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Had they been doing lots of repairs? When lines are often closed on weekends and nights, it drags down ridership because people start to see them as unreliable. Once repairs are finished, ridership climbs back to normal.
I'm surprised that Chicago is so high. I had been predicting that LA would catch Chicago by 2025, but that was based on Chicago staying flat or nearly flat. The CTA will now need to lose riders for LACMTA to catch it.
No, in fact ridership has been going UP as the service levels were cut a few years ago. No lines closed though or weekend stoppage. The last thing that closed stations was the Brown Line reconstruction around 2007 - but that just closed individual stations for around 6 months each, nothing that really changed ridership much. People just tended to walk to the next station on either end when theirs was closed.
Between gas prices rising, the fixing of slow zones on some high profile lines, the housing boom along the highly used Red, Blue and Brown lines, the pickup in the Chicago economy and the reduction of bus schedules - the area around 2005 to 2008 really saw rail usage skyrocket. They desperately need to do something about the Red Line. I take it every day and it's just PACKED to the gills. In 2011 it achieved its highest ridership in history, with over 270,000 people taking the one line every weekday.
Saturday and Sunday ridership is also up greatly, around 25% from a few years ago.
There are 215,000 boardings at the stations downtown on an average weekday (almost all during the afternoon/evening as people go home). Coupled with a few hundred thousand people taking Metra, rail is very important to downtown Chicago in moving everyone back and forth.
No, in fact ridership has been going UP as the service levels were cut a few years ago. No lines closed though or weekend stoppage. The last thing that closed stations was the Brown Line reconstruction around 2007 - but that just closed individual stations for around 6 months each, nothing that really changed ridership much. People just tended to walk to the next station on either end when theirs was closed.
Between gas prices rising, the fixing of slow zones on some high profile lines, the housing boom along the highly used Red, Blue and Brown lines, the pickup in the Chicago economy and the reduction of bus schedules - the area around 2005 to 2008 really saw rail usage skyrocket. They desperately need to do something about the Red Line. I take it every day and it's just PACKED to the gills. In 2011 it achieved its highest ridership in history, with over 270,000 people taking the one line every weekday.
Saturday and Sunday ridership is also up greatly, around 25% from a few years ago.
There are 215,000 boardings at the stations downtown on an average weekday (almost all during the afternoon/evening as people go home). Coupled with a few hundred thousand people taking Metra, rail is very important to downtown Chicago in moving everyone back and forth.
Last I checked buses are public transit. There are two subway lines and four light rail lines in LA.
Reread the article... It simply says in the LA metro area nearly everyone has access to PT, more than any other MSA. It doesn't say LA has the best, that is obviously NY.
From my reading of the document, I don't think it's actually saying that in the LA metro nearly everyone has access to PT, or that it necessarily has better total coveraqe than any other metro. It's specifically saying that the highest percentage of car-free households, which tend to be lower income, have access to PT in LA. And it's not comparing or taking into account the relative percentages of car-free households in different cities, or the demographics of those car-free households.
The stated purpose of the study was to show how well or not well PT access in american cities was lining up with greatest need for PT, NOT to rank cities by overall PT coverage.
The study does show that in LA, PT need (as they define it) is lining up extremely well with PT access, which is a great thing. LA's public transit is very underrated, and much better than most people give it credit for. But this could also be illustrating that a high percentage of car-free households in LA are confined to areas with good PT access.
It makes a lot of sense that NYC's overall very good PT coverage might not be well reflected in this particular study, as the places that are best covered by PT in NYC are some of the currently most affluent areas in the city, where people actually need it the least, and the areas with the worst coverage are generally poorer areas, where people are more likely to keep cars. This has become more and more of an issue as gentrification of the city has progressed.
By contrast I would imagine (though I am not sure) that many of the more affluent areas in LA might not have very good PT access, and people may hardly ever use it in those areas, and just drive exclusively - but that would be irrelevant to this study.
From my reading of the document, I don't think it's actually saying that in the LA metro nearly everyone has access to PT, or that it necessarily has better total coveraqe than any other metro. It's specifically saying that the highest percentage of car-free households, which tend to be lower income, have access to PT in LA. And it's not comparing or taking into account the relative percentages of car-free households in different cities, or the demographics of those car-free households.
The stated purpose of the study was to show how well or not well PT access in american cities was lining up with greatest need for PT, NOT to rank cities by overall PT coverage.
The study does show that in LA, PT need (as they define it) is lining up extremely well with PT access, which is a great thing. LA's public transit is very underrated, and much better than most people give it credit for. But this could also be illustrating that a high percentage of car-free households in LA are confined to areas with good PT access.
It makes a lot of sense that NYC's overall very good PT coverage might not be well reflected in this particular study, as the places that are best covered by PT in NYC are some of the currently most affluent areas in the city, where people actually need it the least, and the areas with the worst coverage are generally poorer areas, where people are more likely to keep cars. This has become more and more of an issue as gentrification of the city has progressed.
By contrast I would imagine (though I am not sure) that many of the more affluent areas in LA might not have very good PT access, and people may hardly ever use it in those areas, and just drive exclusively - but that would be irrelevant to this study.
Yeah you are right... I am mixing this one up with a very similar study by the Brookings Institute that did in fact measure overall access... and the LA urban area was number one in that too.
The transit in the affluent areas is not as good as in the poorer areas, but as that other study I thought I was referencing shows, it is still pretty decent. Obviously affluent nabes in the hills don't have much access at all, but that is why they live in the hills.
It shows graphically where you can get to in a given amount of time from a given location. Percentage of coverage tells you very little that is useful, because coverage might mean a local bus or it might mean an express train. The two will give you very different results in use. Likewise, a mode that runs once an hour but goes everywhere is probably not as useful as a mode that runs every 10 minutes but misses 10% of the geography.
It shows graphically where you can get to in a given amount of time from a given location. Percentage of coverage tells you very little that is useful, because coverage might mean a local bus or it might mean an express train. The two will give you very different results in use. Likewise, a mode that runs once an hour but goes everywhere is probably not as useful as a mode that runs every 10 minutes but misses 10% of the geography.
Wow very cool. In 17 minutes I can get just about anywhere in Central LA
The only place I can't get is downtown, and that is because it probably takes 20 minutes.
Last edited by munchitup; 03-05-2012 at 11:42 AM..
Reason: link didn't work :(
I've been in Chicago for 11 years taking the train downtown on a daily basis. I have to say that the past few years have not seen a lot of funding, but I've been very happy with some of the SIMPLE things they've finally done to at least improve the standards of the service.
One thing they're in the middle of now, which I've been dying for them to do, is a simple Station Renewal Program. Instead of spending millions to completely rebuild one station, they're setting aside between $250,000 and $1,000,000 per station and just hitting them hard with quick fixes. Painting everything, power washing all surfaces, removing old obsolete equipment, cleaning up escalators, replacing trash cans, replacing light fixtures, fixing doors and removing rust, replacing signs, cleaning metalworks. My god, some of the stations look damn near new again - and all they have to do is send their little army of workers from station to station to work them over.
They've also gotten better at communication. They're in the middle of installing 400 electronic LED signs at bus shelters all over the city that display the next 4 buses that are arriving at that stop, and in how many minutes. They're also installing signs in the train stations that announce how many minutes until the next train. There are lots of apps as well for Iphones that will quickly tell you when the next bus or train will arrive at any stop/station in the city. This helps SOOOOO much for those of us that rely on buses and train. Everything has GPS these days, and even if the next train isn't coming for 8 minutes - it's nice to at least know if you have 30 seconds or 10 minutes.
The CTA website was rebuilt, and now is very easy to use. First thing it tells you is any active alert anywhere in the system, what's going on, and how long it's been happening. One of the biggest complaints were delays where nothing was ever told to the passengers. They've been more anal at announcing every delay and how long they think it might be.
Otherwise there are other system improvements floating around:
* Hundreds of new rail cars have been purchased and are slowly being introduced.
*CTA just installed 1,700 security cameras in the train stations, and added 50 transit police.
* A new train station is being constructed on the Yellow Line at Oakton
*A new train station is being constructed on the Green Line at Morgan
*A new train station is being constructed on the Green Line at Cermak
*The Loyola and Wilson stations are being reconstructed on the Red Line Main
*The Grand and Clark/Division stations are being totally reconstructed on the State Street Red Line
*There is FINALLY funding to start putting in Bus Rapid Transit lines around the south side, west side and downtown areas.
Aside from that, the new mayor, Emanuel, is much more interested in improving and expanding public transit than our old mayor was. It seems every week there's some new announcement from him. While everything might not happen, it's at least good to see a lot of brainstorming and ideas. The things that are happening are a very nice change from the stagnant 2000's.
I've been in Chicago for 11 years taking the train downtown on a daily basis. I have to say that the past few years have not seen a lot of funding, but I've been very happy with some of the SIMPLE things they've finally done to at least improve the standards of the service.
One thing they're in the middle of now, which I've been dying for them to do, is a simple Station Renewal Program. Instead of spending millions to completely rebuild one station, they're setting aside between $250,000 and $1,000,000 per station and just hitting them hard with quick fixes. Painting everything, power washing all surfaces, removing old obsolete equipment, cleaning up escalators, replacing trash cans, replacing light fixtures, fixing doors and removing rust, replacing signs, cleaning metalworks. My god, some of the stations look damn near new again - and all they have to do is send their little army of workers from station to station to work them over.
They've also gotten better at communication. They're in the middle of installing 400 electronic LED signs at bus shelters all over the city that display the next 4 buses that are arriving at that stop, and in how many minutes. They're also installing signs in the train stations that announce how many minutes until the next train. There are lots of apps as well for Iphones that will quickly tell you when the next bus or train will arrive at any stop/station in the city. This helps SOOOOO much for those of us that rely on buses and train. Everything has GPS these days, and even if the next train isn't coming for 8 minutes - it's nice to at least know if you have 30 seconds or 10 minutes.
The CTA website was rebuilt, and now is very easy to use. First thing it tells you is any active alert anywhere in the system, what's going on, and how long it's been happening. One of the biggest complaints were delays where nothing was ever told to the passengers. They've been more anal at announcing every delay and how long they think it might be.
Otherwise there are other system improvements floating around:
* Hundreds of new rail cars have been purchased and are slowly being introduced.
*CTA just installed 1,700 security cameras in the train stations, and added 50 transit police.
* A new train station is being constructed on the Yellow Line at Oakton
*A new train station is being constructed on the Green Line at Morgan
*A new train station is being constructed on the Green Line at Cermak
*The Loyola and Wilson stations are being reconstructed on the Red Line Main
*The Grand and Clark/Division stations are being totally reconstructed on the State Street Red Line
*There is FINALLY funding to start putting in Bus Rapid Transit lines around the south side, west side and downtown areas.
Aside from that, the new mayor, Emanuel, is much more interested in improving and expanding public transit than our old mayor was. It seems every week there's some new announcement from him. While everything might not happen, it's at least good to see a lot of brainstorming and ideas. The things that are happening are a very nice change from the stagnant 2000's.
I wish they'd take some of this money and install more overhead shelter on the Brown Line stations. Right now there's so little canopy coverage at the rebuilt stations that it's almost comical; that was one thing that got majorly shortchanged when they enountered cost overruns during the rebuild/expansion project.
I wish they'd take some of this money and install more overhead shelter on the Brown Line stations. Right now there's so little canopy coverage at the rebuilt stations that it's almost comical; that was one thing that got majorly shortchanged when they enountered cost overruns during the rebuild/expansion project.
I live at the Sheridan Red Line and have to laugh at how HORRID that station is compared to almost all of them except for a handful. It looks like a dirty bomb exploded inside the station. I'm surprised the cleanup crews didn't attack that one first.
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