Hello dearest readers! If you’re reading this, it’s quite possible you’ve noticed my blog has fallen off of my regular weekly schedule. Suffice to say, a new transit rider has come into my life and things have been a bit crazy. In the meantime, posts may be a little scattered, but I’d like to think things will return to their regular weekly on Tuesdays order in the next few months! Thanks!
Something I’ve talked a fair bit about is that the experience you get using public transit as your primary way of getting around (at least for substantial distances) is something that is 1) valuable if you are an advocate for public transit (or really even just interested in it), and 2) different than the experience you would get if you only use it “when it’s easy”.
Of course, we all have to draw the line at some point, but I think far too many people are barely willing to put up with public transport that’s any slower than driving their private vehicle directly to their destination (where they will need to park it in many cases, something Google does not factor into the travel time calculation). This is a problem because transit (that isn’t actual-non-tram rapid transit) is going to struggle to pull that off!
Of course, once you start driving everywhere, you completely lose the plot of the public transport rider experience — most people will stop even looking at the public transport options Google is suggesting (which is a problem because as I have discussed before, PT is sometimes fast, but this relies on you knowing when to go!), much less actually trying to complete various trips.
People who don’t use public transit regularly ultimately do often end up having skewed views on what’s important. The best example of this I can think of is extra sports game services — to be clear, these are great, but this priority for the “I only ride transit to avoid traffic around the game” folks is clearly not going to lie above basic service for most of the riding public.
I think there’s also something to be said for being willing to accept some inconvenience. Now, I know saying this probably has some people rolling their eyes, but it really is true that car culture has a weird way of normalizing terrible inconvenience as long as it’s in service of driving (having to take your car to get maintenance done several times a year at high cost, oil changes, cleaning your car); I just think that like a lot of things with driving, the pain is highly concentrated, so you grin and bear it and then forget for a few months, while less-than-ideal transit hits you every day (like, say …traffic!).
A big element of the issue is of course also that good transit service and ridership are chicken-and-egg: if there is not a lot of ridership, it’s always going to be harder to convince the powers that be that you need more funding and resources. But of course, if you don’t have good service it’s hard to attract many people. Obviously I am a big and longtime advocate for lowering the threshold for which we invest in improving and expanding service, but it certainly cannot hurt to also help try to kick start the cycle on the other side — using even substandard transit, and encouraging your friends and family to do so as well. Even when transit is a bit less convenient than driving, you still get a lot of the benefits: you’re helping the climate, you’re saving money, you’re walking to and from stops, and you’re doing a small part to help ridership numbers. Of course, also being on the bus or train is often a prerequisite for being a thorn in the side of your elected representatives, whom you can and should regularly contact with notes regarding issues you see on the service (beyond the need for more of it). Even if your representatives can’t get service improved tomorrow, fixing a bus shelter or telling the transit agency to focus cleaning in different areas has a real improvement that benefits more than just you.
Ultimately, it’s just really important to vote with your feet. In life, a lot of people want things, but if you want to actually have those things, you have to take action. Better public transit is unlikely to happen on accident and each citizen has a lot of power to push things in the right direction.
And speaking of that, transit riders should also probably think about walking and cycling.
Cliche as it is, I think it’s really important to support active transport if you support public transit. That’s not just because like transit, walking and cycling are good for the planet and your wallet (even better than transit!), but also because even if you live on top of a metro station, you still need to walk to the platform. Transit journeys always have some component of walking at their beginning and end, and sometimes some in the middle as well, so public transit riders are also almost always walkers. It’s that simple — making walking better makes the experience of actually using public transit better as well.
Cycling is much the same. I think a good way of looking at it is as a walking accelerator (personally I cycle about four times faster than I walk) and so its useful in all the same places. Better yet, if public transit is down for maintenance or because of some incident, a bike can offer you a pretty compelling fallback and sometimes even an alternative for a lot of trip (which, yes, is probably a sign that we need faster transit).
The point of bringing this all up is that I encounter a lot of people who say they like transit, or want better transit, and then get in an Uber to get home from something that they could easily take transit from. The experience for me is like having a friend tell you they want to get into shape, but it’s so hard — as they are knocking back a milkshake. As transit supporters, we need to constantly work to use the systems we want to see improved and that we want others to use, as well as actively encouraging others to do the same. It’s not always easy, but few worthwhile things are.
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