What Can We Learn from Efforts to Improve Public Transportation?

Recently, I wrote a blog post about improving analogical reasoning in education. Then, this weekend I was listening to an episode of the 99% Invisible podcast “Missing the Bus”. The episode is an interview with Steven Higashide who wrote the book “Better Buses, Better Cities” about how buses could be improved and, in turn, improve life in cities.  Early in the episode the podcast host, Roman Mars, contrasts the bus with our belief that new technologies will be needed to solve common modern problems such as climate change, equity, and traffic jams. The reality is that if we just made buses a little better, we could put a dent in many of these problems. Throughout this episode, I was struck by how the approach to problems and solutions in the transit world are analogous to education.  Here are a few examples. 

Obsession with Technology

In response to the question, “Why haven’t we embraced buses?” Higashide notes that we are obsessed with technology and innovating our way out of problems. Higashide uses an example from his book to make this point. In 2018 Elon Musk’s company was awarded a contract to build an underground express from the Chicago Loop to O’Hare Airport. The hyperloop would carry pods and cars and deliver 2,000 passengers per hour. This turns out to be the same capacity as the Blue Line that already goes to O’Hare. How often do we end up obsessed with a new technology that is likely to deliver the same or worse results?

Are We Ignoring Existing Technology?

At about 26:50 in the podcast, Roman Mars notes, “One of the things that struck me when talking to Steven is that we have the technology we need to make our cities more livable and more sustainable, the problem is that we just aren’t making the best use of that technology. “Higashide responds, “We talk so much about technological innovation in transportation when the real innovation that is needed is innovation in governance or innovation in the public process so that we can build the transit projects much more quickly.” This moment resonated with me. Whether it is personalized learning, blended learning, online learning, or one to one laptop programs we seem ready to buy-in into technology-driven solutions that are new as opposed to adapting the technology we have built and already exists. Would we be better off improving and adapting existing systems (e.g. classrooms with teachers interacting with students daily)? 

Tactical Transport

Higashide mentions this process for testing ideas and speeding up the process of change called “tactical transit”.  This is a process of putting out some cones (or planters) or painting new lines to measure how a new bus or bike lane performs. Cities are using this flexible design process and using the results of the tests to build momentum for changes (or to not make a change). There is a great blog post about the different ways “tactical transport” has been deployed to learn what might work to improve the efficiency and the experience of transportation. If we deployed a “tactical transit” approach in our schools we would be running multiple short experiments to see what ideas work to improve student outcomes or experience. Importantly, we would be measuring – testing our hypotheses or validating our assumptions using measurement. 

Shying Away from Responsibility?

Roman Mars asks why all he reads about in the transportation sector is new fancy things. Higashide’s response is that the people responsible for improving transportation is that “they’re shying away from their own responsibility and they’re hoping that the private market is going to solve the problem.”  Unfortunately, what the private market seems to be delivering is boutique projects (e.g. Chicago Hyperloop) for the rich and powerful.  Are we shying away from our responsibility to improve the quality of education in our schools?

The Work is Never Done

One of the points that Roman Mars makes is that one of the traps we fall into is that we need a solution to the problem of quality transportation. When the reality is that the work is hard and requires us to adopt a mindset of this is ongoing.  Here is the quote:

“I feel like there’s this idea that there’s this technological Holy Grail which will solve the problem and therefore, then the problem is solved. Whereas this isn’t a problem like that. This is just a problem of maintenance and care and thinking about the city and what your constituency is. It just seems like it’s a different mindset than the Silicon Valley mindset.”

This statement from Mars really hit home. It feels like we are waiting for personalized learning, competencies, or more technology to solve our education problems. As if they will go away if we select and implement properly. The reality is probably closer to what Jim Collins says on the first page of his book “Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer” – the real answer to success is discipline. Perhaps, what we need is more discipline, more public champions, and more investment in improving our existing system.

In discussing how we might improve transit Steven Higashide notes that we need to acknowledge the role of the public sector in creating institutions and agencies that are strong and responsive with the capacity to manage a pipeline of improvement projects.  This will require hiring “people with skills and undoing this hollowing out of the public sector.”