Posts about Events

Examples of often-unnecessarily jargon-laden writing abound. In a post on the Purple Line and Bethesda tunnel, Wayne of Silver Spring Trails recently quoted the following passage from an MTA analysis:

All three of the reduced transitway width alternatives yielded very similar performance results in operational simulations. None of the three will enable the Purple Line to operate at the six-minute headway required to carry the peak period passenger demand. With substantial portions of the Purple Line operating in street-running conditions subject to traffic interference especially at intersections, the train operations need to be able to have a schedule recovery time at terminal stations, including the Bethesda Station. The operational limitations imposed by these reduced transitway width concepts at the Bethesda Station would not allow for this recovery time, which would severely reduce the reliability of the service for the entire Purple Line. Therefore, due to these fatal operational deficiencies, this family of alternatives was eliminated from further study.

This is in English, but barely. It's about 50% or more transportation-engineer-speak. Say you were writing this in hopes that regular people could understand it. How could you write it? One possibility:

All 3 options to fit the Purple Line in a narrower space performed about the same in our simulations: none allowed running vehicles every 6 minutes. Trains will sometimes get delayed at intersections, since they run at street level, and therefore need enough extra time in the schedule at the end of the line to catch up from delays. These options to fit the line in a narrower space don't accommodate that, which would make the entire Purple Line less reliable. We therefore decided to reject these options.

All I did was rewrite each sentence without jargon. Some, like "schedule recovery time," is a technical term that has a lot of meaning, and rewriting it in layperson's terms forces you to use more words. Others, like "performance results" or "operational limitations" are just big words that say the same thing as other, smaller and simpler words.

Writing for a wider audience, jargon gets in the way. It makes it harder for people to understand what you are saying, which diminishes your voice. Unfortunately, academic programs rarely actually focus time on how to write more clearly for laypeople, and most practitioners get little practice.

In fact, there may be subtle pressure to write less clearly. Linguistics has concepts called "style-shifting" and "audience design." These analyze how people write and speak differently based on whom they are speaking with. Wikipedia says, "According to [the audience design] model, speakers adjust their speech primarily towards that of their audience in order to express solidarity or intimacy with them, or away from their audience's speech to express distance."

A transportation engineer likely will feel good about writing in a more jargon-laden way because it creates that feeling of closeness to the other professionals who write that way. It also can make people feel a little superior to or distant from the average people who might not understand or support a project.

The downside is that this divorces the profession from people. It makes others feel that the profession is separated from, and perhaps heedless of, their everyday lives. In professions like planning and transportation, projects move along more smoothly when people feel the professionals are listening to them. Using clear language helps a lot.

When writing a plan, paper or proposal that people outside the profession could read, it would help most people to try to write more simply. Even when writing something just for colleagues, it's still better to minimize the unnecessary jargon. Each person can set a better example for others, and push the profession gradually away from an insular, inscrutable way of communicating.

Here, we encounter these examples most often from people in urban planning and transportation fields, but it's everywhere. Lawyers, software engineers, business executives, doctors, and people in just about every other professional field do it. We'd all be better off if they could do this a little less.

Want to talk more about what makes good writing, whether for a blog or anything else? Come to the seminar on Monday at the West End Library, 24th and L, in the Small Meeting Room. Doors open at 6 and the discussion will run from 6:30-8. I'll present this and several other elements of an effective blog post. You'll be able to better contribute to Greater Greater Washington, your own blog, or just write better in your everyday job.

If you can't make it in person, I have arranged for someone to video record and webcast the forum. I'll post the live stream here on Greater Greater Washington, and then we'll have the archived video later this week.

How to write [blog posts] well, on Monday

Would you be interested in writing for Greater Greater Washington? We're always looking for people interested in becoming contributors, especially folks to write about issues in Northern Virginia, about education in DC or elsewhere, or many other topics. Or, perhaps you write, or want to write, for another blog.

Writing for a blog is not the same as writing a planning document, academic transportation paper, or many other things. Blog posts need to be short, to the point, and attention-grabbing. Greater Greater Washington editors work with many of our contributors to take raw material of posts and make them into good blog posts.

I'm giving a free talk on Monday, March 19th on how to write for blogs (and some lessons which help with other types of writing, as well). It's 6:30-8 pm at the West End Library, in the small meeting room.

If you're interested in contributing to Greater Greater Washington but can't attend, email us at info@ggwash.org. Thank you!

Reservation 13 public meeting

Mayor Gray promised residents on both sides of the Anacostia that he would come to a public meeting and hear from residents about his plan to give away DC's best opportunity for a new mixed-use neighborhood to a cranky and litigious billionaire football team owner for practice fields closed to the public.

He's just rescheduled that meeting to Thursday, March 22 at 7 pm. Local leaders are working on finalizing a location (they had a site for the original date, the following week). Check back on the Greater Greater Washington calendar for updates.

There's also an information meeting on Monday, March 19 to inform residents about the history of Reservation 13 and what the master plan actually says (which isn't necessarily the same as what Jack Evans says).

And more...

• Downtown DC Kids is having a meeting to organize for a downtown playground on Wednesday, March 14 at 6 pm.
  
• The forum on sexual harassment on Metro is on Thursday, March 22 at 7 pm.
  
• 3 local planners will discuss federal design at NCPC on Thursday, March 29 at 6:30 pm.
  
• There's more on our complete calendar.

Have an event for the calendar? Email it to info@ggwash.org.

Please suggest your questions in the comments, and if you really like another one, submit a comment saying so. Please think about how a candidate might answer or how they might avoid answering a given item, and see if you can design your question to push them to give a good answer. I'll pick some of the best ones for the forum.

Plus, I hope you can attend the forum on Tuesday! It's free and open to the public. It's mostly standing room, with some limited seating for senior citizens and persons with disabilities. An informal reception afterward with complimentary appetizers and a cash bar will follow at the nearby Café Saint-Ex, 1847 14th Street, NW.

The forum is cosponsored by Borderstan, the Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission, the Dupont Circle Citizens Association, the Dupont Circle Merchants and Professionals Association, Dupont Circle Village, Dupont Festival, Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets, the Logan Circle Community Association, the Meridian Hill Association, and the U Street Neighborhood Association.

At the head of the river in Maryland, over a dozen crew teams from the region call Bladensburg Waterfront Park home, including University of Maryland, Catholic University, Elizabeth Seton High School, DeMatha Catholic High School, and Walter Johnson High School. You can even learn to row with the Washington Rowing School, rent a canoe or paddle boat from Prince George's County Department of Parks and Recreation, or take a guided river tour with AWS.

This park is also the gateway to the Anacostia Tributary Trail System, a biker's paradise of trails stretching up to Greenbelt and Wheaton that within 2 years will connect southward along the river to the existing Anacostia Riverwalk Trail in the District.

The Anacostia River has a rich history of recreational use. Eastern Power Boat Club, founded in 1905, is the country's first power boat club, and Seafarer's Yacht Club, founded in 1945, is the oldest African-American yacht club on the east coast. Seafarer's has a long commitment to community service and the health of the river, starting the annual Anacostia River clean up that has grown into a major annual Earth Day event, and AWS is a proud partner.

Other members of the Historic Anacostia Boating Association are also along Boathouse Row (Water and M Streets SE), including District Yacht Club and Washington Yacht Club, as well as the Anacostia Community Boathouse, a home for rowers and recreational paddlers.

AWS is a founding member of the Anacostia Community Boathouse Association, and with ACBA's excellent new facilities at 1900 M Street SE, AWS has begun to increase our recreational paddling programs. In 2011, AWS "Paddle Nights" attracted several dozen people down to the river every 2 weeks and opened their eyes to the possibilities of a clean, healthy Anacostia River.

If you don't know about something, it is hard to care about it. In short, recreation equals stewardship, and we believe that more citizens should come to know and love the Anacostia River.

In light of AWS activities to clean up the river, we are often asked if it is safe to recreate on the Anacostia River. The answer is yes, if you are sensible about it. Don't swim, don't drink the water, and be careful about eating the fish. But please walk, bike, row, paddle, or simply look at and enjoy the river.

In order to share this information more widely, AWS and ACBA are hosting a River Health and Public Recreation Forum this Saturday, February 11, 9-11 am, at the First District Police Station, 101 M Street SW.

Councilmember Tommy Wells, Dr. Janet Phoenix of the DC Environmental Health Collaborative, Dr. Sacoby Wilson of the University of Maryland, Collin Burrell of the District Department of Environment, and Donal Barron of DC Water will give a brief panel presentation, followed by an audience Q&A. Topics will range from recreational safety to the risks posed by the river's various pollution sources, including bacteria, stormwater, toxics, and trash.

Although we've still got a ways to go to reach our goal of a swimmable and fishable Anacostia River, it is already a community asset for those who know its charms. Come down to the river and learn for yourself what many locals already know: the Anacostia is an urban oasis, and could yet be a better one if we have the willpower to make it happen. This well-kept secret is really a hidden gem.

Our evening event will be at the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) offices at 1666 K Street NW, Suite 1100, starting at 6:30. Young Professionals in Transportation, Women's Transportation Seminar, the American Planning Association, and APTA are also cosponsoring the event.

Our event does require an RSVP. Additionally, there are a limited number of books available at a discounted rate. You can reserve one when you RSVP.

On Tuesday, February 7, the Montgomery County Planning Commission is hosting Jarrett as a part of their speaker series. The talk will start at 7:30 pm in the Planning Board auditorium at 8787 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring.

On the 9th, Jarrett will speak at the National Building Museum from 12:30 to 1:30 pm. The National Building Museum is located downtown at 401 F Street NW. It may fill up so RSVP to reserve your space.

For those of you who live or work in the Baltimore area, Jarrett has also announced a lunchtime talk at Penn Station. It will run from noon until 1 pm on Tuesday the 7th.

All of the events are free.

Jarrett's book, like his blog, is full of insightful commentary. I was particularly interested in his discussion of the relationship between connections and frequency in enabling transit to be a more feasible mode. It was especially poignant for me, since the Metrobus and Prince George's County bus routes in Greenbelt were restructured around these principles just last year.

Prior to the change, we basically had a "direct service everywhere" design, which meant either long waits for the right bus or long rides on the wrong bus. Jarrett talks about how good design (both frequency and connections between routes) can mean that transferring might get you there more quickly and more reliably at the same cost to the agency. My experience on the ground backs that up, and the book explains why transit works that way.

Anyone who has ridden transit on a regular basis will appreciate the points Jarrett makes. Especially his matrix showing the seven demands of useful transit service. Transit designers must take these demands into consideration if they hope to compete for riders.

I won't get too in depth, here. But I will strongly encourage you to buy Jarrett's book. And hopefully I'll see you at one of his events in the area.

But TransportationCamp is very different from traditional conferences like TRB. Instead of organizers or juries picking the sessions, TransportationCamp is an "unconference" where the attendees shape the sessions. Anyone can propose a session at the start of the day, and add it to a big board with all the other proposals. Organizers then slot the ideas into a number of rooms, and people go to the session they most want to attend. This guide explains how unconferences work.

Sign up here. We're still working on finding the ideal location (and let us know if you have an in with a space that can handle a few hundred plus a number of breakout rooms!) In the meantime, please register so that we can get a good estimate of the number of people.