Transit planner Jarrett Walker retorted that Elon’s views are the “essence of elite projection”. What’s good for Elon Musk may not, in fact, be good for the broader society. Elon responded by calling him an idiot.
All of this prompted Brent Toderian – city planner and former chief planner of Vancouver – to initiate the hashtag:
Transit planner Jarrett Walker retorted that Elon’s views are the “essence of elite projection”. What’s good for Elon Musk may not, in fact, be good for the broader society. Elon responded by calling him an idiot.
All of this prompted Brent Toderian – city planner and former chief planner of Vancouver – to initiate the hashtag:
. It then took off and the transit stories started pouring in.
Not surprisingly, this has been getting a lot of attention. It’s Elon Musk after all. But billionaire celebrities aside, it does serve as a good example of the two sides of this debate.
Some people seem to think that I am anti-car. I can see why some people might think that, but I am not anti-car. I love nice cars. And I love nice trains. What I value first and foremost is the city.
The kind of city you can build on the backbone of transit is very different than the kind of city that gets built around the car. And as a rule of thumb, I prefer the former over the latter.
But this is not to say that the public transit model is perfect. It’s far from perfect for many reasons. And it can get even more imperfect when we don’t pair it with the right land use policies.
Deploying heavy rail through low density areas – that are by design inhospitable to car-less humans – will not magically flip the modal split. Public transport alone cannot solve that problem.
At the same time, if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I am enamoured by the possibilities of autonomous electric vehicles. I am not assuming that the “car” of tomorrow will look and perform anything like the car of today.
I was recently with some New Yorkers and we got on to the topic of their subway system. I made a comment about how extensive their network is and how their express trains work so well for traveling further distances.
They responded by basically saying: “Yeah, it’s great, when it works.” They then went on to tell me that most of the time they just use Uber to get around the city because the subway has become so unreliable.
Admittedly, I don’t use the NYC subway system enough to comment on its declining performance. But this recent New York Times article describes it as an utterly failing system.
Here is a diagram from the article that shows performance on every line (2007 to 2017), measured as a percentage of trains that reach their destinations on time (i.e. less than 5 minutes late):
In 2007, more than 90% of trains reached their destinations on time. Today, the weekday average is around 65% and some of the lines are in the 30s. This is the worst it has been since the 1970s when NYC was almost bankrupt.
Apparently this also awards NYC’s subway the title of the worst on-time performance out of the world’s top 20 biggest systems.
I suppose one of the lessons here is that subway lines on a map will always be far sexier than the nuts and bolts of maintenance, performance, and ridership. But we can’t forget the nuts and bolts. Maybe those are the most important parts.
. It then took off and the transit stories started pouring in.
Not surprisingly, this has been getting a lot of attention. It’s Elon Musk after all. But billionaire celebrities aside, it does serve as a good example of the two sides of this debate.
Some people seem to think that I am anti-car. I can see why some people might think that, but I am not anti-car. I love nice cars. And I love nice trains. What I value first and foremost is the city.
The kind of city you can build on the backbone of transit is very different than the kind of city that gets built around the car. And as a rule of thumb, I prefer the former over the latter.
But this is not to say that the public transit model is perfect. It’s far from perfect for many reasons. And it can get even more imperfect when we don’t pair it with the right land use policies.
Deploying heavy rail through low density areas – that are by design inhospitable to car-less humans – will not magically flip the modal split. Public transport alone cannot solve that problem.
At the same time, if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I am enamoured by the possibilities of autonomous electric vehicles. I am not assuming that the “car” of tomorrow will look and perform anything like the car of today.
I was recently with some New Yorkers and we got on to the topic of their subway system. I made a comment about how extensive their network is and how their express trains work so well for traveling further distances.
They responded by basically saying: “Yeah, it’s great, when it works.” They then went on to tell me that most of the time they just use Uber to get around the city because the subway has become so unreliable.
Admittedly, I don’t use the NYC subway system enough to comment on its declining performance. But this recent New York Times article describes it as an utterly failing system.
Here is a diagram from the article that shows performance on every line (2007 to 2017), measured as a percentage of trains that reach their destinations on time (i.e. less than 5 minutes late):
In 2007, more than 90% of trains reached their destinations on time. Today, the weekday average is around 65% and some of the lines are in the 30s. This is the worst it has been since the 1970s when NYC was almost bankrupt.
Apparently this also awards NYC’s subway the title of the worst on-time performance out of the world’s top 20 biggest systems.
I suppose one of the lessons here is that subway lines on a map will always be far sexier than the nuts and bolts of maintenance, performance, and ridership. But we can’t forget the nuts and bolts. Maybe those are the most important parts.
A draft version of the new London Plan was released today for public consultation. It is “the spatial development strategy for Greater London”. And you can download all 524 pages of it, here. A final copy of the Plan is expected to be published by fall 2019.
“I am using all of the powers at my disposal to tackle the housing crisis head on, removing ineffective constraints on homebuilders so we make the most of precious land in our capital.”
And that tone comes through in the document. Here is an excerpt from the “optimising housing density” policy section:
“For London to accommodate growth in an inclusive and responsible way every new development needs to make the most efficient use of land. This will mean developing at densities above those of the surrounding area on most sites. The design of the development must optimise housing density.” (Section 3.6.1)
The Plan also contains a set of clear performance indicators. They cover things like the supply of new homes, the supply of affordable homes, modal share in the capital, and so on.
The ambition is 66,000 net additional homes each year. And by 2041, the goal is that 80% of all trips in London will be by foot, cycle, or public transport. There simply isn’t road the capacity.
Which is why the plan also specifies parking maximums, as opposed to parking minimums. The Plan wants the starting point for any development that is well-connected to transit – or to future transit – to be “car-free”.
If you have a chance, the new London Plan is worth a scan. Maybe you don’t want to print it though.
A draft version of the new London Plan was released today for public consultation. It is “the spatial development strategy for Greater London”. And you can download all 524 pages of it, here. A final copy of the Plan is expected to be published by fall 2019.
“I am using all of the powers at my disposal to tackle the housing crisis head on, removing ineffective constraints on homebuilders so we make the most of precious land in our capital.”
And that tone comes through in the document. Here is an excerpt from the “optimising housing density” policy section:
“For London to accommodate growth in an inclusive and responsible way every new development needs to make the most efficient use of land. This will mean developing at densities above those of the surrounding area on most sites. The design of the development must optimise housing density.” (Section 3.6.1)
The Plan also contains a set of clear performance indicators. They cover things like the supply of new homes, the supply of affordable homes, modal share in the capital, and so on.
The ambition is 66,000 net additional homes each year. And by 2041, the goal is that 80% of all trips in London will be by foot, cycle, or public transport. There simply isn’t road the capacity.
Which is why the plan also specifies parking maximums, as opposed to parking minimums. The Plan wants the starting point for any development that is well-connected to transit – or to future transit – to be “car-free”.
If you have a chance, the new London Plan is worth a scan. Maybe you don’t want to print it though.
