Episode 44: Transit Data, Marketing & Communication with Aaron Antrim

Our guest today is transit data and communications consultant Aaron Antrim of Trillium Solutions. We learn how to manage, present and use transit information to improve mobility and expand freedom by making transit networks easier to use. Find Aaron's work at Trillium Solutions, including his analysis of social media for transit and what makes a great transit website. Or find him on Twitter.

Other links include: Detroit Bus Company; Rome2rio international trip planner; San Francisco Bay Area transit summary; Social Media is Bullshit by B. J. Mendelson.

Do you have thoughts on any of these topics?  Share them with the world (or just transit nerds) by emailing feedback@criticaltransit.com or using the contact form or those social media tools.

Find me this week at Transportation Camp and the TRB Annual Meeting in Washington DC, and hopefully testing out some new Epic Transit Journeys. Please get in touch if we might connect soon in Washington or elsewhere in the northeast.

UPDATE: If you're in Washington this week you might like another event called GTFS in the World, a workshop on open transit data.

Finally, if you enjoy what you hear each week, please help support this project by sharing it with your friends and colleagues, leaving a review on iTunes and other places, and consider sponsoring an episode if you are able to.

Transit Tip 2. Fewer seats, more space, faster service

`Instead of trying to maximize seating capacity, think about total capacity and circulation. In these times of crowded vehicles and reduced budgets, we need as many people on the bus as possible, as quickly as possible. Design wide aisles, standing room and space for strollers, carts and large bags.

Transit Tip 1. Information: put it everywhere!

Providing comprehensive transit information is arguably the most important element of a useful system. Sure, you need to run a reliable service, but people need to know how it can help them and how they can use it. Sometimes you just need a quick schedule check. Sometimes you need to know the universe options. Usually it's something in between. Yet so many bus stops lack basic schedule information, or worse, don't even say what services might stop there.

Maintaining current schedules can be a challenge as they can change often. But the actual routes and their span and frequency rarely change. Make it a goal for every stop to display a route map, an overview of each route's span and frequency, and the operator's phone number and website.

Transit Tips: a new feature

Transit Tips is a new feature on Critical Transit, offering quick suggestions to improve transportation services and bike and pedestrian safety. Some are cheap and easy; others take time to implement, but all are simple strategies intended to help us make real improvements for transit users in a practical manner without compromising our values. Further discussion is encouraged. Transit Tips will be posting several times each week.

Have an idea for a Transit Tip, or thoughts on an existing tip? Get in touch via the contact page or leave a comment.

Episode 43: Traffic signals with Matt Steele

A new year, a new challenge to the deity of traffic engineering: the traffic light.  Streets.mn contributor and recent Minneapolis City Council candidate Matt Steele says we have too many traffic signals and explains why that's a big problem for everyone. Choosing alternative measures of traffic control offers significant benefits to pedestrians, bicyclists, cars and trucks, and even help transit run more reliably.

Links include Strong Towns, the relation between speed and death, roundabouts and a very successful shared space project at a busy junction in Poynton, England.

Today's news selection features a fantastic Bikeyface comic on what snow says about our cities' priorities, another cyclist hit without accountability, and another oil train derailment and explosion near Fargo, North Dakota. We recap the horror that is fracking (natural gas drilling) and play two songs about fracking ("We'll Be There" & "My Water's on Fire").

A listener suggests that automation in transit operations may actually decrease safety as the humans involved become less alert. The same has happened with private cars as they've become safer for the people inside. Very interesting stuff.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the book I couldn't remember the name of, about the phenomenon of drivers being less attentive given increasing automation: Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do by Tom Vanderbilt.

May 2014 be the year in which we finally take traffic violence seriously and focus our attention and investments on sustainable transportation modes: walking, cycling, skating and especially public transit.  Help support this show and my other work by sharing it widely and by making a donation to my Transit Tour Fund if you are able to.  I am headed to the northeast very soon; please get in touch if we might connect.

Episode 41: Rail Transit Safety with Marc Ebuna

In light of the latest Metro-North Railroad derailment, fellow New Yorker Marc Ebuna, now a Boston-based transit advocate and editor of Transit Matters, joins me to explain what we can learn from the recent series of incidents this year on the nation's busiest commuter rail network.

Topics include technology, maintenance, funding, regulations and more, including considering whether bus and train operators should continue working the split shifts that are standard practice throughout the industry. We also remind you that, contrary to popular headlines, using a car is still by far the most dangerous way to get around.

Read more about the crash and investigation.  Follow Transit Matters and @transitmatters on Twitter.

What ideas do you have for improving transit safety?  Send comments, suggestions and ideas for show topics/guests to feedback@criticaltransit.com or use the contact form.  Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.  Also share your thoughts on the new web site look; more improvements to come.

UPDATE: Transit Matters is growing into a transit advocacy organization and I'm a part of it. Find out more at transitmatters.info.

Guest appearance on the Streets.mn podcast

Oh look ... guess who's on the latest Streets.mn podcast? Yep, yours truly. We discuss the effects of last week's Minneapolis city election, politics and transportation. It's mostly with a local focus but most things also apply elsewhere. Go listen here. Remember you can also find my local transit writing on the same site. Hopefully the impending cold weather will mean more writing.

Episode 38: Americans for Transit & debunking the small/electric car delusion

Andrew Austin stops by from Americans for Transit (twitter: @A4Transit) to share some impacts of the government shutdown and how it fits in with the ongoing austerity culture. We learn about transit diversity, labor issues and the BART strike, and review why it's critical for transit agencies to support their employees and maintain a positive work environment. That means listening to employees and riders, such as by hosting town hall meetings on buses. Later, why smaller cars, electric cars, self-driving cars, personal rapid transit and other pretend solutions fail to move us forward. The real solution is to dismantle car culture but these things promote it and leave us further from the sustainable places we so desperately need.

Check out my latest Streets.mn article critiquing the backwards transit planning process that has led Minneapolis to consider building an expensive rail line in a low-density corridor instead of improving mobility where actual needs exist.

Moreover, what are we trying to accomplish here? That’s the first question a transit planner or advocate should be asking of any proposal. I’m afraid we’re doing it all backwards. ... From the very start we have asked not “How can we improve our transit network?” but “Where should we put our next rail line?”  That makes no sense.

See some facts on Metro Transit. I also mentioned two existing routes that are due for capacity upgrades: TranksLink 99 B Line bus rapid transit, Vancouver, BC. (episode 23 and/or capacity post); MBTA Green Line light rail, Boston

Why good health care depends on transit, courtesy of previous guest Scott Bogren (CTAA). Daniel shares his thoughts on a new bus route making its only stop at a major university in the largest North American city without any public transit.

Enjoy the show? Please share this show around, follow me on Facebook on Twitter, leave reviews, tell your friends and consider making a donation to support this work.

Episode 37: Community Transportation with CTAA, another BART strike, and the government shutdown.

Scott Bogren of the Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA) joins us to discuss their work supporting and advocating for the growing number of small urban, suburban and rural transportation services. He interviews transit operators on his own CT Podcast and spends a lot of time on Twitter.

The second transit strike in just a few months has halted Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway service in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, with no progress made since the last time. We hear what union members are asking for, and over the weekend a runaway BART maintenance train killed two employees.

Meanwhile the social service sector of the US government has reopened without an agreement (or apology from Republicans). As an added bonus we'll be right back in the same place in three months.

Share your comments, suggestions, ideas for show topics and/or guests by emailing feedback@criticaltransit.com or contact me this way.  Read my work on Streets.mn, follow the show on facebook and twitter, subscribe in iTunes (rss feed) and never miss a show. Tell your friends and colleagues, write reviews or make a donation of any amount to help support the show.  I have several interviews in the pipeline, an updated and redesigned web site, and lots of material from the places I visited on my big tour.

University Ave: designed to be dangerous

My latest post on Streets.MN is a perfect example of a "stroad" (a cross between city street and freeway which works well for nobody).  Somehow we designed a major transit corridor to be dangerous for transit users.

It is a known issue that most drivers don’t respect most traffic laws. Recently a reader wrote to us desperately trying to figure out what can be done to make drivers follow the law, specifically stopping for pedestrians at crosswalks along the newly reconstructed Central Corridor.

Nobody talks about this major problem, yet we have people jumping up and down to chastise bicyclists for selectively following the one law drivers seem to like (red lights).  First, let’s get the excuses out of the way. You know, the “I didn’t see you patiently (or angrily) waiting to cross the street” – in other words, “I am either lying or not paying attention.”

There are two ways to solve the problem: one involves a combination of frequent enforcement and expensive tickets. The other is street design: we need to plan and engineer transportation facilities that are safe and comfortable for people to use.

Read the full article and get involved in the discussion.