6 ms·

I don't want to take away from the good things that Seattle has done with transit, but it's worth pointing out that Seattle is far and away the fastest growing

I don't want to take away from the good things that Seattle has done with transit, but it's worth pointing out that Seattle is far and away the fastest growing city in the US, with an astonishing 3.1% (21,000 people) between 2015-2016. If ridership increased by 4.1% between 2015-2016, then population growth alone may account for a significant chunk of that. https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/population-and-demographics https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/population-and-demographics https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-again-nations-fastest-growing-big-city-population-exceeds-700000/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-...

keepkalm 9y ago
And some of the worst housing affordability. People who move out of the city can't justify to drive and park in Seattle. It would be near impossible to navigate Metro, SoundTransit, and surrounding transit agencies without OneBusAway or Google Maps. Idk, SoundTranist also tried a massive money grab on car tabs on inflated valuations. They are doing just as much to undermine support for transit as anyone.
- aaronbrethorst 9y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate the kind words about the utility of OneBusAway for you. You may not know this, but the people who make OneBusAway for iOS and Android are unpaid volunteers. n.b. I'm the maintainer of OneBusAway for iOS.
  - loeg 9y ago
    Thank you for your volunteer work! It is appreciated. I've relied upon the various forms of One Bus service from 2008-present and it is immensely useful.
    - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
      Thanks, I did too, which led me to volunteering on the iOS app a few years back. One thing led to another, and I now maintain it. I can always use more help, and I'm happy to help people who are just getting their feet wet on iOS learn more: https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-iphone#picking-an-appropriate-first-time-issue https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-iphone#picking-an-a...
      - loeg 9y ago
        I don't have a Mac, so I'm afraid I'm useless for iOS development. (It requires Xcode, right?)
  - hsitz 9y ago
    Thanks a lot for your great work! I'm surprised the linked article didn't mention OneBusAway, which greatly changes the experience of using a bus for me. Like many in Seattle, I live a couple blocks from a stop, use OneBusAway to time things so I don't have to wait more than a couple minutes, and -- just as importantly -- I don't ever sit there wondering whether there's any bus coming at all. I notice on onebusaway.org that the system is now used by other cities, including NYC, Washingon D.C., and Tampa Bay. Do other large cities generally use some kind of competing, comparable proprietary system, or do bus riders in most cities have no way of getting real-time bus data online?
    - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
      I believe that most major cities' transit agencies are now creating GTFS feeds[1], which can be consumed by a variety of apps and services, like Transit and Citymapper. These apps are available in hundreds of cities around the world. They also have the advantage of having millions of dollars in venture funding behind them, which I'm sure helps expansion :) [1] https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/ https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    I did not know that, and I appreciate your efforts. It's one of the few apps that I know fairly consistently works, even though it's an inherently chaotic system that deals with estimation. Is the data behind that available anywhere as an api or anything? I was trying to find a way to parse out some stuff for a project at home, and access to the times in say, json, would be helpful. Thanks!
    - techsupporter 9y ago
      You can get an API key for OneBusAway here: http://pugetsound.onebusaway.org/p/DeveloperResources.action http://pugetsound.onebusaway.org/p/DeveloperResources.action
    - icebraining 9y ago
      https://transitfeeds.com/ https://transitfeeds.com/
      - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
        I haven't seen this before. Thanks for sharing!
    - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
      API docs are here: http://developer.onebusaway.org/modules/onebusaway-application-modules/1.1.14/api/where/index.html http://developer.onebusaway.org/modules/onebusaway-applicati... And all of our products, both server and mobile, are here: https://github.com/OneBusAway/ https://github.com/OneBusAway/ I don't know what language you prefer working with, but you might find this rather thin Rails site I built last year to support a few features helpful: https://github.com/oneBusAway/onebusaway-deep-links https://github.com/oneBusAway/onebusaway-deep-links
- techsupporter 9y ago
  > Idk, SoundTranist also tried a massive money grab on car tabs on inflated valuations. Sound Transit didn't "try" anything. They're running the MVET the way that the legislature told them to do it and that the voters approved. (Full disclosure: I voted yes on Sound Transit 3, knowing full well what my vehicle registration would cost after the vote.)
  - keepkalm 9y ago
    Sound Transit inflated car valuations https://goo.gl/bhGuFC https://goo.gl/bhGuFC It was dishonest at best, at worst it's a fraud.
    - jlmorton 9y ago
      Really quite a stretch to call it fraudulent, given that the formula is derived from the State Legislature. In any event, I have very little sympathy, since the current car tab is at least an order of magnitude too small. The car tax rate in Singapore is at least 100x higher than the Sound Transit tax. The tax is equal to 100% of the sale price of the vehicle for the first $15,000 USD, 140% between $15,000 and $35,000, and then 180% on any value above that. That seems a bit too high given the way American cities have been built up, but 1.1% is just absurdly and catastrophically lower than it should be.
      - keepkalm 9y ago
        >the current car tab is at least an order of magnitude too small. Your opinion may be clouding your judgment. It's not right to inflate the value because you can't pass a higher rate with legislation. This is why a lot of people don't support transit, because the people advocating it can't be honest. This is also why Washington State voters keep passing a cap on the car tab fee. Like it or not, the voters of the state still get to decide on the rules that govern them. They agreed to a rate increase on the fair-market value of their vehicle, not for Sound Transit to charge whatever they want because they lost some grant money.
        9y ago
shorttime 9y ago
They could be certainly correlated but why would you assume that growth automatically means an equal (or slightly higher in this case) ridership? After all, the out of towners all didn't take the bus there. Most public transportation I've experienced (subways, buses, trollies, local trains, etc) have a lower-band economic class, for reasons that I could only assume and is an entirely different topic. These lower economic classes aren't pushing the growth of Seattle's population. If Seattle is getting the middle and upper classes to take the bus then they very-well deserve kudos.
- hcho3 9y ago
  Indeed, many riders on Seattle buses are middle and upper class: From 2016 Riders Survey (http://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/transportation/metro/accountability/customer-research/2016-rider-survey-final.pdf http://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/transportation/metro/acc...): Household Income * < 35k/year: 25% * 35k-100k/year: 34% * > 100k/year: 32% Also, 93% of the riders have access to a personal vehicle.
hudibras 9y ago
And, of course, the linkage between population growth and transit use could go the other way. Maybe more people are moving to Seattle because it has a good transit system (among other things.)

keepkalm 9y ago

And some of the worst housing affordability. People who move out of the city can't justify to drive and park in Seattle. It would be near impossible to navigate Metro, SoundTransit, and surrounding transit agencies without OneBusAway or Google Maps. Idk, SoundTranist also tried a massive money grab on car tabs on inflated valuations. They are doing just as much to undermine support for transit as anyone.

aaronbrethorst 9y ago
Thanks, I appreciate the kind words about the utility of OneBusAway for you. You may not know this, but the people who make OneBusAway for iOS and Android are unpaid volunteers. n.b. I'm the maintainer of OneBusAway for iOS.
- loeg 9y ago
  Thank you for your volunteer work! It is appreciated. I've relied upon the various forms of One Bus service from 2008-present and it is immensely useful.
  - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
    Thanks, I did too, which led me to volunteering on the iOS app a few years back. One thing led to another, and I now maintain it. I can always use more help, and I'm happy to help people who are just getting their feet wet on iOS learn more: https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-iphone#picking-an-appropriate-first-time-issue https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-iphone#picking-an-a...
    - loeg 9y ago
      I don't have a Mac, so I'm afraid I'm useless for iOS development. (It requires Xcode, right?)
- hsitz 9y ago
  Thanks a lot for your great work! I'm surprised the linked article didn't mention OneBusAway, which greatly changes the experience of using a bus for me. Like many in Seattle, I live a couple blocks from a stop, use OneBusAway to time things so I don't have to wait more than a couple minutes, and -- just as importantly -- I don't ever sit there wondering whether there's any bus coming at all. I notice on onebusaway.org that the system is now used by other cities, including NYC, Washingon D.C., and Tampa Bay. Do other large cities generally use some kind of competing, comparable proprietary system, or do bus riders in most cities have no way of getting real-time bus data online?
  - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
    I believe that most major cities' transit agencies are now creating GTFS feeds[1], which can be consumed by a variety of apps and services, like Transit and Citymapper. These apps are available in hundreds of cities around the world. They also have the advantage of having millions of dollars in venture funding behind them, which I'm sure helps expansion :) [1] https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/ https://developers.google.com/transit/gtfs/
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  I did not know that, and I appreciate your efforts. It's one of the few apps that I know fairly consistently works, even though it's an inherently chaotic system that deals with estimation. Is the data behind that available anywhere as an api or anything? I was trying to find a way to parse out some stuff for a project at home, and access to the times in say, json, would be helpful. Thanks!
  - techsupporter 9y ago
    You can get an API key for OneBusAway here: http://pugetsound.onebusaway.org/p/DeveloperResources.action http://pugetsound.onebusaway.org/p/DeveloperResources.action
  - icebraining 9y ago
    https://transitfeeds.com/ https://transitfeeds.com/
    - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
      I haven't seen this before. Thanks for sharing!
  - aaronbrethorst 9y ago
    API docs are here: http://developer.onebusaway.org/modules/onebusaway-application-modules/1.1.14/api/where/index.html http://developer.onebusaway.org/modules/onebusaway-applicati... And all of our products, both server and mobile, are here: https://github.com/OneBusAway/ https://github.com/OneBusAway/ I don't know what language you prefer working with, but you might find this rather thin Rails site I built last year to support a few features helpful: https://github.com/oneBusAway/onebusaway-deep-links https://github.com/oneBusAway/onebusaway-deep-links
techsupporter 9y ago
> Idk, SoundTranist also tried a massive money grab on car tabs on inflated valuations. Sound Transit didn't "try" anything. They're running the MVET the way that the legislature told them to do it and that the voters approved. (Full disclosure: I voted yes on Sound Transit 3, knowing full well what my vehicle registration would cost after the vote.)
- keepkalm 9y ago
  Sound Transit inflated car valuations https://goo.gl/bhGuFC https://goo.gl/bhGuFC It was dishonest at best, at worst it's a fraud.
  - jlmorton 9y ago
    Really quite a stretch to call it fraudulent, given that the formula is derived from the State Legislature. In any event, I have very little sympathy, since the current car tab is at least an order of magnitude too small. The car tax rate in Singapore is at least 100x higher than the Sound Transit tax. The tax is equal to 100% of the sale price of the vehicle for the first $15,000 USD, 140% between $15,000 and $35,000, and then 180% on any value above that. That seems a bit too high given the way American cities have been built up, but 1.1% is just absurdly and catastrophically lower than it should be.
    - keepkalm 9y ago
      >the current car tab is at least an order of magnitude too small. Your opinion may be clouding your judgment. It's not right to inflate the value because you can't pass a higher rate with legislation. This is why a lot of people don't support transit, because the people advocating it can't be honest. This is also why Washington State voters keep passing a cap on the car tab fee. Like it or not, the voters of the state still get to decide on the rules that govern them. They agreed to a rate increase on the fair-market value of their vehicle, not for Sound Transit to charge whatever they want because they lost some grant money.
      - 9y ago

shorttime 9y ago

They could be certainly correlated but why would you assume that growth automatically means an equal (or slightly higher in this case) ridership? After all, the out of towners all didn't take the bus there. Most public transportation I've experienced (subways, buses, trollies, local trains, etc) have a lower-band economic class, for reasons that I could only assume and is an entirely different topic. These lower economic classes aren't pushing the growth of Seattle's population. If Seattle is getting the middle and upper classes to take the bus then they very-well deserve kudos.

hcho3 9y ago
Indeed, many riders on Seattle buses are middle and upper class: From 2016 Riders Survey (http://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/transportation/metro/accountability/customer-research/2016-rider-survey-final.pdf http://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/transportation/metro/acc...): Household Income * < 35k/year: 25% * 35k-100k/year: 34% * > 100k/year: 32% Also, 93% of the riders have access to a personal vehicle.

hudibras 9y ago

And, of course, the linkage between population growth and transit use could go the other way. Maybe more people are moving to Seattle because it has a good transit system (among other things.)