Does Transit Work? A Conservative Reappraisal--Part 5

Improving Transit Quality

Offering rail transit service is central to quality transit. But rail does not automatically equal high quality. And there are ways the quality of bus service can be improved – including buses on city streets.

At first glance, the "basics" of quality rail service seem obvious enough: running on time; clean cars and stations; polite, helpful train crews, etc. A few things should be "basic," but are often overlooked: the need for comfortable seats, destination signs easily read at a distance and in all light conditions (LED signs do not meet this test) and the enforcement of rules against playing radios, including earphones cranked up to the point where the sound fills half the car (and not with Bach or Mozart).

The earphones problem touches on what must become one of the basics, maybe the basic: order. A major reason people drive is that the private automobile is private. It insulates its occupants from the disorder of an increasingly disorderly society.

When people travel, they want predictability, security and sameness. Put bluntly, they want to be sure that they won’t have to sit near someone who stinks, dresses or behaves bizarrely, or projects an air of menace. The private automobile assures them of that. Unless public transit can do the same, they will drive.

The beginning of order is safety from crime. Most transit authorities understand that. The problem is that police are expensive. One transit cop can easily cost more than $50,000 per year in wages and benefits. If a transit authority employs the number of police needed to give both real security and the perception of security, it can quickly find its operating ratio heading for the ceiling. But if it does not do so, it quickly loses its ability to attract riders from choice.

Is there a way out of this box? Perhaps there is: the Police Corps. The Police Corps is an idea now in its initial trial stage in several cities, including Baltimore, Maryland. Modeled on ROTC, the Police Corps offers college scholarships in return for a few years of service as police after graduation. Currently, Police Corps graduates are to be used solely for community policing, that is, walking a beat in a neighborhood the officer can get to know. We strongly support community policing, and would not wish to take officers away from it.

But could not transit reasonably be defined as part of the community? The same logic applies: an officer who always works the same bus or rail route gets to know the regular riders, becomes known and trusted by them and learns who the usual troublemakers are. He is likely to be more effective in maintaining order than a transit cop who works the whole system and is only called once trouble has erupted. From the rider’s standpoint, that’s too late. The purpose of community police is to stop trouble before it happens, which is precisely what quality transit requires.

Police Corps officers are not free, but they cost substantially less than regular police.¹⁰⁰ If the transit industry made a bid to become part of the Police Corps community policing program, it might find a way to afford the police presence it requires without breaking the bank. Other means can supplement: private security guards, who also cost less than regular police; offering free passes to all police who live and work in the area served and advertising their presence; and offering free rides to any public safety personnel in uniform, including firemen, EMS technicians and military personnel. A public safety uniform always connotes order and assistance, even if the person in uniform is unarmed.

And order is broader than mere safety from crime. Order includes the absence of beggars and bums (excuse us: "the homeless"), no yelling, running hordes of schoolchildren and no "bad boys in the back of the bus."

There is one simple action that would allow transit to offer far greater assurance of order to riders from choice: separate first class accommodation at a higher fare. Amtrak has recently started offering this, with its new "custom class" service. More and more Amtrak trains carry a custom class car. For a slightly higher fare, the passenger gets some minor amenities: better seating, free newspapers, coffee and soft drinks. More important, he gets assurance of a better class of fellow passenger. Not surprisingly, custom class service is proving very popular.

Commuter trains could easily offer custom class service modeled on Amtrak’s. Heavy Rail systems, which virtually always run trains of two cars or more, could designate one car on each train as custom class, with a different ticket (in the case of farecards that are read automatically, this could be a paper supplement, checked by roving inspectors). Light Rail systems could do the same in rush hour when running in multiple. And in off-peak periods, perhaps one train an hour could be custom class only; off-peak passengers often have the time to plan what train they will take.

The custom class concept can also be applied to buses. Ironically, if you visit some of the former Communist countries in eastern Europe, you will find separate first and second class buses. The first class buses cost more to ride, offer some minor amenities such as curtains at the windows and will stop anywhere on the route, not just at designated bus stops, to pick up or discharge a passenger. The latter service is particularly useful to the elderly – as is the assurance that they won’t be surrounded by screaming kids.

There are possible variations on this theme. At a transit conference, the head of one midwestern city’s transit service said to an author of this paper, "The elderly are often reluctant to take the bus, because they are afraid the kids will hassle them. I’ve thought about running buses off-peak where you have to show a Senior Citizen I.D. card to get on." Our answer was, "Do it!."

"Elder Buses," "custom class" cars and the like permit public transit to offer what the private auto offers: isolation from disorder. People using such services can buy what they want most, assurance that they will be traveling with other people like themselves. Transit must offer that assurance if it wants riders by choice. If the Politically Correct crowd howls, tell them to pound sand. Most of them don’t actually ride the bus or train anyway. They just think other people should.

Type of Trip

We expect work and recreational travel will remain the bread-and-butter of transit. With regard to work trips, a change in Americans' behavior may offer an opportunity. Increasingly, people combine trips to and from work with other purposes: dropping off or picking up the kids from day care, shopping and other errands. A study of Metra notes:

The relationship between the commuter, the station and surrounding business has changed. The new relationship was tested against a "null hypothesis" that commuters engage in few activities other than boarding or alighting the train, and seek to get to their destination as quickly as possible without interruption or distraction. The findings of this study prove that the null hypothesis is false. The commuter does have a strong relationship with the station and activities around it, although that relationship is quite different from what it was in the past.

In the past, the role of "commuter" and "shopper" were performed by different individuals….

At present, the "commuter" and "shopper" are often the same individual…. Although the distances between home, work and shopping have expanded, commuters now focus on condensing the time devoted to those functions. Convenience is now an overriding consideration. As a result, the household shopping function has been brought back to the station area.¹⁰¹

As noted, none of the three systems surveyed does well in attracting shopping trips. In 1996, only .7% of all trips on Metra were for shopping.¹⁰² For St. Louis’s MetroLink the figure is 5%,¹⁰³ and for the San Diego Trolley 12.9%.¹⁰⁴ We do not expect substantial improvement, because as we noted in the beginning of this study, most shopping trips were never made by transit.

But if shops, day care centers, dry cleaners and other sources of errands are concentrated at suburban rail stations, then these errands can be performed as part of the commuter’s work trip. That trip always involves a mode other than the train: walking, car or bus. The errands can be done at the point of modal transfer, the station. While this does not benefit the transit system directly, nor show up as a shopping trip on transit, it does help serve transit’s social purpose of decreasing traffic. Shopping trips that are combined with the journey to or from work diminish other shopping trips, which in turn reduces the number of cars on the roads. And this benefit can legitimately be included by transit spokesmen when discussing the merits of transit.

Can transit systems work to encourage the practice of combining work trips with other trip purposes? Certainly they can. They can consider the availability of other services or land on which to build them when choosing stations locations. They can work with local planning and zoning commissions and chambers of commerce to provide such services at transit stops. And once again, they can provide adequate parking: most people who intend to shop, drop off or pick up children, or perform other errands at the transit stop will want to drive to that stop. Some transit systems are already thinking this way. In rebuilding the Windermere station on the Red Line, RTA authorities in Cleveland included a day care center.

Conclusion

Quality transit works, and we can see that it works when we measure it correctly, by the yardstick of transit competitive trips. In our view, quality transit works so well that, if we can keep the cost of providing it within reason, America could see another "transit era," a second coming of public transit, especially rail. One study of the streetcar notes that:

not every mode of transport is necessarily on its way to extinction after decline has set in. Some do experience a "second youth" and the beginning of a new life. Such a second life may be the result of qualitative changes within the system, or of external circumstances favorable to new growth, or both.…¹⁰⁵

The external circumstance is present, in the development of traffic conditions that make driving a nightmare in more and more American cities, and not only in rush hour. The potential for qualitative changes within the system is also present, in that much can be done through imaginative ideas – not all of which are expensive – to improve the quality of public transit, to break out of the mindset that transit is only for the poor who have no other way to get around and to go for the rider from choice. If transit authorities will only adopt the old motto of Marshall Fields department stores and "Give the customer what he wants," a second Golden Age of public transit could lie before us. Carpe diem!

1 Report on Rapid Transit For St. Louis, submitted to the Board of Aldermen, September, 1926, p. 34.

2 A Mobility Comparison Of Investment In Highways And Mass Transit, The Road Information Program, Washington, D.C., 1992, p. 7 & 11.

3 "Public Transit: A Worthwhile Investment?," By John Semmens, in K.C. Jones Monthly, #143, July-August, 1997, p. 10.

4 Myths and Facts of Nation’s Transit Policy by Peter Gordon, Reason Foundation Policy Insight No. 131, October 1991, Table 6, p. 13. The final figure from the 1990 NPTS was 2.2% and the 1995 NPTS gives 1.8%.

5 False Dreams and Broken Promises: The Wasteful Federal Investment in Urban Mass Transit, by Jean Love and Wendell Cox, CATO Institute Policy Analysis No. 162, October 17, 1991, p. 8.

6 Ibid., p. 8.

7 Myths and Facts of Nation’s Transit Policy, op.cit., Table 6, p. 13.

8 "Despite Huge Outlays, Transit Systems Fail to Lure Back Riders," by Frederick Rose, The Wall Street Journal, June 29, 1993.

9 Journey-To-Work Trends in the United States and its Major Metropolitan Areas 1960-1990, by Michael A. Rossetti and Barbara S. Eversole, USDOT, Nov. 1993, Table 2-1, p. 2-2.

10 New Perspectives in Commuting, by Alan E. Pisarski, USDOT, July 1992, p. 6.

11 National Personal Transportation Survey, Summary of Travel Trends, Federal Highway Administration, March 1992, p. 22.

12 Commuting in America II: The Second National Report on Commuting Patterns and Trends, by Alan E. Pisarski, Eno Transportation Foundation, Inc., Lansdowne, VA, 1996, p. 63.

13 Life of Johnson by James Boswell, entry for 6 August, 1763 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1983) p. 333.

14 Commuting in America II, op.cit., p. 34-35.

15 There is no question that transit use has multiple, profound effects on highway congestion. One of the most important is travel time: "the time it takes to complete a journey, door-to-door, tends to be the same across different modes of transportation. Furthermore, it is the journey time by the transit mode that seems to determine the journey time for other modes." See The Congestion Management Role of Transit in Strategic Corridors, by Daniel Brod and David Lewis, Transportation Review Board Paper No. 971393, presented at the TRB Annual Meeting, January 12-16, 1997.

16 Annual Housing Survey, 1983, Part A, General Housing Characteristics,

H50/83-A, U.S. Dept of Commerce, Table A-4; Supplement to the American Housing Survey for the United States in 1993, H151/93-1, U.S. Dept of Commerce, Table 1-4.

17 Ibid., plus Annual Housing Survey, 1974, Part A, General Housing Characteristics, H150-74-1, U.S. Dept of Commerce, Table 1-4.

18 Ibid., plus APTA 1997 Transit Fact Book, American Public Transit Association, Washington, D.C., 1997, Table 32.

19 Supplement to the American Housing Survey for the United States in 1993, op.cit.

20 Data calculated from:

Supplement to the American Housing Survey for Selected Metropolitan Areas in 1991, H171/91, U.S. Department of Commerce, (Section name same as each Metropolitan Statistical Area Name), Table 4 (of each Metropolitan Statistical Area section).

Annual Housing Survey: 1982, Housing Characteristics for Selected Metropolitan Areas, Atlanta, GA, H-170/82-21, U.S. Department of Commerce, Part B, Table A-4.

Annual Housing Survey: 1979, Housing Characteristics for Selected Metropolitan Areas, Chicago, IL., H-170/79-22, U.S. Department of Commerce, Part B, Table A-4.

Annual Housing Survey: 1980, Housing Characteristics for Selected Metropolitan Areas, St. Louis, Mo. - Ill., H-170/80-59, U.S. Department
of Commerce, Part B, Table A-4.

Annual Housing Survey: 1982, Housing Characteristics for Selected Metropolitan Areas, San Diego. St. Louis, Mo. - Ill., H-170/80-59, U.S. Department of Commerce, Part B, Table A-4.

1990 Census of Population, Social and Economic Characteristics, Metropolitan Areas, 1990 CP-2-1B, U.S. Department of Commerce, Table 42.

1980 Census of Population, Characteristics of the Population, General Social and Economic Characteristic, California, PC80-1-C6, U.S. Department of Commerce, Table 118.

1980 Census of Population, Characteristics of the Population, General Social and Economic Characteristic, California, PC80-1-C12, U.S. Department of Commerce, Table 118.

1980 Census of Population, Characteristics of the Population, General Social and Economic Characteristic, California, PC80-1-C15, U.S. Department of Commerce, Table 118.

1980 Census of Population, Characteristics of the Population, General Social and Economic Characteristic, California, PC80-1-C27, U.S. Department of Commerce, Table 118.

21 CBD Transit Market Strategies Study, prepared for RTA by Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Inc., March 1997, p. 3.

22 Houston, Texas, which has created an extensive express bus system, saw ridership increase 14.7% from 1988 to 1997.

23 All three figures from "Rail Transit: The People’s Choice," by Lloyd H. Flem and Carl Schiermeyer, in Railway Age, September 1997, p. 71 ff.

24 "Importantly, the overall attractiveness of a trip is constrained by the quality of its least desirable segment. For instance, commuting by public transit may not be desirable if the commuter railroad is excellent but the subway is problematic." City Congestion Management in New York City: Managing Why People Drive, Michael J. Rossmy and Steven A. Brown, Transportation Research Record 1237, p. 13.

25 Results of Metra On-Board Surveys – 1985, 1991 & 1996, Staff papers, Chart. "% of AM Peak Metra Riders by Access/Egress Mode" (1995).

26 An Evaluation of the Relationship Between Transit and Urban Form, Research Results Digest, June 1995, (sponsored by the FTA, TRB, NRC) #7.

27 Ibid., p. 31.

28 Ibid., p. 33.

29 We do not intend to understate the importance of driving to a rail transit stop. Clearly, a significant number of people are willing to do that. The problem is that parking is often insufficient or unavailable. See "Parking Pileups Make the Train a Pain," Wall Street Journal, October 22, 1998.

30 "Public Transportation and Passenger Characteristics," Highway Research Record, Number 417, Highway Research Board, Washington, D.C. 1972, p. 7.

31 Transportation Planning Handbook, John P. Edwards, Jr., editor (Institute of Transportation Engineers, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1992) p. 41, Table 2.23.

32 1980 Regional Travel Characteristics, Working Paper 8, June 1983. By Hanna Kollo, National Transportation Library, Table. 2.23.

33 Transportation Planning Handbook, op.cit., Table 2.24.

34 Chicago: Chicago Area Transportation Study and Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, November, 1975, p. 15.

35 Ibid., Table 9, p. 44.

36 Diverting Auto Users to Transit: Early Lessons from CTA’s Orange Line, by Sarah LaBelle and Darwin Stuart, Paper No. 95..0..1..3..4, TRB 74^th Annual Meeting, January 22-28, 1995, Washington, D.C., Table 9, p. 11.

37 Materials for the Study of Public Utility Economics, by H.B. Doran, (MacMillan, New York, 1930) cited in "Public Transportation and Passenger Characteristics," op.cit, p. 10.

38 Diverting Auto Users to Transit, op.cit, Table 9, p. 11.

39 The Way to the Games, MARTA, December 1996, p. 4.

40 We are aware that San Juan, Puerto Rico, is building a Heavy Rail metro. However, we regard this as a special case, since the politics are quite different. More indicative was the vote in Los Angeles on November 3, 1998, to ban the use of any county transit tax money to plan, design, build or operate new subway lines. The ban, which got 69% of the vote, does not apply to Light Rail or surface or elevated Heavy Rail.

41 Building the Case: Metra Infrastructure and Capital Need Requirements. Metra publications, p. 2. Track miles include South Shore line, from Keeping Track, Metra 1997 Program and Budget Document, Nov. 1996, p. 32.

42 Material from Metra Internet Website, May 5, 1997.

43 CBD Transit Market Strategies Study, op.cit, p. 1. The figure in 1990 was 55%.

44 Ibid., p. 3.

45 Journey to Work Trips to Downtown Chicago, table prepared by Metra July 8, 1998, based on 1990 U.S. Census data.

46 CBD Transit Market Strategies Study, op.cit., p. 23.

47 Ibid., p. 24 and 25.

48 Transit Ridership Report: Fourth Quarter 1997, American Public Transit Association, April 1998, p.5.

49 CBD Transit Market Strategies Study, op.cit., p. 8.

50 Building the Case: Metra Infrastructure and Capital Need Requirements. Metra publication, unpaginated. APTA calculates that the Dan Ryan/Kennedy Expressways carry 75,000 vehicles in peak periods, compared to 125,000 peak period riders on parallel CTA/Metra rail lines.

51 Results of Metra On-Board Surveys – 1985, 1991 and 1996, Metra publication, unpaginated.

52 Final Report 1996 On-Board Ridership Survey, Midwest CompuService, Inc., June 1997, pp. 17, 58.

53 Metra Marketing Plan for 1997, Metra publication, p. 2.

54 "Metra Marketing Plan Addresses Customer Needs," Passenger Transport, April 14, 1997, p. 13.

55 FAST, Metra brochure, unpaginated.

56 Percentage from 1997 Operating and Capital Program and Budget, Metra publication, p. 16 (capital) and p. 18 (operating); fares from Metra, op.cit,; best recovery ratio in U.S. from Metra Internet Website, op.cit.

57 According to a SANDAG study of February, 1997, almost 63% of Trolley riders see the system as safe, but only 48.8% of non-riders do. Relevant to the perception of safety is the changing ethnic and age mix of Trolley ridership. A comparison of the 1990 and 1995 On-Board Transit Surveys shows that over the five-year period, Hispanic ridership rose 5% (to almost half) and black ridership rose 8%, while white ridership fell 14%. Similarly, ridership of persons 12 to 18 years old rose 63%, mostly for school trips, while ridership in every older age group fell, except for those aged 35 to 49 years. In our view, these are at least partially cause and effect relationships.

58 Trends Before the San Diego Trolley, U.S. Department of Transportation study DOT-1-82-40, July 1982, p. 9.

59 San Diego Trolley: Performance Trends, by Dennis J. Wahl and Harvey A. Humiston, Transportation Research Record 1361, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1992, p. 278; updates from San Diego MTDB.

60 Ibid., p. 278.

61 Ibid., p. 283, figure 8.

62 Ibid., p. 279. Updated figures from San Diego MTDB.

63 Ibid., p. 280. In 1990, 34.8% of Trolley riders had incomes over $30,000; in 1995, that figure had dropped to 28.7%. Total system riders showed a similar drop over the same period, from 29.5% to 23.8%. This may reflect a general decline in the local economy in these years. Data from San Diego MTDB.

64 Ibid., p. 286, Table 4.

65 Ibid., p. 280.

66 Ibid., p. 283, figure 8.

67 San Diego MTDB 1976-1996: 20 Years of Service, San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board, San Diego, CA, undated, unpaginated. Updates from MTDB's Short-Range Transit Plan Update FY1998-2004.

68 1995 San Diego Regional Onboard Transit Survey, pp. 47, 59.

69 San Diego MTDB.

70 1995 Onboard Survey, op.cit., p. 58. Only 24.9% of all San Diego riders - rail and bus -- had a car available, so the Trolley was still more effective in competing for riders from choice than the bus.

71 San Diego MTDB.

72 "Super Bowl Fans Score a Million Rides on Transit," in Passenger Transport, Vol. 56, No. 6, February 9, 1998, p. 1 and p. 16. On the Blue Line, Saturday ridership was 50,083 in May 1998, just slightly below average weekday ridership of 51,135.

73 Partners in Progress: Bi-State Development Agency Annual Report 1994, p. 4.

74 "Why Success in St. Louis?," by William D. Warren, IR News 180, Sept-Oct 1995, p. 22-23.

75 Partners in Progress, op.cit., p. 5.

76 Summary of Results: Systemwide On-Board Survey Spring, 1997, prepared by Bi-State Development Agency, p. 6, Table 6.

77 Ibid., p. 13, Table 17

78 Ibid., p. 12, Table 16

79 Ibid., p. 14, Table 19

80 Ibid., p. 10, Table 12 and 13

81 Partners in Progress, op.cit, p. 5.

82 Market Research Report On-Board Survey, Summer 1995, prepared by Bi-State Development Agency, p. 5

83 Ibid., p. 6.

84 Ibid., p. IV. The 1995 survey noted, "Only one-fifth of MetroLink riders transfer off train to a bus, while about half of all bus riders eventually transfer to another bus or to the trains (p.5). The combining of transfer to bus and train makes it difficult to compare 1997 results with those from 1995.

85 "Why Success in St. Louis?," op.cit., p. 25.

86 "Setting the Pace of Change," by Steve Frenkel in The Neighborhood Works, May-June 1997, p. 11.

87 "Bi-State Development Agency MetroLink Light Rail System," in The Potential of Public Transit As A Transportation Control Measure, Case Studies, (Draft Document), National Association of Regional Councils, October 30, 1997, p. 8.

88 Summary of Results, 1997, op.cit. p. 3, Table 2.

89 "Bi-State Development Agency MetroLink Light Rail System," op.cit., p. 4.

90 Report on Rapid Transit for St. Louis, op.cit., p. 35.

91 Map from Ibid., p. 80.

92 Only a portion of the Kirkwood-Ferguson line is paralleled by MetroLink, and Florissant lies beyond the airport where MetroLink ends.

93 Report on Rapid Transit for St. Louis, op.cit, ridership portrayed graphically on p. 60, Figure 4a (Hodiamont), p. 68, Fig. 55 (Kirkwood-Ferguson) and p. 70, Fig 56 (Florissant).

94 "Bi-State Development Agency MetroLink Light Rail System," op.cit., p. 8.

95 Report on Rapid Transit for St. Louis, op.cit., p. 73.

96 From correspondence with Bi-State Development Agency, 1998.

97 Report on Rapid Transit for St. Louis, op.cit., pp. 45, 73.

98 "Bi-State Development Agency MetroLink Light Rail System," op.cit., p. 1.

99 The 1996 National Transit Database, which includes operating costs for 20 light rail systems, indicates that heritage trolley lines have very low operating costs per vehicle mile and vehicle hour, generally have low costs per passenger trip, but, because of short runs and slow speeds, can have high costs per passenger mile. For example, in operating cost per vehicle mile, Memphis ranks 15th (20th is lowest), New Orleans 17th and Galveston 19th. In expense per vehicle hour, Memphis is 19th, New Orleans 18th and Galveston 20th. In expense per passenger trip, Memphis is 11th, New Orleans 20th and Galveston 19th. But in expense per passenger mile, Memphis is 2nd, New Orleans 16th and Galveston 9th. The only Heritage Trolley line that is expensive to operate in virtually every respect is that in Seattle, Washington. Interestingly, it is also unusual in that it is operated as part of the regular transit system by transit system employees. We would guess that the least expensive Heritage Trolley line, both to build and to operate, is Dallas' McKinney Avenue line (it is also one of the best). Unfortunately, it is not part of the NTDB survey.

100 Police Corps officers receive the same pay and benefits as other police, although there are savings in training and pension costs. More importantly, under the statute that established the Police Corps, each officer is accompanied by a $10,000 annual grant.

101 "Local Economic Impacts in Commuter Rail Station Areas," Metropolitan Conference on Public Transportation Research Proceedings, June 9, 1995, University of Illinois at Chicago, presentation given by Cassandra Jansen, authors Camiros and Valerie S. Kretchman Associates Inc., p. 2.

102 Results of Metra On-Board Surveys 1985, 1991 & 1996, op.cit., unpaginated.

103 Summary of Results, 1997, op.cit., p. 3, Table 2.

104 1995 San Diego Onboard Survey, op.cit., p. 59. The comparatively high figure for San Diego reflects the demographics of the area served, where many people are transit-dependent.

105 Urban Rail in America: An exploration of criteria for fixed-guideway transit, by Boris Pushkarev and Jeffery Zupan, Regional Plan Association Inc., New York, New York, November 1908, p. 10.

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