Outstate transit

mattaudio
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Outstate transit

Postby mattaudio » August 28th, 2013, 1:39 pm

Why are outstate transit services so dependent on these giant one-way loops, all headed to some central transit station?

Small one-way loops at the extreme end of a line seem like they could make sense. But large loops that comprise a majority of a line force people to ride to the far end of the line 50% of their trips, assuming they'd head downtown anways.

http://ridemetrobus.com/routemap/
http://www.mankato-mn.gov/upload/conten ... %20Web.pdf

It's like the one-way pair dillema, but magnified.

Red Wing is most unfortunate, since a new transit center was built in the armpit of a highway within the last couple years:
http://www.threeriverscap.org/sites/def ... 092122.pdf

Tom H.
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Re: Outstate transit

Postby Tom H. » August 29th, 2013, 8:36 am

Yeah, my hometown of Sioux Falls is the same way:

http://www.siouxfalls.org/sam/fixed-routes.aspx

I think one of the biggest failings of this system is the lack of legibility. For instance, in the Twin Cities, certain routes are synonymous with certain streets (e.g. 16 = University, 21 = Lake/Marshall), which makes for an easily understandable system. With these loops, you can't just say 'head up Main St on the 22' - you have to study the schedules and make counter-intuitive choices (like take a route in the opposite direction of where you mean to head).

Unfortunately, transit systems in small cities are often designed as a safety net - only those with no other options will use them, so comfort, legibility, and ease-of-use are often secondary (or tertiary) concerns.

nordeast homer
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Re: Outstate transit

Postby nordeast homer » August 29th, 2013, 10:25 am

I remember when I lived in Mankato I had no car and I had to rely on the bus a couple of times and I vividly remember thinking that the Metro Transit (MTC at the time) seemed like luxury liners compared to the buses they had in 'Kato. I would assume that most smaller cities purchase used equipment versus new, am I correct?

mulad
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Re: Outstate transit

Postby mulad » August 29th, 2013, 10:12 pm

The new mayor of Red Wing is an old family friend -- I may have to get in touch with him soon to get some of his opinions on stuff, maybe nudge him to post something for Streets.mn, or whatever. It's been many years since I've talked to him, so I'm not sure what his politics are. I kind of doubt he's ever worried about this sort of thing, but it wouldn't hurt to ask -- particularly about that strangely-placed transit center which doesn't seem to have sidewalk access to anywhere.

The one thing I kind of like about these smaller systems is that all or most of the buses tend to meet up at a main transfer point on a regular cycle. In St. Cloud, I think they have a mix of routes that are either hourly or half-hourly. The buses usually arrive with enough time for you to transfer between any line, but if your bus is late, you can be stuck waiting a long at least half an hour, and quite possibly an hour (well, that's still true here, but it's not good when that happens at a peak time in the middle of town). But I doubt loops are a requirement in order to get synchronized transfers -- and that transfer time is obviously a problem for anyone who lives near the end of the route and has to wait for a fairly long stop to expire before moving on to the destination they really want.

In a lot of cases, I think it's probably better for small towns to just work on the pedestrian and bike infrastructure, and sprawl repair. An able-bodied person can walk a mile and a half in 30 minutes, possibly 3 miles in an hour. If people are only a mile or two away from their destinations, an hourly bus isn't going to be very helpful. That said, there's still a potential for something good if you can set up a route that goes really fast end-to-end, allowing frequent trips to be made with just one driver and vehicle per route. If you have a star network where each leg only takes a bit over 10 minutes per direction, you could have half-hourly service with one bus per route or hourly service with one bus for every 2 routes (forcing about half of your transfer passengers to wait a half hour in between legs of their trip).

For a place like Red Wing, where US-61 is a major backbone roadway, I could see a bus shuttling back and forth on the highway very frequently, with other lines branching off of it. Of course, then you end up with people requiring 2 transfers for many trips rather than just 1 or zero, which can be a dealbreaker. It might be possible to time them well enough to provide better service anyway (though it's impossible to have a full 4-way timed transfer where two lines cross if you only have two buses).

Anyway, just some random thoughts.

Viktor Vaughn
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Re: Outstate transit

Postby Viktor Vaughn » August 30th, 2013, 9:13 am


mulad
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Re: Outstate transit

Postby mulad » September 3rd, 2013, 8:05 am

"Pulsed network" -- that's an interesting term I'll have to make note of.

I made an attempt at duplicating Red Wing's transit network in Google Maps just because it makes it easier for me to understand what's going on. Looks like there may be multiple opportunities to transfer between the Green and Blue lines, but I haven't figured out the timing of when they use the same streets/intersections.


mattaudio
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Re: Outstate transit

Postby mattaudio » September 3rd, 2013, 8:31 am

gahhh i hate route loops in transit

mulad
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Re: Outstate transit

Postby mulad » September 4th, 2013, 7:18 pm

Oof, it looks like the Red route has eight different route variants throughout the day, and it only has 16 trips. The Blue route appears to have 3 variants, while the Green one is simplest with just one.

Tom H.
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Re: Outstate transit

Postby Tom H. » September 5th, 2013, 7:47 am

Question: If the Red Wing Red Line had the same frequencies as the Twin Cities Red Line, how close could it get to the 800 daily riders that our Red Line was averaging?


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