I'm back

I am back to blogging again after a very busy couple of years of work. I haven't even changed my LinkedIn profile or anything else that needs editing. Indeed, I should be sending my new phone number out to friends and relatives or else I will soon be receiving emails along the spectrum from concerned to panicked. I am writing and, for the moment, it just feels calming not to proceed from morning until evening, and sometimes when wakening in the wee hours of the night, with my triage list churning in my brain.

This election matters to the survival of democracy; it matters very much to public health. But there is not much in the way of conversation about transportation per se, how we fund it, what we fund, or what exactly are our goals on issues related to transportation. Why? I believe that most people view transportation as local rather than national, that they have no idea how transportation funding decisions are made, and that the inertia and legal-favoring of personal vehicle use is simply a presumption in most US communities. 

Imagine you redo the bathroom

Transportation is like grout. When you redo the kitchen or the bathroom, you spend lots of time and focus on the tile and two minutes on the grout. But tile is nowhere without the grout. People do not usually move to or remain in a place because of the transportation choices, but education, work, healthcare, gathering with friends and family, or simply a walk in the neighborhood or to the grocery store, are nowhere without the transportation connection to them, whether that's a bike lane, a sidewalk, a bus, or a car - and the roadway and traffic signals maintained to support them.

To change modal and systemic priorities, such that transit and other low-cost shared-use modes - including sidewalks and safe pedestrian crossings - get a bigger piece of the pie requires lots of advocacy, public relations, persistence, and luck that the times are ripe for the message. With Covid-19, with relatively new modal offerings, with incredible possibilities that technology brings, with a greater share of society finding it more and more difficult to pay the price of owning and maintaining vehicles, and with a seismic shift in transportation patterns, perhaps the time is almost ripe.  

[From https://vocal.media/theSwamp/buses-were-always-the-answer]

My thoughts on autonomous vehicles assume that we have an opportunity with this upcoming major change to make other changes. That doesn't mean that we will take advantage of that opportunity.  

No answers today. Just a rant.