Archive | 2009

Is Elevated Acceptable?

Posted on May 19, 2009 in Architecture, Honolulu, Rail Transit, Vancouver

The Transport Politic has an excellent post on the debate over the plan to build Honolulu’s proposed light rail system elevated through downtown, as opposed to at the surface as a group of architects wants.

Everyone is prone to reduce the complexity of urbanism to a problem solvable by their own profession, and risks being dismissive of the expertise of other professions’ points of view. (See here, for example.) When a group of architects proposes that a major new transit investment should be made slower and more expensive to operate in order to foster a better streetscape, as is happening in Honolulu, one hopes that they have thought through the urbanist consequences of all the people who’ll be in cars instead of on transit because the transit is too slow, infrequent, and unreliable. Let me clarify each of those words:

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Do We Really Want Fares to be “Fair”?

Posted on May 12, 2009 in Fares

Fares are a tough issue for transit agencies and the politicians they answer to. Environmentalists and people concerned with social inclusion want fares to be low, or even eliminated entirely. The financial bottom line of most agencies requires a certain level of fare revenue. Many agencies worry about their “farebox return” (sometimes opaquely called the “operating ratio”), that is, the percentage of operating cost paid for by fares. If it’s over 100%, you have a profitable business, but in the developed world it’s usually much less, which is why we have government subsidies.

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Chicken, Egg

Posted on May 5, 2009 in Connections, Transfers, Language, Philosophy

Well, I’ve been at this for almost two weeks, so it’s about time we had a whiff of conflict! From Vancouver-based transportation economist and blogger Stephen Rees, on my post about “transferring“:

What is
REALLY good for a city is when transfer points are made the centrepiece
of good urban design – or “development oriented transit” as Sam Adams
calls it. Talking about transportation as though it is a stand alone
topic and not one intimately involved in the urban fabric is a good
indicator that the writer has not taken the care to study the impact of
decision making on how people live. Transport is a derived demand – and
currently we demand far too much motorised transport because of our
disdain for urbanity. Transit systems need to be seen as part of a much
bigger picture of remaking our urban places. (emphasis added)

Nothing to argue with here, except the sentence I’ve highlighted. But that sentence raises a really important issue.

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Will a Busway Give Me Direct Service to Downtown?

Posted on May 3, 2009 in Brisbane, Bus Rapid Transit, Connections, Transfers, Ottawa, San Diego

In my post on Brisbane’s King George Square busway station, I emphasized that the service pattern was of few routes running at high frequencies. Michael Setty commented

What is
really happening in Brisbane contradicts the marketing pitch made for
so-called “Quickways” (grade-separated busways) by
www.movesandiego.org, which emphasizes so-called “world best practices”
focusing on the ability of buses to operate directly from origin to
destination …

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Brisbane: A Tour of the South East Busway

Posted on May 2, 2009 in Brisbane, Bus Rapid Transit

A basic duty of transit consultants like me is to show each city what other cities are doing, and help cities figure out which of those models are right for them. For example, most people have never seen Bus Rapid Transit done in a way that provides the complete “rapid-transit” experience that we expect from urban rail transit, with complete separation from traffic. So I thought I’d offer a tour of Brisbane’s South East Busway, which does exactly that.

When assessing your options for a particular transit market, it’s important to realize that many of the features that attract us to rail rapid transit can be provided in a busway setting, including an attention to design that’s too often absent from bus transit facilities.

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Be on the Way

Posted on April 29, 2009 in Basics, Be on the Way, Language, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)

One of the problems with discussions of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is that the term sounds much too specialized. We hear talk of TODs as a special class of developments with special requirements and possibilities, and perhaps requiring special expertise. We often hear that a certain development is or isn’t aTOD, as though transit-orientation were not — as it obviously is — a matter of degree.

Moreover, most of the urban development decisions that will determine the future viability of transit are not decisions about TODs. Most of them are not even conscious decisions about transit. The literature of “how to build TODs” is useless in these situations. What people need are simple guidelines about transit that they can keep in the back of their minds, and on their checklists, as they plan ALL kinds of urban development. The same principles could help institutions and individuals decide where to locate.

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A Social-Conservative Case for Transit?

Posted on April 28, 2009 in Language

David Schoengoeld of the Witherspoon Institute has penned a much-linked piece on “Why Conservatives Should Care about Transit.” Note that he’s talking to social conservatives rather than fiscal conservatives. Throughout my lifetime, the default position of American social-conservatism has been one of ignorance and disinterest regarding all aspects of urban life. Schoengoeld counters:

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The Environmental Defense Fund Invites Us to Stop Waiting

Posted on April 27, 2009 in Books, Bus Rapid Transit

It’s hard to pick much of a quarrel with the Environmental Defense Fund’s new report Reinventing Transit, which invites us to admire 11 US “case studies” where a major mobility improvement has been achieved fast and affordably. The cases are:

Rural transit services in the San Joaquin Valley (Kings County, CA)
The Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit corridor in Los Angeles
The Portland Streetcar
Flexible suburban bus routes in Prince William County, MD
Bus-only shoulder lanes on the freeways of Minneapolis, MN
Bus Rapid Transit in Eugene, OR (as an example of a small-city application)
Community shuttles to commuter rail in New Jersey
Community-tailored transit options in Grand Rapids, MI
Downtown Bus Rapid Transit in Orlando, FL
Bike Transit Centers in several cities nationwide
New York City’s “Select Bus Service”, a form of partial Bus Rapid Transit

We could disagree whether these are really the “top 11,” but that’s part of the point, just as it is in those lists of “top livable cities.” By quarreling with the list we engage in the kind of thinking that the authors want to encourage. In this case, the goal is to inspire the general reader with the range of innovation occurring in the US transit industry. As the authors state:

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Why Circulators (Often) Don’t Work

Posted on April 26, 2009 in 2-Keepers, Seattle

Seattle Transit Blog reported some grief from the Rainier Valley area in southeast Seattle, regarding King County Metro’s proposed new bus route structure to accompany the opening of Sound Transit’s light rail line. The issue looks like a good opportunity to look at the whole question of very short routes, or “circulators.”

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“Transferring” Can Be Good for You, and Good for Your City

Posted on April 25, 2009 in Basics

To complete your trip in a world-class transit system, you may have to make a connection, or “transfer” as Americans say. That is, you may have to get off one transit vehicle and onto another. You probably don’t like doing this, but if you demand no-transfer service, as many people do, you may be demanding a mediocre network for your city.

There are several reasons for this, but let’s start with the most selfish one: your travel time.

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