A trip to spend a bit of time with mama - #1 Introduction

In the beginning of 2023 my wife and I learned that both our mothers were admitted to hospitals in Warsaw, on the same day, with very serious heart problems. Last time we saw them was 2018. We decided to visit them and spend some time with them this year. We went separately at different times of the year and stayed in our moms' apartments.

I love travelling, but I haven't travelled since late 2019, and I pledged to not fly for pleasure anymore because of the climate crisis. There is very little left for me to do to fight the climate crisis. I went to protests in Gold Coast (Fridays for Future) and Brisbane (Extinction Rebellion), I was a member of Queensland Greens for two years, helped with elections, signed petitions, wrote letters, fought against a new motorway in Gold Coast (NoSecondM1), etc.

The only areas left to me are my private choices: not commuting by car - using public transport and riding a bike instead: sold our 2nd car in 2018. Not investing in fossil fuels - keeping my pension savings in such a fund since 2018. Using renewable energy: installed solar panels in 2016, heat pump in 2022 - our house does not use any methane anymore. Swapped my wife's petrol car for an electric one - 2023 - the state of public transport in Gold Coast is so bad that she would not be able to get to/from work without a car, and we would have a hard time getting to shops, appointments, etc. Unfortunatelly, we need one car here. This year we also finally moved our mortgage to a bank that does not help fossil fuel companies.

Ok, so I wanted to use the trip to see my mom, to see as much of the world as possible. But I planned the extra travel to be by train, or if not possible, by bus. No hired car, instead, using public transport or public bike infrastructure.

Cities I saw for the first time: Singapore, Doha, Vilnius, Riga, Tallin, Helsinki, Łódź. Cities I saw again: Warsaw, Cracow, Wrocław, Lublin, Melbourne. I travelled in Poland with my mom by train. I travelled to the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and Finland with my brother, by train, bus and ferry. I got to Melbourne by the round-about nature of the Singapore to Brisbane flight.

I travelled in September and early October. The weather was August-like: Summer instead of Autumn. The climate change is very noticable in northern Europe. September 2023 beat temperature records by a large margin. People, on a personal level, were generally happy about the weather: instead of cool and windy Autumn, a few more weeks of glorious Summer. Farmers - not necessarily, less rain, disrupted seasons. Warsaw was very dry and dusty. You can see the the dry grass, dust on the footpaths, cars, buildings, shoes. Warsaw may need to start installing sprinklers for city lawns and flowerbeds and should regularly (every day?) wash streets and pavements.

Doha is a hell on Earth for me, temperature wise. Qatar is a peninsula, surrounded by the hot waters of the Persian Gulf on three sides (water temperature is above 30C from June to October), and the Arabian Desert. It is hot and humid, even at night. The felt temperature is often above 50C. I turned around and went back to the air conditioned metro at some point because I realised that I may faint. Singapore, which is on the equator is hot too, but Doha was much worse - I was able to walk outdoors for hours in Singapore.

Singapore was very interesting. I would like to explore it more in the future - ideally when electric planes take off, or an Australia - Europe electric railway connection becomes a reality. There was a time, before WW1, when you could buy a train ticket in Tokyo and in two weeks you would be in Paris.

Vilnius, Riga, Tallin, Helsinki were great. As we travelled north, almost in straight line, the prices were getting higher, the countryside less populated, cities cleaner, footpaths better, and the people less stressed. Helsinki has an outstanding public transport infrastructure: metro, trains, trams, shared bikes. Everyone I had an interaction with in Helsinki spoke perfect English. I've seen the construction of Rail Baltica, in Poland, but also in the Riga city centre. It is much needed. There is no good train connection from Riga to Tallin (the only one has a four hour stopover in a small border town), and there is no train connection at all from Vilnius to Riga. Buses suck. Because of the design, scheduling and drivers. Out of the four trips with three different bus companies (FlixBus, Lux Express, EcoLines), only one driver did not risk our life trying to overtake other vehicles on narrow roads. Only one bus (Lux Express Lounge) had a 1+2 seating that was spacious enough to be comfortable. If you leave something on the bus, and you may, because the overhead shelf design makes it impossible to easily see what is there, don't count on the driver returning it to the Lost and Found (FlixBus).

Polish cities are a mixed bag. On one hand great public transport, increasingly good bike infrastructure, and fantastic pedestrian experience: plenty of zebra crossings, drivers stop at zebra crossings, very short wait times at crossings. On the other, there is too much graffiti, rubbish, and drunks.

This trip made me realise that long distance migration, like mine, from Europe to Australia, is a very bad thing for carbon emissions. It is not just the original migration of a young person, maybe with the closest family. It's all the subsequent trips to see family and friends, and them visiting back. The impact may last decades. I would not do it again. I moved out of Poland for better climate, health. Poland has a very dynamic weather. You need to be dressed for anything. It is easy to get sick. Also, the allergies were affecting us a lot. It was a tough place to live for me and my family. But, I would not move that far away again. I would try a little south: maybe Slovenia or Croatia. So, if you are considering moving to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America, Europe, think about that. The distance to the rest of your family becomes more important with age. It's good to be close.

Fediverse / Blogspot

You can find me on fediverse: My profile on mastodon.social

Zucked - Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee

I posted a short review on mastodon.social:

https://mastodon.social/@tom_andraszek/110835146181262835

Finished listening to #Zucked - "Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe" by Roger McNamee. A bit wordy in the beginning and author's trust in Mark Zuckerberg at a time of Trump's election annoyingly naive, but correct in the conclusion: #Facebook and #Google are monopolies that have too much of our data and too much power. They have proven to be a danger to democratic societies and need to be broken up and the internet more regulated to protect our rights.

The Reconstruction of Nations. Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. A book by Timothy Snyder.

"The subjects of this book are the transformation of national ideas, the causes of ethnic cleansing, and the conditions for national reconciliation."

A detailed history of Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian-Ukrainian relations since the Union of Lublin in 1569 which created the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, to the end of the XX century when Poland joined NATO. 

My takeaways: nationalism makes people do horrible things, the real history and especially individual history is messy and context is important, life is most important, forgiving is a necessary virtue, reconciliation is possible, even among peoples who committed ethnic cleansing on each other.

The articles published in Kultura by Giedroyć and Mieroszewski influenced or were the base of Polish eastern policy after 1989, the policy of supporting independent states, no territorial claims, reconciliation.

I heard of Kultura, but I was just a teenager/young adult in 1990s, living in Warsaw, witnessing the Round Table talks through the official media, and the June 4th 1989 election campaign and later events also through Gazeta Wyborcza. Receiving history education in communist Poland, the east was for me the Soviet Union, with capital in Moscow. I did not know much about the Soviet republics. At that time I didn't even know that one of my grandfathers was born and raised in Lviv. 

I was influenced by Pomarańczowa Alternatywa, Bareja, Smoleń, Wałęsa, Kuroń, Michnik, Gazeta Wyborcza, Bartoszewski, Geremek. The subject of talks were: workers strikes, shortages of everything, communism, ZOMO. I remember picking up on the train some illegally printed leaflet, I remember TV hacking by the underground opposition: the government TV station channel (there were no private stations) would suddenly get a news ticker with opposition news, and a message at the end to turn off and on the room lights a few times to acknowledge receipt of the message.  

----

Interesting, little known bits of history: 

Re: borders:

In spring 1990 Prime Minister Mazowiecki made clear that he had no wish to see Soviet forces leave Poland until Poland's border with Germany was codified.

At a time when West German leaders would not publicly commit to the preservation of the existing border with sovereign Poland, Poland's first democratic government extended unconditional assurances to not yet sovereign Ukraine.

Poland was the first state to formally recognise the state of Ukraine.

Re: "NATO expansion": 

MOSCOW, OCTOBER 1990

Skubiszewski's October 1990 visit to Moscow was a provisional success. Skubiszewski took pains to separate "Soviet Union day" from "Russian Federation day," paying as much attention to Russian as to Soviet authorities. The declaration Skubiszewski signed with Russian authorities was the first official document the Russian Federation signed with any outside state. Polish-Soviet negotiations were underway on both a new state treaty and an agreement on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Poland. In December 1990 Poland linked the withdrawal of Soviet troops to transit rights for Soviet troops returning from Germany. The main issues of dispute were the so-called "security clauses," which would have forbidden Poland to join alliances (except with the Soviet Union), cooperate with foreign intelligence services (except the Soviet one), or allow foreign armies (except the Red Army) to station troops on its territory. The dispute over transit was resolved and the security clauses withdrawn. 

Re: Ukrainian nuclear weapons:

By late 1992 Kravchuk was determined to press forward towards an alliance with Poland directed against Russian predominance in Eastern Europe, perhaps one in which Ukraine would provide a nuclear umbrella with the weapons it had inherited from the Soviet Union. [...] In spring 1993 Ukraine proposed a "Baltic-to-Black Sea Pact" of which the Ukrainian-Polish partnership would be the nucleus. - page 265.

Poland's main foreign policy goal at that time was integration with NATO and the European Community. 

Re: Volhynia massacres:

Oh my. The Polish-Ukrainian chapters are the most messed up. Like in a plane crash investigation, there are often many things that had to occur to cause the catastrophe. I cannot summarize these chapters, I will only provide some snippets of information here. If you are interested in the subject, you should really get the book and read it carefully.

 "[...] what Ukrainians did to Poles, and what Poles did to Ukrainians, cannot be reduced to an escalation of events concerning only those two groups, [...]" - page 158. Soviet occupation provoked conflict between Poles and Ukrainians in 1939, to create the conditions of "revolution". In Volhynia after 1941, the German occupier offered Ukrainians a chance to persecute Poles (1941-42), and then Poles to do the reverse (1943-44).

"German attempts to colonize the Ukrainian-Polish borderlands near Zamość in 1942-43, in which Ukrainian Central Committee played an organizational role, were designed such that they had to worsen Ukrainian-Polish conflicts."

"The demoralization and decimation of Ukrainian and Polish elites was perhaps the most important cause of Ukrainian-Polish conflict." - page 163. 

Deportations and murders of Polish and Ukrainian elites by the Soviets and Germans.

"German repression also created the conditions for unforgettable injuries: as when Polish Kapos killed the two brothers of Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera in Auschwitz. Poles in the Chełm region liquidated 394 leaders of Ukrainian society on basis of collaboration."

The Polish government had little authority in Volhynia. "Its representatives were surprised by the participation of Volhynian Poles in the German administration, and unable to prevent Volhynian Poles from joining the German police. The Ukrainian case was starker. There was no state to organize an official army, and only the far Right was represented in the field."

 

"It was this maimed OUN-Bandera, led by Mykola Lebed' and then Roman Shukhevych, that cleansed the Polish population from Volhynia in 1943."

"Even Metropolitan Sheptyts'kyi, who sheltered Jews, reasoned that a Galician SS division was desirable as the nucleus of a future Ukrainian army. [...] As the brother of a general who helped create the Polish army which defeated the West Ukrainian republic in 1920, Sheptyts'kyi knew from hard experience that a Ukrainian state without an army was an impossibility."

 

Errata - some of the errors I noticed:

The map of Postwar Eastern Europe circa 1945 on page XV... is 1951 circa 1945? There was a border change in 1951 between Poland and the USSR, and the "circa 1945" map shows the border after the 1951 change. This is a common error, that I think even most Poles in my generation don't know about:

Source: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umowa_o_zmianie_granic_z_15_lutego_1951

page 214. Is: "Most modern Polish nationality include hostility to Ukraine?". Should be: "Must ...".

page 225: is "It was Giedroyc's and Mieroszewski's great intellectual achievement to unite this acceptance of state borders with the prediction that communist would collapse,..."

Should be: communism, not communist.

Page 234: "would be a governed by"

Should be: "would be governed by"

Page 239: "Grzegorz Kostzrewa-Zorbas"

Should be: "Grzegorz Kostrzewa-Zorbas" 

Page 249: "capital lines only forty kilometres"

Should be: "capital lies only forty kilometres"

Page 250: "with more far more antipathy"

Should be: ?

New words:

Solicitous - showing care and helpful attention to someone.

The F*ck-it List by John Niven

It's good. Really good. The best. It has an unlikely hero. It is dark. It has guns. It describes real recent events. It describes a likely future or what could have been. It's dystopian, but the American reality in 2020s is dystopian. 

Audiobook read by Ian Porter.

Warning: 18+ content.

Public Transport: Fares, Service, Ridership

I haven't written here in two years, but a recent conversation on Mastodon with Daniel Bowen motivated me to come back. Here's Daniel's toot:

...and my, equally emotional, reply:

...and Daniel's challenge to me:

The Guardian article that started this:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/06/free-public-transport-trial-across-australia-for-12-months-would-cost-22bn-greens-say

So, what would be my one citation reply?

 

1. Maybe this, showing that cost, compared to driving and parking is the most important single reason to use public transport (PT) in Queensland, in other words, if fuel to drive to work costs $2, and parking is free, good luck convincing that person to spend $4 to ride a bus:

Source: page 12 here:

 https://translink.widen.net/s/vmbwkcfjqk/202208_creating_better_connections_for_queenslanders 

Some people may argue that the above graph shows that once you make public transport available, people will use it because it's cheaper. It depends where they are going. When public transport is available most people still don't use it. The city of Gold Coast is served by over 400 buses, a 45 km long fast train line (NGR trains run 140 km/h in Gold Coast) with 15 minute frequency at peak time, a 20 km long light rail with 7.5 minute frequency most of the day, and still less than 5% of all trips are by public transport. It's because most people already have cars and use public transport when it's cheaper or easier (faster). Long distance commuting to work in the CBD, where parking is expensive? Public transport. Shorter distance trip to the shops, doctor, park where car parking is free? Car. Public transport is mainly used by professionals, and students who don't have cars and pay half price or zero. 

Should we strive to make frequent public transport available everywhere? This is where we get to the problem of land use. If we zone for low density, we will always have a problem of total travel time being very noncompetitive with cars. The distance to the bus/tram/train stop matters. Even if buses were running every 5 minutes, but the stop was 10 minutes away on foot, people would get in a car and drive 5-10-15 minutes to their destination with free parking, instead of paying $2.84 for the bus (1 zone, off-peak). There should be a minimum service in such areas, so people who don't drive (too young, too old, no car, no licence, disabled, sick, intoxicated etc) are not excluded from the society, but it does not make economical and ecological sense for public transport to run empty. 

We can increase ridership quickly, even in low density areas, by making all car parking paid, and by making public transport free. In this case, the PT option would be competitive even for short trips to shops, and even with minimum service.

                                                                                                        

2. Or this, showing low ridership off peak when fast services, relatively frequent (every 30 minutes), are available:

My photo above: a typical, almost empty Queensland Rail train in Gold Coast around 9 am. The 6 minute trip between Coomera and Helensvale costs $3.47 (2 zones, off-peak).

                                                                                                        

3. Or this table, showing that overall the too high price is as important a reason to not use public transport as too low frequency for students and staff of QUT:

Source: https://www.fmd.qut.edu.au/sustainability/pdfs/2017QUTTransportSurveyReport.pdf

                                                                                                        

4. Or these quotes, from the same source:

Notably, eight of the top 20 locations from which single occupant car users travel to their main campus also appear in the top 20 locations from which public 2017 QUT Transport Survey 3 transport users travel to their main campus. This suggests that the single occupant car users originating from these locations aren’t necessarily choosing to drive a car due to a lack of public transport availability in those locations.

The factors that received the lowest satisfaction ratings were price, travel time, and information provision.

Finally, satisfaction with price was rated highest by respondents who use the QUT Intercampus Bus 391 [free, every 10 minutes] and those using active transport (bicycle and walk).

Price was rated lowest [for satisfaction] by public transport users and respondents who use a taxi/Uber/other rideshare service.

                                                                                                        

5. Or these respondents' answers to what QUT could do to encourage public transport use, from the same source:
“If parking costs were too expensive I would be forced to use public transport.” 

“No. I know I should take public transport but the car is quicker and while I have it, unfortunately, I will use it.”

“If public transport was free for QUT students - I would consider it.”

“Nothing in particular would encourage me to catch public transport to uni as I have a car park near by that I don’t have to pay for.”

“Give me back my student prices even though I’m a part-time student.”

“I actually moved to the city from Chapel Hill because of problems with public transport. The principal problem was the cost (>$5 each way).”

“Advocate for lower fares to the government.”

"Not public transport, but showers and locker facility would make cycling to work more attractive. This would also provide health benefits for many staff. At the moment the bike center at P block is really expensive.”

                                                                                                        

6. Or the increase in ridership when fares were effectively lowered in South East Queensland (SEQ) in 2017:

 Buses:

Trains:

Sources:
https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=14889.0
https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=14872.0

Information about the 2017 SEQ zoning changes:
https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/78068
https://translink.com.au/sites/default/files/assets/resources/about-translink/projects-initiatives/fare-review/qld-government-response-to-seq-fare-review.pdf

                                                                                                        

7. Or this analysis that shows that lowering fares by 10% or increasing service (vehicle-kilometre travelled, VKM) by 10% have the same impact on ridership in a longer period. Combine this with the knowledge that fare box revenue in Australia is 8 to 32% of the cost of running public transport, and lowering fares turns out to be 3 to 12 times more economically effective on ridership than increasing services: 

Source: Transit Price Elasticities and Cross-Elasticities, 12 April 2023, Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute: https://www.vtpi.org/tranelas.pdf

Farebox recovery ratio:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

Long run semi-log fare elasticity is almost identical to long run semi-log service elasticity both in England and France although at different levels: -0.75 and +0.74 in England, and -0.59 and +0.57 in France. This means that lowering fares by 10% or increasing VKM by 10% have the same impact on ridership in a longer period. In England that would be 7.5% increase in ridership , and in France 5.7%.

Interesting: 10x difference between England and France in income elasticity: in England, richer people stop using public transport 10x faster than in France.

                                                                                                        

I will stop here for now, because it already took me two weekends of reading the sources and writing this. The topic is complex and findings and conclusions may vary per locality. There are multiple factors that determine ridership. Surveys measure what people say, ridership measures what people do. Read Todd Litman's work referenced in point 7 to get an understanding that it takes more than a simple survey question to reason about actual behaviours. 

I remember when the Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate was surprised that it only cost about $4 to ride the tram when it opened. Tom Tate is rich. His point of reference is taking a taxi for the same distance.

Public transport advocates should push for all things that increase public transport ridership: shorter total travel time, better availability/reliability/accessibility/comfort/safety, lower fare cost, more high density zoning and transport oriented development (TOD). 

The main competitor of public transport is cars - the villain that costs the society dearly through road deaths (1200 per year in Australia) and injuries, air/water/soil/noise pollution, wildlife habitat loss, etc. Active transport is a competition for short distances (why so many people cycle in the Netherlands? it's cheaper and faster than PT), but complimentary for longer distances (why are there thousands of bicycles around most train stations in the Netherlands?). Free bicycle parking at train stations is much more economically effective than free car parking. Geometry hates cars. 

Public transport advocates should therefore support all things that lower car use and ownership: no free motorways, no motorways in cities, fuel prices or km-driven fees (EVs) reflecting the full societal costs of car driving, fewer parking spaces, narrower roads, no free parking, no parking minimums (which pass the costs of driving onto property developers who pass them to residents and businesses), less low density zoning etc. They should also advocate for active travel infrastructure, because it is often part of the trip on public transport: bike paths separated from cars and pedestrians, wide footpaths, one light crossings (diagonal), raised crossings, beg buttons that cause the light to change to green in under 10 seconds, not 120, 30 km/h speed limits in areas with a lot of foot traffic, etc.

Increased public transport ridership, even if it does not reduce car travel proportionally, or when it lowers active travel share, is still a good thing: more people have more freedom. The older person may be taking a 5 minute bus ride instead of a 30 minute walk on a hot day, or a younger person may be combining a 20 minute bike ride with a 10 minute train ride, instead of riding a bike for 60 minutes each way, pensioners may be riding to meet friends or family more often, etc. Some people argue that the peak public transport services are already at capacity and making them cheaper or God-forbid free would make them even more packed. That's true. But, that shows that peak capacity is too low there, and needs investment: more frequency, higher capacity vehicles or modes (1500 passenger metro every 2 minutes, instead of a 1000 passenger train every 10 minutes, 300 passenger light rail every 5 minutes instead of 150 passenger bus every 10 minutes...), and more lines - duplicate them if needed, add express services that skip some stations, etc. Imagine that we started charging for access to public hospitals because they run at or over capacity at peak times, or to schools that are overcrowded. We don't. We build more.

There are questions that I would like to look into in the future:
Is farebox revenue related to investment/spending on public transport at all?
How are availability and travel time related to mode share?

Cheers,

Tom Andraszek

                                                                                                        

Other sources:

1. Yonah Freemark @yfreemark 

Let's talk a little about free transit fares. 

Here's what I know: *Overall*, research suggests that free transit: 

a - increases ridership 

b - doesn't necessarily get people out of cars 

c - benefits youth, elderly, & low-income riders 

d - may or may not increase operational effectiveness

https://twitter.com/yfreemark/status/1601616004638920704?s=20


2. The behavior of consumers changes dramatically when the price is zero. When faced with multiple choices, the free option is commonly chosen. With the opportunity to receive something for free, the actual value of the product or service is no longer considered.

That's why the trams in the free tram zone in Melbourne are packed with people (mostly first time users?) who could just walk the distance in the same or shorter time.

Owning something, a car in this context, also changes how we act - we stop being rational. The connection we feel to the things we own makes it difficult for us to dispose of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational

3. Transport: Census, Information on number of motor vehicles and method of travel to work, Reference period: 2021:

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-transport/transport-census/2021

4. Residential parking costs and car ownership: Implications for parking policy and automated vehicles:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166046219300237


5. Success as town's 'free bus trial' cut traffic. The question is will the service be extended?
https://www.sunshinecoastnews.com.au/2022/12/05/108000-passengers-traffic-busting-trial-hailed-a-success/

6. Public transport fare elasticities from smartcard data: Evidence from a natural experiment:

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0967070X2100055X

7. An analysis of the determinants of local public transport demand focusing the effects of income changes, Johan Holmgren:
https://etrr.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/s12544-013-0094-0


8. FARE-FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT (FFPT), Michel van Hulten:
https://www.tallinn.ee/en/media/312241


9. Complete analysis of 1992-2009 travel survey data for South-east Queensland including: Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast regions:
https://www.publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/queensland-travel-survey/resource/4a42e431-82bc-48b6-a41a-4539283b3e0d

Karolina's Twins by Ronald H. Balson

Karolina's Twins by Ronald H. Balson read by Gabra Zackman

A very moving, and, as far as I can tell, historically accurate Holocaust story about a young Jewish woman from Chrzanów. Gets quite emotional towards the end. Well narrated audiobook.