Author Archive | Jarrett

steve jobs vs. market research

Posted on October 6, 2011 in Marketing, Public Outreach

Mr. Jobs’s own research and intuition, not focus groups, were his guide. When asked what market research went into the iPad, Mr. Jobs replied: “None. It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.”

This may sound blunt and arrogant, as fast-moving minds often do, but Matt Bai expands:

In other words, while Mr. Jobs tried to understand the problems that technology could solve for his buyer, he wasn’t going to rely on the buyer to demand specific solutions, just so he could avoid ever having to take a risk. This is what’s commonly known as leading.

This point has great relevance to transit and urban planning generally. Citizens express their desires lots of ways, but few of those expressions tell planners exactly what to do. "Research," as Jobs uses the term, probably means a very broad process of perceiving what customers are actually doing, how they're responding to existing products — many other sources apart from asking them what they want. It also means relating those desires to the some sense of what's mathematically and physically possible. The synthesis of these inputs requires a certain amount of science but also a certain amount of inspiration or instinct.

You can ask a citizen anything, but the trick is to figure out if the frame of reference you're using is the one that actually matters to their decisions, and even you get only part of your answer. Often we ask questions that express the questioner's interest rather than the citizen's. (In the extreme form, this becomes push-polling.) For example, suppose we ask: "Should we build light rail or a busway here?" Well, not everyone is interested in technology-choice questions, and from those people we'll get low-commitment answers that don't mean much. Some people are happy to say "no opinion," while others feel compelled to state a view no matter how faintly they may feel about it. These vagaries of mood or temperament make a huge difference to research outcomes, especially when the question isn't stated in a way that engages what the citizen actually cares about. (In focus groups, peer pressure makes "no opinion" less of an option, but that doesn't give me any more confidence that the right question has been asked, if indeed there even is a right question.)

So I would rather ask the public big questions about what they think transit is for, and what it should be trying to do. "Do you see transit in your community as primarily a social service for people who can't drive? If so do you think it should remain in that role?" "Should transit serve every bit of the city, or focus on areas where it can carry high ridership?" "Here are five possible goals that transit could focus on; what do you think should be the prioirty among them?"

But most importantly, we in the transit business have to think, not just analytically but in a more humanistic way that's open to inspiration and flashes of insight.

Because we have to take risks, and while you can analyze risks forever, only inspiration gives you the confidence to take one.

information request: fare revenue impact of free transfers

Posted on October 5, 2011 in Connections, Transfers, Fares, Information Requests

We're looking for case studies in which:

A transit agency that had been charging for transfers (changing from one transit vehicle to another) eliminated that charge.
No other major changes happened at the same time.
A result could be measured in fare revenue, and also ridership.

If anyone's familiar with cases, or with studies of this issue, please let me know. Thanks!

lamentation: bicycles vs transit?

Posted on October 3, 2011 in Advocacy, Cycling, Portland, Technophilia

From a correspondent in Portland:

Among my peer group [educated people in their 20s-30s] I see a "mono-modal" fixation on cycling, very similar to the attitude many drivers have that their primary mode should be everyone's primary mode. It really is remarkable how many young, affluent, educated folks living in inner Portland see cycling as the only legitimate travel mode for all people everywhere. My [peers] basically scoff at the idea that I might prefer to take the bus to and from school when it is rainy or dark out. I see walking, biking, and transit as three completely complementary modes that support a car-free or car-light lifestyle, but I'm realizing that in Portland at least there is a large group of people in the cycling community who see both cars and buses as the enemy, or at least not an option worth considering or supporting. This might help explain TriMet's underinvestment in the bus network, since politically active young people do not support transit.

I've been away from Portland too long to have my own impression, but if this is true it's certainly unfortunate. While there are some conflicts between bicycles and transit in road design, I have always tried to accommodate both. I don't necessarily believe bike lanes can be accommodated on every street, any more than transit is, but I do think both cycling and transit deserve and can have complete and functional networks.

How common is a monomodal fixation on bicycles? If so, why does it occur?

There's nothing wrong with cycling advocacy, or advocacy of any mode, until it becomes hostile toward other aspects of the full sustainable transport package. Wouldn't advocacy for the suite of sustainable transport options (walking, cycling and transit, supplemented by carsharing etc.) be more effective than endless conflicts among these modes?

wellington: a sensible tourist on the cable car

Posted on October 1, 2011 in Architecture, Technophilia, Wellington

This blog rarely goes on about interesting transit vehicles, since my main interest is in getting people where they're going in whatever vehicle makes sense for the purpose. But while working in Wellington last month, I made early morning ritual of climbing to the Botanic Gardens summit just west of downtown, and on one such walk I took some time to admire the cable car.

"Cable car" generally means any vehicle attached to a cable that provides the locomotion. The car has no engine, but an engine of some kind is moving the cable. The cable can be aerial (gondolas, aerial trams) or underground (San Francisco cable cars) or it can just lie on the surface in a special guideway, as in most funiculars. Wellington's is essentially a funicular: it runs in a dead-straight track up the side of a steep hill. The two cars are fixed to the ends of a single cable, connected at the top, so that they move in counterweight fashion, one car rising as the other descends.

Unlike most funiculars, though, it has more than two stations — five in fact. At Talavera station in the exact middle, tracks widen out so that the cars can pass. Everywhere else the cars share one track, but with two separate rollers for the two cables:

(In this case, the presence of just one cable means that one car is below us, the other above.)

The spacing of the other stations is limited by the design or the system, because when a car is at the station one up from the bottom, the other is stuck the same distance below the top. In Wellington, even spacing of stations — not always ideal for local geography — ensures that both cars are at stations whenever they stop.

But enough with technology fetishes. Why is this thing useful?

Easy: it's a straight line, running at high frequency, through high density, where competitors are at a disadvantage.

Cable cars (aerial or surface) can make sense in settings where you want a straight line up the side of a steep hill — especially if there's no straight road that a bus could follow. That's exactly what the Wellington line (marked by the five yellow pins) is:

The terminal stations are Lambton Quay in the heart of downtown and the Botanic Gardens summit. There's demand everywhere on this dense hillside. Botanic Gardens station offers a level walk into the fairly dense Kelburn district to the southwest, while Lambton Quay is right on the Golden Mile, where buses come every minute or less to take you north or south through downtown, and beyond.

The other stations are Victoria University, one down from the top, Talavera in the middle, and Clifton, one up from the bottom. Victoria University's campus is visible on the south side of the above image. It has its own bus services, but it's a short level walk along a terrace to its station.

And while climbing this hill is something I might do as early morning exercise, it's understandable that you might want an alternative to that. The climb is 120m of elevation gain in only 612m of horizontal length, a grade of nearly 20%.

But the real reason I thought to write about it is the interesting feature observable at the top.

The vehicles themselves are designed for their constant slope. The floor is always parallel to sea level while the car's structure is tilted 20% from the floor, to match the grade.

As a result, it's possible to open the car on both sides and produce a level boarding from the surrounding ground. Where the car dwells at the top, as in this image, you can even walk right through the car as though it were part of the sidewalk.

I'm always interested in ways to make transit feel more continuous with the pedestrian realm. I long for buses with precise docking for absolute level boarding — not just to eliminate the delay of wheelchair ramps but also to create a feeling that the bus is a moving piece of sidewalk, that you are not leaving the street to crawl into an oppressive enclosure. Local transit won't really feel effortless to use until we have this effect.

So that's why this image appealed to me, so much that I even indulged some uncharacteristic technology-fetishism. Because the effect in this picture in important, and if I need a cable car to get it, I'll take a cable car.

human transit (the book): table of contents now online

Posted on September 26, 2011 in General

The table of contents is now online here! The complete introduction is here.

The book will be released by Island Press in November or December 2011. For more or to preorder, see Island Press or Amazon, or my hometown favorite, Powell’s. (If you use Powell’s, be sure to chide them for filing it in the Automotive section!)

As those pages are closed to comments, feel free to comment below.

human transit (the book): introduction

Posted on September 26, 2011 in General

The content of this post has been moved to here.

human transit (the book): table of contents

Posted on September 26, 2011 in General

Below is the table of contents of my forthcoming book Human Transit: How clearer thinking about public transit can enrich our communities and our lives.

The book will be released by Island Press in November or December 2011. For more or to preorder, see Island Press or Amazon, or my hometown favorite, Powell’s.

Human Transit
Jarrett Walker
Island Press, 2011.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The complete introduction is available online here.

1. What Transit is, and Does

This chapter defines transit and its role in the city compared to other transport modes, and proposes the concept of personal mobility, a measurable freedom, as transit’s most fundamental product.

2. What Makes Transit Useful? Seven Demands and How Transit Serves Them

A customer’s expectations of transit can be boiled down to seven demands:

It takes me where I want to go.
It takes me when I want to go.
It’s a good use of my time.
It’s a good use of my money.
It respects me.
I can trust it.
It gives me freedom to change my plans.

This chapter defines the main elements of the transit product (speed, frequency, span, reliability, etc.) and explains how each serves those various demands.

3. Five Paths to Confusion

An introduction to five of the most common conceptual mistakes in transit planning: map-reading errors, motorist’s errors, box errors, polarization errors, and choosing words with unfortunate connotations.

4. Lines, Loops, and Longing

The most basic geometric concepts in transit. Should transit lines be I-shaped or U-shaped? And why do people get so excited about loops?

5. Touching the City: Stops and Stations

How far apart should transit stops be? This chapter explores why this technical-sounding question is fundamental to almost everything you care about.

6. Peak or All Day?

Does your transit agency’s thinking begin with the peak commute, or with an all-day pattern of service? Why this matters.

7. Frequency is Freedom

Frequency is oddly invisible to the non-rider, yet it’s sits at the core of almost all transit outcomes. This chapter explores the urgent challenge of making frequency visible, in marketing, planning, and policy making.

8. The Obstacle Course: Speed, Delay, and Reliability

Transit speed is mostly the absence of delay. This chapter surveys the delay types, explains how planners address them, and how we might think more clearly about them in making policy.

9. Density Distractions

This chapter confonts recent claims that development density is not as important to transit as we thought, and sorts through some of the confusing ways density can be measured. Transit can do good work at many density levels, but density — properly measured — is still fundamental to transit outcomes.

10. Ridership or Coverage: The Challenge of Service Allocation

Every city or region has some areas where transit demand is high and others where it’s lower. How can transit agencies reach consensus on how to apportion service among these areas?

11. Can Fares be Fair?

An exploration of the hard choices around fares, and how smartcards are resolving some but heightening others. Can fares be “fair”? Are you sure you want them to be?

12. Connections or Complexity?

Nobody likes to get off one transit vehicle and get on another — an act known as transferring, changing, or connecting. This chapter explains why connections are inseparable from many other things we value, including frequency and simplicity.

13. From Connections to Networks, to Places

If we accept the need for connections (also called transfers), what does this mean for design? This chapter explores the common types of network structure that arise from this problem, and then considers how connection points can galvanize great urban places.

14. Be on the Way! Transit Implications of Location Choice

Whenever you choose a location, such as for your home or business, you largely determine what transit can do for you. When cities and developers decide where to build things, they profoundly impact the potential for transit in the city as a whole. This chapter explores how to make these decisions more consciously, as individuals, organizations, governments, and developers. The physical layout of a community or region is an overwhelming factor in determining how relevant transit can be, so in that sense, this is the most important chapter in the book.

15. On the Boulevard

The car-oriented suburban boulevard has much more transit potential than it seems. This chapter explores the special role transit can play in healing the most troublesome features of fast boulevards, and re-creating them as humane and functional places. The chapter ends with a vision of North America’s most boulevard-based city, Los Angeles, in a future when walking, cycling, and transit all have adequate space alongside the private car. It’s a nice place, and one where you can be sure of getting to a meeting on time.

16. Take the Long View

Clearly, the total planning problem requires synthesizing land planning and transport planning, including transit. It’s pointless to try to tear down the walls that separate these professions from each other, because each has unique expertise that must be valued. Instead, the key is to create clear conversations at the points where the professions intersect, and for each to provide just the right tools to support and inform the other’s work.

Epilogue: Geometry, Choices, Freedom

A summation of the book’s key themes.

human transit (the book): introduction now online

Posted on September 25, 2011 in General

The book is due out from Island Press in about two months.

The complete introduction is now online here.

The Island Press listing is here, and you can also preorder through Amazon. You can also order it from my hometown favorite, Powell’s, but be sure to chide them for filing it in the “Automotive” section.

job: manager of service planning for vancouver’s translink

Posted on September 23, 2011 in Jobs, Vancouver

TransLink in Vancouver has a great opportunity for a manager of service planning (10+ years planning experience, including some in management). They do more junior hiring as well, so keep an eye on their careers site. This one, though, is especially critical for the agency, so I wanted to feature it.

I'm under a long-term contract with TransLink doing work on their Regional Transit Strategy and similar planning tasks, so I hope to be working a bit with this person.

To apply see the "Manager of Transit Planning" item here. Full job description is attached. Move fast; it closes on Oct 14.

TransLink, and Vancouver in general, is a great place to work on transit and sustainable urbanism. Even more remarkable, their colleagues in city governments mostly share that vision, though the usual tensions arise as you'd expect anywhere. The agency's position as a single regionwide authority makes it relatively easy to think across boundaries. Few metro areas in North America have such a strong pro-transit consensus as metro Vancouver.

Their regional long-term plan, Transport 2040, is also the only one I've seen whose fundamental goals refer to the extent of a Frequent Transit Network. It's Goal #3. To me this is especially strong evidence that despite all the thrills of their extensive driverless rapid transit, the agency's thinking is focused on mobility outcomes, and their urban livability consequences, but not on technology for its own sake.

If you'd like to work in a region where suburban cities compete over who can build the most vibrant high-density centers around transit stations, but where you can still, as they say, ski in the morning and sail in the afternoon, Vancouver's the spot.

Fine print: If my experience in 05-06 is any indication, the days when you can ski in the morning and sail in the afternoon will be heavily overcast and drizzling, but you will still be enjoying the warmest winter weather in all of Canada. Think of it as the Canadian Riviera!

journalists! network restructuring stories can be interesting, and clear

Posted on September 20, 2011 in Downtowns, Journalism

Deep inside the Atlantic magazine's Cities section, an article on restructuring a bus network! The city is Tallahassee, and the redesign team included Samuel Scheib of StarMetro, who comments here now and then. The redesign took an all-radial system, reduced the number of lines but increased their length, and introduced some new non-downtown connection points and even some lines that don't go downtown at all.

Few journalists would consider the topic interesting, but the article by Emily Badger takes the lay reader through the issues, highlights the relationship to city-building concerns, and generally helps it make sense. I wish every journalist — or even every New York Times reporter — took this kind of care to understand a planning issue. Given how well Badger explains the issue, I wouldn't have minded if she'd also interviewed some riders who are personally inconvenienced by the change. But most journalists cover only the latter, as though their goal is to maximize rage rather than understanding.

This quote from Scheib was interesting:

“If you talk to a land-use planner, typically they would want you to keep … service focused more on the downtown because they want more people to live downtown, in that dense environment. I’m all for that, I’m all for urbanization, I’m all for denser places,” Scheib said. “But the reality is that people need to get to work. And you’ve got to go where the jobs are."

I can assure you that this change won't damage downtown. I was hanging around Portland's TriMet in 1982 (in the indispensible role of teenage transit geek) when they totally restructured the inner city bus system, creating a grid pattern with many crosstowns that don't go downtown at all. Several of those crosstowns are now among Portland's most productive lines. But downtown Portland survived, to say the least.

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