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Author(s): Randall Crane | Lisa A. SchweitzerScweitzer
doi: 10.2148/benv.29.3.238.54286
Built Environment
Electronic ISSN: 0263-7960
Volume: 29 | Issue: 3 New Urbanism
Cover date: September 2003
Page(s): 238-252
Abstract text
New Urbanism attempts to promote ‘greener' travel through physical design: especially through the provision of compact, walkable neighbourhoods served by transit. Achieving the desired environmental benefits effectively hinges on reducing auto trips, by encouraging people who currently travel by car to switch to walking for short trips and transit for long trips. However, while these aims may be simply asserted, the extent to which they are achievable is complex. The sustainability debate now goes well beyond merely technical discussions of environmental impacts to tackle the stickier political economy of how cities can be made to work in terms of accessibility, how environmental costs and benefits are distributed, and the concept of ‘environmental justice'. Who goes where, based on where they live and work, and the land-use levers available to affect why, have become the core policy focus. In order to understand the extent to which New Urbanism can contribute to sustainable transport and development, it is necessary to consider how different social groups using different modes of transport are related to the design of the built environment.
Tango 73: A Bus Rider's Diary
This film illustrates the vital importance of public transportation in urban areas by exploring one bus line and the people whose lives are shaped by the bus schedule and the elements.
Upon arriving in the San Francisco Bay Area from Costa Rica, and having failed to master the quintessential American skill of driving a car, the filmmaker manages as she always has: on the bus. Tango 73: A Bus Rider's Diary reveals an underfinanced system, stricken by recent service cuts, and the people who depend on it.
Traveling on board bus line 73 along the east shore of the San Francisco Bay, a feisty nanny, a wheelchair-dependent activist, a Mexican grandmother and a politically incorrect bus driver speak of their love-hate relationship with the bus. With wry humor, this first-person documentary uncovers the social rituals and secret codes of a world hidden in plain view.
Appropriate for:
Middle School•High School•College/University
SEPTA expands senior discounts
On the day transfers disappear, those 65 and up can ride buses and subways free even during rush hour.
By Larry Eichel
Inquirer Senior Writer
Tomorrow, even as it begins charging higher fares for transfers, SEPTA will start passing along a new break for senior citizens.
Thanks to the new state transit bill, restrictions on senior discounts will disappear.
That means riders 65 and up will ride free on buses, as well as the Broad Street Subway and the Market-Frankford Line, all day every day. Seniors have had to pay full fare on weekdays from 7 to 8 a.m. and 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. They rode free at all other times.
On Regional Rail, all senior rides contained within Pennsylvania will cost $1. Most senior rides have cost that, but seniors have had to pay full fare for weekday trains arriving in Center City between 7 and 8 a.m. and departing between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m.
Money to finance the new policy, being implemented statewide by the state Department of Transportation, comes from the transit bill signed by Gov. Rendell this month. A PennDot spokesman said the bill removed language that barred using state funds to pay for discounted rides during peak hours. The breaks for seniors are funded through the Pennsylvania Lottery.
WAS THIS LAWSUIT NECESSARY?
SEPTA'S TRANFER CRISIS DOESN'T NEED TO BE ONE
IS IT NECESSARY for SEPTA to eliminate transfers?
According to a Common Pleas Court judge, no . . . at least not quite yet.
Judge Gary DeVito granted a stay of execution for riders, ruling the transfers to remain in effect at least until Aug. 6.
In an all-day hearing yesterday, the day before it was set to eliminate transfers, SEPTA made a case that the 50-year-old paper transfer is outdated, puts a cash-handling burden on SEPTA drivers, and is hard to monitor.
And the city argued that SEPTA's proposal is unfair, unwise and, now with an expected influx of state dedicated funding, unnecessary.
By Larry Eichel
Inquirer Senior Writer
After a daylong hearing at City Hall, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge decided that he needed a few more days to decide whether to prevent SEPTA from going ahead with its plans to do away with the 60-cent transfer.
So last night, Judge Gary F. DiVito issued a temporary injunction maintaining the status quo until Monday - blocking a plan that was supposed to go into effect this morning.
Under the transit agency's plan, passengers using cash or tokens are to be charged a second full fare whenever they move from one bus to another - or between buses and the Broad Street Subway or Market-Frankford Line.
Attorneys representing the City of Philadelphia had asked DiVito yesterday to issue a temporary injunction blocking the change.
City officials said that as many as 45,000 adult riders and 18,000 schoolchildren could be affected by the change, which Mayor Street opposes.
Posted on Tue, Jul. 31, 2007
...
The city is protesting that the elimination of transfers will impose an undue hardship on some riders by increasing their fare by 200 percent. It is also concerned about the burden this could put on the 30,000 schoolchildren who get tokens.
The city claims that SEPTA and the school district have not talked about the transfer situation. The district says otherwise, and that it has had a series of meetings with SEPTA on moving to an all-transpass system, but that many problems remain to be fixed.
Is elimination of transfers critical to SEPTA's ability to make its budget? SEPTA needs to make a better case for exactly how. Can it postpone the transfer elimination for even a few weeks to make the transition easier? That shouldn't happen unless it forces the key parties - the city, SEPTA and the district - to get in a room and find a win-win solution for everyone. Unless these players find a way to be better allies, malt-liquor ads are going to be the least of our problems.