Pandemic Transit, Fare-Free Systems, and 10 US Cities That Held It Together During COVID
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 เม.ย. 2022
- For two years, COVID-19 worries and the emergence of work-from-home as a viable option for some employers have meant plummeting ridership on US transit systems. At the same time, declining revenue sources like payroll and sales taxes, as well as fares, have often meant service cutbacks.
Today we look at the ten cities that had the least decline in ridership since the pandemic's onset, and try to see what they did right. Fare-free systems, new services, increased focus on maintenance -- we'll cover it all here.
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Other CityNerd Videos referenced:
- Regional Rail Systems of North America: • Regional Rail Systems ...
- Cost of Car Dependency 2022: • The All-In Cost of Car...
- Big Cities, Small Transit: • The 10 Worst Transit C...
- Small Cities, Big Transit: • Smaller Cities With Gr...
- The Best Freeway Lids in America: • Freeway Lids / Caps / ...
- Where to Lid Freeways : • Freeway Lids: The 10 B...
- America's Humungous Parking Lots: • Enormous Parking Lots ...
- North America's Top Cities for Ferry Travel: • Transit On the Water: ...
- Unexpectedly Walkable Neighborhoods in the US: • 10 Surprisingly Pedest...
- Freeway-Heavy Downtowns of the US: • The Most Freeway-Heavy...
- Ginormous Freeway Interchanges of the US: • Top 10 GINORMOUS Freew...
Resources:
- dcist.com/story/20/11/30/dc-m...
- www.ktvu.com/news/bart-to-cut...
- gothamist.com/news/mta-cuts-b...
- dailygazette.com/2020/04/04/c...
- dailygazette.com/2020/08/12/c...
- www.decaturil.gov/wp-content/...
- www.census.gov/newsroom/press...
- NTD data: www.transit.dot.gov/ntd
- santaclaritatransit.com/route...
- www.townofchapelhill.org/gove...
- gotriangle.org/sites/default/...
- www.boston.gov/sites/default/...
- www.linktransit.com/routes_and...
- www.cbsnews.com/news/housing-...
- www.suntran.com/
- prt.wvu.edu/
- www.thedaonline.com/news/prt-...
Image Credits:
- Six Flags Magic Mountan Fire By August B from Santa Clarita, USA - Magic Fire_8, CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Garfield High School, Seattle By Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Seattle Public Library By Jeff Wilcox from Seattle, WA, USA - seattle public library, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Central Park Video by CityXcape : www.pexels.com/video/panning-...
- KC Main MAX By David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA - 20160709 003 KCATA Max Bus, Main St. @ 31st St, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Morgantown PRT time lapse footage By Antony-22, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mo...
- Thumbnail PRT By Antony-22 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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New bike lanes in Mexico City started appearing with the pandemic, Insurgentes avenue within a few weeks of the start of the pandemic had an "emergent bike lane" painted and just a few months ago, the bike lane was formalized and now we have 28 new Km of protected bike lane only on that avenue thanks to the pandemic. This is only one example of many others that appeared and are here to stay.
The issue regarding bike lanes within Mexico City is their integration within it, in order to make a cohesive network that invites cycling and that tends to cover more of the urban area. It is good that City officials are turning to cover the untapped need for better options regarding public transportation, but personally I find some of them lacking, i.e., the elevated trolleybus... Given the transportation needs all over Iztapalapa and the southwest of Mexico City, ¿Why delay the extension of Line 8 of the Metro to the Santa Martha paradero building a lame elevated trolleybus instead? ¿Why ditching the 2018-2030 Metro master plan the way the 1996 Metro Master plan was ditched previously?
A lot of "provisional" changes happened in a lot of cities all over North America starting in March 2020. Streets closed to motorists, street seating where on-street parking used to be...it's interesting to see how much of that is being made permanent after people began to see the benefits.
@@CityNerd True and that's great to see, but can't get complacent! My city removed a downtown section of our main street (Peachtree) that had been redesigned to allow more space for bikes and pedestrians. Folks are organizing to bring it back but even with good evidence the program worked as intended the city is taking it away to "spend time to do the assessment". Ridiculous excuses! The data is already there, ending the pilot shouldn't be necessary to assess especially if it's working!
@@TheScourge007 Yeah, there should be all kinds of interesting before-after data from all these temp/"pilot" projects!
As an NYC resident I was truly blown away by Mexico City’s incredible transit / bike infrastructure
That undervalued vs overvalued property prices comparing cities idea sounds great!
There's quite a few in Utah, which has some nice outdoors stuff, but not really worth the $400K+ asking price on homes
I second wanting to see a video exploring this recent spike in property prices and how its not equally distributed among cities in a way that makes sense to a bystander like me (And not just because I live in STL and want to hear good things about my city).
@@Pmiller287 Haha, I'll always have good things to say about STL.
It's on the list! I expect the question to continue to become more and more relevant.
@@Pmiller287 Of course housing prices have also skyrocketed in STL, especially in the southern half of the city. That 171K is a very polarizing amount.
Boise resident here with a few thoughts and hopefully answers for you. So the median home price has risen even more since you’ve posted this video. It’s now $600K. To answer your question as to why that’s considered “expensive” a few years ago the median home price was $300K for Boise. Housing prices have just risen too fast compared to median salaries for a lot of Boise residents. Houses are bought up days after going on market you’re expected to pay over asking price in cash to have a shot at getting one. The population growth is imports from California driven out by high housing prices in big western cities and a desire to work from home. There is some antipathy here from native Boiseans about being priced out of their own home market by (a stereotype of) rich Californians looking to transform Idaho into another California. If you ever visit Boise, don’t mention California, it’s like a curse word here (I say that half joking and half serious).
To answer your question on WHY so many are moving here? Yes, you are correct the Boise metro is one huge “stroad” network and very car dependent. But as for a car-centric city goes, it’s a very nice one. Some main points.
1: One of the biggest things is how safe Boise is. Some of the “most dangerous” areas in Boise would be considered safe neighborhoods in other big cities. You mention St. Louis, which in some (admittedly casual and non-scientific) research I did has a violent crime rate of 19.95 per 1K residents, while Boise’s is just 2.87. I’m not doubting that St Louis definitely does have better transit and cultural fabric, but for many people, a crime rate almost 7x lower is a trade off they’re willing to make if it means driving on a few more (okay a lot more) stroads. The state capitol building right in downtown has its doors unlocked, with no security or medal detectors, and any security you do see will just smile and welcome you to the capitol. It’s just a culture thing here, very safe city, very nice residents.
2: Boise is a very beautiful city. If you’re willing to look past the stroads and suburbia tint there are actually very beautiful downtown parks (Ann Morrison, Julia Davis, Kathryn Albertsons) that take up a good portion of downtown real-estate. The Boise river is a big source of recreation. It runs right through downtown and residents float down it in summer on inner tubes, yet the river is only blocks from the tallest of high rises. There’s also is an extensive greenbelt running right along the river that is quite nice for cycling. And the whole city is at the bottom of foothills which house great mountain scenery and snow during the winter. You can get to Bogus Basin, a very popular ski slope, in less than hour from downtown. And beyond the natural beauty, the city itself is very well cleaned and kept. Litter and garbage aren’t to be seen, vandalism and street crime aren’t common at all, and graffiti just...doesn’t really exist. People take a lot of pride in this city and it’s appearance again, harkening back to the low crime point.
3. Politics bring people here. Idaho is fire engine red and Californians moving here have statistically been shown to be Republicans from that state fed up with blue government. It’s basically the “big sort” effect, republicans moving to live with republicans and vice versa. While downtown Boise is a blue dot, it’s immediately eclipsed by all the slightly smaller towns and cities making up the Boise Metro Area. Eagle, Meridian, Nampa, Star, Middleton, Caldwell, Kuna, all these surrounding towns are ruby red (Meridian happens to also be the fastest gowning town/city in the nation). So red that Ada County (where the entirety of Boise is in) went for Trump in 2016, because any blue dot in downtown was counteracted by very red suburbs. And even Idaho Democrats are very different than California or New York Democrats, one of the first things the latest Democratic governor candidate did when asked about guns was how she carries guns herself, respects “the right of the people” to carry arms, that guns will never leave Idaho, you get the picture. And people of a rightward mindset aren’t even going to know what a “stroad” is To them, all they see is a beautiful city close to nature with great upkeep and friendly culture with cheaper house prices than the ones they had in Californian cities.
I also wanted to include a few transit related tidbits about Boise for your interest.
The intersection you zoomed in on? Hooooooo-wwwweeee you picked a beaut. Eagle-Fairview is the busiest intersection in the whole state of Idaho and Eagle Road is a stroad for the ages. 6-8 lanes stretching for as long as the eye can see, with strip malls and driveways into parking lots lining every inch of it. All that with a highway like speed limit of 55mph, which means of course Idahoans go 60+. Driving past subdivisions, strip malls, and office buildings at speeds like that on just a city road…it’s a trip.
Okay stroad snarkiness aside, I thought I’d share some positive transit/city related things about Boise.
A: The street view in downtown Boise you showed is 8th street, but that street has been closed in the downtown core to cars since the pandemic started. It’s now being used as giant pedestrian/bike network for people to peruse local shops and restaurants, all leaning into Grove Plaza, the “town hub” for Boise. And it appears this change will most likely be made permanent, making a whole downtown street in Boise “car free”. Grove plaza also happens to host CenturyLink Ariana, a Basketball/Ice Hockey arena that has no major ground parking lot for it, instead, it sits right on the corner of two busy streets sharing its building with a luxury hotel.
B: Boise has no freeway running through its downtown area. It has only one freeway, I84 which sideswipes Boise. I184 is the spur that goes into Boise, but it stops right when it hits the downtown grid of Boise. Cars then disperse pretty quickly after that meaning downtown is car heavy to be sure, but quite walkable with no elevated freeway diving things up. The one upside of our stroady arterials is that the grid system is so unyielding it makes navigation extremely easy. I rarely have to look at a gps because I can drive in so many convenient straight lines. It really is a drivers dream (admittedly at the expense of other forms of transit).
C: Don’t think all the stroads you see lining Boise are going to be that way for good, the Ada County Highway District, who controls road planning for our grid system, said all new construction on arterials going forward will have buffered bike lines instead of the current gutter ones. Those cyclists can also soon use Boise’s new “Pathways Program” which builds more greenbelts all over the metro area to provide suburb to downtown bike riding and exclusive right of way. The biggest change lately was taking Main and Fairview, two one way four lane streets near downtown and taking a whole lane of traffic away for a buffed bike lines, Bus stop islands have now been constructed in that buffer area as well to prime the roads into being a transit corridor rather than just another stroad. I can see in the future that third lane right up against the new bus stop platforms becoming bus only, leaving two car lanes, one dedicated transit lane, and a buffered bike lane. A lot of progress from a four-lane city street.
D: Boise is rewriting it's zoning code right now. While a majority of R-1 districts won't change for now, a lot of commercial, office, and downtown districts will now be mixed use allowing for apartments to be built on top of stores and along busy transit routes. City Hall is very much onboard with encouraging mixed used, transit oriented development.
One final thing I think you’d be interested in about transit here in Boise is how it’s run. Valley Regional Transit runs a bus service here that’s quite anemic and dinky. But it’s not their fault entirely, unlike almost ever other state, Idaho does not allow for residents to vote for a “local option tax” to fund transit. Transit can litteraly not be funded by a dedicated tax fund in Idaho. So all money VRT runs on has to be voluntarily given over by the City of Boise, and the amount changes year after year. There is no dedicated fixed funding mechanism for transit in our city.
But I give credit to VRT to doing the best they can with what they have. They’ve managed to increase frequency along of a lot of their routes. They cut back on routes almost no one rode on and reallocated those resources to provide 15 min peak frequency on their busiest routes. And they are looking to implement BRT on one of the states busiest road corridors State St. (which connects Boise and Eagle). The road had gotten so congested it came time to widen, but that would mean the road would be up to over 9+ lanes in some parts, so instead of paving more, they are working to make the State Street route BRT with dedicated lanes and 10-15 min peak frequency. So even though their budget is small, they’re trying their hardest to make ever dollar work by increasing frequency and serious hours on the top performing routes. That would be a cool idea for a video, transit agencies like VRT and why they do with limited budgets.
Thanks if you're still reading this, I apologize for how exhaustive it is but I wanted to share a lot about my city with ya and share some knowledge I hope you might have been interested to hear. I enjoy your videos, keep up the good work!
I definitely like Boise -- I've actually had a ACHD as a client on a couple of my projects, and I've definitely seen things get better over time. Fairview Ave though, woof
@@CityNerd Wow thats really cool! I do agree Fairview is a very sterotypical stroad that fits the sterotype youtubers often paint, old strip malls, car dealerships, a bit of dilapidation and cracked pavement.
Between Boise and St. Louis I'd rather live in St. Louis mostly because of its urban fabric and it being a much older city. However St. Louis needs to get it's shit together and it still isn't in my top 5 cities I'd like to live (Not that I will but just if I had the choice to move)
As a former west virginian, I would love to see more thoughts on the PRT. It is truly a holy trail for transit in the state (lol). I would also love to hear your overvalued/undervalued takes. Boise seems so cursed
I just returned from there. PRT isn't for most places, but it is a great fit for Morgantown.
Yeah it's a very unique geographic situation.
I took a ride on the PRT back in the 1970's. It seemed like an advanced system back then. But now looking back it was just a touristy thing to do. Probably hard to justify the cost for the number of people it can serve.
WVU’s PRT reminds me a lot of Skybus, the prototype people mover that was near Pittsburgh in the 1960s-70s.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_Expressway_Revenue_Line?wprov=sfti1
It needs to go to the mountaineer Mall and the new Walmart mall area maybe even link up to the industrial park and the educational park across the river possibly the regional airport by linking it with the interstate The m o n health Park maybe a way for them to go The health center up the hill from them and then maybe swing to the suncrest Town center and Link up to the regional airport. It's pathetic They haven't extended it at all since the 1970s come on get serious the traffic's not getting better.
I wish I was surprised to see my town Madison WI do so badly. The city government was advertising widely that nobody should use a bus for any reason unless absolutely necessary. "If you have any other form of transit available, or you can skip the trip, you should".
Yeah I found it very weird they were at the bottom.
True. I live in Madcity as well. My impression is that bicycle use really rose, especially winter use and the prevalence of Dutch cargo bikes. I use a bicycle a lot, and it does seem there are a lot more hard-core riders, especially in the winter. Our paths are plowed, sometimes before the streets.
@@thomaslubben8559 Yeah I was looking to move to Madison because of all the bike trails and infrastructure.
A non-trivial amount of the non-student ridership is state employees like me who went remote. Anecdotally it seems like there's been a push in a lot of state agencies to stay at least partly that way. We're also still a pulsed commuter oriented system so transit-dependent folks like me might just not be getting out much for non-work stuff.
I took the bus on Saturday for Pokémon Go community day-wasn’t crowded, but I don’t know it was that different than the pre-pandemic era.
As a Durham-Chapel Hill commuter (mostly by bike but occasionally GoTriangle), I would say that GoTriangle is really an inter-city system. The others all stay within one of the cities. You can almost think of GoTriangle as a commuter bus service. GoTriangle has limited stops at all the universities, downtown stations, Research Triangle Park, a bunch of park and rides, and a few, smaller, outlier cites like Hillsborough or Holly Springs. In my experience, GoTriangle is mostly used by university students/staff and a lot of workers commuting to RTP or one of the downtowns.
GoTriangle also has some interesting features like being allowed to drive on the shoulder of the Interstates during rush hour. Ridership numbers might also be affected by the fact that UNC provides a free GoTriangle bus pass to any student/staff that live outside of Chapel Hill and agree not to have a parking permit on campus. I think Duke does something similar but for most (all?) students/staff regardless of where they live. I don't know about NC State but it wouldn't surprise me if the do the same. All Chapel Hill busses are free for everyone (and have been for a long time) so local UNC students/staff don't need a pass.
Keep it Dirty, Durham
When I was there, NC State provided the GoPass for any student for just $5. I commuted from Durham to Raleigh on the DRX as a freshman, and riding on the shoulder was a huge time-saver.
NC state has a basically free GoTriangle pass, it's great for anyone who originally came from the area to get home. But this is a great overview/clearing up of the situation.
I do wish we had better transit in the cities here - or at least, my experience from 5-10 years ago when I last tried transit in Chapel Hill & Raleigh, where they were both pretty lacking :/
Another thought about why GoTriangle made this list...
Both Duke and UNC have massive medical centers on campus. You see a lot of lab coats and scrubs on the GoTriangle routes that connect to those campuses. During covid, hospital staff didn't get to work-from-home like the rest of us.
NC State has the Wolfline that is free for everyone, but only runs in the general area in Raleigh around the university and where students tend to live. No pass or credential required.
Duke staff can get a subsidized go triangle pass ($20 / yr) if we don't park on campus.
My wife takes go triangle commuting Durham -> UNC, and has said that go triangle being fare free has led to more local hop-ons. For trips inside Durham or inside Chapel Hill she has noticed more people getting on Go Triangle busses since they're free now, even for trips that are also covered by the local service. So that could be helping go triangles numbers.
And I completely support the OPs description, Go Triangle is a commuter-ish network that links the 3 cities and the airport. As a place Raleigh is most separate from Durham-CH, and then Durham and CH are pretty separate as well as far as metro areas go (it's no Minneapolis-StPaul or Tampa-StPete... Maybe if it was StDurham 😝)
Thanks for the great vids!
Dry humor king
I would love if a camera crew followed him around and we just got to see shots of him being disappointed in things and sighing.
@@Coltoid 😂😂 would subscribe. Now I'm trying to imagine being his child and showing him my grades.
the crown weighs heavy
Do a top 10 unique transit system features. The highway through a building in Osaka, hanging monorail in Germany, the massive cable car system in Medellin.
Woot! Tucson is number 2. I knew we'd gone fareless during the pandemic and as I kept watching the video I was wondering if it would be mentioned. We have a very short streetcar line. It's only 4.5 miles but it goes from just northeast of University of Arizona campus and just west of downtown, so there are a lot of people and students who live along the route. I really wish it would be expanded at least to the airport. Historical note before the new streetcar was built there was a old streetcar that went from the west side of campus on University down 4th Avenue and was only about 1.5 miles long.
As a side note: Tucson could really use a passenger rail service from Tucson to Phoenix (similar to New Mexico's RailRunner from ABQ to Santa Fe) that includes going from airport to airport.
My transit dream for Tucson would be an electric cable car east and east down Broadway and high speed passenger rail at the terminal to Phoenix
When you need a Canadian comparison you should look at Vancouver. The provincial government helped keep the transit running, as they knew that essential service workers often use transit. And keeping them safe meant run buses with few people on them. They did an amazing job. And now the ridership is (almost) back. Over 80% overall and over 90% in places.
What's crazy is that in 2013, the price of a house in Boise was only about 50% higher than St Louis. Might just have to move there.
Signed, someone renting an apartment in Boise.
I'm renting in Utah, prices have spiked some 50% over the five years I've been in my place, and house prices have also skyrocketed
When I visited Boise, everyone under 25 couldn't even rent an apt and just lived with family due to skyrocketing prices. It seems to be a mix of lots of tech jobs, like at Micron, and CA/OR/WA retirees flocking to Boise for the lower taxes and cheaper prices.
how about the affordability in east st louis ?
3PM eastern on a Wednesday, time to sit on TH-cam hitting f5 waiting to see what great content you gave us this week!
That's a lot of pressure
As a WVU student I can say that almost all of the prt’s ridership is university students. So long classes are in person (which they are), I would imagine the prt’s ridership will stay steady. I can also say that shutting down for 2 years and improving the system helped reliability a lot. The prt is honestly more reliable than mountain line which is a complete flip from before covid.
I appreciated the shout out to St. Louis! We sure do love our Central West End and Forest Park! I used to work nearby to that intersection you showed, and my team would *walk* there and grab coffees!
Always appreciate a quick shout out to St. Louis. Lived here my whole life, and it's amazing how good we have it. All we really need is a north/south train line. :(
I am once again requesting a video on the top ten cycling cities in North America
Raleigh and Durham are different MSAs and urbanized areas, but part of the same CSA (combined statistical area).
Santa Clarita is part of a the Los Angeles MSA, but is a distinct urbanized area.
The Census Bureau measures urbanized areas by zip code and MSAs by county (other than in New England, where it is by municipality). Santa Clarita is in Los Angeles County.
Ha, I didn't look up the metro areas to see if Santa Clarita was included. Thanks!
Thank you for the St. Louis shout out! :} To be honest, there is a bit of a sibling rivalry between the Lou and K.C., in my opinion, so I was a little jealous when you pointed out how great K.C.'s urban fabric is in a video the other day (although definitely true ) but again thanks for pointing out this time that St.L has just as much streetcar era development left as our neighbors down the Missouri. It is a shame our state government seems so resistant investing in it's cities. I would love to see that underrated/affordable cities video (and of course I vote St. Louis for number 1! lol)
I just feel bad for KC showing up in basically all my "worst" videos. Nobody needs to apologize for St. Louis!
As a lifelong pedestrian that grew up in NYC and never learned how to drive, this channel is helpful. Everywhere I have lived the past several years people drive (aggressively at that) ; the public transit is a shameful joke and locals are like "buy a car." I like walking. This channel helps validate there is no shame in taking public transit or walking / biking everywhere.
greater richmond transit company in virginia (although i’m sure it has very low rides per capita) only dropped 7% in ridership between feb ‘20 and feb ‘22. it’s been fare-free since june ‘20 and is set to stay that way until ‘25
Just missed the (admittedly arbitrary) 10 annual transit trips per capita threshold, but yeah otherwise would've made the list!
I never would have thought I’d like a channel like this as much as I do.
Imagine how surprised I am!
some of your dry humor is way too funny!
I went to WVU and I took the PRT for granted. Its such an amazing feature of the campus. It was reliable most of the time other than COVID and the time it was hit by a boulder that one time. Also whenever it was shut down, the university would offer additional busing in addition to the Mountain Lion bus routes
Hey, I live in Durham NC. The GoTriangle system is the only linkage between our three cities besides a private car and a very (until this year) infrequent amtrak service. This area is one of the fastest growing areas in the country and so the highways are beginning to be congested. But, buses are allowed to drive on the curb on the highways and so they don't get stuck in traffic. Additionally, the cities share a workforce very closely, three college campuses, and a rapidly expanding airport. The bus lines in all the cities and the intercity lines have stayed fare free since the beginning of the pandemic (which I helped to fight for through an organizing effort). Durham and Raleigh additionally built large main bus hubs in both cities just prior to the pandemic. I think all of those things have had an effect on sustaining ridership.
Also, if you ever come by you'll notice that the cities really aren't that closely linked. Most of the area between the beltlines is just low-density suburbs with very little to do. And, please do visit! It's such a lovely place.
The main negative for absolutely fareless transit is that you turn buses and trains into de facto homeless shelters, which can actually reduce ridership of people using transit to go places as people don't want to sit by smelly homeless people.
Sounds like we need to provide more resources to housing the homeless then.
I think this negative is one thing that holds transit back. I saw a clip of someone "relieving themself" on a subway train, and I could think that some people would avoid transit because of this.
@@tonywalters7298 A lot of people avoid transit because it has that image, when just building public bathrooms is such a simple solution.
You should do a light rail race video between Vancouver BC and Seattle/Portland. Keep up the great work!
Hey there from Chapel Hill!
I use Chapel Hill Transit and GoTriangle. Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh are home to our state's biggest universities: UNC-CH, Duke, and NC State; I would expect that a very large portion of the local transit users are students. Further, the universities in Chapel Hill and Durham are huge healthcare providers that have notoriously expensive parking, and many workers use park-and-ride to access the hospital areas.
Raleigh-Durham also has many high-tech industries in an area called RTP (Research Triangle Park). Most of these companies have been doing work-from-home and have recently transitioned to allowing people the option of returning to the office.
Chapel Hill Transit has been free for as long as I can remember, GoDurham and GoTriangle have been free to use since the pandemic began.
Ridership is not very high in this area. It is very hard to live without a car here, and almost everyone I know does not use public transit at all. I would be confident in saying that transit is used almost exclusively by students, people who work at the universities, and people who cannot afford to own a car.
As a transportation engineer who did their graduate work at WVU, I can appreciate the PRT. Unfortunately, as a demonstration project, the technology never caught on in a way that would make expansion cost- effective. They have tried to build up parking options around the stations, but none of the rumored expansions have ever gotten legs. It's become an object of interest as transit agencies look toward an autonomous option to compete with AVs.
Where would you even expand too. Maybe with the exception of university town center, there are no destinations that have a concentrated amount of people. Downtown, the university, engineering, and medical is enough. I'm just confused on it lack of expansion as a flaw in morgantown.
Started cycle commuting due to the pandemic. I’m not going back to transit, mostly due to the cost about $100 cad per month and free fitness time.
I'm super interested in all the behavior changes that happened during he pandemic that morphed into permanent things.
@@CityNerd a big surprise benefit of cycling is the flexibility to leave on your schedule as opposed to the bus’ schedule.
The bus goes every 10 minutes or so during peak hours, however , my mornings improved significantly not having to worry about catching it.
I’m hoping work from home stick for folks that like it. I couldn’t write college papers at home so I can’t imagine id be successful working from home but those that have it and like it. I hope they can keep it.
There's not much content on this channel about Canada (especially outside eastern Canada), so I'd love to see a public transit comparison video of all the major Canadian cities (and maybe also 1 or 2 things each city could do to improve their public transit networks)
RMTransit covers Canada (Toronto in particular)
your name is amazing. that is all.
Boston resident here- the 28 bus runs up Blue Hill Ave, which the City would like to redesign into a center-lane running BRT, but is facing local resistance. On the other side of Franklin Park, the 29 bus, which is also free, mostly runs on the same center buslane design on Seaver St and Columbus Ave. There's also a lot subsidized housing and low income residents along these routes . The fare-free pilot will probably expire before the redesign gets done, though.
We have a feeder system, so if we free the buses, some of loss in fares will still be compensated for when people transfer to rapid-transit lines. I think free fares probably help the most with intra-neighborhood travel, but could really speed up travel times with accompanying right of way and frequencies.
I talked to GoTriangle staff. The actual ridership drop is closer to 25% (still not too bad for a mostly commuter-oriented service). The smaller decrease that shows up in the NTD date is due to a change in the way they have reported NTD data (from farebox to APCs).
Thank you for the great content, I’ve been bingeing it the past week.
It would be be great to see a video on the most promising upcoming transportation projects in North America.
As a recent WVU grad, Morgantown topping this list has me ROLLING lmao. I rode the PRT daily up until the pandemic and was happy to never have to again, just because of the unreliability and wait times. But I never understood why they couldn’t just fix it properly. I’m glad they spent the pandemic fixing it for real (although I’ve heard that one before)
I think it’s a iconic symbol of WVU/Morgantown pride, like a statue to admire rather than a tool to use. I’d definitely love to hear your take on it
Your take on WVU's PRT would make my life XD. I took that wonder twice a day during my undergrad.
As a graduate of West Virginia University's engineering program, who lived on the Downtown campus for all four years (engineering is on the Evansdale campus), Mountain Line and the PRT were near daily parts of my life for four whole years, from 2012 until 2016. Back then, people around campus liked to call it the "Pray it Runs Transit" or "Possibly Reliable Transit", and that... wasn't exactly wrong. There were definitely times I was late for class because it was either stopped before I got to the station or while I was in transit. And Mountain Line as a bus service was... always pretty pathetic. The main loop from the upper end of the Downtown campus near Honors and Summit Halls to the Evansdale campus by the Engineering building was, on paper, a fairly frequent and reliable line, and since the service was mostly used by WVU students anyway, it was definitely one of their more used lines. But it was always just... kind of lackluster on a good day, and buses were often super late. I still managed to get around with the two services for the most part, though. And Morgantown had notoriously difficult street layout and expensive parking, so getting around car-free was a real Swiss flag right there. (To explain my lame joke, it's a big plus.) Both were fare free with a student ID, and I only on occasion needed to take a bus somewhere other than getting to or from the Evansdale campus, usually University Town Center. But Morgantown, for all it's probably not the best walking/public transit city ever, was a really nice experience for me as a college student. I had a lot of food options in walking distance, on campus or down at High Street, and that counts for both restaurants (Rest In Pandemic, Tailpipes) and some convenience/grocery stores for buying stuff for my apartment fridge. There were even enough places to hang out or just window shop, I always found myself hanging around the local used video game shop, I think that sadly is gone now too. And overall it was just a really nice experience, getting to live in a place where I could get where I was going by foot pretty easily, despite the hills.
Hearing that they've improved the PRT recently is... Honestly a really good thing to hear. While Mountain Line is rather limited by the street layout and terrain (I'm amazed I never saw that main bus line wreck trying to make the turn from Grant Avenue onto Campus Drive), the PRT is just kind of a weirdly perfect solution for the absolute niche issue of transport in Morgantown. I doubt it'd work in any other city, even on a college campus, but it was my first real persistent look at what public transit can do for a town. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it sometime. Sorry for the weird ramble, seeing the ol' gold and blue shuttles again just hit me with nostalgia.
I would love seeing a Morgantown PRT video. Also, I’d love to see a video about the least used metro stations in North America in comparison to the volume of the line that the station is on.
This is commuter rail, not metro, but the Mt. Pleasant station on NYC's Harlem line services a cemetery. Only a small fraction of trains stop there.
I would hypothesize people are flocking to places like Boise and away from old-style cities like St Louis because of fear of crime. Those fears may or not be well founded, but they are a likely driver.
I've thought the same. And now I have a video idea
If true, that's the most suburban thing ever. Fearful of crime when crime rates have been plummeting for decades
So they move from places where they (maybe) are more likely to be a victim of a crime to a place where they are definitely more likely to be in a car crash 🤔
@@CityNerd Not sure what your video idea is, but an idea that just came to mind would be looking at the phenomenon of "road rage". Is there good data on that?
Speaking about Boise, really, much of the mountain time zone has gone nuts housing wise. SLC, Denver, Boise, and Phoenix all have median housing prices of $450k+. I think it's a combination of people wanting to live close to National Parks, people liking mountains in general, and those same mountains limiting the space available to build homes.
At least in Phoenix, we did a pretty good job of making sure housing construction kept pace with population growth for decades, but in the last census data we gained 25% more ppl than the number of homes built. Moreover, the development frontier has moved way out into distant exurbs like Fountain Hills & Queen Creek, so almost all of the new homes are expensive McMansions rather than the more-affordable small SFH that used to predominate. The downtown cores are densifying rapidly w/ new midrise apartments & offices, but nowhere near enough to keep up with population growth. As a result, rents have basically doubled since I moved here 5 years ago, & they had apparently doubled already in the 5 years prior to that.
@@jmchristoph i lived in phoenix my entire life, but i just moved to chicago because of that exactly. After the housing crisis pretty much Phoenix has been lagging more and more behind in the development of housing. Its impossible to live there without a car either which was shitty enough.
The San Bernardino/ Riverside MSA (Inland Empire), as well as the Ventura MSA, is considered part of the larger "Greater" Los Angeles CSA (Combined Statistical Area). However, San Bernardino and Riverside, although a part of Greater Los Angeles, have enough economic activity within themselves that it can be considered a separate statistical area. There is also a considerable reverse-commute from the San Gabriel Valley and Orange County to the Inland Empire.
Being, an Angeleno, I can attest to the fact that, most people consider the Inland Empire as separate from "LA". An LA to San Bernardino or Riverside commute is pretty rare as that's a loooong drive, far worse than LA to Costa Mesa. I never once knew anyone in LA that worked further east than the San Gabriel Valley nor anyone that commuted from the Inland Empire further west than the SGV. That's not to say there aren't any, just that they're relatively rare. Most cross-MSA commutes don't make it all the in. Those commutes from the Inland Empire tend to drop off west of the San Gabriel Valley and don't really make into Los Angeles.
The Inland Empire and LA MSA are indistinguishable from the air as the urban forms doesn't change. It is a mega-region often just called "Southern California" which also includes San Diego but nobody ever thinks of San Diego.
Santa Clarita, on the other hand, should be a part of the Los Angeles MSA. In fact, I think it is. I don't know why the NTB separates it. As you noticed, Santa Clarita buses serve a large commuter base to the City of Los Angeles (the San Fernando Valley) even if most don't go all the way into Downtown. Santa Clarita, although the 3rd largest city in Los Angeles County, is largely a bedroom community for Los Angeles. They do have some large industrial areas but I doubt that their economy is sufficiently self-contained to warrant not being in the LA MSA. They don't even have a 4-yr university. Most would go to Cal-State Northridge in the San Fernando Valley (which is the City of Los Angeles). Without Los Angeles, Santa Clarita would just wither away to a one-horse town. I think it is a part of the LA MSA though. It wouldn't make sense for it not to be.
You kind of eluded to it but you should do a video on the top 10 streetcar/light rail systems in the US/North America
"Isn't Raleigh-Durham just like, one big thing?"
Woah buddy you just made a few very weird people VERY unhappy.
And as far as the GoTransit system works:
Chapel Hill Transit serves Chapel Hill (where UNC is)
GoDurham serves Durham
GoRaleigh serves Raleigh
GoCary serves Cary
GoTriangle serves the entire region, connecting the various cities and the international airport together. Like there are some routes that I usually take that connect Durham and Chapel Hill or Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
I'm just saying, they're about as far apart as Seattle and Tacoma, with a "Seattle-Tacoma" airport in between, but Seattle and Tacoma are a single metro area. I mean it's not exactly analogous, but you see what I'm getting at.
@@CityNerd Raleigh and Durham are actually a part of the same "metro area" according to the Census, as far as I know. I think it's something like the "Raleigh-Durham-Cary-Chapel Hill Metro Area".
@@Waldzkrieger Durham-Chapel Hill and Raleigh-Cary are two separate metro areas. They are one combined statistical area. Washington and Baltimore (with an airport in between) and San Francisco and San Jose are separate Metro areas too.
@@zeroone8800 ahhh gotcha, that's what I was thinking of
Enjoy this channel very much - keep up the good work!
suggestion - I would absolutely love some more videos on traffic engineering fundamentals. I feel that accessible content explaining the specifics of this field is underrepresented on youtube. I feel you'd do it better than anyone.
Thanks! Road Guy Rob does good work, but I definitely have some topics on my list that fit that bill.
Tampa Person here! The Water Street development started to open up since 2020. Water Street is a massive $3B development around the streetcar with hundreds of rental units, a new hotel (soon to be another), a medical school, and a couple hundred thousand sq/ft of office space soon to open up. The development is walkable and transit oriented (sill massive amounts of parking, but it's hidden). As a part of the development, an old shopping District/mall was completely revitalized with a bunch of trendy restaurants. Lastly, Water Street just also filled in a lot of formally empty space near downtown. Before water st, you would only take the trolly after events at hockey stadium and travel to Ybor for the nightlife. Water street has filled in a lot of space in between the hockey stadium and Ybor making it a weekday destination and overall a more enjoyable place to be.
Other pandemic related content ideas: best pandemic -era pedestrianization improvement (i.e closed streets etc.) Alternatively best cities for urban park space.
I live in Santa Clarita and main reason so many cities in So Cal have their own transit services is because they rather manage it themselves than allowing LA Metro to mismanage the services. The commuter service is gradually rebounding but mainly because it’s safer than taking LA Metro’s services and gas prices in California. Overall good service and very clean and safe.
Clean and safe for sure. Good service? 30min waits for a city of 250,000 is not that good in my book. But I give my hometown a hard time
Not sure how we did on ridership, but Milwaukee increased bus service by five minutes on all lines - now the three dozen or so major routes arrive every 10-15 minutes all the way until 3 am. This was done, however, by significantly cutting suburban "freeway flyer" routes so service hours are likely relativley stagnent.
Tampa street car has an Amalie Arena stop, so ridership up during the Lightning back to back Stanley cup wins is in line here. There's a trendy food mall in the Channelside district the next stop over called Sparkman Wharf. Last time I was there was a game night, and it was a city scale block party. The streetcar service extends to midnight on game nights, so it's even bringing people into Ybor for the nightlife stuff.
Not sure if you've done a video on this but I'd love to see a video on best/worst locations of train stations. I know some cities main stations (Denver, NYC, DC) are great locations but I know other places have less than desirable station locations
Detroit is one I can think of
I've never really loved the location of LA's Union Station. Corner of what could be considered downtown, separated by the 101, and surrounded by jails/prisons/industrial areas.
Cool idea! There's a lot of weird considerations when it comes to siting. Super interesting.
Thank you for the shout out for St. Louis!! I grew up there and I always tell people it's a great little city and super affordable! Yes crime is bad in some parts, but it's got a lot of charm and I read once it has one of the most free attractions of any city. Most of our museums and zoo are free.
I've never called the Bronco field the Smurf turf lol! I love that nickname now! I think the insane home prices are merely the result of Idaho being the 2nd fastest growing state in the country.
A PRT video would be so cool. The Las Colinas one is such an interesting example near here.
The WVU PRT is awesome. My wife is a WVU alumnus. She was completely scandalized when she moved downhill to Virginia and found out that other universities don't have PRT systems.
I'm scandalized every day I don't have a PRT stopping in from of my apartment
I love that you started with Albany, I’m moving there from NYC. Good biking on nearby troy
I went to Tucson in early December 2021 for a meeting of AZ's statewide passenger rail advocacy group, & the streetcar was jam-packed the Friday evening I arrived. Got off the Flixbus at the university stop at 8 PM, walked the 1/4 mile to the nearest streetcar stop, & w/in a couple minutes of waiting there was no standing room left on the platform. When the streetcar finally came 10 mins later, there was less room onboard than I remember there being on the NYC subway at rush hour when I lived there in 2015. Over 90% were UofA students going downtown to various venues, & the remainder seemed like an equal mix of faculty, local workers, & visitors. It was about the same when I rode back to the Flixbus stop at 9 PM the following evening. Contrast with that same Saturday at 7 AM when there were less than 10 riders on my way from the hotel to the meeting, & at 4 PM after the meeting when there were maybe 20.
Tldr: seems like Tucson has a wildly successful party train.
I am shocked to see Tucson. This place should have way more transit, so much pent up demand.
Regarding fare collection, here in Vancouver the Skytrain was initially built without fare gates. The argument was made that fare gates would cost more than the recovered fares. The tide turned when a number of crimes, especially sexual assaults, were blamed on lack of fare gates, and so they were needed for passenger safety even if they cost extra.
I've never commented on your videos before but I absolutely want your take on the WVU PRT!
I 100% would love to see a specific video on the PRT in Morgantown. It looks like such a cool system in a place where I would never expect to see something like that. Like, if I had a system like that during university, I would ride it all the time. lol
I have to say the dress shirt is doing it for me, not to mention the tighter look from the recent haircut. How can we be expected to attend to your critical content with all this eye candy going on? Truly!
Great video. Interesting and useful. Like your comments on KC, Wenatchee, St Louis, Boise, and Morgantown. Wenatchee is underappreciated. Downtown Boise and the river have become great, but it doesn't have much more than that. St Louis has superb neighborhoods, but the city has been "allowed" to decline. And Morgantown is just cool: I'll stop for the night anytime I drive near.
Also, I live in Madison, and if I had to guess one of the core causes of the steep drop-off in ridership, I’d point to the combination of a steep drop-off in quality/reliability and attractiveness of alternatives (namely, biking). Most people who take transit don’t live far from campus, but it’s too cold in February to bike, so they (including me!) would just take the bus. But post-pandemic, the bus often comes late but occasionally comes early and won’t wait, so you’re stuck waiting in ~0°F weather for at best 15 minutes, just to avoid a 20-minute walk or 5-10 minute bike ride. I imagine other Madisonians did what I did and invested in cold weather biking gear or just chose to take the L and walk. Fingers crossed that Madison’s BRT rolls out smoothly in the coming years
Video idea? Best/worst transit systems for visiting tourists. Ease of figuring out the system (I've written articles for events being held here in Seattle for how to buy/use the Orca card), easy "unlimited ride for x number of days" passes, maps that can be read by a non-local. Back when I traveled a couple times a month for travel, I would spend time getting to know each transit system and pass options. But I love stuff like that... but I've traveled with folks who just show up and can't figure any of it out.
I've often gotten the impression that locals in cities I visited didn't want tourists on their transit systems, and the difficulty in figuring it out was an intended feature, not a bug.
I'd love to see a video on the top cities for commuting by bike!
*Screams in Boise Native*. I'm glad you managed to find one of the 4 decent streets in the city, but yes, we are pretty much the stroad and parking capital of the world. I, too have often been confused by the massive pricing on houses even in the worst suburbs. From what I can tell, the craziness seems to stem from four main factors.
1. Massive job growth. I mean, it's just really monumental how many jobs have been moving into the Treasure Valley recently. Massive new office parks in several places, not to mention the fact that we're probably one of the biggest destinations of the 'work from home' migration.
2. Ultra-con refugees. I hate to get political, but Idaho is probably the second most conservative state in the country. Wealthier, very conservative people are seeking it out as a place of refuge from bluer states of all sorts. I personally know about ten people from high school who are a result of this trend.
3. I don't really know how to explain this to people who aren't from the valley, but basically, all of our leaders have had an attitude of pretending that the growth isn't happening for the last forty years. Everyone in Idaho politics is still acting like we're a rural state, even though in just a couple years, more than have the population will be in the valley. So basically, they've done very little to address the growth.
4. Zoning. Nobody is building anything (exaggeration, obviously) other than single detatched houses, and *we can't build them fast enough for all the people moving in.* Just look at Meridian for the most wonderful example of sprawl you'll ever see.
Interesting stuff. Are the ultra-cons really moving to the Boise area, or like...Northern Idaho? I've always kind of felt like Boise was kinda blue dot in a red state. Meridian, tho
@@CityNerd In Boise itself, sure, there's been a lot of movement to the left in recent years. In Meridian, Nampa and Caldwell, however, the exurbs are being overrun by the nuttiest sort of conservative. I may be personally biased, since I went to a religious school and therefore spent a lot of time around very conservative folks, but almost 2/3 of my school were California refugees who moved because jobs and/or conservatism.
Would love to see a video on best pedestrian / cycling bridges in the US or internationally, and really want to learn more about rails to trails. ie building bike lanes along railroad tracks. Also would love to hear your take on cities that have the best masterplans for bike infrastructure, but aren't building the bike lanes. (Hint: Houston)
Boise was, I believe based on data I saw, the metro with the highest price appreciation during the pandemic. Many people who could work from home moved from CA and WA to be closer to nature. St. Louis might have some parks but it doesn't have skiing or actual hiking.
Suburbanites really do be like "I wanna be close to nature"
Just "My brother in christ your suburbs are destroying the nature"
@@drdewott9154 I rarely go out to nature because it's always so clogged with people lol. I can walk down a street and never see another person walking, but can go 200 miles into a desert and see a parking lot, and pass by 20 other people on a hike
I lived in boise for 5 years. The nature is ok but nothing special, it's actually part of the great basin desert. Move to northern idaho or literally anywhere in the PNW and you're getting a much better value.
Yeah especially over the past 10 years people who are thinking about the PNW have been going to Boise more and more. Downtown and the inner city residential neighborhoods are really nice but as the video stated outside of that area it's like Vegas suburban hell. I guess for people that are used to that type of living it isn't an issue.
This is Ozarks erasure and I'm most certainly not here for it
Nicely done!!!!
After hearing about the different transit services around Raleigh, it would be interesting to learn which metro area has the most 'fragmented' transit services, with the most separate transit organizations providing service to at least some part of the metro area.
Absolutely did not expect to see my hometown on here.
But it’s hard for Santa Clarita’s transit to stoop any lower than it already is, considering it’s a city of 250,000 running buses only every half hour
The “charge users” vs “free public service” is one of my pet policy peeves. It happens in debates over the postal service as well.
No one asks if other government departments break even or make a profit. Why does the post office need to break even but the Department of State doesn’t? That seems to be what happens with transit for some reason.
I hate to go all class-warfare here, but I think the makeup of the users of the given service tend to be people without much political clout (beyond pure numbers on Election Day).
Personally I think transit and the post office should be free.
Yeah it's a really interesting question. So much of it, I think, is that change is hard. Transit systems often grew out of privately held businesses (subway lines in NY like the BMT, IRT, streetcar in like every city) where there was a fare. So it's a baseline expectation and it becomes a policy norm. Like if you had to do everything from the ground up, from scratch, would you really install fare systems that are expensive to administer and in a lot of cases don't even cover 10% of your system's expenses? Hard to make it make sense.
Most roads are free drive on, so the bus riding on those roads should also be free.
@@zeroone8800 *Only for someone not paying taxes, including fuel or special registration fees.
@@lightdark00 Those are not use taxes. EVs avoid the gas tax and registration is a flat fee. There is no incentive to not drive.
@@zeroone8800 Ohio charges a $200 dollar registration fee for EVs. but it actually can be cheaper than what you would pay in gas taxes. I think as EVs become more commonplace, I think we are going to see more discussion on the tax implications for maintaining road infrastructure.
Durham resident here - all the providers in the Triangle are different agencies, but combined their branding for ease of access (GoDurham, GoRaleigh, GoTriangle, GoCary, GoApex). They invited Chapel Hill Transit to do this too, but they decided to stay separate. All services went fare-free during the pandemic. GoTriangle provides some really solid intercity routes and lines that are used by commuters, so I'm not surprised that their service only went down 7%.
One potential factor in the data is the affect of tourism in each particular locale. I would expect to not be alone in avoiding the car rental ripoff by using mass transit as much as possible when visiting a city. So, cities with a higher ratio of visitors to residents would likely have greater ridership per capita numbers, higher losses during the period where flying was impacted by covid, and less impact from remote learning and working. I am surprised that cities like Honolulu did not have ridership numbers recover better than most cities once they were reopened for tourism.
Please do a video on Morgantown PRT! Interesting concept and maybe compare that with The Boring Company's tunnels in Las Vegas xP
Thanks for mentioning Wenatchee and Link Transit! Link is doing their best on expanding service, but like so many employers are having troubles finding drivers. They have started a training program and are continuing to not collect fares.
Every agency is in this boat right now! It's really tough.
The Athens Transit numbers certainly surprise me considering UGA was in-person in February of 2022!! I do know that Athens Transit went fare-free (and still is until June) thanks to a federal grant. Headways were cut to hourly on all but one service. Perhaps UGA’s own transit service picked up some of the slack? The last time I road an Athens Transit bus a few weeks ago, it was packed!
Gonna keep rolling that video from in front of my home eh? I love it.
How uplifting ☺️. Thanks.
Like the channel but i wished, you should do some Canadian focus content.
I live in Albany, NY, and am pleased to see CDTA on the good performing list. My house is located a half block from two different bus routes, which has always been an advantage in advertising my accessory rental unit. I imagine that part of CDTA's performance numbers during the pandemic has been the agency's continuing development/expansion of BRT service in the region. I'm not sure how much new service was brought online during the last two years, but the ongoing planning for new service/routes has been quite public, and that seems to have been good for marketing the existing routes, as well.
$500,000 housimg? Sounds reasonable. Signed, all of Canada.
Happy to see you've set up a patreon
1 year and half late but must same good video City Nerd, glad to see the PRT showed up. Too bad Mountain Line doesn’t report, I think you’d be surprised by number of users given Morgantown’s population.
Cornell was virtual during the first two weeks of February, accounting for why the numbers are so low for Ithaca. Service is back up again.
Morgantown's Mountain Line is one of the most chaotic bus systems I've ever ridden on. The schedules are bizarre and arbitrary, and there are no bus stops on most routes, so riding is flag the bus down anywhere you want and hope the driver doesn't get too mad. If I remember correctly it's mostly fare dependent compared to most agencies, and doesn't have the best management as a result. Probably explains why they don't report.
Yeah, I couldn't figure out what the network was.
Hello ConspiracyNerd. I wish I had a good video suggestion since I really enjoy your channel and want to contribute to your content. Haven't really thought of anything yet that others haven't so I'll keep you on the edge of your seat for now. Anyway I'm moving to Boston in a few weeks from a mid-size Massachusetts city so for the first time in my life I'm going to be able to experience reliable and convenient public transportation on a regular basis! Hoping to give up my car if all goes well!
I saw the video title and immediately went jumping around the video to see if you'd mention the Triangle at all, and you did, nice! Yeah, Raleigh-Durham is an official metro area of sorts, but Raleigh and Durham are 2 distinct cities in reality.
The regional transit authority is GoTriangle, with GoDurham, GoRaleigh, GoCary (in the suburban town of Cary next to Raleigh) and Chapel Hill Transit serving as sub-departments of GoTriangle serving their areas. GoTriangle does also operate as a transit operator, but mainly only for connecting Wake County (Raleigh) with Durham County (Durham.), meaning they only have a few full time bus routes in reality, serving eachothers bus stations/train strations and downtowns. GoRaleigh and GoDurham on the otherhand, serve a couple dozen bus routes throughout all neighborhoods in their cities.
But yeah, back in 2020, the entire GoTriangle system went fare free, and continue to be (the transit authority just voted to extend fare free transit for another year.) Recently, GoRaleigh released a fare equity report stating that the fare free move has been a big help to low-income/minority riders, and helped the providers lose less passengers than they would've if they never went fare free.
Also, GoRaleigh is breaking ground soon on a BRT system, so thats exciting.
Love the channel!
It's such a unigue metro-ish area with all the big schools. Gonnna have to visit soon. Thanks for the insight!
IMO, the Triangle is one larger metro/market made of two unequal halves with the Raleigh side more than doubling the size of the Durham side. RDU International and RTP (Research Triangle Park) are generally where the two connect and where the suburban areas of both cities bleed into the other. The GoTriangle system is the system that connect the major centers to each other. The current push is for regional rail to essentially use existing infrastructure to do primarily the same thing by rail instead of bus by connecting Raleigh>Cary>RTP>Durham. As it stands, there is limited train service that can take you from Raleigh to Durham but it's not robust enough to be the viable service that the rapidly growing area needs.
Yes, defo want to hear your views on Gadgetbahns! My parents are in the UK and I speak to them each week and let them know when you have enough subs to fill one of their stadia, which gives us something to talk about, so thanks for that!
Sights set on Old Trafford
@@CityNerd I really appreciate and enjoy your content so thanks so much for what you do est. your transit advocacy.
I'm from Tucson. (You'd be right to assume the UofA was in person in February).
The +44% from the streetcar is likely driven by new development. Four massive student housing projects (Oliv, Hub, Union on 6th, Aspire) finished construction and opened in the past year. This ~ doubles the number of student housing projects along the streetcar line and has visibly contributed to way more people using it to get between home on university blvd and the bars on 4th ave / downtown.
Although, some of it does likely come from being free. I live on 4th ave and normally bike to / from the university ... but when it's 90+ degrees out and the streetcar is free then I just ride it.
Checkmate CityNerd! I have been to Wenatchee WA. Its okay. They do have a public market though.
I stan the natch
best apples in the world 🍎
I’ve taken CDTA several times in the past few months. While I wish the services were more frequent on the route I use, it’s not bad. Surprised that it’s showed up in a video before NFTA.
One problem I have with fareless is that anything free is often viewed as worthless. Even a nominal fee would likely go a long way toward keeping the facilities in good order.
Personally, I'd go with something modeled on health insurance: The deductible. At the start of the service period; be it the service day, month, season, year, whatever; you pay out of pocket, but get your card "punched". When your card is fully "punched", you ride for free for the remainder of the period.
This would ENCOURAGE greater use of the resource, as people attempted to get their money's worth out of the system, better driving traffic in the areas served by the network. Probably the downtown core and entertainment areas.
This is SUCH a good idea!
NYC sorta has something like that with fare capping. Once you've tapped your Omni card a certain number of times you ride for free for the rest of the week.
@@MR-pw6xi That sounds exactly like what I was suggesting.
Agreed. Even just $1/ride.
Suggest working on top 10 cities where cycling has overcome difficult topography
I think Tampa fared relatively well because so many people moved there during the pandemic.
Need your take on the PRT!
Raleigh resident here. Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill are three distinct cities that make up the "Triangle" region. This is also known as the Research Triangle due to the presence of three major research universities within ~30 miles of each other in Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, and NC State. Raleigh is the state capital and the biggest of the three, but often gets lumped in with Durham, likely due to the name of our airport, Raleigh-Durham, as it is situated right between the two cities. However, they are very much their own places, connected by some nice small towns, suburbs, and good 'ol North American sprawl. The area is growing extremely quickly and is a huge tech and biomedical hub.
The three regions have their own local transit services: GoRaleigh, GoDurham, and Chapel Hill Transit. However, you can get between the three metros via the GoTriangle bus system. All of these agencies are operated in coordination under the GoTransit branding scheme (except Chapel Hill did not adopt the naming).
So, to summarize: the Triangle is made of three unique cities with their own cultures, lore, and downtown areas -- but they are united closely through academic partnerships, sports rivalries, and general proximity.
If you've read this far, one thing I do want to point out: Raleigh -- if staying its current course -- will slowly but surely become an urbanist wonderland. We've abolished parking minimums, are about to build four BRT corridors, have plans for an expansive commuter rail line, and is central to some great current (and hopefully future) Amtrak routes. Chapel Hill and Durham, which are more closely united on the planning front, also just released an extremely progressive master plan that effectively stops planned highway expansion in its tracks. Keep an eye on central NC!
Here in the Phx metro, Tempe has operated the fare-free Orbit busses for years with new vehicles much nicer than before. Also, since the pandemic delayed completion of the Streetcar, it debuted on May 20, 2022 as fare-free for the first year. Tucson also has a very affordable, efficient system as indicated here. I don't think our Valley Metro schedules changed much during Covid, but it was fare-free on an informal basis as well
I definitely want your take on the PRT
I moved from a midwest/great plains town to the mountain west about 7 years ago, before real estate got really crazy. Boise was one of my candidate cities, but I ended up in Salt Lake. So I can't really speak to the reason for the difference between affordability in Boise and St. Louis, but I'm here for outdoor amenities that aren't available in Missouri.
Anyway, as someone married to a Boiseian, thanks for pronouncing it correctly.
Yeah, I think that's a big deal for a lot of people. See: Bend and Spokane, too.