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Yep, when the traffic's clear. Not necessarily in the crosswalk. The woman had heavy bags and it would have been about a 10 minute detour. After a long day, how many would choose to make a detour? Few.
Well, obvi the traffic wasn't clear or that poor child wouldn't have been killed. I feel for the mom; I really do.
Lakeview is worse but there is a fair amount of parking on that street and the kind of stores present are stores that people don't tend to linger in(i.e. not a bar where people spend hours drinking or a sit down restaurant.). You could possibly find space on Wilson near by or 1-2 blocks up. Lakeview has lots of paid parking lots that can accommodate the drivers but that is another story.
Well, obvi the traffic wasn't clear or that poor child wouldn't have been killed. I feel for the mom; I really do.
It was a combo of unfortunate events: unpredictable child and unpredictable driver. The kid ran off into the street. Would a crosswalk have mitigated the situation? It is hard to say. The driver was also drunk.
People choose transit for two reasons: convenience, or necessity. As soon as a transit rider finds options that are more convenient, that rider will choose another option. It's human nature, and has nothing to do with "devaluing" transit, whatever that is. When it comes to transportation, convenience rules unless there are no other choices - and even when there are no other choices, it's certainly more convenient to have a job, or to get to the grocery store or to the dentist, than it is to not ride the bus.
When is public transit more convenient for me? When I'm going into Center City Philadelphia, where parking is either risky (love that Philadelphia Parking Authority!) or more than a cost of a train ticket, and traffic is a nightmare. There is no train stop less than 1.5 miles from my workplace, which is not downtown, and a bus ride would take at least 90 minutes with at least 3 transfers. Driving takes me 35 minutes.
When I lived in Cincinnati, the bus was more convenient than the car during stormy weather - the bus stop was farther away than the parking lot I used, but thanks to the Skywalk most of that walk from the bus stop could be taken indoors. Otherwise, the drive was 15 minutes vs. 35 for the bus and traffic was usually negligible.
Well, bless your heart. How many public transit systems are there in the country again?
We make transit inconvenient in lots of ways. Many agencies, still don't bother to do a good job of taking input from existing riders when updating/modifying/expanding systems. This of course is related to our stupid philosophy of expansion over maintenance for all of our infrastructure.
People who rely on transit, do of course have some general wishes, and you can make the experience more pleasant, if you choose to make that a priority. Unfortunately we rarely do. We just expect transit riders to put up with what they get,, How many terrible bus shelters (if they are even that) have you seen. Bus stops that are hardly more than a pole. Stops without coverage or benches. Stops without schedule information. .....
If we treated road infrastructure the same way we treat transit infrastructure, people would be up in arms!
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
The article does raise some good points especially with the NY examples, in that often it seems like those who design and run transit systems don't have the perspective of those who use it.
Bingo! I have seen a new term lately that sums it up pretty well!
Too many people involved in the transit decision making use a "windshield perspective" to make decisions. For example, speed is of relative importance for transit. But if you have a choice of a bus route that only takes 10 minutes and runs once and hour, and a bus route that takes 20 minutes and runs every 10 minutes. You are going to choose the latter. Frequency trumps absolute speed. But too many people (used to driving generally) think a faster trip is better than a frequent trip.
We make transit inconvenient in lots of ways. Many agencies, still don't bother to do a good job of taking input from existing riders when updating/modifying/expanding systems. This of course is related to our stupid philosophy of expansion over maintenance for all of our infrastructure.
People who rely on transit, do of course have some general wishes, and you can make the experience more pleasant, if you choose to make that a priority. Unfortunately we rarely do. We just expect transit riders to put up with what they get,, How many terrible bus shelters (if they are even that) have you seen. Bus stops that are hardly more than a pole. Stops without coverage or benches. Stops without schedule information. .....
If we treated road infrastructure the same way we treat transit infrastructure, people would be up in arms!
Bingo! I have seen a new term lately that sums it up pretty well!
Too many people involved in the transit decision making use a "windshield perspective" to make decisions. For example, speed is of relative importance for transit. But if you have a choice of a bus route that only takes 10 minutes and runs once and hour, and a bus route that takes 20 minutes and runs every 10 minutes. You are going to choose the latter. Frequency trumps absolute speed. But too many people (used to driving generally) think a faster trip is better than a frequent trip.
I don't know about that! If the 10 min. route runs when it fits your schedule, why not take it? Gosh, why make all these assumptions such as "anybody would jaywalk in this situation", "anybody would take a bus that takes 20 minutes if it runs every 10 minutes", etc? Anybody might do something entirely different from what you think anybody would do!
I remember one time in northern VA, there was a weather warning telling folks to get home sooner than later. The government employees got to leave at around 1pm. The rest of us left at our usual times. However, there were more of them then the rest of us, so they created a gridlock for themselves early afternoon. When it came time for the rest of us to leave late afternoon/early evening, the roads were nice and clear to drive on! The few inches of snow couldn't make up for the joy of driving with such low traffic.
There are reasons to take transit but 90% of the time it is better to drive. It is usually faster, safer in terms of crime and more comfortable. It is not limited by schedule and it's range is only limited by the amount of gas I can put in the tank.
Yes safer in terms of crime, but much much less safe in absolute terms. There is not a public transit system in America where the risk of being hurt by a criminal comes anywhere near the risk of being hurt or killed in a car accident. Cars are absolutely the most dangerous form of transportation.
Tens of thousands of people die in car accidents every year. Giving people more options to get around outside of cars can save lives.
The epic traffic jam in Atlanta was not only caused by the addition of inclement winter weather (snow and ICE) to the Atlanta metro region's sprawling development patterns.
The epic traffic jam in Atlanta was also caused by the addition of inclement winter weather to sprawling development patterns (or overdevelopment and overbuilding patterns) on an Atlanta metro region road network that is very-sparse and very-limited for the very-large metropolitan population that it is trying to serve.
Atlanta is basically a large metro region of 6.3 million people that is attempting to use a road network that was only 'designed' to handle the logistical movements of a metro region with a much-smaller population of only about 2.5 million people tops.
What's worse is that the Atlanta region is attempting to use that very-sparse, very-limited and wholly-inadequate road network without the use of an adequate transit option.
Just as much of the Atlanta metro region outside of I-285 Perimeter remains highly-averse to the concept of transit, much of the Atlanta metro region outside of the I-285 Perimeter also remains highly-averse, if not downright hostile, to the concept of expanding the road network on a large-scale out of an intense fear that the metro region's notorious (and politically-dominant) land speculation and real estate development community will gleefully use that large-scale road network expansion to create yet even more traffic congestion-generating sprawl and overdevelopment.
Atlanta's limited road network already struggles mightily to handle traffic and often teeters on the brink of total gridlock during normal rush hours on dry and sunny days (both on weekdays and weekends).
Add in some rain, snow, ice or even something as simple as a very-light mist and the Atlanta region's road network often goes completely over the edge and quickly devolves into total gridlock or even outright chaos as happened last week when every automobile commuter (virtually all in single-occupant vehicles) hit the roads all at once to head home to outlying transit-averse (and new road construction-averse) suburbs.
Even if Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed had insisted that businesses within the 152 square-mile City of Atlanta that he had jurisdiction over stagger their closing times as an attempt to prevent traffic from getting out-of-hand, businesses in the much-larger 9,000 square mile-plus larger Atlanta metro region that he has no jurisdiction over would have all still closed at once and released their employees all out onto the roads at the same time.
What's more, even if businesses in the City of Atlanta would have had their closing times staggered, employees of those businesses still would have left work and emptied out onto the roads en masse because all of the Atlanta metro region's independent school systems closed at the same exact time at about 1:00 pm (mainly the Atlanta Public Schools system and the independent school systems in the metro area's northern suburbs that stayed open because they originally thought that the snow and ice would pass to the south of the city where most of the independent school systems in the southern suburbs had closed for the day).
As soon as parents would have heard that the schools were closed, they would have flooded a vastly-undersized (and pretty much totally transit-deficient) road network and caused total gridlock.
Heck, even if all of the independent school systems on the Northside had not all closed at the same time at 1:00 pm, most employees still would have been out on the roadways en masse because they would have all panicked at the sight of heavy snow falling from the sky and would have all left work early hoping to beat the traffic.
I dont understand the mentality of blaming others. It is a personal choice to go out into this kind of weather or send kids to school. That is why people are supposed to look at/listen to the weather. It is irresponsible!! Blaming the state or city government is ridiculous. Each person made the conscious decision to drive into the city and/or send their children to school knowing snow was coming. I have NO sympathy for any except the poor children who were left overnight in school because their parents had no brains to think about their safety and welfare. Getting stranded on the interstate???? It is bad enough driving on a clear day...what did YOU think would happen in the snow....PFFFT - STAY HOME!!!
The world will keep on spinning around.
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