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Brisbane: A Tour of the South East Busway

Posted on May 2, 2009 in Brisbane, Bus Rapid Transit

DSCN4035A basic duty of transit consultants like me is to show each city what other cities are doing, and help cities figure out which of those models are right for them.  For example, most people have never seen Bus Rapid Transit done in a way that provides the complete “rapid-transit” experience that we expect from urban rail transit, with complete separation from traffic.  So I thought I’d offer a tour of Brisbane’s South East Busway, which does exactly that.

When assessing your options for a particular transit market, it’s important to realize that many of the features that attract us to rail rapid transit can be provided in a busway setting, including an attention to design that’s too often absent from bus transit facilities.

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Be on the Way

Posted on April 29, 2009 in Basics, Be on the Way, Language, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)

Botw 3 One of the problems with discussions of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is that the term sounds much too specialized.  We hear talk of TODs as a special class of developments with special requirements and possibilities, and perhaps requiring special expertise.  We often hear that a certain development is or isn’t aTOD, as though transit-orientation were not — as it obviously is — a matter of degree.

Moreover, most of the urban development decisions that will determine the future viability of transit are not decisions about TODs.  Most of them are not even conscious decisions about transit.  The literature of “how to build TODs” is useless in these situations.  What people need are simple guidelines about transit that they can keep in the back of their minds, and on their checklists, as they plan ALL kinds of urban development.  The same principles could help institutions and individuals decide where to locate.

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A Social-Conservative Case for Transit?

Posted on April 28, 2009 in Language

David Schoengoeld of the Witherspoon Institute has penned a much-linked piece on “Why Conservatives Should Care about Transit.”  Note that he’s talking to social conservatives rather than fiscal conservatives. Throughout my lifetime, the default position of American social-conservatism has been one of ignorance and disinterest regarding all aspects of urban life.  Schoengoeld counters:

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The Environmental Defense Fund Invites Us to Stop Waiting

Posted on April 27, 2009 in Books, Bus Rapid Transit

It’s hard to pick much of a quarrel with the Environmental Defense Fund’s new report Reinventing Transit, which invites us to admire 11 US “case studies” where a major mobility improvement has been achieved fast and affordably.  The cases are:

Reinventing transit cover

  • Rural transit services in the San Joaquin Valley (Kings County, CA)
  • The Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit corridor in Los Angeles
  • The Portland Streetcar
  • Flexible suburban bus routes in Prince William County, MD
  • Bus-only shoulder lanes on the freeways of Minneapolis, MN
  • Bus Rapid Transit in Eugene, OR (as an example of a small-city application)
  • Community shuttles to commuter rail in New Jersey
  • Community-tailored transit options in Grand Rapids, MI
  • Downtown Bus Rapid Transit in Orlando, FL
  • Bike Transit Centers in several cities nationwide
  • New York City’s “Select Bus Service”, a form of partial Bus Rapid Transit

We could disagree whether these are really the “top 11,” but that’s part of the point, just as it is in those lists of “top livable cities.”  By quarreling with the list we engage in the kind of thinking that the authors want to encourage.   In this case, the goal is to inspire the general reader with the range of innovation occurring in the US transit industry.  As the authors state:

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“Transferring” Can Be Good for You, and Good for Your City

Posted on April 25, 2009 in Basics

To complete your trip in a world-class transit system, you may have to make a connection, or “transfer” as Americans say.  That is, you may have to get off one transit vehicle and onto another.  You probably don’t like doing this, but if you demand no-transfer service, as many people do, you may be demanding a mediocre network for your city.

There are several reasons for this, but let’s start with the most selfish one: your travel time.

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The Disneyland Theory of Transit

Posted on April 17, 2009 in 2-Keepers, Books, Tourism

Darrin Nordahl.  My Kind of Transit: Rethinking Public Transportation in America.  Center for American Places, 2008. 

Nordahl coverLike streets themselves, transit stations and vehicles are part of the common space of a city, and the experience of using them tells us a great deal, often at a crucial subconscious level, about our city and our place in it.

One of the great challenges of the transit business is to make every rider feel welcomed.  It’s easy to do this if you’re running a few buses in a small town; there, you have so few riders that you can greet them all by name.  But the challenge of big-city transit is to give a welcoming sensation to huge masses of people at once.
The great cathedral-like train stations of American railroad era did this; many great European stations still do, and contemporary station design is finding its way back to those principles.

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Unhelpful Word Watch: To Transfer

Posted on April 11, 2009 in Connections, Transfers, Words, Unhelpful

It is a fact of geometry that a great transit system, one that provides frequent service from everywhere to everywhere within a city, often requires people to get off one vehicle and onto another.  The transfer, in short, is an inconvenient but necessary part of the transit product, and is thus a particular challenge for transit planning and marketing.

But we make the problem worse with the word transfer itself.

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About the Blog

Posted on April 9, 2009 in General

Human Transit is a blog about public transit planning and policy, by a consultant with 20 years experience in the field.

For more on the blog, its purpose, and its author, please see the welcome and manifesto.

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