Transportation behavior, claustrophobia, and the Supreme Court

Though Washington, DC's Union Station sits just steps from the U.S. Capitol, our country's leaders choose to prioritize cars and airlines over intercity rail (Photo courtesy of Getty Images)

Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attacked Christine Blasey Ford’s transportation habits during her Congressional testimony yesterday.

Specifically, Kavanaugh’s supporters went after the Stanford professor’s airline trips, including her flight from the Bay Area to DC to get to the hearing, as well as other occasional air travel for work and vacations. The reason: Ford has said claustrophobia – a product of trauma from the assault – has made her afraid to fly on our country’s increasingly cramped airplanes. Their aim: to imply that because Ford flies sometimes, the claustrophobia – and, by extension, her account of the assault – are fabrications.

The flawed logic of this premise demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of how people make transportation choices. 

For any given trip – be it crosstown or cross-country – people use the transportation mode they perceive to be most convenient. This mode often is not necessarily the option a person would prefer to use if they had a balanced selection, but rather reflects what the powers that be – including the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee – have chosen to prioritize.

For example, people-oriented projects and policies have encouraged people to bike in Copenhagen and ride buses in Seoul. But cars continue to dominate Los Angeles because the region’s transportation culture was shaped over decades during which alternatives to the automobile were neglected. Despite aggressive recent transit expansion, this culture won’t change overnight.

Thus, most American intercity travel occurs on the modes for which our infrastructure was designed – cars for short-to-medium haul trips, and planes for medium-to-long haul trips. Because of the marginalization of other intercity modes, such as trains, buses, and ferries, people perceive driving or flying to be their most convenient available option even in situations when neither works well. 

For example, most travelers between Northern and Southern California choose between jammed flights that can involve long security lines and be grounded by a little fog or rain, or a nightmare car trip on I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley highlighted by breakdowns on the Grapevine grade south of Bakersfield and Harris Ranch’s smelly Coalinga feed lot that animal rights groups refer to as “Cowschwitz”. Yet because Californians have grown comfortable with and used to those two modes, public support for the state’s under-construction high speed rail project remains tepid.

Restricting ourselves to such a small set of options doesn’t just limit our transportation system’s functionality. As Dr. Ford’s fear of flying exemplifies, our existing infrastructure also fails to meet the personal needs and preferences of many people. The Interstate Highway System – the ground transportation option America chose to prioritize – would have been useless for her this week unless she was up for enduring four to five full days of driving, capped by nights at roadside Best Westerns and Motel 6s, during the buildup to her testimony.

So, while Ford may not have been thrilled about her 5 hour flight to DC – especially given the daunting task that awaited her – flying made the most sense of the options available.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Though flying will be the fastest way to cross the country for the foreseeable future, trains could be at least as useful for many purposes if our leaders decided to get serious about intercity passenger rail.

If we had a California-to-Northeast rail route that averaged 100 mph and was not subjected to the whims of freight companies like Norfolk Southern – still far less to ask for than the 200+ mph average speed Chinese riders enjoy on the 800-mile Beijing-Shanghai high speed line – the duration of coast-to-coast train trips would be trimmed from three nights to just one.

Given the spaciousness, comradery, and affordability of train travel, travelers on numerous types of trips – including individuals like Ford who are averse to flying – would finally have a viable, mainstream transportation option to embrace. Such a route would provide valuable economic connections to the communities it would serve, many of which are located in currently neglected “flyover country.”

But I haven’t heard a single Judiciary Committee senator, from either side of the aisle, advocate for such infrastructure improvements. No one even stepped up to stop Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson, formerly of Delta Air Lines, from replacing dining cars – a cherished part of intercity rail in America – with boxed meals on two major routes connecting Chicago to the Northeast.

So, on the plane Dr. Ford stays.

U.S. 50: Creating transit advocates since 1995

A typical, miserable day on U.S. 50 in Sacramento (photo courtesy of KCRA 3)

Earlier today, I suggested converting the segment of Interstate 5 that cuts off Sacramento’s downtown from its historic riverfront into a linear urban park.

As someone who endured the nightmare of Sacramento car commuting for 14 years, I hope my recommendation, which would likely speed up downtown traffic if implemented in tandem with multimodal transportation improvements, helps save others from the daily ordeal I was subjected to on the U.S. 50 freeway. The chronically congested 50 intersects I-5 at the southern end of the aforementioned downtown segment that shouldn’t exist.

My daily task from September 1995 to June 2009: trekking to and from Sacramento Country Day School, which I attended from pre-kindergarten all the way through high school. Until 2000, the trips originated in West Sacramento, 11 miles from campus. When suburban sprawl began to overrun the idyllic farm fields surrounding our neighborhood, we moved west to Davis, lengthening the commute to 20 miles. Though I could have enjoyed a platinum-rated bike commute had I transferred to a school in Davis, my parents liked the tight-knit environment of Country Day, so in the car I stayed.  

One of my earliest memories of the commute is of a truck crash. The crash wasn’t even on 50, but it blocked all lanes of Business 80, a different freeway, and turned the entire Sacramento region into a parking lot, making me hours late to class.

Things didn’t get any better over the next decade-and-a-half. The sun glared in my face in both directions. Travel times were impossible to predict, yet somehow I was always blamed for late arrivals. In the morning, my dad desperately tried to avoid the congestion (to no avail) by cutting through east Sacramento neighborhoods. In the afternoon, the saintly woman my parents hired to drive me home paid the price for being the only person on the road to adhere to traffic laws, as other drivers regularly cut her off and caused countless near-collisions.

Crippling congestion plagued 50 daily, particularly east of the interchange with I-5. But the delays were just the beginning of the horror. Several notable memories:

• Seeing a totaled vehicle on the opposite side of the road with its side completely torn off, then reading later in the paper that an occupant of the vehicle died in the hospital after the crash
• A merging van coming within inches of striking the vehicle transporting several fellow baseball players and me to an away game
• The sound of our windshield cracking as a fountain of stones spewed from a gravel truck in an adjacent lane
• An infuriated driver fuming on the left shoulder after his car was crunched between two other vehicles during a traffic jam
• Big rigs leaning precariously on a wind-whipped Yolo Causeway (actually part of Interstate 80, just west of the interchange where 50 begins, but it’s all the same) during one of Sacramento’s winter rainstorms

The soundtrack for all of this was NewsRadio KFBK 1530. Every morning, the station’s beloved Commander Bill described the day’s traffic mess to high-energy beats, pumping drivers up for the day’s battle. But for some reason, the commander always neglected to mention the daily disaster on eastbound 50, perhaps because, given we were travelling away from downtown, this all should have been a reverse commute.

These experiences didn’t inspire me to get my own driver’s license – in line with national trends, I waited until the summer after high school, ensuring I’d never have to experience that commute from behind the wheel.

I wasn’t aware of viable alternatives to the nightmare of 50. My exposure to transit was limited to a few BART trips to Bay Area sporting events (from park-and-ride stations, of course) and a day in San Francisco when I was awed by Muni’s street-running trains and convinced my aunt to spend the afternoon riding on them around the city with me. There was occasional talk of starting up a shuttle bus to campus for Country Day students who lived in Davis, but I failed to step up and make sure it became reality. Instead, I made the mistake so common in suburban America: depending on car rides from others.  

But even if I didn’t know it at the time, I was yearning to ditch the car. As soon as I landed in Seoul for a study abroad program two years later and was exposed to first-world transportation, any hope the auto industry had of ever getting business from me vanished.

A typical, miserable day on 6th St NW, part of U.S. 50's route through DC (photo by me)

I haven't escaped U.S. 50. It passes like a dagger through the heart of DC, though in contrast to Sacramento it’s only a surface street. I walk across it pretty frequently, as 6^th Street Northwest – one of the roads it runs on – lies between my office and Capitol One Arena, as well as popular lunch spots in Chinatown. Of course, it’s often a parking lot.

Even though I don’t drive cars anymore, pedestrian-hostile 50 still does everything it can to make me mad. Things really get fun when the highway turns onto New York Ave NE, a six-lane super-arterial with no bike lanes, no bus stops, and ultra-skinny sidewalks.

The people of Nevada have figured out the solution to U.S. 50: Don't use it (photo courtesy of Unusual Places)

Between DC and Sacramento, long stretches of 50 sit empty. Some people insist it’s an idyllic, lonely road – nice experience travel, perhaps. I’ll instead take a page from the anti-transit crowd’s manifesto and call the practically unused, taxpayer-funded highway a boondoggle.

Even in busier Sacramento, a recent attempt to resurface an elevated section of the freeway failed and had to be redone at three times the cost.

Sacramento Regional Transit recently expanded late night light rail service on the Gold Line, which parallels U.S. 50. The upgrade is part of a broader effort to improve the region's transit system (photo courtesy of CBS 13)

During a recent trip back to my hometown, I headed out to Country Day to say hi to my former teachers. This time, I used the transit routes that would have saved me so much stress growing up, but that I never knew were there. 

The system has room for improvement, as the fastest transit option from our Davis home to the campus requires two transfers. But the sense of relief I feel whenever I look down at U.S. 50’s traffic from Sacramento Regional Transit’s Gold Line light rail is incredible.

As my train rolled along, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people sitting in those stopped cars below me will become transit advocates once they discover how good multimodal transportation can be.    

Chao's pro-driving DOT goes on an anti-drunk driving crusade, illustrating one of U.S. car culture's greatest hypocrisies

Outside U.S. DOT Headquarters: a sign warning people not to drive drunk. Inside: $1.8 billion in withheld transit funds. (Photo by me)

It’s the first weekend of college football season, and teams, knowing that a single loss could end their national championship chances, are striving to find their midseason form on Day 1. While watching Cal barely hold off a lousy North Carolina team yesterday, I also struggled to rediscover my ability – to quickly find a backup game and avoid viewing any commercials, that is. 

At one point, I’d failed to keep advertisements off my TV, and things quickly went from bad to worse when a public service announcement from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) – part of Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Elaine Chao’s Department of Transportation – filled the screen.

Hopes that DOT was finally announcing which transit projects will receive its $1.8 billion in withheld federal funds faded quickly, as burning cars filled the screen. But the PSA did accurately portray one of the auto industry’s biggest failures: the fact that their mode is useless if you want to have a couple beers. As a drunk driver pouted in the back of a police car, the PSA reminded viewers to “drive sober or get pulled over.”

But can an agency that’s choosing to withhold nearly two billion dollars appropriated to transit improvements, for no apparent reason, really say they are committed to reducing drunk driving?

It seems Chao is doing her best to perpetuate the bizarre dichotomy of America’s quixotic effort to fight drunk driving without fighting auto-dependency. Chao gets away with her hypocrisy because many people see drunk driving as solely a substance abuse issue, rather than as a transportation issue.

The history of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the organization founded by Candace Lightner (the mother of a girl struck and killed by a drunk driver just outside my hometown of Sacramento) that has come to be the face of America’s effort to eliminate driving under the influence, illustrates the root of this problem.

Relatively speaking, drunk driving laws are quite lenient in America

I’ll give MADD credit where it’s due. First and foremost, the organization’s support for victims of drunk driving crashes is heroic and honorable. Also, the MADD website refers to car crashes accurately, as crashes, rather than calling them “accidents.”

But on the policy side, MADD has served only to further entrench car culture in our society.

To start, MADD’s greatest legislative victory, achieved just four years after its 1980 founding, has nothing to do with traffic safety. Instead, all the National Minimum Drinking Age Act did was ensure 18-to-20 year olds consume alcohol only in unregulated environments where sexual predators can easily spike peoples’ drinks without consequences. It appears the organization forgot not only that many 18-to-20 year olds live on or near college campuses, which tend to have relatively good multimodal transportation options, but also that the driver who killed Lightner’s daughter was 46 years old.

When it comes to actual drunk driving laws, on the other hand, the U.S. still lacks teeth relative to the rest of the developed world, in spite of MADD’s talk. Unless you’re in Utah, where the 3.2 beer makes it tough to get any kind of a buzz, you can drive legally in America with a blood alcohol content of up to .08%, or as many as five drinks for some people.

In many other countries, including soju-loving South Korea, the legal alcohol limit for driving is .05%. (A note here: I’ve never driven a car in Korea, but I’ve seen DUI checkpoints there. I’ve never seen one in the U.S.). In Russia the legal limit is 0.035%, so if you happen to be in Moscow or Irkutsk, want to try some vodka, and don’t want to wind up in a Putin jail, take transit.

The auto and oil industry has successfully avoided any responsibility for drunk driving in America

A quick look at MADD’s sponsors may help explain the organization’s failure to promote any legislation that would actually prevent people from driving after they drink.

Car companies (including GM and Mercedes), oil companies (including ARCO and BP), auto insurance companies (including State Farm, Nationwide, and GEICO), and other auto industry organizations (including AAA and the Georgia Automobile Dealers Association) dominate MADD’s list of sponsors. Major donors also include Uber and Waymo, giving the ride hailing-autonomous vehicle crowd a strong presence at MADD’s table. MADD even directly sells used cars to raise funding, no ignition interlock system included. 

Interestingly, it appears no alcohol companies sponsor MADD, even though those companies would likely have a better reputation if people didn’t drive after they drink.

Though MADD has never advocated for transit improvements such as extended nighttime service hours, they’ve wholeheartedly embraced the ride hailing companies that sponsor them. This, even though people with DUIs on their records regularly pass TNC background checks, it’s far from clear that ride hailing reduces drunk driving, and the apps may actually make roads more dangerous since ride hailing drivers must use their phones to do their jobs.   

As for the “designated drivers” MADD advocates for, it’s nice to wish that a friend or family member will accompany you for a night of bar-hopping without imbibing or will show up at 2am to pick you up. I also think it would be nice if the Koch Brothers become transit advocates, but I understand that it’s not going to happen. Even if you do manage to find a DD, remember that more than two-thirds of fatal car crashes don’t involve alcohol impairment.   

There are opportunities for tangible progress, but MADD is nowhere to be seen

San Diego's Green Flash Brewing is served directly by MTS's Route 921 bus. The problem: transit riders hoping to order a pint of West Coast IPA must walk around the brewery building, then through the giant parking lot in the foreground. Thanks, parking minimums, for encouraging drunk driving! (Photo courtesy of TripAdvisor)

MADD, based in the Dallas suburb of Irving, TX at an address on the East John Carpenter Freeway, hasn’t done anything about the fact that Arlington, TX – another Metroplex suburb – is once again the country’s most populous city that completely lacks transit service. Nor the fact that AT&T Stadium, the Arlington-based home of the Dallas Cowboys, earns the most alcohol revenue of any licensed liquor retailer in Texas, even during the NFL offseason. (This picture of the stadium makes it clear how fans typically get to and from the boozy venue).

Bars, breweries, wineries, and distilleries often face high parking minimums even in places that are accessible by transit. This forces licensed establishments to subsidize car storage for patrons who choose to drive after they drink. No word from MADD on this, of course.

And according to Google Street View the intersection of Sunset and New York Avenues in Fair Oaks, CA, where Lightner’s daughter was killed 38 years ago, still lacks crosswalks, sidewalks, and bike lanes. Any brave soul who manages to reach a Sacramento Regional Transit bus stop on this stretch of Sunset faces a rude awakening, as signs indicate there is “temporarily” no bus service on the road.

The streets of Fair Oaks – and of so much of America – are not safe for anyone, sober or drunk.