Bogotá, Colombia, has been celebrated and emulated worldwide these past 10 years for its innovative Transmilenio system of articulated buses. Reports regularly appear in print that cities far afield, including New York City, are interested in replicating Bogotá’s Transmilenio system. Here at home the system has done well in imposing order on a chaotic urban environment. Transmilenio buses run along designated lanes separated from daily traffic, and generally offer speedy, if at times very crowded, massive ubran public transportation.

All has been well and good for over 10 years. New Transmilenio lines have been successfully added to the system, most recently arriving almost, but not quite, to Bogotá’s airport. The system works efficiently, daily and consistently. Not quite a subway, not a streetcar exactly, not simply a bus, the Transmilineo initiative in Bogotá is a great urban compromise in transportation, an attempt to offer a speedier and lower cost alternative to a 20 or 50 year investment in subway construction. The citizenry of Bogotá, a city of no small size, has given the Transmilenio system a major thumbs up. The system is used by millions daily.

We were doing good.

We are accustomed in the United States somehow to believing that, anywhere other than here, radical changes in urban planning are happening daily, and that those changes are more citizen-friendly, more well thought-out and more successfully implemented than those here at home. Urban planners elsewhere are so much more adept in planning than we are in the US – so goes the thinking. Somehow, in the general mindset, we think that we are behind, less capable of initatiating change for the better than those anywhere other than here. These innovative changes, we believe may be happening in Spain, or in Canada or just possibly in an emergent economy such as Colombia.

Well maybe. Perhaps not. Do we lack perspective?

Back to Bogotá, to where we were doing so well. Here in Bogotá, Colombia, we have decided that we need to unify our non-Transmilenio bus system, our chaotic, broadly diverse, urban, antiquated, daily- polluting patchwork of buses into our very successful Transmilenio network. This sounds very good. Why not marry success to further success. Let’s have an integrated public transportation system unified under the already established Transmilenio brand.

What a great idea!

We could call this integration something unifying, something like Transmilenio Bus, for example. But no, no, no. no. Too simple. No.

Let’s complicate things. Hey, what the hell, let’s change the whole endeavor to something hard to pronounce like SITP. No, not the whole system, just the new bus part. SITP has such a ring to it! Try saying SITP fast three times in a row, in Spanish or in English. But wait. Why don’t we add the word Urbano to that!  Why not? Let’s call this new associated Transmilenio bus system the SITP Urbano. Okay, we’re good. We have come up with a name that is really hard to pronounce and without reference to what we were looking for, the already established Transmilenio brand. But what the hell, we have a new bus system, the SITP Urbano.

Let’s build the buses, give them their SITP (I am never sure if it is SITP or SIPT) logos, add their unifying blue color, and give them a sophisticated new electonic access system, and get them onto the streets of the city as fast as we can. But wait, shouldn’t we have a public education plan in place first, tell people what we are doing, build up to an official launching?  Nah. Shouldn’t we have vending machines that issue the new sophisticated bus passes at designated bus stops?  Nah. Where will people purchase these passes needed for bus entry? People will figure it out on their own. They really don’t need us to tell them what we are doing. Our citizens are very smart!

Guess what. We have had SITP Urbano buses roaming the streets of Bogotá for over a year now and almost nobody knows how to access these buses. We add new routes regularly, monthly it seems. We now have quite a lot of blue SITP buses plying our streets, adding to our urban congestion, traveling their routes generally empty of passengers.

It does not help matters that the designers of the system forgot to provide an easily identifiable means of recognizing where these buses are going, an electronic destination or bus number easily visible at night, for example. No, a non-descript placard, impossible to read, propped up on the interior bus windshield proports to tell you, if you have hawk vision, where the bus in question might be going.

But never mind where the bus is going, how do you pay to get on one of these buses. No, you cannot use cash as you can on the buses being replaced. Nope, you cannot use a Transmilenio electronic card, used throughtout the Transmilenio system. And so?

I have tried more than once to figure out how to get on one of these buses. One of these empty buses passes right by the intersection adjacent to my building. Coming home, it would work out great if I could use it. It turns out I have to apply for a boarding pass on line.   You have to have a fixed address and telephone number to apply. And you have the option of supplying your blood type, sex, occupation, and place of work. Apparently, the system wants to know my life in great detail before issuing me a pass. If you are a casual tourist or visitor to the city, you are going to be out of luck!  You want to go from here to there, sorry, no can do unless you have a couple of weeks available to apply for a transit pass. Funny, this system doesn’t ring a bell in any other major metropolitan center. Up to now, I have been able to get on a bus in London or New York without being vetted first.

So, I can apply for a pass on line. Can they mail or deliver that pass to me electronically?  No. To pick up my boarding pass once approved, I will need to go as far as the airport or to a few very specific out of the way other Transmilenio stations. This of course is not a Transmilenio pass. It will not allow me to board a Transmmilenio bus, simply the convenience of retrieving my pass at one of their stations. This pass is issued by a completely different company from the one that issues the pass that I need to get on a Tranmilenio bus. The Tranmileno authorities are up-beat, saying that a million passengers have already gotten their SITP transit passes. Well, perhaps those first million passengers went through the arduous process of getting a bus pass just for the fun of it, because one thing is for sure they are not riding these buses daily.

Is your head spinning yet?  I decided, as apparently have millions of other Bogotanos, that it was not worth the effort to figure out how to get on one of these new SITP Urbano buses. Nobody seems to have thought it worthwhile to offer a transitional way to board a bus already operating on the streets of the city, proferring cash say, or a widely available Transmilenio bus pass. Nope. Better to have these new SITP Urbano buses ride the streets of the city empty, taunting, like some kind of mirage ghost bus line of the future, than to encourage the citizenry to board!

“Bogotá Humana,” the Human City, is the motto of the present administration in the city of Bogotá, the same administration responsible for crowding the streets with a spanking new urban transporation system of SITP Urbano buses, unavailable to what appears to be about 99% of the citizenry.

Come on guys. There must be a better way to do this!

The post How not to upgrade a public bus system: Bogotá, Colombia appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Is your city’s bus system really outrageous?  For perspective, you might want to compare what goes on in your area with what happens on the streets of Bogotá, Colombia.

A penny earned is a penny earned – so goes the old model of public transportation in Bogotá.  A motley crew of private buses ply the streets of Bogotá daily in search of passengers.  Passengers simply hail a bus as they would a taxi.  To exit a bus, you simply ring a bell at the rear door.  A bus will stop anywhere, often twice or three times on the same city block.  The driver will take your cash fare and make change with one hand, while moving the bus back into traffic with the other.  Bus drivers get paid by the number of passengers they carry, so the more passengers carried per day the better the deal for the bus driver. This leads to something called the Penny War, where one bus will race past another to screech to a halt simply to grab the next available passenger.  A fare is a fare, and one more passenger is one more penny in the driver’s pocket at the end of the day.  These buses carry millions of fares a day, so the pennies add up.

In terms of convenience of access for passengers, the system can’t be beat.  You can walk out of your office and hail a bus right there and then.  The driver loves you when you are on the sidewalk.  But once on the bus, you are on your own.  As a passenger, you will need to hold onto your often tiny seat (if you have one) to avoid being displaced into the air as the penny rules, and bus drivers swerve, speed, and jerk their buses to sudden stops at any given moment to pick up a new passenger.

For every bus that stops on a dime, traffic behind the bus must also stop.  More often than not, the buses, taxis, and cars behind will try to pull out to the next lane thus creating a symphony of honking horns from the drivers who are forced to adjust to the incoming traffic.  This can happen block after block after city block.  Many of these city buses, minivans, and vans, in service today are decades old, in poor repair, and spew exhaust fumes into the air with immunity.

However, change is afoot.  This change began just over a decade ago when the city fathers had the good sense to copy an articulated bus transportation system from the city of Curitiba in Brazil.  Bogotá’s Transmilenio is a mass urban transportation rapid transit system that went into service in 2000.  Its buses are uniform in color, and have exclusive designated bus lanes.  The system operates along the center of the Autopista Norte (the North Freeway), for example, where bus stations are accessed via elevated pedestrian walkways.  Generally speedy and almost always crowded, the Transmilenio operates as an above ground subway system.  “Love the speed, hate the crowds”, pretty much sums up the relationship many Bogotanos have with the Transmilenio.

The Transmilenio is a combination of public and private enterprise.  Public money pays for the development of roads and stations, while private companies run the buses.  The city gets a small portion of the profits to help maintain the system, which has been in a constant state of expansion.  Avenida Dorada has been upended for the last couple of years as the line to the airport is built.  The latest plan envisions a Transmileno line along the center of one of Bogotá’s busiest arteries, Carrera 7.  At the end of each Transmileno line, there is a Portal, a large terminal station, from where feeder buses transport passengers at no additional charge to surrounding neighborhoods.  Numbers are hard to pin down, but the Transmilenio today appears to carry close to 2,000,000 passengers a day.

In 2009, a decree was signed into law to radically transform the ‘penny’ buses, and thus the streets, of Bogotá.  The Integrated System of Public Transport (SITP) is designed to alter the city landscape.  13 new entities are being created to run the new system of street buses.  Older buses on the city’s streets are to be replaced by new.  The end of the Penny War is in sight.  The incentive to run red lights to catch the next prospective fare is being removed.  Bus drivers will be paid a fixed salary with benefits, and will no longer be dependent on the number of passengers on their buses to put food on the table.  Bus drivers will no longer have to fumble for change with their right hand while driving with their left.  A smart card is planned and cash will no longer be accepted.  The number of buses on the streets is also being reduced to eliminate redundancy.  Sleek bus stops are already being built across the city.  Supposedly, buses will stop only at designated bus stops.  Passengers should no longer enjoy the special privilege of being let off their bus in the outside traffic lane and having to scurry through moving taxis, cars, and buses, to reach the safety of the sidewalk.

Public transportation in this large metropolis is in a state of flux.  Great changes are in the air.  With the bus system, some of these changes should be evident before this year is out.  The Penny War should be over and done!  But old habits die hard.  Earlier this year, the city launched an advertising campaign along busy Carrera 7 to encourage buses to stop only at the newly built bus stops.  However, so far buses continue to stop where they will, and passengers continue to hail buses where they will.  We just have to believe that once salaried, the bus drivers will be able to put aside their decades old habits of treating the streets of Bogotá as their own personal racetrack and that passengers, once aware that their comfort and safety have been given center stage, will be willing to walk to the nearest bus stop before boarding their bus.

The post Bogota bus bingo: “Penny wars” meet 21st century appeared first on Occasional Planet.

According to SmartPlanet.com, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently called for cities with large numbers of taxis to play a role in cutting emissions. Speaking at a recent C40 conference in Hong Kong, Bloomberg called for the 25 member cities that collectively have oversight of more than a million cabs to consider developing electric taxi fleets. Bloomberg was recently elected chair of the C40 Climate Leadership Group, an association of major cities around the world committed to reducing carbon emissions and slowing climate change.

We’ve seen, I think again and again, how national governments have struggled, both at home and at the international stage, to take climate change actions,” Bloomberg said. “Together, we have to fill the vacuum of leadership ourselves.

According to SmartPlanet, San Francisco is already moving toward electric taxis. Better Place, a California-based electric- vehicle service provider, recently announced a three-year program to establish infrastructure for electric taxis between San Francisco and San Jose.

To collect as many fares as possible, cab drivers prefer to keep their cars moving. So the project entails four battery switch stations, where the EVs would pull into and swap their battery for a fully charged one. According to Better Place, the switch will take less time than a gasoline fill-up.

Last May, a similar project began in Tokyo, home to around 60,000 cabs. Obviously, Better Place would love to land a contract with New York City. But, the cab industry already took Bloomberg to court to fight his older ruling that taxi fleet owners replace their Ford Crown Victorias with hybrids in five years. Last year, a judge ruled in favor of taxi fleet owners and an An appeals Court upheld the decision over the summer.

Undaunted, Bloomberg will continue to push for electric taxis not only in New York, but also in other major cities around the world. His best hope is that major cities will cooperate in bringing the fleets online.

According to Better Place, electric taxis are the gateway to clean cities, because standard taxis are disproportionally responsible for harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Electrification of taxis could make a huge impact on air quality and oil consumption.

The post NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg pushes for electric taxis appeared first on Occasional Planet.

You may recall Arlo Guthrie’s wonderful song, “City of New Orleans” about the train from Chicago to NOLA.  In the movie “Risky Business,” the mystery of what a couple of young lovers were doing occurred on the ‘el’ (or elevated subway) in Chicago.  If you have trouble sleeping and have a device that provides soothing sounds to help take you into dreamland, you’ll find dozens of train and subway sounds, but virtually nothing from either a Greyhound or your metropolitan bus service.

But those of us who are rail lovers have to come to grips with the inherent limitation of trains and subways: They can travel only where tracks exist.  Laying new track is a major public works program.

Buses can essentially go wherever paved roads exist, thus they have unparalleled capacity and flexibility for mass transit.

As Aaron Renn has reported in “Urbanophile,”

Buses are what most people think of when they think of not getting anywhere: senior citizens waiting in lines, guys counting out change, double-parked cars. They are less sexy than subways and tend to be ignored until the MTA announces another round of service cuts. The last time buses were new was in the forties, when they were installed around the city as a cheaper, more flexible alternative to streetcars….But over the last decade, in a few transit-enlightened cities around the world, the bus has received a dramatic makeover. It has been reengineered to load passengers more quickly. It has become much more energy-efficient. And, most important, the bus system—the network of bus lines and its relationship to the city street—has been rethought.

Streetcars are making a comeback, but like buses, their speed and efficiency is limited by street lights and stop signs.  Unlike streetcars, buses have the flexibility to change routes when gridlock paralyzes their movement.

There is no inherent reason why buses can’t be more attractive and enjoyable.

Borrowing interior designs from airport vans, etc., municipal buses can provide passengers with comfortable experiences where they can be comfortable and relax.  Since buses are a slow means of point-to-point transit, passengers deserve a trade-off, and the most likely “reward” is comfortable seating with ample leg room.

Aaron Renn further states:

If New York City, the ultimate American city for rail transit, can see the wisdom of reinvigorating its bus system, then every other city in America should as well. No, New York is not cancelling its subway expansions. But it realizes that in a world of financial constraint, New Yorkers can’t wait decades for the relatively small number of projects that it has in the pipe to come online, much less develop new ones.

Buses came on the scene when metropolitan meant urban, and the automobile revolution was just beginning.  Streetcars faded when metropolitan came to include suburban. Fixed-rail couldn’t keep up with the growth.  The fact that core cities now have more open space than their surrounding suburbs simply proves the point that “things change.”  This is where the flexibility of buses can trump the romance of fixed-rail: A bus can change its route in a day while a streetcar, subway, or commuter train takes years.

Maybe the solution to enjoyable urban mass transit is to ride the bus while listening to the sounds of a train or subway on your headphones.

The post There’s nothing sexy about buses, but they work appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Electric streetcars, often called trams outside North America, once served transit needs in scores of North American cities. Most municipal systems were dismantled in the mid-20th century. Today, only Toronto and New Orleans still operate streetcar networks that are essentially unchanged in their layout and mode of operation. In 2001, Portland, Oregon became the first city in North America in more than 50 years to open a new streetcar system served by modern vehicles, as it debuted the Portland Streetcar. North America’s second modern streetcar system opened in 2007, in Seattle.

In May 2009, about 20 cities were contemplating new streetcar lines. But in the following six months, there was an explosion of interest. By December 2009, at least 45 cities in the U.S. and Canada were seriously considering streetcars, which are distinct from light rail because they share the right-of-way with automobiles.

This July, Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced more than $290 million in new transit funding for projects that will enhance the quality of life in communities across America. Of the 53 grants, six will fund or enhance new streetcar systems.

The nearly $300 million investment is part of the Obama Administration’s livability initiative to better coordinate transportation, housing and commercial development investments to serve the people living in those communities. It is being made through two competitive grant programs, the Urban Circulator Grant Program and the Bus and Bus Livability Grant Program.

The following 6 are the winners for streetcars:

MISSOURI

Project: St. Louis Loop Trolley Project (Urban Circulator) Sponsor: City of St. Louis
 Amount: $24,990,000

The City of St. Louis will build a two-mile, nine-stop urban streetcar route. This catalyst project would connect a neighborhood in need of revitalization with a thriving college village and a major regional destination. The circulator route would connect University City, Forest Park and the City of St. Louis together and tie into an existing light rail line. A mix of public and private investment is envisioned.

NORTH CAROLINA

Project: Charlotte Streetcar Starter Project (Urban Circulator) Sponsor: City of Charlotte
  Amount: $24,990,000

The City of Charlotte will build a 1.5-mile streetcar starter route with six stops and three replica trolleys, in advance of a future 10-mile streetcar route.  The project would be implemented on a reconstructed street already built with a double-track for streetcar vehicles and pedestrian and urban design enhancements along part of the alignment. The operating agency already has the streetcars and will provide the all of the vehicles required to operate the project.

OHIO

Project: Cincinnati Streetcar Project (Urban Circulator) Sponsor: City of Cincinnati
  Amount: $24,990,000

The City of Cincinnati will construct a six-mile streetcar route with 18 stops and six streetcars for operation on one-way pairs of downtown Cincinnati streets.  The Cincinnati Streetcar Project will reconnect the central business district to two redeveloping neighborhoods just north of downtown: Over-the-Rhine (OTR), a low-income, minority community; and Uptown, the region’s second largest employment center. The city proposes that the streetcar would enable Cincinnati’s core to grow into a more walkable, livable and affordable community with a healthy mix of land uses, housing units and income groups.

TEXAS

Project: Fort Worth Streetcar Loop (Urban Circulator) Sponsor: The City of Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Transportation Authority
  Amount: $24,990,000

The City of Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Transportation Authority will construct a 2.5-mile one-way streetcar loop with 20 to 25 stops and three vehicles, to connect a Trinity Railway Express commuter rail station and Intermodal Transportation Center with the central business district. This will be the hub of a planned streetcar network connecting six designated “urban villages” targeted for redevelopment to the city’s major employment centers, such as downtown and the Near Southside Medical District. Ultimately, the streetcar system will connect residents in four economically disadvantaged areas to job opportunities in major employment centers, while stimulating the redevelopment of walkable urban neighborhoods with a variety of housing choices.

Project: Olive/St. Paul Street Loop (Urban Circulator) Sponsor: Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority (DART)  
Amount: $4,900,000

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority (DART) will build a 0.65-mile urban streetcar track extension to an existing system.  This project would link the current McKinney Trolley to the existing DART light rail St. Paul Station and to the McKinney Trolley Olive Street Extension in the heart of Downtown Dallas. The connection to the Olive Street extension would form an entire reversing loop for the trolley, making operations safer and more efficient, while connecting downtown destinations such as the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center to Uptown Dallas.

WASHINGTON

Project: Seattle Intermodal Hub (Bus and Bus Livability) Sponsor: City of Seattle  
Amount: $2,400,000

The City of Seattle will restore the historic King Street Station and improve the Westlake Hub, creating two intermodal transportation hubs in downtown Seattle that connect rail, bus, streetcar, and pedestrian networks in Seattle’s Center City. Improvements to these two hubs are critical to implementation of Seattle’s Center City Access Strategy to revitalize 10 downtown neighborhoods, fight regional sprawl and build a sustainable economy and community.

Why Streetcars?

Streetcars are experiencing a comeback because they cost much less than higher capacity light rail systems and are a good fit for densely developed, pedestrian-oriented, urban neighborhoods and activity centers. Many cities, including Minneapolis and St. Louis, were shaped by early streetcar systems, whose remnants can be seen today in the way streets and neighborhoods are laid out.

Some of the defining characteristics of modern streetcar systems include:

Streetcars generally attract at least 15-50 percent more riders than bus routes in the same area. In Toronto, on routes where streetcar service replaced a nearly identical bus service, ridership increased 15-25 percent. A particularly dramatic example can be found in Tacoma, where ridership in the streetcar corridor increased by over 500 percent compared to the bus route that ran previously. The route charges no fares and offers free parking, conditions that were present on the previous bus route as well. San Francisco experienced a three-fold increase over bus ridership on its historic F-line corridor since beginning streetcar service in 1995.

Streetcars often attract private funding. Property owners are often willing to financially contribute to a streetcar system because they realize the value that a streetcar brings to their property and to the neighborhood. In Portland and other cities, private owners were willing to “tax themselves” either through fees, benefit districts, or other forms of exactions to receive the benefits of a fixed streetcar system. Nearly half of the operating costs of Tampa’s TECO streetcar line are paid through an endowment created by local business contributors.

Streetcars can provide needed transportation within neighborhoods. Adding streetcar service to the inner neighborhoods provides an attractive alternative that will not be overloaded with commuters from outside the city. Also, by providing additional capacity to inner neighborhoods, streetcar services can allow more buses more flexible commute operations, including skip-stop and express service, speeding transit for all riders.

Streetcars are an excellent way to provide local circulation, promoting “park once” and pedestrian and transit travel throughout a high-density activity center or multi-use corridor. Streetcars are generally focused on serving a neighborhood, not just moving through it rapidly. Streetcar stops are generally spaced closer together than light rail or bus rapid transit, because streetcar service is designed for local circulation and connections to higher capacity services.

Streetcars provide a visible and easy-to-understand routing, which attracts new users. Riders can stand at a stop and literally see where the line comes from and where it is going. Streetcar routes generally make few deviations from a straight path, giving the user more confidence. Visitors and occasional users are more inclined to use them, since there is less confusion about the streetcar than about taking one of many possible bus routes.

Streetcars attract both a visitor market and a local user market to transit. The fact that streetcars are easy to “understand” and often operate in areas with high visitor populations, helps attract visitors as well as local riders.

Streetcars catalyze and organize economic development. Throughout their history, streetcar lines have been an organizing principle behind new economic and housing development. Streetcars can help create dense pedestrian environments where access to local streetcar stops is possible by foot. Most of the modern streetcar applications in the United States have been catalyzed by the promise of new development, and in fact, have been championed by local developers who also partially funded the projects. Since the decision to build the streetcar was made, over $3 billion in new development has occurred around Portland’s streetcar line including retail, office and housing. In Memphis, 4,000 residential units have been built within a block of the streetcar in a formerly underused industrial area. And in Tampa, over $800 million in new private development has been built along the 2.4 mile TECO line. Although it is difficult to know whether development would have happened at the same pace without the streetcar investment, it appears that the streetcar line provided a “focus” which organized development and assured the transit focus of new development along and spreading out from the streetcar corridor.

The post Streetcar revivals to make cities more livable appeared first on Occasional Planet.