Over the last couple of days, I’ve been listening to Steven Dubner, the host of Freakonomics Radio. Steven is an American journalist and a co-author of the Freakonomics book. He’s one of my favorite podcasters that I would listen to every time. And I have gained loads of intriguing insights from him across various fields. Now I want to share with you guys what I’ve learned from him and the people he interviewed about transportation in general. We will delve into topics like the possibility of making public transportation free, how to deal with congestion by charging people who use their own cars, and also how roundabouts could save millions of lives. But for now, let’s start with something more prevalent:

Public Transport VS Private Automobiles

Cars in general have a bunch of negative externalities such as gas emissions, the risk of accidents, and congestion which all of these can lead to major problems for society. It could cause air pollution, climate change, property damage, injuries, and loss of life. Yet, these externalities are not being charged accordingly and it’s pretty reasonable for drivers to pay the cost for the roads that they use. All of these perils are set free in most of our roads and we quite often neglect these kinds of problems that could affect our daily lives silently. Now, here’s the complication: well, roads are supposed to be a public good. Why should it be charged?

From the podcast, Shashi Verma, a senior executive at Transport for London who manages most of the transportation network in London, said: “That’s not fundamentally true”. He, then, explained that people can use the roads for other activities if the majority of cars are not on the roads and encourage people to use public transport more.

In London, you have to pay 15 pounds (around 287.000 IDR) during the day if you want to go to the central of the city, this is called congestion fee. And the result was up to 44% of roadside emissions were reduced. Plus more people were using buses perhaps to avoid the cost or because of bus improvements or both. Then Steven asked, “Does this mean the key to increasing public transit everywhere is just to make driving painfully expensive?”

In short, Verma said, “If you tell people you can’t use your cars, you also have to give them an alternative”. In conclusion for this topic, we can’t just simply make driving expensive without giving people alternatives and it’s also crucial to enhance the public transport system to make it more attractive. But how about making public transport free? could it be the solution? Now that’ll be our next topic.

Is Fare-Free Transport Our Answer?

Let’s begin with the advantages of free-fare transport:

• Increase in social mobility because now people that couldn’t drive can get anywhere without thinking about the cost (especially for low-income people and people with disability)
• Help raise social equity in general
• More time efficient since there is no lining up to pay the fare
• Reduce gas emissions if, of course, people that use private vehicles start using the public transportation

These are the benefits that fare-free transport could offer and some countries are beginning to make this a reality, including Luxembourg which is the first country to make all public transport free.

But making public transport free is a very context-depended decision. Not all countries or cities are worth making the transportation fare-free. Making it all fare-free for all types of people isn’t quite the answer too. It’s better to provide the free services to places that need the most.

In the podcast, Steven presented a question, “when a transit agency stops charging its passengers, where does the money come from to run the system — to buy and maintain buses and trains, and to pay drivers and other employees?”

then a scholar from the University of California, Brian Taylor answered, ” People often may not have an idea of how much the fare they pay goes for the cost of transit. Nationwide ( in the US), fares cover about a third of the operating costs of a system, but they don’t cover any of the capital costs (cost of buying trains and its station, etc.). So the buses, the trains, the equipment, the stations are all paid for with federal grants (financial aid). And the cost of operating the service — the operators, the drivers, and the mechanics, fuel, tires, wear and tear, things like that — about a third of that is covered out of fares and about two-thirds by government subsidies”. Of course, the fare revenues could vary from place to place and not all places have the funds or money to cover most of the cost.

Well, it turns out that it’s pretty complicated to reach the equilibrium between private vehicles and public transportation. But this last one might be promising and also humbling.

The Modest Roundabout

We may underestimate the simple circular road but there are surprisingly many unrevealed facts behind it. we’ll begin with the safety aspect of roundabouts compare to non-roundabout intersections.

In 2019, crashes in the U.S. produced around 36,000 deaths and 2.75 million injuries and about a quarter of all crash fatalities happen at intersections. The death rate that happened in the classic four-way traffic-light intersection is 4 deaths per 1,000 crashes. While at roundabouts, there is only 1 death per 1,000 crashes based on the U.S. crash data.

Jim Brainard, the mayor of Carmel, Indiana, explains: “Roundabouts are smaller and because they’re smaller, everybody has to drive through them slowly. It’s about speed”. By slowing down, the chance of accidents is mitigated because drivers are more aware of their surroundings. Meanwhile, at traffic-light intersections people are eager to get to the other side and sometimes drive through a pink light, a traffic light that is just about to turn red. But it’s still worth considering other factors outside of roundabouts, as Steven put it:” Maybe there’s less drinking and driving there. Maybe they have the best driver’s-ed. program ever invented”.

Another reason why roundabouts are a robust option is the fact that it’s more environmentally friendly. I’ll quote again from the podcast, this time it’s from Doug Hecox, from the Federal Highway Administration: “Many in the environmental community like the fact that because traffic isn’t stopped, like it is at a traditional signalized intersection, you don’t have vehicles idling and therefore the emissions from those idling vehicles is less. Significantly less. And so the air quality is improved”.

And there’s also a counterintuitive fact that roundabouts can decrease congestion according to the data. But it sounds like too good to be true, isn’t it? well, there is a downside on the cost of making roundabouts.

Even though roundabouts are still cheaper than the normal traffic-lights intersection which can cost up to $1 million-plus, the roundabouts take more space and are more expensive when you want to replace a traffic-lights intersection with a roundabout.

“there’s a substantial cost. Couple of million dollars per intersection, probably on average. Because you’re taking out that light, you’re probably buying some additional land in the corners. You have to move underground utilities out from under the light” said Jim Brainard, the mayor of Carmel, Indiana. At least in the short run, he said.

Afterwords

These are all the things that I’ve learned from last week, mostly from the Freakonomics Radio. For those of you who are still reading, I recognize my writing is still awful and i would like to hear feedbacks from you guys. Next week, I’ll write a book summary and for those of you who want to request, just contact me through social media. Have a nice day!