Cap’n Transit looks at my recent discussion of transit governance structures (summarizing a good back and forth between David Levinson and Lisa Schweitzer) and sees transportation myopia:

They were all three suffering from transportation myopia: the condition of seeing transit as a self-contained system rather than as an option in competition with private cars and other modes, and of seeing transit as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end.

The Cap’n defines transportation myopia as follows, complete with this illustration of the bigger picture:

Cap’n Transit’s virtuous cycle – a reminder of the big picture.

Essentially, transportation myopia involves people forgetting that transit competes with cars. As a result they often forget why they care about transit, and treat transit as a goal in itself.

I both agree and disagree. It can be hard to not be a bit myopic when transit operations fail to meet their potential. On the other hand, the accusation of myopia also strikes me as unfair:

What we need to talk about is how to get full cost pricing for roads, including potential challenges and ways to overcome them. But for some reason Levinson doesn’t talk about any of that, he just goes on to talk about smart cards and land value capture and bond markets.

Levinson’s initial post wasn’t an unlimited forum; he noted his word count limit in one of his blog follow-ups. He’s also written extensively on road pricing (including some really in-the-weeds stuff).

These policies did not go unmentioned. Looking to other examples of good transit governance, the cases from Germany explicitly mention the key role of policies that both make car use more expensive, less convenient, and less detrimental to urban life and ‘last mile’ transportation modes (e.g. biking and walking) complimentary to transit. From Ralph Buehler and John Pucher:

Transport, taxation, and land-use policies at all levels of government have helped to make German public transport more attractive compared to the automobile. For example, area-wide traffic calming, car-free pedestrian zones, increased fees for car parking, and reduced parking supply slow down car travel, raise its cost, and make it less convenient. Similarly, federal taxation policies have helped make car use more expensive…

Since the 1970s, most German cities have improved conditions for cycling and walking by traffic-calming nearly all neighborhood streets to 30 km/h or less, pedestrianizing downtowns, and expanding networks of separate bike paths and lanes (Pucher and Buehler, 2008). The vast majority of German passengers access public transport by bicycle or foot…

City planners deliberately connect sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike paths and lanes with transit stops…

German land-use laws and regulations encourage dense and mixed-use settlements, which facilitate transit use…

When considering Boston, I included this parenthetical about the cause of much of the MBTA’s debt and the failures of the Massachusetts decision-makers in prioritizing a massive urban freeway undergrounding project:

(It’s worth noting the decision-making priorities involved in the Big Dig – the massive tunnelling project was only approved because the transit mitigation projects, backed by transit advocates as a way to hitch their wagon to omnipresent highway funding – yet those projects were never fully funded and now play a large role in exacerbating the agency’s stability. Imagine a project that simply removed the Central Artery and ‘replaced’ it with the long-imagined North/South rail link instead; or where the response to the Big Dig proposal was focused on re-defining the project itself rather than just tacking on ‘mitigation’ transit expansion.)

It’s true that I could’ve put more emphasis on the complimentary policies that go with good transit governance. However, that doesn’t address the broader questions of how to better govern, fund, and operate our transit systems. Looking at governance models for transit operators is certainly narrow in focus compared to debates about the bigger picture priorities, but I don’t think it deserves the negative connotations of myopia.

That said, I still welcome the critique. In the Cap’n’s page on transportation myopia, he closes with this:

A lot of transit advocates that I know and respect have demonstrated transportation myopia. If I call you out on it, it’s nothing personal. We’re on the same side, and I’m doing it to help you accomplish a goal that we all share.

I appreciate the reminder. Seeing the forest for the trees can be a challenge, and it always helps to have a reminder about the big picture.