Posts Tagged: LT1M

09
Jan

2010

Capitol Metro, Austin

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post titled What Do You Hate About Your City’s Transit System?

The post was meant to get people thinking about their own local transit system and to contemplate why they just accept what their transit is rather than what it could be. I encouraged people to email in their list of complaints to gondola (at) gondolaproject.com, and promised to post the results at a later time.

The post was a colossal, monumental failure.

Since that post, I’ve received only one response. And while it’s tempting to just forget about it, I said I’d post the results, so here it is:

Eric from Austin, Texas had this to say about Austin’s Capitol Metro:

Cap Metro hasn’t listened.

1. Rare bus pullouts. Nothing like sitting behind a bus at a green light, waiting to make a right turn, while they load a wheelchair or bike.

2. Driver changes while the bus takes up a lane.

3. No sidewalks to bus stop. Walk in the weeds or the street.

4. How about a water fountain, shade, trash can, phone at every stop?

5. NO maps of the routes ON the bus. Most buses have a map with lighted routes to show where you are on the route.

6. No central depot. Preferably at the train or interstate bus station.

7. No mass high speed to the airport.

8. Wifi on the bus would be a big attraction.

I know nothing about Austin or it’s transit system, so I can’t say whether Eric is being on the level, but let’s assume he is. The Wi-Fi is probably a pipe dream as is the high speed to the airport (we still don’t have that in Toronto, North America’s 5th largest city), but all the other requests seem remarkably . . . reasonable.

I mean, c’mon, Cap Metro, you don’t have sidewalks at your bus stops? No trash cans? No shade? In Texas?

If transit agencies and government are serious about getting people to ride transit, they have to stop treating people like cattle and start treating them like people, and that means giving people a level of service that they want and need.

To do that, however, you actually have to listen to your riders. That doesn’t mean paying lip-service to participatory planning. That means sitting down with people at the very beginning and involving them in a partnership rather than battling it out with them once it’s too late change anything.

Seems counter-intuitive, I know, but the only way more people are going to take transit is if transit is a more pleasant and cost-effective experience than driving. That means focusing on the needs and wants of your riders, which means providing amenities like shaded bus stops in Texas, wind barriers in Chicago and rain awnings in Seattle. (They might have those in Chicago and Seattle, I don’t know, it’s just an example.) And it means delivering cheap, fast, reliable, safe, fun, schedule-free transit with LT1M wait times.

So let me ask this question one more time, but in a slightly gentler way: What about your city’s transit system do you want to see changed and improved?



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

25
Nov

2009

Time Is A Non-Renewable Resource…

. . . and that’s true for each and every one of us. Sure, it’s possible that time is infinite in the macro scale, but for our individual selves that’s just not so (despite what Aubrey de Grey might have us believe).

Time is the most precious thing we have and yet our current transit systems refuse to acknowledge the fact: Excruciatingly long wait times; constant delays; inconsistent schedules; stop after stop after stop; and travel speeds that make walking a competitive option.

Why don’t we at least consider a transit alternative that doesn’t steal our lives from us a few minutes at a time?

We need transit that provides the following (at minimum):

LT1M wait times; frequent, reliable service; no schedules; round-the-clock availability; travel speeds above 20 km/hr.

I’m not about to say that Cable-Propelled Transit would ensure those things.  Instead, I’m asking us to consider the possibility that it might.

(Incidentally, for those who don’t know who Aubrey de Grey is, he’s a researcher convinced that immortality is within our grasps.  Clearly, he’s a little bit controversial but I’m rooting for him because if he’s right, then waiting for a Toronto streetcar becomes a viable option.)

Immortality

Above: Immortality



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

24
Nov

2009

LT1M Wait Times

Less-Than-One-Minute (LT1M) wait times should be the goal of every transit planner because it is a principle that focuses on the user rather than the operator.

What the user wants is simple:  to be able to travel whenever they want regardless of schedule.

Imagine . . .

. . . if your front door only opened for 30 seconds every 15 minutes . . .

. . . or what if the opportunity to start your car’s engine only occurred once in every 10 minutes but always at a different point during those ten minutes . . .

. . . or how about never having a pair of shoes when you desperately need go outside only to find 4 pairs lined up in a row when you decide to stay indoors.

You’d lose your mind, you know you would.  And yet, that’s what we live with given our current transit systems.  It’s a testament to the resiliency of humanity that we still really want to make public transit work, but resiliency only lasts so long.

That’s why public transit so often loses the battle to bikes, feet and cars.  People like the convenience of being able to depart at their convenience not the convenience of their scheduled service provider.

Schedule service, when you think about it, is not really service at all . . . except for those administering and operating it.

Demand LT1M.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.