They Say: The Spare Ratio is 20%

Small enough? Photo from Motiondesign The question comes up all the time in the transit business:  why doesn’t your transit agency does not deploy smaller buses?  This question has been posed to me so many times now that my answer is reflexive and automatic.  For those not intimately plugged into the transit business there are four reasons: Capacity.  There is no savings.  There is no money...

A Model of Efficiency

In the previous post I discussed the inherent difficulties of a radial system based on observations of many systems but also from my own work at the agency in Tallahassee where we took apart a radial system and created a decentralized, grid-like pattern.  Or at least as close to a grid as possible in the highly radial-oriented street network of Tallahassee.  After six months of operation, a difficult...

Problems with the Radial System

The earliest transit systems were organic parts of the cities they served.  They grew from the densely populated city center (central business district, CBD) into the emerging suburbs that were created by privately-operated public transit.  Those initial streetcar lines were like valves releasing the pressure on crowded and unpleasant CBDs which housed financial districts, sometimes slaughterhouses,...

Title Six Comics

It is not a Marvel, nor is it from DC, but BART, the San Francisco Bay Area’s wonderful heavy rail system, has produced a comic book for helping passengers negotiate the metro system.  What a more skeptical reader may see is a long, probably expensive, simplistic explanation of what is already an easily understood system (subways being far easier to grasp than nearly all bus systems, the London...

Property or Recipient?

Skyway image from Wikipedia A recent post about the soon-to-be constructed Atlanta Streetcar/downtown circulator prompted a reader to forward an article from Jacksonville about their downtown circulator, which happens to be an automated guideway, or people mover, JTA calls the Skyway.  Ridership is low, 30% of their pre-construction estimates, and the service is very expensive to the tune of a $4...

The De Facto Sidewalks

Transit agencies serving populations of 200,000 or greater “will expend not less than one percent of the amount the recipient receives each fiscal year under Section 5307 for transit enhancements . . . and will submit an annual report listing projects carried out in the preceding fiscal year with those funds,” according to Section 5307(d)(1)(K).  That’s clear enough: you will spend 1% of your...

The Transit Brand

There are two widely understood characteristics of successful transit:  it must be necessary and it must be good.  But successful transit systems are three-legged stools and the less well-known third leg is that transit must be well marketed.  A great service that the public does not know about is destined to fail and in this regard transit is like any other product or service. Marketing transit,...

Smoke

In addition to my work in transit I have been freelance writing for over a decade now and publishing work mostly in regional or niche publications like Wiregrass Living, Metro, Mass Transit, International Railway Traveler, Russian Life, and Southern Living.  I created Trip Planner Magazine to fill with writings on transit that were not finding other homes.  I write because it is impossible for me...

Frankly MARTA, I don’t Give a Tram

So let me guess: it’s gonna run in a circle, right?  A July 2011 press release from FTA gives a succinct overview of what are some ill-conceived notions about streetcar in America.  The document is the public go-ahead to build a streetcar system for Atlanta with a $47.6 million TIGER II grant awarded in October 2010.  “The electric streetcar will run 2.6 miles through the heart of Atlanta’s...

Hide it in Plain Sight

Here is a quick tip when doing sign changes on a large scale.  Our agency was faced with putting 800 new signs up for a completely new route structure (going from radial to grid-like).  Since all of the new signs would have route information on them (route names changing from numbers to letters) we did not want to have the new signs facing the public until the weekend before the launch.  Putting...

The Sushi Roll in the Burger Joint

Choice is not limited to just 6 lanes or 4. The only thing that competes for time in my mind as much as transit is Florida State football and I was surprised to find the two come together on a website I frequent, tomahawknation.com.  The city of Tallahassee is currently doing a multimodal master plan as part of an effort to determine if Tennessee Street (US 90), the main east-west road going through...

First is Worst

“Don’t ever, ever be the first to try out a new technology in transit,” Gregory Thompson told me over lunch.  I had just started my first job at a transit agency and we were about to be the first in the country to install a major technological upgrade to our system (I won’t say what).  My former professor was not happy to hear this.  He worked for BART in the 1970s when they were the first...

They Say: Half Fare

What’s the difference between a courtesy and an obligation?  A dollar sign and a bunch of zeros as far as the Federal How much to pay and when? Half fare is only required during off-peak. Transit Administration is concerned.  Extending a reduced fare to certain patrons may seem like a courtesy to those not working in transit but it is in fact an FTA—and not an ADA—requirement.  With this rule...

Carmaggedon

Driving is easy in a bust town, those western places where the gold or the oil dried up; traffic is light when there are few places to stop.  For this reason bad economies are great for commuters; fewer people going to work means fewer people clogging the transportation network.  Expensive fuel also has a depressive affect on vehicle miles traveled.  Growing concerns over human ecology (my preferred...

Burglar on a Bus

The author attempts a get-away on the bus. Easier said than done. “I just saw a bus stop sign near my house on Duma Street,” the voice message began.  “My property was broken into in December and I want to know who to talk to see about having the stop removed,” the woman said, assuming I would find the nexus between home invasion and bus riders.  Because our transit agency is making big...