Renumbering for Customer Friendliness

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Since I know live in Portland, Oregon I will probably use TriMet here as an example of many of my postings just like I did with Utah Transit Authority when I lived there. I will also use other transit agencies I am familiar with such as Metro in Los Angeles and Spokane Transit Authority in Spokane. However, I will not try to step on the toes of Portland Transport, an excellent transit related blog that does a great job of covering news in the area.

TriMet like many agencies still have a antiquated number system part of which is descended from its predecessor agencies. The number system is a hog pog of numbers that don't tell the person much information about the service.

However, many agencies have created new number systems to make their route numbers make it easier for customers to understand the system. The late Southern California Rapid Transit District in Los Angeles was one of the first agencies to do this. From the late 70's through 1983 the RTD renumber all its routes so a person only had to look at the number to know if the bus traveled to downtown Los Angeles or if not if traveled primarily north-south, east-west or if it was express bus or something else.

Meanwhile Jarrett over at Human Transit talked about creating a number system that told you the frequency of the routes.

Lets use these concepts to see how you can renumber a transit system to make it more customer friendly and easier to use. Of course there is always the people who don't like it when routes change, but in the long run what is most important that it would make the transit system more customer friendly for all the riders.

Here is a sample numbering system for TriMet:

100 Series Routes-Frequent Service Routes that service downtown Portland
200 Series Routes-Frequent Service Routes that do not serve downtown Portland west of the Willamette
300 Series Routes-Frequent Service Routes that do not serve downtown Portland east of the Willamette
400 Series Routes-30/60 Minute Service Routes that serve downtown Portland
500 Series Routes-30/60 Minute Service Routes west of the Willamette not serving downtown
600 Series Routes-30/60 Minute Service Routes east of the Willamette not serving downtown
700 Series Routes-Limited Service Routes
800 Series Routes-Express Service Routes
900 Series Routes-Special Service such as routes that run peak hours only

Those familiar with TriMet will know that there is only one route in the 200 series and only a few more in the 300 series but the point is to make the system easy to understand. You could combine both of those into the 200 series and adopt from their.

In addition there is one odd ball route which is the current 154. It starts at the Oregon Transit Center then travels across the Willamette. You could put this route in the 500 series since most of its route is west of the Willamette or in the 600 series since its connection with the rest of the network is at Oregon City.

Also, TriMet currently has no limited service routes but this is an example and in the future TriMet should look at instituting limited stop service on busy corridors which is something I will be posting about in the future.

While you could argue semantics, this is a general renumber system that would make a system more customer friendly and easier to use. It could be adapted by any agency to not only designate where a bus goes but also the frequency of route.

Emergency Funds

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The last few years have been pretty tough for transit agencies around the nation. Because of the extended recession many transit agencies have had to cut service and raise fares.

This can be especially hard for the transit dependent and low income folks, but the fact of the matter is, any organization has a budget it has to work with. You can complain all you want about salaries, where capital is being spent, or whatever other whipping post people like to complain about.

IF we lived in a perfect world, transit systems would be able to use their emergency funds to cover operations during a recessionary period. Some of you may be asking what exactly is an emergency fund: it is exactly what it sounds like, a fund to protect against emergencies. Smart financial planners tell not only individuals but also businesses to have three to preferably six months of expenses set aside for emergencies such as recessions, lay offs, etc.

Of course only a small percentage of the population actually keeps an emergency fund. Maybe that's what so many are bitterly opposed to government agencies of any kind to have emergency funds. In Oregon, instead of saving money for slow periods, the money goes back to the taxpayers. Some lawmakers this year tried to promote the idea of keeping some of that money for emergencies but most would not go for it probably considering it political suicide in today's environment.

A perfect example of a agency that was attacked severely for building up an emergency fund was the Spokane Transit Authority. Because of efficient operations the agency started to build up a nest egg but came under fierce attack.

It should be pointed out that some transit agencies did not help their own cause but being overly optimistic when it came to financial projections. One agency required 6% annual economic growth to maintain their existing services. Depending on overly optimistic economic projects was a one way trip to disaster.

Hopefully we will learn a couple of things from this recession. First, revenue projects need to be realistic and a agency cannot depend on continually economic growth to keep existing services running as is. Second, that emergency funds is something that not only individuals need but it also makes since for businesses and government agencies to be prepared for raining days. 

Should UTA Change its Meeting Times?

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For those of us that have jobs, making Utah Transit Authority board meetings can be a difficult thing since a majority of them are held in the afternoons at the UTA headquarters. If you plan to attend you need to take a day off work or make other arrangements to make the meeting. While some employers may have no problem with this, others who have to schedule for customer service needs may have a bigger issue with it.

So the question is, should the meetings be changed to the evenings so that more people can attend? I say the answer to that question is no.

While some may argue that more people would be able to attend the meetings if they were in the evening, in my experience the time of the meeting makes little difference on the number of people attending the meeting.

For example the Spokane Transit Authority holds its meetings at 5:30pm and its headquarters is within a five minute bus ride or drive from downtown Spokane. However unless there is major cuts planned in bus service, the meetings see little public participation.

To put the issue into better perspective lets take a look at city council meetings. The city of Spokane holds their council meetings in the evenings. For business reasons I attended almost every meeting during a several year period in 2001-2002 period. The average attendance during that time was twelve. To put that into greater perspective that was something like two one thousanths of one percent of the population.

To make those numbers sound even worse, six of those people were a part of a group that attended the meetings that were Spokane's CAVE people (Citizens against virtually everything).

The only time the city council chambers were full was when they were proposing massive changes to the building code to concentrate new high density development around major transit stops.

So changing meeting times do not equate to better attendance at meetings and should not be considered for changing meeting times for transit agencies or other government agencies for that matter.

UTA Wraps Brand New Bus

Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (Tri-Rail station)
Originally uploaded by gilligguy

I walked out yesterday to get my mail when either the 307 or 320 flew by me on Van Winkle. It was one of the brand spanking new Gillig Advantage BRT look buses and I was disgusted to see that the bus had a full wrap on it.

Now anyone who has read my blog for long knows that I despise them because they are so anti-customer. Just try to look out of a wrapped window (go down to the June 25th entry).

Not only that, but they have wrapped a brand new bus. Transit systems such as the Spokane Transit Authority will wrap buses that need to be repainting because of the damage that can be done to the paint but I guess UTA doesn't care about our expensive capital resources enough.

The Problem with Skybridges...

Streets of Reno #6
Originally uploaded by ellen.w

It seems that the sky bridge has become a contentious issue about the City Creek project. Many people seemed to think the sky bridge is wonderful just because Rocky is against it.

I could care less if Rocky loves the thing or hates, I personally think the sky bridge is a very bad idea.

Downtown Reno is the perfect example of what a sky bridge can do. The three main casinos in the are the Circus Circus, Silver Legacy and the El Dorado. All three of the hotels under common ownership are connected to each other via sky walks which you can see to the left of the photo.

The sky bridges are designed for one thing: to keep people in the casinos. On the street level you see a few people but for the most part the pedestrian action is non-existent. In the picture you are looking north toward the Circus Circus. Along the Silver Legacy there is a facade of old looking buildings that are all fake. There is not actually entrances or anything. Even during the day there is very little pedestrian action on the streets.

You can't blame the casinos for wanting to keep all the business to themselves but their actions have largely killed the the rest of the downtown area.

The City Creek sky bridge is also designed to keep people in the development which will choke off pedestrian traffic along Main Street and the surrounding areas.

Another example of what sky bridges do is Downtown Spokane. Spokane built an extensive network of sky bridges during and after Expo 74. What essentially happened was the people moved up. They stopped walking around along the surface streets and only shopped from the sky walks. The street level died as a result and you started getting the impression that Downtown Spokane was dead.

Eventually many of the stores started to close and be turned into offices and the downtown area became a 9 to 5 area. While not all of downtown's problems could be blamed on the sky walks, it was clear that they were a contributing factor to the decline of the area.

It has taken more than a decade for things to start changing in Spokane. There was other issues like a big mall issue but bring back the street life over the last few years has help the downtown area.

While there has been claims that the sky walk at City Creek will have access to the street level, the sky bridge is designed to keep people in the City Creek complex.

People need to not let emotion rule the decision over the sky bridge. Instead let good urban planning that is designed to enhance the entire downtown area, not two single blocks make the decision.

UTA Board Makeup

There has been lots of talk lately of changing the make up of the UTA board of directors. Most of this talk is coming from politicians do not like John Inglish making the amount of the money that he is currently making.

Most of this talk is not coming from politicians who want to improve transit, most of the talk is coming from either anti-transit zealot politicians who are too caught up in their political dogma to see reality or they are out for power.

However the truth is there is no transit system that is run directly by politicians that is better off than UTA, in fact most transit systems run by the politicians are usually in worst shape than the UTA.

To give an example of a system run directly by the politicians is the Spokane Transit Authority better known as the STA. Most the of the time the politicians just rubber stamp what the planners have to say since they truly have no idea what is needed on the system since most of them would not lower themselves to ride it. To make matters worst most of the people on the board are only part time. This means they work a full time job, have their regular city council or county commissioner duties, and the STA board along with several others. Is it any wonder that STA does not get the proper attention?

However, that is not saying that the UTA board is much better because generally the board is made up of politically connected hacks who are appointed by the politicians. They also would not lower themselves to actually ride the bus, so they do not truly know what is happening on the system and could care less.

What is really needed is better rider representation on the board. Why not require that one of the board members be a regular transit rider so that the other side of the coin is giving? The ridership of the transit system needs better representation on the board and at the UTA. Instead of changing UTA for the worst, lets change it for the better.