Want to Expand Arts in Sarasota?

Virginia Hoffman wrote (actually continues to write) impassioned pleas regarding support for the arts that is on par with other efforts.   In the June 16^thedition of SRQ Daily (subscribe here) she introduces the concept of the Cultural Stadium – hoping to elevate the arts among the power and money brokers in town by talking in sports metaphors.   Bingo Card from Bike Jax (dot org)

Linking arts to sports is one way to go about it, but there is another game, so to speak, where art is taking center field.  To whit:

• The Project for Public Spaces has a new effort called “Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper” in response to planning fatigue where the patience with endless planning runs out, but money for implementation is scarce.   Opportunistic, short term projects are now popping up all over; think pop-up festivals, food trucks, yarnbombing and tactical urbanism.
• Artspace is a POWERFUL partnership of funders and arts agencies that just gave away over $15 million in 47 cities and rural areas.  Some of the examples: in Boston, money to fund “random acts of culture” and ventures to engage artists to creatively combat urban vacancy in several cities.   
• There seems to already be quite a bit community initiated arts here already.  sARTq, launched by the HuB is a good example, and the Chalk Festival  began as a bootstrap event.  Several local artists have successfully used the crowdsourcing website Kickstarterto raise funds.   Ballet practice takes place downtown in an empty storefront.  Flashmob dances show up on Siesta Key. 

There are a couple of themes worth noting. 

• To borrow words from a Bruce Katz tweet, “The new era in (art) will be crowd sourced vs. close sourced, entrepreneurial vs. bureaucratic, networked vs. hierarchical.”  He was talking about metropolitan areas, but the same applies to the arts.
• Arts have to help solve something, fill a gap, and be related to placemaking.
• Art projects in the age of austerity, if publicly funded, will need to perform double and triple duty.
• If placemaking and the arts are not hierarchical, a new kind of leadership needs to combine the best of the established art community with these new spontaneous random acts.

In Sarasota, what are the opportunities?

Homemade wayfinding signs in Raleigh NC

• Arts and Transit – SCAT’s transit maps, bus stops and other information are pitiful.  Other cities are using information graphics, technology, and better sign posts to help patrons navigate the system.   Asheville, NC transformed its buses into art and performance spaces.

• Arts and Stormwater –Much of our public space is dominated by palm trees and high input (water and fertilizer) landscaping.  We can turn that around as other places have with installations that actually clean water before it enters the Bay.

• Arts and Health – Columbus Ohio’s Department of Public Health sponsors Columbus Art Walks in nine different neighborhoods.  Yes, the Health Department and Public Arts got together.
• Arts and Economic Development – Sarasota has tons of video production talent, but it seems scattered.  Imagine a consortium making a video like this, but instead of “Made in Brooklyn” it’s “Made in Sarasota.”  By the way, like Brooklyn’s Makerbot company, have a growing 3-D printing industry growing here.  Call me if interested because it looks like the early applications are jewelry, art and 3D printing for food.  No kidding.
• Art and Underused space - Imagine all the places in Sarasota where a dusty lot or even cracks in the sidewalk might be transformed.

Let’s cut to the chase here.  Placemaking+arts immerses people in art on a daily – even hourly – basis.  Linking arts to other passions ensure wider support, so someone who loves the idea of a healthier community will be all over arts and walking.  We know who does art - who does place? 

Tech and Civic Apps - Summary of April 19th radio show with Sue Nilon

Here is a link to the show Sue Nilon and I did on April 19th.  Here is a link (scroll down to April 19) - but listen to the other guests as well!

If you don't want to hear the entire show - here are highlights from the conversation:

Florida House will have stuff up and running soon.  The web site will be www.theFLhouse.org

We talked about civic apps that would make it easier to find - and comment on - decisions before local Boards.  Right now, the system is so complex it favors a handful of people who know the system. I described a dream app-

• The dream app would let you see weekly what is going on.  You could customize so only actions within 5 miles or so from your house would show up, or by interest areas like budget or parks.  The dream app would have the hearing date, deadlines,  a short summary of issues, and comment fields for reading others' comments and providing your own.
• This app would also include fun stuff (e.g., classes, events) and stuff to know (Holiday Hours, household hazardous waste collection).  Emergency information would also be pushed.  The mockup below is rough, but shows how a drop down menu could show - on a map- what's going on - in this one pretend street cleaning.

There is an app called YouTown that looks like it is getting closer. 

We also talked about tech usage - not everyone has tech.  But the statistics show trends:

Stats (from the Pew Internet Project):

• Over half the adult population has a smartphone, 87% have a cell phone, 20% own tablets and another 19% own e-books like Kindles. 
• 22% of Americans do not have access to the internet (that's 1 in 5 - so still a big gap).  BUT - of the primary factors of why a non-internet user is not on internet – 31% of non-internet users say they have no interest or motivation – only 10% said money was a factor.   Only 4% said it was because of age.
• Sites like Virgin Mobileare bringing dow the cost of mobile internet - www.virginmobileusa.com

 Sarasota Apps - Sarasota actually has a digital presence     

• SCATTRAC– SCAT has placed GPS enabled transponders on buses, so a new web site lets a rider see where their bus is and an estimated wait time.

• Twitter  - Sarasota has a good Twitter presence: @SCgovconnections, @cityofsarasota, @visitsarasota, @scgovlibrary

• Emergency Response - Emergency Services helped form the first civic apps since emergency response tends to trump old school inertia on adopting new things – @scgovEOC

• Tourism – The Sarasota Convention and Visitors Bureau has an app, and of all things, there’s a Walk Tour app! 

Best of the Best - Check these out!

Transit – Look to apps like Embark, which seem suited to users (like tourists) who don’t know the stop, route and destination routine.  Features like service alerts, geolocation, and even business purveyors of groceries and beach supplies on a map are what we need.

Planning – Other cities are using apps to collect input, hold design contests, and map assets.   The magazine Next American City has its list of top apps for wellness, travel, data, and community brainstorming.  There are LOTS of complaints that the workings of the city and county are not connected to a vision.  Visioning activities are one of the hottest areas of app development right now.  SARA is the first augmented reality app for picturing a building on a site.

Of course any app needs to be coupled with good old fashioned human outreach and talking.  The best app of all.

Thrown Under the Bus - What We Need in a New SCAT Team

“Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus. “
David Hockney

A couple of weeks ago, the head of Sarasota’s transit operations (SCAT) submitted his resignation, ostensibly because the fire extinguishers had expired the day before.  There is likely more to the story than this, and there was undeniable disruption for a growing cadre of transit riders.  But now’s the time to think ahead.

OK  - So some might wonder why we should think about transit at all – it’s a bus.  But Sarasota’s at a point where it needs to think big about moving people:

• For starters, gasoline is hitting record prices as are local and national ridership numbers.
• Younger people are eschewing the car, according to new research  (and my own observations of my 15 year and his cohort).
• Transit is a big indicator – visitors from Europe and big cities know transit.  Moreover there is a growing “cool” factor to transit, biking and walking.  Even if visitors don’t step foot on a bus, a working, state of the art system send big signals about a community, its priorities and its savvy.   
• It’s a big part of the county budget that’s here to stay – so why not crank it?  Transit is budgeted at $36,000,000 (out of a close to $900,000,000 total budget for the County).

Now that we’ve settled that transit as worthy of lots of attention – here is my wishlist of priorities for the next transit administrator: two of them deal with transit and what the administrator can control and the others are my expectations out of everybody else.

The New Head of SCAT

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) –Like other creative class cities, Sarasota has a Bus Rapid transit project in the making.  This project, expected to cost roughly $100,000,000(of which Sarasotans would kick in $12 million or so), runs from the airport south to Southgate Mall (or where the new Apple Storewas supposed to be going).  But this ambitious project seems to repeat a theme that has dogged Sarasota for the past several years: the attention to innovation sapped attention to the basics.  The BRT project is worth continuing, but you are not going to get public support until we see a kick-ass transit agency on a daily basis.

Technology and SCAT– Shifting from BRT to regular SCAT does not mean abandoning innovation.   In fact, there is a lot that can be done with our system with attention to a couple of things.  First, establish a vision that SCAT will be recognized for deploying imaginative technology that rivals what big cities are doing.  The anemic SCAT TRACneeds to be appified for Android and smart phones to get rid of glitch presentation and make it user friendly.  Second, the vision should be to make those SCAT poles meaningful.  SCAT TRAC assume a potential rider knows more than a typical potential rider actually knows. You don’t have to do it all at once, and you don’t have to roll out Bus Stop Mahal’s.  Small stickers on poles that lead users to the SCAT TRAC and the name of the  stop as it is listed would go a long way (see photo).  For these apps, keep in mind tourists don’t know where they are, or even where the store they want to visit is.  The digital “You are Here” through geolocation is a must. 

Everybody Else

The Public– The past year was hard: we needed to vent.  But now, we need to craft every statement to make a difference.  We need to be the best watchdogs, commentators, data collectors, and researchers we can be for transit.  Fabulous transit does not rest on one person’s shoulders – it is crowdsourced.

County Leadership– First, take SCAT out of Planning and Development Services.  It would be the proper place if our transit system and better land development were feeding into each other.  But it hasn't turned out that way (the isolated Cattleman Station is Exhibit A - but perhaps I need to reserve judgment as the area develops).   Right now SCAT needs to move people.  Make it standalone or put it in Information Technology.  Second, hire somebody from an organization that turned procurement around.  Why not a two-fer?  Third - get a tech savvy entrepreneur - not a whipping boy, not somebody scouting out retirement homes - but a young-ish professional who can inspire.  There are capable people within SCAT for operations.

Others – Anyone supported by public grants or other funds needs to build support for mobility  on their website and in print.  Washington DC set up an entire website targeted to tourists for ”Getting Around” that includes every option  – including by foot and bike.  New York’s MTA has the “Arts for Transit” program to marry arts and transit.  For crying out loud, we have some of the best animation, design and graphics talent in the world here – how can we use it to make getting around easier and more fun?  The private sector can also get involved.  Any app can show stores and attractions for a small amount of money.

Finally - next Thursday April 19th is "Try Transit Day." Free rides - so my expectation is that everyone tries transit!

Bus-Ta-Move - Whipping up Love for the Bus

Back when I helped with the program for Railvolution (a kick ass conference on urban transport), I proposed a track called "Bus-ta-move" dedicated to local buses since the cities with high falutin' transit like subways and bling rapid transit (BRT) also have regular old bus lines.  Chuckles ensued.

Well, vindication finally arrived last Saturday when Salon's Will Doig gave super awesome writer credence to the topic in an article entitled "It's time to Love the Bus - America needs to accept the fact that its most despised form of transport is also its hope for the future." 

Among his fab points:

• As Jarret Walker says in his new book "Human Transit" - frequency is freedom
• Bus maps are crap
• Focus on streets where more than one bus route travels
• A little cash towards better design would go a long way
• Make buses cool like bikes have gotten cool

But how do we make this happen?  This is a repeat from an earlier post - but worth revisiting now that Salon is on board (ahemmmm).   There are five main areas that seem to be ripe for attention from smart growth and transit activists.

1) Focus on one longstanding & outstanding route for TOD or streets/intersections that host multiple routes– Yes, stops and routes can change, but most bus systems have longstanding routes and stops at job or trip generators like hospitals and universities.  Establishing a focus on one workhorse route can signal to the development community you are serious about setting proverbial stakes in the ground.

2) Transfer Stations -Transfer stations offer the most promising real estate for local bus-centric TOD because a rider gets double (or more) coverage of potential places to go. It also signals more permanence since eliminating a transfer has negative impacts on multiple lines.  It seems like heavy rail planners have caught onto this value more quickly and strongly than bus system planners.  Here is SCAT's new transfer station - though whether Sarasota will leverage this real estate location remains to be seen.

3) Transportation Technology– Dan Sturges has a great Vimeo video (contained in this post) about installing a variety of new transportation modes in strategic suburban locations.  Dan talks a lot about the concept of the station car and bike sharing.

4) Information Technology– This is the big one.  Even the best apps, like PDX bus and Google transit are schedule based – not traveler based.  Bus systems need to approach the next cohort of future riders as if they are tourists, not commuters.  Systems can’t assume that riders know the bus line, the destination’s address, or neighborhood.   If I am a tourist,  I don’t want a list of sign poles planted at cross streets, I want something that combines the app AroundMe + Next bus technology+ Augmented Reality like Travel Guide with AR  to see where the closest stops are + trip planner + instructions on timing + information on getting back to the trip origin.  Here in the land of 60 minute headways, this last one is a really big deal.  Yes frequency is freedom, but easy access to schedules frees things up a bit.

On that note - SCAT has introduced SCAT TRAC that shows where the bus is on your route.  It was launched with little fanfare - and you need to know your bus route and which pole in the ground is next to you.  It's a start.  OK - a good start.

5) Near Term Hackathon – If I were Ray LaHood, I would go the Michael Bloomberg route and begin building apps now.   Why not convene all the transit, smart growth, GIS techie, mobile marketing, app-building communities and see what you can do now with a three-venue, national hackathon dedicated to local bus service and paratransit?    Code for America is great, but it looks too incremental. 

6)  In the near, near term (like – you can do this today), encourage local hacking, like this dude’s guerilla public information pictured below. We are at the height of season right now here on Siesta Key and there are TONS of tourists standing bewildered at poles in the ground because signs list the general County phone number and the bus line. 

To quote Young MC - "You got no money and you got no car...... Now you know what to do. Bus- ta- move."