Mobility 2050/Battery-Free Electromobility

To tackle the growing climate emergency, American cities must shift away from car travel and car-centric development and instead towards electric mobility. We argue that Battery-free electromobility is particularly important due to its low cost and lack of reliance on rare materials or future technology. This domain includes proven technology like streetcars, light rail, and rapid transit systems like the DC Metro or New York MTA. We discuss potential social and technological changes that should be considered to achieve a vision of increased battery-free electromobility in 2050. Our analysis considers the challenges posed by both rural and urban communities, ultimately focusing on urban improvements that are more feasible and would affect the most people.

Rural and Urban

Rural

In the 1920’s, there existed the interurban railways that provided electric rail travel between different rural areas as well as into urban areas. These railways disappeared by the 1950’s due to the preference given to automobiles. As modern infrastructure has reshaped these areas, specifically through the reliance on roadways for increased vehicular travel, rural areas do not currently support the infrastructure necessary to allow for battery free electromobility through things like electric trains or trolleys around towns. With a sparse population over a vast area, train and trolley routes that could currently be designed would be inconvenient, and dissuade people from taking those forms of transportation over their car alternative.  For example, Campbell County, Virginia has a population of 55,000, spread over 507 square miles. Train and trolley routes could be created, but many would avoid trains and trolleys in exchange for their cars because of the vastness of the county not allowing for many convenient hubs to route to. With options of battery electric cars being available in 2050, we believe that the shift in urban areas toward battery free electromobility will lead to further improvements in the future in these rural areas shifting from gas to electric cars.

Urban

Urban areas today present the best template for pursuing a battery free electric mobility future. When it comes to urban areas, while they have been taken over by the car, they were initially designed to be walkable and bike-able. This creates a favorable environment for creation of railway systems like Metro in Washington DC. The close proximity of key locations in the city has led to the massive success of this system, and many similar systems in other cities. There are still issues today with this system, specifically concerns with efficiency, availability, ease of use, cost, safety, and cleanliness which we find to be major factors in someone choosing current electric railways versus alternatives such as cars. Complaints listed from Los Angeles including harassment in the station, non-direct links to destinations and weak scheduling that makes the trip by train much longer than that by car were voiced as reasons people chose cars versus their electric train or bus alternative. In order to persuade people back to these modes of transportation, there needs to be both technological and social advancements made by 2050 in order to get people back onto trains, and make it a more pleasurable experience.

Technical and Infrastructural Improvements

Technical

The technological side of our 2050 vision stems from improving and analyzing existing concepts rather than introducing an unproven idea that won’t necessarily be successful. The existing battery free mobility systems in the US have been proven to work well and the technology behind them has more or less stayed the same over the years; therefore the goal for 2050 is improving the factors around the transportation systems rather than change the vehicles themselves.

Infrastructural

Metro System

A point of infrastructural improvement for metro systems is the location of their stations, specifically when it comes to how stations in the city versus suburbs interact. A large pain point for metro systems has been the infeasibility of using it for those that don’t live close to the city in which it’s located. Most people that have to get in their car to get to the closest metro station are going to end up driving the whole distance rather than swap transportation methods. The DC Metro is aware of this as they recently finished a silver line extension project with the sole purpose of going out further and connecting more neighborhoods. This extension proved successful as they recently also approved plans to extend the blue line. Extensions like these to suburban areas will be important for the future. While improvements on the perceived safety and destinations of a metro system are obviously welcome, these changes only benefit those who are already using the system. The real longevity relies on actually connecting out further to where people actually live, with the goal being for individuals to use the metro not only for its destinations but for its convenient starting points.

Trolly Streetcar

Another area of improvement is the restoration of trolley streetcar systems, otherwise known as urban light rails. Many of these systems did exist in America but were shut down in the 1940’s and 1950’s in favor of a more car centered society and lifestyle after World War II. However, there have been recent efforts to restore these lines in states such as California,  Texas, and Virginia. These rail lines are being reopened in order to mainly serve commuters living in cities but also prove useful from a tourism angle with many of the routes being considered historically valuable, such as the trams in San Francisco. This trend of restoring previously closed light rail systems could be an incredibly efficient way of providing mobility in areas where building a new rail system may not be feasible both geographically and financially. Support exists for these light rail systems in the form of interest groups, such as the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, and normal outspoken citizens alike.

Interurban Railway

Starting in the 1880’s America began to develop rails for interurban railways which provided transportation from rural areas to both cities and other rural areas as roads were not paved at the time and transportation was mainly horse and carriage. By 1915 there were 15,500 miles of interurban railways connecting towns and countrysides all across America. America was soon taken over by cars in the 1950’s and there has not been any interest in the mode of transport since. We believe that interurban railways are an answer to making our rural areas mostly battery free in their mobility by the year 2050. This form of transportation worked over 100 years ago and technological improvements could make this even more successful in the future. Currently rural areas rely on cars to reach more urban areas due to the lack of public transportation infrastructure in the areas. The reintroduction of interurban railways in 2050 would provide a feasible and bright future to expanding battery free mobility beyond urban areas. The infrastructure plans have largely been planned back at its inception and could be adapted for modern changes in populations that would better serve its passengers. Rail hubs could be created to suit each town's needs and connect into a larger network of interurban railways that could fully unite both the small towns and urban centers, allowing people from the rural areas to reach the urban areas and take advantage of all the different battery free electromobility options that are available. A network of lines is not strictly necessary for future success, as the lines were successful during their inception running as independent entities, but the connection of railways may be more desirable in persuading people to choose them over other modes of transit. There are current forms of interurban railway systems in France and Germany called tram-trains that function as both transport inside the urban areas they connect as the standard light-rail and reaching out to other towns to provide the interurban railway system. These designs were based directly off of the initial designs in the United States and show how these systems can function both today and in the future.  

We recognize that in our rural areas that the interurban railway would connect to would still need a mode of transport to get from their homes into town centers to reach the rail as running the rail to homes across the countryside is infeasible and inefficient. This is why we acknowledged in our initial assessment of rural areas the likely reliance on cars with a likely shift from gas to electric power. We do not believe that the interurban railway would behave in a similar way to the way the Metro system transports people almost directly to the location they want to be but rather we find it to be town to town travel option because of the infeasibility of train and trolly routes inside the towns and to their homes. The vast diversity and expanse of rural America requires different solutions that will need to be adapted to each unique area. While technological advancements or extreme policy changes could take place between now and 2050 to make the entire trip battery free, it is unfair to make such claims now.

Policy Considerations

Transit Oriented Development

In the large scale, battery-free electromobility can be encouraged by localities by designing development plans around planned or current transit options. The Washington DC metro area population has grown rapidly since the 1960’s, requiring the surrounding localities to plan for this expansion. The Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington, VA demonstrates how a transit oriented development plan can be implemented to benefit a growing suburb. The development plan was focused on the quarter mile walkable “bullseye” around each of the five Metro stations. This centering of public transit allows residents to easily walk to or take local transit to their near nearest Metro station for any trip into the city, entirely avoiding car travel. We expect this approach to become increasingly important for development through 2050, due to increased urbanization and focus on climate impact. Transit-oriented development is also a more efficient use of urban space than a car-oriented approach, opening the way for more productive land uses with less need for parking.

Integrated Multi-Modal Transit Systems

Localities can also encourage transit use by considering the entire circumstances of a person’s trip. This includes considering how people will get to and from transit stations and how they will pay for them. The Netherlands provides an example of accounting for both considerations the design of their transit system. Dutch bike infrastructure supports both personal bike ownership and bikeshare programs. These bikeshare programs are often dockless, aligning with how people travel “from door-to-door, not from station-to-station”. They are also well integrated with rail transit, with bike parking garages available for arriving and departing riders. Paying for a rail ticket also gives bike access at your destination. A single payment card for all forms of public transit in the system. The reflects the guiding principle of removing friction from all aspects of using public transit. US cities should take note of this approach for the future.

Disincentivizing Driving

To make the transit changes required to tackle climate change, we must go beyond advocating for public transit. Driving is the status quo, entrenched in our infrastructure and culture, meaning it must be actively disincentivized where possible. This could be done by pedestrianizing roads and removing parking, which has been recently shown to be effective in Paris. Another approach is to implement congestion pricing, charging a toll to enter a city center in a car. The first system of this kind in the US is slowly being implemented in Manhattan. Congestion pricing is appealing because it puts a concrete price on driving compared to self-calculating gas mileage. This concrete price is directly comparable to other transportation options. For localities, the system provides many “levers” to adjust including the price, the enclosed area, the active times of day or days of the week, and any toll exemptions. Congestion pricing also generates revenue, which could be directed to fund transit initiatives like zero-fare transit. Congestion pricing is a powerful tool that we expect to be adopted by other major cities looking to reorient towards public transit.

Fares and Policing

Larger systems like the New York MTA seem less likely to eliminate fares, but they must change their approach to collecting them. The MTA has seen massive fare evasion, which has been responded to with a large increase in policing. This approach has not been effective, with the cost of personnel exceeding any benefit from increased fare compliance. Columbia economist Harold Stolper has also noted that “Economic need is one of the main drivers of fare evasion, so policing fare evasion is policing poverty”.

Increasing police presence also does appear to improve MTA safety. However, there are more passive approaches to fare enforcement. This includes a new kind of turnstile that is harder to circumvent, improving video surveillance, and an increased focus on non-police transit staff. Transit systems could move away from enforcing fares through the criminal justice system, which tends to be expensive to the locality and overly punitive to the fare evader. Fare evasion should be responded to with warnings first, then if fines are issued, they should be able to be used as credit to the transit system. Future facing localities should move away from a criminalized approach to fare enforcement to improve equity and community investment.

Zero-Fare System

Fares have long been standard to public transit systems, though this is starting to change. Some localities have started offering some transit systems (most often buses) with no fares. Moving to a zero-fare system dramatically increases ridership and improves efficiency by removing the payment step. Since users of public transit (especially buses) tend to be poorer, zero-fare systems also work to improve equity. Such policies have had success in Europe and have been adopted in the United States post-Covid. This shift reflects a change in philosophy, from transit as a commodity to transit as a community right.

Zero-Fare Controversy

It is important to note that a zero-fare system is a tool, not a solution. Therefore it has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. US cities, such as Portland, have reported decreases in perceived safety and an increase in crime after implementing zero-fare transit. This crime reached a breaking point, forcing Portland to reinstate their fares. There have also been problems with the influx of ridership becoming burdensome and uncontrollable for transit workers.

US cities and towns are varied and we fully admit zero-fare transit will benefit certain areas more than others. However, Luxembourg recently implemented zero-fare transit nationwide, showing that it is a concept possible to execute at a large scale. With this in mind we consider zero-fare systems one of many feasible approaches to improving both battery-free electromobility and public transit as a whole.