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As America emerges slowly from the pandemic, some aspects of life may feel like they’re at an inflection point. Does “building back better” mean widening highways or broadening the reach of modern public transit? Is the “death of the city” just a convenient narrative or is it Exurb Ho! from here on out?
MarketWatch turned to Yonah Freemark, a rising star In the world of transportation, land use and urbanism currently at the Urban Institute, for his thoughts on this singular moment. We spoke during a turbulent week in Washington, before any agreement had been reached on infrastructure spending and while the parties jockeyed to keep the government open and avoid a sovereign default.
In spite of some clear positives emerging from the corona crisis, Freemark is measured — he calls himself “realistic” — about where we go from here. The interview below is lightly edited for clarity.
MarketWatch: Do you think the premise that we are at an inflection point is a fair one? Can we imagine creating opportunity out of crisis?
Yonah Freemark: I think we need to be very concerned about the people who are most vulnerable in the country and I don’t want to imply that the crisis itself is positive. But I do think that the large increase in funding support from the federal government does offer opportunities to improve our transportation systems in a way that was not possible a few years ago. Transit agencies were able to do some really interesting things during the pandemic period. Around $60 billion went to transit agencies around the country to spend on operations, which was a significant change to previous approaches. The federal government had previously spent all its money on capital expenses but what changed during the COVID-19 period was a realization that we had to spend on operations.
MarketWatch: You said “transit agencies were able to do some really interesting things during the pandemic period.” Can you expand on that?
Freemark: At the Urban Institute, we’re doing a study that looks at the response of operators across the country, what they did, the choices they made. What we found was quite dramatic. For one thing, interacting with their workers. A lot of hostile relationships between managers and unions actually improved. It became more about working together and solving problems. We found agencies choosing to focus their resources in communities that were most vulnerable, transit agencies beginning to recognize those areas as the ones that needed their services. Building out those protective barriers on buses themselves, not with outside vendors, but using their own machine shops to construct them. I think transit agencies responded collectively pretty creatively and with a lot of entrepreneurship in a way that maybe went against our view of the pandemic slowing things down.
MarketWatch: Will public transit be a part of the future, or should we expect the decades-long decline in usage of transit and investment in it to continue?
Freemark: To be very honest, it depends on the community, whether the political and bureaucratic and private sector leadership and people themselves want to change the way they move around and to do so in a way that is not so reliant on automobiles to get around. That is fundamentally a question that we won’t know the answer to for years. One thing that was really interesting about the pandemic period was there was a lot of experimentation in city streets, changing the organization of streets so pedestrians and buses and bikes could have more space. Those are the types of changes that could benefit our cities but it’s not going to be true in every city, and federal money won’t help that.
MarketWatch: It seems like there’s a little more of public officials asking for input, acknowledging past wrongs that need repair, like building highways straight through communities of primarily Black people. What should we be asking and expecting of how public officials manage this transition?
Freemark: It’s hard to talk about the pandemic period and how people responded without talking about the Black Lives Matter movement. They are related. That movement did matter and it did change a lot about how people talk about people of color in our public services. But a lot of the progress in that discussion has disappeared. I’m not sure this is going to be a long-term trend, talking about the needs of people of color.
MarketWatch: As we alluded to a moment ago, there’s been some commentary recently about how transit has been on a long slow downward spiral. Do you think that’s an appropriate way to think about it?
Freemark: Again, I think it depends on the place. I should say that when people make that statement, they are referring to the U.S., not the world. Most of the rest of the world has invested considerable resources in public transport. European and Asian countries that are quite wealthy have seen increased ridership over the past 40 years. At the national level, we have continued to allow land use to be articulated around automobiles, so it’s hard for transit to gain a foothold. If you create an entire living situation around cars, it’s not surprising people increasingly drive. Transit has actually done pretty well in places where there’s been investment. Ridership on transit in New York City in 2019 was high, and increasing, at much higher levels than we saw in the 80s and 90s. it is feasible to envision a future focused around transit, but it requires people who are making choices to do so in a way that benefits transit.
MarketWatch: What’s your best guess as to the future of cities like San Francisco and New York?
Freemark: During the pandemic there certainly was some departure from urban areas, and that’s recorded in rent data. One thing we show in our study was that the neighborhoods across the country that are most dense from a population density perspective saw declines in rent even though overall in the real estate market, rent increased. New York and San Francisco did experience somewhat of a decline in demand. The things that attract people to live in cities are not going away. They are vibrant places. They allow people to experience diversity and vitality and difference. There is no reason to expect people will want those things less just because they are not commuting into an office as often. I do think there will be an adjustment period. The number of buildings we devote to office space may decline.
See: Can empty offices become affordable housing? New legislation seeks to try
MarketWatch: Does the future of our cities depend on robust transit?
Freemark: Yes, absolutely. We cannot rely on cars to move around populations of the scale that we have in our cities. I live in Washington, D.C. There are 200,000 people now using the Metro even though the federal government workers aren’t going back into offices yet. People use the Metro because it serves a real purpose. A lot of people see the benefit of using transit. Automobiles don’t cut it. The cities that are most successful at building on their strengths, and are diverse and vital and pedestrian friendly, are those not reliant on cars.
MarketWatch: What else are you thinking about as we — hopefully — emerge from the pandemic period?
Freemark: We should be keeping our eyes on state capitals. What are states doing to make transit a more promising option for people? States often get away with inadequate news coverage. States spend more on transportation than the federal government does. Thinking about how they allocate dollars is really important. States get a huge amount of money from gas taxes. They do not have to spend that money on expanding highways, but it frankly has not risen to the height of the public discourse in a way that it has in Washington, to be talking about is this the future of transportation we want.
