I participated in an interesting conversation today that reminded me how ‘bus stigma’ is self-reinforcing. Scene: at work, in the lunchroom. Our company owner, a very smart guy based in Irvine, is visiting us this week. He asked where the nearest Red Line MAX station to the office was, to find out how to get […]
Category Archives: Public Transit
Mees 1: “Density as destiny” is a convenient story
One of the most interesting points that Mees makes early on is that the story of “density as destiny” where transit is concerned is convenient for a lot of people on both sides of the spectrum. Road-builders who’d like to keep building roads can say that they have to, because density is insufficient for effective […]
Reviewing Transport for Suburbia by Paul Mees
Those who follow me on Twitter have been subjected to a lot of little quotation gems from Paul Mees’ 2010 book Transport for Suburbia recently. There’s so much to say about his book that I hope to do a series of posts on it, but since it’s apparently not a widely-read or -known book, I […]
Why I opted-out of Opt In
As a citizen advocate, I spend a lot of time telling my local governments and government agencies what I think. I’m familiar with the various stages and forms of public involvement processes — sitting on committees, going to project meetings, asking questions, raising concerns, writing comments, addressing decisionmakers. So originally I was a big fan […]
PSU/PBOT Traffic and Transportation Class: Reflection
What I come back to most whenever the subject of my class last fall comes up is how amazing it is that I was able to learn so much information and meet so many significant figures in the Portland transportation scene in just ten short weeks (Oct 1 – Dec 3). Getting into the class […]
Ten is cool, seven is cool
Xtracycle on Twitter today pointed me to a great blog post from Doug about his seven years as a car-free commuter (in Minnesota, no less). I mentioned to someone recently that it’s been nearly ten years since I owned a car. (Actually, I’m not sure I ever technically owned a car, since the car I […]
It’s mere ungrammatical twaddle
It’s funny how some of the best things are completely unplanned. When I got to Seattle yesterday, I had a plan to go see the Space Needle, then go walk or sit in a park for a while. And that was the extent of my plan. Before I headed for Seattle center, I noticed a […]
The journey is part of the fun
One of my favorite things about not having a car is that it reminds me to think of my journeys as part of the fun of my trips. Journeys take more of my time than they do of most people’s, so if I don’t enjoy them and look for ways to spice them up, I’d […]
On any given day, where would you rather be?
The radio was on this morning in the shuttle, playing various things, including a traffic report. It was almost like it was calculated: 101-S is a complete mess in two different places, as is 237. Aren’t you glad you’ve been on the train? But of course, on any given day, you might rather be on […]
Toronto: transit
My experiences with transit and cycling in Toronto were almost uniformly overwhelmingly positive. If only it wasn’t so cold there, I’d totally want to live there. When I first arrived, I got a GO bus and then the TTC subway into downtown Toronto. This had two complications. One, GO and TTC are different systems, so […]