CapMetro trying to prop up declining ridership (Austin, Round Rock: 2015, home)

[riaelise]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

I will point out that the bus service is almost useless for me due to where I start and end on my daily commute to work. My drive time is ~7 miles and about 12 minutes on a 'typical' day. If I chose to ride the bus, it would be about and hour and twenty minutes and involve a couple miles of walking, give or take. If there were actual a bus that went from anywhere near my home to anywhere near where I worked, I would seriously prefer to take a bus.

As it is, another 'waste' of money (bike paths) is almost to the point that I can ride my bike in to work. Once the kids are out of school this summer, I plan to start a few days a week. That is as much for my health as for savings on car wear-n-tear and stressful driving, but all are benefits....

But here's the rub, if people don't take public transportation, there aren't going to be any more new routes. Adding trains is far too costly. Buses are a viable solution for many areas, including more remote areas. Cap Metro is by no means perfect but it's a start. "Keeping out riff raff" is not a reason to deny people transit service.

[Trainwreck20]

Originally Posted by riaelise

"Keeping out riff raff" is not a reason to deny people transit service.

Yeah, I get a kick out of that one - those burglars are going to ride the bus to my neighborhood, rob my house, then ride the bus back home with my TV.

Every time cap metro has a 'free ride' period, the topic comes up -"Oh, no! The riff raff can escape their neighborhood and discomfit me!"

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by karpo1

For you travel costs 96.25$, rest of the community it costs 962.50$. Maybe just be happy that people subsidy your inexpensive travelling.

What's your source on the FRR of the 980?

[karpo1]

Originally Posted by Novacek

What's your source on the FRR of the 980?

Very first post states that users pay less than 9% of the cost of the service.
I have lived in cities like Singapore with family few years without car and it was fine as metro/bus/taxi system was very developed and operated in small area. That is other extreme, pay 78k USD from base version Toyota Corolla, cost of right to drive goes up when more people want to be on a road.

But when starting without mass transit, it will cost fortune to change anything significant in large land area with sparse population. Giving 500$ monthly voucher for Uber for needy would cost half to tax payers compared to sparse bus service.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by karpo1

Very first post states that users pay less than 9% of the cost of the service.

That doesn't mean that each route experiences that. A lot of that subsidy is the metroaccess/ADA being subsidized.

Originally Posted by karpo1

Giving 500$ monthly voucher for Uber for needy would cost half to tax payers compared to sparse bus service.

Let's see, CM spends about $150M /year on operating the buses.


So with $75M /year at $500 /month, you propose to only help about 12k people.

That's not even getting into the issue of the handicapped accessibility of Uber vehicles (not all ADA rides occur on metro access, and given the expense of MA, you want as many as possible on normal buses). Nor the fact that someone trying to commute during rush hour is going to use up that $500 before the month is over, due to surge pricing.

[Austin97]

i dont take mass transit, but it is interesting to look back on the history of car oriented development and the suburbs. In the past, urban style development was the standard because there were no cars and people had to walk everywhere. Development was dense. When the car became popular, the federal government via FHA explicitly made car oriented policies. They would only guarantee loans for houses that used car oriented infrastructure. One explanation is that eliminating through streets and using cul de sac/collectors would reduce through traffic and reduce accidents.

Now we have all these incredibly inefficient roads that require cars that arent utilized about 95% of the time. It is an incredible waste of collective resources.

The future will be mass transit using ride sharing algorithms. This provides high utilization for the capital investment, minimizes walking, minimizes wait times, and has almost the same flexibility as owning your own car.

I would love to see cap metro focus on how to increase ridership while maintaining margins by providing better service.

If I could get a municipal rideshare to a central bus station, then immediately get on a bus ride downtown and then take a public transit scooter to my destination, I would do it.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by Novacek

That doesn't mean that each route experiences that. A lot of that subsidy is the metroaccess/ADA being subsidized.



Let's see, CM spends about $150M /year on operating the buses.


So with $75M /year at $500 /month, you propose to only help about 12k people.

That's not even getting into the issue of the handicapped accessibility of Uber vehicles (not all ADA rides occur on metro access, and given the expense of MA, you want as many as possible on normal buses). Nor the fact that someone trying to commute during rush hour is going to use up that $500 before the month is over, due to surge pricing.

the better solution is to leverage cap metro shuttles to solve the last mile (or first mile) problem using rideshare algorithms.

They could also periodically bring on TNC drivers to satisfy short term capacity shortages, like a football game.

[karpo1]

Originally Posted by Novacek

That doesn't mean that each route experiences that. A lot of that subsidy is the metroaccess/ADA being subsidized.



Let's see, CM spends about $150M /year on operating the buses.

So with $75M /year at $500 /month, you propose to only help about 12k people.
.

Total userbase is only 100k today. Operation costs are not only cost of the service, plans described show capital cost of 6-8 billion over 25-30 years:
https://www.mystatesman.com/news/tra...6v5bIWQl3z7lN/

8000million over 25 years is 320m per year in addition.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by karpo1

Total userbase is only 100k today. Operation costs are not only cost of the service, plans described show capital cost of 6-8 billion over 25-30 years:
https://www.mystatesman.com/news/tra...6v5bIWQl3z7lN/

8000million over 25 years is 320m per year in addition.

Okay, now compare that against all the capital costs of the roads the Uber drivers (and all the regular drivers) are using. Those aren't free you know.

Billions of dollars in transit or billions of dollars in highway expansions. "Neither" isn't an option.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by Roadking2003

The paper reported today that ridership is 12.4 percent BELOW 2013. So they plan to give free rides to increase ridership.

Only in government would anybody claim success by giving their product away.

Riders are only paying 9.6% of the operating costs (even less if capital investment is included) so maybe they make all of it "free". Free for riders, paid for by the taxpayers.

The government gives their "product" away when they build non-tolled roads. Are you complaining that all the roads that are non-tolled are bad because those roads aren't a success financially, they are giving their "product" away?

Mass transit isn't supposed to make money. It's supposed to be paid for by taxes so people have a better quality of life. Each bus even if it's partially full of 10 people, that means 10 cars off the roads.