By Jarett Walker
The first time I was aware of Walker’s work was when I came across his blog that outlines his experience as a public transportation planner and his principles for sound public transportation design. His blog has gained much attention from planners and riders alike to comment on his observations of public transportation systems around the world.
Walker grew up in Australia and was involved in multiple development projects across North America. Human Transit was written with a North American and Australian perspective with the goal of converting car-oriented cities into transit-oriented cities. He advocates strongly for frequency over speed as the largest factor contributing to travel time and proposes multi-faceted solutions to achieve this both in his book and on his blog.
With the exception of Singapore, nearly all of the examples in the book come from either North America or Australia, with little mention of public transportation systems in Europe and East Asia, many of which are highly successful. While his examples are clear and easy to understand, it wouldn’t hurt to put in more examples outside the English-speaking world.
The book is a great introduction for anyone looking to be more informed about public transportation planning and especially useful for informing constituents with a government seeking to improve public transport access. It provides a comprehensive overview of the factors of consideration so voters have fundamental knowledge before public consultations.
Human Transit includes observations on the physical design of public transportation, its daily operation, and inter-agency connections across geographical administrative lines. It may interest Walker to follow up with another book exploring funding models and political considerations such as “Rail plus Property” in Hong Kong, how the “SwissPass” fare card is valid across 120 transport agencies in Switzerland, and inter-agency cooperation within Berlin between the BVG, DB Regio, and the DB S-Bahn Berlin.
