Get a Grip! Swine Flu Hysteria

I sure wish we could figure out a way to harness the emotional energy associated with people's reaction to the new flu virus, and use it to help us transform our society and our world. Or, for that matter, engage our media at that kind of level.

This has been a page 1 story for days now. It is totally out of control and out of proportion. This blog (fivethirtyeight) reported about a study asking people if they knew someone who had gotten swine flu. 3.2% said they did! 3.2 percent!! They backed these numbers out to show that we'd need about 35,000 cases of swine flu for that many people to report they know someone with it, yet there are only a couple of hundred confirmed cases in the US. What is going on?

Here are some facts about this year's ('08-'09) flu season: the non-swine flu that has been circulating since last fall.

- Through its normal sampling testing, CDC has tested more than 25,000 positive specimens for flu, representing 14% of all samples they tested--indicating that literally millions of people have contracted the flu this season.
- 55 pediatric deaths have been attributed to the flu this season
- There have been at least two pediatric deaths every single week since the last week of January
- There were 10 pediatric deaths due to flu the week of February 28 (but no page 1 story; in fact, no story at all that I can recall)
- Just 3 weeks ago more than 7% of ALL deaths reported in the US were due to the flu. That would represent something like 3,000 people just in that one week.
- 13,000 people have died this year from flu
- In 2005, 63,000 Americans died of the flu. 63 THOUSAND!! Where were the news stories?
- Just two months ago 31 states reported "widespread influenza activity."

Today's Washington Post quoted a woman named Beth Pendergast:
"I heard this morning that a toddler died in Texas. And now, suddenly, there's a case in my back yard," Beth Pendergast, whose daughter Danielle is a third-grader at Folger, said late yesterday. "To be honest, my family is scared, and I'm scared. Even though they're taking all the precautions, it's still my child. At this point, there's no way I'm sending her to school tomorrow."

HELLOOO! Did she keep her child home all winter long, too? Children were dieing every week from the flu, and presumably other children in her kid's school had it. At this point there is no indication that this particular virus is either more contagious nor more virulent than the dozens of other flu viruses currently in circulation. In other words, people should take the same precautions and behave the same way now as they do during any winter month when flu is going around. (Be careful crossing the street, too.) This stuff drives me nuts.

How can we get a person like Ms. Pendergast equally engaged on fighting global climate change? In the end, the world her child grows up in will be far more affected by climate change than by this flu virus. And it's likely it will have a greater affect on her child's health and life expectancy, too--not to mention her quality of life as well.

On the other hand, it makes for some mighty fine entertainment and insights:
MinnPost
TechCrunch
Swine Flu vs. Financial Panic

LEED Accredited Professional and Green Buildings

I am pleased to report that last week I took and passed the exam to become a LEED Accredited Professional (AP). LEED is the certification system for green buildings created by and managed by the US Green Building Council. There are many programs and certifications for green buildings that have sprung up over the last couple of decades, but LEED is the most well recognized in the United States. By passing the test I demonstrated my understanding of the LEED certification process, the criteria to certify a building and a basic understanding of green building practices and technologies. (Although I will note that anyone with enough time to cram a bunch of information into their head could probably pass the test. . .at least until now: they are currently changing the certification process for the future.)

What the US Green Building Council and other organizations (such as EPA's Energy Star Buildings program) are doing to transform the built environment is critical in the battle against climate change. Buildings are responsible for 35%-40% of greenhouse gas emissions and use more than 60% of the electricity generated in the US. They have an enormous environmental impact. What's great is that the technologies and practices to make a huge improvement in the energy performance of buildings is already out there. Organizations like LEED, with the help of practitioners like me (hopefully), can help accelerate the adoption of those technologies and practices and help transform the buildings sector.

Efficiency Good; Hyperbole Bad

The Monday, April 20 Washington Post included an 8-page "advertorial" insert called Environmental Leadership--presumably in anticipation of Earth Day (not available on line). It included about a dozen guest articles on a wide array of environmental topics. Great! (although one of the advertising supporters is the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which promotes the oxymoron "clean coal." You can read more about my opinion of carbon capture and storage here.)

One of the guest writers is Nancy Sutley, the new Obama administation Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Her column runs the gamut, touching on a wide array of environmental issues--the normal rhetoric one would expect--but I stopped when I read this line: "We plan to put a million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road, dramatically increasing the fuel efficiency of our nation's fleet of vehicles with batteries built in the U.S."

"Dramatically increasing?" Let's do a quick back of the envelope. In 2006 there were 234 million cars and light trucks on the road representing an average fuel economy of 20.30 mpg. Let's make some optimistic assumptions:
- Plug-in hybrids are the equivalent of 100 mpg
- All 1,000,000 new hybrids replace SUVs (average 18 mpg)

If we use 2006 as a proxy, replacing 1,000,000 SUVs with plug-in hybrids, then the new fleet economy rises to 20.38 mpg, an minuscule increase of .08 miles per gallon. Or put another way, an increase of about 425 feet per gallon. Another way to achieve the exact same reduction in fuel consumption would be to reduce the distance each car drives by about 50 miles per year--a 0.4% decrease.

Now don't get me wrong: I am totally in favor of transforming our economy to more environmentally sustainable technologies and systems, but I think a hyperbolic statement like this sugarcoats the magnitude of the challenge in front of us.

Let's put those million vehicles out there, but it's just a down payment. I think it would have been much better to say, ""We plan to put a million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road, a small but important first step in transforming our nation's fleet of automobiles"

Smart Grid Requires Smart People

The "Smart Grid" is an enormously popular topic these days. I just ran a Google News search on the term "smart grid" and it returned almost 2000 hits (roughly the same number as a search on "ted kennedy"). The Obama administration has pledged at least $4 billion to funding the "smart grid."

What exactly is the smart grid? Well, it's one of those terms that's pretty broad and includes a lot of concepts. . .and can mean different things to different people. Basically, as I understand it, it's the combination of technologies and data management that will allow operators and users of our electrical grid to have better information about what is happening to the electricity that is passing through the grid or that they are using. That can include everything from simple home-based meters to multi-million dollar software for utilities to manage second-by-second transmission and distribution of electricity. Lots of companies are working hard to put the technologies and other tools out there that will make the "smart grid" work.

The rhetoric we hear often attributes significant environmental efficiencies to the smart grid. What's important to realize is that making the grid smart does not automatically make it more efficient. You need smart people and smart policies to combine with the smart grid to achieve any transformation. Better information by itself is not a goal, but merely a means to help achieve our goals.

Here's a real-life example. About 10 years ago I had a friend who signed up for time-of-use rates through his local utility (time-of-use rates do not require a smart grid, but many of the stories I read in the media suggest that the smart grid will make these more common). He paid much lower rates at night and in the winter and higher rates during the day and in the summer. What he found was that his off-peak rates were so low that it made sense for him to leave his lights on all night to help warm the house. Since his utility primarily burned coal as its baseload fuel, he was fuel switching from natural gas to coal by being "smart." In the process he was actually increasing pollution.

Without policies that send the right pricing signals to utilities, they could easily design "smart" rates that actually move generation away from higher priced peaking natural gas plants (and even higher priced renewables) to lower priced coal and nuclear.

I'm all for the smart grid, but not without smart people and smart policies to make sure that the information that it provides actually serves the purpose of reducing emissions and encouraging efficiency and cleaner generation.

Carbon Capture and Storage: A Solution?

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is constantly in the news these days. A Google search on that phrase returns 1.2 million hits. There are cheerleaders and detractors on both sides of the technology, many with very strong opinions.

A very quick primer on CCS:
Carbon capture and storage is a technology--still in its infancy--that can capture CO2 emissions at the source (typically a power plant). It captures these emissions, liquidizes the CO2 and stores it in underground formations. Usually the underground storage is the same as where oil and gas has been extracted , which supporters argue will be able to store the CO2 for millenia. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of explaining it.

The point of CCS is to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning fossil fuels by capturing them. Other major strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions include: reducing the need for energy in the first place (efficiency and conservation); replacing fossil fuels with other sources of energy (e.g., biofuels, renewables, nuclear), and biological sequestration (e.g., forests).

There are currently no commercial-sized CCS power plants in operation anywhere in the world, and critics also point out that the investments in CCS would have to be enormous to scale it up enough to be effective. However, I am in favor of continuing to invest in CCS; here's why.

As I opined in my post on nuclear power, climate change is happening way faster than scientists expected just a few years ago. The challenge is enormous, and our response to date has been insufficient to the challenge. At this point in time we need to go down every pathway, trying every strategy and investing in all the possibilities. We do not have time to scratch our heads over a perfect response to climate change; we need to do it all. On every front: renewables, efficiency, international agreements, alternative fuels, etc., we are coming up short compared to what is required to slow down and reverse the dangerous buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere (I like the Climate Progress blog for the role it plays in educating about the severity of the climate crisis).

I do not believe that CCS should be used as an excuse to continue burning as much coal as we do now (or even more as the coal industry would like us to accept). Just the opposite; I believe we need to slow down and eventually stop the burning of coal. CCS needs to be developed as a solution to the main problem--not an excuse for not doing other things. On this point, I am closely aligned with the Union of Concerned Scientists viewpoint as outlined in this report.

I very much like the idea of developing CCS as a way to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. When the technology is developed, it could be applied to biomass power plants (sometimes referred to as Bio-Energy CCS or BECCS). The CO2 captured would then result in a net reduction in CO2 from our atmosphere, essentially carbon negative (first the trees or plants remove the CO2 as they grow, then we capture that and store it away when we combust it for energy). That's something we have to do if we believe, as I do, that we already have too much in our atmosphere. Just slowing and stopping greenhouse gas emissions will not be enough; we also have to go backwards and reduce the 200-plus-year buildup of them.

So that's why I support CCS. If the fossil fuel industry can be used to help us develop the technology so that we can deploy it later in ways to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, then I want it--and we need it--to happen.

Congestion Charge, Commuter Tax and Metro

(Rerun - Originally posted Nov. 17, 2007) Last week a Washington Post reader named Bill Suffa wrote a letter to Dr. Gridlock in which he suggested that:
1) a congestion charge is essentially nothing more than a commuter tax and,
2) that Metro would be incapable of handling the extra ridership that would be created if a congestion charge for the district (or a portion of it) were enacted.

On point 1, I suppose he's essentially right, although "commuter" would include anyone who enters the congestion zone regardless if they are a resident of DC or not. My personal opinion is I don't see a problem with that. If the District wants to charge people for using its infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) then why not? Would it be good policy? Personally I think it would be, but others will disagree. There would be trade offs between raising money and driving away business, maintaining and improving infrastructure and irking suburban commuters, environmental advantages to reducing car traffic and other benefits and costs. I don't pretend to know what the right balance for the District would be, but I do maintain that they should have the right to decide for themselves, and I would suggest that if Fairfax County or any other jurisdiction wanted to charge for the use of its infrastructure, too, it should have that right.

On point 2, the challenges facing Metro have been written about a lot. Just recently it was reported that ridership has grown by 70,000 riders per day over the last 5 years (WMATA press release). Crowding on the system is getting worse despite new rail cars and eight-car trains being introduced. Mr. Suffa has experienced this himself, as have thousands of other riders. I doubt anyone would disagree with the statement that Metro service can be improved and capacity needs to be increased.

London put #'s 1 and 2 together. A significant part of the reason London was able to enact a congestion charge was that they simultaneously invested more money into buses and trains to make it easier to travel in London without having to drive in. It was part of the plan.

We can take a lesson, too, from the new Nationals Stadium. DC was able to float more than $600 million in bonds to finance the stadium from taxes that haven't yet begun to be collected and will continue for many years. London collects an estimated $244 million per year from its congestion charge and estimates for DC start at $60 million per year. Using similar financing rates to the stadium deal (and assuming between $60 million and $244 million per year were collected), if the congestion tax were dedicated to WMATA, bonds could be floated for between $900 million and $4 billion--money that could be put to work immediately to make significant improvements. Using the stadium strategy would allow for starting the improvements in advance of instituting the congestion charge, increasing the capacity needed before it is required.

Land-Use Transformation to Reduce Teenage Deaths (a Personal Plea)

I am terribly saddened by the death of my brother's and sister-in-law's niece, 16. She died last week, several days after a severe car accident that was survived by the three other teens who were in the car. She was a passenger in the rear seat. I don't know all the details of the accident.

There are, of course, reams and reams of statistics on teen driving accidents and scientific research in neurology and sociology that try to explain some of this. Many states have taken actions such as progressive licensing, driver training, seatbelt laws, and more to protect our teenagers essentially from themselves and their friends--and not without some results. Teenage driving deaths have declined over the last fifteen years.

However, thousands of teenagers continue to die in car accidents every year, and teens will always be more likely to have accidents than others no matter what we do, because of their inexperience as drivers and their not-yet-completely-developed judgment. This second point is not a criticism of teenagers; it's a neurological fact. When it becomes personal, though, all of this information is meaningless. My family has lost a loved one, a piece of our lives that cannot be replaced.

Everywhere I read about the teenage driving "epidemic" (if it were a disease killing thousands of teenagers every year, imagine the response of our government), the solutions are always about changing licensing, rules, training, parental responsibility, etc. Never do I read about changing society so that teens (and others) just don't need to drive--or as much.

A significant part of this problem lies in the way we have created our urban and suburban forms. Teenagers want to have fun; they want to be with their friends; they want to take advantage of things going on in and around their schools and communities. In most communities, however, the only way they can do these things is to drive or be driven. This blog is about transformation--primarily to reduce our environmental impacts. But transforming the way we develop our communities will provide so many additional benefits, too.

If our teens could easily walk or take the bus or rail to where they want to go. If they could safely bike to their friends' houses and to the local shops and theaters. If the fun stuff they want to do was accessible to them. I believe not only would that improve the quality of their lives--and their parents' lives, but it might save hundreds of their lives, too. Somehow we have to change the culture, too. Driving is cool to many teens; I can't change that in the short term. In the long run, though, perhaps we can.

The way we design and develop our cities and our transportation systems has to change. We are not on a sustainable path: not environmentally sustainable, not culturally sustainable, not economically sustainable. My brother's niece is gone. . .forever. Another 10 teens will die today in auto accidents. As the father of a 15-year old, I'm not in favor of limiting our childrens' opportunities as a solution (one of the criticisms of raising driving ages and graduated licensing). Instead let's re-create our land use forms and our transportation systems in ways that make our lives better AND safer AND less resource intensive all at once.

R. S. vT., may you rest in peace.

War on Drivers forces capture Kensington, MD; Weiss counterattacks

The ongoing "War on Drivers" (WoD) in the DC area took a major turn last week, as WoD forces captured Kensington, Maryland. They've announced plans to destroy all automobiles, furnishing every resident with free bicycles and walking shoes instead. An immediate counter-attack, led by General Eric Weiss of the "Not-Til-You-Pry-It-Out-Of-My-Cold-Stiff-Hands" (NTYPIOOUMCSH, pronounced Nitty-pyoo-miksch) expeditionary forces and and with tactical support from the VDOT Third Armored Road Repaving Division, bombed Clarendon with a flurry of unsubstantiated studies indicating the need for four new elevated freeways crisscrossing the county but not actually leading anywhere.

NTYPIOOUMCSH encountered resistance on their rush from Virginia to defend Kensington by numerous bottlenecks on I-66. Weiss remarked, "See, this is what we mean! If we can't even get our Hummers and Expeditions where we need to in order to engage the enemy, then it just proves our point. This is all-out war!" However, his forces took to the local roads in Arlington, and executed a coup-d'etat against Arlington's Governor-of-Urban-Canopy, Christopher Zimmerman, who took refuge in the Pentagon City Metro station—a safe location the NTYPIOOUMCSH forces were not aware even existed.

WoD forces, strengthened by the fresh air and exercise they were now getting, began spreading their influence to the south, and met with a friendly ally in Bethesda, where similar battles were also being waged. The WoD forces were aided by the significant mobility advantages provided by the secret Metro tunnels, bike paths and pedestrian connections that do not appear on NTYPIOOUMCSH's Goggle maps.

As usual, the on-line community was instantly engaged, and updates on the war can be found on the WoD supporters' Facebook page: "Make 'em walk 'til they blister" and twitter at ntypioumcshsucks. Countering in cyberspace, the enemy created their own Facebook page: "Get outta my frickin' way" and are also tweeting at outtamyfrickinway.

It's still too early to tell how the war will end, with each side claiming to hold the high ground and unwilling to back down until the other side quits moving about in an "uncivilized" fashion. Both sides had tentatively agreed to peace talks by former President Jimmy Carter, but negotiations broke down over disputes as to whether he would travel to the region by car or Amtrak.

(Photo by Jason Means.)

(cross-posted on Greater Greater Washington)

New Model for Transportation - Take 2

My post from last week: We Need a New Model for Expanding Transit received a long, thoughtful response from Paul Minett: Co-founder, CEO and President at Trip Convergence Ltd. He was responding not to my post here but to my sending similar thoughts to an industry list serve called transp-tdm (TDM stands for Transportation Demand Management, and there is a whole industry of professionals who work in this field). I have edited Paul's response slightly, but have hopefully captured his thoughts and ideas:

Well said, Steve. And since you asked, here is what I think. I think the score card you propose is all wrong. This is not (or shouldn't be) a 'cars vs transit' issue, nor should it be a 'vehicle miles per gallon' issue. Eventually we will be forced to restructure how we achieve 'accessibility', and how much 'mobility' we actually need. In the meantime switching cars for buses or trains is like the proverbial 're-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic': eventually they all become obsolete.

It has been suggested (by Jonathan Levine, for example) that 'accessibility' is made up of 'proximity', 'connectivity', and 'mobility'. We get what we focus on, and while the focus is on 'mobility' that is what results. A concerted effort to improve 'connectivity' could reduce the need for so much 'mobility'. On the other hand, within 'mobility' sits vehicle occupancy.

It amazes me that when some people look at a jammed freeway they see the solution being to add more vehicles (ie buses). There is enough rolling stock already out there. And it could all be getting 100 passenger miles per gallon, just by filling up the empty seats. We recently got almost 200 passenger miles per gallon on a trip from Portland to Salem: four people in a Prius. Eventually we must reduce the amount of 'mobility' we consume.

In the meantime we need to put lots of thought (and action) into strategies that increase average vehicle occupancy, and reduce total vehicle counts, and reduce the amount of 'solitary mobility' we consume. Possibly the most energy efficient transport available is the van owned by a worker who carries eight or ten co-commuters for most of its journey, and then parks up while the worker does his job, until doing the return journey.

Highly efficient buses that deadhead empty to collect the next load are only half as energy efficient on a per passenger mile basis as the same buses operating full in each direction. During peak the loadings might justify the deadhead, but outside of peak it becomes questionable.

As a starting point we could all focus on mechanisms to increase the rewards for sharing rides, increase the cost of driving alone, and simplifying the process of sharing rides. We are one of many businesses focused on finding solutions to make progress in this area, and it is not plain sailing. Many seem to be offended that private companies might make a profit in this space. But perhaps more to the point, we find a lack of discretionary time and budget in the offices of the organisations that should be interested in working with us. And when there is funding for innovation the processes to bring it about are complex and very slow. Only the most dedicated stay the course.

I think it is great that you have opened up this discussion. I hope others will find time to comment because this is a fundamentally important issue.

Thanks, Paul, for your ideas and helping to push the transformation to sustainability this blog and millions of others seek.

Going Car Free

A couple of Obama's key appointees do not own cars as reported in this article in the Washington Post, which was also picked up by some blogs, including DemConWatch and Kicking Tires. Carol Browner, President Obama's Energy and Environment Czarina and Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, were reported to not own cars at all. That's two out of the six high level appointees this article reported on. Also, one of the ten aides on the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry also reported not owning a car. That's three out of sixteen. Clearly these individuals are making a conscious choice not to own a car, since I presume they could afford one if they wanted. As we transform our transportation systems and our economy to more sustainable models, we need to move away from the concept of one car/one person. The average car sits idle 22 hours or more a day, which is an extremely inefficient use of capital. Creating a more integrated system that allows people to not have to own their cars and tie up many thousands of dollars of capital will serve us better in the long run--both economically and environmentally.

Here in Arlington, VA, we have a promotional effort called Arlington's Car-Free Diet. The article did not go into the reasons why these leaders choose not to own a car, but one might guess that they just find it more convenient and cost effective to not have one, and are able to avail themselves of the options available in the DC area, the kind of options that make the Car-Free Diet a model for other places.

We Need a New Model for Expanding Transit

There's been a lot of cheering and excitement about the fact that transit travel is growing while automobile travel is falling. These are good trends, no doubt. I looked at some statistics at the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. This is what I noted:
For 2006, passenger miles on transit were about 52,000,000,000 miles
For 2006, passenger car travel was about 2,650,000,000,000 miles--50 times greater.

So let's say transit represents approximately 2% of all travel. I believe it's actually less than this, but we'll use 2% for argument's sake.

Global climate change requires us to make drastic and enormous changes in our emissions from all sources, including transportation. I live in Washington DC where our Metrorail and Metrobus systems are often running at or above capacity (we do better than 2%, but it's still a single digit percentage of all trips in the region), and this year they are talking about service cuts. Cuts due to budget pressures that will not relieve any congestion in the system--and certainly not help provide better service so we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So what if we need to increase that percentage from less than 2% to something like 20% or 50%! in order to deal with climate change. After all, we can't just keep driving cars 2.6 trillion miles per year. Reducing that 2.6 trillion just a little to 2 trillion by shifting to transit would require a 12-fold increase in transit capacity! What does that mean for your transit system? What would it require to make a 10- or-20-fold increase in capacity. When we talk about increasing transit, our goals are tiny, modest fractions of this kind of increase.

Well, I'm sorry; we're doomed. It will be at least 16 years between the first real plans to build the Silver Line out to Dulles airport and its completion (longer, if you also count the time it was being thought about, proposed and debated). The FTA issued a decision on a short, 5-mile extension of BART in 2006 that will open 8 years later in 2014. I've been hearing a drumbeat for Bus Rapid Transit as a great solution to many transit issues, yet there are few examples of successful systems, and almost every proposed system is small in scope, running behind schedule or bogged down in the idea stage.

How can we possibly increase the capacity of our public transport systems by an order of magnitude if takes decades to complete a single project?

Well, I can't see how our current public agency model for creating and operating and expanding transit will be up to the task. Lincoln said it best:
"The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew."
The occasion is global climate change, and we must think and act anew. Somehow we need to change the model for transportation such that the private sector benefits from providing transportation with close to zero emissions. Private streetcar companies built thousands and thousands of miles of lines in just a couple of decades around a hundred years ago. Some streetcar barons made millions of dollars in the process. Was that good or bad? Well, no one in our transit agencies is incentivized by millions of dollars in potential profits and are not consumed by entrepreneurial zeal.

I don't know what the right answer is, but I know the wrong answer is just to keep doing what we're doing now--just a little better or a little faster or a little different. Somehow we have to think and act anew.

16? 2? 53A? &%@**#!!

IMPORTANT NOTE: In this post I may use ART and Metro as examples. That's because--being in the DC area--I know more about them. The points I am making are intended to apply to mass transit in general and are not intended as criticisms of these particular systems any more than transit systems anywhere else.

In Arlington (and many places) streets are numbered, which can be pretty useful: 10th St. is between 9th and 11th, which can be a huge help to those trying to find an address. In Arlington, the buses are also numbered: 41, 51, 52, 53 (A?), 61, 62, 67, 74, 75, 82. But what do these numbers mean? Like the streets, can I use the numbers to help me find the bus or figure out where it's going or derive any useful information at all? No. As a rider they are entirely meaningless. I asked around in Arlington County Commuter Services and virtually no one knew the "system" behind the numbers. Eventually I found one person who had a clue about the system but readily admitted that it was, in essence, arbitrarily contrived.

Metro is even worse. Not only are the numbers essentially arbitrary (I'm sure there's a system, but if it's opaque to the rider then it is no better than no system). Take the #2 bus. It comes in 6 varieties (2A, 2B, 2C, 2G, 2W. . . and 2T on a separate timetable). The 2W and the 2T are so different from the other 2's, they need a separate map and timetables. Why even call them # 2's? I'll bet you there isn't a single rider who can explain why those buses are called #2, why there are 6 different ones, why those particular letters of the alphabet are used, and why the 2W and 2T are somehow paired with the other 2's. The numbering is worthless to the rider (who is, after all, the customer). So here's a system that not only provides zero useful information but actually provides the disservice of confusing customers.
Imagine the streets were numbered like this: 8th, 11th, 5th, 1st, 4th, 9th, 2nd, 7th, 6th, 10th, 3rd, 12th. The numbers are meaningless (actually there's a "system"--revealed at the end of this post). If you tell someone you live on 5th Street you still have to describe where it is: "I live on 5th, which is between 11th and 1st." The numbers have become meaningless. Actually, this "system" is even worse than that; it creates more confusion than purpose. Better that the streets were given names like colors or trees.
"But how do you tell the buses apart?" Yes, of course they need to be identified. Everything needs some sort of identification: streets, animals, our friends, schools, devices, food. They all have names, and those names evoke meaning. Imagine if all the food in the grocery were just numbers. "Be sure to pick up some 22, 135, 16 and--oh yes--311 on your way home, honey." I find it hard enough to remember bread, milk and artichoke hearts, and--oh yes--toilet paper!
Eventually I would learn that 22 is milk, but it's so much harder. Our brains are not wired to apply numbers in an arbitrary way like that. We don't remember our friends by their phone numbers.
From early childhood we are taught that numbers are most usefully used as ordinal or cardinal identifiers--they help us put things in order or quantify them. But on buses they serve neither purpose (these are called "nominal" numbers), and so we have to deliberately undo a lifetime of learning and try to understand the number on the bus as nothing more than an abstraction that equates to a name. Better the bus be called the "phor" than 4; it would actually be easier. In fact, the metrorail lines being identified with colors is easier to remember than if they were numbered. And, although the colors are also essentially arbitrary, it is easier for the brain to bring meaning to them.

"But transit systems have been using numbers for generations, and it's been working." Thanks, Dilbert. Just because something has been done for decades doesn't make it good or leave no room for improvement. In fact, just the opposite: often it's the things that we assume ought to be a certain way are the things that should be questioned the hardest. Also, how do we know it's been working if we haven't tried something different to compare it with?
Boulder Colorado is one place I know of that has thrown out the number system (at least partially). Many of the buses have names: Hop, Skip, Stampede, Bolt, Dash, etc. The more complete names are things like "Skip Along Broadway" and "Dash down South Boulder Road." Now that's useful info to a customer. Personally I like the Jump (also called the Short Jump) and the Long Jump (which is the extension of the Jump--now there's a name that really works).
If the goal of transit is to help people get around better and more easily, that goal needs to consider everything: ease of use, cost, convenience, etc.. The names of the buses are a key piece of information critical to people using the system. Is what Boulder's done the best system? I don't know, but it's a lot better than everywhere else. In any event, the only system I can think of that would be worse than the arbitrary number system in common use is a system in which the buses have no identification at all.
====================
(originally posted November 10, 2007 on CommuterPage blog)
(Answer: the streets are listed in alphabetical order)

Miles Grant for Delegate

Miles Grant, who is running for State Delegate in Virginia, stopped by my house yesterday. I know Miles through a professional connection and follow his blog: The Green Miles. He's an environmentalist like I am, and we had a chance to discuss some local and statewide environmental issues. (Click here for his campaign site)

In our discussion, we talked about coal, including the new Wise County coal plant, which neither of us thinks was very wise. I agree with him that it's long past time to stop building coal plants and start transforming our energy economy and our energy systems to an entirely new paradigm. Coal cannot be part of that paradigm. Unfortunately, I don't think the state of Virginia perceives itself as being a leader on climate change or on our environment. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the state considers itself to be a real leader on anything. I believe Miles will strongly bring those issues to Richmond if he wins this primary and goes on the win the election. Good luck to him.

Recycling is the Worst Thing to Happen to Our Environment

Okay, it's not the worst thing. But sometimes I think that the recycling movement has actually served at cross purposes to making significant environmental progress. Others (here, here, here) have opined that recycling itself may actually be bad, and I'll let those arguments stand or fall on their own merits. I take the viewpoint that even if it's environmentally good, the emphasis on it is bad.

When I talk to people and tell them what I do: that I'm an environmentalist, they undoubtedly cite the fact that they recycle as evidence that they are, too. Rarely do they come up with much else beyond that, but for most of them they seem to feel that is sufficient.

Yet recycling has a remarkably negligible overall effect. Even on the waste stream. Household waste represents well less than 2% of all the waste in the economy, so even if every household in the country recycled 100% of their waste, it would only reduce our solid waste stream by about 1%. 99% of the waste generated by our economy would still be thrown out. A great viewpoint on this can be found at The Story of Stuff.

The much bigger problems have to do with overall consumption and with our use of energy. That's where it really makes a difference. But unfortunately, the focus on recycling as the "environmental" behavior that really makes a difference has distracted most Americans from taking more significant actions. They feel good about their environmental performance based on their weekly recycling activities and completely ignore the fact that also in a week their vehicles have burned over 100 pounds of gasoline--ten times what they recycled--and emitted 300 pounds of CO2.

Squeezing More out of Metro with Operational Improvements

Metro ridership has been steadily rising for years. The Orange Line in Arlington and Fairfax, the "Orange Crush," has the worst crowding. In 1994, when I lived near Court House Metro, I could get a seat on my commute into DC. By 2000, I would only occasionally get a seat living two stops further out at Virginia Square. Now East Falls Church is my closest station, and most mornings it's unlikely I'll get a seat. There is no way someone at Court House ever gets one.

Metro has added some 8-car trains, which help. There is a fairly simple operational change that I believe can add capacity at no extra cost. Philadelphia has used this since 1956, and call it A and B trains. New York City called it "skip-stop" until they recently ended the practice.

Here's how it works. During rush hour each train is either an "A" train or a "B" train. Each train skips some stops. "A" trains start at Vienna and skip Dunn Loring and Virginia Square. "B" trains also start at Vienna and skip East Falls Church and Clarendon. (Skipped stops should be the least used stops, and should come in pairs, to balance ridership between the A and B trains).

The trip from Vienna to, say, Farragut West becomes 24 minutes instead of 27, a 10% time savings. The entire trip from Vienna to New Carrollton shrinks from 57 minutes to 54, saving 5%.

That time savings could allow Metro to save cars and run longer trains. There are more than 20 trains operating on the Orange Line during rush hour. Freeing up one train will allow 3 6-car trains to be extended to 8-car trains, thereby increasing the capacity.

The shorter runs could also allow more trains. Right now, Metro can't fit more actual trains through Rosslyn, but one day that might change if they send Blue Line trains up the Yellow Line, change signal technology, or build new river crossings. If it does, or if they try this on a different, less constrained line, Metro could run the same number of physical trains more frequently. Instead of 360 second headways, for example, they can reduce to 342 second headways, increasing the capacity of a line by 5%.

How does this affect passengers? Most will benefit, but some will be inconvenienced. Here are outcomes for commuters to DC from Virginia stations:

• Vienna to DC: 2 stations reduced ride time (BIG WIN!)
  
• Dunn Loring to DC: Increased waiting time and 2 stations reduced ride time (about a wash)
  
• West Falls Church to DC: Either 1 or 2 stations reduced ride time (WIN!)
  
• East Falls Church to DC: Increased wait and 1 station reduced ride time (slightly negative)
  
• Ballston to DC: 1 station reduced ride time (WIN!)
  
• VA Square to DC: Increased average wait and 1 station reduced ride time (slightly negative)
  
• Clarendon to DC: Increased average wait; no time savings (lose)
  
• Court House/Rosslyn to DC: No change

A small minority of riders traveling to one of the skipped stations also experience increased times waiting for their train. In a few cases, they may actually have to change trains if both their boarding and deboarding stations are served by different trains.

Vienna, WFC and Ballston riders all benefit, Clarendon riders lose about 3 minutes average waiting time, and Dunn Loring and EFC riders may be slightly negative or about even. The three benefiting stations represent roughly two-thirds of the ridership of these 7 stations, while Clarendon represents about 8% of the ridership. Therefore, two-thirds of the riders benefit directly. And everyone benefits from reduced crowding on the trains because of the increased capacity afforded by longer trains.

Plus, this same system could work on the other lines, too, including ones not at maximum capacity. It's probably easiest on the Red Line, since it does not have to merge with another line like the Orange does with the Blue and the Yellow does with Green.

They've been doing it for more than 50 years in Philadelphia. When I lived there (near a "B" station), it was just considered normal operating procedure. If it can work there, why not here?

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(This post is cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington, along with almost 50 comments.)