Stephen Rees’s blog

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Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Apparently some bloggers are “paid by the piece”. For the record, I am not paid. Period. Not for this blog or the one on Blogspot or the pieces on Vancouver Metblog.

I have recently been paid for some of my pictures. Not often and not enough. But something.

I do not do this for money. The internet was not built that way. Much the best feature of the internet experience is how much is given away - software, operating systems, information. And usually the free stuff is better than the stuff people sell. In fact the harder they try to sell it, the less I want it.

Blogging is simply about passing along what I have found and what I think about it. It is to some extent a way to give away the sort of analysis that clients and governments used to pay me for. Not that they paid much attention. I used to get the feeling sometimes that they regarded what I said as wrong because I was saying it. They accused me of paranoia. But fortunately I have been shown to have been right more often than wrong.

We all of us need others to pay attention to us. The cruelest thing society can do is to shun someone. Unfortunately since so much of the media here is in so few hands, and the control of the media is used to mainly to reinforce one world view (despite their claims about “balance”) that many of us seek other outlets for our views. It seems that there will be times when we have to force the powers that be to listen - since their pantomime of “consultation” is so ineffective. In between those times it is important I think to keep up a steady flow of what I hope looks like reason and thought and not just invective.

The only rewards I get are your comments and page views. And they are greatly appreciated.

Today we hit the all time record and broke through 1,000 views in a day

Best Day Ever: 1,016 — Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Thank you one and all

UPDATED 2 April

Regular readers here will know that I do not think this is a good idea. Neither did the people of Geneva . Though it was a bit of a surprise that Frank Buckholz thought our fares were a bargain. But this idea keeps coming back.

On the radio Dave Olsen (who wrote the Tyee series) presented the other side and at the North Shore Transportation Panel were Eric Doherty and Jane Sterk (Leader of the Green Party of BC)

I was asked to provide my “usual summary” but sitting on a panel and sitting in the audience are two different things. Not only that but there was a timer on every speaker and the questions were set and then rotated. So the format was really not conducive to note taking. I didn’t take my lap top, and the notes I scribbled were to make sure I did not miss any of the points I wanted to make.

This is being written the next morning and I hope that if any of the participants feel that it does not reflect their views that they will post a comment. And there is no time limit here!

Dave Olsen has done a lot of research on this issue - and the first thing he says is that you should not just take out the farebox. He likes the example of Hasselt in Belgium. He also said that some larger high ridership systems are also considering fares free systems including San Francisco. He thought that we needed to have done transit in this region much better in the past - he likes surface light rail - and the first thing we need to do before we go for completely free is expand service and look at free fares off peak, where he said there is currently spare capacity. He thought that it should be possible to use the sources that now subsidize road users to finance transit use, and that abandoning fare collection would also reduce costs, although he did point out that Translink does not separate out the cost of fare collection in its accounts.

Jane Sterk is a very impressive politician. She was the only speaker who consistently spoke for less than the time allotted her but managed to be balanced and fair. She also was clear that free fares are not a solution in themselves but could be part of a much wider transformation of society, which would see more people living where they work and an overall reduction in transport demand. She opposed the idea of encouraging longer commutes, and thought that the carbon tax was a positive step in the right direction if only a very small step. I should perhaps point out that the meeting was actually organised by the Green Party, though it was free and open to the public.

Eric Doherty talked about UPass, and how it had out performed all predictions. He conceded that overcrowding had been (and still is) a major problem, but with better planning a universal pass system showed promise for promoting a shift from driving to transit. Unfortunately it also promoted a shift from car pooling and bike riding too. He spoke about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from driving, and the costs that car dependency imposed on society. In contrast, the cost of supporting transit was trivial now and would not be very much greater if fares were lower, but the pay back in terms of health and the environment would far exceed the cost. He agreed with Jane that longer distance commuting - and he singled out West Coast Express - should not be free.

The discussion was really more about how we get from where we are - with an inadequate transit system that is expensive and difficult to use - to where we need to be. And that allowed concepts to be introduced like paying for road use as a way of funding transit. There was also an interesting comment that free transit could reduce walking. The pro-side thought that was worthwhile since it would reduce pedestrian casualties. But it also became clear that most people also wanted better walking and cycling facilities too. The title of the discussion might have been free transit but we spent quite a bit of time on what is wrong with bike lanes at present.

I am not going to use this space to repeat what I said as it is all here - somewhere or another. But there was a high degree of consensus - the main differences being priorities and methods. “How are you going to pay for that” is a difficult issue, and just identifying the current subsidies to car use (and disagreeing about how big they are) really did not resolve the issue.

No major transit system is fares free. All systems that are have support from national or federal taxes. They are all in smaller cities, none in major conurbations. But there are also wide ranging free passes for different groups, and widespread dissatisfaction with the way that BC treats people who cannot afford current transit fares. It was also generally agreed that BC communities outside Metro Vancouver would need to look to their rather different circumstances.

As it happens the Guardian’s travel blog looks at free bus passes in the UK this morning.

UPDATE April 5 A Guardian reporter and his Dad try to travel the length of England on his free bus pass

Quite a haul of transit stories today.

First up The Province has an op ed from Ian Bruce, a climate-change specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation. He has picked up on the idea that using the existing capacity on the SkyTrain bridge between Columbia and Scott Road could provide more people carrying ability than “20 lanes worth of traffic across the Fraser River”

Over in Ontario, that province is looking a cutting back on its Environmental Assessment process to allow for faster implementation of its transit expansion projects. The Toronto Star has an approving column from Christopher Hume.

He says that transit is by definition good for the environment but

the subtext to the whole EA process had little to do with the environment and everything to do with politics. It can be manipulated to reach any conclusion, or prove any point. Mostly, though, it was a very effective way to delay, to stall indefinitely, to put off to the next decade what might cause political discomfort now.

Which is quite a contrast to the EA process we have here now. I would be a bit wary of going in our direction if I were them. But I do have to declare that I once worked on EAs in Ontario - one for the TTC. The “Rapid Transit Expansion Program” did not build much, but Howard Moscoe, a Toronto councillor, observed it was very effective as the consultants’ financial relief program.

The “Business Newspaper for Suburban Chicago” has a supportive piece on Transit Oriented Development, and it is nice to see this in a business as opposed to a planning publication. Hopefully this will get picked up out in the Valley by some of our business oriented media. It is also nice to see some good news out of Chicago, as the press in recent months has mostly been about the imminent financial collapse of the CTA.

And transit ridership is continuing to grow in New York City.

“The continued investment in new subway cars and buses is not going unnoticed by our customers who are responding by increased usage of our system,” said MTA NYC Transit President Howard Roberts, Jr.

Well that is of course nice to know. Buying more buses and trains gets you more riders. I wonder why that doesn’t occur to our politicians.

Oh, and just to blow my own trumpet a bit, I am on News 1130 right now.

More own trumpet blowing. This morning I got the number #3 spot on the Morning Brew at Beyond Robson (thanks Shawn for the BOOSH) and my letter to the editor of the Strait got published - with another letter saying something along the same lines from Blair Petrie, a member of the East Vancouver Port Lands Working Group .

If you write a letter to Falcon himself, I doubt very much he actually reads it. I have noticed that the letters sent in reply seem to be boilerplate. I feel sorry for the civil servants who get lumbered with this chore. But I bet he reads his press clippings!

I suppose that means I must be doing something right. Which, for a retired boomer who seems to annoy the bejesus out of some people, is a comfort.

In the month of January the number of views grew by 40% - and the blog had its best day ever at 647 views.

Welcome all you lovely people who come here to read. And also thank you to the vast majority of supportive commenters. Yes, we do have a couple of trolls now but that is just par for the course for any on line discussion group. They are not going to take over the debate. If that means a return to comment moderation, I trust that you will understand. Please, do not feed the trolls.

Raul asked me how I find interesting things to write about. The problem I face is that there is so much out there, it is more about selection from a growing plethora than finding things. And anyway, if I told you how it was done, you might go off and do it for yourselves. I do, by the way, check on the pingbacks and referrers, and if you do have a blog I usually try to have a look around which often leads me to leave a comment too. So I hope that it all becomes mutually supportive - which does not mean we have to agree. Except on being polite.

Once again, thank you for your attention.