How to market public transportation

[brooklynite]

[msongs]

1. public transit is fine if it goes where you need and u can afford it nt

[progree]

2. Extremely very difficult when they keep cutting service and having innumerable trip cancellations

I just learned yesterday they are ENDING a route that is within reasonable distance. Now I have to walk 1.5 miles (32 minutes) to catch a bus with half the frequency.

There is still another line that has limited hours of service available, nearby, it only runs during traditional commute hours. No midday, no evening service.

Metro Transit (MT) (Minneapolis and St. Paul).

Yes, the reason is driver shortages. MT has been having a lot of trip cancellations that we learn about like minus minutes to a few hours in advance because of driver shortages. Lots of them. It makes the system very unreliable to the point that a 2-bus trip each way is a leap of faith. So they cut scheduled service to reduce the last minutes/hours cancellation problem, and the problem isn't that bad for awhile and then it starts to get bad again, so another cut in scheduled service. Rinse and repeat.

Well, like I said in the first paragraph, my turn came. And I fear that commute-hours only one isn't immune to being badly cut.

We're not going to get people out of their cars this way. We're not going to achieve climate goals this way (and no electric vehicles, while helpful, still take a LOT of greenhouse gasses to manufacture, and we're not getting to a fossil-free grid unless the storage problem is solved (it is FAR from a solution, the largest power system batteries I've read of are 4 hours). Or nuclear at great cost.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. I am a huge fan of public transportation.

My first 7 years in the DC area (1969-1976) I didn't have a car. And this was before the Metro opened.

I was an airline employee at that time, and we got essentially free plane travel everywhere. Co-workers would be astonished at how much travel I did, and occasionally asked me how I could afford it. "I don't own a car," was my invariable response.

Where I live now, Santa Fe NM, there is limited bus service, so I mostly drive, although I have taken the bus at various times. If I ever move to another city, I want it to be somewhere with good public transportation. Portland, OR, would be fabulous.

[progree]

4. Twin Cities transit *WAS* good. It isn't anymore, and my understanding is that this is a problem

with transit systems throughout the U.S. with driver shortages. It is a catastrophic as it has just become too unreliable and too limited, and there goes our climate goals.

I get email alerts on trip cancellations for 3 routes that I follow. The transit maps and published schedules may look really nice, but the reality is different.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. I lived in Minneapolis for a relatively short time,

1982-83, and took the public bus a lot. I was taking classes at the University, and always went by bus.

That was a while ago, obviously.

[progree]

6. I remembered interviewing at NSP (Northern States Power) downtown Mpls in 1977

and seeing all these red busses all over the place. WOW! That really sold me on the place. (Back then all the Metro Transit busses were red).

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. It's long enough ago, that I honestly cannot recall the color

of the busses I rode. But I do know that back then the bus service was very good.

I will add this. I was 7 1/2 months pregnant when I tripped over my own two feet, walking down a stairs headed to the bus stop after class at the University of Minnesota, to go home. Students around me helped me up, called campus cops, and I was quickly taken to the University health center. Turns out I'd broken my ankle. Sigh. I got a cast and crutches. I stayed home the next week, then went back to school, maneuvering on campus on my crutches. Again, keep in mind I'm more than 7 months pregnant.

During that time, I NEVER had to wait in line anywhere, even on campus, where students are notorious about not accommodating others. People would take one look at me, on crutches, very pregnant, and let me go to the head of the line. Hooray. Also, after a week or so the students in one of my classes (I was taking all of two at the time) discovered that I was hanging out at the library before class, and then started meeting me there and carrying my books for me. How kind.

Before I broke my leg, when I'd get on the bus after class heading home, I often got on too late to get a seat. It was interesting to see what other passengers offered me a seat, and honestly, it was mostly young men who seemed to be of Middle Eastern extraction. I got so I'd stand somewhat aggressively over the 19 year olds sitting down, and pointedly ask for the seat. I will say that when I asked, they always let me sit down. I think, in all honesty, the essential problem was that these young people had never ridden a public bus before this, and had no idea what the rules really were.

Some years later, on a bus in NYC, making my two young sons (then something like 14 and 18) stand up so that others, especially older people, could sit, and the younger son complained bitterly, but I told him to stuff it, because he was young and could stand.

[progree]

8. LOL. I remember being 14. I should clarify that the bus service was excellent all the way up until

the pandemic, and then we had all kinds of suspensions and disruptions because of that which is understandable.

But in the past year as service moves in the direction towards normal, the driver shortages started biting. What's worrying is that it's slowly getting worse and worse, causing cutback after cutback (#2 above). They are small cutbacks each time, but they accumulate.

School busses are having an even bigger problem with cutbacks.

[Ron Green]

9. This country was built on fear and cheap gasoline,

and we still have plenty of both.

Not gonna change.

[brooklynite]

10. Here's an alternative approach...

Link to tweet