commuting

Change: Lasting or Fleeting?

© Can Stock Photo / martinan

The efforts to slow the spread of Covid-19 are reshaping our lives. Work-from-home (WFH), social distancing, and self-isolation mean big changes, with some unforeseen consequences.

We have been thinking and studying some of the impacts on society, striving to understand the effects on commerce and the economy. There are many unknowns.

Fewer people commuting means less traffic past the coffee shop, less wear on automobiles, emptier workplaces. When the virus has faded, will these effects be lasting, or fleeting?

Will work-from-home gain a permanent boost, reducing the long term demand for office space?

Do those who formerly stopped at the coffee shop everyday resume that habit when they begin commuting again?

After enjoying more free time from less commuting, will more people seek to live closer to their work?

“Dinner and a movie” has given way to carry-out, cooking from scratch, and streaming services. What happens when the crisis fades?

What is the future for movie attendance?

Does cooking replace some fraction of restaurant meals?

What effects will these trends have on commercial real estate?

There have been other effects, too. Online shopping got a big boost from mass retail store closings. Weddings, funerals, and other kinds of gatherings have been cancelled or postponed. Some people report an increased interest in improving their health; others talk about using food or alcohol to deal with stress. Are these changes lasting or fleeting?

After the 1918-1919 great influenza pandemic, the Roaring Twenties followed. Were exuberance and celebration a bounceback from the isolation, sickness and death of the pandemic?

We have many questions. What do you think? If you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.

Self-Driving Skeptics

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We’ve been studying the evolution of the automobile for several years. One of the major trends is toward autonomous vehicles, or self-driving cars. While the future is unknowable, some interesting observations can be made.

Folks around beautiful downtown Louisville, out in the heartland, tend to have a tough time picturing the use of self-driving vehicles. Meanwhile, residents of Boston or Los Angeles seem to have a different take.

Autopilot for navigating a few minutes in Nebraska between Louisville and Weeping Water, or Cedar Creek and Plattsmouth, especially if gravel roads are involved, is not exactly a big deal. Not much time is involved, and the complexity of the driving may be beyond self-driving capabilities for many years.

But if you spend an hour commuting on I-93 in Boston or on the 405 in metro LA, being able to go hands-free from onramp to offramp is a game-changer. This kind of capability is available now in certain Tesla models, and we’ve been able to speak with people who have experienced it.

One basically may recover an hour or more for replying to correspondence, making calls, texting, reading, or working on documents. To be able to do this during a commute instead of during the first hour in the office or at home in the evening enhances work and life.

Small town friends who get to the big city and have a chance to drive in hands-free mode admit that it is disconcerting at first when you remove hands and feet from the controls. But within a short time they begin to feel that the car is a safe driver.

Other automakers may be close to introducing similar systems. We won’t pretend to know what the pace of adoption will be, nor the growth in capabilities over the years ahead. But it is clear that self-driving technology has changed the way some people live and work already.

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.