A Transport Politic post on US high-speed rail today contains this quotation from Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman:
With high-speed rail, speed is not the issue. Convenience and trip times are.
Metro is working hard to develop “priority bus corridors,” with express buses that run more often, more quickly, and more reliably than existing service
Like a lot of transit planners, I use the word express in a more precise sense, as one of three kinds of stopping pattern that seem to encompass most successful transit services:
My post on crowdsourcing bus stop design included a pitch for the importance of branding in making a particular quality of service visible. I cited the obvious example of the Los Angeles Metro Rapid, the region’s network of frequent and relatively fast buses. Integral to the Rapid product was a distinctive logo, colour scheme, and on the first lines at least, shelter design.
In an early but still timely post, I argued that we should abolish the depressing American verb to transfer, and replace it with to connect.
Well, I’ve been at this for almost two weeks, so it’s about time we had a whiff of conflict! From Vancouver-based transportation economist and blogger Stephen Rees, on my post about “transferring“:
Nothing to argue with here, except the sentence I’ve highlighted. But that sentence raises a really important issue.
One of the problems with discussions of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is that the term sounds much too specialized. We hear talk of TODs as a special class of developments with special requirements and possibilities, and perhaps requiring special expertise. We often hear that a certain development is or isn’t aTOD, as though transit-orientation were not — as it obviously is — a matter of degree.
Moreover, most of the urban development decisions that will determine the future viability of transit are not decisions about TODs. Most of them are not even conscious decisions about transit. The literature of “how to build TODs” is useless in these situations. What people need are simple guidelines about transit that they can keep in the back of their minds, and on their checklists, as they plan ALL kinds of urban development. The same principles could help institutions and individuals decide where to locate.
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: