Would you ride your local transit system even if it was free?

[Anonymous]

Over here in Western New York there are major cutbacks with high taxes and less and less services. Chautauqua County and Jamestown NY have cut buses back to the bone. At one time even this somewhat rural county had 190 miles of Interurban lines. They even had steam boat lines that took workers from Downtown Jamestown to there homes along the lake
Major Traffic was workers in the furniture capital of the US Jamestown NY as well Summer Tourists to Lake Chautauqua. The County has two population centers Dunkirk-Fredonia(SUNY U is here) NY on the old New York Central Main Line as well as the Former terminus of the Erie Railroad or Erie Railway. In the South is Jamestown NY on the Erie which has a power plant on the Old Erie Mainline. Between the two is a lot of rural areas
and of Course Lake Chautauqua.
The problem is that CARTS transit is mandated to serve our senior citzen population and cover a lot of ground. They get rembused from the state and feds for serive the disabled but dont get money for local transit service for working people to get them to and from work.
The county has given up by having the last bus going anywere at 3:45 making impossible to work a 9 to 5 job or even use the bus at night to go shopping.
The Local Chamber of Buisness has come up with a idea to make the Buses free in the evening to the Mall (Owned by the Simon Conglomerate) , This would be paid for by local business in the Lakewood NY Shopping District.
Passengers would get coupons from the driver to spend at sponsering buineses along the route and the Mall would paint up the Bus in its Logo. The Bus run is about 5 miles long.
So how does this tie in to rail?
Well If subway riders in DC or NYC could have there tickets redeemed or get free tokens from Downtown merchants when they spend X number of dollers it would be good for buisness and a incentive to shop downtown. Too often Suberban Workers ru***o and from there jobs and spend there money at home far awy from the inner city. Buffalo lost its last Department Store 4 years ago (AM&E?) as well as other citys in the Midwest have lost retail in the Downtown core. The reason has been free parking at the malls and not having to contend with Meter maids. Of course how could you get home a 24 inch color TV home on the bus or train? In the good old days Downtown deparment stores were located near train stations and used Railway Express extensively. Shoppers from 100 miles around would journey into town and pick out there items and place it on a order form and it would be picked from a warehouse and loaded on the next train or interurban. Oneils Department Store in Akron OH had a extensive system of tracks in its basement to faciltate loading and unloading. Sears Robuck still does home delivery via Truck to local customers.
But Baby Boomers and there SUVs will have to face up the facts that someday they will have to quit driving there cars due to bad eyesight and health reasons and use some form of transit to get around.
What I am proposing here is to have local buisneses and Property Owners who live say within walking or short driving distances be assesed for the Contruction and operation of a Light Rail Line or Bus Rapid Transit. Then make the service free to them. Free? Yes Free.
Are you charged for the use of your public library or your police? No I dont think so. To prevent over crowding farecards would be purchased but on the back of the farecards would be coupons to spend at local buisneses along the Rail or bus line. So you buy a 2.00 farecard but redeem that card for free coffee at Starbucks so no big deal.
Tell me what you think Already in this area there are free casino buses with preliminary talks of Indian Casinos sponsering a steam train to there casinos.[:)]

[Anonymous]

Also how many of your boses are willing to pay for your monthly bus or train pass?

[vsmith]

If it wasnt 3 miles from my house, or even if it didnt charge for parking, sure I would. If I could simply park and ride I would definetly consider it, and pay for it. But since I live in LA, I drive, luckily my commute is only 14 miles, short by LA standards. I wish my wife had the option. She is comuting 30 miles with no rail transit system within 10 miles of her work. as it is it can take her 2 hours in bad traffic to get home. Any kind of rail service is still almost 10 years away. So much for the so-called "City of the Future" soon to be renamed "City of Gridlock"

BTW I intentionally ignored busses, if a car takes 2 hours, beleive me, here, the bus will take 3![}:)]

[Anonymous]

We seem to be running out of money to maintain or provide any kind of transportation infrastructure, whether it be for cars, trains, buses, or even walking. Four times as many U.S. residents have been killed in motor vehicle accidents as were killed in all our nation's wars since the Revolution (1776) yet our politicians seem determined to provide enough parking and roads to accommodate every auto the manufacturers can sell. And local and county governments still continue to allow new housing and job opportunities at sites that are accessible to motorist's only. Is that our manifest destiny?

We better start getting concerned about whether people who cannot, should not, or choose not to drive have any rights. We might never get out of our traffic congestion mess if we don't figure out a way to prohibit any new development that is not at least as accessible and functional for non-motorists as it is for those who drive.

[mucable]

If your employer would reimburse your transit fares, then he should also be paying for your auto commute. That could include the cost of your auto, maintenance, depreciation, consumables, insurance...not just the gas.

One of the major keys to successful mass transit is convenience. It it's a big deal to get to the bus, trolley or train stop, then you might as well drive the whole trip. I think one reason it's so hard to do these days is another cause directly attributal to the personal auto. That cause is the urban sprawl which can be directly linked to the automoblie.

That's probably why as lincoln5390 observes, our transportation infrastructure is not maintainable. It's the same problem that the long distance train has...YOU CAN'T BE EVERYWHERE AT HIGH NOON.

[dharmon]

My employer is willing to provide me with a free mass transit pass. He is not willing for me to spend all day getting there.

[tatans]

Find out who's in charge of your city, our mayor seems to be a yes man to every 39 cent "developer" in Canada, has never said no to a development and are these bozos ever taking advantage of this, some of the ugliest districts are being built as far out as the eye can see and very far from public transit, and we are now being taxed up the ying- yang to pay for these unworkable transit projects. Didn't Fresno put an end to this craziness and start redeveloping it's inner core with no more urban sprawl?

[MP57313]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mucable
If your employer would reimburse your transit fares, then he should also be paying for your auto commute.

My employer partially subsidizes transit passes (about 25%). In theory the employer saves money becuase it reduces the maintenance cost of parking lots, access roads, etc.
Whether an employee chooses transit is left to availability (limited, but it does work for some) and reliability. Even employees who rely on transit will drive in on certain days that they Absolutely, Positively Have to Be There, or on days they know they'll need to work late.

[dldance]

I used public transit in Austin for about 5 years until my employment changed. Now my commute on most days is 16 carpeted steps - little need for public transit!

dd

[tree68]

Local transit? What's that?

My daily commute is about 20 miles, normally around 30 minutes - weather, school buses, and pokey drivers notwithstanding. Less than a quarter of it has speed limits less than 55.

My employer does run buses to "remote" housing areas (assigned to the GIs), but it doesn't stop near my place, and I frequently use my own vehicle to get around the post (the size of a small city) in the course of my duties anyhow.

[Anonymous]

I live in a semi-rural area in Chautaqua County NY which is about 40 miles west of Buffalo. We have Commuter Bus service that is subsidized by the state of New York.(Which by the way used to be a train) We are not Populated enough to make mass transit viable so its mostly used by the handicapped and Poor. Furthermore Buffalo is so sprawled out that even if there was a train passenger would still have to transfer to get out to the Suberbs were the jobs are in Amherst. Commuter trains work best were there is a strong downtown were people still work and shop. The Problem with LA is that the last time I was there is that its downtown is not nearly as dence as New York Or Chicago.
Its trains were used a lot by domestics to get to cleaning jobs in Hollywood from San Bernadino. There is a lot of low income people in LA and the Metro provides a valuble service to get around a area but unless LA builds more housing and retail around its stations and make the system easy to use ridership probaly wont increase

[jchnhtfd]

'even if it was free'? Friend, I would cheerfully ride it even if I had to pay for it, at least if it were reasonable (that is, not much more than what I pay for driving it -- 16 miles each way is about $8 each way per day, all my costs considered)! There's one little hitch, though... where I live and work, mass transit is a sick joke. As we are all aware, any mode of transportation (mass or otherwise) requires at least some State funding (subsidy if you like), and our State (Connecticut) funds mass transit only as a last resort, and very reluctantly even then; if they could back out of MetroNorth, they would. Highways are everything. So, in a nutshell, there is no usable mass transit in most of the State.

So I simply don't have a choice. Drive 16 miles (45 minutes on our lovely highways) or quit.

[Anonymous]

CT has a intresting system of rural bus routes. About 4 years ago I rode from New London CT(Metronorth) to Springfield Mass. Just by linking all the diffrent systems. Took two and 1/2 days but I was sightseeing

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

My employer provides a limited transit subsidy which takes a sizable bite out of the cost of my monthly Metra ticket although I would still ride the train without it. Parking costs are astronomical in the Loop area so it's still cheaper to drive to my local station and take the train to Union Station.

[daveklepper]

When I lived in the Boston area, I used a mix of public transit and my own car, depending on destinations and plans for the day. In Downers Grove, IL, I used the Burlington suburban to Chicago and the CTA in Chicago, but my own car to other suburbs and around Downers Grove and Westmont. When I moved back to NYC (having left it for MIT and the Army at 17) I sold my car, used public transit and railroads and intercity buses and airplanes, and rarely rented a car when necessary. I lived in Manhattan a few blocks from a major subway station that was ten minutes from either Grand Central or Penn. And PATH was nearby also. In Jerusalem I use the Egged bus system enough to have a Sr. Citizen's pass which gives me the whole city for the equivalent of about $20 a month! And we are promised a light rail line soon, but I haven't seen any tracks put in the streets yet! Sure, I use public transit as much as possible, like looking at the scenery (both kinds) and occasionally doing homework or reading the newspaper or a good book.

[SALfan]

I would ride use mass transit even if I had to pay the full cost (my employer pays about 2/3 of my mass transit cost now). I use a combination of personal auto and mass transit, by driving to a bus plaza. A parking space in downtown DC costs more than I'm spending now on mass transit, and I'd rather walk barefoot on broken glass than to drive in this traffic.

[BNSFGP38]

Even if the transit in Boston was free......Id still loose money by getting my wallet stolen. That is if I had a desire to go that city.[xx(] [:(]

[Anonymous]

Not really an option for me here.

I don't work 9-5, I work on-call, and can be called to work at any point in the 24 hour cycle, 7 days a week.

In the best of times it would take me the better part of two hours to get to work, taking a series of busses, and making a number of transfers, that is of course during regular hours, if I was called to work for 0200, I wouldn't even have a transit option, as the busses wouldn't be running at that hour.

Really, it's just not practicable.

[Anonymous]

So what I am hearing here is that you must be in a livable city that has a viable transit system? The problem seems to be that its been 20 or 30 years since most metropoliton areas have redrawn there bus maps.
Most bus lines are on old trolley lines despite the fact that most of the pop. have moved away from those lines.

[Anonymous]

Allow me to speak as a "retired" board member of a major rail and bus transit system.

A transit system should do the following:

1: To be viable the transit system must run frequently and travel between relevant points. A bad example is Amtrak which has one train north and south through Dallas. With this frequency it is not a viable means to get to Austin or San Antonio. It must be built between business centers to be viable. Another bad example is the Indian Nation Turnpike in Oklahoma. It runs between Henryetta and Hugo-hardly major population centers. I believe it was built to satisfy local politatians. I do find it great to get to my son's home in Tulsa as it is almost devoid of traffic.

2: Keep the fares reasonable. It cost us about $4.00 to collect the $1.00 in fairbox revenue. There is not a transit system in the world that pays its total costs through the farebox, so do not even try. An industry rule of thumb is a 25% increase in fare will reduce ridership 10%. Only increase fares as a very last resort.

3: Provide a clean system. If you clean and wash your vehicles and facilities daily the riders will respect them and not litter or graffitti them. Our policy is the first driver on a route in the morning radios in any graffitti along the line. By noon on the same day it is gone. If you remove the media for the graffitti artists to express themselves they soon will tire of it.

4: Provide a secure system. Have a transit police presence as much as possible. I realize that it is impossible to have an officer on every train and bus, but have them randomly ride and patrol your facilities. Increase the police presence in high crime areas. Use video monitoring. Prosecute offenders.

5: Show that as a transit agency you care. Have a hot line for complaints AND follow up on them. Pass out flowers on Mother's day. Pass out candy on Valentines day. We do this and you would be surprised at the amount of positive feedback we get.

6: Make your system seamless. We have a one ticket policy good for travel, including transfers, on buses, light rail, commuter rail, and our sister city's independant transit system. Follow the KISS system-keep it simple, studid.

7: Encourage businesses to support transit. Develop fare and pass plans that make it attractive to subsidize employee's monthly passes. True enlightened management who care about their home city will support mass transit. This will be a means to give the employee a tax free raise with the transit pass provided by the employers and to reduce freeway congestion. Of course, there are the greedy managers, who will not give any benefits. Hopefully the word about them gets out early on and they get their just reward.

8: As a transit agency be a constructive influence in your community. Sponsor events as far as the law will allow a government agency to go. Advertise your service in conjunction with businesses at stations to show how you can get there on the bus or train.

Other observations.
People will ride a train all day who would never set foot inside a bus. They will ride a connector bus to get to or from a rail station.

Some diehards will never get out of their cars (or pickups here in Texas) no matter what you offer including free rides.

I left our agency's board last year after seven year of service due to moving out of the service area to our retirement home. I still work in Dallas, which is 65 miles from my home. I am in a commuter van which costs about $130 per month. This is about 1/3 the cost of the gas to run my car to Dallas and back daily and in addition there is wear and tair on the car and me personally. I now sit back, drink my coffee in the morning, and let someone else aim the van down the highway. At night I can dose off if needed. Do not advise doing this if you are driving. Yes, it is a 13 hour day from the time I walk out the front door until I walk in, but this is my choice (I retire in less than one year). I loose the freedom to go out at lunch, but that freedom is worth giving up for all the other benefits.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dunkirkeriestation

So what I am hearing here is that you must be in a livable city that has a viable transit system? The problem seems to be that its been 20 or 30 years since most metropoliton areas have redrawn there bus maps.
Most bus lines are on old trolley lines despite the fact that most of the pop. have moved away from those lines.

The system is definately viable, they just have to get their stuff together.

I see no reason to spend 4+ hours on multiple busses when I can spend less than 2 in my own private car round trip.

It's too bad really, but I suppose transit isn't really aimed at people who work on-call, it really is more for the 9-5 crowd.

[daveklepper]

Mr. W. R. Watkins: I really think you should be in the public transportation consulting business, to suppliment your retirement income when you retire completely. My email is:
[e-mail]

I'd like to know yours in case I can send you some people with questions and problems that my own experience has not the basis for solving. Dave

[jchnhtfd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dunkirkeriestation

CT has a intresting system of rural bus routes. About 4 years ago I rode from New London CT(Metronorth) to Springfield Mass. Just by linking all the diffrent systems. Took two and 1/2 days but I was sightseeing

You don't happen to be English do you? 'Interesting system' is the best example of a 'typically British understatement' that I think I've read in a long time![:D] I'm surprised it only took 2 1/2 days...

W. R. has the analysis, though: there must be a certain critical mass for any transportation system to function properly, otherwise, the ridership simply isn't there. One reason why certain transit systems work so well is that the mass is there -- New York, Tokyo, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, London, Paris, Boston are obvious, but others, such as Dallas (congrats, WR!) or Portland Ore., work too, because the transit planners have the ingenuity to figure out the routes and stops to provide the critical mass (don't get mad if I left out your favourite city). Too often systems are designed without adequately considering potential ridership, but rather on some political or civic pride grounds and then, when they show low ridership or simply don't work out at all it is easier to place the blame on mass transit as a concept than on poor planning.

[daveklepper]

The majority of the new light rail starts have met or exceeded planners' projections, but there are exceptions. What really bothers me is the continued use of two man crews on light rail cars in Great Britain. Maybe this is in part a cause the certain system's poor financial showing.

In Brookly, up through and after WWII, the heaviest streetcar lines, including all Brooklyn PCC's had turnstiles right behind the operator. This really speeded up boarding and stopped free riders. If you had a nickle (later a dime) you entered on the left side of the front double door and went directly through the turnstile, but if you needed change or were presenting a transfer you boarded the right side so you coud inteface with the operator. There were some Manhattan bus lines that also had turnstiles behind the driver.

New Orleand, Salt Lake City, Denver, Portland OR are all successful systems.

[Anonymous]

It is all too easy to look thru our rose colored glasses.
There is a growing number of low income people who dont have a car.
Also the low income people who do have car also have unsafe vehicles and in addition to paying the rent and feeding themselves and there kids have to pay insurance and fuel and car payments. Try doing all this on 300 a week or even less.If we had a viable and free local transit system that would be steping stone for many people to Climb out of poverty. Dont forget here that UMTA and Federal Subsidys of Urban transit came out of the war on poverty.
Now that I live in a Rural area(With two small citys Jamestown being about 40,000 and Dunkirk-Fredonia about 25,000) I see the importance of haveing Public transit for everybody Urban or Rural. You cant pull yourself out of your boot straps if you dont have any boots.

[Anonymous]

For Dave Klepper--

Thank you for the kind words. I really enjoyed my tenure with DART. I was the only engineer on the board and developed a great relationship with the technical staff. I have a policy to never embarrass a person who was making a board presentation. If I had a problem I would call them before the meeting and we would resolve the issue without any embarrasing situations. It is a shame that some of the other board members would not follow this policy and delighted in embarrasing the staff. I know that when I left there were 3000 friends who were sorry to see me go. Cannot say the same for some other members. Occasionally after warning the presenter before the meeting I would ask clarification questions for the benefit of the rest of the board. I already knew the answer but 90% of the time a technical presentation would go over their head. Several members of the staff would tell me things that they would not tell management as they knew I would keep my mouth shut. I was trying to make DART the best transit system in the country and we did this as APTA gave us the Transit Agency of the Year award a couple of years ago.

I tend to ramble on.

One thing I forgot to put into my discussion of what it takes is to have a critical mass. New York and San Francisco have a very good critical mass due to their compact area with a very high population density. Cities which are spread out due to the lack of geographical barriers do not have this population density and will not have the degree or percentage of ridership as the dense cities. Sadly Dallas falls into this category. Dallas has been fortunate though, in that our citizens (including the sourrounding commuties that are part of DART) have really taken to mass transit. DART, like all transit agencies has to rely upon the federal allocation to finance construction of the system. The Feds look at potential ridership in deciding wether to allocate funds. Dallas recently lost on this for the tunnel under Love Field (in town airport) for the line going northwest due to low potential ridership for the high investment for the tunnel. Sadly Love Field will be on a spur line. I currently live in a rural area on a lake. There is not a critical mass there to justify any type of mass transit. We do have paratransit as this is federally mandated. The van pool that I am in is sponsored by DART which is the reason it goes to where I live. That one van takes 8 cars off the freeway. DART has approximately 80 van pools so there is a significant number of cars being removed from the road.

I would like to get into transportation consulting after 45 years in the oil and gas consulting business. A while back I was approached about possible appointment to the Amtrak board. Since I have not donated or raised a million dollars for the political party in power I think my chances are slim for that appointment. With Amtrak's current delimma I might have been out of a job shortly. Sad to say the majority of the political appointments are based on political insider basis and not based on technical ability. Currently I am getting my ducks in a row for retirement after Christmas and putting out feelers to my friends in transit and the oil business.

And finally Dave my email is [e-mail]. Hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,
*** Watkins (the WR stands for W Richard)

[Anonymous]

No, the metrolink,& Amtrak routes have too many accidents now. Why did both SP
& it's daylight route have to go?

[espeefoamer]

I would use transit if I could get to it[:(!]. I live 1 1/2 miles from the nearest bus stop.From there I could go anywhere.

[Anonymous]

I do so many different things for work and myself, I could never ride public transit. Maybe if I went back and forth to the same spot everyday I would, but I don't see that ever happening. Plus, the psychological issues of using public transportation in Los Angeles is different from other cities. Here there's a bit of a snob attitude. In other words... If you ride public transportation, you're a loser. I guess if you're married already, that's not a big deal. But try meeting a girl in L.A. and telling her you ride a bus or train... Good luck.

Dave
-DPD Productions - Home of the TrainTenna RR Monitoring Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/

[Anonymous]

Mr. Watkins,
Thank you for the cogent and dispassionate observations on public transit. I learned something... which is always a good thing.

I empathize with folks that don't have a car. For two years I commuted to work in Phoenix, AZ by bus and bike. It was OK and affordable when my hours were set. I took a promotion (big mistake) where the hours became flexible and overtime became mandatory... often the on call times were before a 5:30AM bus could get me to work, or after the entire bus system shut down at 9:30PM. I didn't mind riding my bike for 15 miles every once in a while... but five days a week in 100 degree plus temperatures got old real fast. (The Phoenix system also had really great bike racks on the front of the bus... which could, and did, get filled up on a regular basis before the bus got to me.)

Now that I'm a cop, my transportation is provided for me, because I am on call 24/7. There is mass transit available between my house in Georgia and my department in Alabama. It takes at least one hour to get 15 miles by two busses (bussi? bussuum?). Ridership is generally low to none on either bus. The service can't support the requirement I have to respond to the department in half an hour. And it shouldn't have to.

Sure, I'd use local mass transit if it were free. Heck, I try to scarf up on freebies for anything. Would it be a practical alternative to the patrol car parked in my driveway? No.

Erik