Shelter Bus Stops & Comparing San Antonio to other cities.

-

About yesterday (Sept 12, 20216), I decided to respond to a tweet from D2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez.  Even though it's on Twitter and it's a very long Twitter thread, I feel that others need to read it.  Instead of sharing the entire twitter thread, I've decided to turn it into a blog post. 

On Sept 10, 2021, Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez tweeted the following: 

Tweet 1

My response to this tweet is a very lengthy one.  But lets get started. 

Tweet 2

Tweet 3

I've seen better bus stop shelters in "other cities." So far the bus shelters that I've seen do the job right is the standard model that is used by Trinity Metro and DART in the DFW area. 

Tweet 4
Tweet 6

The Pictures are of the bus stops on 3rd st between Houston and Ave E and the other is on Houston St between I-10 and E Commerce.  Although they don't do a good job at showing a bus stop located on a narrow sidewalk, they do shows VIA attempt to put seats down. 

Tweet 7

There's the carrot and stick approach.  There are times to use punishment, but not here.  My solution is to bring back the bench advertisements, but this time, instead of blocking sidewalks, we make whatever advertising company providing the seating to pay the property owner a fee for placing the bench off of the sidewalk and onto his lawn.  What that fee is, I don't know but here in San Antonio, people who drive cars don't have any incentive to care about those who ride the bus and the advertisement company doesn't have any incentive to keep the bench from blocking the sidewalk.  As for shade, well I don't have an answer either but maybe the advertising company could also provide a little shelter.  
Tweet 8

And making all the stops nice to sit at doesn't help ridership.  Nearly all the routes on the Eastside and Southeast side are more about coverage then they are about ridership. When you can sit at a bus stop and within 5 minutes a bus arrives is when ridership increases.  The CEO of VIA and I'm paraphasing: "In Real Estate, it's LOCATION, LOCATION, and LOCATION.  In Transit, it's FREQUENCY, FREQUENCY, and FREQUENCY. 
The the link referenced above is to Human Transit's article "Basics: The Ridership – Coverage Tradeoff" which is a must read if you want to improve transit ANYWHERE.

Tweet 9

Although I didn't site the proper tweet, "cannabis connoisseur" (@matthew_gauna)
was comparing San Antonio to a bigger, more dense city and to me that like comparing apples to

Image 1 2021-9-14

watermelons. (Image 1 2021-9-14)  The problem with comparing cities is that each city is really a unique place with it's own 'vibe' and comparing two communities is never exact.  However, I do challenge my readers to visit Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana.  Drive from one side of the city through the city to other side and spend some time on the ground with your bicycle. Then come back and tell me if I'm wrong.  Chances are you will not find two unique cities that are close alike to being able to comparing apples to apples.
The stories that I linked to are "The Politically Correct Streetcar" and "What VIA Gets Right".  What I didn't mention is how the Cato Institute used propaganda and this forever set our city down a path to never ever having passenger rail transit.  Ah hell, even the new  San Antonio Zoo's new train has a diesel locomotive  design that is used for freight service and not passenger.  Although the two topics aren't related, I feel that this is an omen that San Antonio isn't getting Light Rail or Commuter Rail ever.
On a side note; as a person who once drove this train, I consider this an insult that they picked their new locomotive, the SD40 which is a type of locomotive that hauls freight. For the past 40 years, the standard diesel locomotive for passenger service has been the F40PH.  The Locomotive that the Zilker Zephyr in Zilker Park in Austin is based off of is the F40PH.
Also Back to that Cato Institute propaganda, I'm currently working on that story called "Why Transportation Sucks: Propaganda" and I should have it finish by Thanksgiving 2021.

And Finally:

Tweet 10

Image 2 2021-9-14
Bus Stop ID #49443, located on the south side of 3rd between N Alamo and Ave E.  This was taken about 10am in the morning on Saturday and as you can see, it's literally covered in shade.  But if you look closer, the only bus that stops here is the number 11.  The number 11 is currently not running but the two routes that pass by this stop are the 24 and 25.
And I have a question to VIA. Is this act not in the form of Keeping San Antonio Lame?  The nearest bus stop for the 24 and 25 eastbound is located one block away in the hot sun (Image 2 2021-9-14) and goes to the heart of the complaint of Councilman Jalen Mckee-Rodriguez.  I'm hoping that VIA and the councilman's of D1 and D2 will expedite the change to this bus stop for it's shade is currently going to waste. 



Sources:

Jalen Mckee-Rodriguez Tweet:  https://twitter.com/theloserteacher/status/1436479638956609548

Ezra A Johnson Tweet:  https://twitter.com/EuphMan_210/status/1436461551163252737

Basics: The Ridership – Coverage Tradeoff:  https://humantransit.org/2018/02/basics-the-ridership-coverage-tradeoff.html

What VIA Gets Right:  bikesanantonio.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-via-gets-right.html

The Politically Correct Streetcar:  bikesanantonio.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-politically-correct-streetcar.html

cannabis connoisseur" (@matthew_gauna):  https://twitter.com/matthew_gauna/status/1436504319063375880

Storied San Antonio Zoo Eagle trains on track to be replaced with newer versions:  https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/san-antonio-zoo-eagle-trains-retired-16434097.php

EMD F40PH:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_F40PH

EMD SD40:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD40

Facebook Zilker Zephyr:  https://www.facebook.com/ZilkerZephyr/

Zilker Eagle:  https://www.zilkertrain.org

 San Antonio Zoo Train:  https://sazoo.org/behind-the-scenes-experiences/zoo-train/

Images:  

Image: 1 2021-9-14:  https://twitter.com/matthew_gauna/status/1436504319063375880
Image 2 2021-9-14:  A picture of my stuff at VIA's bus stop #49447 illustrating how it's just a bench blocking the sidewalk, baking in the South Texas sun.  

All the Tweets Reference can be found here:  https://twitter.com/BikeSanAntonio/status/1437115793708404739

Tweet 10:  A picture of bus stop #49443 that is currently closed and the route 11 is currently suspended due to COVID-19 restrictions:

Tweet 7:  An example of a modern day bus stop bench with an advertisement. 

Tweet 6:  two pictures of bus stops illustrating VIA's current benching options. One on 3rd St between Ave E and Houston St and the second one is on E Houston St between E Commerce an I-10.


Shoup: Cato HQ the Perfect Lab for Reforming Commuter Parking Subsidies:  https://usa.streetsblog.org/2010/09/09/shoup-cato-hq-the-perfect-lab-for-reforming-commuter-parking-subsidies/



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Propaganda that Makes Transportation Sucks / Part II - Why Transportation sucks in America

-
Image
In Part I , I talked about result of us having a transportation system designed for you to consume as much oil as possible. In this part, (Part II) I'll be focusing on the propaganda that convinces you that driving is the best thing since slice bread. This is about the propaganda that says it's great to be in a car and how are cars supposedly are better, but leaves out how much welfare is required for you to be able to drive your car. How much cost is required of you, the owner of the vehicle to maintain it. This is why public transportation sucks. So how did we get here? The War on Cars Starts :      This is a misnomer because it's in fact the other way around. There was never ever a war on cars. There is however a war on walking, a war on bicycling and a war against using transit. It started over a hundred years ago when GM purchased the New York Streetcar system and replace the streetcars with buses. The reason for this was because people in cities just weren't buyin
Read more

All Transportation Requires WELFARE, Always Has / Part III Why Transportation sucks in America

-
Update:  Virgin has since got out of the Brightline deal.  In Part I , I went over the results of us having the transportation built for you to consume as much oil as possible. In Part II , I pointed out how the propaganda is there to convince you that driving is the best thing since sliced bread. Now in Part III, I explain how all Transportation Requires Welfare for we as a society don't believe in this reality.  Like the title says, all transportation requires welfare and always has needed subsidies of some form or another. People don’t understand this nor want to understand that for the whole of civilization, all transportation requires some form of welfare. The reason why we don’t accept this reality is because we hold onto the myth that it’s the private sector’s job to provide transportation services which omits the fact that the infrastructure that the private sector uses to earn money on is built and paid for by governments. So how did we get here believing in the myt
Read more

The Consequences of our Transporation System/ Part I - Why Transportation Sucks in America

-
Image
Have you ever wondered why you have to drive a car to get around, why public transportation is unreliable and no matter what, your intercity travel options are either by car, Greyhound or flying with airlines who will cancel your flight on a whim . The answer is surprisingly simple; our transportation system is designed for you to have to consume as much oil as possible. If any other alternative to driving is presented to the public, political entities that are against the alternatives along with the local newspapers will tell you that nobody wants it, not enough people will use and they'll tell you that it will make your life a living nightmare when driving.  Now you're probably asking how did I come to the conclusion that our transportation system is designed to force you to consume as much oil as possible? Well it wasn't easy because there's no one out there pointing to the obvious. I came to this conclusion one cold morning riding the new Primo route 10
Read more