Can Route-Overhaul Make the Bus Attractive?

From subways to Bus Overhaul

Overhaul of existing bus transit networks appears to be the latest straw cities grasp for to match their dwindling resources with a growing insight that better transit is a must-have for future prosperity. 

Type “bus overhaul” into the Google search box and a whole bunch of cities and transit agencies pop up who have considered one. The most recent addition to the bandwagon: Austin, Texas. Vancouver in Canada decided to do it and our neighbor DC is no exception. Houston's neighbor Dallas wants to do it, too, but piecemeal and over ten years. In New York City activists were the ones calling for a complete overhaul. 

Convoluted bus lines such as this from WMATA are often
a reason to look for simpler ways of serving the public

Corresponding with the ever smaller pool of money available, transit improvements in most larger cities have become  more modest over the last few decades: Real subway (metro) or an expansion of existing subway has long been out of the question for all but a couple of US cities. Settling for light rail as a cheaper and more flexible alternative in the late eighties and nineties, many cities built new lines across the country. When federal funds were far outmatched by applications for "New Starts" (a program that includes expansions, in spite of its name) Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) was briefly tried by a few cities that even ran buses through tunnels (Boston, Seattle) until it became clear it wasn't really cheaper than LRT, plus less likely to spur economic development. It was also much less liked by riders. Then streetcars became all the rage and a smaller federal funding program called "Small Starts" was created for them. After some streetcar lines were not well thought out and didn't get the riders or benefits that were envisioned, streetcars are out of favor for the moment. 

So now we have arrived at the bottom rung of the transit hierarchy, the bus and this wave of bus overhaul projects which essentially promise better transit that pays for itself. Reforming the bus systems is the (not entirely) new quest of transit agencies who are looking for the holy grail of better service with the same fleet, the same budget and the same operators.

WMATA Priority Corridor Bus Map

Perspectives of the bus

This article will provide some considerations of bus service in general and some specific experiences with what an overhaul entails.

The biggest issue is the bus itself. One of the least desired transit rider experiences involves a "bus bridge" which involves interrupted rail service (emergencies, repairs etc.) where rail passengers (metro or light rail) have to get off the train and use a bus for one or several stops before getting back on a train. A bus bridge provides the direct comparison between a multi coach train and its usually smooth and expeditious ride with the one of a crowded bus that lurches through bumpy city streets fighting with rowdy car drivers along the way.

Most bus riders will come to the bus not from a train. They reach the bus on a sidewalk, on foot, maybe in rain, snow, or great heat. Standing at a bus stop with cars whizzing by, a semi-punctual arrival of the scheduled ride is a small miracle that brings happiness and a good start or end to a working day. Boarding the dry, heated, or cooled bus comes as a great relief.  The driver may show a sign of recognition or welcome to the frequent rider, he or she may wave a rider through whose fare card evokes the sound of rejection from the card reader on the fare box; fellow riders may offer a good morning. 

Especially in adverse weather, the small community of riders huddled in the sheltering bus provides comfort and a sense of communal bond. A rider that boards short of the necessary change to make the fare will find half a dozen helpful hands offer the needed coins, the same hands that would have remained deep in the pockets had the same person asked out on the sidewalk for some change so he could take the bus. A rider spotting a tardy would-be passenger waving desperately will call out to the driver "hold the bus" and the door will admit yet another member of the small community. Such is the fellowship of riders. 

 Bus riders are forgiving people, they have learned to have low expectations. A ride that shows up, doesn't break down and won't get hopelessly bogged down in one of the frequent traffic mishaps is a good ride. This is eespecially true today, when one can do e-mail and all kinds of more or less productive work right there in the bus seat, no matter how slow, bumpy or jerky the ride may be.

This rather lengthy preamble is meant as a warning for those who see the bus as the ultimate solution to transit woes.  Few in Baltimore, for example, truly think that a rail line project, cancelled at the last minute, could ever be replaced by a better functioning bus system. 

Basic truths about a bus service overhaul

Transit agency leaders should see improving the bus as a necessity all its own, not an alternative to other more expensive transit modes. The larger a city, the more it will need rail for a properly functioning transit system.  Yet, even in many large cities that have rail transit many transit trips are made by bus. (Even in DC, for example, 44% transit users ride the bus versus 53% who use the fully built out Metro system). In Baltimore almost a quarter million people ride a bus every day, much more than the about 80,000 riders of the two local rail services combined.

Bus users: Used to a certain routine

As noted, the view of the bus is quite different for different people, especially between "captive riders", "choice riders" and non-riders. The most drastically negative views are held by those who never rode a transit bus ever. 

All those views come into play when a bus system is to be reformed. 

• The already existing riders need to be satisfied that they can still reach their destination without having to reconstruct their entire life, 
• In order to increase ridership those who have a choice need to be attracted through a service that is better than before and 
• Those who never ride the bus but are vocal in neighborhood associations or own a business where a new bus stop is supposed to go need to agree to expanded service and new locations

Interestingly, the first group which is supposed to benefit the most may become the first obstacle to an overhaul, because bus riders have become creatures of habit, worn down by many bad experiences. Any adjustment to the procedures that took so much effort to get used to is an unpleasant prospect, no matter the motive. 

The guru of bus overhaul is the transit consultant Jerrett Walker who advised many cities on it. The chief ingredient with which he wants to attract and keep bus users is frequency. On his website he explains:

Frequency has three independent benefits for the customer, which helps to explain why high frequency is so critical to sustained high ridership:

• It reduces waiting, which is everyone’s least favorite part of a trip. (No, a smartphone that tells you when the bus comes doesn’t solve the problem of waiting; we are still talking about time when you’re not where you want to be.) The basic sensation of being able to go when you want to go is the essence of frequency.
• It makes connections easy, which makes it possible for a pile of transit lines to become a network. In transit, this is huge. A transit line without good connections is useful for travelling in one dimension, along that line. A network of frequent lines makes it easy to travel in two dimensions – all over the city, or at least all over the part of it that supports frequent service. This network effect massively expands the usefulness of every line in the network, thus increasing each line’s ridership potential.
• Finally, frequency is a backstop for problems of reliability. If a vehicle breaks down or is late, frequency means another will be along soon.

Example Houston and other precedents:

Jerrett Walker also advised Houston. Its fix, an overhaul of their entire bus system "overnight" in one big mega-logistical effort, in which the next morning no line operated the same way it did the day before, excited the transit world a year ago. It set off a wave of high-profile copy-cat projects. The Houston New Bus Network replaced a hub-and-spoke system of bus routes with one that looked like a grid. By all accounts, Houston was a success. In the one year review 6.8% increase in ridership is noted for the system, even though only 1.2% of that go to the bus, the rest goes to light rail. Strong bus ridership increases were seen from Saturday (+13%) and Sunday (+34%) usage, a result that frequent services lines keep frequency up seven days a week. The ridership increase projected by Jarrett Walker was 20% in two years.

Proposed BaltimoreLink graphics 

In Baltimore, Republicans who dashed hope for the Red Line searched for something that they could offer metropolitan transit riders. Houston came to mind, though it had two new light rail lines freeing up buses and capacity that the transit agency could use as starting capital for revamped system.  That was an inconvenient detail for Maryland's Secretary of Transportation who had just told Baltimore that it would be better off without new rail transit. Still, Houston was a compelling example, even though its transit profile is quite different: Population and service area is vastly larger than Baltimore's, but the bus fleet and passenger miles are smaller.  Jerrett Walker explained the magic of his prescription on his website:

How on earth could we grow a network that much without new money? There are two answers:
1. That's how much waste there was in the existing system. Waste in the form of duplicative routes, and due to slow meandering routes created due to a few people's demands.

2. Hard choices are proposed about expensive service to very small numbers of people. The plan devotes 80% of Metro's resources to maximizing ridership, which all of these frequent lines do, and only 20% to providing access to people living in expensive to serve places. Currently only about 50-60% of resources are devoted to services where high ridership is a likely outcome. (See here for my paper on this analysis method.) This shift in focus will have negative impacts on small numbers of riders who rely on those services, but these were small numbers indeed . (About 0.5% of existing riders end up over 1/4 mile of service, and most of them are just over that threshold. Often, their longer walk is to a better service, a tradeoff that most people are willing to make in practice.)
The exciting thing is not just the massive growth in frequent services proposed, evident above, but the shape that they'll take. The core idea of the new network is the high-frequency grid, designed to enable anywhere to anywhere travel with a single fast connection. Everywhere on the proposed network of red lines, that kind of easy access will be possible.
Obviously, too, the whole geographic focus of the network had to shift. Houston is one of the biggest US cities that still has a radically downtown-oriented transit network despite decades of decentralization.

Walker points to something that politicians, transit users and advocates can agree on: It would be nice to get more from current resources, namely more frequent and more reliable service. The promise that added efficiency can provide the extra capacity for making buses more frequent and more reliable is just too compelling. It even brought folks like me, who were deeply disappointed about the Baltimore Red Line cancellation, onboard for bus reform. There was a broad consensus that a real effort could make buses run better.

Houston Bus

Houston is by no means the first city that revamped their bus system. Portland,  LA and recently Washington DC had done it before. In most cases a grid or system of priority corridors was established with a distinction between two types of bus service. 

In LA and DC the distinction is between Rapid and Local buses. While those systems clearly aimed on better service and efficiency as well, they didn't strictly adhere to the orthodoxy of the high frequency grid and the notion that the efficiency can pay for itself. WMATA, for example, budgeted $516 million dollars as cost to implement its Priority Corridor Network. The Maryland MTA had previously taken a run at establishing its own "Rapid" bus lines as an overlay of "Quick-Buses" but stopped expanding that approach after doing just four QB routes.

Trade offs and public opinion

That "better" means necessary trade-offs is already noted by Walker: Running the fleet more efficiently would mean less overlap, less redundancy and fewer long "single seat” trips.  There would be more transfers and those could only be made palatable if riders could believe that two buses would actually meet at a transfer hub, a prospect defying all past experience. Exchanging redundancy and coverage for frequency and reliability was like accepting a check that may bounce. 

When the Baltimore public was presented with the still somewhat academic grid of new high frequency lines and connecting local bus lines, mostly existing riders didn't buy it. They picked out their daily commute and many found that their route was gone or had moved several blocks away. Version 1.0 of the MTA overhaul was met by howls of discontent with very few showing joy about a ride they didn't have before. The voices of those who would see benefits are rarely at the table when it comes to transit, unless they are already transit users. This is an inherent flaw of public participation that seems impossible to overcome. How would somebody who drives to work realize that the planned bus overhaul may offer an attractive alternative? 

About the value of public opinion, Walker has this to say:

As an expert on public transit, let me warn you that the job of developing great transit must never be left entirely to experts. Once a community has expressed its transit goals, experts have a role in designing systems to meet them. But experts shouldn’t be the source of the goals themselves. Citizens and their elected officials are entitled to a clear explanation of the underlying choices they face, and a chance to express their views on them. I believe every citizen has a right to debate about their public services in terms that they can understand. (Jerrett Walker)

The MTA agrees. “We heard you,” the MTA announced and went back to the drawing board. According to the project manager 86% of the first plan had been modified before a second version of the overhaul plan was presented. Many old lines got reinstated, at least in part or shortened. So many adjustments were made that the reform seemed so much less drastic, that soon critics asked whether is this still was worth it. The MTA says yes and has the following statistics for the plan 2.0: 15% more access to frequent transit, 53% of all trips don't need a transfer at all with only 1.7% more transfers compared to the existing system. The new system is even said to increase overall access to transit within 1/4 mile by 4%, i.e. coverage would be better and not worse in spite of also increased frequency. 20% more jobs would be within the reach of a 30 minute bus trip. 

Still, all routes in version 2.0 would get new names, still, there would be a new distinction in service types between City Link and Local Link in which City Link was supposed to be a high frequency line branded by color-coded routes and differently wrapped buses. The Local Link a connecting bus to the major lines and rail lines. $135 million would be available to fund some of the transition cost over some years.

The first MTA buses sport already the new "wrap design"

Again the MTA customers went and checked in detail; they still find much to complain about: Some of the so-called “high frequency” routes are actually less frequent than current routes, if one considers the lost redundancy of several current routes running on the same street. 

Of course, there was still loss of coverage in some areas. Increased reliability or faster trips thanks to dedicated lanes, fewer stops or signal priority remain just a promise with no possible proof.  In another round of public meetings, the voices of those who lost some convenience remained loud and the voices of those who gained access remained unheard. 

Non-riders add their voices mostly not to welcome possible new mobility but to reject the idea of a bus stop coming to their neighborhood or property. Especially in suburban locations one can hear all the usual, tired arguments such as transit adding crime or concerns about noise and fumes from diesel buses. Reformed or not, most see the bus as a means of transportation of last resort meant for poor people, "those people", the people that especially suburbanites often just don't want to see even if it means denial of the fact that poverty has long invaded suburbs as well. 

Behind the scenes

With some 8000 existing bus stops to be reviewed, analyzed, and redistributed along the altered routes, the mammoth task of placing the new bus stops is lagging behind the alignment planning and leaves the public not knowing where their stops might be until the comment period for Version 2.0 comes to an end. This is an obvious complaint to which the agency can only respond by referring to another comment period in phase 3, the last big review before the implementation date which has been set in stone for June 17, around 18 months after the overhaul was first announced.  With a deadline less than a year away, planners and engineers that need to put the new system in place are struggling to keep up with the ever moving targets that result from responses to public critique. 

Few people outside the industry probably understand how complex even simple bus stops can be. Just a few examples of the logistics involved:

• In hotter climates, for example, most cities install concrete pads at buses stop if the road itself is asphalt. Buses tend to warp regular asphalt where they start and stop frequently. New stops, new concrete pads. 
• When a new stop is located, it needs to be ADA compliant, which means boarding from a grassy shoulder or crossing those little grass strips between the curb and sidewalk is a no-no: More pavement work.
• If shelters need to be placed, permits need to be obtained from the city or the county in which the stop sits. 
• With all lines getting new names, all the thousands of new bus stops need new signs while the old signs have to remain to the very last moment the old service is running. 
• Anywhere transfer hubs require more than a pad, ADA access, and a new sign, all kinds of other permits come into play such as stormwater management, reforestation and environmental reviews, even if some of these can be eliminated, this requires a special appeal or application. 
• Signal prioritization is an especially pesky thing that requires software and hardware on buses and signals to be coordinated, i.e. major installations and investments on equipment not owned by the transit agency and equipment it controls. that require careful coordination and analysis so that the costly fix is only installed where the benefit is really guaranteed. 
• Real time bus arrival signs are high on the public's wishlist, but they need new software and hardware on the buses which is GPS and not radio based; 
• These real time signs also need power connections for the on-site installation.  
• Shorter and different routes mean different layover stations, the places where the buses wait for their next run and drivers can take a break. Layovers cannot always be the stops themselves so not to confuse riders or impede other bus lines that may serve the same stop.  
• At layovers arrangements for operator restrooms need to be made. The MTA also has the ambition to clean buses at some of those layovers instead of only once every day overnight at the bus garage. 
• Bike share facilities will move to some of the most important bus stops and 
• Improved collaboration is envisioned with the free locally operated circulator bus routes which share some of the same stops
• Bus operators need to be involved in and informed about the changes since they have to carry out the better service
• Buses have to be tested on the proposed routes to obtain actual run times so a realistic schedule can be prepared (more realistic schedules may make it look to the public on paper as if the new service would be actually slower, even if it will be faster in reality).
• Buses need to be wrapped" with the new branding colors and designs

In short, a lot of design drawings, procurements, and permits have to be prepared and coordinated even for something as simple as a bus system. The complexity of the logistics is one of the reasons that over the decades the legacy systems evolved so many layers that hardly any agency exactly knows what really is out there as their existing bus infrastructure. (The MTA needed to actually do an on site survey to be sure how many stops it really had and where exactly they were placed).

Conditions for success

Houston had prepared for their changeover well and had also managed their public information policy well. They had before and after metrics at hand throughout the process. After the implementation they provided several updates which indicated how well the new system performed. They had realized already before the implementation, that the reform will not entirely pay for itself, especially not after they, too, had to bring some lines back that they had hoped to eliminate. 

As a Texan sprawl metropolis, Houston has less of an ingrained transit culture in its DNA which may help in an overhaul. In Baltimore where many lines carry the numbers of the streetcars that ran on the same routes some 75 years earlier, many lives are intricately intertwined with the bus. Change, then, is less welcome, even if complaining about the shortcomings of the existing service is one of the favorite local past-times. 

One thing is for sure, a city bus is still a bus. Despite adding designated lanes and signal priority, the bus is still like a car the victim of unpredictable traffic conditions without the flexibility and most of the conveniences a private vehicle offers. Only a comprehensive local transportation strategy that clearly favors transit, walking and bicycling over cars can really tip the balance towards a city with a better quality of life for all.

Automated transit: The next big thing

Outlook

The self driving bus may be on the horizon sooner than some think and drastically alter the cost profile of operating a bus system which is currently dominated by the cost for the driver.

Additionally, demand-based options such as Uber lend themselves to much better integration with traditional fixed schedule transit than the classic taxi. Various transit agencies, including the MTA, are testing the possibility of offering demand-based rides as last mile options, especially at night. With autonomous driving fleets, as Uber begins to test this year in Pittsburgh, the cost for such solutions will go way down and provided new opportunities for resolving the frequency versus coverage conundrum transit operators face today.

Given how long bus systems tend to stay in place once they are launched, it is urgent that transit agencies begin to face the not so distant future of the autonomous vehicle for the possibilities it includes for them

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
edited in parts by Ben Groff, JD

I have been a consultant to MTA on the implementation of the first QB route and am currently participating in a small capacity in the implementation of the BaltimoreLink overhaul.