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+--- Thread: Grand River Transit (/showthread.php?tid=13)
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RE: Grand River Transit - BuildingScout - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 11:11 AM)MidTowner Wrote:(02-17-2016, 10:54 AM)BuildingScout Wrote: Stop trying to force people out of their cars which only makes them into enemies of public transit and instead provide reliable, comfortable transit and people will choose it as an alternative to their first or second car. We have seen this at the University of Waterloo, where increase in demand for student parking has been well below student population growth ever since the iXpress came to town.
I don’t see anything wrong with saying that we collectively should have the goal of lower car usage and higher transit and that the way to do that is to make transit a more viable option, and car usage a less viable option.
I have issues with the "less viable" part of your statement. For example, as rangersfan related, I have a big issue with making cars less viable for someone whose trip in a car is 15min while on a bus is 1hr10min. Apart from being a hassle to rangersfan personally, this is also bad for society in terms of productivity.
I too would like more people to use public transit, which is why I've been a strong proponent of fast frequent buses on the main routes. This is the type of transit that makes people voluntarily surrender their cars.
RE: Grand River Transit - mpd618 - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 11:44 AM)BuildingScout Wrote: I too would like more people to use public transit, which is why I've been a strong proponent of fast frequent buses on the main routes. This is the type of transit that makes people voluntarily surrender their cars.
And yet, when the parking at work is free but the bus costs $3 per ride or $80 for a pass, it's harder for people to make that switch even when the transit is competitive.
RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 11:44 AM)BuildingScout Wrote: I have issues with the "less viable" part of your statement. For example, as rangersfan related, I have a big issue with making cars less viable for someone whose trip in a car is 15min while on a bus is 1hr10min. Apart from being a hassle to rangersfan personally, this is also bad for society in terms of productivity.
I too would like more people to use public transit, which is why I've been a strong proponent of fast frequent buses on the main routes. This is the type of transit that makes people voluntarily surrender their cars.
We’ve spent several generations now subsidizing automobiles over any other form of transportation. It’s not “forcing people out of their cars” or making them “surrender their cars” to reduce some of those subsidies.
Fast frequent transit is one thing. Your example of the 200’s service is a good one. Students take it because it has good service, but also because they have other incentives to choose transit over cars: for one, parking is expensive on campus. Check out the 200 this week: it’s practically empty. It has the same frequent service, is even faster with reduced ridership, but there are relatively few riders who aren’t students. Those people work in places (even our downtowns) where they don’t pay the costs of their parking, so they’re not attracted to transit at almost any service level.
In this region, mass transit probably can’t compete with the automobile on speed, or probably comfort. It is a lot cheaper, but things are organized to hide the true costs of driving from drivers. Anything we can do to show people the full cost of driving is a step in the right direction.
RE: Grand River Transit - Viewfromthe42 - 02-17-2016
One of the key things we aren't mentioning about tech companies: their employees' age. A worker who has sunk 10-15y of costs into a car and would have to switch from a 15min commute to a 75 minute one, yes, we aren't likely to get. But I'd bet that if Communitech/Tannery/Google/Tech employers surveyed their new hires, they'd find car ownership at that point would be incredibly low.
But then they have a bunch of money, and pressing work lives, and it costs money and time (to line up) to get bus pass, vs. free parking (for some). So they buy the car, and the likelihood of them ever living car-free or with fewer cars than average takes the single biggest nosedive of any age and employment group. Young techies should be the group most likely to live car-free, and we see the point at which they might transition to the group of car owners, infinitely less likely to give their car up, and we make it hard to stay car free, put up barriers there, while encouraging them to get a car. That is an incredibly high value moment in keeping our region multi-modal, and we just watch it float by. That group should be one of the most-targeted groups for TriTAG.
And yes, I'm not just talking about the corporate pass, I'm talking about a guaranteed-buy plan. If an employer is offering their employees even just $75/month worth of free parking, but not offering to buy their employee a bus pass, they are directly pushing employees to drive.
Individually, I get a $5/month carshare membership, and their corporate plan lets me agree to be billed every month (not once for a year) for $68 to get a bus pass. Plus I have carshare access. So for less than the cost of a bus pass, I get a single card that I'm less likely to lose, and never need to plan my month around waiting in line at Charles St terminal.
RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 11:57 AM)MidTowner Wrote: Fast frequent transit is one thing. Your example of the 200’s service is a good one. Students take it because it has good service, but also because they have other incentives to choose transit over cars: for one, parking is expensive on campus. Check out the 200 this week: it’s practically empty. It has the same frequent service, is even faster with reduced ridership, but there are relatively few riders who aren’t students. Those people work in places (even our downtowns) where they don’t pay the costs of their parking, so they’re not attracted to transit at almost any service level.
Oh man, I wish service was faster this week due to the smaller number of students.
The only difference to my route 200 commute was the number of minutes the bus spent idling at every single stop between downtown and Columbia.
The schedule is padded heavily to account for heavy loads, and it's padded heavily again because of construction detours. When everything is moving smoothly, it just means the bus waits several minutes at every stop anyway.
RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 12:03 PM)Markster Wrote: Oh man, I wish service was faster this week due to the smaller number of students.
The only difference to my route 200 commute was the number of minutes the bus spent idling at every single stop between downtown and Columbia.
The schedule is padded heavily to account for heavy loads, and it's padded heavily again because of construction detours. When everything is moving smoothly, it just means the bus waits several minutes at every stop anyway.
Yeah, it’s true that it keeps to its schedule anyway. If your stop happens to be one where the driver is planning on waiting three minutes to get back on schedule, you get those three minutes- mine aren’t, either, so I happen to have the same experience of being giddy when the bus can sail past a stop because no one is waiting there, and then wondering when we’ll finally get moving when the driver makes up time at the next.
I question whether a bus with ten-minute frequency should need to do this. But, anyway, you’re almost guaranteed to get a seat on the 200 this week, so it’s a more comfortable ride.
RE: Grand River Transit - zanate - 02-17-2016
This question of getting out of a car and taking transit is an active one with a few friends of mine as one of them is considering switching her commute.
She works centrally, lives in the Westheights area. Her husband works from home, and they're pondering divesting themselves of the older of their two cars.
For her, the equation is that she'd expect to still drive around 3 days a week, and take a ~55 minute transit trip the rest of the time. For that, the savings come from avoiding having to maintain or replace the second car.
I live centrally, and I work in the Eastbridge area. My wife also works from home but needs frequent access to the car. For me, the equation is a 45 minute trip, 4 days a week (on average). We avoid paying for a new second car while we squeeze extra life out of the first.
Contrast: Another friend said he calculated the cost/benefit of taking transit. For him, it worked out to three hours of "overtime" per day where he'd be paid $0.68 per hour. His assumptions were different, of course. A much longer trip, and he wouldn't be divesting himself of the vehicle. Whereas in my situation, with about 50 minutes a day of additional travel time, I "earn" closer to $30 an hour and that's before I even consider marginal income tax rates (so let's call it $50 per hour of additional travel time I endure.)
There's more to it than that, of course (both pro and con) but the point is this: if you're in a situation where you can divest a vehicle, there are huge savings to be had-- very reasonable to assume that unless you're a smart used-vehicle shopper (i.e. pay less for a car that is not a lemon), you're saving yourself around $5K a year of after-tax money if you trade car loans, insurance and gas for a bus pass.
But if you don't see yourself without that car (and its costs), there's very little benefit to be had, considering how much of the other costs of using that car (roads, parking) are heavily externalized.
Edit: And in addition, if you're adding three hours of travel to your day, it probably doesn't matter what the savings is. You'll only do it if you have to.
RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 11:56 AM)mpd618 Wrote:(02-17-2016, 11:44 AM)BuildingScout Wrote: I too would like more people to use public transit, which is why I've been a strong proponent of fast frequent buses on the main routes. This is the type of transit that makes people voluntarily surrender their cars.
And yet, when the parking at work is free but the bus costs $3 per ride or $80 for a pass, it's harder for people to make that switch even when the transit is competitive.
Hence the idea for companies to offer employees the choice between free parking or a free transit pass.
And, yes, I was referring to this area when I said everyone needs to offer free parking. Tech companies located in the industrial/technology parks have free parking, so the ones in downtown/uptown need to do the same to be competitive.
RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 03:31 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Hence the idea for companies to offer employees the choice between free parking or a free transit pass.
The article that Viewfromthe42 linked to that started this conversation was about a study that found it’s not enough to offer the choice between free parking or a free transit pass. “Offering equal benefits to transit riders has little-to-no effect on travel choices.”
Employers have to take away free-to-the-employee parking for travel choices to change.
RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 02-17-2016
It's the opinion of the article's author, yes. My opinion is that some people would take it. Of course, if you force them to pay for parking, and provide free transit, even more will take transit. (Offering neither for free wouldn't make any more difference than offering a choice, I think.)
RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 02-17-2016
I’m not sure it makes intuitive sense to me, either, but it’s not the opinion of the article’s author, no. It was the conclusion of the study the article concerned. Apparently, according to the findings of that study, there’s a big difference between offering two equal subsidies, and offering no subsidy at all. They agree with you that “some people” would take transit if their employer subsidized it to the same tune as parking, but that those some would be very few.
RE: Grand River Transit - rangersfan - 02-17-2016
A huge but simple factor is how close you are located to a major transit route, and how close your work or destination is located to the transit stop.
In my mind if I lived centrally say the Barrel Yards, and worked Downtown, the choice to take transit would be an easy one. However if you live in East Stanley Park and commute to North Waterloo it's a great challenge.
I am even trying to plan my new bike route, but there are very few options to cross the highway easily.
RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 03:55 PM)MidTowner Wrote: I’m not sure it makes intuitive sense to me, either, but it’s not the opinion of the article’s author, no. It was the conclusion of the study the article concerned. Apparently, according to the findings of that study, there’s a big difference between offering two equal subsidies, and offering no subsidy at all. They agree with you that “some people” would take transit if their employer subsidized it to the same tune as parking, but that those some would be very few.
Now I went and actually read the article, and that's projecting a little bit since it only dealt with the tax subsidies.
So the article is comparing (tax credit for driving + free parking + paid transit) with (tax credit for either driving or transit + free parking + paid transit). We are already at the second scenario (no tax impact from driving vs commute), the question is making the actual use of transit free (which the study did not look at).
RE: Grand River Transit - Pheidippides - 02-17-2016
(02-17-2016, 10:07 AM)tomh009 Wrote:(02-17-2016, 09:06 AM)MidTowner Wrote: Tomh009, do you know if the company identifies that parking as a taxable benefit on employees’ tax slips?
I don't think they do. In fact, I don't know of any local tech company that does. (And, yes, I know that CRA considers it a taxable benefit, but I would be compliance on that is very low. And CRA will first go after such benefits in Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver where parking could cost $500+ per month.)
I do like the idea of offering the TravelWise pass as an alternative. I'll try to bring this up at our office sometime, even if I think that the take-up rate will be fairly low, knowing where people live.
Actually the CRA has gone after the benefit locally, it went after the Region of Waterloo. I think it owed upwards of $800,000 for a three year period the CRA audited.
http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/regionalGovernment/resources/FA120619.pdf#page=34
"The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) undertook an income and expense audit of the Region of Waterloo in 2007-2008 and determined that there was a taxable benefit for employer provided parking at six locations. The CRA determined that there was a fair market value (FMV) for parking at several Regional locations in Kitchener, including 150 Frederick Street, 235 King Street, 50 and 77 Queen Street, at 99 Regina Street in Waterloo and at the Region of Waterloo International Airport."
RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 02-18-2016
(02-17-2016, 04:41 PM)rangersfan Wrote: A huge but simple factor is how close you are located to a major transit route, and how close your work or destination is located to the transit stop.
In my mind if I lived centrally say the Barrel Yards, and worked Downtown, the choice to take transit would be an easy one. However if you live in East Stanley Park and commute to North Waterloo it's a great challenge.
I am even trying to plan my new bike route, but there are very few options to cross the highway easily.
This is a lot like Jarrett Walker’s ‘Be on the way’ principle. Really, people should be factoring this in when they move- and since people only do that from time to time, part of the solution needs to be reaching them and helping them factor transportation more into their residential decisions when those decisions are (only occasionally) made.
A lot of the neighbourhoods in our Region would only support transit at a very high modal share. Even if there were a direct bus from East Stanley Park to North Waterloo, in your example, it would mostly be empty: driving a car would still be quicker, and since people already require a car in East Stanley Park for everything else (like getting to the grocery store or a restaurant), they’re not likely in the position to divest themselves of a car. As Zanate said, when you have the opportunity to give up a car, transit makes a great deal of economic sense. Otherwise, the incremental costs of any given car trip (most visibily, the cost of gas, which is cheap, since parking is nearly always free-of-charge) is always going to seem cheaper than transit, and is probably going to be faster, too.
We need to establish more “major transit routes” (really, I think the King Street corridor is the only one in the Region), but that might be counter-productive in the near term if they are underused because they service sprawling areas where most people have cars and if cars continue to be cheap for the user.