[sustran] Re: A very short list of very bad practices

[bruun at seas.upenn.edu]

Two quick comments:

1) It would be helpful to qualify worst practices by saying URBAN  
worst practices.

2) in the case of LA, the Mayor is trying very hard to massively  
increase PT investment. I would
guess that some turkeys like the HOV lane are the political price he  
has to pay for getting cooperation
on the good projects. Alas, it does waste a lot of money, but trying  
to get rid of this project might
delay other better ones like the BRT and RRT projects for many years as well.

Eric


Quoting eric britton <eric.britton at ecoplan.org>:

> I received a fair number of communications both on and off-line and I find
> them interesting, challenging, and generally very encouraging.  But at the
> same time I am made aware of the fact that I have most probably not
> communicated the basic goal behind this project, so let me see if I can now
> clarify a bit.
>
>
>
> For starters, this is not a witch hunt.  It is not my interest to castigate
> or humiliate any project or group behind it.  Life is complex and filled
> with all kinds of internal contradictions, and moreover the kinds of
> projects and policies that concern us here tend to be in process, in
> constant evolution and adaptation, until that is the day comes in which they
> close down forever.  That of course is the time to do a postmortem. But in
> our particular case here is my guess that we will be sharing information on
> projects in process, so let us make sure that we (that I) do not give up on
> possible adaptations and improvements that may well be in process,
> hopefully.
>
>
>
> And if the usual ambitious goal of Best Practices surveys and inventories is
> to get out there and capture quite a large number of attractive and
> instructive projects, it is not at all the case in our own modest Worst
> Practices mini project.  What I am looking for is one or two handfuls of
> outstanding from examples which we can learn.  Yesterday's article in World
> Streets on the Los Angeles Interstate 405 road widening project is a good
> case in point.  Let us take a minute to have a look at it together:
>
>
>
> Exemplary Strong points: (Always a good place to start since our goal is to
> see if we can have a balanced understanding of what is going on and what may
> have gone wrong.)
>
>
>
> .         Caltrans and the other players involved in this project are
> extremely good at what they do.
>
> .         Not only are they world level performers when it comes to creating
> the planning and engineering standards to make a project like this work, but
> they also, in partnership with other players, consistently manage to do a
> fine job of bringing their projects in to standard and on time.
>
> .         For those of us familiar with driving in LA, we can testify on an
> almost daily basis the manner in which the road crews get their job done,
> often within minutes of the plan and clean up the mess so that the traffic
> can start to roll.  ("The cones are up.")
>
>
>
> Exemplary weak points and commentary:
>
>
>
> 1.  Oh dear. It is after all 2011 and if we have learned one thing about
> sustainable and on sustainable transportation over the last decades, it is
> that any project which extends the capacity of the infrastructure to carry
> yet more moving motor vehicles is a definite Worst Practice strategy.
>
>
>
> 2.  The concept of creating HOV lanes in the place of what went before is in
> theory an excellent one, but in practice is often watered down and abused in
> a number of ways.  (Maybe somebody can explain to me in a convincing manner
> why electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles should be allowed with a single
> passenger on to HOV, and while I am ready to listen and whether you can pull
> a rabbit out of a hat that I have ever seen, I most doubtful that you will
> convince me or any other experienced independent observer.)
>
>
>
> 3.  The articles' authors commentary concerning the limitations of
> carpooling as presently practiced in the region is, according to my best
> information, right on target.  Does this mean, however, that HOV lanes are
> not part of the solution?  Not at all!  But what it does mean is that the
> old ideas about how to do this need to be brought up to date.  So, if we
> were to think about it from this perspective, here we have a situation in
> which there is what looks like a potentially excellent hardware solution
> (i.e., converting portions of the existing road infrastructure to HOV lanes)
> needs to have better complementarity in terms of software and operations.
>
>
>
> 4.  So, to summarize, they failed to do the whole job.  We have at the base
> of this project a good idea, well executed on the hardware side -- other
> than the fact that the project team made the old and now well known error of
> actually increasing infrastructure capacity for cars -- while for the rest
> they simply fail to give attention to the most important part of all --
> i.e., how to get more people into fewer cars with improved mobility and
> improved quality of life.  Basically they were taking an old mobility
> approach to a problem/opportunity that required new mobility strategic
> thinking.
>
>
>
> That is my take on this as an example of the sort of thing that I would like
> to see in our modest shared Worst Practices inventory and commentary.  I am
> sure that a number of you will come in and do more and better, at least I
> hope so.  But my reason for sharing this with you this morning is that I
> wish to offer this is an example of the kind of project analysis and
> commentary that I believe can help us to better organize our ideas and be
> better prepared for future initiatives and opportunities.
>
>
>
> I look forward to hearing from you either personally or here with your
> views, objections, and eventually your ideas and suggestions on the basic
> concept here namely , that of setting out to create a collaborative, open,
> independent Worst Practices inventory and commentary.
>
>
>
> Kind regards/Eric Britton
>
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