Housekeeping - TOW, CTA

Hey all. So I got back my admin panel for City Transit Advocates after trying out Newsgator Pro. I wasn't able to do anything with it and unfortunately the one thing I would have liked to do wasn't available. There is one drawback though. When I update the aggregator with new blogs, the name displayed will be the author and not the blog, which is the silliest thing ever and drives me crazy, but I don't have control over it.

So I've started fiddling with yahoo pipes. So far it has a lot of potential for filtering news stories about transit out of blogs that might not be completely transit oriented among other cool features. But it might be a while before I can create an aggregator there. So bear with me as I try to make CTA the best it can be. Most of you now hopefully have Google Reader to keep up with all the transit blogosphere, but its nice to see what the headlines are in a quick glance and have it on the side of your blog.

Lastly, if there is a transit blog I'm missing on the roll at CTA let me know.

Update: For an example of what you can do with Yahoo Pipes, I made a Pacific Northwest Transit Aggregator. Still working out some bugs though.

Why It's Not a Priority

I've been meaning to write about Ryan's article in Grist for a bit now, but have only gotten around to it now. Many of you have probably already read it but in case you didn't, check it out. Many kudos to him for putting his thumb on the problem.

He discusses why such a big issue doesn't get a lot of attention and no big plan has come to the forefront to address it. Part of the problem is Journalists afraid to tackle the subject.

And as part of the broader political conversation, transit lingers in relative obscurity. My informal polling of several environmental journalists in Washington suggested that discomfort with available information on transit and emissions reduced their willingness to write on the subject. As such, transit struggles to join the political conversation -- and since it's not part of the conversation, writers have little incentive to learn about it. On the cycle goes.

I'm going to chalk that up to the fact that they don't get it. I give Ben Wear of the Austin American Statesman a hard time on here because it's obvious he doesn't know a trolley pole from his .... but also the conversation is incredible boring, uninformative, and many times patronizing.

For my day job, I cycle through about 400 blogs and articles a day about transit, and if there is one thing that makes me super board its another lame national article without a substantive discussion of the issue but instead a "What is TOD?". This occurs in major newspapers and its not until there is a fiery issue like the Dulles extension that people get more informative news and information.

I'm glad however there is an informed blogosphere with blogs in almost every city to discuss these issues with substance. If only there was a transit beat reporter in every city that understood the issues. Then you might get a more pushy public, and politicians that care more about the issue and saw its importance.

No Transportation Blogs at the Democratic Convention

Not gonna lie, I was a bit disappointed when I got the email today saying that TOW would not be blogging from the democratic national convention. We made it past the first round and I was looking forward to being able to get questions from you all to ask party leaders and get some answers on transportation issues.

Alas it wasn't to be. So we'll have to get some info from other transportation blogs that will be... oh wait. There aren't any transportation blogs credentialed at the convention. However there is a Silver Lining. I imagine David Roberts and Crew at Gristmill will cover some of these issues. So we'll be living vicariously through them during the convention. Congrats guys, and ask some good questions!

Update: We'll also be living vicariously through Robert who writes at CAHSR and Calitics. :)

Chicks Dig Low Carbon Footprints

So Wired has a story on how females are more willing to start conversation if you own a hybrid. I wonder if it goes one step further and you get even more attention if you promote transit. I'm not holding my breath.

The Tragedy of California

Yglesias laments the weather wasted in Southern California. I would include Northern California and most of the Bay Area that is not served by transit in that assessment.

The thing you really forget about the deplorable land use and development patterns in southern California (and the Southwest more generally) until you come back out here is how goddamn nice the weather is, a fact that takes the situation out of the realm of farce and into tragedy. You know what a good place to never walk anywhere would be? Boston or Chicago in the winter. Or maybe DC or New York in the summer. That's some nasty weather to be walking around in.

But LA would be a great place to walk or ride a bike to work all year 'round. But it's our bad weather belt that has the walkable cities, and our sunny and temperate all the time region that barely has sidewalks.

Transit Etiquette

In my daily catch of articles I came across a really cool new blog on transit etiquette. Today, TriMetiquette discussed feat on the seats. Grrr. Check em out.

Overheard in Oakland

A real conversation I overheard today:

Girl #1: Have you learned the bus routes yet?
Girl #2: No I have only used BART.
Guy #1: BART is much better than the bus
Girl #1: I use the 51 sometimes, it comes all the time, but I can't read on it.
Guy #1: I can't either, I feel like I have no room for my arms on the bus and it bounces all over the place
Girl #1: Yeah.
Girl #2: Well I'll figure it out.
Girl #1: Just take BART if you have a choice.

I seem to run into planning related conversations in the background wherever I go. The other night I was eating sushi with a friend and one lady in front of me loudly said: "Urban Planners don't know what they are doing, they just build those roads everywhere" and made a circular motion with her hand. I didn't say anything, but I was thinking "that's the highway engineers lady."

Want to Chat With Fellow Transit Nerds?

I like discussions on transit. It's fun to sit around and shoot the breeze about whatever is going on. Here in San Francisco there used to be forums over at the SF Cityscape where the folks would gather to talk about transit, but its migrated over to Ess Eff. Cityscape still has some awesome resources including a huge blogroll.

As forums go though, I don't think there has ever been one about the transit oriented lifestyle but over at the Metro Rider LA Fred Camino and the gang have done just that. So if you want to go talk transit, check it out. And if anyone wants visit Frank up in Seattle and jump start a conversation there, he's got one too, although the comments section to his blog and over at STB are pretty lively. And down in my hometown of Houston Christof and the gang have the CTC forums.

Are there any other transit forums out there? I know there are a number of yahoo groups with epic battles taking place daily between the transit folks and anti-planners/libertarians but I hadn't seen any in other places.

Dolores Park Blogging

I live a few blocks away from Dolores Park which some also call Dolores Beach because on sunny San Francisco days everyone is out in the sun having a good time. It's a wonderful thing. Here are a few images collected today. It also showcases the ability to get to nice parks and views in San Francisco by transit.

Save Traffic! Don't Fund Transit!

Hilarious! From Permanent Campaigns.

The Glorious Transit Web

It's the web 2.0 and if you have a cause for transit, create a badge so it gets more recognition. Below are a few badges I've seen and causes I'm down with, others I'd like to see a badge for in no particular order:

Sound Transit 2.1
Austin Guadalupe Light Rail
California HSR
Geary Subway
Subway to the Sea



I've also been thinking about the need for a national transit campaign infrastructure. Everyone is really good at keeping up with the local causes but does there need to be some central place for organizing or getting the word out? I'm interested in the model that is used by Daily Kos or MyDD where they have a blog but also have user diaries. Instead of diaries however, because everyone has their own blog, perhaps it would be campaigns. This central blog would have contributors from each metro area discussing what is happening on the battlefield and where things are headed. Many of the blogs do that but this could be a central place to see what is going on nationally kind of like what the City Transit aggregator is trying to do. Perhaps it's a glorified version of the City Transit Aggregator.

Another important thing about this national info hub would be the ability to raise money around campaigns like Act Blue does for Democrats and Slatecard does for Republicans. Basically there are a whole lot of people out there who are interested in national transit policy and could use this as a way to get involved locally where alot of the big decisions are being made and help influence policy at the national level that helps cities get the funding they need for local projects. What do folks think? Is it something that should be fleshed out? Would people be interested in this kind of thing?

How Much Will My Trip Cost?

Google transit has added something really cool to their information. When you type in a route, they'll tell you how much money you save instead of driving. John at RTRider has more. Very Cool.

Send Steve at Urban StL Some Love

Steve Patterson who blogs over at the popular Urban St. Louis suffered a stroke in early February. Steve and I presented on blogging and transit last year in Miami at the Rail~Volution conference. He's recovering well but it wouldn't hurt to send him some love. If you haven't checked out his blog before. You can do so here. Get better soon Steve!

A Year of The Overhead Wire

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone out there who reads and comments on the blog. It's been a great first year. It's been really great meeting others out there in the transit blogosphere who share the love of transit and hopefully 2008 will be even better. Thanks again!

Evil Twins

Transit Miami brings us Walk Score's evil twin. Drive Score...dun dun dun.

New Blogs for the Roll

Just thought I would share a few new blogs with folks. Give them a click.

Jacksonville Transit - Transit News from Jacksonville Florida.

Light Rail AZ - Discussing Phoenix Light Rail Issues.

Light Rail in Grand Rapids - A Discussion of Grand Rapids Transit Progress.

Street Heat - LA Transportation News.

And They're Back in the Game

Mr. Setty and Demery have put the PublicTransit.us site back up. Finally we can get our hands on all of those passenger density reports they've done. Check it out as its a good amount of material to take in.

New Transit Advocate Resource

Ok, I've started a new blog, City Transit Advocates. I'm not going to abandon this one but this is an addition that hopefully will be useful to everyone. Basically what I did is took the transit advocate blogs in my blogroll and aggregated their RSS feeds. There are 20 titles and one blog can only have two posts. This makes sure that blogs which post more often don't hog all the space.

Also, if anyone has any additions or knows of a good transit advocate blog to add to the aggregation that isn't there let me know. theoverheadwire at gmail dot com. There is a list of all the blogs in the aggregator at the right of the page.

I hope this is a positive addition to the transit blogosphere and allows people to get a look at what is happening in different cities.