Riding in Riverside

University Avenue ramp closure solves another problem

2012-01-31T09:21:00.000-08:00

I wrote in my last post that, if we care about having a safe, walkable UC Riverside campus, we should close the University Avenue freeway ramps and allow drivers to divert to the 3rd/Blaine and 14th ramps, both of which are on high-speed arterial roadways and both of which are within half a mile of University. Minimal inconvenience for drivers would mean massive safety and quality-of-life benefits for the thousands of students on foot, skateboard, kick scooter, and bicycle who use that corridor.

But something it might also be able to solve is the lack of a centralized transit center at UC Riverside. It was more of a problem back in the days of the Highlander Hauler shuttles, but it's still an issue now: when you take the bus to "UCR," you could be stopping at any of a number of different places, and none of them are conducive to transfer. Most of them are single-route stops. Currently, the 1 stops at Bannockburn Village (on Canyon Crest just north of University); the 16 actually travels through campus on Campus Drive, stopping near Arts and Sproul Hall; the 204 stops near Bannockburn, but on the other side of the street; the 208, 210 and 212 all stop in the backwaters of Lot 30; and only the 51 and 53 link them all (but 51 only runs every 40 minutes, and 53 every 30 and only at night). Furthermore, the 10 and 14 both skirt the campus, but don't actually serve it, with 10 running along Blaine and 14 turning off University on to Iowa.

This fragmentation of routes makes transit use significantly more difficult and confusing than it should be at UCR. Students, many of whom have never ridden a city bus in their lives, see all of these various white buses moving in inscrutable patterns around campus, seeming to veer off in mysterious directions, and they get the perception that if you step aboard an RTA bus, you will have no idea where you're going. I have related many stories before on this blog of students who were traveling to the Canyon Crest Town Center area waiting longer for the "trolley" #51, rather than take the #16.

Fragmentation also reduces effective frequency, which is a serious issue for the short trips that many students make throughout the day. If I want to head down University to one of the various Chinese take-out places around Cranford or Chicago, it doesn't matter to me which route I take- the #1, #14 or #16 are all fine by me. However, there's no place on campus that I can actually wait for all of the above. If I want #1, I have to head to Bannockburn. If I want #16, I need to be in front of Sproul Hall. These places are around a ten minute walk apart. Personally, I use the Bus Tracker and Google Transit to figure out which route is leaving first, but students who have never ridden a bus won't figure this trick out easily-- and so they'll drive three blocks down the street.

Okay, so I've laid out the problem. What does this have to do with the University Avenue ramps?

Real estate.

One of the University ramps is a huge loop leading to and from the westbound freeway. Demolish this, and you'll have a nice parcel of land for a bus station, complete with space for bus layovers (which are a current problem at Bannockburn, where the #1 and #51 compete with the many, many beer delivery trucks that serve the Getaway Cafe). Such a station would be a destination strong enough to warrant the diversion of the #10 and #14 to campus (and give them space to turn around), and would provide a place for every route in the area to come together and provide extremely frequent service to nearby destinations. It's also equidistant between the University Village and the rest of campus, and there are already stoplights at the site (for the present freeway ramps). As long as the current stops on the #1 and #16 were maintained, it wouldn't downgrade anyone's present travel plans, and it would provide better access to both the university (for the community) and the wider community (for university students). It would also give public transit on campus a much more visible and permanent presence, and significantly improve the legibility of the various routes that currently almost-meet in and around the area. Done properly, you could also add automated ticketing facilities, SmartStop arrival boards, etc. that could really improve the transit experience for a whole population of users who, for the first time in their lives, find themselves without ready access to an automobile.

So, close the University Avenue ramps, tear them down, and build a UCR bus station in its place. Introduce a generation of students to urbanism the way it should be.

Radically simple solution: Close the University Ave. ramps

2012-01-30T18:16:00.000-08:00

I spend a lot of time at UC Riverside. Those who are familiar with the campus know that it's bisected by the I-215/CA-60 freeway, with the campus on one side and most of the various retail establishments in the area on the other. Those who follow my blog know that one of the things that really irritates me, day in and day out, is the way that Caltrans "improved" University Avenue heading eastbound, by removing a bicycle lane from the most heavily bicycle-trafficked stretch of asphalt in the city. They did this to accommodate two right-hand turn lanes to a freeway offramp.

That's a tragedy in and of itself, and yet another example of the tiny crumbs given to bicycles taken away in order to move cars just a little bit faster, but the real tragedy is this: there are three ramps to this freeway within a one-mile stretch.

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Count them: three. One at Blaine/3rd, one at University, and one at 14th.

Let's take a look at these roads, shall we? 3rd through that section is pretty unpleasant for anyone not in a car, with low-density retail, a high school, crumbling sidewalks and disappearing bike lanes. (It gets better below Kansas or so, though...) The freeway overpass itself is pretty awful to walk or ride across. It's pretty much a car sewer. This is also the exit for one of UCR's larger remote parking lots, Lot 26. Above Iowa there are several student apartments, including many I've resided in, but I usually went down Linden if I had to cross the freeway without the aid of a motor vehicle.

14th is even worse. This road is wide, flat, and there is literally nothing of interest between Chicago and the freeway. There are research orange groves and UCR's massive Lot 30, primary parking lot for the entire campus. This road has a 55mph speed limit, and speeds often exceed that. Nothing redeeming here.

So finally we come to University. This is a thriving commercial corridor. There's plenty of parking, as you might expect in suburbia, but none of the huge student lots here. Most buildings front the street, at least between campus and Cranford. There are plentiful restaurants catering to the student population, along with a good chunk of retail establishments, and Riverside's only modern mixed-use development, Sterling University Palms. This is also a major transit corridor (#1, #14, #16, #51/53), unlike either 3rd (just the #10) or 14th (commuter express routes only). Cyclists and pedestrians clog the sidewalks and bike lanes between campus and the University Village, especially with the untimely demise of the Highlander Hauler shuttle service.

In any case, drivers on University at Iowa are never more than 1/2 a mile from either 3rd or 14th. So why should we strangle a real opportunity for burgeoning urbanism, among a population of disproportionately car-free and car-lite residents-- not to mention the safety of said residents when bicycling-- in order to save drivers 1/2 a mile and a touch of congestion?

Close the University Avenue ramps. Make University between Iowa and Canyon Crest similar to Canyon Crest itself, with only one lane per direction, along with wide bicycle lanes and perhaps even a bus lane. Maybe even add some pedestrian plazas with the extra right-of-way, pleasant places people can go and enjoy their lunch between classes. Commuter students and other drivers will divert to the other ramps, or (hopefully) divert to car-pooling or transit, and the rest of us can be left to enjoy our campus-- all of it.

Suburban thinking

2012-01-26T16:28:00.000-08:00

It's everywhere. I'm reading through the 2008 American National Election Study codebook for a project I'm working on. For those who don't know, the ANES is a fantastic survey that looks in to Americans' political views and vote behavior. It's conducted every election year by interviewers who physically go to people's homes, and one of the things the interviewers are supposed to note is the condition of both home and neighborhood.

So, as part of the survey, interviewers are asked to code any of the following "within sight of the housing unit," presumably as an indication of neighborhood decay:*

Boarded houses or abandoned building
Graffiti
Abandoned cars
Demolished houses
Trash/Litter/junk in street/road
Trash/litter/junk around buildings in neighborhood
Factories or warehouses
Stores or other retail outlets

The variable is a simple count of the number of things observed by the interviewer, so each item on the list is equivalent in the data set. If you read my blog, you're probably already aware where I'm going with this.

That's right- living in a mixed-use neighborhood, one that contains a factory and a store, is a sign of neighborhood decay in this dataset. It's treated equivalently to living somewhere with graffiti and abandoned buildings. Now, I'm not going to say that there aren't gritty, impoverished places with mixed uses, but there are also some very nice places-- most of the Upper East Side of Manhattan would get a point against it for having stores within sight of a subject's home. Similarly, there are some very depressed single-use neighborhoods in this country, which might have all 7 of the other factors present-- but the most-decayed neighborhood in the study must, by definition, be mixed-use.

This is yet another example of how ingrained suburban thinking is in our conversations about poverty and affluence. In our culture, we link green lawns and row upon row of detached single-family homes with suburbia, and hence prosperity, and small apartments above the corner store with the city, and hence with poverty. See similarly what the phrase "inner city" means in our political dialogue- it's generally a code word used by conservatives to mean low-income and African-American (and, in doing so, generally incite the racial fears and prejudices of their voting base). Set aside the finding of the most recent Census-- that poverty is more prevalent in the suburbs than either rural or urban areas, and poverty is rising faster there as well. There's something wrong here.

I also urge scholars investigating the link between neighborhood conditions and politics to build their own metric based on only the first 7 items in this list (which are coded individually in the dataset), rather than utilizing this variable.

*V084029, 2008 ANES Panel Data Study, for those who are curious.

Bus Watch!

2012-01-24T12:20:00.000-08:00

No, not that Bus Watch. An anonymous commenter on this post claims that RTA #2110, the bus involved in that nasty crash downtown a few months back, has been restored and put into service with a Trilogy three-position bicycle rack. If anyone sees this particular bus, a photo would be appreciated.

I want to also note, though, that the new cutaways that run the 51 and commuter routes have only two-position racks, and their purchase dates from around the same time. So maybe RTA thinks that only the full-size buses need three-position racks, but I've personally found the commuter express routes among the most useful for bike/bus combinations. I can't count the times I've taken 216 to Orange and biked to Fry's Electronics. I don't know what the economics are on two- vs. three-position racks, but I strongly encourage RTA to accommodate as many cyclists as possible.

Have we learned nothing?

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

If you spend a lot of time in the livable-streets blogosphere, as I admittedly do, you end up reading a lot of success stories: highways stopped, or torn down, or planned to gracefully transition into urban boulevards; rail projects moving forward; bike lanes painted or (better yet) buffered. Living in the suburbs, and having roots in the hinterlands, makes staying in this happy bubble of burgeoning urbanism ever more difficult. It is thus, with a heavy heart, that I report on the continued progress of the High Desert Connector.

As you might guess, this Connector is rather unlike the Regional one in downtown Los Angeles. It's a brand-new, 63-mile freeway being run from the desert outpost of Adelanto to the desert outpost of Palmdale, through greenfield desert. The justification is truck traffic, but you can bet that there will be some sprawl-enabling going on here.

If you want to try and stop this monstrosity, there are public meetings noted in the article. However, at this point, I think that lying in front of the bulldozer will be your best bet.

We're waiting, Sunline!

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

San Bernardino County, despite being a bit larger than Riverside, long ago became the first Inland Empire county to be completely covered by Google Transit. At the time, Sunline Transit Agency, the major transit provider in the Coachella Valley, was the only agency in Riverside County not to be covered by the transit trip planner. At the time, the agency's web site listed Google Transit as "coming soon," and had for several months. It's now been several years that that tantalizing graphic has sat upon Sunline's web site, and we still don't have Google Transit data for the agency. This is despite the fact that they have a Google Maps-based bus tracker, and have thus geo-coded every stop in the system.

Sunline, release your schedule data and join Google Transit already!

SOPA, PIPA and Internet Censorship

2012-01-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

Several major web sites, including Reddit and Wikipedia, will be down from 8:00a to 8:00p today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, two similar bills (one House, one Senate) which would implement an extrajudicial Internet censorship regime in the United States. I can't take this site down, but I can encourage you all to visit AmericanCensorship.org, learn about the threat to the openness of the Internet, and call your representatives to speak out against these bills.

Hey RTA!

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

I know you're currently going through the process of purchasing a new 40-foot fleet. Here's the thing. I don't really much care what sort of buses you buy (as long as they're partial-low-floor, CNG, and have those nice amber headsigns, but you've already got that much down, so...), but I really, intensely care about what you put on the front of them.

Specifically, the new buses need three-bike racks. More specifically, I'd prefer it if you installed the Sportworks DL-3 "trilogy" bike rack on every bus in the fleet. These seem to be the only three-bike racks out there that also support the bike's rear wheel, making it less likely that a bicycle will fall off the bus. (This is a serious consideration for those of us who ride with panniers and rear racks, especially when said racks are loaded.) They also don't seem to have the complicated problems of other three-position rack designs, which Seattle's King County Metro seems to be dealing with at the moment. (See the bottom of that post.)

So, RTA, do the right thing for those of us who choose the independence of the transit/bike combo. Buy three-position bike racks for the new fleet.

Why You Should Support California High-Speed Rail, Part Two

2012-01-16T14:47:00.000-08:00

Jobs.

Jobs.

Let me say it again: JOBS.

Construction of the initial high-speed rail segment would create literally tens of thousands of jobs. Moreover, those jobs would be targeted at a particularly depressed area of the state (the Central Valley) and a particularly depressed sector of the economy (construction).

Here is the choice we are presented with: In this economic crisis, we are faced with millions of people who find themselves out of work, and who are spending their time chasing after such menial employment as fast-food and retail jobs-- and, even then, largely not finding them. As things sit today, we as a society are supporting them through unemployment insurance, food stamps, and (if they have children) a host of other social safety net programs. It is altogether proper for us to do so, and to try to reduce human misery among us.

However, at the same time, these programs do cost money, and while they do get that money flowing through the local economy, they produce little long-term social benefit. During the Depression, we understood this, and we chose to employ millions of people constructing things that would produce just such a lasting benefit. The Works Progress Administration built thousands of publicly useful projects around the nation, including roads, bridges, water systems, and the bulk of the South Carolina library system. You can still find WPA stamps on sidewalks and curbs in older parts of Riverside. Instead of paying people to look for scarce, menial work in the private sector, public works projects pay people to build something that will yield dividends for years to come.

So we find ourselves again in a massive economic crisis, even though the recession "officially ended" some years ago. We have mass unemployment, and our social programs cost more even as our tax base shrinks-- made worse in California, because we are so reliant on sales taxes, which hew very closely to economic conditions. How do we recover?

Well, the way we got out of the Depression was by building stuff: roads, bridges, sewer systems, parks, and eventually tanks and bombs. People get jobs, they can pay the people who provide them services, pay taxes, those people then hire more people, and so on and so forth. It's called a "multiplier effect" in economics, and public works projects have a huge multiplier effect.

Really, we could build damned near anything and have this effect on the economy. The Obama stimulus bill spent quite a lot of money on highway projects, and all indications say that it kept us from further economic decline. However, I'd much rather use this fantastic opportunity to gear up for the post-petroleum economy. Right now, people need jobs, companies need work, suppliers need customers, and prices are low. The time to invest in the infrastructure that will drive our economy for the next century is now. High-speed rail is one big, worthy project, and building it will help put our state on the road to employment and economic recovery.

Rider Alerts!

2012-01-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

As you should all know, this Monday marked a new set of bus schedules for RTA. What you may not know, if you don't obsessively check RTA's web site (or get their text message alerts), is that there are quite a few Rider Alerts that have been issued in addition to the new Ride Guide. Routes 51 and 208 have entirely different schedules than are printed in the Guide, and one trip (the 5:41a eastbound) on route 13 has an entirely different schedule as well. If you're like me, you're firing up your printer and pasting these things into your Ride Guide.

Why You Should Support The California High-Speed Rail

2012-01-10T16:06:00.000-08:00

It's been three years and change since Californians approved Proposition 1A, permitting the sale of $9bn in state bonds to finance the initial stages of a high-speed rail system that would eventually link the four major metro areas of the state together. When Prop 1A passed, albeit narrowly, the enthusiasm among the alt-transport community was almost universal. Now, after several years and several iterations of the HSRA's business plan, enthusiasm is dimming, even among those who are nominally pro-transit. The headline, of course, is the significant increase in the project's "price tag," from $43bn to $99bn. Many people think that the money that would be spend on HSR could be much more beneficially used to build better, more comprehensive local transit systems within the state.

There are two responses to this criticism. One is that, while local transit is critical to our state's future, so is improved intercity travel. HSR and local transit are not an either-or proposition; rather, we need to build and fund both of them if we are to stave off the challenges of the 21st century and emerge as a stronger, more vibrant civilization on the other end. HSR is a complement to local transit in a way that airports and highways are not, allowing for the concentration of transit modes and development around HSR stations, and providing for a center of gravity that will facilitate the densification of sprawling suburban cities. I don't think that the HSR authority's claim of increased commuting between, say, the Central Valley and coastal employment centers is necessarily a good thing for the environment, but I also doubt that it'll be the "killer app" of HSR.

The second criticism, and I think the more damning one, is that we are constrained in our choices by our governing institutions. Simply moving the ~$11bn from HSR to local transit is not presently a choice available to transit activists. Moving the federal portion of the monies to local transit would literally take an act of Congress, and there's a reason that that phrase is synonymous with impossibility. (Considering the current political predilections of the Republican House, it's unlikely that money would move anywhere. It'd either be used for deficit reduction or funneled in to defense or corporate subsidies.) The only place that the federal HSR money can go is into HSR, and if it isn't spent in California, it'll likely be spent on the Chicagoland system currently in development. As I told a friend on Facebook, the choice is between a train in Bakersfield and one in Peoria-- and the one in Peoria won't have state matching funds.

Moving the California portion of the money is even trickier. Technically speaking, there is no California HSR money at present. The bonds have not yet been sold. Their sale is authorized by a ballot initiative, which means that, to stop their sale, we would have to have another ballot initiative to overturn it. That, in and of itself, might work- public opinion towards HSR has not exactly been all that great lately. However, good luck trying to convince Californians to give up their bullet train in exchange for local bus and rail improvements, or to authorize the sale of bonds without matching funds. Prop 1A worked because it provided a very specific framework within which the HSR system had to be built, down to mandating trip times. I strongly doubt that they'd approve an initiative that moved that money into unspecified local public transit, especially when only a tiny minority of them use said transit.

The choice between HSR and local transit is wrong on two levels. First, it's wrong on a conceptual level: we shouldn't be choosing between them, as we need both, and they work together beautifully. Second, it's wrong on a political level, as there is no way that killing HSR will result in beneficial effects for local public transit.

If you balk at the $99bn cost figure-- which has been inflated by the actions of NIMBYs, both in the accounting process of the HSRA and the physical design of the railway-- please see my earlier post on a plausible Minimum Operating Segment of the California HSR system, which could be built for much less cost and attract the support and investment needed to build the full system. But please, if you care about alternative transportation in this state, don't give up on the entire HSR project. This is a critical piece of infrastructure for our state's future, and it will go a long way towards alleviating our dependence on oil-fueled intercity travel

Riverside to get Food Truck!

2012-01-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

Well, UCR at least. Turns out that UCR has their own environmental health agency, and can therefore skirt the anti-food-truck regulations of the City and County. In partial recompense for the loss of the only restaurant on the east side of campus, UCR Dining has triumphantly announced the purchase of The Culinary Chameleon, a food truck intended to serve the campus population.

It's not exactly a win for the city as a whole... but I'm looking forward to seeing just what Dining Services does with this truck.

A parking garage, by any other name...

2011-12-21T14:42:00.000-08:00

Since we're on the topic of California's planning and development processes, I think I'll take the time to talk about another pet peeve of mine: the misappropriation of transit and air-quality improvement funds to fund automobile projects. This problem is endemic throughout suburban America, and a great number of recent projects in Riverside highlight the issue. The Magnolia Ave. grade separation, for example, was paid for in part by funding received by the city for air quality improvement. (The City of Riverside portion is CMAQ funds.) The Colton Crossing project was sold in part by referring to the benefits it would bring to transit users, although only 7 passenger trains a day (compared to hundreds of freight trains) use that particular section of rail. While funding documents for the upcoming SR-91 HOV project are not yet easily accessible on the Internet, the benefits to transit customers are already being touted by project boosters- despite the fact that only 5 buses a day in each direction will use the lanes. The entire SR-91 Improvement Project, which will cost several hundred million dollars, will be used by only 10 buses in each direction per weekday, and only 4 on weekends. Making it easier to drive will, of course, only lead to increased congestion and the withering of alternative transportation.

The project that prompted this post, however, is a particularly egregious example. It's not located here in Riverside, but in Baldwin Park. The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports on the City of Baldwin Park's plans to build a "transit center" adjacent to the present Metrolink station. (I should mention that, as a station on the San Bernardino line, the Baldwin Park Metrolink enjoys some of the most frequent service in the system.) After reading the article, however, I got the impression that this new "transit center" was only tangentially related to transit. The article gushed over the brand new, 500-stall parking structure that would be linked to the train station, and lamented the plight of commuters who currently have to walk two whole blocks to park their personal vehicles (for free!) and access the train. I thought that this might have simply been local media bias, however, so I checked out the project documents. Perhaps there would be an improved bus terminal, or some other improvement worthy of the "transit center" name.

As I feared, the project will add very little in the way of actual improvements to transit service in the area, besides train-adjacent parking. A few bike racks and a possible bus driver's restroom, as well as a transit information kiosk, will be added. Bus riders will still be dropped off on the street, and those unlucky enough to be heading westbound will have to find somewhere to cross the street to access the new pedestrian bridge. (No pedestrian traffic signal is indicated in the project documents.) Also, of the six levels of parking, the project documents suggest that only two will actually be dedicated to transit users.

I don't have anything against park-and-ride facilities per se, and they do serve a purpose in getting regular work commuters on to specialized commuter transit. However, funding for our transit systems is scarce. Park-and-ride facilities actually undermine the goals of local transit agencies, as they allow commuters to take advantage of the benefits of transit for their work trip, while incentivizing their auto use for all other trips they make. Our cities should be focusing on transit projects that reduce automobile dependence, rather than cementing it.

This project is being paid for by a Federal Transit Administration grant, but it is a lot more about getting a sparkly new downtown parking garage for the City of Baldwin Park than it is about transit.

Vehicular Cycling and the Suburbs

2011-12-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

Brown Girl in the Lane has a scathing critique up about vehicular cycling advocates. While I'm not about to say a word about her concern for the diversity of cycling, and the overwhelming white-male-ness of long-time vehicular cycling advocates, I want to push back against some of what she is saying. It's true that, in a perfect world (or Denmark), we'd have plentiful, grade-separated bicycle paths along every major road, and that bikes would be treated with respect by cars on the low-speed roads where they mix. Sadly, this is not a perfect world, and bicycle infrastructure is often severely lacking, especially out in the suburbs. (Riverside is actually on better footing than many surrounding cities, but this is still the case here, especially outside of downtown and the University area.) Vehicular cycling is a valuable tool for maintaining a cyclist's safety under specific infrastructural conditions, when a road leaves provision for cars and nothing else. Our right to the road, codified in CVC 22201(a), is an important tool to be used when city planners have neglected our right to safe passage in the public right-of-way.

For example, I'm going to go back to a long-standing pet peeve of mine in Riverside's bike infrastructure: Arlington Ave. between Indiana and Magnolia. Vehicular travel lanes are 10 feet wide, two in each direction. There is no shoulder, and no parking lane. Sidewalk cycling is illegal in Riverside, and is in any case rather dangerous due to driveway traffic. There are no alternate routes along side streets, as every street ends at the 91 freeway except the major arterials. (Central Ave. is even worse.) Oh, and did I mention that this is a City-designated bike route?

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(A quick map, so you can see that there really are no good cycling routes through here.)

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(And a street-level view. This passes for a "class III" bike route in Riverside.)

So I've recently taken up climbing at the Hangar 18 climbing gym, which is right next to the airport on Arlington. My choices are either to travel through this area or go several miles out of my way. I chose today to take the lane- and yes, it's not fun. Cars speed by you, honk, yell at you, etc. But if I were to ride at the far right-hand side of the lane, they would speed by much closer, and put me in greater danger than I currently am. The skill of vehicular cycling allows me to navigate sub-par infrastructure safely, while I continue to advocate for safer cycle routes.

Wherein I Agree with New Geography

2011-12-20T01:12:00.000-08:00

New Geography is a blog that I occasionally read, mostly because it's on Straight Outta Suburbia's excellent blogroll. They're a conservative blog, and their narratives often run counter to the urbanist paradigm. (It goes without saying that our interpretations of empirical data often are in disagreement as well.) Suburban booster Joel Kotkin, frequent columnist at Reason, is the blog's founder. Thus, it's odd that I find myself in agreement with one of their recent posts, although for slightly different reasons.

In "California: Codes, Corruption and Consensus," blogger Bill Watkins asserts that the California planning and environmental review process is profoundly broken. The long list of "stakeholders" that must be consulted to get damned near anything built, he says, allows for corruption and introduces uncertainty for developers and businesses. Furthermore, the effective veto held by a long list of groups makes it very difficult to build even the most uncontroversial of projects.

The current system for development is undoubtedly an impediment to a great many goals. Watkins wants to streamline the process in order to reduce cost and uncertainty for business. I'd like to see the corruption that results from the process-- visible in the way many megacorporations can get municipalities to waive taxes, fees, and environmental reviews, while small businesses and residents have to pick up the slack in revenue-- significantly reduced. Furthermore, the effective veto held by any "stakeholder" in the area over major projects is a significant impediment to much-needed density and transit improvements. (See, for example, the effect the University Neighborhood Association's opposition has had on the Perris Valley Line, or Beverly Hills School District's opposition to the urgently-needed Subway to the Sea.)

Fortunately, the solution Watkins proposes is amenable to urbanism as well, if done carefully. He proposes that projects that substantially conform to regional and community plans be assured rapid completion. The time for community input (read: opposition) would be during the development of the plan, rather than during the development of a specific project. Not only would this reduce the overall cost and delay of opposition and lawsuits, as NIMBYs would have only one process to disrupt rather than several, but such a review would also allow for the complete reassessment of a community's character and development at a single point in time. Such an opportunity could allow a coherent, urbanist vision of a community to prevail over the present, sprawl-creating zoning systems (which currently continue largely out of institutional inertia, rather than merit.)

Of course, streamlined development review would not singlehandedly allow the accomplishment of urbanist objectives, and I have no doubt that the usual suspects would struggle against the proposal of any increase in density or shift towards sustainable transportation in their community. However, I am convinced that such an idea would at least give advocates of smart growth an even playing field on which to fight, and a meaningful prize worth attaining.

Upcoming Service Changes

2011-12-18T23:12:00.000-08:00

RTA has put out a brochure on their new service changes. There's nothing here that should be cause for alarm-- it looks like service hours will not be cut. However, if you're planning on riding the bus after 8 January, do be sure to get the new Ride Guide. Guides are available on all buses (but are often scarce during a service change), at most libraries, at City Hall, and at the UC Riverside bookstore.

Connecting California

2011-12-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

... in more ways than one. California's state-supported Amtrak routes, which I've mentioned before, provide a fantastic, hassle-free way to get around our state. Combined with their dedicated, guaranteed bus connections, there is pretty much nowhere of any significance in California that is out of the reach of the Amtrak California system. (And yes, the bus connections are *very* good. They generally use clean, comfortable coaches, and they wii wait for the train if it's late. The train will also wait for a late bus.) Few people that I talk to in daily life know about this system, and I'm always asked "Did you drive or fly?" when I'm in the Bay Area, but it is a great way to move about the state.

And it just got better. Amtrak has announced that it has deployed free wi-fi across all three state-supported train routes. While business-class passengers on the Pacific Surfliner have long had access to the Internet, now passengers in coach on the Surfliner, as well as riders in both classes of the Capitol Corridor and aboard the single-class San Joaquins can also enjoy Internet access as well.

The technology used by the system, which Amtrak calls AmtrakConnect, is cellular-based. During my trip this summer, I had the opportunity to use the wi-fi aboard the Cascades and Downeaster (before the latter hit a truck). The service is a bit more reliable than tethering a cell phone, as it will use whichever provider has a stronger signal in that area. (The difference in rural areas between my provider, T-Mobile, and Verizon is pretty significant.) It's not going to win any speed awards, but it's plenty to use for e-mail, Facebook and other general web browsing.

The trend of transportation providers offering free wi-fi is an exciting development. On the East Coast, low-cost bus providers have been offering Internet access for some time. (Also, many Crucero bus routes in the southwest offer such access.) One of the benefits of taking either transit or intercity ground transportation is that your time in transit isn't simply wasted looking out the windshield. Seeing providers recognize and capitalize that is a hopeful sign for alternative transportation.

Metrolink's Toy Express

2011-12-08T13:04:00.001-08:00

Metrolink's Holiday Toy Express will be stopping in Riverside on Saturday. The festively-lit train will be collecting unwrapped toys for low-income families. The train will be at the Riverside-La Sierra station at 5pm (17h00) on Saturday night, collecting unwrapped toys and providing a light show for the other side of Riverside. It won't be stopping at Downtown this season, so if you'd like to make a donation, this is your chance. For other options, see the full Holiday Toy Express schedule.

RTA #15, Metrolink 91 and IE-OC lines.

Auto Industry Bailouts

2011-12-05T17:18:00.001-08:00

Daily Kos reports today that the American auto industry is seeing a significant rise in sales. The diarist (Kos-ese for "blogger") reports this as a vindication for President Obama's interventionist economic policies, and a damning criticism of Mitt Romney in particular. Of course, this is also a victory for the auto workers, who will stave off the human misery that is rapidly spreading around this country in the form of long-term unemployment and underemployment.

However, it is not a victory for our fight against climate change, or for those who would like to see our society re-organized to survive the post-petroleum era while we still have enough energy to do so. This is the same problem that plagued the immensely popular Cash-for-Clunkers program. Employment and economic recovery are no doubt good things, and damned near any government spending in the economy could accomplish them (see Keynes' coal mines example), but I would much rather see my tax money going to save our civilization from the coming ravages of peak oil and climate change than perpetuating the continued production of the very products that have so destroyed our nation.

With that observation, I leave you in the capable hands of cartoonist Mike Stanfill:

The Bicycle as a Tool

2011-12-03T11:07:00.001-08:00

... because any tool, held properly, can be used as a weapon. I wrote my last post on the empowerment of the bicycle, the limitless freedom and independence that the simple machine gives me.

I witnessed Thursday night, however, that the same tool that gives me such transportation independence also gave a very different kind of power to Officer Dillon of the Riverside Police Department. During a march with Occupy Riverside, a few occupiers briefly stepped off the crowded sidewalk. Two police officers came out of nowhere on their Trek mountain bikes (seriously guys? Knobby tires on pavement?), traveling at full tilt, and slammed into the occupiers in order to affect their arrest. They were charged with jaywalking.

The bicycle is a tool that gives its rider great power. Great power, as the saying goes, comes with great responsibility. The same power that I have to take my transportation into my own hands is the power of a police officer to harass, injure and arrest peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights.

The Empowerment of the Bicycle

2011-11-30T15:00:00.001-08:00

I wanted to write a quick little post on why I love my bicycle. There are, of course, very good urbanist and environmentalist reasons to love bikes-- they're clean, they're green, they take up very little space-- but this post isn't about those. I want to talk about the empowerment I feel when I get on a bike and go somewhere.

My bicycle is a machine to greatly expand my personal transportation ability. By using a bicycle, I can get to anywhere I need using only the strength in my legs. I need not rely upon any expensive infrastructure of fueling stations, auto parts stores and mechanics. It doesn't matter if I have any money in my bank account. So long as I can push the pedals, I can go places.

My bicycle is a transportation tool, but not a complex and expensive one like an automobile. There is nothing on my bike that I can't fix myself, using simple hand tools and a few choice expletives. When I hauled my old bicycle out of the campus impound, it was in awful shape- but $50 and a few hours of labor made it a reliable, if not well-tuned, ride. There is little on a bicycle whose function I can't figure out within a few minutes of looking and tinkering. Compare the simple elegance of the chain drive with the innumerable, oddly-shaped boxes under the hood of a car, with their tangle of wires and hoses emerging from every corner.

My bicycle cares not about schedules, fare tables, or bus and train breakdowns. It doesn't worry about arcane transfer policies, or whether I have my UCR ID for the farebox or the college discount. (Sometimes, I wish it did.) When I do feel like dealing with those things, my bicycle is happy to come along for the ride, and continue empowering my transportation choices once I get where I'm going.

With my bicycle, I can go anywhere within 50 miles, with nothing more than myself and a simple machine that I can fix with hand tools. It puts my transportation back in my hands- or, really, my legs.

My colleague refers to his bicycle as a "two-wheel freedom machine." I think that's about right.

Free Ride Friday

2011-11-23T11:20:00.001-08:00

Just to let you all know, Omnitrans is offering free rides for all on Black Friday, this Friday, from beginning to end of service. No coupons to print, just walk on the bus.

Of course, all transit in the IE will be shut down tomorrow, Thursday the 24th, with the exception of Sunday service on the San Bernardino line (which means a few trips to Riverside-Downtown!). Both RTA and Omni will return to normal service on Friday.

If you must go out, walk, bike, ZipCar, or call a cab. Your local taxicab providers are:
Yellow Cab (800) 829-4222
AA Inland Empire Cab (888) 333-8294
Happy Taxi (951) 781-8294

Road Safety in the U.S.

2011-11-22T13:49:00.001-08:00

Most of us remember the numbers... TWA 800, JAL 123, United 93... major air disasters, resulting in mass casualties. However, as a favorite blogger of mine (usually on economics and politics) writes today, our road system takes many, many more lives. Roughly the equivalent of two fully-loaded 747's die every week on the roads in the U.S. The only difference is that they don't all happen at once, in a single, spectacular fireball, so the only place you're likely to hear about them on the news is in the traffic report.

This is probably the biggest immediate reason to end our auto-addicted transportation system.

The Transportation Toolbox

2011-11-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

I alluded to this post in my earlier Declaration of Independence- from the car, that is. I want to talk about the versatility of the automobile, and the choices people make about transportation often without thinking about them. I want to do this by looking at what a typical auto addict's transportation toolbox, and how it compares to a more balanced one. (Spoiler alert: I'm going to use mine for the "more balanced" column.)

Auto Addict's Transportation Toolbox:

Automobile.
Used for: The vast majority of trips, from the corner store to the daily commute to the occasional cross-country road trip.

Aircraft.
Used for: Moving people for most long-distance trips, generally around a thousand km and up.

Not a lot of diversity here. Now, granted, a lot of people will engage in a walk from time to time, and there are quite a few recreational hikers and cyclists out there... but, for pure transportation, this is roughly what many Americans' lives look like, especially in suburbia- and especially for what used to be called "the middle class." The design of many tract developments especially almost necessitates a toolkit that looks like this, as it often walls people off from walking, cycling and taking transit. Furthermore, for long-distance transportation, many are entirely unaware of our national rail system and (despite encouraging changes in the northeast and in Chicagoland) disinclined to use long-distance bus service.

Let's now take a look at what my transportation toolkit looks like. Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect, but it should be clear that an awareness of one's transportation options allows a better matching between the job at hand and the tool used to do it.

Car-free Transportation Toolbox:

Walking.
Used for: A small number of very short trips, often with company. Honestly, I don't walk too much, but I do on occasion. As I've mentioned, we have a fairly nice shopping centre within five minutes' walk of our apartment, and so sometimes the wife and I will walk there for shopping or a nice dinner.

Bicycling.
Used for: Most trips within a 10 mile radius that I take alone, including moderate cargo hauling. My bike is my go-to transportation tool, and serves the majority of trips I take. You'd also be amazed at the amount of cargo I can haul on the back, with nothing more than panniers and a rear rack. (I'm drooling over the amazingly versatile Burley Travoy trailer, but haven't plunked down the money yet.) Sadly, my wife is difficult to coax on to the back of a bicycle, so it's rare that we pedal places together.

Local Bus.
Used for: A lot of around-town trips, especially during inclement weather, as well as some longer-distance trips that would be difficult to manage on a bicycle. I also used the RTA to haul food for 80 Occupiers downtown earlier, so it's occasionally useful for certain specialized types of cargo. I can also, occasionally, manage to get Dani on to a bus, so we've been known to go out together via transit.

Commuter Rail.
Used for: Pretty much every trip I make to LA or Orange County (though I sometimes use the bus to the OC). Also occasionally the first step in longer-distance rail trips, leaving from LA Union.

Scooter.
Used for: Most trips my wife makes, along with a lot of trips that the two of us makes. It will haul the both of us, and not a whole lot more, so it's not generally used for more than light shopping.

Zipcar.
Used for: Shopping trips, mostly. It's also a great backup when one of us has the scooter and the other one *has* to get somewhere quickly, or when we were dealing with car breakdowns.

Long-distance Rail.
Used for: Any long-distance trip that it makes sense for, including my 30-day 25-state 4-province Amtrak trip. Travel by train is my favourite way to travel- especially if I can afford sleeper.

Long-distance bus.
Used for: Trips where the train can't hack it. Sometimes, I use Greyhound as a supplement to Metrolink and other intra-regional services. Other times, it's used for long highway trips. One must be careful when trying to take the Hound to Vegas.

Aircraft.
Used for: Long-distance domestic trips where time is a factor, as well as international trips (which I haven't taken enough of...).

Once you get away from the car-centric paradigm of transportation, a whole range of transport options opens up to you- and it's important, for all of the reasons that readers of this blog already know, that we restore balance to our transportation system.

NOTE: The photos of the car, ZipCar, airplane, Greyhound bus, and hiking boots are not mine. They are used under Creative Commons licensing, and the photographers are credited in the alt text.

How do we think about multi-modal transportation?

2011-11-09T11:18:00.000-08:00

The Atlantic has a great piece on Missouri's first-in-the-nation "diverging diamond" interchange, where a livable streets advocate (Charles Marohn) contrasts his interpretation of a walk through the interchange with that of the engineer promoting it. In a larger sense, though, Marohn asks us to think about how we integrate non-auto modes into our transportation system.

Marohn alleges in the video (around 7:00 or so) that the way that traffic engineers think about non-auto mobility is flawed. He says that the design is, first and foremost, designed to meet "the standard engineering parameter of being able to move cars very quickly through here," and only after meeting that criteria are any alternative modes considered. He concedes that the design accommodates pedestrians and cyclists better than some intersections, but that it still demonstrates an overwhelming preference for automobiles over other modes.

If we are really serious about shifting away from the dominance of the car, we need to think about designing transportation systems to accommodate all modes equally, rather than designing for cars first and leaving everyone else as an afterthought.