Basement Office

Anatomy of a to-do

In a brilliant act of sustained provocation, the Post-Gazette has kept the back-and-forth between bicyclists and drivers alive for three weeks running. Since the August 12 story about the appointment of a city bicycle “czar”, it has been nearly impossible to go a day without witnessing an exchange.

Following the publication of this story, the letters to the editors on August 13, 16, and 17 had at least one bicyclist or driver opining on the awfulness of the other.

Sensing blood, the P-G collected anecdotes from frustrated drivers, wrapped some weak reporting around it, and threw it on the front page on August 18 under the headline “When bicyclists break the safety chain, driver complaints mount.”

Predictably, this set off another round of furious letter-writing, some of which were published on August 20, 21, 23, and 25. The paper’s normally conservative page 2 columnist also spent a column supporting the bicyclists’ cause.

There has been ample debate on the topic on the paper’s own discussion form as well as on at least one local blog, which has racked up an impressive 100+ comment count on a post that was just trolling for abuse.

I have little to add to this noise, except to say that I think that both sides are yelling past each other, and that no amount of increased law enforcement, or painted bike lanes, or bicycle licensing fees will change how cars and bikes interact on the city’s streets, in their current state.

That’s not to say things can’t get better. What I would like to see is a fundamental rethinking of the function of the city street.

This story of Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic engineer is a wonderful study in counter-intuitive approaches to better moderate the role of the automobile in the city.

While redesigning a major thoroughfare in a Dutch village after two children were fatally stuck, Monderman employed psychological tricks, not signs and speed bumps, to calm traffic:

Signs were removed, curbs torn out, and the asphalt replaced with red paving brick, with two gray “gutters” on either side that were slightly curved but usable by cars. As Monderman noted, the road looked only five meters wide, “but had all the possibilities of six.”

The results were striking. Without bumps or flashing warning signs, drivers slowed, so much so that Monderman’s radar gun couldn’t even register their speeds. Rather than clarity and segregation, he had created confusion and ambiguity. Unsure of what space belonged to them, drivers became more accommodating. Rather than give drivers a simple behavioral mandate – say, a speed limit sign or a speed bump – he had, through the new road design, subtly suggested the proper course of action.

Of his approach, Monderman says:

“I don’t want traffic behavior, I want social behavior.”

Better social behavior is something we should all strive to practice. Perhaps as the oil era cedes center stage, we can once again reclaim our urban spaces and infuse them with a humanity that has been missing for far too long.

Bad business

Downtown, the cage is up around Market Square, which can only mean one thing: St. Patrick’s Day. The masses are smartly gathering at the end of our street, waiting for a bus to take them to the “fun.” There’s one problem, though: there’s no bus.

I’ve watched the crowd grow from 5 to 20 to probably 50. With each passing bus, the mumur of drunken discontent grows louder. Some Most are abandoning the wait, choosing, probably unwisely, to walk back to their cars and make the trip by other means.

The buses run at a frequency unchanged from their normal weekend schedule, and the ones that do go by fail to stop. I don’t know if the riders are being passed by because the buses are full, or because the drivers don’t want to deal with a bunch of happy drunks in Abercrombie & Fitch.

Either way, it’s a loss for the Port Authority, and for its regular riders. Failing to be flexible and accommodating to the special needs of the day is just fuel for the fire of those who posit the growing irrelevance of our transit system. I can imagine 50 different conversations once the revelers arrive downtown, all going something like this:

“Dude, what took you so long? I’m already smashed!”

“It’s the fuckin’ bus, man. I waited an hour for it and watched three go by without stopping.”

“Dude, the bus sucks.”

“I know.”

A better schedule getter

Inspired by Nathan’s self-motivated improvement to the Port Authority’s Trip Planner, I decided to task myself with my own small project that would eliminate the need to visit the Byzantine structure that is the Port Authority website. I hope you like it.

Whoops, wrong project.

Actually, my goals were much more modest. As one who is not altogether trusting of the times given via the online scheduling tools, I prefer to rely on the paper, or “hand schedules,” that the Port Authority distributes.

However, carrying more than three paper schedules at a time leaves one open to the valid assumption by others that you are a nut who hordes bus schedules like Elliot Spitzer hordes prostitutes. Believe me, I’ve seen the type in every city we’ve been to.

So I prefer to do my hoarding electronically, via PDF. Since my laptop is never far from my person, it’s an ideal situation. Throw Spotlight into the mix, and I can summon up any bus schedule at will, and can out-crazy the best of the crazies.

Well, almost. See, the process of getting the schedules and keeping them updated is the not fun part. There are about 11 bus routes that I use with varying degrees of regularity, and I despise having to remember if I grabbed the newest schedule and, if I didn’t, visiting the Port Authority’s website to get a new one. Too much thinking and too many clicks.

Enter the Mac, its Unix underpinnings, and the beauty that is shell scripting.

I spent some time tonight polishing a project I had started a couple of months ago – a command-line schedule retriever. It uses wget and a lot of pipes and output redirection to download and manage the latest Port Authority schedules. It’s not pretty (although it does have a cool ASCII progress bar), but if you are a CLI ninja, it beats the alternative.

However, if you didn’t understand that last paragraph, it’s probably not for you.

My experience with releasing software that doesn’t run within a web browser is somewhat limited, so your mileage may vary, but I welcome you to download it and give it a shot.

Update: Also see the simplified Port Authority Hand Schedule retriever for quick access to PDF schedules through your browser.

Now with more stupid

I feel like Bill Murray. Once again, my morning reading of the newspaper brought forth the need to create vitriol:

I have to disagree with the idea that bicyclists on the streets of Pittsburgh are a danger only during bad weather. They are always a danger. Why should a motorist have to ride behind a bicycle traveling at 5 mph until they get the chance to drive into the oncoming lane to pass them?

See “Untested Cyclists,” the fourth letter down for more. It only gets better.

The pot has been stirred over at Bike Pittsburgh. Attending this book talk and signing has also become the thing to do on Friday night.