Here's my summary of what I learned at Transit Camp

[Terry Nagel]

Here are some things I learned at Transit Camp Bay Area in Palo Alto
on February 23, 2008.

1. The "barcamp" model works well for crafting solutions to social
problems. It was a "DIY" (do it yourself) culture; if you wanted
something, you got it yourself. The ground rule of "no complaints" was
strictly enforced; it was, instead, a "solutions playground" that
fostered collaboration among people who normally don't get together.
The enthusiasm for sharing ideas about making transit work better
lasted all day. When I left at 6 p.m., lots of people still showed no
sign of wanting to leave. After years of planning events and hustling
sponsors, I was surprised that it was free and that food and snacks
were available in abundance. In fact, sponsors were each limited to a
$300 maximum contribution. No one worried about getting credit.

2. The event attracted smart people with expertise in an amazing
number of areas, including numerous transit agencies and citizens'
transit groups, City CarShare, Zipcar, 511.org, NextBus, the
Environmental Protection Agency, an air taxi ride share program, the
governor's office, Google, U.C. Berkeley, Stanford, more than one
"stubborn rail visionary" and lots of Web/tech professionals and
people who refuse to own cars. Council members came from Menlo Park
(Heyward Robinson and Kelly Fergusson), South San Francisco (Mayor
Pedro Gonzalez), Pacifica (Sue Digre), San Carlos (Omar Ahmad) , Palo
Alto (Yoriko Kishimoto) and Burlingame (me).

3. The biggest eye-opener for me was learning that the 26 transit
agencies in the Bay Area are essentially run by people who come up
through the operations and engineering ranks, not by people who are
used to dealing with the public. The mindset of transit agencies, said
Joe Hughes of Google Transit, is to "get every bus out the door." They
compete with one another for funding and do not play well together.
Since transit agencies are traditionally low on funds, marketing and
communications usually have a low priority. That's why it is so hard
to find out how to get around, why there's inadequate signage and why
customer relations departments could use improvement.

4. What makes transit agencies change their ways? Often it is someone
who reaches past the staff to the board of directors by writing them
or, even better, speaking at a board meeting. Don't waste time filling
out a generic "comment form" on an agency's Web site. Instead, take
the time to find out how to contact the board directly. For example,
you can directly email every member of the BART board by writing to
boardofd...@bart.gov. Unfortunately, it is usually difficult to
attend the board meetings, as most are held during working hours.

5. Transit agencies are extremely protective of their data and are
suspicious of "hackers" who want to create new Web tools that make it
easier to access schedule information. Technologists want all agencies
to make data freely available in the same format. Instead, agencies
make the data available to specific vendors who then have a vested
interest in not sharing it with others. One person said MTC is
spending a bundle on a massive in-house, data-gathering project that
essentially duplicates what NextBus has already done. He said MTC
could probably get the same results for free if it made the data
available to Web professionals like the ones who attended Transit
Camp.

6. My group, Coalition to Expand Transit Service (a group of council
members from San Mateo County), invited those present to come up with
simple Web tools that make it easier for the public to advocate for
transit improvements. One low-tech idea is to create logs on Web sites
where people can list problems they have encountered, as well as
suggestions. (You can see one example of a public log on my Web site
at http://www.terrynagel.com/Log_of_Power_Outagespage490.htm.) This
data could inform transit agencies as they make decisions about how to
best serve the public. Instead of relying on anecdotal evidence,
boards of directors would have access to valid data that might show
overwhelming support for changing the way a transit system operates.

Terry Nagel
Burlingame City Council

[Tara Hunt]

Thanks for this awesome write-up, Terry! Thanks for coming out!

I will be setting the date for TCBA2 soon.

Tara

--
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
coFounder
Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com)
blog: www.horsepigcow.com
phone: 415-694-1951
fax: 415-727-5335

[Tim Bonnemann]

Thanks for sharing!

Tim

-- 

Tim Bonnemann

San Jose, CA 95128 (USA)

Web: http://www.plansphere.com/