Coolness

Today I want to talk about something that I often see raised as a reason that people want to drive cars instead of taking transit: the cool factor.

And look, I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert on cool. I am, perhaps, the opposite. But at the same time, let me at least try to explain why I don't think that cars are actually that cool compared to actual, exciting transit options.

1. What Are We Contrasting?

Let me start with this: in the Quad Cities context, and honestly in a lot of American contexts, I'd say that the conventional wisdom of which is cooler is correct.

This Mustang is cooler than this bus:

Bussy here is a good, solid vehicle and I would trust it in a crash much more than the Mustang, but it is boxy and basic. Of course, this car (which I love driving, but that's a different point) is less cool:

Classic bug-eyed Nissan Leaf: not cool.

This Jeep: cooler.

This bus: less cool.

Even in the same snow!

So, yes, what we're comparing matters a lot. This is why I'm saying that modern, up to date transit vehicles can be a lot cooler.

2. Keep Your Stuff Updated

Those buses were never cool, at least not in living memory. But also, transit tech that was cool can stop being cool (though retro is also a thing).

The El, I would argue, is retro.

El trains, however, are not.

The main distinction so far is not necessarily boxy vs sleek (the Jeep is pretty boxy but, I think, also considered fairly cool). It's up to date vs dated.

So this tram, which is sleek and up to date, is something else:

Look at those rounded edges and that smooth motion (I realize this is a still photo; I still think you can picture it from the picture).

The Croydon tram is not as cool, but could be if they updated the trainset:

And even this I like, personally: the green is a real touch of difference from the surroundings that makes it pop.

It's certainly less dated than the buses.

3. Speed Kills

One of the ways that I think the cars get the reputation for coolness is also the speed at which they travel. Trams, buses, metros, trains in the US: we think of these as pokey vehicles where you feel like you're trapped aboard, which massively limits cool factor.

Bonjour, je suis le TGV: le train à grande vitesse, aka the high-speed train.

This RER train is not a high-speed train, but look at that friendly front design--and it does go much faster than an American is probably used to their trains going.

This burst shot might give a sense of that.

Compare the Metra: blocky, slower, not as cool.

Basically, my takeaway here is that trains can be cool, but in the US they usually aren't. It's just not a thing we prioritize. Take the T in Boston:

I love the T but that train looks like it comes from the 1970s, and not necessarily in a cool way.

Contrast with the Mustang or Jeep above and you can see the cool difference.

But also contrast with a more up to date, cleaner, faster metro:

The newer SkyTrain sets in Vancouver are a lot cooler.

Which brings me to my conclusion: when people say cars are cooler, they're thinking about two categories of car, the awesome vintage car and the sweet new ride. But most cars on the road aren't either of those. And so when we contrast to most transit in the US, like Mr. Boxy Bus here, the comparison is weighted against the transit.

But when we consider the best of what transit can look like, it gets pretty cool too.

And you can add in some additional cool in terms of cooling the planet, since they're massively more efficient in fuel use.

Immigration and Toronto

As an American blogger, there's a sense that Canada is the gold standard of potential places to immigrate to: common language, high overlap in culture, closer than pretty much anywhere to friends and family back in the US, and a similar standard of living with a better social safety net.

But how does this translate into urbanist principles when considering immigrating to its major cities?

1. Regional Integration is Key

When I talk about Toronto, I think it's important to be talking about the entire Golden Horseshoe for potential immigrants, at some level, or at least the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). 

This is because if you're rich enough to actually buy into Toronto itself, you're probably having a different conversation from someone who ends up in Hamilton or Scarborough. 

Fortunately, they're increasing regional integration (though that project has faced setbacks), and there seems to be at least some awareness that yes, this needs to function as a region, not just as an economically-connected series of distinct areas. That means in the GTA that you finally see some new transit building within Toronto, and that it integrates into the plays for Go trains in the larger region.

They do have a fair number of trains! Even if the service isn't nearly at its best yet.

But if you're moving here, you're implicitly placing a bet on this actually coming to fruition: especially if you're hoping to be able to take a Go train consistently towards the US border, something that's right now not really a great option.

Of course, you could always just drive on the Gardiner to the 401, but let me tell you, that's not a fun experience. 

Again, if you can afford to live down where I took these pictures, you'll probably be fine regardless.

There may be a lot of homes in these individual towers, but...not enough for demand.

That's why regional integration is going to make or break the experience here, especially for immigrant groups that either get pushed to the margins or sprinkled throughout a wide and busy city.

2. Beware Doug Ford

This is not actually about Doug Ford specifically as a person, but it is about Ford's Ontario government and its hatred of Toronto's bike lanes. 

As we've discussed elsewhere in this series, biking as a travel option can be a godsend for immigrants, since it can increase health, reduce costs, and widen the range of places you're able to live or work.

And as you can see, people in Toronto do use them--some even for their businesses, as in this delivery ebike.

And in Toronto, strong bikeshare can even mean you don't need to own a bike to use one (though financially I'd recommend owning one if you're going to literally use it every day).  

But the Ford government is opposed to non-car street space in the city and region, seeing it as an attack on drivers and (implicitly or explicitly) on the kind of people who are drivers (i.e. out-of-Toronto voters).

So while there are major positive movements in the local area around transit and urbanism, there's also evidence already that the larger provincial government is not in favor (or favour) of this as a larger matter, and may step in to prevent or even reverse urbanist developments of which they disapprove.

That's a risk if you're hinging your immigration decision on increasing or at least stable urbanism.

3. Good Bones

But it would be unfair to treat the GTA as if it were all doom and gloom; setbacks to the Go expansion and the bike lanes aside, the region has strong urbanist bones in ways that many US cities do not (or perhaps used to but no longer do).

The TTC subway may be smaller than it should be in an ideal world, but it's still a good start from which to build, and build on it they plan to. 

I remember being impressed by the bus/tram/subway integration when I first visited in 2002, not because it was perfect but because it was intelligible in a way Seattle's then was not: even as a teen I could figure out how to get from place to place (and this is pre-smartphone!) and use the connections between transit modes to navigate effectively.

If I could do it as a visiting teen two decades ago, I gotta believe that's a benefit if you move there as an adult now.

And since I insisted above that you should treat the whole GTA and/or Horseshoe here, I do think that the multicentral nature of that region is meaningful. York FC (supporters pictured above) isn't Toronto FC, and York isn't Toronto (let alone further-dispersed centers like Mississauga, St. Catherine's, or even Niagara). While this sprawl can have its own flaws, the idea of integrating these places while still allowing them their own local flavor and relevance is a promising one, and if the region can pull it off then there would be some major benefits to an almost Randstad-like system (stay tuned for some thoughts on the Randstad in the Netherlands later in this series). 

All of this is to say that there's real potential in the GTA for growth and integration that can make it a better place to live--especially for immigrants, for whom that kind of marginal geographic location is often a reality. 

Canada will continue to be a difficult place to find a job if you're not a permanent resident or citizen (and also in current economic conditions for many of them). It will continue not to be the United States-lite or anything like it. But the GTA is a real option if you're looking for a region with great potential for a significant upward trajectory of urbanism built off a historic base that's high compared to the US.

The Trains, Again

 Look, we've talked about this before.

I would love for there to be train transit between the Quad Cities and Chicago. I think it would be a massive boost to the region, and frankly a personal benefit as well. 

So I'm chuffed to see announcements around state funding in Illinois for it. 

But remain a bit skeptical about this actually happening, unfortunately, for the following reasons:

1. Iowa Interstate Hasn't Said Anything

Even the article I've linked to only mentions that there is "more leverage" to convince or coerce Iowa Interstate (which owns key parts of the link between the two areas) to participate in the project, and mentions that they've "really struggled" to get them onboard. Now, it's obviously a good thing if the ask of the railroad doesn't include (as much) money, but it's still a dead letter unless they get involved voluntarily or the state/federal government (good luck...) actually starts getting into eminent domain territory.

If this was met by Iowa Interstate with a statement about their excitement to get working, I'd have a different reaction, but right now...nothing, so I have no expectations.

2. Where Will The Funding Really Go?

The Metra and the CTA are also due funding under this bill, and the money that is commonly being associated with the Quad Cities rail initiative apparently only refers to funding to help bring rail to new destinations. At the same time, Metra is being tasked to bring its rail to, you guessed it, new destinations.

So if Iowa Interstate doesn't play ball, this money doesn't have to stay around to convince them--it can (it seems) go to bring some iconic flat-fronted trains to the rest of the state.

Or, you know, maybe some more updated trains. But the point stands--this money doesn't have to go to this part of the state if we can't actually get moving on our trains.

3. I Hate Getting My Hopes Up

I just...don't like hoping for things that don't happen. 

Maybe like the new I-74 Bridge, it'll actually come. 

Or maybe, like doing something actually useful with the old I-74 Bridge instead of just tearing it down, it won't.

Unfortunately, I know where I'd put my money.

I really hope it happens, and I'd love to see Amtrak service to Chicago from here, but...this isn't quite it yet, and it's making me sad that it's reported like it is.

Immigration and London

 Ah London, city of immigrants (I mean this quite literally). Now to be fair, some of that is because when you colonize the world, it comes back to visit the metropole. But also, London has a history of attracting and indeed integrating immigrant populations, at least in Greater London (the square mile of the City is a bit small by now to be doing that). And one of my absolute favorite things about London is the sheer variety of foods, goods, and cultures that coexist within the British capitol.

Unfortunately, being in Britain does mean that it's not actually a practical place to immigrate to, given the absolutely rancid costs of paying for NHS coverage up front as part of your visa fees. But if you can swing it (or you're single--a thousand pounds per person per year adds up for families), it's got some major benefits to provide you.

1. A Transport of Delight

The London omnibus (thanks, Flanders and Swann) is, in my humble opinion, the greatest benefit for considering London as an immigrant's destination. 

They go pretty much everywhere, pretty efficiently, for relatively little money (compared to any rail, Tube or mainline or what have you). They're easy to recognize, easy to find, and easy to use.

They get stuck in traffic like everyone else, but they stop you from having to own your own car and be that traffic.

And like this particularly unflattering shot I took demonstrates, they'll take you right to the shops (this bus is at a Tesco, I think, though I went to so many grocery stores around that location that I may be mistaken).

2. Actually, who even needs the bus?

As Evan Edinger will happily explain to you, London is also massively beefing up its cycling network, in ways that mean that you won't even necessarily need to take any transport at all.

You can see a gentleman taking advantage of this directly in front of the tram here in Croydon.

London is also extremely walkable, both within neighborhoods and if you're brave enough to just hare your way across the city.

(Mind the crowds in Camden though).

Why is this a benefit for the immigrant? It means both that you can get to know whatever pocket of the sprawling megalopolis you end up in more personally and that you can save some of their ridiculously highly valued currency at the same time. And heck, you might not even need to use that NHS surcharge you pre-spent for if you use the Gym of Life (ignore that that video is about the Netherlands; the same concept applies).

It also means that you really can choose wherever you most want or need (for job purposes, say) to live and still enjoy life in London. Yes, it has slums and less safe areas, but the emphasis on active transportation has Jane Jacobs related benefits in terms of putting eyes on the street (attached to moving bodies, no less). 

3. The Cultural Amenities

Look, Paris is great, don't get me wrong. But what the British Museum lacks compared to the Louvre in terms of entertaining heists it makes up in being free to the public.

As are a lot London's best museums.

And, you know, its public spaces as well.

I'm not saying that there aren't cool places in Paris to sit around. I'm saying that London does a damn good job of making it easy to exist for free and still be either beautified or educated. 

This view of St. Paul's Cathedral isn't going to legally protect itself. 

Even less famous spots than Camden Locks and St. Paul's are pretty cool.

London is a place that you can afford entertainment because it's free. Can you afford the entertainment that isn't free? My barristers have advised me not to answer that. But you can afford so many cultural amenities that the place is amazing anyway.

And you might just walk or bike past them (or see them from a double-decker bus) because of the transportation options as well.

Is London the best place to move? Well, I referenced those high visa fees above, so there are considerations that cut against it. But it has some serious advantages once you're there.

Just be aware that you won't qualify for these estates, so you might also need to save up some for rent.

Get Your Kicks (Off Route 66)

 Since I do a fair amount of travel in the US, and as much as I can get away with outside of it, I wanted to talk today about the roadtrip, and how it compares to two other modes of long-distance travel: the plane and the train, probably unsurprisingly.

Specifically, I want to focus on the freedom and pleasure aspects that so frequently get attached to the idea of the roadtrip in American literature and culture. Which forms of transportation allow you the greatest freedom? Which provide the greatest chances for random discovery? And which will allow you relaxation and pleasure if this is your vacation (whether frequent as in Europe or rarely taken as in the USA)?

1. Freedom depends on flexibility

I would argue that the plane is the great loser in the question of which form of transit gives you the greatest freedom. You cannot easily change where you are going on a plane, and they are pretty much inherently point-to-point travel: you can't get off the plane early unless you're skiplagging, and even that is just skipping a connection, not getting off midflight (hi, DB Cooper, if you're still out there). 

Not an exit point.

It might seem like the car wins here, and it is true that if I'm driving I can take the car wherever the road will let me. 

Burnin' rubber in the Mustang can indeed be flexible.

But while this is true, I have a lot less flexibility in what I do while I'm driving the car. If I'm inattentive, let alone watching Harry Potter while driving, bad things are going to happen. "I am the captain of my soul," but also I am captaining a vehicle that will run into things if I don't stop it.

A train seems less free: it runs on literal rails. I have to go where it goes, just like a plane.

But that's a very US-Amtrak-small network approach. If the train network is like the Dutch NS (complaints from the Dutch aside) or the London Overground (same point about local objections), it works much more flexibly. 

I got off here randomly, just to take a picture of the sign for my London blogs about transit. I then walked across the neighborhood/town and got back on another train to go to another place.

So in a decent and well-designed (even if not perfect!) system, the train gives me a significant degree of flexibility and freedom as well.

And lest someone complain that the Overground is not intercity (it kinda is, depending on your definition of what a city is), I think the same applies to National Rail, for all its flaws.

And on the train, I can read, watch Harry Potter, or zone out to my heart's content. I am free to just be, not to direct the vehicle.

A view I would not be able to stare at if I drove from Paris to Amsterdam, but which I spent quite a bit of time watching while taking the train.

2. Random activities are also about flexibility

Surprise! The plane loses here too! While I love the little Blues Brother display in Midway Airport in Chicago, otherwise I'm not doing a lot of serendipitous discovery while flying from place to place.

This plane is going to Toronto Billy Bishop Airport, and good luck stopping.

There's a Bluey episode about a roadtrip, and they spend some time stuck behind the so-called Grey Nomads, RVing seniors, and then take a detour (along with said Nomads) to a roadside attraction. It's cute! It's true! You can detour off your route for random informational signs or to see what everyone else is visiting.

But beware! Sometimes those random places are actually pretty far from the interstate or equivalent. Sometimes the best thing you're seeing is the gas station you needed to stop at for fuel. And sometimes it's really cool. 

The same applies to a train, at least if the train schedule means you won't lose all your time if you get off at a stop. If you're on the once-daily California Zephyr, it's more like a plane. If you're on the 147 train-daily Amsterdam to Haarlem route you're pretty good to stop if you want. Or if that's too close (they are much closer than any 2 California Zephyr stations), consider the 10 daily high-speed Paris to Amsterdam trains. 

Random park? Cool. Got there on a train.

3. Relaxation can't require focus

Look, maybe you're someone who feels like they're most relaxed behind the wheel of a car. I'm just going to suggest that maybe you could let someone else do some of the work? 

Only 2 people on these trains need to be paying attention (give or take).

It's two per on these planes, too. Well, and the flight attendants.

I hope to God all these people are paying attention (sorry for the crowded street--for related reasons I don't have many photos of cars on the interstate).

Driving a car can be fun, and certainly people do do it for fun! But driving as transportation is not the same as driving for fun. It's a method of long-distance transport that requires your attention, your focus, and your dedication (or your life). And yes, you can play your own music in the car--but can I recommend a pair of headphones?

Driving also produces lock-in that actually can reduce your likelihood of stopping for all the random things that otherwise might be the advantage of a car: when I'm behind the wheel, I'm focused on driving safely and getting myself to my destination, so I don't really have time or focus to pay attention to what might come up. On a train I can flip through my phone to think of whether I want to get off at another station; unless I'm a passenger I better not be doing that in a car!

In summary: yes, cars can and do provide noticeable advantages over trains and planes in terms of your ability to simply pull over and do something. But they provide noticeable disadvantages in terms of attention and stress, and the need for focus detracts from some of the other feelings of freedom. There's nothing wrong with taking a long roadtrip, but it would be a real blessing if we in the US would provide some greater opportunities to take a traintrip--and of course, there's a reason really long trips are usually by plane.

Immigration and Paris

 Let's start out our series on immigration with the capital of a country that's famous for not really accepting outsiders: Paris, France. For all that I call on the hoary adage that, as Ronald Reagan put it, "you can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman," you can, of course, become a citizen of the French Republic, and before that a permanent resident. But should you want to? Does Paris present itself well as a city for immigrants--and particularly, does it have the urbanist elements that you'd want in a city you might move to?

OK, this one might be pretty straightforward: as consistently one of the ten-most-visited cities by international travelers in the world, Paris certainly has what it takes to draw people there. But what about the infrastructure to actually live there?

Mais oui, as they say.

1. The non-missing middle

Let me start with something important that I will likely say again and again in this series: to my knowledge, no major Western city does not have a housing crisis of some degree. Paris is no exception, and Parisians who read this (if any of them ever do) will no doubt groan when I say that comparatively, the housing stock there is well-designed and relatively plentiful at the level that Americans would call the missing middle. Housing there is not dominated by the skyscrapers of a Vancouver or a New York, but neither is it the sprawling bungalows of a Houston. Rather, there are extensive sections of the city with midrise, dense housing--some even new built, not just historic avenues--that allow for lots of people to live in places with good streetscapes at scale.

This can be historic quarters.

It can also look a great deal more second-half-of-the-20th-century.

The key is that it means more people per square kilometer without giant high-rises, and it means there are places to live in the city. Does it mean it's cheap to live there? Mais non. But it does mean that the city has space, even if that's often filled with people who are also paying high rents.

2. Getting around getting easier

Paris may not be cheap, but it is very, very easy to get around. The Grand Paris Express is making it even easier. And the surrounding region is linked in effectively with the RER (which might help with some of those housing costs since it drops travel time to the city from places with outside-of-the-city rents).

I will never tire of these pictures of the RER in Noisy-le-Sec, but the key to me is that they show how the Parisian transit system goes well beyond what we think of as normal in US transit systems. This empowers immigrant communities. Roughly 30% of Noisy-le-Sec is made up of immigrants, ten percent over that of Paris proper. You can move to parts of the Île-de-France region (the larger region in which Paris is located) and still easily get around without a car and without even having to talk to anyone in French or any other language. Is it far out? No. But there are millions of people in that zone, and that means both the opportunity to find community and the chance to seek out employment, living arrangements, and other practical matters in a less constrained area. 

And that was just one RER line: this very different rolling stock will take you to very different places where you can also find opportunity.

3. Food and drink

Look, I'm not here to talk about gourmet French food. Nous mangeons le cuisine moins cher ici. I'm talking about this:

These are baguette sandwiches, and they are the best--and the cheapest.

Food is substantially cheaper in Paris than in, say, New York City. Heck, food prices are even vaguely similar to Davenport (obviously the housing and other prices may be higher, since Davenport is a cheap place to live in general). Paris has food for you as an immigrant, and you'll be able to afford it and feel like you're integrating at the same time.

This might seem not to be an urbanist consideration, but I'm talking here about the food culture, not a specific restaurant: the idea that this is a city where there is cheap food on many corners (I got that sandwich from a random shop down the block from where I was staying, not a place I Googled to find) and where the urban form is such that you're expected to be able to walk into a corner patisserie or boulangerie and find good, inexpensive bread, pastries, and related foods. That's culture rather than built environment, but it's still urbanism. It's about the kind of city Paris is.

All of this is without mentioning the touristy bits.

Obligatory Eiffel Tower shot.

And while I do think it makes a city a good place to live to have amenities that people want to visit--how often are you actually going to be in the Louvre if you live in Paris?

How often are you going to eat? To take the train to work? 

That's right. What makes Paris a place that can support the immigrant experience isn't the tourism. It's the fact that around all that tourism there's a busy, beating city that you can find a place in.

Now--getting a visa? That's not necessarily simple. But as an urbanist place to live, it's got some major advantages.