By Sean Brodfuehrer
The NFTA has been going through a process of organizational planning. The purpose of which is to guide the forward motion of the organization. It will evaluate the current system and define what the priorities should be in the future, as well as come up with some recommendation for changes to the system. It is their Transit Service Restructuring and Fare Study.
I was reading through the preliminary findings presentation that the NFTA has posted on their website and thought this was something that would be of interest to a larger audience. A while back they were handing out surveys to riders on buses and rail. An aggregate version of that information can be found within this survey.
Some of the highlights are:
- · Over 70% of bus and rail riders use the system at least 5 days per week.
- · 19% of riders have an income above $45,000 compared to 10% of bus riders.
- · 60% of all system users have a household income less than $25,000.
- · A higher percentage of youth and young adults use rail compared to bus.
- · 51% of bus and 46% of rail riders use the system for work.
- · Only 10% of bus riders transfer, while 30% transfer from rail to Metro Buses.
- · 56% of bus and 40% of rail users have no vehicle alternative.
You can take what you will from the stats, but some of the findings should certainly have an impact on how the NFTA does business. The fact that only 10% of the bus riders transfer is a tell sign in my opinion that people will make sure that they are on the best route from the beginning and most likely using the rail to get there instead of transferring from bus to bus. The reason for this is not defined here but from my experience I would say that information about bus to bus transfer is difficult at best to ascertain along many routes. That is because of the way the NFTA chooses to give information, one is left with guessing for both when your bus and the next bus will arrive at the intersection. They should at least rethink their maps and schedules.
There
is some interesting ridership information available in the report, the exact
numbers from which I do have available for someone interested in the nitty gritty
information. The graphs are particularly interesting. Notice how completely off
the scale ridership is for the train compared to even the most used bus line,
over three times.
What are your perspectives on which lines get used and not used? Did you think that the 3 Grant was the most used bus line; with the 20 Elmwood, 12 Utica and 23 Hertel-Fillmore following up as the next three most used? What should the rest of the routes do in order to match or grow their ridership? Anything? Nothing; you like the leg room?
Something else I find extremely interesting is the peak automobile trips and the total boardings by stop. To me these two diagrams show just how futile the zone system has become for the NFTA and how it probably adds confusion and cost geographic areas which are much more intertwined then when this system was conceptualized.
Take
a look, what do we think will come of this planning exercise? Also everyone who
has an interest in this subject should take a couple minutes and fill out their survey.
Sean,
Nice article, thanks for the write up.
I would be interested to know why you feel the zone system is futile? Could you better explain. The zone system is just designed so that users traveling into or out of first and second ring suburbs pay a slightly higher fare as they travel (in general) a greater distance.
I do a lot of transit survey analysis for my job. I don't think that these maps show anything too shocking. The majority of people board buses in the densest and least affluent areas. It is generally the survey information that you touched on towards the begining of the article (income levels, age, etc...) that are most revealing to staff members, because they already know most of the boarding and alighting patterns.
Thanks again for the summary.
It may not be completely futile but in my perspective, the purpose of the transit system is to provide reliable and comprehensible service to everyone. Many people look at public transit as a 'service' for the poorer segment of the region and while it does serve that population, it serves a lot more than that as well.
The zone system as it exists today gets in the way of both perspectives. The inner ring suburbs are arguably one of the focal points within the larger region in both employment and density. Tonawanda industrial park, the airport, Galleria mall, Niagara Falls Blvd, Boulevard mall, Walden \ Union \ Sheridan \ Main Streets all these places have a large numbers of people living and working around them. If we look at the system as a way to bring people to jobs.. then we are adding a cost to what could be as little as 1 mile between a home and work. I understand that commuters who take the ride from the suburbs to downtown for work and riding a further distance and that one way to cover the extra costs is to charge the zone fee. But there is just as large of a segment of city dwellers that have family or use the businesses just outside the city line that also get charged this fee for what may be a very short distance.
It also is has become a confusion factor that keeps many commuters in the inner ring suburbs away from the system completely. You need to know whether to fay the zone charge when you get on or when you get off based on the direction of travel. Too many unknowns and they just drive. It is an old system based on a time where suburbs were sleeper communities.. which they no longer are.
I agree with a lot of your points. The money earned from the zone system is fairly small in the grand scheme of things (1 million, I think it said). Maybe they should eliminate the zone system, and instead just charge slightly more for Express Routes.
So all users pay $1.75 fare, while Express users pay $2.00 or $2.25 - regardless of the old zone system.