We need a transit users conference, now!

Cross-posted from Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space.

For more than a year, I've been suggesting that regional transit advocates need to have an annual conference, and lay out an "unconstrained" transit agenda, and then have the agenda "down" so that it can be pushed at any and every opportunity.

E.g. the Bethesda-New Carrollton Purple Line initiative is somewhat disconnected from the Cross-Wilson Bridge initiative from Branch Avenue to Alexandria. Wouldn't it make sense for these two initiatives to use the same technology?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a transit users conference in Toronto, which brought about the power of "open source"--read civic engagement and deliberative democracy--to Toronto transit. See "Toronto "Transit Camp" engages citizens-users to improve the transit system."

DC1974 sends us a link to an article in SFist, "I wish," about ideas for upgrading and extending the Muni website and information services.

This reminds of the classic paper (later expanded into a book) by Eric Raymond, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" about the difference between traditional and open source methods for creating computer software. This paper predates by many years the idea of Web 2.0 and community-software applications (such as Flickr, Myspace, Youtube), and user-generated content platforms.

The thing is, this is a paper about top-down vs. bottom-up initiatives generally. When I first read it, I was struck by the similarities about how his points on software development relate to civic engagement and democracy.

Another paper summarizes:

In his paper, Raymond discusses the historical model for software development and compares it to building cathedrals, a slow and laborious effort with exacting methods carefully applied. Each brick and beam was carefully planned and the structure was erected with painstaking craftsmanship to meet the planned design and symmetry.

The bazaar, by contrast, was often created ad-hoc and in an evolutionary fashion. The bazaar started with a few street vendors and was later built up by additional vendors and merchants, each staking out a piece of the market place as their own and maintaining and adding to their stall until a full-blown Agora was in place.

Clearly each approach served its purpose well, but the cathedral method is rigid and static. It needs the contribution of each part exactly as designed in order to stand, and has difficulty adapting to any other shape or location. The open-source movement is all about flexibility and evolutionary development.

Raymond went on to review nineteen axioms of open-source development by discussing his experience developing "Fetchmail," a Linux application used to forward e-mail. These axioms are the basic tenets of the open-source community, and Raymond discussed them with detailed analysis and examples in the original paper.

Open source isn't just about "flexibility and evolutionary development." It is also about the power and creativity of the group. Open source links skill to a kind of organized, somewhat ordered, but messy democracy.

"Getting There" is the Baltimore Sun's transit column, and yesterday's column, "Awareness the ticket for better bus use," has a similar suggestion, but about ensuring connectivity between systems. (Note that Cableflame, now a co-writer on the companion Dr. Transit blog, points out that the new WMATA subway maps show the bus links to Dulles (5A) and BWI (B30) Airports.)

Michael Dresser suggests a regionwide system connectivity conference, although he is more focused on the Baltimore region, and the Maryland Mass Transit Administration.

From the article:

To its credit, the Transit Riders Action Coalition is prodding the General Assembly to adopt connectivity among adjoining local systems as a basic principle of state transportation policy. The advocacy group is pointing to such anomalies as a Carroll County system that connects with no other transit systems. Then there's that issue of base realignment, bringing thousands of new jobs to an Aberdeen area with woeful connections to Wilmington, Del., and Philadelphia.

The MTA could jump to the head of this parade. Here's a modest suggestion for you:

Convene a "Connectivity Summit" this summer, inviting every regional and local transit agency between Philadelphia and Northern Virginia along with transit activists, disability-rights groups and anyone who wants to participate. Hash out all the issues - from a common fare structure, to a universal "smart card" to a unified schedule database.

The long-neglected local transit systems are eager to join in and are looking forward to working with you."We're all hoping that with the new administration, things are going to get much better," said Carl Balser, chief of transportation planning for Howard Transit. "We have been fairly marginalized in the transit community for the last several years and we're hoping for a renaissance."

Note that MTA doesn't have a ride guide comparable to that created and continually improved by WMATA. I have argued that WMATA should license this system to MTA for the Baltimore region. Afterall, MTA is a funder of the WMATA system.

Anyway, I say we need to go beyond a strict conference on connectivity, and have a true regionwide transit users and advocacy conference, in part along the Toronto model, promoting the idea of the power of the group and "open source" transit and;

2. That this conference be co-sponsored by the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post, which runs the Dr. Gridlock column, as well as the Baltimore and Washington editions of the Examiner, which each run the "Sprawl and Crawl" column by Steve Eldridge.

Note that along these lines, in January 2005, the Philadelphia City Paper did a great cover story on 33 ways to improve SEPTA. See "Let's Go." 33 ways to reinvent, rethink and recharge our beleaguered transit agency. Other cities around the world have cool public transportation systems. Why can't we?

Wouldn't it be cool for the Washington City Paper and the Baltimore City Paper to do this for each respective region, but run the articles the same week?

(Note that Mark Jenkins' piece in the Washington City Paper more than 10 years ago, proposing a Purple Line, was a significant contributor to my eventual involvement in these kinds of issues.)

Some run the CTA but rarely ride it

DC1974 sends us a link to this article, "Some run the CTA but rarely ride it," from the Chicago Tribune "Getting Around" column by John Hilkevitch, and writes:

I wish there was this kind of investigation into the transit habits of WMATA board members.

From the article:

CTA board member ridership Rides taken in 2006
Henry Chandler Jr. 129
Carole Brown 53
Nicholas Zagotta 24
Susan Leonis 12
Cynthia Panayotovic 12
Charles Robinson 3 A
lejandro Silva 0
Source: CTA

Not all CTA executives using the system.

The Tribune obtained a list of 95 Chicago Transit Authority executives at the general manager level and above, and seven of its board members to observe whether they ride CTA buses and trains. Of the 95 employees listed, only 35 rode the CTA more than 500 times in 2006.

MOST AND FEWEST CTA RIDES AMONG EXECUTIVES
NAME TITLE AND JOB DESCRIPTION 2006
1. Terry Levin VP, Customer Service & Training 1,434
2. Angela Moore Special Assistant to the President 1,282
3. John Dalton GM, Construction 1,176
4. Bruce Nelson GM, Rail Ops, Cap Proj. Oversight 1,173
5. John Paquet GM, Service Planning 1,053
6. Jeff Sriver GM, Strategic Planning 997
7. David Simmons GM, Capital Grants 957
8. Kevin Stanciel GM, Facilities Development 901
9. Cary Morgen GM, Schedules 889
10. Michael Shiffer VP, Planning 888
86. Robert Degnan GM, System Maintenance Support 49
87. Reginald Lovelace VP, Purchasing 37
88. Sheila Gregory GM, Public Affairs 34
89. William Nolan GM, System Safety & Env. Affairs 31
90. Martin Stack GM, Dispute Resolution & Due Proces 20
91. Ralph Malec Senior Projec Mgr., MMIS 19
92. Michael O'Sullivan GM, Rail Car Heavy Maintenance 16
93. Terry Shinnick GM, Enterprise Systems Services 13
94. Robert Levine GM, Project Control, Construction 5
95. Marina Popovic Deputy General Counsel, Corporate 0
Source: CTA Chicago Tribune

I know that the new president of the system, John Catoe, plans to use the transit system. I know it would also be interesting to know how many elected officials in the region use the transit system at least occasionally.

It gets a bit aggravating to hear about things like "year of the bus" or "year of customer service" and at the same time, hear "we're eliminating our infrastructure construction division."

Follow through and building and maintaining system capacity are connected to a real understanding of both the theory and practice of transit.