This series of posts about moving things around is part of a larger argument that anything you can do with cars, you can do without them. But as I mentioned in that original post, sometimes it's less efficient without a car. Of course, sometimes it seems less efficient without a car, but it turns out to be more efficient.
One potential objection to shifting all intercity freight hauling from trucks to rail and water transport is that roads are more efficient for the "last mile" (or ten) of large loads. Many factories and warehouses are spread out and not near railroads or waterways. If they are, they're not near docks or stations. They would have to be served by trucks anyway.
This argument rests on the idea that land use is constant, which is clearly false if you think about it. Pretty much every factory and warehouse, every junkyard and lumberyard, built before 1950 was located on a railroad or waterway, usually with its own spur, siding or dock. Since the massive postwar boom in highway construction, many of them have relocated to be near large roads.
This is the same as what we see in passenger transportation: development follows the transportation network, which follows government subsidies. Subsidize roads and you get road-oriented development; subsidize rail and you get rail-oriented development.
Obviously we can't just tear out all the truck ramps and loading docks tomorrow and expect the businesses to reconnect seamlessly to the rail network. It will take time for this shift to happen, just as it will take time for the rail network to be scaled up to meet this demand. But it will happen, and if done right it will fit in with the normal replacement cycle for these buildings.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Moving things from city to city
Let's start our discussion of freight with the biggest loads and the longest distances. The most important thing to keep in mind is that the problem of efficient intercity freight movement was solved over a century ago. As I understand it, rail infrastructure costs about the same as roads, and once it's built, some combination of rail and boat (by sea, lake, river or canal) costs less to maintain and operate than trucks on roads.
Jarrett likes to reduce things to simple geometry. The freight question reduces to chemistry and physics: steel on steel has less rolling resistance than rubber on asphalt. If you want to get into the details, David Lawyer has the data. Beyond energy efficiency, steel rails are also more durable than asphalt and rubber. Trains are also more efficient in terms of operating labor: the tracks and signals make it easier to predict what will be in the train's path, and where the train cars will go, which allows huge amounts of cargo to be moved by a handful of people.
Ships and lake boats are more efficient than cars because there's not a lot of competition for the space on top of the water, which allows us to make them bigger than any truck. They, and canal and river boats, can also take advantage of water currents for at least part of their journeys.
Of course, all these modes are way more efficient than air cargo, which requires pushing lots of air out of the way of the planes, and going fast enough so that they don't fall out of the sky until we're ready for them to. In terms of energy efficiency, the Department of Energy estimated that airplanes use 32,000 BTU of energy to move a ton of freight one mile, while trucks consume 3,100, boats 418 and trains 305 BTU per ton-mile (PDF, table 2.16).
What this all means is that if we can shift a freight load from truck to rail or boat at no extra cost, it will be cheaper and use less energy, and most likely pollute less. If there is an added cost to shifting the load from truck to rail, that cost should be compared with the cost of keeping it on trucks. Reducing highway and fuel subsidies is one way to make the cost of trucking more apparent.
Jarrett likes to reduce things to simple geometry. The freight question reduces to chemistry and physics: steel on steel has less rolling resistance than rubber on asphalt. If you want to get into the details, David Lawyer has the data. Beyond energy efficiency, steel rails are also more durable than asphalt and rubber. Trains are also more efficient in terms of operating labor: the tracks and signals make it easier to predict what will be in the train's path, and where the train cars will go, which allows huge amounts of cargo to be moved by a handful of people.
Ships and lake boats are more efficient than cars because there's not a lot of competition for the space on top of the water, which allows us to make them bigger than any truck. They, and canal and river boats, can also take advantage of water currents for at least part of their journeys.
Of course, all these modes are way more efficient than air cargo, which requires pushing lots of air out of the way of the planes, and going fast enough so that they don't fall out of the sky until we're ready for them to. In terms of energy efficiency, the Department of Energy estimated that airplanes use 32,000 BTU of energy to move a ton of freight one mile, while trucks consume 3,100, boats 418 and trains 305 BTU per ton-mile (PDF, table 2.16).
What this all means is that if we can shift a freight load from truck to rail or boat at no extra cost, it will be cheaper and use less energy, and most likely pollute less. If there is an added cost to shifting the load from truck to rail, that cost should be compared with the cost of keeping it on trucks. Reducing highway and fuel subsidies is one way to make the cost of trucking more apparent.
Moving things around
I'm mostly concerned with passenger transportation, but I would like to spend a few posts talking about freight, also known as moving things around. It's another of those "muddle-headed transit advocates" topics that car apologists like to bring up, as in "You muddle-headed transit activists! Maybe you can move all the people around in trains and on foot, but what about trucks? Silly, you forgot that roads are also for moving things around! You don't want to be anti-truck, do you?"
Some people also use the freight issue against traffic calming and (bizarrely) road pricing. The argument goes something like this: "You muddle-headed street safety advocates! Don't you realize you'll slow the trucks down too! You'll ruin our struggling small businesses, and we'll lose the future to Atlanta!"
Of course, if our highways were only open to trucks we'd have much better freight movement, but a lane that's open to trucks is open to cars. In essence, private car owners are hiding their own greed and selfishness behind the genuine need to facilitate commerce.
Moving things around can also affect our goals directly. If we don't pay attention to freight hauling, it can be done in ways that pollute or injure people. It can be done in inefficient ways, and in ways that promote sprawl.
These are reasons why it's important for advocates of sustainable human transportation to pay attention to freight. I'm going to discuss various aspects of it in future posts, but if you've got your own blog, you're welcome to tackle it; let me know so that I can link to you.
Some people also use the freight issue against traffic calming and (bizarrely) road pricing. The argument goes something like this: "You muddle-headed street safety advocates! Don't you realize you'll slow the trucks down too! You'll ruin our struggling small businesses, and we'll lose the future to Atlanta!"
Of course, if our highways were only open to trucks we'd have much better freight movement, but a lane that's open to trucks is open to cars. In essence, private car owners are hiding their own greed and selfishness behind the genuine need to facilitate commerce.
Moving things around can also affect our goals directly. If we don't pay attention to freight hauling, it can be done in ways that pollute or injure people. It can be done in inefficient ways, and in ways that promote sprawl.
These are reasons why it's important for advocates of sustainable human transportation to pay attention to freight. I'm going to discuss various aspects of it in future posts, but if you've got your own blog, you're welcome to tackle it; let me know so that I can link to you.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Know your opponents
I want to get people out of their cars, for the reasons given above: clean air and water, efficiency, safety, health, better society, and fairness. Some people disagree with me on this, for a variety of reasons. If you're like me, you want to persuade those people to change their minds, to strengthen your cause. I've realized recently that the reasons for defending car subsidies fall into three groups, and each group requires different counterarguments.
The first defense is Denial. You've got a reason why people should stop using cars, and they don't think it's a problem. Global warming? Peak oil? They don't exist, or they can be solved with technology. Bowling alone? They're really happier that way. Car crashes? Unavoidable accidents. Obesity? It's a moral failing. Poor people can't get to work? Just buy every rider a car. Education is the key here, showing them why it is a problem. But they probably won't listen to you, so they need to hear it from a source they trust.
The next defense is Not Our Problem. They're insulated from the problem (by having enough money to pay for car expenses, or by never walking beyond the parking lot), or they don't think it affects them (asthma, bowling alone), or they don't think it will affect them (car crashes, obesity), or it's far in the future (global warming, peak oil). These things happen to other people, usually people they don't know, so why should they care? Not much you can do with these people. Empathy implants? For some circumstances, you can show them that it does affect them or their loved ones, and that may change their minds about one factor.
The third defense is You Can't Do That Without a Car! It's a favorite of the Very Serious People who want to reassure the world that they're not really (gasp!) anti-car. You can't pick up a chair on the subway! You can't transport two kids on the bus! You can't move an apartment by bike!
The key, as Carla Saulter and Clarence Eckerson know, is to keep showing that you can do that without a car. The supposed convenience of cars and the supposed independence of cars are illusions: the convenience is entirely dependent on the infrastructure, and transit and pedestrian infrastructure have the same capacity to make things convenient and to set us free.
The fact is that there's nothing you can do with a car that couldn't be done some other way, given the proper infrastructure. It may be that cars are the most efficient way to do them, but that's not always as obvious as you may think. We need to show all the You Can't Do That Without a Car people that you can. That's how we'll get them over to our side, because they're the most promising allies of the three.
The first defense is Denial. You've got a reason why people should stop using cars, and they don't think it's a problem. Global warming? Peak oil? They don't exist, or they can be solved with technology. Bowling alone? They're really happier that way. Car crashes? Unavoidable accidents. Obesity? It's a moral failing. Poor people can't get to work? Just buy every rider a car. Education is the key here, showing them why it is a problem. But they probably won't listen to you, so they need to hear it from a source they trust.
The next defense is Not Our Problem. They're insulated from the problem (by having enough money to pay for car expenses, or by never walking beyond the parking lot), or they don't think it affects them (asthma, bowling alone), or they don't think it will affect them (car crashes, obesity), or it's far in the future (global warming, peak oil). These things happen to other people, usually people they don't know, so why should they care? Not much you can do with these people. Empathy implants? For some circumstances, you can show them that it does affect them or their loved ones, and that may change their minds about one factor.
The third defense is You Can't Do That Without a Car! It's a favorite of the Very Serious People who want to reassure the world that they're not really (gasp!) anti-car. You can't pick up a chair on the subway! You can't transport two kids on the bus! You can't move an apartment by bike!
The key, as Carla Saulter and Clarence Eckerson know, is to keep showing that you can do that without a car. The supposed convenience of cars and the supposed independence of cars are illusions: the convenience is entirely dependent on the infrastructure, and transit and pedestrian infrastructure have the same capacity to make things convenient and to set us free.
The fact is that there's nothing you can do with a car that couldn't be done some other way, given the proper infrastructure. It may be that cars are the most efficient way to do them, but that's not always as obvious as you may think. We need to show all the You Can't Do That Without a Car people that you can. That's how we'll get them over to our side, because they're the most promising allies of the three.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
A missed opportunity for rail-oriented development
Another of the many things that make the overnight casino bus crash so frustrating is that even if there was no possibility of changing the law to allow gambling closer to the city, the location they used would still have been ideal for rail.
As Arcady pointed out in the comments to my first post on this topic, the casino that the bus was returning from, Mohegan Sun, is located right next to the New London and Northern, an active freight line that is currently part of the New England Central Railway. It would have been a tiny part of the resort's construction budget to build a station there.
Mohegan Sun is one of the largest casinos in the country. Curiously, its biggest competitor, Foxwoods, is just a few miles away across the Thames River. Foxwoods is located at 350 Trolley Line Boulevard, so named because a branch of the Shore Line Electric Railway ran down it. I don't have any maps or pictures of the old line, so I don't know how easy it would be to rebuild it or to link it to the nearby Providence and Worcester line, but the location was once served by rail.
The Foxwoods website says that it's served by over a hundred buses a day. According to the Mohegan Sun website, over twenty buses a day arrive there, but I think the real number is higher. There is definitely the ridership to justify reactivating passenger service on that line. Arcady writes, "they'd need a new station and permission to run more trains across that drawbridge east of Old Saybrook."
It's true that there are only five Shore Line East trains a day that cross the bridge. It's also true that most of the Amtrak trains that go through New London are pretty full. But the Shore Line East trains could be extended to Mohegan Sun and beyond, to Norwich, Willimantic and even Mansfield Depot, just a few miles from the University of Connecticut. If the line is electrified, trains could run directly from Penn Station or possibly Grand Central.
The Niantic River Bridge is being replaced, and the new bridge will allow for more trains, and the upgrades to the Hartford-Springfield line could relieve some of the congestion on the Shore Line, but it's still a drawbridge that has to be raised for boats to go under, and the number of trains will be limited.
Some of the trains could be operated as shuttles from New London, or perhaps even Providence with an awkward change in direction. Would gamblers from, say, Chinatown, put up with a three seat ride (subway, mainline train, shuttle) instead of a one-seat bus? Probably not during rush hours, but during off-hours they could get a two-seat ride, and it might just boost ridership enough to make regular local service on these lines viable.
If you're thinking it's too expensive, just take a look at satellite photos of the area, and marvel at the amount of money that was spent on bringing cars to these resorts. New stations at Mohegan Sun and Norwich would cost a fraction of one of those parking lots, and rehabbing the rail line would be within the same range. The main point is that these casinos could have been major drivers of rail expansion in the area, but instead they were boosters of the road infrastructure.
As Arcady pointed out in the comments to my first post on this topic, the casino that the bus was returning from, Mohegan Sun, is located right next to the New London and Northern, an active freight line that is currently part of the New England Central Railway. It would have been a tiny part of the resort's construction budget to build a station there.
Mohegan Sun is one of the largest casinos in the country. Curiously, its biggest competitor, Foxwoods, is just a few miles away across the Thames River. Foxwoods is located at 350 Trolley Line Boulevard, so named because a branch of the Shore Line Electric Railway ran down it. I don't have any maps or pictures of the old line, so I don't know how easy it would be to rebuild it or to link it to the nearby Providence and Worcester line, but the location was once served by rail.
The Foxwoods website says that it's served by over a hundred buses a day. According to the Mohegan Sun website, over twenty buses a day arrive there, but I think the real number is higher. There is definitely the ridership to justify reactivating passenger service on that line. Arcady writes, "they'd need a new station and permission to run more trains across that drawbridge east of Old Saybrook."
It's true that there are only five Shore Line East trains a day that cross the bridge. It's also true that most of the Amtrak trains that go through New London are pretty full. But the Shore Line East trains could be extended to Mohegan Sun and beyond, to Norwich, Willimantic and even Mansfield Depot, just a few miles from the University of Connecticut. If the line is electrified, trains could run directly from Penn Station or possibly Grand Central.
The Niantic River Bridge is being replaced, and the new bridge will allow for more trains, and the upgrades to the Hartford-Springfield line could relieve some of the congestion on the Shore Line, but it's still a drawbridge that has to be raised for boats to go under, and the number of trains will be limited.
Some of the trains could be operated as shuttles from New London, or perhaps even Providence with an awkward change in direction. Would gamblers from, say, Chinatown, put up with a three seat ride (subway, mainline train, shuttle) instead of a one-seat bus? Probably not during rush hours, but during off-hours they could get a two-seat ride, and it might just boost ridership enough to make regular local service on these lines viable.
If you're thinking it's too expensive, just take a look at satellite photos of the area, and marvel at the amount of money that was spent on bringing cars to these resorts. New stations at Mohegan Sun and Norwich would cost a fraction of one of those parking lots, and rehabbing the rail line would be within the same range. The main point is that these casinos could have been major drivers of rail expansion in the area, but instead they were boosters of the road infrastructure.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Vice in your backyard
In the comments to my previous post on the overnight gambling bus crash, Jonathan wrote, "I am kind of disappointed in this post; I thought you were going to argue for more conveniently located casinos in order to spare the hopelessly addicted the long dangerous bus ride." Well, Jonathan, you can always GYOFB, but we aim to please here, so...
The second thought I had about the gambling bus crash is that it indicates multiple major failures of transportation and land use policy. There is clearly a high demand for late night gambling, and the system is set up to satisfy it in a grossly inefficient way, with eight-hour bus trips to casinos in the woods of rural Connecticut.
A lot of this comes from the longstanding practice of "solving" problems of vice (which also include undesirable sexual and drug-related activities) by pushing them outside the city, instead of figuring out how to regulate them effectively. With subsidized roads it became possible to push casinos outside the metro area completely, as with Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
There are many crazy things about this whole story, but one of the craziest is the fiction that it is somehow "Indian gaming." The Pequot nation has a glorious history, but at one point the population was too small to fill one of these buses. The numbers have increased since then, but only by counting anyone who can show the remotest connection with the group. They don't live on the reservation, or near each other at all.
The people who developed the casino, the people who run it, and the people who gamble there come from the whole spectrum of American ethnicities. As I understand it, people with Chinese and Jewish backgrounds are especially well-represented among all three groups, largely because other ethnic groups have a history of considering gambling to be sinful.
The fact that the law required these casinos to be located on a reservation in Eastern Connecticut (but convenient to Interstate 95) means that people who want to gamble in the middle of the night will have to spend a lot of time on the road.
I know it would be almost impossible politically, but imagine if we could set up a place in lower Manhattan where people could gamble. It would be walking distance from Chinatown, from the N train to Sunset Park, from the R train to Elmhurst, and from the Chinatown buses. It would also be accessible to non-Chinese people from all over, of course.
Hm, now that I think about it, there are places in Lower Manhattan where people can go to gamble - perfectly legally. Unfortunately, you're not allowed in unless you're a member of an elite club. You can pay one of the club members to gamble on your behalf, but you lose the excitement of being there. Even then, many of these "brokers" require a minimum bet in the thousands, out of reach of many Chinese waiters. Oh, and they're only open from 9 AM to 4 PM.
The second thought I had about the gambling bus crash is that it indicates multiple major failures of transportation and land use policy. There is clearly a high demand for late night gambling, and the system is set up to satisfy it in a grossly inefficient way, with eight-hour bus trips to casinos in the woods of rural Connecticut.
A lot of this comes from the longstanding practice of "solving" problems of vice (which also include undesirable sexual and drug-related activities) by pushing them outside the city, instead of figuring out how to regulate them effectively. With subsidized roads it became possible to push casinos outside the metro area completely, as with Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
There are many crazy things about this whole story, but one of the craziest is the fiction that it is somehow "Indian gaming." The Pequot nation has a glorious history, but at one point the population was too small to fill one of these buses. The numbers have increased since then, but only by counting anyone who can show the remotest connection with the group. They don't live on the reservation, or near each other at all.
The people who developed the casino, the people who run it, and the people who gamble there come from the whole spectrum of American ethnicities. As I understand it, people with Chinese and Jewish backgrounds are especially well-represented among all three groups, largely because other ethnic groups have a history of considering gambling to be sinful.
The fact that the law required these casinos to be located on a reservation in Eastern Connecticut (but convenient to Interstate 95) means that people who want to gamble in the middle of the night will have to spend a lot of time on the road.
I know it would be almost impossible politically, but imagine if we could set up a place in lower Manhattan where people could gamble. It would be walking distance from Chinatown, from the N train to Sunset Park, from the R train to Elmhurst, and from the Chinatown buses. It would also be accessible to non-Chinese people from all over, of course.
Hm, now that I think about it, there are places in Lower Manhattan where people can go to gamble - perfectly legally. Unfortunately, you're not allowed in unless you're a member of an elite club. You can pay one of the club members to gamble on your behalf, but you lose the excitement of being there. Even then, many of these "brokers" require a minimum bet in the thousands, out of reach of many Chinese waiters. Oh, and they're only open from 9 AM to 4 PM.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
The cost of sucky outreach
And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Grandmother's Apology
That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,
That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.
Opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane accuse the Department of Transportation of undermining the community review process in numerous ways: fudging the data, colluding with supporters, bait-and-switch tactics, disguising permanent changes as temporary trials, and other dirty tricks. Opponents of other changes, like the 34th Street Transitway, the Midtown pedestrian plazas, and various other bike, pedestrian and transit projects around the city have made similar accusations. Some committed transit, cycling and pedestrian advocates have even bought into this, echoing the idea that Commissioner Sadik-Khan is haughty, dismissive and contemptuous of the community.
This is a lie which is part a truth, which makes it a harder matter to fight than an outright lie. As I've written, the "fudged" data are actually perfectly sound, but not in the way usually presented by the DOT or its supporters. The Prospect Park West bike lane was developed in response to pressure for traffic calming and safer bike routes from a large bloc squarely in the mainstream of the community. The 34th Street Transitway was designed to serve the walking and bus-riding supermajority of the street's users. The DOT has gone out of its way to meet with stakeholders, holding meeting after meeting and offering incentives and compensations.
And yet... I don't know about you, but to me the DOT's process does seem top-down, offering a pretense of discussion while steering the group towards a pre-determined goal, and treating any concerns or objections as annoying obstacles to be cleared away. I had a discussion recently with a woman who knew very little about Prospect Park West, who was convinced that the DOT was imposing the project on the community. It "felt right," whether it was factually correct or not.
I think there are a few interconnected reasons for this perception. Part of it is that the DOT has a history of this kind of dissembling. Anyone familiar with the DOT's history knows that over the years it has come out with plans to suspend bike lanes on bridges, convert avenues to one-way traffic, narrow sidewalks and other nastiness. Once these plans are formed, only overwhelming opposition can stop them.
This is not Richard Malchow's DOT, or Chris Lynch's, and it's not Iris Weinshall's either. But it takes time to turn a battleship, and I'm sure the agency still has tons of dedicated, knowledgeable staff who hate public participation. One reason they hate it is that it's really, really hard. Many of them never had any training in how to do it right, and they're used to just barreling their way through. So they may try to start a discussion, but then when things get outside their comfort zone they retreat to what they know: rigidity and lip service.
Another reason the DOT sometimes seems unresponsive to the community is that "the community" isn't really the community. Go to any neighborhood in New York and you'll find half a dozen arrogant alterkockers who think that everyone in the area drives a car, hates any kind of noise and wants to preserve detached single-family housing for all eternity. If you ask them what the community wants, you'll get one answer. Poll the residents of the area, and you're likely to get a completely different answer. But these "community leaders" are so certain they represent the community that they feel no need to consult with anyone outside their own little echo chambers.
DOT planners know this very well by now. The ones who really care about community input will listen to a broad spectrum of voices in the neighborhood, and come up with a consensus plan that addresses the needs of all. But nothing pisses the "community leaders" off like bureaucrats not giving them special treatment, and they will actively work to undermine the consensus process. Jaded, impatient DOT planners have figured this out and will simply ignore the "community leaders" and barrel ahead with the plan.
The lie about the DOT ignoring public input is part a truth, and as Tennyson's parson said, it's a harder matter to fight. More democracy at the local level can help, and the City Council term limits have made a dent in this, but in the end the retired homeowners who have lived in the neighborhood for years have an advantage. Better trained planners at DOT will help too, but it will take time for the staff to turn over. In the meantime, the real community has to keep coming out over and over again and showing their support.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The logic of the overnight gambling bus
There's been a lot of discussion in the press lately about the spectacular crash of an overnight gambling bus on the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx. What I've been trying to wrap my head around for the past few days is the concept of an overnight gambling bus, and what it says about the failure of planning in the country and the region.
First of all, it clearly shows that anyone who says "Americans won't take transit" is full of shit. Sure, these are Chinese-Americans, mostly first generation immigrants, who don't want to spend a lot of money on anything but gambling. They live in the densest, most transit-rich part of the country. They're gambling addicts, driven by their addiction.
That said, they live in America, and I'd imagine that many of them own cars. But here they are sitting on a bus for eight hours in the middle of the night. They pay the full operating cost of the bus, which makes a profit with no more subsidies than any other commercial vehicle.
Mode choices - a single trip or a habit - are not inherent in American culture, or in the topography. They're a response to economic incentives. These people have a burning desire to gamble, and the only time they can do it is at night. They're exhausted, and they don't have the energy to drive hundreds of miles. In these circumstances gambling itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but the bus does.
First of all, it clearly shows that anyone who says "Americans won't take transit" is full of shit. Sure, these are Chinese-Americans, mostly first generation immigrants, who don't want to spend a lot of money on anything but gambling. They live in the densest, most transit-rich part of the country. They're gambling addicts, driven by their addiction.
That said, they live in America, and I'd imagine that many of them own cars. But here they are sitting on a bus for eight hours in the middle of the night. They pay the full operating cost of the bus, which makes a profit with no more subsidies than any other commercial vehicle.
Mode choices - a single trip or a habit - are not inherent in American culture, or in the topography. They're a response to economic incentives. These people have a burning desire to gamble, and the only time they can do it is at night. They're exhausted, and they don't have the energy to drive hundreds of miles. In these circumstances gambling itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but the bus does.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Quantitative bike lane evaluation
As I've made clear, I am very much in favor of the Prospect Park West bike lane. In my view, the city has demonstrated that it has improved safety tremendously. The opponents do have a minor safety issue: the increased density of the cars on Prospect Park West means that people boarding, exiting or unloading cars on the avenue are more likely to be "buzzed" by cars. This may feel less safe, but it may be compensated for by the fact that the cars are going slower. In any case, the reduced speeding has made the avenue safer for pedestrians, cyclists and car occupants, so there is an overall increase in safety.
Unfortunately, there's a problem with the data demonstrating this, and the bike lane opponents have seized on it in their SLAPP lawsuit, which you can read in this PDF helpfully hosted by Streetsblog. The number of crashes resulting in injuries on the avenue have actually increased by twenty percent since the lane was installed, according to the Department of Transportation's data. Rather than acknowledging that, the DOT has preferred to compare last year's data with an average of the three previous years. The bike lane opponents argue that the decline in injuries was actually due to retiming of the traffic lights, and that the bike lane increased injuries.
The bike lane opponents are wrong, for three reasons. The first has to do with measurement. Some injuries are not reported to the police, and it's possible that there were more injuries in 2009, but they weren't all reported.
The second reason has to do with outside factors. The opponents do not mention that the twenty percent increase was from four injuries in a six-month period to five, a total increase of one injury. Things like injury rates always fluctuate over time due to any number of factors. That additional injury could have been due to the fact that a particularly reckless driver moved to Windsor Terrace that year, for example. It could be due to almost anything, which is why the ideal is to have a multi-year average before and after. It is even possible that the injury rates went down, but that last year there just happen to have been two or three more crashes resulting in injury.
There is also the effect of popularity to consider. When I lived in Park Slope, I avoided crossing Prospect Park West whenever I could. I spent somewhat less time in the park than I would otherwise have, and once I got in the park I stayed there until it was time to go home. It may very well be that more people are feeling safer crossing Prospect Park West, and are thus crossing it more. There is more safety per crossing, and more safety per person, but we aren't measuring those, we're only measuring overall safety per half year.
Now watch Councilmember Lander debate Jim Walden on New York 1. Lander is a charismatic young politician going up against a lawyer who looks like Agent Smith, so he's got an advantage already. But he squanders that advantage, because he will not acknowledge that injuries went up from 2009 to 2010. Walden picks up on that - and so does Errol Lewis, although he was pretty fair - and they both try to pin Lander down on it. Lander avoids the issue, and it makes him look like a shifty politician, hiding Things the DOT Doesn't Want You To Know.
There is no way to avoid that issue. The only thing to do is acknowledge it, respond to it and move on. Yes, unfortunately there was one more injury, and our sympathies are with the victim. It may be caused by the bike lane, but it's much more likely to be a reporting error, normal fluctuation, or increased use of the street by pedestrians. We won't know for sure until we've got a couple more years to measure. There's nothing to hide, we just don't have enough information at this time to say whether there's a real increase in danger due to the bike lane.
Sometimes the data says things you don't like. You have to own it. You can't look like you're fudging it or ignoring it. We need to maintain our integrity - and our appearance of integrity - in this fight.
Unfortunately, there's a problem with the data demonstrating this, and the bike lane opponents have seized on it in their SLAPP lawsuit, which you can read in this PDF helpfully hosted by Streetsblog. The number of crashes resulting in injuries on the avenue have actually increased by twenty percent since the lane was installed, according to the Department of Transportation's data. Rather than acknowledging that, the DOT has preferred to compare last year's data with an average of the three previous years. The bike lane opponents argue that the decline in injuries was actually due to retiming of the traffic lights, and that the bike lane increased injuries.
The bike lane opponents are wrong, for three reasons. The first has to do with measurement. Some injuries are not reported to the police, and it's possible that there were more injuries in 2009, but they weren't all reported.
The second reason has to do with outside factors. The opponents do not mention that the twenty percent increase was from four injuries in a six-month period to five, a total increase of one injury. Things like injury rates always fluctuate over time due to any number of factors. That additional injury could have been due to the fact that a particularly reckless driver moved to Windsor Terrace that year, for example. It could be due to almost anything, which is why the ideal is to have a multi-year average before and after. It is even possible that the injury rates went down, but that last year there just happen to have been two or three more crashes resulting in injury.
There is also the effect of popularity to consider. When I lived in Park Slope, I avoided crossing Prospect Park West whenever I could. I spent somewhat less time in the park than I would otherwise have, and once I got in the park I stayed there until it was time to go home. It may very well be that more people are feeling safer crossing Prospect Park West, and are thus crossing it more. There is more safety per crossing, and more safety per person, but we aren't measuring those, we're only measuring overall safety per half year.
Now watch Councilmember Lander debate Jim Walden on New York 1. Lander is a charismatic young politician going up against a lawyer who looks like Agent Smith, so he's got an advantage already. But he squanders that advantage, because he will not acknowledge that injuries went up from 2009 to 2010. Walden picks up on that - and so does Errol Lewis, although he was pretty fair - and they both try to pin Lander down on it. Lander avoids the issue, and it makes him look like a shifty politician, hiding Things the DOT Doesn't Want You To Know.
There is no way to avoid that issue. The only thing to do is acknowledge it, respond to it and move on. Yes, unfortunately there was one more injury, and our sympathies are with the victim. It may be caused by the bike lane, but it's much more likely to be a reporting error, normal fluctuation, or increased use of the street by pedestrians. We won't know for sure until we've got a couple more years to measure. There's nothing to hide, we just don't have enough information at this time to say whether there's a real increase in danger due to the bike lane.
Sometimes the data says things you don't like. You have to own it. You can't look like you're fudging it or ignoring it. We need to maintain our integrity - and our appearance of integrity - in this fight.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Our next big goal
You might have any number of goals for New York City's transportation policy in the near future. Let's say you want to cut something in half. It could be our greenhouse gas emissions, or the amount of gasoline burned in the city, or the number of people killed in road crashes, or the childhood obesity rate. In order to do any of these things, let me repeat, it's not enough to get people to take transit. You need to get people out of their cars. If you're genuinely fighting for "balance" or "choice," you won't accomplish your goals.
Remember that if transit is more efficient at providing access for subsidies than roads are, if people patronize systems depending on the access that they provide, and if subsidies are distributed based on usage, then transit will grow by itself, and we don't have to do anything. But if we're concerned that corruption may be skewing the distribution of subsidies, or if we just want to help the process along, then we can apply pressure. Pressure in one direction moves the cycle towards car dependence (and thus towards carnage, pollution, obesity and inefficiency), and pressure in the other direction moves it towards transit use (and thus towards health, safety, efficiency and clean air).
So here's my question: at what point will we have a solid majority of the City Council in favor of prioritizing transit over cars? At what point will we have a solid majority of the city's Assembly delegation, Senate, Congress?
Right now, as we know, 55% of New Yorkers take transit to work. You would think that there would be a solid majority in the City Council supporting transit. But car ownership (and transit use) is spread unevenly across the city, leading to the possibility of a Council dominated by powerful blocs of members from Eastern Queens, for example.
Still, that doesn't explain it all. It doesn't explain why even Bill Perkins and Tom Duane were wishy-washy on bridge tolls. It doesn't explain why Dan Garodnick thinks that the primary concern of "the community" is curbside car access rather than faster buses. In these three districts, less than 30% of households have a car.
I'm beginning to think that changing the perceptions and priorities of our elected officials is more important than changing the composition of their voters.
Remember that if transit is more efficient at providing access for subsidies than roads are, if people patronize systems depending on the access that they provide, and if subsidies are distributed based on usage, then transit will grow by itself, and we don't have to do anything. But if we're concerned that corruption may be skewing the distribution of subsidies, or if we just want to help the process along, then we can apply pressure. Pressure in one direction moves the cycle towards car dependence (and thus towards carnage, pollution, obesity and inefficiency), and pressure in the other direction moves it towards transit use (and thus towards health, safety, efficiency and clean air).
So here's my question: at what point will we have a solid majority of the City Council in favor of prioritizing transit over cars? At what point will we have a solid majority of the city's Assembly delegation, Senate, Congress?
Right now, as we know, 55% of New Yorkers take transit to work. You would think that there would be a solid majority in the City Council supporting transit. But car ownership (and transit use) is spread unevenly across the city, leading to the possibility of a Council dominated by powerful blocs of members from Eastern Queens, for example.
Still, that doesn't explain it all. It doesn't explain why even Bill Perkins and Tom Duane were wishy-washy on bridge tolls. It doesn't explain why Dan Garodnick thinks that the primary concern of "the community" is curbside car access rather than faster buses. In these three districts, less than 30% of households have a car.
I'm beginning to think that changing the perceptions and priorities of our elected officials is more important than changing the composition of their voters.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
A nationwide rail strategy
In the comments on my last post, Alon wrote, "What I've heard from rail advocates is the exact opposite - i.e., complaints that Obama should've spent all the $8 billion on HSR, and not on low-speed lines in Ohio and Wisconsin." I may actually have been misreading the criticism of the plan from rail advocates, and there may be two dissatisfied groups: one group who argued that the money should be spread around the country boosting key lines to conventional speeds like 90 miles per hour, and the other that argued that it should be concentrated on getting a small number of demonstration corridors in the same league with the TGV.
The Obama administration plan was presented as an initial step in getting lots of high-speed corridors built around the country. In contrast to both the "quick network" group and the "quick high-speed" group, the stimulus plan could be thought of as a "slow high-speed network" plan - a slow way to build high-speed trains. In that case, consider my last post a rebuttal to the "quick network" critics. In this post I'm going to take on the "quick high-speed" critics.
First of all, the stimulus was a nationwide plan, and its primary goal was to put people to work so they wouldn't be restless, and pay them so that they would spend money on American goods and services. Ideally you want the jobs to be created in places where unemployment is highest. Failing that, you at least want them to be spread evenly throughout the population.
Second, the President was proposing to spend eight billion dollars, and as leader of the country he's expected to spend taxpayer money fairly. Spending fairly means different things to different people, but most Washington politicians feel that "fair" means their constituents get some. Obama had to at least try to give some to everyone. That's why he had the application process, where even Wyoming and South Dakota were encouraged to apply for high-speed rail funding.
If Ray LaHood had stood up one day and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to spend eight billion dollars, divided up between California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut," what would have been the reaction? All the Republicans would have screamed about government bailouts to rich coastal cities, and the Democrats would probably not have had the guts to keep the funding in the stimulus bill.
Third, it's the first principle of negotiating that you ask for what you want and settle for what you need. Obama seems to have forgotten this in the health care debate, and in the overall size of the stimulus, but his rail plan was a pretty good example.
It's true now that austerity-crazy governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey and Florida have "given back" high speed rail money, but in some sense this is the best of both worlds. It allows rail projects in Vermont, Washington and Michigan to get significant boosts in their allocations, and it boosts the money for California even higher.
The Federal DOT hasn't yet announced which projects will get the reallocated money from Florida, but in the end, the money will probably be concentrated along the coasts and in the Saint Louis-Chicago-Detroit corridor. Who thinks that that would have passed if it had been in the original plan?
The Obama administration plan was presented as an initial step in getting lots of high-speed corridors built around the country. In contrast to both the "quick network" group and the "quick high-speed" group, the stimulus plan could be thought of as a "slow high-speed network" plan - a slow way to build high-speed trains. In that case, consider my last post a rebuttal to the "quick network" critics. In this post I'm going to take on the "quick high-speed" critics.
First of all, the stimulus was a nationwide plan, and its primary goal was to put people to work so they wouldn't be restless, and pay them so that they would spend money on American goods and services. Ideally you want the jobs to be created in places where unemployment is highest. Failing that, you at least want them to be spread evenly throughout the population.
Second, the President was proposing to spend eight billion dollars, and as leader of the country he's expected to spend taxpayer money fairly. Spending fairly means different things to different people, but most Washington politicians feel that "fair" means their constituents get some. Obama had to at least try to give some to everyone. That's why he had the application process, where even Wyoming and South Dakota were encouraged to apply for high-speed rail funding.
If Ray LaHood had stood up one day and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to spend eight billion dollars, divided up between California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut," what would have been the reaction? All the Republicans would have screamed about government bailouts to rich coastal cities, and the Democrats would probably not have had the guts to keep the funding in the stimulus bill.
Third, it's the first principle of negotiating that you ask for what you want and settle for what you need. Obama seems to have forgotten this in the health care debate, and in the overall size of the stimulus, but his rail plan was a pretty good example.
It's true now that austerity-crazy governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey and Florida have "given back" high speed rail money, but in some sense this is the best of both worlds. It allows rail projects in Vermont, Washington and Michigan to get significant boosts in their allocations, and it boosts the money for California even higher.
The Federal DOT hasn't yet announced which projects will get the reallocated money from Florida, but in the end, the money will probably be concentrated along the coasts and in the Saint Louis-Chicago-Detroit corridor. Who thinks that that would have passed if it had been in the original plan?
Friday, March 4, 2011
Obama's rail strategy
In 2009, the President announced that the stimulus package would include eight billion dollars for high speed rail construction. Since then, he has budgeted additional funding for rail and chosen specific corridors to spend the money on. This high-speed rail plan has been widely derided as a boondoggle, even by many rail advocates. They argue that what was really needed were targeted upgrades to corridors that already had high ridership. Furthermore, they felt it would be preferable to get these corridors upgraded to "normal speed rail," because the benefits of high speed rail would not be worth the expense.
Those rail advocates may be right about the best things to build. If Obama were absolute dictator, maybe that's what he should have done. But he's part of a political system, and each of these projects requires support from several partly independent actors in the system. In that light, the rail plan was based on a relatively sound strategy, and is starting to look better and better.
Remember that there are four kinds of mode choices that people make: single trips, habits, investments and subsidies. Habits are predominantly chosen on the basis of availability and value, but the other three are often made on the basis of glamour, and occasionally amenities.
Subsidies, in particular, are decisions about the future. At the current pace of passenger rail construction in the United States, many of the politicians making decisions about passenger rail will be old or dead before a rail system could be of practical value to most of their constituents. They're making decisions for generations to come, which puts a lot of the discussion in the realm of fantasy and glamour.
Roads have a definite glamour to them. Although there are plenty of train songs and movies, and some about buses, ships, airplanes, spaceships, airships, bicycles, walking and even dogsleds, most of the media fantasies in the past sixty years have focused on cars. The dubious connection between driving and freedom is hammered into us in almost every half hour of television, every magazine. The road builders and airlines have a hand in this too. Visions of the future often involve wider roads, faster cars, faster planes and even flying cars and jetpacks.
The road plans currently being promoted all involve expanding the road network. Even if it's only a modest expansion like the Kosciuszko Bridge, it's still a step on the way to Tomorrowland. In contrast, the pragmatic vision of many rail advocates is a step on the road to the rail network we had in 1960. A lot of transportation geeks would be happy to have that back, but to the general public it's not exactly an inspiring vision. We had that back in 1960 and people chose to drive instead. Now the road network is vastly bigger than it was in 1960; why would people choose rail?
Obama and LaHood needed a vision of the future that would compete with the car vision, while still being in reach. The only thing that can do that is high-speed rail, with at least one demonstration corridor.
Those rail advocates may be right about the best things to build. If Obama were absolute dictator, maybe that's what he should have done. But he's part of a political system, and each of these projects requires support from several partly independent actors in the system. In that light, the rail plan was based on a relatively sound strategy, and is starting to look better and better.
Remember that there are four kinds of mode choices that people make: single trips, habits, investments and subsidies. Habits are predominantly chosen on the basis of availability and value, but the other three are often made on the basis of glamour, and occasionally amenities.
Subsidies, in particular, are decisions about the future. At the current pace of passenger rail construction in the United States, many of the politicians making decisions about passenger rail will be old or dead before a rail system could be of practical value to most of their constituents. They're making decisions for generations to come, which puts a lot of the discussion in the realm of fantasy and glamour.
Roads have a definite glamour to them. Although there are plenty of train songs and movies, and some about buses, ships, airplanes, spaceships, airships, bicycles, walking and even dogsleds, most of the media fantasies in the past sixty years have focused on cars. The dubious connection between driving and freedom is hammered into us in almost every half hour of television, every magazine. The road builders and airlines have a hand in this too. Visions of the future often involve wider roads, faster cars, faster planes and even flying cars and jetpacks.
The road plans currently being promoted all involve expanding the road network. Even if it's only a modest expansion like the Kosciuszko Bridge, it's still a step on the way to Tomorrowland. In contrast, the pragmatic vision of many rail advocates is a step on the road to the rail network we had in 1960. A lot of transportation geeks would be happy to have that back, but to the general public it's not exactly an inspiring vision. We had that back in 1960 and people chose to drive instead. Now the road network is vastly bigger than it was in 1960; why would people choose rail?
Obama and LaHood needed a vision of the future that would compete with the car vision, while still being in reach. The only thing that can do that is high-speed rail, with at least one demonstration corridor.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Who's representing Queens?
On Saturday I pointed out that the "Community Advisory Councils" convened by the Department of Transportation for the 34th Street busway project are heavily weighted towards the small minority of neighborhood residents who are NIMBYs opposed to the project, largely because the DOT has solicited no participation from residents of Queens, Staten Island or Waterside Plaza.
There is one person who claims to represent Queens, at least in some sense, at these Community Advisory Council meetings. He is not a bus rider, though; I have never heard him address a transportation question from any point of view other than a driver's. His name is Corey Bearak.
Bearak lives in a part of Eastern Queens where it is considered embarrassing for any middle-class person to get around without a car. For trips to Manhattan it is understood that some people have to leave their cars at home, but in Bearak's version of the American Dream everyone will somehow be able to drive and park everywhere even in Manhattan - for free, of course.
For many years Bearak has been involved with an organization called the Queens Civic Congress, a confederation of neighborhood groups. The Congress provides a useful forum for community boosters to share information, but it goes far beyond its mission when it takes positions on controversial issues, claiming to represent the views of the people of Queens, as they did with congestion pricing. Its member organizations are not representative, and the organizational structure of the Congress itself is not representative, but the Congress still takes positions as though it were.
Bearak has attended meetings of the Community Advisory Council, but it is not clear what segment of "the community" he is there to represent. He is a paid lobbyist and spokesperson (and probably webmaster) for the "Committee to Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free." He is also a paid Policy and Political Director for the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1056, a lame union representing the drivers for many of the MTA Bus lines that were taken over by the City a few years ago.
What's Bearak's role in the Community Advisory Council for the 34th Street Transitway? You can get a hint from this PDF (Bearak has the quirk of blogging in PDF files and classic rock quotes):
None of this is intended as an attack on Bearak, who's a nice enough guy. I disagree with him on numerous issues and I think that the whole anti-congestion pricing campaign has been slimy and dishonest from the start. I'm also very suspicious of what he's up to with regards to the Transitway. But he's got a particular agenda and a particular code of ethics, and he sticks to them.
My main criticism is of the DOT. Why did they limit the "community" to people living right near 34th Street? Why concede the frame that the only "community" that matters is the tiny group of people who really care about curbside car access? And once they did, why did they then let Bearak in? They wound up with a bunch of entitled NIMBYs screaming about not being able to get bottled water delivered by truck, and a guy who seems to be paid to attack the Bloomberg Administration - and no express bus riders to balance them out! Strategic geniuses they ain't.
The DOT needs to open up the process to people who actually favor the Transitway. Put signs on all the buses that use the Transitway, and invite a bunch of people in Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island to come out and say how much they want it! Until the DOT does that, they just look like a bunch of masochists.
There is one person who claims to represent Queens, at least in some sense, at these Community Advisory Council meetings. He is not a bus rider, though; I have never heard him address a transportation question from any point of view other than a driver's. His name is Corey Bearak.
Bearak lives in a part of Eastern Queens where it is considered embarrassing for any middle-class person to get around without a car. For trips to Manhattan it is understood that some people have to leave their cars at home, but in Bearak's version of the American Dream everyone will somehow be able to drive and park everywhere even in Manhattan - for free, of course.
For many years Bearak has been involved with an organization called the Queens Civic Congress, a confederation of neighborhood groups. The Congress provides a useful forum for community boosters to share information, but it goes far beyond its mission when it takes positions on controversial issues, claiming to represent the views of the people of Queens, as they did with congestion pricing. Its member organizations are not representative, and the organizational structure of the Congress itself is not representative, but the Congress still takes positions as though it were.
Bearak has attended meetings of the Community Advisory Council, but it is not clear what segment of "the community" he is there to represent. He is a paid lobbyist and spokesperson (and probably webmaster) for the "Committee to Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free." He is also a paid Policy and Political Director for the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1056, a lame union representing the drivers for many of the MTA Bus lines that were taken over by the City a few years ago.
What's Bearak's role in the Community Advisory Council for the 34th Street Transitway? You can get a hint from this PDF (Bearak has the quirk of blogging in PDF files and classic rock quotes):
At a recent (November 4) meeting concerning the proposed 34th Street Transitway, a consultant for the project several times told residents with their concerns that that these plans only resulted because the city did not get “Congestion Pricing.” Hmmm......You can read more of Bearak's dispatches about the Transitway and other issues on his website.
As Derek & the Dominos sing and play, Tell The Truth.
None of this is intended as an attack on Bearak, who's a nice enough guy. I disagree with him on numerous issues and I think that the whole anti-congestion pricing campaign has been slimy and dishonest from the start. I'm also very suspicious of what he's up to with regards to the Transitway. But he's got a particular agenda and a particular code of ethics, and he sticks to them.
My main criticism is of the DOT. Why did they limit the "community" to people living right near 34th Street? Why concede the frame that the only "community" that matters is the tiny group of people who really care about curbside car access? And once they did, why did they then let Bearak in? They wound up with a bunch of entitled NIMBYs screaming about not being able to get bottled water delivered by truck, and a guy who seems to be paid to attack the Bloomberg Administration - and no express bus riders to balance them out! Strategic geniuses they ain't.
The DOT needs to open up the process to people who actually favor the Transitway. Put signs on all the buses that use the Transitway, and invite a bunch of people in Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island to come out and say how much they want it! Until the DOT does that, they just look like a bunch of masochists.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Why the 34th Street Transitway matters
The Post has gone all-out against the 34th Street Transitway this week. On Tuesday, Steve Cuozzo spewed another of his rants about Commissioner Sadik-Khan, focusing on the pedestrian plaza planned as part of the Transitway. Today, the paper published an editorial entitled "Save 34th Street!" -as if there were anything lovable about the current state of the road.
Right after pointing out that the city plans to allow buses the entire length of the street, the Post editors write, "34th Street is to run eastbound only from Fifth Avenue, and westward from Sixth Avenue, rendering the road useless as a thoroughfare." It won't be useless as a thoroughfare, because buses and pedestrians will still be able to move in both directions. Here's a handy chart provided by the DOT:
That's right, private car and taxi drivers and passengers are less than ten percent of the users of 34th Street. I don't think the bus riders and pedestrians - the other ninety percent - would feel that the street was "severely degraded" by expanded sidewalks, a pedestrian plaza, slower car traffic and a protected busway.
The editorial continues: "Sadik-Khan came to the Department of Transportation from a nonprofit do-goodnik shop hell-bent on “reducing car dependency” — that is, giving automobiles the old heave-ho from Manhattan." They are clearly not talking about Sadik-Khan's former employer, Parsons Brinckerhoff, a for-profit engineering firm that builds bridges as well as transit facilities. It's not exactly a fair characterization of the Federal Transit Administration or the Dinkins Administration either.
The best I can think of is that for two years prior to becoming Transportation Commissioner she was on the Board of Trustees of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. You might call Tri-State "a nonprofit do-goodnik shop hell-bent on reducing car dependency," but they're certainly not hell-bent enough for me, and in any case, she was one of sixteen board members, and probably too involved with her paying work for Parsons to do much for Tri-State. The Post might be confusing her with her Director of Policy, Jon Orcutt, who has been Executive Director of both Tri-State and Transportation Alternatives. Clearly, Tri-State and T.A. have influence at DOT, but they don't run the entire place.
The Post then calls on the City Council to essentially harass Sadik-Khan and do what they can to shut down the project. This could be a disaster, because it could train the Council to react this way to any plan to speed buses. They already have a Pavlovian reaction to any opportunity to pander to drivers about parking; we don't want to see them doing this with buses.
This is a good opportunity to review the many reasons why we want this project to succeed:
For all these reasons, you should come out and fight for the Transitway. Blog about it! Tweet about it! Write letters to the editor! Tell your friends! Go to meetings! Contact Transportation Alternatives to find out how you can be involved!
But most importantly, contact your City Council member. Tell them that you want the 34th Street project to succeed, both as a Transitway and as a pedestrian project. Remind them how many of their constituents use transit. Tell them not to be intimidated by anti-pedestrian and anti-transit editorials in the Post. Tell them not to cave, and not to pander!
Right after pointing out that the city plans to allow buses the entire length of the street, the Post editors write, "34th Street is to run eastbound only from Fifth Avenue, and westward from Sixth Avenue, rendering the road useless as a thoroughfare." It won't be useless as a thoroughfare, because buses and pedestrians will still be able to move in both directions. Here's a handy chart provided by the DOT:
That's right, private car and taxi drivers and passengers are less than ten percent of the users of 34th Street. I don't think the bus riders and pedestrians - the other ninety percent - would feel that the street was "severely degraded" by expanded sidewalks, a pedestrian plaza, slower car traffic and a protected busway.
The editorial continues: "Sadik-Khan came to the Department of Transportation from a nonprofit do-goodnik shop hell-bent on “reducing car dependency” — that is, giving automobiles the old heave-ho from Manhattan." They are clearly not talking about Sadik-Khan's former employer, Parsons Brinckerhoff, a for-profit engineering firm that builds bridges as well as transit facilities. It's not exactly a fair characterization of the Federal Transit Administration or the Dinkins Administration either.
The best I can think of is that for two years prior to becoming Transportation Commissioner she was on the Board of Trustees of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. You might call Tri-State "a nonprofit do-goodnik shop hell-bent on reducing car dependency," but they're certainly not hell-bent enough for me, and in any case, she was one of sixteen board members, and probably too involved with her paying work for Parsons to do much for Tri-State. The Post might be confusing her with her Director of Policy, Jon Orcutt, who has been Executive Director of both Tri-State and Transportation Alternatives. Clearly, Tri-State and T.A. have influence at DOT, but they don't run the entire place.
The Post then calls on the City Council to essentially harass Sadik-Khan and do what they can to shut down the project. This could be a disaster, because it could train the Council to react this way to any plan to speed buses. They already have a Pavlovian reaction to any opportunity to pander to drivers about parking; we don't want to see them doing this with buses.
This is a good opportunity to review the many reasons why we want this project to succeed:
- Calming car traffic on 34th Street will almost certainly save several lives and prevent a host of injuries.
- It will make getting around much easier, saving 5-10 minutes on every trip for the people who already use the 34th Street buses, either to homes or workplaces along 34th Street, or to the Port Authority, the Javits Center, Waterside Plaza, or Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey.
- By making it easier to travel across 34th Street, it will invite more people to use these buses, some of whom will probably switch from cars. It will also invite people to live and work in places that are convenient to get to by bus from 34th Street.
- Many of these people will identify as pedestrians and transit riders, and support pedestrian and transit improvements.
- There will be capacity in the busway for more buses, and bus lines throughout Manhattan can be rerouted through it, simplifying the network.
- It will serve as a flagship for bus improvements in the city in a way that Fordham Road can't, because there are a lot of people who won't go to Fordham Road. They don't know what they're missing, but they still won't go.
- A defeat on this issue will be symbolic, showing drivers that Sadik-Khan is vulnerable. Politicians and bureaucrats who see this getting killed will avoid doing anything like it in the future. Residents who see it getting killed will get discouraged and not ask for any new transit.
For all these reasons, you should come out and fight for the Transitway. Blog about it! Tweet about it! Write letters to the editor! Tell your friends! Go to meetings! Contact Transportation Alternatives to find out how you can be involved!
But most importantly, contact your City Council member. Tell them that you want the 34th Street project to succeed, both as a Transitway and as a pedestrian project. Remind them how many of their constituents use transit. Tell them not to be intimidated by anti-pedestrian and anti-transit editorials in the Post. Tell them not to cave, and not to pander!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Who is "the community"?
Earlier this month I used the 34th Street Transitway project to illustrate the limitations of the "David and Goliath" script in reporting news. Greg Mocker had a nice report with a regular QM21 rider who had collected 375 signatures in favor of restoring cuts to her bus line.
I observed that most of the news reports up to now about the 34th Street Transitway had been focused on NIMBYs fighting to preserve the right to pick up and drop off at the curb on their street, while ignoring the benefit to bus riders. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer made a very wishy-washy statement on Channel 5 about the transitway. The DOT has been holding regular "Community Advisory Council"kvetchfests meetings in an attempt to calm these concerns.
The problem is that the "stakeholders" that the DOT has invited to this "Community Advisory Council" seem to only be from the immediate area of 34th Street. It is widely acknowledged that many people from outside the area transfer to the 34th Street buses from subways, ferries and other buses, but as far as I know there has been no effort to reach out to any of them. I don't think there are any NYU Medical Center employees represented. The M16 is the only transit service for Waterside Plaza, but no Waterside residents were at the meetings.
As I've also mentioned, express buses from Queens and Staten Island bring thousands of passengers through 34th Street, but the DOT has not invited any of them to these meetings either. Mocker helped put me in touch with the QM21 rider, and I asked her about the "Community Advisory Council" meetings.
Angus Grieve-Smith, a regular reader who is also an occasional rider of the QM1/5/6, says that there are no signs about any hearings or "Community Advisory Council" meetings posted on those lines either.
So what's going on? Is the DOT trying to make a hard time for itself by packing meetings with people who want to kill this project? Do they believe that curb access is the only relevant issue?
I also have a question for all you "BRT" proponents out there. Do you factor these situations into your choice of which mode to support? Competition for streetspace and curbspace is clearly not an intrinsic feature of buses, but it is an intrinsic feature of any dedicated surface transitway that uses space previously reserved for cars. When you talk about "BRT" being so much easier to build, do you take into account roomfuls of wealthy entitled NIMBYs screaming about curbside dropoffs and property values?
I observed that most of the news reports up to now about the 34th Street Transitway had been focused on NIMBYs fighting to preserve the right to pick up and drop off at the curb on their street, while ignoring the benefit to bus riders. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer made a very wishy-washy statement on Channel 5 about the transitway. The DOT has been holding regular "Community Advisory Council"
The problem is that the "stakeholders" that the DOT has invited to this "Community Advisory Council" seem to only be from the immediate area of 34th Street. It is widely acknowledged that many people from outside the area transfer to the 34th Street buses from subways, ferries and other buses, but as far as I know there has been no effort to reach out to any of them. I don't think there are any NYU Medical Center employees represented. The M16 is the only transit service for Waterside Plaza, but no Waterside residents were at the meetings.
As I've also mentioned, express buses from Queens and Staten Island bring thousands of passengers through 34th Street, but the DOT has not invited any of them to these meetings either. Mocker helped put me in touch with the QM21 rider, and I asked her about the "Community Advisory Council" meetings.
No one advised us of any Town Hall Meetings. The passengers should always be included in decisions that’s being made for them. Town Hall Meetings and Forums should always have Passengers attend their meetings. Who speaks on behalf of them? Never one day there is a notice posted on the Bus inviting anyone to a hearing.
Angus Grieve-Smith, a regular reader who is also an occasional rider of the QM1/5/6, says that there are no signs about any hearings or "Community Advisory Council" meetings posted on those lines either.
So what's going on? Is the DOT trying to make a hard time for itself by packing meetings with people who want to kill this project? Do they believe that curb access is the only relevant issue?
I also have a question for all you "BRT" proponents out there. Do you factor these situations into your choice of which mode to support? Competition for streetspace and curbspace is clearly not an intrinsic feature of buses, but it is an intrinsic feature of any dedicated surface transitway that uses space previously reserved for cars. When you talk about "BRT" being so much easier to build, do you take into account roomfuls of wealthy entitled NIMBYs screaming about curbside dropoffs and property values?
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Rigorous data
Last week, fellow bloggers Brooklyn Spoke, Aaron Naparstek and I traded tweets with Daily News reporter Adam Lisberg over an article he wrote about the difficulty of "reporting rogue bikers." Aaron took Lisberg to task for making it a story about "bike wars" and not police enforcement or 311 reporting in general. Brooklyn Spoke and Howard Wolfson pointed out the skewed perspective of Lisberg and his source, Nancy Linday: 1800 pedestrians have been killed by cars in the past ten years in New York, and only seven by bicycles.
It is very much to his credit that Lisberg chose to engage with four random guys on Twitter about his reporting. Aside from a little snark and defensiveness, he was generally polite and focused on the issues. I think I speak for Aaron and Brooklyn Spoke when I say I want to be constructive and supportive. I think Lisberg is curious about transportation issues and cares about the people of this city, and wants to see fairness and justice prevail. I am confident that he will produce a lot of quality reporting about the city's transportation issues in the future.
It is in that spirit of constructive engagement that I will now tear apart Lisberg's article. In summary, he says that the quality of the data that the city provides is inconsistent and favors its pro-cycling agenda. As evidence, he presents a breakdown of the calls to 311 and the reports of a Chinatown resident named Nancy Linday, who spent a lot of time reporting unlawful behavior by cyclists.
Let's start with the data. Lisberg writes:
I've also been hit by a skater, and it wasn't fun. I was waiting to cross Seventh Avenue on foot one evening in Midtown, against the light, and looking uptown for cars. This jerk going against traffic body-checked me and knocked the wind out of me. If I hadn't been so stunned I would have grabbed his backpack and knocked him off his skates.
No, I wasn't seriously injured. In fact, I wasn't injured at all, just rendered uncomfortable for about thirty seconds, and a bit shaken for an hour. In fact, that was a lot more than happened to Linday, as Lisberg reports: "When she dialed 311 in October to complain that a bike almost hit her on the sidewalk at 58th St. and Fifth Ave., she said her call was transferred to 911 and back again."
The best response to that came from Gothamist commenter Tom Giebel: "The city needs to start a new system, maybe 211, for people who feel the need to report things that almost happened." When I was hit by that skater, I didn't call 311. I've been almost hit by bicycles tons of times and haven't called 311. I would say that pretty much every day I almost get hit by a car, but I don't call 311.
My overall point here is that skaters and skateboards use bike lanes and endanger pedestrians, so it makes perfect sense to lump them together. This is not a sign of lack of rigor; if anything, the fact that the DOT only measured cyclists using the Prospect Park West bike lane on one day is less rigorous. Combining complaints about cyclists and skaters only seems odd if you have a particular axe to grind against cyclists, as Linday clearly does.
This brings me to my second major criticism of Lisberg: he doesn't consider the source. He identifies Linday only as someone who "lives in Chinatown, works in midtown and says both places are full of out-of-control cyclists." Linday has a very uncommon name, and a few minutes googling revealed that she's a professional urban planner who's worked with Fred Kent and Holly Whyte on placemaking, and concluded that bicycles ruin the pedestrian environment. Note that Kent had the opposite conclusion, and that another Project for Public Spaces alumnus, Andy Wiley-Schwartz, is now working for the Department of Transportation, incorporating bicycle facilities into public plazas among other things. Linday is also a runner, and maybe she doesn't like sharing the Central Park loop road with cyclists.
There are three possibilities. The first is that Lisberg didn't bother to do that search, which means he was sloppy and got played. The second is that he did the search but didn't think it was worth reporting, which means he didn't grasp what was going on. The third is that he thought it was worth reporting but withheld that information, which means he was dishonest with his readers.
How then to interpret these paragraphs:
Let's connect that with an article written by Deputy Mayor Goldsmith, who oversees both the cops and the people who set bike policy. Interestingly, he just released a website where you can track 311 calls, including "Bike/Roller/Skate Chronic" (it's under "Public Safety"). Goldsmith writes, "The citizen with a thoughtful idea is not always the loudest. Many citizens with legitimate concerns or constructive suggestions may not enjoy either crowds or microphones. Avenues for their civic engagement ought to exist too."
So a well-informed professional with an agenda to distort the city's decision-making process spends a lot of time compiling data and harassing the city, and gets an NYPD sergeant's attention. She then calls up a Daily News reporter, who runs with her angle and fills in the David vs. Goliath script with a token quote from the heartless bureaucrats. Lisberg takes no time to consult a single cyclist, even though he considers himself a fan of Aaron Naparstek's work, or to situate Linday's concerns in the overall context of threats to pedestrian safety. Again, here's hoping he'll do better next time.
I want to end by pointing out that many citizens with legitimate concerns may not enjoy spending a day tabulating lawbreaking, or even an hour haranguing a hapless 311 operator. I personally have gotten discouraged reporting cars parked on the sidewalk and given up, but I would note that the 311 map includes a lot more examples of "Illegal Parking" (which lumps sidewalk parking in with blocked hydrants and a lot of other issues) than of "Bike/Roller/Skate Chronic." There are many reasons why legitimate complaints do not go reported, and counting complaints doesn't give you a real sense of how much people care about the issue. Complaint counts should be taken with a huge grain of salt, and definitely not used as the main basis for policy decisions. I don't have a solution, but Linday's goal is a recipe for disaster.
It is very much to his credit that Lisberg chose to engage with four random guys on Twitter about his reporting. Aside from a little snark and defensiveness, he was generally polite and focused on the issues. I think I speak for Aaron and Brooklyn Spoke when I say I want to be constructive and supportive. I think Lisberg is curious about transportation issues and cares about the people of this city, and wants to see fairness and justice prevail. I am confident that he will produce a lot of quality reporting about the city's transportation issues in the future.
It is in that spirit of constructive engagement that I will now tear apart Lisberg's article. In summary, he says that the quality of the data that the city provides is inconsistent and favors its pro-cycling agenda. As evidence, he presents a breakdown of the calls to 311 and the reports of a Chinatown resident named Nancy Linday, who spent a lot of time reporting unlawful behavior by cyclists.
Let's start with the data. Lisberg writes:
That's because while the agency installing bike lanes is tracking their benefits closely, the agency that runs 311 doesn't even distinguish between complaints about bicycles and roller skates.Uh, no. It's just not necessary to distinguish between skates and bikes in this context. I've traveled at least as many miles on skates in this city as on a bike, and I used the same infrastructure. I skated in the street, and when there was a bike lane I used it. If the Prospect Park West bike lane had been there fifteen years ago, I would have been in it.
In other words, in the city's bike wars, the downside of cycling isn't counted as rigorously as the upside.
I've also been hit by a skater, and it wasn't fun. I was waiting to cross Seventh Avenue on foot one evening in Midtown, against the light, and looking uptown for cars. This jerk going against traffic body-checked me and knocked the wind out of me. If I hadn't been so stunned I would have grabbed his backpack and knocked him off his skates.
No, I wasn't seriously injured. In fact, I wasn't injured at all, just rendered uncomfortable for about thirty seconds, and a bit shaken for an hour. In fact, that was a lot more than happened to Linday, as Lisberg reports: "When she dialed 311 in October to complain that a bike almost hit her on the sidewalk at 58th St. and Fifth Ave., she said her call was transferred to 911 and back again."
The best response to that came from Gothamist commenter Tom Giebel: "The city needs to start a new system, maybe 211, for people who feel the need to report things that almost happened." When I was hit by that skater, I didn't call 311. I've been almost hit by bicycles tons of times and haven't called 311. I would say that pretty much every day I almost get hit by a car, but I don't call 311.
My overall point here is that skaters and skateboards use bike lanes and endanger pedestrians, so it makes perfect sense to lump them together. This is not a sign of lack of rigor; if anything, the fact that the DOT only measured cyclists using the Prospect Park West bike lane on one day is less rigorous. Combining complaints about cyclists and skaters only seems odd if you have a particular axe to grind against cyclists, as Linday clearly does.
This brings me to my second major criticism of Lisberg: he doesn't consider the source. He identifies Linday only as someone who "lives in Chinatown, works in midtown and says both places are full of out-of-control cyclists." Linday has a very uncommon name, and a few minutes googling revealed that she's a professional urban planner who's worked with Fred Kent and Holly Whyte on placemaking, and concluded that bicycles ruin the pedestrian environment. Note that Kent had the opposite conclusion, and that another Project for Public Spaces alumnus, Andy Wiley-Schwartz, is now working for the Department of Transportation, incorporating bicycle facilities into public plazas among other things. Linday is also a runner, and maybe she doesn't like sharing the Central Park loop road with cyclists.
There are three possibilities. The first is that Lisberg didn't bother to do that search, which means he was sloppy and got played. The second is that he did the search but didn't think it was worth reporting, which means he didn't grasp what was going on. The third is that he thought it was worth reporting but withheld that information, which means he was dishonest with his readers.
How then to interpret these paragraphs:
The next day, she took careful note of every lawbreaking cyclist she saw near her office. A day later, she said, she dialed 311, demanded the operator take notes and dictated them for more than an hour.To me all that says is that if you've got an agenda and are willing to harass a 311 operator, you will be rewarded by the police. Thanks, NYPD! And then, Lisberg reveals Linday's agenda: "That may sound like an example of 311 working - but Linday said she wants those complaints to be tabulated by the people who set bike policy in the city, not just the cops who have to stop the rogue bikers."
It got a response: A sergeant from the Midtown North Precinct called her within days, gave her his direct line and told her to call him anytime with bike problems.
Let's connect that with an article written by Deputy Mayor Goldsmith, who oversees both the cops and the people who set bike policy. Interestingly, he just released a website where you can track 311 calls, including "Bike/Roller/Skate Chronic" (it's under "Public Safety"). Goldsmith writes, "The citizen with a thoughtful idea is not always the loudest. Many citizens with legitimate concerns or constructive suggestions may not enjoy either crowds or microphones. Avenues for their civic engagement ought to exist too."
So a well-informed professional with an agenda to distort the city's decision-making process spends a lot of time compiling data and harassing the city, and gets an NYPD sergeant's attention. She then calls up a Daily News reporter, who runs with her angle and fills in the David vs. Goliath script with a token quote from the heartless bureaucrats. Lisberg takes no time to consult a single cyclist, even though he considers himself a fan of Aaron Naparstek's work, or to situate Linday's concerns in the overall context of threats to pedestrian safety. Again, here's hoping he'll do better next time.
I want to end by pointing out that many citizens with legitimate concerns may not enjoy spending a day tabulating lawbreaking, or even an hour haranguing a hapless 311 operator. I personally have gotten discouraged reporting cars parked on the sidewalk and given up, but I would note that the 311 map includes a lot more examples of "Illegal Parking" (which lumps sidewalk parking in with blocked hydrants and a lot of other issues) than of "Bike/Roller/Skate Chronic." There are many reasons why legitimate complaints do not go reported, and counting complaints doesn't give you a real sense of how much people care about the issue. Complaint counts should be taken with a huge grain of salt, and definitely not used as the main basis for policy decisions. I don't have a solution, but Linday's goal is a recipe for disaster.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Peak oil, climate change and buses
Jarrett has a thought-provoking post about the age-old rail versus bus debate. But he buries what I think is the biggest advantage that trains have over buses:
As I wrote last month, some time in the next century we will get to a point where it will be difficult to build more infrastructure, and the pace of construction will drop precipitously. The infrastructure we have then will be more or less what we will have for the following hundred years. The easier it is to maintain and the less energy it requires to operate, the more energy will be available for other purposes.
This is one of the reasons why I get so frustrated with organizations like the Los Angeles Bus Riders' Union that promote buses over trains. Less extreme but still frustrating are the Pratt Institute and the Straphangers Campaign here in New York, and the Institute for Transportation Development Policy which is based here but operates worldwide. There are a few arguments they make, some more defensible than others.
The most obviously bogus argument is that we should never spend anything on capital; all the money should go to running buses as cheaply as possible. If you take that to its extreme the buses will eventually fall apart, so nobody really believes that we shouldn't spend anything on capital. What remains is to find the right balance between capital and operating costs.
Those who argue that we should be spending less on capital owe us an explanation for why we should do this while the government is not spending less on car infrastructure. After all, it's the relative value of transit that will ultimately drive the mode shifts necessary to accomplish most of our goals, and if we stop investing in transit while others continue to invest in roads, the relative value of transit will decline.
The most defensible argument is that we should be investing in transit expansion, but it should be "BRT" (something better than a regular mixed-traffic local bus, to be eternally negotiated downward) and not rail. These arguments clearly ignore the long-term cost of maintenance and operations.
Suppose we could get a network of exclusive busways in all the corridors of the Commute Plan (for instance, PDF), or for the same price we could get exclusive rail of some kind in six of the eleven corridors (I'm just pulling that number out of my ass). And then we run out of oil, and only the rich can drive. People are left using the transit system that's built. Which would you rather have: the rail one that will last for years, or the roads that will get more and more potholed as the years go on?
Some variable cost differences. Broadly speaking, bus-based projects that use portions of existing roadway will be much cheaper than building rail for those same segments would be. Beyond that, costs for bus vs. rail projects can be hard to compare. Capital costs for rail include vehicles, while a busway is sometimes run with an existing bus fleet. Certain bus-rail comparisons in certain corridors may turn up significant differences in operating cost that may be valid in that situation, but need to be checked carefully to ensure that they assume the same factors on both sides.Well, sure it's hard, and we need to be careful. But let's focus on ongoing maintenance and operations. Is there really any disagreement on the fact that train cars last longer than buses, that railroads last longer than asphalt roads, and that maintenance per passenger is cheaper for rail infrastructure, both vehicles and roads? Similarly, is there any disagreement that trains are cheaper to operate per passenger, in terms of energy and personnel?
As I wrote last month, some time in the next century we will get to a point where it will be difficult to build more infrastructure, and the pace of construction will drop precipitously. The infrastructure we have then will be more or less what we will have for the following hundred years. The easier it is to maintain and the less energy it requires to operate, the more energy will be available for other purposes.
This is one of the reasons why I get so frustrated with organizations like the Los Angeles Bus Riders' Union that promote buses over trains. Less extreme but still frustrating are the Pratt Institute and the Straphangers Campaign here in New York, and the Institute for Transportation Development Policy which is based here but operates worldwide. There are a few arguments they make, some more defensible than others.
The most obviously bogus argument is that we should never spend anything on capital; all the money should go to running buses as cheaply as possible. If you take that to its extreme the buses will eventually fall apart, so nobody really believes that we shouldn't spend anything on capital. What remains is to find the right balance between capital and operating costs.
Those who argue that we should be spending less on capital owe us an explanation for why we should do this while the government is not spending less on car infrastructure. After all, it's the relative value of transit that will ultimately drive the mode shifts necessary to accomplish most of our goals, and if we stop investing in transit while others continue to invest in roads, the relative value of transit will decline.
The most defensible argument is that we should be investing in transit expansion, but it should be "BRT" (something better than a regular mixed-traffic local bus, to be eternally negotiated downward) and not rail. These arguments clearly ignore the long-term cost of maintenance and operations.
Suppose we could get a network of exclusive busways in all the corridors of the Commute Plan (for instance, PDF), or for the same price we could get exclusive rail of some kind in six of the eleven corridors (I'm just pulling that number out of my ass). And then we run out of oil, and only the rich can drive. People are left using the transit system that's built. Which would you rather have: the rail one that will last for years, or the roads that will get more and more potholed as the years go on?
Friday, February 11, 2011
Bureaucrats as a special interest
If you're a transportation geek you're very familiar with AASHTO, which was originally the American Association of State Highway Officials, and only recently included "transportation" in their name. If you've been watching the news recently you may have also noticed the Governors Highway Safety Association (not to be confused with the other GHSA) and the New York State Association of Counties (not to be confused with the other NYSAC).
These organizations have a contradictory and misleading status. They are composed of appointed or elected officials, which may lead some to believe that they represent the public or are fighting for the public interest. In fact, they are private nonprofit organizations, and their agendas often differ from that of the public at large.
The biggest problem is the "Senate" problem: AASHTO and the GHSA give the same representation to Wyoming with its tiny population and tinier transit riding community as it does to Illinois, just like the United States Senate does. The 5,379 people in Hamilton County get the same representation in NYSAC as the 2,465,326 people in Kings County.
These organizations suffer from another "Senate" problem: who gets chosen to represent each state or county. What is the likelihood that Missouri will be represented in AASHTO or the GHSA by a pedestrian advocate from Saint Louis or Kansas City? State and county bureaucracies are often dominated by middle-class suburbanites, often wildly out of proportion to their populations.
When AASHTO argues against cycle tracks, or the GHSA blames the victim for walking, or NYSAC comes out against complete streets, it's important to point out that these are not representative government entities that follow the principle of one person, one vote. They are Senate-type nonprofits that are heavily skewed towards rural and suburban - and thus car-oriented - jurisdictions, and they represent middle-class suburban bureaucrats, not the population at large. They are special interest groups lobbying for money to be spent on their own agencies, and any recommendations they make should be taken with a grain of salt, considering the source.
These organizations have a contradictory and misleading status. They are composed of appointed or elected officials, which may lead some to believe that they represent the public or are fighting for the public interest. In fact, they are private nonprofit organizations, and their agendas often differ from that of the public at large.
The biggest problem is the "Senate" problem: AASHTO and the GHSA give the same representation to Wyoming with its tiny population and tinier transit riding community as it does to Illinois, just like the United States Senate does. The 5,379 people in Hamilton County get the same representation in NYSAC as the 2,465,326 people in Kings County.
These organizations suffer from another "Senate" problem: who gets chosen to represent each state or county. What is the likelihood that Missouri will be represented in AASHTO or the GHSA by a pedestrian advocate from Saint Louis or Kansas City? State and county bureaucracies are often dominated by middle-class suburbanites, often wildly out of proportion to their populations.
When AASHTO argues against cycle tracks, or the GHSA blames the victim for walking, or NYSAC comes out against complete streets, it's important to point out that these are not representative government entities that follow the principle of one person, one vote. They are Senate-type nonprofits that are heavily skewed towards rural and suburban - and thus car-oriented - jurisdictions, and they represent middle-class suburban bureaucrats, not the population at large. They are special interest groups lobbying for money to be spent on their own agencies, and any recommendations they make should be taken with a grain of salt, considering the source.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The limitations of the David and Goliath script
Last week I called Greg Mocker out about focusing on drivers' problems without addressing pedestrian issues. He had already filed one story about sidewalks, and he followed it up with another one tonight. He's also got a great story about express bus riders on 34th Street, which is something I'm interested in. He's clearly a very good sport and didn't take my criticism personally.
Mocker is very good at confronting bureaucrats who aren't doing their jobs, and that's a very valuable public service. But as we saw with the snowstorm, things get very sticky very quickly when you get beyond simple incompetence and corruption, and into the area of priorities.
In the snow cleanup, there were a number of priorities that had to be set by bureaucrats, ultimately accountable to the elected officials who appointed them. After emergency routes, what should be cleared next, side streets or sidewalks? Streets or park walkways? Roads or bike lanes?
Similarly, the 34th Street busway is part of a deliberate plan by Transportation Commissioner Sadik-Khan to raise the priority of bus riders and pedestrians relative to drivers, taxi passengers and local residents who are getting deliveries. The Prospect Park West bike lane is an effort by Sadik-Khan to raise the priority of cyclists and pedestrians relative to drivers. These priorities are all set with the approval of Sadik-Khan's boss, Mayor Bloomberg.
The congestion pricing and Ravitch bridge toll battles were also efforts by Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson to collect more money from motorists, but it was largely spun as the Out-of-touch Billionaire Mayor and the Out-of-touch Bumbling Governor versus the Hard-Working Outer Borough Drivers.
Sometimes the news people manage to get the right frame of two groups competing for street space or budget dollars or lower taxes, but they often seem to be incapable of getting out of the David and Goliath frame. The irony of this is apparent when you have two reporters from the same television channel (WPIX 11) covering both sides of the same story: Debra Alfarone interviews wealthy white Manhattanites fighting the DOT to stop them from providing better bus service, while Greg Mocker interviews a middle-class Black woman from Queens fighting the MTA for better bus service. In reality it's the wealthy white Manhattanites fighting the middle-class Black woman from Queens, but that's not the kind of David vs. Goliath story that sells television advertising.
That's the heart of the issue, really: that behind an apparent David and Goliath story of Outraged Residents confronting the Heartless Bureaucrats may be a much uglier story. The Outraged Residents may actually be a few wealthy or upper-middle-class people protecting their privilege and convenience at the expense of the convenience - or often the safety and well-being - of much larger numbers of less fortunate people, and the Heartless Bureaucrats may actually be engaged in an emotionally draining struggle to protect these less fortunate people.
The dilemma for Channel Eleven is that both groups may be viewers who will stop watching the Ten o'Clock News if they come out looking like selfish jerks. Some may even be advertisers who will pull ads if they come out looking like selfish jerks. So it's quite understandable that they would avoid showing the Outraged Residents as selfish jerks, even if they pretty clearly are.
I'm glad that Greg Mocker is actually standing up for the little guy, but it may get him into trouble if he takes it too far. If he does get into trouble, he may jump ship and go with another outlet that supports serious muckraking. If he stays, I would ask that he try to keep to issues of clear bureaucratic incompetence, rather than blaming the bureaucrats for setting priorities that help the little guys.
Addendum: Jarrett has a nice post giving me "Quote of the Week" - but also pointing out that he said much the same thing a month ago. I'm sure that Jarrett's post put the idea in my head, so I'm sorry I didn't remember it in time to give him credit! He's got a great take on the issue, and I will tweet it to Greg Mocker forthwith!
Mocker is very good at confronting bureaucrats who aren't doing their jobs, and that's a very valuable public service. But as we saw with the snowstorm, things get very sticky very quickly when you get beyond simple incompetence and corruption, and into the area of priorities.
In the snow cleanup, there were a number of priorities that had to be set by bureaucrats, ultimately accountable to the elected officials who appointed them. After emergency routes, what should be cleared next, side streets or sidewalks? Streets or park walkways? Roads or bike lanes?
Similarly, the 34th Street busway is part of a deliberate plan by Transportation Commissioner Sadik-Khan to raise the priority of bus riders and pedestrians relative to drivers, taxi passengers and local residents who are getting deliveries. The Prospect Park West bike lane is an effort by Sadik-Khan to raise the priority of cyclists and pedestrians relative to drivers. These priorities are all set with the approval of Sadik-Khan's boss, Mayor Bloomberg.
The congestion pricing and Ravitch bridge toll battles were also efforts by Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson to collect more money from motorists, but it was largely spun as the Out-of-touch Billionaire Mayor and the Out-of-touch Bumbling Governor versus the Hard-Working Outer Borough Drivers.
Sometimes the news people manage to get the right frame of two groups competing for street space or budget dollars or lower taxes, but they often seem to be incapable of getting out of the David and Goliath frame. The irony of this is apparent when you have two reporters from the same television channel (WPIX 11) covering both sides of the same story: Debra Alfarone interviews wealthy white Manhattanites fighting the DOT to stop them from providing better bus service, while Greg Mocker interviews a middle-class Black woman from Queens fighting the MTA for better bus service. In reality it's the wealthy white Manhattanites fighting the middle-class Black woman from Queens, but that's not the kind of David vs. Goliath story that sells television advertising.
That's the heart of the issue, really: that behind an apparent David and Goliath story of Outraged Residents confronting the Heartless Bureaucrats may be a much uglier story. The Outraged Residents may actually be a few wealthy or upper-middle-class people protecting their privilege and convenience at the expense of the convenience - or often the safety and well-being - of much larger numbers of less fortunate people, and the Heartless Bureaucrats may actually be engaged in an emotionally draining struggle to protect these less fortunate people.
The dilemma for Channel Eleven is that both groups may be viewers who will stop watching the Ten o'Clock News if they come out looking like selfish jerks. Some may even be advertisers who will pull ads if they come out looking like selfish jerks. So it's quite understandable that they would avoid showing the Outraged Residents as selfish jerks, even if they pretty clearly are.
I'm glad that Greg Mocker is actually standing up for the little guy, but it may get him into trouble if he takes it too far. If he does get into trouble, he may jump ship and go with another outlet that supports serious muckraking. If he stays, I would ask that he try to keep to issues of clear bureaucratic incompetence, rather than blaming the bureaucrats for setting priorities that help the little guys.
Addendum: Jarrett has a nice post giving me "Quote of the Week" - but also pointing out that he said much the same thing a month ago. I'm sure that Jarrett's post put the idea in my head, so I'm sorry I didn't remember it in time to give him credit! He's got a great take on the issue, and I will tweet it to Greg Mocker forthwith!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)