Tag / transit

by Adron

How Many SOVs Don’t Need to be in Rush Hour?

Note:  SOV == Single Occupancy Vehicle, which is what about 98%+ of cars on the road are, one driver operating the vehicle on an inefficient trip to do X.

As I was sitting on the bus, which was actively removing over 90 people from SOV use I started thinking.  How many of these people do NOT need to be on the road?  How many people are confused and just think they need to be SOV?  How many of these people could take transit, could live in a better location or more intelligently?  How many of these people, if auto transport wasn’t so heavily subsidized, could even afford to be taking frivolous trips like this?  How much wealth redistribution through transportation dollars encourages needless trips that clog Interstates, Highways, arterials and other routes?  Not to even mention the environmental damage of the excess and unneeded trips.

Common Fallacies for People Living in Smart and Intelligent Cities

“I need a car because of X situation that I have!”

This is a nonsense argument for the vast majority of people traveling to and from work.  If X is a child, or a last minute errand to run on the way home, or other item that is an outlier situation to the normal commute.  So many people use this excuse and have not thought through their situation.

If you have a child all the more reason to encourage more intelligent, non-auto centric lifestyles.

If the child is sick or injures themselves at school, which is the often cited argument, it doesn’t hold up because if it is a big enough emergency you DO NOT and SHOULD NOT drive directly to them.  The emergency services in the United States are for that specific reason.  They’ll most likely get there before you and you’ll most likely endanger lives of those around you “hurrying” to get to your child.  If the child just needs picked up from school, in most cities there are a number of alternatives to you running to them and bringing them home.  There are taxies, zip car options, and more.  You just have to think without the absurdity of saying it is a necessity for you to maintain and keep an entire car just for the sole purpose of an emergency that may or may not happen.

If you’re excuse is even less, such as X being something like karate class or a meetup after work, then again the planning you have done is poor.  If you live in any decent city, if you’re traveling so far out of your way for a meetup that it requires a car you’ve grossly mismanaged your life.  Keep things close, keep things local to you, keep things within reasonable reach.

…and don’t just do these things because it’s more intelligent to use transit and be a more responsible member of society.  Do it because it servers YOU better.  Imagine not paying auto insurance, having a wide selection of cars at your disposal instead of JUST ONE (ZipCar, Rentals, etc), imagine no car payment, no maintenance, not paying for gas(ZipCar), not worrying about “parking” every time you go downtown, not having to step into the most dangerous mode of transport in the country.  Just imagine not having to deal with those things.  With a little thinking – in the good & smart cities in the US – you can get rid of these concerns and problems.  You can be a part of the citizenry that isn’t causing the problems associated with the sprawl.

…and I promise you, your life will be better lived for it.

Here are a few of the cities where people should and could drive less en masse.

  • Portland, OR
  • Seattle, WA
  • Chicago, IL (already a heavy transit usage city, but more could be done)
  • New York, NY (also already a heavy transit use city at over 50% of the city using transit, but again, there is more that could be done to get rid of frivolous and unneeded trips)
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Los Angeles, CA (transit is amazingly making a huge come back in LA)
  • San Diego, CA
  • Boston, MA
  • New Orleans, LA
  • Denver, CO
  • Miami, FL
  • Tacoma, WA
  • Sacramento, CA

All of these cities, and there are more too, are cities that offer enough transit, bike, and other alternatives that more people should really think through and look at options besides car ownership or leasing.  There are literally millions of trips per day, millions of gallons of fuel, millions of hours of congestion time, and millions of dollars to save if additional people just think through their lifestyle paradigms a little.

It doesn’t take much, just being smarter about your day.  I’m done with my transit rant of the day.  So help me though, if someone comes up with the above excuse again I’m gonna…

Live better, peace! – Transit Sleuth

by Adron

Transporting the Smarts

While riding the bus recently, I was contemplating the absolutely gregarious myth that public transportation is for the poor and downtrodden.  Of course, this myth isn’t particularly held by those that actually know about cities, urban lifestyles, and other such things.  However there are a large number of people (namely on random AM radio talk shows) that hold this myth to be true.  They hold it as if it is some real redistribution of wealth, some hand out to the poor, or just some hand out in general.

As I sit here riding the #545 toward Microsoft, I realize just how objectively wrong they are.  There are approximately 60+ people on this bus as it travels across the bridge toward Microsoft.  These 60+ people have a median taxable income near the upper 93-95% bracket.  That means the following facts are true:

  1. These people are absolutely not poor, in any sense of the word.
  2. These people are in the bracket that pays the largest percentage of tax share to the Government.  In other words these people pay approximately 1.8-2.4x their costs incurred by the Government.

Think about that for a second.  These people are the bread and butter of America’s Economy right now.  The part of the economy that is actually creating jobs, not shedding them.  The part of the economy that is growing still.

In another part of town, Amazon has thousands of people coming in on busses and even walking to work (which I’d say is a better corporate citizen than Microsoft when it comes to environmental and economic activity).

Again, the facts for these individuals hold true also.  Amazon is growing massively.  They pay very well and need intelligent and highly skilled people.  Everyday they’re hiring more people.

Both of these companies have a large percentage of employees that use public transit to get to and from work, and in both situations both companies provide private transit agencies to get employees back and forth to the various areas of their campuses.  Both of these companies are prime examples of what should be encouraged and perpetuated in cities throughout America.  These companies are also prime examples of employers, that don’t require you to have a car.  Going car free with Amazon or Microsoft is super easy, and with either you could be an urban, suburban, or even rural person and get away with being car free.

So get rid of the myths if you hold them, you’re holding things that are not true in the least if you have that thought.  Public transit is vital to our most productive and growing industries.

by Adron

Metro (and Sound Transit) Rock Star Drivers!

I made perfect connections this morning!  I was stoked!  After boarding the Metro #5 to cover a few quick blocks to downtown I then transferred to the next #545 coming down the street.  To make matters even more awesome, another #545 had just come by running late.  So when I boarded this bus I was the first rider of the route.

This is when the rock star maneuvering of empowered drivers took effect.  We were bunched so closely with the leading #545, it was picking up customers that would normally have been riding this bus.  The driver decided proactively to circumvent the twisted street up off of Olive way and instead head to Montlake.  This would serve two purposes, relieve some of the packing on the first bus, and enable a reasonable pickup for this bus.

The idea worked beautifully!  My commute was looking to be a record 19 minutes flat on the #545.  I’m impressed.  TriMet, eat your heart out on that maneuverability!