Bicycling
Metro trying new technology, communication with parking
Parking operations have always been a relatively staid and unexciting part of Metro's operations, but suddenly it's rife with innovation and some of the best communication with riders anywhere in the organization.
Image from Tri-Met.
Metro is piloting a secure bike room in the College Park garage, and asked riders for input on how and whether to charge for access. Another pilot will try electronic sensors at Fort Totten's kiss-and-ride to give real-time occupancy data.
The planning department is sharing this on a blog, which is Metro's only one. It's unlikely these posts take much staff time to write, but provide valuable rider feedback and the kind of communication the public is constantly asking for.
The planning and joint development department at WMATA recently took over responsibility for parking. The planners set out aggressive goals for increasing bicycle mode share. Then, they started moving ahead with the secure room in College Park, and posted on the blog about various options for charging.
Should the room be free? Should there be a yearly fee, like $50, and/or a per-day fee, like 15-25¢? Should the payment go on SmarTrip or use a separate card, like Boston does, or be administered by a 3rd party company, like Portland does?
I agree with the people who've weighed in so far that the room should be either free or charge a very small per-use charge. As WMATA already noted in its pedestrian and bicycle access study, increasing biking to stations, especially in suburban areas, decreases the demand for parking and saves money in the long run.
On the car side, very little data is available to make decisions about parking capacity needs or prices to charge. Right now, the only data we have is the total number of drivers who pay fares at a given lot per day, but not how early the lots fill up or how much turnover they experience.
Riders in cars also have no way to know if garages are going to be full or have space when they arrive. The Fort Totten pilot is trying these sensors at the small kiss-and-ride lot, and if successful, could expand to other types of parking. Then WMATA would know how full its garages are by hour and day, and riders could get information via smartphones or roadside signs.
PlanItMetro shows how WMATA could quickly catch up to other government agencies in electronic communications. While many DC agencies are using blogs, Twitter and Facebook to develop two-way communication with residents, progress in customer service communication at WMATA has been slow.
As we are seeing with parking and PlanItMetro, it's totally possible for WMATA to be innovative and move relatively quickly to try out new technology. It's also totally possible to communicate well. All it takes is some innovative thinking and the ability to break out of old patterns.
Metro has some great people, but they need the opportunity to thrive. They need to be given new responsibilities where they can grow, and despite budget pressures, have the chance to make more money and move up in the organization. Nat Bottigheimer, the head of the planning department, has set a different tone within his part of the organization. Hopefully Richard Sarles will do the same for the rest of WMATA.
 | David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.   |
Comments
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1) Pride. That what is missing in Metro. I'm sure some people want it back, and the job of the GM is to bring that down to the lowest levels. I saw a station manager out last night actually helping someone. It's a start.
2) Transaction costs: for something like bicycle parking, you have to consider the transactions costs. Charging anything might be more expensive that giving it away for free. The "market" can be an efficient way to discover pricing. It also can be misleading, and sometimes it is cheaper to do it for free than manage small payments.
3) WTF did it take so long to bring those electronic sensors to parking? I remember Perkins about two years trying to say there were too expensive.
by charlie on Jan 24, 2011 9:53 am • link • report
That does not mean they shouldn't be doing it. They absolutely should. It crucial for getting public engagement and feedback. It's a basic part of their job and the must do it.
However, I think it's short sited to ignore what does go into message development and message control in a large organization.
by Kate on Jan 24, 2011 9:54 am • link • report
As to the secure bike room, I agree that there should be a minimal cost and that it should be payable with the Smart Card. Free resources tend to be treated poorly. Paying for something invests both buyer and seller in the transaction.
by Phil Lepanto on Jan 24, 2011 9:57 am • link • report
by Michael Perkins on Jan 24, 2011 9:57 am • link • report
K
by Kaleel on Jan 24, 2011 11:18 am • link • report
Bike stations back home after often staffed by reintegrating workers. That is, folks have been unemployed for so long, they're basically unemployable. By letting them man the bike stations temporarily, they get a bit of a work history. While they're there they get help looking for a real (non-subsidized) job. Handy thing for the city (which operates the bike parking) is that they get subsidized=cheap labor, as well as people of their welfare rolls.
by Jasper on Jan 24, 2011 12:50 pm • link • report
The pilot has not begun yet. There is certainly no secure area to park a bike at the college park metro right now.
The current bike racks currently installed are easily unbolted from the ground with a simple ratchet set.
by Dan on Jan 24, 2011 2:20 pm • link • report
I wanted to share a bit of what the GM/CEO sent to Metro employees last month about PlanItMetro which encouraged just that, while highlighting our engagement with the online community.
PlanitMetro.com
Last month, we launched an interactive website to encourage public input into our long-range planning process. In the short time since the site has been up, PlanItMetro.com has received 2,400 visitors.
Nearly a third of the visits to the site came from people who keyed in PlanitMetro.com, but many others linked from other websites, such as greatergreaterwashington.org, welovedc.com, dcist.com, and thecityfix.com, who are giving the site good marks:
Fifty percent of the visits have been from the District of Columbia, 17 percent from Virginia and 14 percent from Maryland. The remaining visits have come from a wide variety of other states, including New York, Pennsylvania, California, Florida and Massachusetts. The most popular areas of the site are the Metrobus High Priority Corridors Map and the Union Station Simulation post, as well as the Regional Transit System Plan “mini-site.”
Kudos to [the] team on a good beginning for this initiative.
by Nat Bottigheimer on Jan 24, 2011 5:46 pm • link • report
It's the same concept as performance parking for cars: charge a price just high enough to make sure that there's always a little bit of space available. I'm a little bit surprised that someone who supports performance parking for cars doesn't realize that the same concept should apply for bikes.
by Rob on Jan 24, 2011 8:13 pm • link • report
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