Towards a Million Fattie March

I first heard about Fat March in the magazine of the Rails to Trails Conservancy, to which I am a contributor. The RTC (no, not that RTC) helps to fund and lobby for the creation and maintenance of rail-trails throughought the country. They sponsor a useful database of rail-trails and other greenways throughout the country.

Rail-trails are good for a number of reasons. They give people a place to exercise and connect them to nature and parks. Overall, they provide a safe route for non-motorized travel, which can be hard to come by in many parts of the country. In many ways they're more useful than hiking trails, because they generally have low grades and wide curves, and many of them connect transit, residential areas and parks. There's something a little sad about them, though: once a right-of-way has been railbanked, it's very unlikely that train service will be restored.

Rail-trails are very well suited to long distance walking. The Fat March route used a number of trails in the Northeast, including the Hop River rail-trail in Connecticut and the Northern Central rail-trail in Maryland. The show's producers had help from the RTC in picking trails. Executive producer Julie Laughlin said this about rail-trails to Rails to Trails Magazine: "They're absolutely perfect for us. When you do a reality show, there is quite an entourage that goes with it. It's hard to be on city streets." By contrast, walking on roads is "nerve-wracking, it's noisy and it's hard to talk with one another." Fat March trainer Steve Pfiester told the magazine that the trails allowed the marchers to make the most progress. "When we get on [the rail-trails], we're just hauling butt."

Rail-trails and other greenways (and pedestrian infrastructure in general) could use some help. A large number of households are located in areas where it is not safe or comfortable for people to walk. By any measure, pedestrian projects receive only a tiny fraction of the public money spent on transportation. Many of the greenways are not connected to each other, or to transit, at more than one point, making them difficult, if not impossible, to access without a car. Many of the longer greenways do not have accessible hotels or campgrounds, making it difficult to arrange multi-day trips.

As a big fan of rail-trails and long-distance walking in general, I was thrilled to see them get exposure on a high-rated national prime-time television show. This will allow even more people to make the connection between rail-trails and health. I was disappointed that, although you see lots of trails on the show, the trails are never mentioned by name. Neither is the RTC or the East Coast Greenway Alliance, which has done a lot of work promoting trails in this area.

There isn't even a link to RTC or the ECGA on the Fat March website, and most surprisingly, there's no mention of it on the websites of those organizations. The RTC already had the product placement; I would have expected them to negotiate having the trails named on the show, or even buy an ad on the show or sponsor the website. A co-branded website could have brought in tons of donations and political support for rail-trails. I think they missed a big opportunity.

It's still not too late, though. Hopefully there will be another season of Fat March next year. In the meantime, I'll be that some of this year's Marchers are available for sponsorship. Imagine a commercial featuring Chantal or Matt saying "Donate to the Rails to Trails Conservancy. Because we all need a place to walk." Imagine a press release for a trail ribbon-cutting "featuring Sam from Fat March!" Imagine Anthony sending a letter to his fans asking them to write their representatives for more money for transportation enhancements.

In any case, this is your Cap'n speaking. I encourage you to donate to the RTC or the ECGA, and to write a letter to your representatives saying that you support greenways - for our health.

Too Fat to March?

I just finished watching the pilot season of a new reality TV show, Fat March. I actually watched the whole thing on streaming video from ABC's website, and I highly recommend it. This post contains spoilers, so watch it before you read beyond the third paragraph if you don't want your experience spoiled.

From what I understand, Fat March is based on Too Big to Walk?, a reality show produced by Channel 4 in Great Britain. I wanted to watch the British version, but Channel 4 doesn't even offer clips for free. I tried to pay to watch it, but they won't even allow you to do that if you don't live in the UK.

The show begins in Boston with twelve people, ranging in weight from 225 to 500 pounds, all classified as morbidly obese by their body-mass indices. Accompanied by a staff of forty people, including two personal trainers, production crew and medics, they set out on foot for Washington, DC, a distance of over 550 miles. The show was filmed over a ten-week period, divided into seven "stages," and an episode was broadcast devoted to each stage. The marchers slept in tents every night, but every stage featured a "challenge" where the participants had a chance to win additional prizes, usually including spa services and a night in a hotel.

Every marcher who made it to DC on schedule received a share of the prize money, and at the end of each stage the participants had a chance to "vote people off"; anyone who got at least one vote had to leave the show. The twist was that the prize money decreased by $10,000 per person for everyone who left the show, so the marchers had an incentive to cooperate.

I found the show to be entertaining and inspiring, and I'm hoping that ABC continues it, but there are a few things that I hope they do differently next season. The first is that the producers seemed to see interpersonal drama as a necessity to keep viewers hooked, so every episode devoted a significant amount of time to squabbles within the group. I was interested by the challenges of building and maintaining a team that could last through challenges like this, but I wasn't too interested by the "romantic" angles or the bickering. I would rather have seen less of this.

The next is that the guys who left the show were all the heaviest ones. I think that undermines the message of the show, and gives a contrary one: that some people are "too big to walk." Two of them had legitimate health problems that prevented them from participating, but the other two were voted off because their teammates thought they wouldn't be able to keep the pace set by the producers. To me that suggests that the pace was too tight. Can we imagine a show like this where the only reason people leave is because they're lazy or disruptive?

I've got a lot more to say about the show and long-distance walking, but this post is long enough, so I'll write about that soon.

Park and Rides are Not the Answer

Streetsblog just linked to this New York Times article about how congestion pricing could encourage commuters from the suburbs to take the train or bus instead of driving all the way into Manhattan.

Here's what Times reporter Ken Belson and the planners he interviewed are afraid of:

Still, the money generated from congestion pricing will take years to collect and spend. In the meantime, suburban commuters face crippling traffic jams, overcrowded trains and buses and a shortage of parking spaces at stations. So any new riders might be getting on trains and buses already running at capacity.

Regional governments should be looking to increase train and bus capacity and to encourage private bus operators to get into the act. Here's what they shouldn't be doing:

Mr. Cameron said that 15 percent of Metro-North trains are out of service every day, and Connecticut residents must wait an average of four years to get reserved parking spots at stations on the New Haven Line. There are similarly chronic shortages in New Jersey, Westchester and Long Island. At the Princeton Junction station in West Windsor, there are 3,560 spots to accommodate 7,080 daily riders.

...

New Jersey Transit and the state’s Department of Transportation have added nearly 15,000 parking spots at train, bus and light-rail stations since 2002 and expect to build an additional 3,700 in the next three years to keep up with ridership, which has hit records the past several years.

Mr. Kolluri and transportation officials elsewhere say that more spaces could be added, but that many towns are unwilling to accept them because they fear an increase in traffic — the same problem that has led Mr. Bloomberg to pursue congestion pricing so vigorously.

Okay, Messrs. Cameron, Kolluri and Belson, repeat after me:

Park and Rides are Not the Answer.
Park and Rides are Not the Answer.
Park and Rides are Not the Answer.

The town leaders have it right: if you build parking, it encourages people to drive. What is the answer? Make it easier for people to get to the train or bus station ... without driving! That cuts down on traffic in the suburbs, which is almost as big a problem as in the city.

The best answer: make it easy for them to walk.

Look at each station, and figure out how many commuters live within a comfortable walking distance. Try walking around the area: does it feel safe? Are there nice, wide sidewalks? Safe places to cross the street? Interesting things to look at? Stores to stop in along the way? If not, build them!

The next best answer: get them to live within walking distance.

All three of the tri-states have made noises about slowing sprawl and encouraging transit-oriented development. But go to any Long Island train station and you won't find too many people living in town. There are stores and parking lots ... and more stores and parking lots. From most of the elevated LIRR stations you can see that the areas behind the stores have been hollowed out to make more parking lots. To find actual houses and apartments you have to walk a while. I know people who've moved to the Island and haven't been able to find an affordable apartment near the train. Fix this. Change the zoning so that developers can build apartment buildings (without parking garages; I'm looking at you, New Rochelle) right near the train and shopping. They walk to the train; no traffic!

The next thing: jitneys and shuttles

Many suburban houses, if they're not walking distance to a train, are a short ride away. If these people ride to the train, they probably don't spend more than fifteen minutes in the car, and most of that is spent sitting in traffic. If they could spend ten minutes on a shuttle bus, they probably would. Make it a small, low-floor bus that can zip through subdivisions. Don't have just three buses that take forever to wind through every cul-de-sac; run a whole bunch. Don't make a lot of widely-spaced bus stops that they have to walk to, make it so that they can just walk to the end of their driveway fifteen minutes before the train leaves, hop on and go.

You tried buses and nobody rode them? Well, the start of the congestion pricing trial is the perfect time to start new habits. Rather than training a whole bunch of new train riders to drive to the station, make the bus easy. Make it free for the first month. Offer free service for a year (and maybe a cash payout too) for anyone who gives up their reserved parking spot. Identify some neighborhood "thought leaders" and do whatever it takes to convince them to ride the bus. If Bob the Systems Administrator sees Liz the Senior VP from Mutual Funds waiting for the bus, maybe he'll try it too.

I'm not even a marketing consultant. I bet a marketing consultant could come up with some even better answers. But please, please move away from the same old sprawl-inducing stopgaps. Repeat after me one more time:

Park and Rides are Not the Answer!

Please Give to the Anti-Curb Cut Fund!

We know that cars are bad.

Curb cuts, driveways and garages are also bad. They look bad, and they get in the way of people trying to walk down the street. But most importantly, they're bad because they make it easier for people to own cars!

I once rented a house that not only had a curb cut, but a driveway and a garage. I didn't own a car, so I rode around town with the garage door opener on the handlebars of my bike. It was fun for a little while, but then I realized that it was kind of a waste of space, even though it was a small garage. I talked to my landlord, and he took $50 off my monthly rent and rented the garage to the guy who lived behind us.

But I know that not everyone is like me, and most Americans would see a garage as a valuable place to store a car. In dense cities like New York, not having a garage or a driveway can deter some people from even owning a car (or a second car), because it's so hard to find (or afford) parking.

In my neighborhood there is a significant opposition to curb cuts, largely on aesthetic grounds. There are restrictions against putting in curb cuts in some areas, but once someone's poured the concrete, there's no easy way to get rid of them. Even if the owners move, it's very likely that they'll sell the place to someone who wants to use the curb cut. Who would buy a house with a curb cut just to tear it out and re-sod the grass? This is a source of frustration for many of my neighbors.

But now I have an idea: use the Power of Real Estate!

I recently heard a neighbor talking about how she had had trouble with a nearby business that attracted undesirables (my word - read what you like into it), so she bought the building, closed down the establishment and opened a different one, that brought in a different clientele. The things you can do if you can afford to buy a building - or borrow enough!

I thought about that in relation to curb cuts. Imagine if, whenever there's a house with a curb cut on the market you could buy it, tear up the driveway and put down grass. If there's a driveway or parking lot, tear that up too. If there's a garage, renovate it into a basement, workshop or sitting room. You might get less money for it in the end, but wouldn't it be worth it? How much would you pay to get rid of a curb cut?

You wouldn't even have to buy the house. You could just make an offer to the buyer and the seller: you'll tear up the curb cut at your own expense, or reimburse the owner for tearing it up. And you'll pay the closing costs, or maybe the difference between the purchase price and an estimate of what it would have gone for with a curb cut. That would probably come to less than $5,000, right? In exchange, the buyer has to sign a 99-year covenant saying that if they ever put in a curb cut, they forfeit the property to the neighborhood association.

Hey, the house wouldn't even need to change hands. You could offer the current owners the same deal without selling: you'll tear out the curb cut at your expense and pay a lump sum in exchange for the covenant.

Okay, so you don't have a spare $5 grand sitting around. But could you find four neighbors who'd each be willing to spend $1000 to get rid of that curb cut down the block? Or 99 neighbors willing to spend $500 each to help get rid of ten curb cuts in your neighborhood? It might not even need $5,000; I think it only costs $350 to tear up a driveway. You could maybe find a rich anti-curb-cut philanthropist or foundation to give you a matching grant. Or have a fundraising party, or solicit donations on the street. It's an environmentalist action, after all, and helps to stop global warming!

Some Basics

Here are some basic assumptions on this blog. I'm well aware that not everyone agrees with them, and I know that they're not true in all circumstances. But, this blog is not a place for discussing them. These are some background assumptions. I may change them as time goes on or add justifications for them, but for now feel free to critique them ...elsewhere.

• Cars are bad
• Transit is good
• Walking and cycling are good
  
• Trains are better than buses