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Transit - the new Urban Commons?

  • 1.  Transit - the new Urban Commons?

    Posted 05-29-2015 05:00 PM
    This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Committee on the Environment and Regional and Urban Design Committee .
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    Transit - the New Urban Commons? 


    Cities compete for the"echo boom" generation who isn't in love with cars and suburbs anymore by wooing them with bike lanes, walk scores and robust transit.  So if one reads on Trip Advisor that
    Baltimore isn't a city known for its efficient public transportation system. (Trip Advisor)

    alarms should go off for anybody who cares about this city's future. 
    Many buses but often poor service: MTA buses stuck in traffic in Baltimore
    (Photo: ArchPlan Inc.)


    In Baltimore, this verdict should actually set off a whole array of alarms. How about the equity alarm? The opportunity alarm? The congestion alarm? The economic competitiveness alarm?

    The equity alarm should be especially shrill with the concentration of poverty in inner city neighborhoods so much in the news lately. Talk about equity quickly leads to transit as we shall see. Access and mobility are key for mitigating the inequities that arise from the sharp income disparities routinely found in the major US cities. 
    Transportation is the critical factor to get out of poverty  (Seema Iyer, Associate Director, Jacob France Institute which runs the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance). 

    Bad transit, by contrast, instead of compensating for disparities, exacerbates them. Not something a city should want for which a federal judge had determined that HUD had treated its inner city as "an island reservation for ... all of the poor of a contiguous region."
    Transit as the new urban commons?
    (Photo: ArchPlan Inc.)
    The answer to these challenges is not a choice between catering to yuppies or the poor. Instead, transit could play the role of "the commons", the place where all classes and races meet and be an active equalizer between the segregated and unequal communities of a metro region. In a few metro areas especially rail transit truly serves this function, bus service rarely rises to the challenge. A  ride in most Baltimore buses would confirm this.

    So, does Baltimore's transit system mitigate or exacerbate inequality? Is it as bad as Trip Advisor makes it? 

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    Klaus Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
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