Transport and the City — Human Transit

Jarrett Walker on the only question that matters for transit — “it takes me where I want to go” — and why public comment on transit is mostly narrow and self-interested, which planners have to design around.

Part of the New City reading list — the books Kyle worked through while building the The New City thesis. Indexed on that page.

Notes

• By J. Walker
• “Most public comments are narrow and self-interested. A person wants transit to stop in a particular place, or not to, because of their personal needs or desires, not because it will help make the system more useful to the entire community. (Walker 23)”
• Our seven demands (Walker 24)
  • It takes me where I want to go.
  • It takes me when I want to go.
  • It is a good use of my time.
  • It is a good use of my money.
  • It respects me in the level of safety, comfort and amenity it provides.
  • I can trust it.
  • It gives me freedom to change my plans.
• The seven phases of a trip (Walker 34-35)
• Understanding: First, you must form a sufficient understanding of the service, frequency, and fare to know how to make the trip. This is the role of legibility.Accessing (at the origin): You then walk, drive, or cycle to the stop or station where you will board the service. Here, there are limits to what your transit agency can do, apart from locating the stop at a logical place, making it a civilized place to wait, and providing parking options for your car or bike, where appropriate. Other than this, you’re at the mercy of the city’s street network and development pattern.Waiting: Waiting is everyone’s least favorite phase of a trip. It’s governed mostly by frequency and reliability, but of course the quality of the waiting environment has a big impact. Waiting is also being transformed in interesting ways by personal technology, most notably by real-time information that tells you how long you have to wait.Paying: We think of paying as spending money, but paying can also cost time, especially if you are unfamiliar with the system. If the driver collects the fares, your act of paying takes the time of everyone already on board. That’s why higher-volume transit systems (rail, bus, ferry) are shifting to forms of fare collection that require you to buy a ticket before you board.Riding: The time spent on the transit vehicle is governed by average speed (or delay) and reliability. The quality of the time, which is also important is governed by both the quality of the vehicle and your ability to make use of the time, often through personal technology.Connecting: If your trip requires a connection, you’ll repeat steps 2 through 5 for that connection. Minimizing the hassle of these steps is the work of connectivity. For example, fare systems that offer free connections eliminate the cost and hassle of repeating step 4. Accessing (at the destination): Finally, you’ll repeat step 2 in reverse, traveling by some means from the transit stop/station to your actual destination. Again, the location of stops/stations is the main transit feature that governs this access, but the design of the local area, which is usually outside the transit agency’s control, is also a major impact.