by Ashley Bean Thornton and others…

The Greater Waco Community only has a certain amount of money allocated for transportation related expenses. Our city planners are asking to hear from us about how we would like to see it spent. They have invited us to give our input at a series of public information meetings. In a blog post last week, I shared some of my thoughts about transportation and specifically tried to make the case for having more emphasis on public transportation as a part of the overall transportation plan for our region.

Here are some other voices sharing their reasons for wanting a more robust system of public transportation in the Waco area:

(In a letter to the Editor of the Waco Trib)

I read with interest Ashley Thornton’s editorial (May 7) on transportation priorities in Waco, finding it compelling and informed.

As a person who works for an agency that helps older adults, I can affirm with Ashley that we have a public transportation system that is not adequate. Up until 2005, Meals & Wheels had a very busy transportation service which focused on the transit needs of older adults in Waco. However, due to funding shifts our transit program for older adults in the city basically dissolved. We were transporting 249 older adults taking 700 trips per month to clinics, hospitals, doctors’ offices, dentist offices, social service agencies, and dialysis centers.

At that time, it was decided by funding sources that the older adults of Waco could utilize the public transportation system or they could qualify for the ADA (physically challenged) vans. Echoing what Ashley reported, this would require older adults who did not qualify for ADA services, to walk to a bus stop, or flag down a bus, ride it to the hub downtown and then change buses to get where they needed to go.

Think about Waco – in a city that doesn’t have many sidewalks, this required people who were using canes or walkers, or who have mobility issues to walk on uneven surfaces or in the streets. Also, very few of the bus stops in Waco are covered, which means the older adults are at stops that have no protection from the weather. Would you want your mother waiting at a bus stop for an hour in 100 degree heat?

Navigating the bus system is also confusing for many of our older adults. We do not have signage that gives the bus routes. To Waco Transit’s credit, they did send out staff to train our former clients, who requested help, on how to use the bus system. However, I imagine these requests were few in number.

So what did they do without the curb-to-curb service? Many fell back on family and friends to take them where they needed to go. Others, some of whom shouldn’t be driving due to vision issues, drive their own cars. Some of our clients were quite capable of riding the Waco bus and have transitioned to that system. However, we still get calls every week from folks wanted to know if we’re giving rides again; or we receive a call from an adult child saying that their parent needs transit help because they shouldn’t be driving anymore.

I ask that the community lift its voice to say we need a variety of public transit options in Waco and share this need with the Metropolitan Planning District who is/was conducting the meetings on transit needs in Waco. We all have to work together to make Waco a community in which one can age well.

Sincerely, Libby S. Bellinger, Associate Director, Meals & Wheels

(In a response on Facebook to my blog post)

Having a decent, accessible, and reliable public transportation system is so important for any city. Having lived in NYC most of my life, it is something I always took for granted until I moved to Waco. I have many friends who don’t drive; they are lifelong New Yorkers, they have never had cause to learn. There are many reasons we should invest in better public transportation: reducing our city’s carbon footprint, being a more welcoming and accessible city for people with disabilities, attracting employees from large cities where public transportation is the norm, and providing a means of transportation to our neighbors who simply cannot afford a vehicle. There are multiple health reasons why a person may not drive. I have a friend whose sister had no choice but to move to a larger city with public transportation. Her sister has epilepsy, therefore she cannot drive. This person would have been a huge asset to our community. She has multiple graduate degrees, is a community builder, philanthropic, and just a very cool person. One of the interim ministers at a local congregation a few years ago was blind. She simply could not live here. She obviously worked on Sunday, yet was completely dependent on others for a ride, as busses don’t run on Sunday. Most people take health for granted, just as many Wacoans take having a car for granted. What would you do if due to an accident or illnesses you could not drive? Could you get to work? Would you be able to get to the market, medical appointments, place of worship, a friend’s house, anywhere?

— Carmen Saenz

 (Another response on Facebook to my blog post) 

And now the voice of a really senior citizen. We need affordable ways for seniors to get where they need to go such as to doctors, labs, therapy, grocery are necessary. It would be nice to have some entertainment venues accessible also. It would be nice to have access to library services. Perhaps we don’t contribute to the community from the point of view of many but if we had transportation we maybe could contribute. And, we’d grow older more slowly because of the mental stimulation interaction would provide. And, there is conceivably an undocumented safety issue here. Many seniors continue to drive after it is unsafe because they do not have an alternative.

— Joycie Gifford

 If you agree that Waco needs more Public Transportation, please make your voice heard!   There are two public input sessions remaining where you can speak directly with the representatives from the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). They are : Monday, May 12, 2014 – 6 p.m. at South Waco Community Center, 2815 Speight and Thursday, May 15, 2014 – 12 Noon at Dr. Mae Jackson Development Center, City of Waco, 401 Franklin Ave.

If you cannot attend either of those meetings, you can submit your written comments directly to the MPO, as long as they are received no later than June 15. Suggestions may be submitted by fax at (254) 750-1605, by e-mail to  [email protected] or by mail directed to Christopher Evilia at the following address: Waco Metropolitan Planning Organization, P.O. Box 2570, Waco, Texas 76702-2570.

Also, please consider writing a letter to the Waco Trib to help build up the community engagement around the issue.

Transportation planning is complicated and will involve trade-offs. There is simply not enough money to do everything that everyone would like to do in regard to transportation. Our city planners are asking for our input. If we do not give it to them, how can we expect them to prioritize the things that are important to us?

For more information about the Transportation Plan or the community input process, please visit the website: www.waco-texas.com/cms-mpo .

This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.

by Felix Landry

The earth has many laws. Some of these laws – like the law of gravity – are well known. Others are less obvious. I’ve noticed a law at work both in nature and in the structure of cities which I call “the law of scale.” There is an important relationship between the size of the creature and the size of the environment it inhabits. They should “scale up” or “scale down” together. If one grows or shrinks without the other, the health of both the creature and the habitat begin to suffer. For example, it is obviously a problem if a mother bird does not make her nest big enough. What may be less obvious is that if the nest is too big that can also cause problems. If a bird builds her nest too large, then the upkeep of the nest eventually consumes the time and energy meant for gathering food and other necessary activities.

This law applies to people as well, but we are not as good at obeying it as the birds seem to be…particularly when it comes to transportation.

Imagine you work in a busy office building. There are lots of people in the halls all day, but everything generally flows smoothly. Then imagine that for some reason your employer implements the bizarre policy of requiring everyone to wear a refrigerator box whenever you travel the corridors. What would happen? Immediate, aggravating, stressful congestion in the halls. Why? Because your boss has broken the law of scale. You, the creature, got bigger, but the environment did not get bigger. The halls in your office building are built to human scale, not to refrigerator scale. If your boss were determined to continue this refrigerator box policy, the congestion would eventually drive you to take the expensive step of remodeling the building with much wider and longer corridors.

This is very similar to what we do with our current transportation system. When we step out of our homes or offices and into our vehicles, we suddenly explode in size like the incredible hulk. We, the creatures, have scaled up in size, but our environment, the roads, have not scaled up with us. We end up with maddening congestion such as we see along China Spring Hwy or anywhere in the City of Austin. We have broken the law of scale in regard to our city streets, and we will continue to have congestion until we restore the correct proportions.

For 50+ years of vehicle centric development we have tried to deal with this problem by scaling up the environment.   We have “hulked out,” we reason, so our roads need to “hulk out” to keep up with us. We have basically fallen into the following pattern:

1. More (and bigger) vehicles are on the road,
2. Which leads to congested roads,
3. Which leads to building wider and longer roads,
4. Which in turn increases the distances between destinations,
5. Which of course increases our dependence of vehicles,
6. Which puts more vehicles than ever on the road.

The above cycle has two major problems in my opinion.

Problem 1: Between steps 2 and 3 whichever government agency wants to build the road must first gather the taxes to pay for the project. We are running out of tax money for road construction and maintenance, and not many people want to raise taxes.

Problem 2: Step 4 boils down to sprawl, which over the long haul decreases the average value of land serviced by the road system, while simultaneously increasing the amount of roads needed. The need for tax revenue increases while the capacity to generate it decreases.

In other words, our current approach to development is leading us to be like the bird who has made her nest too big. We are getting to the point that we must waste valuable resources just to maintain the nest.

Fortunately, there’s another way to approach the problem. We could figure out ways to not “hulk out” between our front doors and our destinations.

Let’s return to our crazy refrigerator boxes (vehicles) in the corridors (roads) at the office (city) analogy. The refrigerator boxes make each person take up too much space. The root of the corridor congestion is that the halls were not built for such a high space to person ratio.

Here are some suggestions on how to lower the space to person ratio and ease congestion:

1. Don’t take your box on every trip.
2. Use smaller boxes.
3. Fit more people in fewer boxes. If two or more people are headed to the same destination, they could all take the same box instead of each taking their own.
4. Create a system of large high capacity community boxes that travel the main corridors of the office at regular intervals. Anyone could hop into a community box as it passes by decreasing the overall ratio of box area to person area.

Obviously these suggestions have real world counterparts:

1. Walk
2. Ride a bike
3. Car pool
4. Public transit

I am not trying to build a “cars are evil” bonfire. We don’t need to get rid of vehicles. But we could choose to scale ourselves down rather than choosing to scale up our road system. We could lower the amount of space people take up traveling on our roads. We could reduce the high vehicle to person ratio that is currently clogging our public right of ways. This “scaling down” could be much less expensive and more sustainable financially in the long run. The great news is that Waco, from what I’ve seen, has a large number of people who would love to lower their own vehicle to person ratio. Yes, we would have to make some initial investments to build the infrastructure to accommodate them. But, with enough support, Waco has great potential to facilitate a much lower vehicle to person ratio which will be a much more sustainable way to satisfy the “law of scale” in the long run.

Felix Landry is the senior planner and bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the City of Waco. He and his wife moved here in 2010 from College Station, Texas. They have two young boys.

Are you Interested in getting in on the conversation about transportation in Waco?  Plan to attend an upcoming Metropolitan Transportation Plan Community input meeting.  Meetings are scheduled for May 5, May 8, May 12 and May 15.  For more details please visit the website: http://www.waco-texas.com/cms-mpo/  or the Act Locally Waco May Event Calendar.

by Felix Landry

Since I moved to Waco and began working as a city planner, Waco’s poverty has been the topic of discussion I run into most. I hear it at work, church, in local magazines, the newspaper, the radio, from our city leaders, and even at social events. Most Wacoans I know seem to agree that our level of poverty is a huge concern and detriment to our civic health.

Poverty varies across cultures, climates, and geography; it also exhibits consistent elements that are identifiable the world over. Food and shelter come to mind immediately for most people… transportation? It doesn’t come up as often – but it should.

The vast majority of urban transportation networks in the US are designed to move as many cars as possible at safe speeds. This approach caters to vehicles more than to people, which has resulted in at least two major problems cities are facing today.

First, many places in the US have no additional space in their public right of ways (ROW) to increase the number of travel lanes for vehicles. Even if additional space were available for purchase (at incredible cost), the funds available for new road construction decrease every year due to the rising cost of maintaining our existing transportation network.

Second, and closer to home, many people cannot afford to purchase or operate a car. AAA has released an annual report, “Your Driving Costs,” every year since 1950 that analyzes the cost of owning a vehicle in the US. According to the 2013 report, the average annual expense for owning and operating a small sedan (think Chevy Cruze or Ford Focus) in 2013 and driving it 10,000 miles was $5,952. That is the cost to pay for insurance, fuel, maintenance and other operating expenses – purchasing the car is an additional cost. According to the Census, 23% of families (31% of individuals) in Waco live below the poverty line. A family of four living below the poverty line has an annual income of $23,050 or less. In other words, that family, in a vehicle-based transportation system, will be using more than a fourth of their small income just to get to work, take the kids to school, and go to the grocery store.

When people come together as town or city, they create an opportunity to pool resources for common infrastructure (i.e. water and sewer lines) and services (i.e. fire and police protection) at a lower overall cost. We readily agree that every citizen has an equal right to such services, regardless of income. However, our existing transportation network does not always provide the same level of service regardless of income. Most transportation systems in the US cater primarily to the most expensive (and dangerous) form of transportation: personal vehicles.

Many sections of the transportation network in the US could carry more people if they were re-designed for multiple forms of transportation instead of just for vehicles. The photo on the left illustrates this principle well. It shows the same 60 people along with the number of bikes, cars, or buses it would take to carry them. The drawing on the right  illustrates how a network designed to move people rather than vehicles facilitates a higher traffic volume without expanding the right of way. Such a design is more efficient and effective: Dedicated space for pedestrians and cyclists, and shared space for vehicles and buses can move more people than the same amount of space designed strictly for personal vehicles. It also decreases the amount of public funding needed for construction and maintenance and generates a transportation network viable for all income levels.

Improving and diversifying our transportation network would alleviate some of the burdens that keep people impoverished. Not only would it provide greater economic potential for low income earners, but it would also increase Waco’s appeal to businesses and new residents. It’s no coincidence that attractive places to live in and visit around the world often have a viable public transit system and walkable streets.

Felix Landry is the senior planner and bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the City of Waco. He and his wife moved here in 2010 from College Station, Texas. They have two young boys.