General

Some people will read a book from beginning to end, but many are browsers, nibbling here and there.  Some people want to be told want to do, while fewer want to plumb the depths of why.  So it’s not surprising that we’re seeing more list-books, lists of things to do with only brief explanations of each.  Most are terrible.

The great list-books are by people who have written the long book first.  You can trust Michael Pollan’s fun book Food Rules — a set of memorable rules about how to recognize good food, each explained in a page — because it’s a summary of his longer book on the topic, In Defense of Food.  Likewise, you can trust Jeff Speck’s Walkable City Rules because it’s a summary of Walkable City, one of the most important books in modern urbanism.

Speck calls his new book “an effort to weaponize Walkable City for deployment in the field.”  War metaphors are appropriate, especially in the US, where so many pedestrians die on the roads, and so many more are forced to drive because it’s too scary to walk.

These rules are practical interventions in the decisions that local governments make every day.  As with transit, great walkability is not the result of “pedestrian planning.”  It arises mostly from other decisions that seem to be about other things: zoning, development review, street design, housing policy, parking policy, and even law enforcement.

Imagine Speck striding through your City Hall.  (He is tall, but with a disarmingly soft voice.)  He leans into each meeting, listens for a minute, and then inserts the one idea that those people, working on that exact issue, need to hear.  That’s what the book feels like.

Of course, you want me to comment on his treatment of transit, but full disclosure: I had a small role in this part of the book, including commenting on a draft.  Two sections are based partly on my work and we exchanged ideas about some of the rest.  So while this is definitely his book, written from the standpoint of an urban designer, it might seem self-promoting to single this part out for praise.  Having said that, it says important things and it says them well, in a language that policymakers will understand.

Speck and I disagree on a tiny number of points [1], but overall, this book brilliantly describes not just the challenge of being a pedestrian and how to make it better, but also exactly how to shift each decision to achieve that, in every room of City Hall, and beyond.

Jeff Speck. Walkable City Rules  Island Press, 2018.

[1] I defend countdown clocks at signals, while Speck wants to remove them.  And while he and I will never perfectly agree on how to talk about streetcars, his streetcar chapter is the most candid I’ve ever seen from someone in the urban design profession.

While I was in Sydney last week I didn’t have a public event, but I did do this podcast, interviewed by Committee for Sydney’s Eamon Waterford.  Not the best sound quality, but it might be interesting.  It’s here.

If you’ve just landed from my piece on “microtransit” at the Atlantic, welcome!  Here are a few key things that will help you understand where that piece was coming from:

• Microtransit week.  I spent a week thinking out loud about this issue, to arrive at my current position.  Here’s the wrap-up article.
• What’s the single biggest conceptual mistake in urban transportation?  I call it elite projection.
• What does high ridership transit look like?

And for the big picture of what I’m about, try the introduction to my book!

You get to draw cool images like these, and invent other kinds that nobody has thought of yet.

Our firm has a fulltime opening for a transit analyst.  (Also, watch this space for a senior planner and project manager position to be posted soon!)

Here are the details:

Jarrett Walker and Associates is a consulting firm that helps communities think about public transit planning issues, especially the design and redesign of bus networks. The firm was initially built around Jarrett Walker’s book Human Transit and his 25 years of experience in the field. Today, our professional staff of nine leads planning projects across North America, with an overseas practice including Europe, Russia, and Australia / New Zealand.

You can learn about us at our website (jarrettwalker.com) and at Jarrett’s blog (HumanTransit.org). For a sense of our basic approach to transit planning, see the introduction to Jarrett’s book Human Transit, which is available online. For a typical report of ours, showing some of the analysis we do, see here.

We are seeking a transit analyst based in Portland, Oregon, or Arlington (Crystal City), Virginia.  The position offers the potential to grow a career in transit planning. As a small firm, we can promote staff in response to skill and achievement, without waiting for a more senior position to become vacant.  Everyone pitches in at many different levels, and there are many opportunities to learn on the job.

Duties include a wide range of data analysis and mapping tasks associated with public transit planning.

Required Skills and Experience

For this position, the following are requirements. Please respond only if you offer all of the following:

• At least two years of professional experience using the skills listed in this section, OR formal training in these skills (such as at a college or university). Directly-applicable coursework is valuable but not essential.
• Fluency in spoken English and proficiency at writing in English. In particular, an ability to explain analytic ideas clearly.
• Understanding of basic statistics and experience with analysis and visualization of quantitative and statistical information.
• Experience in spatial data analysis (GIS).
• Experience working in Adobe Illustrator.
• Experience in cartography, evidenced in at least one mapping sample that is clear, accurate, and visually appealing.
• Availability to start full-time work in Portland or Arlington on before the first week of January, 2019, at least 32 hours per week.
• Legal ability to work in the US.

Other Desired Skills and Experience

The following are desirable but not essential.  Candidates with the required skills listed above but none or few of these desired skills are still encouraged to apply.

If you have any of the following skills, please describe them in your application

• Experience with public transit issues.
• Experience using analysis programming languages (such as R).
• Experience with qGIS, Remix or InDesign software.
• Experience in advanced database analysis. (Postgres/PostGIS, MySQL, etc)
• Expertise with transit-focused routing software, such as OpenTripPlanner.
• Experience describing issues from multiple points of view, including the perspectives of different types of people, and different professions.
• Graduate degree in urban planning, transportation, or a related field.
• Foreign language ability. Spanish is especially useful but other language skills are valued as well.
• Experience working with minority and disadvantaged communities.
• Experience managing small teams.
• Experience and comfort in public speaking.

Compensation, Benefits and Place of Work

Compensation will depend on skills, but will start in the range of $25-32/hour depending on skills and experience.  Raises of over 10% in the first year are typical for excellent work.  Our benefits program includes medical, dental, and disability insurance; a 401(k) program; subsidized transit passes; paid sick leave; and paid time off.

This position will require working out of either our Portland, Oregon, office or our Arlington, Virginia, office. JWA does allow employees to set work schedules that include working from home or other locations.  This position requires travel, to work with clients directly, at least a few times per year.

How to Apply

To apply, please send the following materials to [email protected] .

• 1-page cover letter, explaining your interest in the position.
• 1- or 2-page resume, describing your relevant experience and skills.
• Links or electronic files for up to three (3) samples of your work. If possible, please include a map, a piece of writing, and a demonstration ofa spatial analysis. (A single sample may satisfy more than one of these requests.)
• Contact information for 1 to 3 references who can attest to your experience with the skills listed above.
• Please do not include any information about your prior compensation.

We will be redacting from your materials any explicit information about your name, race, gender, or sex.

Diversity and Inclusion

JWA follows an equal opportunity employment policy and employs personnel without regard to race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status.

This policy also applies to management of staff with regards to internal promotions, training, opportunities for advancement, and terminations. It also applies to our interactions with outside vendors, subcontractors and the general public. 

Timeline

The deadline for applying is 11:00 pm Pacific Standard Time on Thursday, November 15^th. Submitting earlier is advantageous as we will review applications as we receive them.

We will ask a select group of applicants to perform a simple analysis and mapmaking test on their own, and then to join us for an interview. The test will be assigned on November 20 and due on November 27. We wish to hold interviews (in person or by phone/web) on November 29 or 30.

Thank you for reviewing this listing. Please share it with others you know who might be interested. We look forward to hearing from you.

by Scudder Wagg

It’s been nearly three months since the launch of the Pulse Bus Rapid Transit line, and the bus network we helped design, for the City of Richmond and its transit agency.

The early news looks positive for ridership. For some context, the redesigned network was intended to shift the balance of the network from about 50% ridership focus to about 70% ridership focus.

Prior to the launch of the new network, weekly ridership was averaging about 141,000. The first week of the new network saw huge ridership, 226,000 for the week, but that was driven by free rides. Immediately after the launch, ridership remained near or above the pre-launch ridership levels (if you ignore the July 4 holiday week). And since August, ridership has climbed to about 157,000 per week, an 11% gain.

Any gain at this point is good news.  It’s normal for there to be a slight dip in ridership just after implementation, as people take time to adjust to the new network, and for ridership to then grow gradually over two to three years.

Some of this gain is attributable to the new partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). VCU has partnered with the transit agency by investing $1.2 million per year in exchange for transit passes for all students, faculty, and staff. VCU was drawn to this partnership in part by the obvious value that the new BRT and Route 5 (part of our network design) provided to the University. And its willingness to invest in the service is a good sign of the renewed confidence that many have in the usefulness of transit service in Richmond.

Since launching new GRTC network, ridership overall is up! Week before launch we averaged 141,000 riders. Now we’re up to about 152,000-162,000 weekly. @VCU also represents about 10% of local ridership (Sept 1-15), excluding @GrtcPulse. @VCU riders about 20% of Rt 5 (Sept 1-15) pic.twitter.com/BdQXnrPtAe

— GRTC (@GRTCTransit) September 18, 2018

That confidence is reinforced by the expansion of service that happened this past weekend in adjacent Henrico County. The County decided this past spring to add evening and weekend service on three routes and extend service to Short Pump, the largest suburban retail and jobs center in the region. That expansion launched on September 16.

More time and data will help make clear how much ridership growth is attributable to network design and how much is attributable to other factors. But the early signs are positive, and we hope they continue in that direction and spur additional improvements in transit for Richmond.

Scudder Wagg, who played a central role in the Richmond project, manages the US East Coast practice for Jarrett Walker + Associates.