Podcast: Innovation, Introverts, and Uber Wars

This week we’re joined by David Zipper, managing director at 1776 Ventures, a global startup hub based in Washington, DC. A veteran of the Bloomberg administration in New York City and the administrations of Adrian Fenty and Vincent Gray in Washington, David discusses the deal DC struck with Living Social and the introduction of ride-hailing regulations during the city’s infamous Uber Wars. We also chat about transportation companies blossoming around the globe and what traits make for great innovators.

Podcast: Cities on a Hill with Francis Fitzgerald

This week we’re joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Francis Fitzgerald to talk about her 1986 book, Cities on a Hill. We discuss the different “visionary” communities described in the book, including Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, San Francisco’s Castro district, Sun City retirement communities, and Jerry Falwell’s moral majority in Lynchburg, Virginia. Francis also talks about living in New York City and restaurant culture in Vietnam. Fitzgerald’s latest book, The Evangelicals, is out April 4.

Podcast: Navigating Nairobi

This week’s guest is Stephane Eboko, chief revenue officer at Ma3route, a transportation information platform with over half a million users in Nairobi. Stephane tells about about the platform and how it helps people avoid traffic, interesting information from users reporting their experiences, and what travel on the private buses called Matatus is like in Kenya’s capital.

Podcast: Every Cocktail Napkin Has an Alternative Alignment

This installment of the Talking Headways podcast comes from this year’s NACTO Designing Cities Conference in Seattle. Moderated by David Bragdon, executive director of TransitCenter, this discussion examines the obstacles streets and transit agencies face when trying to move good projects forward, and the relationships that help make progress possible. The panel features LA DOT’s General Manager Seleta Reynolds, LACMTA’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Wiggins, Seattle DOT’s Director Scott Kubly, and Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff.

Podcast: Colonias — Informal Housing in the U.S.

This week on Talking Headways our guest is Emily Perlmeter of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas. Emily discusses the half million people living in informal settlements known as Colonias, on the U.S. side of the Mexican border. Join us for a look at how these settlements are formed, who lives there, and their strengths and hardships.

Podcast: A Bus Full of People Should Go Ahead of a Tesla

This week’s episode returns to the Shared Use Mobility Summit in Chicago for a great discussion of how the changing technology and information landscape could yield more equitable outcomes. Jackie Grimshaw of the Center for Neighborhood Technology moderated this panel featuring Anita Cozart of Policy Link, Rob Puentes of the Eno Center for Transportation, and Joshua Schank of LA Metro.

Notes on Elaine Chao

Today it was announced that former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has been nominated to be the next Transportation Secretary.  Many are saying that it's the most normal pick Trump could make though that's not saying much.  But it's also not the promised swamp draining given that her husband happens to be Senator Mitch McConnell.  (An old NYT piece gives us some more general life background)

Her family owns an international shipping business that in the past has had some shady business practices such as flying under the flag of Liberia due to it's easier labor rules.  Ms Chao was also the deputy secretary of transportation under GHW Bush though not much has come up from that time period.  

And Matthew Yglesias at Vox says that while it's a reasonable choice given her experience, it is hyper partisan because of who her huband happens to be.

Henry Grabar at Slate has a few positive notes...

As far as transportation goes, Chao has had a fairly open mind. She acknowledged decades ago that the major era of highway construction was over and should give way to one focused on solving traffic congestion. In George H.W. Bush’s Department of Transportation, she helped fund an early iteration of GPS in Los Angeles. And as secretary of labor under George W. Bush, she praised the potential of public transit. “Coordinated transportation is one of the most important, and perhaps least appreciated, components of a transition from a life of unemployment and dependency for Americans to one of employment and productivity,” she said at a luncheon in 2004.

She's also been a fellow at a number of  conservative think tanks.  Places like The Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institute.  She also has ties to big banks, was on the board at News Corp (Wall Street Journal) and organizations like the United Way where she was CEO and the director of the Peace Corps. 

The Peace Corps stint was the most interesting to me because of the specific focus of her time in the Baltic States.  Given the Brexit vote and now Trump's election and nationalist sentiments in greater Europe, it seems we are getting closer to a weakening of Europe and its ability to defend against Russia, which coincidentally has its eye on the Baltic states. 

She established the first Peace Corps program in the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

According to CityLab, she's always wanted to be the Secretary of Transportation. 

According to a 2001 Newsday article, Chao had mixed feelings about taking the cabinet post for the Department of Labor—which Chao later called “the most partisan of all the departments”—when President Bush initially asked her; she apparently had her “heart … set on leading the Department of Transportation.” Now she’ll get her shot.

When she was at the Heritage Foundation she focused on writing about things like pensions.  She's not a fan of largess in post retirement benefits and notes that unfunded obligations could be trouble for government agencies in the future.  I imagine transit unions aren't fans of this stance.

She is also against Buy America provisions which affect procurement of vehicles for High Speed Rail in California or regular buses and trains. 

The "Buy America" provision ("Dig a moat around America") in the stimulus package did more than squander America's credibility on international trade. It also created bureaucratic hoops that will slow down spending the stimulus funds on projects that are supposed to energize our economy.

In a letter from the Congressional Record in 2003 to Representative Paul Sarbanes, Washington Metro's Lawrence Drake complained that then Secretary Chao was blocking commuter benefits for federal employees at the Labor Department.  It seems the Labor Department under Chao wanted to use the increase from a $65 transit benefit to a $100 transit benefit as a bargaining chip in negotiations with workers.  DC's Eleanor Holmes Norton said at one point during a protest "Who ever heard of the notion that the union has to negotiate for things they are entitled to under the law?"

This was all I could find for the moment, but I'm sure we'll hear more in the coming days as more people have time to do deeper research.  Unfortunately the internet wasn't much of a thing during her first stint in the Transportation department.

A Changing Mobility Structure and The Death of Parking

Thanksgiving 

It was probably pretty common to argue about politics over Thanksgiving weekend with your families.  I got into a discussion about parking. And yes I told them this might be on the blog.  My parents live close to a town in California called Walnut Creek.  It's a compact walk-able center for shopping in the San Francisco Bay Area and very walk-able when you get out of the car. 

But you have to get there first.  The BART station was built too far away from downtown for it to be ultimately useful as a shaper of parking policy and the Macy's parking lot is soon going to be charging for the privilege of storing a vehicle while you shop.  I have no doubt that free parking will continue to exist, however this argument might not have even been taking place in 20-30 years.

The Death of a Parking Space

Currently there is a call to hold horses on parking development due to the coming revolution of autonomous vehicles.  Quotes from articles on news sites go like this...

“The flow of any retail follows the function of parking,” explained Weilminster at the Nov. 9 event at the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead. Self-driving cars are also expected to reduce the need for parking decks, which cost between $25,000 and $40,000 per parking space to build.

This from an article in the Atlanta Business Journal about how technology is going to change real estate development. But that is a future prediction. But what about now? In Houston, it's already real...slightly.

City officials are somewhat reluctant to attribute the loss to any one cause, but data show parking meters along Washington and nearby began pulling in less money per month right around the time paid-ride companies such as Uber and Lyft entered Houston in February 2014....

Meanwhile, sales tax collections in the district appear unaffected by the parking rules, based on city data.

According to the Houston Chronicle, parking lots that would usually support revelers are used less based on the data. Of course we don't know if its directly because of ride hailing services, but it would be a good hypothesis.

I also had former Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz on the podcast recently and he lamented the focus on parking and told members of the audience who were revitalizing storefronts to just wait to build new parking.  Below is the shorter snippet on his relevant comments.

"I would not be investing in parking at all, for at least five years.  Let's just see how it plays out"


Others are noticing what Dave and planners are starting to say out loud.

"They’re saying, 'Don’t build parking lots, don’t build garages, you aren’t going to need them,'" said Councilman Skip Moore, citing city planners at national conferences across the country....

...significant pressures are aligning which should give pause to investors in automobile parking garages. Garages are typically financed on a 30-year payback, either by cities or private investors. But they could find themselves holding the un-payable back-end of a 30-year note, when folks stop driving within the next 15 years...

Even technology VCs are getting in on the action. Marc Andreesson said this to The Verge. 

There are mayors that would, for example, like to just declare their city core to [ban] human-driven cars. They want a grid of autonomous cars, golf carts, buses, trams, whatever, and it’s just a service, all electric, all autonomous.  Think about what they could do if they had that. They could take out all of the street parking. They could take out all of the parking lots. They could turn the entire downtown area into a park with these very lightweight electric vehicles.

He also talks about flying cars for high end users which makes me think that autonomous vehicles will be on the surface with the plebes and flying cars will be for the "landed gentry" as it were.  I'm starting to see the Jetsons come to life in my head right now.  Or maybe the Star Wars planet of Coruscant where the lower to the ground you live, the lower your social status. 

A Future of Autonomous Vehicles

I would very much like to ban driving from dense urban cores.  With adequate subway, bus, and delivery systems, there would be no need for small vehicles that only carry one or two people to be so hulking and wasteful.  And perhaps it will end up like Ghent, in Belgium.

“It was a rather radical plan to ban all cars from an area of about 35 hectares,” recalls Beke. “With every decision you take, there can be some opposition – but I never expected a bullet, of course.”

There were protests outside Ghent’s city hall: businesses were afraid they’d lose their customers, elderly residents were concerned about being cut off from their children. But Beke stood his ground, and although a few businesses that relied on car access had to move, today the city centre is thriving.

Or maybe we'll have a new paradigm with moving sidewalks or those tubes from the Futurama cartoon. Though that seems like a lot to maintain and we know how often elevators break down at subway stops.  But imagine if arterials were just moving walkways?

Imagine how many people could move without a metal frame surrounding them?  What could be done with all that parking we free up?  There is more than enough space in cities today to make room for everyone.  It doesn't even have to look like the densest places of our wildest dreams or nightmares. It could be cozy.  And supported by a good transportation system.

Three Ways of Autonomy

Another article that I read recently discussed the three ways of future autonomous cities.  In a report put together by McKinsey and Bloomberg, a typology of places was put forth to describe how cities will adopt autonomy.

Cities like Delhi, Mexico City, and Mumbai ("clean and shared" category) will focus on the EV part of the equation in an attempt to reduce pollution...

...Meanwhile, a second type of city characterized by sprawl (think L.A. or San Antonio) will still privilege personal, private car ownership, even if "autonomy and electrification allow passengers to use time in traffic for business or pleasure."...  

...But a third type—densely populated, high-income places like Chicago, Hong Kong, London, and Singapore—will move away from private car ownership toward shared AV mobility, the report says. People may travel more overall, because picking up an Uber AV will be relatively cheap and easy...

I think typologies are a great way to break down ideas but this is a bit too simplistic given what we discussed earlier about pedestrian central cities and the reduced parking possibilities.  I think we'll see a mixture of these things based on urban form and pedestrian policy.  And it's possible there will be pockets of pedestrian oasis free from big vehicles all together that aren't a part of central cities.  That is if we get policy right. 

I know that car companies don't see this human centered future. Yonah Freemark documented this idea of heaven and hell. They see the money that can be made selling a car, or a car service, or anything that will make for exchanging currency.  But who knows what the future brings.  I'm just watching for the trends.  We might want to start thinking of what we want the future to look like though before it looks at us.    

Back to Thanksgiving

So back to Thanksgiving and Walnut Creek.  This discussion about a need for parking wouldn't happen in 20 years. We won't have to worry about cars crashing over sidewalks and won't have to pay for parking.  And the goods we buy can be delivered to our door  Just another sunny day in California.  

That is....if we get the policy right.

Podcast: Robin Chase Discusses Autonomous Vehicle Policy

This week we're joined by Zipcar Co-Founder Robin Chase at the Shared Use Mobility Summit.  She talks about autonomous vehicle policy and more.  A few have noted her stance on transit in this discussion is a bit different than other people's.  I'm interested to hear what folks have to say on that subject.  Personally, I think transit will have a larger roll to play than she does, and don't believe that only dedicated lane transit will survive the coming revolution.

Podcast: Former Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz

Talking Headways is coming to you this week from Madison, Wisconsin, and the Empty Storefronts Conference. Our guest is former Madison mayor and current Wisconsin Bike Fed Executive Director Dave Cieslewicz.

Podcast: Christof Spieler Talks Holistic Transit Planning

At last month’s Rail~Volution conference I caught up with Houston Metro board member Christof Spieler. Hear from Christof about the progress on Houston’s bus reimagining and his tips for public engagement and transit system planning.

Transportation Election Results 2016

Ok! It's that time!  Every four years we cover elections here at The Overhead Wire.  Here are the results from 2008 and 2012.

This year we're not going to record them here.  But you can find a nifty spreadsheet at The Transport Politic that will be updated live.  Also CFTE is covering as well.  So check them out and follow along.  Also, I'll be tweeting using the hashtag #TransitVote. 

Good Luck! 

Podcast: Meea Kang on Developing Affordable Housing in California

This week I’m joined by Meea Kang, Rail~volution board member and founding partner of Domus Development. I caught up with Meea at the Rail~volution conference to talk about what it’s like to be an affordable housing developer building sustainable projects. We discuss the 16 variances needed to do transit-oriented development in Sacramento, workforce housing in Tahoe on a bus line with 60-minute headways, and what it takes to pass a state law that reduces parking requirements near transit.

Podcast: Remixing Transit Planning in Cities

This week I’m joined by Tiffany Chu, co-founder of the transit planning software firm Remix, which helps agencies quickly assess the impact of potential changes in service. Tiffany discusses the response the company has received from the transit industry and what got it started. We also talk about the possible policy implications of Remix, as well as the movement towards open data.

 

Live Stream Player for the Shared Use Mobility Summit

We're going to be live streaming plenaries from the Shared Use Mobility Summit in Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday. You can listen in here when it goes live.  The program can be found here for times.  (All times Central)

TheOverheadWire is on Mixlr

Podcast: 100% Universal Design with Sunday Parker

This week on the podcast: Transit advocate Sunday Parker discusses access for people with disabilities. We talk about the design of transit stations, the layout of the new BART train cars and what that means for different types of users, the idea of universal design and access in the overall built environment, and our best transit days.

Transit Trends Episode 7: Ride Hailing in Austin

Uber and Lyft left Austin in May 2016 after voters decided to implement stricter operational guidelines for transportation networking companies (TNCs). Soon a flood of new TNCs including RideAustin, Fare, Fasten, GetMe and even a Facebook group called Arcade City with 40,000+ members launched. Yellow Cab soon launched an app and already existing, LUXE, an app that sends someone to valet your car from anywhere downtown, gained popularity. The rideshare market is strong, so we know Uber and Lyft have a long-term plan to stick around nationwide. There's work being done to add autonomous cars into the mix, and partnerships with public transit agencies to help with first / last mile solutions. In episode 7 of Transit Trends, we met up with Andy Tryba, the Co-Founder of non-profit TNC company RideAustin to discuss the state of TNCs in Austin.

Podcast: Shane Phillips on LA Housing

Shane Phillips, who writes at the blog Better Institutions, joins the podcast this week to discuss housing issues in Los Angeles (and everywhere else), and what to make of the “Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.”

NACTO Desiging Cities Seattle 2016 Plenary Recordings

Thanks to everyone who listened in live to the plenaries at NACTO Designing Cities in 2016.  We recorded them all and now have them on The Overhead Wire SoundCloud page.  You can also listen to them below and we will also choose a few to be on the Talking Headways Podcast at some point in the future.

Opening Plenary with Scott Kubly and Janette Sadik-Khan



Tuesday Morning Plenary "Building Great Transit Streets" with LA and Seattle Officials



Tuesday Lunch Plenary "Planning While Black" with Tamika Butler



Wednesday Morning Plenary with Sidewalk Labs' Rohit Aggarwala 



Wednesday Closing Plenary with Transportation Choices Coalition's Shefali Ranganathan

Streaming at NACTO Designing Cities

Starting Monday we will be at the NACTO Designing Cities Conference in Seattle.  We'll be live streaming some of the sessions in audio.  If you'd like to listen in, check my twitter feed for times and come back here to listen using the player below.

ALERT: The 11:45 session will start at 12:10 unless you want to hear everyone eating lunch.


TheOverheadWire is on Mixlr

Podcast: A Different Look at Transportation with Rob Puentes

Our guest this week is Rob Puentes of the Eno Center for Transportation, an organization that has focused on better transportation outcomes for 95 years. Rob touches on a number of topics that we don’t usually explore in-depth, like aviation, freight, and coordinating automated vehicle policy.

Podcast: The Vancouver Model with Brent Toderian

Former chief planner for Vancouver BC Brent Toderian joins the podcast to talk about cities and urbanism.  We have a fun discussion about city rankings as well as talk about planning for the Olympics.  Check it out!

Podcast: Putting Dallas Back Together Again

Patrick Kennedy comes on the podcast this week to talk about what’s going on in Dallas. We discuss the highway removal campaign known as A New Dallas and the recent Texas DOT CityMap Plan to re-imagine the freeways and roads in the city’s downtown. We also discuss downtown subways, urban politics, why existing walkable neighborhoods matter to new walkable neighborhoods, and what’s going on with plans for the Trinity River.

Transit Trends Episode #6 with Lukas Neckermann

It’s safe to say the creation and rollout of autonomous vehicles is the hot topic of the transportation industry now. Each major car company has plans to move forward with these vehicles in the next five or so years. But how long will it actually takes us to adapt to the fact we may eventually ride around in vehicles that we only control the 5-10% of the time?

Podcast: Columbus, the Smartest City in the Land

Josh Lapp, a board member at the advocacy organization Transit Columbus, joins us this week to talk about Ohio’s capital city — how it’s becoming more urban, how its stadiums have been situated to support downtown growth and walkability, and how transportation options like light rail and bike-share are developing. And of course, you’ll hear about Columbus’s winning bid in U.S. DOT’s Smart City Challenge.

Podcast: Future Shared Mobility in Cities

This week we’ve got a fascinating discussion from the Live.Ride.Share conference in Denver earlier this year. Hear what representatives from NRDC, Uber, Lyft, and U.S. DOT think about the future of shared-use mobility systems, carpooling services, autonomous vehicles, and their impact on cities and greenhouse gases.
Speakers include:

• Mark Dowd, deputy assistant secretary for research and technology at U.S. DOT
• Amanda Eaken, deputy director of the Urban Solutions Program at NRDC
• Emily Castor, director of transportation policy at Lyft
• Jonathan Hall, head of economic research for public policy and litigation at Uber

Also check out the archives at Streetsblog USA.

Transit Trends Episode #5 with Gabe Klein

Podcast: Mapping the Smells and Sounds of the Sensory City

This week we're joined by Daniele Quercia and Luca Aiello to talk about mapping the smells and sounds of cities.  I visited Cambridge UK to record this one so you'll want to check it out.

Podcast: Cincinnati's Incomplete Subway

This week we're chatting with Jake Mecklenborg about his book Cincinnati's Incomplete Subway. It's a good one so check it out.

Guest Post: Court Access Lacking for Oakland Tenants Facing Eviction

This is a guest post by David Hall, a private practice lawyer who focuses on tenants rights in Oakland, California. 

So, the new presiding judge for Alameda county, decided, in his infinite wisdom, that Unlawful Detainer actions (evictions) should be centralized to the Hayward courthouse, despite the fact that Oakland is the largest city in the county with the highest population of renters (and thus defendants in eviction actions).

The Oakland courthouses are also within easy walking distance from BART.  Instead, the eviction trials are being held in Hayward, one of the farthest south cities in the county.

I decided to take BART and then walk to the courthouse today to see what my clients might experience. It is a 1.5 mile walk from the BART station. The route is confusing. It also involves a steep overpass over railroad tracks. I arrived at the courthouse drenched in sweat after a brisk half hour walk.

An elderly or mobility-impaired client probably wouldn't have made it. I am sickened by the sacrifice of the rights of tenants (particularly those in poverty) on the altar of judicial economy.

Transit Trends Episode #4

In this episode of Transit Trends, we sit down with Iain Macbeth of Transport For London and discuss how the information from a connected car can improve transportation systems worldwide.

Strava Biking and Walking Data for Planning?

There's been a few articles in the last few days about cities and planners using Strava data to help figure out what routes are popular among runners and cyclists.  I was worried about this approach given the types of people who are able to use apps versus others.  They tried to assuage our worries...

There were two obvious limitations to the idea of Strava Metro. The userbase is a small sample of all cyclists, and the app’s emphasis on competition tends to make them more likely to be Lycra-clad enthusiasts rather than everyday commuters and meanderers.

The company initially had the same worry. However, when authorities started buying the data and comparing it against their own information, they found Strava tended to capture a solid 5-10% of all bike movements. Moreover, they discovered that, especially in cities, those with the app tended to ride the same routes as everyone else.

I still worry that 5-10% number because there are a lot of routes in low income areas that might not get marked up. I actually chatted with Christy Kwan of the Alliance for Biking and Walking about this in a recent podcast.  If you check that out, we start talking about data overall at 19:45.  But  I cut out the 2 minutes of audio specifically talking about new measurement below in which she talked more about ways to measure walking and biking using technology.


I think what she says about the equity issue is important.  But it also brings to mind the discussion about the push and pull of privacy and creating good data that can be used for planning purposes.  You might not want companies to follow you around, but you do want better infrastructure spending.  It's a question I'm sure that will be discussed for years to come. 

Podcast: The Indian Transportation Context

This week I’m chatting with Akshay Mani, a sustainable transportation planner who has worked for Cambridge Systematics in the United States and the World Resources Institute’s EMBARQ program in India. Akshay joined us from Chennai to talk about transportation and the growth of Indian cities.

Jane Jacobs' 100th Birthday Party

It's been a while since I read Death and Life so I don't have any fantastic quotes for anyone.  But I do have a list of articles that were posted for what would have been Jane Jacobs' 100th birthday.

Google Doodle Celebrates Jane Jacobs - Dezeen

Thank God for Jane Jacobs the Highway Slayer - StreetsblogNYC

What Would Jane Jacobs Do About Zoning? WestNorth

Bulldoze Jane Jacobs - Slate

Jane Jacobs Believed Cities Should be Fun - Vox

What Would Jane Jacobs Do About Uber, Bloor Bike Lanes? Toronto Star

Jane Up North - Curbed

How Jane Jacobs Changed the Way We Look at Cities - Guardian Cities

Who Plans?: Jane Jacobs’ Hayekian critique of urban planning - Strong Towns

The Jane Jacobs Century - CityLab

Defending Vibrant City Life: Jane Jacobs at 100 - Time Magazine

Filling in the Blanks of Jane Jacobs.  (Robert Caro's Missing Chapter) - Next City

How Living on Jane Jacobs' Favorite Block Changed My Life - Fast Company

There are more of course, but this is a pretty good sample of tributes, and a little pushback, to who many call St. Jane.

Transit Trends Episode 3: Transportation and Technology

This week on Transit Trends we're joined by Ted Serbinski of Tech Stars to talk about technology and transportation.

 

Podcast: Trinidad, Transit Dates, and Dive Bars

This week we're joined by Ed Parillon to talk about his native Trinidad and some development projects in the bay area.

The Great Self Driving Car Conspiracy

A recent piece by Rebecca Solnit makes a thought provoking general thesis.  Vehicles we don't have to drive already exist in the form of transit and we should ditch autos altogether.  She goes on to blame technology companies for lots of things including putting more cars on the road.

Alissa Walker states it's wrong headed to blame technology.  We can discuss this angle another time but I want to focus on something Walker says about Solnit's disdain for the tech shuttle buses:

First there’s the conspiracy that Google and Uber are trying to put more cars on the road.

Solnit - "Apple, Tesla, Uber, Google and various auto manufacturers’ pursuit of driverless cars is an attempt to preserve and maybe extend private automobile usage. The rise of new ways of hailing taxis and the problematic companies Lyft and Uber has given a younger generation more ways to stay in private one-party-per-vehicle transit and added fleets of new vehicles to already congested cities."

And then that the tech industry is somehow complicit in this plot by sabotaging public transit:

Solnit - "The privatized shuttle buses thundering up and down San Francisco streets (and sometimes getting stuck on the steep ones) have been another sign that big tech takes little interest in enhancing public transit."

Ohh that's interesting.  I saw the above phrases from Walker and my mind immediately jumped to the GM streetcar conspiracy theory.  I don't think Solnit is really hinting at a conspiracy, rather just corporate self interest, but it's a great jumping off point for discussion.

Those of you who have been reading for a long time know that I'm not a conspiracy theorist with the streetcar topic.  I believe that it was regulation and opportunism that took down the streetcars, and in a place like Denver, the franchises were paying for roads the car drivers damaging them weren't.  For many people though this explanation just isn't as interesting as a Roger Rabbit GM conspiracy theory that persists to this day.
 
Here's my question.  Is technology (the Uber, Google, Lyft, and Tesla hype train) that's so focused on auto-mobility and self driving cars the new incarnation of the auto industry in the 40s, 50s and 60s?

We can make several realistic comparisons...

1.  Like in the middle of the 20th century, autos are seen as the future of transportation.  It's futurama all over again but this time with even more self driving cars to travel the freeways built since Bel Geddes' dream sequence.  But then, just like now, we're talking mostly about the positives of these advancements and not the negatives such as subsidized auto oriented land use. 

2.  Cab companies now just like streetcar companies at the time are seen as the problem.  They have monopolies and special protections just like the franchise agreements in the form of medallions.  What brought down streetcars was over-regulation (such as 5 cent fares forever) and cheaper capital cost alternatives such as buses.  Here in SF, streetcars that didn't have tunnels were replaced with buses because 2 employees per streetcar were required by regulations and the tracks were in such disrepair that the cost for replacement looked bad from a purely financial point of view.

3.  As transit agencies began to fail, interests started buying up the remnants and consolidating, hoping to squeeze value out of the existing systems. Eventually many were taken over by government.  Consolidation took place just as it is now with GM now buying shares of Lyft and the remnants of Sidecar,  Avis buying Zipcar, Daimler buying up car2go and other mobility companies, and Uber "poaching" robotics staff from Carnegie Mellon.  All to try and get a piece of the new paradigm pie. 

Now this is somewhat unrelated to the idea of Google, Apple, Facebook, and other buses traveling the mean streets of San Francisco to pick up tech employees which in turn "sabotages" local transit.  But I wanted to lay out what the sabotaging/disrupting or whatever you want to call it actually is focused on at the moment.  Cab companies.

SIDE:
Solnit claims that tech people wouldn't live in the city if the buses didn't exist but that's obviously a ridiculous claim and I can point to other studies that say people from those specific companies that run buses would just drive and still live in SF.  It also ignores the fact that public transit shouldn't be using taxpayer money to provide direct services for individual private companies.  The employment land uses in the valley make the "just upgrade Caltrain" argument silly.  I think we should do that, but that's not the catch all answer.  But that's another post.  
:BAR

You could argue that after cab companies have been dispatched, that ride hailing and car sharing apps might come after transit.  They kind of already have by creating "stops" for their "carpool" services but perhaps this is just the start of how we'll start the cycle I mentioned in the cab disruption above over again. 

A possible example of how this might go is below....

1. Decision makers decide that self driving cars are the future of transportation.  Transit agencies are competing for customers with these for-profit companies staking claim on the travel market. 

2. Transit agencies are seen as the problem.  They have monopolies and special protections but also a government mandated mission of serving the poorest residents of a place.  Additionally, they are held to a certain standard of "profitability" giving them too many goals to reasonably serve.  Opponents will claim bus and train drivers are paid too much and expect service to places that don't have transit supportive densities and land uses because of the automobile based land use policies of the previous 50 years.

3. Consolidation will take place as transit agencies start to work with self driving car companies to serve routes that are high cost and low service.  Some smaller cities will eschew bus service all together in favor of self driving cars and the cycle will repeat.  Auto oriented land uses will continue as we continue the inertia started by the automobile age. 

Is this a realistic possible future?  Perhaps yes. Is there a conspiracy to kill of transit by not supporting it with private companies?  Are tech companies trying to kill transit?  I don't believe so.  Would it be nice if these companies were more supportive? Yes but capitalism isn't altruistic. 

I do think transit is hurting itself though by providing mediocre service and not being forward thinking in large parts of the country.  It also becomes harder to defend against capitalist moves when it is built and operated with politics and not data. Additionally there is a distinct disadvantage when competing in hostile land uses built exclusively for the opponent.  But this makes transit riders an easy target for companies that promise on demand point to point transportation even in areas where the geometry of transit has no peer.  50 people in a bus is still better than 4 people in a car in most CBDs.  Eventually we'll see this come to a head, I just don't think we know how it's going to hit.

We can do better and we need to do better with transit, but if anything takes it down, it will be us as politicians, planners, and consumers.  We decide what happens for better or worse, not a conspiracy of self driving cars.

Podcast: Transportation Ballot Measures

This week we’re chatting with Jason Jordan, director of the Center for Transportation Excellence (CFTE) and policy director at the American Planning Association. Jason tells us how CFTE got started and why ballot measures for transportation have been so successful.

Podcast: Kristen Jeffers on Food Culture and Mall Memories

This week we’re joined by Kristen Jeffers, communications and membership manager for Bike Walk KC and author of The Black Urbanist blog.

Podcast: The Year in Transit Starts with Yonah Freemark

Yonah Freemark joined us in January to talk about transit plans for 2016.

Transit Trends Episode II - High Speed Rail

Episode 1 of Transit Trends YouTube Series

We've teamed up with Ridescout to create a YouTube show about transportation issues called Transit Trends.  We hope you enjoy it!  Here's the introduction and episode 1!

Podcast: A Car Free Travel Guide to Los Angeles

Nathan Landau, a transit planner at AC Transit, joined me to talk about his book Car Free Los Angeles and Southern California.  It's a travel guide to SoCal with transit in mind.

Podcast: The Carpool Reimagined

This week we're joined by Rob Sadow, the CEO of Scoop, to talk about new ways of carpooling.

Podcast: You Can't Surf After the Storm. Water in Cities

This week we have a special podcast. We chat with two experts from NRDC Alisa Valderrama and Rob Moore about an important issue that we don't talk much about. Water.