Florida Transit News

With bus ridership up, ECAT plans symposium on ‘Transit Solutions’
Pensacola News Journal, FL - 16 hours ago
Anyone interested in the future of public transit in Northwest Florida is invited to a symposium Wednesday. Escambia County Area Transit is holding “Transit ...

The chatter over rail in Tampa has finally began to heat up (albeit a couple decades late) as the Trib's front page story earlier this week indicates, and even though it's hard to get excited about something that might take at least a decade to get rolling, if it gets rolling at all, I have to hand it to Iorio for her commitment to lighting a fire under the bureaucracy and generally being fed up with the lame feet dragging and lack of vision. The voter referendum is still a ways off, and there's a lot of "ifs" floating around this town, but it's not too early to speculate about how rail could affect Tampa and Seminole Heights in particular if Pam's "starter line" from USF to downtown to Westshore ever gets built. Will there be a Seminole Heights station? Where would the best location be? Here's some comments the mayor made recently in Creative Loafing about the development of such a rail stop:
In the other cities I have visited, it is very clear that there is transit-oriented development at these stops that is very beneficial to the community: beautiful apartments and condos and mixed-use developments, all positive. And people can live in an apartment complex and then just jump on the rail line and go to work. That is what we're going to need more of.

But it does take a consensus-building. Neighborhoods need to know that their single-family residential neighborhoods will still be protected, and the fact that further down the street there's a transit stop, and there might be a condo or apartment project associated with it, with shops and so forth and office, that does not degrade their neighborhood.

Rewind about 75 years or so: Poking around the Tampa Rail site, I found these original Tampa Streetcar Brochures and Maps from the 53 mile Tampa Electric Company Service ("Carriers of Tampans for 50 years!"). They're pretty captivating. Did you know that Tampa once had Two Hundred and Twenty Three full time Street Car employees? I think we currently have three. And the service ran almost 24 hours a day: the first car at 4:30 in the morn and the last at 2am! Wow, sounds like a real city, don't it? Beats the Hartline by about nine thousand miles, which is incidentally the distance Tampa streetcars used to travel in one day! Here's a map of the Seminole Heights line that ran up Central to the Sulphur Springs Pool on the river. My grandmother used to ride these streetcars all over town for a nickel and has often lamented to me about how stupid, wasteful, and absurd the decision to tear up the tracks was (for that sad story, consult Wikipedia's Great American Streetcar Scandal entry). But now, due to the complete and total domination of our car culture, politicians must now attempt to build consensus amongst a population raised looking through windshields and thinking buses are for poor people, that mass transportation might not be such a bad idea.

Well, at least we Tampans can take solace in the notion that (maybe) in a decade or so we can finally catch up to where we were with mass transit 75 years ago. HooraY for the brave martyrs of the social experiment of car culture addiction. Too bad it's taken an entire lifetime to attempt to reverse the bad decisions and shoddy planning of our fair city! We is Tampa!

City's not made for walkin'
Florida Times-Union, FL - Aug 1, 2008
Believe it or not, it can happen in Jacksonville. In the midst of the urban rush, Stan and Johanna Soliday enjoy a mostly car-free lifestyle in ...

Thanks to a tip from one of our dedicated readers, David, it has come to my attention that US Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters will be speaking at the Downtown Miami Hilton Today.  The event, A New Transportation Approach For America, is sponsored by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and will begin at 12:30 (Click here to register, $75 fee for non-members.)  I’m going to try my best to make it there and hope that despite the short notice some of you all can attend. You can find some of the emails SBH has shared with me concerning the subject here.

Like our friend over at Hallandale Beach Blog has noted, we too find it interesting that Mary Peters can make some time out of her busy schedule to speak about transportation in Miami, while FDOT director Stephanie Kopelousos remains MIA in the South Florda region.  Kopelousos recently held a transportation summit in Destin Florida to discuss the congestion issues of North Florida.  I guess a drive down to Miami would have been to difficult.

Here is what the Halladale Beach Blog has to say:

When federal public transit policy meets South Florida’s notoriously fickle apathy, who wins?

Oh, right.

Everyone loses!

Iorio: It's Train Time For Tampa
Tampa Tribune, FL - 4 hours ago
"We're talking not just about rail, but funding over the next 20 years for our bus system network, funding for bus rapid transit and what it would take to ...

South Florida commuters face a brave new world
Sun-Sentinel.com, FL - Jul 30, 2008
Broward County's bus system experienced a 1 percent decline after raising fares in October. Both bus systems also are experiencing budget constraints, ...

Image: John Darkow, The Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri

With gas tax revenue falling fast the federal government fears that it may not be able to meet its commitment to states for road projects currently under way. So what does Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters suggest? Simply “borrow” money from the mass transit fund. According to the New York Times article, such a measure would “balance the accounts as highway travel declines and mass transit increases.”

However, such a transfer of money would require Congress’ approval.

American Public Transportation Association president, William W. Millar added this:

The administration proposal is shortsighted and would mean that the mass transit account would be reduced to the point where there would not be enough money to fund the federal transit program in 2010, even at the current level.

If this doesn’t illustrate how broken our federal transportation funding system is, I don’t know what does. Despite runaway gas prices, climate change, and the prospect of funding petro-dictators, the Bush administration is still desperate to fund highways at a significantly greater clip than transit. The sad thing is that the Bush admin wants to borrow from what is already a scant fund. The transit fund is but a tiny fraction of the highway fund.

My experience today was much like every other work day:

• 7:55 drive one mile to the South Miami metrorail station
• 8:00 park & catch a train as I reach the top of the stairs
• 8:12 depart to Brickell metrorail station
• 8:20 catch the Metro Mover to Financial district
• 8:25 first to arrive in the offce - unlock the office door

All in all, a stress free commute to work. Listened to NPR on my IPOD during the commute. Didn’t spend a lot on gas (1 mile drive to the train station) or contribute to global warming. Didn’t spend any time stuck in traffic, being stressed out. (My wife is jealous of my commute.)

Google Maps Adds Walking Directions
U.S. News & World Report, DC - Jul 23, 2008
For cities where Google has mapped public transit directions, you'll now find walking directions automatically from the point where you'd exit the subway or ...

More people than ever are taking the bus in Pinellas County.

(author unknown)

Riders Can Voice Their Opinions About JTA Route Changes
First Coast News, FL - Jul 23, 2008
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority has proposed a list of possible schedule changes to begin on August 25th. But first they are holding public ...

Travel by train
Sun-Sentinel.com, FL - 5 hours ago
Tri-Rail's 71-mile-long rail corridor has 18 stations, each with connecting bus service. Tri-Rail also serves each county's international airport. ...

Tampabay.com
HART set to end free ride
Tampabay.com, FL - Jul 20, 2008
They intend to start charging a fare to travel the transitway— partly because money is tight for the bus system, and partly because of complaints about ...

The transit dilemma
Gainesville Sun, FL - Jul 19, 2008
Gainesville has done more than most Florida cities to promote and grow mass transit. But raising local rates and reducing services is not the key to keeping ...

Trolley service is an instant hit as ridership keeps climbing
Florida Times-Union, FL - Jul 19, 2008
Jacksonville City Councilman Art Graham, who represents the Beaches and worked for years to bring the trolleys to the island, said the goal for the 10-week ...
THURSDAY ON THE BEACH Florida Times-Union
all 2 news articles

Palm Tran explores discounts as way to boost bus ridership
Palm Beach Post,  United States - Jul 18, 2008
It's time to stop thinking negatively and get the system growing again, said Frank Stanzione, a board member and bus driver. "We need to look at ways to ...

Biodiesel Engine Switch Could Cost Bus Service Millions
WFtv.com, FL - Jul 17, 2008
A spokesperson for the largest public transportation system in Central Florida said Lynx is aware of the issue and has a plan to beat it. ...

JTA's fast bus program still in planning
Florida Times-Union, FL - 12 hours ago
JTA will hold two public hearings at Jacksonville City Hall on Thursday to discuss this effort. The agency is billing the new effort as Bus Rapid Transit. ...

Washington MAN Bus
Originally uploaded by So Cal MetroAt the City Council hearing yesterday on streetcars, David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington provided a Powerpoint presentation showing the route of the proposed first phase Anacostia streetcar line. One of the questions Councilmember Graham asked was, for that particular service, would Bus Rapid Transit work better in that particular application.

(I will have a much longer blog post today about the hearing, specifically in response to Councilmember Catania's legitimate points about why Ward 7 and Ward 8 deserve to have first in the city, enhanced fixed rail street-based transit, which I wasn't able to respond to in the hearing.)

Now for the most part, BRT is a "scam" in that (1) the Federal Transit Administration promotes it over fixed rail service because it's cheaper, (2) using the successful experiences in South America as examples; (3) without really disclosing that in South America and Asia, bus riders tolerate passenger densities about double what is typical in the United States. In short, the 60 foot articulated bus used on Georgia Ave. (70s line) or H Street (X buses) holds up to 160 passengers in a place like Curitiba or Santiago, but in the U.S., people feel as if the bus is cramped holding 80 passengers.

It's true that bus rapid transit in Los Angeles has much higher ridership than the highest routes in DC, but DC has a much much smaller population than even the core of LA--it's hard to make a direct comparison in population because the San Fernando Valley is part of the City of Los Angeles, where in this region, that would be like having Montgomery County as part of DC. So that BRT lines in LA have double the ridership of the highest routes in DC isn't as a great a difference as you would think.

MTA Metro Rapid bus on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

What we call "bus rapid transit" in the DC region, what I sometimes call "bus rapider transit" is really limited stop express bus service. For the most part the service provided doesn't meet the definition of BRT. (The only place I've ridden on true BRT is in Pittsburgh, which has dedicated busways--former streetcar right-of-way. And it's fast. But you need many buses to equal one 4 or 6 or 8 string of WMATA subway cars.)

From Transit Cooperative Research Program report #90, Bus Rapid Transit. Volume 1: Case Studies in Bus Rapid Transit:

BRT has been defined more comprehensively as a flexible, rubber-tired form of rapid transit that combines stations, vehicles, services, running ways, and ITS elements into a fully integrated system with a strong image and identity. BRT applications are designed to be appropriate to the market they serve and their physical surroundings, and they can be incrementally implemented in a variety of environments (from rights-of-way totally dedicated to transit to streets and highways where transit is mixed with traffic).

In brief, BRT is a fully integrated system of facilities, services, and amenities that are designed to improve the speed, reliability, and identity of bus transit. In many respects, it is rubber-tired LRT, but with greater operating flexibility and potentially lower capital and operating costs. Often, a relatively small investment in dedicated guideways can provide rapid transit. This definition has the following implications:

• Where BRT vehicles (buses) operate totally on exclusive or protected rights-of-way (surface, elevated, and/or tunnel) with on-line stops, the level of service provided is similar to that of heavy rail rapid transit (metros).

• Where buses operate in combinations of exclusive rights-of-way, median reservations, bus lanes, and street running with on-line stops, the level of service provided is similar to that of LRT.

• Where BRT operates almost entirely on exclusive bus or HOV lanes on highways (freeways and expressways) to and from transit centers with significant parking and where it offers frequent peak service focused on a traditional CBD, it provides a level of service very similar to that of commuter rail.

• Where buses operate mainly on city streets with little or no special signal priority or dedicated lanes, the level of service provided is similar to that of an upgraded limited-stop bus or tram system.


Metro Extra limited stop express bus on the Georgia Avenue (70s) line.

(DC articulated bus photo from Flickr by So Cal Metro.)

Amtrak aims to improve routes, boost ridership
Florida Times-Union, FL - Jul 14, 2008
There needs to be an express route to all the major cities in Florida, such as a train that could go from Jacksonville to Miami in less than six hours, ...