Detroit has started testing its new streetcars on Woodward Avenue. Quicken Loans bought the naming rights to the line, so it’s now officially called the QLINE. If you’re British, this name probably won’t instil feelings of rapidity.
Here’s a recent tweet from M1-Rail (click here if it doesn’t show up below):
The #QLINE is back on the road for testing today! Take a pic and tag @M1RAIL if you see the streetcar. #WeMoveDetroit pic.twitter.com/K42aHxebgG
— M-1 RAIL (@M1RAIL)
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Note how the train is running curbside.
There’s lots of debate about the economic benefits of streetcar/LRT over other transit solutions such as BRT. But if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll probably know that I am a supporter of light rail.
In the case of Detroit, I also think there’s symbolic importance to bringing back light rail to the core of the city. The last Detroit streetcar was shut down in 1956.
It’s also worth mentioning how the streetcar line was funded. Below is a breakdown of funding sources dated 2014.
There may have been some changes since then, but it’s positive to see the public and private sectors come together, alongside a large infusion of philanthropic money (The Kresge Foundation).
Many of the companies on the above list sponsored individual stations. The cost to do so was $3 million, which is why you see that number show up a few times. Compuware and JP Morgan Chase shared a station at $1.5 million each.
Is this a transit funding model worth replicating?
A travel expense management company called Certify recently analyzed over 10 million ground transportation receipts across North America for the 3-month period ending last September (2016).
And what they found was that, for the first time ever, Uber and Lyft exceeded traditional taxis and rental cars when it came to business expenses. Uber was at 48% and Lyft was at 4%. So together, these two platforms have more than half of this particular market.
If you compare this to Certify’s data from the same quarter last year, “ride-hailing services” previously accounted for 34% of receipts, whereas taxis and rental cars were at 22% and 44%, respectively. So Uber is up in a big way.
This may not be surprising for a lot of you, but I thought it would be valuable to check-in on what the numbers say.
I’m hit with two thoughts. Firstly, it’s not a question of mobile apps superseding traditional taxis; it’s a question of one company taking over. And secondly, people seem to be favoring Uber over driving themselves around. I know I’ve been heading in that direction.
Those are two powerful trends.
This morning I came across the below graph in a Medium article by Eric Jaffe of Sidewalk Labs. It is taken from a research paper by Elisabeth Ruth Perlman called, Dense Enough To Be Brilliant: Patents, Urbanization, and Transportation in Nineteenth Century America.
Detroit has started testing its new streetcars on Woodward Avenue. Quicken Loans bought the naming rights to the line, so it’s now officially called the QLINE. If you’re British, this name probably won’t instil feelings of rapidity.
Here’s a recent tweet from M1-Rail (click here if it doesn’t show up below):
The #QLINE is back on the road for testing today! Take a pic and tag @M1RAIL if you see the streetcar. #WeMoveDetroit pic.twitter.com/K42aHxebgG
— M-1 RAIL (@M1RAIL)
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Note how the train is running curbside.
There’s lots of debate about the economic benefits of streetcar/LRT over other transit solutions such as BRT. But if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll probably know that I am a supporter of light rail.
In the case of Detroit, I also think there’s symbolic importance to bringing back light rail to the core of the city. The last Detroit streetcar was shut down in 1956.
It’s also worth mentioning how the streetcar line was funded. Below is a breakdown of funding sources dated 2014.
There may have been some changes since then, but it’s positive to see the public and private sectors come together, alongside a large infusion of philanthropic money (The Kresge Foundation).
Many of the companies on the above list sponsored individual stations. The cost to do so was $3 million, which is why you see that number show up a few times. Compuware and JP Morgan Chase shared a station at $1.5 million each.
Is this a transit funding model worth replicating?
A travel expense management company called Certify recently analyzed over 10 million ground transportation receipts across North America for the 3-month period ending last September (2016).
And what they found was that, for the first time ever, Uber and Lyft exceeded traditional taxis and rental cars when it came to business expenses. Uber was at 48% and Lyft was at 4%. So together, these two platforms have more than half of this particular market.
If you compare this to Certify’s data from the same quarter last year, “ride-hailing services” previously accounted for 34% of receipts, whereas taxis and rental cars were at 22% and 44%, respectively. So Uber is up in a big way.
This may not be surprising for a lot of you, but I thought it would be valuable to check-in on what the numbers say.
I’m hit with two thoughts. Firstly, it’s not a question of mobile apps superseding traditional taxis; it’s a question of one company taking over. And secondly, people seem to be favoring Uber over driving themselves around. I know I’ve been heading in that direction.
Those are two powerful trends.
This morning I came across the below graph in a Medium article by Eric Jaffe of Sidewalk Labs. It is taken from a research paper by Elisabeth Ruth Perlman called, Dense Enough To Be Brilliant: Patents, Urbanization, and Transportation in Nineteenth Century America.
What this chart shows is patents issued – a proxy for innovation – in all U.S. counties between 1790 and 1900. This data is then compared against access to transport, such as rail. The discovery is a statistically significant relationship between innovation (patents issued) and rail (transport) access.
The spike in the 1850s (shown above) is as a result of increased rail access.
But Perlman takes it a step further and asks: what is causing this spike in innovation? Is it because inventors and creators started responding to the larger market now accessible to them because of rail connectivity? Or did transportation somehow improve productivity and the flow of information?
To answer this question, she dug into the patents themselves (over 700,000 of them) to try and identify how ideas and key words were spreading. What she found is that rail access alone doesn’t encourage innovation. References to new technologies did not increase.
What mattered was what happened locally. Transportation improvements promoted urbanization and density during her study period, and that’s what drove innovation. Connectivity created agglomeration economies at the local level.
Obviously a lot has changed since the 19th century. But whether it’s rail connectivity or internet connectivity, have the rules really changed? Place still matters. What happens locally still matters. Perhaps even more.
This is an important lesson to consider as we build our cities and invest in transportation. Rail alone isn’t enough. What matters more is what we build around it. Are we dense enough to be brilliant?
What this chart shows is patents issued – a proxy for innovation – in all U.S. counties between 1790 and 1900. This data is then compared against access to transport, such as rail. The discovery is a statistically significant relationship between innovation (patents issued) and rail (transport) access.
The spike in the 1850s (shown above) is as a result of increased rail access.
But Perlman takes it a step further and asks: what is causing this spike in innovation? Is it because inventors and creators started responding to the larger market now accessible to them because of rail connectivity? Or did transportation somehow improve productivity and the flow of information?
To answer this question, she dug into the patents themselves (over 700,000 of them) to try and identify how ideas and key words were spreading. What she found is that rail access alone doesn’t encourage innovation. References to new technologies did not increase.
What mattered was what happened locally. Transportation improvements promoted urbanization and density during her study period, and that’s what drove innovation. Connectivity created agglomeration economies at the local level.
Obviously a lot has changed since the 19th century. But whether it’s rail connectivity or internet connectivity, have the rules really changed? Place still matters. What happens locally still matters. Perhaps even more.
This is an important lesson to consider as we build our cities and invest in transportation. Rail alone isn’t enough. What matters more is what we build around it. Are we dense enough to be brilliant?
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