/ THE GREEN STANDARD
TDM 2.0
T
By Brian Shaw, CAPP
HE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has and will likely continue to have a devastating effect on
commuter-based TDM program and services. Commuters are rightfully wary of riding with strangers to work. Public transit ridership is way down. Carpooling and vanpooling use is a fraction of what they had been before March 2020.
Who Needs TDM? We have found during the pandemic for Stanford that there continues to be a need to support TDM. We have 17 still-active vanpool groups. These are folks who do not always have access to a car or can drive to work at all. We continue to have folks ride transit and our local shuttles for their commute. These are people working in our hospitals and performing essential work on campus, such as research and associated support, facilities management, construction, and feeding our campus residential students. Our TDM programs and services have been cut to match the pandemic demand, but resources continue to need to be provided to support these essential commuters. 14 PARKING & MOBILITY / APRIL 2021 / PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG
TDM Funding During and following the pandemic, TDM efforts will need to focus on supporting commuters who are unable to work remotely and have limited access and/or ability to drive alone to work. This population is likely to grow as the pandemic wanes, but will parking revenue also grow? How will programs fund needed TDM services with constrained parking revenue? If you have not done so in the past, it is time to investigate grants. Many regions provide grants to subsidize vanpools, last-mile shuttles, carpools, and transit fares. Using the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Program or state or local air quality mitigation resources, there are funds to be had to help off set investments in TDM. Usually administered by a region’s metropolitan planning organization (MPO), public funds available for TDM may need to be acquired through a local agency such as a transit provider, city or county department of transportation, or a designated congestion management authority in your county. While public funds can require frequent reporting of activity, these funds can help bridge the gap until parking revenue comes back to pre- pandemic levels.
SHUTTERSTOCK / ANDREY_POPOV
Years of efforts and investment by employers, local, state, and federal agencies as well as recent technological advancements in ride matching and trip planning had resulted in growth in use of commuting alternatives in several regions across the country. Stanford University had reduced our drive-alone rate by more than 50 percent in the last 20 years. Before the pandemic, remote working use at Stanford was between 3 and 7 percent depending on the day of the week. Since the pandemic, remote working is well over 70 percent by the university’s commuters. It is unknown how people will choose to commute once more folks are vaccinated, local restrictions are lifted, and employees can return to working at the office. How many will want to work remotely and how often will they commute to work? Arguably, with so many of us funding our TDM efforts from parking revenue, and parking revenue yet to fully recover, does it make any sense to fund TDM efforts?