Planetizen points out a new paper by Jeffrey R. Brown and Gregory R. Thompson of Florida State University, called “Bus vs. Rail: an Oversimplified Comparison.” From the abstract: Continue Reading →
Philosophy
Think Tanks, Binary Thinking, and “Bus vs Rail”
The Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida is under fire in Florida’s legislature. State senator Mike Fasano (R), who chairs the committee overseeing spending by the state Department of Transportation, proposes to cut off funding to the transportation think tank. From the St. Petersburg Times article, it sounds as though Fasano is just looking to cut spending generally, by citing projects that supposedly make CUTR’s work look arcane and unimportant: Continue Reading →
Bus Rapid Transit: Some Questions to Ask
There’s been lively comment on the last several posts about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), including its recent history in America and elsewhere, the usefulness of the term, and the suspicions that it raises.
Still, “Bus Rapid Transit” is not going away. So as you consider new BRT proposals that arise in your community, possibly as alternatives to a rail project that you’d prefer, here’s a wise bit of advice I was once given about conversing with people who have differing viewpoints and incomplete information:
Don’t state a judgment. Ask a question. Continue Reading →
Getting Beyond Paris (or Your City)
Angus Grieve-Smith has posted a translation of an intriguing Le Monde interview of architect Roland Castro, one of the leading architects on a project for re-envisioning the suburban belt around Paris.
Failed Welcoming
I arrive by train in a major European city. As usual, the main rail station contains a rapid transit or ‘metro’ station. For the transit system, such a station obviously requires a high level of fare sales equipment or staffing, as most of the customers are newly arrived in the city and therefore won’t be holding its transit system’s tickets or passes. It’s also an opportunity for an act of welcoming.
Environmentalist Critiques of Strategic Transit Planning
How should environmentalists engage with long-range transit planning studies? What should you focus on? What should you object to?
Like a Cheetah
Last night, on the treadmill at the gym, I watched a bit of a National Geographic Special on the maglev train that connects Shanghai’s airport with its city center. Most of it was about the engineering challenges of the project, and the many small dramas of solving them. At the end of the piece, we viewed the train from above as it rushed away on its elevated guideway, while the narrator said something like: “But the future of the maglev train is very much in doubt.”
And I thought: “Like a cheetah.”
Hard Questions: Should We Ride Mediocre Transit?
We are constantly told that if we want to support transit, we need to ride transit. Current ridership figures are routinely cited by both supporters and opponents of transit as evidence justifying a proposed level of transit investment. This implies that by riding transit, or not, we are effectively voting in a consequential poll.
Yet there’s also a lot of mediocre transit out there, especially outside the biggest cities. Sometimes transit really isn’t the cost-effective and time-effective way to get somewhere. Even if you don’t own a car, you may be able to afford a taxi for, say, 30% of your travel in your city and at least 30% of your trips require using transit that doesn’t work very well. Should you use transit anyway, because it needs your vote?
Ride Quality: The Driver’s Role
In my series on streetcars, I’ve been groping toward constructing a coherent view about technology choice, a hugely expensive and political issue in transit development. Since this is a blog rather than a book, I’m thinking out loud, engaging with comments, and revising without erasing. The effect has probably been jerky and lumbering, with lots of small lateral motions that evoke the feel of riding a bus.
Speaking of ride quality, a reader asks:
Do you know if there are any cities that make a point of ensuring their bus drivers provide a smooth ride? In my experience, even with the same model bus on the same route, some bus drivers manage a vastly more pleasant and less jerky ride. So I’m just thinking that this aspect of the bus experience should be technically feasible to improve…
Good training covers this, but my own hunch is that drivers are good at ride quality based not on training but on how sensitive they are as people. A sensitive driver will constantly make unconscious choices that produce a smoother ride for her, regardless of whether she’s just driving her own car or driving a bus. A person who’s just not sensitive to quality of ride is unlikely to be made more sensitive by the kind of training that bus drivers get.
But I’d be interested in other perspectives, especially from bus drivers and people who know them.
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.