Joe Cortright of City Observatory recently published a post about the types of policies that cities should be looking to adopt in response to autonomous vehicles. It’s called: Pricing roads for autonomous vehicles.
Many have argued, including urban economist Edward Glaeser, that autonomous vehicles are going to be positively disastrous for cities. Once you remove the labor costs associated with the driver and the overall price per kilometer plummets because of pooling/technological advances, we are going to see an huge surge in demand – well beyond the capacities of our roads.
Of course, there are solutions. We can accurately price the roads, which is something that more cities should be doing today even before autonomous vehicles arrive. Here is an excerpt from Cortright’s article:
“With modern electronics, and especially with autonomous vehicles, position and speed is monitored with great precision. There is no reason why they [drivers] should not pay for exactly the amount of roadway that they use. And we know that the cost of the city’s roadway varies substantially across space and over time. Use of road capacity in less dense neighborhoods at off-peak hours imposes nominal costs on the city’s road budget. In contrast, peak hour use of city streets and arterials, particularly in and near the city center, imposes huge costs on the city and its residents. Those who use the system at peak hours in congested locations should pay the costs associated with creating, maintaining, and where necessary expanding that infrastructure.”
This isn’t a novel concept, which is why when Toronto was looking at a flat road toll I argued here on the blog that it was a step in the right direction but that it was too blunt a tool.
It’s a moot point now because sadly the province ended up pandering and rejecting the plan, but we should have been considering something that could achieve the above objectives. It needed more finesse.
But in all likelihood our cities will have to face that reality sooner rather than later.
Air Canada bumped me from my flight this morning and so I am spending the day hanging out at Toronto Pearson Airport. I can think of more enjoyable ways to spend Canada Day, but at least there’s a nice seating area in Terminal 1 with free wifi and lots of plugs.
I just finished watching the below talk by Harvard economist Ed Glaeser at the Manhattan Institute. His overall thesis is that unemployment is a far worse problem than income stagnation and that the US needs to stop creating incentives for people not to work. He refers to it as a war on work.
He addresses a few topics that we’ve talked about here on this blog, such as guaranteed basic incomes, as well as others that we haven’t talked about, such as raising the minimum wage. To give you one spoiler: He argues that a higher minimum wage has been shown to cause an overall drop in employment, which he, again, believes is a deeper problem.
Glaeser delivers a passionate performance. So if you have 30 minutes to spare – perhaps you’re stuck in an airport somewhere – I recommend you give it a watch. If you can’t see the video below, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xaNV_6wgak?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
One of the things that I would like to do a bit more of in 2016 is coding. I used to a bit of it in high school and university, and I’ve taken some online classes since then, but I really feel like I should know more. I like making things and tech is clearly an important part of the world today.
I mention this because I have signed myself up for an intro to web development class this evening at Brainstation. My plan is to do a few introductory web and mobile development courses and then figure out where and what I want to dive into further. I don’t plan on being a software developer – I’m happy being a developer of the real estate varietal – but I want to improve my literacy.
I also mention this because I think it’s important to be reminded just how critical education is to urban economic success. Here’s an excerpt from Ed Glaeser’s book, Triumph of the City:
“Human capital, far more than physical infrastructure, explains which cities succeed. Typically in the United States, the share of the population with a college degree is used to estimate the skill level of a place … Despite its coarseness, no other measure does better in explaining recent urban prosperity. A 10 percent increase in the percentage of an area’s adult population with a BA in 1980 predicts 6 percent more income growth between 1980 and 2000.”
And if you plot education (people with four-year degrees) vs. per capita income levels for the major US metropolitan areas, which City Observatory did, you’ll see that nothing matters more. Here’s how City Observatory described it:
“This chart is the first, most important thing to remember about urban economic development in the 21st century: if you want high incomes, you need to have a high level of skills. Cities with poorly educated populations will find it difficult to raise living standards in a world where productivity and pay depend increasingly on knowledge.”
This, of course, isn’t new information. I’m sure I’ve written about it before. But it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.
Joe Cortright of City Observatory recently published a post about the types of policies that cities should be looking to adopt in response to autonomous vehicles. It’s called: Pricing roads for autonomous vehicles.
Many have argued, including urban economist Edward Glaeser, that autonomous vehicles are going to be positively disastrous for cities. Once you remove the labor costs associated with the driver and the overall price per kilometer plummets because of pooling/technological advances, we are going to see an huge surge in demand – well beyond the capacities of our roads.
Of course, there are solutions. We can accurately price the roads, which is something that more cities should be doing today even before autonomous vehicles arrive. Here is an excerpt from Cortright’s article:
“With modern electronics, and especially with autonomous vehicles, position and speed is monitored with great precision. There is no reason why they [drivers] should not pay for exactly the amount of roadway that they use. And we know that the cost of the city’s roadway varies substantially across space and over time. Use of road capacity in less dense neighborhoods at off-peak hours imposes nominal costs on the city’s road budget. In contrast, peak hour use of city streets and arterials, particularly in and near the city center, imposes huge costs on the city and its residents. Those who use the system at peak hours in congested locations should pay the costs associated with creating, maintaining, and where necessary expanding that infrastructure.”
This isn’t a novel concept, which is why when Toronto was looking at a flat road toll I argued here on the blog that it was a step in the right direction but that it was too blunt a tool.
It’s a moot point now because sadly the province ended up pandering and rejecting the plan, but we should have been considering something that could achieve the above objectives. It needed more finesse.
But in all likelihood our cities will have to face that reality sooner rather than later.
Air Canada bumped me from my flight this morning and so I am spending the day hanging out at Toronto Pearson Airport. I can think of more enjoyable ways to spend Canada Day, but at least there’s a nice seating area in Terminal 1 with free wifi and lots of plugs.
I just finished watching the below talk by Harvard economist Ed Glaeser at the Manhattan Institute. His overall thesis is that unemployment is a far worse problem than income stagnation and that the US needs to stop creating incentives for people not to work. He refers to it as a war on work.
He addresses a few topics that we’ve talked about here on this blog, such as guaranteed basic incomes, as well as others that we haven’t talked about, such as raising the minimum wage. To give you one spoiler: He argues that a higher minimum wage has been shown to cause an overall drop in employment, which he, again, believes is a deeper problem.
Glaeser delivers a passionate performance. So if you have 30 minutes to spare – perhaps you’re stuck in an airport somewhere – I recommend you give it a watch. If you can’t see the video below, click here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xaNV_6wgak?rel=0&w=560&h=315]
One of the things that I would like to do a bit more of in 2016 is coding. I used to a bit of it in high school and university, and I’ve taken some online classes since then, but I really feel like I should know more. I like making things and tech is clearly an important part of the world today.
I mention this because I have signed myself up for an intro to web development class this evening at Brainstation. My plan is to do a few introductory web and mobile development courses and then figure out where and what I want to dive into further. I don’t plan on being a software developer – I’m happy being a developer of the real estate varietal – but I want to improve my literacy.
I also mention this because I think it’s important to be reminded just how critical education is to urban economic success. Here’s an excerpt from Ed Glaeser’s book, Triumph of the City:
“Human capital, far more than physical infrastructure, explains which cities succeed. Typically in the United States, the share of the population with a college degree is used to estimate the skill level of a place … Despite its coarseness, no other measure does better in explaining recent urban prosperity. A 10 percent increase in the percentage of an area’s adult population with a BA in 1980 predicts 6 percent more income growth between 1980 and 2000.”
And if you plot education (people with four-year degrees) vs. per capita income levels for the major US metropolitan areas, which City Observatory did, you’ll see that nothing matters more. Here’s how City Observatory described it:
“This chart is the first, most important thing to remember about urban economic development in the 21st century: if you want high incomes, you need to have a high level of skills. Cities with poorly educated populations will find it difficult to raise living standards in a world where productivity and pay depend increasingly on knowledge.”
This, of course, isn’t new information. I’m sure I’ve written about it before. But it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.
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