By Frank on October 16, 2007
Part of Ron Sims’ proposed King County budget would include a 25-cent hike in bus fares, presumably bringing prices to $1.50 for an off-peak trip and $1.75 at peak times. That seems reasonable to me. Transit fares in many cities are at or above $2, so Metro is still a relative bargain.
His levy on homes to support a passenger ferry service is a bit…odd… and a .1% sales tax increase to fund drug treatment is just wacky. I mean, doesn’t anything get paid for out of general operating funds anymore?
In yet more wackiness, Sims argues that his proposals would cost “a lot less” than Proposition 1. Well yeah, but it also does a lot less. MUCH less. Ferries are not interchangeable with light rail. And how exactly does a drug treatment center improve transit?
Posted in alternative commute, policy, RTID
By Frank on July 9, 2007
Larry Lange looks at free bus service in the P-I, and finds it’s not all it’s cracked up to be:
“A fare-free policy might be appropriate for smaller transit systems in smaller communities, but is ill-advised for larger transit systems in major urban areas,” a 2003 University of South Florida study concluded. It said fare-free service increases maintenance and labor costs and in some cases led to criminal activity that “drove away existing riders.”
In other words, if you want something to have value, you have to make people pay for it, even if it’s just a token amount. it is interesting, though, that Metro estimates that collection costs account for 10% of their budget. Given that the farebox only brings in 15% or so of total revenue, that’s nearly a wasy.
Posted in alternative commute, policy
By Frank on June 26, 2007
Metro tries to square the circle:
Metro Transit is proposing a new bus-wrap ad program that would partially wrap buses with advertising, including covering “only a portion” of the bus windows. The revised program would generate up to $900,000 a year in revenue, county officials said.
Last November, the Metropolitan King County Council voted to get rid of advertising that completely covered a bus, including the windows.
Some bus riders complained that wrapped buses were dark and that views were greatly reduced, but the move will cost the Seattle area transit agency $743,000 in revenue.
It’s true that fully-wrapped buses can suck, especially on those rainy winter nights when the bus is stiflingly muggy. Glad they found a way around it.
Posted in alternative commute, policy
By Frank on May 30, 2007
(with apologies to James Brown)
More TransitNow changes are coming this weekend, including more service in South King County. We’re also getting the Fremont Bridge back: bus service there will also resume on Saturday.
Posted in alternative commute, policy
By Frank on May 26, 2007
Proposed “RapidRide” route for Bus Rapid Transit in King County.
Posted in alternative commute, inothercities, policy
By Frank on May 25, 2007
I thought it was a settled case that Metro’s new hybrid buses were no more fuel-efficient than the diesels they replaced. Now comes an article in Truck Trend (I’m sure yours is in the mail…) citing a government study (PDF) that shows the opposite.
The real-world study, conducted in Seattle in 2006, shows a 27% increase in fuel economy over the old buses. It’s hard to say what accounts for the disparity, although it appears from the study that actual fuel economy for both bus types was lower, and thus the difference more dramatic. Either way, it’s good news King County.
(Incidentally, the study was provided by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. There’s a funny story about President Bush’s visit to NREL last year.)
Posted in alternative commute, policy
By Frank on May 24, 2007
Last week Sightline’s Clark Williams-Derry highlighted the fact that Vancouver tops Seattle and Portland in transit use. The Vancouver-area papers have run with the story:
Vancouver is more constrained by geography, so like it or not, there’s less space to sprawl and more likelihood residents will be close to transit.
By year-end, 36 per cent of [Greater Vancouver] residents will live within 450 metres of a “frequent transit” line—what TransLink defines as minimum 15 minute service 15 hours a day, seven days a week.
Williams-Derry also concedes higher gas taxes north of the border may have helped give transit an edge over private car use over the long term.
But ultimately, he argues, Vancouver’s success stems from better land-use decisions rather than the design of its transit system.
That second point about “frequent transit” is key. People need confidence that they can “throw away their schedules,” which was one of Ron Sims’ key selling points for Transit Now. People like certainty, which is one reason why rail appeals to us: you see the tracks here, it’s pretty clear that there’s a train going to come sooner or later. Bus stops don’t inspire the same confidence. Hopefully Metro’s RapidRide will incorporate some rail-station-like features that give us the sense that there’s a BRT bus on the way.
For example, I was spending a weekend in Northwest Portland about a year ago, and I wanted to spend the day downtown. I headed right for the streetcar stop. There was a digital readout saying that, since it was a weekend, the next car was coming in, say 20 minutes. I watched a few buses pass me, and thought I probably could have gotten on any one of them and gotten downtown. But there was an uncertainty that I, unfamiliar with Portland, wouldn’t get where I wanted to go. So I waited for the streetcar. And sure enough, it came just when the sign said it would. That’s how transit should work: we can deal with the waiting, just not the uncertainty.
Posted in alternative commute, gregnickels, Rail Tunnel, soundtransit
By Frank on May 7, 2007
One thing I’ve noticed in the past year or so is that it’s gotten much more difficult to park downtown. Through a combination of factors — more electronic meters, fewer free parking areas — the city has really changed my personal calculus: I think twice before driving downtown, even on a Saturday. And I’m much more likely to take the bus.
Some folks aren’t so happy about the changes:
Some neighborhood activists complain that the city’s goals are unrealistic, at least until there’s more convenient public transportation in Seattle.
“The city’s living in a planner’s fantasy that … if you make it hard to park people will magically walk or ride their bike,” said Matt Fox, a longtime activist in the University District, where the city has substantially reduced free parking.
“Until the transit alternatives are in place, I think this is a punitive approach that’s going to make people’s lives really miserable.”
Well, I have a hard time believing it’s going to make anyone’s life truly “miserable” (there are far worse things happening in the world), but I can see where he’s coming from. However, we’re in a bit of a Catch-22 with waiting “until the transit alternatives are in place.” Adding more bus service will be easier when there’s more demand, and there’ll be more demand when there’s more service. In the meantime, Metro’s Transit Now initiative will help.
But my instinct is that the barriers to entry are still too high for many people. The bus system is darn confusing if you don’t have a route that you know and use frequently. It’s reminiscent of the Simpsons episode where Lisa tries to take the bus to the museum and finds herself deposited out in the boonies. When she asks the bus driver why the bus didn’t stop at the museum, he replies “that’s the No. 22. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, this is the 22A.” It’s funny because it’s true.
It surprises me that a city with this many information workers can’t come up with a more intuitive way of communicating bus routes. Use colors, use shapes. Have more intuitive bus maps. Identify, say, 8 major routes and make them stand out from the pack somehow. We’re sort of getting there with the BRT component of Transit Now, but so much more could be done for what’s basically peanuts compared to the cost of, say, laying a mile of rail.
Posted in alternative commute, legislation, policy, Trail
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