After approximately three and a half years of operation in Seattle, Gig Car Share, a carsharing service that provided one-way short-term car rental services, ceased operations in late December. Citing high operational costs and overhead as well as insufficient demand, the American Automobile Association (AAA)- owned program was pulled from Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. It had already pulled its Sacramento fleet for the same reasons in 2023.

Gig Car’s dissolution eliminates a major tool for Seattleites who don’t own cars or are hoping to forgo car ownership in the future. While roundtrip service carshare programs such as Zip-Car still exist, the loss of Gig represents the end of any one-way carshare service in Seattle. The AAA’s statement that its decision to end operations may suggest that this type of service is unfeasible, however, less than 150 miles away on the Canadian side of the border, carshare services in Vancouver, British Columbia paint a very different story. 

Despite a national border, the two cities probably have more in common than they do with many others in their respective countries due to their geographical proximities, similar demographics, and topography. If carshare works in Vancouver, it can work in Seattle — at least if the City designs the right program and fosters the proper conditions for both carshare and residents’ broader mobility to flourish.

Free-floating carshare services provide a valuable service for urban residents aiming to reduce their car dependency. When going completely car-free can prove difficult or unfeasible for many residents of North American cities where governments have historically opted to subsidize and prioritize parking, urban sprawl and highway expansion, free-floating carshare programs can fill in the gaps in people’s needs without committing to full ownership. 

Unlike similar round-trip carshare programs, where users must return cars where they picked them up, free-floating carshare programs allow members to leave the cars in different places than where they found them. This means that if users take a car to do errands or visit a friend, they can leave the car and only pay for the trip itself rather than having to keep the car on retainer and pay for the inactive time. 

Carshare also can incentivize chaining different types of transport together. Running late to meet friends at the pub? Rent a carshare to get there then bus home safely! Evidence suggests that users of free-floating carshare programs are more likely to use it to complement public transportation than round-trip carshare users. 

In practice, Gig and Vancouver’s Evo are almost identical services, right down to the black and blue branding and their respective fleets of Toyota Priuses. Both require members to sign up for a low-cost membership after which they book cars through an app and leave the cars anywhere within their respective home-zones (specific areas within city limits where the cars can be parked). Users are charged per minute, by the hour or per day depending on the length of the ride’s usage. In both cases, the services had arrangements made with their respective cities to allow parking in resident-only or paid parking spaces. 

Even at its peak however, Gig never reached 900 daily rides according to publicly available data from the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT). While specific ridership data is not available for Evo, the company says its Vancouver fleet is approximately 2,300 cars (compared to Gig’s peak in Seattle of 400 cars), suggesting that its regular ridership is likely much higher than Gig’s was.

So, what explains the difference between Evo’s ongoing success in Vancouver and Gig’s collapse in Seattle? Two key reasons are advertising and the availability of complimentary transportation services. 

Evo invested in advertising

Gig faced an uphill battle from the beginning. Initially launching in Seattle in June 2020, the service faced a slow start because of the pandemic, causing both fewer people to go out as well as fewer opportunities for potential customers to be reached through traditional advertising. Looking at the SDOT-provided graph on Gig ridership, it took approximately a year for the service to hit its stride. Promotional efforts were limited to advertisements on city buses, messages printed on the cars themselves, and online advertisements. While all useful strategies, these were not enough to get Gig out of its slow start in a way that was sufficiently profitable for AAA.

Evo in comparison has had a much more aggressive advertising strategy. As well as ads on buses and their cars, it has pursued other community-oriented approaches to integrate the service into daily life for residents. 

For example, Evo makes a concerted effort to reach out to university students, stationing tents at campus orientation events to offer free trials and membership to students at the start of the school year. This targets a non-car-dependent demographic, potentially creating long-term users if they come to rely on the service. Evo also has arrangements for set parking spaces at schools like the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, BCIT, and Capilano University to support on campus usage.

Another example is Evo’s Summer Cinema series, where Evo sponsors free outdoor movie nights in Vancouver’s Stanley Park holding up to 8,000 attendees. As well as building name-brand recognition through these community events, Evo can also prioritize its own service by providing dedicated parking spaces for its vehicles. 

Vancouver’s richer transportation ecosystem

While Vancouver’s public transit and bike lanes move around the city, Seattle’s in comparison places a higher priority on car ridership and connecting neighborhoods to the downtown core. If you’re in the city of Vancouver, most bus routes will be a fairly straight shot whatever other neighborhood you need. While there may be transfers, you will generally find yourself moving towards your destination at all times. Seattle in comparison will frequently see you bus into downtown and transfer out to a different direction. Notably, the 99-B Line route in Vancouver is the busiest bus corridor in either Canada or the US yet it does not pass through the city’s downtown core.

Coupled with a freeway plowing straight through the city (Vancouver is notably the only major city in North America to avoid this fate), busing between parts of Seattle that are under a 20-minute drive might take you closer to an hour to bus. As a result, driving is often the most cost-effective means of transportation for those who already own a car (ignoring the societal costs increased car usage causes to public health, public safety, and the environment). All this has resulted in significantly higher transit ridership in Vancouver than Seattle.

Reducing car ownership is one key to the success of carshare services. While saving money is frequently cited as a positive of carshares, the marginal cost (what one extra trip will cost a user) of using carshare services will almost always be more than that of using one’s own car since users must absorb the per-trip cost of gas and insurance while allowing paying enough to keep the ride-share organization afloat. However, moderate-to-infrequent drivers will save money in the long run as they avoid the overhead of car ownership. 

In other less econ-nerdy terms, if you already own a car, it’s cheaper to use that rather than pay ride-share fees. To convince people to reduce car ownership and use carshare programs, carshares need to complement an existing transportation ecosystem that supports reducing car dependency and ownership.

Seattle’s transit network and bike lanes are improving but remain insufficient to entice most people out of car ownership. Seattle’s transit network falls into a radial system, a type of transit style that prioritizes connecting neighborhoods to a city’s downtown core with a lesser focus on connecting non-downtown neighborhoods to one another. While radial transit networks are good for connecting residences to workplaces, it limits the ability of transit riders to move between different neighborhoods. This manifests itself in significantly higher transit times for those moving between non-downtown neighborhoods compared to driving, as well as prioritizes public funding towards a specific class of worker deemed to be the standard because they spend their time in the prioritized downtown core. 

Conversely, Vancouver’s transit system network with its multiple SkyTrain routes has a more inter-neighborhood connection style that supports activity beyond going to and from work. 

Vancouver is hardly perfect, and car-ownership rates can still vary greatly between neighborhoods. Looking at Vancouver on the sub-neighborhood level shows that while more than one-third of residents are carshare members, highly transit-serviced neighborhoods such as Kitsilano or near the Port of Vancouver see that number increase to close to half while more suburban areas in the city with less transit service see that number fall as low as 21%.

Car ownership in Vancouver is also inverted with carshare membership, with higher rates of car ownership occuring in neighborhoods where carshare membership is lower. This makes sense, as a study that found that 25% of carshare users in BC said they reduced their vehicle ownership after joining a carshare program and 40% said that access to carshare programs discouraged them from buying a vehicle they would have purchased otherwise.

Despite inconsistent carshare service, Seattle’s car ownership rate has managed to decline, with car-free households surpassing 20% in 2023 according to Census data. Vancouver’s proportion of carshare households is only marginally higher at 22%. Reducing car-ownership doesn’t seem to tell the whole story. 

One key differentiator, however, is that 53% of daily trips made by Vancouverites are completed by active or public transportation while comparable 2019 data from the City of Seattle finds that 66% of trips are completed by car.

So despite having relatively similar total rates of household car ownership, car reliance appears to be lower in Vancouver, resulting in people relying on multiple modes of transportation and using cars to fill gaps when needed. A positive correlation exists between carshare membership and transit service, and an inverse one with membership and car-ownership. Accordingly, it seems that Evo’s success is dependent on key non-car dependent neighborhoods, while more car-dependent ones bring the city’s overall household car-ownership average back in line with Seattle’s. 

Other factors that could be affecting the difference in uptake could be the availability of other transportation options. For example, ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft were not permitted in Vancouver until January 2020. This meant that ridehailing was not a feasible alternative service to carsharing while companies like Evo were first establishing a customer base, while Gig was always competing with ridehailing services.

Another competitor could be the relative availability of micro-mobility options. Vancouver only recently began piloting scootershare in through lime in select neighborhoods in Fall 2024. Mobi, the Vancouver based bike share program owned by Roger Communication, has only recently expanded its geographic coverage to be accessible to half of city residents and this distribution has been noted to be highly uneven from a socio-economic perspective. 

On the other hand, Lime bike essentially covers all of Seattle barring some restricted areas. It’s not a surprise then that bike and scootershare programs have had a greater uptake in Seattle. In 2023 nearly five million shared bike and scooter rides were recorded while Mobi (the only player in the Vancouver market at the time) recorded just over one million trips for the first time ever that year. It may be possible then that the greater usage of micromobility options in Seattle absorbs a lot of the last-mile demand that rideshare takes up in Vancouver.

There is still work that needs to be done in Vancouver to ensure all residents have access to the infrastructure to reduce car dependency, but as it stands, there appears to be sufficient demand to support carshare services as a business model.

Can Seattle lead again?

Gig Car’s closing may seem like a foregone conclusion of a business model that simply doesn’t work. It’s worth remembering Gig Car isn’t the first time one-way carshare has been introduced in Seattle. In 2019, Car2Go, a similar service operating in cities internationally faced similar issues and shut down all its North American locations due to similar issues. But a comparison with Vancouver shows that one-way carshare programs can be feasible with the right support and public infrastructure. 

At one point Seattle could have been seen as a leader in promoting carshare programs. For example, a 2018 thesis from Simon Fraser University found that the City of Seattle was initially a leader in supporting carshare programs, pioneering policies that the City of Vancouver would end up using such as allowing free parking for the services in metered spaces and residential-only spots, an action that was highlighted by a representative from Evo as crucial to a conducive car-sharing market. Interviews conducted with City staff in this thesis highlight that this is not a coincidence; Vancouver was directly inspired by actions taken in Seattle. And there was certainly enough demand for residents to see it as a lifestyle change. An SDOT study from the heyday of Car2Go found that 14% of users indicated that they had given up owning a car since joining the service.

What is evident is that carshare services are not a silver bullet to reduce pollution and traffic collisions. carshare services need to be a support player in building a wider transportation system that is built around people rather than cars and works in tandem with public transit options rather than competing with them. 

While an ill-timed pandemic  rollout and slow advertising of Gig Car left a lot to be desired, the fact that free-floating carshare programs continue to flounder in most American cities suggests more structural issues need to be addressed. It’s a new technology presenting exciting urbanist opportunities, but at the end of the day, old transit solutions and solid urban planning are still the bedrock to reducing car-dependency.

The post Op-Ed: Vancouver Shows Carshare’s Success Depends on Great Transit first appeared on The Urbanist.

When Mayor Durkan took office, work was halted on the project even as construction had begun on utility work, and an independent analysis was conducted due to concerns about escalating costs. But in 2019, after that study had been completed and the total cost for the project was pegged at $286 million, up from $177 million, the Mayor announced she was supporting the project and the city council authorized $9 million to continue design work. However, Durkan was clear it would be the city council who would have to come up with funding to fill what was an estimated $65 million gap in funding. In 2020, facing revenue impacts due to Covid-19, $8 million of that initial design funding was diverted to other purposes.

Now Durkan’s 2022 budget proposes spending $2.4 million. That would get the project back up-to-date, and on the same page as current work on another downtown transit tunnel being planned as part of Sound Transit 3. This $2.4 million would make up the lion’s share of the anticipated 2022 proceeds directed to transportation from Seattle’s ridehailing fee on Transportation Network Companies (TNCs).

In 2019, there was only one vote on the City Council against funding the streetcar project: Councilmember Lisa Herbold. Now Herbold has another outspoken critic of the project to join with, Councilmember Alex Pedersen. On Friday, both Herbold and Pedersen made clear they would like to direct that $2.4 million to other purposes. Pedersen attacked the project as being “redundant” because there are additional public transit lines in Downtown Seattle. Herbold jumped on that talking point as well, but primarily focused on the fact that SDOT would have to get back into the queue for the $75 million in Federal grant funding that it had been in line to receive before the project was paused.

Defending the project was Council President Lorena González, who actually agreed with her council colleagues that the route was redundant, and noted the virtue of this fact. “Literature in the area of transportation repeatedly says redundancy should be a feature,” she told them, citing the need for alternatives if there’s a failure somewhere in the system. González was interested in getting more information on the status of possible grants for the project, but wanted to be clear that doing due diligence around the financial needs for the project was separate from the vision for a transit network that the city has.

It’s unclear yet if there are more than just two votes on the council to propose diverting the funding, which would likely put the project back on ice. Councilmember Andrew Lewis, who represents the district where the streetcar would be built, didn’t make his views known during Friday’s meeting. During his bid to be District 7’s representative in 2019, he told The Urbanist that he didn’t support the Center City Connector, and also viewed the service it would provide as redundant. However, he said he wouldn’t actively oppose the project.

“I fully acknowledge that the decision has been made after several studies, delays, and debates to build the Center City Connector,” he wrote in response to a question from The Urbanist’s election board. “I respect that process and the decision, and I will not seek to relitigate the Center City Connector if I am elected to the city council. I will make sure the process continues to be transparent and will work to make sure it is effectively and efficiently implemented.”

In contrast, Councilmember Dan Strauss told The Urbanist that he does support the project. “When we build out a transit mode into an interconnected network, it becomes more useful and encourages greater ridership,” he wrote in 2019. It doesn’t appear likely that the votes are there on the committee to divert the funding, but dynamics could change.

The Urbanist has extensively covered the Center City Connector, including making the full case for the transit project in 2018.

Could Seattle purchase additional bus service?

A topic raised by Councilmember Pedersen was the issue of bus service hours purchased from Metro via the Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD). In 2022, the City is set to spend $28.5 million on bus service hours, not counting additional bus service around West Seattle to mitigate the bridge closure. This is purchasing around 150,000 service hours, or around 20% of all service hours that King County Metro is currently providing. But the STBD funding still resulted in some deleted trips in the October service change even as Metro restored trips elsewhere.

A memo by council central staff notes that $17 million is currently being held in reserves, and Pedersen wanted to know if the reserves could be used to bolster service levels. The reserves are kept on hand to account for future increase in per-hour service costs, and could be needed in the event that voters didn’t approve a renewal of the STBD before it expired in 2027.

Pedersen raised the idea of a possible countywide measure being sent to voters in the next few years, with a Seattle-only renewal as a fallback option, and suggested that the idea that the city would end up without a benefit district at all was a long shot. “I would hate to hold back on service now when there’s such demand, and having that intense frequency of buses is what will get people to consider getting out of their cars,” Pedersen said.

The spending plan for the STBD does include bolstering reserve funding every year with the exception of the final partial year in 2027.

Not mentioned was the possibility of adding additional money from reserves to increase the amount being spent on capital improvements to speed up bus operations. Capital projects aren’t ongoing expenses that would have to be sustained through the next ballot measure, but could provide faster trips that benefit riders moving forward.

King County’s proposed budget would get Metro back to 100% of pre-pandemic service levels by the end of 2022, and cancel a service reduction that had previously been anticipated in 2025, but no increases in countywide service levels have been proposed yet.

Council President González also asked Central Staff to come back with more analysis of what service levels could be sustained with reserve funds that don’t conflict with the goals of the reserve fund.

Changes to free-floating car share?

Along with the budget, the Durkan administration is sending the city council a companion piece of legislation that would modify the way that the city’s permits for free-floating car share operate. Currently permits include a $300 per vehicle base fee, and additional fees are charged every time the vehicle is parked. This would change that to a fee for every trip, with a proposed $0.50 per trip fee cut in half for vehicles that are electric.

Council Central Staff notes that this would generate $150,000 less in revenue for the city next year. But perhaps more significantly, the legislation would alter the requirements for serving specific geographic areas in the city. Currently, every company permitted to provide free-floating car share must expand their service area within two years to cover the entire city. This would be modified to allow SDOT to grant exceptions, based on characteristics like fleet size, breadth of service, and strategies for providing service in underserved communities.

Just a few years ago, the city had three companies operating car share, with nearly 2,000 vehicles on the streets. Currently, Seattle only has one free-floating car share company, GIG, which has a little under 400 cars on the city’s streets right now. Next year, GIG would be required to serve the entire city under the existing terms of the city’s permit, which seems like the impetus for this change.

Several councilmembers expressed concern about the change in geographic service requirement. When Car2Go launched in 2013, there was much criticism of the fact that the company decided to restrict its cars from being parked in most of the Rainier Valley and all of West Seattle, while it allowed cars to be parked nearly to the northern border of the city. Of course, serving the entire city does not ensure that those areas are actually served.

“I am concerned about creating this discretion, because I do think it will create pretty significant inequities,” Council President González said, noting that she didn’t think it was a good deal to Seattle residents to be both reducing the permit fees and the coverage requirements at the same time. Councilmember Tammy Morales wanted more information on whether the citywide coverage requirement led to the decision of the operators to leave.

Lower permit fees could entice more car share operators to start service in Seattle, but it’s pretty clear that permitting a carshare company that wouldn’t serve all Seattle residents would likely be a non-starter for several councilmembers.

These issues are certainly not going to be the only place where councilmembers seek to modify the transportation budget: next week the budget committee will review a full list of proposed amendments and we’ll see how much support each one has. Expect to see increases in the Commercial Parking tax from Councilmember Lewis to pay for Vision Zero programs, a proposal to see more Home Zones in Seattle from Councilmember Morales, and a likely proposal to increase bridge maintenance funding from Councilmember Pedersen.

The post Center City Streetcar Dominates at Initial Transportation Budget Discussion first appeared on The Urbanist.

Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes explains how carsharing can be a good supplement for people who occasionally need a car but otherwise rarely use a car. He also discusses his rule that people don’t need a car if they don’t drive to work.

The post Sunday Video: Living Car-Free Made Easy first appeared on The Urbanist.

The company had a rocky start hoping to launch in April only to have the pandemic hit. That wound up delaying the start of service until the end of June, in time for the 4th of July holiday, but leaving a four-month gap in carsharing service since the last provider, Car2Go, folded. GIG Car Share began serving the central areas of Seattle with 250 vehicles, which exclusively consists of a Toyota Prius fleet equipped with rooftop bike racks.

The homearea did contract slightly around the University of Washington campus and it ostensibly excludes popular park areas, perhaps because some have seen parking lot closures and access road restrictions due to Covid. The homearea also comes with a spate of restricted zones where car trips cannot be ended in, such as Eastlake Ave E, Aurora Ave N, and many Downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill blocks.

Except where otherwise restricted by GIG Car Share, users are allowed to end vehicle trips anywhere within the homearea by parking on-street where legally permitted. That means users can park in paid on-street parking spaces, time-limited on-street parking spaces, and within restricted parking zones without extra charges. Of course, this does not apply to on-street parking spaces for deliveries, short-term unload, handicap, on-street parking spaces that turn into auxiliary lanes, and other special on-street parking designations. Consistent with other carsharing programs, users will be charged for use of a vehicle during stops outside the homearea.

The expansion to Southeast Seattle will certainly be a welcome change. Exclusion of these areas was a point of early concern when the company launched, at least in social justice and urbanism social media circles. Part of that is because predecessor carsharing companies made Southeast Seattle communities a lower priority for early coverage. However, the companies eventually expanded to reach all areas of the city. In July, GIG Car Share stated that the extent of the homearea is “based on market research, demand, population density and accessibility to transit and retail.”

The City’s free-floating carshare permit conditions require GIG Car Share–and any other future competitors–to provide homeareas that include the entire city within two years of starting operations. The permit conditions also place no limit on the number of cars. At the peak of its heyday, Car2Go operated 750 vehicles on city streets and covered the entire city within two years, which coincided with fleet expansion to the maximum allowed at that time.

Seattle has been fortunate amidst a gruelling pandemic to also have private bikeshare and scootershare companies launching services. In the summer, 500 Jump e-bikes were relaunched under new ownership by Lime and followed by 500 Lime standup e-scooters in mid-September. In October and November, two newcomer scootershare companies also joined the micromobility network with Link providing 150 standup e-scooters and Wheels offering 100 seated e-scooters.

Both companies plan to scale up to the 500 e-scooter cap per operator in the coming months and all four scootershare and bikeshare programs cover the entire city, though with some restrictions on where e-bikes and e-scooters can be parked to end a trip. However, e-scooters from Link and Wheels still seem to be heavily concentrated in areas like Capitol Hill, Downtown Seattle, and West Seattle, which may suggest an active rebalancing strategy being used by the companies to target prospective users.

Pricing somewhat varies between the competitors with Wheels being the least expensive despite having perhaps the most interesting product:

• Lime (both Jump bike and Lime scooters) is $1 to unlock and $0.36 per minute;
• Link is $1 to unlock and $0.35 per minute; and
• Wheels is $0.35 per minute.

As far as integration with trip planning tools goes, Jump and Lime are the only ones aggregated into services like the Transit app. Perhaps in time though the other micromobility competitors and GIG Car Share will join in with their live geolocation data to make decisions easier for users.

For now, the shared mobility market is growing again in Seattle after a chaotic two years that saw a boom and sharp contraction. With the pandemic greatly changing transportation habits, there is reason to believe that individualized community mobility options may be an appealing choice as people work closer to home and seek to avoid more congested alternatives. Widespread vaccination in 2021 and an end to the pandemic, of course, could change the equation a bit. So it is hard to predict exactly where things are headed, but the venture capitalists and boosters seem very confident in the services. Time will tell.

The post GIG Car Share Expands Homearea and Micromobility Options Grow in Seattle first appeared on The Urbanist.

GIG planned to enter the Seattle market to replace the long-time carshare provider Car2Go that left at the end of February. The carshare market has been shrinking for the past year as other free-floating carshare services LimePod and ReachNow closed up operations. The main competitor to GIG is Zipcar, which requires monthly membership dues and uses a traditional model and only allows users to pick-up and drop-off cars at specific parking spots.

The membership model is currently free with no monthly or initial registration costs. The rate structure is not too dissimilar to Car2Go’s with $0.40 charges per minute that caps at $15 per hour. These charges cover all costs, including insurance and gas. On top of this, GIG is setting other price caps at $55 for eight hours and $85 per day of use. Access fees per use, slated to be be $1, and the $5 airport parking fee are also waived for the time being. GIG has not said how long the introductory pricing structure will remain in place.

The carshare fleet will entirely consist of Toyota Priuses that include bike racks, providing dual city and recreational use. The carrying capacity of the vehicles is five people, including the driver. GIG is using hybrid electric variants in the Seattle market, but other markets have all-electric models. With 250 vehicles, GIG touts that there is “roughly 18 cars per square mile on average within the [homearea], nearly double the density of past providers.”

Within the homearea, users are allowed to park vehicles anywhere on-street where legally permitted. This includes paid on-street parking spaces, time-limited on-street parking spaces, and within restricted parking zones without extra charges. Users should be aware that this does not apply to on-street parking spaces for deliveries, short-term unload, handicap, on-street parking spaces that turn into auxiliary lanes, and other special on-street parking designations. Outside of the homearea, users will still be charged for use of a vehicle even if stopping it for a period time. Users will need to return to the homearea to fully end a trip.

The initial homearea where carshare users can expect pickup and dropoff GIG cars is somewhat limited, though it does cover approximately 13 square miles. GIG has chosen a homearea that include major districts like Downtown Seattle, Uptown, Capitol Hill/First Hill, South Lake Union, and the University District. It also touches Eastlake, Queen Anne, Montlake, Wallingford, and Laurelhurst. However, there are many streets dotted throughout the homearea that will be restricted for on-street parking, preventing users from ending trips there.

GIG has one extension of the homearea outside Seattle. As other past services, there will be a location near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport where users can pickup and dropoff cars. The Wallypark location just south of the airport on Pacific Hwy S north of the the S 188th St intersection will be the designated pickup and dropoff location.

The initial homearea was “based on market research, demand, population density and accessibility to transit and retail,” according to GIG. It is not clear if a race and social equity analysis was used in determining the bounds of the homearea, but based upon the areas being served, it likely was not a strong factor if one was.

Under the terms of the free-floating carshare permit conditions, GIG will need to expand the homearea to include the entire city within two years of starting operations and has no limit on the number of cars. At the peak of Car2Go, the company operated 750 vehicles on city streets and covered the entire city in two years, which coincided with fleet expansion to the maximum allowed at that time.

GIG expects to grow the fleet and homearea as demand increases with homearea expansions more likely to happen sooner. Feedback from members could be influential in some of those decisions as well as conversations with city officials.

Local surveys and data have shown that free-floating carshare programs, like GIG, help reduce car dependence and promote transportation alternatives to car ownership. Seattle has led the nation in decreasing car ownership rates over the past decade with a 3% drop. Paired with improved transit, bikeability and walkability, carsharing options have helped ease people into skipping car ownership, making the services an instrumental piece of the mobility pie.

The post GIG Has Launched Bringing Free-Floating Carshare Back to Seattle first appeared on The Urbanist.

The American Automobile Association (AAA) is behind the new carsharing company and currently operates its GIG carsharing service in Sacramento and the several cities of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is not yet clear what the Seattle home area will look like, but it probably will end up covering most of the corporate boundaries of Seattle allowing carshare users to park on-street at no cost wherever allowed. Trips outside the home area will also be allowed, but cannot be ended until returning to the home area.

GIG has indicated that 250 cars will be introduced to the Seattle home area. These will consist of Toyota Priuses that include bike racks, a feature the company is promoting to attract recreational members in addition to general city use. The vehicles will be able to carry as many as four passengers plus the driver. In its other markets, the Priuses come in hybrid and all-electric model. Cars should start appearing on city streets in April.

Cost of the service is fairly similar to Car2Go’s rate structure with a $0.41 charge per minute, up to $15 per hour cap. All costs, including insurance and gas, are built into the per-minute and hourly charges. Through March 15th, new members can register and get two hours of credit for free. The first 1,500 new members in Seattle will also get to try out the service before the formal launch in May.

The arrival of a new free-floating carshare program will hopefully allow Seattle to continue its progress decreasing car dependence and promoting alternatives to car ownership. Seattle led the nation in decreasing car ownership rates over the previous decade with a 3% drop. Alongside improving transit, bikeability and walkability, carsharing options did their part to help convince people forgo car ownership.

The post GIG Car Share Is Coming to Seattle first appeared on The Urbanist.

“If a pilot program is working, we always explore how to make it continue past the pilot period,” Metro Mobility Director Christina O’Claire said in a statement. “Ride2 didn’t meet the performance milestones necessary to continue, but we accomplished what we set out to do in that we heard from our customers on what worked and what didn’t. We’re thankful that the public is willing to try new things, and we’ll apply what we’ve learned with the hopes of approaching these communities in the future with something new-and-improved.”

Ride2 West Seattle was a bit controversial from the start because it used funds from the voter-approved Seattle Transportation Benefit District on what some saw as a luxury service and relied on non-unionized operators–unlike Metro’s buses. The shuttle provides service between Alaska Junction and King County Water Taxi dock at Seacrest Park, which offered an escape valve during the Alaskan Way Viaduct Closure in January when West Seattle bore the brunt of the “Seattle Squeeze” before the SR-99 tunnel opened.

Both Ride2 West Seattle and Ride2 Eastgate (which serves the Eastgate Park-and-Ride) will end on December 20th.

Combined, Ride2 Eastgate and Ride2 West Seattle averaged 125 trips per day–29 of those daily trips in West Seattle. “A total of 7,155 users downloaded the Ride2 app used in both service areas, though less than 15% have used the service in the last 30 days,” Metro reported.

West Seattle’s service area included Alki, Fairmont Park, Genesee, High Point, North Admiral, North Delridge, and Riverview and Metro estimated 53,000 residents and 12,000 jobs were located within that service area.

Via to Transit, which serves Link Light rail stations in Southeast Seattle and Tukwila, will continue. By comparison, it has lately been averaging about 240 trips per day in the Rainier Beach service area alone, Metro said, with a total of nearly 1,000 rides per day across Via to Transit’s five service areas.

“The pilots were designed as 12-month research projects to test innovative solutions to immediate transportation needs,” Metro said in its press release. “Eastgate’s immediate need stemmed from the fact that Eastgate Park & Ride–the county’s largest park-and-ride–was often full early in the morning, and is located in an area with limited local bus service and walking and biking infrastructure.”

While subsidizing a service very similar to ridehailing could be framed as innovative, it may be more innovative for Eastgate and West Seattle neighborhoods to get better walking and biking infrastructure and maybe even densify sufficiently to support frequent transit. Metro doesn’t have authority on those fronts, though.

Eastgate’s service area included Factoria, Lake Hills, Lakemont, and Somerset neighborhoods of Bellevue, serving an estimated 44,000 residents and 32,000 jobs.

Ride2 Eastgate’s ridership exceeds that of Ride2 West Seattle, at roughly 82 trips per day, and costs $35 per trip to operate, Metro said. “While more expensive to operate than an average traditional bus trip (an estimated $5.17), the ridership was within expectations,” Metro said, adding it was “unable to secure funding to extend the service past the one-year pilot timeframe” despite efforts to do so.

Metro officially notified its Ride2 operator Hopelink of termination on December 5th and contractually that means that it will continue to fund Hopelunk for 30 days, ending payments on January 4th by my math. Hopelink employs 14 drivers on Ride2 service, and Metro stated “Hopelink is working with affected drivers on transition planning, and Metro is actively engaged in this effort.”

One lesson learned, Metro said, was on-demand shuttle services can effectively feed fixed-route transit service, but that fixed-route transit must be frequent to work as a magnet; rider feedback suggests West Seattle Water Taxi wasn’t frequent enough with its 30-minute frequency.

Even with these pilots, a lasting “first mile, last mile” solution (to get transit riders from their home to transit and back again) remains elusive. A shuttle program that appears successful may just preface the need for a new bus route, unless the demand is truly so scattered that a route cannot be drawn to connect the demand centers.

My own two cents is that much like the private ridehailing industry–which is hemorrhaging money–it’s not clear that there is a sustainable or scalable model here. On-demand shuttle service is simply very expensive, making it hard to provide widely available. That’s why we must add more high-quality transit and design cities around it. Innovative “new mobility” in suburban haunts may always be second-best when it comes to value.

Disclaimer: I did work at King County Metro as a graduate intern and do some low-level work on Ride2.

The post Metro Nixes Ride2 Shuttle, Citing Dismal Metrics, but Via to Transit Continues first appeared on The Urbanist.

Uber tapped ECONorthwest to carry the study and provided it with its carefully guarded trip data to shed light on traffic patterns. ECONorthwest sought to follow the framework the City laid out in its own preliminary study issued in May–which was more focused on table-setting than the nuts and bolts of a program. The four goals laid out were:

1. Be equitable
2. Have positive climate and health outcomes
3. Reduce congestion
4. Be feasible to implement

ECONorthwest identified a decongestion pricing plan that appeared to meet all those conditions. And Uber trumpeted the findings and welcomed such a program. One element that seemed especially Uber-friendly was the daily cap of $3.80 in tolls that would mean ridehailing drivers would only pay the toll once or twice before capping out.

The Road to Decongestion: How We Got Here

In 2017, Councilmember Mike O’Brien secured $200,000 for studying decongestion pricing added to the City budget. O’Brien was seeking to prepare for cars diverting and spilling into Downtown streets due to SR-99 tunnel tolling, which was essential to pay for the $4 billion project and particularly its upkeep costs going forward. The Washington Department of Transportation had said that SR-99 tolling would begin in June, though it since delayed tunnel tolling until the fall.

In April 2018, Mayor Jenny Durkan made a big splash when she announced her support for studying downtown decongestion pricing–although she did that the same week as she delayed the Basic Bike Network and halted the Center City streetcar project. Mayor Durkan said she hoped to have decongestion pricing in place by end of her first term in 2021, but that seems unlikely at the speed this process is playing out.

While City leaders were dipping their toes in the decongestion pricing water, they were also considering enacting new fees on just ridehailing trips. Uber had supported Seattle’s exploration of decongestion pricing, but both Uber and Lyft spoke out against targeting only ridehailing services when The Seattle Times broke the story that such a proposal was in the works and being kept under wraps by Mayor Durkan. With the threat of a ridehailing-only fee, decongestion pricing is clearly the more attractive option for Uber. Currently, ridehailing companies pay only 24 cents per trip to Seattle and 33 cents per trip to King County, which is significantly less than cities like San Francisco and Chicago. Also relevant: Uber (and Lyft) continue to hemorrhage billions of dollars, has a questionable business model, and had an initial public offering that went very poorly.

What’s In It for Uber

It’s likely decongestion fees would be tacked onto the cost of ridehailing trips for users, but it would be much less of a competitive disadvantage for Uber because every car would be paying the fee, and the daily cap–if actually implemented–would spare its drivers. That could give Uber and Lyft a competitive advantage over private car ownership. ECONorthwest seems to acknowledge there are better ways to target congestion than this model:

For this white paper, we imagine a single charge – per vehicle per day – that reflects the highest toll rate hour in which the vehicle operates within the downtown toll zone. For example, if a vehicle enters downtown prior to the morning peak when the toll rate is $1.00, parks, but then departs downtown during the afternoon peak when the toll rate is $3.80, then the daily charge would be $3.80. This approach maintains the incentive to minimize exposure to toll costs by avoiding the highest traffic times of day while allowing for a single daily charge to be applied to each vehicle. There are many other tolling approaches that are feasible, and that may more precisely target trips that contribute the most to congested conditions

ECONorthwest Fair and Efficient Congestion Pricing White Paper

For some folks, decongestion pricing would make bikeshare and scootershare trips more attractive, but Uber is in that business too. Pricing could also encourage more people to give up car ownership and that could encourage them to take more ridehailing trips, especially if those trips are faster due to less congestion. Finally, since studies have increasingly linked the recent worsening of urban congestion to the proliferation of ridehailing, Uber backing decongestion pricing could avert backlash and improve public relations.

Making Decongestion Pricing Equitable

The analysis of who would pay the decongestion tolls indicate equity is attainable. In fact, making the impact of a pricing program equitable would be easier than some thought. For starters, the bulk of decongestion tolls would be paid by the wealthy. Under the scenario studied, the highest earning 10% (or decile) or households pays a quarter of tolls, while the lower 50% pay less than a quarter of tolls. While the low-income folks who do pay the tolls would feel them as a larger chunk of their household budgets, clearly the wealthy pay the lion’s share of the tolls levied.

Low-income Toll Rebate Program

One mechanism to make pricing’s impact more equitable is redistributing some of the toll revenue back to low-income people. “Using $50 million per year of the net toll revenues, the City could implement a mobility fairness program,” the study states. “Such a program could target rebates for moderate income downtown employees, low income households’ trips into downtown for critical purposes, and support the general mobility needs of low income Seattle households.”

The study lays out some ways to channel $50 million in annual toll revenue back to below median income households, who would pay $31 million in tolls and thus come out ahead.

“Using toll revenues, Seattle based employers could provide employees whose incomes are near or below the regional median a monthly e-purse starting at about $85, or about $1,000 per year,” the study states. “Eligible service expenses might include transit fares, bike-share expenses, shared-ride expenses, parking charges and tolls. For the eligible employees that daily pay the toll to enter downtown Seattle this could entirely offset daily expenses. For employees that pay the downtown toll less frequently, or avoid the toll entirely by taking transit or other means the e-purse disbursements could represent a net fiscal gain.”

The e-purse idea sounded like a light-version of LA Metro CEO Phillip Washington’s idea to make transit fare-free with the revenue from decongestion pricing, which he tossed out there at a transit panel at the Downtown Seattle Association’s State of Downtown conference in February. In fact the e-purse could be administered directly to ORCA transit passes for lower-income folks living or working within the toll zone.

All in all, ECONorthwest and Uber have made an interesting contribution to the decongestion pricing debate. They’ve shown that making pricing an equitable program is very achievable. The proposal to reinvest more revenue back in to below-median income households than they take out seems to indisputably accomplish this. But the wider outcomes of the program are highly equitable, too. The reduction in pollution and the increase in transit speed and reliability would also help low-income communities that bear the brunt of road pollution and clogged transit–and who are most at risk from the climate crisis.

The post Uber Pushing Congestion Pricing with New Consultant Study as Durkan Weighs New Ridehailing Fee first appeared on The Urbanist.

Getting From Gas To Electric

An alignment of disparate factors led to the proposed station. SDOT has developed a program for granting public right-of-way for chargers–EVCROW (Electric Vehicle Charging in the Public Right-of-Way). The program specifically prohibits chargers where transit-only lanes are planned. But the program is silent on planned bike lanes.

EV charging infrastructure in the public right-of-way may be located in designated Urban Centers and Urban Villages, except:
– On residential local access streets, adjacent to parcels zoned as single-family;
– Along current or planned transit priority streets where EV charging infrastructure may obstruct an existing or future transit only lane or business and transit (BAT) lane, as designated in the 2016 update of the Transit Master Plan;

This enabled Seattle City Light to apply for a permit at the location. But even before the permit application, Seattle City Light staff picked the spot for technical reasons and got a green light from SDOT. City Light found the location appealing because there is existing electrical infrastructure that will reduce the cost of installation. Additionally, the sidewalk and street widths meet required minimums.

Beyond that, there are a variety of mushier advantages. One Seattle City Light (SCL) staff member indicated, while another location would meet the technical requirements–Boylston Ave between Republican and Harrison Streets–it is a more residential area. Multiple conversations with SDOT and SCL made clear that the proximity to transit is considered an advantage rather than a disadvantage. In fact, proximity to transit is one of the four site considerations SCL takes into account.

It seems likely chargers will get a fair amount of usage. Seattle City Light reported that the two chargers on Beacon Hill were used about 15 times a day, with normal charging sessions between 20 and 30 minutes. This means each space is occupied for about four hours a day.

If the station happens, the number of people using it will equal the number of additional private vehicle trips in front of the light rail station and through the crowded Broadway and Olive intersection. If customers arrive while another vehicle is charging, it’s not clear where they would queue.

No Plan for Non-Car Mobility on Broadway

The indefinite delay of the bike lane is a microcosm of the city’s general challenges. Seattle Bike Blog reported that the City completed just 4% of its 2018 bike lane goals. Plans for 2019 appear to be equally dismal, potentially only adding 2.9 more miles. Even announcing the planned projects has been delayed.

At the Wednesday meeting, SDOT staff appeared to be deflecting concerns about the Broadway extension by displaying plans about the downtown basic bike network, suggesting there’s not enough money to do both. Yet even that infrastructure is facing delays. It’s now been over 300 days since those plans were supposed to move forward.

Meanwhile, the city is apparently underspending money from the last transportation levy.

These facts form the background of Seattle City Light’s proposal for a charging station directly in the path of a planned bike lane and streetcar extension. Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reported that the transit and bike extensions were “indefinitely deferred” after the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce pushed back. The city was forced to return $10 million in grants, after doing nearly $3 million in planning work. More recently, efforts to speed up the existing streetcar on Broadway were also iced, over loading space and parking concerns.

Seattle City Light and SDOT staff were both quick to point out that the the permit is still being considered and the station could be moved if there were ever plans to extend the bike lane. It’s unclear though whether public feedback will make any difference. Two Capitol Hill community groups already voiced displeasure about the location in September and October of 2018. Seattle City Light proceeded anyways. It’s possible the agency is under pressure to roll out more chargers because the mayor promised 20 fast chargers in 2018. Only two were installed.

As for the bike lane and streetcar, it’s not clear there will ever be enough money or political will. 400 new apartments will open nearby in early 2020 and the currently underutilized curb space will see a lot more demand.

If the bike lane is ever extended, SDOT and Seattle City Light staff were quick to note that the costs from relocating the charger would be paid by Seattle City Light. What’s less clear is how that cost might be portrayed in the media or during public meetings. SDOT will have to invoice Seattle City Light so the cost will still appear in SDOT’s project budget, potentially handing opponents another brick to smash the window of change.

Streetfights Are about Opportunity Cost

At Wednesday’s open house, most conversations with city staff were focused on why the location is optimal for electric chargers. But allocating public space is fundamentally about competing uses and opportunity cost. There are a few big opportunities.

First, the bus stop on the corner of Broadway and Olive, north of the intersection, should be moved south one block, placing it on the same block as the light rail entrance. The current location requires Routes 9, 49 and 60 to pull into the curb, causing delays when trying to merge back into traffic. Also, the transfer for many riders requires crossing a street. The extra distance is an unnecessary obstacle for people with mobility challenges. A matter of seconds can also be the difference between making or missing a connection.

A one block extension of the bike lane would also help a lot of trips. The corner of Broadway and Olive is a hub for bikeshare. It’s also the starting point for many people combining their bike trip with Routes 8, 10, and 43. People travelling south from that corner need to navigate a busy sidewalk, cross the street twice, or salmon through oncoming traffic in order to reach the protected bike lane. A one block extension would allow people to start their trips immediately in a protected bike lane.

Lastly, if the city thinks Uber and Lyft are important last mile services, it’s unclear why a charging station would be built rather than load/unload zones.

Squishy Priorities

Costs appear to be a big consideration for this location. Seattle City Light is currently under a lot of scrutiny because of plans to increase rates. Reporting from Crosscut also illuminated that the agency is way above budget on the smart meter implementation.

It’s less clear how much money would be saved at the Broadway location. SCL expects the installation of two chargers to cost around $190,000 but could not answer how much it would cost to move the chargers. It remains a question whether or not another location would be cheaper in the long run if the chargers are ultimately moved.

SDOT’s support of the location also appears squishy. When asked for comment about the location, SDOT spokesperson Dawn Schellenberg said, “We want people exiting the streetcar, light rail or bus to have good access to walk, use bike share and grab a ride-hail service provider to their destination, preferably with vehicles powered by clean electricity.”

Any environmentalist can tell you that an electric Uber or Lyft is better than one spewing fumes. But choosing a location based on the needs of private companies–potentially impacting accessibility for other modes–is a subsidy. It’s not clear there is public will to subsidize electrification of these companies’ fleets. And if there is public desire, it’s unclear what a good policy would look like.

This is especially important considering one of the mayor’s most important consultants is a lobbyist for Lyft. While the city considers investing in infrastructure to help these companies, there are alternative approaches that could be considered. For example, the city could tie their licensing to electrification. Forcing Uber and Lyft to electrify might even spur private investment to build charging infrastructure which–like every gas station in the city–doesn’t use the public right of way.

Mode Priorities Moving Forward

Seattle set itself apart from other American cities with its commitment to public transportation. It’s one of the only US cities seeing year-over-year ridership growth. This success is only possible because of our commitment to prioritize walking, rolling, biking and transit.

The intersection of Broadway and Olive is nearly a perfect example of that effort. It’s a hub for six bus routes, bikeshare, a streetcar and light rail. It’s been so successful the Seattle Department of Transportation’s annual report indicates it has the highest pedestrian counts of any area surveyed in the entire city.

Yet there is a glaring problem with this location. Traffic continues to impede bus reliability and threaten pedestrian safety. The city already dropped a decision to protect pedestrians by adding a left turn signal at the intersection. High costs were the concern. The bike lane and streetcar extensions also appears dead due to cost.

Meanwhile, investments like the electric charging station have enough money to move forward, driving even more motor vehicle trips through one of Seattle’s busiest pedestrian spaces.

SDOT still needs to approve Seattle City Light’s permit and the comment period is open until March 14th. You can send an email to publicspace@seattle.gov or
SCL_ElectricVehicles@seattle.gov.

The post City Agencies Re-Charge the Debate About Transportation Priorities On Broadway first appeared on The Urbanist.

At 8am any given school day in King County, the cars snake around the elementary school, inching toward the drop off zone. The traffic spills out into the surrounding streets, clogging intersections and creating tense moments for drivers forced to make snap decisions between speed and safety.

Horns blare. Tempers rise. Collisions happen. And, insidiously, hours are lost to sitting in congestion.

According to National Highway Traffic Administration data collection on school transportation crashes, between 2007 and 2016:

• 1,282 people of all ages killed in school- transportation-related crashes.
• 281 of victims were school age children.
• Only 58 of victims were occupants of school transportation vehicles, while 116 were occupants of other vehicles, 98 were pedestrians, 8 were cyclists, and 1 was another nonoccupant.
  
• More school-age pedestrians were killed from 6am to 7am and from 3pm to 4pm than any other hours of the day.
  
• Less than two-thirds (62%) of the school-age pedestrians fatally injured in school-transportation-related crashes were struck by school buses or vehicles functioning as school buses.
  

These statistics reveal the dangers created by car traffic in school zones. While safety is the biggest concern, the congestion caused by car-based school commutes is also alarming in both its impacts on families and our transportation system at-large.

Roughly 50 percent of American parents  drive their children to school. A recent Google consumer survey found 44% of parents spent five hours or more driving their kids to school and activities each week, while private ride service company HopSkipDrive reported that of 1,000 parents polled 51% spent five hours or more driving their kids, and more than 1 in 10 spent 10 hours or more, the equivalent of a part-time job.

Car-Based School Commutes Strain Transportation Systems

The negative impact of these transportation patterns is substantial. According to the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, in US metro areas up to 20 or 30 percent of morning traffic is generated by parents driving their children to school.

Most parents cite convenience as the primary factor for why they drive their children to school. In the Seattle metro area, it is well-known that the transit systems work best when riders have a single destination. Increasing the number of destinations makes it difficult to manage trips because so many routes are disconnected. For working families with children, particularly those outside of urban cores, this means driving is often not the preferred option, but the only option.

A review of transit ridership numbers across the US reveals that families with children are among the lowest user groups. In fact, according to the American Public Transportation Association’s 2017 statistics, 79% of transit riders were between the ages of 25 and 54, and 57% of transit riders came from households of only one or two people. 

This data has important equity based implications. Systems that force parents to spend hours each week driving their kids have real consequences on families, draining of them of both time and financial resources. They also worsen the burden of car traffic on the greater society and environment.

As the Seattle metro area approaches the period of maximum of constraint, a.k.a. Seattle’s new transportation normal, families with children will be amongst the most affected by increases in congestion, the effects of which will resonate far outside of the downtown core.

UW Ideathon Winners Tackle the Problem of School Commutes

Solving our transportation issues requires creative thinking. Recognizing the need for new approaches and diverse perspectives, UW Mobility Innovation Center Imagine Mobility Ideathon, sponsored in partnership with WSDOT, SDOT, Sound Transit and King County Metro, challenged teams of undergraduate and graduate students from diverse disciplines to tackle the Seattle metro area’s transportation challenges from a user perspective.

As part of the process, teams conducted field work, going out into the community and interviewing people about their transportation needs and concerns. From that data, they assembled a “model user” for whom they created a unique transportation solution. 

For the first-place winning team, the “model user” was an Everett mom with school age kids who works in Seattle and spends 45-50 minutes commuting each way between home, school, and work everyday. 

The team’s goal was to craft a solution that would get the model user out of her car and into public transit or a ride share. Their solution? Creating “mobility hubs” at public schools. 

School mobility hubs would offer additional transportation options for parents by creating routes into central locations and major employers that could be served by vanpools, city buses, ride share companies, company shuttles, or private cars depending on the locations and size of the schools.

In the students’ vision, the mobility hubs would also include a community center, most likely a cafeteria, that would increase communication and connection-building opportunities among commuters, who would not be limited to parents of children enrolled in the school. Anyone who wished to participate in the mobility hub services and programs would be able to.

The team was encouraged by the competition judges to work toward making their idea a reality. As a result of winning they have received automatic admission into National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps Customer Discovery Program. As grantees, the team will receive $2,500 to develop their the school mobility hub concept and interview potential customers. Their training will also include individual advising on team strategies and feedback from seasoned entrepreneurs.

The school mobility hub concept could be seen as building on an existing King County program. Through its SchoolPool program, King County Metro encourages families share school commutes, whether it be by car, foot, transit, or ride share. The program is open to students who attend any public or private elementary, middle, or high school. It also attempts to motivate young users to avoid single passenger car travel by allowing them to track their miles, cost savings, and CO2 reductions based on their commute habits.

Ride Share Companies Offer Parents Who Can Pay Increased Options 

For those who can afford it, private ride share companies that specialize in transporting kids are sprouting up in affluent metro areas like San Francisco and Seattle. HopSkipDrive, GoKart, Zum, and Kango all offer services that fall somewhere between taxi and nanny. While company policies vary, as a rule “care drivers” pass rigorous screening. But costs are very high. For example, at HopSkipDrive the minimum drive cost is $16.

These services do not necessarily decrease congestion either. While companies like HopSkipDrive do have carpool options, which allow families and schools to arrange shared rides, many parents opt for solo trips for their kids. 

In general, families whose children walk to school tend to be lower income, so increasing carpooling among affluent families could help decrease the the congestion by reducing the number of single-car trips; however, at best it offers a partial solution to what amounts to a major transportation problem, while also doing little to address the issues of equity that confront middle and low-income families.

If you are interested in helping to make school commutes safer for kids in Seattle, the City of Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee is actively seeking new members. Learn more here. 

The post Car-Based School Commutes Hurt Families with Kids first appeared on The Urbanist.