This week in transit: A 21% ridership increase!

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Last week, the excellent Transit mobile app launched in Richmond, and you should go download it right now! The app does an incredible job at showing you the best ways to get around town by bus, walking, bike, or even RVA Bike Share, and gives you an easy-to-read list of different travel options sorted by trip length. It really is a game changer.

Note that the availability of the Transit app in Richmond is only possible because GRTC opened up to developers their bus scheduling and real-time data feeds. This was something we asked y’all to advocate for last year, and, now, you can see the impact of that advocacy! Good work!

AROUND THE REGION

There are very, very few cities in the United States that are seeing ridership increase on public transportation, but Richmond is now one of them. After several years of decline, bus ridership in Richmond is up 21%! That’s a huge percentage! When localities invest in better bus service, more people ride the bus. It’s a pretty straightforward formula that we should continue to follow.

This past week, the Henrico County board of supervisors hosted their annual retreat at which they talked a bit about public transportation. From the County’s Twitter account: “Henrico's focus on transit service will continue in 2019, with a study of Route 1 Brook Road Corridor; an assessment of Park-N-Ride express services; and shelter improvements.” It’s exciting to hear that Henrico won’t let their transit momentum stall and is already looking to expand upon their big-time services increases from last year. Also, because it’s fun to dream about the future, with the County’s interest in building a sports arena at the Richmond International Raceway one can imagine extending the #3 Highland Park route north to connect to Laburnum and increasing the frequency of the hourly #91 Laburnum Connector.

Over in the Virginia Mercury, Danny Plaugher from Virginians for High Speed Rail has a column about how landing Amazon can and should push the Commonwealth to build a modern transportation network.

ELSEWHERE

Does the proliferation of Uber and Lyft reduce car ownership? Survey says: Probably not. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and, as the author of this article says, to reduce those emissions we need to “continue to expand space-efficient and active transportation options...but it’s not some new form of ‘shared mobility.’ It’s frequent, reliable, safe, and comfortable public transportation.”

Gwinnett County, a suburb of Atlanta, has officially begun their campaign to join their regional transportation network. On March 19th, county residents will vote on a referendum to both join MARTA and levy a 1% sales tax to pay for a ton of transportation improvements. Check out the Go Gwinnett! advocacy website to learn more.

—Ross Catrow

This week in transit: Chesterfield...Will they or won’t they?

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Will they or won’t they?? Will the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors decide to bring fixed-route GRTC service to Route 1? Will they pick an on-demand van service instead? Will they do nothing at all (something that Supervisors Winslow says “doesn’t seem to be an option”)? We’ll learn more this month as the County conducts a stakeholder survey of the Route 1 corridor and mulls over whether or not to apply for a state grant that would cover up to 80% of the operating costs for a public transportation pilot. Jim McConnell at the Chesterfield Observer has a great piece that should give you all the background information you need to know.

If you are a Chesterfield resident and you have thoughts on the County bringing public transportation to Route 1, please let your Supervisor know!

AROUND THE REGION

A reminder: GRTC will roll out a set of service updates today, January 6th. As part of these updates, the two Fulton routes—#4A and #4B—will have their frequencies reduced from 15-minutes to 30-minutes. This means that folks living in Fulton, who since this summer’s network redesign no longer have direct routes to Downtown, will have their average wait times doubled from 7.5 minutes to 15 minutes. It’s always disappointing to see service cuts but especially so as Richmond’s new bus network is less than a year old.

WCVE has a short look at a new bus study out of VCU’s Wilder School Center for Urban and Regional Analysis. You can also download and read the full study (PDF). Something to keep in mind as you read through that PDF: Access to public transportation is about more than just proximity to a bus stop—it’s also about the usefulness of that transit. As we’re seeing in Fulton this weekend, folks’ distance to their bus stop remains unchanged, but, as the frequency has been halved, the number of places they can get to within one hour has certainly decreased. This means taking more time out of your day to get to work, school, doctor’s appointment, or your favorite local doughnut shop.

ELSEWHERE

As Pittsburgh plans its new BRT service, they’re thinking about improving access to the airport. Bus service to the Richmond airport is brand new and a pretty big service upgrade, but, dang, is it anything but fast. While a BRT to RIC probably isn’t in the cards any time soon, an express route to the airport might be something to consider. Typically, airport service doesn’t have the best ridership, but it does feel like an amenity that a growing city in 2019 just needs to provide. Seems like something folks in Richmond’s business/tourism/hotel industries would be interested in?

TransitCenter has their Best Worst Most of 2018 end-of-year transit review. Richmond gets a small shoutout.

Did you know there’s a tunneling trade publication? Did you know tunneling is up world wide 7%? This is all so very charming!

—Ross Catrow

Keeping Richmond’s Department of Social Services easily accessible

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On November 8th, Mark Robinson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the City will consider moving the Department of Social Services from its current location behind City Hall to a Southside location off Commerce Road. RVA Rapid Transit is concerned that the proposed location is hard to access for Richmonders traveling on foot, bike, or by public transportation. Please take a minute to read more about the specifics of those concerns, and if you—or a nonprofit, company, or faith group you’re involved with—would like to share your perspective on potentially moving the Department of Social Services, please reply to this email.

AROUND THE REGION

GRTC systemwide ridership numbers continue to impress. Weekly ridership stands at around 169,708 (that’s the average of the three weeks from October 7th to October 27th, the most recent data available). Compared to the week before the Pulse opened, which saw 141,513 rides, that’s an almost 20% increase! A year-over-year comparison would give us a better picture of how ridership is increasing, but regardless, it’s impressive. There are very, very few cities in the United States that are seeing ridership increases on their bus systems, and, now, Richmond is one of them!

While this article in the Washington Post recapping the first year of the dynamic I-66 tolls is framed from the point of view of single-occupancy car commuters, there’s a lot of really great takeaways for how congestion pricing can change people’s behavior. From the Fairfax County Transportation Director: “There are people who are now paying and people who are turning to transit or ride-sharing. The institution of the tolls has resulted in people changing their travel patterns.”

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Why haven’t electric buses taken over the transit world? Well, in China they basically have, but in American they’re still mostly an oddity—but that’s changing! Angie Schmitt at StreetsBlog digs into some of the challenges facing electric bus service in the U.S. and how some localities are finding success with an all-electric fleet. Fingers crossed that some of the $14 million of Volkswagen Mitigation Trust money finds its way to the Richmond region for some sort of small, electric bus pilot.

Alon Levy, who’s known for their intensely nerdy thoughts on transit, has a fairly accessible post up about what part public transit can and should play in any future federal environmental / infrastructure plan. While the political will for massive transit spending may not exist at the moment, as Levy says, regional planning agencies should have some solid ideas for how to spend a bucketful of money—ideas that don’t involve building or widening roads.

—Ross Catrow