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Does Busway Architecture Matter?

Posted on May 19, 2010 in Architecture, Bus Rapid Transit, Ottawa

As I suggested in the last post, the decision to replace the Ottawa busway with light rail may well make sense, but that it should not be an occasion for anti-busway triumphalism, as the busway was never complete; the crucial downtown segment was always missing.

But I also think that design and architecture matter, and I wonder if some aspects of the original busway’s design made it hard for people to appreciate.

When I toured the busway in 2006, I have to say I felt overwhelmed, and sometimes a little oppressed, by the design choices.  First of all, the whole thing is very, very, very red.
DSCN1920 Continue Reading →

Ottawa: Moving on from the Busway

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

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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 →

Comment of the Week

Posted on May 17, 2010 in General

From Ben on the previous post, concerning the environmental impact reporting process for major transit infrastructure:

What bothers me about environmental assessments today is that they take YEARS to finish. I don’t know what’s involved with this, but I work for the federal government in an agency that is tasked with being an environmental steward, and I can only imagine the bureaucracy that takes place with transit-based environmental assessments if it’s anything like my office. The problem with the federal government is that it sets up rules and regulations based on the worst case scenario, and then applies it to the whole country, giving agencies NO leeway in local situations. Continue Reading →

On Privatization Nostalgia

Posted on May 16, 2010 in Privatization

Christopher Leinberger in the Atlantic is wondering if we can go back to the early 20th century practice of letting developers build rail transit lines, and reap the resulting increase in property values. This idea is likely to have a lot of superficial appeal, because it combines two pervasive attitudes in New World countries: (a) nostalgia for a supposedly simpler past and (b) a suspicion, especially common in the US, that government is always intrinsically less competent than the private sector.

But as someone who’s been around a lot of privately-funded transit projects (usually called public-private partnerships or PPPs) I think it’s important to pour some cool if not frigid water on the idea: Continue Reading →

Cul-de-sac Hell and the Radius of Demand

Posted on May 12, 2010 in Basics, Be on the Way, Canberra, Seattle, Urban Structure

This is interesting:

Research by Lawrence Frank, Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Transportation at the University of British Columbia, looks at neighborhoods in King County, Washington: Residents in areas with the most interconnected streets travel 26% fewer vehicle miles than those in areas with many cul-de-sacs. Recent studies by Frank and others show that as a neighborhood’s overall walkability increases, so does the amount of walking and biking—while, per capita, air pollution and body mass index decrease.

I especially appreciate this graphic, because it’s a nice illustration of a crucial transit concept: the radius of demand: Continue Reading →

Can Local Buses “Stimulate” Development?

Posted on May 11, 2010 in Frequent Networks, Portland, Streetcars (Trams), Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)

One of the troubling side-effects of the streetcar revival movement in North America is that streetcar advocates often need to argue that buses don’t stimulate development, whereas streetcars really do.  But now and then someone says something like this:

Now, in Seattle, I picked my current apartment in large part because it was right next to a trolleybus (the 44).

Continue Reading →

Seattle: The End of Trolleybuses?

Posted on May 10, 2010 in Seattle, Trolleybuses

DSCN2101 Seattle’s electric trolleybus fleet is wearing out, and the agency is studying alternatives to replacing them.  The transit agency, King County Metro, can’t be happy to have this issue flaming in the Seattle Times, whose headline, “Fate of trolleybuses hangs in the balance,” practically begs the reader to rush to the poor things’ defense.  (On such “endangered technology” headlines in general, see here.)   Continue Reading →

Guest Post: Ron Kilcoyne on the Future of U.S. Transit Operations Funding

Posted on May 7, 2010 in General

This guest post is by Ron Kilcoyne, General Manager/CEO of Greater Bridgeport Transit in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Ron’s previous positions include CEO of Santa Clarita Transit near Los Angeles and manager of research and planning for AC Transit in Oakland,
California.  The views expressed are his own and not those of his agency.  Ron’s previous post on this topic is here.
 Continue Reading →

Postcard: Auckland

Posted on May 5, 2010 in Auckland, Postcards

DSCF2918 Greetings from New Zealand’s largest city, the focal point of an agrarian nation’s ambivalence about urban life.  If you’re a young North American who wonders what Seattle was like 40 years ago when I was a tyke — before Microsoft, Amazon, and Starbucks — Auckland’s your answer.   To a visitor accustomed to North American or European levels of civic vanity, it often seems that Auckland still doesn’t know how beautiful it is.  That’s always an attractive feature, in cities as in people, even though (or perhaps because) it can’t possibly last. Continue Reading →

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