The future of work, and of commuting to work, surely will be different.

Me, working at home.

To "flatten peaks in transit use" means something different in Milan, as opposed to Louisville, but the basic point is easy to understand. It isn't necessarily the case that ALL the cars must be on the road at the same time each morning and late afternoon, every single day.

Europe’s Cities Are Making Less Room for Cars After Coronavirus, by Feargus O'Sullivan (CityLab)

Hard-hit Milan may be leading the way in reimagining how transit and commuting patterns could change as cities emerge from coronavirus shutdowns.

... The city’s work, school, and daily life patterns are being redrawn to accommodate the need to flatten peaks in transit use. Those who can work from home would continue to do so, while others, such as shop workers and students, should be given some flexibility in their routine. The city will encourage stores to stay open throughout the evening and the start of the school day will be staggered, with different classes starting at various points between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. To help students catch up with missed classes, meanwhile, the city also wants to set up summer schools over the long break, which normally starts in the second week of June and continues until September.

To which we must add this consideration of the ramifications of coronavirus coping mechanisms on working from home, reprinted here in its entirety.

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Coronavirus and the Future of Work, by Aaron Renn (Medium)

The long-term effects of the coronavirus outbreak on our society and business landscape are yet to be determined. But one thing we know is that a big swath of American businesses is conducting a large-scale experiment with remote work (aka work from home). Many of them have also made large investments in infrastructure to support it; one company bought 20,000 laptops for their employees, for example. The coronavirus shutdown will create new capabilities for remote work within firms large and small, and produce a treasure trove of findings about what works well and what doesn’t.

It seems very likely that the result of this current period will be an increased shift to remote work. For those who were already working remotely, it’s hard to see how coronavirus would push them back to office-based work. Companies have been looking to reduce the cost associated with their office footprint for years, with work from home solutions as part of that. The new capabilities and experiences gained through the coronavirus shutdown will allow companies to feel confident in expanding remote work. At the same time, many workers may have discovered that they prefer working from home.

The nature of this new world is not yet clear, but based on what we’ve already seen in existing remote work, there are some things that we can anticipate. The first is that work will be less tied to particular geographies. On one hand, this would allow local firms to hire workers without them needing to move to Indianapolis. Not everyone wants to live here, and this will allow firms to tap into that particular labor pool. On the other, it allows people in Indianapolis who otherwise might have been forced to move in order to advance their career. Both of these allow the worker more choice in where to live, which reinforces the need for us to continue increasing the attractiveness of the Indianapolis region as a place top talent wants to live.

Remote work itself presents a new set of challenges for talent development and individual career path management. At the dawn of the internet, people predicted it would lead to a mass decentralization of jobs as people could move to the country and continue to commute virtually. That didn’t happen. Instead, the value of location, particularly in the heart of major American cities, became more important than before. That’s because knowledge doesn’t just diffuse online, but through face-to-face contacts. This is how people hear the latest news, trends, and gossip. This is how they hear about new jobs opening up, and meet the connections that ensure someone actually gives their résumé a look.

While remote work can initially be exhilarating, those workers who find themselves cut off from these networks can suffer in their career long term. It’s also the case that without real social interaction with colleagues, it will be harder to keep employees engaged over the longer term. This will especially come into play as ordinary turnover changes over the employee’s peer and supervisors group. It’s one thing to start working remotely when your colleagues are people you formerly worked with in-person everyday. It’s quite another when it’s a group of people you don’t have pre-existing personal relationships with. For work-from-home arrangements that are still local to the physical office, in-person events and office days can help, but this is much harder when working remote over long distances.

Indianapolis is a city that is ideally placed to be in the vanguard of urban regions that create the environment in which remote workers can thrive. That’s because our city has very strong social infrastructure. It’s place where a newcomer can move and make an impact fast. It’s a place where those newcomers can make friends, unlike other cities where if you didn’t go to high school you are basically out of luck. It’s a city where people are very ready to help someone else out.
We see this in programs like the Indy Chamber’s Two Degrees program, that is helping mid-career workers, including remote workers, make personal connections that can help them continue to advance. Indyfluence, the region’s marquee summer intern event, is being reconfigured to a virtual program this year, and that will also create new capabilities to engage young workers remotely both with each other and with our region. Groups like IndyHub are also making sure there’s good connectivity among young professionals.

More and more, there will need to be structured events and programs like these that remote workers (and employers) can tap into to ensure that they are continuing to build their face-to-face networks. This is important both for social belonging and long-term professional success. Indianapolis, with its strong mix of openness yet with strong social connectivity, is poised to be a leader in the new post-coronavirus world.

Here's Jeff Speck, explaining how slower downtown speeds have only a minimal impact on typical commute times -- and there's Team Gahan, ignoring him.

Jeff Speck was on Twitter. Here's what he had to say about commuting times in the context of lower speed limits. 

Here's Jeff Speck to explain how speed kills -- and there's Team Gahan, ignoring him.

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Concerns about lengthened commute times should not be dismissed out of hand. There are many people who commute in and out of downtown each day who have no other use for downtown—at least, not in its current state. (1/6)

They brown-bag their lunches and don't linger after work for cocktails. Most are constrained in both money and time. (2/6)

Some of these people will never have interest in a safer, more vital downtown. Even if it becomes remarkably more appealing, with new public spaces and activities springing up, they will not make use of it. But these people are the exception. (3/6)

Almost everybody, at the very least, wants a downtown they can be proud of. And most suburbanites, when a downtown becomes a destination, will want to visit it on occasion. (4/6)

Moreover, these people’s desires need to be weighed against the desires of all downtown stakeholders. In most places, the majority of downtown workers care a lot about its safety and quality. All downtown residents certainly care. (5/6)

The same goes for merchants, property owners & other investors. It is in this context that the tradeoffs between commute time & safety need to be made clear, & the key question asked: would you rather have a downtown that is quick to drive through, or one worth arriving at? (6/6)

And this.

Citizens and city leaders should be presented with an honest choice. Where commutes will take a bit longer, we should to say so. But, given the whole story, most people have shown themselves willing to spare a minute or two for the good of their city and fellow citizens. (1/3)

This graphic by the transportation planning firm Nelson\Nygaard shows how slower downtown speeds have only a minimal impact on typical commute times. (2/3)

RULE 32: Discuss tradeoffs between speed and safety honestly, with an eye to downtown vitality, civic pride, and lives saved. (3/3) From #WalkableCityRules

"Apparently commuting by public transport makes you happier."

Porto (Portugal) 2018.

I grew up in the periodically bucolic Southern Indiana countryside, then went to Europe for the first time in 1985 and spent nearly all of the inaugural trip exploring cities. I’ll grant that it took a while for these urban lessons to be absorbed, but the conversion was heartfelt and genuine.

These days, it seems to me that I inhabit a neighborhood (New Albany) of a larger city (Louisville), albeit it without all of the amenities in infrastructure that made European city life what it was, and remains.

Shouldn’t I be able to board a bus within a block or two from my home, switch to the subway, and be in downtown Louisville in minutes without once considering the use of my car? Why the wastefulness of our endless sprawl?

Now I've been to Europe 38 times, and only once rented a car (Ireland, 2003). The vast majority of the time, I've used public transport. There have been blips and delays, but in the main, not being compelled to drive everywhere for everything has made me very, very happy.

Then I come home, and the depression sets in. The older I get, the more normal my European interludes appear to me. It’s the daily grind since 1985 that’s been so unremittingly strange.

Why commuting by public transport makes you happy, by Lauren Laverne (The Guardian)

Apparently commuting by public transport makes you happier. It must be the fresh air and fascinating aromas that help Lauren to unwind

I recently learned of a surprising link between commuting by public transport and happiness.

I say surprising because I’m a Londoner who carries out my daily commute by bus and tube. I honestly thought I was the only one who liked it. Obviously up until this point I’d been going by the surly expressions of my fellow travellers. How helpful to now have evidence proving that those who travel to work by bus and train are happier than drivers ...

Bike commuting is on the rise, except in New Albany, where Jeff Gahan cowers in terror.

A headline like that is reason enough to read the article, isn't it?

Yes, the cities cited are far larger than New Albany. The point: As Gahan dithers and delays on street grid reform, we sacrifice opportunities to re-position ourselves as a metro Louisville option.

Time and again, Gahan's "thought" process exalts suburban by-the-numbers rectitude at the expense of what actually works in urban areas -- and biking and walking work in a way that Padgett's cranes cannot.

Bike Commuting: Still on the Rise, by Laura Bliss (City Lab)

... More Americans are biking to work, as cities roll out necessary infrastructure and road-safety policies. Nationwide, from 2000 to 2014, bicycle commuting has grown 62 percent. Yes, it’s easy to grow fast when you start with small numbers. But that doesn’t take away from the larger point: If you build the lanes, cyclists will come.

Fear.

Perhaps there are valid criticisms of the author's arguments, but to me, it's the overall tone of fear. It's especially true here in New Albany. The fear is primal.

America's Cities Are Still Too Afraid to Make Driving Unappealing, by Emily Badger (Atlantic Cities)

... My commuting choices — just like everyone's — are the sum of the advantages of one transportation mode weighed against the downsides of all other options. Or, more succinctly: my feelings about the bus are mediated by what I'm thinking about my car.

At a macro level, this decision-process implies that there are two ways to shift more commuters out of single-occupancy vehicles and into other modes of transportation, whether that's biking, carpooling, walking, or transit. We can incentivize transit by making all of those other options more attractive. Or we can disincentivize driving by making it less so. What's become increasingly apparent in the United States is that we'll only get so far playing to the first strategy without incorporating the second ...

... The question is really how far we can get down the path of least resistance, pursuing only the politically easy tactics. If the goal at the end of the day is changing behavior, how much can you really achieve by showing people a nice new bike lane?

Bike commuting workshop: "Diversity of roadway use can be restored with conscious policy decision."

Just imagine if one of several year-long themes of New Albany's bicentennial celebration would have been "back to the future" in the context of topics precisely like this one (bicycling, street usage and the urban grid).

Think how the money spent on the celebration would have been twice as useful, because it would have helped to raise consciousness about lives to come.

Ponder how instead, we've had living white people focusing almost entirely on dead white people. It's been such a profound, sad waste of time and money, purposefully placed outside the realm of accountability.

See Eric Vance Martin's slide show at the Floyd Action Network web site.

Maybe we still have time to pull something hopeful form the mire.

The important take away:

"Conscious policy decisions got us where we are. Conscious policy decisions can get us where we want to be. Each of us can influence the decisions if we let our public officials and the media know what we want and what we don't want."

"

"Floyd Action Network Presents Workshop on Bike Commuting in Southern Indiana."

Eric Vance Martin was down our way a few weeks back, on the ground, biking around. On the evening of Thursday, June 20, there'll be this workshop; a city council meeting; and DNA's Exclusively New Albany. From my house on Spring Street, walking to the DNA function would be a breeze.

Biking to the council meeting? Been there, done that.

But by bicycle from Spring Street to the Purdue Technology Center for a symposium on bicycle commuting? It can be done, but novices might not feel comfortable doing it. The back streets just off Charlestown Road are easy to use, placing one in the center's vicinity. The intersection of Charlestown Road and Blackiston Mill is jammed with autos, with little space for bikes. Ride the sidewalk? Maybe, although that's not what the sidewalk is for.

And, perhaps, that's the whole point. When do we begin connecting bikes and walking shoes to local destinations, rather than allowing each to exist in autonomous spheres?

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News from Floyd Action Network

For immediate release:
June 14, 2013
Contact: Judy Martin
Floyd Action Network
Phone: 502 523 5234
Email: FAN(at)floydactionnetwork(dot)org

Floyd Action Network Presents Workshop on Bike Commuting in Southern Indiana

Imagining a bicycling future in New Albany and beyond

Floyd Action Network, promoting bicycling as the commuting alternative for southern Indiana residents, presents “Making the Most of Bike Commuting in Southern Indiana.”

On Thursday, June 20, Purdue Technology Center, 6:30 to 8:30 PM, Eric Vance Martin, M.P.A., a Ph.D. candidate at the IU Bloomington School of Public Health, shares the implications of scientific research on bicycling infrastructure for bicycle riding and commuting in New Albany.

Topics will include:

· How much increase in ridership might be expected from improvements in bicycling infrastructure?

· Possible health impacts on New Albany's population if New Albany changes its levels of bicycling (emphasis on chronic disease)?

·What is the economic impact of effective biking infrastructure?

All who attend this free workshop are invited to share their own visions and ideas for New Albany’s biking future.

Purdue Technology Center, 3000 Technology Avenue, New Albany, is off of Charlestown Road, near Blackiston Mill Road.

Complimentary snacks and beverages: 6:00 to 6:30 PM. Program begins at 6:30 PM. Registration not required. Email questions to FAN@floydactionnetwork.org.

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Floyd Action Network, a nonprofit (501 c 3), serves to strengthens everyone’s effort to preserve the unique qualities of Floyd County history, heritage, and natural environment. For more information about Floyd Action Network, please visit www.floydactionnetwork.org or email FAN@floydactionnetwork.org.

Not us. We build **** for cars here, mister.

In New Albany, drivers express outrage because they cannot drive in the parking lane on State Street.

In Copenhagen, they would be told (with politeness) to shut up. They should be here, too, except that we do not progress. We coddle.

COPENHAGEN JOURNAL: Commuters Pedal to Work on Their Very Own Superhighway, by Sally McGrane (New York Times)

... The cycle superhighway, which opened in April, is the first of 26 routes scheduled to be built to encourage more people to commute to and from Copenhagen by bicycle. More bike path than the Interstate its name suggests, it is the brainchild of city planners who were looking for ways to increase bicycle use in a place where half of the residents already bike to work or to school every day.

“We are very good, but we want to be better,” said Brian Hansen, the head of Copenhagen’s traffic planning section.

Nash: "I think we can use ... to pull together as a community and come out of this with a better grasp on what is really important.

Matt offers three excellent talking points in today's column.

NASH: Let’s put the bridge closure in perspective,by Matt Nash (OSIN)

... The most important thing to consider is this is not the end of the world. While it may be the end of the world as we knew it, we will survive just by making a few changes in our everyday lives. The first few days commuter traffic has been better than I thought it would be with most people adapting nicely ...

... Now that driving to Kentucky is not as easy an option as it was before, it is time for people to consider what Southern Indiana communities have to offer. You can get just about anything you need on the “Sunny Side” of Louisville, without the hassle of gridlock traffic standing in your way.

The news of the bridge closure had barely gotten out when members of the Ohio River Bridges Authority were basically telling us “I told you so.” The problem is that they do not understand the argument of their opponents, basically because they refuse to listen.

"Observations about biking from New Albany to Louisville."

The title says it all. I commute, too, but both workplaces are close by. I've published Joshua's spot-on thoughts at our bike blog, as I'd like to see it used a bit more.

From contributor and New Albany resident Joshua Poe: "Observations about biking from New Albany to Louisville."