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How do you grade your community's public transportation network in its current state?

  • Outstanding

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Very Good

    Votes: 2 14.3%
  • Acceptable

    Votes: 7 50.0%
  • Needs Improvement

    Votes: 5 35.7%
  • Failing

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  • No Opinion (explain)

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Improving Public Transportation in the West Region

5K views 13 replies 4 participants last post by  Nexarc 
#1 ·
To celebrate my 2,000th post here, I will be launching a brand new thread on a brand new forum that I have not encountered before. I have seen that this particular thread is currently experiencing not much activity, and I will work my best to bring this to life. And note that this is only one part of a multi-part series of discussions dedicated to the West Coast and Interior West thread.

Public transportation is a way of life for many commuters (including yours truly) wherein instead of driving down a busy freeway or interstate, buses, trains, light rail, and other modes of public transit get commuters from point A to point B. There are too many ways for me to approach this topic because I am really interested in the various facets of public transportation, including:

  • The current state of your community's transit network
  • Issues and concerns about your public transportation agency
  • The poll question: How do you rate your public transportation network in its current state?
  • Looking at alternatives to public transportation (including biking, car sharing, and other options)
  • Addressing the future of your community's transit agency
Those topics are particularly crucial in the Western portion of the United States, where cities tend to be spaced out from each other. It is particularly true in the Rocky Mountains region, where Denver seems to be the only large city for around 500 miles, and that a long string of communities stretch from all directions towards the largest city in Colorado. I may want to address the same topics for other regions, but I want to start it off first in the West where I currently reside.

I would like to challenge you to think deep on this topic, not only because not a lot of people bother to discuss about public transportation in an intimate, if not analytical way, but also because many transit agencies operate using and get their funding from our own taxpayer dollars. City, county, and regional governments collect parcel taxes, commercial taxes, even the gasoline tax, to fund public transportation projects that would hopefully reduce our dependence from cars, and the West seems to have a larger proportion of auto-dependent commuters than those using public transportation or alternate modes of transport. In addition, our dependence on the automotive has caused our environment to become polluted in many cities that smog covers many of the valleys where cities are located, including Sacramento, Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, Stockton, and Phoenix.

Note: comparing the West's transportation system to other regions is fine, but please keep it to a minimum to focus on your community's present and future needs.

Looking forward to your comments and ideas!
 
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#3 ·
Thanks TB! I'm looking into adding this to my signature, and I invite the rest to join the discussion! I've got a lot of questions in store for you. ;)
 
#4 ·
Here's my initial observation on the growing issues of improving public transportation in the West (and tell me if these apply to your community):

  • Suburban lines tend to be circuitous (e.g. too long) that you cannot get to your destination up to an hour or more later from your starting point.
  • Headways between buses (e.g. the frequency of buses operating per hour) tends to be odd in some places, if not worse. For example, many suburban routes have at least hourly headways, if not worse, like up to every 90 minutes or two hours, or even one or two trips a day.
  • Sometimes, vehicles operated on a route may not be suitable for lightly-traveled routes (or heavily-used services, as converse) that riders may start feeling uncomfortable seeing no passengers boarding a bus (or way too overcrowded)
  • Many times, government subsidies provide generous bus services to some routes, but not others, creating a service disparity between bus lines and communities.

What do you think should be improved first among those four issues? And should you have a transit issue, tell me about it!
 
#5 ·
Well I know here in Albuquerque public transportation is weak. For having a metro area population close to a million this is sad. We have one commuter train, the Rail Runner, which adds an extra 30 minutes to your commute versus just driving. Then the connecting bus lines do not take you places you need to go. It is a mess and I know the city is trying to improve, but I don't think nothing will change in the near future.
What we need though is more options to connect the west side of the city. Right now most of the cities population lives on the west side and in Rio Rancho, but there is no real good alternative to driving.
 
#6 ·
^^ Really? Tell me more about ABQ Ride because I have little idea about your current transit situation. Perhaps you can explain what your current trip situation is.
 
#7 ·
field, so let me tell you how it would work for me if I had to ride the bus to work in the morning. Keep in mind it takes me about ten minutes to get from my apartment on the westside to my job downtown just me myself driving.

First I would have to walk a quarter mile to the bus stop, no fun in the winter, to catch the 7:07 AM bus. Then after riding that bus for twenty minutes i would have to catch a transfer. Then after 15 minutes I would arrive at my stop and walk another five minutes to get to work. This is very cumbersome compared to a ten minute drive.
 
#8 ·
^^ Ouch. That must be tough. How far is your workplace from home in miles? And timing your public transit scenario, it looks like public transit takes you around 45 minutes to an hour to get to work than 10 minutes' worth of driving. How is ABQ Ride doing in terms of overcrowding and punctuality?
 
#9 ·
This topic interests me because my hometown of Honolulu has a decent bus system, and is building a (locally controversial) elevated light metro.

On the bus, the system boasts relatively good island-wide coverage and a decent fleet size that has gotten it several awards. However, on the downside the traffic caused by accidents and bottlenecks have noticably degraded its reliability from a few years ago where now during rush hour some buses aren't even moving.

The rail project of course has a lot of controversy. Most of it is the usual opposition of a new transit project you find anywhere (high costs, unneccessary, noisy, ugly), though some are a bit more valid such as old Hawaiian burial issues in the ROW or potential effects on the aging city infrastructure. On the positive side, the urban corridor it runs through is a narrow strip of land with the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other with only one major highway (the most heavily used in the state) roughly parallel to it. The populace also has a noticable record of having the most transit users among US cities.

The city and county is planning on integration of both to create a modern network, but the opposition above has a really strong voice and the project has hit a lot of hurtles so far.
 
#10 ·
^^ Thanks for reviving my thread! So, a few questions:

- TheBus sure is a wonderful way to get around Honolulu and Oahu. But, with your concerns about reliability, is there a way for TheBus to use alternate routes when necessary to bypass any massive traffic jams on Honolulu's freeways? I've noticed that several of the long-haul trips (especially the Go! Buses) run for like hours on end from one end to the other... And add in the freeway traffic, you'll really get into a commuting disaster.

- An elevated light metro can potentially bring in a lot of benefits, most especially congestion relief and increased patronage of public transportation. The question is, what makes it controversial, and what's its alignment like? Plus, what is the target completion month and year for the project?

- It looks like the rail project would also help decongest Honolulu, as well as lure in even more tourists to ride it soon. The questions are, what is its alignment? How many stations will it have? What train type/s will be used to operate it? And how long will it be, in terms of track length and completion date?

And I sense that you are brand new to SSC too, so welcome! :applause: If you have any questions, concerns, comments, or suggestions on my thread, let me know through here or by Private Messaging (PM).
 
#11 · (Edited)
^^ You are welcome.

The bus for the most part does get you where you need to go on time. Unfortunately, like many old cities, urban Honolulu consists of almost entirely of easily clogged narrow two-lane roads and one way avenues. These narrow paths severely limit route change options during rush hour. On the H1 Interstate (in effect the only major roadway between Leeward and windward), the remnants of the old BRT pilot program, our reversable 'zipper' lane, could be reused for quicker long-hauls, but since the termini are both in the highway median, entering or exiting is still problematic during the daily car pile-up.

The rail's planned route follows the primary urban corridor extending ~20 miles from the Leeward plains in Kaneohe and Ewa Beach, roughly parallel to the H1, currently ending in town at Ala Moana Shopping Center. Along the way a total of 21 stations stopping at major activity centers such as the colleges/universities, shopping centers, Pearl Harbor, Aloha Stadium and the Airport. Originally (and still is) set for a Phase 1 opening of 2017 and entirely at 2019 (not including the future planned extensions to Univ of Hawaii at Manoa, Waikiki or further Leeward). Rolling stock consists of 318-passenger capacity driverless trains and has planned 3min peak hour headways.

Unfortunately the controversy can be narrowed to fear mongering about the hefty $5.3B capital cost, the project's relatively huge profile compared to many local structures so people consider it ugly (this point the pro-side likes to ignore for its arbitrary reasoning but is somehow a major platform for the opposition), relation to the bus and traffic, and impact on historical or cultural properties.
 
#12 ·
Capital cost is $5.3 Billion. However, the FTA pays nearly $2 Billion in various grants. The City and County of Honolulu pays the rest through a small surcharge on the General Excise Tax. Since we can factor in tourist spending, the net effect is that locals only pay $1 or 2 Billion. People on the East and North shores, seeing little [direct] benefit, see it as a waste of their tax money. The project officials (Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit or HART) have actually consistantly shown that the project is ahead of budget, though people consider the paperwork as lies or propaganda.

The rail's impact on road traffic is different depending on how you look at the numbers. The projections proponents focus on indicate nearly 20% decreases in road delaytime and 40K daily trips. However, the opponents instead focus on the projected traffic volume reduction (3-5% volume decrease ignoring this is an island-wide rather than a corridor specific projection) or the fact it an 'inflexable' route compared to buses and can't get you to most places without transfers (last point doesn't sound like mass transit user thinking to me).

The final points are impacts to cutural and historical properties and is THE controversial aspect to the point that this is the basis of delays and 2 major lawsuits. Ancient Hawaiians buried the dead in unmarked graves, so despite already being paved over by existing roads and buildings, HART receives any blame should they unearth these in the survey periods. The project was temporarily suspended last August by a state supreme court case to halting any and all construction until all potential burials have been found depite the first 3 build phases finding nothing and part 1 underway. A case in the 9th Circuit Court suspends the final 4th contruction phase until HART complies with the earlier supreme court ruling and produces a list of historic properties in Chinatown. Since both are in effect the same process, HART is nearly finished and may quickly resume in a few months once the appropriate paper work is cleared by the courts. However, the plaintiffs want to appeal the latter ruling because they wanted the project canceled, not delayed.
 
#13 ·
^^ Oh my goodness. That's some serious legal jostling and wrangling. So, if you can summarize the benefits and issues with the project, which one weighs more? And where would you stand in this project, taking away any opinions made by fellow residents and government officials?
 
#14 ·
Yeah, the legal problems alone are insane. But lets see

Rail Benefits:
-Grade seperate so high frequency, speed and reliability
-greater capacity compared to an equivalent bus route
-lower operating/maintenance costs than a bus only system
-highest incentive for Transit Oriented Development and urban renewal in station areas.
-compared to driving, anyone can use the bus/rail system
-so far is actually costing less than predicted

Rail Drawbacks:
-High initial cost
-Great visual impact
-Old Hawaiian burials along route
-there are currently more drivers than transit users (most vocal opinions for or against the project note this mismatch)

Personally, given the data available to the public, I believe that this system is well worth the initial capital cost. While I do agree that it has a strong visual impact along the street below, from a further distance away it barely stands out against other buildings unless you look for it. Since the City's long term plans include revitalizing most of the neighborhoods anyway, this impact may be further lessened. The only point I can feasibly worry about is burial issues, though even then currently there aren't enough findings to create a project canceling decision.
 
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