Infusing "commons thinking" to change public participation?

[Pragmatic Idealist]

The place-making function of transit seems to be of great importance. People don't stigmatize San Francisco's cable cars or Venice's gondolas or Disneyland's monorails, steam trains, horse-drawn streetcars, open-air and double-decker omnibuses, etc.

[Pragmatic Idealist]

One of the other reasons transit has been stigmatized in this country, and in the suburbs especially, is because of just how inconvenient and time-consuming the systems are in many of these places. The modes are so inferior to private cars and the passenger experience is of such a low quality that no one but the indigent would ever use these forms of transportation.

The public realm in these places is also sociofugal to the extent that only transients would use the sidewalks there. So, the quality of both the built environment and the passenger experience is to blame for the state of affairs. And, I imagine that the cultural attitudes have more to do with the particular situations in which people find themselves. For example, most Americans do take mass transit; they just don't refer to commercial airlines as "public transportation."

Transit needs to provide competitive safety, convenience, comfort, aesthetics, stylishness, etc. Caruso projects, like The Grove in Los Angeles and Americana at Brand in Glendale, are interesting examples in the sense that they do incorporate privately-operated streetcars into those two relatively-upscale lifestyle centers.

[ColoGI]

... the benefits of TODs beyond that which I can prove. The reality is likely grimmer.

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I might still have them laying about, but when I subscribed to JAPA I recall several recent papers that refute your assertion. My head is full of solar access and parking lots and efficient buildings at the moment so they aren't popping out, but if I get a chance in the next couple days I'll try and find them and quote.

[Howl]

One of the other reasons transit has been stigmatized in this country, and in the suburbs especially, is because of just how inconvenient and time-consuming the systems are in many of these places. The modes are so inferior to private cars and the passenger experience is of such a low quality that no one but the indigent would ever use these forms of transportation.

The public realm in these places is also sociofugal to the extent that only transients would use the sidewalks there. So, the quality of both the built environment and the passenger experience is to blame for the state of affairs. And, I imagine that the cultural attitudes have more to do with the particular situations in which people find themselves. For example, most Americans do take mass transit; they just don't refer to commercial airlines as "public transportation."

Transit needs to provide competitive safety, convenience, comfort, aesthetics, stylishness, etc. Caruso projects, like The Grove in Los Angeles and Americana at Brand in Glendale, are interesting examples in the sense that they do incorporate privately-operated streetcars into those two relatively-upscale lifestyle centers.

It’s a chicken and eggs scenario. The reason transit is inconvenient and time-consuming is because the density in many neighbourhoods is too low to support an adequate frequency and coverage level. You can have transit and medium-high density development, or cars and low-density development. Medium-high density neighbourhoods don’t work well with just cars and low density neighbourhoods don’t work well with transit.

The biggest challenge planner face is not setting the end goal. Figuring out what’s needed is relatively easy. The hard part is figuring out how to get from where we are now to the end goal. Sometimes it’s just not possible.