To Jarrett Walker, transportation is a simple geometry and space reality that can’t be changed: It’s easier and more efficient to move a lot of people in one large vehicle than it is to move the same number of people in individual vehicles.
That’s why well-run public transit that meets the needs of the most people is always the best option for cities, Mr. Walker stressed in a speech Tuesday to about 1,200 transportation and development leaders at the Railvolution conference at the Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh, Downtown.
Mr. Walker, a Portland, Ore., consultant who owns Jarrett Walker and Associates, called cars “an instrument of tyranny” in cities because they create traffic jams that limit freedom.
“There are only so many cars that fit in the street,” Mr. Walker said. “Transportation planning is freedom planning. If you can’t go places, you can’t do things. It’s about what you will be able to do with your life.”
Ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft may reduce the need for parking, but they actually generate more road miles than individual drivers because they have to go from one job to another, Mr. Walker said. A rigid, fixed-route transit system, he said, still is best for moving the most people in the most efficient fashion.
“It’s a good thing it is rigid. We can learn it and navigate it,” he said. “The more we use transit, the better it works” because the transit system usually will expand to serve available riders.
But transit also must serve areas with few riders to meet its mandate for equity, Mr. Walker said. It shouldn’t be considered a negative if nearly empty buses are serving an area that needs transportation because systems should provide “"not just what the customer wants, but what there is room for."”
In a panel discussion, Joseph Okpaku, vice president of public policy for Lyft, and Aniela Kuzon, global lead for Ford’s City of Tomorrow Challenge, said their services can supplement and help in fringe areas that public transit can’t serve. Lyft is piloting an app in Santa Monica, Calif., to show users the best form of transportation for their needs each time they ride, and Ford is working with Pittsburgh and other cities to identify mobility problems and provide seed money for demonstration projects.
Those types of ideas can serve specific audiences for limited uses, Mr. Walker said, but transit systems can’t survive by providing individual services. A crowded transit vehicle on which people work together to accommodate each other’s needs is “a beautiful thing,” he said.
“[Public transit] is Target, not Tiffany’s,” Mr. Walker said. “… A great city is a lot of different people in each other’s company.”
Ed Blazina: eblazina@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1470 or on Twitter @EdBlazina.
Correction, posted Oct. 24, 2018: In an earlier version of this story Jarrett Walker was misquoted.
First Published: October 24, 2018, 2:17 a.m.
