Transit & Travel Consulting
At long last, here is Part 3 of my bike tour of Coastal Maine in September. This episode included Acadia National Park and the final days before a two-week hiatus.
INTRO: In late August I moved out of my apartment in Boston, put about 8 boxes into storage, and took a bus to Brunswick, Maine with my bike and camping gear. By popular request for tour updates, I decided to record a series of brief, daily, mostly unedited episodes to share here. More episodes coming soon!
Despite its tremendous value and egalitarian mission, public transportation remains the only essential public service that charges a fare. The only reason we still collect fares is because we always have, ever since the early days of horse-car transit. Now, user fees make up only a small portion of total revenue yet create a significant barrier to people of all incomes and lifestyles, slow down transit and cost millions to collect -- all without any justification.
I explain why cities and towns everywhere should provide free transit services and debunk the five main arguments for the status quo.
Note: I have come to these "radical" ideas throughout my years of transit service planning and advocacy. Please listen to the episode before sending me hate mail. Thanks! But please do send me your thoughts and I will gladly share them (anonymously if you'd like).
Riders seen waiting in line pay, regardless of weather. Buses spend up to 30% of their travel time waiting to collect fares, depending on the volume of passengers.
Comments? Suggestions? Please visit CriticalTransit.com or email feedback@criticaltransit.com. Follow me Twitter @CriticalTransit and follow and support my work in Boston via TransitMatters.info. Your support goes a long way!
This episode covers from Belfast to Blue Hill, one day before reaching Bar Harbor.
INTRO: In late August I moved out of my apartment in Boston, put about 8 boxes into storage, and took a bus to Brunswick, Maine with my bike and camping gear. By popular request for tour updates, I decided to record a series of brief, daily, mostly unedited episodes to share here. Note that at the time of upload, I have completed my tour in Burlington, Vermont, and I will be compiling and uploading the remaining episodes very soon.
In late August I moved out of my apartment in Boston, put about 8 boxes into storage, and took a bus to Brunswick, Maine with my bike and camping gear. This episode covers from Brunswick to Belfast.
By popular request for tour updates, I decided to record a series of brief, daily, mostly unedited episodes to share here. Note that at the time of upload, I have completed my tour in Burlington, Vermont, and I will be compiling and uploading the episodes very soon.
Recent MBTA news and advocacy battles encouraged me to record a podcast to counter the dominant narrative. Let's review what's causing this mess and how to stop the bleeding and operate a reliable and effective network.
Why a well functioning and affordable T should matter to everyone, because we all depend on transit even if we never use it (some of the reasons). And right now it's neither.
The population of Boston has increased 10 percent since 2004 and T ridership is up 30 percent on major lines, causing severe overcrowding, yet no significant improvements have been made since at least 2000, and service quality is declining. People cite transit as a primary reason the want to live in big cities.
The MBTA is chronically underfunded, promoting inefficient operating practices such as a reliance on overtime, deferred maintenance and an inability to plan for upgrades. Instead of addressing these problems, the control board has chosen to vilify transit workers.
Rapidly rising rents and declining wages have forced large numbers of people to move to places with slow, infrequent and expensive transit service. We have repeatedly cut service and raised fares on these "low ridership" services, while ignoring others with great potential.
Fares impact everyone, including those most vulnerable to rising costs, middle class riders who are more likely to choose other options, and everyone impacted by increase traffic on our streets (i.e. everyone). Bus, subway and commuter rail fares have more than doubled since 1991, while the gas tax has increased only 3 cents. Like transit, roads and highways are heavily subsidized, yet only transit riders are being asked for more. Governor Baker says a fee is a tax, but apparently not if it's a transit fare.
Finally I discuss several alternatives to raise revenue -- focusing on better and faster service -- without increasing the fee for users. But no efficiencies will fill the $7 Billion budget gap -- and that's just to reliably run what we have, never mind desperately needed upgrades. A transit network is a valuable public service, not a business, and it's time we started treating it like one.
Comments? Suggestions? Please visit CriticalTransit.com, email feedback@criticaltransit.com. Follow me on Facebook and especially Twitter @CriticalTransit and follow and support my work in Boston via TransitMatters.info. Your support goes a long way!
Expanding our focus beyond Boston, we speak with Jeff Wood, a San Francisco-based consultant (The Overhead Wire) and operator of The Direct Transfer, a daily news source on transit, cities and urban design. Jeff also hosts Talking Headways, a weekly transportation podcast, and his work includes media, cartography, data analysis and research on transit modes and land use strategies. He also contributed to a new TCRP report on transit and land use connections (PDF).
Some topics include finding and pursuing a vision for transit, urban politics, gentrification and displacement, big project management, and achieving better bus service. Are private transit and taxis good for cities? Is there a transit space race? And an update on San Francisco's implementation of off-board fare payment on trains and buses.
Check out the Transit Matters podcast for more transportation news, analysis and interviews. We're working to build a more reliable and effective transit network in Boston. Visit Transit Matters to learn about our mission and our vision for transit, become a member and get involved.
Follow me @CriticalTransit for more frequent info and thoughts. Share this podcast: tell your friends and colleagues, and subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified of new posts and episodes.
Critical Transit resumes with Nick Pendergrast, sociologist, one-time urban planner and co-host of Progressive Podcast Australia. Nick is a lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia.
We talk about transportation and urban design, housing, demographics, social and environmental justice, related structural issues, and the importance of connecting public transit and urban planning with other progressive issues. Also, how we might go about solving the housing and transportation crises in our cities, and dealing with anti-development NIMBY types and people fearful of gentrification.
A few links from today's show: Becca Bor (clip on the history and structural issues around car-free transport); animal-only bridges in Germany; Beeliar Wetlands and Roe Highway Development (facebook); and why electric vehicles won’t solve the suburbs' transport woes (covered on Critical Transit episode 38, and we'll revisit this issue soon in the context of self-driving cars).
Listen also to my interview on episode 114 of Progressive Podcast Australia.
Follow me and my work on Twitter, Facebook and through my local organization TransitMatters.
Subscribe to the blog and podcast to be notified of new episodes and share it around.
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Last weekend I finally took my bike on the Cape Flyer train to Cape Cod as part of a camping trip, and it was fantastic.
Now in its third year, the Cape Flyer has made getting to the popular vacation peninsula possible for car-free people (it's wasn't impossible; just not usually worth the hassle) and reasonable for those who aren't interested in the 12-mile traffic backups at the bridge. As a result it is very popular yet could benefit from improvements and potentially be a model for similar services elsewhere.
Where it excels
First off, it exists. The only other car-free options are a bus that sits in the same traffic as cars and a very expensive ferry. I won't even suggest biking because those bridges are possibly the scariest place I've ever tried to bike. Many people in Boston have never been to the Cape because it's just a pain to get there.
Useful connections are available in Buzzards Bay and Hyannis to island ferries and local buses, so you can actually go beyond the station, removing a major barrier to vacationing by transit. Because it's all coordinated, it actually works out and you won't miss the train because a shuttle is stuck in traffic.
The train is reasonably convenient with stops at South Station, Braintree, Brockton and a parking lot in Middleborough. The schedule, while very limited, provides for a Friday evening train and then an 8am outbound train Sat/Sun morning and 6:40pm return train Sat/Sun, which works for a weekend getaway.
An entire coach is dedicated for bikes and there's plenty of room for whatever junk you "need" on your vacation. There's no way I would try fitting my bike and all my camping gear under a bus and risk not being able to get back.
The price is reasonable. There's a cafe car and decent wifi.
Opportunities for Improvement
Frequency: As a weekend vacation oriented service, the limited schedule necessitates careful planning and leaves no room for error (miss the return train and you may be out of luck). There's also no chance of stopping in Buzzards Bay for a few hours to walk or bike the canal path before continuing over the bridge.
The service could be expanded by offering limited weekday service (one round-trip each in the morning and evening) and adding trips on the weekends to permit flexibility in travel plans and create a new option for Cape Cod residents to visit Boston.
Additional stations would offer more options to those traveling by bike and provide more convenient bus and shuttle connections. A station is currently being built under the Bourne Bridge on the south (Cape) side of the canal, which opens up more options and keeps both bikes and shuttle buses from having to use the dangerous bridge. Sandwich and West Barnstable have old train station which could be reactivated.
Travel Time: Once the train reaches the cape it operates with speed restrictions because the track south of the canal is designed for slower freight trains. The 2-hour 20-minute trip could be significantly faster with some track upgrades.
Local Transit: The Cape Flyer ends in Hyannis and cannot easily be extended further east as no rail line exists. While there are useful bus connections at the Hyannis Transportation Center, most are slow local, hourly routes designed more for local residents' needs like work and food shopping than those of visitors. Investments in more frequent connecting local transit service and new express/shuttle service to points east and west would make traveling beyond Hyannis more feasible and give travelers more options. Either way, more information about these transit options should be more readily available on the train and in places riders are likely to be at other times (before planning their trip) like South Station or, uh, the internet.
Opportunities for similar services
The Cape Flyer has been a profitable venture so far, aside from one-time capital expenses (new stations, track upgrades, etc.) and could be a model for other experiments in regional rail service. The Berkshires and White Mountains come to mind. It's also a good time to rethinking our "commuter" rail system and how the schedules could better serve all types of regional travel (increased frequency, better stations, shuttles, coordination with local transit, and more).
Hint: not bikes or buses.
Not buses ... (Chelsea Street, Charlestown)
Not bikes ... (Route 99, Everett)
![Not people ... (Essex Str, Chinatown) [note the useless bus lane]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54bddedbe4b08f92b173b066/1437330330805-V2MFFVB1X5DCDRZH4FD6/image-asset.jpeg)
Not people ... (Essex Str, Chinatown) [note the useless bus lane]
(I-93 tunnel approach)
Well, you get the idea. The occupants of all these cars could easily fit in one bus. Sadly they create traffic instead.
Last weekend was Porchfest in Jamaica Plain, a Boston neighborhood. Public spaces that typically sit empty or serve as corridors of fear were instead used to bring the community together. Isn't this better than the usual scene?
