Para-transit in New York City

In a rare moment when my brain wasn't being eaten by my baby, I managed to not only download but read the Open Planning Project's ambitious plan for solved New York's traffic woes. "Using Information Technology to Achieve a Breakthrough in Transportation in New York City" is a brief outline of how "smart para-transit" could make things easier on everyone who uses NYC streets — which is to say, everyone.

The idea behind para-transit is to use technology to organize a variety of cars, buses, and vans to move people. Unlike the mass transit we know and love, para-transit vehicles don't run on predetermined routes. "Instead, a central computer collects information about requested trips, figures out how best to group passengers, and dynamically dispatches to service the required trips."

Take, for example, the group of people who want to travel from Tribeca to Montclair, NJ around 5:30 PM on a Tuesday. There might be a dozen people who plan to make this trip by car in a 15 minute period. These dozen people might require 8 separate cars for their trips. Instead of 8 separate cars, one large van could fit 12 people and consolidate these 8 vehicles into just one vehicle. The van could make 3 quick stops in Tribeca, pick up all 12 people and head directly to Montclair. Once in Montclair, the van could stop at a couple of central transit points, and then continue directly to some passengers houses.

A commenter on Streetsblog, where the paper was originally posted, pointed out that a simple way of executing this sort of plan would be to enlist taxis (already wired centrally with GPS) and to switch to a zone system, allowing cabs to pick up more than one customer at a time. (They've been doing this in New Jersey for ages and it works well, and it's relatively simple, tech-wise.) On the downside, cab users will need to share rides. On the upside, they'll be more likely to catch a cab when it's raining, rides would be cheaper, and there'd be less traffic.

Anyway, it's an interesting idea and hopefully it's help get pols thinking up new ways to solve traffic congestion and MTA shortfalls.