The rap aganst wraps
I have gone back and forth on this in my mind for months now, ever since the first bus wraps appeared on Madison Metro buses. I have finally come to the conclusion that, expedient and perhaps even essential as this strategy appears, it is an expedient we should reject once the current "pilot" project is over.
It was worth a try. I was willing to withhold judgment until actually seeing what these would be like. I certainly didn't want to be one of those knee-jerk no-advertising-anywhere opponents of the concept on principle. I have no problem with a limited amount of advertising in public facilities like parking ramps as well as on the side of city buses. In some contexts, such as the Paris Metro or the London Tube, advertising even adds to the experience. (And lest you think that's just a function of a visitor's fascination with a foreign country, I have the same response to the ads along the Northeast Corridor rail line here in the US.) There is usually at least a flash of inspiration in a lot of the advertising that appears there, I suspect because the designers know they have to get an engaging message across in the blink of a passing commuter's eye. Of course even in these contexts a lot of the ads are mundane, but rarely do they seem obtrusive.
Bus wraps are another matter. They are really just a way of turning buses into billboards on wheels, as I have heard one critic put it. Essentially they allow the advertiser's corporate identity to commandeer the exterior of the bus entirely. But the advertising itself isn't particularly imaginative or inventive. It certainly isn't subtle. I had the same reaction as another commentator to the beer company wrap--for a moment I thought I was looking at the beer delivery truck, not a public bus, and I think it was at that moment that my marginally positive attitude began to sour.
There was something eloquent about the lone public speaker I happened to catch on Channel 12's coverage of the recent Madison Common Council vote which, to the surprise of many, halted, at least temporarily, plans to expand the pilot to more buses. The perceptions and experiences of bus riders themselves need to carry more weight in this discussion. And though, as a bus rider myself, I haven't had quite the same negative reaction to the experience of riding wrapped buses that others report, those reactions deserve closer attention. After all, bus riders already put up with a lot; inflicting this partiuclar level of advertising is a bit like adding insult to injury. How many private automobile drivers would consent to having advertising panels placed on the sides or tops of their cars--much less having their cars wrapped, perhaps as a means of taking the edge off of higher gas costs? At first blush, perhaps, it's easy to imagine some doing so--maybe a few would happily festoon their cars like a NASCAR racer--but I suspect most would value their dignity too much to allow their cars, for so many an extension of themselves, to be subjected to that treatment. Why should bus riders have to put up with the same thing just because it isn't "their" vehicle?
Except, of course, that it is--theirs and ours. Which brings us to the hidden injuries of expedients like bus wraps, which is they risk diminishing the value of a basic public asset by turning it into little more than a platform for advertising. The corrosion may be gradual and subtle, but these wraps further reinforce the notion of the bus system as a second-class amenity, as an afterthought. The fact that we are prepared to treat its visual appeal as a disposable feature sends a message; the fact that we can't or won't find the wherewithal to fund bus service some other way sends another. At the very moment when we should be trying, through such strategies as rail and possible "bus rapid transit," to "brand" transit in a way that appeals to riders who have other options, these wraps are "branding" of the wrong kind. The devaluation of the bus system in the public's perception may actually make it harder, over the longer term, to generate the kind of public support for investing real money in it.
So while I appreciate the argument that Metro needs every dollar of added revenue it can grab, it's not clear that the bus wraps represent a net gain. And even if they did, there has got to be a better way.
TransitMadCitizen
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MMM...Maybe not quite soup yet
If anyone can tell me what the Madison Area Bus Advocates (MABA, formely MABAA) are really driving at with their Madison Metro Mover (MMM) "bus rapid transit" (BRT) proposal, please do so. From the material they are putting out I'm not sure even they know.
In fairness, the "M" is less a developed proposal than a conceptual starting point. Yet MABA evidently feels it's developed enough to be worth lobbing into the Transport 2020 discussion as well as the Ad Hoc Long Range Metro Transit Study committee, and it appears they have launched a set of blogs designed to promote it and to posit it as a precursor to a conceptual "light rail" system for Madison.
All of which might be just fine and a welcome contribution to the discussion--if only one could pin MABA down on what its concept of BRT really is, how it is actually grounded in and meant to relate to any of the other long-range transportation planning processes under way, and what its introduction at this stage in the emerging regional transit debate is meant to accomplish. What, in short, is the point?
MABA's public presentation on the topic last September was, frankly, a bit of a muddle, with a snazzy video presentation on BRT in South America and Australia followed by a hasty demurrer that BRT of that kind (with articulated buses running in exclusive rights-of-way and stopping at rail-like stations) was not exactly what MABA was promoting. MABA also seemed to distance itself from the video's clear intent to offer BRT as a cheaper alternative to light or commuter rail, a disclaimer MABA repeats in its online BRT discussions.
Yet it's hard to square that disclaimer with an actual proposal that, at least in terms of its routing, appears to compete with or duplicate the starter regional rail service being explored by Transport 2020, and that effectively reintroduces one of the transit alternatives formally rejected by Transport 2020 nearly two years ago. The claim that this is meant to be a precursor, rather than an alternative, to the Transport 2020 rail proposal becomes murkier still when it turns out, based on the new BRT to Light Rail blog, that the light rail system for which BRT is proposed as a forerunner is also a street-running variant of light rail that Transport 2020 rejected early on.
The MABA BRT proposal does have the virtue of steering clear of the truly bad idea of commandeering the existing rail corridors and running express buses in them. This would almost certainly compromise the availability of those corridors for rail service: engineering them for regional rail promises to be costly and complicated enough without having to factor in a busway component as well. In the end, what MABA seems to be proposing is a set of incremental improvements to existing bus service which, done right, could both set the stage for eventual light commuter rail and complement the latter in areas the latter will likely never be able to serve.
If so, MABA might be better off dropping the "BRT" label altogether, since that (admittedly broad) term often implies something much more ambitious. In that case MABA should also try harder to tailor its proposal to underscore its complentarity with the Transport 2020 proposal (by focusing on service to areas not likely to be served by rail) and to build on Transport 2020's own proposed "baseline" bus enhancement strategy, rather than presenting a competing alternative while professing not to. On the other hand, if MABA really is intent on boldly proposing an alternative transit investment paradigm (full-fledged BRT designed to morph into street-running electric light rail) to that being pursued by Transport 2020, and on calling for Transport 2020 to go back to the drawing board or revisit some previously rejected alternatives, then it should come clean and say so.
Mayor Cieslewicz's streetcar proposal failed in part because the mayor could never quite let go of the idea of streetcars as a competing alternative to commuter rail as envisioned by Transport 2020. For all its possible value as a targeted complement to rail, "bus rapid transit" could suffer a similar fate for similar reasons. At any rate, unless MABA can more clearly articulate what value its BRT concept adds to the current transit discussion, it might be better off not offering one at all. Then it could stay focused on what it is already proving it does best, namely serving as a voice for users of and stakeholders in Madison Metro and pushing for near-term improvements in Metro service.
Trolley follies, continued
Reflecting on the past year, I'm not sure what's more deserving of ridicule: Mayor Dave's mishandling of the streetcar study process, or his hasty and unceremonious pulling of the plug on that process once the going got tough. One thing's sure, the latter has done little to quell the controversy arising from the former. The word "trolley" continues to be a kind of touchstone for critics (and satirists) of the mayor's leadership style and prorities as well as for opponents of the regional transportation authority and rail transit efforts.
Maybe there's a rough justice in this. Since the whimsical way the mayor dropped his streetcar proposal was of a piece with the whimsicality of his original championship of it, it seems fitting that it should be just as politically ineffectual. From the outset, the mayor treated the streetcar concept as his personal property, and insisted that the project be pursued his way, right down to appointing himself chair of the streetcar study committee. The whole enterprise became subject to his capricious, arbitrary will--right down to the moment he decided to bring that enterprise to an end.
No wonder that any respect the mayor might have earned from realistically seeing the handwriting on the wall and cutting his losses was tainted by a sense of having turned tail and run from a fight that he himself instigated--as well as by sneaking suspcions that the trolley idea could be resurrected, again by mayoral whim, at any moment. Consequently, the trolley proposal is a gift that keeps on giving, to the mayor's critics and to rail opponents alike. The trolley remains an albatross around the mayor's neck. And the whole sorry mayoral adventure with trolleys remains an albatross around the necks of serious advocates of rail transit for Madison.
There may yet be one final act of mayoral leadership that could salvage the situation. That would be an unequivocal, iron-clad commitment not to raise the streetcar issue again, or to attempt to influence or interfere with any citizen-based streetcar initiative, for the remainder of his term. The mayor needs to declare himself done with streetcars, pure and simple, now and forever--for his own sake and for the sake of any future streetcar discussion.
A New Year, a Fresh Start
It probably violates some rule of blog-dom to wipe the slate clean of old posts and start over. But there really was only the sad, outdated, lonely one of them anyway. But if it helps, here's New Year's Resolution number 1: I promise, no start-overs after January 1. OK, that's really resolution #2, after rededicating myself to maintain a steady schedule of posting in the coming year. Well, OK, it's actually further down the list, after some resolutions about cutting back on the ordered-out food, taking better care of my pearly whites, reading more actual books (not just online) and getting really serious about turning that dissertation into a book of my own (though let's not go crazy on that last point, it's only been ten years and it takes this stuff a while to ferment.). But maintaining this weblog really is definitely in the top ten resolutions for the coming year. Honest.
It's a good time for a fresh start anyway, New Year's transition or not. A huge amount of interesting stuff is about to hit the fan, transportation-wise, here in Madison--not that the air hasn't been thick with flying debris for many months now as it is. The mayor's streetcar idea may be dead (or at least in deep hibernation), but the Transport2020 regional light commuter rail proposal is continuing doggedly down the track toward an uncertain encounter with the Federal Transit Administration. The battle lines over a proposed Regional Transportation Authority are being drawn--and as they tighten you can almost hear the dueling orchestras in a grand new (if cacophonic) local debate tuning up. Both buses and bikes are centerpieces, respectively, of major new committee reports and strategic recommendations due for final release early in the new year. And then there are all those roundabouts and traffic islands that have become convenient objects for people's misplaced disappointment at rediscovering that Wisconsin sometimes does have real winters.
All to the good then, to be ensconsed in a new cubicle after some recent professional upheavals and, with luck being able to program some regular evening writing time for this effort. I have, as the handful of visitors to this site may have noticed, spent some time adding to the blogroll and hope to make more systematic use of all these sites as grist for my particular mill. Nose to the grindstone, then...