Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

A tenure of failure doesn't deserve encomiums: Paul Wiedefeld, WMATA CEO

WRT the encomium, maybe Wiedefeld did the best he could do.  But it's not enough.

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Almost two weeks ago, I wrote about how transit failures in the DC metropolitan area don't just have negative impact on transit within that area, but nationally, as transit opponents use failures in one place as justification for opposition for transit creation in other communities.

-- "Sometimes you have to wonder if transit/transit projects are being deliberately screwed up to make transit expansion almost impossible"

WMATA, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, operator of the Metrorail subway/heavy rail system serving DC, Northern Virginia, and Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland, has been in failure mode for more than ten years.  

Brochure, February 2000

Part of it wasn't the system's fault per se, but the failure of board members and jurisdictions to fund necessary quantum system maintenance as the system aged--they were warned.  In the 1990s, system planners warned leaders and stakeholders that this would be required in the coming years.

But nothing was done until the system started failing.

Since 2009 the system has been in perpetual crisis, when a signals failure resulted in a train crash killing 9 people--and the crash was "merely" the denouement after multiple signal failures over preceding years that fortunately hadn't resulted in death, but weren't seen as an indicator of system failure.  

But the problems haven't stopped, system service degradation as a repercussion of the system failure, tunnel fan failures (abetted by inspection failures) leading to another death, operational failures of various types, and over the past few months, a failure to address derailment/wheel problems in the 7000 series of cars which resulted in 748 cars being taken out of service, and the Metrorail system basically grinding to a halt.

Although WMATA did respond to the signals failures and need for substantive overhaul by creating the SafeTrack program to execute various system improvements (although at short term cost of closing sections of the system while repairs were made).

But the failure of the 7000 series cars is an illustration that the problems in WMATA operations go far beyond "a state of good repair."  The problems are structural, systemic.

Just after I wrote the piece, the CEO of WMATA announced his forthcoming retirement ("Metro’s general manager to retire after six years as top executive") and a few days later the Washington Post editorialized that he's great and restored the capacity, confidence, and the ability of the system ("Paul J. Wiedefeld’s tenure at Metro").

I don't think the writers ride the system much.

Wiedefeld is an experienced airport manager, but I think his tenure at WMATA demonstrates the necessity of a highly experienced rail transit professional to run the system.  

Just like his predecessor, a super experienced bus administrator, demonstrated the need for a highly experienced rail transit professional to run the system. 

(And maybe commenter charlie is right that we can't expect WMATA to run both rail and bus service excellently, that buses will always be second to rail.  See "Reviving DC area bus service: and a counterpoint to the recent Washington City Paper article," 2019).


I think this headline from a WTOP radio story is more accurate.  

At best the system is in stasis, with a repeated track record of failure over the past 10+ years, and rebuilding the confidence in transit and the consensus of the importance of transit is key.

The subway had been key to DC and Arlington County's resurgence, including residential and business attraction, and significant reductions in automobile traffic.

DC especially should be worried, not only about covid and its impact on the qualities that make urban living attractive, but about the likelihood of Metrorail recapturing its capacity to be successful.

Conclusion: What is to be done?

1.  Fix WMATA.  The first order of business is to hire top notch executives to run the system, people with experience in heavy rail, high volume transit service.  And then overhaul the agency from top to bottom.

-- "Getting WMATA out of crisis: a continuation of a multi-year problem that keeps getting worse, not better," 2015
-- "More on Redundancy, engineered resilience, and subway systems: Metrorail failures will increase without adding capacity in the core," 2016
-- "Reviving DC area bus service: and a counterpoint to the recent Washington City Paper article," 2019

Note that the first two entries were written at the outset of Wiedefeld's appointment, and I wouldn't say that WMATA is more stable and effective compared to 2015.

In Philadelphia, NBC10 is running a survey on the quality of the local transit service there ("SEPTA Riders: Tell Us What It's Like to Take Public Transit").

2.  Rebuild the regional consensus about the value of transit.  In 2009 after the crash, and in 2014, I suggested that the region needed to rebuild its consensus on the importance and value of transit.

-- "St. Louis regional transit planning process as a model for what needs to be done in the DC Metropolitan region,"
-- "WMATA 40th anniversary in 2016 as an opportunity for assessment"

This need is even greater now.  

3.  Create a regional transport association to plan, manage, and deliver transit and mobility services.  Also, I've argued that the metropolitan area/region should reconfigure how it manages, plans, and operates transit, along the lines of the German VV model.

By default WMATA is the main transportation planner and it shouldn't be.  

-- "Don't over focus on "fixing" the WMATA Compact. Instead create a new Regional Transit Compact, of which WMATA is one component," 2017
-- "The answer is: Create a single multi-state/regional multi-modal transit planning, management, and operations authority association," 2017
-- "Route 7 BRT proposal communicates the reality that the DC area doesn't adequately conduct transportation planning at the metropolitan-scale," 2014

Although in the US, I've argued that such associations need to have a more expansive membership, and include for profit providers when appropriate ("Another example of the need to reconfigure transpo planning and operations at the metropolitan scale: Boston is seizing dockless bike share bikes, which compete with their dock-based system," 2018), airports ("Transportation demand management gaps, Salt Lake City International Airport and car sharing," 2021), and even highway operators ("Washington Post letter to the editor on repair-related closure of Rockville and Shady Grove Stations and corridor management," 2021).

-- "DC is a market leader in Mobility as a Service (MaaS)," 2018

4.  Elect the Board of Directors.  And that WMATA's board should be popularly elected, and treated as members of local government systems ("Why not elect DC's representatives to the WMATA transit agency board?," 2019, "Should DC's representatives to the WMATA Board be popularly elected?," 2014).  Eg., DC's elected board members to WMATA should serve on DC Council's transportation committee as ex officio members, and on a city transportation commission if one existed (item 9, "How I would approach organizing the DC master transportation planning process and plan," 2013)..

But this should be extended to the entire board, and include the representatives from Maryland and Virginia too (Virginia jurisdictions in the WMATA Compact mostly have transportation commissions already. Rockville, a part of Montgomery County, does also.)

5.  Fix funding.  I have also written that it was unfortunate that when the system was successful, the jurisdictions didn't come together and vote for permanent sales taxes to fund the system (""Let's Talk" -- What to do when your transit authority needs more money?: Washington region edition," 2014).  Now with the system's repeated failures, not to mention Republican Governors in Maryland and Virginia, it's almost impossible to believe that this could be accomplished.

6.  Expand and intensify the transit system.  You can't have a transit city without continuing to expand and intensify the system.  But WMATA only cares about Metrorail, and to some extent regional bus service.  That's why a transport association is key.

WMATA isn't interested in other modes, be they streetcars, light rail, railroad passenger services, etc.   For example, the light rail Purple Line will be run by the Maryland Transit Administration (as is the Takoma Langley Crossroads Transit Center) because WMATA wasn't interested.  (To extend the point made by Ted Levitt about GM in the book Marketing Imagination--WMATA isn't a transit/transportation "agency" but an operator of heavy rail and bus services.)

-- "Update to the Paul J. Meissner produced integrated high capacity transit map for the Washington metropolitan area," 2017
-- "One big idea: Getting MARC and Metrorail to integrate fares, stations, and marketing systems, using London Overground as an example," 2015
-- "A new backbone for the regional transit system: merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines," 2015
-- "Setting the stage for the Purple Line light rail line to be an overwhelming success: Part 2 | proposed parallel improvements across the transit network," 2017
-- "Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?," 2017
-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland," 2019
-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line," 2020
-- "Metrorail shutdown south of AlexandriaNational Airport would have been a good opportunity to promote ferry service," 2019 (speaking of ferry service, "Ferry to D.C.? New analysis underway," Inside NoVA; note fwiw, there have been ferry studies off and on since 1992)
-- "Will buses ever be cool? Boston versus the Raleigh-Durham's GoTransit Model," 2017

-- Georgetown Gondola proposal (which isn't necessary with a separated blue or silver line)

WMATA has come up with some ideas of its own for Metrorail expansion ("The Blue Line Could Go to National Harbor One Day," Washingtonian), and they're better than previous iterations, but not expansive enough.

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What's a transport association?  In 1960, transportation planners in Hamburg realized that transit riders didn't care who provided what service, whether it was a bus, subway, train, or ferry in the core of the city or in the suburbs, that riders wanted an efficient and inter-connected set of transit services that was logically and comparatively easy to use.

At the time they started--and it took five years to get the organizations to agree to work together--it took as many as seven different providers and fares to get from one end of the region to the other.

-- HVV, Hamburg Transport Association
-- "HVV Celebrated 50 Year Anniversary, City of Hamburg
-- "Verkehrsverbund: The evolution and spread of fully integrated regional public transport in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland," Ralph Buehler, John Pucher & Oliver Dümmler, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation (2018)
-- Transport Alliances - – Promoting Cooperation and. Integration to offer a more attractive and efficient Public Transport, VDV, the association of German transportation associations. (NOTE: clicking on the link triggers a file download.)

The city planners organized the transit providers into a single association and began the process of integrating services, schedules, and fares, and creating a separate planning and coordination system. Who offered what service was determined by who could do it best--in any case, transit planning was separated from transit operations.

Two agencies, Hamburg Hochbahn (subway and bus) and Deutsche Bahn/S-Bahn (commuter railroads) provide the bulk of the service, and a third, HADAG, ferry services. But 30+ operators provide services within the system, mostly bus, but also exurban rail services--the City-State of Hamburg is a partial owner of many of these services.

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Monday, May 31, 2021

Transportation demand management gaps, Salt Lake City International Airport and car sharing

Government tranportation organizations have a hard time working with for profit competitors.  In my writings on creating integrated transportation associations at the metropolitan and regional scale ("The answer is: Create a single multi-state/regional multi-modal transit planning, management, and operations authority association," 2017), linking the providers in an area in terms of planning, fares, schedules, and operations, like the German (or London and Paris) model, I have mentioned that most areas have problems integrating for profit providers, because they may compete with some of the government providers, such as with bike share ("Another example of the need to reconfigure transpo planning and operations at the metropolitan scale: Boston is seizing dockless bike share bikes, which compete with their dock-based system," 2018).

Regulation may be an additional barrier, focused on revenue or applying inappropriate business models, rather than providing the best service possible to citizen-customers.  The problem extends to regulation, such as treating car sharing more like traditional car rental ("Calif. Superior Court: Turo Is a Car Rental Company," Auto Rental News), or looking at it as a revenue source rather than as a fulcrum for transportation demand management ("Another example of DC's failures in transportation planning: carsharing," 2011).

Of course, there is also the lobbying by special interests ought to protect their businesses from the threat of change.

Airports are losing revenues because of ride hailing.  With airports, because revenues from concession fees from rental car companies, access fees from taxis, and parking are so high, they see ride hailing and car sharing services not as services that the customers of the airlines use, or that the flyers are the airport's customers, and should be accommodated, but as competitors for revenue ("Airport transportation demand management in flux," 2019, "Revisiting stories: ground transportation at airports (DCA/Logan)," 2017).  

Ride hailing also put national airport shuttle transportation firms out of business ("Say goodbye to those blue-and-yellow airport vans: SuperShuttle is going out of business," USA Today). So now airports have one less source of concession revenue.  And a warning about the impacts of change and innovation on legacy businesses.

Some transport agencies like BVG in Berlin, recognize what matters most is the whole of the system.  In the creation of an integrated mobile transport app, BVG, the Berlin transport association, includes all the providers, figuring it's better to be the go to/top of mind provider ("Sustainable mobility news," 2019).

Airports are accommodating ride hailing, even though they're losing revenue.  For the most part, airports have figured out how to accommodate ride hailing although it comes at a revenue cost.  Usually there is a per ride cost, but some rides may evade a per trip fee.

Airports and car rental firms don't like car sharing either.  Car rental firms, which pay a lot of money to airports for access, and airports, aren't pleased about the potential loss of revenue from cheaper car sharing options ("Airbnb for cars is here. And the rental car giants are not happy," Washington Post).

There are a number of lawsuits between airports and Turo, another company operating in this space ("Hillsborough aviation authority sues rental car company Turo over nauthorized use of Tampa International Airport," Tampa Bay Times).

A counter example is how the Montreal airport is a leader in this area, having provided space to the now shuttered Car2Go service ("Car2Go agreement with Montreal's Trudeau Airport could be a model for other jurisdictions").

Salt Lake International Airport and Avail.  The Salt Lake airport dropped the Avail "car sharing" service a few days ago ("City airport slams the brakes on car-sharing business," Salt Lake Tribune).  From the article:

Launched in Utah in 2019, the company quickly became a disruptor of the car rental industry nationwide. Travelers flying out of the airport can park their car with Avail for free while they’re gone, and passengers flying into Utah can borrow the car for less than a traditional rental. The person loaning out the car either makes a few bucks on the side, or at least comes home to a sparkling clean vehicle and no parking fee.

Avail partners with a commercial airport parking and shuttle company to make everything work. But the Salt Lake City airport put an end to Avail’s business May 23, when it required that partner to stop working with third parties, including peer-to-peer services.

The way services like Avail or Turo work ("Flying Out of DIA for the Holidays? Rent Your Car and Earn Some Cash!,"Our Community Now, Denver) is that someone flying drives to the airport for their flight leaving their car, and through peer-to-peer car sharing (which means that the companies don't own the cars, they are rented out by individuals through the app), the car is made available to others, presumably arriving passengers.  

By taking the car out of the parking structure, the airport makes less money, especially as one car can support multiple trips.

Like how New Jersey regulates car sharing firms as more traditional car rental outfits ("Car sharing as a method for managing the demand for on-street parking: Hoboken, New Jersey," 2013), making the cost much greater, which defeats the purpose of car sharing as simple to do, the Airport wants to treat the car sharing program as a car rental firm, significantly increasing the cost to users.

Car sharing accommodation at other airports.  What Car2Go did in Montreal was to have a $7.50 trip upcharge (not unlike how BART assesses an upcharge for trips to the SFO Airport). They also had airport access in Seattle, with a $5 upcharge ("Car2Go arrives at Sea-Tac airport," Seattle Times).

The "new" Gig one way car sharing program in Seattle has an agreement with a parking lot provider adjacent to Sea-Tac Airport to provide trip access from the Home Zone in Seattle to the airport, with a $10 upcharge.  Gig has an arrangement with the Oakland California airport too, with a $5 upcharge.

In Denver, Turo and presumably Avail, are paying $36,500 for one year access to 10 parking spaces, and have an agreement to share revenue.  In Wilmington, North Carolina, Turo agreed to pay $3 per trip, with a $5,000 minimum ("San Francisco unicorn Turo lands first U.S. commercial airport permit," San Francisco Business Times).

What about the airport passenger as a customer and customer service?  This is an example of legacy providers aiming to use regulations and inappropriate business models to fight off innovation and loss of revenue.

But ultimately it comes at the expense of the airport's customers, who lose out on a greater range of methods to serve their needs going to and from the airport.  The airport should be thinking of its customers as not just airlines or car rental firms, but airport passengers.  

-- "From Passengers To Airport Customers – How Should Airports Relate To Their Target Groups?," Romanian Economic Business Review, 2016
-- "Defining customer experience: How airports can own the passenger journey," ACI Insights, 2020
-- "Attracting and Retaining Airport and Airline Customers Through Stakeholder Collaboration, Aviation Pros, 2018
-- "Why should airports care about the passenger experience?," DKMA

Having car share services charge an upcharge and sharing it with an airport could be an inducement for the Salt Lake Airport.  More revenue than strict car share, albeit less than if the car just sat there totting up daily parking charges.

Utah as a proto transport association.  Interestingly, Greater Salt Lake functions somewhat like a German transport association, because UTA, the Utah Transit Authority, is the primary provider of transit throughout the Wasatch Front, providing bus, light rail, and commuter bus services, although some communities like Park City, have separate intra-city transit services.  (There are still multiple planning organizations and integration failures across the system.)

There are some car sharing programs in Salt Lake and bike sharing in Salt Lake and Park City, but they aren't integrated into an overarching German style VV.

-- "Verkehrsverbund: The evolution and spread of fully integrated regional public transport in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland," Ralph Buehler, John Pucher & Oliver Dümmler, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation (2018)

COMET bus riders receive free 45-minute passes for Blue Bike. Michael Dantzler/The COMET.

I do think that it would be relatively easy for UTA to integrate the local GREEN Bike program into a linked transit program, like the Comet bus system in Columbia, SC ("Transit as a mobility integrator," Mass Transit).

Airports should be part of regional transport associations too.  I hadn't thought of it til now, but airports should be participating members of regional transport associations too.

In many metropolitan areas, airports are inadequately integrated into the transportation planning system.  This piece, "DC area airport planning" (2021) has links to past entries on that topic.  

Comparable to most other metropolitan areas, as a planning entity, the Salt Lake International Airport is somewhat separate from the transportation planning side, included on some things like it being a hub in the regional transit network ("Manhattan Institute misses the point about the value of light rail transit connections to airports | Utility and the network effect: the transit network as a platform," 2020), but independent in other ways.

Their failure to be "fairer" when it comes to car sharing access or serving as a bike mobility hub ("Why not a bicycle hub at National Airport?, focused on capturing worker trips but open to all") are illustrations of why airports need to be part of the "transport association" mix, along the lines of an integrated sustainable mobility platform ("Further updates to the Sustainable Mobility Platform Framework") and transportation demand management planning.

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From "Why should airports care about the passenger experience?,"

The secret benefits of focusing on the passenger 

For some time I’ve wondered why some airports go to extreme lengths to provide a spectacular ambience and a unique experience. A couple of years ago, I started asking airports at the top of the ASQ rankings why they continued to focus on the passenger when some might say they are wasting money. 

The responses I’ve received have shown very deep thought about the nature of how an airport works and how to create efficiency and pride in its culture. 

1. Passengers who have a great airport experience are more relaxed, spend more and want to come back 

2. Airports increasingly compete with each other and also with alternative transport modes for passengers, therefore developing customer loyalty is important right now – at the very least having a good reputation is vital before the competition arrives. 

3. A great passenger experience makes a good impression / enhances the reputation of your city/state/country. (The airport is the first and last thing a visitor sees). Therefore from a tourism, business and economic point of view it makes sense to invest in the airport. 

4. A great passenger experience makes it very difficult for governments/regulators to argue that the airport is doing a bad job – the airport is clearly serving the community. 

5. Focusing on the customer binds the organisation together. It gives all staff a clear goal and a clear understanding of the aims of the airport – what types of behaviour are acceptable and to be encouraged. 

6. Staff who are committed to providing a great passenger experience tend to help their colleagues more making the airport more efficient and effective. 

7. Staff, passengers and the local community who are proud of their airport look after it better, want to be associated with it and are less likely to litter or accept a shabby ambience. 

8. A great passenger experience keeps media onside and helps marketing/publicity for the airport. Passengers often prejudge an airport based on its media profile. Given that media tend to publish negative issues more than positive ones, this can be a problem.

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