A Transit Tangent!

To those who have read my blog in the past you may have consistently come across a reference to a transit project that I have spent a significant amount of time designing. While it seems at times like a colossal waste of time given I live in Africa having limited contact with people who could identify the merits and faults of my proposal, it has been an enjoyable exercise and a good creative outlet. However, often my ideas aren’t finished until I’ve reached some sort of tangible ending point to the project. A few months ago, I put the idea into an actual document that I sent to be produced into a physical booklet (thank you Katie!) and sent to people who could indeed have an effect on it. I was rewarded with a thoughtful response by the director of Wichita Transit, giving me a look at the document they have chosen to guide them in the future.

However, I have since found an additional solution to my list of kinks to be worked out, which brings me here, in search of another end. So therefore, I’ll present the plan and its associated update.

I have been working on this idea in one form or another since my freshman year of college, when I realized that the city had an interesting situation in that in every direction from the city, towards every other town nearby, there were rail corridors in various states of use. Then, I further recognized that most every major destination had one of these corridors in close proximity to it. Over the course of the next few years I developed several iterations of my plan until settling on open-ended bus-rapid-transit (BRT) corridors as the best use of the facilities. I admit, some would require more significant construction than others, and the costs could be significant, but with a commitment to the project, other necessary improvements (that will be constructed without the system) could be modified to make the project even cheaper.

Anyway, the system is based around consolidating the current offerings of the Wichita Transit into branches of an effectively high-capacity corridor where service would be dramatically increased. In places where buses run on nearby streets, they would be consolidated to one corridor and timed to cut the wait time for the next bus in half. The further you travel from city center, the less frequent travel is on the transit corridor, as buses turn off to offer local service on various streets. In the center of town, this does shrink service coverage, but if the corridor offers truly frequent service, people will walk to take it. The other advantage, and biggest gain, of the system is an assistance of non-downtown-oriented trips. Since stations on the busway could be used as a transfer point, the rider could ride one bus to the transitway and then switch services to another destination without going downtown, as is required now.

The busways with the most potential boil down to four different routes. A northeast busway which follows abandoned railroad tracks from Washington, just north of Central, to Wesley hospital before turning north towards WSU, and then turning east to travel at roughly 17th street to Rock Road. A second busway would follow Southeast Blvd from its break off with Washington all the way to 47th Street South and the Oaklawn community. This could be constructed concurrently with an effort to raise the train tracks paralleling the boulevard by sacrificing lanes on a street that is redundant to Washington, Hydraulic, and I-135 in the north, and has sufficient space for additional lanes further south. The western branches both begin in Delano, just north of Douglas, then the southwest splits to follow the active railway past Friends and then branches off to travel along the southern side of Kellogg to the airport. The northwestern line would travel parallel to the rails heading northwest along Zoo Boulevard. Perhaps, with the construction of a rail connection between Maize and North Broadway, the railroad could be convinced to abandon the right-of-way and the transitways would require very little property acquisition. There are other potential corridors, including a southern transitway I included in phase three that follows the western edge of the river, however, these four are the foundation of the system.

The product being put together for Wichita Transit’s expansion, currently focuses on decreasing wait times and increasing transfer opportunities which is a necessary goal. However, the busway concept allows users to take advantage of potential redundancies closer to the region’s core as buses converge on the downtown area, all the while seeing more comfortable transfer facilities. Even initially at the start up, frequencies at transitways are often much better than 10 minutes between buses. The following is a diagram of my hypothetical build out after the second phase:

There are some obvious shortfalls of the suggestions and service does lack to some important parts of the city. I had to create a hypothetical implementation in order to effectively show the potential of my system and this is the map for one potential solution. Two places that would really require service that I have not served well are the manufacturing hubs of Hawker Beechcraft and Cessna Aircraft. I would also advocate better north-south connections on the near east side (Hillside and/or Oliver service). With this level of investment in the system, it would develop beyond one of basic mobility service to one riders could truly plan their day around.

The current plan for Wichita Transit is to significantly increase frequencies, in some cases to every 15 minutes. Since this is already under consideration for improved bus service, I adopted it into my proposal as well. Each line is upgraded to 15 minute service, which creates very busy transitways where over half the system stations have frequencies of 6 minutes or less!

That is the express version of the plan, which is all about focusing on serving a transit district completely, as opposed to trying to serve the entire region with basic mobility. I’m not sure if it would be possible in this economic climate, but Wichita Transit has suggested perhaps seeking a transit tax or some other increase in funds in order to fund their ambitious expansion. I would perhaps suggest defining the transit district and levying the tax on those individuals residing and businesses operating within it, and people living outside the district could vote on if they want more basic mobility based services, funded by a smaller tax. I find that system both more fair, and more likely to get passed. As the people who need it are the people in the core but also are often overruled when the suburban vote is added to the mix.

The gap at the center of the map where the busways seemingly end in the downtown area is the subject of my recent work. I have been bothered by that problem since I finished the project. I will admit the idea came from a fun little hypothetical redesign of the Union Station site as a redeveloped transit center with the expansion of the Heartland Flyer. Connecting it to the bus network was a priority and developed the idea of William as an exclusive transit corridor. During the inevitable upgrades required at the station, a connection would be built from the back of Union Station to the William Street corridor to allow transit vehicles to pass underneath the railroad tracks above. To the west, William Street becomes Water street after curving northward next to Century II and the busway could extend northward following Water and the abandoned railway it comes to join. The recent downtown master plan has identified that the downtown area has an excess of lanes, which I agree with whole heartedly. However, the suggestion of a Douglas St transit facility takes away lanes from the one place in downtown where they are actually at a shortage. With a few connections, using excess lanes on other streets, the William/Water bus facility could be connected to the busways radiating out from town. The following is my drawing of such designed facilities:

The portion of Douglas between Water and the Delano district has a portion with 6 lanes, in front of Century II and 4 lanes across the river connecting to a two lane portion through Delano. Taking two lanes from each section should not significantly impair the traffic flow on the street, as it is simply moves the funnel east to near the Waco/Douglas intersection. The southeast busway would be accessed by converting one of the side-streets west of Washington into a transitway to connect to the back of Union Station and the northeast busway could connect to the William/Water transitway through dedicated lanes on Murdock St. A future redesign of Washington Street for service as both a street and transit facility could create Wichita’s own version of the loop, connecting all the major downtown facilities.

Implementing this also creates the potential for several transit oriented developments with a focus on residential (near Cleveland/Central), office and light industry (near Washington/Kellogg), or shopping (west of Delano). While the focus at this time should be the true core of the city, success of such a transit system could feed the need for additional transit focused space to be developed in the areas immediately surrounding the downtown core.

Another aspect of the design that I really like is the attempt to make downtown truly a multimodal travel center with the introduction of full bicycle facilities. Blue lines on the map represent fully separated bike paths, and dashed blue lines represent prominent bike lanes. With these facilities, the entire area from I-135 to the river and from Lincoln to Murdock would be bicycle friendly. With the improvements in walkability being promoted downtown, it would create a truly multimodal hub with walking, biking, potentially intercity rail, and transit given a significant presence, although I will not say equal footing, compared to cars. The first street corridor could be designed to look something like this:

Tired yet? I have one more thing :P When I made my proposal, I based it on population and income distribution data from more than a decade ago. The recently released Wichita Transit Plan has a section showing the population and employment densities for 2008 of the Wichita Metro Area. I combined them into a product that suggested transit suitability, as follows below:

*Sorry for the crazy colors. I messed with it in Picasa to try to improve the contrast, but I really couldn't get it to look all that good.

I have drawn on the Phase 2 build out of my transit system for reference. I think it does a pretty good job of hitting the biggest concentrations of high transit potential. The pink dot (highest score) just northwest of downtown would be near a transit stop built at Murdock and Waco. However, the other pink dot, between Lincoln and Harry on Oliver, is not served directly by a busway. It does make an interesting case for bus lanes on Harry street between Southeast Blvd. and Rock Road however, and I wonder if the Wichita Transit officials have considered that when advocating a BRT-light system for Douglas between the shopping malls. The map also demonstrates there may be potential for express buses to Andover and Derby then local service within their respective city limits.

And there you have it: my official update. It’s not perfect, and it would require significant investment, in both time and money, from the city. But I think it would start to develop a system that promotes non-automobile orienting living. A denser city is a cheaper one to supply basic infrastructure to so from an economic standpoint as well as an cheaper on to live in, especially if the price of gas starts to climb again. I think it's in the city's best interest to be actively seeking things that support enhanced density.

Hopefully I was reasonably articulate. It’s easy to see to see my maps and know all my ideas but not always simple to put those into words. Please feel free to comment and question the idea below! And if you’re still reading, thanks so much for actually considering it all!

One year finished, what did we learn?

So it has been official for nearly a month now but I feel it’s still relevant to address the fact that I’ve reached the halfway point in my service. It makes complete sense to me, standing here, now why the Peace Corps asks you to commit two full years to service. It took me this long to even get an idea of what I can do if I want to. Granted, that makes it sound like my abilities are fully known and my options are listed on a sheet of paper, which is of course, not even slightly true. I will be learning and developing relationships till the day I leave, that’s just how it goes. But all in all, I feel as though I have command, albeit limited, of the situation. They say during training it takes a year to become fully comfortable; it does. They also say it takes a year to get the Swahili skills; it does not. It takes longer….at least for me. But I am working on it and I do see improvements. But I’m not going to worry about that because I’ve written plenty on that topic.

I had a productive exercise the other day. I took what I feel I can do, and wrote down what projects within that I think I would like to do in the coming year. I came up with a semi-surprisingly attainable list of goals. It was mostly made up of quality education and adding valuable non-academic information about lifestyle and health. But things like develop a library, within a Tanzanian budget, are things that are happening. It made me somewhat reflective on what I have learned while in country, and so I present to you, with no order whatsoever, and a range of sincerity, the things that I think I’ve learned in the last year:

1) Whoever made the connection between cocks crowing and dawn isn’t awake at any other time of day. It doesn’t matter if it’s day, night, or twilight. Those annoying birds will crow at any time, making eating them all the easier.

2) How to study. I used to think I knew what it meant to study, and to some degree I was right. But when I have to teach a concept I’ve never seen before, based in a science I didn’t do so well in, the true meaning of understanding becomes much more apparent. I’ve shared this anecdote several times, but my sitemate Theo and I were once discussing over lunch our preparations for class. In our commenting about the 3-5 textbooks open at a time, working slowly through material to get the details, and the vigorous note taking, I realized that I had truly studied for the first time. They say the third step in learning is teaching, and I believe it 110%. You wont learn more material faster but still effectively than if you’re expected to teach it to 40 kids the next day.

3) I have some really strange hobbies, and very selective commitment to them. In the same way that I could spend hours looking at weather forecasts and stories when I was a kid, I’ve developed, if possible, even further my affinity for transportation planning. Perhaps the time consumption is so high because I don’t have the tools I could potentially acquire in the states to speed up production. But I have filled nearly 100 pages of a workbook with ideas for a transportation plan for Wichita. I do want it to be considered but I recognize the impracticality of it, especially right now. Still, it is satisfying to produce something that, at least when looked at through my biased eyes, would effectively serve, and even develop the community.

4) I just don’t do as well with languages. I am able to learn when I give it effort and use it frequently, but if it is not something I am forced to use every day it can fall by the wayside and I don’t learn via osmosis in the way I can with the sciences. It still takes lots of practice and I have to give the effort, but for now it just seems like a lot more work than it’s worth, given I can get what I need day to day.

5) I really can cook; I just don’t think I want to most of the time. I actually enjoy cooking, when it’s a shared task. It is also quite satisfying to produce an enjoyable meal that is both filling and tasty. The problem is, when it’s just me, cooking for an hour for 10-15 minutes of eating seems not worth it. Therefore I end up with the same pasta every night with the same spices and the same filled but unsatisfied stomach. This should be a fairly limited issue as once I have someone who would get upset by the blandness of my meals, I’ll have someone to help me cook something better!

6) Apparently drugs are even less effective on me than I had previously thought. So I’m taking Mephaquin once a week, which is an anti-malarial medicine. The side effects can include insomnia and vivid dreaming. I know I’m a big guy, but when we arrived in country, we took a large dose to get it into our system. Many people didn’t sleep for two whole days but I actually slept really well considering the fact that I was also suffering from jet lag. Another side effect has been an upset stomach but that has only happened when I took the pill on an empty stomach.

7) Speaking of upset stomachs, they can ruin your day if you’re not careful. My time in country has been somewhat marred by a recurrent digestive issue resulting in abdominal cramping and long stints in the bathroom. At this point, I’ve accepted it as part of the experience and I work around it. I usually can recognize the onset of trouble and take appropriate action. I have yet to have it be a debilitating issue but we’ll see where the adventure goes!

8) Staying in the same theme. Weight loss has been fantastically easy! All you have to do is not eat anything of nutritional value very often and consume all filler foods. It’s worked without any real attempt to control the situation on my end. I eat fairly well on the weekends and I’m still significantly slimmer. I think it’s all the stuff in American food but between my digestive problems and the lack of worthy nutrition in the food I do eat, I have effectively returned my weight to the range I should be.

9) Culture runs so much deeper than ethnic clothing and dance. Maybe this was obvious for other people but I remember a discussion of culture always being accompanied by a picture of some non-Caucasian in ethnic get up doing some sort of dance. Still today, even in Tanzania, tribes who define themselves independently of Tanzanians can be identified by the clothing they wear. Yet, I’m finding cultural differences extend to everything from outlook on life to food preferences. For example, the people of Tanzania are very often fatalists and feel that what happens to them is out of their hands. (Yes Peace Corps I acknowledge you did teach that but I, predictably, didn’t file it away as important). Mungu akipenda (literally translated: if God likes), I will go to school next year. I think in America we would generally agree that that is mostly in our hands to decide and work through but here it really is mostly left up to God. Unfortunately, that approach also removes one from responsibility for failure, as it wasn’t my fault! God just didn’t want it to happen so it didn’t matter how hard I tried. While, there are obviously exceptions to the rule, they also are a culture of reproducing what’s given to them. I have seen a tailor turn down business because he was asked to make a shirt out of cloth that was sewn together as a skirt. it was plenty of cloth but because it wasn’t started from the simple flat sheet he was used to, he was unable to make the shirt.

10) I imitate not innovate. On the same lines as my Tanzanian students, I have a hard time thinking outside the box sometimes. I take what I see as a good idea and I apply it to a situation. My teaching is mostly made up of lecture since my students are a step away from college. Although, when I do try and make the experience more engaging, I find myself reverting to those who taught me and trying to emulate their very successful teaching methods. When I work with my transportation things, I tend to choose the most appropriate already-established idea for the given situation (or at least recently I have, LRT for Wichita notwithstanding :P), not thinking of some creative new system. (Although it could just be that there aren’t better alternatives :P) I recognize being truly innovative is really hard and perhaps beyond me, so I’ll take what I can be good at and further develop those skills.

11) I’m irrationally devoted to things at times. I have finished tv shows and books while I’ve been here just to say that I did. On more than one occasion despite not really enjoying the subject of my attention but I finished it to say I had. I’m not really sure what this says about me as a person, but I find myself wondering why I do it, only to realize three hours later I’m back watching the tv show “to finish it.”

And I’m out of ideas that come immediately to mind. Back to serious, I think it’s easy to look at something like Peace Corps service and see only the few central goals. Teaching school and educating about health issues are the really obvious surface issues. But 2/3 of the point of Peace Corps is cultural exchange and establishing relationships and developing them. Inadvertently, you begin to discover things about yourself which you’re then forced to acknowledge, develop, and utilize. I have my goals for the second half of service, all of which are attainable if I put my mind to it. I have to see the potential places where I can fail and either mitigate the risk or recruit someone else to help where I’d fail. I’m excited about the next 6-8 months with the possibilities, so we’ll see how it goes!

Shadows!

So last week I got my first official taste of being a year older. I hosted shadows for the week from the new class of ed volunteers incoming this year. It was interesting to be on the other side of that exchange for sure. It’s funny, every time I find myself in a position of authority or “power” for lack of a better term, I’m increasingly realizing that there I have nowhere near the command and comfort of the situation that I attribute to those who are in those positions over me. I looked up to the guy I shadowed as some wise volunteer who knew the ins and outs of the situation and really had the situation under control. But for me, while I do generally have a handle on the situation, I definitely don’t have my life in perfect order like his seemed to be back then.

Anyway, the shadow process was extended this year so I had them for a full 7 days. We received them on Sunday evening and then hosted till the next Sunday when they returned. It’s strange to think about how the routine of a volunteer can get kind of overly comfortable. I’m able to walk into my 7:30 am class on Monday with a few notes and the notes I wrote for last year and be comfortable, whereas I could see neither felt like teaching was something they could do without preparation. I know for a fact I felt that way back then so it’s cool to think I have grown in some ways. I’ve always been generally ok with public speaking (although public performance hasn’t always been easy) but once I know my kids I have no worries walking into class. Anyway, the result was a day off on Monday while the shadows grew accustomed to my house and welcomed being generally lazy which hadn’t been an option for several weeks. They also grew accustomed to my cats. When I first got in contact with them, I asked what their cat situation was and both are, of course, allergic. However, Paul was way more so than Veronica and after a night of what I think was actually pretty painful allergies, we tried to set him up in my mattress-less third bed.

Tuesday did result in teaching, which I was glad about. While Peace Corps generally does a good job of preparing their volunteers for teaching, they can sometimes focus only on the lower levels of the system, which is reasonable given the split in volunteers between O and A levels. Therefore, I felt it is important for the shadows to get a chance to stand in front of an A-level classroom and see what the issues are. English, while still a challenge, becomes less of a problem. Presentation of material is much more lecture-like. Creative teaching gives way to solid explanations. While it’s all part of the natural shift to higher level teaching styles, I felt it important to show that difference so they felt more prepared.

Wednesday morning was a little bit of teaching, then a trip to Katie’s site, which in my opinion, has the best view in Tanzania. Unfortunately, the rains are only just starting so the sky was still hazy and not all way visible. It was still enjoyable as we made a feast of bean burgers and lots of toppings! Katie’s dog had apparently acquired a girlfriend. And one of her shadowers developed a love for Chuck! (It’s spreading!)

Thursday was an Ngozi hike with the shadows. I’ll refer you to photos in other posts but it was just as gorgeous as ever! And Friday we went into Mbeya, introducing them to the tastes of Metro cuisine! The rest of the weekend was mostly spent hanging out with various groups of people. As always, the kitchen at Anita’s house was a busy place and everyone chipped in for good food. When everyone gets together in Mbeya it is such an enjoyable atmosphere as everyone lounges with a beer and stories. And we just hang out for hours on end doing very little. Again, I’m starting to feel old. I remember back when I couldn’t understand how my parents would just sit at family gatherings and talk the whole time. Now I’m wondering why they didn’t bring a six pack to share :P It’s just amusing to see how the tables have turned.

So it seemed like a pretty uneventful week, and it most certainly was. Given my excuse that I had to take care of my shadows, and using the fact that they were teaching my classes, my week turned into one big lethargic break. Alas, how I suffer! Anyway, moral of the story: shadows were great and I had a really restful week!

Feeling Successful!

I gave my sleep presentation last night and I would consider it a moderate success! I made a powerpoint because I knew the novelty would attract students, and I used my towel, which was shown to be fairly dirty, as a screen to project on. Unfortunately hanging from a tree it didn't turn out quite as smooth as I would have hoped, but the effect was the same. I suppose this is where I need to thank Theo as he let me borrow the projector for the project.

Anyway, although I think the presentation lacked super engaging qualities beyond the technology, I think it hit its target audience. I found students who freely admitted they sleep 4 hours a night, and by then end they were asking questions about how to ensure they sleep better. I'm not sure I kept everyone interested as I started with essentially the entire A-level population and whittled it down to maybe 30 students by the end of the hour. But those that stayed asked questions for 15-20 minutes and we discussed what they could do to improve sleep and when to worry about waking.

I even got a request for another presentation! So I think the next time we'll do the study skills and time management presentation! Then from there, who knows. Maybe this could even develop into a research education sort of thing where I have students do the research and production, which will help them as they go to universities. We'll see what unfolds but for now, I'm feeling pretty good about the situation :)

A little of this, a little of that

So again I've lapsed on my blogging. I apologize for the gaps, but I'll do my best to bring you up to date. I finished break in mid-October which essentially means for a week I was typing 4-5 exams a day, which in perspective, isn't an issue at all. However, what I'm realizing is that many of the exams could be typed by the teacher who puts them together. So one thing I have considered trying is to do a basic computer education and typing seminar type thing to introduce computers as a resourse in the school. While most teachers in my school have used computers before and have a basic knowledge, it doesn't go far enough to where they can really utilize it to make their lives easier. Granted, having them type their own tests would infringe up responsibilities which have been clearly defined and although it may make sense, it's just not right. Things that are done a certain way are often not to be questioned and are that way for a reason, regardless of our ability to explain that reason. However, on occasion that argument does not apply. I'm still working on figuring out when these things matter and when they don't because, often, there is little rationale, or so it seems to the volunteers.

The biggest news, in the short term at least, is the embracing of my seminar series for student life by my school administration. I have finished preparing my sleep presentation and am really just looking forward to an opportunity to give it. In that process, I asked my headmaster if I could present and he began suggesting not only do we do this, we expand to talk about studying habits and nutrition and everything I had been thinking from day 1!! So, I'm currently focusing on a study habit and time management presentation and looking to present the original sleep presentation. I still have at least two more presentations with one on extracurriculars and creativity and another on nutrition and wellbeing. The issue came up between a sitemate of mine and his students and they admitted it was information they had never heard before. Nutrition is a part of the biology syllabus but often the connections between the books in the classroom and real life are lost on the students. So that project is alive, and honestly, doing much better than I expected!

Finally, I'm getting back into reading. I've recently been watching shows and working through them. One downside of having several seasons is a commitment to watch a show requires strong dedication! I recently have watched It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (a bit extreme for my tastes, just too ridiculous and edgy most of the time), How I Met Your Mother (enjoyably entertaining, but somewhat mindless), and Sports Night (a witty comedy that does a good job of blending the real and the hilarious). The downside to this is that I haven't read as much. I just finished the first book of the Uplift Triology, which is the 4th book in the series. It finally got quite interesting in the final pages (which is not a good ratio considering there were 659 of them) as my favorite story from book 2 comes back to play a prominant part. But now I've decided to take a short break. Due to a limited time opportunity (in other words, someone else wants the book) I've began to read the book The God Delusion. Just as it sounds, it's a book written by an athiest about why religion is a bad thing. Acknowledging that I've only read maybe 25 pages, he brings up some very good (and often ugly) points about religion as a whole, but I find myself feeling he assumes any truely rational thought will give the reader only his conclusion about the situation. And if it does not, it is somehow misguided by the force fed religion of our previous generations. Granted, he admits to writing the book as a rallying cry to athiests so it is reasonable to expect it to be a solid voice advocating that ideology. I think it will be interesting to read on and see if there are new arguments to be delt with or if all his scientific evidence will be made up of ideas I have already encountered.

Inevitably, I have more I could say, but I'll wait for another post. I'm getting tired and my bed looks awfully inviting! Anyway, I hope things are going well wherever you are!