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Cichlidae posted:I'm so glad someone else agrees. ConnDOT hires firms to do PR and sometimes the buzzword fog becomes impenetrable. I know goons seem to love to hate XKCD, but this one is fairly pertinent: 
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Dec 5, 2014 05:54
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John Dough posted:Buses are sustainable in a general sense because a bunch of people riding a bus is a much more energy-efficient form of transportation compared to all of them driving cars. That is why public transportation is green even when it's a bunch of diesel buses. For some rural lines this is questionable. 5 people in a big bus is not more efficient than each of them driving their own car. And during peak times (when busses are filled 100%) most of them will be returning empty, decreasing effective occupancy to 50% at best. Add the fact that the bus has some "overhead" to travel from the depot before it can begin its route and i do not think it is fair to say busses are inherently more efficient. Especially when you compare a diesel bus at the end of its economic life belching smoke everywhere to a 2015 Tesla Model S charged with solar power from your carport.
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Dec 5, 2014 13:25
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Sure, but how do they measure up in terms of congestion? Five people in cars take up more space than a bus. E: serious question for the engineers.
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Dec 5, 2014 17:50
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Sure, but how do they measure up in terms of congestion? Five people in cars take up more space than a bus. Comes down to cost. Transit buses cost the same to operate with either 5 or 50 people on them. If there's nobody on the bus, then it's cheaper to cater to the congestion. The transit agency I work for is trying to talk Uber/Lyft/(insert private service here) into replacing late night/weekend service out in the 'burbs, since we don't have the money to operate a 40ft for one person and we don't have the money to afford smaller vehicles for off-peak (which still cost about the same to run anyway).
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Dec 5, 2014 18:17
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Varance posted:Comes down to cost. Transit buses cost the same to operate with either 5 or 50 people on them. Sounds like those areas just need more people!
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Dec 5, 2014 18:17
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Baronjutter posted:Sounds like those areas just need more people! I've got over 250,000 people out in the former cow pastures turned cul-de-sac neighborhoods with one way in and one way out. Doubt we'll ever be able to afford traditional bus service that gets a bus stop within even a mile of everyone's front door, let alone a quarter mile. Best hope is to pump money into the inner-city to make it the place to be so that people stop moving to the 'burbs. For perspective, paratransit van trips currently cost us an average of $35/person. Per trip. Most people take 2+ trips a day. Many of them to and from said suburbs. We're getting bled dry by the latest round of sprawl. Flex services (paratransit open to regular riders with a set route/range) out in the 'burbs aren't faring much better, but are necessary to feed people into the main bus routes. Our best route operates at about 10 passengers per revenue hour. Varance fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 18:20
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Varance posted:I've got over 250,000 people out in the former cow pastures turned cul-de-sac neighborhoods with one way in and one way out. I doubt we'll ever be able to afford traditional bus service that gets a bus stop within even a mile of everyone's front door, let alone a quarter mile. 250,000 with only one way in or out?! That's almost as big as my entire regional population and we've got about 70 different bus routes and our biggest problem is that even with double-deckers running every 3-5 min some routes are jam packed over capacity but we don't have the budget or political will to upgrade to a tram. Yeah you can't just increase the transit spending slider in suburbia like that, the very physical infrastructure of the roads are basically designed to preclude ever being adapted to transit or walking. You'd have to ED a few hundred houses to turn the dendritic streets into more of a grid and good luck finding the budget let alone political will for that sort of brutal marxist social engineering. A lot of people seem to to think transit and types of transit/infrastructure are dependent on population but it's almost entirely about street layout and land use. A town of 80,000 could easily justify a system with a couple tram lines and some buses with high frequency and a stop within walking distance of 80% of the population, while a city of nearly a million could struggle to manage a really lovely bus system with an awful schedule and much of the city unserviced. Hell it doesn't matter your total population, if the density is low and the street layout is a suburban nightmare you're never going to get anything other than a struggling under-funded system of mostly empty buses. Meanwhile a loving village can fill up a tram route to capacity, just because they have great land use policies. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 18:26
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Baronjutter posted:250,000 with only one way in or out?! That's almost as big as my entire regional population and we've got about 70 different bus routes. Yeah you can't just increase the transit spending slider in suburbia like that, the very physical infrastructure of the roads are basically designed to preclude ever being adapted to transit or walking. You'd have to ED a few hundred houses to turn the dendritic streets into more of a grid and good luck finding the budget let alone political will for that sort of brutal marxist social engineering. Welcome to Hillsborough County, Florida. By the way, our transit funding is limited to a 0.500 mill property tax. That's it. We can barely afford bus service in urban areas. Only four local routes have a frequency better than every 30 minutes. Most of suburbia has nothing. No rail, beyond a twice a day Amtrak silver service and a heritage line downtown that doesn't connect with the main transit hub. Plant City has opted out of transit service under Florida law in order to avoid the property tax, so until that changes, they will not be serviced by county or regional transit services. We have Megabus 3 times a day to Orlando and Tampa, and express buses to St Petersburg/Clearwater 5-6 times a day per route. Very, very minimal. This map visualizes transit service in Hillsborough County, Florida. The image is cropped to the county lines and overlaid with HART's three quarter mile service range (the blue areas). Areas south of Brandon have no transit service both at night and on weekends. Our brand-new Amazon.com shipping facility is way down there in Ruskin, toward the bottom of the county.  This is the definition of a region that will likely be absolutely screwed if fossil fuel prices ever spike beyond $5/gallon. Additionaly, Florida law is set up in such a way as to prevent any sort of change that would encourage "more sustainable" construction practices. Varance fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 18:29
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Here's my stupid town of a similar size. About 300k in that picture with maybe another 70k off the map to the north and west. To the north are almost pleasant farmy/rural suburbia and a couple decent village centres and to the west is some awful completely lost-cause sort of sprawl. The density is 4,109.4/km2 (10,643/sq mi) Most of the streets that would be on this map are a fairly traditional grid with very few dead-end roads, only a few areas like that on the north edges of the map, and it's much less like tree-roots and much more just a normal block with a single dead-end street in the middle. Basically there's no dead-end route you can get stuck on more than a few hundred meters long, so even if you live in a suburban cul-de-sac you're never more than a a few min walk to a normal grid street. Transit mode share is only about 8% but our cycling is the highest in Canada at 5% compared to the next highest, Vancouver at 1.9%. And that's with garbage cycling infrastructure, if we actually built some decent infra we could easily break 10%. It's hard finding data but I think our current walking modeshare (to work anyways) is about 15% with a target of 30% by 2020. The core of Victoria is doing quite well transport wise. We could use more buses on a couple of the over-crowded routes and investments in cycle infra could really pay off, but there's certainly not any problems. The problems happen at the choke points between Victoria and the nightmare hellscape to its west, Langford. Due to an absolute total lack of any sort of regional planning, and langford being it's own wholly independent city, there's been no coordination. Langford has been growing at a breakneck pace entirely on government subsidized sprawl. It's long time mayor is in bed with the key suburban developers and the city government essentially exists to funnel tax dollars to give infrastructure to developers to build more sprawl. Some of these developers have gone bankrupt, leaving the city holding the bag to finish some extremely expensive bridges and roads that the developer promised to partially pay for. The main problem is that this area is your classic north american sprawl, not walkable, not adaptable to transit. Much of it is on mountain-sides and the terrain prevents adapting the streets for more connections and pedestrian friendliness. This all wouldn't be so bad, but there's only 2 routes to this rapidly growing suburb. One is a highway with a few traffic lights, the other is a small 2 lane road that was recently reduced to 40kph and narrowed due to resident complaints about traffic.  Here's a map of the choke point. For anyone to get from Victoria on the east of the map to Langford on the west you can only go 2 routes. The trans-canada highway or down Craigflower. The terrain is the biggest culprit here, but at the same time Highway 1 is grossly under capacity for the traffic volumes commuting every day. There are signaled intersections at Admirals and Tilicum. By the time it gets to Harriet it's turned from a highway to a typical urban road but increased to 3 lanes vs the 2 on the highway. What used to be a 20 min drive can now be a 40-50 min drive due to gridlock at those 2 intersections. Calls have been made for decades to replace one or both of those intersections with a proper highway interchange but the highway is federal and the district consistently votes for the Liberals or NDP so there's no chance of getting funding. Meanwhile another highway, a much less used highway, had a perfectly flowing intersection replaced with a huge expensive overpass because that highway is a provincial highway and that district voted for the ruling party so they got showered with funding. I'm of two minds about the traffic problem on highway 1. On one hand the horrible congestion on the highway has actually slowed the sprawl out there, many people refuse to move there because they don't want to put up with the traffic. With no regional growth plans, that gridlocked highway is the only thing even slightly slowing down the horribly **UNSUSTAINABLE** growth there. On the other hand the situation is really bad, it's still growing regardless, the area is absolutely unadaptable for transit, and those intersections should have been turned into over-passes decades ago. I'd be fine with funding for the overpasses if it came along with an actual growth strategy for the region, otherwise Langford will just say thanks for the car capacity, and build that much more sprawl until the highway is choked again. Then they'll want more lanes. It's a real "give a mouse a cookie" situation when you enable sprawl. I'd also be ok with langford paying for all or most of the costs, I don't want Victoria subsidizing their lovely lifestyles. If they're willing to actually pay the costs of their sprawl sure, but I think if they actually paid the cost of the infrastructure that supports their "cheap houses" their houses suddenly wouldn't seem so cheap. There's talk of building an LRT between Victoria and Langford but I think this is a stupid idea because no one there would take it, no one could walk to the stations. It would have to be massive park and ride style which is extremely expensive and a lot of the current literature I read on transit planning seems to be poo-pooing park and ride. I mean if they built it that would help things, but for every person the LRT gets out of their car for the money spent, that same money spent transit, pedestrian, and cycle infra in the core could get 5x as many users. No one forced them to live out there, the traffic has never been a secret, the houses are cheaper for a reason. It's harsh but I'm fine telling langford "you've made your and you'll have to lie in it" and focusing on the parts of the city that can actually be salvaged/improved.
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Dec 5, 2014 19:51
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Hillsborough encompasses 1,020 square miles, with a total population of almost 1.3 million and a population density of 1,205/sq mi. Transit mode share averages 3% in urban areas and 1% in the suburbs. Trust me when I say we're waaaay worse than Victoria, BC. There are 2 ways in and out of New Tampa: Bruce B Downs Blvd (named for the traffic engineer who made this mess) and Interstate 75. BBD sees 46000+ AADT. I-75 sees 85000+ AADT. Both are 4-lane roads. Varance fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 20:01
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Varance posted:Hillsborough encompasses 1,020 square miles, with a total population of almost 1.3 million and a population density of 1,205/sq mi. Transit mode share averages 3% in urban areas and 1% in the suburbs. Trust me when I say we're waaaay worse than Victoria, BC. Any idea what the pedestrian mode share is? As in not counting walking + transit but just walking? I'd imagine close to 0 with streets and land use like it has.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:04
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Baronjutter posted:Any idea what the pedestrian mode share is? As in not counting walking + transit but just walking? I'd imagine close to 0 with streets and land use like it has. In the suburbs, it's less than 1%. Urban areas are more like 4%. BTW, those two roads I mentioned? BBD sees 46000+ AADT. I-75 sees 85000+ AADT. Both are 4-lane roads (2 in each direction) for the time being. Hillsborough uses a definition for LOS D as 7500 AADT per lane. Both roads would still be a D, even if they were already 6 lanes. Hillsborough's population is projected to increase to 2 million by 2040. And we're still letting developers off the hook for impact fees, which is why we've had no money for the longest time to widen the above roads. The state is in the process of expanding all of the expressways in our county to 8-12 lanes wide (including express lanes), but that will take until 2040 to complete. Local roads? Hahahahahha, sorry, you're on your own. Speaking of which... did you know that Florida's state laws prevent counties from assessing impact fees for additional congestion or vehicle traffic on state-maintained expressways? Developers get an automatic 22.9% discount on any assessed fees in Hillsborough, as that's the mode split for expressway traffic in the county. Usually it's a much larger discount, as developers are getting nice and cozy with expressway exits in the middle of nowhere to increase that number and lobby the state legislature for more expressways. At worst, they're liable for a quarter mile of road expansion outside of their subdivision. Florida's laws also place restrictions on how you can fund a transit agency. Gas Tax or Sales/Property Tax Referendum are the only feasible methods, take your pick. Can't really do either in a suburban county, where people out in the boonies will A) never want to pay for transit they'll never use and B) already pay an arm and a leg for fuel and don't want to pay more. Varance fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 20:06
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Nice, so the people in the city's state taxes go to subsidize suburban developers but no one in the suburbs should have to fund transit for city folk because that just ain't fair.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:24
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Baronjutter posted:Nice, so the people in the city's state taxes go to subsidize suburban developers but no one in the suburbs should have to fund transit for city folk because that just ain't fair. Correct. And incorporated cities have the ability to opt-out of any referendums that are passed on the county level. Brandon and SouthShore (anything south of Riverview) are both trying to incorporate into cities to exploit that particular piece of legislation to its fullest. Build nilly-willy, make Tampa proper pay for it. 
Varance fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 20:25
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Don't worry in BC we're having a transit funding referendum pushed by suburban vancouverites mad their taxes are going towards transit. They want it so it's more like Florida and all transit spending has to go for a region-wide referendum (but don't worry highways will still get everything they need!)
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Dec 5, 2014 20:27
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Let's be honest: people moving to the suburbs don't give a crap. They want to be in their fenced-off 3 bed, 2 bath enclave with a big backyard out in the suburbs, dozens of miles away from where all the dangerous city people live, hiding on a cul-de-sac so their kid can play in the road without getting run over by someone driving 40 MPH on a residential street... but still close enough so that they can enjoy all of the abundance that comes along with living in a city in less than an hour's drive when it's convenient for them. Screw your bus. People who can't afford to drive don't belong in my neighborhood. Just give me a nice, big, wide, fast road that I can drive 80 MPH on, that runs through someone else's backyard and not mine. This is the American Dream.  Also the Canadian Dream, which used to be so polite but now much less so. 
Varance fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 20:30
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Varance posted:Let's be honest: people moving to the suburbs don't give a gently caress. They want to be in their fenced-off 3 bed, 2 bath enclave with a big backyard out in the suburbs, dozens of miles away from where all the dangerous city people live, hiding on a cul-de-sac so their kid can play in the road without getting run over by someone driving 40 MPH on a residential street... but still close enough so that they can enjoy all of the abundance that comes along with living in a city in less than an hour's drive when it's convenient for them. Yeah, it's a tempting dream when everyone else is paying for the lifestyle. Actually distribute the costs fairly and suddenly that cheap suburban house isn't so cheap. The most infuriating thing is most people like that think it's them subsidizing the parasites in the city. Just like most US red states think it's them subsidizing the blue states rather than the other way around.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:38
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Baronjutter posted:Yeah, it's a tempting dream when everyone else is paying for the lifestyle. Actually distribute the costs fairly and suddenly that cheap suburban house isn't so cheap. The most infuriating thing is most people like that think it's them subsidizing the parasites in the city. Just like most US red states think it's them subsidizing the blue states rather than the other way around. If the older generations want to live out in the 'burbs, who are we to tell them no? Sure, we can tell them that suburbia only works in a somewhat sustainable manner on smaller scales, not the macro multi-county scale that now exists in dozens of metro areas. Doesn't mean they have to listen. That's the beauty of freedom. Varance fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 20:40
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A huge concern in urban planning right now is what to do wit all the seniors "aging in place" in their completely car-dependent suburbia when they get too old to drive. All the health and social services they need require driving, and house calls are really expensive. Also walkable areas show higher life spans and lower rates of depression and memory issues in seniors (because they can actually get out of their house and interact with the world). Laws about taking away senior's licenses are already far too weak and unenforced. So many doctors give their patients a pass because "well he's nearly blind but how's he supposed to get food or get to his appointments if he can't drive??". That's only going to get worse, and make the roads more dangerous for everyone.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:53
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My Grandmother lives in a high rise in Toronto for exactly this reason. And she's just as mentally healthy at 85+ as she was in her 40s. Rides the elevator down into the subway station and hops on the Bloor-Danforth to go to church. The old people ageing in place in my neck of the woods are screwed. We actually have two paratransit systems in Tampa. One offers substitute service for the bus network (HARTPlus), the other covers the areas not shaded in blue on my map earlier and offers reduced cost rides to those of financial need (Sunshine Line). That said, the latter service is pushing as many passengers onto the former as they can because they can no longer afford the cost of the suburban/rural trips without getting rid of as many trips as they can and cutting back on drivers. Which in turn pushes the other system to the limit. Not sure how much longer this can go on without a funding increase. Other options? We have something called a Public Transportation Commission that sets price floors and rates for cab services, including those supplied by crowdsourced transit like Uber/Lyft. You either wait an hour or two for county paratransit to finally get out to you and maybe get you to the doctor on time, or call a cab, wait slightly less and end up paying $80 for a round trip. Either that, or you move into one of the various "golf cart communities" and drive in the middle of the road in your golf cart. Lord knows Florida has plenty of those. A couple of them are inside Hillsborough. Varance fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 21:09
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Your grandma is going to be fine until all the glazing in her condo fails and each unit is hit with a 30k special assessment, but that's not for another 10-15 years and only if she lives in one of the stupid Vancouver style condos. We've got a little mini-bus service for seniors and the disabled similar to what you describe. It's part of the city's transit system (same livery and drivers) but they are more van sized buses with wheel chair lifts on the back. It's more expensive than the bus but cheaper than a taxi, but they give you a 30 min window for pickup. There's a LOT of seniors homes or seniors-only condos in the core, generally very close to neighbourhood villages where their doctors and such are. In looking up stats for Victoria's mode share I found quite a few interesting traffic engineering and regional planning reports and docs. It seems to hit this 30% walk modeshare goal in Victoria we've officially said pedestrians are the #1 priority for all infrastructure spending. It's all going to be about more crosswalks, narrowing streets/expanding sidewalks, lowering speed limits and so on. It certainly makes sense and benefits me directly as I'd say 90% of my trips are entirely by foot. I don't think I've been on a bus in years. I get enraged if there isn't a crosswalk directly on my route or if the lights are too long and I have to wait for a walk signal. Also pedestrians are aggressive car-intimidating assholes in Victoria. I'm very aggressive and assertive but I never do rear end in a top hat stuff like run across the street while the don't-walk is flashing and people are trying to turn left. A lot of people just keep stepping off the pavement until the light turns solid red, doesn't matter if there's cars trying to turn or half way in the intersection. And god help you if you don't instantly stop at a non-signaled crosswalk, I saw one dude take off his boot and throw it at a car that didn't stop for him soon enough. I've seen people chase cars down the block to the next light to scream at the driver for not stopping for them. It's a big deal. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 22:06
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Baronjutter posted:A huge concern in urban planning right now is what to do wit all the seniors "aging in place" in their completely car-dependent suburbia when they get too old to drive. All the health and social services they need require driving, and house calls are really expensive. Also walkable areas show higher life spans and lower rates of depression and memory issues in seniors (because they can actually get out of their house and interact with the world). Laws about taking away senior's licenses are already far too weak and unenforced. So many doctors give their patients a pass because "well he's nearly blind but how's he supposed to get food or get to his appointments if he can't drive??". That's only going to get worse, and make the roads more dangerous for everyone. Bruce Sterling has a great soundbite that he's been using for a few years. "The future is about old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky." A full transcript of a recent talk is here. Bruce Sterling posted:So what will that look like? The future is about old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky. People often ask, “How could science fiction writers predict the future?” The middle of the 20th Century, from here up to about 2070, 2075… it’s old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky. Is there any reason why don't we have a new urbanism thread on the forums?
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Dec 5, 2014 22:33
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Central Florida is a good case for throwing federal money at transit operations no matter the size of the region (especially with how badly Pinellas and Polk got beat at the polls with their sales tax referenda). Currently, with a few limited exceptions, federal funding can only be used for operations in urbanized areas under 200,000 people. Capital improvements are great, but if the local area refuses to pay to run service, it's as good as worthless. Here's a good article on that subject.
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Dec 5, 2014 22:41
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Bruce Sterling has a great soundbite that he's been using for a few years. "The future is about old people, in big cities, afraid of the sky." I've seen a couple urban planning related threads on old GBS and even D&D and it gets as bad as gun control threads. It's mostly really really angry suburban americans enraged that people are "attacking their lifestyle" and accusations of the government forcing people into 1960's style projects and going against what the "majority" and "market" demand. Meanwhile on the other side are often just enough insufferable "urban elitists" and "smug environmentalists" to provide a lovely balance and prevent any sort of actual informative discussion. Every time it goes like this: "Here's some data and the current urban planning consensus on land use and transportation" "Oh this is very interesting, some of it runs counter to popular wisdom, but thank you for sharing it" "Wow I didn't know how much our tax systems and land use laws encourage and subsidize sprawl, nor did I know how environmentally and economically destructive it is. Surely there's a better way?" "Hey check out these urban planning articles on pleasant livable cities and providing a balance of housing and transport choices for everyone." "So you guys are saying anyone who doesn't want to live in some shoe-box apartment downtown with all the thugs, or maybe wants to send their kid to a good school, or not sit on a bus with crazy stinking homeless people is a monster? gently caress your smug agenda 21 bullshit, I believe in giving people the freedom to live where they want, not force them into ghettos!" "You stupid loving suburbanite don't you know how much your betters in the city subsidize your worthless lives? If you own a car you're basically willfully murdering the millions that are going to die in the 3rd world from climate change, and you probably have no culture or education and are fat" and it just gets worse from there.
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Dec 5, 2014 22:47
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Varance posted:
I have to say I don't see how this can work. Dudes with their old Nissan Stanza making less than minimum wage after expenses ferrying 2 people a night across suburbia is barely sustainable financially on its own, trying to make that into a transit service seems to be even less so.
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Dec 5, 2014 23:13
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Baronjutter posted:I've seen a couple urban planning related threads on old GBS and even D&D and it gets as bad as gun control threads. It's mostly really really angry suburban americans enraged that people are "attacking their lifestyle" and accusations of the government forcing people into 1960's style projects and going against what the "majority" and "market" demand. Meanwhile on the other side are often just enough insufferable "urban elitists" and "smug environmentalists" to provide a lovely balance and prevent any sort of actual informative discussion. Ah, yes, that was it.  
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Dec 6, 2014 03:15
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Nintendo Kid posted:I have to say I don't see how this can work. Dudes with their old Nissan Stanza making less than minimum wage after expenses ferrying 2 people a night across suburbia is barely sustainable financially on its own, trying to make that into a transit service seems to be even less so. Also, all of the private entities that responded have already said they're going to need subsidies because *shocker* it'll cost just as much to make a profit as it costs us to do it in-house. Unsurprisingly, crowdsourced transportation is only really effective in areas that cabs and buses are effective. Tampa Bay's main problem, and the main problem of transit agencies around the US, is that federal funding only covers existing needs and not expansion unless you have a boatload of cash to invest on your own. "Formula funding" only replaces a set number of vehicles at retirement threshold that are required to maintain existing levels of service for the ridership you already have. If you want to expand service, you have to pay for the vehicles out of your own pocket, and if by the end of 12 years the route grows to be as popular as your other routes, they'll give you money for replacements. The problem is that low floor transit buses cost a hell of a lot of money to buy out of your own pocket - twice as much as the old high floor stuff. Paratransit cutaways are ~$95000 and last 4 years. Light duty 30-35ft buses are ~$325000 and last 8 years. Heavy duty 30ft/35ft are ~425000 and last 10 years. Traditional 40ft cost ~475000 and last 12 years. The cost of one 40ft bus is about equal to the cost of running weekend or late night service on 2-3 of your routes for a year. Good luck getting local or state governments to help you out with the difference. Here in Florida, FDOT will only help you if you create a new bus route that crosses county lines, or if you need to upgrade ADA infrastructure along a state road to accommodate a new route. Here are the service improvements HART is in the process of implementing this fiscal year, along with additional ridership they are expected to generate and how much they will cost/make back. We have enough funding to hypothetically go out and buy 3 extra buses (enough for one new local route), but then we wouldn't have enough money to actually run them or improve other routes. Most of the planned changes implement rush hour service levels during midday and extend service into latenight hours, as those changes do not require additional vehicles beyond what we already have. That last one is a new route going out to the suburbs in New Tampa/Wesley Chapel, but we only have enough vehicles to run the route from 8 AM to 4 PM, when the express routes aren't in service. 51 itself already exists as an express route with horrible ridership (61 riders/day in October) that we wanted to convert to local, but the express riders out in the suburbs fought us tooth and nail to keep the express route the way it is.  The only good news about the suburban sprawl is that the latest wave is mostly occurring in unincorporated areas, which are subject to the transit propery tax. Funding is increasing, but not at a rate that would allow the purchase of additional vehicles or implementation of BRT/LRT. That leaves us with only being able to improve weekend service and extending service into latenight hours. As an example, here are the next two fiscal years worth of plans. You can only squeeze so much juice out of an orange before you need a second orange.   By FY2024, the only thing left to improve without additional vehicles is overnight service... assuming we don't get a few extra vehicles from the feds due to routes running at >150% of capacity. There's also a good chance that we'll end up decommissioning a couple of express routes to move some of the 30-odd vehicles assigned to express service onto local routes to handle said overcrowding and maybe get a few more routes into the suburbs. More than half of those vehicles are untouchable though, as they service MacDill AFB and are generally running full. The other half are largely covered by FDOT, due to crossing county lines - if we eliminate those, we lose funding. 
Varance fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Dec 6, 2014 |
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Dec 6, 2014 09:14
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Expanding on the above: our average cost of operating a full-sized transit bus in Hillsborough County (Tampa), FL is about $86/hour. That accounts for the driver's pay/benefits, fuel, a share of the maintenance budget and any other fees that are a direct result of operation. In other words, If the bus picks up an average of 10 passengers per revenue hour (PPRH), it costs $8.60 to provide each of those people transportation. Due to the way fare is structured in our jurisdiction, the average passenger is only paying about $1 every time they board a bus (1-day and 31-day unlimited passes are the most common form of fare payment). Each person on that route had their trip subsidized to the tune of $7.60, or the cost of 2-3 gallons of gasoline. Our system average cost per ride for the past October was $7.33 per unlinked trip (every time someone gets on a bus, even if they just got off another bus). In October 2014, our best route (Route 1) averaged 36.94 PPRH, resulting in a cost per rider of less than $2.50 (40%+ recovery). We've got 9 other routes in the 30-35 range that are hovering around 30-40% farebox recovery, with those 10 routes getting the best service and serving as our primary network. The next 8 routes average 21-29 PPRH, in the 20-30% farebox recovery range. These are the routes that have full weekend service and some late night, but at long headway due to cost and vehicle availability. And then we've got 9 routes that are between 10-19 PPRH. These routes service the older suburbs that still have some semblance of urbanism. Recovery is between 10-20%, making them fairly expensive to run. Weekend/late night service is nonexistent or extremely limited for these routes. Our worst local route is that tendril that goes down through south county cul-de-sac country (Route 31), at 8.60 PPRH - $10 per rider, or less than 10% farebox recovery. Paratransit is significantly cheaper if you run it in fixed route configuration (what we call HARTFlex), due to using vehicles that are more fuel efficient than full transit buses and drivers who are paid significantly less - an average of $47/hour to operate. In many cases, you also pick up more than the 1 or 2 passengers per hour that straight paratransit would pick up. Due to the cost advantage, we place these services in suburban areas where ridership is rock bottom and try to get our paratransit passengers to use Flex instead of Plus for their day to day activities like going to the store. We also charge less to encourage suburbanites to use these services and also provide limited door to door service. That said, the average fare is a measly 55 cents. Even with a full van (12 pax) every round trip, it's still a little under $4 per ride and only about 12% recovery. It's still way cheaper per rider than running a full sized bus, but we also have two Flex routes out in the newer suburbs that average less than 3 PPRH. $18 per passenger trip. Yeah, that's what we're trying to replace with cheaper service. Straight paratransit in a heavily suburban area like ours is $35 per passenger trip, or more than 15 times the cost of providing a ride on one of the busy routes. Ouch. Edit: Florida is cheap. Multiply all figures by 1.5x to get ballparks for areas with a high cost of living like the Northeast Corridor or California. However, PPRH is also much higher in in areas with a higher cost of living, due to increased reliance on transit. The worst route in Toronto proper (171 Mount Dennis) still carries more than 50 PPRH, giving it a similar cost per rider compared to a low ridership route in Hillsborough's system. Edit 2: The bus numbers are straight diesel numbers. We're in the process of dumping Diesel for CNG, which should lower our cost for buses per revenue hour below $80 over the next 12 years. Paratransit is already half CNG and will see more replacement in the spring, plus we'll have a CNG fuel contract next year, dropping the paratransit costs quite a bit ($40-45/hour for Flex, $30 for Plus trips). Edit 3: In case anyone is wondering, what I'm posting is perfectly cool with management. We're about to start putting our financials on the web in an even more detailed format later this month. The idea is that people can see if we're wasting money, and point it out so that we can stop wasting money. And then when we're not wasting money, we can go to the voters and say "Hey, we're not wasting money. Give us more money so we can do more!" Varance fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 6, 2014 14:27
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Oh yes, 5307 is only good for fixed guideway expansions, too. I'm mostly on the highway funding side of things these days, which has its own weirdness. I wish there was that much transparency at every transit agency (and every DOT, for that matter).
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Dec 6, 2014 20:52
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Yeah, Small Starts/New Starts grants are quite difficult to qualify for these days. The capital requirements on the local level are daunting for many municipalities who aren't entirely devoted to transit. Many fixed guideway projects don't even qualify for New Starts anymore, which is why even with a transit referendum, we'll only be able to squeeze out one LRT line and a couple of small BRT projects unless it's a gargantuan amount of funding like a full cent sales tax devoted to transit, on top of the existing proper tax levy. We barely squeezed out a Small Starts grant for our MetroRapid North-South BRT line a couple years ago by dressing up a road infrastructure project as a fixed guideway BRT route. The county paid for the installation of bus bays and ATMS/TSP on two local roads, with that funding used as the local match to qualify for federal funding. The Small Starts grant was used for the vehicles and shelters. Even then, that was only enough for a "BRT Lite" installation (mixed traffic with enhancements). Florida statutes place restrictions on sales tax use for transit, to the point that if you want to use a sales tax for transit purposes, it HAS to be passed as a transit tax with very specific ballot wording, defined by law, indicating that it's for transit. The same statutes also specify that such a tax has to be passed on a county level, so you can't exclude the suburbanites without splitting the county up (which nobody really wants to do). The sales tax that was used for the previous project is spoken for until it expires (originally passed to fund the construction of Raymond James Stadium, with the balance going toward community projects). Hillsborough citizens aren't willing to pay for another stadium right now, no matter how much the Rays are begging in private, so I'm highly skeptical we'll be able to use our loophole again to fund additional BRT Lite installs. Best hope is that we pass a road tax, then use funds from the road tax as a Small Starts match for the 6 other BRT Lite projects we have planned. Local money goes toward the road side of things, fed funding toward the transit portion. So long as Tallahassee doesn't pass legislation to break that loophole but good. Our option of last resort for LRT: Tampa International Airport is building a people mover system out to their new remote garage/CONRAC and eventually to the FDOT-planned Westshore Intermodal Center on the edge of I-275. Since it's part of an airport, it's not considered transit in Florida's eyes, but still qualifies for FTA grants. Worst case scenario if we can't get any sort of funding, TIA extends their people mover system down the transit-reserved corridor in the middle of I-275 to our transit center in the downtown core, which is also right next to I-275 and would directly peer with all but one of our planned BRT lines via two intermediate stops. TIA is intentionally using Mitsubishi's articulated/coupleable married-pair CrystalMover stock for the project, in case the nuclear option is required - 3 (really expensive) miles of fixed guideway. In that case, the only question is where to find the money to modernize/extend our heritage streetcar line and finish the other BRT projects to form a rudimentary higher-order transit system. Varance fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Dec 6, 2014 |
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Dec 6, 2014 21:07
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What you said about PPRH definitely explains why some of the feeder bus lines here that would be extremely convenient if they ran more frequently, and for longer in the day, won't be. 
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Dec 6, 2014 23:41
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Random article I came across about the history of freeway sound barriers. Figured some of you might find it interesting: https://medium.com/re-form/muting-the-freeway-e18ee195bd38
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Dec 7, 2014 01:37
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Oooo build your own paper kit at the bottom haha. Europe does absolutely gorgeous sound barriers, they're often glass now which looks really cool.
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Dec 7, 2014 02:20
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 https://goo.gl/maps/IqfG9 I always liked these layered coloured ones we have, these have been there for as long as I can remember. This one is also notable: https://goo.gl/maps/jFmgX They made half a tunnel out of it, and the only purpose is to block sound, it's not like there's a hill up there. Entropist fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 7, 2014 03:00
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Entropist posted:This one is also notable: https://goo.gl/maps/jFmgX The reason for that shape is probably that there are a bunch of high-rise residential buildings right behind the barrier, the highest one being 60m tall. For the people in the top-floor apartments, the noise wouldn't be blocked by a lower wall. Wikipedia also reminds me that that neighbourhood was famous for 'Jack the Knipper' (Jack the Cutter), some dude that managed to cause elevator breakdowns by cutting the wiring. He did so nearly 50 times in a year time before he was caught. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 7, 2014 19:53
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Ahh, I see... Well they didn't do that in Groningen when I lived in a high-rise building right next to the ring road 
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Dec 7, 2014 20:15
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You can't complain until you've stayed a week here The only hotel I've been to where earplugs are mandatory.
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Dec 7, 2014 21:12
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Is space at that much of a premium, there? 
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Dec 7, 2014 21:34
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Hedera Helix posted:Is space at that much of a premium, there? Staying there was TERRIBLE. I have no idea who decided to build a hotel on top of one of the region's busiest freeways, but there was nonstop rumbling from both trucks and the train stop in the basement. Not to mention that if the hotel ever needs renovations or repairs, they have to shut down I-90.
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Dec 7, 2014 21:51
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Hedera Helix posted:Is space at that much of a premium, there? I doubt land is cheap there, but it's surrounded by single family houses.
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Dec 7, 2014 21:54
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