I’ve been watching with interest Chris Bruntlett’s Twitter posts (@modacitylife) and facebook page of crowd sourced photos of Christmas trees being carried home by bike. What I like most about Chris’s posts are that they are bringing visibility to the different choices that people are making in their lives in terms of how they get around and the meaning they… Read more »
Think quick! What are the most important elements of a really great transit system?! Chances are if you just answered that in your head right now, you might have said things like: frequency, directness, reliability, easy fare payment, easy to use and understand information, consistency, comfort or safety. Some of you might have answered “convenience,” which I would then have… Read more »
Working as I do in the field of transit, it’s been an interesting few weeks since Justin Trudeau won the Canadian national election to become the leader of our country. Transit and spending on civic infrastructure that could help sustainable transportation of all kinds were two big themes of his campaign, and a bus was also part of his first… Read more »
Disassociated Press, BIG RIVER, BC: A rogue gang of sinister mimes is being implicated in an evil invisible force field plot that has left a trail of passed up passengers, mashed feet and hoarse bus drivers in transit systems across North America. Not since the all-mime population of the small European hamlet of Kopfschmerzen accidentally trapped itself in a 20-foot-tall… Read more »
We all know the power of images. Making a visual impact is even that much more important when trying to engage citizens in community decision-making, particularly when it comes to communicating project benefits and trade offs. Two great examples of visually communicating recently came my way and I thought I would share them. Example 1: City of Victoria 2015 Property… Read more »
It goes without saying that changing technology has had huge impacts over the last 20 years, and its impact on how we plan cities and transit systems is no different. This post is about some of the best parts of those changes…and a love letter to the “old school” practice of marking up maps that I still believe is an… Read more »
As I write this, over this past week, transit systems across North America have been gearing up for the big show: the Tuesday after Labour Day when schools and colleges again crank into full swing and travel patterns hit reset after the summer. Trains and buses will get crowded, new and revised services will roll, and many, many transit operators… Read more »
The other day while gingerly nestling my bike against another unknown person’s at a bike lock up it crossed my mind that no car driver would ever tolerate parking their vehicle by rubbing it up against someone else’s. I started to grumble and launch into an internal diatribe. But then I stopped and thought again. Because maybe this wasn’t something… Read more »
An interesting question from Gabriola Island’s community bus group the other day seemed like a great leading off point to go over some transit planning basics.* Let’s then go hand in hand with GERTIE and step our way through some elemental aspects in transit decision making. But first, some background: Who is this “GERTIE” anyway? GERTIE (Gabriola’s Environmentally Responsible Trans-Island… Read more »
A number of events over the past few months have got me thinking about how powerful the word “and” is. So powerful, I’m nominating it as my #1 transportation word of all time (okay, maybe #3 after “foot” and “wheel”…) Whether it comes to integrating transportation with land use, or integrating different modes of travel with each other, each of… Read more »
I am no fan of lollipops. I’m not talking about the sweet kind, they’re great. Instead, I mean the route structure that looks like a lollipop: the cases where a bus route leaves an otherwise lovely linear path to take riders on a journey twice. Up a stick, around a loop, and right back down the stick (or road) they… Read more »