Predictability

 A topic I keep coming back to is the idea that good transit is not merely extensive, frequent, or fast--it is, specifically, predictable.

That is: the benefit of car travel is considered by most advocates to be some element of freedom to go where you want when you want. The way to create this freedom for transit users obviously includes extensiveness (get where you want) and frequency (you can go whenever you want), as well as speed (you don't give up a lot more of your time). But it also includes predictability: the legibility to the user of that intersection of extension, frequency, and speed. If I can't tell how to get the transit, where to get the transit, or how to use it to go where I want, I won't use it. I need to be able to predict how my transit experience will go (in a positive sense--if my prediction is that it's gonna suck, being right won't encourage me to take it again).

1. Visible Stops

Now, most major transit agencies in the world have done a pretty good job of making it clear where the transit goes. 

Maps help, especially ones posted publicly near where the transit is.

Visible stations and stops help too (even if no one is coming for these statues anytime soon). A line on a map is great, but not if I can't tell how to get on it.

This goes for bus stops too: a visible shelter or at least a good sized sign helps identify the transit's availability.

I emphasize this because, well, Davenport does a really bad job of it.

This is, in fact, a bus stop--in that it's a corner on a street a bus serves, and in Davenport that means I can get on or off here. But there's literally no signage for it.

Not great for being able to predict if I can use transit here!

2. Visible Lines

You know what's on that transit map besides the stops, though? The lines!

And the lines may not be printed on the ground, just like the first-down line on an NFL broadcast isn't on the field. But there are ways to make it more visible and predictable anyway--just like the markers on the sidelines still tell you where a first down is.

This is, of course, the great advantage of rails: they make the continuity and directions of transit predictable just by looking down.

 But as these lanes in Amsterdam prove, a transit lane can do this without the transit being tracked: buses run on them as well, and they're still predictable lines on the street because of the dedicated lane, even if the vehicle is a bus.

A tunnel can also do this, though only if you're underground to see it--the whole point is that it's not visible aboveground.

We don't use these tracks in Davenport for passengers, but if we did--we'd get that benefit too. Or we could do as the old trams did and slap rails down on River Dr, Mound St, Brady, Harrison, etc.

3. Obvious Interchanges

But it's not enough to know that there's transit: we also need it to be predictable how you'd use that transit to get places. This is one of the things I've mentioned that I think Montréal generally does well:

Note both the predicted times to each station and the well-marked interchanges at Bonaventure, Berri-UQAM, etc. 

Chicago's Loop is a great example of a very obvious interchange point in the system (even if Chicago would, in fact, benefit from more non-downtown transfer points).

And Paris does quite well by running a tramline directly by the front door of a RER station.

Ah, for a world where Davenport's Ground Transportation Center had more ground transportation options...

You could build a great system, and if no one can predict how the pieces work together, it won't function the way you want, no matter how quality an individual piece of it might be. So make your transit more predictable, and let the pieces operate in concert. 

But don't forget that this works best if it's also extensive, frequent, and fast. All of that works together to make a great system go.