{"id":3286,"date":"2023-10-19T16:29:27","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T16:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/making-the-case-for-public-transport\/"},"modified":"2023-10-19T16:29:27","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T16:29:27","slug":"making-the-case-for-public-transport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/making-the-case-for-public-transport\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the case for public transport"},"content":{"rendered":"
Brent Toderian<\/strong>, a passionate advocate of public transport, spoke at this month\u2019s CPT Scotland Conference. Robert Jack<\/strong> reports<\/h5>\n

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Brent Toderian spent six years as chief planner for Vancouver, Canada<\/em><\/p>\n

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\nBrent Toderian is an internationally renowned practitioner and thought leader on city planning and transport, consulting on cities and projects across the globe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He set up his own consultancy business, TODERIAN UrbanWORKS<\/a>, in 2012 following six years as chief planner for the Canadian city of Vancouver, a globally renowned multi-modal city by design. He has twice been voted among the most influential global urbanists of all time by Planetizen.<\/p>\n

Toderian is a combative and energetic campaigner for public transport \u2013 or transit as it is known in North America \u2013 and active travel. He has accumulated 152,000 followers on X\/Twitter (@BrentToderian<\/a>), where he promotes a vision of less car dependent cities.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, he addressed the CPT Scotland Conference<\/em> in Glasgow via a video link in a session chaired by Ralph Roberts, CEO of bus group McGill\u2019s and the current president of CPT UK. And here are five of his key messages:<\/p>\n

Buses are \u2018extremely sexy\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI often say buses are the completely sexy unsung heroes of urban transportation and thus urban city building,\u201d said Toderian.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I say \u2018completely sexy\u2019 because for a long time, you know, folks like me used to say, \u2018well buses aren\u2019t sexy, not like light rail or heavy rail or or other higher order levels of transit, so to speak\u2019. But I\u2019ve stopped saying that because buses are extremely sexy to me, because they are about as flexible, cost-efficient etc as you can get in terms of a form of public transit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He accepted that many people won\u2019t share his enthusiasm and conceded that work needed to be done on improving their reputation. And the best way to do this, he argued, is to get them to run on time.<\/p>\n

We can do a lot of bells and whistles for a better bus service,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the key is that they need to be predictable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can do a lot of bells and whistles for a better bus service,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the key is that they need to be predictable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, he argued that a reliable service won\u2019t appeal to users if it\u2019s infrequent: \u201cIf your buses are running every 45 minutes and they\u2019re running on time, that\u2019s still a lousy bus service.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no \u2018battle\u2019 with motorists<\/strong><\/p>\n

Toderian believes that public transport and active travel \u201care critically important to the operation and good planning and success of cities and city regions\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s our starting point and end point for public conversations about public transit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I often say to cities, and to city leaders is, whether you care about public transit or not, whether you ever ride public transit or ever intend to ride public transit or not, your life, your existence in our urban societies and our suburban societies, is critically connected to bus being very attractive, public transit being very attractive, to other people. Because if you\u2019re a driver and you always intend to a drive, the best thing you can hope for is public transit being as attractive as possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The day before Toderian addressed the CPT Scotland Conference<\/em>, the UK Government had launched its Plan for Drivers \u2013 a \u201cnew 30-point plan to support people\u2019s freedom to use their cars and curb over-zealous enforcement measures\u201d.<\/p>\n

We need to be able to have a conversation about public transit that stops pitting driving versus public transport or active transport \u2013 something your prime minister in the UK needs to understand<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be able to have a conversation about public transit that stops pitting driving versus public transport or active transport \u2013 something your prime minister in the UK needs to understand,\u201d said Toderian.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not in a battle of motorists versus bus riders, or motorists versus walkers or bike riders.\u00a0We\u2019re all in this together and the better that walking, biking and public transport works, the better the city and the city region works for everyone \u2013 including drivers.
\n\u201cAnything other than that either doesn\u2019t understand how cities work or is just trying to make you angry to, hopefully, get your vote or your clicks on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

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We need \u2018plangineers\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the lines we\u2019ve said in Vancouver for a long time is the best transportation plan is a great land use plan,\u201d said Toderian.
\n\u201cIn other words, your land use decisions, particularly in your suburbs, which usually have poor land use decisions that lead to car dependency \u2026 are the bedrock of your success in public transport, and your success in active transport \u2013 walking and biking, scooters etc.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cHere in Vancouver we use a term called \u2018plangineer\u2019, which is a term we used when we did the transportation plan in the late 1990s, which recognises that city planners, land use planners particularly, and transportation engineers, have one common definition of success \u2013 which is to make a better city.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so land, use planning and transportation infrastructure planning have to be planned together so that you get optimal success.\u201d
\nIn much of the world, there has been a separation of these disciplines. The result is that decision making on land use and transport infrastructure is not aligned.<\/p>\n

I often say, if you get your land use wrong it\u2019s very hard to get your transportation infrastructure right<\/p>\n

\u201cI often say, if you get your land use wrong it\u2019s very hard to get your transportation infrastructure right because you just end up spending a lot of money on infrastructure connecting nothing with nothing over long distances,\u201d Toderian explained.<\/p>\n

Once the land use planning is aligned with transport planning it\u2019s possible to create attractive public transport options, by using bus lanes or by providing Bus Rapid Transit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI you\u2019re stuck in the same traffic as the cars there\u2019s very little impetus for mode shift \u2013 in other words, doing trips by bus instead of trips by cars,\u201d he said, \u201cand you end up with buses being the last resort \u2026 Bus Rapid Transit, the ability to by-pass the congestion, is probably the single most important things that cities can do to facilitate ridership post-pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ridership is the \u2018Holy Grail\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the most flexible mode of transport, there is pressure on buses to serve as wide an area as possible, requiring resources to be reallocated from dense, higher frequency corridors to lower density suburbs. This trade off is sometimes framed as being a conflict between socialists (who want a service for everyone) and capitalists (who prioritise profit). He believes that this is a false narrative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have thought for a long time that we have the entirely wrong conversation about this choice,\u201d said Toderian. \u201cI am not shy in saying to cities that in a climate emergency, in an affordability emergency, when we are assembling land use and housing density in ways that can specifically facilitate ridership, through transit-oriented development \u2026 we need the routes and the bus frequency to match those land use decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ridership has to be our priority, and this is not a capitalist versus socialist perspective. This is a very pragmatic, non-political, \u2018how cities work\u2019 kind of perspective<\/p>\n

\u201cRidership has to be our priority, and this is not a capitalist versus socialist perspective. This is a very pragmatic, non-political, \u2018how cities work\u2019 kind of perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledges that this can be a tough decision, but he advises cities to emphasise ridership over coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cRidership is the Holy Grail \u2026 We need fewer car trips, more public transit trips,\u201d he argued. \u201cI constantly remind decision-makers that every transit trip actually benefits society in every way, including financially, because it doesn\u2019t matter if transit pays for itself because transit provides an economic good to the city region, because car trips are heavily, heavily subsidised and bus transit trips are not.\u00a0And so the more we get people riding buses, and walking and biking obviously, the better it is financially, economically, climate-wise, affordability-wise etc.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThat is not a capitalist perspective, that is a public interest perspective. And so, when I\u2019m working with cities and city regions, I\u2019m trying to blow up this false narrative of capitalist versus socialist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, Toderian maintained that a strategy of focusing resources on ridership can actually lead to improved coverage.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tension is unavoidable\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Toderian said that tension was unavoidable when pushing for changes that support public transport and active travel. He uses social media and mainstream media to make the case for change. And he\u2019s not afraid to lock horns with those who declare that there is a \u201cwar on the motorist\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI use my Twitter feed to constantly beat the drum of how we need to fundamentally rethink how we think about public transport in our cities, and this whole fake narrative of drivers versus transit riders,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in social media. I believe in mainstream media. I believe in being less mind-numbingly boring than we usually are when we talk about these kinds of subjects, so that the public and the politicians actually pay attention and the media pays attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we do need to break through the noise, break through the car advertisements \u2026 and actually inform the public in interesting and memorable ways about the truth about how cities work and how public transit works.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to running a busy consultancy practice, Toderian devotes a lot of time to trying to influence public opinion.<\/p>\n

We need to have a much more interesting and provocative conversation and court the controversy in order to actually blow holes in the myths<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cWe need to have a much more interesting and provocative conversation and court the controversy in order to actually blow holes in the myths, etc, so that the politicians have better information and we can call BS on them when they\u2019re doing clearly the wrong thing when they should know better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI often say knowing the right decisions is the easy part, actually getting the public to understand why it\u2019s the right decision and getting the decision makers to make the right decision, even when it\u2019s controversial, that is the hard part, and that is the part that we need to be much better at and spend more time at.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Toderian has clients who want a conversation but don\u2019t want to be controversial. His response is to tell them that this is impossible. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to actually effect change without having a tension-filled, controversial conversation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said that he begins every conversation by talking about the five crises that our cities face: the climate crisis, the housing\/affordability crisis, the public infrastructure cost crisis, the social equity\/racism\/classism crisis, and the public health crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the burning platforms \u2026 that show us that the status quo is not working,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in the context of a five crisis era, coming out of a pandemic, if we still have the wrong ideas, and they\u2019re doing the wrong things, then shame on us.\u201d <\/p>\n

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The post Making the case for public transport<\/a> first appeared on Passenger Transport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Brent Toderian, a passionate advocate of public transport, spoke at this month\u2019s CPT Scotland Conference. Robert Jack reports \u00a0Brent Toderian spent six years as chief planner for Vancouver, Canada \u00a0 Brent Toderian is an internationally renowned practitioner and thought leader on city planning and transport, consulting on cities and projects across the globe.\u00a0 He set up his own consultancy business,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}