Thrown Under the Bus - What We Need in a New SCAT Team

“Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus. “
David Hockney

A couple of weeks ago, the head of Sarasota’s transit operations (SCAT) submitted his resignation, ostensibly because the fire extinguishers had expired the day before.  There is likely more to the story than this, and there was undeniable disruption for a growing cadre of transit riders.  But now’s the time to think ahead.

OK  - So some might wonder why we should think about transit at all – it’s a bus.  But Sarasota’s at a point where it needs to think big about moving people:

• For starters, gasoline is hitting record prices as are local and national ridership numbers.
• Younger people are eschewing the car, according to new research  (and my own observations of my 15 year and his cohort).
• Transit is a big indicator – visitors from Europe and big cities know transit.  Moreover there is a growing “cool” factor to transit, biking and walking.  Even if visitors don’t step foot on a bus, a working, state of the art system send big signals about a community, its priorities and its savvy.   
• It’s a big part of the county budget that’s here to stay – so why not crank it?  Transit is budgeted at $36,000,000 (out of a close to $900,000,000 total budget for the County).

Now that we’ve settled that transit as worthy of lots of attention – here is my wishlist of priorities for the next transit administrator: two of them deal with transit and what the administrator can control and the others are my expectations out of everybody else.

The New Head of SCAT

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) –Like other creative class cities, Sarasota has a Bus Rapid transit project in the making.  This project, expected to cost roughly $100,000,000(of which Sarasotans would kick in $12 million or so), runs from the airport south to Southgate Mall (or where the new Apple Storewas supposed to be going).  But this ambitious project seems to repeat a theme that has dogged Sarasota for the past several years: the attention to innovation sapped attention to the basics.  The BRT project is worth continuing, but you are not going to get public support until we see a kick-ass transit agency on a daily basis.

Technology and SCAT– Shifting from BRT to regular SCAT does not mean abandoning innovation.   In fact, there is a lot that can be done with our system with attention to a couple of things.  First, establish a vision that SCAT will be recognized for deploying imaginative technology that rivals what big cities are doing.  The anemic SCAT TRACneeds to be appified for Android and smart phones to get rid of glitch presentation and make it user friendly.  Second, the vision should be to make those SCAT poles meaningful.  SCAT TRAC assume a potential rider knows more than a typical potential rider actually knows. You don’t have to do it all at once, and you don’t have to roll out Bus Stop Mahal’s.  Small stickers on poles that lead users to the SCAT TRAC and the name of the  stop as it is listed would go a long way (see photo).  For these apps, keep in mind tourists don’t know where they are, or even where the store they want to visit is.  The digital “You are Here” through geolocation is a must. 

Everybody Else

The Public– The past year was hard: we needed to vent.  But now, we need to craft every statement to make a difference.  We need to be the best watchdogs, commentators, data collectors, and researchers we can be for transit.  Fabulous transit does not rest on one person’s shoulders – it is crowdsourced.

County Leadership– First, take SCAT out of Planning and Development Services.  It would be the proper place if our transit system and better land development were feeding into each other.  But it hasn't turned out that way (the isolated Cattleman Station is Exhibit A - but perhaps I need to reserve judgment as the area develops).   Right now SCAT needs to move people.  Make it standalone or put it in Information Technology.  Second, hire somebody from an organization that turned procurement around.  Why not a two-fer?  Third - get a tech savvy entrepreneur - not a whipping boy, not somebody scouting out retirement homes - but a young-ish professional who can inspire.  There are capable people within SCAT for operations.

Others – Anyone supported by public grants or other funds needs to build support for mobility  on their website and in print.  Washington DC set up an entire website targeted to tourists for ”Getting Around” that includes every option  – including by foot and bike.  New York’s MTA has the “Arts for Transit” program to marry arts and transit.  For crying out loud, we have some of the best animation, design and graphics talent in the world here – how can we use it to make getting around easier and more fun?  The private sector can also get involved.  Any app can show stores and attractions for a small amount of money.

Finally - next Thursday April 19th is "Try Transit Day." Free rides - so my expectation is that everyone tries transit!

Trolling Twitter - Transportation Research Board Greatest Bits

Fellow transportation nerds.  Another massive Transportation research Board (TRB) has come and gone.  For those of us who were not among the 11,000 attendees, Twitter allows a small backstage pass.  Here are some tidbits, though presentations and reports sure to follow. 

General Statistics:

Study: One hour spent driving results in a 20-minute loss in your life expectancy http://ow.ly/1EFKQx

@AurashKhawarzad On 350 calories, a bicyclist can go 10 miles, a pedestrian 3.5 miles, and a car 100 feet.

@Lloydbrown: Smartphones are democratizing the Internet. @aashtospeaks 

@RayLaHood... He told TRB crowd he does not expect new transpo bill to move fwd this year

Bike

Rep. Blumenauer (OR) says: Nationally bike & ped accounts for roughly 13% of mode share, 16% of injuries, and only 2% of investment

MT @PhxDowntowner: 39 cities in China have started public bike sharing programs in just the past two years.

Parking

San Francisco won an award for parking - http://thecityfix.com/blog/san-francisco-and-medellin-win-2012-sustainable-transport-award/

A stat worth repeating: up to 30% of San Fran traffic at any one time are drivers looking for parking.

State of ITS: Guess what. Smart Parking is the fastest growing segment in the transportation industry CC:@laurenwang

Are we building parking or just not putting it in the right places? Come to the Getting the Supply Right session.

4 on-street parking spaces cost each suburban homebuyer an invisible $15,000 in construction and maintenance.

Bus Rapid Transit

Wow! 12+ million #BRT passengers per day worldwide  

Articles

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting: Intersection of Health and Transportation

Reports

CNU Sustainable Streets

http://www.cnu.org/cnu-news/2012/01/cnus-sustainable-street-networks-principles

Alliance for Biking & Walking = Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2012 Benchmarking Report – Highlights from the report include:

• In 2009, 40% of trips in the United States were shorter than 2 miles, yet 87% of these trips are by car. Twenty-seven percent of trips were shorter than 1 mile. Still, Americans use their cars for 62% of these trips.

• While bicycling and walking fell 66% between 1960 and 2009, obesity levels increased 156%.

• Seniors are the most vulnerable bicyclists and pedestrians. Adults over 65 make up 10% of walking trips, yet comprise 19% of pedestrian fatalities. This age group accounts for 6% of bicycling trips, yet 10% of bicyclist fatalities.

• Bicycling and walking projects create 11-14 jobs per $1 million spent, compared to just 7 jobs created per $1 million spent on highway projects. Cost benefit analysis show that up to $11.80 in benefits can be gained for every $1 invested in bicycling and walking.

• On average, the largest 51 U.S. cities show a 29% increase in bicycle facilities since the 2010 report. Cities report that 20,908 miles of bicycle facilities and 7,079 miles of pedestrian facilities are planned for the coming years (much of this contingent upon funding).

Smart Growth's Tragic Inattention to Local Bus Service (and how to make up for it fast)

Transit plays such a prominent role in smart growth lexicon, it’s like we’ve created a new grammatical construct: Subject-Verb-Transit.  Having lived in the suburbs for five years now, though, it’s become painfully obvious we are speaking in incomplete sentences. What we are really talking about is Subject-Verb-Heavy Transit.

What about the other half, the not-so-heavy transit?  Each year, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) publishes the Public Transportation Fact Book.  It is chock full of statistics on the various types of transit.   For discussion’s sake, here is a summary of several tables’ worth of data to compare by mode.  

 

There are several stories here worth noting as they relate to rubber tire service:

• Not just half - bus trips comprise over 50% of total transit trips.  Paratransit is a big deal in its own right, and important for both mobility in suburbs and pressure on transit budgets. 
• APTA includes bus rapid transit in the bus category; there are 30 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems operating around the country.  BRT, however needs its own category because there are so many combinations of capital and operating factors that skew bus system data.
• There are 90 “heavy” systems (including some not presented the table) which are on fixed guideways.  There are 1,088 bus systems.  Subtracting out the cities with heavier modes (and considering that some cities have several bus systems), the country has close to 900 cities served only by local bus service.  The most comprehensive list of bus systems can be found on the Federal Transit Administration’s website, presented by region for Agency’s 10 regions.
• Bus systems are jobs machines.   As such, buses have the largest share of national transit operating budgets.  While we activists pay a lot of attention to FTA’s budget to make sure New Starts and Small Starts get a nice chunk of the Agency’s $9 billion budget, more than twice that amount is spent annually running bus systems.  Why is it we howl over ineffective infrastructure and inadequate maintenance funding but pay no heed to ineffective use of operating budgets?  Shouldn’t filling up buses to let people flow be on par with rebuilding pipes to let water flow?

Let’s face it, local bus occupies almost no discussion in the smart growth world.  Now, I know what you are thinking: Developers won’t invest in land development near bus stations because they (and the routes) can be moved at any time.

This is crap.  First, every time someone wearing a smart growth hat repeats this canard. It just puts off to a future date taking a serious look at how to leverage local bus service for community development.  Second, it implies smart growth and building communities is only about development.  Finally, recent research questions whether there is such a bias anyway.

The authors of the study, Milena Scherer and Ulrich Weidmann, used cluster analysis to examine bias between rail and bus systems in a city where both systems offer the same quality of service.  They note in the abstract,” Where equivalent service qualities were provided, no significant higher effect existed in tram-based clusters compared with bus-based clusters.” 

OK, the study is from another country (Switzerland), and I only have access to the one page summary so am not sure what was included in the various “clusters.”  Nonetheless, the study speaks to the raison d’etre for BRT – come as close as you can to mimicking rail service with bus service.  In the United States, the two focus areas for mimicry have been (1) vehicles with a more rail-like appearance and (2) dedicated right of way.   These are also two of the most capital intensive investments.  So the big question is what are the low cost factors a community can devote attention to in order to come closer to the performance benefits of rail:  reliability, ease of use, speed, and access to a range of destinations?

There are four main areas that seem to be ripe for attention from smart growth and transit activists.

1) Focus on one longstanding & outstanding route for TOD – Yes, stops and routes can change, but most bus systems have longstanding routes and stops at job or trip generators like hospitals and universities.  Establishing a focus on one route can signal to the development community you are serious about setting proverbial stakes in the ground.

2) Transfer Stations - Transfer stations offer the most promising real estate for local bus-centric TOD because a rider gets double (or more) coverage of potential places to go. It also signals more permanence since eliminating a transfer has negative impacts on multiple lines.  It seems like heavy rail planners have caught onto this value more quickly and strongly than bus system planners.  

3) Transportation Technology – Dan Sturges has a great Vimeo video (contained in this post) about installing a variety of new transportation modes in strategic suburban locations.  Dan talks a lot about the concept of the station car and bike sharing.

4) Information Technology – This is the big one.  Even the best apps, like PDX bus and Google transit are schedule based – not traveler based.  Bus systems need to approach the next cohort of future riders as if they are tourists, not commuters.  Systems can’t assume that riders know the bus line, the destination’s address, or neighborhood.   If I am a tourist,  I don’t want a list of sign poles planted at cross streets, I want something that combines the app AroundMe + Next bus technology+ Augmented Reality like Travel Guide with AR  to see where the closest stops are + trip planner + instructions on timing + information on getting back to the trip origin.  Here in the land of 60 minute headways, this last one is a really big deal.   The video below shows the AR technology (and embarrassingly how long this stuff has been out).

My husband had a great idea: use AR to code buses so that as they approach, a rider can hold a device or smartphone up to tell if its the right bus and/or where it goes.  Information technology is not just about iPads and apps. A couple of years ago, Portland mailed postcards to residents to see if anyone wanted customized transit information (as in – this stop is closest to your house – let’s spend 10 minutes seeing where you can go).   I am still looking for a link.

There are three main activities that could help move this forward this year

1) Long Term Tee Up–   The U.S. Department of Transportation is holding meetings on January 26 and 27 on the Integrated Dynamic Transit Operations (IDTO) operational concept, which is Washington-speak for “DOT wants to build apps.”  

2)  Near Term Hackathon – If I were Ray LaHood, I would go the Michael Bloomberg route and begin building apps now (instead of plodding completely through the IDTO process).    Why not convene all the transit, smart growth, GIS techie, mobile marketing, app-building communities and see what you can do now with a three-venue, national hackathon dedicated to local bus service and paratransit?  Use IDTO to fill in the gaps or work at the larger scales that only feds can do.   In the near, near term (like – you can do this today), encourage local hacking, like this dude’s guerilla public information.

3) Study what Tallahassee Florida just did like Crazy – Tallahassee just revamped their entire system by replacing the centralized transfer structure with more suburb-to-suburb connections.   This move was covered somewhat glowingly in the Atlantic Cities and Grist.  Both acknowledge kinks, but for the riders’  views, go to the comments.  The system change should not be viewed as “good move” versus “bad move,” but a chance to see what happens when routes are reduced and rearranged to adjust to new employment realities -- and the real life blow back on people who depend on buses.

I don’t know if I have convinced you that this is worth paying serious attention to.  But at some point, it would be nice to have bus-only suburbs that go to bat for transit and planning, and send people to DC who do that batting.