6.25.2009
My hunch confirmed
I argue regularly about whether 'tis cheaper to live "out" of the city and own a car or live "in" and give it up. The folks I argue with continue to insist that they can't afford to live in the city and that I'm speaking from some particiularly privleged position. The privlege lies soley in being paid to be opinionated, a real treat for those of us who would do it for free, but that hardly puts me in rarified economic company.
So I was thrilled to see that the American Public Transportation Assocation released a report this week itemizing how much one can save by "dumping the pump" and switching to public transportation. Turns out the average is $9068 per year. That smells like real money to me. There's a helpful table showing how we in Washington rank compared to other America cities. We are, with apologies to Garrison Keillor, predictably above average at $9223 per year. For those who are math-challenged, the chart gives monthly savings so you see what kind of rent or mortgage you could be paying instead of pouring it down the gas tank and belching it out the tailpipe for pedestrians to inhale: $769. Just thought you might want to know. I'll shut up now.
For more information on National Dump the Pump Day, visit www.publictransportation.org.
6.20.2009
The city personified
So much of what we think of a place comes from what we think of its people. What we think of the people comes from the myriad random encounters we have on the sidewalk, at the bus stop, in restaurants, on the tube, at the pub. Some of those encounters—getting a train ticket, ordering a pint—are necessary transactions which can either end right there or become bits of ornamentation on the fabric of the city. Last summer the British press was following the
I met a group of artists last year at a pub in
The city becomes literally personified. One student loved
Here in
6.17.2009
random transit thoughts
Winston Churchill, 1954
The horse might have disagreed with the esteemed Mr. Churchill, but it's an interesting observation anyway. I spent 3 1/2 hours in the London Transport Museum at Covent Gardens proving my bonafides as a transit geek and it was worth every pence. The museum chronicles the growth and development of London through its transportation and the exhibitions are full of "gee, who knew?" moments, such as:
Ever notice how most contemporary transit maps have a similar graphic language? That great map of Washington's Metro system among others owes its clarity to Harry Beck,who worked as a draughtsman (note the contextual construed British spelling)at what became London Transport. He proposed the diagrammatic map in 1931 and it was first printed and used in 1933. His brilliance lay in abandoning a literal map of the system and substituting instead a wiring-like diagram that emphasized topological relations among stations. Thanks Harry!
London Transport also had a progressive and visionary CEO during that time in Frank Pick. He commissioned not only Beck's diagram but also series of wonderful posters promoting ridership and the famous logo. Thanks, Frank!
I'm fascinated by the double-decker buses and have wondered not only why no other city deploys them but how London came to have two-storey transit in the first place. Apparently, London has been double decking for a long time. The museum shows double-decker horse drawn omnibuses, of all things, with well dressed folks perched in the open air on top.
What was so inspiring about the museum was that the final exhibit was about not the past but the future. There was a bit too much blatant sponsor-driven content masquerading as content, but the series of 4 possible future time lines was thought-provoking. None was overly optimistic regarding resource depletion and climate change but it was a great way to end the exhibition: asking the visitor to contemplate what kind of future they wanted and the variables that might lead there.
6.14.2009
Playing in the Commons
It’s been 3 weeks now that we’ve been in
‘“you…are always playing with the lives of strangers.” The others? The next generation?’
That was from Wole Soyinka’s (http://www.enotes.com/authors/wole-soyinka) drama Death and King’s Horseman. The line was hurled at the British colonial administrator in
What is it exactly, to play with the lives of others? We in the design profession spend our lives in the lives of others, invited by the few—the client-- but affecting the many. There’s really no such thing as a “private” project. The tiniest house on the most remote site takes from the commons material, energy, capital, and human effort to design, construct, and inhabit. Maybe that’s the wrong way to think of it; maybe “takes” should be “borrows”, or “barters.” I hear you: owners have paid for those things, haven’t they? Wages, fees, material costs…a client who builds a house has surely paid for it. Well, the bank has paid for it, and we all know where that binge ends up. But those aren’t the costs I’m really thinking about.
As a forest is a carbon sink, locking up the stuff in a productive way, buildings and cities are human energy sinks, immense reservoirs of energy and resources to be sure, but also of imagination, devotion and desire drawn from and returned to the commons. The degree to which the architecture is offered to the commons as a gift or a slap determines the character of the city. London is full of absolutely delightful places and buildings offered to its citizens for their civic enjoyment. But it, like every city, also contains mean spaces that begrudge habitation. Playing in the commons makes a delightful city; playing with the commons, a selfish one.
Play, as Jean Piaget and Maria Montessori knew, is serious business and a way of learning and knowing the world. But there is a distinction between playing with things and playing with lives. Design as an activity is a kind of play, in the Piagetian sense, but neither architecture nor planning enacted is play, although the results can be playful. Architects and planners have the lives of strangers, living and not yet born, in our hands.
6.08.2009
Greener on the Other Side?
Up close things are a lot more complex. The London bus system is indeed remarkable; it’s comfortable, fast and even fun. The buses I’ve been using regularly (205, 9, 38, 43) come as often as Metro trains in Washington and if it’s a double-decker, rather than a bendy, I run up the stairs—yeah, stairs, on a moving vehicle—to the front row for the big view of the city’s second floors. The Tube is like New York City’s, a patchwork of once competing private lines now cobbled together by a drunken bricoleur into a “system” of such complexity that it probably has a minotaur in the center.
Both modes plus an increasing legion of cyclists on folding bikes really do offer true mobility free of the automobile. Central London, however, is still not as pedestrian-friendly as it should be. Sidewalks can be narrow, and too many intersections funnel walkers through cattle chute-like fences to get them from median to median. Even with all of those choices and the congestion pricing, London traffic is still, well…still. Standing still. Dead stop still. At times it’s faster to get out and walk. It seems that the congestion fee has become simply a cost of doing business for those who do business, not too mention the fittest members of the urban ecosystem, the taxis.
Recession or not, the skyline bristles with cranes…and yes, they are moving. Piano, Rogers, Foster et alia tout their projects’ green features in panenvironmental friezes along construction fences. An architect visiting London can get whiplash looking at one double skin, exo-shaded, green roofed building after another. But will they all live up to the hype? Does anything ever live up to its hype? Foster’s jewel-like City Hall displays its green grade report in the lobby, issued every June. Sadly, it’s just below average for 2009. Somewhere between design and inhabitation the building has slipped. Is the flaw in the design? The construction? Or in the user? Perhaps the fault, dear Norman, lies not in our star-chitects, but in our selves…
Ourselves. For all the leadership shown by the local governments, the design professions and the client class, the average Londoner seems no more attuned to the environment than the average American…maybe less. The dark surprise of London is the litter. The detritus of prosperity and consumption—plastic bags, junk food wrappers, carryout containers, ubiquitous beer cans and bottles—is everywhere not directly under the royal broom. The canals, once industrial now being reclaimed into green and blue ribbons of calm are clogged with trash. Narrow boats share the locks with flotsam and ducks swim through bobbing bottles. Some do not fare well. Near Camden Lock we saw a duck struggle to free himself from a plastic 6-pack ring. First flapping his wings violently and then dropping his green iridescent head into the water in exhaustion, over and over again, he was out of reach of help.
Farther up Camden Canal the towpath was crammed with teens and 20’s eating, drinking, and smoking. In post-punk black and spikes, these faux-anarchists were merrily consuming and mindlessly trashing their environment. In the U.S., this is the generation who cares; who gather to clean up rivers, not trash them. It’s risky to make generalizations on such anecdotal evidence, but the contrast between the loud and proud green Britain and the loud and loutish behavior of some of its citizens takes a bit of the shine off the halo.