Transit Posting!

It took me quite a few searches to find a picture of Modesto with Transit.

I recently posted an article on my Facebook page about transit being revamped, it was a short and sweet version of a difficult problem. Transit funding is in a terrible place right now, the highway fund can only be used for transit in a few situations, transit as it is cannot exist without subsidy, and there is a stigma that transit is only for people who "cannot afford to drive" (not to mention the scheduling issues). Similarly, the study of transit does not always apply to the on-the-ground use of transit, for example, this article claims that Modesto, CA has one of the top 10 transit systems in the nation. If any one has ever been to Modesto, they will quickly see that this cannot be the case. Growing up I frequently went to Modesto, and I don't remember seeing a single bus in the city, except the ones associated with Amtrak, because there was a station in town. Asking most people who live in Modesto, I am almost sure that you would discover a small percentage of transit users, BUT according to an academic style study of these transit systems they are the best. Yes, they have decent coverage, but at what times, and at what cost, and how long does it actually take to get from point A to point B on that system.
We need to revamp our ideas of transit in academia as well as in our lives. I love transit, and though I prefer to walk (step monsters, read this article about walking and why it is harder to push a "walking movement" than a biking or transit movement). Of course there is the last mile problem, when it is not efficient for a bus to run down a smaller street, which leaves the rider to have to walk to their destination. Public transit is not designed as a completely door-to-door transportation system, but it can often be used as efficiently as one. I live only 3 blocks from a bus stop between 6am and 7pm and yet a half mile from a bus stop any other time of the day. For me, this is not a problem, but I can see where someone who works until 2 am would not want to have to walk a half mile when they finally get off the bus at 3 am and would opt to drive. However, people are still not taking advantage of the system that is available. On my Facebook wall comments were plentiful about how it is a "lower class" system and how it isn't easy to use, but someone also said that people tend to think that transit is the "magic bullet solution" to problems that we are having in the world right now. I agree that people tend to think that transit will solve all of our problems, and that they are wrong, but I don't think it cannot play a role in helping to fix some of our problems, we just have to work on it a little bit more.
I recently attended the Regional Transportation Authority's Citizen's Advisory Board meeting where buses on the shoulder of the freeway were discussed for express services between the southwest suburbs and the city of Chicago. At this meeting they presented maps of the system showing where the shoulder was not wide enough to support this type of operation. The solution to the problem was to just have the bus merge back into slow moving traffic at those points. Luckily, someone mentioned the unrealistic notion of this working as a great system with that type of need, but a solution was still not found. People think of buses not only as transportation systems for "poor people" but they think of buses themselves as almost lower class vehicles. Few cars will yield to a bus when it has to merge into traffic, and many car drivers think of bus drivers as rude when they have to force their way into traffic just to keep moving. Similarly, transit users are annoyed with the car traffic slowing down transit use, because the bus does get stuck in traffic just as a car would.
In New Zealand and Australia, instead of letting these systems fight with each other, they have separated the two (at least in smaller cities). We often hear about pedestrian malls, where the city closes roads off in the middle of town for only pedestrian access (time square, etc) but what about transit malls? I think this solution could eventually apply to larger cities as well, but one of the biggest notions I get out of this article is that these countries do not treat buses as lower class vehicles, they actually are the elite vehicles on the road, with a special designated lane, unmistakably distinguished just for buses. And the system works there (at least the bus lane system). In America we are hardly willing to give up one side of parking on a busy road for a transit lane, and if they do many people will still park in there "just for a minute" or use the lane to pass slower vehicles.
In order for the United States transit system to work, we are going to have to start seeing it as an asset, even if we aren't using it. Drivers are going to have to appreciate that those people in the bus are not driving their own car, and therefore are helping to reduce traffic on the street, and maybe new users will begin to arise as the system is more efficient. But to begin the solution maybe we should add some transit malls in a few cities, even if they are only a mile or so, large cities could benefit by getting buses off of the major streets and into faster more efficient modes, but also, well painted bus lanes instead of crowded parking lanes could advertise for buses as they will be able to speed by traffic, using less fuel, and getting more people to their destination that much quicker.

So let's all start using the systems we have in place. And mapping companies, like mapnificent (yes I know it's amazing and I'm jealous I wasn't working on it with them) and Google's new introduction of real-time transit updates for some cities will encourage people to use the system a lot more as well.

R