July « 2010 « The Gondola Project

July, 2010

24
Jul

2010

Obedience Training

If you work in a planning firm, city, political office, think tank, etc. where you might get fired or disciplined for mentioning or proposing the idea of urban gondolas, you probably didn’t want to work there in the first place.

Places like that are interested only in gatekeeping and maintaining the status quo. They’re interested in scaring you into obedience. Like we do with dogs.

You deserve a work environment where your opinions and your ideas are valued. Even if the ideas are ridiculous, you deserve an environment to express them, play with them and maybe even realize them.

You’re not a dog. You don’t need obedience training.

Thoughts

Comments

23
Jul

2010

Things Spread Quickly

Last month CUP conducted a study of all planned, conceived or under-construction cable systems in South America.

Our findings shocked even us: Almost 5 dozen systems are in the works on that continent and that number doesn’t even include Brazil (because of the Portuguese language issues – as in, we don’t speak Portuguese), the largest country and economy in South America.

The idea has spread at a remarkable rate, starting with one very humble system in Medellin, Colombia, which opened only half a decade ago.

Once this crosses the divide into the English-speaking world, all bets are off.

Comments

22
Jul

2010

A Wait Time Thought Experiment

According to the Transportation Research Board’s Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, wait times for transit are around 2 times more onerous to riders than actual in-vehicle time. They see that ratio rise to 2.5 times when wait times are coupled to transfers.

With that in mind, how long is the following journey:

A 5 minute walk from your front door to your bus stop.
A 7 minute wait for your bus.
A 10 minute bus ride to the LRT.
A 1 minute walk from bus stop to LRT stop.
A 4 minute wait for the next LRT.
A 15 minute LRT ride.
A 3 minute walk from LRT station to your destination.

Standard transit planning practice would say that the total journey time is 45 minutes. But is that accurate? Yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that it’s the actual journey time. No, in the sense that it doesn’t actually reflect the riders’ experience of the journey.

If the TRB is to be believed, the journey feels like it’s 58 minutes long, a 29% premium over actual journey time.

We know time flies when you’re having fun but the exact opposite is true as well.

So when you plan your transit models, shouldn’t you take the experience and subjectivity of your riders into consideration? After all, aren’t those the people you’re serving? Shouldn’t their experience be paramount?

Thought Experiments / Urban Planning & Design

Comments

21
Jul

2010

The Topography of Traffic

Far too often people talk about cable as a convenient technology for tackling topographical challenges. But that’s where it ends. It’s a niche technology, they claim, nothing more.

In other words: Cable’s ability to avoid physical obstacles is used as an argument against it. How much sense does that make?

The great irony is that topography is far less challenging to deal with than traffic. Mountains don’t tend to move; rivers don’t suddenly switch their direction of flow; ravines don’t come out of no where.

In other words: Topography is simple. What isn’t so simple is human beings and the traffic they generate.

Traffic is far more complex than topography. And if there’s one thing we’ve seen in the last 50 years, standard transit technologies such as buses, streetcars and light rail are miserable at dealing with traffic challenges.

But if you think of traffic and topography as one and the same – that is, they’re both physical obstacles that impede movement – you quickly realize the only way to deal with traffic is to treat it like topography: avoid it.

Go above it, below it or around it. Just don’t try and tackle it head on.

Analysis

Comments

20
Jul

2010

Lowered Expectations

If you’re expecting to see urban gondolas and cable propelled transit systems zipping through you city any time soon, I’m here to tell you something: You’re wrong.

Sorry to disappoint you.

Sure, with the right political will and visionary planners, there will be successes here and there, but things won’t change overnight. Things just don’t move that quickly. (Remember as a kid how long it took for Christmas morning to arrive?)

And for cable, that’s a good thing.

Cable’s in an adolescent stage right now. It’s finally stepping into the public transit realm. But to get it right will take time and practice. Better to lower the public’s expectations and win a few, small victories along the way towards mainstream acceptance.

The other option would be to make the mistake PRT has made for the last 60 years: Promise everyone the world and never accomplish anything.

PRT, after all, has been the transit technology of the future for the past 60 years with only minor accomplishments. The only thing more disastrous than PRT’s track record has been the industry’s attempts to manage the public’s expectations.

As they say, talk is cheap.

So let’s lower our expectations: CPT won’t be everywhere tomorrow. It will, however, continue to evolve and make incremental improvements. There’s a good chance the technology will come to your city sometime. But not immediately, and not without your help.

Give it time.

Personal Rapid Transit / Thoughts

Comments

19
Jul

2010

The Theory of Thunder & The Rational Comprehensive Model

When I was a child I had a marvelous theory about thunder storms:

Rain was held by clouds and thunder often accompanied rain.

Thunder sounded like a loud explosion and explosions destroyed things.

And since after it rained, no clouds could be seen, then thunder must be the sound of clouds exploding!

In my mind, I had come to an entirely wonderful and reasonable model of how a natural process worked. I called it my Theory of Thunder.

My mother, with more important things on her mind – God bless her – informed me that I was correct. You can imagine how well my Theory of Thunder held up against grade 4 science and a few things called condensation, evaporation and electro-static electricity.

Many planners are taught to utilize a method of decision-making (mundanely) called the Rational Comprehensive Model. Like my Theory of Thunder, it is a wonderful and reasonable model that suffers only from being entirely worthless.

Calling it the Rational Comprehensive Model does not make it rational nor comprehensive. I suppose it’s still a model but only insofar as my Theory of Thunder was.

Models are often – and sometimes frequently – wrong. And when you rely on things like the Rational Comprehensive Model you only lull yourself into complacently thinking that in your work you are, indeed, being rational and comprehensive when you’re not.

You may attempt to be rational and comprehensive, but ego, incentive and lack of time and resources will trip you up every time.

(Even worse, are those that pay lip-service to rationality and comprehensiveness, when they know full well they’re up to neither. Like Upton Sinclair once said: It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!)

So why not just admit that? Why pretend to hold yourself up to an unattainable ideal?

Why not just say: “We’re doing our best, and because we know we’re not rational and not comprehensive, we’re going to do everything in our power to get you as close as we can to it.”