Over here in Western New York there are major cutbacks with high taxes and less and less services. Chautauqua County and Jamestown NY have cut buses back to the bone. At one time even this somewhat rural county had 190 miles of Interurban lines. They even had steam boat lines that took workers from Downtown Jamestown to there homes along the lake
Major Traffic was workers in the furniture capital of the US Jamestown NY as well Summer Tourists to Lake Chautauqua. The County has two population centers Dunkirk-Fredonia(SUNY U is here) NY on the old New York Central Main Line as well as the Former terminus of the Erie Railroad or Erie Railway. In the South is Jamestown NY on the Erie which has a power plant on the Old Erie Mainline. Between the two is a lot of rural areas
and of Course Lake Chautauqua.
The problem is that CARTS transit is mandated to serve our senior citzen population and cover a lot of ground. They get rembused from the state and feds for serive the disabled but dont get money for local transit service for working people to get them to and from work.
The county has given up by having the last bus going anywere at 3:45 making impossible to work a 9 to 5 job or even use the bus at night to go shopping.
The Local Chamber of Buisness has come up with a idea to make the Buses free in the evening to the Mall (Owned by the Simon Conglomerate) , This would be paid for by local business in the Lakewood NY Shopping District.
Passengers would get coupons from the driver to spend at sponsering buineses along the route and the Mall would paint up the Bus in its Logo. The Bus run is about 5 miles long.
So how does this tie in to rail?
Well If subway riders in DC or NYC could have there tickets redeemed or get free tokens from Downtown merchants when they spend X number of dollers it would be good for buisness and a incentive to shop downtown. Too often Suberban Workers ru***o and from there jobs and spend there money at home far awy from the inner city. Buffalo l
Also how many of your boses are willing to pay for your monthly bus or train pass?
If it wasnt 3 miles from my house, or even if it didnt charge for parking, sure I would. If I could simply park and ride I would definetly consider it, and pay for it. But since I live in LA, I drive, luckily my commute is only 14 miles, short by LA standards. I wish my wife had the option. She is comuting 30 miles with no rail transit system within 10 miles of her work. as it is it can take her 2 hours in bad traffic to get home. Any kind of rail service is still almost 10 years away. So much for the so-called “City of the Future” soon to be renamed “City of Gridlock”
BTW I intentionally ignored busses, if a car takes 2 hours, beleive me, here, the bus will take 3![}:)]
We seem to be running out of money to maintain or provide any kind of transportation infrastructure, whether it be for cars, trains, buses, or even walking. Four times as many U.S. residents have been killed in motor vehicle accidents as were killed in all our nation’s wars since the Revolution (1776) yet our politicians seem determined to provide enough parking and roads to accommodate every auto the manufacturers can sell. And local and county governments still continue to allow new housing and job opportunities at sites that are accessible to motorist’s only. Is that our manifest destiny?
We better start getting concerned about whether people who cannot, should not, or choose not to drive have any rights. We might never get out of our traffic congestion mess if we don’t figure out a way to prohibit any new development that is not at least as accessible and functional for non-motorists as it is for those who drive.
If your employer would reimburse your transit fares, then he should also be paying for your auto commute. That could include the cost of your auto, maintenance, depreciation, consumables, insurance…not just the gas.
One of the major keys to successful mass transit is convenience. It it’s a big deal to get to the bus, trolley or train stop, then you might as well drive the whole trip. I think one reason it’s so hard to do these days is another cause directly attributal to the personal auto. That cause is the urban sprawl which can be directly linked to the automoblie.
That’s probably why as lincoln5390 observes, our transportation infrastructure is not maintainable. It’s the same problem that the long distance train has…YOU CAN’T BE EVERYWHERE AT HIGH NOON.
My employer is willing to provide me with a free mass transit pass. He is not willing for me to spend all day getting there.
Find out who’s in charge of your city, our mayor seems to be a yes man to every 39 cent “developer” in Canada, has never said no to a development and are these bozos ever taking advantage of this, some of the ugliest districts are being built as far out as the eye can see and very far from public transit, and we are now being taxed up the ying- yang to pay for these unworkable transit projects. Didn’t Fresno put an end to this craziness and start redeveloping it’s inner core with no more urban sprawl?
My employer partially subsidizes transit passes (about 25%). In theory the employer saves money becuase it reduces the maintenance cost of parking lots, access roads, etc.
Whether an employee chooses transit is left to availability (limited, but it does work for some) and reliability. Even employees who rely on transit will drive in on certain days that they Absolutely, Positively Have to Be There, or on days they know they’ll need to work late.
I used public transit in Austin for about 5 years until my employment changed. Now my commute on most days is 16 carpeted steps - little need for public transit!
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Local transit? What’s that?
My daily commute is about 20 miles, normally around 30 minutes - weather, school buses, and pokey drivers notwithstanding. Less than a quarter of it has speed limits less than 55.
My employer does run buses to “remote” housing areas (assigned to the GIs), but it doesn’t stop near my place, and I frequently use my own vehicle to get around the post (the size of a small city) in the course of my duties anyhow.
I live in a semi-rural area in Chautaqua County NY which is about 40 miles west of Buffalo. We have Commuter Bus service that is subsidized by the state of New York.(Which by the way used to be a train) We are not Populated enough to make mass transit viable so its mostly used by the handicapped and Poor. Furthermore Buffalo is so sprawled out that even if there was a train passenger would still have to transfer to get out to the Suberbs were the jobs are in Amherst. Commuter trains work best were there is a strong downtown were people still work and shop. The Problem with LA is that the last time I was there is that its downtown is not nearly as dence as New York Or Chicago.
Its trains were used a lot by domestics to get to cleaning jobs in Hollywood from San Bernadino. There is a lot of low income people in LA and the Metro provides a valuble service to get around a area but unless LA builds more housing and retail around its stations and make the system easy to use ridership probaly wont increase
‘even if it was free’? Friend, I would cheerfully ride it even if I had to pay for it, at least if it were reasonable (that is, not much more than what I pay for driving it – 16 miles each way is about $8 each way per day, all my costs considered)! There’s one little hitch, though… where I live and work, mass transit is a sick joke. As we are all aware, any mode of transportation (mass or otherwise) requires at least some State funding (subsidy if you like), and our State (Connecticut) funds mass transit only as a last resort, and very reluctantly even then; if they could back out of MetroNorth, they would. Highways are everything. So, in a nutshell, there is no usable mass transit in most of the State.
So I simply don’t have a choice. Drive 16 miles (45 minutes on our lovely highways) or quit.
CT has a intresting system of rural bus routes. About 4 years ago I rode from New London CT(Metronorth) to Springfield Mass. Just by linking all the diffrent systems. Took two and 1/2 days but I was sightseeing
My employer provides a limited transit subsidy which takes a sizable bite out of the cost of my monthly Metra ticket although I would still ride the train without it. Parking costs are astronomical in the Loop area so it’s still cheaper to drive to my local station and take the train to Union Station.
When I lived in the Boston area, I used a mix of public transit and my own car, depending on destinations and plans for the day. In Downers Grove, IL, I used the Burlington suburban to Chicago and the CTA in Chicago, but my own car to other suburbs and around Downers Grove and Westmont. When I moved back to NYC (having left it for MIT and the Army at 17) I sold my car, used public transit and railroads and intercity buses and airplanes, and rarely rented a car when necessary. I lived in Manhattan a few blocks from a major subway station that was ten minutes from either Grand Central or Penn. And PATH was nearby also. In Jerusalem I use the Egged bus system enough to have a Sr. Citizen’s pass which gives me the whole city for the equivalent of about $20 a month! And we are promised a light rail line soon, but I haven’t seen any tracks put in the streets yet! Sure, I use public transit as much as possible, like looking at the scenery (both kinds) and occasionally doing homework or reading the newspaper or a good book.
I would ride use mass transit even if I had to pay the full cost (my employer pays about 2/3 of my mass transit cost now). I use a combination of personal auto and mass transit, by driving to a bus plaza. A parking space in downtown DC costs more than I’m spending now on mass transit, and I’d rather walk barefoot on broken glass than to drive in this traffic.
Even if the transit in Boston was free…Id still loose money by getting my wallet stolen. That is if I had a desire to go that city.[xx(] [:(]
Not really an option for me here.
I don’t work 9-5, I work on-call, and can be called to work at any point in the 24 hour cycle, 7 days a week.
In the best of times it would take me the better part of two hours to get to work, taking a series of busses, and making a number of transfers, that is of course during regular hours, if I was called to work for 0200, I wouldn’t even have a transit option, as the busses wouldn’t be running at that hour.
Really, it’s just not practicable.
So what I am hearing here is that you must be in a livable city that has a viable transit system? The problem seems to be that its been 20 or 30 years since most metropoliton areas have redrawn there bus maps.
Most bus lines are on old trolley lines despite the fact that most of the pop. have moved away from those lines.
Allow me to speak as a “retired” board member of a major rail and bus transit system.
A transit system should do the following:
1: To be viable the transit system must run frequently and travel between relevant points. A bad example is Amtrak which has one train north and south through Dallas. With this frequency it is not a viable means to get to Austin or San Antonio. It must be built between business centers to be viable. Another bad example is the Indian Nation Turnpike in Oklahoma. It runs between Henryetta and Hugo-hardly major population centers. I believe it was built to satisfy local politatians. I do find it great to get to my son’s home in Tulsa as it is almost devoid of traffic.
2: Keep the fares reasonable. It cost us about $4.00 to collect the $1.00 in fairbox revenue. There is not a transit system in the world that pays its total costs through the farebox, so do not even try. An industry rule of thumb is a 25% increase in fare will reduce ridership 10%. Only increase fares as a very last resort.
3: Provide a clean system. If you clean and wash your vehicles and facilities daily the riders will respect them and not litter or graffitti them. Our policy is the first driver on a route in the morning radios in any graffitti along the line. By noon on the same day it is gone. If you remove the media for the graffitti artists to express themselves they soon will tire of it.
4: Provide a secure system. Have a transit police presence as much as possible. I realize that it is impossible to have an officer on every train and bus, but have them randomly ride and patrol your facilities. Increase the police presence in high crime areas. Use video monitoring. Prosecute offenders.
5: Show that as a transit agency you care. Have a hot line for complaints AND follow up on them. Pass out flowers on Mother’s day. Pass out candy on Valentines day. We do this and you would be surprised at the amount of positive fee