Thanks for this, Jennifer. Lovely - just Tweeted it. Warm wishes,
Jack Jack Martin Leith Co-Creation Consultant Bristol, United Kingdom Mobile: 07582 598548 (+44 7582 598548) <-- *New!* [email protected] Skype: jackmartinleith Twitter: @jackmartinleith www.jackmartinleith.com On 8 March 2011 18:47, Jennifer Hurley <[email protected]> wrote: > The article below has a great example of a self-organizing system at work! > > Jennifer Hurley > __________________________ > HURLEY~FRANKS & ASSOCIATES > 1500 Walnut St STE 504 | Philadelphia, PA 19102 > p: 215-988-9440 | f: 215-988-9441 | c: 267-971-4598 > [email protected] | http://www.hfadesign.com > Certified WDBE through PA UCP, City of Philadelphia OEO, and NJ UCP > > * > http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/slugging-the-peoples-transit-28068/ > ** > > Slugging — The People’s Transit > * > Workers who have come down from the surrounding high-rise offices begin to > line up on a sidewalk in downtown Arlington, Va., across the Potomac from > the nation’s capital, about 3:30 in the afternoon. They stand in a perfect > queue, iPods and newspapers in hand, and they look, by all indications, like > they’re waiting for the bus. > > Public transit never shows. But, eventually, a blue Chrysler Town & Country > does. The woman behind the wheel rolls down her window and yells a kind of > call-and-response. > > “Horner Road?” > > “Horner Road?” repeats the first woman in line. > > “Horner Road!” > > And two women get in the van, heading, presumably, for Horner Road. Several > more cars pull up: a Ford Explorer, a Toyota Camry, a Saturn minivan. Each > collects a pair of passengers and pulls out past the intersection for the > on-ramp onto State Route 110, which leads three miles to the south, past the > Pentagon and onto Interstate 395/95 and its glorious 28 miles of > uninterrupted, controlled-access, high-occupancy vehicle lanes. > > The queue of cars eventually backs up around the corner, and the line of > passengers on the sidewalk ebbs. In a few minutes, the balance shifts again. > Within half an hour, nearly 50 cars will have come through, capped by a > dusty Ford F-250 pickup truck. > > “I don’t care where we go,” yells the driver. “I just need two people!” > > And off the three go toward the highway — and the suburbs — complete > strangers, with not the least concern for personal safety, trying to shave > 20 or 30 minutes, maybe more, off their afternoon trip home. “Peo*ple are > coo*perati*ng … to* commute?” says Marc Oliphant, underscoring the novelty > of what is going on here. “It’s like the opposite of road rage!” > > Oliphant has brought a dozen local and federal transportation officials to > the sidewalk here to gawk at the commuters. No one would believe this sight > unseen: People here have created their own transit system using their > private cars. On 13 other corners, in Arlington and the District of > Columbia, more strangers — Oliphant estimates about 10,000 of them every day > — are doing the same thing: “slugging.” > > Their culture exists almost nowhere else. San Francisco has a similar > casual-carpooling system, and there’s a small one in Houston. But that’s it. > Even in D.C., slugging exists along only one of the city’s many arteries, > I-95 and 395, where the nation’s first HOV lanes were completed in 1975. > > Every morning, these commuters meet in park-and-ride lots along the > interstate in northern Virginia. They then ride, often in silence, without > exchanging so much as first names, obeying rules of etiquette but having no > formal organization. No money changes hands, although the motive is hardly > altruistic. Each person benefits in pursuit of a selfish goal: For the > passenger, it’s a free ride; for the driver, a pass to the HOV lane, and > both get a faster trip than they would otherwise. Even society reaps > rewards, as thousands of cars come off the highway. > > “To me,” marvels Oliphant, a facilities planner with the Navy, “it’s an > illustration of the ideal for government.” > > He’s drawn to slugging as a creative vision that would begin to ease the > eternal mess of urban gridlock. Society always reaches first for the > infrastructure fix — the costly highway expansion, the new route for the > metro rail. But what if government could just nudge more people to do what > they’ve done here, creating their own commuting cure within the existing > system? Federal Highway Administration studies suggest that free-flowing > traffic can be restored on a clogged highway simply by removing 10 percent > of its cars. > > To get more drivers into a self-sustaining casual carpool, though, > officials would have to confront slugging’s built-in complication. They’d > have to figure out how to stimulate slugging elsewhere without spoiling its > defining feature: Government is not involved, or at least it looks not to > be. > > Slugging — The People’s Transit from Miller-McCune on Vimeo. > > Oliphant, a trim and animated 30-year-old, spent six months on loan from > the Navy last year thinking about just this question as a Federal Highway > Administration transportation policy fellow. He began studying slugs three > years earlier for a master’s thesis at Virginia Tech. (“Slugging is not most > interesting for what it can teach about carpooling,” he wrote, but rather > for the trust among strangers it requires and its leaderless organization. > “Slugging is a contradiction to the everyday culture of America.”) > > “Whenever I meet someone new, all I have to do is ask about their commute, > which I’m often very interested in,” he says. “And I get an immediate > emotional response. Especially for people in urban areas, it’s like this > universal problem. No one likes how they get to work.” > > Including him. He used to bike from his home in Virginia to his office at > the Navy Yard in Southeast Washington. But last summer was even hotter than > the usual D.C. steam bath, and his new office had no shower. His wife tried > dropping him off by car (20 minutes door to door), with a return trip home > at night by metro (1 hour, 10 minutes door to door). On mornings when > Oliphant uses public transit, he gets on a bus about a block from his house, > rides to the local metro stop, takes a subway into the city, transfers once, > then walks 10 minutes on the other end to his office. In more than an hour, > he covers about six miles. > > > The benefits of slugging: For the passenger, it's a free ride; for the > driver, a pass to the HOV lane, and both get a faster trip than they would > otherwise. (Monica Lopossay) > > But a driver who hops on the HOV from Horner Road, 23 miles south of the > city, can cover that distance in about 30 minutes. > > “The way the entire transportation system in this country is set up is to > support people traveling by their own car,” he says. “So parking is > subsidized. The incentive with lots of different laws and programs is to > drive as much as possible.” > > In America, he says, cars have become an extension of houses. Most people > would no sooner think to let a stranger into the back seat than they would > let the same stranger into their living rooms. Americans drive cars > everywhere because gas relatively cheap (half what it costs in Europe), > because > only 6 percent of the interstate highway system requires tolls, because > insurance rates are unrelated to how many miles people drive. We pay for the > land we live on, but we expect the parking spot out front to come free of > charge. The federal government has lately encouraged drivers with tax breaks > to buy, variously: a new car, a hybrid or clean-diesel vehicle, a truck or > SUV weighing more than 6,000 pounds, or any upgrade from a “clunker.” > Then, regardless of what we drive, the IRS invites lucrative tax deductions > for work travel, now at 50 cents a mile. > > Go ahead, all the signs (and car ads) seem to suggest: Buy your own car — > and ride in it alone! > > “I think your average Joe or Jane who doesn’t know anything about > transportation thinks things are the way they are because that’s what > society wants,” Oliphant says glumly. “And that’s not really the case.” > > What if, instead of one bus with a capacity of 50 that came along every 30 > minutes, five cars came along every few minutes, each with a capacity to > carry five people? Looked at broadly, *Ol*iphant says, slugging is a kind > of public transit, because public subsidies pay to pave and restrict the HOV > lanes on which slugging relies. > > What the people using HOV lanes really want, apparently, is not to enjoy > their own company in a stylish and spacious single-occupancy vehicle. People > who become slugs just want to get to work and home to dinner as painlessly > as possible. > > In late July, Oliphant organized a symposium on slugging in a conference > room of the Arlington County Commuter Services office. The topic had been, > until now, a fringe curiosity, largely ignored by local officials and > transportation academics. The few paying attention had never talked to each > other, but the meeting drew three dozen people: a local politician, a > researcher from the University of Maryland, officials from the district and > staffers from the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Federal > Highway Administration. > > Oliphant introduced them all to David LeBlanc, a retired Army officer best > described as a folk hero to the slugging community. > > “This guy has basically been running a small public transit system for the > last 10 years!” Oliphant said, making LeBlanc blush. He is frequently in the > awkward position of* exp*laining that he doesn’t lead the slugs. Slugs > organize themselves. > > When LeBlanc moved to the area in the mid-1990s, slugging was already > entrenched. It was born alongside the I-395 HOV in the 1970s. According to > the slugs’ creation story, drivers quickly realized they could get people in > their cars and qualify for the new lanes by poaching waiting passengers from > bus stops. Bitter bus drivers are credited with coining the term “slug,” > originally a derogatory reference that has been amiably reappropriated. > > The first organized slug line is thought to have formed in the parking lot > of Bob’s Big Boy restaurant, now a Shoney’s, in Springfield, Va. Its > destination — as with most early slug lines — was the largest single > employment center in the country: the Pentagon. There are 25,000 people who > work there, and the site is a hub for two underground Metro lines and > exponentially more bus routes. > > LeBlanc moved to town from Missouri, where he drove four minutes to work > each morning and parked in a spot right out front. A friend in Washington > warned him. “He said one of the biggest issues in D.C. is where you’re going > to live and how you’re going to commute,” LeBlanc says. “A lot of people, > they try to figure out the commute first.” > > The friend suggested slugging. LeBlanc balked at the idea. For several > weeks, he rode the bus 25 miles from Woodbridge, catching it each morning in > the same commuter lot where strangers were hopping into each others’ cars. > Oliphant often wonders about what pushes people into that position for the > first time. > > For LeBlanc, it was a morning in the winter of 1996. > > “The light bulb went off,” he says. “Here I am standing in the rain, in > February, it’s really cold, I’m waiting for a mode of transportation that’s > going to get me to work slower and cost me money. And I could just walk > across the street, and maybe that would get me to work faster, easier. Let > me just try it this one time; give it a try.” > > Of course, he never went back. Cars in the HOV lane regularly travel above > the speed limit through a corridor where the average speed during > congestion is 14 miles an hour. Once you’ve been in that lane, your whole > quality of life changes. > > LeBlanc slugged to the Pentagon for months, using the subway to hop two > stops north to his office in Rosslyn. Eventually, he learned there was a > slug line there, too. Up to that time, the slugging culture had sustained > itself for 20 years entirely by word of mouth. You could only learn about > the system from people inside it, and even after you joined a particular > slug line, you might not know about others. > > LeBlanc decided slugs needed a book, one that would identify all the lines > and the unwritten rules for how to use them. In 199*9, he self-published > 1,000 copies of Slugging: The Commu*ting Alternative for Washington, D.C. > (Today, a “collectible” signed copy sells on Amazon for $88.65.) “I wrote > this book,” he explains in an introduction, “because I don’t want others to > have to learn about slugging the way I did … through the school of hard > knocks.” But he put his book out of business with its corresponding we > bsite. > > A decade later, slug-lines.com is the hive of community wisdom. LeBlanc > posts a code of etiquette, and the denizens have their message boards > where they swap tales of all who violate it. The rules are intricate, if > unenforceable: Passengers don’t speak unless spoken to; no talk of religion, > politics or sex; no cell phones, no money offered, no smoking; no asking to > change the radio station or to adjust the thermostat; and never, ever leave > a female slug waiting in line alone. Also frowned upon is something called > “body snatching” — cruising a parking lot for passengers to avoid waiting in > the orderly first-come, first-served car queue. And, it should go without > saying, no one wants to watch you put on your makeup or eat your Egg > McMuffin. > > One of the more curious slugging behaviors does not appear on LeBlanc’s > list: Most cars pull up to a slug line and, regardless of its length, pick > up two passengers — and only two. > > Jim Cech, who also attended the symposium, gets agitated about the > Pentagon parking lot. He pulls out a legal notepad and begins to sketch a > diagram: Here are the bus bays, the parking spots, the police directing > traffic. There are also eight slugging queues at the Pentagon, heading to > more than 15 destinations. The scene is chaotic and not, as Cech fumes, as > efficient as it could be. > > “Single points of failure drive me crazy,” he says. > > To improve the slugging situation at the Pentagon, last year Cech started a > side business in his basement. He has been driving slugs for nearly 20 years > and figured he could shave a few more minutes off his commute with a sign > mounted to the roof of his car, instantly communicating his destination. > Currently, each driver must negotiate out the window with each potential > passenger to find the right match. Cech’s business, RUGoingMyWay, would > eliminate those interactions. > > He found a company in China to produce his acrylic signs, another in Canada > to make the roof-mount magnets, an outlet in Florida to print the stickers, > and a webmaster in India to host his site. > > “It’s become an international business,” he jokes, “all designed to help me > get to work faster!” > > Cech’s labor, like LeBlanc’s, speaks to a key element of the system: Absent > any real organization, slugging thrives on the compulsion of individuals who > are extremely interested in finding small efficiencies. This is, not > coincidentally, what Cech also does by day as an engineering consultant > working on naval radars. (Like LeBlanc, he is also retired military.) > > “My day job is trying to eke out seconds and miles and bytes,” he says from > his office near the Navy Yard. “In order for the system I’m working on to be > more effective, the radar’s got to search quicker, the missile’s got to fly > straighter, the time to solve the solution has got to go quicker, the data > rate has got to be more efficient. The errors have got to be reduced. It’s > the same kind of thing, trying to address a systems problem.” > > He explains that slugs are, above all, motivated by time saved, not money > pocketed — and certainly not by any regard for the environment. A Prius is a > rare sight pulling into a slug line. Those ostensibly eco-conscious drivers > don’t need slugs to reach a three-person HOV threshold; hybrid owners in > Virginia are eligible for a special clean-fuel license plate that gives them > a free pass into the HOV. > > “Lots of people will pay money for the gas, they’ll pay the money for the > tolls,” Cech says. Some of them will even pay to risk the HOV as a > single-occupancy vehicle. The first infraction costs $150, and it quickly > escalates to $1,000. “The thing you can’t buy,” Cech says, “is time.” > > He concedes that he’s not likely to recoup in minutes saved in the Pentagon > parking lot all the hours he has invested in his basement business. He took > on the project after retiring as the president of his homeowners > association. RUGoingMyWay has become, in place of that responsibility, > something of a personal challenge. > > Cech’s understanding of the psychology of slugging mirrors one of the > startling findings of Oliphant’s thesis. Oliphant surveyed 284 participants > and asked them, among other things, what they liked least about slugging. > Only 31 people mentioned “riding with strangers.” In the three-decade > history of the activity, there has not been a single known incidence of > violence or crime. When safety was cited as a concern, slugs worried about > safe drivers, not personal attacks. > > The homogeneity of Washington’s work force may play a role in this casual > acceptance of strangers in cars. With so many federal employees and military > personnel, people here even look alike, sporting uniform haircuts, black > briefcases and government IDs. “If you’re a government employee or in the > military, you’re taught ‘the group,’ not individualism,” suggests Donald > Vankleeck, a civilian on his way to Bolling Air Force Base one morning in > September at 80 miles an hour. “So it’s nothing to get in a stranger’s car. > You may have been all over the world serving with people whose first names > you never knew.” > > Where apprehension does exist, Cech recasts it in oddly bureaucratic terms: > “It’s not fear for safety; it’s fear for time,” he says. “Are you going to > be held hostage to someone else’s agenda by riding with them?” > > What if a driver swings by the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through before getting > on the highway? > > The casual-carpooling system that thrives across the country in San > Francisco betrays any notion that slugging could exist only in Washington. > The Bay Area network grew up in similarly organic fashion in the 1970s, > although more as a response to public transit service disruptions and rising > gas prices. > > Today, slugging exists on the HOV corridor on Interstate 80 between the > East Bay and, across the Bay Bridge, San Francisco. In addition to time > savings, commuters scored an additional advantage: Most cars crossing the > Bay Bridge westbound into the city paid a $4 toll. Carpools passed through > for free — until last summer. > > On July 1, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission changed the toll > structure in a way that dramatically disrupted the local slugging ecosystem. > Now, everyone must pay a toll to cross the Bay Bridge. Three-person carpools > owe $2.50, which must be paid through an electronic transponder usable only > in the HOV lane. Everyone else pays a variable rate — $6 per car during rush > hour and $4 during the off-peak times. Carpools without the transponder must > stop and pay the full rate, in cash, at a toll booth. > > “Despite the fact we had all this messaging — we were trying to talk about > it for months leading up to July 1 — people still just didn’t get it,” says > Susan Heinrich, the commission’s rideshare and bicycling coordinator. > Local news stations filmed bewildered drivers pulling into the wrong toll > lanes and trying to back out of them, then waving cash at automated > transponders. > > Back in the East Bay commuter lots, where casual carpools form each > morning, more confusion ensued. The new tolls still give carpools crossing > the bridge a financial incentive, but the existence of any toll at all where > once none existed has dislodged a central tenet of slugging: No money > changes hands. Without tolls, slugging is a perfectly equal exchange > between riders and drivers. > > Since July 1, the discussion board at ridenow.org — the West Coast > equivalent of David LeBlanc’s cyberhub — has been dominated by hundreds of > comments on the topic of who pays for the toll. Should passengers each offer > up a dollar? Does the burden lie with the driver or the rider to broach the > issue? Should drivers who expect a donation advertise that in a window sign? > The debate has thrust the whole premise of slugging into question: Who, > after all, is providing the service here? > > “Certainly the contentiousness that exists here on the discussion board > must carry over into our carpools in the morning,” one commenter laments. > “This is not good for the community.” > > “We don’t know exactly how all of this is going to play out yet,” Heinrich > says. Transit officials did know, however, that one month after the toll’s > implementation, carpooling was down 26 percent on all area bridges. Heinrich > suspects that the community will eventually settle into a détente, with the > driver paying the toll. Drivers still earn a discount thanks to the added > bodies. And, most important, they still reap the time savings on the HOV. > > The toll crisis, however, highlights the delicate balance of interests > essential for a slugging ecosystem to exist — and why this activity thrives > in so few places. In Oliphant’s view, HOV-4 — that is, a requirement that a > car have four occupants to drive in the high-occupancy vehicle lane — > doesn’t work, but HOV-3 does. HOV-3 lends a sense of security in numbers > that HOV-2 never could. The lanes, preferably separated by physical barrier > from the rest of traffic, must be long enough for time savings to accrue. > The fines for violating them must be steep enough to force compliance. > Parallel public transit must exist as a reliable backup. And employment > nodes must be situated just so, creating dense, communal urban epicenters > that draw workers from across suburbia. > > Back on the East Coast, Gabriel Ortiz, the transportation demand management > coordinator for Alexandria, has been trying to do what no municipal official > has done in the area’s slugging history — create a slug line from scratch, > artificially. Washington’s slug lines have expanded over the years, always > in response to the demand of the community and with the initiative of some > of its members. > > But slugs have never had a government body create a new line for them, and > the proposition entails both logistical and philosophical dilemmas. LeBlanc, > whom Ortiz enlisted as a consultant to the project, warned that he would > have to achieve just the right balance of drivers and passengers in the > experiment’s first phase to make the new line stick. Downtown Alexandria > isn’t located immediately off the HOV, as destinations in Arlington and the > district are. So Ortiz was toying with the idea of temporary perks, maybe > Starbucks gift cards, to incentivize people where slugging’s natural > conditions don’t already exist. > > Once a slug himself, Ortiz knew he’d also have to contend with the > community’s deep distaste for meddling. Many slugs told Oliphant that they > thought any type of intervention — the very idea Oliphant is devoted to > encouraging in urban areas outside Washington — would “ruin” the system. > (Cech points out that there is an irony here, or perhaps just a depressing > commentary on the state of government competence: Many of the slugging > proponents who abhor government involvement work, well, for the government.) > > “Slugging is its own thing, and I don’t want to have a heavy hand in saying > ‘Here’s City Hall doing this!’” Ortiz says. “We want to keep things kind of > low-key.” > > Chris Hamilton, the Arlington County Commuter Services bureau chief, > understands this better than anyone. Sitting in the 11th-floor office where > he hosted Oliphant’s symposium two months earlier, he confesses that > Arlington has been quietly funding LeBlanc’s website with an annual $10,000 > grant. For 10 years. The site doesn’t disclose the connection, and Hamilton > seldom does. > > “It’s not public knowledge because we don’t want people to know; it works > fine the way it is — that people think it’s just this little slugging > community,” he says. “The slugging community has always had that idea about > themselves, that this is their own thing, and they’ve created it, and they > don’t need anybody else to muck it up.” > > The $10,000 is not much in Arlington’s $8 million commuter services budget. > A model for urban smart growth atop a public transit corridor, the city has > 50 people who work in this office trying to prod residents and commuters > into alternative transportation. The city promotes the Metro, carpooling, > bike lanes and walkable development. > > Some officials continue to harbor the suspicion that slugging siphons > riders — and fares — from public transit (and not from single-occupancy > vehicles). But Hamilton says he doesn’t care how people get to the city, as > long as they don’t drive. He also shakes off the suggestion that a city > takes on legal liability the moment it encourages people to ride in cars > with strangers. If the city also promotes buses and bike lines, and someone > is injured using those, is Arlington at fault? > > “Slugging is kind of like a dream come true for someone like Chris > Hamilton,” Oliphant says. “His job is to give people information, to > basically convince them to do anything other than drive their own car. This > is like a miracle to him, because he has to spend all this time and energy > going, ‘Here’s the bus, here’s how you do it!’ In slugging, people are > lining up on their own to do it; you don’t have to do a thing.” > > Oliphant always chuckles at slugs’ insistence that government stay out of > the way. The whole system wouldn’t work if it weren’t for a crucial official > outlay: If law enforcement didn’t police the HOV lanes, there would be no > incentive for scofflaws to stay out of it, and no time savings for the > carpoolers who go so far out of their way to get in. > > Government is also responsible for the free, sprawling park-and-ride lots > that dot the I-95 corridor, several of which have flyovers directly onto the > HOV. Government is, of course, also responsible for designating the carpool > lanes. In short, it has had a hand in creating every element of > infrastructure that gives rise to slugging in the first place. At the > Pentagon and in Arlington, officials have even put up signs for each > slug-line destination (“Horner Road,” “Tackett’s Mill”). > > “There are more creative ways to generate beneficial behaviors than the > direct heavy-handed ways,” Oliphant says. “I see it as: Give people lots of > choices, subsidize the beneficial ones and tax the non-beneficial ones.” > > This idea resonates increasingly as the funding for heavy-handed > transportation solutions — road expansions, for example — dries up, and as > the available space to construct them in dense urban areas disappears. > Transportation officials could work with what they have, identifying more > HOVs, or converting existing HOV-2s into HOV-3s. They could open more > carpool lots in collar counties and build rain shelters to accommodate > waiting carpool passengers in the city. > > The district is now contemplating this last option in a bid to relocate > slugs off of 14th Street, a congested north-south thoroughfare through the > city (this, after an outbreak of moving violations incurred the wrath of the > slug community). District officials have now smartly offered to solicit > community input through LeBlanc’s website and have held several meetings > with the slugs. > > “Ten, 11 years ago when I first got involved, nobody from government would > even talk to you about it,” LeBlanc says. “The dynamics have changed a lot > over the years.” > > Heinrich and Susan Shaheen, a transportation researcher at the University > of California, Berkeley, suspect the change has a lot to do with new > technology. With the ubiquity of smart phones, real-time ridesharing — a > close cousin of the casual carpool — suddenly has much greater appeal to > transportation officials and academics. Theoretically, a driver with a GPS > application could spot passengers standing on any street corner in the > city. > > Several companies are already deploying pilot programs, although the > arrival of proprietary smart phone technology brings an added complication. > Firms are testing micro-payments between driver and passenger (some of which > companies would skim for profit), criminal background checks and reward > systems. > > But all of those ideas make slugging appear that much more elegant in its > simplicity. The system is location-based, not data-driven. You don’t have to > tell anyone a thing about yourself — only where you’re heading. And > ultimately, personal goals align with the group dynamic in a rare exception > to the principle that we often pursue our own interests at the expense of > someone else’s (or at the expense of society or the environment). > > “It’s like anarchy or chaos, but it actually works,” Oliphant says, road-te > *sting the catchphrase that might carry this idea els*e*where. “It > actually works!”* > * * ========================================================== > [email protected] ------------------------------ To > subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of > [email protected]: > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about > OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
