Transportation Demand Management (Stanford Style) (suburban, highway, downtown, carpool)

[jade408]

Great interview in Stanford's alumi mag about how they dropped single-occupant car commuting from 72% in 2002 to 47% in 2013. FYI the rate of single car commuting in that county is 86.8%.

Brodie Hamilton looks back on the success of Stanford's alternative transportation programs

Some great ideas (that could apply to any job center in any location).

In putting the program together, we tried to offer solutions to what I call the "yes, but" responses. If someone says, "Yes, I'd use an alternative to driving alone, but if one of my kids gets sick I would be stuck at work without a way home," we could say, "We have an emergency ride home program." If someone says, "Yes, I'd take the train or the bus, but it's too expensive," we could say, "It's free." If someone says, "I need my car at work so I can run errands and get to doctor's appointments," we could say, "Zipcar and Enterprise Rent-A-Car are available on campus." We tried to create a program that had enough pieces to deal with most "yes, but" issues, so that people could give alternative transportation a try.

1. Get rid of the roadblocks and excuses
2. Give people multiple options: bus passes, train passes, carpool buddies, campus shuttle...
3. Don't forget about the last mile

I also tell conference audiences that they will need a comprehensive program. For example, we have the Caltrain Go Pass, which is a wonderful program, but if we didn't have the resources to expand the Marguerite Shuttle Bus routes to get people back and forth from the train station to all the places they need to go on campus and nearby – like the Research Park, where a lot of hospital and university departments are now located – the free train pass wouldn't be as attractive. As some programs have moved off campus, and as Stanford has added new buildings to the main campus, people have needed to get to places they didn't need to travel to in 2001. You've got to have all the pieces to create the synergy needed to make the program successful.

Here is another article on it too! Stanford transportation czar to retire, leaving blueprint behind - Silicon Valley Business Journal

Do you have any transportation management districts nearby? How are they successful or unsuccessful?

[urbanlife78]

Getting rid of the "buts" and excuses for not using alternative transportation and biking is probably the most important method to getting more people to use transit and bike to their destinations.

[kidphilly]

Lesson 1 seems exceedingly significant in this context - plus the endowment

But one of the major issues with the rapid spread of auto commuting was the centralization of new job centers along and at nexus connections of highways - generally devoid of any real transit option or limited ones

DC and LA today are probably a better model thn any to retrofit transit to serve diffuse suburban job centers; most are awful in this regard.

Significant job centers should be more focused to capitalize on existing Transit infrastructure, sadly very little really exists today outside of a few concentrated downtowns

Also - is there detail on how many that use Caltrain don't use an auto to get to the Caltrain station - would be curious. Also of the 20% if they drive more than 5 or 10 mile is this really reducing auot solo usage - I don't know the stats but my understanding of most of Caltrain save very few select station is that they are not likely places where people walk to the station - that said leveraging Caltrain is not bad even in this sense but not the same as true PT commuter per se

All this posted by someone who lives in a highly productive walkable neighborhood with incredible PT options yet reverse commute 1-2 days a week, work from home 1-2 day a week, and drive to North Jersey for work 1-2 days a week. I dont use my car when I work from home , fly, or travel to NYC or DT DC for work (DC burbs (am absolutley driving as it saves me 1-3 hours depending on location)

[jade408]

Originally Posted by kidphilly

Also - is there detail on how many that use Caltrain don't use an auto to get to the Caltrain station - would be curious. Also of the 20% if they drive more than 5 or 10 mile is this really reducing auot solo usage - I don't know the stats but my understanding of most of Caltrain save very few select station is that they are not likely places where people walk to the station - that said leveraging Caltrain is not bad even in this sense but not the same as true PT commuter per se

People might drive to the station, but most people who live in that section of the Bay Area live within 3 miles of a station. The first article I posted didn't discuss how Stanford worked with other regional transit agencies, to create routes to serve their campus, the second does. There is also a bus from Hayward to Caltrain, and that is about 15 miles...maybe more. 9 of those are across a bridge.

It is fairly difficult to take transit from where I live to Stanford (requires several agencies). But with the traffic, it is probably pretty comparable.