Copyright 2010 Jarrett Walker Copy for personal use and Cite with attribution with a link to humantransitorg but do not reproduce for commercial use Jarrett Walker HumanTransitorg ID: 377761
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A Field Guide to Transit QuarrelsCopyright 2010, Jarrett Walker. Copy for personal use and Cite with attribution with a link to humantransit.org but do not reproduce for commercial use
Jarrett WalkerHumanTransit.org
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About this presentationThis presentation ws developed by Jarrett Walker of HumanTransit.org and first presented in January 2010.Mr. Walker is available to adapt and present this material as desired, at reasonable rates reflecting travel costs and time. He can be reached via the email button on HumanTransit.org, or at jarrett@jarrettwalker.netSlide3
Thanks to the SponsorsThanks to the four great organisations that sponsored the initial development and presentation of this work:San Francisco: SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research). Spur.org.
Portland: Metro (Regional Government) and its CEO David Bragdon. Metro-region.org
Seattle: Great City.
Greatcity.orgVancouver: Simon Fraser University City Program. www.sfu.ca/city/Slide4
The Field Guide as MetaphorSuggests some categories for organizing the apparent chaos of nature. Offers tips for identifying each category.Explains how these categories are related to each other.
Describes but doesn’t judge or recommend.Slide5
The Chaos of Transit Claims
People won’t transfer !
People like me just won’t ride buses!
Rail
stimuates
development !
They have streetcars, so we should too!
If transit ran faster, people would ride!
These people won’t ride with those people!
Rail has to go right to the airport terminal!
Transit should be slower, because the world is just moving too fast!
Frequency matters more than speed!
Speed matters more than frequency!Slide6
A Spectrum of Authorities
Geometry / Math
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
2 + 3 = 5
A mammal’s need to consume water increases with temperature
Electricity and fossil fuels are both ways of storing energy.
Humans tend to underestimate the rationality of the actions of others.
Most middle-class Americans hate riding buses.
Everyone I know hates riding buses !
I hate riding buses !!!!Slide7
Geometry / Math
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
2 + 3 = 5
A mammal’s need to consume water increases with temperature
Electricity and fossil fuels are both ways of storing energy.
Humans tend to underestimate the rationality of the actions of others.
Most middle-class Americans hate riding buses.
Everyone I know hates riding buses !
I hate riding buses !!!!
COLD
HOTSlide8
Geometry / Math
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
Humans tend to underestimate the rationality of the actions of others.
“Los Angeles is a car culture.”
COLD
HOT
Scientific facts will prevail over higher, more subjective ones.Slide9
Geometry / Math
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
In mixed traffic, many situations will trap a streetcar that do not trap a bus.
Drivers are more likely to give way to streetcars than to buses.
COLD
HOT
Streetcars signify permanence, whereas a bus route can change.
Rail offers a more comfortable ride.
Simply replacing buses with streetcars is not a mobility improvement.
Or consider urban streetcars ...
I love how streetcars look and feel !Slide10
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
COLD
HOT
Subjective
Universal
Unreliable
Reliable
Urgent
Timeless
Intense, real!
Dull, abstract
PRACTICALITY
VISION
NIMBYISMSlide11
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
Unreliable, intense, real, HOT!
VISION
PRACTICALITY
Reliable, dull, abstract, COLD
We are always trying to get this balance right, because great ideas need both.Slide12
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
Unreliable, intense, real, HOT!
NIMBYISM
PRACTICALITY
Reliable, dull, abstract, COLD
And we are always negotiating with
NIMBYism
, and conservatism in general, because those feelings are about HOME.Slide13
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
Unreliable, intense, real, HOT!
PRACTICALITY
Reliable, dull, abstract, COLD
Practicality without vision becomes
habit
. Too much how, not enough why. The spirit of geometry colonising culture.
Highway engineering
Conventiona
l bus ops.Slide14
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
PRACTICALITY
Examples of the habit-driven voice.
“We followed the manual.”
But is the manual derived from our current values?
“We’ve always done it this way, because
it works
!”
But
do you have a noncircular definition of “works”?
Slide15
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
VISION
Vision
without practicality
leads to
boondoggles
.
Projects driven by excitement, over-ruling practical concerns. Results disappointing.
Personal Rapid Transit
You can think of others ...Slide16
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
VISION
“A passenger vehicle that travels a mere ten miles per hour, such as the New Orleans streetcar, may be anathema to current transportation ideology. ... Time that is lost to the destination, however, is time afforded to the passenger to people-watch, window-shop, and sightsee ... A slow-moving transit vehicle adds welcome animation to the street, drawing people to it ...
-- Darrin
Nordahl
,
My Kind of Transit
Example of the vision-driven voice.Slide17
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
VISION
Emotionally intense visions often imagine a finished future, but not a credible path from here to there, either technically or culturally.
“Slow transit”
Arcosanti
Personal Rapid TransitSlide18
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
VISION
Often, visions fixate on a transit vehicle rather than the service it’s proposed to operate. Slide19
Is vehicle-love always an escape from the present ?Futurism
Nostalgia
Both
Slide20
PRACTICALITY
Conventional operations and bureaucratic habit. – “Stuck in the present.”
Visionary exciting
urbanist
thought, – often “Stuck in the future.”
VISION
We need more voices in the middle!
We need more voices in the middle!Slide21
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
For
better outcomes, we should start by respecting the universality of transit geometry.
We can try to use the rush of excitement about a project to over-rule geometry, but in the end it will only work of the geometry works.Slide22
Branching. SFO BART example
This
looks
like it does everything!
SF
San Bruno
SFO
Millbrae
But the geometry of transit says that
branching divides frequency
, so it will
really
be one of these:
SF
San Bruno
Millbrae
SFO
SF
San Bruno
Millbrae
SFO
SF
San Bruno
Millbrae
SFO
SF
San Bruno
Millbrae
SFO
(Narrow line has half the frequency of wider line.)Slide23
Some Cold, Boring, Sexless and Inescapable Laws of Transit GeometrySlide24
Some laws of transit geometryBranching cuts frequency in half.Line spacing. Parallel lines too close together will compete with each other.
Connections. If you oppose requiring connections (transfers), you are also opposed to frequency and network simplicity.Density and demand
. Double the density More than double the transit demand.
Transit technology choice often makes no difference to mobility outcomes. Speed, reliability and frequency are usually unrelated to technology.Slide25
Law of Line Spacing
Geometry / Math
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
Parallel lines that are too close together will compete with each other. For maximum frequency, consolidate them into one.
I love the 26-Valencia! I don’t want to walk to Mission!Slide26
Law of Connections
Geometry / Math
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
If you oppose transferring, you are also opposing
frequency
and
network simplicity
.
But I don’t want to transfer! I like my direct bus/train!
People hate to transfer !Slide27
Law of Connections
A network designed for maximum frequency and simplicity also requires connections
.
If you try to eliminate connections – by provide through services – you make your network less frequent and more complex.
So it’s a choice ...
Hard Choice: Do we want low frequency, high complexity, but no need to transfer?Slide28
Law of Connections: IllustratedCompare Sydney and PortlandSlide29
Many routes on each street.
One route on most streets.
Few routes overallSlide30
Direct CBD service from most everywhere.
Frequent grid lines with connections serve some CBD-oriented travel:Slide31
Too complicated for someone to remember it all.
Simple to remember:
Few routes
Routes associated with major streetsSlide32
Law of Density and Demand
Transit
Demand
(Ridership at given level of service)
5 units
/ acre
20
units/acre
farmland
Sparseville
Denseville
Manhattan
Tokyo
wilderness
In the range of densities that prevails in North America, doubling the density will more than double the transit demand
Hard Choice: Should we deploy our service along the same curve?
Density of
Development (units/acre)Slide33
What if we listen to the geometry first? This is what “manuals” do at their best: Give everyone a common framework in the unavoidable geometry that will affect ANY project.Slide34
Some ways forwardTransit agencies should consider forms of presentation that emphasise the usefulness of service rather than the technology used to provide it.We need simpler and more accessible manuals of the basics of transit geometry.
SF
San Bruno
SFO
MillbraeSlide35
Geometry
Physics
Biology
Psychology
Culture
My Feelings
Our Feelings
Unreliable, intense, real, HOT!
Reliable, dull, abstract, COLD
But above all, think about where on this spectrum a claim lies. Make sure that your hot idea works with the coldest facts, because they always prevail in the end. Slide36
Thank you!Jarrett WalkerHumanTransit.org