I am currently working on an innovation research project at the Vienna University of Business and Economics on how to solve the so called “last mile” issue in traffic. The “last mile” issue is the fact that it’s often difficult and inconvenient to get from the public transport station to your home or office without using a private car.
I’d really like to hear your opinion and ideas about the topic. What could be a good solution? Has anyone developed interesting design solutions or knows someone who has?
Hi Lukas. I can only speak to the US, but I see the biggest problem that our culture and the infrastructure due to that culture revolves around the automobile.
It seems to me the low-hanging fruit is a bike. They are cheap, durable and can cover 1 mile in 5 minutes.
When I worked in Chicago (I live in the burbs), I would take the train. The station in town is 1.5 miles from my home. My office was a little under 1 mile from the Chicago station. I rode a bike from my home. I walked in Chicago.
The bike was fine for me but there was no direct route to the station. The roads are unsafe to ride. I took an indirect route which is only 2.5 miles. Those roads are safer but they certainly do not have any bike lanes. I am the exception as most people think they are wasting time if they cannot take the 1.5 mile route instead of the 2.5 mile route. Yes, they are that lazy. Then there is vandalism. I live in a nice town. But 2-3 times a year, I would come back from work to find a slashed tire, kicked-in spokes or other damage. There are no bike lockers, only endless parking lots for cars.
In Chicago I would walk because there is no place to park a bike overnight. There was also no inside space at work to store a bike. Any bike left outside would get vandalized beyond repair. There are bike lanes in Chicago and I would have no problem riding there. Also, I stopped working there 4 years ago. Since then, Chicago has adopted a bicycle rental system which would allow me to ride instead of walk if I still worked there today.
In the US, big cities offer some alternatives to cars because of the congestion. But for the 3 million in Chicago, there are 1o million is suburbs surrounding the city. Those suburbs were made for cars and they have no interest at this time to change that fact.
I’m going to have to remember where I read about it, but human work commutes have always stayed near a (30 or 60) minute one way time period.* The distance has increased as our transportation speeds have increased. Therefore, the last mile may not be important to the commuter.
Basically, this means that if we ban cars, people will reorganize their lives around this by either moving or changing jobs.
As for the last mile, people won’t take a car if they can walk or bike ride within the total travel time. Meaning, if the subway station is closer to their destination, the higher the likelihood they will complete the journey on foot.
As for bikes, cities should be investing in secured bike storage. It is much cheaper than managing bike sharing schemes and accomplishes much the same task. Cities could mandate that parking lots have a certain number of bike storage slots depending on their size for example. In Spain, I saw many bike garages in Madrid and Barcelona. Some of them were for bicycles and motorcycles only. Very cool.
I’ve found people are so used to cars, that they have no concept of the distances you can easily and quickly cover on foot and by bike. I live 5kms from my work, at a good clip I can walk it in 45-50 minutes. I tell people and they behave like I’m running a marathon. I used to live in the hills about 15km away, which involved a 600m ascent, so by bike about 1hour and 15minutes home door-to-door (about 25 minutes to work in the mornings, god how I wished it was the other way around)- peoples jaws dropped, like I was travelling to another city.
And some of these people would drive an hour home, then jump in the car again to go to the gym to walk an hour on a treadmill or do a spin-class.
One hour design challenge suggestion: how to you get people to walk?
I’ve found people are so used to cars, that they have no concept of the distances you can easily and quickly cover on foot and by bike.
The military calculates the speed of advance on foot to be slightly less than 3.1 miles per hour.
5,280 x 3.1 = 16,368 feet / 60 = 272.8 feet per minute
272.8/60 = 4.55 feet per second
One hour design challenge suggestion: how to you get people to walk?
Considering that I have elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, and am about twenty pound overweight… . I can’t imagine how…
The “last mile” issue is the fact that it’s often difficult and inconvenient to get from the public transport station to your home or office without using a private car.
Easy fix: Prohibit vehicular traffic within 5,280 feet [1.61 km] of all public transportation stations.
Sanjy: I work about 28 km from home, so I don’t bike or walk. However, I have walked to downtown Montreal a few times (5km). Friends are always shocked. I think it took 1 hour to 1 hour 15 min. To be honest, with an MP3 player, I really don’t notice the time pass. The funny thing is how the car has changed perspective, because the same voyage in a car is easily 30-45 minutes (a lot of that looking for parking, of course). People assume that since the peak speed in a car will be 50km/h that the distance is much further than it really is.
Considering that time , money and health are lacking in most peoples lives, to me it gets pretty obvious. Going shopping for a commuter bike so I can go my 20 km to work everyday. By bus its about 40 minutes. By bike it would probably be around 1h and 20 minutes i rainy weather. Biggest issue is having somewhere to clean up and shower. It would also spare me the 1-1.5 hours i need to spend on the gym or the runningtrail for health reasons.
Interesting what you say about loosing perception of distance though! When going for a run, i have a pretty clear sense of the distance without measuring, but when walking, driving or cycling, not a clue.
Sanjy: I work about 28 km from home, so I don’t bike or walk. However, I have walked to downtown Montreal a few times (5km). Friends are always shocked. I think it took 1 hour to 1 hour 15 min. To be honest, with an MP3 player, I really don’t notice the time pass. The funny thing is how the car has changed perspective, because the same voyage in a car is easily 30-45 minutes (a lot of that looking for parking, of course). People assume that since the peak speed in a car will be 50km/h that the distance is much further than it really is.
This post really freaked me out.
I just couldn’t imagine it being that crass. Over here in Europe it is completely common to walk to the office by feet or
to go distances between 3 - 10 km by bike. My daily commute is 14km through the hills, which takes 20 - 30 min one way by car. It would take me double that by bike and I still feel bad about never doing it. Your post Ray really first made me laugh but the made me think hard about it.
To be fair, cycling in Summer here is a much different proposition than in (Northern) Europe, from wikipedia:
“In the summer, maximum average is 29 °C (84 °F) but there is considerable variation and Adelaide can usually expect around 3 days a year when the daytime temperature is 40 °C or above. In January 1939, the temperature reached 46.1 °C (115.0 °F) twice. From 3 March 2008, Adelaide recorded 15 consecutive days of temperatures over 35 °C, again a record for an Australian capital.”
Heatstroke is a serious problem in Summer- in the heatwave that caused the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires, more people died from heatstroke (374) than perished as a result of the fires (174).
It got to 45.7°C (114.3 °F) here in that heatwave. To experience what riding in that feels like, get on a trainer and put on two jumpers and spin as hard as you can, while someone holds a hairdryer in your face. You don’t even sweat because it evaporates immeadiately. You can have a cold shower and still be sweating afterwards.
Also, we have complusory helmet laws, than even though have been shown to reduce serious head injury and mortality, turn people off riding, and may be contributing to bad health outcomes as they are claimedto prevent people riding whom otherwise would’ve.
Montreal average high in January: -5.4 C, average low: -12.4 C, record low: -33.5 C, average snowfall of 45 cm. Bike through that!
I think the helmet law is a good idea, if the country has public health insurance. If you strap a motor to a bike and tell someone to ride it at 20 mph (30 km/h) and I guarantee they would demand a helmet. Of course, that’s the speed of a human powered bike…
Minneapolis January Average High 18 F, Average Low 6F
Average snowfall 45.3" or 115cm (max is 98" or 250cm in 1984, last year it was 87")
Average Days with 1" or more of snow on the ground, 100.
This past summer, we hit a Heat Index record (combination of relative humidity and air temperature). On July 19, 2011 the heat index was 119 degrees with a dew point of 82. On that day we were warmer than Dubai, and higher humidity than most of the amazon rainforest.
Depending on who you ask, we’re 1st or 2nd in terms of percentage of population that commutes to work by bicycle. That doesn’t even include walkers…
If we can ride through insane weather like that, anyone can ride where they live. It’s just a matter of altering your lifestyle slightly.
Holy crap! I grew up in Canberra where in winter it regularly was -2C to -4C overnight, so sometimes riding to school was painful (even with a balaklava and 3 pairs of gloves) but it always was sunny at about 15C during the day, but I can’t imagine the daily maximum still being below zero. Heat is uncomfortable, but cold is pain.
I agree but I’m starting to feel the evidence is making the case for a pragmatic approach. I’m not bothered by wearing a helmet but I can understand that lots would ride if they didn’t have to wear one, even if the reason is something like ‘not wanting to mess up my hair’. Maybe you get subsidised fuel if you ride a certain distance each year.
At the moment I’m reading “The Lost Cyclist” by David Herlihy, about Frank Lenz riding around the world in the 1890’s, when ‘ordinaries’ were still dominant over the new ‘safeties’ and journalists laughed at his choice of the new pneumatic tyres. He crossed the Gobi desert on 57lb fixed gear bike with one leather spoon brake. Good read.
Floods in Bangkok, fake spring in the UK, 119 in Minneapolis, record heatwaves, 8 years of drought, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria
My personal record is riding a bike in -15 C This of course was just for fun with a downhill bike not commuting to work.
I think the biggest problem going to work with a bike is that you are exposed to all the weather elements.
This is a big problem when you have rain/snow 50% of the time. Second thing is needing to take the shower at work.
About the last mile problem, walking 1-2 miles seems like a no biggie. Wouldn`t bother to bring out a bike for that and worrying later about it being stolen. But this distance perception is very different locally. In my city(population of half a mil. ) it is perfectly normal to walk a mile/km, no one bothers to get their car for lunch break 500m away. The rural towns however are a different scenario. Even the smallest distances are travelled by a car, like getting groceries 200 meters from your house
With all the talk of trying to get people to walk or bike, has anyone considered the needs of those who can’t because of some kind of disability or physical limitation?
I will admit that I get really annoyed when I’m sitting in traffic and the pedestrians are walking as fast or faster than traffic. Sometimes I go from light to light only to see the same people on the sidewalk. But I laugh to myself when I’m the walker and I’m beating traffic.
Designers and urbanites often treat the US as a foolish child that’s inherently too dumb to get mass transit. The truth is, the space available has dictated how things have evolved in terms of transportation infrastructure. America has an abundance of space, which has fostered this culture, which the automobile and roads have endured. Scale is a huge factor that can’t be ignored. To completely redesign cities around rail systems is a luxury most we can’t really afford at the moment.
I find it interesting how so many designers can appreciate the generous spacing in a graphics/typography composition, but are appalled and dumbfounded at someone finding suburbia and a backyard desirable.
This of course was just for fun with a downhill bike not commuting to work.
