Transit Network Redesign / System Redesign: A collaborative planning effort to decide where today’s bus service should go, starting from a clean slate.
Update 9/2019: Final Round of System Redesign / Fare Equity Meetings and Surveys.
RTA has begun the final round of system redesign and fare equity surveys along with community meetings throughout Cuyahoga County. This round asks for input on two service concepts, one with the current level of funding, and one with approximately 25 percent more funding.
Take a moment to view the maps.
For the fare equity study, RTA is seeking feedback on specific proposals intended to overcome issues identified during earlier phases of the study, including the excessive cost for many passengers to transfer and issue of many frequent riders spending more to “pay as they go” instead of purchasing monthly passes up front. Click here to take the fare equity survey.
RTA is hosting information sessions throughout the county, so take a moment to use the map below to find a time and location that works well for you. You can also click here for a full list of meetings from RTA.
Update: Fare Equity Study update with Audio
Together with the System Redesign Study, RTA is conducting a Fare Equity Study to reevaluate the fare structure. During the August 6 Board of Trustees Committee Meetings, RTA’s consultant (LTK Engineering) updated RTA’s External and External and Stakeholder Relations and Advocacy Committee on the progress of the study.
Key findings included that a significant number of riders (especially low-income and minority riders) are paying for one-way fares or day-passes when they take enough trips to justify the buying weekly or monthly passes.
LTK offers several immediate actions in order to better understand how riders are transferring as well as several fare-policy recommendations including reducing the price of day-passes, as well as possible changes to a future fare collection system that would allow account-based features.
Long-term, LTK recommends considering fare-capping — a recommendation that Clevelanders for Public Transit made in 2018 as part of our Fair Fares platform.
If you’re interested in learning more about the recommendations, we have audio from the presentation and RTA has the slide deck available on their website.
Watch this video from TransitCenter for more information about fare capping.
Fare capping? you ask.. pic.twitter.com/7gDqsqT19w
— TransitCenter (@TransitCenter) November 14, 2018
Update: System redesign survey results and July 25 Community Meeting Audio
On Thursday, July 25 RTA held a community meeting where Jarrett Walker from Jarrett Walker + Associates provided an update from the last round of system redesign surveys.
The first phase of the @GCRTA system redesign study showed more people prefer frequent service over coverage (though not quite a majority). Public comments virtually unanimous – frequency. The next phase will mock up a better-funded system with same coverage, more frequency. pic.twitter.com/mESm6HXqQz
— Josh Jones (@Josh_CLE) July 25, 2019
Although the survey results favored moving toward providing more frequency than coverage, RTA indicated that the current balance of 60 percent frequency and 40 percent coverage will be maintained unless additional funding is secured.
Click here to listen to the audio from the meeting.
Download high resolution System Redesign illustrations from Jarrett Walker + Associates and GCRTA.
References:
- Learn about the High Frequency and Coverage Alternatives – Presentation Slides (5/6/19)
- Audio recording of Jarrett Walker RTA System Redesign Study (2/19/19)
- Jarrett Walker + Associates RTA System Redesign Study – Annotated Presentation Slides (2/19/19)
Related posts:
If you look at a map of transit in Cuyahoga County, it looks roughly the same since the Red Line was completed in 1968 over 50 years ago.
But Cuyahoga County has changed significantly over the years. Jobs and housing have shifted, and yesterday’s bus routes often don’t address today’s demand for transit.
This is what system redesigns aim to address. Although RTA often adjusts individual routes, this is not an actual system redesign. A system redesign presents the opportunity to have a conversation about where transit service will be most useful to the community. An increasing number of transit agencies around the country have been able to increase ridership following system redesigns, including Houston METRO, COTA in Columbus and GRCT in Richmond, Virginia.
This is why members of Clevelanders for Public Transit have been calling on RTA to complete a system redesign since 2016. And although it is a step in the right direction that RTA is currently studying a potential redesign, we continue to make the case that a full system redesign is needed as soon as possible to gain public support and reverse the continued decline in ridership.
Undertaking a bus network redesign involves substantial political and community engagement challenges, and discussions regarding potential trade-offs between service frequency and geographical coverage. But if done well, the rewards are plentiful, resulting in faster trips to more destinations on transit and making transit a viable option instead of being forced to drive a car and sit in traffic, not to mention all the additional costs that come with car ownership — especially for those who can least afford to own, maintain, insure and finance a car.
System redesigns start by determining the community’s priority of frequency (how often buses come) vs. coverage (buses that go more places, but are lower ridership and run less often).
System redesign can also be combined with other service improvements like improved frequency, and extended hours of operation on key routes and changes to fare policy (as recommended in our Fair Fares plan). Together with a bus network redesign, these changes can become the basis for a 21st century RTA.
One fare policy that will need to be changed with RTA’s system redesign is transfers. Jarrett Walker, the consultant hired for RTA’s preliminary system redesign study, writes in an article titled Charging for connections is insane that “Charging passengers extra for the inconvenience of connections is insanely self-destructive. It discourages exactly the customer behavior that efficient and liberating networks depend on. It undermines the whole notion of a transit network. It also gives customers a reason to object to network redesigns that deliver both greater efficiency and greater liberty, because by imposing a connection on their trip it has also raised their fare.”
This is exactly why our Fair Fares platform has called for transfers to be included with one-way trips without buying an all-day pass or paying a second fare.
The transit agencies in the US with increasing ridership are also the ones paying attention to their bus network and addressing agency controllable factors. If agencies like COTA can increase ridership though system redesign, RTA should be able to do the same.
The graphic and information above is based on TransitTools Bus Network Redesigns from TransitCenter.