LMich
Dec 27, 2006, 10:45 AM
Here's a usual quirky and anecdotal piece of commentary by the Lansing City Pulse, on weekly alternative newspaper, on the local transit system, CATA (Capital Area Transit Authority), continuing to post impressive numbers for a system in an urban area this size:
http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/images/stories/061220/catasandy2.jpg
Macro-management: Sandy Dragoo, executive director of the Capital Area Transportation Authority, uses her plush bus to re-enact CATA's 10 millionth ride of fiscal year 2006. (Lawrence Cosentino/City Pulse)
Rolling: City bus system hits 10-million-ride milestone
Wednesday, 20 December 2006
Written by LAWRENCE COSENTINO
CATA posts record year, increasing ridership more than 7 percent
Mars rovers, hydrofoil races and helicopter rides through active volcanoes are all fine, but the greatest thrill in the world of transportation is watching a nice, long row of zeros tumble into line.
This fall, the Capital Area Transportation Authority experienced a truly shattering odometer-gasm, as the city’s bus service registered its 10 millionth ride for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
It’s the first time CATA has reached 10 million rides in one year, representing a 7.3 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.
How does teenager Clashay Johnson of Lansing, heading to classes at Eastern High on CATA’s Route 1, like the bus? She shrugs out the classic teenage reply.
“It’s OK, I guess.”
Other riders, not to mention CATA executive director Sandy Draggoo, are a tad more enthusiastic. Since Draggoo got on the figurative bus in 1981 as a secretary at CATA, she has seen ridership mushroom from about 70,000 to its present eight figures. This year’s 7.3 percent increase has her driving that cute plush bus around her desktop with more gusto than ever. “The national average has been 3.4 percent,” she says. “That’s a really big difference — more than double.”
Thus far, Draggoo and her staff have no hard explanation for the increase. She credits the usual suspects, such as rising gas prices, inconvenient parking and rising environmental consciousness.
However, Draggoo finds it interesting that ridership continued to increase even when gasoline prices went sharply down in the second half of 2006. What is more, October 2006 followed the preceding year into the record books as the largest single month CATA has ever had. “So we’re continuing to grow,” Draggoo says.
To get a handle on its accelerating growth, CATA’s board of directors has commissioned an outside firm, Perteet Engineering, to evaluate the city’s bus system from top to bottom, with work expected to begin early next year. Draggoo hopes the firm’s “comprehensive operational analysis,” including ridership surveys, will help clarify the city’s shifting transportation needs.
Informal bus interrogation confirms Draggoo’s hunch that much of the increase comes from people who don’t have to use the bus. “I think we have gained a lot of choice riders,” Draggoo says. “They’re a big part of this 10 million.”
Here’s a hint to the Perteeters: You can tell many “choice riders” by their telltale aura of serenity. Many passengers on Route 1 chat, read or listen to music on earphones, but Jai Jaglan of Okemos, a graying man in his ‘60s, sits so beatifically it’s tempting to ask him for spiritual guidance. Jaglan banks a little serenity each day by taking the bus to his job at the Treasury Building, parking his car at the Frandor Shopping Center. “It’s cheap for me,” he says. As a senior, Jaglan pays $1 for a round trip. “Besides, it’s hazardous to drive, and parking is difficult downtown — especially when the snow falls, and that’s coming soon.”
Steve Nault is another self-proclaimed “choice rider” who just happens to have no choice at the moment. Nault is without a driver’s license, so he commutes from his home near downtown Lansing to his job at the MSU International Center bookstore each day.
“People don’t appreciate the bus service here,” he says. “For the programs they offer, it’s one of the more convenient and reliable systems I’ve experienced.”
Nault spent the first 20 years of his life in Lansing, moved around the country for several years, and returned here in April. He says he’d use the bus even if he could drive. “I’ve spent a lot of time in Texas, and a lot of cities this size don’t even have a bus system,” he says. “In Texas, everybody’s so independent. They drive a car whether they have a license or not.”
Draggoo says bus riders don’t fit any one profile, and Route 1 bears out the contention. On its way from downtown Lansing to the Meridian Mall and back, the bus scoops up an amazing variety of organisms. There’s a winsome brunette in her late teens, tugging on her bootlaces, wearing a huge grin. A gel-haired law student mutters into a cell phone.
Just when you wonder where all the notorious bus-riding eccentrics are, a grizzled man in camouflage sits on the front bench, holding a tree branch between his legs. Nobody sits next to him.
David Moore, an Eastern High School student on his way to school, leans back, blond bangs in his eyes, shutting out the quiet hum of this hybrid-engine bus with earphones blasting the rock group Under Oath.
Draggoo is especially proud of the fleet’s four NewFlyer hybrid buses, half-million-dollar babies built in Minneapolis and the first hybrid buses used in Michigan. “We’ve just got four brand new hybrids that were pulled on the property yesterday,” she says. “They’re not even striped yet.”
Three articulated hybrids (the long ones with accordion middles) will bring the hybrid fleet up to 11 by the first week of January.
Draggoo’s “choice riders” keep popping up all down the line.
At the Meridian Mall, a silver-haired Okemos woman named Paulette settles into her seat and calmly begins to multitask, tuning into a book on tape (“Not Even For Love”) and thumbing a copy of Essence magazine. She, too, has the aura.
Paulette says she leaves her Oldsmobile at the mall lot and takes the bus downtown to her job at the Department of Community Health. “It is a choice for me,” she says. Gas prices and parking are two headaches she never tires of avoiding. “I get off the bus and there I am, a block and a half from work.”
Leaving the driving to others, she turns her attention back to Essence and “Love.”
http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=720&Itemid=29
http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/images/stories/061220/catasandy2.jpg
Macro-management: Sandy Dragoo, executive director of the Capital Area Transportation Authority, uses her plush bus to re-enact CATA's 10 millionth ride of fiscal year 2006. (Lawrence Cosentino/City Pulse)
Rolling: City bus system hits 10-million-ride milestone
Wednesday, 20 December 2006
Written by LAWRENCE COSENTINO
CATA posts record year, increasing ridership more than 7 percent
Mars rovers, hydrofoil races and helicopter rides through active volcanoes are all fine, but the greatest thrill in the world of transportation is watching a nice, long row of zeros tumble into line.
This fall, the Capital Area Transportation Authority experienced a truly shattering odometer-gasm, as the city’s bus service registered its 10 millionth ride for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
It’s the first time CATA has reached 10 million rides in one year, representing a 7.3 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.
How does teenager Clashay Johnson of Lansing, heading to classes at Eastern High on CATA’s Route 1, like the bus? She shrugs out the classic teenage reply.
“It’s OK, I guess.”
Other riders, not to mention CATA executive director Sandy Draggoo, are a tad more enthusiastic. Since Draggoo got on the figurative bus in 1981 as a secretary at CATA, she has seen ridership mushroom from about 70,000 to its present eight figures. This year’s 7.3 percent increase has her driving that cute plush bus around her desktop with more gusto than ever. “The national average has been 3.4 percent,” she says. “That’s a really big difference — more than double.”
Thus far, Draggoo and her staff have no hard explanation for the increase. She credits the usual suspects, such as rising gas prices, inconvenient parking and rising environmental consciousness.
However, Draggoo finds it interesting that ridership continued to increase even when gasoline prices went sharply down in the second half of 2006. What is more, October 2006 followed the preceding year into the record books as the largest single month CATA has ever had. “So we’re continuing to grow,” Draggoo says.
To get a handle on its accelerating growth, CATA’s board of directors has commissioned an outside firm, Perteet Engineering, to evaluate the city’s bus system from top to bottom, with work expected to begin early next year. Draggoo hopes the firm’s “comprehensive operational analysis,” including ridership surveys, will help clarify the city’s shifting transportation needs.
Informal bus interrogation confirms Draggoo’s hunch that much of the increase comes from people who don’t have to use the bus. “I think we have gained a lot of choice riders,” Draggoo says. “They’re a big part of this 10 million.”
Here’s a hint to the Perteeters: You can tell many “choice riders” by their telltale aura of serenity. Many passengers on Route 1 chat, read or listen to music on earphones, but Jai Jaglan of Okemos, a graying man in his ‘60s, sits so beatifically it’s tempting to ask him for spiritual guidance. Jaglan banks a little serenity each day by taking the bus to his job at the Treasury Building, parking his car at the Frandor Shopping Center. “It’s cheap for me,” he says. As a senior, Jaglan pays $1 for a round trip. “Besides, it’s hazardous to drive, and parking is difficult downtown — especially when the snow falls, and that’s coming soon.”
Steve Nault is another self-proclaimed “choice rider” who just happens to have no choice at the moment. Nault is without a driver’s license, so he commutes from his home near downtown Lansing to his job at the MSU International Center bookstore each day.
“People don’t appreciate the bus service here,” he says. “For the programs they offer, it’s one of the more convenient and reliable systems I’ve experienced.”
Nault spent the first 20 years of his life in Lansing, moved around the country for several years, and returned here in April. He says he’d use the bus even if he could drive. “I’ve spent a lot of time in Texas, and a lot of cities this size don’t even have a bus system,” he says. “In Texas, everybody’s so independent. They drive a car whether they have a license or not.”
Draggoo says bus riders don’t fit any one profile, and Route 1 bears out the contention. On its way from downtown Lansing to the Meridian Mall and back, the bus scoops up an amazing variety of organisms. There’s a winsome brunette in her late teens, tugging on her bootlaces, wearing a huge grin. A gel-haired law student mutters into a cell phone.
Just when you wonder where all the notorious bus-riding eccentrics are, a grizzled man in camouflage sits on the front bench, holding a tree branch between his legs. Nobody sits next to him.
David Moore, an Eastern High School student on his way to school, leans back, blond bangs in his eyes, shutting out the quiet hum of this hybrid-engine bus with earphones blasting the rock group Under Oath.
Draggoo is especially proud of the fleet’s four NewFlyer hybrid buses, half-million-dollar babies built in Minneapolis and the first hybrid buses used in Michigan. “We’ve just got four brand new hybrids that were pulled on the property yesterday,” she says. “They’re not even striped yet.”
Three articulated hybrids (the long ones with accordion middles) will bring the hybrid fleet up to 11 by the first week of January.
Draggoo’s “choice riders” keep popping up all down the line.
At the Meridian Mall, a silver-haired Okemos woman named Paulette settles into her seat and calmly begins to multitask, tuning into a book on tape (“Not Even For Love”) and thumbing a copy of Essence magazine. She, too, has the aura.
Paulette says she leaves her Oldsmobile at the mall lot and takes the bus downtown to her job at the Department of Community Health. “It is a choice for me,” she says. Gas prices and parking are two headaches she never tires of avoiding. “I get off the bus and there I am, a block and a half from work.”
Leaving the driving to others, she turns her attention back to Essence and “Love.”
http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=720&Itemid=29