Riding RIPTA with a kid..(No More) (Providence: credit, closing)
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So I sometimes take the bus to the Providence Place mall because it's convenient and less hassle than driving and parking in that garage.
I was with my 3 year old yesterday and we got off at the rear door. I got off first so I could carry him off since he is too small to step off. Meanwhile the door starts closing and the bus is getting ready to leave!
I stop the door with my hand and get him off but you'd think the driver would bother to check if everyone is off the damn bus before taking off! What if I had two small kids or had to deal with or a stroller?
Not only that, but most of them will immediately take off while you are paying your fare so you have to hold your child's hand and make sure he doesn't fall while trying to get the machine to accept your dollar bills as the bus is moving.
Many of the drivers can't manage to stop smoothly at the bus stops either.
Most of this I can live with but taking off without checking to see if people have exited the back doors is ridiculous. I've sent a complaint to RIPTA but I intend to just drive next time.
So I sometimes take the bus to the Providence Place mall because it's convenient and less hassle than driving and parking in that garage.
I was with my 3 year old yesterday and we got off at the rear door. I got off first so I could carry him off since he is too small to step off. Meanwhile the door starts closing and the bus is getting ready to leave!
I stop the door with my hand and get him off but you'd think the driver would bother to check if everyone is off the damn bus before taking off! What if I had two small kids or had to deal with or a stroller?
Not only that, but most of them will immediately take off while you are paying your fare so you have to hold your child's hand and make sure he doesn't fall while trying to get the machine to accept your dollar bills as the bus is moving.
Many of the drivers can't manage to stop smoothly at the bus stops either.
Most of this I can live with but taking off without checking to see if people have exited the back doors is ridiculous. I've sent a complaint to RIPTA but I intend to just drive next time.
It's possible that the driver simply didn't see your child in the rearview mirror because there's a stainless steel divider at the rear exit that's taller than a kid of three. Perhaps next time it would be wise to exit the front.
Regarding the driver moving forward while you were paying your fare, that's a problem. RIPTA's fareboxes are cranky and slow and prone to failure. And it doesn't like dollar bills: another reason to get rid of paper dollar bills entirely, as the Euro nations have.
As with everything, there are great, good, and awful RIPTA drivers. Good luck getting any satisfaction from RIPTA -- they just don't want to hear complaints.
The state of transit here is pretty sad. By measures of density, etc., Providence should be a city with very high transit use. Instead, we have a much lower share of trips by transit than other similarly sized cities in the Northeast.
As in other ways, I fear RIPTA is sort of in a death spiral. As they are forced to make cutbacks, ridership declines even more among those have other options -- leaving only the poor, disabled, people who legally cant get licenses, etc (people who mostly ride for free in RI). Crowded buses full of the poor, disabled, and multiple-DUI'd, like it or not do not exactly encourage middle class commuters to ride. So revenue falls even more, service is cut again, and so on.
Not that RIPTA has made things easy for itself with poor and sometimes corrupt management.
I don't think RIPTA ridership is so low, actually. Take a look at this Wikipedia article citing data from the 2010 American Community Survey and titled "List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership":
Providence ranks No. 45, with 8.42 percent of the population using public transit. That strikes me as not too shabby. The similarly sized (or smaller) northeastern cities that aren't part of a larger metro area and have higher ridership are Hartford and New Haven -- that's really it. I thought about counting Buffalo and Bridgeport, but Buffalo is larger enough to have two major-league sports franchises, and Bridgeport has a commuter train to New York (so does New Haven, but that's past Fairfield County and is more of a Providence-to-Boston type of situation).
All that said, I took public transit in New York on a regular basis up until my son was almost 4, and it was never a pleasant experience. It's one of the things I miss least about my former city, though I had a mostly-love-occasionally-hate relationship with public transit prior to becoming a parent.
Buses taking off as soon as you get on has been like that for years. Back in the '50's and '60's when I would ride buses in the city, I used to get amused by it. It's just the bus riding culture. Plus they really need to get going once you get picked up on the side of the road.
But that said, I understand your position.
If you know that it is coming though, you can be better prepared for it.
I also agree with the reply who mentioned using the front door. That would eliminate your other problem.
This brings back many memories. I can remember riding buses when every seat was filled and you had to hang onto bars above in the main aisle. If you were young or too short for the uppers, you had to hang onto the seat rails. A loaded bus going up a steep hill or taking sharp curve with the bus tilting from all that weight was almost comical. But as mentioned, it is just part of the bus culture.
That's partly an effect of Providence proper being so small relative to its metro area. Compare on an MSA basis and we look worse. Or focus only on centra cores of other cities when comparing to Providence (e.g., NYC's transit usage would look even higher if only Manhattan were 'New York' and the other boroughs were separate cities).
Quote:
Originally Posted by boulevardofdef
I don't think RIPTA ridership is so low, actually. Take a look at this Wikipedia article citing data from the 2010 American Community Survey and titled "List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership":
Providence ranks No. 45, with 8.42 percent of the population using public transit. That strikes me as not too shabby. The similarly sized (or smaller) northeastern cities that aren't part of a larger metro area and have higher ridership are Hartford and New Haven -- that's really it. I thought about counting Buffalo and Bridgeport, but Buffalo is larger enough to have two major-league sports franchises, and Bridgeport has a commuter train to New York (so does New Haven, but that's past Fairfield County and is more of a Providence-to-Boston type of situation).
All that said, I took public transit in New York on a regular basis up until my son was almost 4, and it was never a pleasant experience. It's one of the things I miss least about my former city, though I had a mostly-love-occasionally-hate relationship with public transit prior to becoming a parent.
All that said, I took public transit in New York on a regular basis up until my son was almost 4, and it was never a pleasant experience. It's one of the things I miss least about my former city, though I had a mostly-love-occasionally-hate relationship with public transit prior to becoming a parent.
Really? The bus system in Manhattan is excellent. The M9, the M7, the M42, the M72 -- all run flawlessly, and after rush hour, their run time could almost compete with cabs. Of course, in NYC all classes take the bus, unlike, as neguy pointed out, in PVD it really is a different thing altogether. But I don't think people in this city or state are much interested in public transit even were it free, fast, reliable and stopped at one's door. The car kulture here is amazingly stubborn.
Really? The bus system in Manhattan is excellent. The M9, the M7, the M42, the M72 -- all run flawlessly, and after rush hour, their run time could almost compete with cabs. Of course, in NYC all classes take the bus, unlike, as neguy pointed out, in PVD it really is a different thing altogether. But I don't think people in this city or state are much interested in public transit even were it free, fast, reliable and stopped at one's door. The car kulture here is amazingly stubborn.
As a parent, yeah, big, big problem.
I always hated the bus. The waiting out in the cold, the inconsistent service, the lurching, the horror of standing room only, the endless waiting for people to board and disembark. Add the fact that I could almost always walk just as fast and I didn't see the point. The only time I ever consistently took it, and liked it, was when I was dating my now wife -- she lived on the West Side on 58th Street and I lived on the East Side on 54th Street, and we'd always take the M57 back and forth late at night. It took like five minutes. Sometimes it didn't even stop.
For what it's worth, I used to be notorious for hating taxis, too. Slow, awkward, never available when you need one, the discomfort of tipping, drivers who used to lie to you and tell you the credit-card machine was broken until they figured out that people tip more when they use the credit-card machine.
I always hated the bus. The waiting out in the cold, the inconsistent service, the lurching, the horror of standing room only, the endless waiting for people to board and disembark. Add the fact that I could almost always walk just as fast and I didn't see the point. The only time I ever consistently took it, and liked it, was when I was dating my now wife -- she lived on the West Side on 58th Street and I lived on the East Side on 54th Street, and we'd always take the M57 back and forth late at night. It took like five minutes. Sometimes it didn't even stop.
For what it's worth, I used to be notorious for hating taxis, too. Slow, awkward, never available when you need one, the discomfort of tipping, drivers who used to lie to you and tell you the credit-card machine was broken until they figured out that people tip more when they use the credit-card machine.
Personally, I packed my passport, a compass and a lunch if I had to go to the land of the enemy, the UES. Apart from the museums.
I do a N/S block in 40-45 seconds on foot so I know what you mean about the speed of a bus, which is, roughly, the speed of a cab stuck in the very same traffic. But off peak, I've seen the M7 tear down 7th Ave. at 50mph. As you'd expect, always a woman driver -- thank God.
You know, build BRT here in PVD, like the very successful -- and free! -- S1 line from South Station to Logan, and people wouldn't use it. Build a subway of world class distinction like BCN, and Rhode Islanders wouldn't use it. They want their cars, and is that just is so crazy, to me. I couldn't live that sort of life.
ETA -- apart from folks with young children. No way of making public transit work, it's just too scary and it upsets everyone involved.
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