After going through Cedar Rapids’ Neighborhood Planning Process meetings, I never thought I’d be as excited as I was during tonight’s Transit Study Open House. It may be because I’m a data junky and they had maps with data I’ve been craving, or that I’m pretty sure the consultants pulled feedback directly from my head and were spot on with most pain points. Turn out was better than most expected and I left feeling like cogs were actually turning for improvement.
The open house didn’t have the elaborate boards seen at the Neighborhood Planning open houses, but they had enough juicy information. The 5 boards showed maps of the current transit routes and showed data about number of riders on each route, numbers of riders at each stop on each route, and important destinations like stores, apartments, and public services. I’m going to let the open house maps speak for themselves if they’re ever posted, but I did want to share some bits that I gathered from the presentation and open discussion.
- There were 610 participants in the electronic transit study. Including the paper surveys, around 800 people responded. Wow!
- Some top requests, according to the consultants, include straightening routes to cross town more efficiently, improve frequency, and extend service hours. Good to know that they heard “my” top complaints from others, too.
- The national average for transit trips with transfers is $1.68. In Cedar Rapids, we pay $2.50. The national average for a single trip is either $1.11 or $1.16 (consultants can’t keep ALL of the numbers in their heads). In Cedar Rapids, we pay $1.25. 2100 passengers out of about 4400 transfer in the CR Transit system. The cost adds up pretty quickly.
- According to the consultants, a good public transit trip time is two times the time it takes by automobile. Right now it takes 16 minutes from Lindale to Westdale via car (according to MapQuest) and 50 minutes via bus. We have some room for improvement.
- CR Transit will be adding 4 more *new* buses by August 2010 and they’re goal is to add 3-4 new buses each year, depending on their budget of course.
- Old news: 85% of the fleet has bike racks. New news: the rest are buses that will be retired, so it doesn’t make sense to set them up with the racks.
I think the open discussion segment went quite well, and I heard several people say that they were surprised that many of the comments and complaints centered around infrastructure not directly under the control of CR Transit. Many riders talked about the issues with towers of snow plowed into the bus stops and how several stops were not adequately equipped with sidewalks or crosswalks to provide safe access. This point is critical for the city to understand because you can’t fix just one part of transportation. If you truly want quality transportation, you need to fix the system. That means trails, bike lanes, sidewalks, streets, and public transportation. This is a huge undertaking!
It was great to talk with other riders I hadn’t met yet and with the consultants about solution options they’re looking at along with comparing Cedar Rapids to other cities in terms of transit. On a Bus Party note, I was glad to see other Bus Partiers in attendance and participating in the open discussion. Thanks guys! I was also excited to hear that Bob from Bourne Transit Consulting had heard Alex Heuer‘s piece about transportation and was aware of Bus Parties! He’s interested in the feedback from these events and thinks similar grassroots initiatives would be beneficial in other cities. Who knows, maybe I’ll train an army of Bus Party hosts or travel around as a host. But now I’ll come back to reality before I get too carried away. It is reassuring to know Bus Parties and the discussions and feedback that come from them have a larger impact beyond the attendees. It warms my transit loving heart.
See you at the next Transit Study Open House where we’ll see the proposed routing options!
