Human Transit

a transit manager on driverless cars (guest post by ron kilcoyne)

A recent post of mine on the potential of driverless cars elicited an excellent comment thread.  My own response is in the works, but meanwhile, here is one of my longtime mentors, Ron Kilcoyne, on the topic.  Ron is the General Manager of Lane Transit District, the transit system covering the Eugene-Springfield area in Oregon.  

About three months ago I read one of Jarrett's posts that provided a good explanation as to why self-driving cars will not become the transportation utopia that its promoters envision. I had just returned from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Annual meeting and this post provided a needed antidote to sense of depression I was feeling.

During the Conference I heard speaker after speaker wax poetic about the trends that favored significant transit growth. And every time I heard wonderful visions of this transit (and pedestrian and bicycle) nirvana, I kept thinking to myself: but what about self-driving cars?  Will they undo the positive trends towards less sprawl, revitalized cities and walkable suburbs? Will we once again become isolated in our pods even at levels unheard of at the height of our past car culture?

The focus of this earlier post (as opposed to the recent one which generated lots of chatter that focused on how we get from today to the self-driving autopia) was the physical limitations that will impede the vision that self-driving cars will replace transit as we know it today. Now being a transit geek all my life (my parents did not drive so I was dependent on transit growing up) and a transit professional for almost 33 years (early in his career Jarrett worked for me) you may think I am not willing to accept change out of fear the buses and trains that I am passionate about will disappear. Maybe a little but my real concerns are far much broader and relate to the social, health and environmental implications of self-driving cars becoming the sole motorized mode. 

Evidence keeps piling up that the keys to longevity, good health and happiness lie in social interaction, physical activity and diet. I might add that beauty is also important; both from easy access to nature and in our built environment. Whereas a car centric society has encouraged isolation, less physical activity and ugly sprawl that has also diminished healthy local food production; there are a number of positive trends moving in the opposite direction. The tea party and its paranoia notwithstanding, more and more people value a physical environment that supports sociability, active and public transportation.  Will these trends grow or wither? Factors other than self-driving cars may play a role in answering that question but at some point self-driving cars could play a major role in determining how society evolves.

Mark Frohnmayer, who is a member of the Oregon Transportation Commission and owner of a company developing an electric car, presents a PowerPoint to groups interested in his vision of the future of urban transportation. The three components of his vision are electric cars, car sharing and self-driving cars. What I found most memorable from his presentation was his illustration of how a part of Eugene transforms into a green urban utopia as acres of land currently devoted to parking are put to other uses. Peter Calthorpe makes a compelling case as to why electric cars are not the answer to our energy or climate issues  and that we will still need urbanism that supports the pedestrian/bicycle/transit modes. Jarrett Walker has likewise presented good evidence as to the physical limitations of self-driving cars in an urban environment. This leaves car sharing as the one component of Mr. Frohnmayer’ s vision that could reduce the amount of land devoted to parking. 

I am a big fan of car sharing and believe that its growth can be an essential component of improving the sustainability of our cities and towns. Indeed car sharing is an important cog toward achieving the types of communities that rank high is positive economic, environmental and social metrics along with an attractive and safe pedestrian and bicycle environments and robust transit systems. Indeed transit needs highly walkable and bicycable communities to thrive and car sharing further enhances that by providing individuals with the mobility and accessibility of an auto when the other three modes are insufficient without being encumbered with the high cost of owning a vehicle. The evidence so far is that car sharing reduces the need for vehicles and increases walking, bicycling and transit use. 

Reducing the percentage of land devoted exclusively to the auto should be a major priority. This is true in communities of all sizes. The combination of highly walkable and bicycable communities with robust transit systems and car sharing can move us in this direction. It appears that this is what more and more people want and with less pavement for autos we can have more local food production, access to more parks and open space, broader housing choices close to jobs and other amenities and support healthier life styles with more physical activity and social interaction.  

Self driving cars don’t have to lead to isolation, sprawl and the demise of transit. They don’t have to be a threat to walking or bicycling. Although these were the thoughts that kept going through my mind at the APTA Conference until I read Jarrett’s post. If we can accommodate twice as many cars on a freeway with self driving cars lets shrink the freeway in half. If the cost of using a self driving car – whether in a car share arrangement or through new pricing mechanisms for all drivers – whether the person pays by the mile or hour then self-driving cars are not likely to be sprawl inducing and walking, bicycling and transit would still be attractive alternatives. However to go back into pessimistic mode while the mix a car sharing and self-driving cars could theoretically significantly shrink roadways and reduce the need for parking, it is hard to envision the politics needed to achieve this end.

Here’s what I think will really happen. Technology rarely has the exact impact that its boosters envision. Edison thought his light bulb would eliminate the need for sleep and I am still waiting for all that extra leisure time that computers were supposed to provide me. I can picture in my head an old Popular Science cover from the 40’s that envisioned a world where we would have personal helicopters. Actually this cover is very relevant to this discussion- there were only a few helicopters in the sky. Can you imagine what our skies would be like if we all had personal helicopters?

The self-driving car boosters envision a world that mixes car sharing with vehicles that can navigate streets without a driver. Up to now automated transportation systems operate on a fixed guideway monitored from a central control point. At what point will self-driving cars be allowed to operate without a licensed driver in position to manually operate the vehicle? I have no idea but anticipate that it will be much longer than self-driving car supporters envision. We are not capable of designing 100% foolproof systems.

Self-driving cars will take away one competitive advantage of transit. Even if a licensed driver must sit behind the wheel he or she can read, text and do the other things possible while riding a bus or train not currently possible while driving. On the other hand, if the cost of using a private vehicle reflects the actual cost of the urban space that it consumes (via a charge by the mile or hour) then walking, bicycling and transit will still be attractive alternatives.  Regardless of who is driving, transit vehicles will still use urban space more efficiently than cars do, except in the lowest-demand areas. 

I don’t foresee an end to peaking in travel, either by time of day or in busy corridors. This means the idea of constantly circulating vehicles will either increase vehicle miles travelled, as they circulate around empty, or create the need for added parking capacity in areas that have high transit market share. For example, here in Eugene there is virtually no parking at the University of Oregon, while Lane Community College has 4,000 parking spaces to serve a student enrolment of 15,000 plus staff and faculty.  Right now there are waves of students going to the colleges for a few hours in the morning (the robo cars would have to circulate empty between the waves), then a few hours when demand drops (need to find parking facilities that do not now exist), and then a few hours of waves away from campus (a reverse of the morning).

My biggest fear is that self-driving cars and robo cars such as driverless taxis will become an excuse for not investing in transit. There is precedent for this. Both in Marin County and in Honolulu plans for rail projects were stopped about 20 years ago when a key policy board was convinced that it would have been more cost effective to purchase every household a person computer that could be used for dynamic ridesharing. Both rail lines are finally under construction 20 years later at much higher costs; the computers were never purchased and although there are now apps that enable dynamic ridesharing, it is clear to all that they are not substitutes for transit.

The busy corridors that can support some form of fixed guideway transport  - be it BRT, streetcar, LRT, HRT or commuter or regional rail -- will still need these modes regardless how self-driving cars and robo cars develop. I will not be surprised if it is decades before self-driving cars are allowed to operate in mixed traffic without a licensed driver – so the day when transit systems can deploy robo vehicles for first and last mile travel and reduce low producing bus routes will be after few cycles of bus purchases (heavy duty buses have a 12 year life, lighter duty buses 5 to 7 years.)

Self-driving cars will happen but how they shape society is unclear. We need to be vigilant and do what we can to shape this development towards positive ends and away from negative ones.   Even with self-driving cars, the limitations of urban space will require us to sustain robust transit systems. 

bus maps for developing-world cities

Need to get around Dhaka, Bangladesh by transit?  It's possible, but you have to know what the buses do.  As in many developing-world cities, transit information is almost nonexistent -- to the point that when a startup decided to draw a transit map of Dhaka, the only way to figure out what each bus route did was to ride or follow it!

More on their project here.  Making developing-world transit more legible is a really obvious category of "low hanging fruit".  

my network design course in portland: is it really worth $395?

It looks like most everyone had a great time at my Interactive Course in Transit Network Design in Washington DC last Friday and Saturday.  The feedback might help you decide if it's worth the money to sign up for my next session, in Portland, on April 4-5, or to bring the course to your own city.

Specifically:

 

interested in working with me?

My consulting practice, Jarrett Walker + Associates, has won several consulting gigs for 2013, and is ready to grow just a tiny bit.

I'd like to hear from people who are either:

• Interested in full-time employment based in Portland, or
• Interested in assisting me on a subcontract basis.  These do not have to be based in Portland but there is some advantage to being in Portland, Seattle, the Bay Area or Los Angeles.  Scroll down for more on that.

In all cases, compensation is based on experience and salary history, or based on a subcontractor's stated billing rate.  

1.  Full-Time Employment

Full-time employment will likely look like one of these:

• Associate Planner.  This person, based in Portland, would take on a range of analysis and planning roles while also assisting with administrative and logistical support.  Over time it could grow into full-time planning but in the early stages we will not have much clerical or administrative staff, so you must be ready to pitch in with whatever needs to be done.  This role could be anywhere from entry-level (Masters preferred) to up to 3 years professional, and/or academic experience.  Enthusiastic BAs who can show some relevant experience and skills will also be considered.  Essential skills include English fluency, strong personal organization, resourcefulness, quantitative analysis skills in Excel, and an ability to convey ideas clearly in writing.  Highly desirable skills include GIS and spatial analysis generally, ability to write for both general and technical audiences, and demonstrated skills with graphics including both mapping and explanatory graphics.

• Senior Associate.  This person, based in Portland, has all the skills listed above plus a either (1) a Masters in a relevant field (planning, design, or engineering) and over 3 years professional experience in transportation planning and/or policy or (2) five years of such experience.  This person is very well-organized and an excellent manager, able to monitor scope, budget, and deadlines and manage more junior staff and subconsultants.  You already have a range of skills that make you marketable as a transit consultant, and are capable of winning some projects based on those skills combined with me in a project director or oversight role.

2.  Subcontracting

Subcontracting would take the form of part-time but committed roles assisting me with various tasks.  ("Committed" means that our agreement imposes deadlines, requires a certain minimum degree of availability, prohibits you from disappearing in the middle of a task, and may include a non-compete clause, but otherwise leaves much room for flexibility in how work is done.)  Subconractors are capable of self-direction and can accurate commit to the time and materials required for various tasks.  I am especially interested in subcontractors who can help with:

• Graphics of a high presentation quality designed to engage and enlighten a general audience, such as you would expect of an artchitecture or design firm.  These would include both informative maps and compelling visual explanations.  This person should be comfortable with GIS (as a common data source) as well as more artistic graphics programs, and should have a portfolio of clear, engaging and exciting graphical explanations of ideas and/or choices.

• Quantitative analysis of transit issues using Excel (including graphs), GIS, and other relevant software you may propose.

• General transit planning, which requires both quantative and qualitative skills plus good writing skills and an understanding of transit issues demonstrated in past work.  It is also very, very helpful if you have experience interacting with general decision-makers and the public, and also with professionals in adjacent fields such as transportation policy, urban design, and traffic engineering.

How to Express Interest

1.  Take the time to understand my work a little, and think about how your own values and experience relate to that.  At the very least, read the introduction to my book and explore my professional website.  Obviously generic or find-and-change applications will be ignored.

2.  Send me an email, using the link under my photo.  In the subject line, say "Employment" or "Subcontracting" and the position or area(s)  listed above that you feel you are qualified for.

3.  Don't write a lot in the email, because that material is a pain to organize and file.  Put your message to me in the cover letter.  

4.  Provide cover letter, resume, and work samples (including professional, academic or volunteer work) that you feel are most relevant.  If the work samples are not exclusively your work, explain what part of it is yours.

5.  In your cover letter, be sure to state the salary range or billing rate that you believe is appropriate.  If you're not sure, cite your most recent salary or hourly rate for similar work.  

6.  In your cover letter, state any limitations about your ability to travel for work.  If you are not in Portland, clarify if you are interested in moving there, now or in the future.  Again, a Portland location is not essential for subcontractors, but it is still a consideration.

I will start reviewing responses around February 1.  If you plan to respond, please do so by then!

Please forward a link to this post to anyone who might be interested!  Thanks!

catching up

I have every intention of returning to the major recent post driverless cars, which has a remarkably thoughtful comment thread, and to other deferred topics like the gondolas that are soon to liberate Austin.  Meanwhile, however, I have to make a living.  Consulting is always either slack or wildly-more-than-fulltime, and I'm now in one of the latter phases.  Please peruse the backlist, including the 2012 favorites.  There's something on this site that's as good as new.  

 

 

 

request for inspiration: "transit impact assessments" for development

What advice would you give to this emailer? I'm not especially up to date on development approval processes, and have seen none that really capture the crucial Be on the Way issue:

I was wondering whether you were aware of any municipalities who require a 'transit impact study' or something like it on new residential construction?

Here in Halifax (and I'm sure this is very common), an applicant must do a traffic impact study for any new development to demonstrate that the existing road network won't be wrecked by their plans. However, it seems to me that identifying and labelling transit-unserviceable projects during their approvals process would be a good thing. As you say, choices can be made, and they can still be built, but the fact that they can never reasonably be serviced by public transit should be labelled during the decision-making process.

Are you aware of any examples of this being required during rezoning/development approvals processes? 

my friendly advice for developers

The Urban Land Institute has an interview with me today, where I chat through some of my friendly and supportive to developers when thinking about transit.  

(Short version: Read my book!  Take my course!)

when the bus doesn't come and you want to scream

Some bus shelters in Italy have supplies for this purpose.  

This is not just a quick laugh; there's an important insight here about how customers perceive time.  But no, I don't think it's a reason to tolerate lower frequencies ...

driverless cars and the limitations of the "complete imagined future"

Richard Gilbert, co-author of a book that I've praised called Transport Revolutions, has a Globe and Mail series arguing for how driverless cars will change everything.  Although it comes with a picture of typical "Personal Rapid Transit" "pod cars" on a separated guideway, Gilbert tells us he is shifting his focus to driverless cars that would run on ordinary streets at far less infrastructure cost.

I will give this series a more thorough read, but just want to call out one key rhetorical move that needs to be noticed in all these discussions.  It's in the beginning of Part 4, "Why driverless cars will trump transit rivals."

With widespread use of driverless cars – mostly as autonomous taxicabs (ATs) – there could be more vehicles on the road because ATs will substitute for most, and perhaps eventually all, private automobile use as well as much use of buses and other conventional transit. 

This, and much of the discussion around driverless cars, is in the complete imagined future mode.  Gilbert describes a world in which the driverless cars are already the dominant mode, and where our cities, infrastructure, and cultural expectations have already been reorganized around their potential and needs.  

Some complete imagined futures are not necessarily achievable, because the future must be evolved.  In fact, the evolution of organisms is a fairly apt metaphor for how cities and infrastructure change.  As in evolution, each incremental state in the transformation to the new reality must itself be a viable system. We can think of lots of wonderful futures that would be internally consistent but for which there is no credible path from here to there.  

Driverless cars remind me a bit of the "wheeled animal" question in evolution.  No animals have evolved with wheels, despite the splendid advantages that wheels might confer on open ground.  That's because there's no credible intermediate state where some part of an animal has mutated something vaguely wheel-like that incrementally improves its locomotion to the point of conferring an advantage.  Wheels (and axles) have to exist completely before they are useful at all, which is why wheeled animals, if they existed, would be an argument for "intelligent design."

I will begin to take driverless cars seriously when I see credible narratives about all the intermediate states of their evolution, and how each will be an improvement that is both technically and culturally embraced.  How will driverless and conventional cars mix in roads where the needs of conventional cars still dominate the politics of road design?  How will they come to triumph in this situation?  How does the driverless taxi business model work before the taxis are abundant?  Some of the questions seem menial but really are profound: When a driverless car is at fault in the accident, to what human being does that fault attach?  The programmer?  What degree of perfection is needed for software that will be trusted to protect not just the passengers, but everyone on the street who is involuntarily in the presence of such a machine? 

Here's a practical example:  In Part 3, Gilbert tells us that with narrower driverless cars, "three vehicles will fit across two lanes."  Presumably lanes will someday be restriped to match this reality, but when you do that, how do existing-width cars adapt?  If you could fit two driverless cars into one existing lane, you could imagine driverless cars fitting into existing lanes side by side, so that the street could gradually evolve from, say, two wide lanes to four narrow ones.  But converting two lanes to three narrow ones is much trickier.  I'd like to see how each stage in the evolution is supposed to work, both technically and culturally.

That's one reason that I seem unable to join the driverless car bandwagon just yet.  The other is that claims for driverless taxis replacing transit amount to imaging a completed new technology out-competing an existing unimproved technology -- as though that would actually happen.  

Sure, driverless taxis might replace many lower-ridership bus lines, but wouldn't buses become driverless at the same time?  In such a future, wouldn't any fair pricing make these driverless buses much cheaper to use where volumes are high?  Wouldn't there be a future of shared vehicles of various sizes, many engaged in what we would recognize as public transit?  As with all things PRT, I notice a frequent slipperiness in explanations of it; I'm not sure, at each moment, whether we're talking about something that prevents you from having to ride with strangers (the core pitch of "Personal" rapid transit) as opposed to just a more efficient means of providing public transit, i.e. a service that welcomes the need to ride with strangers as the key to its efficient use of both money and space. 

Feel free to enlighten me if I'm missing something here!  

quote of the week: the mayor on those portland powerpoints

 

No planner from the city of Portland should be going to national conferences and bragging about how smart we are about urban planning in Portland until we have an actionable plan to make 122nd & Division a great  place. ... We have a lot of work to do to make the hype about how livable Portland is true citywide.

-- Newly inaugurated Portland Mayor Charlie Hales,
in an interview with Willamette Week.

 

Here's the intersection the Mayor is referring to:

Strong words.  I've sometimes felt exasperated by the some of "Perfect Portland PowerPoints" that I've seen at conferences all over the world.  Many of them show you pictures solely from downtown and the innermost neighborhoods, and give you the impression that every place worth going to is right on the Portland Streetcar.  They don't usually mention that repeated cuts to the city's once-excellent bus network are calling into question the viability of a no-car lifestyle over large parts of the city, and that much of the official wonderfulness of Portland isn't that evident in daily life in some of the outer parts of the city.  

But of course, planning PowerPoints about lots of cities are distorted in those ways.  And in fact, many cities have fairly ordinary looking suburban fabric like you see in this picture, and conflicts between the needs of such areas and those of a more glamorous and expensive inner city.  So I would be gentler than the Mayor on this point.  

Portland is far more flawed, contingent, lovable, ordinary, and fascinating than the some of the PowerPoint warriors will let on, but after all you've heard, you'll probably have to see it to believe it, or at least spend some time on Google.