Alon Levy’s Pedestrian Observations blog has a fascinating post on the two group of ‘transit advocates’ in the USA, which he splits into the ‘technicals’ and the ‘politicals’. Here’s how he describes the two groups:
Politicals are the people who tend to trust the transit authorities, support a general expansion of all rail transit projects, and believe the primary problem is defeating oil-funded anti-transit lobbies. Technicals are the people who tend to distrust what the authorities say, and prefer their own analysis or that of technically-minded activists; they support transit but are skeptical about many projects, and treat agency inertia and turf wars as the primary obstacles for transit revival.
From reading through the many thousands of comments on this blog, as well as contributions to other places where transport is discussed – such as the Campaign for Better Transport forum – I think it’s fair to say that the division is quite universal. Of course, that’s not to say that technicals don’t talk about ‘big picture’ issues and the politicals aren’t at all interested in the details. Levy’s post discusses this matter in more detail:
Despite the name, being technical does not mean ignoring politics, or supporting technocracy. On the contrary, the primary impetus for the technicals, mistrust of transit and government authorities, is often bundled with mistrust of engineering standards, and with preference for practices that have worked abroad (European commenters on American blogs almost invariably side with the technicals). The difference is that the political battle lines we draw are less about mode wars and more about the interests of agencies versus those of riders, how broader political ideas affect transit and cities, or just plain corruption and incompetence.
Conversely, being political does not mean ignoring everything other than the effort to get projects built. Although the politicals are less picky about what projects to support (Bruce McF once referred to the position that only true high-speed rail be funded, rather than medium-speed lines such as the since-canceled 110 mph Ohio Hub plan, as another form of HSR denialism), they often do care about alignment and regulatory choices. For example, opposition to security theater on trains is universal. The difference is that they subsume them into the main political fight, treating them as less important issues, or just believe that truly incompetent decisions such as airline-style security will not happen. Insofar as the government’s statements on train security send mixed signals, they may be right; on the other hand, the FRA’s self-reforms are half-baked.
In a recent comment, Stu Donovan did a pretty good job at explaining one way that the distinction could be interpreted:
No, questions over funding should be answered by politically engaged citizens and their democratically elected representatives. In contrast, the job of transport people like us is to have an opinion on the best way to spend transport dollars once they have been decided as part of the political process.
Now of course there will be some overlap between the politically engaged citizens and the transport professionals, but it’s important to remind oneself of which hat you are wearing at any particular time. I think it’s entirely appropriate for me to advocate for increased public transport funding (as a citizen) and more spending on buses (as a professional).
I’m not entirely sure whether I would classify this blog as being purely a political or technical blog. At times, in my support of big picture policy issues, like the large rail projects or funding decisions, I am probably highly political – disregarding the details of whether Airport Rail would actually be a cost-effective project for now. On other matters, such as reducing the complexity and thereby improving the cost-effectiveness of the bus network, perhaps I’m a bit more technical.
After all, I think public transport advocates (both here and in the USA) need both sides of this argument. We need to passionately argue big picture political issues – to get public transport’s benefits more widely recognised, to ensure better alignment between transport and land-use planning and to ensure funding and policy-making decisions give us the more balanced transport outcomes that are so desperately needed. Yet we also need to ensure, once those big picture decisions are made, that they translate through to the best possible outcome. We need to be sceptical of how public transport money is spent, not only to ensure that we make the most of the limited amount of money thrown our way, but also to ensure that politicians making the big decisions see that spending money on PT is ‘sensible’ and cost-effective.
Processing...
Yep, this is the running battle in Australia – especially me versus some of the regulars on Skyscrapercity forums and one of the reasons we set up transporttextbook.com – to make the technical point for transit advocacy, rather than the political one.
“Technicals are the people who tend to distrust what the authorities say, and prefer their own analysis or that of technically-minded activists; they support transit but are skeptical about many projects, and treat agency inertia and turf wars as the primary obstacles for transit revival.”
Yep, too right. In Australia, the political system has failed. Those who are interested can read the excellent blog pipingshrike.com to find out why. NZ has similar situation although I gather with the economy more precarious than Aust, it has always needed to have stronger political leadership than Australia has ever needed.
Also, the US may well have well funded anti-transit lobbies.
Australia and NZ don’t. They just have road lobbies that are doing their jobs, advocating for their members interests.
The gap is the lack of transit lobbies, least of all (oddly enough) from the people who stand to profit the most, the operators, suppliers and unions of the actual transit operations, who are too dependent on the government teet to bite it.
I’ve argued for ages in the Melbourne context that transport activism is amateurish and ineffective – and they fail the basics of Media 101. Can’t even get a simple story, but also a technically accurate one, into a ten second soundbite.
While the road operators successfully drip, drip, drip the same message for years – travel time savings, savings to freight operators, get home quicker to see your kids.
Rail activism can attract the worst – the autism spectrum disorder types who care which signals need to be rearranged – the socialists who think the fabian project is still on – the conspiracy theorists who see the road lobby as larger and more influential than it really is – and the gunzels who just wanna go for a train ride through the country because they could when they were young. The ones who believe trains are better than busses coz they ‘just are’.
Road is not our greatest enemy. That is ourselves. “We have seen the enemy, and he is us”.
Ha ha that’s a great description of rail activists.
In Britain we use the term ‘anorak’ for such people (rail activists), named for the heavy waterproof jackets that many of them wear when out trainspotting. It’s not restricted to railways either, aviation has plenty of them as well.
Now, where’s my anorak …
true bro….
Personally, I think that solutions matter – if you have a high value transport project that demonstrates the benefits of a particular solution, no matter what the funding environment, then you’re more likely to prevail in increasing funding for that solution (over weaker solutions). For this reason it’s so frustrating to see a ‘half-finished’ project, even one of a larger size, because it invariably comes at the cost of the potential of that project, and thus limits future possibilities. Of course, there is a funding gap, always, but I think we should aim small and beautiful and work from there.
In Auckland’s case, we were very lucky to get Britomart in the face of all that could have gone wrong. It opened up a great number of possibilities with the rest of the network, and almost literally made it all possible. Auckland would be a much worse city without this one high-value project.
I agree – especially in situations where good process is followed. Good solutions can always fight their way up the political tree to get additional funding.
Yes there’s an important distinction to be drawn between political advocacy and technical analysis.
In my mind the former is focused on how large the public transport cake should be, whereas the latter is concerned with how the cake should be split up. Splitting up the cake really comes down to maximising the effectiveness of a given spending allocation. That means prioritising projects (in some way) and then funding as many as you can afford.
Too many *rail anoraks* blindly advocate for individual projects (e.g. airport rail) without considering the implications for other public transport projects. For example, if Len Brown was to deliver City Rail Link, Airport Rail, and North Shore Rail then this would divert funding away from bus improvements for the next 40 years.
And at the end of the day because so many more people uses buses (say 5 times) bus improvements have more “bang for the buck” e.g. 5% growth in bus patronage = 25% growth in rail trips. Of course effectiveness is not just defined by the raw number of trips, but it’s a reasonable proxy – especially when comparing improvements to Northern Busway and QTN.
I tend to support more expenditure on buses at the technical level, while also hoping that political support is forthcoming to increase overall funding so that more rail projects fit within the funding envelope. But there’s little doubt in my mind that they’re of lower priority than bus improvements … :).
Of course the obvious response is to say that rail improvements should come at the cost of the roading budget not the bus improvements budget.
If only we had one transport budget that all projects had equal access to.
Just want to balance that view a little with a plea for aesthetics to come into the arguments too. To an engineer and transport planner what may be obvious and logical for moving the most units at the lowest possible cost can have other consequences to things like quality of life at the street level, and may end up adversely effecting the the very place we are trying to improve. Eg too many busses can degrade a place…. this has been one of my big problems with traffic engineers, a sort of myopia that the number type brain can get into. And it can come from PT advocates as well as form the car/truck group-thinkers too.
So we do need ‘big-picture’ logic as well as ‘small-picture’ logic. Synthesis as well as analysis.
Absolutely Patrick. I come at transport from a planning perspective. In short, after a number of years thinking very hard about how we can make Auckland a much nicer city to live, work and be in I came to the realisation that one needs to start with having a transport system that supports, rather than degrades, the urban environment.
I agree – our streets are public spaces that should add as much value as possible to the community, both far and near. That requires a balance between access and mobility, between exchange and movement.
Many engineers see streets as pipes through which vehicles flow. They don’t think about external effects; it’s not in their reductionist DNA. Economists should consider external effects but most don’t – mainly because they are unpriced and as such harder to quantify (and economists know there is a rational incentive to be lazy because the road builders, i.e. Transit/NZTA, are paying your wages!).
The reality is that busy streets undermine property values. Just look at properties listed on TradeMe – how many mention being located on a “quiet street”? That shows you what people value – they value being away from cars. So, streets should be designed around maximising value by delivering an appropriate balance of access/mobility.
The End,
Ha ha, snap with my comment below.
Agreed, but can’t help but wonder if your example is a little specific?
Too many vehicle movements of any kind can degrade a place, e.g. Amsterdam’s light rail terminus (outside central station) is a mess and not very nice for pedestrians, as is Göteborg’s central tram square. As are buses on Customs Street.
But the theme of you’re comment is absolutely right – mobility should not unduly compromise accessibility or amenity. Too often engineers and economists count mobility benefits without considering its negative effects on a place.
That’s why I like measuring the benefits of transport projects in terms of their impact on land values. If a corridor is degraded by a transport project then its values will go down – if that was captured in the economic analysis of a project then I think we’d end up with far more sensible transport decisions balancing the benefits of enhanced mobility better with those of urban amenity.
I would really love to know the impact of the Northern Busway on property values in Sunnynook for example, or the projected impact of the Waterview Connection on Waterview/Owairaka property values.
Well for me, the great thing about this site, and others like it, is that it affords non-specialists like me to tool up on technicalities to refine our intuitions with factual information. Sometimes this does mean abandoning a view but mostly I have to say that it has put lead in my pencil. Helps to join the dots and give confidence to hunches and assumptions.
The analysis and especially the hard data from all you quants out there is fantastic for a generalist and ‘big picture’ person. The devil is, of course, in the detail.
But of course the two approaches are really equally vital and really indivisible, let’s never forget that the great [political] Auckland transport robbery of 1955 was pulled off with these words: ‘It’s a technical matter’.
Could not agree with you more, Josh’s blog (including the comments) is a real treasure trove of insight. Certainly helped inform my own understanding of transport issues.
Ah, well, if “technicals” like Riccardo think that “socialists” are the wrong kind of people who should be shunned by transport activism, then good to see you, guys, because I’m not welcome here any more. So “technical” means “elitist”, right?
I thought that everyone had generally agreed that both politicals and tehcnicals were necessary.
Can’t speak for Ricardo (I think it was mainly said tongue in cheek) but I do think Josh is right re: our general conclusion. For the record, I don’t think technical is the right word; because it ignores the “intuitive” insight many (non-technical) people have for transport. My colleague wrote an interesting post on this:
http://www.humantransit.org/2011/02/basics-expertise-vs-activism.html
Re socialists – I think socialism is OK in blog posts if it is stated as such. Too many rail activists proclaim the following as givens:
-income redistributive or ‘fair’ transport as being a goal
-the needs of the poor outweigh the needs of the majority (for example, winding bus routes that are useless to bona-fide commuters but pick up the needy)
-roads being subsidised, rail should therefore be too
-Labour governments are good for rail
My views within the small pond of Australian transport forums are known:
-ticket prices need to increase massively, to recover more revenue for improvements, a virtuous cycle\
-the needs of the income earning, wealth accummulating majority outweigh the needs (and definitely the desires) of the poor
-roads also need to have subsidies minimised. The whole land transport sector is inefficient, undersupplied and overdemanded
-Labour governments can be as bad as conservative ones – in NSW for example offseting the excellent WA example. I gather NZ Labour has been a disappointment in opposition. Many Australian labour governments are based on the Catholic fantasy of schools and hospitals for the poor, motor cars for the working man. Right wing labourites have never held with environmentalism, with public transport or good urban planning.
And you can increase ticket prices while retaining targeted subsidies to those groups who need it, if that’s what society values. But your key point is solid: You don’t deliver welfare by delivering an inefficient transport system. Focus on efficiency and then deliver targeted support to those who need it, not the other way around.
Fares on Australian PT (especially for longer distance commuting) seem to be substantially lower than in Auckland, so I’m not so sure whether the same insight applies.
In fact, one could argue that if lower fares attracted a lot more people to use public transport (thereby creating significant decongestion benefits for road users) it could make a lot of economic sense at a macro-level. Of course I don’t know whether that’s the case, but it would be interesting to see a proper analysis of what the ‘benefit maximising’ fare level would be.
all those useless eaters, eh?!
that’s right, people who own more and earn more have much more important needs, it’s a given!!!
empathy-free zone, then, eh?
oh, that’s called “socialism”? such a useful little epithet.
“all those useless eaters, eh?!
that’s right, people who own more and earn more have much more important needs, it’s a given!!!
empathy-free zone, then, eh?
oh, that’s called “socialism”? such a useful little epithet.”
LOL!!!
Society as a whole is better off when the needs of the majority, particularly the income producing part of the population, are addressed first.
I have no problem with the idea that people can be assisted out of poverty – but not by squiggly bus routes and gimmicky low train fares on weekends and such nonsense.