What is a transportation "disruption," exactly?

ATU Local 689, which represents employees of DC's WMATA, posted a flyer at a Dunn-Loring Station bus stop protesting proposed cuts to transit service. Route 2T, which served this stop, was cut five months later. Impacts of disruptive Silicon Valley companies were cited as a reason for the cuts. (Photo by me)  

You may not know it yet, but your mobility is being disrupted, whether you like it or not. If the ones doing the disrupting are to be believed, we should just sit back, relax, and watch them philanthropically fix all of our transportation problems.  

Who are these Great Disruptors, heroically and selflessly coming to our rescue? To date, they're all transportation network companies (TNCs), the formal term for app-based, Silicon Valley-headquartered ride hailing firms such as Uber and Lyft. 

But with autonomous vehicles and their magical traffic-solving abilities on the way, we're under orders to believe that TNCs are just the beginning. Though the End of Traffic apparently won't make highway expansion obsolete, we're under orders to pave over our railways and retrofit our signalized intersections to allow for constant flow of cars in all directions (no crosswalks or bike lanes necessary) in preparation for utopia. 

And eventually, all of this disruption will itself be disrupted, because we'll all work remotely and live in virtual reality, rendering physical transportation and in-person interaction completely unnecessary. Yep, our holodecks will never break down!

When you're told your transportation route is "disrupted," what's your first thought?

Whether you're a transit rider, car driver, cyclist, or pedestrian, here and there your preferred route gets disrupted. Unfortunately, this type of disruption is different than the technological type that's received so much hype. Your route's shortcomings – be they due to aging rail infrastructure, traffic-delayed bus service, or car crashes – don't all get solved, but instead rear their ugly head and prevent you from getting where you need to go. 

Needless to say, this type of transportation service disruption is something we strive to eliminate, rather than encourage more of.   

Are Silicon Valley-promoted disruptions to transportation at all preferable to those we already deal with?

The frustrating transportation experiences described above certainly fit the Oxford Dictionary's definition of a disruption – a "disturbance or problems which interrupt an activity, event, or process." But can such disruptions ever be a good thing? 

Given that the Silicon Valley's own transportation system is currently among the developed world's most dysfunctional, any attempt by their companies to spread their area's mobility shortcomings and disrupt other places likely won't end well. Unfortunately, many results thus far of their TNCs' efforts to disrupt – including increased traffic congestion, distracted driving, and transit service cuts – reflect these fears. On routes like Metrobus's 2T in Fairfax County, VA, the once-rare service disruptions riders dreaded suddenly became a permanent reality. 

Some of the disruptive Silicon Valley proposals for the more distant future sound even more nightmarish. Yes, one day, we may have technology so advanced that we can lose ourselves in virtual reality simulations that resemble the real world or allow nonstop car flow through intersections in all directions. But we should not blindly redesign our world to force everyone to tolerate such environments just because they're feasible, just as we choose today not to allow cars to travel at NASCAR speeds on freeways, build high-density skyscrapers in our national parks, or use chemical weapons to win our wars only because we can.      

Some disruptions lead to improvements, while others cause great harm

Sometimes, it is necessary to interrupt an activity, event, or process. For example, sports teams must make smart mid-game adjustments to achieve victory, while countries sometimes must replace corrupt leaders to avoid long-term consequences to their economic and political stability.

In the transportation sector, examples of such necessary, beneficial disruptions include redesigns of bus systems to reflect modern-day demand, rail infrastructure renewal programs...and TNCs' disruption of the American taxi industry. A simple regulatory overhaul that facilitated more extensive, affordable, transit-integrated taxi service without upending hard-working drivers' lives would have been ideal. But people deserved better ride-hailing options that realistically, especially in low-density metropolitan areas, likely never would have come into existence without the rise of TNCs. 

The only disruptions to transit worth considering are those that make it better

Making taxis more readily available, affordable, and easier to hail was a disruptive, but logical approach to improving that mode. But taking our high-capacity transit away and telling riders to take to already-congested roadways doesn't make any more sense than forcing them to tolerate more track problems or bus breakdowns. 

Instead, the tech industry should disrupt transit as it did taxis, by using technology to address present-day shortcomings. Possible solutions to consider include more efficient bus and rail dispatching systems, more accurate real-time info, smarter route alignments, and seamless multimodal integration. 

But any disruption to transit that is not an improvement is not one I can accept.