Just found this map of all 10-minute frequency or better services in New York City, by this not readily identifiable character on Tumblr. This looks like quite a struggle to make clear given the complex nomenclature that NYCTA uses.
The whole thing is here. An NYCTA contact tells me it’s still current except for a change around LaGuardia airport.
When I’m learning a new city — as I do 10 or 20 times a year as a consultant — this is what I need!
Two weeks ago I was the guest of the City of Toronto Planning Department, part of its Feeling Congested program to explore transit options for the city. While there I did a series of meetings and workshops, including the following public address at St. Paul's Church. Only about 1/3 of it is specific to Toronto, and at this stage it's probably the best video of me so far. Thanks to everyone involved, as credited below!
Jarrett Walker Presentation "Abundant Access" from DeepCITY Project on Vimeo.
From Jeffrey Bridgman:
Google maps is showing me my freedom to stay a bit more and chat now.
It says that this route runs every 15 minutes from 5am to 11:30pm, which means if I get talking with someone, I don't care that I'm missing the 8:27pm bus since there'll be another one in about 15 minutes. That's a great improvement from the "Catch the next bus at 8:27" directions it used to tell you.
Everyone! This is the next app that Every Serious Transit Agency Needs to Implement ASAP. It could easily be as transformative as realtime information.
A while back, our Portland transit agency Tri-Met unveiled a mobile ticketing app, which my colleague Evan Landman reviewed here. It allows you to purchase tickets in bulk with a credit card and store them on your phone. When you need one, you push a button and a "ticket" appears on your phone, very much like an airline boarding pass. Right now in Portland, you just show that to the driver, but before long I expect we'll scan a barcode just as we do to board airplanes.
Our two fulltime staff and I are all occasional transit users, so not motivated to buy monthly passes, and all three of us can now report that we use transit more in Portland because we can use it spontaneously without worrying about whether we have $2.50 in cash. This not only reduces cash handling and thus speeds up boarding, it attracts more occasional riders!
And if you're a transit agency, you need to love occasional riders, not just regular ones. A vast number of citizens who find you occasionally useful, and whom you welcome with an easy boarding experience no matter how long it's been, can be a big part of your political base.
So congratulations to Capital Metro in Austin for rolling out a similar app. And if your transit agency doesn't offer this liberating tool, encourage them to develop it. It increases ridership, builds broader loyalty, and speeds up boarding. What's not to love?
The antidotes to groupthink …, I have found, are: one, leaders who are willing to question their own assumptions and surround themselves with strong critical thinkers who are willing to do the same, and, two, leaders who also have the willingness to seek out and listen carefully for the underlying interests (or even the kernel of a good idea) in the voices of the people initially perceived or expected to be on “the other side.” That mysterious blend of arrogance and humility is hard to find.
David Bragdon,
head of strategy for former
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
and former elected head of
Portland's regonal government, Metro.
When it provides free connections, as a Los Angeles Metro report is finally proposing to do. The Bus Riders Union is screaming about a fare hike, but for many riders — those whose trips require a connection — the proposal is a fare reduction, because the transfer penalty to be eliminated ($1.50) is far bigger than the hike in the base fare ($0.25)
The vast dense core of Los Angeles is one of North America's great grid systems, designed to allow easy travel between any point A and any point B via a single connection. Unfortunately, their current fare structure charges for a connection. This makes as much sense as a road tolling system that charges only for turns.
It's nonsense. Connections are an inconvenience to passengers that is required by the structure of an efficient network. Charging for connections encourages riders to demand wildly inefficient services like the late and famous 305, which zigzag diagonally across the grid, increasing complexity without adding much useful service. It amounts to punishing customers for helping Metro run an efficient and attractive service pattern.
Like other fees, fare penalties for connections arise in part because journalists and activists over-react to the base fare figure, creating more political heat for raising that number. So like money-losing airlines, the agencies have to look for other things to charge for to hit their fare recovery targets. But charging for connections is counterproductive, because connections are the foundation of the network. Airlines don't do it. In fact, airfares via a connection are often cheaper than the nonstop. That's because the connecting itinerary lets the airline run a more efficient service pattern.
So don't believe the news about a proposed fare hike in LA. Some people will experience one, but many cash paying passengers, who are often among the lower-income riders, will save.
And one thing's even more important than that: The pricing scheme won't be crazy anymore.
Setting for my course and New School lecture in New York in early February, Ben Fried did a nice interview of me in Streetsblog toay.
Thanks for the wonderful response to the New York offering of my Interactive Course in Transit Network Design on February 6-7. You still have time to register, but act very fast. Early bird discounts end January 15, and we have only 8 spaces left.
We'll have an amazing group representing five countries, with a diverse range of professions and backgrounds.
I'll also be giving a public talk and book signing at the New School for Design the evening of February 6. RSVP for that here.
The course is designed to give you a felt understanding of the geometry of transit and the questions it requires us to think about. It's ideal for anyone in the land use and development world, as well as people in transportation policy or advocacy — anyone who needs to understand how transit can help build the city they are seeking, and how to create urban structures in which transit can succeed.
It's also, as one participant called it, "inexcusably fun."
Read all about the course here! For a tabulaton of student feedback from a recent course, see here.
Big news: Thanks to a sponsorship from the Transit Center, we're able to offer a significant discount for this session only. The two-day course, which is a $500 value, will cost only $300 if you register before January 15, and $333 if you register later. The tuition will likely never be this low again.
Still bigger news: Starting in New York, we intend to offer American Planning Association (APA) Credit (15 credit hours for the two days). APA members can earn a big chunk of your 2014 AICP Certification Management credits early in the year. We're excited about that, because the course is really for planners and city builders who need to understand how transit interacts with what they do, especially if they're not "transit geeks" themselves.
Hope to see you in New York! And if you'd like the course offered in your city, see here!
From a midwestern newspaper journalist's anonymous email to Andrew Sullivan:
When you see the metrics every day, and it’s clear that quick-hit crime stories or freak-show stories generate as many clicks as an investigative piece that took weeks to report, what rationale can there possibly be for doing the investigative work, the longer-form stories that actually help explain the workings of a community to the people who live there?
If you care about the quality of journalism, consider a policy of refusing to click on crime and freak-show news, no matter how much the headline arouses your curiosity. One advantage of online journalism is that when I refuse to click on those stories, that disinterest is recorded. Obviously I'm in the minority, but the conscious behavior of consumers is the only thing that moves corporations.
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales recently said that one of his biggest problems as mayor is the lack of credible local journalism, which has made it impossible to have a public conversation about issues that matter to the city and region. Would the great achievements of consensus in the past have been possible without our newspaper of record, the Oregonian, as a universally recognized forum for discsussing the issues of the day?
It's not just that the Oregonian has ceased to publish on paper, it's also that its website looks trashy and conveys the company's low self-esteem. Big O, before your name is utterly forgotten, wake up and realize that your marketing advisors are killing you. Fire whoever suggested that your website be called "Oregon Live" instead of "The Oregonian," and that it should look like the website of a cheap fly-by-night aggregator instead of like that of a newspaper. The credibility that comes from a long and respected history is the only thing legacy newspapers have as a competitive advantage, and the Oregonian is throwing that away.
When you really start thinking about this, it's hard to face how scary it could be. Sure, there are other ways of getting news, usually news pre-digested for those who share your political views. But there's no other way for the whole city to have a conversation. How can we do planning without that?
A deep cold snap is affecting North America east of the Rockies today and/or tomorrow, with many cities plunging toward near-historic lows. It's been an unusual winter all around, including an epic ice storm in Toronto.
As a gesture of solidarity and appreciation toward all the heroic work that's going into keeping transit running today, I thought I'd pass on this photo taken last week by Twitter user @madhava. It's a view from Toronto's CN Tower out over the harbor to Toronto Island.
The narrow sliver of clear water is where the hard-working Toronto Island Ferry is carefully clearing a channel so that it can resume service. This photo has everything: The molecular stillness that is the definition of cold, the hugeness of the city, and the tiny but heroic the acts of diligence and problem solving by people who's job is to restore your freedom to get around.
Stay warm everyone, and if you see a transit staffer working hard against the elements, thank them.