Selling Transit

[dougskiles]

Here is an article that continues the discussion we were having yesterday about selling transit.  Pat McCrory, quoted in the article, is Charlotte's mayor:

McCrory understood the value of mass transit, and he encouraged people to bike and walk as well as drive. Many in his own party railed against his support of Charlotte's light rail system, but he didn't waver, and the system has been an early success. How did he help get it done? On Wednesday, he told a group of transit managers in Georgia that selling a rail system to the public requires a combination of dumbing down and offering a big picture.

"Transit and revitalization efforts alike are not individual projects that can be considered finished at any point, he told the group. They're constant and eternal processes, with each project connected to the others, McCrory said.

"And without an overall vision for an area, plus a strategy to achieve it, 'you're wasting your time on the process,' he said.

"When selling that vision to the electorate, planners can't use technical language, McCrory said.

" 'The public does not understand the written word,' he said. 'They want pictures.' "

McCrory said those pictures should show not just shiny new stations, but the blight that might come to corridors that don't take advantage of rail. He also said that for transit systems to succeed, they must be integrated with other developments and have routes that transcend political boundaries.

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/10/2839546/how-to-sell-transit-dumb-it-down.html#ixzz1gPfsOThQ

[JeffreyS]

I like the article.  Speaking of picture the best one is the timeline someone posted here about Charlotte pre and post transit investments. I will try to find it later.  I have been hitched to the MJ selling transit wagon since 2007 and believe we should continue.  Now here is the big but the council was to be commended when they passed the Mobility Fee and they are to be chastised harshly for putting a moratorium on it.  I believe it shows their true colors and exposes that their relationships with their good old boy insider developer friends are more important to them than the progress and well being of this city.