{"id":324,"date":"2014-09-26T14:13:21","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T19:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/?p=324"},"modified":"2014-09-28T08:53:56","modified_gmt":"2014-09-28T13:53:56","slug":"improving-public-transportation-and-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/infrastructure\/improving-public-transportation-and-access\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Public Transportation and Access"},"content":{"rendered":"

5 Recommendations for the City of Portland relevant to infrastructure:<\/p>\n

1. The parking situation in downtown Portland is not great, especially during the winter when snow removal blocks off portions of streets. Could we come up with a way to improve upon parking?<\/p>\n

2. The public transportation system stinks; the buses run sporadically and there is little to no signage or mention of how the system works.<\/p>\n

3. Can we create some kind of infrastructure (combined with tourist attractions) that will make tourism in winter more accessible?<\/p>\n

4. There seems to be a large divide between the local suburbs (or even just more residential areas of the actual city of Portland) and the downtown area. Can we adjust the transportation system between these areas to help link them to downtown Portland?<\/p>\n

5. Maps placed around Portland would be very helpful to orient tourists (and even residents) to Portland geography. There are very few maps around the downtown area and the ones that exist are specifically in Old Port; maps placed in areas of Portland would be beneficial to people navigating the city by foot or bike who do not have GPS access.<\/p>\n

When I walked around downtown Portland last Sunday for the field trip, the most surprising lack of infrastructure to me was the absence of a practical public transportation system. We walked around Portland for approximately 3 hours and saw so few buses pass by that we did not realize there was a public transportation system. Professor Gieseking even gave us an example of how spotty the bus service is in Portland; she explained how the bus is supposed to run every 30 minutes to the airport, but often is late or does not show up at all. While I do believe that Portland is quite a walkable city, the lack of a functional public transportation system makes it difficult for residents and visitors to access different parts of the city. I also believe that a better transportation system in downtown Portland as well as the greater Portland area would, to a certain degree, alleviate issues with seasonal access to Portland.<\/p>\n

If Portland were more accessible to people without cars, I believe it would become a larger tourism hub in New England. I realized this from my experiences in Portland as a Bowdoin student last year; I found it difficult to go to Portland without using Bowdoin\u2019s shuttle\/taxi agreement because I did not have a car on campus. The Amtrak Downeaster and the Concord Coach Lines bus do not stop in downtown Portland, making it very difficult for people to access the city without either having a car or spending exorbitant amounts of money on taxis. I believe that if there were more ways for people to access the downtown area from neighboring suburbs or even from farther away, Portland would have less of an issue with seasonal tourism.<\/p>\n

What I find very interesting about public transportation in Portland is that it is not an issue discussed in City Council meetings. I have browsed all of the minutes and agendas from meetings in the last three months, and none has mentioned public transportation. The July meetings mentioned the \u201cPortland Area Transportation System,\u201d but on closer look, the discussions in this category were only about funding for road repair and traffic lights {1}. It seems slightly ridiculous to me that representatives in Portland can be unhappy about things like the lack of winter tourism when they have not figured out ways to make the city more accessible at all times of the year. I do not think Portland is necessarily ready to become a \u201csmart\u201d city along the lines of cities discussed in Adam Greenfield\u2019s \u201cAgainst the smart city\u201d because it not only lacks the financial support to overhaul its technology but it also has a certain New England charm that could and most likely would be compromised by large-scale changes. While Portland could probably use a transportation app and a new bus map (see below) to help residents and tourists with transportation around Portland, I am not sure if Portland could benefit from a major change in transportation infrastructure, as a major change could potentially reshape the city and people\u2019s perceptions of Portland. This made me think about how even though I am in support of certain aspects of smart infrastructure, I do agree with some of Greenfield\u2019s points. Greenfield discusses how implementing smart technology in cities is often assuming that \u201cthere is one and only one universal and transcendently correct solution to each identified individual or collective human need\u201d {2}. Humans are not perfect and cannot live in an entirely regulated world. I believe that drastically changing something like the public transportation system in Portland into a specific, technologically smart system would be trying to achieve a robotic, futuristic perfection that does not exist in the culture of Portland. However, I do think that creating tangible change through a transportation app and a phased-in reworking of the transportation system would be highly beneficial to residents and visitors of Portland.<\/p>\n

\"\"
While from the map it seems that Portland has a wide-reaching bus system, maps are nowhere to be found around downtown Portland and buses are rarely seen passing by {3}.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

{1} Portland City Council. “Regular City Council Meeting Agenda.” Portland City Agenda Center. http:\/\/portlandmaine.gov\/AgendaCenter\/ViewFile\/Agenda\/07212014-479?html=true (accessed September 24, 2014).<\/p>\n

{2} Greenfield, Adam. Against the smart city<\/i>. New York City: Do projects, 2013.\u00a0Kindle loc. 432.<\/p>\n

{3} “Main Map.” Greater Portland Transit District. http:\/\/gpmetrobus.net\/index.php\/main-map (accessed September 24, 2014).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Recommendations for the City of Portland relevant to infrastructure: 1. The parking situation in downtown Portland is not great, especially during the winter when snow removal blocks off portions of streets. Could we come up with a way to improve upon parking? 2. The public transportation system stinks; the buses run sporadically and there … Continue reading Improving Public Transportation and Access<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infrastructure","category-post-2-from-policy-to-recommendation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p50q0U-5e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/digital-computational-studies-2430-fall-2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}