Last month the Pew Charitable Trust's SubsidyScope released a study of Amtrak subsidies. It made the news, and at the time I just shrugged it off as the kind of story that we'll have to put up with until (a) airline and private car subsidies come down enough to give trains the advantage or (b) Americans come to feel enough ownership of Amtrak to accept the subsidies the way they do airport and highway subsidies.
I also accepted the numbers, because I personally accept the need for Amtrak subsidies. Today, however, frequent commenter Bruce McF takes on the SubsidyScope numbers and shows that the work is a lot sloppier and less conclusive than I would have imagined from such a prestigious organization. No firm conclusions, other than that the subsidies are overstated.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Climate change
It's right there at the top of the blog: getting people to shift from cars to transit will reduce pollution. Transit is regularly cited as a potential strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But how much could we reduce with transit?
It's funny, I haven't been able to find a good answer to that question. Many of the papers and websites are full of nutty things like electric cars and pumping carbon dioxide underground. But I did find a few useful figures around the web. Still, this is a back of the envelope calculation, so make sure you stick lots of grains of salt onto it. Any pointers to better figures would be welcome.
First of all, what kind of decrease are we talking about? Well, no one seems to know. The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the air is about 390 parts per million, and the scientific consensus seems to be that we need to get it down below 350 ppm as soon as we can. More timid people have pushed for 450 ppm or even 550 ppm. Usually it's expressed in terms of reducing greenhouse gases by 20% by a certain date (say, 2030), and 80% by another date (say, 2100).
How much of that is transportation-related? Well, this paper from the EPA (PDF, page ES-15) says that in 2007 the US produced 7,150 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (which includes things like cow farts and laughing gas), of which 2,000 megatons were from transportation (up from 1,547 in 1990). This includes the emissions involved in generating electricity to power subways. So if we could eliminate all transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, it would reduce our total by 29%. Well, it's a start!
Okay, seriously, how much of those two gigatons could we eliminate through transit? Again, people were very timid about this. A report by SAIC for the American Public Transit Association (PDF) says that two-car households could reduce their carbon footprint by 30% if they use enough transit to get rid of one of the cars. Lame! I want to know what happens if they get rid of both cars!
Transit advocates seem very keen on telling you how much greenhouse gas would have been emitted if every transit rider had driven instead; the SAIC report gives it as 6.7 megatons, and on page 9 of this PDF from the APTA puts the figure at 4 to 25 megatons. Sounds impressive until you remember that the total annual transportation emissions are 2,000 megatons. You can kind of understand why they don't put it that way.
Still, I'm happy for transit that it's sparing us from all those gases, but even though it's labeled in the SAIC report as "Potential Role of Public Transportation in Reducing CO2 Emissions," it's not. It's the current role. What is the potential role? Well, two University of South Florida researchers interpret the National Household Travel Survey to indicate that the mode share of transit is currently "1.59% of person-trips." In other words, one sixty-third of the total person-trips. So if we multiply that figure of 25 Mt by 63, we get 1,575 Mt.
So shifting the entire population of the US to transit would eliminate three-quarters of our transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, and 22% of the total US emissions. How do we manage that? This APTA report (PDF) argues that a 10% annual compound growth in transit ridership would reduce annual carbon emissions by 142 Mt in 2020 and 910 Mt (13% of the total 2007 US emissions) in 2040. I personally think their model is limited and would like to see a logistic model that takes into account the increasing difficulty of shifting people to transit, but maybe that will appear later. It probably doesn't affect the estimates for 2040 significantly.
Since the transportation sector only accounts for 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, other contributions will probably have to come from the commercial, industrial and residential sectors (agriculture is relatively small). But we can do a lot with transportation, if we can find the will.
It's funny, I haven't been able to find a good answer to that question. Many of the papers and websites are full of nutty things like electric cars and pumping carbon dioxide underground. But I did find a few useful figures around the web. Still, this is a back of the envelope calculation, so make sure you stick lots of grains of salt onto it. Any pointers to better figures would be welcome.
First of all, what kind of decrease are we talking about? Well, no one seems to know. The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the air is about 390 parts per million, and the scientific consensus seems to be that we need to get it down below 350 ppm as soon as we can. More timid people have pushed for 450 ppm or even 550 ppm. Usually it's expressed in terms of reducing greenhouse gases by 20% by a certain date (say, 2030), and 80% by another date (say, 2100).
How much of that is transportation-related? Well, this paper from the EPA (PDF, page ES-15) says that in 2007 the US produced 7,150 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (which includes things like cow farts and laughing gas), of which 2,000 megatons were from transportation (up from 1,547 in 1990). This includes the emissions involved in generating electricity to power subways. So if we could eliminate all transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, it would reduce our total by 29%. Well, it's a start!
Okay, seriously, how much of those two gigatons could we eliminate through transit? Again, people were very timid about this. A report by SAIC for the American Public Transit Association (PDF) says that two-car households could reduce their carbon footprint by 30% if they use enough transit to get rid of one of the cars. Lame! I want to know what happens if they get rid of both cars!
Transit advocates seem very keen on telling you how much greenhouse gas would have been emitted if every transit rider had driven instead; the SAIC report gives it as 6.7 megatons, and on page 9 of this PDF from the APTA puts the figure at 4 to 25 megatons. Sounds impressive until you remember that the total annual transportation emissions are 2,000 megatons. You can kind of understand why they don't put it that way.
Still, I'm happy for transit that it's sparing us from all those gases, but even though it's labeled in the SAIC report as "Potential Role of Public Transportation in Reducing CO2 Emissions," it's not. It's the current role. What is the potential role? Well, two University of South Florida researchers interpret the National Household Travel Survey to indicate that the mode share of transit is currently "1.59% of person-trips." In other words, one sixty-third of the total person-trips. So if we multiply that figure of 25 Mt by 63, we get 1,575 Mt.
So shifting the entire population of the US to transit would eliminate three-quarters of our transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, and 22% of the total US emissions. How do we manage that? This APTA report (PDF) argues that a 10% annual compound growth in transit ridership would reduce annual carbon emissions by 142 Mt in 2020 and 910 Mt (13% of the total 2007 US emissions) in 2040. I personally think their model is limited and would like to see a logistic model that takes into account the increasing difficulty of shifting people to transit, but maybe that will appear later. It probably doesn't affect the estimates for 2040 significantly.
Since the transportation sector only accounts for 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, other contributions will probably have to come from the commercial, industrial and residential sectors (agriculture is relatively small). But we can do a lot with transportation, if we can find the will.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
State Senate quintiles
This week New York voters re-elected most of their City Council members, and elected a few new ones, with most of them not having taken much of a stand on transportation issues. It's time to start looking to next year and the state legislature. Of course, the biggest obstacle to real reform this year was the dysfunctional State Senate, where the Democratic and Republican patronage machines clashed in a titanic struggle while largely ignoring the needs and wishes of their constituents. Because of this, the real winners were the "fare hike four" (sometimes more, sometimes less) who withheld their votes for power and got it: Pedro Espada, Hiram Monserrate, Ruben Diaz Jr. and Carl Kruger.
The fate of the Ravitch plan shows that the State Senate can have a big influence on the MTA. Transit advocates should pay attention to this race, and try to do what they can to get crappy senators replaced with more transit-friendly ones. Here's the quintile map, based on one from the Department of City Plannning, converted with MapShaper and colored with data from the Tri-State/Pratt factsheets:
In the green districts, with Perkins, Serrano, Duane, Squadron and Krueger, more than 73% of the households are car-free. In the yellow districts, with Espada, Schneiderman, Montgomery, Dilan and Diaz, it's between 65% and 73%. In the orange districts, represented by Adams, Onorato, Sampson, Parker, Hassell-Thompson and Monserrate, between 50% and 65% of households are car-free. In the red zone, Savino, Kruger, Golden, Stavisky and Smith represent districts that are between 34.4% and 50% car-free. The purple districts, with Huntley, Addabbo, Klein, Padavan and Lanza, are less than 34.4% car-free.
Duane, Squadron, Krueger and Schneiderman have mostly been pro-MTA - although they certainly could have been more vocal about it. Espada, Dilan, Diaz, Monserrate, Montgomery, Parker, Hassell-Thompson, and Kruger have actively obstructed funding the subways through bridge tolls. Savino talks about MTA funding, which is better than nothing. Adams, Smith and Klein have all been disappointing in various ways.
Republican Senators Golden, Padavan and Lanza are especially disappointing, because they had an opportunity to form a grand coalition with the rest of the Democrats in favor of transit funding, but instead chose to play power politics and allow the Gang of Four to kill the Ravitch plan.
Some of the seats will be contested in 2010. The Democrats have only a single-vote majority, so they will be trying to expand that caucus, and the Republicans will be trying to win back control of the chamber. The stakes are high: whoever controls the Senate will control the 2010 gerrymandering - not only for the Senate and Assembly, but also for Congress. Rather than blindly supporting along party lines, transit advocates should look for good candidates to support - no matter what party they're from.
Monserrate was recently convicted of misdemeanor assault for slashing his girlfriend's face with a broken bottle. He has not resigned or been expelled, but Queens Democratic party chairman Joe Crowley has said he will back Assemblymember Jose Peralta in the primary this fall. George Onorato will be 82 next year, and will also likely face a primary challenger.
The senators representing the "green zone" have pretty much supported transit. The "yellow zone" is a different story, with both Espada and Diaz. Since they both were responsible for the dysfunction in the Senate this year, it would be only right if they faced strong challengers, and transit advocates should throw their support behind those challengers, or even recruit some. One possible candidate to run against Diaz would be Majora Carter, who has brought nationwide attention to transportation justice issues in the district. Martin Malave Dilan and Velmanette Montgomery have been disappointing on transit issues as well, and I personally know several transit advocates who live in their districts.
The current State Senate is an embarrassment to the people of New York, in support for transit and many other ways. Let's hope that changes in 2010.
The fate of the Ravitch plan shows that the State Senate can have a big influence on the MTA. Transit advocates should pay attention to this race, and try to do what they can to get crappy senators replaced with more transit-friendly ones. Here's the quintile map, based on one from the Department of City Plannning, converted with MapShaper and colored with data from the Tri-State/Pratt factsheets:
In the green districts, with Perkins, Serrano, Duane, Squadron and Krueger, more than 73% of the households are car-free. In the yellow districts, with Espada, Schneiderman, Montgomery, Dilan and Diaz, it's between 65% and 73%. In the orange districts, represented by Adams, Onorato, Sampson, Parker, Hassell-Thompson and Monserrate, between 50% and 65% of households are car-free. In the red zone, Savino, Kruger, Golden, Stavisky and Smith represent districts that are between 34.4% and 50% car-free. The purple districts, with Huntley, Addabbo, Klein, Padavan and Lanza, are less than 34.4% car-free.
Duane, Squadron, Krueger and Schneiderman have mostly been pro-MTA - although they certainly could have been more vocal about it. Espada, Dilan, Diaz, Monserrate, Montgomery, Parker, Hassell-Thompson, and Kruger have actively obstructed funding the subways through bridge tolls. Savino talks about MTA funding, which is better than nothing. Adams, Smith and Klein have all been disappointing in various ways.
Republican Senators Golden, Padavan and Lanza are especially disappointing, because they had an opportunity to form a grand coalition with the rest of the Democrats in favor of transit funding, but instead chose to play power politics and allow the Gang of Four to kill the Ravitch plan.
Some of the seats will be contested in 2010. The Democrats have only a single-vote majority, so they will be trying to expand that caucus, and the Republicans will be trying to win back control of the chamber. The stakes are high: whoever controls the Senate will control the 2010 gerrymandering - not only for the Senate and Assembly, but also for Congress. Rather than blindly supporting along party lines, transit advocates should look for good candidates to support - no matter what party they're from.
Monserrate was recently convicted of misdemeanor assault for slashing his girlfriend's face with a broken bottle. He has not resigned or been expelled, but Queens Democratic party chairman Joe Crowley has said he will back Assemblymember Jose Peralta in the primary this fall. George Onorato will be 82 next year, and will also likely face a primary challenger.
The senators representing the "green zone" have pretty much supported transit. The "yellow zone" is a different story, with both Espada and Diaz. Since they both were responsible for the dysfunction in the Senate this year, it would be only right if they faced strong challengers, and transit advocates should throw their support behind those challengers, or even recruit some. One possible candidate to run against Diaz would be Majora Carter, who has brought nationwide attention to transportation justice issues in the district. Martin Malave Dilan and Velmanette Montgomery have been disappointing on transit issues as well, and I personally know several transit advocates who live in their districts.
The current State Senate is an embarrassment to the people of New York, in support for transit and many other ways. Let's hope that changes in 2010.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Low bridge, everybody down!
Last month I talked about how nutty it is to ban buses from a parkway (PDF) in the name of scenic recreational driving, even as you widen that "parkway" to six or eight lanes to accommodate commuter traffic, in the process completely destroying any scenic or recreational character that it ever had. I argued that if the State DOT wants to have parkways they should cut them all back to four lanes maximum, with parallel bike and pedestrian facilities, but if they want to have highways they should allow buses to use them.
Our express and intercity bus networks could really use some limited-access highways where they could cruise. The current schedule for the BxM4B takes 34 minutes to go down Fifth Avenue from the Bronx County Courthouse to Madison Square on a Saturday; Google Maps says that on weekends it should take 24 minutes for a car, but you could shave at least ten minutes off that by taking the FDR Drive. The BxM2 takes 53 minutes to go from 230th and Broadway to Penn Station; Google Maps gives that 33 minutes in a car and 17 if you take the West Side Highway. So we're talking time savings of up to 20 minutes. This can make a difference in ridership, particularly on the intercity bus routes.
Okay, but what about all the low bridges that Bob Moses famously built over his parkways to keep out buses and trucks? Well, the New York City Department of Transportation has a new treat for us: the clearances on all the parkway bridges in the city, either in PDF format or as a KML file. No more squinting at signs in Google Maps!
Here are the heights for typical buses in the current MTA fleet:
MCI D4500: 11' 5" (the big express buses)
Orion V or NovaBus RTS diesel: 9' 10"
Orion V natural gas: 11' 5"
Orion VII: 11' 3" (the new low-floor models)
EcoSaver IV: 10' 1"
This means that they will all fit on the Henry Hudson Parkway up to 232nd Street, the FDR to the Willis Avenue Bridge (with the exception of the Brooklyn Bridge and a couple of on-ramps in Midtown), or the Bronx River Parkway to Gun Hill Road, and the Grand Central Parkway to 60th Road. The old diesels and the brand new EcoSaver IV can go anywhere except for the Jackie Robinson and Cross Island parkways, the northern end of the Henry Hudson Parkway and the section of the Grand Central Parkway along Flushing Meadows.
The most straightforward thing to do is to end the blanket ban on buses on the parkways, and simply restrict them based on their height. The current ban seems to be in the Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York, not laws, which means that the Governor or the next Transportation Commissioner could do away with it by executive order, without having to go through the Legislature.
Speaking of which, does anyone think that Frank McArdle would give a rat's ass about buses? I suppose he could turn out to be a pleasant surprise like Ray LaHood, but I'm not holding my breath.
Our express and intercity bus networks could really use some limited-access highways where they could cruise. The current schedule for the BxM4B takes 34 minutes to go down Fifth Avenue from the Bronx County Courthouse to Madison Square on a Saturday; Google Maps says that on weekends it should take 24 minutes for a car, but you could shave at least ten minutes off that by taking the FDR Drive. The BxM2 takes 53 minutes to go from 230th and Broadway to Penn Station; Google Maps gives that 33 minutes in a car and 17 if you take the West Side Highway. So we're talking time savings of up to 20 minutes. This can make a difference in ridership, particularly on the intercity bus routes.
Okay, but what about all the low bridges that Bob Moses famously built over his parkways to keep out buses and trucks? Well, the New York City Department of Transportation has a new treat for us: the clearances on all the parkway bridges in the city, either in PDF format or as a KML file. No more squinting at signs in Google Maps!
Here are the heights for typical buses in the current MTA fleet:
MCI D4500: 11' 5" (the big express buses)
Orion V or NovaBus RTS diesel: 9' 10"
Orion V natural gas: 11' 5"
Orion VII: 11' 3" (the new low-floor models)
EcoSaver IV: 10' 1"
This means that they will all fit on the Henry Hudson Parkway up to 232nd Street, the FDR to the Willis Avenue Bridge (with the exception of the Brooklyn Bridge and a couple of on-ramps in Midtown), or the Bronx River Parkway to Gun Hill Road, and the Grand Central Parkway to 60th Road. The old diesels and the brand new EcoSaver IV can go anywhere except for the Jackie Robinson and Cross Island parkways, the northern end of the Henry Hudson Parkway and the section of the Grand Central Parkway along Flushing Meadows.
The most straightforward thing to do is to end the blanket ban on buses on the parkways, and simply restrict them based on their height. The current ban seems to be in the Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York, not laws, which means that the Governor or the next Transportation Commissioner could do away with it by executive order, without having to go through the Legislature.
Speaking of which, does anyone think that Frank McArdle would give a rat's ass about buses? I suppose he could turn out to be a pleasant surprise like Ray LaHood, but I'm not holding my breath.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The narrow worldview of energy greens
I was kind of startled to hear the anguish in Frank O'Donnell's voice tonight on Marketplace:
That's funny, when I first heard about Buffett's acquisition from Streetsblog, I thought that it was a bet that gas prices would go up, and I was heartened by the show of confidence in the efficiency and emissions-reduction potential of rail freight. After all, Buffett himself said,
If enough people follow Buffett, that would mean that the railroads would have plenty of capital to rebuild their second, third and fourth tracks, providing more capacity that can be used by passenger trains and taking cars and trucks off the road. What a boon for the environment!
I know that I tend to focus on transit, but I still recognize that energy and food can make a difference in the environment. Apparently O'Donnell is so focused on energy that he can take a story that is explicitly about the potential for rail transportation to improve the environment, and spin it so that it's all about energy. Wow.
Warren Buffett is calling his acquisition of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad company a $34 billion wager on the economic future of the U.S. ...
Frank O'Donnell is president of Clean Air Watch, it's a non-profit environmental group. He says Buffett's acquisition is a sign he doesn't think the government's going to do much on global warming.
FRANK O'DONNELL: Well, this is very ominous from the standpoint of climate change. Warren Buffett is no dummy, and he seems to be making a multi-billion dollar bet that coal use is not only going to continue but grow in the future.
He says Buffett's in this to make money, not to change policy. But people follow Buffett. And deals like this one could make it hard to convince Americans we need to.
That's funny, when I first heard about Buffett's acquisition from Streetsblog, I thought that it was a bet that gas prices would go up, and I was heartened by the show of confidence in the efficiency and emissions-reduction potential of rail freight. After all, Buffett himself said,
They do it in a cost-effective way and extraordinarily environmentally friendly way. BNSF last year moved on average, it moved a ton of goods 470 miles on one gallon of diesel. It releases far fewer pollutants into the atmosphere. It saves enormously on energy consumption and, you know, it diminishes highway congestion.
If enough people follow Buffett, that would mean that the railroads would have plenty of capital to rebuild their second, third and fourth tracks, providing more capacity that can be used by passenger trains and taking cars and trucks off the road. What a boon for the environment!
I know that I tend to focus on transit, but I still recognize that energy and food can make a difference in the environment. Apparently O'Donnell is so focused on energy that he can take a story that is explicitly about the potential for rail transportation to improve the environment, and spin it so that it's all about energy. Wow.
Transit performance and frequent lines
Last week, the Times' Clyde Haberman described how New York City Transit had revised its performance metrics, so that they measure "absolute on-time performance" as well as "controllable on-time performance." The last measure excluded "situations deemed beyond their control — sick customers, police investigations, repairs, vandalism and so on," in Haberman's words.
Ben at Second Avenue Sagas says that the change is an improvement, but not really sufficient, and I agree with him. He observes that for frequent lines (roughly, less than twelve minutes between trains or buses), adhering to the schedule isn't the most important thing:
Let's go back to our goals for transit. First, it should work towards access for all; this is pretty much achieved by offering frequent, safe service. Then, it should get people out of their cars. If the train or bus is slower or less reliable than driving, people are going to drive instead. speed and reliability (and sometimes comfort) are where good management can make a difference, and that's how performance should be measured.
On-time performance has something to do with speed and reliability, but not enough. Let's imagine a bus route, the Q200, that runs every five minutes. The most popular trip, from the Statelee Apartments to the Hitek Office Center, is scheduled to take thirty minutes. The intended customer experience is to wait no more than five minutes for a bus and spend no more than forty minutes door to door.
In practice, the passenger crush at Statelee Apartments means that by the time everyone gets on, the next bus is right behind. This leads to the all-too-familiar bus bunching phenomenon, where Bus A is late - and packed - and Bus B is early and empty. So some passengers wait up to ten minutes for a bus, and then it can take 50 minutes door to door.
In terms of our goals, bus bunching is awful, because it reduces not only speed, reliability and comfort, but frequency - which means we're no longer providing access for all. But in terms of on-time performance it's not so bad: the leading bus may be late but the following bus is on time.
Now let's imagine that the bus operator institutes some kind of pre-boarding payment collection at the Statelee Apartments, reducing dwell time and eliminating the bunching. That's a major coup, improving frequency, reliability, speed and comfort. But they won't get that much credit for it, because in on-time estimates it's just a small improvement.
In the years before computers were everywhere, it may have made some sense to use on-time performance as a metric, but now that anyone can plug some numbers into a spreadsheet it's really lazy. So what could we use for a better metric?
Ben at Second Avenue Sagas says that the change is an improvement, but not really sufficient, and I agree with him. He observes that for frequent lines (roughly, less than twelve minutes between trains or buses), adhering to the schedule isn't the most important thing:
New Yorkers don’t really expect subway trains to run "on time" because the schedules, while available, are rarely used and aren’t considered gospel. The better indication of on-time performance involves train wait times. If I just miss a B train during the day, I expect to wait 8-10 minutes for the next one. If I’m waiting longer than that — no matter what time the schedule comes — I consider the next train to be late.
Let's go back to our goals for transit. First, it should work towards access for all; this is pretty much achieved by offering frequent, safe service. Then, it should get people out of their cars. If the train or bus is slower or less reliable than driving, people are going to drive instead. speed and reliability (and sometimes comfort) are where good management can make a difference, and that's how performance should be measured.
On-time performance has something to do with speed and reliability, but not enough. Let's imagine a bus route, the Q200, that runs every five minutes. The most popular trip, from the Statelee Apartments to the Hitek Office Center, is scheduled to take thirty minutes. The intended customer experience is to wait no more than five minutes for a bus and spend no more than forty minutes door to door.
In practice, the passenger crush at Statelee Apartments means that by the time everyone gets on, the next bus is right behind. This leads to the all-too-familiar bus bunching phenomenon, where Bus A is late - and packed - and Bus B is early and empty. So some passengers wait up to ten minutes for a bus, and then it can take 50 minutes door to door.
In terms of our goals, bus bunching is awful, because it reduces not only speed, reliability and comfort, but frequency - which means we're no longer providing access for all. But in terms of on-time performance it's not so bad: the leading bus may be late but the following bus is on time.
Now let's imagine that the bus operator institutes some kind of pre-boarding payment collection at the Statelee Apartments, reducing dwell time and eliminating the bunching. That's a major coup, improving frequency, reliability, speed and comfort. But they won't get that much credit for it, because in on-time estimates it's just a small improvement.
In the years before computers were everywhere, it may have made some sense to use on-time performance as a metric, but now that anyone can plug some numbers into a spreadsheet it's really lazy. So what could we use for a better metric?
- Average wait: The MTA calculates its subway wait assessment as "percent of instances that the time between trains does not exceed schedule by more than 2 minutes (peak) or 4 minutes (off-peak)." I would instead say, "If someone arrives at the bus stop (or train station) a minute after the last bus leaves, how long do they wait for the next available bus?" I would also make sure not to count buses that were too full to pick up people as available. Note that this has nothing to do with any schedule.
- Average trip time: Pick a popular trip. How long does it take, on average, door to door?
- Practical frequency: How often do available buses come? Bunches of buses (less than one minute apart) count as a single bus.
- Crowding: How many buses have one of the single seats available? This may not be cost-efficient, but it's still good to know.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Spatial, narrative and habit navigation
I may be covering things that have already been discussed, but this is something I haven't seen elsewhere before, so if you have, please point me to it.
Jarrett's recent post about spatial vs. narrative navigation, and Angus's reaction, got me thinking about something I've been trying to put into words for a long time. When some transit advocates talk about navigation tools, sometimes it seems like they think there's only one kind of user for any given transit facility. Meanwhile, I can think of four: old-time regular users, new regulars, occasional users and tourists. Each group has its own wayfinding needs, and what helps one group may be useless to another.
Tourists and occasional users are the most likely to use spatial navigation. They have an origin, a destination and a set of landmarks. They can consult the map on the wall, or the map in their heads, and plot out a good route. Of course, plenty of them get narrative directions from a regular user or from a trip planning program, which they can then memorize, write down or print out.
I would argue that regular, long-time users go beyond narrative navigation to something else, especially if they have a set routine. They walk the same way from their home to the station or stop, maybe picking up coffee or a newspaper along the way. They prewalk to the spot that will put them in the best place when the train stops. They often know the conductor and the other regular passengers. They know the best route to transfer, and their routine at the work end is similarly predictable.
These old-time regulars don't need maps or even timetables. They show up in the same place at the same time every day, and either the train comes or it's late. They usually know the times of the trains before and after, in case they're a little early or late.
New regulars often get shown the trip by the old regulars, but they may also find their way through spatial or narrative navigation methods. After they've taken the trip enough times, though, they become old regulars and everything is done by habit.
Some transit agencies go out of their ways to help tourists, like the ones in New York, London, etc. They not only have maps on the walls, but have free system maps and timetables in every station. Others may post a map or have a timetable available, but leave out critical information. In some places, the system maps are only available in a central location. Many jitney systems have no published information at all, and rely entirely on word of mouth. Just about every travel book involving transit has a scene or two where the traveler is confronted with a complicated system and absolutely no documentation.
For a transit geek, a lack of information can be positive or negative. It definitely makes learning the system more challenging. This can be fun if we don't have to get anywhere soon, and if the system doesn't wind up marooning us in some suburb when rush hour ends. But if we actually want to learn the system in a reasonable amount of time it can be maddening.
Many transit customer service people don't know how to deal with an explorer. I can't tell you the number of times I've asked about a route and been asked in response, "where do you want to go?" It's hard to explain that I don't want to go anywhere right now, but am wondering if I'll find out someplace interesting to visit along this route. I usually just mumble something and excuse myself, since there's a line of people behind me who actually have to go somewhere in particular.
I've also had the experience of finding the person who has access to the cabinet in the central office where the map booklets have been sitting, and they're quite pleased that someone actually wants the schedule for the elusive #10Y bus. I think these two experiences point to something that is worth stressing: that in the vast majority of transit systems, most passengers are old-time regulars. In other words, if you took away all the maps, timetables and brochures, only a small number of people would notice.
Now I'm going to ask a difficult question: do these people matter? Clearly not, to some of the transit systems, or else they would have made more of an effort to develop good materials and put them out there where people can see them. The dollar vans in New Jersey make plenty of money without published maps and schedules, so why go to that extra expense?
Do they matter to us? Well, only as far as they fulfill our goals of access for all and getting people out of their cars. First of all, if there's a class of people that wants to use the transit service but is being systematically excluded through insufficient information, then that's bad. For example, a Mexican living in Sunset Park who spends an hour on the train to Corona to visit relatives but could get there in half an hour if he knew about the Chinatown vans. Any community with a high level of illiteracy can also be a challenge for outreach.
As far as getting people out of their cars, we need to look again at which people need more information: tourists, occasional users and new regulars. There are plenty of cities with perfectly functional transit systems that are shunned by tourists - but there are also possible class issues involved as well. There are people who will use the train or bus for their regular commute but drive or take taxis to all other destinations, even though they may be more convenient by transit. Finally, there are people who make a trip by car every day and never learn that they could be taking transit. Remember all the stories from last year's oil price spike with people who said, "I never realized that the bus was so easy; I'm not going back to driving!"
I think the proportions are different in each town, but each transit agency should sit down and look at the number of potential customers they could be getting from tourists, occasional users and regulars, and then survey those populations to see what it would take to get them to use the system. One agency may discover that they could capture a big chunk of the tourist market that currently gets stuck in traffic driving to XYZLand. Another may realize that their commuter passengers could be converted into nightlife passengers. A third could find that there are frustrated commuter drivers that just need to know about the 28X express service.
On the other hand, it may just be that everyone who needs to know about the system finds out by word of mouth, and nobody needs to waste time. That transit geek who wants to find out where the G33 goes? He can stop by the central office and pick up a wad of timetables.
Jarrett's recent post about spatial vs. narrative navigation, and Angus's reaction, got me thinking about something I've been trying to put into words for a long time. When some transit advocates talk about navigation tools, sometimes it seems like they think there's only one kind of user for any given transit facility. Meanwhile, I can think of four: old-time regular users, new regulars, occasional users and tourists. Each group has its own wayfinding needs, and what helps one group may be useless to another.
Tourists and occasional users are the most likely to use spatial navigation. They have an origin, a destination and a set of landmarks. They can consult the map on the wall, or the map in their heads, and plot out a good route. Of course, plenty of them get narrative directions from a regular user or from a trip planning program, which they can then memorize, write down or print out.
I would argue that regular, long-time users go beyond narrative navigation to something else, especially if they have a set routine. They walk the same way from their home to the station or stop, maybe picking up coffee or a newspaper along the way. They prewalk to the spot that will put them in the best place when the train stops. They often know the conductor and the other regular passengers. They know the best route to transfer, and their routine at the work end is similarly predictable.
These old-time regulars don't need maps or even timetables. They show up in the same place at the same time every day, and either the train comes or it's late. They usually know the times of the trains before and after, in case they're a little early or late.
New regulars often get shown the trip by the old regulars, but they may also find their way through spatial or narrative navigation methods. After they've taken the trip enough times, though, they become old regulars and everything is done by habit.
Some transit agencies go out of their ways to help tourists, like the ones in New York, London, etc. They not only have maps on the walls, but have free system maps and timetables in every station. Others may post a map or have a timetable available, but leave out critical information. In some places, the system maps are only available in a central location. Many jitney systems have no published information at all, and rely entirely on word of mouth. Just about every travel book involving transit has a scene or two where the traveler is confronted with a complicated system and absolutely no documentation.
For a transit geek, a lack of information can be positive or negative. It definitely makes learning the system more challenging. This can be fun if we don't have to get anywhere soon, and if the system doesn't wind up marooning us in some suburb when rush hour ends. But if we actually want to learn the system in a reasonable amount of time it can be maddening.
Many transit customer service people don't know how to deal with an explorer. I can't tell you the number of times I've asked about a route and been asked in response, "where do you want to go?" It's hard to explain that I don't want to go anywhere right now, but am wondering if I'll find out someplace interesting to visit along this route. I usually just mumble something and excuse myself, since there's a line of people behind me who actually have to go somewhere in particular.
I've also had the experience of finding the person who has access to the cabinet in the central office where the map booklets have been sitting, and they're quite pleased that someone actually wants the schedule for the elusive #10Y bus. I think these two experiences point to something that is worth stressing: that in the vast majority of transit systems, most passengers are old-time regulars. In other words, if you took away all the maps, timetables and brochures, only a small number of people would notice.
Now I'm going to ask a difficult question: do these people matter? Clearly not, to some of the transit systems, or else they would have made more of an effort to develop good materials and put them out there where people can see them. The dollar vans in New Jersey make plenty of money without published maps and schedules, so why go to that extra expense?
Do they matter to us? Well, only as far as they fulfill our goals of access for all and getting people out of their cars. First of all, if there's a class of people that wants to use the transit service but is being systematically excluded through insufficient information, then that's bad. For example, a Mexican living in Sunset Park who spends an hour on the train to Corona to visit relatives but could get there in half an hour if he knew about the Chinatown vans. Any community with a high level of illiteracy can also be a challenge for outreach.
As far as getting people out of their cars, we need to look again at which people need more information: tourists, occasional users and new regulars. There are plenty of cities with perfectly functional transit systems that are shunned by tourists - but there are also possible class issues involved as well. There are people who will use the train or bus for their regular commute but drive or take taxis to all other destinations, even though they may be more convenient by transit. Finally, there are people who make a trip by car every day and never learn that they could be taking transit. Remember all the stories from last year's oil price spike with people who said, "I never realized that the bus was so easy; I'm not going back to driving!"
I think the proportions are different in each town, but each transit agency should sit down and look at the number of potential customers they could be getting from tourists, occasional users and regulars, and then survey those populations to see what it would take to get them to use the system. One agency may discover that they could capture a big chunk of the tourist market that currently gets stuck in traffic driving to XYZLand. Another may realize that their commuter passengers could be converted into nightlife passengers. A third could find that there are frustrated commuter drivers that just need to know about the 28X express service.
On the other hand, it may just be that everyone who needs to know about the system finds out by word of mouth, and nobody needs to waste time. That transit geek who wants to find out where the G33 goes? He can stop by the central office and pick up a wad of timetables.
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