Fare Free

Mass transit ridership was up again last year — the fifth in a row — mostly because of the economy and the price of gasoline.

Ironically, analysts expect that number to fall this year, because of the economy and increasing job losses.

But Planetizen's Dave Olsen asks, if transit agencies spend more money than they make in marketing and increasing ridership, why charge fares at all?

In particular, he looks at a small city in Belgium that converted an existing fare-based system to a fare-free one. The first day without fare boxes, ridership jumped 783 percent. It grew 900 percent that year and four year later was up 1,223 percent.

"Becoming Fare-Free got residents and visitors alike onboard, while the planned increase in capacity kept them coming back," Olsen writes.

He proposes several ways to pay for transit service — you can read his examples here — but none of them include fares.

"Now given that public transit is a public service, it could make sense to maximize the public good that that service brings, which is exactly what Island Transit and other Fare-Free systems have done. However, I'm writing 'could' here because in the mad rush to privatize and maximize profit for anything that moves (including public services) this playing field has been fundamentally altered over the past few decades.

In particular, public transit has suffered from this economic mis-focus, and ironically enough, it has only worsened perennial problems like chronic underfunding and running incomplete systems that can't compete with the private automobile."

Parking Minimums

Can cities rethink decades worth of parking doctrine?

MSNBC has a story about how a number of U.S. cities are reconsidering the idea that every building must have a minimum number of parking spaces attached to it.

From the story: "D.C. is now considering scrapping those requirements — part of a growing national trend. Officials hope that offering the freedom to forgo parking will lead to denser, more walkable, transit-friendly development.

Opponents say making parking more scarce will only make the city less hospitable. Commuters like Randy Michael of Catharpin, Va., complain they are already forced to circle for hours in some neighborhoods."

The story opens anecdotally: Jeff Speck and his family don't have a car, don't want one, and had to fight DC zoning regulations for nine months to build their house without one.

(I'm not sure Jeff Speck is an everyman, tho. He was the director of design for the National Endowment of the Arts and collaborated on Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream with Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. He also spoke here earlier this year.)

But he does make a good point when he says this: "Half the great buildings in America's great cities would not be legal to build today under current land use codes. Every house on my block is illegal by current standards, particularly parking standards."

That's one of the reasons OPD was redoing the unified development code, to not hamper an area like Broad Avenue with suburban-like zoning.

But getting back to parking, I remember talking to Henry Turley (who, full disclosure, is one of the Flyer's ownership group) once about parking affects retail development. National retailers mandate a certain number of spaces; you want those retailers, you have to give them their parking lots. (And how often do you see a full parking lot unless it's near Christmas?)

A parking lot. Just in case you've never seen one before.

And not to go all Doug Farr on you again, but he did mention last week that he thought cities would be wise to exchange parking minimums for parking maximums.

Of course, the caveat is that it doesn't work without good transit.

Gas Tax Down

A few days ago, I wrote about local projects taking a hit after a cut in federal clean air funds.

In a related story, the LATimes reported this week that "the principal source of funding for highway projects will soon hit a big financial pothole. The federal highway trust fund could be in the red by $3.2 billion or more next year."

The fund is backed by the federal gasoline tax but the tax is levied by the gallon, not the price, of gas. And with U.S. motorists buying less fuel, that means fewer dollars for transportation projects.

Good thing we aren't relying on aging infrastructure.

From the LATimes: "In the long run, lawmakers must figure out whether the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gasoline tax, which helped bring in money when fuel-hungry SUVs were hot, is still a viable way to fund transportation projects amid heightened concern about gasoline prices, U.S. dependence on foreign oil and global warming."

By the way, this is not me urging you to drive more. Just so we're clear.

Life without a car?

Alternet has a first-person account today about a man who, for the first time in two decades, is no longer a driver.

Andrew Lam says that owning a car has always been intrinsically American, but now giving up your car is the new American responsibility.

(I don't think I'd go that far ... and I certainly couldn't without my car. Ba-dah-dum!)

Lam confesses that he misses the convenience of his car:

"What was once a matter of expediency is now an effortful navigation.

'I'll be there in 15 minutes!' I used to tell a good friend who once lived nearby but who now resides, without a car, at an inconvenient distance. Going to my favorite Asian food market suddenly has turned into another arduous chore: Once a 30 minute event, it has become a two-hour ordeal, with bags in hands, and bus transfers."

What is interesting is that Lam is writing from San Francisco, one of the most walkable American cities. If it's hard for someone in San Fran, how doable is it for someone in Boise? Or, to use the American test city, Peoria?

Busted?

One of the sessions at last Saturday's Summit for Neighborhood Leaders put on by the Coalition for Livable Communities (more on that later) was entitled "From Here to There: Getting to Work Using Public Transportation."

Not to beat a dead horse, but I've heard (I think directly from MATA pres Will Hudson's mouth) that MATA's system was designed to get poorer workers to their jobs. This was several years ago, and I was asking if a grid system could better serve the larger general population.

After hearing his explanation of the system, I thought, well, okay, they're trying to serve their current market. It's a market that relies and depends on public transportation, so if serving those people — and serving them well — is their mission, I can understand that.

But findings presented Saturday by the Memphis Area Women's Council put that in question.

Deborah Clubb, executive director of the Memphis Area Women's Council, said that transportation was one of the main barriers to employment among the women they surveyed.

"One thing we heard over and over was that using public transportation to get where they need to go was difficult and often impossible," Clubb said.

For example, Clubb related the example of downtown hotel workers who, if they got caught up at work after their shift, would miss the last bus of the night and have to walk home.

Karla Davis of Urban Strategies Memphis HOPE helps the former residents of Lamar Terrace and Dixie Homes work toward self-sufficiency. But Urban Strategies has to hire private transportation to get those families to whatever program they are enrolled in.

"It would be so helpful if there was a public transportation system they could use," Davis said.

Which leaves me wondering, just who is MATA's system designed for?

Does it work well for anybody?

Maybe a full system redesign is in order?

We have one of the leading logistics companies in the world here; maybe they could help come up with something?

In the short term, the women's council is proposing a pilot project in Frayser that would use a mini-hub and community based routing.

They also have an interesting idea to use day care vans. Mothers and their children would both board the day care van. After the children are dropped off, mothers would be taken to a MATA hub. I don't know how feasible it is, but it makes a lot more sense than those alarms to remind drivers to make sure all the kids are off the bus.

Fair Bus Fares

Johnnie Mosley says he's been riding the bus for "a looong time."

Mosley founded Citizens for Better Service, a MATA watchdog group, in 1993.

"At the time, MATA had a proposal to increase bus fares and decrease routes," he says. "A group of us riders thought it would be best to form a group to speak for the concerns of bus riders."

Though they speak out any time MATA proposed to increase fares or cut routes, Mosley says the group also deals with complaints against bus drivers. Though MATA has a complaint line, riders don't always feel they have been heard when they use it.

"MATA has some good bus drivers, but occasionally drivers won't even answer a simple question," Mosley says. "Once my group becomes aware of their complaints, we'll take their concerns directly to [Will] Hudson."

With higher gas prices — MATA's next gas contract will charge them $4.52 a gallon versus the current $2.87 — Mosley is worried that the transit company will once again try to raise fares or cut services. He would like to see them increase services instead.

"There are some areas of town where, if you miss one bus, you may have to wait another hour, an hour and a half for the next one. That's terrible," he says. "The more people see buses running in their neighborhoods, the more likely they are to get on one."

"If push comes to shove and they have to cut routes and increase fares, we want to make sure that it's fair and equitable," Mosley says.

To reach Citizens for Better Service, call Mosley at 789.6463.

MATA Misses its Moment?

After this week's Flyer cover story about public transit in Memphis, we received an interesting email from Johnnie Mosley, founder and chairman of the public advocacy group Citizens for Better Service.

Citizens, which was founded in 1993, is a MATA watchdog and tries to make sure that bus riders are treated fairly. In 2000, the group opposed a MATA rate hike, saying that the transit authority should cut administrative expenses before raising fares.

Mosley had this, in part, to say in response to the story:

"I was warned by Mr. Hudson that this was a bad time for mass transit, expecially MATA some time ago. My response to Mr. Hudson was that this is the best time to implement creative ways to get new rider on the bus and things like an increase in fares and cutting service should be a last, not first resort."

"If MATA would take the time to look at the routes and find ways to increase routes, instead of cutting routes, it would send a strong message that MATA is serious about getting and keeping new passengers. If you talk to people who do not ride public transportation ... they will tell you that they would like to ride a bus but the buses do not fit in their schedule. In other words, if MATA finds a way to get the buses in their daily schedule so they could get to their destinations in 25 minutes instead of 2 hours, they would park their cars."

Mosley concluded by saying that Citizens for Better Service had been bringing up similar issues for the past 15 years and they would continue watching the transit authority as it deals with "what you called 'MATA's Moment of Truth.'"

Transit talk

Well, I have to take slight exception to a piece in Grist today. The website reported that ridership on public trans is up, but that no one is talking about how to make the system better.

Public transit ridership in 2007 was at its highest level in 50 years and, so far, usage is up more than 3 percent from last year.

From the story: "The ceaseless climb of oil prices, the growing financial toll of congestion, and the looming cataclysm of global climate change have not yet shaken the men and women entrusted with the care of our infrastructure to act -- or moved politicians, the press, and the public to demand action. Why can we not bring ourselves to speak of the need for better transit?

This failure to speak, to act, represents a huge missed opportunity. Overall, the transportation sector, including cars, is responsible for roughly a third of the nation's energy use and carbon emissions. Department of Energy statistics show that, per passenger-mile, rail transit is substantially greener and less energy-hungry than an automobile -- and as transit use increases, systems grow ever more efficient."

But I think more people are talking about public transit, for the exact same reason that more people are using it. They are looking for options to higher gas prices. Of course, those people may not be the same ones who are in a position to actually improve the system ... but people are talking. Maybe it just hasn't reached critical mass yet.

So here's a question (with a nod to "Dump the Pump" day on the 19th): What would make local public transportation more attractive?