One of the many arguments that Brian Potter makes in this recent article called "Why Skyscrapers Became Glass Boxes" is that most people don't really care about the exterior of buildings. Hence one of the reasons why the market moved toward ever-greater architectural simplicity.
He quotes the late Chicago-based developer James Loewenberg:
“The person who looks to buy or rent a unit in a high-rise,” says Loewenberg, “only cares about three things: the location of the building, the layout of their unit, and the view from their unit. They don’t care as much about the physical appearance of the building and it is my contention that they never really look above the third floor…”
But I don't think this is exactly true. Also, Loewenberg was the founder of Magellan Development, which is responsible for developing two Studio Gang-designed towers: the Aqua Tower and the Vista Tower (now the St. Regis Chicago). Both of these buildings are designed for people who might look above the third floor.
For more on this topic, here and here are two related posts.
One of the common criticisms of bike lanes is that most people don't want to cycle in the winter. I mean, just look at Montreal's winter cycling retention ratio.
But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't invest in cycling infrastructure. Chicago, for instance, has been building out cycling infrastructure over the last few years (2020-2023) at an average rate of approximately 30 miles per year. This is double its rate from 2011-2019. And the results show.
According to recent data from Replica and the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), Chicago saw the highest growth in cycling among the 10 largest cities in the US between fall 2019 and spring 2023.
Biking overall was up 119%. Crosstown trips were up 180% (bike trips that spanned across four or more neighborhoods). Trips related to shopping were up 117%. And notably, zero-car households were up 207%.
Remember, this is a city that basically has the same weather as Toronto. It gets cold in the winter. And sometimes it snows. But clearly if you build good cycling infrastructure, people will use it.
It is fairly well documented that communicating to transit riders how long they need to wait for the next train helps them feel like they're actually waiting less. The problem, it would seem, is the unknown.
This is akin to the pre-Uber days when you'd call for a taxi and then have no idea when it would actually show up. That used to feel like forever.
But what about if you communicate a schedule to riders and then it turns out to be a total lie? Well this is probably worse, because eventually, people will catch on to this. Also, you've just maximized the unknown.
Here is an interesting example of community activism. In 2021, Fabio Göttlicher -- a software engineer in Chicago -- started noticing that service levels on Chicago's Transit Authority (CTA) seemed to be declining.
I wrote a program that runs 24 hours a day that keeps tracking the live trains as they come into stations.
And then he discovered this:
What I found, when I first started in December 2021, was that the CTA was running only about 55 to 60 percent of the trains their schedule said they should be running. I started publishing the data in local Facebook groups for transit enthusiasts, on Reddit and other social media. That’s how Commuters Take Action started.
It's hard to think of a more frustrating scenario for transit riders.