02-17-2016, 12:03 PM
(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.