US Airways and the Senators

I've been very pleased by the current news of how our Pennsylvania members of congress and the Senate, especially Senator Specter, have been handling US Airways in the wake of their announcement to drastically reduce service in Pittsburgh.

It's good to know that our elected officials are standing up for our region in what has been a decade of broken promises. The mistake, it seems, was Pittsburgh putting too many eggs in one basket and catering to the needs of one airline. Unfortunately, this isn't ending, with the announcement in February that Pittsburgh has landed the new US Airways Operations Center, at the cost of $16 million in grants and tax credits coming from taxpayer's pockets. Maybe it's time we start using taxpayer money to reduce the tax burden on small business in the region, instead of putting so much money into a company that has continuously broken promises to the region.

You can see the news article about Specter/Casey's meeting with US Airways CEO here. Kudos to Senator Specter and our other PA legislators in Washington for coming down hard on US Airways - let's hope this means it won't happen again.

Solution to Route Cuts

OK, but back to the subject of route cuts. My belief is that Port Authority should tackle this issue from the entirely opposite angle. Think about this. Go back to our hypothetical situation. This time, rather than cutting routes, get more people to ride the routes already in place. Simple idea, hard to execute. I firmly believe, though, that if Port Authority improved certain aspects of their system, most notably improving the information available at bus/T stops, more people would use the bus. My time in DC and London has implanted this belief in me. In London, for example, at every bus stop there is, along with the standard listing of buses that stop there:

• Timetables for all buses that stop there
• Route maps, usually in the form of straight line schematics, showing major stops/destinations
• Area maps, showing other area bus stops
• Area maps, showing all bus routes passing through the area
• Lists of which buses stop at which bus stops in the area, so if you aren't at the right bus stop you can easily find the one you should be at
• Index of major stops/destinations with cross references to bus routes that travel there
• Area maps, showing night buses in the area with timetables
• Electronic screen showing next three-four buses arriving, and how long until they arrive (only at major stops)

The idea behind this is that the easier you make it to ride the bus, the more like you are to actually ride it. Even being from Pittsburgh and using public transportation often, I still find it somewhat intimidating to ride a bus I have never rode before. I have, on a number of occasions, made the decision to drive rather than take the bus for this reason. If Port Authority provided maps, timetables, and information at bus stops, more people would ride the bus in the first place, and less route/frequency cuts would be necessary.

Public Transit solves problems

When speaking to TallE, he posed a question to me that I thought was both interesting and deserved a look here. He asked me "What sort of problems you think better public transit will solve for Pittsburgh/other medium American cities?" It's a very open ended question, and as such, I will be responding to it in a roundabout way. First, I am going to examine the quality of public transportation in Pittsburgh. Then, I will discuss why it's important for our city to continue to improve public transportation in order to make our city successful.

Let's face something. Pittsburgh's public transportation isn't that bad. It really isn't. In a recent discussion with my father, we marveled about how despite the size of our region, you can get nearly anywhere in Allegheny County on public transportation. Now, we ignored the fact that it might take you two or three hours to get there, and that you will undoubtedly be routed through Downtown whether that makes sense for where you're going or not. But still. That's not too bad, for a Port Authority which covers about 1.2 million people. But here's the problem. Faced with budget problems and ever increasing costs, consistent service is suffering. Late buses are being cut. Buses are coming less often. Routes that aren't used as often are going by the wayside.

Now let me pose a hypothetical situation. You have one bus route - the 900 - that travels east/west across the region. Prior to budget cuts, it runs three buses an hour, and has approximately 30% capacity on each trip. It's easy to say, in this situation, "why not cut two trips, run one per hour, and put everyone on to one bus. " Then you'd have one route that runs at 90% capacity." I don't think it's quite that simple. With every decrease in frequency, rather than shifting riders to new buses, you lose a significant percentage of them who no longer can handle the reduced frequency. It's simple economics: If you have a bus coming once an hour, people will wait longer for buses or will no longer have a bus that fits their work schedule, making it more inconvenient to use the bus. Because of this, many of these people will drive, rather than taking the bus. This is a problem for a number of reasons:

• More cars on the road means more congestion, causing more delays to main destinations
• More cars on the road mean more smog and worse air quality
• Car ownership costs
• Parking costs
• Gas costs

There are many other reasons that it is bad that people would have to drive instead of taking public transport, but I tried to hit on some of the main ones. Those five reasons have some far reaching consequences, too. For example, public transportation is safer than driving. If more people are driving to work congesting roadways, that only increases the spread between the safety between driving and public transport. If people are spending more money on cars - car ownership/gas/parking/insurance costs an average of $700 a month (according to Flexcar, and granted they're biased) - they are spending less at their local restaurants, bars, and shops. So this brings me to perhaps the best reason that public transport is important in Pittsburgh - effective public transport helps the economy.

If people are more able to quickly and cheaply make it from their homes to the city, or from destination to destination within the city, they are more likely to take advantage of opportunities to shop, dine, and be entertained. If they have to schlep in the car, pay for parking, pay for gas, they will be more likely to stay close to home. Also, quality dedicated right-of-way public transit has been shown to boost economic development. When the government makes significant investment into, for example, a light rail system, businesses develop around it because they know it will be there and it will make their business more accessible. Silver Spring, MD is a fantastic example of this - despite having a history back into the 1800s, the DC Metro station brought new investment and development into Silver Spring and has made it into the bustling town it is today. So really, quality public transport is a huge boon to the economy in any city, large or small, and that's what makes it so important to Pittsburgh.

I could go into a few more issues on why it's important, especially for young people, but I will leave that for another day. I will also, in the next few days, outline why route and frequency cuts in bus routes are perhaps the opposite of what Port Authority should be doing to save our public transportation system.

In other news, I'm very excited for the Mayoral election tomorrow, and I'm hoping that this election will be the catalyst that Pittsburgh needs to start moving forward.

Why do cities matter?

I'll tell you a story. It's one some people have heard before, but it'll be new to most of you.

On a recent trip to a restaurant in London, I found myself at a table with a number of students, all study abroaders from universities around the US. I don't know how conversation brought us to it, but I predictably started talking about what a great city Pittsburgh is. After some discussion, one of the gentlemen I was sitting with blurts out "Pittsburgh's not even a real city!"

Dismayed, and still assuming he'd burst into laughter as if it was a joke, I gave him a few seconds. Nothing. So, once again predictably, I began defending my city with ferocity. I tried to get across to this guy, a New Yorker, that the United States is about more than just Boston, New York, Philly, Chicago, and L.A. He began backing up his argument by telling me that, in order to be a city, a place has to have distinct areas, like an uptown and a downtown. I laughed briefly to myself, realizing that this guy was nothing more than a fool, and totally misunderstood what it means to be a city like Pittsburgh. I explained that we have many distinct areas, from the North Side, to the South Side, to Oakland, Downtown. Pittsburgh is one of many cities, great cities, that are really important to this country. He failed to understand why, and I left the dinner, frustrated.

In a way, this experience was one of my main motivations for starting this blog. The United States has never and will never be only those few big cities. The small and medium sized cities of our country matter, and they matter a lot. Unfortunately, it seems that so many cities, Pittsburgh being a prime example, are faced with substantial uphill battles right now. A city that once was extremely important in American industry, that had nearly 600,000 residents at its peak, has been dying. The loss of big industry has hurt Pittsburgh and many cities like it. We are plagued by budget problems, dwindling funding and support for public transportation, blight, and an exodus of our youth. And perhaps the biggest problem is simple - ineffective and uninspirational government, hanging it's hat on the most mundane accomplishments.

Only through close examination of these issues and thoughtful innovation will Pittsburgh be able to live on in its past splendor. And sure, it's never going to be an industrial hub again. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that the cities aren't forgotten, and that through this examination of the issues, we learn how Pittsburgh can be a success. Luckily there is no shortage of pride in our city, and people truly care about the revival of it.

Now, I realized I haven't explained why cities matter. I feel like that will be our continuous endeavor. But, in an attempt to prove it, I'll leave you with a quote from a Howard Finegold article about Pittsburgh from 2005 : "In America, pride of place is an all-but-forgotten form of salvation. Cities matter."

So true. Not that it proved anything...but stay tuned!

Welcome

Cities Matter will be a blog about the problems afflicting small and medium sized cities. I will focus mainly on the City of Pittsburgh, my hometown, as a case study for where cities like it go right, and go wrong. No urban issues are off limits.

Ground rules of the blog:
-Open minds only. I plan to look at issues in different and innovative ways.
-Post comments if you read. Discussion is what leads us to true innovation.
-Keep it civil