MetroRiderLA

Photo by via tombothetominator via Flickr; used with a Creative Commons license

The Urbanophile, part of the On the i10erary collection of must-read sites, posted terrific reasons why it’s difficult to reform transportation in Chicago. I post it here because Southern California is a treasure trove of this behavior — it might have a little to do with our Midwestern colonization during most of the 20th century.

It’s a behavior we see all the time in politics from the neighborhood to the nation. Now it has a name: “the racquet.” It was presented to Aaron Renn in an anonymous e-mail. I post it here for your edification:

Your discussion … reminds me of a concept I learned in the early ’90s.

The concept is “Racquet”. … A racquet is when folks have something they complain about and commiserate about but don’t fix it. Upon delving into the roots of racquets one finds that the folks don’t really want it fixed — the subject of the racquet is a unifying force that if corrected will remove the common complaint and thus the unifying force. The cultural changes that would ensue from the change in practices that “no one wants” are not acceptable to the people (the complainers).

I worked for a rapidly growing company in the early 90′s. … The CEO hired two consultants to help “transform” the company into a modern, international company with cohesive leadership. They introduced us to the “racquet” theory. In corporate organizational behavior, it is important to break the racquets. It is also difficult. But, I imagine far easier in a company with some semblance of common objectives that it would be in a each-man-for-himself city.

There are so many examples of this everywhere we look that it’s enough to fill a book. The concept of the racquet now also gives a focus on the foundations of a reorganization and the counter-force needed to overcome this deeper resistance (the dissolution of a unifying force).

Bookending this series of 10 essential sites MetroReaders should drop in and visit is run by an industry pro. It’s sometimes provocative, it’s always informative, and it has a great deal to offer reconciling the passengers’ needs with agencies’ capabilities.

Human Transit is written and produced by Australian transit consultant Jarrett Walker. While his bailiwick is the Land Down Under, Walker travels the world extensively and brings fine examples of how agencies around the world offer solutions to transportation challenges.

Walker has raised his profile after an entry questioning the benefits of streetcars generated tremendous discussion on his site. Since then, the comments to the rest of his posts have become livelier, and Walker is also posting more entries, so it’s frequently updated.

Walker also gives fair play to every transit mode. He knows of rail’s advantages, but won’t recommend it for areas that don’t have the base — ridership or density — to support it just to pick up ridership. He shows how buses can be improved in quantity and quality to raise standards of service.

Last but not least, Walker has some Southern California roots. According to his bio, he earned his bachelors degree from Pomona College in Claremont.

What it does well: Human Transit shows how a professional transit planner can see things from the riders’ point of view. Despite agencies’ overtures of respecting the customer, the reality is that planners and operations managers have a paramount duty to fulfill regulatory mandates. Most transit agencies don’t have the resources to provide a service that customers want or will use, so their planners will take what limited money they have and optimize routes and service to meet policy benchmarks. This mode of thinking has pitted bureaucrats and riders as adversaries. Fortunately, Walker breaks that mold. His blog enables him to communicate directly with both policymakers, riders and advocates and get feedback on professional recommendations.

Why you should read it: If you had ever thought of an idea of how to make your area’s transit system better, Human Transit helps you “brain up.” You gain some insight as what a planner looks for to get a service that becomes attractive to riders and well-used. You may also come across ideas to incorporate into your service, and be able to examine existing proposals critically.

If you enjoyed the last entry about D.C., there’s a similar site closer to home that touches on regional issues of transportation, land use and governance.

It’s the part of the country that everyone loves to love if not for the high prices and the hardcore liberalism: the San Francisco Bay Area.

Transbay Blog shows there’s more going on up there than computer code, sourdough bread, fog and cool bridges. As I have said during my travel logs published here last year, the Bay Area and Southern California are alike in so many ways. Economically, politically and especially transitally. That’s not a word? It is now.

Veteran transit riders know that the answer to the question of which is the worst transit agency in the world, is “the one you have to use every day.” For every complaint or snivelgasm you hear about Metro, you’ll find a Bay Area rider sharing similar war stories about San Francisco’s workhorse, Muni.

Fragmented transit service with munis protecting their turf is not just an L.A. thing. The Bay Area has dozens of systems and no supraregional authority that can crack the whip and bring agencies together.

We also face the same challenges. Both areas are hard-hit by the recession, both are notorious for traffic and sprawl (the Bay Area’s runs more in two primary directions, with most limits imposed by topography) and both have a cost of living in the stratosphere.

What it does well: Transbay Blog does a terrific job of up-to-date news and commentary on transit and land use. After poring through its many articles, you’ll think you are still reading about Southern California.

Why you should read it: Transbay Blog provides common ground on issues we face. Southern California can learn from what the Bay Area does right and wrong, just as much as we have a lot to offer our neighbors to the north.

“The Washington, DC area is great. But it could be greater.”

That’s the tagline of Greater Greater Washington, a blog that much like the region’s Metro system, goes everywhere. It covers not only transit, but pedestrian, bicycling, land use and — as if it can’t get enough, politics.

We outsiders may think, “How could DC possibly want more?” We look at WMATA’s Metro, the second-busiest rail system in the country, and marvel that an area can link the federal district with two neighboring states and still be served by two commuter lines and the southern end of the closest thing that passes for high-speed rail in the U.S.

DC certainly doesn’t have it easy. The Metro was a decades-long investment that is still seeing incremental additions. And from the locals’ point of view, being the nation’s capital can be more of a burden than a benefit. And while the Metro carries more than 700,000 passengers daily, DC is still home to traffic congestion that would give Southern California a run for its money. It also deals with metropolitan sprawl and several central business districts besides the heart of the federal government in downtown DC. In many ways, DC is a lot like L.A. but 25 years ahead on transportation.

What it does well: Greater^2 puts the District of Columbia under a microscope, and its slate of 30 contributors form a fine pool of citizen journalists. The topics are broad, and while it’s meant for the DC area, it is still accessible and easy to follow for outsiders.

Why you should read it: Washington has made great strides in public transit, but the path has been arduous. DC’s Metro didn’t make the area great, but residents and commuters leveraged the trains into the urban fabric. The local and federal oversight of the area make even California’s shenanigans seem downright tame. We in Southern California have not come close to completing the system, but as our Metro grows, we must realize that something is added but much else stays the same. Greater^2 is farther ahead, but DC’s experiences can help put the proper perspective for SoCal.

A great city can be made in three easy steps.

Such a pitch can be dismissed as hucksterism, but David Sucher is not a huckster that should be dismissed. He is the author of “City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village,” and the book has a companion blog about architecture and urban form that spells out how cities can make a sense of place that is inviting and attractive. It also is called City Comforts.

The blog comments mostly on current land use news, but among the archives are how easily good human-oriented areas can be developed. First is a two-frame GIF that illustrates the difference between urbanism and sub-urbanism (note the commentary inherent in the suffix). Even better is the PDF illustrating the “Three Rules” of pedestrian oriented design:

1. Build to the sidewalk
2. Make the building front permeable
3. Prohibit parking lots in front of the building

What it does well: City Comforts makes a bold argument in the simplest of terms. Sucher makes architecture and urban form plain to understand without stultifying the art to the point of being a “… For Dummies” book. Also, Sucher is no romanticist. On his best posts lists, he has a somewhat contarian streak to him: He doubts high gas prices alone will be the impetus for suburban reconfiguration, thinks Starbucks helped define the “third place” and was overall helpful for urbanism, and that parking will still play a prominent role even if it is tucked behind or under a business.

Why you should read it: City Comforts sets the groundwork for improving the urban atmosphere. It doesn’t attempt to banish the automobile, but it does help set it in a place that allows for busy sidewalks and puts the city back into the human sphere.

“On the i10erary” concludes its trip to the Southwest by basking in the sun and the dry heat of Phoenix. Yet again, the series stops off at a place where urbanism and transit are more likely to suffer heat stroke than to earn applause. At the beginning of this decade, Phoenix had the notoriety of being the largest American city with no bus service on Sundays.

As the decade winds down, the Valley of the Sun remains a brutally arid desert empire that would have sprawled across to Palm Springs and Albuquerque had the housing market collapse not intervened. At least Phoenix did quite a few things right with regards to public transit. It did restore the Sunday bus service it had not run in decades, and as the valley grew, so did Valley Metro. Yet the most ambitious and risky heart of the plan was a light rail line that would connect Phoenix with two suburbs to the east. Growing the bus service was understandable; building light rail, though, seemed like lunacy.

Criticism was as fierce as it was frequent. The valley was spreading farther outward in all directions, and this starter line of 20+ miles (!) was there to taunt the region that had an antipathy to urban living and mass transit. Phoenix was very much like L.A. during the post-World War II period: growing and spreading like kudzu, attracting a large Midwestern and cold-weather population, and nurturing a blank-slate frontier settler mentality that there is no history before you nailed your tent pegs here.

“On the i10erary” focuses on sites and writers that are able to offer a compelling alternative to the high concept narratives that define a city to its hoi polloi and credulous outsiders. Fortunately, the Valley of the Sun has one of these visionaries. His name is Jon Talton. His site is Rogue Columnist.

Talton took a vacation in August and has not been posting to the blog, but his long-form articles should keep readers intrigued until he returns. Talton, who now lives in Seattle, still posts about the city where he spent much of his life. His bio is especially fascinating. He’s a journalist who has evolved beyond the deadlines and straitjacket style of the daily newspaper. Imagine how many readers he’d add to the Arizona Republic if he still worked there. On second thought, imagine how many more readers would cancel their subscriptions if they came across Talton. He’s also an author of mystery novels set in Phoenix, and even lists paramedic and theater instructor on his CV.

Rogue Columnist is journalism at its best: equal parts brains, heart and balls.

What it does well: Rogue Columnist gives the biggest and clearest picture of Phoenix’s past, present and future. Only Talton knows for sure what drives his pursuit of the Phoenix canon. Is it liberal bias and an effort to throw dukes at the broad conservative political elite he calls the “kookocracy”? Is it a hometown he has experienced and wants to share before it is lost in a din of real estate spiels? Or is it carrying journalism to its logical extreme? It can be all of these things; it can be none of them. What’s important is that it gives Phoenix a sense of history, a detail of its urban ills, and a call to reform its political, economic and ecological tribulations.

Why you should read it: Rogue Columnist gives you the big picture of how a sweltering desert, in just a matter of two generations, grew to become the fifth busiest city in the United States — now even larger than Philadelphia. Talton lets you know that Phoenix paid a heavy price for growth. Talton’s background is business journalism, and he shows how Arizona didn’t choose a path to prosperity so much as it pursued a strategy of momentum growth. The cities, counties and the state encouraged sprawl and kept the focus on its fast growth without explaining why it grew so fast. The “business-friendly” climate was dependent on economic transplants — and importing a low-wage, low-skill working class. It worked up to a point … until the unthinkable happened in about 2008 and in a falling domino pattern. The housing market dried up, the price of gasoline crossed $4, the financial markets froze — OK, we all know. But for Phoenix, each domino was the foundation of its economy. In the shadow of all this, it celebrated the opening of light rail — which Talton supported early on. Yet it will be fascinating to see how Phoenix responds to this economic crisis, and Talton is sure to provide a compelling interpretation.