Shared Vans Already Here … and Illegal

Over a year ago I described Cape Town’s minibus shared van transit system, where licensed drivers provide shared rides along designated routs. At the time, I suggested such a system, common in many countries around the world, should be considered in the U.S. I was wrong — there are examples of similar service in the U.S., although here they’re generally antagonized by the very agencies dedicated to providing public transportation. Miami, Atlantic City, and San Diego have shared taxi, or jitney, services. However, like in so many other areas, New York city is the most notable case.

Since the late 1970s, thousands of unlicensed “dollar” vans (they now charge $1.50 or $2) have provided rides in several New York City neighborhoods. The industry got started in earnest during the 1980-81 transit strike, and have proliferated despite occasional crackdowns by authorities. In the 1990s, the MTA estimated some 5,000 feeder vans operated in the city, shuttling passengers to subway stations in boroughs where conventional taxis are hard to find. The vans often run in direct competition with busy bus lines, providing faster, more convenient service. Robert Cervero’s 1997 book Paratransit in America features a rare scholarly examination of these vans, illustrated with this map describing the parts of Broolyn, Queens, and The Bronx where the vans are active.

A Brooklyn friend confirms the Flatbush corridor is alive and well, New Yorkers are welcome to chime in about the others. Generally operated by Caribbean immigrants, criticism often focuses on ethnicity and safety since the unregulated vans do not have to be inspected or carry insurance. The MTA and city officials accuse the vans of “poaching” bus riders and unsafe operations, and have sought to curtail the vans through occasional crackdowns over the years. Nonetheless even critics concede the operators are providing transportation services with no public subsidy.

The latest crackdown effort came after a hit-and-run accident in Brooklyn involving a dollar van driver who fled the scene fearing arrest. In response, the city began a ticketing blitz and began the process of designing a sticker to clearly identify which of the vans are among the 279 officially licensed carriers, who are prohibited from picking up passengers on-demand by city rules. For now, at least, an uneasy truce exists. “Some van operators argue that one-size-fit-all standards are wrongheaded,” observes Cervero, who asks “Should everyone be forced to ride in vehicles that are fairly new, meet high liability insurance requirements, and have comfortable, padded seats, paying a premium fare for these provisions?” For the time being in most U.S. cities, the answer is yes.

New York Subway Vs. D.C. Metro

A recent visitor to this website asked this question on a previous post:

hello, i am a New Yorker who relocated moved to DC last year. in my decades of riding the NYC subway, at $70/month unlimited rides, I have probably experienced a handful of delays and/or major issues with the tracks. in my one year of having lived in DC, there has been an average of one major delay per week due to track or other issues —- and I pay over $4.00 per one-way trip.

can you offer some thought or explanation as to why this is, in the context of the two train systems?

Although I know far more about the history and operations of Metrorail than the New York City Subway, here’s my general reaction on the reasons this rider has experienced more delays on Metro:

1. System redundancy: When I have traveled to New York, I often noticed construction work or service disruptions on the subway. However, unlike the Metro, the system has multiple tracks on most routes and many tunnels to route trains during disruptions. Metro, on the other hand, has much more limited flexibility - when a train breaks down, there’s no alternate track or tunnel for those behind it to travel on. Here’s some thoughts about why that is.
2. Funding differences: WMATA is generally under-funded and has no dedicated funding source - they go begging each year for tax dollars from Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. In the words of a fellow planner: “Over the years, WMATA has had to make a choice: make needed track repairs for mid-life preventative repairs or pay for additional rollingstock to meet massive demand. WMATA chose for years to purchase additional rollingstock.” I don’t know the history of New York Subway funding, but today the system is run by a huge state agency.
3. System age: The New York City subway is very old. This means that they have lots of maintenance to do, but it also means they have been at it for a while. The Metro is just hitting middle age, meaning lots of things are breaking for the first time now, at the same time they are facing the strain of record ridership.

What About the Price?
The issue of cost raises several issues, First, I should remind the commenter that the New York City subway, like New York City itself, is unique by American standards. The city has a unique history, namely it grew explosively before the auto age, setting a template for high density, transit-oriented development. As a result, the city’s density is off the charts, low auto ownership off the chart, transit use off the chart, and the activity level on its streets generally higher than anywhere else in America. I’m always surprised by former New Yorkers who somehow think their city is a reasonable standard to compare any other city in America. (You can’t get a good slice of pizza, everything closes early, your subway is worse, etc.) In fact, you should expect other American cities to be very different than New York.

That said, there are several reasons Metro’s fare is higher. First, they charge high fares because they need the money and they can. Second, their ridership peaks heavily, meaning most riders travel during peak times. The New York Subway’s riders are spread out more throughout the day, and the system is open 24 hours. Operating a system with high peaks is much more expensive than a system with more even ridership in terms of trains, personnel, and infrastructure. Third, given the Metro’s size and relationship to the region, for many riders it functions more like a commuter rail system. In fact, despite the graduated fares my analysis showed the longest distance riders are getting the best deal — under $0.50 a mile, lower than the IRS mileage rate.

These are just some quick thoughts regarding the differences, and I’d be interested in other perspectives.

In casual conversations, the convenience of the New York Subway is the gold standard for American public transit, and for good reason. Although it has flaws, it is enormous and a relative bargain for travelers. We also haven’t built anything like it for over 100 years. That’s why I’ve been spending my time writing about what we need to change to increase investment in alternatives to the road and freeway network.

Bank, Commission, Capital Budget, or Business as Usual?

My latest Planetizen post: Getting the Transportation Infrastructure We Need

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Public Transit

From a speech to the annual meeting of the American Public Transportation Association:

Last year, public transportation ridership reached its highest level in 50 years. While this upward trend is tremendously encouraging, it is overloading many of your systems, and making the need for infrastructure investment all the more pressing.

The question is not whether we must invest in our nation’s infrastructure, but rather, how do we pay for it? How do we proceed in a fiscally sound way?

One idea being considered is an infrastructure development bank to promote public and private investment in projects of regional and national significance, including public transportation projects. The bank would be an independent federal entity that would evaluate major infrastructure proposals and finance the best of them using a variety of financial tools. [...]

I know you have a keen interest in the reauthorization next year of the surface transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU. [...]

House Democrats are committed to robust public investment in public transportation. We are committed to advancing a bill that – at a minimum – honors the historic 80/20 funding split between highways and transit. The reduction of transit’s share below 20 percent that occurred in the 2005 reauthorization will not be repeated.

We are committed to reforming the New Starts process for funding rail transit projects. Many of you have worked long and hard to develop New Starts projects, only to have the Bush Administration move the goal posts, forcing you to comply with new criteria. This must stop.

It is essential that the environmental and economic development benefits of rail transit become fundamental criteria in the decision-making process for New Starts. We see with each new light rail system – whether the location is Dallas, Minneapolis, or Portland – a tremendous upsurge in transit-oriented development around rail lines and stations. Transit and the high-density development that accompanies it both have tremendous value in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and putting us on the path to a low-carbon economy.

Accomodating Ridership Growth at Metro Stations

Metrorail’s relatively new Station Access & Capacity Study provided us the raw data to evaluate how well the Washington region jurisdictions were doing cultivating transit oriented development, but now that summer is here I had more time to go back and investigate it in more detail. The study sought to predict ridership growth and station improvements that may be needed. They concluded ridership will growth to 970,000 daily by 2030, or a 42 percent increase from 2005 to 2030.

The report concludes major changes will be needed to smooth transfers at busy stations and respond to growing peak demand. Here are some of the recommendations:

“Based on an order-of-magnitude analysis, the study identified a list of highest-priority capital improvements, including:

• Farragut North-Farragut West Tunnel: Construct pedestrian tunnel between two stations.
• Farragut North: Add southeast mezzanine-to-platform vertical capacity.
• ƒMetro Center: Add platform-to-platform vertical capacity, possibly by building the Farragut North-Farragut West pedestrian tunnel. Building this tunnel could reduce Orange or Blue Line transfers to the Red Line.
• Gallery Place-Metro Center Tunnel: Construct pedestrian tunnel between two stations.
• ƒGallery Pl-Chinatown: Add platform-to-platform vertical capacity and faregates at the north mezzanine and extend mezzanine between 7th and 9th Street entrances.
• ƒL’Enfant Plaza: Add platform-to-platform vertical capacity, possibly by building the Gallery Place-Metro Center pedestrian tunnel. Building this tunnel could decrease L’Enfant Plaza transfers.
• ƒShady Grove: Add mezzanine-to-platform vertical capacity

Here’s the projected ridership by station in 2030:

And a full summary of where improvements will be needed:

The report is also full of data interesting to people like me. For example, did you know an escalator can handle 90 people per minute?

> Metrorail Station Access & Capacity Study (PDF)

Measuring Regional Transit Oriented Development

WMATA recently released the 2008 Metrorail Station Access & Capacity Study (PDF) which analyzes how the system can accommodate future growth in detail. David has a good summary of the report’s major recommendations for improvement and expansion. A table in the report caught my eye that showed the estimated number of jobs and households around a number of Metrorail stations from the year 2005. Metro’s Office of Long-Range Planning was kind enough to provide me the complete spreadsheet of the number of households and jobs within half a mile of each station, distilled from the Washington Council of Government’s transportation planning data. (I assume the numbers were calculated by summing the jobs for each traffic analysis zone whose center was half a mile from a Metro station.)

I’m using the data for a larger ridership study that should appear here sometime in the future, but in the meantime I realized it allows us to evaluate the level of transit oriented development in each jurisdiction. For Montgomery County and Prince George’s County, because the stations are spaced sufficiently far apart, we can also estimate the percentage of total jobs within half a mile of a Metro station. This relative measure takes into account the many more jobs in Montgomery County. Because the half mile radii overlap significantly in Arlington, Alexandria, and D.C. I can’t easily say what proportion of all jobs are accessible by transit for those jurisdictions.

Here’s the results after averaging the development for each station in the various jurisdictions.

The analysis confirms what we might expect: D.C. and Arlington have the most jobs near their stations, and the Prince George’s County stations have the fewest in absolute terms. The pattern holds in relative terms for the Maryland counties — according to the WMCOG data, roughly 50% of Montgomery County’s 500,293 jobs were within 1/2 mile of a Metro station, versus only 38.4% of Prince George’s County’s 358,450 jobs. While I agree there’s much Prince George’s should be doing to boost development around their stations, there are a couple important caveats. The county has seen much less real estate investment than other parts of the region, and the Metro stations are much newer. Metro made it all they way out to Shady Grove in 1984 and Glenmont in 1998, versus Greenbelt in 1993, Branch Avenue in 2001, and Largo Town Center in 2004.

For households, on average Arlington County’s stations have slightly more than D.C. stations, likely a reflection of Arlington’s aggressive development of high density housing along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor and the low-density residential neighborhoods surrounding many D.C. stations.

Not surprisingly, some of the least-used stations I identified in my popular post on station ridership also have the least development around them. My next step is to use a regression to evaluate the relative role of jobs, housing, parking, bus lines, multi-modal access, and a variety of other variables to explain ridership.

Metro’s Underperforming Stations

The Washington, D.C. Metrorail system is a massive investment in regional infrastructure. It’s construction and maintenance requires billions dollars of tax money, but few would question it’s importance to the region. It has shaped growth and kept hundreds of thousands of cars off the road daily, improving the quality of our air and city.

Although the system is famously congested along busy lines at rush hour, many stations operate well below their capacity. Of the system’s 86 stations, 32 (or 37%) had fewer than 5,000 average weekday riders (boardings) in 2007. If the entire system is subsidized by taxes, these stations are the most deeply subsidized. Given the huge expense of the station construction, maintenance, and staff, is it acceptable to let these stations remain underutilized?

The 32 stations with fewer than 5,000 daily riders in 2007 are as follows: Morgan Boulevard, Cheverly, Deanwood, Arlington Cemetery, Eisenhower Ave., Capitol Heights, Forest Glen, Congress Heights, Landover, Waterfront, Benning Road, Naylor Road, Minnesota Ave., New York Avenue, Potomac Ave., Mt Vernon Sq-UDC, Shaw-Howard Univ, Van Dorn Street, West Hyattsville, Virginia Square-GMU, Addison Road, White Flint, Clarendon, Navy Yard, East Falls Church, Braddock Road, College Park, Rockville, Twinbrook, Georgia Avenue, Wheaton, Prince George’s Plaza, Cleveland Park.

A comparison to the system’s busiest stations helps clarify the factors involved:

Clearly, the busiest stations are located in high density areas with transit oriented development, served by multiple lines, connected to other modes (like buses and trains). However density alone is not enough: both Prince George’s Plaza and Crystal City are adjacent malls, but one among the least-used and the other among the busiest.

In addition to the much-needed reforms of WMATA’s development program and always-needed reform of local government plans and processes to require good design and high density, there is much that could be done. A ridership SWAT team could analyze each station, and provide recommendations for how ridership could be increased in the short, medium, and long terms. Suggestions may range from better wayfinding, improved usability of feeder bus service, increased police patrols or lighting to address safety, reforms to encourage new TOD, better bus shelters, recruiting local employers to encourage transit use, bike racks, or a host of other changes. Perhaps as a incentive WMATA could begin charging the home jurisdictions fines if they are unable to improve ridership at their stations.

While much of the discrepancy may lie with the region’s unequal distribution of development or poor land-use planning, there are practical ways to boost ridership at every station. The region would do well to take a close look at how to get the most return from our existing investments.