#open plans

Over the weekend (March 19-20, 2011) I got to attend Transportation Camp West at Public Works in SF. Transportation Camp is an unconference hosted by Open Plans. Having a background in local government, when I heard Public Works I immediately thought that it was at the SF Public Works department yard. Nope, Public Works is a night club in SF which made a great venue for this event.

Instead of sitting on the couch and watching NCAA March Madness all weekend I decided to head to Transportation Camp. There were a bunch of first for me here: an unconference and a transportation meetup. I have never attended an unconference which the whole concept was pretty interesting to me. At unconference the attendees shape the conference, they pitch and facilitate the sessions. This is a great way to see what people are interested and it also is great to see the community that is interested around it.

I also have a new interest in public transportation. I grew up in Southern California where the public transit options are slim especially in Santa Clarita. I have had a car since I was 16 years old and relied on the car to get me to the place I need to go. While living here in SF I rely on public transportation to get me to work, specifically the BART. I drive into the Colma station everyday and take the BART into the city. This has been adjustment for me, but its great not having to drive. It has really made me appreciate public transit a lot more. If this were an easy option in Southern California that would be great. Also while in Boston we used the MBTA a lot which made it for a very walkable city.

Some people have said that potholes are the gateway drug to civic engagement. I think that transportation is the gateway drug to civic engagement. Typically in some areas around the country public transit has a very negative stereotype for people who ride busses or use public transit. The majority of those people using public transit aren't that stereotype. There are those also people who are using public transit because they need that government service. The people who probably need government services the most are the ones using public transit. So I think governments should focus on putting more services into public transit. Rather than having cool ways to report a pothole why not help developers make cooler things to help people developing transportation apps? Do people really get out of their car to take a picture of the pothole with their smart phone and then report it? How about do people check their smart phone to see when the next train or bus is arriving? Isn't that a better service to know that the bus is going to be late or never going to arrive?

Those types of questions are things that were developers interested in working on civic data can get involved. There are many public transit agencies that have the data open that let developers build applications on that data.

Check out this video about opening transit data.

With all that said, Transportation Camp West was awesome. It was great to see so many people that are interested in the Gov 2.0 space as well as making transportation better for everyone. Check out my photos from the event:

If I had to pick one important lesson I took away from the thought-provoking Transportation Camp this weekend -- and I'm glad that I don't really have to, because there were piles of good ideas and people, and I was only there for day 2 -- it would be this idea that Kevin Webb articulated before the (un)conference began (some of which i've posted in his words at the bottom): technology is only a part of the solution, especially with a real-world experience like getting from point a to point b, and especially when some people still don't use smart phones (crazy, huh!). 

But as the (I think only) session on civic-mindedness pointed out, that's much easier said than done (to wit: the session's technology bias was clear in the title, "Rosa Parks, is there an app for that?" Though it may have been named with the same kind of cheekiness I used at the end of the last paragraph).

But we acknowledged just how much work and thinking and questioning and inclusion we needed to do. It's a lesson I think many of us intuit when we're working on improving any system. But it's one I've also been learning firsthand since we started working on Weeels: no app is an island. Digital software and hardware has to integrate and work in tandem with analog software and hardware -- the people and the streets and the steel vehicles that move through them. Conferences like Transportation Camp are crucial and vital gatherings of ideas and thinkers who take this lesson to heart. But, as Benjamin de la Pena said at the start of the great "Rosa Parks" discussion, the first question one must ask when sitting down around a table is "who's not at the table?" Who was at the table? Dan Latorre called all of us "spoiled, privileged elites," and we laughed and knew he was only half joking.

Someone suggested we organize a "Transportation Equity Camp," where technological literacy might be taught. Many people liked this idea. Hands were shaken, and I walked away the way one crosses a busy intersection after leaving a good meeting of thoughtful people -- cautiously, optimistic.

- Alex Pasternack (@pasternack, @weeels)

opentransportation:

We’re still far from a moment when access to transportation is seen as a fundamental right and there have both been significant gains and losses made on this front over the last several decades. The rise of car-centric transport and suburbanization—in some places a response to integration—moved us further from the dream of universally accessible communities. More recently we have seen a return to the city center and a reinvestment in transit infrastructure. It remains, however, an open question whether this renaissance can help address inequalities or only further exacerbate them.   Information technology presents new opportunities and challenges for improving transportation access. Web-based mapping solutions and the proliferation of mobile applications allow us to rethink the very nature of our transportation infrastructure. All of a sudden highways and the single-occupancy vehicles that travel them become platforms for ad hoc, point-to-point transit networks [and Weeels, I might add ;-]; interactive trip planning tools simplify and advertise traditional fixed-route transit systems;  and, information networks themselves allow us to reconsider how we connect with one another and define the boundaries of our communities.   These advances are without question positive changes. They help reduce complexity and expand the visibility of transportation options. They also play a role in defining who uses various forms of transportation—particularly, increasing the desirability of shared transit options among users that might otherwise choose a different means.   At the same time, however, it is worth considering the consequences of our design choices. Just as sprawling pedestrian unfriendly streets limit suburban access to those that can afford cars, transportation options that depend upon Internet access, smart phones or even literacy, can present significant challenges for certain populations. Riders that might otherwise rely on transit for their primary means of mobility may not have the luxury of “choosing” the latest mobile-enabled transportation platform ether because of price or familiarity with technology. Without thoughtful design we run the risk of adding new tiers to an already exclusionary hierarchy of transportation options.    As we work to design the future of transportation it’s useful to reflect on its history of inequality and to recognize the universal importance of mobility. In the conversations to come at Transportation Camp and within the burgeoning community of transit hackers let’s look for ways to leverage new technology while at the same time building a more accessible and equitable transportation system. The first step is remembering that the challenges we face are more than technical.