Quote:
Originally Posted by DirectionNorth
OK, I misinterpreted your post. I still stand by what I said - the most important things in a transit system are:
- speed
- convenience
- reliability
- safety
- cheaper (I meant compared to car ownership)
People will drive if transit cannot get them to where they want to go, quickly, safely, and conveniently.
You refute what I said with:
But let's go now. Let's say you will walk to the nearest arterial to take the bus in the direction you want to go (doesn't matter N/S, E/W). Average walk is 8 minutes (destinations are typically on major arterials) - at about 1 km distance, that's 1 km of walking in 15 minutes (a typical person will do that in 12, there's an advantage for you), averaged throughout the neighborhood. Providing bus service in the center of neighborhoods brings that down to 0 minutes (this is very generous). Let's say you need one transfer for both trips (some neighborhood routes will terminate with few destinations on route). Let's use your frequencies, 10 minutes for my side, 20 minutes for your side (in reality neighborhood routes are often less frequent than that).
With your ideas, that's 0 walking time + 10 minutes waiting (average) + travel times + 10 minutes waiting (for a transfer).
20 extra minutes
With my ideas, that's 7.5 minutes walking time + 5 minutes waiting (average) + travel times + 5 minutes waiting (for a transfer).
17.5 extra minutes of travel time, ignoring the speed advantages that you disagree with, and with different advantages that I gave you.
Your idea works better without transfers. Mine is more suited to a grid system - but if we work on a one-seat ride principle, frequency gets stretched even more, especially in a sprawling region like York Region. |
Where did I say not to increase frequencies and also not to add new routes at the same time?
My whole point was how YRT/Viva lacks a complete network due to the lack of Steeles service. My whole point was the importance of a more complete network, including a finished grid, for YRT/Viva by adding a route along Steeles, York Region's only continuous east-west corridor south of the Rutherford Road/16th Avenue corridor. Steeles is the only direct/straight corridor too, so it would be much faster route than the convoluted service the VIVA Purple service along the Highway 7/Centre Street/Bathurst Street/Highway 7/Warden Avenue/Enterprise Boulevard/Kennedy Road/Highway 7 corridor.
Look at the 6km gap south of the Rutherford/16th corridor in York Region that is mostly only filled by Viva Purple in the Highway 7/Centre Street/Bathurst Street/Highway 7/Warden Avenue/Enterprise Boulevard/Kennedy Road/Highway 7 corridor, overlapping with regular YRT routes 1 Highway 7 and 77 Centre, and not much else. Compare the 2011 ridership of those east-west routes to that of the east-west routes of Brampton Transit between Sandalwood Parkway and Queen Street (5.5m apart) or the east-west routes of Mississauga Transit between Eglinton Avenue and The Queensway (6km apart).
York Region Transit
85 Rutherford/16th Avenue 4,546
Viva Purple 9,238
1 Highway7 2,187
77 Highway7/Centre 4,672
2 Milliken 2,625
Brampton Transit
23 Sandalwood 2,344
5 Bovaird 7,862
29 Williams 2,177
9 Vodden/Williams 1,505
501 Zum Main 15,883
1 Queen 6,360
Mississauga Transit
35 Eglinton 6,397
109 Meadowvale Express 1,380
20 Rathburn 3,253
26 Burnhamthorpe 9,482
76 City Centre-Subway 1,966
3 Bloor 8,040
1 Dundas 15,478
101 Dundas Express 2,546
4 Sherway Gardens 1,265
http://dmg.utoronto.ca/pdf/tts/2011/validation2011.pdf
YRT prioritized higher frequencies and faster buses over filling in those gaps and completing the network, and they expanded their service before Brampton and Mississauga Transit did, and it just didn't work.
Higher frequencies might be important for small systems, because the travel distances are smaller, but YRT is just way too big a system, serving way too big an area, people travelling way too long distances, for frequency to make a huge difference on ridership. If someone wants to travel 30 minutes on a bus route, an increase of frequency from 20 minutes to 10 minutes to save 5 minutes, or 17% lower travel time.
A typical bus route that is 60 minutes long is going to need 6 buses for 20 minute frequency, so 6 buses more for 10 minute frequency. From 6 operators to 12 operators as well. Double both the capital and labour costs, but double the ridership and fare revenue as well? Somehow I doubt it.
Remember that if these buses are empty because no one likes using them, and that's why we increase their frequency, then if the ridership only grows as fast as the service, then the buses remain empty, and therefore still not be able to recover their costs, the operating costs still increase even if ridership matches the buses added to the route. Therefore the increased frequency needs to come after ridership growth, not before.
For extreme low frequency like 60 minutes for a 60 minutes long route, even just adding one bus would be huge increase in frequency, to 40 minutes, a 20 minute difference, so an average savings in travel time of 10 minutes. That is 33% less time for someone travelling 30 minutes. But that is still an 50% increase in operating costs. That might attract many new riders, result in faster ridership growth than 50%, and buses get crowded. But if the buses get more crowded, what happens? The buses stop more and more often, the take longer let people on/off, so they get slower and slower, a 60 minute long route might become 65 minutes, so 40 minute frequency with 3 buses would become 42 minute frequency, and 4 buses would be needed for 33 minute frequency.
This is why a ridership growth strategy based so much on increasing frequencies doesn't make sense. Ridership growth is not likely to match the improved frequencies, and ridership growth matching the improved frequencies is not enough, and ridership growth that exceeds expectations hurts their frequencies.
Same problem with a ridership growth strategy based on rapid transit. Buses are already fast on a low ridership system, because they are not stopping for riders. Ridership growth slows down the buses. Rapid transit, like higher frequencies, is a solution for ridership for that is too high, not for ridership that is too low. That is the fundamental mistake YRT made, just like many agencies in the US also made.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DirectionNorth
Look at this:
But if you consistently forget what you've posted in the past (the second time in four posts), I can't help you. |
I am looking at it, and I still fail to see where exactly I compared VIVA service to TTC Steeles in any way.
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