What's next for Cedar Rapids transit?

How do we make bus transportation more helpful to those who use it, and more attractive to those who don't? Ideas abounded at the open house hosted by the Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization this week, in advance of their 2019-2024 transportation plan. Without objecting to any of them, and without regard to resource availability or legal constraint, here are my top priorities:

1. Nighttime service. The last buses leave the downtown Ground Transportation Center at 6:15 p.m. This means it is not available for those who work swing or night shifts, or who might use the bus to take advantage of the city's night life or sporting events. I might start slowly, picking some routes--like the #5, which runs along 1st Avenue--that serve employment centers. But this has always been a glaring omission in city transit service.

2. Mobile ticketing options. The online bus trackers are wondrous--though occasionally they go funky--and should be accompanied with online ticketing. The $3 day passes are great for busy days, and it's great that they can be bought on the bus. But they do require cash, and drivers don't give change, so if I don't have three singles I make other plans. In the past month or so I have bought tickets online for the I-380 express as well as Metra (Chicago suburban commuter rail), and it takes less than a minute to do. Not everyone has mobile access, but for those who do this is a must.

3. Outreach to children and other groups. A common urbanist criticism of suburban-style development is that children can't be as independent as we remember ourselves being. Free bus rides throughout the summer will enable children to visit friends, go to parks or the library, and explore the city on their own. This will, of course, require overcoming a lot of parental fears, so the outreach will have to be sustained and implementation attentive to problems. (Alternatively, parents could ride along. I rode the bus with both my boys when they were young; it was an adventure for them, and more companionable than driving them in the car.)

4. Transit to Work Week. Free rides with heavy promotion, and possibly valuable prizes, on the model of Bike to Work Week? Sounds like a party! The worst that could happen is that regular riders, most of whom probably have monthly passes anyhow, will ride for free; anything else is upside. 

5. Explore Sunday service. Not everyone works Monday-to-Friday, or even Monday-to-Saturday. Also, many of us attend worship services on Sunday. Are there churches that would be willing to contribute some missions money towards Sunday transit service? For one example, the church I currently attend is near downtown, served by both the #3 and #5 lines. It hosts an Kirundi-language service on Sunday afternoons, to which transportation is a weekly challenge for many attendees from the west side of town. How much would the church need to offer to make this happen?

(I didn't rank "increase sidewalks along transit routes," because that shouldn't even be an issue. The picture accompanying the text is from Wiley Boulevard SW. It was not taken this week, because there's not snow on the ground. It doesn't make sense to build sidewalks everywhere, but where we expect pedestrians to be--and why would you have a bus stop unless you expect pedestrians to be there?--they should be an obvious priority. Congratulations to the city, by the way, for already building sidewalks in many parts of town.)

Promoting transit usage in Cedar Rapids is often a thankless task. About 20 years ago, I attended a City Council meeting where the new public relations staffer for Cedar Rapids Transit was introduced. She talked briefly about her plans for the position, such as encouraging downtown workers to bus out to Westdale Mall (which was still a mall back then) on their lunch hours. She probably eventually found out that it's an hour round trip by bus from downtown to Westdale and back, along a maddeningly circuitous route, which would leave time for neither errands nor lunch. I imagine she left the position soon afterwards, and is now writing fake news stories for Russia Today.

Cedar Rapids is small enough that most car trips are short, is festooned with acres of parking much of which is free, and is so sprawled that an efficient transit service is practically impossible to design. Incremental improvements, such as those advertised at the open house, are not too much to ask on behalf of those who rely on the service, not to mention for the city's resilience in the future.

Election 2018 and what happens next

"Young Corn" by Grant Wood (1892-1942). Source: socks-studio.com. Used without permission.

The "rural-urban divide" is a widely-touted way to describe the current trend in American politics, but as appealingly simple as it is, it lacks substance. There's nothing about nearness to corn that makes someone Republican, nor does seeing pavement or high-rise apartment buildings make a person a Democrat.

Democrats made substantial gains in U.S. House elections in 2018, gaining about 40 seats and capturing majority control for the first time since the 2010 elections (and only the third time since the 1994 elections). Their gains actually masked a historically high 8 percentage point in the national popular vote; the national district map still favors Republicans. Democrats had a net loss of two Senate seats, but that could have been a lot worse given where most of the Senate elections were.

2018 U.S. House results (swiped from cnn.com)

Exit polling provided by CNN mostly show continuity in the partisan coalitions that have obtained since the 1980s, with some interesting variations for the Trump era. Nonwhites, especially blacks, remain solidly Democratic, with Asian-Americans voting somewhat more Democratic than Latinx. A number of other demographic trends are seen among whites but not nonwhites: age (younger more Democratic), education (college graduates more Democratic), and religion (less attachment means more Democratic). This probably is also true of other demographic categories that CNN does not break out by race.

Major partisan differences:

white born again or evangelical/not 44 points

gun owners/not 36

white/nonwhite 32

monthly religious attendance/less  21 points

veteran/nonveteran 15

male/female 12

age over/under 44 12

college graduate/not 11

Urban residents voted 69 percent Democratic, suburban 49 percent, rural 42 percent. So the urban/nonurban divide ranks among the larger differences.

As I said, this is pretty similar to the Reagan-era partisan alignment, with college graduates, suburbanites and Asian-Americans shifting Democratic and white non-graduates and rural residents shifting Republican. At the same time, cultural comfort seems to be a factor in where people choose to live (see Bill Bishop, The Big Sort); and economic activity and young professionals have moved "back to the city." America's economic gains in the 2010s have been concentrated in certain places, which are overwhelmingly metropolitan, but far from all cities have seen these benefits.

The resulting divide is not strictly urban vs. rural, but between economically successful and unsuccessful places, overlaid, as American politics inevitably is, by race. As Richard Florida noted in The Rise of the Creative Class, the economic success of a place correlates not only with economic assets but with cultural comfort with diversity (what he called the "Gay-Bohemian Index"). Democrats are drawing votes from nonwhites and from whites who are educated for the 21st century and culturally tolerant. The Republican base is in urban and rural areas which are not economically competitive, where educated young people are leaving. This might explain the strong element of nostalgia in Republican political appeals from Reagan (or even Nixon) on through to Trump. They likely draw from professional groups that are based in resource extraction rather than the knowledge economy. Oil made the Koch Brothers rich; President Trump made whatever money he's made in real estate.

The partisan alignment of government is the mirror image of the situation from 2011-2015, when Democrats held the Presidency and the Senate while Republicans controlled the House. That was a notably unproductive period in U.S. government--featuring as it did the infamous government shutdown--so my best hope for this round is that both parties produce some policy proposals they can argue about in 2020.

(Source: Wikimedia commons)

Whatever the strengths of this analysis nationally, it works pretty well to explain the results in Iowa (for which, alas, we have no exit polls handy). Republican Governor Kim Reynolds was returned to office despite national political winds that were blowing in a Democratic direction. Although Democrats flipped two Republican U.S. House seats, Republicans maintained strong control of both houses of the state legislature, retaining a 54-46 edge in the House despite losing five seats, and actually increasing their Senate edge by three to 32-18. Factors ideosyncratic to individual races aside, this remains a red state for the time being.

But not as red as this map of 2018 results makes it look: an ocean of Republican red with a few islands of Democratic blue! More than half of Iowa's population lives in ten of those 99 counties, which account for 74.5 percent of job growth in this decade, and whose net in-migration balances loss of population in the rest of Iowa.

Nor have the 2010s have not been equally kind to Iowa's ten largest counties:

COUNTY	%DEM VOTE	%GRAD/PROF DEGREES	%WHITE	%COLL GRAD	10-16 JOB GROWTH	NET MIGRATION
JOHNSON (Iowa City)	71.6	24	84	28	12810	in
STORY (Ames)	58.8	19	87	22	4793	in
POLK (D. Moines)	58.2	10	86	29	31048	in
LINN (C. Rapids)	55.6	10	90	26	8131	in
BLKHAWK (Waterloo)	55.0	8	86	24	2635	out
SCOTT (Davenprt)	50.8	11	86	26	6632	in
DUBUQUE (Dubuque)	49.4	9	93	24	5495	in
DALLAS (Waukee)	47.5	12	92	30	17499	in
POTTAW. (C. Bluffs)	41.3	5	95	24	1291	out
WOODBR (Sioux City)	41.1	7	88	25	2310	out

(Source for most of these data: U.S. Bureau of the Census)

Correlations are not perfect, but support for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell is associated with cities where there are more knowledge workers, more nonwhites, and improved economic conditions. Cities that are hurting and whitest supported Reynolds.

What can be done for those areas of the country that face being left behind? Clara Hendrickson and colleagues from the Brookings Institution suggest improving digital skills in lagging area, helping small businesses gain access to capital, extending broadband access to rural areas, and targeting national development assistance to ten potential growth "poles." They also suggest helping those stuck in underperforming areas to relocate (Hendrickson, Muro and Galston 2018). Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith commends the advice of James and Deborah Fallows' book Our Towns to support universities, welcome immigration, and develop public-private partnerships (Smith 2018). For more ideas, see my July piece, cited below.

Even in a Democratic year, voters in Iowa's lagging areas outnumber those in growing areas, and Iowa will have unified Republican control of government for the forseeable future. Statehouse Republicans owe their supporters answers to the problems of our "struggling regions" (Noah Smith's term). These may yet emerge in the next legislative session, after years of playing to the crowd by defunding Planned Parenthood, banning abortion after six weeks, and banning sanctuary cities, while cutting taxes and state services. I'm not hopeful--Reynolds made her final campaign push in the company of over-the-edge U.S. Representative Steve King, who also served as her campaign co-chair--but I will be watching the next legislative session with particular interest.

SEE ALSO:
Paul Krugman, "The New Economy and the Trump Rump," New York Times, 20 November 2018, A23
Erin Murphy, "Is Iowa Not a Presidential Tossup State?" Cedar Rapids Gazette, 19 November 2018
"What is the Future of Iowa's Small Towns?" Holy Mountain, 3 July 2018

E prayeribus unum

How one responds to "Prayer," the installation by artist James Webb currently at the Chicago Art Institute, depends a lot on what you bring to the exhibit. At first the different recordings coming from twelve speakers at the same time are pure cacophony. But what kind of cacophony: chaotic? joyous? competitive? coordinated? futile? 

Then, as one moves around the exhibit, individual voices can be distinguished: some speaking, some chanting, some singing, some in English, some not. A religious studies scholar might be able to identify all of the traditions represented; I am not that scholar, but I can tell you, because I read the curation (see picture at left), Webb records people from multiple traditions at prayer in the city where his art is exhibited. This is the 10th time the work has been exhibited, beginning in his native South Africa in 2000, and the first time in the United States. All those voices you hear at once were recorded in Chicago.

I came to the exhibit with a strong belief that diversity of all kinds can make a community stronger, and that no individual or group can contain all the knowledge the community needs going forward. (This has been one the core principles of this blog project all along.) I have always worshiped in the Christian tradition, and am quite comfortable there, but I have learned lessons and drawn inspiration from other traditions as well. I also think a lot of people have religious feelings that they themselves don't consider religious because they've been taught a more narrow definition of religion.

So when I hear the many voices raised to God (or however they refer to the ultimate reality), I hear pieces of the beautiful human mosaic that is Chicago--or any complex community, really. I hear their yearnings and their hopes and their fears, and I think I hear something of myself in each one. As long as we recognize our common humanity--a big if, given the depressing number of religious wars over the eons--the various bits that each tradition brings to the table adds to the wisdom of the whole community.

We were invited to kneel by the speakers to listen more closely to each prayer, but I found I could hear the chants and the singing just fine. I found myself listening more closely and critically to words spoken in English; I do have a rather hyper-verbal way of relating to the world. The Christian prayers asked, "through Jesus Christ our Lord and savior," for blessings on the whole city, and for peace (and in one case for attendees of the exhibit). I admit to hoping, rather than knowing, that's what the non-English speakers were praying for as well.

All of us can be particular at times, and can see other identities as rivals rather than fellow builders of community. But where each prays for all, the cacophony is productive, joyous, and beautiful. I thus found Webb's piece profoundly moving.

"Prayer" continues at the Art Institute through December 31, 2018.

SEE ALSO: Cynthia G. Lindner, "The Art of Prayer Meets the Prayer of Art," Sightings, 18 October 2018

Put off your shoes from your feet; for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

--EXODUS 3:5 (RSV)

Trails opened, trails in the works, and other Corridor biking news

Cycling in the Corridor is being celebrated as summer turns into fall, with more infrastructure and increased levels of participation, in spite of enduring more than our share of foul weather.

On August 26 the last leg of the Cedar Valley Trail was opened, from downtown Ely to the Johnson County line.

Trail displays and guides were provided by the Linn County Trails Association

Not quite finished: intersection of  Ely and Seven Sisters Roads

Posh new bridge

Where it ends, for now

Eventually, the trail will connect to the Hoover Nature Trail in Johnson County, which extends all the way to the Quad Cities

Access to Lake MacBride State Park and the town of Solon will be via this roundabout:

There was some rain on the ride, inevitably, but not enough to throw it off.

The same cannot be said for the annual Mayors' Bike Ride on Labor Day.

The forecast called for heavy rains with thunder, forcing its cancellation. There was a lot of rain that weekend:

So we had to be content with recalling Labor Days of yore.

A dry and sunny Mayors' Bike Ride in 2015

More rain later in the month both delayed completion and forced postponement of the scheduled September 30 opening of a new stretch of the Grant Wood Trail near Marion. The Cedar River got above flood stage three separate times...

3rd Avenue bridge, 25 September 2018

...forcing closure of some other trails, but unlike 2008 there was no major damage. Phillip Platz, astute urbanist in charge of communications for the Linn County Trails Association, promises a ribbon cutting ceremony and opening ride soon.

There's no questioning public interest in trails, particularly after the extraordinary turnout at a late October forum on how a ped-bike trail included in the Tower Terrace Road project will interface with Interstate 380, where there will be a new exit constructed in the next few years.

Tower Terrace Road will be gradually improved, to accommodate current congestion and anticipated future growth, from Edgewood Road to Route 13.

Given current rates of funding, that will take approximately 30 years to complete! However, the exit off the Interstate is of highest priority and is expected to happen soon.

Current plans call for at-grade crossings across exit ramps.

An alternative proposal is to route the path through a tunnel to avoid cross-traffic.

 
The alternative is somewhat more expensive--maybe $500,000 on top of an $18 million project--but the attendees appeared strongly supportive. I agree... the additional cost is marginal, and would ensure the path got used. It will be a cool way to get from Marion and the northern parts of Cedar Rapids to Wickiup Hill Park, but only if people feel they can safely ford the highway.