Could slow PT be good?

A recent post on humantransit.org ponders an argument, put by Professor Patrick M. Condon of the University of British Columbia (UBC), that public transport doesn’t actually need to be “fast”, and in actual fact there are some benefits from it being slow. Sounds strange when you first consider it, but here’s how it’s explained by Professor Condon:

The question of operational speed conjures up a larger issue: who exactly are the intended beneficiaries of enhanced mobility? A high speed system is best if the main intention is to move riders quickly from one side of the region to the other. Lower operational speeds are better if your intention is to best serve city districts with easy access within them and to support a long term objective to create more complete communities, less dependent on twice-daily cross-region trips.

In essence, if you really want to constrain sprawl in your city and encourage intensification along public transport corridors, might it actually be a good thing to keep the transit slow along those corridors? Jarrett at humantransit explains the idea a bit further:

Professor Condon is interested in the urban form implications of slower transit, for which his paradigm is the Portland Streetcar, a tram in mixed traffic, stopping every 500 feet or so, that glides attractively but slowly (averaging 15 km/h, 9 mph) through the redeveloping Pearl District. Clearly, the Portland Streetcar drove not just a dramatic densification of the inner city areas it served, but a pedestrian-friendly mixed-use urban form where many of life’s needs are within walking distance. That much is undeniable. In Todd Litman’s terms, which I explored here, the Portland Streetcar may not have provided much mobility but it certainly improved access.

In a way I see the argument here. If we’re using transport as a “place-shaping tool”, which we absolutely should in order to encourage an integration between transport and planning that results in better outcomes for both, then having a slower transport system is likely to result in everything locating closer to everything else. There is a very long history showing that people are willing to commute for up to an hour (shorter for cycling and walking obviously) before the numbers really start dropping off. As we have made transport systems faster over the years, all we have really done is made it possible to travel further within that hour, and as a result our cities have spread like crazy – which has led to huge sustainability problems associated with urban sprawl.

So should we look to go the other way? To not focus on making our transport systems faster, but rather to focus on slowing them down, so that the places shaped by transport projects are compact, fine-grained and more sustainable? Such an approach would be the ultimate rejection of the concept of mobility, but if accessibility was enhanced by it – who really cares? What the idea also takes into consideration is the outcome where fast public transport can actually encourage urban sprawl in a similar way (although generally more sustainable and clearly less auto-dependent) to what motorways do.

There are a few matters to take into consideration, one of which Jarrett spends much of his post focusing on, and another which is pretty obvious but obviously critical. Let me start with the point that I think the remainder of Jarrett’s post hammers home – that such an approach will only work for transport projects whose purpose is to shape urban form. Professor Condon proposes that slow transit would work best along the Broadway corridor in Vancouver that is currently being assessed for a possible subway project, while Jarrett points out that this is really most probably the wrong corridor to push the idea – as the land-use patterns in the area are relatively stable and established, while one of the main reasons to upgrade the route is to improve access to the university that sits at the western end of it. In short, it’s not a place-shaping project and therefore the benefits of “going slow” are most probably outweighed by the costs. I would agree in that case, and note that Professor Condon actually says that fast transit is best with projects designed to “…move riders quickly from one side of the region to the other”, exactly what happens along the Broadway corridor.

The second, and perhaps most fundamental issue is the question of whether we’re talking about just slowing down public transport or slowing down all transport. In my view if we just slow down public transport all we’ll do is give people greater incentives to get in their cars and drive everywhere – completely undermining what we’re trying to achieve. So for the “go slow” approach to make sense, it has to be across all motorised transport modes.

It’s somewhat difficult to think about how this concept could be placed in the Auckland context, but perhaps along corridors such as Dominion Road the advantages of a slower, more people-oriented tram line over a faster underground heavy rail line in helping to shape the development of that corridor would be the best example I can find. It’s certainly an interesting idea I reckon.

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