Fool Me Once...

RTA just released their proposed FY 2014-2016 Short Range Transit Plan. On the bright side, there are no cuts proposed, and (like the last few schedule changes) several minor schedule improvements are suggested. In particular, they plan on restoring service on "major holidays"-- specifically Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day-- beginning July 2013 (which conveniently misses Memorial Day 2013).

Another suggestion is the long-awaited expansion of night-time service, proposed on routes 1, 15, 16, 18, 20, 31 and 32. I would personally prefer that we confine our late-night transit efforts to routes with higher population density and ridership, as otherwise we'll get less service span where we need it in Riverside, and more out in the exurbs where we need it less. That said, I would love to see late-night service (until last call?) on 1, 15 and 16, and if that means that we run some empty buses in Hemet, oh well.

That said, this has been proposed before. In the FY2010-2012 SRTP, funds were actually secured from the federal Job Access and Reverse Commute program to provide late-night service, across a skeletal network serving the whole service area. The funds were moved to prop up frequencies on routes in Lake Elsinore and Mead Valley. So I'm not jumping for joy until this is actually approved by the board in June-- and even then, not really until I see the timetable.

Roadside Assistance for the Urban Advocate

So, for many people, it seems like my last post on AAA's lobbying efforts is news. Better World Club, admittedly a competitor to AAA, keeps a long list of AAA's egregious pro-car lobbying stunts, most of which have extensive third-party citations. But let's say you're convinced-- AAA is a major force for the highway lobby, and you want to give up your membership. But you also don't want to find yourself on the side of a road somewhere, with a broken-down car and no money for a massive tow-truck bill. What's an eco-conscious person to do?

The best alternative would be, of course, to give up your car altogether. Here's how to do that.

For those not ready to take the leap, one alternative is the aforementioned Better World Club. They provide similar services to AAA, including towing, maps, travel planning, and the like. Unlike AAA, they'll also cover either your motorcycle or your bicycle without a corresponding automobile membership. (For whatever reason, they won't cover your motorcycle and your bicycle without an auto membership though, which is why I'm not a member.)

Another likely possibility is your auto insurance provider. I have roadside assistance coverage on my scooter through Progressive, for something like $3 a month. Note that coverage through your auto insurer will likely only cover the insured vehicle, so if your friends give you rides in their clunker a lot, maybe stick with something else.

Finally, there are some unlikely places that might offer you roadside assistance. There are credit card providers that offer the service, as well as cell phone providers. My wife and I had-- and frequently used-- service through our cell phones through the first year of our marriage.

Ask around-- it's more likely than not that you can get roadside assistance without handing your money over to the highway lobby.

An Open Letter to AAA

I got a letter in my mailbox today from the Automobile Club of Southern California. You can guess that I didn't enclose the requested registration certificate and $49 membership fee. Here's what I sent back instead:

Dear Ms. Sabins:

I received your offer of pre-selected membership in the Automobile Club of Southern California today. I note that you began your letter with "Dear Fellow Driver." I am writing now to inform you that your membership selection process has gone horribly awry. While I am an enthusiastic participant of the United Airlines MileagePlus program, from whom you seem to have gotten my address, I am not, in fact, your fellow driver. Indeed, I do not own an automobile, and I am unlikely to do so in the future. The only vehicle I'm certain to use on any given day is my bicycle, and I like it that way.

Moreover, I was a former member of your organization, and I informed your employees at the time of my reasons for leaving your organization. Collectively, the Automobile Association of America is one of the largest anti-environmental and anti-active-transportation lobbying organizations in the nation, as you are no doubt well aware. AAA has a long history of advocating against progressive transportation policy and for sprawl-inducing freeway construction, road and parking lot expansion, and subsidies for the auto and oil industries. Your organization is one of the principal foes in the fight against the catastrophic specter of global climate change, a bastion of oil-economy cronyism in a world that desperately needs more forward-looking solutions.

I also find your organization's recruiting tactics reprehensible. The average AAA member does not know about the lobbying arm of your organization. Indeed, the letter that you sent me does not speak at all about the disproportionate influence that you wield in Washington. Instead it speaks of all the benefits I will receive from membership in the Club, including gold-plated roadside assistance, maps, travel guides, DMV services, and discounts. Your organization has built itself into a lobbying powerhouse, commanding the "53 MILLION" members you so enthusiastically tout, by lying to them in order to use their membership to inflate your power in Washington. Members join for the towing, and are unknowingly used for the political ends of your organization and the industries who support you.

In conclusion, I will not be returning the enclosed registration card, along with my "bargain" of a $49 payment. Please remove me from any and all mailing lists, customer databases, and lists of "selected" new members immediately and in perpetuity.

Sincerely,

Justin Nelson, MA

No Streetcar is Better than a Bad Streetcar

Riverside's new Mayor, Rusty Bailey, has made the development of a streetcar network part of his platform. He mentioned it both during his campaign and in his State of the City address, and I have heard word of grants being written to study the issue. Obviously, the plan is very new, and so anything I say here is speculative at best, but I want to get out ahead of this thing. Streetcars are in vogue right now, and while they are undoubtedly cool, the details of the implementation of a streetcar plan are important to determine whether it will promote mobility and development, or whether it will simply be a shiny toy for City Hall to trumpet.

Here's the thing: streetcars in mixed traffic are usually worse for mobility than the buses they replace. This is because of the simple fact that buses can turn and get around obstructions (such as parking or turning cars, broken-down cars, traffic accidents, debris, etc.), while streetcars can't. There's some benefit to running streetcars in interior lanes with island platforms, or using off-board fare collection, but neither is intrinsic to streetcars per se-- buses stopping at the same island platforms and using the same off-board fare collection would also run faster. To really radically re-shape mobility in Riverside, streetcars would either need to run on a lower-traffic street, or need their own lane to run in. The former raises concerns, as lower-traffic streets are usually that way because few people want to be there, and I strongly doubt that there's enthusiasm for the latter at City Hall and among the automobile-attached residents of Riverside.

Second, the logical place for a streetcar is along the L-shaped corridor formed by UCR, downtown, and the Plaza (and in the future, perhaps as far as the Tyler Galleria). This is a route that is already served by RTA, and mobility along that route would likely be better-served by improving existing RTA service than building a local-stop streetcar along it. The streetcar will need to somehow do something that the current routes 1 and 16 don't do, and will also need to be well-integrated into the current transit system, both of which are a daunting proposition.

Furthermore, a streetcar is an expensive proposition. If the plan is a good one, by all means, we should turn our transit dollars towards that expensive proposition. I am, however, extremely wary of spending scarce transit dollars building and, more importantly, operating a streetcar that will not improve mobility in Riverside and that will cannibalize limited funds from desperately-needed transit expansion. I'd love to see good local rail service in Riverside, but I'd rather see all-night bus lines or additional frequency than a bad streetcar project.

Los Angeles' streetcar project is a great example of what happens when you don't take into account mobility outcomes when building a streetcar: you get giant one-way loops and low frequencies that will make the new streetcar less useful than the old DASH bus it's replacing, especially for the short downtown trips it's supposed to serve. And they're spending a bunch of money for little improvement. I don't want to see that kind of thinking move east.

As I said before, the plans for a Riverside streetcar are in their infancy-- but that just makes it all the more important to make our voices heard now, before a finalized plan becomes something that we can't live with. Better no streetcar at all than a bad streetcar.

They do not like the red light cam...

Dan Bernstein of the PE channels Dr. Seuss to talk about the ever-controversial red-light camera. Read it all the way to the end.

"Could I see your driver's license?"

So said my bank teller about a month ago, while I was picking up a money order to pay ye olde rent. In yet another example of the cultural expectation that every adult citizen drives regularly, we have allowed driver's licenses to become our society's primary form of identification. In reality, though, it's nobody's business whether or not you have earned driving privileges unless you happen to be behind the wheel of a motor vehicle on public roads; asking for a driver's license when we mean to ask for identification is another slight against non-drivers, and another reminder of the automobile's hegemony in our lives. To say "I don't have a license, here's my ID" feels like admitting some failure, or at the very least some aberration that sets you apart from polite society.

Furthermore, it can have rather inconvenient practical consequences. My last driver's license was issued right around the time that the state was switching over to the new, super-secure design-- and they were having severe production backlogs. I applied for my renewal in late September, a month before the expiration date in late October. I figured that should be plenty of time, as prior plastic bits from the DMV had arrived to me within a week or so. Wrong-- I finally got the thing in early December. During the entire time I was walking around with an expired driver's license, I kept calling the DMV about the status of my renewal, and they kept giving me the same answer: "Oh, don't worry, if you get pulled over you'll come up as valid in the computer." Never mind that I couldn't bank or buy beer. (I actually started carrying my passport, but I feel bad for those in the same situation who didn't have a passport.)

So on that particular day last month, when that teller asked that same lame question, I decided that my answer henceforth would be "no." I left the bank, went to Rite Aid, got my photo taken, and sent off my application for this:

This is my passport card. It's only valid for land and sea travel to the US' nearest neighbors, trips that I can't say I take very often, but it's also a valid government-issued photo ID that fits in my wallet. If anyone other than a traffic police officer asks to see my ID, this is what they're going to get, because whether or not I can drive is none of their damned business. I hope to help normalize the use of non-driving identity cards, because we're hopefully going to see more non-drivers, and they're going to need them.

BAC Meeting

Hey all, just a reminder that the City of Riverside's Bicycle Advisory Committee will be meeting on Thursday night, the 28th, at 5pm in the 6th Floor Large Conference Room at City Hall. Hope to see you all there!