GRTC’s ridership up 23% year-over-year in March

We’ve got new ridership numbers (PDF) hot off the presses from GRTC’s board meeting today. The big news: Fixed-route ridership in March is up by 144,840 as compared to last March. That’s a 24.48% increase!

Some other interesting bits:

• The number of One Ride Cash Passes sold is down 41.27%, which is probably a result of more folks transferring due to the new system design, taking advantage of all-day passes, and using the mobile app.
• Paratransit, aka CARE service, is down by 8%.
• The Pulse accounted for 32.78% of all rides in March (175,361).

This week in transit: The importance of the GRTC and VCU partnership

AROUND THE REGION

Adam Lockett at RVA Mag writes about the importance of the partnership and pilot program between GRTC and VCU. That partnership is in the midst of renegotiation, and we’ll probably soon know how the two will move forward. I agree with Lockett: Any reduction in scope of the partnership—either by eliminating the program entirely or making only the Pulse and #5 bus available to VCU students, faculty, and staff—would be detrimental to all of the public transit momentum we have in town. I’m hopeful that VCU will go ahead and make the current pilot program permanent while also paying their full and fair share of that cost. This quote from a March 19th article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch makes me think that’s still an option: “VCU and VCU Health remain committed to continuing to fund a cost-effective transportation option that provides our students and employees with access to the entire GRTC system.”

ELSEWHERE

Here’s a fascinating-yet-nerdy transportation chart: How the length of time you feel like you’ve been waiting for the bus is impacted by the amenities of the bus stop. If your bus stop has shelter, seating, and realtime arrival information, there’s a significant impact on your perceived waiting time—reducing it by as much as 35%! Also interesting, although not unexpected, lack of amenities at a bus stop increases the perceived waiting time for women much more than men.

The City of Chicago wanted to increase bus ridership and in an attempt to do so installed a clever combined bus lane / bike lane pilot program that turned out to be a complete success. Bus speeds went up 65% and now the city wants to try the experiment elsewhere.

There’s been a lot written about the failed transit-funding referendum in Gwinnett County, Georgia as transit advocates and opponents process what happened. I enjoyed this opinion piece about the business benefits of public transportation that are no longer on the table for the county. Back in Richmond, we could use some of the region’s business leaders to step up and write a few things like this!

—Ross Catrow

Community engagement is hard

From this post, Coming to Racial Terms with Trickle-Down Urbanism: A personal TOD journey (Part II), on Mariia Zimmerman’s blog:

We fall into the trap of trying to convince the community that transit and TOD are the answer, and then asking them to help us tweak the explanation and buy into the argument. The irony is that improved transit and greater housing choices are most likely what the community wants as well, but it’s the process of engagement, trust and partnership with local residents and business owners where we often fall short.

Read the whole thing, but the above quote is especially pertinent to Richmond. We can do better, and, I believe, we (RVA Rapid Transit, GRTC, the region) are taking steps in the right direction.

This week in transit: The Richmond region lacks dedicated transportation funding

AROUND THE REGION

With the end of the 2019 General Assembly session, Richmond is now Virginia’s only major metro area without dedicated transportation funding, says Ned Oliver at the Virginia Mercury. Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia, and, now, Southwest Virginia have regional funding sources available for transportation projects—with Northern Virginia using some of that to build and pay for public transportation. Oliver gets into a bit of the history behind why the Richmond region lacks a similar bucket of funding and how we can get it. Senator McClellan underscores the importance of if/when Richmond has a similar funding mechanism that we use a portion of it to start building a truly regional public transportation system.

Richmond Magazine’s Sarah King has a small update on bringing public transportation to Route 1 in Chesterfield County. The County has applied for a state grant that could pay for some sort of transportation service for up to three years. They’ll find out the status of their application later this spring.

ELSEWHERE

A constant question: How can we use the tools and resources we have on hand to improve bus service now without spending a ton of money? The answer is usually surprisingly simple: Bus lanes, transit signal priority, and other small changes to infrastructure that prioritize giving street space to buses. It’s not always about building a huge new transportation project, but, sometimes, it’s just about small, quick, and cheap improvements.

Chicago has elected a new mayor, and her transportation platform has a bunch of smart ideas that we should steal in Richmond. This one in particular is big and something to strive for: “Work to ensure every Chicagoan lives within a 15 minute walk of reliable 24-hour transit service.”

Now this is neat and depressing: The Guardian has some maps of public transit systems in different cities comparing the street-car era to present day. Spoiler: We used to have lots more public transportation before the car ate America.

—Ross Catrow