Buses - Greater Greater Washington

ICC losing bus service in classic bait and switch

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:13:00 EDT

Maryland may eliminate 3 of the 5 bus routes on the Intercounty Connector. The move is a classic bait and switch from highway builders: Get political buy-in with the promise of a multimodal road, then cut the multimodal aspects at the first opportunity.

The ICC. Photo by the author.

The Maryland Transit Administration operates 5 bus routes on the ICC. It's proposing to eliminate routes 202, 203, and 205. Only the 201 and 204 would remain, running from Gaithersburg to BWI Airport and Frederick to College Park.

When planning the ICC, Maryland promised it would include good transit service and a high-quality bike trail. Officials cut much of the trail in 2004. The bus service was never very good either, so it never got many riders. Now the state is citing that as a reason to cut it significantly.

Of course, cars aren't held to the same standard.

There also aren't many drivers on the ICC. Around 21,000 cars per day use the road. The state says that meets projections, but the projections seem to change. At one point they were as high as 71,000.

But is anyone proposing the state shut the road? Nope. Instead, the strategy is to try and boost car use.

Lawmakers hoped to induce more traffic with lower tolls last year, although that proposal was never accepted. This year the state raised the speed limit to make driving more attractive.

When it comes to bikes and transit, it's cut and run at the first hint of a problem. For cars, it's roll out the red carpet and hope for more traffic.

This isn't the first time this has happened. When Virginia's I-95 HOT lanes were first proposed, the firm hoping to expand the highway called its proposal "BRT/HOT lanes," but of course nothing resembling actual BRT was ever built.

Transportation advocates should remember this the next time someone proposes a "multimodal" highway. Odds are they won't deliver.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

42 comments

Transportation trends

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:28:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

More people in the area who didn't learn to ride a bike as a kid are doing so now as adults. Many credit Capital Bikeshare and seeing other cyclists as inspiring them to ride. More people are also riding the bus, pushing jurisdictions to add service and consider dedicated lanes. (Post)

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Metro backs out of transit center

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:38:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

WMATA does not want to run the Silver Spring Transit Center. While they will still run Metrobuses at the facility, they've abandoned their plan to also use it for intercity buses. (Post)

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Highway shoulders can become bus lanes, but it takes work

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 12:41:00 EDT

by Dan Malouff

Why not let buses drive on highway shoulders to get around congestion? According to a regional task force, that can be done, and it does often work, but it's not quite as simple as putting a sign up and saying "let's do it".

Photo from Minnesota DOT.

With pressure mounting to stretch dollars and improve mobility, creative ideas like putting buses on shoulders are getting more attention. Maryland is considering the concept on I-270 and MD-5, and Virginia hopes to have a pilot project on I-66 in Arlington by 2014.

These would add to the handful of locations around the DC region where buses are already allowed to use the shoulder. The most notable example is the Dulles Access Highway inside the Beltway.

The main complicating issue is that highway shoulders are usually too narrow and not free enough from obstructions to immediately open them up to buses. Interstate highway standards call for 9-foot shoulders, but you need at least 10 feet for a bus, and really 11 feet is preferable. So a typical highway shoulder will have to be beefed up in order to be used as a bus lane.

That's a lot easier, and cheaper, than just about anything else you could do. But it's still a construction project that needs to be planned and funded.

Minneapolis has an extensive network of over 300 miles of shoulder bus lanes on highways. But it's taken them over 20 years to get there. They have a continuous program that adds a few miles each year. They started with the low-hanging fruit, and have worked up to more complicated stretches.

That's the idea behind Virginia's pilot project on I-66. At first, the section allowing buses will be short. It won't be a busway so much as a spot where buses can jump ahead of a queue of cars. But over time VDOT could lengthen the segment and provide a larger benefit.

For safety reasons, buses are usually only permitted to go 35 miles per hour when using shoulders. Still, that's enough to get by the worst congestion. If traffic is moving faster than that, buses just stay in the regular lanes.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

18 comments

Groceries on the bus?

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 08:33:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

Could a cooler on the front of a bus be the solution for food deserts? Grocery stores might be interested in it as a way to cut down on grocery cart theft. (Atlantic Cities)

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Metro fights fatigue

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 08:34:00 EDT

by Jereme Altendorf

WMATA will combat fatigue by limiting overtime and starting a fatigue awareness campaign. The $5 million program covers maintenance workers and power technicians but not bus drivers and rail operators. (Examiner)

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Richmond maps out a better transit network

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:31:00 EDT

by Dan Malouff

Richmond has the bones of a good city. It's small, with only a million people in its whole metro area, but it has a relatively large downtown and some very high-quality urban neighborhoods. What it lacks is a transit system to match. The city's new transportation plan aims to fix that.

Richmond bus. Photo from beyonddc on flickr.

Richmond's bus system currently carries about 35,000 riders per day, total, for the whole region. That's about the same as the Fairfax County Connector, and less than half of the 90,000 or so that Montgomery County's Ride-On carries each day. Richmond could get so much more out of transit.

Now, it looks like they're moving in that direction. The City of Richmond is drafting a new multimodal transportation plan. It builds on existing plans for a BRT line on Broad Street to propose a whole network of priority transit corridors. These would essentially be high-quality surface bus routes, like WMATA's 16th Street line. Not rapid, but not bad.

In addition to Broad Street BRT, the plan calls for 4 other priority bus lines, including one on the important Main Street/Cary Street corridor.

Richmond transit plan. Image from City of Richmond.

The draft plan also identifies bike improvements. Richmond is a natural biking city. It's dense and walkable, and the urban areas are small enough that it's easy to get to them all with a bike. Among proposed improvements, the plan calls for a bike sharing network, and identifies locations for cycle tracks.

Richmond bike/ped plan. Image from City of Richmond.

Right now Richmond doesn't have enough non-car transportation options. Even though the land use is already there to support multimodalism, most people rely on cars for most trips. Hopefully these proposals become reality, and transportation choice becomes more practical.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

29 comments

WMATA upgrades bus stop signs

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:49:00 EDT

by Ben Ross

Metrobus riders are seeing a new kind of schedule and route map at many stops. A multi-year effort to upgrade the information posted at bus stops has been underway since last year.

The new schedules tell you when the bus comes to the stop you're at, and just that. Formerly, a timetable was posted for the entire route, and the same signs were used all along the line. There was only room to list arrival times for a few places, and the stop where you stood might not be included. Unless you were already familiar with the bus route, the old timetables could be nearly impossible to decipher.

The route maps are also simpler, and new flat display panels are starting to replace the four-sided boxes long in use. Where WMATA and local bus services (Ride-On, Fairfax Connector, etc.) share stops, each will use one side of the board.

New flat panel information displays for bus stops. Left: typical schedule and map. Center: new schedule format. Right: special design used at the Mark Center. Photos from WMATA.

The new signage is now up at 3,500 of the 12,000 Metrobus stops, including all Metrorail stations and stops on priority corridors. The old schedules are gradually being replaced, but 4,500 stops still have them. It will take several more years to finish the makeover—how long depends on how many of the routes where the new signs are already up change their schedules. Each change ties up WMATA staff and contractors, who have to swap out timetables at each stop along the line.

Metro's long-range goal is to post a schedule and map at all 12,000 bus stops. This, however, will require time and additional funding.

Posting a customized schedule at each bus stop—at considerable expense—reverses a cost-saving measure of a decade ago. In the intervening years, WMATA and other bus services have focused on giving riders real-time bus arrival information over the Internet.

But a focus group two years ago urged WMATA to renew the investment in hard-copy timetables at bus stops. For a system trying hard to attract new riders, it makes sense. The bus and the bus stop, in plain sight of everyone on the street, are its best advertisements. The easier it is for someone walking by to figure out when the bus comes and where it goes, the more likely they are to give it a try.

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Alexandria's "trolley" defended

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:50:00 EDT

by David Alpert

Alexandria's Transportation Commission doesn't want to cut the King Street "Trolley" bus from 15 minute to 20 minute headways. There was also a request for bicycle and pedestrian facilities in the capital plan. (Patch)

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Alexandria gets a "trolley" (Mar 27, 2008)
Bikeshare could make transit to Old Town a real option (Aug 27, 2012)
Alexandria joins Capital Bikeshare (Oct 12, 2011)
Streetcars getting closer in Alexandria (Mar 2, 2009)
Army: Alexandria move will be ok because we say so (Oct 2, 2008)

Don't forget about buses

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:25:00 EDT

by David Alpert

Mayor Gray's budget puts serious money behind building the streetcar, but makes little mention of bus service. The mayor has demonstrated a clear and very welcome commitment to transit; to truly achieve his goals of boosting transit ridership, DC needs to improve its bus service as well.

Photo by Mr. T in DC on Flickr.

The streetcar is not for every neighborhood

Streetcars have advantages over buses. They also have costs, including financial ones: streetcars cost more than buses. Streetcars also can't deviate around double-parked delivery vans or reroute to another road because of construction.

Other cities' experiences have shown that streetcars do attract more "choice riders," people who might not otherwise take transit, and also attract people and businesses to a corridor in a way that buses don't. Because of their economic development power, we should be able to pay much of the cost out of the extra taxes from the development we get from streetcars, and/or through direct "value capture" programs that make those who benefit economically pay some of the cost.

Still, streetcars aren't going to be especially fast. They will often be slower than buses. And in many parts of DC, where economic development isn't the goal and capacity isn't the problem, building a streetcar isn't always the answer. What we can, and must, do is make buses a more appealing mode of transit.

We need a great "frequent bus network" as well

Imagine if you could walk to certain spots in any neighborhood, wait in a comfortable location with real-time screens, and know that within a short time, a vehicle would come take you along one of several high-capacity routes that lead to other adjacent neighborhoods and across the city.

Metrorail does that now. Some of the limited-stop Circulators and Metrobus Express routes do as well. We can gain a lot of mobility for residents by adding to the number of high-frequency routes, making them even more frequent, and helping residents know about the routes by publishing "frequent network" maps that cover both the Circulator and certain Metrobus routes.

These routes all would come often enough, including nights and weekends, and run late enough that people who live nearby could choose not to own cars, use the routes (or bike or walk) for most trips, and have backup options like Zipcar, car2go, Uber, and taxis when necessary.

Where should DC invest in bus?

DC can expand and improve its frequent bus network in two ways: create new frequent routes, and make existing frequent routes faster.

New routes can be Metrobus routes or Circulator as long as they run frequently, 7 days a week, and late into the evening. Last year, a panel of residents, business leaders, and officials created a Circulator plan which lays out places for several of these routes.

Most immediately, the plan suggests extending the Dupont-Rosslyn Circulator to U Street. There's no good, direct transit right now between U Street and Dupont, and it also would create a direct link between U Street and Georgetown.

Beyond adding routes, DC can speed up existing routes. There are many spots where buses spend a lot of time in traffic. In places, buses are frequent enough that they could get their own lane, at least at peak times. WMATA and DDOT have been collaborating on a study of bus lanes on H and I Streets past the White House.

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Buses using H and I (and K), plus traffic counts. Image from WMATA.

Elsewhere, maybe a short "queue jumper" lane would help buses bypass a tough spot. Or retiming signals could help buses spend less time waiting for a turn. Or buses could get signal priority to hold yellow lights long enough for them to pass.

When the Circulator turns left from Connecticut onto Calvert after leaving the Woodley Park Metro, it has to make a tough left turn, and WMATA bus planners have said this is a reason they don't send the 90s buses to Woodley Park. Could this intersection give buses a short, special phase to go right from the curb to Calvert?

We don't have a lot of studies or analyses of where the buses get most delayed. This hasn't received a lot of attention from DDOT in recent years. Mary Cheh tried to put money in the budget for DDOT to work on bus projects or have staff focusing on bus priority, but nothing has really happened yet.

It's long past time to get moving on buses. Mayor Gray has set an ambitious goal that 50% of trips take transit by 2032. Building streetcars will help DC get there, but streetcars are one piece of the transit puzzle. Buses are the other biggest piece. For many neighborhoods and many corridors, they are the right piece, as long as we work hard to make them desirable options, as they can be.

57 comments

Streetcar opponents' U-turn is no April Fool

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:19:00 EDT

by Ben Ross

Last week, outrage erupted against Arlington's $1 million "super stop," which will initially serve buses and eventually the county's planned streetcar line. Streetcar opponents took this as an opportunity to attack bus stop and rail project alike as wasteful and expensive. But they themselves had just argued for fancier, pricier bus stops.

Bus "super stop" on Columbia Pike. Photo from Arlington County.

An April Fool's post Monday portrayed the county agreeing to upgrade buses instead of building the streetcar, and streetcar opponents making an immediate reversal to denounce what they had previously demanded. The satire came much closer to the truth than readers likely realized.

The main argument against rail in Arlington has been that a bus could deliver the same quality of transit at much lower cost. But here, the county actually tried to give bus riders a rail-like travel experience—and the bus cheerleaders are aghast.

Peter Rousselot, the leader of the anti-streetcar group Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit, promised last October that extra-long buses on Columbia Pike (which he calls Bus Rapid Transit, although it lacks many features that BRT advocates usually promise) "could have the same type of permanent stations as the streetcar, same look and amenities in the same locations as the streetcar."

Other Arlington streetcar opponents agree. County board member Libby Garvey says BRT could accomplish all the goals of a streetcar line, and the Taxpayers Association insists that BRT "will perform virtually identical" to the streetcar.

But what happens when a rail station-like bus stop actually gets built on Columbia Pike? Rousselot calls the $1 million dollar bus stop "superexpensive." Garvey is similarly unimpressed and uses the bus stop as an argument against the streetcar. The Taxpayers Association is, of course, outraged.

Actually, there is little extravagance on the Columbia Pike super stop in the context of rail-like transportation. Brad McKee talks to people who have actually designed stations to better understand that project. Building a full-scale transit station requires underground utility work, lighting, new curbs, and materials strong enough to stand up to heavy outdoor use for decades. The million dollars Arlington spent is a bare minimum; costs can run up to $5 million or even more.

McKee points out that the Washington Post reporter asked random people on the street if a million dollars was too much for "a bus stop." Rousselot, Garvey, and the Taxpayers Association had just been pushing for a "rail-like" station for buses. They then turned around and argued that "a bus stop" shouldn't cost so much. Which is it?

It's hardly uncommon to see transit opponents, in search of political cover, promote Bus Rapid Transit—or some kind of bus that they can call BRT. Up to now, the prime example in our area was former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich's proposal to replace the Purple Line with a bus bypassing Columbia Country Club. But Arlington's let's-call-it-BRT claque set a new standard last week. It takes nerve to issue loud denunciations when you're given exactly what you claim to want.

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Arlington ditching streetcar, will build "modern BRT"

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:33:00 EDT

by Max Denzety

This article was posted as an April Fool's joke.

Arlington County officials announced today that they have decided to cancel plans for a streetcar on Columbia Pike, after revelations first reported in the Washington Post that higher-quality transit which moves more people, stimulates economic development, and enables preserving affordable housing also requires the use of "dollars" by the county.

The new plan. Image from AST.

Instead, the county will build a "modern BRT" system with low-floor buses, fare payment at the stop before riders board, signal priority, and platforms allowing level boarding with no gaps.

"The first two studies, in 2005 and 2012, considered and rejected a bus alternative as not having enough capacity for the ridership on Columbia Pike," said county transportation director Bacchus Seep, "but when we looked again a third time, we realized for the first time that buses are cheaper."

The program will slightly resemble the very successful BRT in Eugene, Oregon, which runs in dedicated lanes and highway medians. However, Arlington's system cannot run in a dedicated lane, as an agreement with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) prohibits Arlington from reducing the number of general traffic lanes.

"I never realized the picture of a Eugene bus, prominently plastered across websites, wasn't what we could get here in Arlington if we built BRT," said ArlNow commenter "Piker," who opposed the streetcar plan. "I don't like this new BRT plan either. Everyone who came up with it should be fired."

Group forms to oppose new BRT plan, says it's too expensive

Following the news, the group Arlingtonians for Sensible Transit changed its name to Arlingtonians for Sensibler Transit (ASerT) and immediately blasted the new bus plan, saying that it would be "too expensive," had not undergone enough analysis, and that a regular bus would be more cost-effective.

"The so-called 'modern BRT' alternative that Arlington County is now considering is a waste of taxpayer dollars," said Paul Rousselittle of ASerT. "The low-floor buses, off-board fare payment, and signal priority which AST recommended are unnecessary as they do not add capacity along the Columbia Pike corridor."

Board member Harvey Glibbey also criticized the BRT plan as unrealistic. "A number of these [BRT] lines are not performing as advertised," said Glibbey. "In many cases, ridership is much lower than anticipated, costs are much higher."

In response to the pushback, officials promised to conduct a fourth study to determine whether rapid buses are the most cost-effective mode. That study will analyze whether to scrap the BRT plan and replace it with a set of regular buses along Columbia Pike with their own branding, tentatively dubbed "Pike Ride."

Artist's rendering of the bus alternative by cliff1066™ on Flickr.

"That is a good start," said Glibbey, "but I question whether we need the separate branding, as that brings extra marketing and painting cost. This new study is a good step, but needs another alternative where the buses have no names or identifying marks at all and riders simply ask the driver which bus it is when the bus arrives at a stop."

Glibbey also recommended the county save on costs by not printing any maps.

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Streetcars, parks, and libraries get boost in Gray budget

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:58:00 EDT

by David Alpert

Bike lanes, parks in NoMA and around the city, streetcars, libraries 7 days a week, new trash cans for free, school modernizations, and many more programs get funding under the operating and capital budgets Mayor Gray is unveiling this morning.

Photo by EnvironmentBlog on Flickr.

Streetcars: In the 6-year capital plan, streetcars get $400 million, which should fund completing the first line from Minnesota Avenue to Georgetown, engineering the Anacostia line, and studies for north-south lines such as Georgia Avenue.

The operating budget contains $6.2 million to start running the streetcar, which Gray continues to promise will roll by the end of the calendar year.

Bike infrastructure: There is a pot of $10.7 million for bike lanes and trails, which appears to be entirely new; formerly, there was no dedicated local bike money. The budget staff have promised to follow up to confirm this. Another $5.1 million will go to "bike-friendly streetscapes," which will be interesting to see in more detail.

Capital Bikeshare: The mayor is funding 10 more Capital Bikeshare stations beyond the ones that area already supposed to be going in. In December, DDOT announced 78 locations, of which it had funding for 54 and was going to install those by March. Unfortunately, it's late in installing most of those. That list also identified 24 future locations, so this budget funds 10.

Buses: The budget office's presentation did not discuss the Circulator or other bus projects. I will follow up to find out whether any Circulator expansion in that master plan have funding. Streetcars are important, but they are one of several modes we need, and for many neighborhoods, better bus service is the better way to help people get around.

Bridges: The South Capitol "racetrack" project and new Frederick Douglass Bridge gets $622.5 million, which would fully fund the project.

Taxes: The budget imposes no new taxes or fees, maintains DC's fund balance, and keeps the debt cap at 12%. The administration also wants to get rid of the tax on out-of-state bonds, which they say primarily impacts seniors and is far and away the biggest complaint they get about taxes. Gray chief of staff Chris Murphy said they "always felt it was ill-conceived."

Affordable housing: As promised, the administration is putting a one-time $100 million into affordable housing. $86.9 million goes into the Housing Production Trust Fund, ($20M in FY 2014 and the rest in FY 2013). The rest, $13.1 million, goes to other smaller initiatives that the recent Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force recommended. He is also promising to keep the 15% of the Deed Recordation and Transfer Tax, which is supposed to go to the HPTF, in there; previous budgets raided that to fund other programs.

Parks: The capital budget provides $50 million for parks (likely a few different small parks) in NoMA: $25 million to acquire land, and $25 million for development. DC made a mistake when it upzoned NoMA without any plan for parks, which is why this is going to be expensive. However, NoMA is generating a lot of tax revenue.

Other parks capital spending includes $20 million fro the Fort Dupont ice arena, $26.4 million for Barry Farm, $2M to renovate and improve athletic fields and parks, $18M for the Southeast tennis & learning center, and funding to modernize 32 play spaces in 8 wards including Fort Greble, Palisades, Macomb, and Takoma which will start in April as well as already-underway work at Noyes, Raymond, and Rosedale.

Libraries: Gray is expanding funding for DC Public Libraries so that every library can be open 7 days a week. Most will be open until 9 pm Monday to Thursday as well as afternoons on Saturday and Sunday. They also get $2 million for books and e-books.

Further, the budget provides $103 million to renovate and, as part of a public-private partnership, expand the MLK Library. There is $15.2 million to renovate the Cleveland Park library, $21.7 for the Palisades library, and $4.8 million for Woodridge's library.

Trash: Residents who want to replace their trash cans are in luck: the administration wants to replace everyone's trash cans over 5 years, for free. If there is money available, they also hope to let people replace stolen or damaged cans without the fee residents have to pay today.

Flooding: Bloomingdale residents hopefully will see some relief from their flooding problems with $1.5 million in the budget to pay for recommendations from the task force studying those problems.

Police and fire: The public safety budget pays for 4,000 sworn officers, replacing police and fire vehicles, cadet training programs and maintaining domestic violence programs that are seeing federal cuts. In general, the budget officials say, they are replacing all federal from sequestration across the board, even assuming sequestration will continue throughout the year.

Raises: DC employees will get their first pay raise in 4-7 years, spanning both union and non-union employees, and DC will fully fund its pension obligations.

We'll have more analysis and further details in upcoming posts.

42 comments

A good ridership reduction

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:35:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

WMATA is saving millions by encouraging riders eligible for MetroAccess to ride the bus or Metro, such as by having escorts teach disabled riders how to use the system. The agency also limited eligibility more in recent years. (Examiner)

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Transit tickets sure were pretty in 1937

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:45:00 EDT

by Dan Malouff

Cool transit find of the week: This Capital Transit Company ticket from exactly 76 years ago, featuring robins and cherry blossoms.

For those keeping score at home, in 1937 it cost $1.25 for a week's worth of unlimited streetcar and bus rides. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $20. For comparison, WMATA weekly passes today go for $16 for a bus-only pass, and a little under $60 for a rail pass.

1937 Capital Transit ticket. Photo by u/stampepk on reddit.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

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