3 ms·

In our area it has been a cycle for the last 10 years. Lower funding means route contraction. Route contraction means lower ridership leading to lower funding.

by pgrote 7y ago

In our area it has been a cycle for the last 10 years. Lower funding means route contraction. Route contraction means lower ridership leading to lower funding. Lower funding leads to route contraction. Wash. Rinse Repeat. It is a metro area where most of the jobs are spread out among distinct suburb areas. The remaining routes do not travel among the suburbs with regularity; the focus is on suburbs to downtown and within the city proper.

techsupporter 7y ago
We did the opposite in Seattle and have seen impressive results. In 2014, we voted--in the city, after a countywide measure failed--to tax ourselves to buy a whole lot more service hours from the county transit agency. Originally this was because slumping sales tax income was going to force the county to cut service but, instead, sales tax income came roaring back and the city was able to buy so much extra service from the county that we hit the limit for number of buses, places to put them, and drivers to drive them. Routes that had been 15-minute some of the day and dropping to 30-minute or an hour on weekends (or did not run at all) were upgraded. Major trunk routes, not just ones to downtown but crosstown routes and routes through underserved areas, got upgraded to sub-10-minute frequency during peak commute and many now run all day at no less often than every 15 minutes. Add in two new light rail stations opening in the densest part of the city and ridership has been up. But, of course, no good thing goes untouched. Last year, statewide voters approved an initiative that guts Seattle's ability to tax ourselves for transit ("$30" car tabs, which are nothing of the sort since even that initiative doesn't reduce vehicle registration costs to $30). If the initiative is upheld--still in doubt because the sponsor of the initiative is not known for writing initiatives that are legally sound, because if they stayed in effect he wouldn't get paid to keep running them--it's going to not only blow a hole in our light rail construction but also cut local bus service by 20-30%. In any rate, we've proven that if you invest in good service that runs a lot of the time, people will use it.
- vkou 7y ago
  > But, of course, no good thing goes untouched. Last year, statewide voters approved an initiative that guts Seattle's ability to tax ourselves for transit ("$30" car tabs, which are nothing of the sort since even that initiative doesn't reduce vehicle registration costs to $30). This was utterly maddening. A bunch of... Politically-opinionated persons in rural Washington voted for legislature that bans Seattle from taxing its residents.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    According to 2018 population figures on Wikipedia, metro Seattle has just over half of the state's population. Sounds like it wasn't just rural people voting for that initiative.
    - vkou 7y ago
      Seattle voted against it, outside of Seattle voted for it by a larger margin. Given that the measure does nothing absolutely nothing to the counties who voted for it, I think I'm pretty justified in believing that their opinion on Seattle's tax system shouldn't matter one whit. If they don't want to pay more than $30 for car tabs, they should vote for it in their county, not across the state.
xtiansimon 7y ago
This sounds like NICE bus in Nassau County, Long Island, NY. Nassau county bus system was subcontracted to MTA about 8 years ago. NICE is a for-profit company [1] and they are constantly tweaking the schedules. Bus frequency here was 30 minutes during peak and 60 minutes off-pead, 5 days a week with reduced Saturday and more reduced Sunday schedules. Now, in addition to eliminating routes which predated their contract, they have dead times in the middle of the day, gaps after "peak" times (which in my case put a 2 hour hole between 1800h and 2000h on my line). And they've canceled service on Sunday and on some lines both Saturday and Sunday. In the latter case I'm sure NICE would say the LIRR is an alternative, but on the weekend that runs every 2 hours and costs $9 one way versus $2.75 And if you're fortunate enough to make some use of the system, there is no expectation it will still work for you later, because of the contraction cycle the parent described--Every 6-12 months schedules change. I can't help thinking of companies like Walmart who move into areas, drive out small businesses, and then decide to pull out of town. Of course, it's a free market and they can do that, but in the case of public transit in the hands of private for profit companies it's a terrible burden on anyone who doesn't have a car. And Nassau County has some of the highest taxes in the nation. Go figure. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdev

by pgrote 7y ago

techsupporter 7y ago

We did the opposite in Seattle and have seen impressive results. In 2014, we voted--in the city, after a countywide measure failed--to tax ourselves to buy a whole lot more service hours from the county transit agency. Originally this was because slumping sales tax income was going to force the county to cut service but, instead, sales tax income came roaring back and the city was able to buy so much extra service from the county that we hit the limit for number of buses, places to put them, and drivers to drive them. Routes that had been 15-minute some of the day and dropping to 30-minute or an hour on weekends (or did not run at all) were upgraded. Major trunk routes, not just ones to downtown but crosstown routes and routes through underserved areas, got upgraded to sub-10-minute frequency during peak commute and many now run all day at no less often than every 15 minutes. Add in two new light rail stations opening in the densest part of the city and ridership has been up. But, of course, no good thing goes untouched. Last year, statewide voters approved an initiative that guts Seattle's ability to tax ourselves for transit ("$30" car tabs, which are nothing of the sort since even that initiative doesn't reduce vehicle registration costs to $30). If the initiative is upheld--still in doubt because the sponsor of the initiative is not known for writing initiatives that are legally sound, because if they stayed in effect he wouldn't get paid to keep running them--it's going to not only blow a hole in our light rail construction but also cut local bus service by 20-30%. In any rate, we've proven that if you invest in good service that runs a lot of the time, people will use it.

vkou 7y ago
> But, of course, no good thing goes untouched. Last year, statewide voters approved an initiative that guts Seattle's ability to tax ourselves for transit ("$30" car tabs, which are nothing of the sort since even that initiative doesn't reduce vehicle registration costs to $30). This was utterly maddening. A bunch of... Politically-opinionated persons in rural Washington voted for legislature that bans Seattle from taxing its residents.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  According to 2018 population figures on Wikipedia, metro Seattle has just over half of the state's population. Sounds like it wasn't just rural people voting for that initiative.
  - vkou 7y ago
    Seattle voted against it, outside of Seattle voted for it by a larger margin. Given that the measure does nothing absolutely nothing to the counties who voted for it, I think I'm pretty justified in believing that their opinion on Seattle's tax system shouldn't matter one whit. If they don't want to pay more than $30 for car tabs, they should vote for it in their county, not across the state.

xtiansimon 7y ago

This sounds like NICE bus in Nassau County, Long Island, NY. Nassau county bus system was subcontracted to MTA about 8 years ago. NICE is a for-profit company [1] and they are constantly tweaking the schedules. Bus frequency here was 30 minutes during peak and 60 minutes off-pead, 5 days a week with reduced Saturday and more reduced Sunday schedules. Now, in addition to eliminating routes which predated their contract, they have dead times in the middle of the day, gaps after "peak" times (which in my case put a 2 hour hole between 1800h and 2000h on my line). And they've canceled service on Sunday and on some lines both Saturday and Sunday. In the latter case I'm sure NICE would say the LIRR is an alternative, but on the weekend that runs every 2 hours and costs $9 one way versus $2.75 And if you're fortunate enough to make some use of the system, there is no expectation it will still work for you later, because of the contraction cycle the parent described--Every 6-12 months schedules change. I can't help thinking of companies like Walmart who move into areas, drive out small businesses, and then decide to pull out of town. Of course, it's a free market and they can do that, but in the case of public transit in the hands of private for profit companies it's a terrible burden on anyone who doesn't have a car. And Nassau County has some of the highest taxes in the nation. Go figure. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdev