Originally Posted by
Roody
The best way to increase ridership on public transit is to provide more frequent service. Buses and light rail should run every 5 to 20 minutes to get big increases. A bus that runs frequently is almost as fst as a car, and frequent service minimizes those unproductive waits for the bus.
The second best way toincrese transit use is to give up the foolish hub-and-spoke route patterns in favor of routes that actually connect destinations directly.
What Really Matters for Increasing Transit Ridership - CityLab
Nice article, Roody. Thanks. I don't see why employment-oriented transit can't complement and promote anti-sprawl reforms. The logical consequence of providing transit to the densest employment areas is that more auxiliary retail should emerge within walking distance of where people are employed. In this way, people could do shopping or engage in leisure activities after work before catching a bus home (provided buses continue to run into the evening).
In sprawling areas, I think anti-sprawl reforms need to be focussed on encouraging more mixed-use development that reduce the need for cross-town commuting. If cross-town traffic isn't thinning as a result of such reforms, the question is why people aren't moving closer to work or working closer to home. Obviously many people have reasons to live or work somewhere that outweigh reducing their commute distance, but many of those people could be served by more direct transit routing between their home neighborhood and where they work.
Another reason I've heard as to why people would prefer to avoid transit even if there was a more direct route between home and work is that they want the freedom to drive around wherever they want to go during breaks and after work. Maybe more frequent buses/shuttles would solve this, idk. I think you would have to find a way to research where individuals drive during breaks and after work to determine routing that would satisfy people.
To some extent, I think people need to adapt their lifestyles a bit instead of expecting transit to provide them all the convenience and freedom of driving. The problem here is that everyone who bikes or takes transit reduces the number of cars on the roads so it only takes so many people doing this before everyone else looks at the roads and thinks, "hey, traffic isn't too bad - I think I'd rather drive than wait on a bus."
The real challenge is to get a large proportion of people in the habit of taking a bus/shuttle to work so that they'll stick with it long enough to reform city planning and for developers to think in terms of multi-modal-friendly geography.