Riverside gets shout-out for improved service

Riverside* got a shout-out for improved transit service from APTA.

"Expanded and improved public transit services also played a role in attracting more riders,” said Melaniphy.  “For example, the transit agencies in Albany (NY), Denver (CO), Indianapolis (IN), Riverside (CA), and Salt Lake City (UT) saw increased ridership due to greater service.”

Even though bus ridership is down nationwide, ridership is up out here in the IE-- where we're all buses all the time. Ridership is down in Los Angeles, even, but record numbers of Inlanders are taking the bus.

*Take into account the Standard MSA Disclaimer, which makes this more like an IE shout-out.

Good News, Bad News, part 2: Good News

So I discussed the Bad News at length on Friday, with an overview of the present 10-Year Transit Plan. Here's something to help cleanse your palate: some of the better recommendations of the 10-Year Plan, including those regarding frequency, are coming down the pipe in January. First off, no cuts! Not a single route-mile or trip is being removed from the system. This update is all about frequency improvements. Route 1 will finally be the first route in the RTA system to crack the 15-minute barrier, plus later Saturday service. Routes 3, 15, and 19 will join 16 on the list I keep in my head entitled "reasonably useful transit service," with frequency improvements to 30 minutes on weekdays, plus a frequency increase to an impressive 10pm on the 3 and 15. 16 gets better weekend frequency and span, as does the 19, with an astounding improvement from 55 minute headways all the way down to 30. Routes 22, 29, and 74 will move from being laughable abominations to being halfway useful bus routes, with frequency improvements to 60 minutes. 21, 22, and 206 will all get extra trips, and 206 will get a new park-and-ride lot at Tom's Farms. Route 20 will be upgraded to 45-minute frequencies. You may also notice that, save route 20, all of these will actually be clock-face schedules. So, all-in-all, good news for the bus-riding public of western Riverside County.

Good News, Bad News, part 1: The Bad News

Well, hello there! I haven't posted here since... June? That can't be right. Oh dear... Let's get right back to it then.

If you're clued-in to the local transport politics scene, you may have seen a) the proposed changes for the next Ride Guide and b) the proposed 10-Year Transit Plan floating about lately. We're in a good-news-bad-news situation between the two. I'll start with the bad news.

The new 10 Year Transit Plan is a joke, and not a terribly funny one at that. There are some good things in there, such as across-the-board frequency upgrades, but the sweeping strategic changes that the plan proposes are just plain awful.

First, there's the plan to "modernize" transit service in downtown Riverside. The plan would abandon the present Downtown Terminal, instead providing service at a patchwork of transit stops littered throughout the downtown area. Most routes would be reconfigured to pass through downtown, and the two locals that do terminate there (15 and 22), along with all express service, would be routed into a new terminal on Vine St. adjacent to the Metrolink.
I want to note that I strongly support moving RTA's downtown transfer hub closer to the Metrolink station. That's a great idea. This plan, however, makes it much, much more difficult for downtown to serve as a transfer hub. Transfers between some combinations of routes, most notably the 29/49 and 10, would take a walk of three blocks or more. The routes the buses will take through downtown are convoluted and confusing, making even knowing *where* to catch your desired bus difficult. Unlike other places where buses use on-street transfer hubs, such as Long Beach and the old San Bernardino Transit Mall, buses will not follow a single linear path through the downtown area. Instead they will be found in a haphazard spaghetti-mess of a system, stopping seemingly at random throughout the city's core.

Transfers are a necessary part of good transit network design, especially in a hub-and-spoke network such as RTA's. That said, people hate transferring. The transit agency needs to do everything they can to ensure that transfers are as seamless as possible. Making people walk for several blocks and puzzle over which street their next bus shows up on will make the experience of riding transit worse-- and, for those with cognitive or mobility impairments, will drive additional trips off of the (cheap) fixed-route system and onto (expensive) Dial-a-Ride.

Second, while many of the route combinations are really great ideas, allowing the agency to concentrate service on fewer, higher-frequency routes, the re-routing plans for routes 16 and 19 are simply asinine. Routes 16 and 19, under the plan, would be combined, with 16 truncated at UC Riverside. (I assume that this is because of the lower capacity of the downtown area to handle bus movements.) Combined with the changes to routes 10 and 14, this would mean that there is only one route serving University Avenue between UCR and Downtown, compared to the present three. Even though route 1 would be upgraded to 10-minute frequency, this would still actually mean a decrease in transit frequencies along University-- one of the most heavily-travelled segments in the entire system. Combine this with the necessity of requiring an additional transfer, somewhere other than the downtown transit hub, for the passengers coming from Moreno Valley and Canyon Crest who presently enjoy a single-seat ride (myself included). The RTA brochure posits this as a benefit, saying that riders travelling between UCR and Moreno Valley College will no longer need to transfer at the mall. Call me a skeptic, but somehow I think that there are more riders between the Mall and downtown than there are between UCR and a distant community college.

Finally, in an eternal disappointment to RTA transit-watchers, the "RapidLink" "BRT" system has been nerfed in this plan. Instead of a frequent, all-day, every-day rapid transit line, with signal priority and maybe some dedicated lanes, what we're scheduled to get is a peak-hours-only limited-stop express bus. The 1 Limited will make only 12 stops between Corona and UCR, which is fantastic, and it will run every 15 minutes-- but only during weekday peaks. This all while San Bernardino is running high-capacity rapid buses in their own dedicated lane, and has been for months! Riverside is, of course, still talking streetcars, but with the sort of savvy that indicates that they have no idea how to implement a streetcar project properly.

There is hope, however-- sustained opposition from the community has led the RTA Board to postpone adoption of the 10-year transit plan until the January 22nd board meeting. You should let the agency know what you think of the new plan by e-mailing comments@riversidetransit.com, by calling +1 951 565 5002, by snail-mail at:

Riverside Transit Agency ATTN: Director of Planning 1825 Third St. Riverside, CA 92507

or by attending the meeting on January 22nd at 2pm at the county building downtown.

Leaving the Holding Pattern

It's been quiet around here lately, mostly because it's been quiet in local transport policy. This blog began during a time of massive service cuts, attacks on Greyhound, and other myrid threats to local alternative transportation. Since then, I've been able to report moderately good news in the cycling department, as Riverside's city government has become more bicycle-aware. (I'm not going to call them bicycle-friendly just yet, although the League of American Bicyclists did.) I haven't, however, had too much in the way of good news about local transit. The best one could say is that it had stabilized.

Well, recently, things have started getting better. We've already seen mild improvements to frequency (to 15m on Route 1 and 20 on Route 16) and service span during last October's service changes. With RTA's upcoming May service changes, there are still more (mild) improvements on the way. Let's take a look!

Route 1: Route 1 will see a small routing change with a big impact: in Corona, the route will finally make the couple-block jaunt over to the Corona Transit Center, bringing the RTA's 800lb gorilla into contact with Corona Cruiser's Red and Blue routes, RTA's 3, several Commuterlink routes, and, of course, Metrolink. (And the gratuitous sea of parking lots that surround the Transit Center, precluding the nice transit-oriented development that should happen there...)

Route 3: The northbound Corona-Eastvale route will see a minor span increase, as well as new Saturday service.

Route 54: Did anyone ever actually ride this? I didn't. This was a shuttle from the Metrolink overflow parking lot to the County building, while the County's parking was taken over by the 91 widening project's detritus. Anyway, it's going away because the County's parking lots are open again.

Routes 64 & 79: These long-haul routes in the southwest county will be adding (low-frequency: 75 and 60 minute headways, respectively) Saturday service. The Transit Coalition's IE Transit Talking Points blog has better analysis on these routes, but suffice to say they will bring better regional connectivity to the southwest county on weekends.

Route 216: Holy hell, this one has been needed for a long time. A mid-day trip and a late evening trip will be added to the OC-Riverside express route, making it useful for trips other than peak-hour commutes. Metrolink IE-OC mid-day and evening frequencies still suck, so this is very welcome.

CommuterLink Expansion: With the promised addition of several 91 Line trains, RTA will be adding trips to 206, 208, 210, and 212. These trips start when the new trains do, a date currently to be determined.

RTA is accepting comments about the new service changes, but honestly, my only comments are "Yay!" You can contribute comments at (951) 565-5002, comments@riversidetransit.com,  or at the next RTA Board Meeting, 27 March at 2pm in the County building downtown.

RTA BRT WTF?

In today's RTA Board Meeting agenda, there were some details about the forthcoming Route 1 Limited, the lukewarm successor to the previously-proposed RapidLink project from nearly a decade ago. The Press-Enterprise hinted at the project, noting that RTA snagged a cool $12.3 million for new buses to run the service. But here, we have details:

Service characteristics of the proposed Route 1 Limited-Stop service
include:

• Weekday service only during peak hours between UCR and the Galleria at Tyler during peak hour periods between 5:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. and 2:30p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
• 15-minute frequency
• 15 stops in each direction over approximately 12 one-way miles 1
• Up to 20 percent travel time reduction between terminals
• Maximization of transit signal priority capabilities currently in place
• along the University/Magnolia corridor
• Approximately 17,028 annual revenue service hours

 And they call this phase one of the "BRT" project. Color me underwhelmed. We get no stop improvements, no off-board fare collection, we don't even get all-day service. Signal prioritization is nice and all, but this isn't a BRT service in any way. BRT is supposed to be the backbone of a frequent, all-day, daily transit network. This Route 1 Limited is simply a limited-stop commuter service, which is a far cry from what we desperately need on the University and Magnolia corridors.

Oh, and at the same time, the City is talking about how streetcars are going to make local stops, making them an expensive downgrade from present local bus service. More proof that local leaders don't really understand transit.

New Bus Review

So the new Gillig buses have been rolling around Riverside County for a little bit, and I figure I'd best put out a review for the curious. Overall, they're still buses, but there are a few little improvements that will undoubtedly make life better for straphangers.

First off, the new seats are cloth, rather than the stubbornly cold plastic of the NABI fleet, and they have higher seat-backs. A small change, to be sure, but tall folks like myself will probably feel more comfortable on those long rides. Second, the new interior lights are all in white LED, rather than flourescent, making night rides just that much nicer. Third, the new, multicolor, high-visibility headsigns are even easier to spot than their orange predecessors, making riding in these dark winter months just that much nicer. Fourth, and probably most importantly, is the passenger power outlets. Two standard 110VAC (house power) electrical outlets are available at every row forward of the mid-bus stairs, so now you can keep that cell phone or tablet charged all the way to Tyler Mall. (Note that RTA press releases referred to these outlets as "USB charging outlets"-- they aren't, so bring your wall charger.) The new buses also seem to have a lot less engine noise than their predecessors, but that may be a function of age.

Possibly the best thing about the new buses, however, is that they're made here in California. Gillig makes their buses up in Hayward, while the last manufacturer RTA contracted with, North American Bus Industries, is located in Alabama. I still say it makes more sense to contribute to our local economy by purchasing products produced in the IE-- like, say, El Dorado National's full-size buses-- but I'd rather see my transit sales tax being used to create jobs in the Bay Area rather than on the other side of the continent.

So go forth, readers, and ride the new buses! Just don't forget your charger.

Late Night Service! Well, later...

Routes 1 and 16 now have service until 11:19pm and 11:15pm respectively.* I'm still holding out for drinking until midnight, then catching a bus home, but this is movement in the right direction. If you have reason to be out late downtown, take public transit, and show RTA that night service is important to you!

*These are the times the run ends. The last run from downtown to the MoVal Mall, for example, starts at 10:30.

RTA GTFS Data Now Available!

They've apparently been quietly doing it since January of 2012, but I want to applaud RTA for officially making their GTFS (Google Transit Feed Specification) data available to the public, via the GTFS Data Exchange. Open data is really awesome. For those of you who know why open data is awesome, you can stop reading. For the rest of you, a basic primer.

So in this context, a GTFS feed contains the stop, route, and schedule data needed for a transit agency to get on Google Transit. Because Google is the all-powerful data-sucking beast that it is, and because they're really the first people to try to integrate multiple transit agencies' data on a massive scale, it's become a de facto standard for electronically publishing transit information. RTA has obviously had a GTFS feed for a while, since they've been on Google Transit since 2009. To my knowledge, however, while the feed URL was easily discovered with a little creative Googling, the data was not officially publicly available. That meant that the only people who could incorporate it were Google-- and that the vast ecosystem of transit app developers using public GTFS data couldn't incorporate RTA's information as well. This includes not only transit apps like HopStop, but also things like WalkScore, which incorporates transit information and travel times, and AutNo, which allows you to search for apartments within transit commute distance of your work.

Now, with publicly-available data, those tools can integrate RTA's transit schedules in order to give people a better idea as to what their transportation options are-- especially when looking for new housing choices.

What I'd love to see next is the integration of real-time arrival data (which, unbeknownst to many, RTA does have) into the GTFS feed, so instead of a trip plan based on schedules, Google Maps could give you a routing based on which buses were on time, which were late, etc. You might find that a connection that you should, on paper, just miss is actually running a few minutes behind, saving you a long wait, or that, because your bus is late, taking another route might get you there faster. Transit aficionados like myself already know that sort of information, but it'd be cool to make it available to anyone via their smartphones.

Still, though, kudos on the open data, RTA.

Fool Me Once...

RTA just released their proposed FY 2014-2016 Short Range Transit Plan. On the bright side, there are no cuts proposed, and (like the last few schedule changes) several minor schedule improvements are suggested. In particular, they plan on restoring service on "major holidays"-- specifically Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day-- beginning July 2013 (which conveniently misses Memorial Day 2013).

Another suggestion is the long-awaited expansion of night-time service, proposed on routes 1, 15, 16, 18, 20, 31 and 32. I would personally prefer that we confine our late-night transit efforts to routes with higher population density and ridership, as otherwise we'll get less service span where we need it in Riverside, and more out in the exurbs where we need it less. That said, I would love to see late-night service (until last call?) on 1, 15 and 16, and if that means that we run some empty buses in Hemet, oh well.

That said, this has been proposed before. In the FY2010-2012 SRTP, funds were actually secured from the federal Job Access and Reverse Commute program to provide late-night service, across a skeletal network serving the whole service area. The funds were moved to prop up frequencies on routes in Lake Elsinore and Mead Valley. So I'm not jumping for joy until this is actually approved by the board in June-- and even then, not really until I see the timetable.

No Streetcar is Better than a Bad Streetcar

Riverside's new Mayor, Rusty Bailey, has made the development of a streetcar network part of his platform. He mentioned it both during his campaign and in his State of the City address, and I have heard word of grants being written to study the issue. Obviously, the plan is very new, and so anything I say here is speculative at best, but I want to get out ahead of this thing. Streetcars are in vogue right now, and while they are undoubtedly cool, the details of the implementation of a streetcar plan are important to determine whether it will promote mobility and development, or whether it will simply be a shiny toy for City Hall to trumpet.

Here's the thing: streetcars in mixed traffic are usually worse for mobility than the buses they replace. This is because of the simple fact that buses can turn and get around obstructions (such as parking or turning cars, broken-down cars, traffic accidents, debris, etc.), while streetcars can't. There's some benefit to running streetcars in interior lanes with island platforms, or using off-board fare collection, but neither is intrinsic to streetcars per se-- buses stopping at the same island platforms and using the same off-board fare collection would also run faster. To really radically re-shape mobility in Riverside, streetcars would either need to run on a lower-traffic street, or need their own lane to run in. The former raises concerns, as lower-traffic streets are usually that way because few people want to be there, and I strongly doubt that there's enthusiasm for the latter at City Hall and among the automobile-attached residents of Riverside.

Second, the logical place for a streetcar is along the L-shaped corridor formed by UCR, downtown, and the Plaza (and in the future, perhaps as far as the Tyler Galleria). This is a route that is already served by RTA, and mobility along that route would likely be better-served by improving existing RTA service than building a local-stop streetcar along it. The streetcar will need to somehow do something that the current routes 1 and 16 don't do, and will also need to be well-integrated into the current transit system, both of which are a daunting proposition.

Furthermore, a streetcar is an expensive proposition. If the plan is a good one, by all means, we should turn our transit dollars towards that expensive proposition. I am, however, extremely wary of spending scarce transit dollars building and, more importantly, operating a streetcar that will not improve mobility in Riverside and that will cannibalize limited funds from desperately-needed transit expansion. I'd love to see good local rail service in Riverside, but I'd rather see all-night bus lines or additional frequency than a bad streetcar project.

Los Angeles' streetcar project is a great example of what happens when you don't take into account mobility outcomes when building a streetcar: you get giant one-way loops and low frequencies that will make the new streetcar less useful than the old DASH bus it's replacing, especially for the short downtown trips it's supposed to serve. And they're spending a bunch of money for little improvement. I don't want to see that kind of thinking move east.

As I said before, the plans for a Riverside streetcar are in their infancy-- but that just makes it all the more important to make our voices heard now, before a finalized plan becomes something that we can't live with. Better no streetcar at all than a bad streetcar.

Is RTA's Size Hindering Riverside Transit?

Human Transit has a great post today about large transit agencies and the conflict between core cities, where transit needs are great, and suburbs, where local politicians demand "equity" in public transit spending. RTA is a fantastic example of this conflict-- it serves the second-largest transit service area in the country, geographically speaking, but has only one city in it that could reasonably be called "urban"-- Riverside. This results in a lot of fairly unproductive service in the outlying areas of Riverside County, while Riverside itself has overcrowding on several key trunk routes (eg. 1, 16), and a general lack of frequency that makes the rest of the network less useful than it could be.

Tacoma, WA is experiencing a different, although related, problem with their transit authority, Pierce Transit. It seems that voters in the Pierce Transit service area were offered the chance to vote on a tax increase that would have staved off draconian service cuts, and while Tacoma itself voted overwhelmingly in favor of the tax increases, outlying areas voted against in enough numbers that this mid-sized city will soon see no mid-day service and no service after 7pm. The city has proposed forming an "enhanced transit zone," wherein a small sales tax will be levied to subsidize service above and beyond that which would ordinarily be offered by the transit agency. Perhaps Riverside should consider something similar?

Grids? Bad idea

Tonight, the City Council formally designated the empty lot across Vine from the Metrolink station as a site for the future multi-modal transit center. This is, unfortunately, after they had to divert $2 million of federal money to the existing downtown terminal due to deadlines. I'm not happy to see a bunch of money poured in to renovating the terminal, because it is still inconveniently far from the Metrolink station, but I suppose a renovated terminal is better than losing $2 million in transit dollars.

Anyway, this designation is a welcome step forward, but I was very concerned to hear that the Council mentioned something about RTA moving towards a grid system during the meeting. I've posted previously on how a grid system works, and how RTA shouldn't be run as a grid due to the geography and funding constraints. Now, unless the Council and RTA are coming up with a way to basically triple the agency's budget (oh please oh please oh please), I hope this grid system talk just goes away.

Furthermore, I am frightened by the fact that Councilman Melendrez, who sits on the RTA board, and City Manager Scott Barber, have no idea what a grid system is.

Good News from RTA this September!

It's rare that I get to write a post like this, so when I do, it's exciting. The September service changes are out (due to go into effect on the 9th), and they are almost entirely good news. RTA service is expanding, albeit by mostly tiny changes around the margins, in response to record levels of ridership on the system. Two mild service discontinuations are offset by pretty substantial expansions elsewhere. Let's take a look.

Minor changes: Routes 7, 11, 23, 40, 41, 61, 79

All of these routes have minor schedule tweaks to make better connections or better serve local demand. If you ride them, you should probably check the new times.

Mixed trip changes: Routes 12, 206

Each of these routes gained a new trip, but at a price: the 12 gained a 2:30p trip but lost a 4:30p, the 206 gained a new 4:36p southbound but will now short-turn the 5:22p trip.

Trip extensions: Routes 1, 12, 22, 51

Each of these routes will see morning, evening or weekend extensions of trips that used to short-turn. On the 1 in particular, all of the late-night short turns at Downtown Terminal have been extended all the way to UCR.

Frequency enhancements: Routes 1, 16, 19, 27

Each of these routes will see frequency improvements. On the 1 in particular, frequencies will improve to 18 minutes, approaching those of a moderately-useful urban bus system. On the 1 and 27, though, I worry that RTA is sacrificing clock-face scheduling for minor capacity improvement.

The 16 will see a return to clock-face scheduling, at a new 20-minute frequency. That said, it does come at a price: The route will now terminate at Downtown, lopping off the run it used to make up into the north side. The stretch is a hair under 2km, and alternate service is available on the 12 and (to some extent) 29, although I expect a lot of these trips will switch to walking or cycling.

Discontinued route: Route 53

And it's official-- we can lament the loss of our beloved Beer Bear Runner. The late-night UCR shuttle was funded by the campus primarily as a safety measure, although I primarily used it as a bragging tool-- 20 hours a day of transit service to my apartment!-- and a way to get home from the campus pub. The campus decided not to fund it, presumably after seeing the abysmal ridership numbers, and RTA had no reason to continue the service on its own dime.

New destination: Route 210 to Palm Springs!

A gap that has existed in SoCal transit since 2004, with the demise of the SuperBus-equipped SunLink, will be filled. SunLine Transit (the primary operator in the Palm Springs area) will operate several trips that are currently run as the Route 210 CommuterLink. These trips will extend from Palm Springs all the way in to Riverside, continuing to make normal scheduled stops at Banning and Moreno Valley. There will be two westbound trips in the morning and two eastbound trips in the afternoon, and (as far as I can tell) no reverse commute or weekend service. RTA also says that their passes will be accepted between Banning and Riverside on Sunline-operated runs.

I think there are still some unanswered questions. First, will riders with universal transit passes, like CityPass and UPass, be able to ride the Sunline buses as well? Second, will RTA passes be good as credit towards the full Riverside-Palm Springs fare, or will such riders have to pay cash? Lastly, will Sunline passes be good for transfer to RTA at transfer points? But aside from all this, I'm glad to see this service start up, and hope that it sticks around a bit longer than the short-lived SunLink. (I must admit that I did always want to ride one of those SuperBuses, though, and never did get the chance.)

So there you have it, a service change update almost entirely filled with good news. Transit in Riverside is expanding, core routes are getting frequencies that are almost-useful, and ridership seems to be heading in only one direction: up.

Choice Riders

Oops! It's been a while since I've posted. Sorry, folks, I'll process refunds right away.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about the rhetoric of transit agencies reaching out to "choice riders." You often hear about efforts to entice "choice riders" on to transit systems, by providing special bus service or special amenities that will lure these elusive creatures out of their steel boxes. Quite frankly, I think that this type of thinking is insulting, confusing, and dangerous.

First, it is insulting to the agency's normal rider base. When you separate your ridership in to "choice" riders and everyone else, you're saying that everyone else doesn't have a choice. You're saying that it doesn't really matter what kind of service you provide to those riders, because they'll put up with whatever you give them. This is not only insulting, it isn't true. Even the car-free by circumstance* have choices-- they can choose to walk, to ride a bicycle, to call a friend or family member for a ride, to hitchhike, to call a taxi/Craigslist rideshare person, or (probably most commonly) simply not make that trip at all. And that's the real shame-- transit cuts that impact "no-choice" riders really hurt everyone, because they mean that that person is blocked from participating fully in their community, blocked from perhaps getting or keeping a job, from attending community meetings, from giving their children opportunities for after-school activities and enrichment.

But finally, these "no-choice" riders do have one other choice: they can spend way too much of their meager incomes on an old, unreliable rattle-trap of a car, because your transit service was so bad that it's the only choice they have left to make. That's bad for them, that's bad for the environment, that's bad for society.

Second, it's confusing, because "choice riders" are an ill-defined group. When are these people making their choice? I suppose what I'm really getting at is, am I a choice rider? I'm not wealthy by any means, but I really could afford to own and operate a car. I choose not to, but because of that choice I rely heavily on the local transit system (and Chloe). When you divide the world in to "choice riders" and everyone else, you make the unstated assumption that everyone in your service district either owns a car, or can't afford to own a car. Really, transit agencies should make it a priority to enable the creation and expansion of the middle category: the car-free by choice.

Last, it's dangerous, because it creates two tiers of transit service. Public transit should serve community needs, but it shouldn't do so at the expense of having an integrated network. The idea that there are "choice riders" and everyone else leads to Metrolink Syndrome, where there is a peak-hour peak-direction express transit network (connected to plentiful parking), and a local all-day transit network, and never the twain shall meet. This kind of network planning assumes that, while people might want to ride transit in the city during the work week, they'll always be drivers when they're at home in the suburbs. This is exactly the opposite of what we should be encouraging. I'm all for having park-and-rides as a short-term solution, because the truth is that our transit network isn't yet at the point where it serves everyone's needs effectively (especially in places like Banning and Murrieta, where RTA provides lots of service to park-and-ride lots), but by running express service exclusively to those park-and-ride lots, you send the message that your local transit network and your express network are completely unrelated. Nobody is supposed to take the express bus back from LA and then get on a local bus to go home-- indeed, nobody can.

So let's stop talking about "choice riders" and everybody else, and instead simply focus on providing transit that works for everybody. Good-quality transit will serve the needs of the car-free-by-circumstance, and (if it's good enough) will also entice habitual drivers out of their cars.

*You know who I'm talking about-- the poor, the aged, the disabled, and the young. I refuse to use the word "car-less" on this blog, because I really do think that not having a car is freedom.

Taste of Brews Riverside

Here at Riding in Riverside, we're no fans of driving generally-- but we find drunken driving particularly distasteful. Sadly, our area seems almost guaranteed to drive that result, with no late-night transit, few taxis, and parking minimums for bars. (Seriously. [PDF]) However, by happy coincidence (because it surely wasn't foresight and planning), Riverside is hosting an event that brings together two of my favorite things-- craft beer and transit!

The IE Taste of Brews, on 2 June, will be held in White Park downtown. Craft breweries from as far away as Oregon will be bringing their wares for Riversiders to sample. While the organizers obviously didn't plan for this to be a transit-centric event, the locale is happily situated a short walk away from Downtown Terminal, served by routes 1, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22, 29, 49, and Omni 215 (on weekends).

Tickets are currently being sold at early-bird prices- $30 general admission (1-4pm), $40 VIP (12-4), and you can get $5 off with promo code "TOB5." Hope to see you there!

Clock-Face Scheduling and the 16

There's a concept in transit timetables called clock-face scheduling. Basically, the idea is that you have a route run on a consistent headway every X minutes, and that you set X to a value such that the pattern repeats every hour. In Riverside, the #1 is scheduled so that departures from the Downtown Terminal are clock-face scheduled. Before 7:30, westbound departures are at :10 and :40 past the hour- every 30 minutes. Between 8:00 and 18:00, departures are every 20 minutes, at :00, :20 and :40 past the hour. At 18:00 they return to every 30 minutes, at :00 and :30 past the hour. This makes trip planning easy-- if you know the route, you know that it will pass your stop at a certain time past the hour, every hour. You simply remember that time, and you know when the next bus is coming without having to consult a schedule or web site.

Right now, the #16 is also clock-face scheduled, with eastbound departures every 30(ish) minutes from Downtown at roughly :10 and :40 past the hour-- although the schedule does lose time over the course of the day, eventually becoming at :01 and :31 and then fluctuating wildly past 17:31. I know that the westbound bus passes my stop at roughly :20 and :50 past the hour, and the eastbound at roughly :00 and :30. On weekdays, I never need to consult a schedule to figure out when to catch the bus-- I just need to memorize a few numbers, and I can plan my trip accordingly.

Which is why something that I'd normally be excited about-- increased frequency on the route that serves my apartment-- has given me some reason for pause, because the frequency is being improved from 30 to 25 minutes.

The disadvantage of clock-face scheduling is that you can't simply pick an arbitrary frequency and make it work. Only certain times produce repeating patterns every hour. 5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, 30 and 60 minute headways work. 40 and 45 minute headways produce patterns that repeat every two hours, which is okay but not ideal. (This is the situation on the 15, for example.) Any other combination, and you're basically either checking the bus book or guessing. A 25-minute headway produces a pattern that repeats every 5 hours, which is basically useless for memorization. Furthermore, you don't gain all that much-- only two hours out of those five see three buses an hour (more than the 2/hour from a 30-minute headway). The average wait goes from 15 minutes to 12.5.

Thus I am torn. I'm always happy to see a frequency improvement, especially on the route that I use most. However, this improvement comes at a significant cost to system legibility. It means I now need to check the bus book/BusWatch site every time I want to use the system. And it isn't all that big of an improvement- the average 16-hour service day will only see 6 more buses, or one every 3 hours. Obviously, if they were to improve the frequency to every 20 minutes, it'd be fantastic, but I'm not sure if the increase in service is worth the significant drop in usability here.

Service Updates

RTA is updating bus schedules again (effective 13 May), and by and large there's not a lot of news. A lot of small tweaks (routes 1, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 33, 42), a couple of problems (routes 21 and 54), and one service improvement (route 16). I won't comment on the tweaks, so let's talk about the problems.

Route 21 will no longer serve the Pedley Metrolink station, presumably because it's in an awful spot to get to if you're trying to continue on Limonite. This is all well and good, and it makes sense from an operational standpoint, but I hate to see RTA blasting holes in intermodal connectivity. It still passes close to the station, but it's roughly a quarter-mile walk along the car-sewer that is Limonite-- which could make or break a tight train connection, or constrain possibilities for the mobility-challenged. I'm wondering whether the operational benefits are worth it.

Route 54 is a new trolley service downtown, set up for the duration of the widening of CA-91. (During the construction, county workers will be unable to use much of their current parking lot abutting the freeway.) It runs from an under-used Metrolink parking lot at 10th/Commerce to the county admin building on 12th/Lemon, almost as if there were a concerted effort to keep it from serving anything useful downtown. It'll also do the same thing that the old #52 did, serving morning, lunchtime and evening peaks only, making it useful for one and only one thing: getting county workers to and from their cars. This is a shame, because RTA could have used the temporary funding to actually show how a downtown circulator route could effectively serve downtown.

I'll write about the improvements to 16 in another post, because I think they constitute their very own "teachable moment."

Improving the Last Bus

The last bus of the night on any route is bound to see depressed ridership, regardless of when that bus runs. This is, quite sensibly, because there is no safety net if something goes wrong. Passengers have no ability to simply "take the next one" if they arrive at the bus stop late, miss a transfer, or simply lose track of time. There's no way to completely eliminate this problem, short of running 24-hour service (hmm... not a bad idea...), but it seems to me that we could at least make things better with a few operational simplifications.

As anyone who has ever used the system before knows, RTA has a few major trunk routes (1, 15, 16) that run on something approaching a reasonable frequency- 20, 40 and 30 minutes on weekdays, respectively, although 15 drops to an appalling 70-80 minutes on weekends. It also has two other types of routes: CommuterLink express routes, that run a few precious times per day, mostly during commute hours on weekdays, and the more ordinary local buses, which run roughly once an hour through much of the service area. Generally, these also shut down earlier than the trunk routes, although 22 runs surprisingly late on weekdays.

One of the troubles of taking transit is the fear of missing a transfer-- and this fear is compounded if the bus you're transferring to is the last run of the night. Sure, if everything goes right transit would work for your trip, but missing that last bus just once means an expensive cab ride, calling friends and family members for a lift, or a very long walk. And it's a fact of life that buses do run late, for whatever reason. Most of the time, they're not extremely late, but sometimes 5 or 10 minutes is enough.

So here's my proposal: The last bus of the night on each route should hold at major transfer points (Downtown terminal, Tyler mall, Moreno Valley mall) for connections from each of the trunk routes. That is, if the last #13 leaves downtown at 7:30, it should wait for the eastbound #1 at 7:15, the westbound #1 at 7:00, the eastbound #15 at 7:25, the eastbound #16 at 7:08 and the westbound #16 at 7:14. Under normal conditions, the bus would leave on time, but if any of these buses were so late as to not arrive by 7:30, it would wait until that bus arrived. Most importantly, RTA should publish this fact in the Ride Guide, providing riders with confidence that they will not miss their connections.

Would this have the effect of making the last bus of the night run light? Probably. But it's a lot better that the last bus of the night runs late than that it runs early. Is this a lot to keep track of? It sounds like it, but RTA has automated bus-tracking capability. They could likely write a computer program to do this, and alert dispatchers when holding a bus is necessary. Would this drive a little overtime? Probably, but I doubt it would drive much. Evening buses are usually on time, thanks to lighter traffic. What it would do, however, is make those last buses of the night somewhat more attractive to riders, as they could count on making their connections-- and it would likely do so at a reasonably minimal cost.

Bear Runner on its last legs

A little history here. Prior to my moving to Riverside (although I don't know when), UCR Transportation and Parking Services used to run a night-time-only Dial-a-Ride van on campus. It ran Monday-Thursday evenings, and would take students to any point on campus or to any off-campus apartments served by the then-operating Highlander Hauler system. (At the time, this included all of the apartments in the University and Canyon Crest areas.)

For the 2004-2005 school year, TAPS did something different- they introduced the Bear Runner late-night shuttle service. Providing half-hour service, it ran essentially the present Route 53 schedule and route, but it had one serious drawback-- the gentleman who drove it thought of his job as "taking students home from campus," and would only drive the route all the way around if he picked up somebody on campus, or if he knew somebody would be waiting. I've been stranded by that policy more than once.

Needless to say, when the RTA picked up the route and actually started *running* it, it was a substantial improvement. The half-hourly service is the only public transit service between Montclair and Las Vegas that runs past 10pm. During the school year, its presence gives my neighborhood 21-hour-a-day transit service. And so, of course, RTA is going to cancel it.

The route is, admittedly, only lightly-used-- but this isn't a service whose existence is ever justified based on ridership. It's always been funded by the campus primarily as a safety service, allowing students studying late at night to avoid walking home in the dark. Sadly, it appears that UCR no longer finds it "effective" at accomplishing that goal, and will be discontinuing the subsidy. With the subsidy, so goes the route.

I doubt that anything can be done to save the route-- it exists at the pleasure of UCR, and Parking Services is notoriously un-susceptible to influence. Still, I will mourn its loss, if only for freeing my social circle from having a designated driver while bar-hopping around campus. (It really should have run on Friday nights.)

If you'd like to rail ineffectively at RTA officials in an attempt to save the only late-night bus in Riverside, there are hearing details in this article.

Pass Sales Outlets

Quick quiz- if you needed a bus pass right this minute, where's the nearest place to your house to buy one? How about your work? Do you know?

Bus pass distribution in the majority of the RTA service area, as in many suburban areas, is disproportionately concentrated at two sorts of establishments: liquor/convenience stores and check cashing shops. You can also purchase them at RTA's two offices in Riverside and Hemet, and at a few senior centers, city halls, and community service agencies, but those first two are the most prevalent. What does that say about how we think about transit?

Well, none of these establishments exactly screams upper-class, and check-cashing stores are explicitly targeted at the working poor, so there's a bit of classism for you. Furthermore, they're not the sort of places that many people would ordinarily find themselves at during the course of their day-to-day errands. Compare this with, for example, San Francisco, where you can reload your Clipper card at any Wallgreens (and a great many other grocery stores besides), or even Orange County, where you can pick up your bus pass at Ralph's when buying groceries.

Now, if you live in Riverside, you really should be buying your pass at the Public Works Department at City Hall, where you can get substantial discounts (and sign up for a pass by mail). But even then, why is this program limited to only one location in the City, only during normal business hours? How many people would find getting down to enroll in this program difficult, and why can't we handle enrollment via mail, and distribution via other outlets?

Obviously, I have a suggestion: automated pass machines at major transit centers. If you ride transit around here, odds are you'll probably end up passing through Moreno Valley Mall, Downtown Terminal, or Tyler Mall transit center at some point during your travels. How much easier would life be on the transit-dependent if, while waiting for their next bus, they could walk over to a machine and purchase their next pass? SunLine Transit in the Coachella Valley has one of these machines at their major transfer point, and they utilize a similar ticketing system to RTA. People seem to be able to figure out automated ticketing machines at the Metrolink station, and RTA's fare system is much less complicated. So how about it?