Empty Buses

Some good news is coming to VIA.  Apparently Rey Saldaña’s short dependency on VIA convince him that things needed improvement. So he is proposing that the Advance Transportation District funds that are dedicated to the City, be given to VIA to improve bus service.  It's an awesome plan because one of the main reasons why VIA SUCKS, despite being an incredible system, is that they only receive 1/2 cent sales tax. 

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For those who aren't familiar with the Advance Transportation District, (ATD) it was voted on back in 2004 to raise the sales tax 1/8 cent sales tax for transportation improvements.  Half of the 1/8th cent tax goes to VIA while the other have is further divided between the City of San Antonio and TxDot. Rey Saldaña’s plan is to take the City's portion of this sales tax and give it entirely to VIA to help pay for more bus service. 

Now for the record, I'm all for this, with VIA having more money to spend, they can increase the frequency of some of their routes and even speed up the process of buying new buses. But despite the improved service, there's a simple flaw, you're going to have more empty buses. 

You see there's a reason why service sucks for the people of District 4, and that is because when you have empty buses in the first place, the people in charge tend to either remove those resources entirely or put those resources into other ares.  Now just because Saldaña wants to improved the frequency of some bus routes doesn't mean that more people are going to ride the bus, it means that those like myself who depend on VIA, we're going to get more options and less time at the bus stop.

There are many reasons why people don't ride the bus. I mention those reasons last year when I wrote about the Streetcar project.  It is a simple fact that the majority of San Antonio gets around by car and no matter how much you increase that service, those people aren't going to choose to ride the bus.  I have met people who cannot comprehend getting around San Antonio without a car and when they lose that car, they basically become prisoners in their own home. I cannot understand why such a person would choose to remain a prisoner despite having some type of bus service that would help them get access to the wider world.  Now this happens all the time and it's been my experience that this refusal to use VIA seems to be with the majority of San Antonio when they become car less. 

The main reason why public transit bus service pretty much sucks throughout North America is because we get empty buses.  Despite what you might hear about buses being superior to rail because it's "Flexible."  Well always remember that the bus's flexibility is also the biggest weakness to buses for buses are so flexible, that they can be removed from service tomorrow.  And that what pretty much happens across the country.  When buses start carrying less and less people, the politicians and the naysayers against public transit start pointing out how a waste of money it is to operate all those empty buses and thus the service starts to dwindle.  At first, its just one or two buses removed from a 30 minute frequency to every hour.  Because the service is less reliable, fewer people ride it, thus more service is cut and it becomes an endless spiral to where there's less and less service to in the end, there's none. 

And That is my fear, we're for a short time are going to get improved service, but when that improvement isn't being utilized by the general public, it will eventually be cut.  And that is something I don't want to happen.  There's a reason why I call Transit Dependent people like myself Hostage Users, it is because we're a hostage to the decisions of people who drive cars and those people for the most part, don't think of the consequences when they remove bus service because of that service having empty buses. 

If  Rey Saldaña and the rest of the city council can allow to have empty buses for the next ten years, then I'm all for giving the city's share of the ATD to VIA.  But if he and the rest of the City council wants more people to ride the bus, well I suggest that he makes the bus fare free for the residence and make the tourist and others who are not residences of San Antonio pay for their bus rides. I wrote about this on how we could improve VIA especially providing free bus rides for the citizens of San Antonio for it was number 6 on my list.  

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Now in Gilbert Garcia's Story in the Express News (Image 45-1) mentions that there's some city staffer's who are resistant to  Rey Saldaña’s idea and that's because the city lacks funding to pay for roads and sidewalks.  The reason why we have such a shortfall of funding is because  we don't utilize our tax base efficiently enough.  If you want to understand this more, I recommend that you take an hour of your time and watch the presentation of Joe Minicozzi at the Strong Towns Memphis Boot Camp (Video Above) for he'll explain why cities across the nation has such a shortfall in providing for transportation and other civic services we all take for granted.



 







Images:
45-1:  An image of  Rey Saldaña’s waiting for the bus in the rain from the SA Current. http://media1.fdncms.com/sacurrent/imager/u/blog/2447710/10494822_982330635112615_1703404577049168581_n.jpg?cb=1434657782
45-2:  Screenshot of of Gilbert Garcia's story.  Remember you need a subscription to read the entire article. http://www.expressnews.com/news/news_columnists/gilbert_garcia/article/Salda-a-s-plan-could-soften-S-A-s-bus-stop-6599428.php

Where 2 Live in SA W/O a CAR

A few years ago, I designed a map on where you should live in San Antonio if you want to live without a car and this is what I came up with. (Image 23-1)

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How I came up with the map.

Back in 2008, a friend of mine asked to be a sub director of a group on meetup.com because I knew of a lot of independent place on the south side.  While a member of this group, someone told me that the to some people, they consider everything south of Hildebrand the South side.  Personally I considered this in insult, but no matter, it gave me more independent places to choose from.  As I met more people from the far north side, it became more evident on the disconnect I personally had.  There was this one vegan lady who drove a smart car, and a big supporter of PETA.  She claimed that she was being an environmentalist by not eating meat, and driving a "smart car, but  she lived over the "Environmental sensitiveness" Edwards Aquifer Recharge zone not realizing that her dog poop was ending up in our drinking water.  It's funny, I don't live over the recharge zone or produce any greenhouse gas while riding my bicycle, but she does through her internal combustion engine.  This made me realize that you should be living inside the loop (Loop 410) if you wanted to live without a car.  My short experience with her and her companions made me realize that there was a lack of culture that San Antonio is famous for out side loop 410

The more I thought about it, loop 410 was pretty large, and even then before I reached the loop, I got harassed more and more on my bicycle, like telling me to get on a non existent sidewalk or even better, telling me what I was doing was illegal for which if they ever read their drivers manual issued by DPS, it will tell you , I'm pretty much a car under the law. During that time I came to the realization that if you happen to live in a grid street area, your more able to find an alternative safer route to ride your bicycle on. It was around this time, that I realized where I got on the bus, and where I got off the bus to ride my bicycle, and then it became clear.  I would first choose a bus when I was south of Southcross, or north of Hildebrand before I decided to get on my bicycle and ride it.  By early 2010, the map came together after I realized that with in the drawn area, you can find more than one bus to get to downtown on, and thus, it formed into what you see today.  It was then I realized that if you live south of Hildebrand, north of Southcross, east of Cupples, and west of  Walters, you could comfortably live without a car in San Antonio.

Exception on the map:

Now there are some areas that are inside my little square that I really don't recommend living in like River Road, Roosevelt and Southcross area, and the neighborhood between Hackberry and I-37. Outside my little map, Government Hill, South San, and Mahncke Park just to name a few.

River Road by default of TxDOT and USDOT, decided to cut off a beautiful neighborhood with the building of US 281.  It's pretty much a gated suburban community and although it is close to downtown, I don't recommend it because the Albertsons grocery store has been replaced with a YMCA and during any given day, your nearest bus stop is either on St Mary's or Broadway. 

Again, this area of Southcross Blvd and Roosevelt Ave is an area where even though industry is nearby, there a lack of safe bicycle facilities and even though the Mission Reach is in this area, I don't include it because much of it is in a flood zone. 

Mahncke Park and Government Hill is also an area I recommend that you avoid simply because that if your unable to find a place close to Broadway, you'll be leaning to owning a car sooner rather than later.  This is due to much of the area being without frequent bus service.  Although parts of Government Hill East of N Pine is has the 20 serving it, I took it off of the area simply because the 20 is more of a cross town bus than a downtown bus and downtown buses go to the places where you can connect with the most buses.  

Relations to Bicycle Culture.

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If your ever on your bicycle, you'll notice more bicyclist with in my square rather than outside of it and even better, more Frankenbikes inside my square than outside my map.  Yet there's virtually no bike lane to speak of. Now that's "sort of" changing of course, but so far what I'm seeing is trying to avoid the inevitable of putting down where they are needed the most and most of all, taking out a vehicle lane for a protected bicycle lane also known as a cycletrack.  And what I'm seeing get put  in lacks certain paint and signage to make it work. 

After talking with a naysayer of the S Flores bike lane and reading a story on little plastic thing that Starbucks gives out to some customers who are driving made me realize, we're focusing on the wrong places to put down bicycle lanes and Cycletracks.  Yes, they're needed at those places, but lets face it, if they're put in and around the Downtown area, they'll serve more of a use than ever being put on Culebra outside loop 410 or even worse, down a street that don't need it.  Since the city of San Antonio isn't serious about bicycling, but about driving, enjoy getting stuck behind a stinking car.  (Image 23-2)  It does make me wonder if there's an element high up with in the local political pyramid that don't want a role for the bicycle other than recreation.

Images:
23-1:  My map of where you should live without a car.  If you want to make one of your own, I recommend that you use yahoo maps instead of Google.  Make sure you put down that these are walking directions and they are...http://yhoo.it/1F7QFuy
Hildebrand at Broadway
Club Dr at Wilson Blvd
Cupples Rd at Brady Blvd
Brady Blvd at S Zarzamora
S Zarzamora at W Southcross
E Southcross at Gevers St
Gevers St at Walters
Walters at Sherman St
Sherman St at N Pine
N Pine at Josephine
Josephine at N Alamo
N Alamo at Broadway
Broadway at Hildebrand.

23-2:  A Family stuck behind traffic on Houston St at Presa looking East back in October 2012.

Streetcar Part II: Buses aren't Better than Rail

Sorry for not getting this out last week but life got in the way. 

During this entire debate about the streetcar, I've constantly heard that buses were better choice.  I don't know why San Antonio thinks that buses are better than rail, but they do at the detriment to the city's transportation system. Yet when I'm in Dallas or any other city with passenger rail, I stick to that passenger rail system because it is easier to use, because the ride is smoother, there's hardly ever any delays and I don't get lost. Yet we here in San Antonio believe that rail is worse just because we're simply told so.

When you ride the bus like I do every day, you get use to the bumpy ride, the wheelchairs taking forever to board, and mothers struggling to fold strollers.  We take this for granted and we're told by the same anti rail people to SUCK it up and deal with it. Yet when I ride the rail in other cities, I don't see mothers folding their strollers, wheelchairs taking 5 minutes to board or worse yet, dealing with a full bicycle rack, so how are buses better than rail?  Explain to me why in this video it is taking this lady in a wheelchair two minutes to board and get strapped in while boarding the bus while the guy in the wheelchair is taking what, less than a second to board the light rail train. and the rest of the time positioning the chair into the wheelchair parking space.

The argument brought forth every time that buses are better than rail because buses are flexible, they can go everywhere and that's true, but that is also the biggest weakness to buses success and it's flexibility is used against the hostage users every time causing less ridership and more car dependence.  If our highway system were as flexible as we are with the routing of buses, then we would be against having highways in the first place.  They would be untrusted, have a sense of utter Confusion and lack of dependability.  So lets apply the same rule that makes buses so great, the flexibility to the highways of San Antonio.  Below are a series of maps of the highway system in San Antonio, TX.  On the first Image, you see what is the normal system of highways,  I-10 going Northwest and then east, I-35 going from the Northeast to the Southwest, and Loop 410 going around San Antonio as well as US 90, US 281, and I-37.(Image 18-1)  Now if our highways acted like a bus system, they would probably look like this today (Image18-2)   And even worse, the routes numbers would be like this over that same map.(Image 18-3)

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Now apply this same concept to the routing of our bus system.  Every time we reroute a bus because of (construction, low ridership, lack of resources, ect) we lose riders, because of that constant rerouteing or cancellation of routes, we in essence creates a sense of utter confusion and lack of dependability yet we are led to believe that buses are better because of their flexibility. This is what is keeping the Choice Users off the bus because there's a constant confusion on where the bus is going.  Because of the bus flexibility, people have a hard time understanding how to use the bus system.

From my daily observation, I constantly see people boarding the bus and bitching to the bus driver which by default, doesn't know the whole system, that they're lost.  It is not uncommon for me to overheard people asking others about the 75 and the 76, bus routes because even today hostage users don't understand that the 75 makes stops every 2 blocks while the 76 is a skip stop bus and makes stops roughly at major destinations.  What people need to understand that it takes a certain type of skill to use a bus system.  It requires the user to remember what bus route goes where and when.  If you don't have this skill, you'll end up boarding the wrong bus and being late to an appointment.  What people need to understand that the skills required to use a bus system is the knowledge of how to read a map, how to read a bus schedule, and where the buses are going on that map.  And since most people have a hard time reading a map in the first place and the bus drivers don't know the entire system by heart, it is no wonder why people opt out of riding the buses in the first place.  Now added to the ability to change bus route on a dime, thus making using the bus system very frustrating thing to use.

We see this frustration reflected in our pop culture which consider the bus a disgusting thing to ride.  When songs are written about buses, they're describing a horrible experience like Weird Al Yankovich "Another one rides the bus," or the bus in the opening of the music video "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N'Roses..  And because of this constant negative experience, even the kindergarten song "The Wheels on the bus goes round and round," mentions a crying baby, yet we're told over and over again that buses are better than rail.

Some of our car commercials reflect also reflect buses in a negative light as well.  For example, the recent Drive Time commercial has the rescue of the hostage user by getting him off the bus and into a car.  Others like this Bar NONE commercial has the hostage user being approved at the bus stop while at the same time you hear how bad the bus are.  It continues like this other one from Car Loan Pal shows the sorry state of affairs of not having a car and being a hostage user, a person who is stuck riding the bus.  But I guess this car commercial tells it like it is from Cars 2 GO saying you 'better not pick up any bitches at the bus stop' and yet we're told over and over again that buses are better than rail.

Passenger trains however are treated differently in our pop culture for it's not just the fact that trains have been around a lot longer, but when the passenger trains are portrayed in music, they are put in a positive light.  From the old blues song about "Rock Island Road" by LeadBelly, to modern day rock videos like Howie Day's "Collide," there's no shortage of the praise for the train; from Luther Vandros, R.E.M, Aerosmith (1:52), Cyndi Lauper (4:21).  I can go on and on, but I guess Enya takes the cake as it for she's not singing about Buses and Winter Rain, she's singing "Trains and Winter Rains.  If buses are better than rail and were the preferred way to travel, then why is Enya on her way home riding the train?   Yet we're told over and over again that buses are better than rail.

I'm not finish yet for the heavy metal band It's Casual sang a song about Los Angeles's Subway, "The Red Line."  This guy isn't banging to riding the bus, he's celebrating the subway.  And lets face it, even our lousy governor Rick Perry has gotten into the act of supporting the evil communist train in Dallas, for just recently he made this statement celebrating the recent connection of the Orange Line to DFW Airport.  Yet we're told over and over again that buses are better than rail.

I don't know about you, but if the best thing about buses is that there flexible, and yet they're uncomfortable, bumpy and take a utter long time to put wheelchairs and bicycles on board, then why are they so great?  If San Antonio wants to have a dependable public transportation system, we are going to need to invest in passenger rail infrastructure, light rail or otherwise.  Bus have there use, but not for the mass movement of people.  They have their limits, not just in the passenger capacity, but in utter dependability.  This is the main reason why GM brought out all those streetcar systems in the early 20th century and  San Antonio wasn't immune to this for by 1932, the rail was gone.

If San Antonio is to have a good public transportation system, it will eventually have to adopt rail as a mode of travel.  The Streetcar, would have provided this only in the downtown area, but we're going to need a system that serves all of San Antonio's 535 square miles if it going to be effective.  And yet as you read this now, next week, you be reading how we don't need a streetcar to have a great city.  That's because even though more people would have used it, the goal of the Streetcar wasn't to improve transportation but to increase downtown development.  This is something San Antonio doesn't wish, for it wishes for the speed of a Subway, not the slowness of a Streetcar. 

 Images:
18-1 thru 18-3:  used original image from http://mobility.tamu.edu/mip/img/san_antonio-map600.png  and photo shop the rest. 

 Up Coming Important Meetings
If you want to make a difference, please attend.

 

Lee's Creek, Joe Ward and Sunset Hills Parks Plan Review Public Meeting

When:  Wednesday, August 20, 2014 6:00 PM

Where:  Joe Ward Community Center,  435 E. Sunshine, San Antonio, TX 78228

What Should You Ask For:  The thing to ask for at this meeting are good sidewalks,  20 mile per hour speed limits and safe ways to get to the park down Hillcrest and St Cloud such as bike lanes down those stroads.  

San Pedro Creek Improvements Project Public Meeting

When:   Saturday, August 28, 2014, 9AM-12PM
Where:  Christopher Columbus Italian Society 201 Piazza Italia.
Description:  Bexar County and San Antonio River Authority, in cooperation with the City of San Antonio, will host a public workshop seeking input on concept designs for the San Pedro Creek Improvements Project.  The project will focus on flood mitigation, the revitalization of natural habitats, water quality, and recreational and economic opportunities.
What Should you say:  Ask that safe routes for bicycles be included on the streets such as bike lanes, Protected bike lanes, cycletracks, and good sidewalks to and from the creek to safely connect neighborhoods. Ask that NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) standards be applied to these improvements. 


Up Coming Bicycle Events

Glow Roll SA 
When:   Saturday, August 28, 2014
Where:  Travis Park, 301 E Travis
Description:  Every 4th Saturday!
3p-9p: Amor y Arte Travis Park
5p-6p: NYA
5p-9p: Shop & Eat, artisans from SA Made by Hand Mercado
6p-8:30: Live Dance Routines/Instruction
6p-8:45: Bike Decorating with The KickStand SA
9p: Wheels Down (*ride thru Downtown SA & return back to Travis Park)

Andy's Bike Garage will be on hand for bike service & bike accessories!
Come light up the night on your bikes & take a social ride with us through Downtown SA!! Glow Sticks provided, limited supplies while they last!  Or go to the DollarTree and buy them. ;)

 Cycle In-Cinema .  
When:   Every Thursday, June-August at Dusk, 8:45pm
Where:  Main Plaza, 115 N Main Ave, 78205
Description:  Out Door Movie.  

Siclovia:
When:  Sunday Sept 28, 2014 10AM to 3PM
Where: Broadway downtown
Description:  Where San Antonio returns the streets back to the  people for a few hours.  Really a great event.  More info at http://www.ymcasatx.org/siclovia