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Symbolic Logic for Transit Advocates: A Short but Essential Course

Posted on July 29, 2009 in Basics, Language, Monorail, Philosophy, Portland, Seattle, Streetcars (Trams)

Part of our job as informed citizens and voters is to sift through the political claims that we hear and arrive at our own sense of what’s true.  I’ve been listening to such claims in the transit business, and sometimes making them, for almost 30 years now.  It occurs to me that one of the most important tools for evaluating these claims is something you probably learned in high school math and forgot.  (Yes, some of you remembered, but I’m really talking to the ones who forgot.  To those of you who just don’t like math, don’t worry if you don’t follow this next bit; just skim ahead to the example.  This IS really important.)

Here it is.
Consider a statement of the form “If A is true, then B is true,” [A –> B]
IF that statement is true, then:
  • The Converse, [B –> A] is not necessarily true.
  • The Inverse [NOT A –> NOT B] is not necessarily true.
  • The Contrapositive [NOT B –> NOT A] IS true.

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Unhelpful Word Watch: Convenient

Posted on June 24, 2009 in Language, Public Outreach, Words, Unhelpful

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.

What does he mean by convenience?  For that matter, what do you mean by convenience?  I’ve been hearing this word in conversations about transit for more than 20 years, and in this context, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean anything.

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Slippery Word Watch: Express

Posted on June 19, 2009 in Language, Stop Spacing
A good post at Greater Greater Washington on Washington DC priority bus corridors reminds me of an old question about the word express:

Metro is working hard to develop “priority bus corridors,” with express buses that run more often, more quickly, and more reliably than existing service

What does express mean in that sentence?  It’s not clear, but it seems to be the everyday meaning: “fast, with a dash of coolness, compared to local-stop 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:

Stopping patterns

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When Expansion is Dilution

Posted on June 18, 2009 in Branding, Language, Los Angeles

Demonstration-1-Large Metro Rapid

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.

But Los Angeles commenters such as Wad pounced, reminding me that as the Rapid brand expanded, bits of it started falling off:

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Chicken, Egg

Posted on May 5, 2009 in Connections, Transfers, Language, Philosophy

Chook2 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“:

What is
REALLY good for a city is when transfer points are made the centrepiece
of good urban design – or “development oriented transit” as Sam Adams
calls it. Talking about transportation as though it is a stand alone
topic and not one intimately involved in the urban fabric is a good
indicator that the writer has not taken the care to study the impact of
decision making on how people live. Transport is a derived demand – and
currently we demand far too much motorised transport because of our
disdain for urbanity. Transit systems need to be seen as part of a much
bigger picture of remaking our urban places.   (emphasis added)

Nothing to argue with here, except the sentence I’ve highlighted.  But that sentence raises a really important issue.

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Be on the Way

Posted on April 29, 2009 in Basics, Be on the Way, Language, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)

Botw 3 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.

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A Social-Conservative Case for Transit?

Posted on April 28, 2009 in Language

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:

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