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Why don't more people use RIPTA?


Cotuit

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From the Projo Editorial:

Yet that logic seemed missing in Governor Carcieri's latest round of RIPTA board nominees. (This may become moot, of course, if a proposal to make RIPTA part of the state Department of Transportation comes to fruition.)

We have no reason to question the nominees' integrity or business ability. And we may be wrong that they are not regular customers on the RIPTA buses. But it seems unlikely that an accounting executive living in Coventry or corporate lawyer from East Greenwich boards the bus with any regularity. The same goes for the investment manager living in Barrington. Yet all were nominated for RIPTA's board.

Okay, I see the author's point, but if we want RIPTA to be attractive to "executives" and "corporate lawyers", then it might be good to get some of their input....I think. On the other hand, having people on the board who ride the bus frequently would be better candidates to identify and fix the problems that currently exist with RIPTA.

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The Atwells 26 line stops running @ 6:30PM.. I think thats why no one takes it.. They have really bad scheduling.. I see people waiting at the bus stops by me for 1/2 to hour waiting after 6:30, and the bus never comes.. Poor management I guess.

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The Atwells 26 line stops running @ 6:30PM.. I think thats why no one takes it.. They have really bad scheduling.. I see people waiting at the bus stops by me for 1/2 to hour waiting after 6:30, and the bus never comes.. Poor management I guess.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That is pretty ridiculous. I mean I guess the green line makes up for it after that time, but still, the green line doesn't go up into Mt. Pleasant like the 26 does.

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According to the newsletter I get from RIPTA, it's new. But I haven't actually seen it yet myself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do you know if they will they be adding it to the website as well? I didn't even realize there was an old one because, when I didn't see one available on the website (the System Map link just gives a listing of all lines that go through a particular city) I just assumed there wasn't one anywhere.

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Actually, today, when I took the bus, 4 fairly well-dressed men got off at the White Church bus stop in Barrington, they could well have been investment managers. And I've also seen (not today) a couple of people carrying laptops, as well as some obvious academics who got some technical papers out and started reading them.

Based on the half-dozen or so trips I have taken so far, I am dubious about the claim that only lower-class people take the bus. It seems to me that it's a real mix of people of all social conditions. The attitude "this person is an investment manager living in Barrington, therefore does not take the bus" might well be prejudiced.

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I think a small network of the major bus routes (based on high ridership or major travel corridors) should be upgraded and marketed as "frequent service" with service frequent enough that schedules are not needed, low floor buses, more bus shelters along the route, service from 5am - 1am. Perhaps these could use articulated buses.

The routes I was thinking of were:

20-Elmwood, 99-N. Main, 29-Broadway, 31-Cranston, 57-Smith, 26-Atwells, 42-Hope plus maybe a new route along I-95 running south serving Cranston, the Airport, Warwick, Warwick Malls, East Greenwich, Wickford and ending at URI (sort of a combination of the 66, 12 and others).

This would be an easy to ride group of routes which would increase ridership. It would be similar to the "Frequent Service" system in Portland which was implemented for very little money...

http://www.trimet.org/guide/frequentservice.htm

"TriMet's Frequent Service bus and MAX lines run so often, you don't really need a schedule: every 15 minutes or better during the day, every day.

A convenient schedule is just the beginning

There's more to Frequent Service than the convenient schedule: These lines are the first to get enhancements and rider perks such as air conditioning, Transit Tracker

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I think a small network of the major bus routes (based on high ridership or major travel corridors) should be upgraded and marketed as "frequent service" with service frequent enough that schedules are not needed, low floor buses, more bus shelters along the route, service from 5am - 1am. Perhaps these could use articulated buses.

The routes I was thinking of were:

20-Elmwood, 99-N. Main, 29-Broadway, 31-Cranston, 57-Smith, 26-Atwells, 42-Hope plus maybe a new route along I-95 running south serving Cranston, the Airport, Warwick, Warwick Malls, East Greenwich, Wickford and ending at URI (sort of a combination of the 66, 12 and others).

This would be an easy to ride group of routes which would increase ridership.  It would be similar to the "Frequent Service" system in Portland which was implemented for very little money...

http://www.trimet.org/guide/frequentservice.htm

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We sure could learn alot from Portland. I like this idea a lot. I would throw the 11 City Line bus in there too for frequent service. The I-95 route idea would be good for now until the commuter rail is fully up and running.

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but what does low floor mean?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just what it sounds like, the floors are low. One step to get into the bus, A small ramp to board wheelchairs thought the front, rather than the stair lifts that never seem to work. Allows faster boarding of wheelchairs, easier boarding for the elderly and people who have a hard time climbing stairs, people with strollers... The mechanicals that are usually below the bus, sit on top.

A simple ramp is extended to board wheelchairs:

Omnicity-low-floor.jpg

Boston's Silverline uses low floor buses:

SLArtBus.jpg

Several other lines in Boston are also using low floor buses (I believe the 39 uses a low floor CNG bus) and the new trackless trolleys in Cambridge are low floor.

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The new RIPTA buses are indeed low floor:

The first of the 36 new buses recently arrived at RIPTA and will be joined by 35 more in September and October of this year. All 36 buses are low floor, with one-step access from street level to bus, enabling all passengers to board and alight the vehicles more easily and safely and quickly than older buses.

-RIPTA Press Release

They've already recieved some:

RIPTAlowfloor.jpg

-Link

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Due to some adventageous scheduling, I may be able to take RIPTA a bit in the days ahead, and look forward to evaluating things...

Does anyone know if these new busses have any other advantages, like are they more efficient, air conditioned, etc?

- Garris

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My RIPTA trial today didn't fly. The inbound bus I needed to take got into KP at 12:31, but the outbound connection I'd need to transfer to left KP at 12:30... That's useful. I drove instead :(. My only other option would have been to take an earlier bus to KP (which I wasn't able to do anyway), but still, if I had, that would have been nearly a 55 minute total one-way trip for what ended up being a 10 minute drive...

- Garris

PS: In other transit woes, I figured out a round trip to visit New Haven on Amtrak costs nearly $80. Driving would cost me $15 in gas. To be equal to the cost of Amtrak, gas would have to about about $13 per gallon. The driving trip is shorter, and I won't have to worry about how to get from NH's Union Station to the downtown... Welcome to mass transit in the 21st century in America, in the area of the country that does it best...

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PS: In other transit woes, I figured out a round trip to visit New Haven on Amtrak costs nearly $80.  Driving would cost me $15 in gas.  To be equal to the cost of Amtrak, gas would have to about about $13 per gallon.  The driving trip is shorter, and I won't have to worry about how to get from NH's Union Station to the downtown...  Welcome to mass transit in the 21st century in America, in the area of the country that does it best...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It sucks doesn't it...and one of the big selling points of transit is that it accommodates those who cannot afford cars, even though most of the time it is cheaper to just drive.

I think I wanna move to Europe.

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http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20...s.13191ffb.html

Article about the new federal money for RIPTA. Money won't help its operating budget though, just capital expenses like new buses.

Therrien said RIPTA has had so few operating buses that there was a question on many mornings whether there would be enough for morning "pullout." That's the term for bus operators' daily moment of truth: are there enough buses operating to cover all the routes?

^Hopefully between the 36 new buses bought under a previous allocation plus new buses purchased with this new money will help with this.

The article mentioned the new buses will have more comfortable seats too, thank God.

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I think a small network of the major bus routes (based on high ridership or major travel corridors) should be upgraded and marketed as "frequent service" with service frequent enough that schedules are not needed, low floor buses, more bus shelters along the route, service from 5am - 1am. Perhaps these could use articulated buses.

The routes I was thinking of were:

20-Elmwood, 99-N. Main, 29-Broadway, 31-Cranston, 57-Smith, 26-Atwells, 42-Hope plus maybe a new route along I-95 running south serving Cranston, the Airport, Warwick, Warwick Malls, East Greenwich, Wickford and ending at URI (sort of a combination of the 66, 12 and others).

This would be an easy to ride group of routes which would increase ridership.  It would be similar to the "Frequent Service" system in Portland which was implemented for very little money...

http://www.trimet.org/guide/frequentservice.htm

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's a brilliant idea! Budapest's BKV did the same thing, calling some of its routes BKV+ and guaranteeing frequent service and cleaner busses (okay, I wouldn't advertise that one route was cleaner than the others, since that just makes you think the others are dirty) but they really didn't change much. And routes like 99 (I'm not familiar enough with the others) already run fairly often, so it wouldn't require a Herculean effort.

fter all my ranting, I'd like to mention one recent RIPTA change that made me so happy. The 78 bus now runs until 11 pm, so I can actually get home at night instead of having to get off at the tunnel and walk! Yay RIPTA for actually expanding service hours on a travelled route.

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