actual ridership was about 30 percent lower than predicted due to “overly optimistic travel model assumptions.” Fort Worth Trinity Metro officials said they expected actual capital costs to be lower than predicted but the other five sponsors said it was premature to describe their capital costs.

Among all eight project sponsors, transit ridership declined precipitously at the start of the pandemic and in most cases, recovery has been slow. Sponsors expect ridership to continue to be lower given the current trend of remote work. The significant impact of the pandemic complicates assessments of the accuracy of their pre-pandemic ridership predictions.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) includes a provision for GAO to review FTA’s implementation of the CIG program every two years. The program helps cities, states, and other localities plan and build transit systems. FTA assesses the outcomes of these projects in periodic Predicted versus Actual reports.

The complete 51-page report is available here.

Photo by Ed Murray

Transportation funds should focus on outcomes, such as reduced travel times, rather than projects and integrate planning, construction, and operation costs up front.

Those are among the findings by Joshua Schank, author of Fixing Our Broken Transit Planning Process. He is a research associate with the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) at San Jose State University who analyzed potential improvements to the planning process.

Agencies also should separate the planning and environmental processes to free each to focus on appropriate objectives, leading to more specific outcomes with lower costs and, potentially greater public impact and approval. Public outreach processes often are designed around a set of requirements. Schanck argues that if they were designed around soliciting critical feedback, the process might feel more valuable to all involved.

"Rather than focus on sweeping changes that can take years, agencies can actively reduce costs and shorten timelines by focusing on fixing overlooked inefficiencies inherent in the transportation planning process."

Photo by Steve Hockstein / HarvardStudio.com​

The western United States dominate the electric vehicle (EV) landscape, according to analysis by StorageCafe, a nationwide storage space marketplace.

Los Angeles has the most EVs and the largest number of public charging stations among the 100 largest metro areas and Seattle is the best metro area for electric vehicles (EV) due to a combination of factors, including the high number of EVs, charging optison, and clean energy production. Miami was the only southern metro area to break into the top 10.

Storage Café. ranked the metro areas against a series of metrics including number of EVs, public chargers, price of electricity, a dedicated highway system, condition of roads, clean energy, EV insurance costs and local incentives. EV drivers tend to own more than one car so the analysis also considered local self-storage provisions as it can help with parking and “garage-space optimization.”

Read more on the current and expected future growth in EV sales in this InTransition story.

Photo by Ed Murray