Nailed by the Swine Flu...Indirectly at Least

So, the swine flu (or H1N1…sorry pig farmers) got me, sort of. China is very cautious of importing any cases so every airport or immigration station runs each person through a number of tests and makes you fill out forms about where you’ve been and where you’ll be in the last and next week, what seat you were sitting in on the plane, making sure you don’t plan on using public transit, etc. There is a Chinese saying that goes something like this: If you’ve been bitten by a snake, you will always be afraid of a rope. In this case, SARS (2003) was the snake, and H1N1 is the rope. Going into the airport, 2/3rds of the passengers had masks on. I had begun to think that I’d missed the memo. I had booked a flight from Kunming to Hong Kong then a separate flight from Hong Kong to India. Waiting for the plane in Kunming, it seemed there was something wrong. The flight was delayed for unknown reasons, creating a bit of internal conflict as I was calculating how many minutes I’d have to rush to make my India connection. Well, we boarded and I calculated that I’d have about 15 minutes to make the connection, no hope. Once on board, the captain informed us that the reason for the delay is that one of the passengers had a fever, requiring the quarantine officers to disinfect the entire plane (which I’m thankful for). By now, I was wishing I had a mask. Well, I missed my flight, but Dragon Air was able to book me on a different itinerary and get me to Ahmedabad about the same time. Here is the key information. I asked several times if they re-booked my return, because if you don’t show up for a flight, your entire itinerary is canceled. They assured me, even showing me a printout of my entire return itinerary. Unfortunately, when I was ready to return from India, Jet Air (my flight back to Hong Kong) canceled my ticket. At first they were working with me, and got me boarding passes for the flights they canceled, I was on my way, through security within eyeshot of the gate as the plane was boarding. Suddenly, the Jet Air agent intercepted me and told me to patiently wait as the ticketing had a problem. In agony, I watched the gate close and the plane leave as the agent stalled. Finally, she said that I had a non-refundable ticket and she informed me that I needed to buy a new ticket (I knew I shouldn’t where shorts to the airport, you don’t get any respect). After a bit of heated argument and showing proof that the reason I missed the flight was Dragon Air, she offered to give me a full refund, though I was still responsible for buying some last-minute international flights. So my Bombay long-layover exploration plans were shot and instead I spent the whole afternoon trying to find any airline going to Kunming or Hong Kong, that would take a credit card. By the way, in small-town India, they are generally incapable of looking up phone numbers of any air carrier that doesn’t serve the airport, like Thai air for instance. Well, I was able to land a ticket from Ahmedabad to Bombay, and find the ticket I wanted from Bombay to Bangkok, then Kunming. However, I couldn’t book this ticket…cash only in Bombay. So I boarded the plane (which was delayed again) and landed in Bombay, with less than two hours until the other plane to Bangkok left (at 10:00 pm). I rushed to the counter, the only one open, and was able to buy the ticket…cash only. It was actually relatively affordable, considering I’ve never tried to book an international one-way flight with less than two hours lead time. I ended up making it and as I was trying to sleep on a metal bench in Bangkok airport at 5am, I was thinking about that fellow with the fever in Kunming, along with all of the other countless travelers who were sleeping on benches because of “the rope”. Well, when we landed, I was praying that I didn’t have a fever, which would have put me in quarantine for a week. I tried to suppress my India cough as the officers methodically went through the plane, examining each person where they sat before we could enter into China. I guess I’m grateful for the effort though.

You can’t hold your breath forever

So I’ve got it…the China/India cough. Sometimes its inevitable, other times not. About mid-way through my week in India, I started developing a sore throat and a cough when I’d go to sleep. Although the air quality seemed OK at first glance, spending any time outside in the afternoon quickly lead to a feeling of being poisoned by us thin blooded foreigners. Most of these Indians spend the entire day outdoors, and a large proportion sleep on the streets, without refuge from the noise, heat or pollution. I’ve had this before and usually it is gone in a day or two upon return to a cleaner air environment. Kunming is usually clean enough to never develop the China cough, but one of the city’s new ambitious infrastructure projects is completely elevating the second ring road, which is now closed for construction. So where are all the trucks to go? Well, right by our house where we’re staying for the summer. So this has its usual annoyances, loud horns, destroyed pavement, disrespect for traffic signals, one overturned coal truck that buried several pedestrians; but the biggest annoyance to me is the air quality. My cough won’t recover and who knows what kind of damage is occurring to the developing lungs of my children. We are often riding our bike on this road to get around the neighborhoods and huge black plumes of exhaust will come out of the truck exhaust pipes, right at ground level, mostly because of China’s high sulfur diesel fuel. When this happens, I tell the kids to “hold your breath”. Unfortunately, I look on the horizon and see the familiar haze as we move forward through the toxic ambient air. This is the common condition in many larger Chinese cities, but Kunming’s air quality has always been quite a bit better than most. Well, my India cough persists in China and unfortunately, to avoid inhaling the toxic fumes, you can’t hold your breath forever.

E-Scooters in Ahmedabad, India

Luke Jones (PhD Student in Economics) and I are in Ahmedabad, India, estimating market potential of e-scooters among the millions of gas scooters and motorbikes in this city of about 4 million. This is a very similar study to the one we did last summer in Vietnam. We’ve been working with Professor Talat Munshi from the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology University. The overall goal of the study is to help improve the air quality (which is vastly needed) and reduced GHG and energy use in the transport sector. With the millions of electric bikes and scooters in China, the question remains, why haven’t e-scooters been adopted on a wide scale in nations like India and Vietnam. Indeed, a very large number of gasoline motorbikes are in the 100cc class, low-power enough to be easily replaced by a electric scooter. I’ve been here a week and Luke a little longer, working on a stated preference experiment to estimate potential market penetration under a number of scenarios, including performance, price, and regulatory improvements. Some of the initial impressions are that e-scooters seem to suffer a perception problem, with many people either having bad experiences or knowing someone who has. The e-scooter population is incredibly low; we’ve spotted about half a dozen over the time here. One of the most interesting activities is visiting Mr. Bhandari, chairman of Yo-Bikes, to discuss with him some of the challenges he faces creating a marketable E-Scooter. In fact, he has created an e-scooter, the Yo-EXL that has a high speed around 55 km/hr and has plenty of pickup. I was able to test drive this at their factory and it is truly unlike any e-bike I’ve ridden previously. Mr. Bhandari states that the real challenge is providing affordable batteries since people seem to be so price sensitive on purchase price. This is confirmed with some of our walk-alongs with the surveyors. Despite our careful attention to many attributes, they mostly chose based on price. Mr. Bhandari stated that the real thing that he needs is some support from the government to help subsidize e-scooters, until the market matures and the industry can become self-sustaining. I tend to agree, even as China’s growth was with the help of powerful government lobby groups and support. We hope to have a draft report done by the end of the month.

Ahmedabad has been quite interesting, certainly different than any place I’ve ever been. The air pollution is oppressive, along with the heat. It has taken a few days to get used to the incessant honking, but I’ve finally grown accustomed (even after my warmup in China). The food and people are great however.

Pedestrians are so dangerous

So a couple of days ago I witnessed my first pedestrian-car accident in China. To be correct, I’ve seen the recent aftermath of many ped-car accidents. Pools of blood, shoes (why do shoes fall off when people get hit?), crowds of people gawking and so on. This was the first time I’d the pedestrian actually get struck. Unfortunately, I was behind a car driving (slowly) through a parking lot when one of the poor kids (maybe five years old) that lived in the neighborhood village behind our house cut through some parked cars and was hit. He bounce back and by the time I got to him he was clutching his foot. It turns out that his foot was probably run over as the car slammed on the brakes, providing quite a bit of superficial damage (torn toe nails and road-rashed foot). In typical Chinese style, dozens of people quickly crowded around, but no-body acknowledged the kid. Some other youngsters went off into the village to get the kids parent, but nobody showed up. I tried to pick up the kid to bring him to his mom, where he was pointing, but someone else quickly took him from me and set him back on the pavement. In the meantime, the car driver was making sure that she had my phone number, as a witness to reduce her liability. Then of course, the reason that nobody helps the injured is because of liability. Apparently, if you touch someone that has been hit, you can be held liable for their injuries…so people watch, which is unfortunate. In the end, some old guy (clearly not the kids father) came out of the village and took responsibility (without compassion) for the kid. They loaded up in the back of the car and headed to the hospital to check out the foot. This leads my to the title of the blog “Pedestrians are so dangerous”, which of course is not true. Just like any vulnerable road users (bicyclists, pedestrians, e-bikes etc) most of them get injured or lose their lives when a car hits them. Even so, as a witness, the kid ran directly in front of the car, so it was not the drivers fault per se. Even so, the dangerous element in that equation was not the five year old, but the car. Just because vulnerable road users are killed doesn’t make them dangerous as many propose—e-bike riders and bicyclists are generally not the dangerous ones. Mixing them with cars makes a dangerous situation, but the dangerous element is almost the car. For the record, we were on the way to eat some dog when we witnessed this. Here’s a picture of Avah getting ready to chow down.

Bicycles Collecting Dust and E-bikes Shining

I’ve returned to Kunming, China with my family and a handful of students to study transportation demand and transport’s effect on the environment for about two months. It is so interesting coming back every year or so, to see snapshots of the rapid rate of change. There are a number of major infrastructure initiatives in Kunming, including elevating the entire second ring road, causing tons (literally) of trucks to be diverted to the street outside our apartment, which has effectively destroyed the road (and air quality and safety)--one neighborhood fatality and counting. I am particularly interested in the growth in e-bike use in China. Kunming has an estimated 700,000 e-bikes (registered), up from about 180,000 in 2006. Based on my observations, traditional bicycles are nearly extinct--at least endangerd (though that might have happened without the help of e-bikes). Buses are jam-packed and whatever bicycles you see parked at apartment parking lots seem to be collecting dust. This probably has a lot to do with the eroding bicycle infrastructure and longer commutes, as the urbanized area expands. If you have to share the bike lane with encroaching cars and trucks, or because of parked cars in the bike lane, you have to enter the car lane, it seems safer to do that on an e-bike, that can mix better with car speeds, compared to a bicycle. At any rate, e-bikes seem to follow the trend of replacing some combination of bus and bike trips. Even so, e-bikes are much more maneuverable and, given appropriate infrastructure, are much faster than driving during peak hours. Of course, these observations are in the context of the suburban lifestyle that we are living, so nearer the city center, the more bicycles one might see. Consequently, we’ve bought our family vehicle. An e-scooter we call “silverfish”.

Around the world in 7 days

I am in Bangkok for the Better Air Quality Conference 2008 (www.baq2008.org). My trip started in typical fashion, mechanical delay at Knoxville’s McGee Tyson Airport, making me miss my Washington to Tokyo and later Tokyo to Bangkok connection. This is the third time in a row that this has happened to me flying out of Knoxville, all on different airlines. This time was United. The gate agent called me up and told me that I would miss my connection and the only thing they could do was try the same itinerary the next day. She said that all flights were full and it would be impossible to leave any sooner. I told her that I found it hard to believe that at 10 am, there are no other seats on any other airline that would get me closer to Bangkok that day. After some patient persistence and a return to the main ticket office, they got me on a flight crossing the Atlantic. They seemed determined to keep me on United, although they have an

 obligation (I think) to put me on another flight.Twice in the same day did someone tell me that the airlines needed to be re-regulated. The live-and-let-die notion of capitalism in America seems to be fading with the economy. I’ve heard far more proponents of government regulation (in Knoxville no less) than ever before. Anyways, I flew to Frankfurt Germany and had a nice seven hour layover, which was really nice. European transportation systems are amazing. I asked a couple of American travelers that seemed to have taken that route before how to get around Frankfurt and where I might want to go on my layover. They explained to me that, by the time I picked up my rental car and dropped it off, I would have a hard time making good on my layover. I asked about trains and they had never considered it. Well, I knew the train served the Frankfurt airport (from Julie and my 2001 trip). After a little asking around, I ended up getting on the S8 train and into downtown Frankfurt in 15 minutes. From the airport you pass the train station with the high speed ICE trains coming and going. 

Once downtown there were rental bikes everywhere that you could call in and have them unlock it for you. If I had a phone that worked, I would have done it--1 euro an hour. I was fortunate to be there before rush hour so I got to see everyone coming in and the streets getting busier and busier as time went on. They had buses, streetcars, the U-Bahn local trains, and great bike infrastructure; many options for the car-less. This is the fundamental problem with High-Speed Rail proposals in the US, what do you do when you get there? There are only a few cities and corridors in the country that could absorb the riders on their public transit systems, leading to the inevitable car rental system. This could work, but to compete with air travel you would have to have vast garages for rentals presumably in downtown areas. It seems it could serve a niche, but not reach the level of Europe or Japanese systems, without significant land use and local public transit investment in cities.  After about 45 hours of travel, I will be in Bangkok, making it to my meeting with four hours to spare. Instead of flying half-way around the world and back again, I am truly flying around the world, West to East all the time, from Knoxville to DC to Frankfurt to Bangkok to Beijing to Chicago and back to Knoxville, all in seven days.

Biking for fun and more

The last few weeks have seen a pretty big shift in my commute pattern. I am teaching an undergrad transportation class that starts at 8:00 on Tuesday and Thursday and Avah started preschool and goes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The big challenge was trying to find a way for me to drop her off in the morning on my way to school. The challenge comes with her not being able to hop on the back of my Vespa (at least without getting some evil stares) and her school being completely inaccessible to non-motorized transportation. Well, the solution became, riding the city KAT bus to her school in the morning (on the way to work) and bringing my bike along. The bus drops us off at her school on Kingston Pike and I check her in. From there, I do some hair-raising road crossing to get to the other side of Kingston Pike and ride in the wrong direction down the sidewalk (yikes! for everyone involved) until I get to a point where I can get into traffic safely and not be mowed over by 50mph driving soccer (or hockey) moms. This has worked better than expected despite the one time we missed the bus, which comes every hour. I get to spend some quality time with Avah, she gets a kick out of riding the bus and can get some exercise and get to the office at the same time. This leads to the question though of whether bicycling can be taken seriously in a city like Knoxville. There are a lot of good efforts by the MPO to develop bike infrastructure, but so many critical links are not safe for bicyclists. The parks and rec department has built some wonderful bike trails, but they can be circuitous and the don't necessarily go everywhere. Most of the people I see are out there for recreation. Is it just that Americans aren't ready to commute on a bike yet? Would they if they had the chance (infrastructure)? How much would someone invest in a decent bike to 'give it a try'? These are a few questions I have in mind when I am trying to get to the University and think about ways to introduce more sustainable modes of transportation into our "multimodal" system. 

My family went on a bike ride organized by the Knoxville MPO (www.knoxtrans.org) last weekend. Some 250 bicyclists in a mob toured north Knoxville by bicycle, which surely allows you to see more compared to driving. We had a lot of fun, with the kids in tow in our small bike trailer. We had some problems/anxiety on Central Avenue as we were not with the pack and we were trying to ride our bikes on higher speed roadways (our entire family's lives in the hands of a 16 year old texting while driving). Well, we made it and when we got to the finish line, we were surrounded by bicyclists of all types. Most of whom seemed quite committed. The 20 year old Schwinn that I bought at the thrift store stood out like a sore thumb. This leads to the question, would Joe Public spend $1000 on a bike, then jump onto Central Avenue to get to work, just to try it out. I doubt it. I overheard a conversation with the owner of our local bike shop and he said that business hasn't increased despite ultra-high gas prices. Of course the average price of a bike in his shop is probably up around $1000 as well. He said that he sees people who are already into biking, using them more, but not many people running out and buying a bike. I wonder if bike sales have gone up at Walmart, and will an ill-fitting Walmart bike be something that will convert driver to biking? Where are the low cost, decent quality, commuter bikes? I haven't found too many of them. The classic transportation problem, is there no demand because of no (bad) infrastructure or is there no infrastructure because of no demand? Afterall, biking is a recreational sport.