Don't "foul" up

Back in college in various organizing projects, when we'd be saying our goodbyes my parting words often were "don't f*** up." (And I have a joke that "flawed" is the other "f" word.

The failure of the bike fleet program (see the comments in this Washcycle entry, "Bike Sharing in the Nation's Capital update") at the U.S. House of Representatives is a perfect example why. As Washcycle points out, he and I wrote a letter (based on another series of blog entries) to certain members of Congress laying out an alternative way to do bikesharing--by participating in the DC system--and this alternative would likely have been far more successful.

Sadly, this failure provides all the ammunition in the world for people who are already in bed with the road builders to make fun of optimality alternatives to automobility. (You know the line about giving your opponents the rope to hang you with.)

Given that right now is the run up to the reauthorization of the Transportation bill, which does provide money for transit, bicycling, and walking programs in addition to road building--which gets the major share of the total, and that Congress passes and funds whatever bill that results, having a failed bike program in one of the houses of Congress is a big screw up on the part of the pro-bicycling contingent.

Washcycle, in another entry, "Kingston on Wheels 4 Wellness" links to a floor speech by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) a bicyclist, who uses the bike fleet failure as a reason to not provide federal financial support for these kinds of programs elsewhere.


(Ironically, I did a commercial district revitalization framework study in the City of Brunswick, in Glynn County, Georgia, one of the counties that Rep. Kingston represents, and we did outline an opportunity to create a bike sharing system in the Brunswick to support tourism, along the lines of the Tulsa Townies program. And bicycle rental and recreational riding is very big on St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island in the same county. Oh, and I pointed out the need for bicycle racks downtown.)

Earlier today, Christopher sent me a link to this point, about testing and just doing innovation, "use of concept: the best proof of concept" from Adaptive Path, a design and useability consultancy.

But it is so basic an understanding that they didn't think it was necessary to mention that when you do such tests, you don't ignore all the learning that has been gathered to this point and do whatever the hell you want.

Societal improvement is dependent on your being "responsible" and recognizing the obligation you have to others also doing equivalently important work that you don't intend to f*** up.

Sadly, these kinds of failures happen all the time. And they are so frustrating mostly because it is so unnecessary. Failure, when you don't pay attention, when you don't use a solid methodology, can be almost certain.

It doesn't matter so much when you are on a stage that no one knows about, but when your stage is something like the U.S. House of Representatives, the stakes are so much higher.