Issues & Analyses: Mode Shift: Supporting Sustainable Equitable Transportation

Column #1: Big Picture: Why A Mode Shift And What’s Needed?

This the introductory essay in a planned biweekly column called Mode Shift: Supporting Sustainable Equitable Transportation.

It’s time that the Town of Amherst and UMass step up their efforts to support sustainable, equitable transportation. In particular, both entities, and all of us who make up the two overlapping communities, need to support infrastructure, funding, policies, technologies, and education that help people to shift our mode of transportation as much as possible for commuting trips to work, school, and shopping. A mode shift does not have to mean attack on car and truck drivers, nor piling guilt and blame on those who drive for convenience or safety. Supporting a mode shift in Amherst and at UMass means making other modes easier, and more accessible, inviting, and safe.

The Big Picture: The Need For Sustainable, Equitable Transportation, And A Transportation Mode Shift
Why do we need sustainable, equitable transportation? There are many reasons; one looming one is climate change. In Massachusetts today, transportation emits more greenhouse gas emissions than electricity, buildings, or industry. Though COVID has reduced the percentage somewhat (at least for now), the transportation sector accounted for 42% of the Commonwealth’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. If we want to reduce our state’s climate emissions, we need to tackle transportation.

Why a transportation mode shift? By this I mean a shift away from private vehicle use and toward walking, cycling and public transport, carpooling/vanpooling, and micromobility options like scooters. Yes, electric cars are better than gas-powered cars, and need to be supported. But when and where possible, a mode shift is even better. One research group found that cycling is ten times more important for reaching net-zero than electric cars. Transit is better for the environment than cars and often crucial for communities of color, immigrants, low-income residents, and the disabled. These modes of transportation are not only better for climate change, the environment, and minoritized communities; they are also more active and more local, and therefore also better for our health and our local businesses.

What’s the most important thing we can do to promote a mode shift? There are a lot, but one key is to make alternative modes of transportation safe. In terms of promoting bicycling, for example, researchers have shown that while about 12% of the US population has the confidence and strength to bicycle on roads alongside cars, another 50% will bike only if they feel less traffic stress, or more separation from cars. There’s another crucial issue about bicycle safety too often ignored by eager white bike advocates: the danger of biking while Black (not only a law enforcement issue; white passersby can also be dangerous—see also this recent news story). As our town and university finally begin to grapple with long histories of racist exclusion, exploitation, and colonization, a crucial step will be to educate our law enforcement officers and ourselves about undoing transportation racism.

The Local Picture: The Town Of Amherst And UMass Amherst
Both Amherst and UMass deserve credit for some excellent starting work. Both have walkable centers, with large sidewalks and walkways, and safe and convenient bus stops. Census data show that a much larger proportion of the local population walks to work (14%) than in most places, and there’s a relatively high percentage of commuters who ride the bus (9%) and carpool (11%). In part this can be attributed to UMass’s identity as a university with a large dorm population, and to Amherst’s identity as a New England town originally laid out before the age of cars. But both Amherst and UMass have done significant work to support and expand these foundations.

The Town of Amherst has long had groups of residents advocating for better infrastructure for biking, walking and public transit, and for safer transportation for all.  Over 20 years ago, the town created a Public Transportation and Bicycle advisory committee, which has now been merged with the former Public Works Committee to create the Transportation Advisory Committee. The Planning Department, the Department of Public Works, and the Sustainability Coordinator, among others, have been active in making Amherst a more walkable, bikeable, and bus-able town. Amherst-based advocates and the town have undertaken or helped support efforts to build and improve the Nortwottuck rail trail; build the Swift Way connector; improve bus routes and bus stops; develop new sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike lanes; make new parks and trails with reduced traffic; and develop the Valley Bike e-bikeshare program.

On the UMass side, UMass Transit and the PVTA have for decades run a robust public transportation system that transports millions of riders each year. The 2012 UMass Master Plan set out a plan to “Think Pedestrian First,” and build “complete streets” in all the gateway roads around campus. UMass, along with Amherst, was a founding partner in the Valley Bikeshare program. In the last few years UMass has added bike lanes and a roundabout on University Drive, widened bike shoulders on Commonwealth Ave. and North Pleasant St., and added a number of safety improvements. Last week, these improvements won the university a bronze award from the League of American Bicyclists.

What’s Missing?
However, there’s a lot left to be done. Two key problems are that (a) walking, biking, or busing to and from the core UMass campus, and to and from points in Amherst outside downtown can be difficult, inconvenient, and sometimes dangerous; and (b) people in Amherst need more training, access, and visibility to safely walk, bike, or bus. Many UMass students may never try to bike, for example, because they have only biked recreationally as children, and it feels unsafe to go between neighborhoods on the town’s fast-moving north-south and east-west corridors. Many people in Amherst are children, and their parents worry about letting them walk or bike on those busy roads. Many UMass students walk on these roads, but rarely use reflectors or lights. Fears of cars on these corridors are well supported. Since 2014, at least three pedestrians have been killed by drivers–on Northeast St, North Pleasant St, and Massachusetts Ave—and many more injured. Though UMass made improvements on Massachusetts Ave after the fatality and injuries there in early 2022, there has already been another pedestrian injury in the same general location.

A Beginning To-do List
Here are some high-priority actions on which the Town and university need to step up:

• Given the continuing accidents on Massachusetts Ave, accelerate the UMass Master Plan’s plan to make this gateway road a two-lane road with narrower lanes, left-turn lanes, and bike lanes.
  
• Finalize the town’s draft pedestrian & bike plan. This is a plan to have a robust network of biking and walking in Amherst. Perhaps the most important piece of the whole plan is the network map, that will guide future investments in pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure.
  
• Build out the missing links in the pedestrian and bicycle networks at UMass and across Amherst. The role for UMass in this is not only its gateway roads and campus connections (though those are crucial). Since a townwide pedestrian and bike network will also serve people who study and work at UMass, UMass and Amherst should work together to complete the needed infrastructure to build out the incomplete links in our walking and biking network. Put together a construction timeline and funding plan that will have the network finished in 25 years or less.
  
• Maintain pedestrian and bicycle routes. This includes sweeping in the fall and spring, plowing in the winter, and brush-cutting in the growing season; fresh paint striping in the fall; and regular surface maintenance. This needs to be part of annual budgets for town and campus.
  
• Improve lighting and visibility. To bring about a transportation mode shift at 42 degrees North latitude, we need people to be able to see pedestrians, bicyclists, and bus commuters at night and in bad weather. All three of the fatalities noted above were by drivers driving at night who did not see the people they hit until it was too late. UMass and Amherst should both hold regular fall “light brigades” to don bicyclists, walkers, and bus riders with lights and reflective gear. But supporting individual visibility is not enough. It is essential to build out streetlights throughout the planned pedestrian and bicycle networks, if we want people to feel safe enough, and to be safe enough, to shift their regular commuting trips to walking, busing, and biking. The Town should not ban lighting in certain town streets. (New light technology such as downward-pointing, motion-sensitive, and/or LED lights is well worth considering, however.) 
  
• Include transportation considerations–including the need to support infrastructure and funding for safe, inviting, non-car transportation—in all planning and zoning.
  
• Educate all incoming UMass students in their summer and fall orientations on how and where to walk, bike and bus safely; and why and how to watch and wait for pedestrians, bicyclists, and bus riders when they drive and park.
  
• And–in all the above, and in future planning, think about how to support a proliferation of scooters, and perhaps a host of other micromobility devices. They’re coming, and they may help or hinder our future transportation mode shift, depending on how ready we are.

More on these and other ideas in columns to come.