Boosting Bus Service with Streetcar

Image via Wikipedia
Whenever a new light rail system opens, we often see bus routes being modified to service the light rail stations. While some complain about the loss of a one seat ride, others complain that preferential treatment is given to light rail.

Meanwhile Portland will soon be in a different situation as its streetcar system continues to expand.

The starter Portland Streetcar which has become famous for many reasons does not duplicate any existing bus service except for the northwest section where the existing 77 travels along a portion of the streetcar line.

However, as the streetcar system expands as it is doing right now, it will soon start to duplicate existing transit lines. The new eastside loop will follow a portion of Tri-Met's existing route 6 which itself was modified from parts of old route 5 with the opening of the Yellow Line several years ago. Whatever Tri-Met decides to do with route 6 when the streetcar line opens in 2012, it would not have a dramatic effect on transit service in that area. My observations from riding the 6 line while at Railvolution is that most of the ridership tends to be from the Convention Center north (although my observations where limited so if someone from Portland wants to correct me on that...).

What will have the ability to dramatically change transit service in the region is the next set of route proposals for the street. Specifically one of the top candidates to get another streetcar line is Sandy Blvd and Burnside which currently hosts one of Tri-Mets longest if not the longest line Route 12.

Not only is the 12 route a very long bus route it is also a very busy route specially in its spine territory from Parkrose/Sumner Transit Station to Tigard. While many buses shortline in King City and Parkrose/Sumner, a bus traveling the full route from Gresham to Sherwood takes more than two hours to complete the journey.

However once the Sandy/Burnside trolley line is built there will be new opportunities to change the 12 for the better doing the opposite of what is normally done when a new light rail line opens.

If this was a light rail line opening the natural inclination would be terminate buses at the end of the line in the Hollywood section of Portland and in downtown for buses coming from the Sherwood area. The main reason for this is if you continue running the bus route that parallels the light rail line the light rail line doesn't perform up to its potential and the bus becomes a major drain on resources with little ridership.

Instead of terminating the 12 at the end points, you can instead have the 12 become a limited stop route along the portion that will duplicate the streetcar line. As I have already said the 12 is a very, very long route. While it currently takes only 20 minutes to get from 42nd street to downtown currently by making the 12 a limited you can shave off about 5 to 7 minutes by making the 12 a limited. One good place to drop the number of stops is on Burnside where there is currently multiple bus stops within a few lock area.

Also to improve the route even more Tri-Met should look at making the 12 a limited all the way through downtown and down Barbur to Beaverton-Hillsdale Road since that portion of the route is also has the 44, 54 and the 56 in the corridor. With these improvements you could shave off 10 minutes off the route.

While 10 minutes is not anything earth shattering in speed increase, you would be saving 20 minutes over a round trip which could save you bus or two on the route. Those hours could either be used to increase service on the 12 or provide additional service on other routes that could use additional service.

As the Portland Streetcar expands to new markets in the future, it will create new opportunities to make the existing bus service more efficient. This will create new marketing opportunities as streetcars provide the close to downtown urban service and buses providing faster regional service in areas that do not have light rail service.

Portland Day 2

Today was spent more time on foot than on transit taking time to check out near the downtown area. I had the opportunity to check out south, west and north of downtown including the Pearl District. However, I did make some trips on MAX and bus service.

Yesterday I missed riding the new Siemens S70 cars (or are they S90's?). These are the newest cars in the Tri-Met system and will soon be in service in Utah. However, today I finally was able to ride them not once but twice.

Riding both the older Siemens low floor cars that Tri-Met purchased for the opening of the westside line back in the mid-1990's and these new cars are better than comparable low floor buses and don't seem to suffer from the same downsides as on the bus side except for lower capacity.

One interesting aspect of the Portland cars is that only one side of the car has a operator cab. Since Tri-Met runs nothing but two car trains due to how short their blocks are, it made since to save the money and increase capacity by doing away with the second cab controls.

Tri-Met is able to save money by not requiring all the controls and electronics that are required in a cab and increases capacity in the car. UTA does not have this option since they can run up to 4 cars in rush hour but at other times can run anywhere from one to three cars. It is interesting to ride in an area that would be a operator cab if it was operated by any other light rail system.

Tomorrow I hope to have the opportunity to ride Tri-Mets WES commuter rail line in addition to going to my first Railvolution event which is a mobile workshop on Portland's maturing streetcar neighborhoods. It ought to be very interesting.

Interesting Blog Posts from the Week...

Image via WikipediaHere is some of the interesting blog posts from around the transit blog world that caught my attention this week.

First off from Track 29 which is by a Washington DC resident, we have this one about the proposed gutting of transit funds for more highway funding:

Call Me Confused (But Not Surprised)

I already mentioned about the President's proposal and this blog talks a little more about the whole thing.

From Light Rail Photos comes some photos about the opening of the Gold Line in Los Angeles on its 5th Anniversary

Pasadena Gold Line opening

The Gold Line was built along the right of way of the former Santa Fe railroad that saw such famous trains as the Super Chief which was also referred to as the "train of the stars". I grew up not far from this line and during my high school years lived in a house whose back yard bordered this line.

Here is an off beat entry from the Transit Sleuth in Portland about the why the concept of Fare Free is a bad idea:

Hot Chicks on the MAX, TriMet Makes a Play...

Once again from California comes this entry from the Transbay Blog out of San Francisco talking about California's Complete Streets Proposal:

Complete Streets Act to Hit the State Senate Floor

Think we will ever see this in Utah? I won't hold my breath unless their is a rapture and people do start voting for the person instead of the political party in this state.

Curitiba is often used by BRT advocates as their nirvana example (I will talk about this more in the future) but here is a post from the Overhead Wire about their LRT plan:

Replay 5.21.07: Curitiba Transport Chief Throws BRT Under the Bus

Streetsblog Los Angeles has a couple of postings of interesting:

Plan for LA’s Central Park Showing at 7th and Fig

This is a proposal to cap the freeway that runs to the west of downtown Los Angeles. Seattle did this with a portion of Interstate 5 near downtown Seattle. Now if they had only put Interstate 15 in a trench like most rebuilt freeways through downtown Salt Lake because this same thing could have been done in Salt Lake, but its too late now.

Next there is this posting about Representative Earl Blumenauer's bill that would help transit agencies that are being hurt by the big diesel prices.

House Bill Makes Connection Between Transit Funding and Gas Price Relief

Blumenauer has been a big proponent of effective transit development and is a regular speaker at Railvolution and other similar programs.

One of the things I like about this bill is that there is a provision to boost housing near highways plus incentives for transit riders, cyclists, telecommuters and carpoolers.

Previously I have talked about the problems with the requirments for new schools that almost force students to be either bussed or driven to school or drive themselves in the case of High Schools. The Smart Growth Around America Blog has an entry talking about more about this and issues such as diesel prices is having on busing:

It all hinges on a key phrase: “If it’s possible.”

As the blog points out, it is great to encourage kids to walk to school but new schools are being built that makes that next to impossible.

That's it for the ones that stood out this week.

Attack on TRAX

TRAX train in Sandy
Originally uploaded by jmdspk

Woman reports assault during ride on TRAX

I will agree that these incidents are rare, but they are the fodder the anti-transit types need to start spreading how unsafe light rail is. This is currently happing in Portland were because of incidents in Gresham the anti-transit types are declaring how unsafe light rail is. Of course it doesn't fit into their political agenda that Gresham has had gang problems since even before the light rail line came in 1986.

UTA does need to have a bigger security presence on TRAX. I noticed that security guards and actual officers are on almost all Denver light rail trains after dark. This gives a much better feeling of security.

Attacks can happen anywhere as incidents in the last week indicate so it is better to be prepared and ready than to be sorry.

UTA should look to Portland and their buses

Image via WikipediaOne of the weaknesses of the UTA system is the buses. They cost more to operate than light rail and do not attract the number of choice riders that TRAX light rail does. So what can UTA do to improve its bus system and make it attract more choice riders?

UTA needs to look at what Portland is doing on its busiest routes. Since we are stuck with the Low Floor buses that are inferior to the high floors, UTA like Tri-Met in Portland needs to take advantage of them.

What Portland did was go route by route and assign the low floor buses to their busiest routes that will take advantage of the faster loading and unloading. In addition they reduced the number of bus stops (but still keeping them close together), and adjusted the sidewalks and curves to make getting in and out of the low floors as seamless as can be.

This gives the best invest for the dollar short of building streetcar or light rail systems. It speeds up the buses and is more attractive to choice riders.

Among the routes that would be perfect opportunities for this kind of investment is the 8, 9, 22, 30, 31, 39, 40, 70, 603, 612, and the 830 (probably this route will be served more by this than the BRT scheme).

Expansion of TRAX is very important, but still is maintaining and increasing ridership on the bus routes.