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Mobile regions, healthy people:Exploring the transportation – land use – environment – public health

connection

Lake Arrowhead Symposium

October 2005

Genevieve Giuliano

University of Southern California

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Subtitle: The benefits and costs of automobility

• Another subtitle: the benefits and costs of cheap transportation

• The costs – a long and growing list

• The benefits – a list increasingly ignored

• Focus on human costs and benefits

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Costs

Genevieve Giuliano

Congestion

Health effects of pollution

Traffic crashes

Physical activity?

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Private Vehicles

1969 1977 1983 1990 1995 2001

Persons/HH 3.16 2.83 2.69 2.56 2.63 N/A

Vehicles/HH 1.16 1.59 1.68 1.77 1.78 1.90

Veh/driver 0.70 0.94 0.98 1.01 1.00 1.08

Veh trips/HH 3.83 3.95 4.07 5.69 6.36 N/A

VMT/driver 20.6 19.5 18.7 28.4 32.1 29.0

Source: NPTS/NHTS

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Basic stats: 5 county urbanized region

1980 1990 2000

Population

(millions)11.192 14.012 15.779

Employment

(millions)5.388 6.875 7.242

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LA/OC Urbanized Area

1982 2002

Total daily VMT 165M 293M

Total road miles 22.8K 26.3K

Total person-hrs delay

186M 625M

Congestion cost $1.951B $11.231B

Delay/person 19 hrs 49 hrs

Source: Texas Transportation Institute

SCAG 2005 State of the Region

LA/LB largest container port in US, 5th in world

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Air pollution

• Growing recognition of health hazards of small particulates– SCAQMD studies– USC health panel studies

• Role of goods movement, international trade– Large increases in truck traffic, port activity– Jurisdiction issues

• Increasing marginal costs of emissions reductions

SCAG 2005 State of the Region

Other problems: PM10 and PM2.5

PLA Emissions: NO2/PM10

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PM 10 emissions sources – POLA

RR locomotives, 6%

Cargo equipment, 12%

HD vehicles, 9%

Ocean vessels, 55%

Harbor craft, 18%

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Adverse Health Impacts

• USC researchers have discovered:

– Deaths increased by up to 17% for each increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter of PM 2.5 particles.

– Deaths from heart disease rose by as much as 39%.

– More lung cancer deaths also occurred.

– Children near freeways have 89% higher risk of developing asthma

Source: SCAQMD MATES II

Cancer deaths per 1 million persons

Clusters of Concern

Source: LA Weekly 9/23-29/05

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Traffic safety 2004

Killed Injured

Total 42,636 2,788,000

Vehicle occupants 33,134 2,594,000

Motorcycle 4,008 76,000

Pedestrian 4,641 68,000

Bike 725 41,000

Other non-occ 128 9,000

Source: NTSA 2004 Statistics

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Top 10 leading causes of death by age group, 2002

Age < 1 yr

1 – 3

4 – 15

16 – 24

25 – 34

35 – 44

45 – 64

> 65 all

rank 8 2 1 1 1 3 8 n/a 8

share 0.4 10.0 22.2 34.0 16.8 7.5 2.2 1.8

Source: NTSA 2005

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Physical Activity

• Physical activity “engineered” out of daily life– Fewer high activity jobs– More labor saving devices– More leisure time– More TV and video games– More motorized travel

• Shifts in travel significant, but represent small proportion of daily activities

Base Non-motorized travel up 100%

Active paid work up 10%

Active free time up 25%

All strategies

Female

Active 4.10 4.20 4.30 4.21 4.52

Not active 19.90 19.80 19.70 19.79 19.49

Change active

2.6% 4.8% 2.6% 10.3%

Male

Active 3.93 4.02 4.16 4.04 4.36

Not active 20.07 19.98 19.84 19.96 19.64

Change active

2.3% 5.8% 2.7% 11.0%

Summary of results, hours/day

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Benefits

• Access to…..– jobs, education– preferred housing, neighborhoods, amenities– social networks– health care– consumer goods and services

• Transportation as equalizer

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Access to jobs

• Auto vs transit access to jobs– Studies show transit access much inferior, even in

cities with extensive service– Transit travel times– Transit schedule, service mismatches

• Spatial mismatch– Patterns of population, job decentralization – Where jobs are vs where workers are

• Job mobility– Job turnover– Careers and sequential jobs

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Access to housing, neighborhoods

• Varied preferences for housing, neighborhoods– Preferences for single family detached– Niche markets

• West Hollywood, Santa Monica, San Marino

• Community attachment– Attachment to “place”– Social networks

• Jobs/housing balance– Longer commutes make possible more preferred job

and residence choices– Residential mobility lower than job mobility

• Access to parks, recreation, other amenities

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Access to social networks

• Mobility and well-being among the elderly– Social integration key problem for elderly

• Social roles, social networks

– Psychological importance of out-of-home activities– Seniors identify mobility as critical element in life

satisfaction– Car as freedom, independence, means for mobility– Cessation of driving

• Loss of independence, social isolation, reduced access to essential services

• Distributed families, friends and cheap air travel

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Access to health care

• Problems of the uninsured– As more providers avoid treating uninsured,

access to healthcare declines– Difficulties in transporting the sick, frail

• Transit not an option in an emergency

• Problems of the insured– Provider restrictions– Finding the best possible care

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Access to consumer goods and services

• The poor pay more– Captured markets

• Limited variety of food, consumer goods in low income neighborhoods– Living in a “food desert”– Banks and financial services

• Competition and scale economies– Target, Wal-Mart not all bad

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Transportation as equalizer

• Options to address spatial disparities– Disperse the poor among the non-poor– Promote jobs, economic activity in poor,

minority areas– Provide transport to overcome spatial

segmentation

• The first two options face many barriers; transport becomes the default

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Conclusion

Automobility has large costs and large benefits. The policy

challenge is to reduce the costs while preserving the benefits.