General

This post, which points out that transit can’t be judged on the low ridership of services where ridership isn’t the goal, drew this question from Rob:

I have a question about cities with weak urban cores. I don’t know much about Seattle, but the story that the numbers tell is that the city’s population is currently near its historical high. But what do you do in cities that are losing population, like many in the rust belt? In my hometown, Cleveland, the population is lower than it’s been since 1900. Many urban neighborhoods are no longer the densest areas (there are 3 inner-ring suburbs more dense than the city-proper). What do you think?

As I explained, if Seattle’s King County Metro were pursuing a pure ridership objective, it would cut almost all service in the low-density suburbs and put all those buses in Seattle as higher frequencies on dense corridors.  The principle is the same in any network:

If your goal is ridership, follow patterns of dense development with intense service.

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New York City transit supporters are on fire today as their transit agency, the MTA, announced deep service cuts.  Service cuts are happening all over the US this year, as the economic crisis has cut into most of the local funding streams on which agencies rely.  In many cases, including California and New York, the problems have been compounded by raids on state transit funding streams to help balance state budgets.

There seems to be plenty of blame to go around for New York MTA’s especially dire straits.  The New York Times offers three expert views on their “Room for Debate” forum, though the three don’t seem to be disagreeing.  Two emphasize the need for more secure government funding, while the third points out the need to push back harder on labor costs, and it sounds like they can all be right.  None of them says that service cuts are a good thing. Continue Reading →

Everyone should know how to respond to stories like this, because they’ll keep coming.  From Kevin Libin at Canada’s National Post, an article called ‘Save the Environment: Don’t Take Transit.”  It quotes the usual suspects, but it still needs a clear response: Continue Reading →

Are you currently employed in some aspect of public transit planning, management, policy, or operations?  Do you deal with public transit as part of your job, which could be in anything from town planning to social services to journalism?  If so, please click the email button under my photograph at right, if only to tell me who you are.  I’d like to know that you’re out there reading.  You’re also encouraged to submit comments that way.

Most comments on this blog seem to come from people who are interested in transit as advocates or activists, and their input continues to be encouraged.  I hear less often from professionals who read the blog; I suspect that’s because of professional risks associated with stating opinions under your own name.  That’s fine, but I’d still like to hear your perspectives, so use email. Continue Reading →

Joseph E asks an excellent question in response to my last post about the new Swift BRT, in Snohomish County north of Seattle.  Here’s the heart of it:

Jarrett,
do you feel the wide stop spacing is a benefit? I was inclined to think the stations are too far apart. In comparison, commuter rail stops every 1 to 3 miles in most places (well, on the East and West coast), but always has an exclusive right-of-way, crossing gates, and high-speed operation between stations.

BRT should be capable of accelerating faster than diesel commuter trains, and obviously can stop much faster than even light rail. So why not have stations every 1/2 to 1 mile? It is much easier to walk 5 or 10 minutes to a station than walk to a local bus stop and transfer a mile down the road.

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Although I’ve done some Bus Rapid Transit planning, my Canadian colleague, Steve Schijns, has been doing it for decades, including important work in both Ottawa and Brisbane.  He’s also up to date on a lot of the BRT happening around Toronto.  In response to my previous post, he sent along these thoughts, which I thought I’d share verbatim: Continue Reading →

Since I began seriously reading US transit blogs about a year ago, it’s been apparent that many US activists have a problem with the term “Bus Rapid Transit.”  My goal in my recent post on the Brisbane busway system was to illustrate a dramatically different vision of BRT from what Americans are used to, and thus to help US activists stretch and broaden their notions of what BRT can mean. Continue Reading →

Peter Parker at Melbourne on Transit has an interesting analysis of “scramble crossings” at signals.  Scramble crossings are phases of a signal that give pedestrians the green in all directions, so that they can cross in any direction including diagonally across the intersection.  Sydney, where I live, has exactly one of them, to my knowledge.  It’s right in front of Town Hall. Continue Reading →

Everyone should peruse the comment thread on my last post, “Should we ride mediocre transit?”  If the post and its thread helps you clarify and explain your own view on the question, then this blog is doing its job.  (Yes, there’s still no tip jar; I still have a salary as a transit planning consultant, but you’ll be the first to know if I don’t!)

… to “certify” transit systems on a Bronze-Silver-Gold scale according to criteria like frequency, operating hours, accessibility, travel time and so forth.”  (Emphasis mine.)

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On my post about the transit speed benefits of abolishing the US$1 bill, many commenters re-emphasised that $1 coins do exist.  The US Mint wants to promote them, but that they are failing to catch on with the public.   Cashiers encounter resistance when they give them out in change.  The resulting back and forth with the customer takes far more time than it’s worth, so even a cashier with revolutionary impulses learns it’s just easier to give out dollar bills.

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