The Way We Work: It’s time to think small when it comes to commuting

In the last six months, we have radically changed the way we live, the way we work, the way we play, even the way we think. While we will eventually return to some of the ways we used to live, work and play pre-COVID - like having large portions of our employees return to the office, going on family vacations or attending concerts or sporting events - our ‘new reality’ will be vastly different from the past.

It must be.

Case in point: Transit-oriented development – something that already dominated many businesses’ corporate location strategy pre-COVID because of first and last mile issues for the ‘employee experience’ -- just got much more perplexing for employees and employers alike.

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence itself, but to act with yesterday’s logic.”

- Peter F. Drucker

Putting the brakes on public transit

While vehicle commutes were virtually non-existent during April and May, COVID-19 also put an emergency brake on public transit ridership in every major city in the U.S. In the Bay Area, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) daily weekday ridership fell from more than 300,000 to fewer than 25,000 in mid-April. Bay Area ferry ridership fell from 60,000 to just 3,000 during the same period.

Nowhere are people in such proximity than in overcrowded subway trains, buses and station platforms. A controlled study conducted during the 2008-2009 influenza season in the U.K., found “recent use of public buses and trams is a significant individual risk factor for the acquisition of Acute Respiratory Illness (ARI).” The study found a six-fold increased risk of ARI in people who had taken bus or tram journeys within five days of the onset of their symptoms.

Where can we social distance while commuting? Well, in our cars. Pre-COVID, about three quarters all of commuters nationally drove to work alone. Due to Shelter in Place regulations, weekday traffic across the Bay Bridge dropped by 50 percent in April. But how many us drove in car pools pre-COVID and will we do that again? Congestion was already bad before COVID-19 struck; are we really all going to jump into our cars when regulations are relaxed?

I think not, and here is one reason why: 60 percent of commutes in the U.S. are less than five miles. And, with more distributed workplace strategies likely post-COVID, that percentage is only going to increase in the next five years as workers look to work closer to home.

Add to this, as Richard Florida has so succinctly described, the fact that more young workers want to live in our dense cities, attracted by not just the pace of life and being close to work but post-COVID housing price stabilization, and the die is cast.

The car clearly has a long way to go before we may call it extinct. People still use horses and carts around the world, even here in the U.S., after all. We must acknowledge we just moved the car on to the endangered list.  

Reclaiming the street

Even before COVID, world cities like Buenos Aires, London, Madrid, Oslo and Vancouver were dabbling in pedestrianizing large swaths of downtowns or banning cars. And, this trend is not just for the densest and largest cities. In Freiburg, Germany, a city of 220,000 of which more than 20,000 are university students, there are 250 miles of bike paths and twice as many bicycles as cars. In the center of what is considered by many to be Germany’s greenest city, a multimodal mobility center offers parking for 1,000 bicycles and “links local and long-distance public transport services with options to travel by foot, bike, and car sharing.”

I can see similar mobility hubs in pedestrianized downtowns in even smaller cities like Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Cupertino.   

Urbanists have long been examining ways to develop ‘street equity’ in downtown cores based on the premise that it takes almost four times the street space to move people by car than it does by bike. It also takes five and a half times less space to move someone by bus than by car, but here is where that post-COVID thinking has to kick in.

Yes, I’ve seen the future and, for many of us, it has two wheels or, at the very least, legs. Single rider, open air transportation is the way of the future for our work commutes, at least in urban settings. It is the only effective way to social distance while commuting.

Of course, there are challenges. Housing is always one of the biggest. To minimize commutes in the urban core, you need workers to be close to their workplaces and that means having somewhere workers can afford to live. This is being addressed in many of our cities but obviously needs more thought.

Then there is the commute itself. Scooters and biking, for example, are not year-round options in most northern and midwestern cities. Neither is walking. Do we need more all-weather infrastructure in our major cities, like Houston’s downtown tunnels or Minneapolis’ Skyway?

Cities also need the political will to embrace bikes and scooters and many require better infrastructure in the form of bike lanes or closing streets to cars to enable more commuters to safely use personal micro-mobility commuting options. Municipal regulation, particularly of scooters, has also been an issue, as has the proliferation of micro-mobility hardware on city’s streets.

Who needs parking?

But all that was pre-COVID. In many cities, restaurateurs needing space to social distance diners post-COVID are leading a charge to pedestrianize more downtown streets as well as seek relief from municipal ordinances requiring them to use outdoor space for parking.

Legislation at the federal level, supported by major ridesharing operators who have also invested heavily in scooters and bikes, could lead to more bike lanes, wider sidewalks and other micro-mobility infrastructure. We may soon see the adoption of principles of the Complete Streets movement.

Then, there are the personal benefits to health and well-being. Commuting in traffic is stressful. Riding a bike or scooter in a safe environment is not, and it provides aerobic, not to mention mental health benefits.

“If you invite more cars... and make streets you get more traffic. If you make more bicycle lanes...and invite people to walk more… you get more life in the city.”

- Jan Gehl

A recent JLL survey of corporate employees showed that less than 1 percent of commuters biked to work pre-COVID while 27 percent took some form of public transit and 2% rideshares. Those percentages are going to change over the coming months and years. Public transit numbers are destined to decline, at least in the short term, unless adequate social distancing can be practiced. Ridesharing may increase slightly as a lower-risk preference to buses and trains but there is still the unknown around how long viruses like COVID-19 stay on surfaces or in the air.

This much is clear: for ease of mind, health and travel, our transit systems and cityscapes will never be the same.

About the author:

Rich Branning is a JLL thought leader orchestrating a team of specialists in brokerage, finance, workplace management, construction, global incentives and labor analytics. In his more than 30-year career he has advised and represented some of the Bay Area's top high growth global companies, offering creative negotiating strategies with an entrepreneurial point of view on more than 25 million square feet of corporate real estate transactions.

Rich's favorite quote: "As Iron Sharpens Iron, One Person Sharpens Another."

You can reach Rich directly by email at [email protected] or via phone at +1 (650) 480-2188.

Read Rich's latest articles:

-Hashtag: Love Where You Work

-The Workplace, the Employee and the 'New Reality'

-What does your headquarter office say about your company?

-First and Last Mile: Walk those extra miles in your employees’ shoes

-Is data the new oil: Data’s transformative effect on CRE…

-Planning for the ‘Multiexperiential’ Workforce

-Talent War: Holistic Thinking Needed to Win

-These four mega-trends will lead change in real estate over the next decade

-Cross Mentoring: One person sharpens another