Jarrett Walker makes this point, but let me say it even louder:
PEOPLE, WE HAVE TO TALK LESS ABOUT RAPID TRANSIT AND MORE ABOUT THE FREQUENT TRANSIT NETWORK!
Less about SkyTrain, more about a mix of modes. Less about speed, more about frequency.
“Frequency,” as Walker says, “is Freedom.” And to that end, he has argued that transit agencies should illustrate the frequent routes graphically on their maps, rather than have all the lines emphasized equally.
As longtime readers know, I’ve long advised that high frequency services must stand out from the complexity of a transit map, and be promoted separately, so that people can see the network that’s available to people whose time is highly valuable. Many individuals, and a few agencies, have drawn Frequent Network maps as a result. For more, see the Frequent Network category.
And to that end – and no doubt because of Walker’s influence – TransLink has complied.
One of North America’s most advanced transit agencies, TransLink in Vancouver, has finally published a Frequent Network Map as well as a page explaining why that map is important:
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People traveling along FTN corridors can expect convenient, reliable, easy-to-use services that are frequent enough that they do not need to refer to a schedule. For municipalities and the development community, the FTN provides a strong organizing framework around which to focus growth and development. (More here.)
Says Walker:
This map should immediately go up on the wall in every city planner’s office, and in the office of every realtor or agent who deals in apartments. It’s far more useful than, say, WalkScore’s Transit Score in showing you the actual mobility that will arise from your choice of location, in the terms that matter to you.
This is a great addition for Translink and Mr Walker is absolutely right, this should be in every planner’s office. It should be front and centre for everyone who cares about the development of Metro Vancouver.
What’s most striking about this map to my eyes though, are the empty spaces. Metro Vancouver may have come a long way in public transit, but this map puts in stark relief just how much further we really have to go.
All the “empty spaces” without transit on the map above, plus the prodigious cost to taxpayers of each and every additional frequent transit route, has lead comprehensive planners in the present day to the concept of “smart growth” along the Highway 99 & I-5 corridor from the BC Lower Mainland to the shores of Puget Sound and on down to Portland and Eugene, Oregon.
Smart growth preferably means increasing residential and commercial development density in revitalized urban zones already served by present transit. Or, it can mean the establishment of new transit-oriented development zones where future transit is planned to be.
In both approaches, the idea is that if an urban region can’t afford to keep expanding transit to reach everywhere that people live, then it should try to increase the number of people living or working close to where the transit service exists or is affordable to build in the near future. A variety of government restrictions and incentives exist to cause more density and “transit oriented development.” Mixing land uses in dense zones then motivates more walking as a utilitarian travel mode.
As Todd Litman and other researchers point out, the people who choose to live or work within a kilometer of a transit stop tend to use transit more than people who are beyond that radius. Similarly, living close to stores you can walk to leads to more walking and less driving.
The larger question with the put-people-near-transit-or-walkable-destinations approach is how much — what proportion — of a regional urban population can be motivated to live in such smart-growth zones over the several decades of a typical planning horizon, and then what proportion of their surface travel will be taken on transit as opposed to cars.
Puget Sound Region has a 30 year plan of smart growth and transit investment including building the most extensive light rail network in America and only manages to forecast one percent of 2040 trips on trains and four percent on buses. This would be after spending over half of government transportation resources on public transit.
While the glass towers of central city Vancouver, BC are impressive, so are the houses covering the hillsides that are visible from Highway 1 beyond Burnaby. I hear Surrey is going to be a more populous city than Vancouver in not too many more years.
After just a few more decades, personal mobility technology and formats are likely to change considerably, potentially making today’s fixed-route transit concepts — trains and buses — less popular. By new formats and technology I mean significantly automated low- or zero-emission vehicles of all sizes operating safely and efficiently on the roads of today. Google’s driverless car now visible on YouTube is astonishing. Look it up. In future versions it could be all-electric, very small, and safe.
In the meantime, I’m disappointed that King County Metro in Seattle has not published a county-wide map showing all of its frequent bus transit routes, like TransLink has.
That map is certainly telling. Vancouver looks basically the same while the suburbs look empty.
We build the future we want.
Choice #1: density near frequent, fixed-route transit, thereby reducing the number of single-occupancy vehicles on the road; all built with currently available and demonstrated technology, or
Choice #2: continued automobile-based sprawl, with high levels of congestion and the economic loss that entails, with single people sitting in “driverless, electric, safe” vehicles which are currently untested and not on the market , require massive investment in rebuilding our fuelling infrastructure, and likely will take decades to roll out in the volumes required.
Every municipality is making its own choice, but I think it’s pretty clear where Vancouver and its “inner burbs” are headed.
The frequent transit map illustrates how difficult it is to get from:
South Surrey/White Rock to Langley
South Surrey/White Rock to Pitt Meadows
Langley to Pitt Meadows
Oh boy, how I would like to drop a property value heat layer under that frequency map.