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Ridership Down in the US? Look Deeper

Posted on July 16, 2010 in Honolulu, Journalism, Los Angeles, New York City, Rail Transit, San Francisco

It seems to be, and I’m sure the New Republic’s Robert Puentes is right about the causes — (1) recession-driven unemployment (which both reduces commute demand and reduces discretionary income) plus (2) the epidemic of service cuts, which is proving yet again that not many riders are so “captive” that you can’t drive them away eventually.  Both of those factors are well-observed correlations.

But it’s interesting that the New Republic chose to feature this map from the Brookings Institution’s interactive source, which shows total numbers of public transit commuters by metro area, as opposed to this one, which shows the percentage of all commutes that go by public transit, or what’s technically called the Journey-to-Work (JTW) mode share. Continue Reading →

Paris: The New Old Métro Line 1

Posted on July 15, 2010 in Paris, Rail Transit

When he heard I’d be visiting Paris, Yonah Freemark told me not to miss the remodeling of Metro Line 1, the busiest subway line in Europe.  Its daily ridership is 725,000 — around that of the entire San Francisco Muni network (all modes).  It’s not surprising, when you look at where it goes.  (For those of who you need to know where north is, it’s down in this image, which I always find irritating.)

700px-Metro_Paris_M1-plan.svg Continue Reading →

Johannesburg: Gautrain Open in Time for World Cup

Posted on June 10, 2010 in Journalism, Rail Transit

320px-Gautrain-in-depot-retouched Bravo to South Africa for opening the first segment of the Gautrain,
linking Johannesburg’s Tombo airport (JHB) to Sandton and Rosebank, in
time for the World Cup.  Sports events continue to be one of the best motivators for getting big infrastructure projects done.

But do you notice one rather basic fact missing from the Guardian’s otherwise thorough article on the subject?  Continue Reading →

Los Angeles: Columnist’s Insight Solves Everything

Posted on May 21, 2010 in Bus Rapid Transit, Los Angeles, Monorail, Rail Transit

David Lazarus’s Los Angeles Times column today lays out what everyone who’s studied the problem knows needs to be done.

  • DSCN2519 Since we can’t afford subways everywhere we need them, create “virtual subways,” i.e. exclusive bus lanes on all the major boulevards, by eliminating car lanes.  (The Metro Rapid bus network, compromised as it is, was in many ways designed to help people discover this for themselves.  When the Rapid was being invented in the 1990s, the LA city council wasn’t willing to consider bus or HOV lanes on arterials.  So Metro took the view, “let’s do everything we can to make an attractive fast rail-transit-like bus service, so that more people will care about buses getting through.”  That’s pretty much what the Metro Rapid is, and did.)
  • Fund transit expansion by hitting up motorists, via gas taxes or congestion pricing.

Continue Reading →

Ottawa: Moving on from the Busway

Posted on May 18, 2010 in Bus Rapid Transit, Ottawa, Rail Transit

DSCN2036

Ottawa is moving forward with a plan to replace its partial busway network with light rail, including a new tunnel under downtown.  As usual, The Transport Politic provides a well-linked overview of the issue.  So this is probably my last relevant chance to talk about my tour and observations of the busway in 2006.  I took a particular interest in this busway because it is the conceptual ancestor of the busway network now being built in Brisbane, and the basis for the “Quickways” concept advocated in the US by Alan Hoffman. Continue Reading →

Streetcars and Spontaneity

Posted on April 30, 2010 in Light Rail, Mobility, Rail Transit, Streetcars (Trams), Vancouver

The comments on Is Speed Obsolete? — my post on Professor Patrick Condon’s thesis that slow streetcars are better than rapid transit — are a gold mine of perspectives and insights.  I could spin a month of posts out of them.

Let’s start with this one, from Adrian, in response to my claim that slow transit competes more with walking and cycling, while fast
transit competes more with cars.  Continue Reading →

Is Speed Obsolete?

Posted on April 21, 2010 in Philosophy, Rail Transit, Streetcars (Trams), Vancouver

For a while now, a strain of urbanist thought has been asking:  Should we want transit to be slower?

That, broadly speaking, is the question raised by Professor Patrick M. Condon at the University of British Columbia (UBC).  Condon heads the Design Centre for Sustainability inside UBC’s Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and is the author of the very useful book Design Charrettes for Sustainable Communities.  In his 2008 paper “The Case for the Tram: Learning from Portland,” he explicitly states a radical idea that many urban planners are thinking about, but that not many of them say in public.  He suggests that the whole idea of moving large volumes of people relatively quickly across an urban region, as “rapid transit” systems do, is problematic or obsolete: Continue Reading →

Honolulu: Grand Themes from the Rail Transit Wars

Posted on April 15, 2010 in Honolulu, Portland, Rail Transit, Streetcars (Trams)

Honolulu-Rail-Map

Eight months ago, a freelance reporter asked for my views on the emerging argument over Honolulu’s proposed rail transit line, which would stretch most of the length of the populated southern shore, from west of Pearl Harbor through downtown to Ala Moana Center on the edge of Waikiki.  The Transport Politic has covered the background here and here and here.  A good blog on the subject is here. Continue Reading →

Illusions of Travel Time in Transit Promotion

Posted on March 28, 2010 in Basics, Frequent Networks, Light Rail, Los Angeles, Rail Transit

Whenever you hear someone cite the travel time of a proposed transit line, your first reaction should always be:  “Yes, but at what frequency?”   Often, that fact is missing from these soundbites.

There’s a nice example in today’s Transport Politic.  Speaking of the proposed Gold Line Foothills extension, which if built will someday extend from Los Angeles to Montclair: Continue Reading →

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