Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the Montgomery Bus Boycott:
We are not wrong it what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.
Happy birthday, Dr. King. See you on the bus.
It’s been a hard first half of the year: losing my mother, preparing to become a mother, and watching one of the people I am accustomed to mothering move 3,000 miles away. When I haven’t been feeling sad, I’ve been disoriented, rudderless, unsure.
On Tuesday, I saw this poem (written by Barbara Wolf) on the 48:
Changes
What I’ve learned from water
is to welcome change,
flow when I can, become snow when I must
then a mist, hovering over the Earth
or a fog, snarling traffic, or even an ice cube, tinkling in your drink.
It helped.
From Rodney in Denver:
I’ve been thinking of ways to get more people to use mass transit. I thought making transit passes tax deductible would be a good idea… I’m curious what your thoughts are on this idea?
Well Rodney, having just finished my own taxes, I think it’s a pretty darn good one. There’s a deduction for people who buy hybrids; there’s mileage credit for folks who drive for business purposes; there’s even a sales tax deduction for major purchases (like cars and boats). Why no love for transit types?
I think the trick is in the implementation. A deduction for buying a transit pass wouldn’t be very substantial (given that the cost of passes isn’t very substantial) and therefore wouldn’t provide much of an incentive to buy one. If the deduction was much more than the cost of the pass (in other words, closer to the social benefit of driving less), we’d have to require folks to prove that they actually rode.
Soon, most transit systems will have the technology to measure actual transit usage, and we’ll be able to reward (through tax breaks and other fabulous prizes) frequent riders. Until then, I’ll take the transit-pass deduction. And the free food at transit fests.
Yesterday, BeyondChron had an interesting piece about the connection between climate change and affordable housing. Some excerpts:
Despite the media focusing largely on climate change strategies like ethanol and composting, combating sprawl appears to be one of the efforts offering the most bang for the buck. For starters, cars produce almost a third of the carbon emitted in America. Allowing people to live close to their jobs, grocery stores, parks and schools means dramatically shortened commute times and significantly reduced carbon emissions.
In addition, increasing density means taking advantage of public infrastructure already in place. Rather than extending sewer, water, road and electric [and transit!] systems farther and farther away from the city center, using the already existing systems increases their efficiency and reduces the need for more resources to expand them.
[…]
As demand increases for urban housing, costs go up, often dramatically in many places in recent years. While cities may have won the battle in bringing people in, they’ve also succeeded in forcing people out. Low-income and working-class people in cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and New York keep moving farther and farther away from their jobs, making sprawl worse, not better.
This article is right on time. Growth management must include a strong focus on in-city, affordable housing. Without it, we’ll never create a transit- (or, for that matter, people-) friendly region.
Waiting in line to board my bus home this evening, I stood behind a guy with a backpack covered in buttons. Some examples of the messages:
“Consume less. Share more.”
“Be nice to mice: Don’t test on them.”
“I’m not a lesbian, but I hate men.”
The first two were pretty straightforward. I have no idea what the third was supposed to mean, but it kept my mind occupied until it was my turn to get on. Which led me to this conclusion: Backpack buttons are a bus rider’s equivalent to bumper stickers.
Bumper stickers, you see, serve two primary purposes:
1) To entertain and distract bored drivers who are stuck in traffic.
2) To provide a vehicle (pardon the pun) for car owners to share their beliefs (and biases) with strangers.
Backpack buttons serve similar purposes for transit riders. They entertain and distract bored riders (of which, of course, there are very few) who are stuck waiting at stops, and they allow us to use our “portable bumpers” to declare our positions to anyone who happens to get stuck behind us. As if the bus chick bag didn’t already have enough uses.
While we’re on the subject of bumper stickers…
Heidi from Redmond sent me this a couple of weeks back:
The Concourse of Hypocrisy: A cavalcade of gas-guzzling contemporary automobiles with hypocritical bumper stickers
My favorite example from the site:
Calling folks out like this isn’t usually my flavor (it seems less than constructive), but the point is valid. I know I’ve made note of similarly baffling righteousness a time (or fifty).
Tonight, I ran into one of my favorite classmates (and I use that term loosely, since I only attended one day out of ten) from the February bus driver class. Alan Brooks, the Seattle OG who told me about the transfer-eating passenger on the 255, drove my evening 545.
Alan is cool people, friendly and funny and helpful, which will make him one of those drivers people remember and like. Alan is also quite insightful. Case in point: On our ride, he mentioned that he’d driven the 550 earlier in the day. He called the oft-running the route “the 7 of the Eastside.” It was a very apt comparison, one I would never have thought of on my own.
For those who don’t ride either route: Both run frequently, and both have, as Bus Nerd would say, a lot of “trife”: inappropriate, insane, dramatic, or otherwise trifling behavior. (Note that “trife” can also be used as an adjective, as in, “Those girls in the back are rolling joints. That is so trife.” Looks like I’ve got another word to add to the glossary…)
One day soon, I’m going to take a ride with Alan when I’m not on my way somewhere, so we have more time to talk…maybe the next time he drives the 550.
A couple of months ago, Bus Nerd sent me his initial list of criteria for an ideal transit system. I’m just now getting around to reading it (hey–he doesn’t read my e-mail either), and I likes. Most of his suggestions are intentionally mode-agnostic, which I especially like. At this stage, there’s no sense getting distracted by the how.
1. It would be optimized for high-density areas – every part of a high-density area would be within a 5 minute walk of a transit stop.
2. High frequency visits at each stop – every 5 minutes in high-density areas, every 10 minutes on routes between cities.
3. Routes would run fairly late – in high-density areas they would run at least until midnight.
4. The system would be usable even by first-time visitors with quick inspection of a language-independent system map.
5. Routes would be unaffected by non-mass-transit traffic.
6. Transit vehicles would have no impact on the surface – high-density areas could reserve streets for security/delivery vehicles.
7. Every stop would have displays indicating next arrival times of routes and all their destinations.
8. Every stop would have a terminal that would generate an itinerary given a start and destination and optionally send it to your mobile device.
9. Mobile devices could access real-time views of the system for free and request itineraries and other trip-related information.
10. Transit hubs and crossings could lease land around stops to businesses in order to generate revenue and create convenience for riders.
11. The transit stops/system would be dry, temperate, and in general unaffected by weather conditions.
12. Every stop would be well-lit and have security mechanisms.
13. Fares would either be free or very low in cost and could be paid through a passive technology such as RFID.
14. Vehicles would provide overhead storage for large bags.
15. Routes to airports or other long-distance travel ports would have space for luggage.
16. Vehicles could accommodate 10% of the riders having personal transit vehicles such as bicycles.
17. Vehicles maximum speed would be limited only by the safety limits of the vehicle technology and not the flow of unpredictable traffic.
18. All major streets would have routes serving them.
19. The transit system would either use renewable energy or a more generic form of energy such as electricity that could be derived from solar and other renewable sources.
20. The transit system would produce very little or no atmospheric pollutants.
21. The transit system would be able to generate revenue from advertising and lease of real estate to businesses.
Some of this stuff Metro and Sound Transit have or are working toward. Some is dependent on major infrastructure changes, a few of which the city is slowly implementing. Still, we’re a long way from Bus Nerd’s vision, which I happen to think is pretty good. I can hardly think of anything to add–except a couple more that are infrastructure related:
22) Cities would severely restrict and/or heavily tax car use in areas that are served by transit.
23) Cities would control residential and commercial growth–allowing little development outside high-density areas and allowing new development only if it meets certain criteria and is supported by additional transit infrastructure.
Now, your turn. Assume the political climate and funding are there. What’s your ideal transit system?
Thanks to Adam Hyla and Tim Harris (my boys over at Real Change) for this very real editorial about today’s viaduct vote:
If we continue to act as though our car-dependent present is the only imaginable future, progress toward an environmentally sustainable future will come too little, too late. Adopting a Transit + Streets solution begins the process of meeting the 2012 Kyoto Protocol goal of cutting emissions back to 1990 levels, the equivalent of getting 130,000 cars off the road.
We are amazed that tunnel proponents and viaduct rebuild advocates who all claim to be looking out for future generations don’t see the writing on the wall. Our days of auto-dependence are numbered.
Yep.
If we keep using the (unacceptable) status quo as an excuse to perpetuate our car-centric infrastructure (everyone drives, therefore we must continue to accommodate driving as the primary mode of transportation), we will never see change. Well, we will, but it won’t be the kind of change most of us are looking for.
A couple of weeks ago, Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat made a suggestion: Let’s tear down the viaduct before we make a decision about how to replace it. After all, between the time the viaduct is torn down and the time a replacement is built, we’re going to have to make a lot of changes to the way we move vehicles through this city. These changes might work well enough to make us think differently about what’s necessary.
Westneat reminds us that most Seattleites, even transportation experts, expected the September, 2005 bus tunnel closure to snarl traffic downtown. It didn’t. In fact, thanks to many little changes (what he calls “a thousand little things”) traffic has actually improved on some streets.
From the column:
If we’d known back in the ’80s that we could get superior results by making a series of little changes to street use rules and signaling, would we have spent $480 million and ripped up the heart of downtown for nearly four years?
It’s a moot point now. On the plus side, at least we have a place to put light rail.
But the tale of the bus tunnel has me wondering again about our other tunnel, the one not yet built. What to do with the Alaskan Way Viaduct is down to two choices: build a new elevated one or a tunnel. It’s the big ugly or the big costly.
Do we really need either one? What if we did a thousand little things instead?
The Transportation Choices Coalition, a longtime advocate of replacing the viaduct with improvements to surface roads and transit, recently released this statement:
A Tale of Two Cities
Seattle – Local environmentalists are speaking out to express their discontent about the mandate forcing the City of Seattle to vote on the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
With the bulk of the conversation on the Viaduct centered around a “gold-plated” tunnel and “big ugly” elevated structure, many in the environmental community are crying foul, suggesting that the 1950’s framework of defining capacity as moving cars from Point A to Point B has provided us no good option when it comes to the Viaduct. They believe that Seattleites have been pushed by the state into a box that no one wants to be in – choosing a structure that is too expensive or choosing to cut off the city from its waterfront for another 100 years.
What many in the community are calling for is a re-framing of the discussion, with a focus on moving people and goods, not automobiles. Outdated, auto-centric transportation planning has no place in a progressive city like Seattle. They want to see our elected officials articulating a vision for the city that will guide our decisions and state support to see that vision come to fruition.
“The new four-lane tunnel, a surface option – these are very encouraging conversations,” said Jessyn Farrell, Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition. “The State has given us a false choice – we haven’t been using the right framework.”Their charge is that a vote now is premature because all the alternatives – including a 6-lane tunnel, a 4-lane tunnel, another elevated structure, and a surface option – have not gone through a true vetting process.
The environmental community has been staunch in their commitment to fight any alternative that does not reclaim the waterfront. But the aging, compromised Viaduct structure does need to come down as a matter of public safety. The state currently has $2 billion in-hand to start taking down the Viaduct – no matter what alternative is chosen. “After implementing mitigation measures to deal with lost capacity, let’s start taking it down now and have a true discussion of what should replace the Viaduct,” said Farrell. “Only then will we see a reasonable consensus.
I also advocate a surface/transit option, but I see this as a solution everyone can get behind. We have to tear down the viaduct eventually, so why not do it now? If the “thousand little things” work well, we’ll have saved a lot of money to invest in better transportation options. If they don’t, we’ll have more time to make an informed decision about what will.