Los Angeles Times columnist David Lazarus tried using transit recently, and what drove him crazy was not the waiting, the crowding, the delays. What drove him crazy were the fares:
For example, transfers. Switching from one transit provider to another is often a necessity in an area this vast. Some, such as Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus, make it relatively easy. Others do not. Continue Reading →
There is nothing inherently convenient about cars, or about any
vehicle. It is the system that makes them convenient, and that system
includes both the vehicle and the infrastructure. Provide unlimited,
subsidized “free” car infrastructure, and cars will be convenient. Run
buses often, everywhere, all the time, and buses will be convenient.
Put everything in a giant skyscraper with computer-controlled
elevators, and elevators will be convenient. Trains, walking, bayou
boats, swinging from vines, conveyor belts, scuba diving: whatever it
is, if you throw enough money at the infrastructure you can make it
convenient.
UPDATE: I should add that while I am quoting this approvingly, I do have issues with the word convenient, which I explained here.
My decision in 2005 to leave the USA had many motives. But whenever I’ve contemplated returning permanently, the single strongest reason not to has been the nation’s barbaric, anti-competitive, and stupendously inefficient approach to health care.
The plight of the uninsured and underinsured was bad enough; more than one relative has told me that the great thing about turning 65 in America is that you can finally go to the doctor. I couldn’t contemplate living in a place where I could be trapped in a toxic job for fear of losing my health care, or where the appalling burden the system places on employers would prevent me from starting a small business, should I want to do that. I have always been amazed that Americans tell themselves they value entrepreneurship. Taking on your first employees is a much easier decision in Canada or Australia, where you’re not taking on their health care needs as well. Continue Reading →
Over at New Geography, Joel Kotkin has a new broadside against high-density inner city life. It’s called “Forced March to the Cities,” presumably to feed the right-wing talking-point that urbanism and planning are totalitarian. Here’s the part that’s supposed to scare you: Continue Reading →
A recent post looked at the challenge of surveying the public and identifying what mixture of taxes and fees they would be willing to pay to fund a widely desired infrastructure plan. In the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Independent Inquiry into public transport in Sydney, we did exactly that, using a survey team from the University of Technology at Sydney’s Centre for the Study of Choice. One commenter caught the crucial point about why polling is so difficult, and why its results are often hard to trust:
There’s always a difference between what people say they want, what they actually want and what they actually do.
… may well turn out to be this one, by Michael Druker at Psystenance. It’s about a conceptual error that lies at the root of a lot of bad transit planning decisions, an error made, at one time or another, by most citizens, many political leaders, and more than a few professionals. It’s called (not very effectively) the Fundamental Attribution Error. It happens when we say or believe statements of the form: “My decisions are based on my situation, but other people’s choices are based on their culture, the kind of people they are.” Continue Reading →
Tyson’s Corner, Virginia west of Washington DC is one of America’s classic “Edge City” commercial centers. It looks like the result of a global design competition based on the question: “How can we build an urban center of shopping and employment that will attract 100,000 people per day, concentrated in a 5 square mile area, while ensuring that almost all of them come by car?” Continue Reading →
The Syrian newspaper Baladna launched a new English edition in December. The first issue is on the web, and features a story about the Damascus mayor’s plan to ban cars from the narrow streets of the old city.
If Syria is an alien place to you, this article will make it feel utterly familiar. In the interviews with restaurant owners, shopkeepers, and tourism operators, everyone says exactly what they would say if this were proposed in any other city in the world. Continue Reading →
Do your city’s political leaders understand what funding sources people would support if they knew what they were buying? A few weeks ago, the Source (a blog by the Los Angeles transit agency Metro) reported on a survey showing that current riders would pay 50c more in fares for a doubling of their frequency of service. This isn’t as encouraging as it sounds, because a doubling of frequency, even with significant ridership increases as a result, will cost a lot more than 50 cents per new rider. But it’s a useful soundbite. These questions, broadly called “willingness to pay” questions, need to be asked more, and more probingly. Continue Reading →
So you just had a bad transit experience. A driver was rude to you. Your bus was early so you missed it. Your bus was late and missed the train connection. Or even worse: your bus is scheduled to miss the train connection.
Over at Planning Pool, (via Streetsblog) they’re suggesting a new way to express your frustration in real time, on Twitter. Continue Reading →