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Beyond “On-Time Performance”

Posted on October 25, 2010 in 3-newbasic, Journalism, On-Time Performance, San Francisco

A San Francisco reporter emailed me yesterday with this question, regarding the city’s main transit system, Muni:

As you know, Muni set a goal in 1999 when the [San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency] board was formed, to have a 85 percent on-time performance standard. That was voted on in 1999 (Prop. E). Since then … the agency has yet to the meet goal or even gotten close to it. The highest it’s been was 75 percent a few months ago.  … I wanted to ask if you if there is any danger for Muni to be so focused on this one standard? Are performance metrics evolving and why are they evolving? What else should Muni to be looking at as far as improving reliability?

Continue Reading →

Walkscore.com and the Lure of the Single “Score”

Posted on October 25, 2010 in Access, Atlanta, Journalism, Maps, Modeling, Pedestrians

[Note: This post is from 2010 and has not been updated to reflect more recent developments, including the acquisition of WalkScore by Redfin.]

The Conservative Planner [blog site no longer active] has a thoughtful attack on WalkScore.com‘s methodology for calculating a simple “walkability score” for any neighborhood in America.  He’s found several examples where WalkScore has given a high score to a place that’s clearly hostile to pedestrians when viewed on the ground.  Continue Reading →

Guest Post: Aaron Renn on Universal Fare Media

Posted on October 21, 2010 in Chicago, Fares, Legibility, London, New York City, Tourism

(Aaron Renn, who writes The Urbanophile, is an opinion-leading urban affairs analyst, consultant, and speaker, based in the US Midwest.)

When I’m at home, I ride bus and rail transit about equally.  But when I travel to a new city, I travel on rail systems frequently, but almost never use the bus.  Why?

For me, while I know how transit systems generally work, the specifics of fares and fare media are different from place to place. I know that if I show up at a rail station there is likely to be a station house where I can look at maps, read about fares and rules, and use nice machines with step by step instructions for purchasing tickets or other fare media.  Continue Reading →

Email of the Week: Enlightenment Through Rotation

Posted on October 19, 2010 in Maps, Moscow

Mosmetro2010 Interesting.  From David Marlor:

I’m wondering if I’m the only person that does this. When looking at a city map or any network map, I like to look at it sideways or upside down. Our eyes are designed to see things horizontally, but we’re not that good at seeing things vertically (probably why we like wide-screen TVs). So when we scan a map, we look left and right, more so than up and down. Continue Reading →

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

Posted on October 10, 2010 in Meditations, Montréal, Toronto, Vancouver

This post is sentimental and off-topic, apart from its obvious link to the triumphs of Canadian transit and of Vancouver in particular.  But hey, it’s my blog.

Dscn2089

Though I lived in Canada for only a year, I hope my fondness for the country comes through in this sentimental meditation on Canadian thanksgiving.  I wrote it five years ago around this time, when I was based in Vancouver, but it all feels true enough today.

Thanksgiving Day in Canada is Monday, October 11.  May it be a day of joy and gratitude for all of HT’s Canadian readers, and for anyone who’s ever admired their remarkable nation.

 

Further Cause for Canadian Triumphalism

Posted on October 8, 2010 in Downtowns, Parking, Sydney

Yesterday I posted some data we were playing with, suggesting that Canadian cities have consistently higher transit ridership than similar US ones.  Commenter Matt pointed me to his own charts on the subject, which are based on Paul Mees’s database.  One of Matt’s charts makes use of citywide average density, a stat to which I’m allergic for reasons explained here and here.  But here’s the other one.   Continue Reading →

Quote of the Week: Manhattan as “Stockyard”

Posted on October 8, 2010 in Language, New York City, Pedestrians, Philosophy

[T]he comforts of the [Manhattan’s] rich still depend on the abundance of its poor, the municipal wealth and well-being as unevenly distributed as in the good old days of the Gilded Age. When seen at a height or a distance, from across the Hudson River or from the roof of Rockefeller Center, Manhattan meets the definitions of the sublime. At ground level Manhattan is a stockyard, the narrow streets littered with debris and laid out in the manner of cattle chutes, the tenements and storefronts uniformly fitted to fit the framework of a factory or a warehouse.

— Lewis Lapham, “City Light”, Lapham’s Quarterly, 7 October 2010 Continue Reading →

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