It seems like anytime someone brings up a proposal to restructure a bus network, advocate for rail, or says anything that really encourages dense transit-friendly growth, there’s always a knee-jerk counter-reaction from someone in the community, whether it’s a social service organization, a neighborhood activist, or a well-meaning resident. Saddest is the fact that most of these people are transit users, believe in social equity, are generally environmentally conscious, and pretty much believe in the same goals that we transit advocates do.
So it’s rather baffling that there’s this strange dichotomy of us vs. them, experts vs. neighbors, bureaucrats vs. the people. The rhetoric is strikingly similar to the debates with transit/density opponents that tend to end up riddled with political and cultural ideologies. Too often, it’s pitted as the smarmy planners and experts swooping down into the neighborhood to tell residents that they know better. Paint it that way, and you’ve instantly ignited a culture war with the seeming effect of having flushed all those shared goals down the drain.
For transit advocates and planners, the bottom line that needs to be communicated is that we’re all on the same side as the people we plan for. Transit isn’t planned and changed just for the sake of planning. It’s done because there’s a core benefit delivered the system as a whole and the communities it serves, which, unfortunately, almost always ends up being invisible to the people that bear the brunt of the biggest changes. And out of selfishness (good or bad), people will never fail to scream loudly at the things that affect them the most.
Planners can’t change human nature. We can’t tell people to stop being selfish or to tell them to accept change for the greater good. We can only be objective as possible and let facts be facts. If the political leaders and decision-makers we commit to elect can look beyond the pluralistic choruses of “me! me! me!” and see that the facts do ultimately stand with community interests in the long-term, then we can start to get somewhere.
When was the last vote for anything 100% to 0%? Public debate is something Seattle has refined into a science.
The skepticism is justified in most cases, as most public meetings are meant to ‘get our message out’, or politely listen to the critics so they can’t bitch about not having had a voice latter on.
But too often our advocacy and planner’s behavior results in people having to walk twice as far to get to their bus (stop consolidation) or now they have to walk up or down a steep hill instead of flat or a light grade. It gets personal when it’s your route that happens to.
One thing that can happen is to acclimatize people to not expect one seat rides all the time and to get use to the idea of being shuttled to the train to go downtown. In the case of the #42, a simple 2 seat ride works perfectly well to offset the removal of that route.
I’d imagine a good majority of people would choose a slightly longer walk if it meant they benefit with faster and more reliable routes. A lot of changes can actually benefit those arguing against them, which is why I think marketing can never be underestimated. They did this with the “congestion reduction charge.” But “stop consolidation” fails to fully relay the benefits to neighbors whose stop gets removed…
Metro takes a very conservative approach to stop consolidation. Signs are put out at the stops, giving people a chance to comment. Most riders, to their credit, are willing to give up their nearest stop to go to one almost as close, knowing that similar willingness up and down the line will yield faster service, less pollution in their neighborhhod, safer stops (if more riders are at that stop), and perhaps more frequency if enough hours are saved.
As you point out, there are exceptions. When these happen, someone writes in to Metro, and Metro keeps the stop. I don’t know of any stop that has been removed that has had a comment submitted against its closure.
For the most part, this process works. If 10% of stops get saved in a stop consolidation exercise, we’re doing pretty darn fine.
Please don’t take this the wrong way Brent, as your comments are spot on (I think), and you generally have good wisdom about transit matters.
You write from the perspective of an insider, or even a Metro Community Relations Specialist. Is that the case, or do you currently work for Metro?
I bring this up because we’re talking about transit planning and community process. It’s really tempting for a large agency to have their employees hog all the bandwidth on blogs, to keep the message intact. Of course they don’t do it from work, and don’t use their .gov address (or at least I hope not), but the effect is the same. It drowns out the little guy who isn’t armed with reams of facts, but just want to express an opinion – sometimes just a gut feeling – without footnotes.
If bloggers here are employed by transit agencies, or work for engineering firms under contract to them, the ethical thing to do is to say so, or that they work for ST/MT/WSDOT but their opinions are there own, as some of here do on a regular basis.
(disclaimer: Former Metro driver, now retired)
Bios for all the bloggers are listed under the About Us page linked to in the side bar.
“I don’t know of any stop that has been removed that has had a comment submitted against its closure.”
Herein lies the problem. If this really only happens 10% of the time, I’m probably fine with it. But you’re literally letting one voice decide the fate of an entire bus line, maybe a significant part of an entire bus system. I believe in everyone having a voice. But I think it’s folly to give everyone a veto.
@Mike, I am not employed by a public transit agency. I do work for a private agency that is involved with transit, and I do not disclose any inside information from that employment.
All my posts here are as a volunteer loudmouth, and based on publicly-available documents, or my own educated guesses (as is the case with the stop consolidations).
@Matt the Engineer, My guess that one negative comment is enough to save a stop is only a guess. Sorry If I implied it was more than a guess. I’d hate to see Metro develop a more detailed policy because, up to now, just letting staff handle it seems to have pleased most everyone involved. If we start to see the process break down from half the stop removals being vetoed by individual citizens, I think people here will notice, and take action.
Indeed, in a somewhat-related process, we have noticed the overzealousness with keeping nearly all the stops on some of the RapidRide lines from the lines they are replacing. But that’s not the same as the usual stop consolidation exercises, which appear to be working well to me. Do others see it not working well?
@Mike I would actually say that government agencies, and their PR employees are actually fairly passive when communicating to the public. Very few of our comenters work for transit agencies and I can assure you ST/Metro/WSDOT PR people do not comment on our blog.
Thanks for the assurances, as you never know who is using a particular pseudo name, or multiple ones on sites that are loosely monitored. I know of a few MT,PT office types that comment here, which can sometimes be a very good thing. Minority opinions around HQ’s is not always appreciated, and this is a good outlet to float some ideas, or add clarity as to why something may have been done without all the smoking gun stuff.
None of the proposed stop consolidations on the 44 has ever become a reality.
And it still takes 10-20 minutes just to get out of Ballard. Sometimes more. Multiply by 100 buses a day. Everyone’s time and money disappears into the abyss.
So, no, we’re not doing okay with the “squeaky wheel gets the red carpet” policy.
d.p.,
Which bus stops on the 44 were supposed to have been removed and have not been?
26th, 17th, & 14th.
http://www.myballard.com/2010/04/15/changes-for-drivers-along-market-st-at-24th-ave-nw/
Plus, if I remember correctly, a couple more further up the route and in Wallingford.
It never even got to the point of putting signs on the stops, though Im pretty sure there was a formality page on Metro’s website for the consolidation proposal at some point.
Meanwhile, please check out this page for route 8…
http://metro.kingcounty.gov/up/sc/plans/2010/042010-08.html
…which goes as far as to claim as already eliminated at least one stop that I used yesterday, and which is still dangling “2011” for a 2-year old proposal to consolidate the Queen Anne Ave stops.
Ah, here we go:
http://www.myballard.com/2010/09/17/a-look-at-the-proposed-changes-to-market-street/
@d.p.: I was one of the folks who contacted Metro to object to the 14th Ave stop removal. I told them that that stop (and pretty much every other stop along Market) is adjacent to a signalized crossing, whereas 11th has an unmarked crosswalk—across a 6-lane road with relatively constant and heavy traffic, much of which is traveling above the speed limit. Though I use this crossing pretty regularly, I consider it rather unsafe, and I thought it was a bad idea to effectively force (or at least encourage) more people to cross there in order to catch their bus. I think I even suggested that if Metro wanted to remove a stop, they remove my usual stop (11th) instead, because while that would create stop spacings of 1/8 and 1/3 mile instead of two of roughly 1/4 mile, all the remaining stops would be adjacent to signalized crossings, which would make people feel more comfortable going to/from their buses.
Now, if the only reason they didn’t remove that stop was because a single person (me) objected for whatever reason, that’s ridiculous. But if instead it was because I pointed something out which they had failed to consider and which they realized was important, well then I think that’s good—even if I was the only person to object. Either way, given the popularity of the 14th stop, I suspect I was far from the only one who objected to the stop’s removal.
It sounds like you wrote a reasonable letter to Metro that acknowledged the overall need for stop reductions, while pointing out remaining kink to be worked out of this particular deletion.
Instead, we got no reductions whatsoever.
I happen to think the 14th stop should still be the one to go. The fact remains that 14th Avenue is extremely near to 15th, while 11th requires a solid walk from either direction. I remain convinced that paint fixes a lot of problems. A freshly painted crossing and a hanging, flashing crosswalk indicator above it (like the one at 24th & 58th, except better designed and not 30 year old) would do the trick.
Please also note, in an image in the last link, that 11th was intended to get curb bulbs. Even in the absence of any other improvements, that thins the road. But I’d be surprised if they would go to the effort of installing those bulbs and no make some other concurrent improvements to crossability.
The most amazing thing about the above links was the average expected travel-time improvements of between 3-6 minutes at pretty much all times of day. (I’m not sure how they got those figures, since the 6-minute reduction would supposedly be enjoyed by the westbound PM 44, when any regular rider would expect the eastbound buses to gain most from streamlining.)
Regardless of specifics, 3-6 minutes is a hell of a reduction on a 3-mile crosstown trip that’s scheduled for 20-25, but usually takes 30 and sometimes takes 40+. A routine 3-6 minute reduction starts to return the trip back from the brink of absurdity to merely “slower than it should be.”
A routine 3-6 reduction moves the frequency from 15 to 12, adding the route to Metro’s whopping 5 others with headways that would qualify it as “frequent” in the civilized world. Making these stop reductions work should have been a no-brainer. But instead, we’ve had 2 years of anti-progress.
(Of course, in a just world, there’d be a subway and this trip would take 7 minutes.)
d.p. and Andreas,
I see from the link that the project goes through 2014. I don’t know whether that is relevant to the pace of stop consolidation, but since some parking removal is involved, you know how many centuries it can take that to happen.
It gives me little hope that the 44 could ever be converted to RapidRide(sic) given how the side lanes of N 45th St and then of Market St are littered with parked cars.
Still, the end of pay-after-you-shove-to-the-exit is supposed to be close at hand. Last time I rode, the 44 is still PAYSTTE westbound in afternoons, right? I recall that also being the case with the 48. Does anyone know how many buses coming out of the U-District are PAYSTTE?
I’m hoping the U-District will become the next off-board payment zone after downtown, but that PAYSTTE goes away on U-District buses sooner rather than later, now that Metro has a statistical grasp on its cost.
@d.p. – The problem is, I doubt that crossing would meet the federal standards for a marked crosswalk, much less one with any bells and whistles—far too much vehicular traffic compared to ped traffic. 24th/58th and 11th/Market are apples and oranges, with road width and traffic volumes. I often don’t agree with SDOT’s philosophy that markings give peds a false sense of security, so let’s just remove them altogether, but at 11th & Market, I think anything less than a fully signalized crossing would be a mistake under the current road configuration. Bus bulbs would certainly help with both crossing distance and pedestrian visibility (as it is, parked cars obscure peds waiting to cross), I assume they would be on one side of the street (the EB & WB stops are cater-corner, not opposite), so those gains would only be seen for peds going one way but not going back.
Anyway, no sense in getting bogged down in the minutiae of this one stop. As Brent points out, I believe the project is ongoing, and while the stop removals may have been put on hold, the bus bulbs and signal priority are hopefully still in the pipeline. Those should help a bit.
@Brent: The 48, on account of never going downtown, is always pay-as-you-enter. Ballard-bound 44s are pay-as-you-leave on account of the occasional bus heading through downtown as a 43. Back when I was going to UW (’00-’05), I’d occasionally get on a Ballard-bound 44 whose operator insisted it was pay-as-you-enter, because (s)he hadn’t come from Downtown. Naturally this meant that every single person boarding had to fumble for their fare, and the bus took even longer than usual. Given that so many of the 44 (and U Dist) riders are pass-holders (either was students or commuters), I honestly don’t think switching to always-pay-as-you-enter will effect those routes much. But given the sheer volumes, it does seem like a logical location for all-door-boarding, which would require off-board payment.
I hope Brent is correct that the project is still upcoming.
Still, waiting three years for SDOT to build bus bulbs before eliminating stops that you know will continue to waste time and money every day of those three years is irrational to the point of unacceptable.
I doubt that crossing would meet the federal standards for a marked crosswalk…
Andreas, this is not an accusation, but could you please explain to me where everyone in Seattle got the idea that our lousy road designs, comically long light cycles, etc. can be blamed upon federal policy? I’ve encountered that belief a lot, and its quite simply a fiction.
If it’s not a federal highway segment, the federal government has no control over it. If its not a numbered state route, the state government has no say over how it looks or how it works. Market Street is neither.
(To the best of my knowledge, the right-turn-on-red requirement is only federal regulation that affects the workings of local roads in any way at all.)
Public meetings are far from representative of the feelings at large. Pubic meetings are made up of people who have either lots of time or lots to lose – that means only people who did walk 2 blocks to a bus and will now walk 6 blocks to a bus show up. None of the people who will be served better probably even *know* they’ll be served better by the new alignment and a bigger chunk don’t know they’ll use it until it’s available.
Give me ten volunteers and three weekends in neighborhoods that will be better served by a new alignment in the weeks ahead of that public meeting and I will get you a hundred post cards that attest to it being preferred, and probably even a half dozen new citizens (who live in this neighborhood) to testify about how great it will be.
It will always be experts v community as long as the community is only made up of people who are disgruntled and the experts don’t recruit in the community. This is a failure of persuasion. I think we can do better. I don’t know that we will though :)
Thanks for the comment, great point.
The outcome that was produced as a result of the ACRS lobbying is almost the worst possible outcome possible – a service that was almost a complete waste, which was designed to look like it responded to the public input, but was designed to fail and serves few customers. It’s too infrequent to be useful, it doesn’t serve the biggest destinations, it deviates from other routes where it could share a common trunk.
Today’s #42 really respresents pouring money down the drain as the response to one group’s lobbying. It’s the worst possible outcome for everyone.
Carl,
When talking to the service planners at Metro, they told me that keeping the 42 cost 15-minute service on Sundays for Route 8.
Even if the 42 is saved in the next round, that doesn’t mean it is saved forever (Newton’s First Law of Bus Routes notwithstanding). Once the community sees other empty routes getting cut, but service improving, and ridership going up, getting rid of the 42 might be a little easier.
I must say, though, that this blog seems as obsessed with the 42 as ACRS is. There are lots of other routes out there we need to lobby Metro to eliminate that are paths of much less resistance to getting them eliminated. If we end up keeping the 134 and other routes nobody is defending because our obsession with the 42 makes the county council queasy about cutting any route, then we’ll have done far more damage than good on this issue.
Its something you have to work into a redesign, say your re-aligning other routes in the area such as the 34 and 39 which would be good candidates for being modified into feeding LINK as well throw in the 8 or something for good measure (split it in two at Mt Baker, call the southern end the 42 and the northern/western end the 8) and no one will know the diffrence Mabye even extend it to SouthCenter/Tukwilla for good measure. No one will know the diffrence and they all will think they are getting better service and case closed.
Some of the 42’s hours were supposed to go to the 39, to add east-west service to Link. The resurrection of the 42 prevented that from happening, and now the valleyites are complaining that they can’t take a bus to Link and there’s no free parking at the station. The 142 is not like the 134, which gives bus service to Georgetown.
The 134 is a variation of the 131. If the 134 is eliminated (which it ought to be), I’d bet a lot of its hours would go to the 131. But then, I’m not much a fan of the 131. Maybe I’m not adequately respectful to Georgetown, but I think they’d do just fine with the 106 for north-south connections, and the 60 for east-west connections, after the 16th Ave Bridge is replaced.
I think the reason the 42 comes up so much is because it is such an obvious example of a route that should be eliminated. It’s somewhat symbolic but it also is a precursor of the type of system changes that the new service planning criteria embody. So in that way making sure the correct precedence is set is important. As a blog I think we also see our role and giving electeds cover for decisions that may not be popular with some people.
I can’t belive that ACRS is lobbying to keep rt. 42 that runs only once an hour. They are wasting thier time and money for a lost cause. There is plently of service that is already in place so the 42 can be deleted with no impact to clinets, staff and venors. Rt 8 stops at the front door with service every 15 min. Rt 7 is 2 blocks away on Rainier with service every 10 min.
Actually Chris, the front door faces their large parking lot. People on transit have to walk around a fence and then through the parking lot up a grade to get into the building. It’s rather obvious when they moved in how their clients were going to arrive at their building. Okay – cycnicism mode off.
Actually, at the last public hearing, they were demanding that it be restored to 30 minute headways and re-extended to its old terminus in Tukwila. Yes, they are that crazy.
Crazy, no. Skilled in the art of lobbying, yes.
If you want the sun, you have to ask for the sun, the moon, and the stars in order to get it.
Old terminus in Tukwila? It used to end in Rainier View, a single-family neighborhood on the Seattle border. Early mornings it was extended to Skyway, another single-family neighborhood. I don’t remember it ever going to Tukwila. If you mean Southcenter, another bus used to go there for a while… maybe the 39?
You can step back and ask, how did these NIMBY attitudes develop in the first place? It’s because there was never a shared understanding of what Metro is for, why every route is where it is, and what conditions would justify changing it someday. In other words, there needs to be better marketing of Metro’s overall goals and how existing routes do/do not support them. The routes were originally laid out because they made sense a hundred years ago (or because they were inherited from private developers who wanted to bring people to their properties).
NIMBY?
I think the effort to preserve the 42 and to hang onto AA lightly used stop is better described as YIMBY.
I have to ask again: has anyone asked ACRS to submit their reasons for keeping the #42 to this blog? Short of that, all the talk of why they might want it is putting words in their mouths.
Maybe a little dialog might help end the Great 42 War.
I’ve already answered that: No.
They’ve had ample opportunity to make their case to the public and the council. Their arguments are fatuous.
What harm could possibly come of asking them? Although I would prefer someone other than Bruce ask them at this point.
I’d be willing to liaise with ACRS on this debate *if* the STB board agrees to give them the opportunity to submit a post, unexpirgated.
I think it’s an excellent idea. It will give me another opportunity to publicly disembowel their arguments.
What happens when you ground out the PLUS + terminal on a battery to the MINUS – terminal?
“Disembowel their arguments”.
C’mon, Bruce, that’s not playing nice.
What would they tell us that they haven’t already told the county council? I saw their testimony in the hearing videos.
Here, their testimony wouldn’t be limited to two minutes.
Should we also ask the #4 riders to submit an article on why their door-to-door service should be preserved?
Are there #4 riders organizing a lobby effort to save the 4?
No but the 42 lobby has the same arguments as those who want to keep the 4 as-is, and the Save Our Valley types who want to restore the old 106. I’m not objecting to an article by 42 supporters; I just don’t think it’s a priority to solicit one.
“Here, their testimony wouldn’t be limited to two minutes.”
At the CRC hearings, the person presiding gave them extra time (at least four minutes). Their “arguments” were transparently stupid and disingenuous. I would be pleased to publicly destroy their arguments once again.
It’s important to acknowledge that even though a given service may not be valuable to the system, it’s still valuable to the individuals who use it.
You’ve got to start with that, with respect.
This!
That’s true, but if the route is just for them rather than to address the county’s most pressing mobility needs, they can pay Metro the full cost of providing the route.
But that’s an argument that Norman would make. Do you really want to go there?
Metro needs to do a better job informing the communities they serve. Arguments are won with a convincing case, not by attacking groups like the ACRS or by pulling the plug on services they seemingly rely on.
No one wants to waste anybody’s money or time. There’s no conspiracy by the ACRS to destroy Metro. I bet if Metro did a better job of community outreach, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Sometimes, the best way to convince people that a redundant route is no longer necessary is to leave it in for awhile and let people see for themselves that they are not using it and the fact that it’s there isn’t really helping them that much.
For example, when I first heard that the 194 was going to get cut with Link being the only downtown->airport route, my reaction was ambivalence because the Link trip was scheduled to take 7 minutes longer than the 194. However, there was a period of a few months during which the Link airport station had opened, but the 194 wasn’t cut yet. During this period, when I traveled to the airport, while I was waiting in the tunnel, a Link train went by first (no surprise, since it’s more frequent). I then did a quick calculation and reached the conclusion that letting the Link train go by to wait for the 194 would at best save a couple of minutes and, more likely, would end up being slower because the extra time waiting at the bus stop would outweigh the time the 194 saved by taking the freeway, especially with the long line of cash payers at the airport stop as a result of pay-as-you-leave and the RFA. So, I hopped on the Link train.
Similarly, on the return trip, I had to choose whether to wait at the Link stop or the 194 stop. As it was Sunday, the 194 was every 30 minutes and I didn’t have the schedule in front of me, so I would have to go to the 194 stop to see. Furthermore, with the bus coming from Federal Way and being at the mercy of traffic in the pickup-and-dropoff lines at the airport, I knew the 194 would likely show up late. And the walk to the Link station was really only a few feet further than the walk across the baggage claim area to the 194 stop. So, in the end, I didn’t bother worrying about the 194 and just took Link.
It was after this moment, that I realized firsthand why it didn’t make sense to continue operating the 194 – the 194 was there, but the fact that it was there didn’t do anything significant to improve my mobility options.
A similar issue is likely the case with former riders of the 42. At first, not knowing whether Link could really be trusted to arrive on schedule and run faster than a bus, people were afraid that Link would be a longer walk from home for the same quality of service – in other words, a net negative. However, given that lots of people are riding Link and almost nobody is riding the 42 (the number speak for themselves), these same people appear to have made the personal decision that the likelihood the 42 is going to happen to show up at their front door in less time than it would take to walk to the nearest Link station is not enough to be worth bothering with. Now that people are seeing this firsthand, the task of convincing them that the 42 is no longer necessary is easier than it was 3 years ago, when everything was just on paper.
You did take into account the extra 10 minutes to walk to the Link station, right?
You only walk 100 feet per minute?
FWIW, I had the opposite experience the first time I passed up a 194 to catch Link. Despite it being around 4 pm, it took about 10 minutes for the next train to come, and since SeaTac Station wasn’t complete, I had to deboard at TIBS and catch the shuttle. Sadly ST doesn’t know how to run shuttles, so despite everyone having boarded, instead of taking off immediately we just sat there for another 5-7 minutes. In the end, had I taken that 194, I probably would’ve saved about 30 minutes and a whole lot of stress. Needless to say, I took the 194 back from the airport when I returned home. I’ve since given Link several more tries, and once or twice it’s been fine, but the last time I took it we spent 10+ minutes stopped dead (and the rest of the time going at a crawl) due to unscheduled track maintenance. None of the 194s I took ever came to a dead stop on I-5, much less for 10+ minutes.
If the 194 were still around, I would take it over Link to get to the airport any day, and most of my friends have expressed the same sentiment. It was surely wise of Metro to get rid of the 194, but if their planners hadn’t had the balls to get rid of it when they did, I’m certain there’d be a lot of resistance if they tried to get rid of it now.
As a rule, passing up a transit vehicle for a different transit vehicle is almost never a good idea. The only exception is when you expect one mode to have substantial delays relative to another. For example, on the NYC subway, waiting the extra 2-3 minutes for an express instead of a local is often worth it. Or locally, if you’re in Ballard during AM peak and need to get downtown, it’s probably worth waiting for an express.
@Aleks: Sadly, I’d bought into all the hype about a bus during rush hour versus Link’s exclusive ROW. Turns out that not only does Link have longer scheduled times from Downtown to the airport, it’s also surprisingly unreliable because, while it can’t get stuck in I-5 gridlock, it can get stuck behind buses in the tunnel, or due to unscheduled track issues. At best, it seems to be a wash.
The 194 would also be stuck behind buses in the tunnel.
@Andreas: Part of that is growing pains (the track maintenance issues which used to plague Link almost weekly have all but disappeared recently), and part of that is poor logistics (the tunnel simply has too many peak buses). But none of that changes the fact that a bus in the bay is worth two on the phone.
The only times that I’ve ever passed up a transit vehicle that would go to my destination — and been satisfied about my choice — are when I know that there’s a breakdown somewhere up the line. For example, back in Boston, I once ran into a fire on the Green Line at Park Street, so I switched to the Orange Line instead, then crossed over from Back Bay to Copley. I ended up getting to my destination about 5 minutes late; some friends of mine who didn’t know about the shortcut ended up being over 30 minutes late.
As a rule, passing up a transit vehicle for a different transit vehicle is almost never a good idea.
I’m truly surprised to see you say that, Aleks. Have you become too resigned to Metro’s uniformly slow and unreliable service?
Pop quiz: You’re standing on the southbound platform at North Station, and you need to get to Mass Ave and Huntington. You’ve already been there 5 minutes when an E Line train comes.
Knowing that an Orange Line train is unlikely to be more than 5 minutes away, and knowing that it will cover your journey anywhere from 5-15 minutes faster than the E train, you’re not going to stay on the platform? I certainly would.
Also, OneBusAway regularly makes it a good idea to pass up one 15/18 in favor of the next at times when they’re heavily used and closely bunched (after a sporting event, or at the tail end of rush hour after the last expresses have gone).
If one 15/18 arrives packed to the gills, and OneBusAway says the next 15/18 is only three or four minutes behind (even if I can’t see it yet), I’m waiting for the second one.
At worst, the second one will get to Ballard mere seconds after the first, but the ride will be much more comfortable. At best (and quite often), the second one will leave the first one in its dust somewhere in Interbay while the first one is stopping every two blocks.
You missed my other sentence:
I know from experience that the Green Line is slow, and the Orange Line is fast. They have separate ROW, and so delays on one are unlikely to affect the other. And I also know that the Orange Line is incredibly frequent. So yes, I almost definitely would wait.
However, there simply isn’t any transit service in Seattle which is nearly as frequent, fast, or reliable as the Orange Line. Link shares the tunnel ROW with buses, so if I’m at ID Station and a bus is late, then probably Link is late too. If I’m at 45th and the Ave, trying to get to Broadway and John, and a 43 comes, I’ll probably take it unless the 49 is right behind it.
FWIW, not all service in Boston is Orange Line-caliber. I was once at Coolidge Corner, trying to get to Harvard Square. I passed up a 66 to take the Green Line. Unfortunately, the Green Line ended up crawling through the central subway (as it is wont to do), getting me to Park Street at about the time the 66 would have gotten me to Harvard. I’ve made similar trips on both the 66 and the subway, and in my experience, the time for both is wildly variable. Thus, waiting for the “faster” one simply isn’t a viable strategy.
That’s a fair point. Most of the buses I ride are trolleybuses, and so the possibility of passing doesn’t generally occur to me.
That said, the 15/18 are still something of a special case, since 15th W is such a wide street. In my experience, it’s pretty rare for buses (even non-trolleys) to pass each other on 15th NE, simply because that street is so congested that there’s no room! Switching it to skip-stop (with passing wire) and banning cars could completely change that equation, of course.
Uh yeah, we tried this with the 42 and they’re still whining about it, as is “transit advocate” Brent here.
No, what’s required is for the Council to grab their nuts and follow the advice of the people who’ve devoted their careers to figuring out how many people will ride a bus.
So, Bruce, what about a call for civility makes one less of a “transit advocate”?
It’s not so “baffling”. Don’t you experts live in neighborhoods? Do you participate in your neighborhood community councils? These organizations, in my experience, are crying out for participation by people with passion and expertise such as those who blog on this site. If only a few of you, and your friends and acquaintances joined in your neighborhood organizations you could, I think, easily overcome what you identify as a “strange dichotomy.” Ditch your aloofness from participation, and the people you identify as “neighborhood activists” will have less reason to perceive you as experts preaching from afar and more reason to work with you as neighbors.
[ad hom]
So, yes, I agree in principle, and I personally do what I can, but I don’t know if this would work out as you hope. I see our role as putting facts and ideas out there that other local activists can run with. Maybe I’m wrong.
I have participated in my neighborhood association and its transportation committee. I was kinda frustrated how they would only deal with issues inside the neighborhood, and shy away from dealing with the connectivity issues to other neighborhoods.
Still, my neighborhood association is very supportive of alternatives to the SOV.
Nor is my neighborhood the ideal place for upzones, as we’re on the boundary with industrial zones. I would sure love to live in a much more dense neighborhood, if the bus could get me to work in my current neighborhood earlier than it does.
I definitely agree to an extent. However, historically planners have made a lot of bad choices “for the common good” e.g. Urban Renewal, so people are very doubtful of planners. Also, citizens can have a distrust of government. This relationship should be nurtured to improve this relationship, so that people aren’t inherently against the choices of planners.
On the subject of planning and public comment–responding to the photo, I live very close to where the old #42 used to run. I was originally upset that it was being phased out, but to my surprise what they replaced it with, I like much better. The #8 takes me in one swell foop from Columbia City to Capitol Hill, where I HATE to drive because there is no parking anywhere. Plus, it runs fairly often, even on Sunday. So, even though I lose direct connection to Goodwill, I gain direct connection to Cap hill. (Uwajimaya was never a loss because now I can get to it by light rail) You win some, you lose some.