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:
Author Archive | Jarrett
The Environmental Defense Fund Invites Us to Stop Waiting
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:
Why Circulators (Often) Don’t Work
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.”
“Transferring” Can Be Good for You, and Good for Your City
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.
Brisbane’s Subway Station: King George Square
Hello from Brisbane, the capital of Australia’s state of Queensland. I thought I’d offer some quick views of the city’s underground station at King George Square.
The Disneyland Theory of Transit
Darrin Nordahl. My Kind of Transit: Rethinking Public Transportation in America. Center for American Places, 2008.
Like streets themselves, transit stations and vehicles are part of the common space of a city, and the experience of using them tells us a great deal, often at a crucial subconscious level, about our city and our place in it.
One of the great challenges of the transit business is to make every rider feel welcomed. It’s easy to do this if you’re running a few buses in a small town; there, you have so few riders that you can greet them all by name. But the challenge of big-city transit is to give a welcoming sensation to huge masses of people at once.
The great cathedral-like train stations of American railroad era did this; many great European stations still do, and contemporary station design is finding its way back to those principles.
Unhelpful Word Watch: To Transfer
It is a fact of geometry that a great transit system, one that provides frequent service from everywhere to everywhere within a city, often requires people to get off one vehicle and onto another. The transfer, in short, is an inconvenient but necessary part of the transit product, and is thus a particular challenge for transit planning and marketing.
But we make the problem worse with the word transfer itself.
About the Blog
Human Transit is a blog about public transit planning and policy, by a consultant with 20 years experience in the field.
For more on the blog, its purpose, and its author, please see the welcome and manifesto.
About the Author
Jarrett Walker is an international consultant in public transit network design and policy, based in Portland, Oregon. He has been a full-time consultant since 1991 and has led numerous major planning projects in cities and towns of all sizes, across North America, Australia, and New Zealand. He is also the author of Human Transit: How clearer thinking about public transit can enrich our communites and our lives (Island Press, 2011).
He is President of Jarrett Walker + Associates, a consulting firm that provides advice and planning services North America. He is also a Principal Consultant with MRCagney Australia.
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All content on Human Transit is copyright Jarrett Walker.
All views expressed in blog posts and pages on this site are solely those of the author, Jarrett Walker, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of his employers or clients, past or present.