
Seattle's 'microtransit' experiment drives people to light rail - curtis
https://crosscut.com/2019/08/seattles-microtransit-experiment-drives-people-light-rail-it-working
======
GCA10
I'm liking this idea, particularly as a low-cost, MVP version of Lyft/Uber
that could solve some transit needs of people on really tight budgets.

A case in point: There's a big Safeway grocery store right by the Othello
light rail station. If you live a mile or two east of that station, you've got
poor grocery shopping choices in your immediate neighborhood, and you'd much
rather have access to the Safeway.

But walking a mile with two or three bags of groceries is not going to be a
pleasant experience, especially for older people or people in poor health.
Getting this new van service at an affordable cost means you can get a lot
better food and appreciably cheaper food into your life.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That use case though, it reads like it only goes _too_ transit not _away_ from
transit. So you get a lift to the light rail, get your groceries and get back
to the same light rail station and then, ... well it seems you are on you own
for getting back to where you started?

~~~
loeg
It's definitely bidirectional. It would be farcical to take people one way to
transit and then abandon them for the ride home. Why would you assume one way
only? Seattle's not that dystopian.

~~~
sandworm101
>> It would be farcical to take people one way to transit and then abandon
them for the ride home.

Like every day I have to work a night shift? All sorts of buses are eager to
give me a lift when I want to go to work at 1500 (3pm). Where are they at 0230
when I want to get back home? One-way options are not unusual when it comes to
realworld transit systems.

~~~
GCA10
You're right that late night coverage right now is an issue. I think weekday
service stops at 11 p.m., and it doesn't go past the early evening on
weekends. But this is a start.

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sandworm101
Ridership is up, but is traffic down?

It doesn't matter how many people are using this service. What matters is
_which_ people are using it. Cities are realizing that most new transit
schemes aren't getting people out of their cars. They are leeching people away
from other forms of mass transit. Getting someone out of a bus and into a van
is not a win.

What is needed is an actual competitor to the private car, something that can
truly replace it. The buses in my area stop at 11pm, and the nearest passenger
train is a hundred km away. Until that changes, if want to keep my job, I need
to keep driving my car. Offering me a shuttle between my door and the bus stop
means literally nothing if there is no bus to get.

~~~
chrisseaton
Leeching people from busses into trains seems good, though?

~~~
sandworm101
That's an interesting question. The head of Ryanair used to talk about how air
travel was sometimes lower carbon than the equivalent train journey (Ryanair
flies to the smaller airports, and highspeed rail is far from zero carbon).
There is certainly a tipping point where the train clearly wins, but there are
also a great many areas where the slower and more direct bus service is
probably best. This is doubly true in places like Vancouver that have been
using electric buses for literally _decades_.

~~~
cagenut
First of all, there is _no chance_ outside of some absurd contrived scenario
for a jet to have lower co2 emissions than a train. When a CEO says something
that transparently bullshit they are obviously lying in their interest you
really shouldn't do their lying for them by parroting it.

Second, carbon dioxide (which I assume you were shorthanding as 'carbon') is
not even half of the greenhouse-gas/radiative-forcing effect of air travel:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation#/media/File:Radiative_Forcing_in_Aviation_1992.png)
So even if this CEO was technically right, he'd still be wrong in terms of
what actually matters.

~~~
sandworm101
No. He did not say that the jet burned less fuel. He was commenting that a
highspeed rail journey, with the necessary connecting car/bus/light rail legs
on each end, can sometimes require more carbon than a more direct aircraft
flight. There are breaking points where an all-economy flight can be the most
energy-efficient option.

My home town (on an island) is a good example. I could take a direct flight to
another city, or drive the 100's of KM by car+boat to the nearest passenger
rail. And then I'd have to rent a car and drive several hundred more KM after
stepping off the train. In such circumstances the direct aircraft connection
is the lower-carbon option.

~~~
cagenut
I see what you're doing even if you don't. This level of nitpickery and
contrarian noise is the functional equivalent of denying reality. All you're
doing is sewing doubt and throwing sand in the gears to make it harder for
everyone else. You cannot continue to apply marginal optimization tactics to a
solve for zero problem. It is simply a failure to understand and address
reality.

------
hannob
I can see how such services are helpful in sparsely populated areas.

I don't know Seattle personally, but in any larger city something like this
begs the question: Why not improve the normal public transport service and
also provide light-rail or busses to the areas that have "little east-west bus
service" according to the article?

~~~
intopieces
Seattle is improving the normal transport service, too. They are tearing up
streets and putting in trains, they are eliminating parking(!) in favor of
places to hang out. Seattle is becoming fantastically more car-hostile by the
day. Seriously, the last time I visited one street had eliminated street
parking in favor of a protected bike lane, potted plants and some chairs.

There are 27 distinct, voter-approved transit projects in progress:

[https://www.soundtransit.org/system-
expansion](https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion)

~~~
news_to_me
Is that a bad thing, though? I mean, it is for people who like to drive, but I
think the benefits to everyone else outweigh the preferences of car owners.

~~~
glloydell
I read "fantastically car-hostile" as a pro car-hostility statement.

~~~
loeg
I had the opposite take. Usually when I read opinions colored by "car-
hostile," it's from authors who advocate for car-maximized infrastructure.

~~~
intopieces
I used to term car-hostile as a step beyond "pro-transit," because cities can
be pro-transit while still not doing enough to actively reduce the number of
people getting into cars.

Seattle is not just making riding transit more convenient. They are making
driving more inconvenient.

~~~
mjevans
As someone living in the suburbs near Seattle... You're half right. Mostly
about the making driving (and parking) more inconvenient.

In programming terms they're ripping out a deprecated interface without having
first provided a replacement to transition to. Yes there are park and ride
facilities outside of the core city, but they're specced for local capacity.
The gateway interface would be much more like replacing several warehouses
near the tram line and freeway with GIANT, actively police monitored, parking
garages. On the north end something similar probably needs to happen near the
northgate mall, and if the extension up through the U doesn't go there it
needs to.

THEN after the pre-requisite work is done, they should just ban all cars from
the city outright.

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dangjc
"Via’s cost per ride to the operator is about $10."

This doesn't sound sustainable. I wonder how much of this can be reduced.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Lot more expensive to build big parking garages that we all drive our cars to,
to get on the bus. These feeder vans should cost way less per passenger than
buses, if they can get a reasonable number of passengers.

~~~
ac29
> These feeder vans should cost way less per passenger than buses, if they can
> get a reasonable number of passengers.

I'm curious why this would be the case - I'm under the impression the vast
majority of the cost of operating a van/shuttle/bus is the cost of the driver.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
You have a less skilled driver in the van. The one I often drive is just a 3
seat van. The driver is making $12 an hour I think they told me. It's a 6
month experiment.

~~~
Retric
I don’t want to say less skilled, but you need less training which probably
lowers costs.

However in terms of passengers, shorter trips means it’s better to compare
passengers per hour rather than the number in a bus at any one time. If they
can average 8 passengers per hour the service would be making money on it’s
own and 4+ could probably be worthwhile as part of a larger network.

------
carapace
What I want is a minibus towing a little flatbed trailer. All it does is take
people and their bikes from the bottom of the hill to the top.

For example, there's a place in San Francisco, West Portal to the top f the
hill where Portola meets O'Shaughnessy, where you have about a mile to climb
about 220 ft. Google maps bike route, shows elevation profile:
[https://goo.gl/maps/zmcb8RkBtNGzUqFi7](https://goo.gl/maps/zmcb8RkBtNGzUqFi7)
From there most of the rest of the city is downhill, including all of downtown
and the Mission district.

If there was a bike-shuttle service for that uphill, and another from, say,
Castro station to Diamond Heights, I think you would get a lot more people
commuting by bicycle.

~~~
Lndlrd
In Seattle I know many people who live on flat routes and don't bike. I don't
think the hills are the main deterrent. Anecdotally, it sounds like fear
factor (especially riding near cars) and sweat (even if office has a shower)
are the big ones.

~~~
jackyinger
Yeah sure, but let me tell you biking from Ballard to Montlake on the Burke
Gilman was awesome and easy. Now I live on Capitol Hill (Seattle) and don’t
bike cause the climb is a killer.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
You can bike part way and put your bike on the front of a bus to go up a big
hill. You can rent ebikes for pennies to go up the hill, you can get your own
ebike for 500 bucks.

All of these things apply to me too :-) I live by a big freaking hill, 300' up
and whenever I ride I have to take a shower. If I had a flatter hill I'd ride
my bike the 4 miles to the p&r a lot. Instead I drive my stupid car.

~~~
bahmboo
Ebike rentals aren't pennies. My last ride was $4 for about a mile. I was
surprised.

------
nostromo
> The $3.2 million [...] so far, the service has exceeded Metro’s daily
> ridership goals and served up more than 70,000 total rides.

So far this has cost Seattle $46 dollars a ride.

Now, it looks like we're just 6 months in, so a simple projection would halve
that number to $23 per ride after a year, potentially less if they scale up.

Why not just subsidize Lyft and Uber rides? For these short distances, it'd
probably be less than $5.

~~~
flyGuyOnTheSly
>Why not just subsidize Lyft and Uber rides? For these short distances, it'd
probably be less than $5.

They are already subsidized, by billions and billions of dollars of venture
capital.

When you pay less than $5 to get from one side of your city to the other in
the middle of rush hour, that's not covering the entire cost of the trip.

~~~
TylerE
You could pay 2x the market rate and still be paying less than half of what
they are now.

------
NotSammyHagar
There's yet another last few mile transit option in testing too, called "Ride
2" [1], free with bus transfer. There's 2 zones in West Seattle, one on the
east side. Free transfer if you bus ride. It's perfect for those places that
have lots of buses at a central area but not enough feeders, not enough
parking and ride space. King county is trying really hard to make it work on
transit and they are doing a great job in my opinion.

1\.
[https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/programs-p...](https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/programs-
projects/innovation-technology/innovative-mobility/on-
demand/ride2-eastgate.aspx)

------
whenanother
> “It would be a mistake for transit agencies and cities to rely on this kind
> of last-mile connection to the exclusion of making better walking and biking
> connections to transit hubs,” he said. “Those are also very low-cost ways to
> make it easier to connect to transit.”

so a lot of people are taking the minibus because there are no way to safely
physically get to an actual bus stop. if towns were planned around public
transportation this would not be a problem. we have planned towns around
automobiles for too long. this creates an artificial need for cars.

------
flyGuyOnTheSly
All the talk about 'government waste' in this thread makes me think of my home
town, where you still regularly see massive city buses driving around town
without a single passenger riding in them.

Moving people on demand is definitely not cheap, but surely it is more cost
effective that casting a net of mostly-empty buses around the city for half
the day.

~~~
resonantjacket5
It’s the coverage vs frequency (ridership) decision.
[https://humantransit.org/2018/02/basics-the-ridership-
covera...](https://humantransit.org/2018/02/basics-the-ridership-coverage-
tradeoff.html)

This via service is for coverage not ridership that’s why people are comparing
the wrong thing.

Many American cities aka San Jose being the most recent example are retooling
their bus routes for fewer but more frequent routes at the cost of cutting the
coverage routes.

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WhompingWindows
How does this compare / differ from those people ordering Uber/Lyft to do the
exact same thing?

~~~
astura
Much cheaper?

>Rides cost the same as taking the bus: $2.75 for adults, $1.50 for low-income
riders with ORCA Lift cards.

Just looked up an Uber ride I took for less than a mile (.7 mile) - that had a
cost of $6.45.

Oh top of that the cost is predicable - no surge pricing.

~~~
seattle_spring
On top of that, it's actually basically free because it counts as a transfer.

------
outerspace
I recently moved from the Bay Area to Seattle. I was looking forward to the
move because I love cycling and Seattle was rated #1 in bike infrastructure
last year [1]. While the infrastructure is indeed somewhat better than the BA,
I was shocked by the widespread hate for cyclists everywhere in Seattle and
surrounding areas. Getting honked at is a regular occurrence here, and people
will actually stick their head out of their cars to make sure you hear the
insults they are shouting at you, while simultaneously giving you the finger.
It gets worse: a couple weeks ago somebody hiding behind some trees threw a
rock at me while riding on the Burke Gilman trail. Fortunately they missed me.
The rock (fist-sized) shattered a few feet in front of me on the trail
pavement. The hate is incessant and I definitely understand why people don’t
feel comfortable riding.

[1] [https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a23676188/best-bike-
cities...](https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a23676188/best-bike-cities-2018/)

~~~
eagsalazar2
Regarding the cases where people in cars are yelling at you, are you riding
slower than traffic in the car lane when this happens? Doing so defensively
away from curb to avoid being door'ed but at the same time blocking cars from
passing you?

Not agreeing with drivers, just guessing as this does attract a lot of driver
rage.

~~~
eagsalazar2
Also fwiw, I rode daily all over Seattle for several years and had this happen
to me exactly zero times. I've never met someone who, unprovoked, would yell
at or menace a cyclist and have a hard time imagining someone who would except
a rare crazy or 16yr old idiot trying to impress his friends. I have however
talked to many people who are driven nuts by cyclists who obstruct traffic (in
their opinion)

~~~
InitialLastName
FWI(still)W, from talking to cyclists in my area (NYC and surroundings)
whether somebody gets yelled at depends on a lot more than how they're riding.
As an example, the women I know who ride bicycles (just as competently) get
menaced a lot more than the men.

------
4rt
I like the idea but so far it seems like it's $40 per customer per journey.

~~~
awakeasleep
>According to Metro, Via’s cost per ride to the operator is about $10.
Compared to Metro’s systemwide cost per boarding of $4.92, that’s expensive.
But high ridership bus routes have a lower cost per boarding than low
ridership routes, meaning Via’s costs are not wildly out of line with costs
associated with low-rider routes.

What am I missing there?

~~~
NotSammyHagar
maybe they thought of 4 passengers? Building more roads costs a lot more when
they are a billion dollars a mile in Seattle (i90, 30 years ago). Or the 520
bridge.

We need to do all the things to make traffic in Seattle better, light rail,
buses, road improvements, last mile transit services. Would we really be
better off if we dropped all this "wasteful" transit spending and had really
worse traffic? Of course not.

------
briandear
It would be cool if one side of the route didn’t have to be to a light rail
station. Or, if the trip wasn’t limited to a two mile area. I think it would
be cool if you could order a ride on an app, a vehicle comes to your exact
location and then takes you to your exact destination. That would be a real
innovation! Transportation that takes me to other transportation that then
requires walking the last mile isn’t exactly efficient. This service is Uber
Pool that forces you to go to a train station instead of your exact
destination? Why not just go to where you really want to go instead?

~~~
seattle_spring
Uber Pool costs money, and is therefore reserved for people who have money to
burn. Via Transit (the service referred to in OP) is $2.75, but counts as a
transfer against the train, so it's effectively free if you were already
planning on taking the train. Its goal is also to get people to use mass
transit, which is can be a ton faster than driving/Uber Pool in Seattle too.
I've used Via a lot and it turns a 22 minute walk to the train station into a
3 minute walk and 3 minute drive. Light rail from that point takes 18 minutes
to go downtown, versus what would have been a 25-45 minute drive in Uber Pool.
All for $2.75, versus $9-$15 on Uber Pool, or $20+ in UberX.

~~~
topkai22
Except, since the article states that the average per ride cost on Via is $10,
that total cost including the subsidy is more like $12.75, more if you include
the rail subsidies. For commuters using the service every work day, that’s
>$2000 in subsidies per person. That’s a pretty massive subsidy.

~~~
jhatax
Your calculations disregard the fact that rides can be shared. These are vans,
likely with room for 4-passengers. So, the average ride will have
2-passengers.

Secondly, I laud Seattle for finding ways to reduce congestion. It can take
45-minutes to go 4-miles by car from Beacon Hill to downtown. Particularly,
they are trying to find a solution that is affordable to a large swath of the
population, not just the tech-rich.

Finally, all public transit systems are designed to be subsidized, one way or
another. To wit, every rider who pays $2.75 on a bus is getting a subsidy of
$2.17 (each rider costs $4.92). At what point is the subsidy “too much”?

~~~
topkai22
The definition of “ride” is ambiguous, but I’m relatively confident that the
majority of hails are going to be single rider, and the subsidy is averaging
at least $7/ride before they get to the transit station.

The article also has plenty of transit advocates stating the obvious- this
cost more than even low ridership bus routes, so isn’t a long term solution,
and strong fixed route transit solutions are needed.

The subsidy here is large enough that if the investment is worthwhile, then it
would also be worth investigating what would happen if we gave small, low cost
electric vehicles (bicycles, scooters, or covered variants thereof) to
households in the service areas.

