Getting headway times down to 10 minutes during peak and 20 minutes during off-peak, providing more benches and shelters at bus stops, improving pedestrian access to and from bus stops, and having more bus routes that go from Point A to Point B without requiring a transfer downtown (which, if i read Kevin's post correctly seems to be happening) should come before eliminating fares.

As long as enough people at DATA continue to believe that their primary mission is to serve people who have no choice but to ride the bus, they will continue to provide service that only those who have no choice will use.

Ray - Assuming you meant DATA, and not CHT, when was that? I suspect that a well designed grid system, with good transfer points in strategic locations, could do very well in Durham now and going forward. I don't know for sure that i'd ride a bus from my house to Southpoint on the weekend, for example, but i'd certainly consider it if i didn't have to wait half an hour at the downtown depot for a connection.

Ray: Smack upside the head whoever decided to wall off all old articles on the H-S website, and the blogs will start quoting you a lot more. I can get to Lexis-Nexus occasionally, but I imagine Kevin can't, and even when I can, it's not like I want to take a few hours to go hunt through the archives just for a few quotes for the blog.

Barry: The problem isn't the downtown transfer, it's the half-hour wait. Decreasing head times would help a lot.

I have a lot more to say about this, but it's going to have to wait. I'll simply say that Luebke's infuriating stance on funding for public transportation is the blackest mark on his otherwise progressive record. It makes me want to smack him.

I agree that fares should be free on DATA. It would be interesting to see a comparison of how much DATA spends collecting and accounting for fares vs how much is actually collected. Those back-office accounting operations are not free.

Reducing headways is also key to picking up convenience ridership, rather than just those who have no other alternative.

DATA also needs to make a major investment in facilities for riders, a.k.a. bus stops that are more than just a sign on a post. In other cities, billboard companies install lighted & covered bus shelters for free (and maintain them free) in return for being allowed to sell ad space on the shelters. I would not normally trust the billboard bigwigs over anything, but Durham is in such dire straights when it comes to this particualr public facility, a deal with the devil should certainly be considered.

Of course, all of this would be easier if the Durham City Council had not wasted away the bucket of capital dollars that came along with DATA when the city took over service (from Duke Power?). This capital money was spent on ongoing operations because the Council was too chicken to save the money (for it's intended purpose) and raise property taxes instead. The long-term members of the Council have no one to blame but themselves for mishandling that pot of money, leaving DATA in the poor financial condition that it is in now.

Ray - i've never been to Tokyo, but i grew up in NYC and believe me, you can get to a hell of a lot of places without passing through Grand Central or Times Square, let alone transferring there, even thought the geography of Manhattan lends itself overwhelmingly to north-south routes. And that's just the subways. The buses are a completely different story.

Yeah, density is a major factor. But at least from what i'm reading these days, the current theory is that density follows transit. If you build it they will come, and all that.

Michael - if all the buses didn't go to the same place at the same time, wouldn't that make it easier to do away with those half hour waits for a transfer?

Katja - whenever i talk to someone who's waiting for the bus at the Avondale/Shawnee cul-de-sac, they're more than willing to air their complaints. I agree, though, that improving the buses (including shelters, sidewalks at all bus stops at a minimum, and more frequent buses [i really don't like that term "headway"]) should be job one. Lowering fares can come after that. Perhaps by giving tax credits to employers who offer discounted or free monthly passes to their lower paid workers.

Keith- I thought the same thing when I saw it. I rolled my eyes, because I live a few blocks from the Chapel Hill/Chapel Hill intersection. Just imagine the added confusion when people call 15-501 "Chapel Hill Blvd."

I also agree that we need better bus shelters and rider amenities. There are bus shelters (example Morehead and Kent) that aren't even connected by sidewalks. How is someone with limited mobility going to be served by that? How is our bus service going to help an elderly person go see their physician?

There was an article today on Durham Station in the N&O. It mentioned the major problem with the current station--that buses don't have separate berths. They are locked in their until every bus ahead of them leaves. Maybe the new station will help buses that arrive 5 minutes late to the station make up time, instead of adding to their delay.

One last point regarding fare-free. If we aren't going to go fare free, then we need to lower the fare. $1 each way is ridiculous, especially for someone trying to get to their part-time, minimum wage jobs (a lot of people in Durham are under-employed, and not by choice!). Also, don't tell me about monthly passes being cheaper or subsidized passes being available. Unless you've scraped by paycheck-to-paycheck or have tried to navigate the government from a position of nearly no political capital, then don't tell me I'm blowing things out of proportion on the $1 fare thing. If we can't do fare free, then at least go back to 50 cents a trip.

When it comes down to it, fares don't actually pay for transit. I did some digging in the budget, and it looks like charges for service (fare box and paratransit access fees) accounted for $2.62million out of a $12.98 million budget (20.1% of DATA's budget was paid for by fares). This means that fares aren't going to provide for more service, they aren't going to provide for shorter headways, and they aren't going to provide more rider amenities. To think that we need to keep the fare where it is in order to throw up some more bus shelters and double the number of buses on routes is ridiculous. We'd have to raise the fare to $5 per trip (at a sustained level of ridership) to make DATA self-supporting. And at $5 a trip, no one would use DATA, no matter how nice the bus stops were. Yes, shorter headways will increase ridership, but we don't have room on our buses to add 5x the number of passengers. They are already half full during daytime hours, so at most we can only hope to raise that to 40% by filling every single bus up at $1/person.

Instead, we need to think about other ways to fund transit. Transit is not supposed to be self-supporting. It is a public good. It is provided to decrease pollution, reduce the congestion on our roads, and ensure that everyone has access to reliable transportation. Now, we don't need another bond referendum, because I'm sick of bonds paying for stuff. We need to increase the city/county revenue. I say increase registration fees. Maybe increase the gasoline tax. Or even move to a per-mile tax that can be levied each year based upon odometer readings at the emissions/safety inspection. This will give NC more money for roads and mass transit.

In short, though, my point is that there is no correlation between fare cost and money for amenities. There can't be, because we only get 20% of our transit money through fares. Keeping the fare where it is won't provide for rider amenities or shorter headways, so these things need to be addressed independently.

What portion of the cost of traveling via the highways is paid by the users of the highways (as compared with non-users)?

For a starting point, that should be the targeted portion that we apply to transit fares.

As absurd as it is to expect transit riders to pick up the full freight of the transit system, it is equally troubling for us to be accepting fares that are unreasonably low.

Man, I hate that I missed most of this discussion (thank you Time Warner Cable), but I'm going to share my two cents anyways:

First, when I was a transportation planning intern for Chapel Hill a couple of years ago that someone had done a paper on the effects of going fare-free. If I recall, the paper needed to be beefed up a bit, but I'm checking with the current interns to see if anything has happened with that.

Secondly, I don't think comparing Chapel Hill (or NYC or Tokyo?) to Durham in terms of cross-town routes is appropriate. Chapel Hill has essentially one major destination: UNC. So while there may be a few folks along Estes Drive who want to go directly to Timberlyne or University Mall, those numbers are too small to support such a route.

In Durham, the DATA routes don't even go directly to the largest employment center (that would be Duke) unless you happen to live along Route 11 or Route 6! That's an enormous difference from the Chapel Hill example. Direct services from places like the Southpoint area or North Durham directly to Duke University would actually serve a larger travel market than the majority of the current services to
downtown.

In addition, shopping centers such as Southpoint and the New Hope Commons/South Square area serve (and employ) far more people than any such area in Chapel Hill. A better comparison would be Raleigh which does have several cross-town routes. Some carry more riders than others, but these routes are still a valuable part of their service. Even in Raleigh's case, it's still not quite comparable because downtown Raleigh is the biggest employment location, not NC State.

Finally, maybe this is obvious to everyone, maybe it's not. Fares don't account for a huge portion of the revenue transit agencies collect - that's true. But that $2.6M would have to be somehow replaced if the system went fare free. And it doesn't stop there. If DATA goes fare free, more people will ride, meaning there will be an even larger imperative to add service. OK, say that additional service cost $1.4M a year just to keep pace with the increased demand. Now we're talking about $4M in initial investments just to make DATA fare free.

So...would you rather make DATA fare free or would you rather add $4M of service to the streets? That could be 12-15 new commuter hour express routes. Or 5 new commuter routes, an increase in frequency to 15 minutes on 3-4 of the most popular routes in the system, and 25 new shelters at the most-used bus stops in Durham.

Just want to make sure everyone understands what they would be choosing between when you talk about fare-free.

GreenLantern,

I couldn't disagree more. First, I'll disagree with myself - the more I think about it, the less I think there would actually be any increased demand due to going fare free. After all, over 90% of all trips on DATA are already made by "captive" riders meaning that those who would use the current DATA routes are already using DATA routes. So who will take the bus more when it goes fare-free? Choice riders? That $1 fare was really the problem? So how would this "fill up the buses"? As an aside, as an actual DATA rider, I can tell you that my route (Route 1) is consistently full and I know that is true of a lot of routes, so I hardly think that's the biggest issue here. As Kevin has often brought up on this blog, Durham serves more riders with fewer buses than any system in the Triangle, including Chapel Hill.

The "federal funds" issue is a non-issue. Section 5307 funds make up a small portion of the pot of money transit agencies have to use and if you think spending $2.6M to make the system fare free will generate more ridership than adding $2.6M of new service, well, that's your opinion, but I think it's way off base.

Finally, I said it before and I'll say it again. Comparing Chapel Hill to Durham is a HUGE mistake. First, Chapel Hill added a LOT of service at the same time that they made it fare free, so the capital and operating costs were all initial costs - this notion that routes were added "gradually" is simply false. And the notion that it was the federal funds (which don't accrue until 2 years after it is reported) that added the service is also false.

There are two major differences between Chapel Hill and Durham in terms of transit:

1. UNC and Chapel Hill have made parking scarce and costly. They turned "choice" riders into "captive" riders. Until Duke and Durham do the same, choice riders will not use the system at the same level.

2. Chapel Hill Transit SERVES THE MAJOR DESTINATION IN CHAPEL HILL. I wish I could put that in some huge font. Putting aside any personal distaste for Duke and love of downtown Durham, the fact is that Duke University and its hospitals is a much larger destination than downtown and until routes are added that provide more direct service between where the majority of people live in Durham and where the majority of people work in Durham, DATA will be a system for its current riders, not a system for all of Durham.

I will argue this until I'm blue in the face - the main reason choice riders will not ride DATA is not because of a lack of shelters (more would be nice, but it's not the main reason), it's not because of the frequency (Triangle Transit has express routes running every 30 minutes that are full every day), it's not because of the safety perception (this is no doubt a reason, but it can be overcome), and it's DEFINITELY not because of the price.

The reason choice riders don't ride DATA is because the current routes take too long to go from where people live to where they want to go. It's that simple. If there was a route between the Southpoint area and Duke University that was direct, mostly express, and ran more frequently during peak commute times than at other times, that route would be successful. Have Duke pay for half of the operating cost instead of leasing or building more surface parking lots and for $200K a year or less, the City of Durham would have just added a service that everyone could use for 1/13 of what it would cost the city to make DATA fare free.