Is it time for Windsor and the County to “Get On the Bus?”
Via: Urbanphile
Sunday, July 18th, 2010
It’s Time for America to Get On the Bus
New York magazine recently had a fantastic story on NYC’s plan to focus on improving the quality of its bus system:
Buses are what most people think of when they think of not getting anywhere: senior citizens waiting in lines, guys counting out change, double-parked cars. They are less sexy than subways and tend to be ignored until the MTA announces another round of service cuts. The last time buses were new was in the forties, when they were installed around the city as a cheaper, more flexible alternative to streetcars….But over the last decade, in a few transit-enlightened cities around the world, the bus has received a dramatic makeover. It has been reengineered to load passengers more quickly. It has become much more energy-efficient. And, most important, the bus system—the network of bus lines and its relationship to the city street—has been rethought.
If New York City, the ultimate American city for rail transit, can see the wisdom of reinvigorating its bus system, then every other city in America should as well. No, New York is not cancelling its subway expansions. But it realizes that in a world of financial constraint, New Yorkers can’t wait decades for the relatively small number of projects that it has in the pipe to come online, much less develop new ones.
Too many American transit enthusiasts, especially outside our largest cities, harbor a deep hostility to buses for some reasons. There’s been an interesting alliance for light rail between transit advocates who pooh-pooh buses and the traditional rent seeking interests that brought us things like many local stadium boondoggles. Especially for smaller cities, light rail is, like pro sports teams, just another accoutrement of the “big league city” that they need to have in order prove they are one.
I’ll be the first to admit that some who advocate buses actually don’t like transit much at all. Promoting a bus alternative to a light rail line is simply a convenient way to try to sink the whole thing. Also, the bus in many cities isn’t that great, and isn’t well patronized.
But with the financial realities we face in America, and the need to create an actual network of service, not just a couple of showpiece light rail lines, we ought to be giving bus a hard look. This is doubly the case because rail construction costs are simply out of line in the US versus the rest of the world. No one cares to solve this problem – not the FTA and certainly not the consulting engineers, construction companies and rolling stock vendors who are doing just fine indeed off the current system – so we should really be thinking twice about rail anyway until we can rein in the costs.
A friend of mine once said, “People claim folks won’t ride buses. I agree. So why don’t we work on fixing that problem instead of jumping straight to the conclusion that we need to spend a billion dollars on light rail?”
Actually, people will ride the bus. In London, twice as many people ride buses as the famed tube system. In Chicago, despite its well known and extensive L system, more riders take the bus than all CTA and Metra trains put together. And there is nothing even particularly fancy about Chicago’s bus system. It’s what I call “Plain Old Bus Service”.
Still, with poorly designed systems and poor service levels, buses in many cities aren’t well patronized, particularly by discretionary riders. So how do we fix that? Jarrett Walker over atHuman Transit has been on fire lately. He always has some of the finest transit writing anywhere, and if you aren’t reading, you’re missing something.
Lately he’s been writing about Paris, and Europe generally, and how their approach to bus design differs from the US. In Converging Vehicles, he writes:
European systems present buses and trams as part of a unified system, with amenity choices that minimize the difference between the bus experience and the tram experience. This is a striking contrast to US “streetcar cities” such as Portland and Seattle, where the streetcar is as differentiated as possible from the bus system, as though it’s expected to serve a different clientele.
In a lot of cities they do seem to be designed for different clienteles. And I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to imagine who those might be.
He then describes the similarities:
Look again at the [bus] interior above. Note details like the ticket readers next to the first set of doors. Note, just visible in the upper left of the photo, a strip map showing every stop that this bus makes along its route. Note the whole look and feel…. [On the tram] the continuous open space is wonderful. But there’s nothing else about this design, in terms of overall level of amenity, that differs from the bus. This vehicle isn’t trying to serve different people than the bus serves, or to provide a higher quality experience. This vehicle is on rails for one good reason: The corridor it serves needs huge capacity…In Paris, light rail is just what you do when you need a really, really long bus.
In part two, Jarrett goes on to talk about how you can board that Paris bus through any door, with proof of payment just like light rail. The New York magazine piece picks up this theme, talking about the Bx12 Select Bus Service in the Bronx:
All of the sudden, though, here it comes: the Bx12. Right away, you see it’s different. A different paint job—new branding, as the transit people like to say—and bright-blue lights flashing on the header. Buying a ticket is different, too: You pay before you board, from a little box like a MetroCard vending machine that offers you a receipt. In the world of transit planning, boarding time is everything, and the receipt streamlines the process. “You just hold on to it,” a woman offers, shouting from under her earbuds. She smiles. “It’s much faster.” Waiting on the curb, you notice that the bus has its own lane, painted terra-cotta, with signs to deflect non-bus traffic.
The relatively new head of the MTA used to work in London, where he was part of a change that saw a big upswing in bus popularity.
About a year into his tenure at Transport for London, Walder achieved the satisfaction of watching his neighbor, a London business executive, decide to make his primary mode of daily transportation the bus. It was simply the easiest, fastest way to get to work. “He would say to me, ‘Hey, the bus goes where I want to go, and it gets me there, and I’m taking the bus!’?”
And that’s what a heck of a lot more US cities ought to be doing too. Of course, if there’s a legitimate case for rail, then go for it. I support rail projects ranging from the Second Ave. Subway to the Cincinnati streetcar. But clearly there is enormous opportunity in the US to start transforming the transportation infrastructure of our cities with high quality bus service in a way that is faster, cheaper, and much more pervasive than we’d ever be able to achieve with rail.
As NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, principal architect of that city’s remarkable public space transformation put it, “The bottom line is buses are back.” They need to be back in a whole lot more cities than just Paris, London, and New York.
PS: Again, if you care about transit, you should definitely have Human Transit in your reader. Here’s a link to another piece on Paris, about bus lanes to help convince you.
Tags: bus, buses, light rail, Public Transportation, urban transportation, Urbanphile
Post Feedback
I know several teenagers and university students who don’t like to ride the bus in Windsor, because of “the scuzzy people who use it”. This attitude saddens me, because it should be a no-brainer to use public transportation to get to places. But then, it has also been several years since I have used the bus in Windsor, so who am I to criticize them?
And yet, I’m currently holidaying in Europe, where we have been using public transportation just about every day. It’s efficient and quick. And it costs less than it would cost to rent or own a car.
In London, accompanied children aged 11 and under travel for free. What a great incentive to dump the car! In Windsor, I feel the costs are fairly high for anyone who already owns a car, and for families. I know it costs a lot to run a public transportation service, but I feel the current cost structure acts as a disincentive to anybody other than those who have no other transportation options.
I can’t help but feel that people today assume the “scuzzy people” ride the bus. I’m certain it’s not garnered from personal experience, because I’ve been riding the bus fairly regularly for the past few years and I don’t see them!
I wish they would use it with an open mind. I actually enjoy using the bus for transportation. I’m not allowed to read and listen to podcasts while driving!
Think back to when you were a teenager and how the drivers treated you - and it’s no wonder why so many kids aspired to get a drivers licence and their first car - any old car - as soon as possible. I ride the bus sometimes still and see the drivers treat teen riders with contempt. On one occasion I came very close to giving a 1C driver a piece of my mind for the way he was talking to a group of young riders. These kids are paying customers - not 2nd class citizens. I realize some of them can be rowdy but many more just want to get home from school. I was one of those kids too one time. These teens are Transit Windsor’s “future riders”. Something to think about…
john, I have no problem with teenagers on the bus and I would to get a car as fast as possible after what, seven years of going to school by bus, and the rudeness by bus drivers I’ve seen also not just towards teenagers, they’ve seem to forget who they work for.
And the rudeness has even happened to me on the 1A, I got to the bus just as she closed door and was inching away, the driver didn’t care to notice me knocking on the door or calls from inside the bus, she just drove off without looking at me!
Transit Windsor has to many killer routes i.e. Ottawa 4, Dominion that are to long, to slow, and not good for anybody wanting to use those routes for work or school! Then there is their Sunday routes, if you want to go to thee “Mall” fine but anywhere else forget it!
“Scuzzy People!” Talk about an elitest and snobbish view of seniors, and the economic challenged of Windsor. So much for an enlightened university education, must be sub-urban kids! I’m a professional Librarian in Windsor and I use the bus all the time! So I guess I’m scuzzy eh!
The cost is a disincentive, the bus stops open to the weather elements are disincentive, the fact that you don’t know when another bus is coming on your route is a disincentive. The fact that when I was going to the U, I could walk faster after just missing one 1C to the U, than wait for the next one!
That after 6:00 p.m. on Sundays, there is no Crosstown bus! But you can always get a Tunnel bus!
Funny thing, Transit Windsor (or what is long and yellow and runs in bunches - Banana Windsor) announced a month or so a go that they are going to focus on customer service, which makes me wonder what they were concentrating on before.
Lol, Mark, you hit the nail on the head regarding the (un)enlightened suburban kids. I believe they are ought to be the prime group for Transit Windsor to be targeting with their *new* focus on customer service.
I’d love to know how many university students drive across town every day (no doubt complaining about the cost of parking), and how many high school kids get their parents to ferry them about. It would be interesting to know how many additional passengers it would take to enable Transit Windsor to reduce its pricing structure.
Also, I wonder how aware they are of the inconvenient routes and schedules. While I appreciate the difficulties involved in running a transportation system for a sprawling city of 200k, I don’t think that’s any reason for us to give up.
I discovered a long time ago that a bike is a lot faster than the bus, and you aren’t tied to a schedule. In the winter, the bus is part of my backup plan when the roads are bad. But I never seem to have the right change or don’t make it to the drugstore to buy tickets. And the racks come off the buses in the winter. I saw a news item recently that said smart cards are coming soon. No mention of this on Transit Windsor’s website.
Why do the racks come off in winter? I think i knew at one time but forgot…
Sporto, because people thought they were snow plow attachments and got their hopes up that the streets would be plowed.
Jim, in almost all instances you are right, a bicycle is faster than Transit Windsor. but then you don’t have to stop almost every fraking block in this city, the only thing that rubs me about using buses and trying to get there from here!
Phillipa, bus services in the burbs sucks with long rides at very inconvenient times but then sub-urban kids are use to being chauffered all over the place, habits die hard.
Transit in Windsor is a mess, and I don’t see that changing. Some of it has to do with the layout of the city - where people live/work, etc. Some of it has to do with routes like the central 3 and south windsor 7 that meander all over town. It is no wonder that direct routes like the 1C make money while other routes like the 7 are money losers. Some of it has to do with the fact that there really isn’t traffic congestion or parking problems in Windsor. Taking transit takes a long time, sometimes over an hour between buses, and driving is much faster. Compare that to say, Toronto, where transit is a success because it is relatively affordable, and relatively quick compared to driving. This means that many people see taking the bus as a last resort. Transit Windsor needs to change that somehow.
Actually much of the 1C route is pretty convoluted too, Steve. I’ve heard rumours the new route map might have it going straight up Tecumseh road east-to-west (like it should) instead of winding and turning through downtown and west end. Our routes should be on a sensible grid with mainlines serviced by north-to-south feeder routes - not a huge pile of spaghetti.
You’re right Steve, our geography doesn’t do us any favours on how our city has grown. Sprawling eastward along the river and infilling behind it. It creates more of a wedge of a pie, hard to service. If I lived in our burbs, I wouldn’t use the bus either, not that you can depend on it just that fact as you have stated, meandering routes don’t serve anyone. They, Transit Windsor, should charge such routes as tour routes of Windsor.
I live downtown, which for bus transit is the most optimal of anything in using Transit Windsor.
If you look at the historial layout of some of those routes, you can see that they were meant to serve the busy manufacturing sector in the 1970s when they were laid out. The No. 3 in particular. Unfortunately, proposals by TW to change the routes do not get approved by Council because of politics with the County - that is, they maintain status quo so that they can make changes in one fell swoop if the County ever comes on board. It also helps defer an issue which would probably have lots of heat as routes were changed to move away from where people currently expect them to be.
I fully agree with all of you that as someone committed to transit and cycling, I finally caved and got a car because I couldn’t wait for hours to get a bus. Even when I finally got the schedule nailed, I couldn’t be certain the driver wouldn’t be early or that the bus wouldn’t be chok a block with students who seem allergic to moving to the back of the bus.
To see how a bus system should be run one needs only to look about 2 hours up the 401 to London. No, it’s not only because they have more routes, with more frequency (and a great system that has their most popular lines run with 5 minute headtimes during peak times), and not only do they have their ’smart bus’ system that includes electronic signs showing when the next bus will come, etc. but most important of all, the transit system in London is treated NOT as a social service for the economically challenged but as an key peice of infrastructure of the city.
I’ve heard Lewenza Jr. and Postma talk about the transit system and neither of them seem truly interested in developing it into a truly key part of Windsor’s infrastructure.
A side note too, some transit drivers here (and I don’t speak for all of them, in fact my uncle is a driver here and he himself takes the bus frequently and does a great job as an operator), are often elitists who feel they are entitled to be as rude to customers as they please.
I’ve been without a car for a few months now, and every now and then I’ll jump on the ol’ 32 window coupe. It’s nice because I’m normally the driver, which I enjoy….but I don’t get to look around and observe the city. I think the routes are alright because they dig deep into some neighbourhoods where otherwise you have a 2K hike in whatever weather to the bus stop. Then, you’re likely to miss it because the bus is ALWAYS 10 minutes early, or you sit around because its 20 minutes late.
If anything, there should be things like the 1C that have direct routes and smaller feeder buses that do the digging in the hoods and connecting at selected areas. Yeah I know it’ll cost more, but what do you do? TW can’t just abandon these hoods they meander around in. Then NOBODY will ride the bus. If everyone has to walk from wherever their hose maybe to Tecumseh or Howard I think TW would go belly up in a year.
As for driver attitudes, I agree. But, I’ve found that when I say “hello” when I board, and “Thank-you” when I leave, the driver almost seems like they’re thinking “it’s about time I got a thanks from someone”. I say that because I always get a “oh……you’re welcome!” from them, like they don’t expect anyone to even realize there is a hardworking human being behind the wheel. Its not a very stress free job. I remember being on the bus coming home in High School and I wanted to just jump out a damn window because it was so noisey, and full of snotty kids. The bus also passed by and picked up kids from rival high schools so now you have these people clashing. Ever have 3 screaming childern in your car? Now do it with 70 rude, better-than-you,gabbing, texting, showboating, fighting, overfilled backpack wearing teenagers!
Oh…..that $2.45 (strange fee) is a killer. I just don’t see the justification. At least give me a bus every 10 minutes instead of 20, and run them past 11pm.