A transit system without redundancy means more of your day without sunshine

The taxes that cities impose express priorities. (Drawing of the southeast view of a new baseball stadium unveiled by Mayor Anthony Williams, the D.C. Sports & Entertainment commission and the Washington Nationals during a news conference in Washington March 14, 2006. MANDATORY CREDIT REUTERS/HOK Sport/Devrouax & Purnell/Handout)

The WMATA system wasn't designed with redundancy. So problem trains cascade delays throughout the system. It also means no express trains for the far out parts of the region.

The last couple days the red line has experienced serious delays, so that a trip from Brookland to Gallery Place takes upwards of 45 minutes.

The way people think about driving is that they accept that one out of five days, there could be "catastrophic" delays, or at the least, very serious delays, doubling or more the time of a trip. With dedicated rail-based transit, the sense is that there shouldn't be such delays.

(It can be a bit different with railroads, because for the most part commuter lines don't control the railroad tracks. That's certainly the case in the DC region, where the Virginia Railway Express lost ridership for a couple years because of systematic service issues. Fortunately, they have turned the corner and ridership is inching back up. See "Ridership Surge Tied to On-Time Performance" from the Post.)

I have been thinking about the difference between transportation planning and transportation service provision more and more lately, in part because I think a lot about systems and processes, whether or not they are congruent, why or why not, and how to reconcile systems and structures.

More and more I am thinking that WMATA and the Transportation Planning function of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments need to be linked more directly. And somehow, there needs to be a more open process for managing these systems, one that is a bit less political, and more oriented to the implementation and extension of day in, day out excellence.

There is a famous book in marketing called The Marketing Imagination. I used to re-read this book every couple years, I haven't been and I should. It has the famous line that "GM needed to think of itself as a transportation company, not a car company...." Oddly enough, I think that GM did think that way, otherwise it wouldn't have had divisions producing buses, railroad locomotives, and construction equipment. But there is no question the decisions it made about transportation were mostly about automobiles.

If you look at the London Transport website, there is no question that it is an organization fully focused on multi-modal transportation--getting around--whether or not Transport for London provides the service. (For example, they promote bicycle-based transportation but don't sell bicycles.)

The tagline for the SBS Transit system makes the point that the system is focused on "Connecting Singapore." That's what this should be about. Connecting people/mobility.

Landor Company photo.

I am struck by Arlington County's recent move to "impose" a transit tax on businesses. The Washington Post editorial page didn't really like it, according to my reading of the editorial "For Change in Arlington ," but I think it's interesting. It's not a far stretch from the transit withholding tax that I suggest. See "Arlington Endorses Business Tax Hike: Transportation Projects Would Be Funded by Revenue," from the Post for a explanation of the tax.

Where it is significant is in showing the different priorities between DC and Arlington County. DC imposed a similar tax--but to build a baseball stadium. And let's face it, a baseball stadium will make the baseball industry wealthier, but in the long run, won't do all that much for DC. Sure the area around the baseball stadium will improve somewhat, but likely it won't achieve what people expect. (See "Some Firms Say Baseball Tax Looks Too High and Hard" and "Businesses Receptive To D.C. Stadium Tax," subtitled "Biggest Would Pay $28,000 a Year," from the Post.)

In other words, Verizon Center is well located, in the midst of an already well-connected, extremely well-connected by transit, area with many other things to do. It's a perfect example of the value of layering and of leveraging (and extending) extant investment.

Creating an area from scratch takes a lot more money. (Check out the JD Land blog for before and after photos in the Baseball stadium area.)

Imagine if DC would use the "baseball tax" money to instead extend the heavy rail transit system?

Proposed changes for the WMATA system, 2001 (separated blue line). Washington Post graphic.

That would be an investment in the city and the region, in mobility, an investment that would pay dividends forever.