General

My decision in 2005 to leave the USA had many motives.  But whenever I’ve contemplated returning permanently, the single strongest reason not to has been the nation’s barbaric, anti-competitive, and stupendously inefficient approach to health care.

The plight of the uninsured and underinsured was bad enough; more than one relative has told me that the great thing about turning 65 in America is that you can finally go to the doctor.  I couldn’t contemplate living in a place where I could be trapped in a toxic job for fear of losing my health care, or where the appalling burden the system places on employers would prevent me from starting a small business, should I want to do that.  I have always been amazed that Americans tell themselves they value entrepreneurship.  Taking on your first employees is a much easier decision in Canada or Australia, where you’re not taking on their health care needs as well. Continue Reading →

Why should a growing city with high ambitions for sustainability host a big blockbuster like the Olympics, with all the risk and nuisance that it entails?

So that everyone can see exceptional transit ridership, and exceptional volumes of pedestrians, and exceptional limitations on private car traffic, and can ask: “What if that were normal?”

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I told you I thought Vancouver would be lucky.  From Vancouver reader Meredith Botta:

We have had spectacular weather over the past few days, cold enough at night to preserve the snow (and to make new snow) at the outdoor Olympic venues, and warm, sunny and clear in the day.

Trust me, you have to have lived through a Vancouver winter to understand how miraculous this is.   Gordon Price even caught some cherries blooming, a good month ahead of schedule.  Meredith goes on:

The feeling downtown amongst the crowds is unbelievable …. lots of smiles punctuating the rainbow of nationalities everywhere.  I even bumped into a quartet of singing Russian women in a crowded Canada Line train the other day.  TransLink announced today that they hit a new record with 1.7 million trips made in one day, yesterday.  Ridership is about evenly split between rail and buses, with SkyTrain exceeding 600,000 / day for the first time in its history.  I hope the politicians are paying attention.

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The US National Transit Database (NTD) is out for 2008! (Yes, a one year lag counts as fast in this business.)  For those of you who aren’t compulsively drawn to spreadsheets, Cap’n Transit tries to get to the bottom of farebox recovery, the percentage of operating costs paid by fares.

Farebox Recovery Ratio	Agencies
70-200%	Lincoln Tunnel buses, inclined planes, Hudson River ferries, SEPTA [Philadelphia] trolleybuses
40-69%	Big city rail, college town buses
30-39%	Big city bus and light rail
0.1-29%	Small and medium city bus and light rail, plus assorted boondoggles
0	Free services

via capntransit.blogspot.com Continue Reading →

Tory Gattis at New Geography argues that mobile computing products such as the new Apple iPad will be a boon for transit, but not for trains: Continue Reading →

On the phenomenology of crowding and reliability, from Alon Levy:

People’s perception of utilization is always going to be skewed upward. There are always more people to witness crowding than emptiness. If half the trains run at 100% capacity, and half run at 20%, then five sixths of passengers will see 100% crowding rather than 20%; therefore, real utilization will be 60%, while perceived utilization will be 87%.
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Just now, in a LinkedIn Public Transit Professionals thread, someone asked how to describe a “demographic” that has a choice about how to travel, as opposed to “someone whose only mode of transportation other than foot is public transport.”  An engineer came back promptly with the common industry terms, choice rider and captive rider.  The second of those terms has always sent me through the roof.

Dense cities, as we know, have people who have chosen not to own a car, including me. These people may not have the option of driving for a particular trip, but their mode of travel is nevertheless based on their choice, not their “captivity.” Continue Reading →

Federal funding for transit projects will now consider their impacts on overall urban livability and sustainability, not just the cost-per-unit of time savings.

In a dramatic change from existing policy, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today proposed that new funding guidelines for major transit projects be based on livability issues such as economic development opportunities and environmental benefits, in addition to cost and time saved, which are currently the primary criteria.

In remarks at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting, the Secretary announced the Obama Administration’s plans to change how projects are selected to receive federal financial assistance in the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) New Starts and Small Starts programs. As part of this initiative, the FTA will immediately rescind budget restrictions issued by the Bush Administration in March of 2005 that focused primarily on how much a project shortened commute times in comparison to its cost.

Great news, perhaps, but I look forward to seeing how FTA is going to turn something as subjective as livability into a quantifiable measure that can be used to score projects, particularly since the payoffs lie in development that a proposed transit line might be expected to trigger, but that usually isn’t a sure thing at the point when you’re deciding to fund the line.  And of course, travel time does still matter.

Read the complete statement from Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood below.

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My New Zealand colleagues Julie Ann Genter and Stuart Donovan have built a great practice doing research on transport and land use policy issues for national and local government.  They are both especially strong on parking policy.  They’ve put together a little video explaining the problems with hidden parking subsidies in an urban context, also featuring Auckland University’s Tim Hazeldine.

The video is based on Donald Shoup’s definitive book, The High Cost of Free Parking.  It obviously talks mostly about Auckland, but the issues it presents are the same in almost any New World city.

Julie Anne Genter also has a paper on the topic here.

Thanks to Joshua Arbury of the Auckland Transport Blog for reminding me about this.