Transit Updates for Greater Grand Rapids

[scottythe1nonly]

On 7/3/2017 at 5:15 PM, GRDadof3 said:

One thing I did like is that once you got close to Campus Martius, the overhead wires were gone except for right at the stations. They must get a boost of power into a battery system to make it through that area and back out to the overhead wire areas? But even out by the new Little Caesars - Red Wings stadium, the overhead wires are pretty thin and the poles are pretty attractive, they don't clutter up the scene too much. It's also interesting that every station has a "sponsor." The automated announcer even says "Next stop is xyz station featuring Comerica Park, brought to you by Chevrolet." I guess that's one way to pay for the system.

With overhead wires at Mack Ave station in Midtown. The new Whole Foods is off to the right in this picture. 

 

Without overhead wires at Campus Martius/Compuware:

 

 

One thing for sure is that Woodward Avenue looks a lot different than when I walked it 5 or so years ago. A lot of new international retailers like Nike, UnderArmour etc and even Shinola hotel is going in. Not to mention Little Caesars Arena and "The District" which appears in my video. Need wifi to upload.

With all of the new development in Monroe North now, including the new hotel, restoring the rapids and the riverfront apartments, plus 201 Market and 234 Market, Venue Tower and 20 Monroe Live, Founders at the South end, etc etc etc, is it time to start work on a Monroe Streetcar line again? It certainly does extend the "walking distance" of downtown. I saw several people on the qline who obviously lived in Midtown and worked downtown. 

 

As much as I would love to see some streetcars in Grand Rapids the cost combined with the current political regime in Lansing and DC ensures we'll get nowhere with it.  I doubt the city would finance such an expensive project without State/Federal support.  

Identical service in downtown GRap could be provided with buses.  Including the all electric drive.  Imagine something like the Silverline using electric buses and running much shorter more frequent routes downtown.  It would avoid the cost of reengineering the streets and right of ways that are required for streetcars.  And the buses themselves are a much smaller up front capital investment.

Another way to provide that type of service in the future might be the autonomous shuttles being tested at the University of Michigan

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2017/06/mcity_will_offer_driverless_sh.html

 

Edited July 5, 2017 by scottythe1nonly

[Prankster]

35 minutes ago, scottythe1nonly said:

As much as I would love to see some streetcars in Grand Rapids the cost combined with the current political regime in Lansing and DC ensures we'll get nowhere with it.  I doubt the city would finance such an expensive project without State/Federal support.  

Identical service in downtown GRap could be provided with buses.  Including the all electric drive.  Imagine something like the Silverline using electric buses and running much shorter more frequent routes downtown.  It would avoid the cost of reengineering the streets and right of ways that are required for streetcars.  And the buses themselves are a much smaller up front capital investment.

Another way to provide that type of service in the future might be the autonomous shuttles being tested at the University of Michigan

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2017/06/mcity_will_offer_driverless_sh.html

 

But as much as people can wish, push, promote, cajole, and threaten, most people will always look down on and refuse to ride the bus. It does not have the same cache as riding the rail does. No matter how technologically advanced and sexy they try to make the bus system.

Not saying I share that view, but that does seem to be the prevailing attitude. 

[GVSUChris]

4 minutes ago, Prankster said:

But as much as people can wish, push, promote, cajole, and threaten, most people will always look down on and refuse to ride the bus. It does not have the same cache as riding the rail does. No matter how technologically advanced and sexy they try to make the bus system.

Not saying I share that view, but that does seem to be the prevailing attitude. 

My husband and I lived in Chicago for the past 6 years before moving here last summer. We talk about this all the time because we were also guilty of this mindset. We'd take the train (both the CTA and the Metra) several times a week and though they rarely got us to our final destination, we hardly ever used the bus to connect us. We would take the train to the nearest stop and then take a Lyft the rest of the way. We would do everything we could to avoid the buses. Now in GR we want to say we support the Rapid but I think we've ridden it once in the past year and we realized that we could have taken nearly any other form of mobility and gotten to our destination faster and with much less hassle. 

I recently watched a short documentary that I will try to find about the psychology of transit and one of the interesting things that stuck out to me was the idea that "rails" communicate permanency, investment, reliability, and safety. It particularly explored Salt Lake City with a conservative leadership that has seen huge returns on investing in rail and the shift of perception for funding transit because they chose rail over rapid busing, as well as some southern cities and the "image" that rail gave off vs. busing systems.

I'm not saying that I don't see the extreme difference in cost and feasibility; I'm just echoing that I carry a similar attitude towards the bus whether or not is is justified. 

[scottythe1nonly]

I think that a system of smaller, frequent buses downtown could overcome the perceived negatives that many have for traditional bus service.  Make the buses themselves noticeably different.  Fully electric buses could do that.  They'd be clean and quiet.  

I use the RAPID about once per week.  Mainly to get from my house to downtown on weekends or after work. The number 13 runs 2 blocks from my house and is convenient.  I would use it to go many more places if it weren't for the fact that the system is a bare minimum of what is needed to service the metro area.  Routes radiate out from the main station downtown.  But there is no service, for instance between the NW and NE areas of the city.  If I want to take a bus from the E Beltline near Knapp I can go downtown, but nowhere else.  To get from there to Walker, for instance, requires at least one transfer and nearly 2 hours of riding to complete a 7 mile trip.  Cities with good transit combine routes like our current RAPID with additional "rings" of service.  What that would mean here, for instance, would be buses that ran in a literal circle around the outside of down town and another circle or two farther out as you reached the suburbs. 

 

[GRDadof3]

1 hour ago, scottythe1nonly said:

I think that a system of smaller, frequent buses downtown could overcome the perceived negatives that many have for traditional bus service.  Make the buses themselves noticeably different.  Fully electric buses could do that.  They'd be clean and quiet.  

I use the RAPID about once per week.  Mainly to get from my house to downtown on weekends or after work. The number 13 runs 2 blocks from my house and is convenient.  I would use it to go many more places if it weren't for the fact that the system is a bare minimum of what is needed to service the metro area.  Routes radiate out from the main station downtown.  But there is no service, for instance between the NW and NE areas of the city.  If I want to take a bus from the E Beltline near Knapp I can go downtown, but nowhere else.  To get from there to Walker, for instance, requires at least one transfer and nearly 2 hours of riding to complete a 7 mile trip.  Cities with good transit combine routes like our current RAPID with additional "rings" of service.  What that would mean here, for instance, would be buses that ran in a literal circle around the outside of down town and another circle or two farther out as you reached the suburbs. 

 

This kind of service pretty much already exists in the DASH system. There would be no reason to add yet ANOTHER bus system downtown. 

But again, does a streetcar system make sense in this day and age? The one in Detroit was about $200 Million for 3.4 miles, paid for predominantly by private funding with some public funding. There's really nothing like the Kresge Foundation here locally, not with that kind of money. Grand Action might think that $50+ Million could be used more effectively elsewhere? 

That's why I said I was torn. It's cool but is it THAT cool? 

 

[GRDadof3]

Segment 1, just after leaving Campus Martius and headed Northeast on Woodward.  You can see the renovation of the incredible Book Tower in the first few seconds.  Be sure to turn up the volume. If you've never been on a light rail streetcar before, it certainly has a unique sound. 

 

Segment 2: The Fillmore, Little Caesar's new world HQ under construction, Fox Theatre and Hockeytown just outside of Comerica Park:

 

 

Segment 3: just after crossing I-75 and heading into the Little Caesars Arena/The District area. The southbound Qline train can be seen just at the beginning.

 

Segment 4: Just entering Brush Park and the beginning of Midtown, right around Mack. I had to jump off and head back downtown at this point.  (you can see a bike-sharing station just at the very end). If I had stayed on for another block, I would've been able to get off at the new Hopcat Detroit (I believe)

 

[walker]

You should have posted some of this over in the Detroit forum.  It’s pretty lonely over there.  There's just mtburb who posts updates on Meijer renovations in the Detroit area. 

2 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Segment 1, . . . You can see the renovation of the incredible Book Tower in the first few seconds.

MORE TOPIC DRIFT - EVEN FURTHER THAN IT HAS ALREADY:

Nice pic of the Book Tower in that link.  You can only very briefly see the Book Tower Building a block over on Washington in the video, surprised you mentioned it, but it is a fabulous if somewhat forgotten skyscraper.  When I worked in Detroit over thirty-five years ago, I could see the Book Tower building out my window.   You can see the building where I worked in the background of the pic in the BOOK TOWER link above.

For reference, here’s a picture of where I worked.  That’s my window on the middle left ten floors up;

Both the Book Tower and the building where I worked have been bought by Dan Gilbert and are being remodeled and restored.  Gilbert owns about ninety buildings in downtown Detroit and makes CWD look like amateurs.   

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Book Tower:

wiki Book Tower 

I used to work with a woman (in Grand Rapids – not Detroit) whose husband was a descendant of the Book family that owned both the Book Tower and the Book Cadillac Hotel across the street.  As far as I could tell, none of the Book fortune trickled down to them.   

Edited July 6, 2017 by walker
for clarity

[GRDadof3]

2 minutes ago, walker said:

You should have posted some of this over in the Detroit forum.  It’s pretty lonely over there.  There's just mtburb who posts updates on Meijer renovations in the Detroit area. 

MORE TOPIC DRIFT - EVEN FURTHER THAN IT HAS ALREADY:

Nice pic of the Book Tower in that link.  You can only very briefly see the Book Tower Building a block over on Washington in the video, surprised you mentioned it, but it is a fabulous if somewhat forgotten skyscraper.  When I worked in Detroit over thirty-five years ago, I could see this building out my window.   You can see the building where I worked in the background of the pic in the BOOK TOWER link above.

For reference, here’s a picture of where I worked.  That’s my window on the middle left ten floors up;

Both the Book Tower and the building I worked in have been bought by Dan Gilbert and are being remodeled and restored.  Gilbert owns about ninety buildings in downtown Detroit and makes CWD look like amateurs.   

Here a link to the Wikipedia article on the Book Tower:

wiki Book Tower 

I used to work with a woman (in Grand Rapids – not Detroit) whose husband was a descendant of the Book family that owned both the Book Tower and the Book Cadillac Hotel across the street.  As far as I could tell, none of the Book fortune trickled down to them.   

Why would I post these in the Detroit forum if no one is over there.  

I find that there's way more people in the city-data Detroit forum than in the UP - Detroit forum. Takes a few (nutty) champions like joedowntown and me to keep these regional forums going. 

Cool pics. I have a bunch of Detroit pics of buildings that I may just dump in here if people are interested? 

[scottythe1nonly]

Here comes the GRap Beer Trolley!  

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/07/grand_rapids_beer_trolley_beer.html#incart_2box_news_grand-rapids

I find it interesting that the "Trolley" is designed NOT to look like a bus.  Also, the majority of the breweries on this route are accessible via DASH for free.  

 

Quote

Where does it go?

The trolley gives passengers the opportunity to visit nine different breweries. It picks up passengers at each stop. All locations are visited once per hour except for Atwater, which the trolley visits twice per hour.

Here's a look at each brewery the trolley visits, along with times and pick-up information:

 

What is the cost?

For a flat fee, passengers can get a day pass to get on and off the trolley as many times as desired. That flat fee is $15 and a ticket can be purchased online or in person. Single ride passes at a cost of $5 are available if there is room on the trolley. The single pass lets you get on the trolley at any location and get off at any one location.

Cash or card is accepted on the trolley.

 

Edited July 6, 2017 by scottythe1nonly

[WMrapids]

Survey on the Rapid and DASH lots

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GRBusStops

[GRDadof3]

On 7/6/2017 at 9:35 AM, scottythe1nonly said:

Here comes the GRap Beer Trolley!  

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/07/grand_rapids_beer_trolley_beer.html#incart_2box_news_grand-rapids

I find it interesting that the "Trolley" is designed NOT to look like a bus.  Also, the majority of the breweries on this route are accessible via DASH for free.  

 

 

 

Could Grand Rapids get any cornier?  Just kidding, it's cute. I rode on a similar bus around ArtPrize one year and it was a lot of fun.

In other transit news, the Rapid is putting a ballot proposal up this Fall to fund transit enhancements, mostly a "fixed guideway" on the West Side (Laker Line out to Allendale). 

 

[x99]

53 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

 

Could Grand Rapids get any cornier?  Just kidding, it's cute. I rode on a similar bus around ArtPrize one year and it was a lot of fun.

 

3 hours ago, WMrapids said:

Survey on the Rapid and DASH lots

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GRBusStops

If they ran one of those past my house, I might actually take it to work, too! ... As long as it went from my house straight to work.   

The survey is interesting, but I am not sure anyone is dissuaded from riding the bus by the quality of the bus stops, or the lack of amenities.  The problem is time.  This is not a big city, and if you have the resources to afford not to take the bus, you generally won't because time is money and it takes too long.  If it becomes too costly or troublesome to park and/or drive into town, people will just leave or choose not to come in the first place.  Now, if you ran a bus out to Hudsonville or Jenison or 36th[?] Street in Ada to a carpool lot, and made it free, and ran it straight to downtown offices, those you might be able to fill up.  Maybe.  I think the key is making mass transit give back time and money instead of consuming it.  Tall order.

[scottythe1nonly]

there are questions on the survey that deal with the bus schedule, frequency, etc.  But the truth is that without considerably more funding they can't do much about it.  Look at how long it took to get the Silverline up and running.  There was an anti Silverline campaign at one point.  And that was just to upgrade one bus route.  

 

[x99]

13 hours ago, scottythe1nonly said:

there are questions on the survey that deal with the bus schedule, frequency, etc.  But the truth is that without considerably more funding they can't do much about it.  Look at how long it took to get the Silverline up and running.  There was an anti Silverline campaign at one point.  And that was just to upgrade one bus route.  

More money won't fix anything or increase ridership. Measuring Silverline, a fabulously expensive bus project, with the gauge of results versus promises, it was a flop.  What The Rapid/ITP said would happen did not.  Not even close.  To call their projections "irrational exuberance" would be generous.  Trying to use buses as a way to increase usage of mass transit by the general population is a proven dead end.  

[organsnyder]

29 minutes ago, x99 said:

More money won't fix anything or increase ridership. Measuring Silverline, a fabulously expensive bus project, with the gauge of results versus promises, it was a flop.  What The Rapid/ITP said would happen did not.  Not even close.  To call their projections "irrational exuberance" would be generous.  Trying to use buses as a way to increase usage of mass transit by the general population is a proven dead end.  

Have you ridden it lately? During normal commuting hours (I take it to/from work most days), it seems to be quite busy, even during the summer without the influx of GRPS and GRCC students. The #1 line also remains very busy, despite the route overlap.

[scottythe1nonly]

this is typical of the problem.  The attitude that we can't have a substantially improved system because some single component of the existing system (which is too small, too infrequent, etc.) isn't used "Enough".  And the reason it's not used enough is that it's too insufficient to be used enough.  Of course, there's no objective answer to what "enough" is.  If ridership incresed 5% or 10% or 20% the answer would be the same, that it's not "enough" for whatever the cost was.  

But there's never any such comment on the bottomless pit of taxpayer money that our highway and road system is.  We never hear that about roads.  We spend billions and billions in the metro area maintaining and building them.  And peanuts in comparison on everything else.  

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2017 by scottythe1nonly

[GRDadof3]

47 minutes ago, scottythe1nonly said:

this is typical of the problem.  The attitude that we can't have a substantially improved system because some single component of the existing system (which is too small, too infrequent, etc.) isn't used "Enough".  And the reason it's not used enough is that it's too insufficient to be used enough.  Of course, there's no objective answer to what "enough" is.  If ridership incresed 5% or 10% or 20% the answer would be the same, that it's not "enough" for whatever the cost was.  

But there's never any such comment on the bottomless pit of taxpayer money that our highway and road system is.  We never hear that about roads.  We spend billions and billions in the metro area maintaining and building them.  And peanuts in comparison on everything else.  

 

I think, as many have said, that it's because 95% of commuters drive. Even the city of Grand Rapids residents took it upon themselves to raise taxes to pay for new roads. It's certainly admirable to enhance transit to mode shift more people who are able to, but even if you increased ridership 50%, you're still only talking about less than 10% of commuters taking transit. You have to have a full toolbox of transportation options. If 95% of the time you use a hammer, then invest in more and better hammers. You don't try to use a screwdriver to hammer nails, and get mad at people who won't use a screwdriver to pound in nails. 

[x99]

4 hours ago, scottythe1nonly said:

this is typical of the problem.  The attitude that we can't have a substantially improved system because some single component of the existing system (which is too small, too infrequent, etc.) isn't used "Enough".  And the reason it's not used enough is that it's too insufficient to be used enough.  Of course, there's no objective answer to what
 

And when is enough money enough money?  The Silver Line cost more than $40 million excluding ongoing operating and upkeep costs.  It runs something like every 10 minutes!  It resulted in a net ridership increase of approximately zero, after accounting for usage drops in other mass transit modes along the same route.  It resulted in "spin off" economic growth of somewhere around zero as well.  Dig for the data, and you'll find it.  

At least some of the economics can be extrapolated from this article, which is one of the more recent ones: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/05/5_years_after_nail-biter_bus_t.html.   A year old now, but you can bet if the numbers for Silver Line or the whole bus system were significantly improved, they would be screaming it from the rooftops.  $70mm a year to operate buses, for 12mm rides.  Do the math and you can see the bus actually costs about $6 to $7 per ride (which includes at least some of the amortized costs of infrastructure which is not included in the raw operating costs), versus an average farebox recovery of under $1.50.  If you really try, you can drill down to a lot more objective data and answers regarding buses.  It just isn't often talked about because most of it isn't very pretty.  

The biggest problem is that expanding and pouring money into the bus system does not meaningfully increase the passengers per bus mile.  This holds true across scores of similar cities.  And if you can't increase that, then all of the hidden nasties about buses just don't get any better (don't even start researching that unless you really want to ruin every happy thought you ever had about bus mass transit).  A hybrid Chevy or Toyota remains a less expensive and environmentally friendlier way to get around.  And if you actually could kill off the buses, the impact on congestion would be pretty impressive, too (imagine a bunch of cars randomly stalling all over town, and you understand what buses do to urban traffic flow and congestion...).

Buses may have a good social benefit of increasing mobility options for lower income persons (by and large), but that's about the extent of their usefulness in a city like Grand Rapids.  As a proponent of strong, robust, mixed use, dense urban environments, the data has basically forced me to admit that bus transit is a road to nowhere.  Rip out the bus lanes, improve traffic flow, build liner ramps, and subsidize/make parking rates cheaper.  The goal is the urban environment, not how people get there.  

Ah well.  End of my annual urbanist bus screed, which sadly almost no one understand or agrees with because they don't want to deal with the reality versus the ideal of bus transportation.

EDIT:  Ah, screw it.  I'll go ahead and ruin your brain so far as buses are concerned..  http://reason.org/news/show/does-bus-transit-reduce-greenhouse.  It's a pretty good analysis of the economics and emissions of buses.  I like things written by economists with transit experience, not marketers/dogooders.  Not necessarily the primary subject of interest, but it's important to understand this from a policy perspective.  Note that Rubin discusses the situation with a bus passenger load of 9.2, and concludes that cars are slightly greener and cheaper.  In Grand Rapids, the passenger loads are just under 2.  The Silver Line pulls just over 2.  See mLive article above. Ridership would need to increase by 500% just to pull even close to being as green or cheap as a car.  Ick.  Okay, now screed officially is /over.  

Edited July 11, 2017 by x99

[GRDadof3]

5 hours ago, x99 said:

And when is enough money enough money?  The Silver Line cost more than $40 million excluding ongoing operating and upkeep costs.  It runs something like every 10 minutes!  It resulted in a net ridership increase of approximately zero, after accounting for usage drops in other mass transit modes along the same route.  It resulted in "spin off" economic growth of somewhere around zero as well.  Dig for the data, and you'll find it.  

At least some of the economics can be extrapolated from this article, which is one of the more recent ones: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/05/5_years_after_nail-biter_bus_t.html.   A year old now, but you can bet if the numbers for Silver Line or the whole bus system were significantly improved, they would be screaming it from the rooftops.  $70mm a year to operate buses, for 12mm rides.  Do the math and you can see the bus actually costs about $6 to $7 per ride (which includes at least some of the amortized costs of infrastructure which is not included in the raw operating costs), versus an average farebox recovery of under $1.50.  If you really try, you can drill down to a lot more objective data and answers regarding buses.  It just isn't often talked about because most of it isn't very pretty.  

The biggest problem is that expanding and pouring money into the bus system does not meaningfully increase the passengers per bus mile.  This holds true across scores of similar cities.  And if you can't increase that, then all of the hidden nasties about buses just don't get any better (don't even start researching that unless you really want to ruin every happy thought you ever had about bus mass transit).  A hybrid Chevy or Toyota remains a less expensive and environmentally friendlier way to get around.  And if you actually could kill off the buses, the impact on congestion would be pretty impressive, too (imagine a bunch of cars randomly stalling all over town, and you understand what buses do to urban traffic flow and congestion...).

Buses may have a good social benefit of increasing mobility options for lower income persons (by and large), but that's about the extent of their usefulness in a city like Grand Rapids.  As a proponent of strong, robust, mixed use, dense urban environments, the data has basically forced me to admit that bus transit is a road to nowhere.  Rip out the bus lanes, improve traffic flow, build liner ramps, and subsidize/make parking rates cheaper.  The goal is the urban environment, not how people get there.  

Ah well.  End of my annual urbanist bus screed, which sadly almost no one understand or agrees with because they don't want to deal with the reality versus the ideal of bus transportation.

EDIT:  Ah, screw it.  I'll go ahead and ruin your brain so far as buses are concerned..  http://reason.org/news/show/does-bus-transit-reduce-greenhouse.  It's a pretty good analysis of the economics and emissions of buses.  I like things written by economists with transit experience, not marketers/dogooders.  Not necessarily the primary subject of interest, but it's important to understand this from a policy perspective.  Note that Rubin discusses the situation with a bus passenger load of 9.2, and concludes that cars are slightly greener and cheaper.  In Grand Rapids, the passenger loads are just under 2.  The Silver Line pulls just over 2.  See mLive article above. Ridership would need to increase by 500% just to pull even close to being as green or cheap as a car.  Ick.  Okay, now screed officially is /over.  

Well....yeah. 

[wingbert]

18 hours ago, x99 said:

And when is enough money enough money?  The Silver Line cost more than $40 million excluding ongoing operating and upkeep costs.  It runs something like every 10 minutes!  It resulted in a net ridership increase of approximately zero, after accounting for usage drops in other mass transit modes along the same route.  It resulted in "spin off" economic growth of somewhere around zero as well.  Dig for the data, and you'll find it.  

At least some of the economics can be extrapolated from this article, which is one of the more recent ones: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/05/5_years_after_nail-biter_bus_t.html.   A year old now, but you can bet if the numbers for Silver Line or the whole bus system were significantly improved, they would be screaming it from the rooftops.  $70mm a year to operate buses, for 12mm rides.  Do the math and you can see the bus actually costs about $6 to $7 per ride (which includes at least some of the amortized costs of infrastructure which is not included in the raw operating costs), versus an average farebox recovery of under $1.50.  If you really try, you can drill down to a lot more objective data and answers regarding buses.  It just isn't often talked about because most of it isn't very pretty.  

The biggest problem is that expanding and pouring money into the bus system does not meaningfully increase the passengers per bus mile.  This holds true across scores of similar cities.  And if you can't increase that, then all of the hidden nasties about buses just don't get any better (don't even start researching that unless you really want to ruin every happy thought you ever had about bus mass transit).  A hybrid Chevy or Toyota remains a less expensive and environmentally friendlier way to get around.  And if you actually could kill off the buses, the impact on congestion would be pretty impressive, too (imagine a bunch of cars randomly stalling all over town, and you understand what buses do to urban traffic flow and congestion...).

Buses may have a good social benefit of increasing mobility options for lower income persons (by and large), but that's about the extent of their usefulness in a city like Grand Rapids.  As a proponent of strong, robust, mixed use, dense urban environments, the data has basically forced me to admit that bus transit is a road to nowhere.  Rip out the bus lanes, improve traffic flow, build liner ramps, and subsidize/make parking rates cheaper.  The goal is the urban environment, not how people get there.  

Ah well.  End of my annual urbanist bus screed, which sadly almost no one understand or agrees with because they don't want to deal with the reality versus the ideal of bus transportation.

EDIT:  Ah, screw it.  I'll go ahead and ruin your brain so far as buses are concerned..  http://reason.org/news/show/does-bus-transit-reduce-greenhouse.  It's a pretty good analysis of the economics and emissions of buses.  I like things written by economists with transit experience, not marketers/dogooders.  Not necessarily the primary subject of interest, but it's important to understand this from a policy perspective.  Note that Rubin discusses the situation with a bus passenger load of 9.2, and concludes that cars are slightly greener and cheaper.  In Grand Rapids, the passenger loads are just under 2.  The Silver Line pulls just over 2.  See mLive article above. Ridership would need to increase by 500% just to pull even close to being as green or cheap as a car.  Ick.  Okay, now screed officially is /over.  

[scottythe1nonly]

19 hours ago, x99 said:

 

EDIT:  Ah, screw it.  I'll go ahead and ruin your brain so far as buses are concerned..  http://reason.org/news/show/does-bus-transit-reduce-greenhouse.  It's a pretty good analysis of the economics and emissions of buses.  I like things written by economists with transit experience, not marketers/dogooders.  Not necessarily the primary subject of interest, but it's important to understand this from a policy perspective.  Note that Rubin discusses the situation with a bus passenger load of 9.2, and concludes that cars are slightly greener and cheaper.  In Grand Rapids, the passenger loads are just under 2.  The Silver Line pulls just over 2.  See mLive article above. Ridership would need to increase by 500% just to pull even close to being as green or cheap as a car.  Ick.  Okay, now screed officially is /over.  

thanks for the link.  that's an interesting read.  it will be interesting to see how the issue of emissions change as our percentage of renewable energy increases and electric vehicles become a larger percentage of the total us fleet. 

 

Edited July 12, 2017 by scottythe1nonly

[demhem]

19 hours ago, x99 said:

And when is enough money enough money?  The Silver Line cost more than $40 million excluding ongoing operating and upkeep costs.  It runs something like every 10 minutes!  It resulted in a net ridership increase of approximately zero, after accounting for usage drops in other mass transit modes along the same route.  It resulted in "spin off" economic growth of somewhere around zero as well.  Dig for the data, and you'll find it.  

At least some of the economics can be extrapolated from this article, which is one of the more recent ones: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2016/05/5_years_after_nail-biter_bus_t.html.   A year old now, but you can bet if the numbers for Silver Line or the whole bus system were significantly improved, they would be screaming it from the rooftops.  $70mm a year to operate buses, for 12mm rides.  Do the math and you can see the bus actually costs about $6 to $7 per ride (which includes at least some of the amortized costs of infrastructure which is not included in the raw operating costs), versus an average farebox recovery of under $1.50.  If you really try, you can drill down to a lot more objective data and answers regarding buses.  It just isn't often talked about because most of it isn't very pretty.  

The biggest problem is that expanding and pouring money into the bus system does not meaningfully increase the passengers per bus mile.  This holds true across scores of similar cities.  And if you can't increase that, then all of the hidden nasties about buses just don't get any better (don't even start researching that unless you really want to ruin every happy thought you ever had about bus mass transit).  A hybrid Chevy or Toyota remains a less expensive and environmentally friendlier way to get around.  And if you actually could kill off the buses, the impact on congestion would be pretty impressive, too (imagine a bunch of cars randomly stalling all over town, and you understand what buses do to urban traffic flow and congestion...).

Buses may have a good social benefit of increasing mobility options for lower income persons (by and large), but that's about the extent of their usefulness in a city like Grand Rapids.  As a proponent of strong, robust, mixed use, dense urban environments, the data has basically forced me to admit that bus transit is a road to nowhere.  Rip out the bus lanes, improve traffic flow, build liner ramps, and subsidize/make parking rates cheaper.  The goal is the urban environment, not how people get there.  

Ah well.  End of my annual urbanist bus screed, which sadly almost no one understand or agrees with because they don't want to deal with the reality versus the ideal of bus transportation.

EDIT:  Ah, screw it.  I'll go ahead and ruin your brain so far as buses are concerned..  http://reason.org/news/show/does-bus-transit-reduce-greenhouse.  It's a pretty good analysis of the economics and emissions of buses.  I like things written by economists with transit experience, not marketers/dogooders.  Not necessarily the primary subject of interest, but it's important to understand this from a policy perspective.  Note that Rubin discusses the situation with a bus passenger load of 9.2, and concludes that cars are slightly greener and cheaper.  In Grand Rapids, the passenger loads are just under 2.  The Silver Line pulls just over 2.  See mLive article above. Ridership would need to increase by 500% just to pull even close to being as green or cheap as a car.  Ick.  Okay, now screed officially is /over.  

The original study critiqued in the link is likely admittedly flawed; however, the critique is also flawed as the author is comparing overall car MPG (which he admits is unfair^1) instead of auto city MPG as well as comparing overall personal vehicle load averages instead of personal vehicle load averages for urban metros where buses run (which could arguably be different depending upon where you live). Although he also admits that autos have their lowest load factors during peak periods, with most urban areas reporting 1.1 to 1.15. If anything, that article solidifies the need for additional studies which take into account previous failures in methodology. 

1: "My use of annual averages is somewhat unfair to buses for a variety of reasons.  First, for autos, there is a significant amount of freeway driving, urban, rural, and inter-city, where high, constant speeds and high mileage factors are achieved – this type of travel is a relatively rare portion of urban transit bus usage."

[x99]

1 hour ago, demhem said:

1: "My use of annual averages is somewhat unfair to buses for a variety of reasons.  First, for autos, there is a significant amount of freeway driving, urban, rural, and inter-city, where high, constant speeds and high mileage factors are achieved – this type of travel is a relatively rare portion of urban transit bus usage."

True, but this was written in 2010.  Hybrids now get better mileage in the city than on the highway.  A 40+mpg city car sits in my driveway.  Also, "On page 2, the paper discusses how a bus with a passenger load of eleven was approximately “breakeven” on fuel economy with a single-passenger car."  Adjusting out their apparent bus fuel economy error yields about 7ish(?).  So that's the apparent break-even point using ~2010 passenger car fleet averages with one passenger.  The other figure cited was to show that at fleet averages of 9.8 passengers per mile vs 1.6, cars came out ahead.  Whatever the right figures are, with Grand Rapids pulling a whopping 2 passenger average, the equation isn't going to change anytime soon.  As far as congestion?  I'm still waiting for it to get bad downtown where it hasn't been exacerbated by construction, lane diets or bus lanes.  What we need to do is plug up traffic by making downtown so great there isn't hardly even room to stuff in another car or parking ramp.  Then we can run transit that makes sense from an urban development, as opposed to social welfare, perspective.  Until then, mass transit is a poor investment, since what we have seems to serve the social welfare aspect reasonably well.  

Edited July 12, 2017 by x99

[organsnyder]

12 minutes ago, x99 said:

True, but this was written in 2010.  Hybrids now get better mileage in the city than on the highway.  A 40+mpg city car sits in my driveway. 

We'll also need to update our numbers for buses, then, since hybrid busses are quite prevalent (does ITP buy any non-hybrids anymore?). According to an old NYT article I dug up (Googled for "hybrid bus mpg"), hybrid buses get around 4 MPG, compared to 2.75 MPG for non-hybrids.

[scottythe1nonly]

GR could do a number of other things to lessen rush our congestion.  A simple thing would be getting employers to stagger work start/end times.  I work on a campus with several thousand people.  Almost all of them drive alone in their cars every morning.  Our 8am start time is the same as virtually every office in the metro area.  

 

If you want to see what real congestion looks like in a small city, visit Portland, OR and try commuting in-out on the highway during rush hour.  30 years ago they had less highway traffic than GR does today.  They also have a 20th century highway going through their downtown that can't easily be widened.  A lot like GR today.   Now there are hours long traffic jams for people driving between the suburbs and city.  During rush hour you can ride a bike across PDX faster than you can drive it.  And many people do.  Despite the rate of bike commuters and a limited rail system it hasn't stopped massive traffic jams.  Some of that is because they didn't expand their rail network anywhere near as fast as the city grew.  

Edited July 12, 2017 by scottythe1nonly