Circulators don't work; Houston, Denver, Austin

[M1EK]

Christof (from CITC in Houston) analyzes Denver's light rail system as one of the few relevant head-to-head comparisons between circulator-based "drop off at an intermodal station at the edge of town" service and "go right down the gut" light rail service. I link and expand for Austin (he anticipated such in his forum starter, as you'll see).

The money paragraphs:

Notice a pattern? Passengers don’t want to transfer to a circulator service to get to work, even a high-quality circulator like Denver’s. And serving suburban employment densities with rail transit is just about futile: 80% of Houston’s bus routes have higher ridership than Denver’s suburb to suburb rail line.

Trains aren’t vacuum cleaners. You don’t just put them next to a freeway and hope they suck people out of their cars. People will ride transit if it gets them where they want to go conveniently. If we want to maximize the number of people who will take transit (which should be the goal) we need to find places where transit will serve as many people as possible as conveniently as possible. That means serving density, particularly employment density, directly.

Article

Forum thread

First crackplog

Second crackplog

With all this, the key message is to ignore the people who say that we can improve this disastrous commuter rail line with the help of circulators. They don't work outside the extremely dense cities and the transit-dependent population. IE, as soon as you require a transfer, even to a relatively good circulator like Denver's, you will lose most of your "choice commuters".

[sakyle04]

With all this, the key message is to ignore the people who say that we can improve this disastrous commuter rail line with the help of circulators. They don't work outside the extremely dense cities and the transit-dependent population. IE, as soon as you require a transfer, even to a relatively good circulator like Denver's, you will lose most of your "choice commuters".

No surprise here. Cities try so hard to fit square-peg solutions in round-hole problems.

Everyone knows what works. Shame that they won't commit to it.

[Great_Hizzy]

Trains aren’t vacuum cleaners. You don’t just put them next to a freeway and hope they suck people out of their cars. People will ride transit if it gets them where they want to go conveniently.

Amen. What happens when rail stations near freeway exits become harder to get to because the number of people who want to drive to the commuter line and then transfer becomes so high that it actual makes the trip more inconvenient? It's not so easy as just trace the freeways with rail lines and you'll cover the commuter corridors.

[M1EK]

Use cases for Crestview Station including the "high-frequency circulator".

[wong21fr]

Just wanted to let you guys know that the article is kind of misleading. The author fails to mention that the other lines he lauds for their high ridership also feed the 16th Street Mall Circulator at a location where the primary employment district is. It would also help if he mentioned that the intermodal facility has not been constructed yet.

He's right on the G line though, it's a political concession to get support from one of Denver's outlying suburbs.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Just wanted to let you guys know that the article is kind of misleading. The author fails to mention that the other lines he lauds for their high ridership also feed the 16th Street Mall Circulator at a location where the primary employment district is. It would also help if he mentioned that the intermodal facility has not been constructed yet.

He's right on the G line though, it's a political concession to get support from one of Denver's outlying suburbs.

The G line will also actually go someplace once FasTracks is completed, as well...

Aaron (Glowrock)

[M1EK]

Not sure on your exact objection to the Denver article. If it's that the "straight downtown" routes also feed the circulator, it's irrelevant; the difference between "circulator-only" routes versus the "circulator + walk-to-your-office" is the whole point.

I'd trust Christof on this stuff. If you have a specific objection, follow my links to the CTC forums and ask.

[wong21fr]

This is what I disagree with:

Originally Posted by M1EK

With all this, the key message is to ignore the people who say that we can improve this disastrous commuter rail line with the help of circulators. They don't work outside the extremely dense cities and the transit-dependent population. IE, as soon as you require a transfer, even to a relatively good circulator like Denver's, you will lose most of your "choice commuters".

You cannot compare the lines ridership if they both serve the same area, people are always going to take the more convenient route, i.e. fewer transfers. Now if he would do a study of two relatively same-size cites, one with a direct line to the CBD and one using a circulator to access the CBD, you could get a valid result. The only other way to directly compare the two in Denver would be to shut down the D,F, and H and funnel all traffic to the C and E to see just how much of a loss in ridership you get.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

This is what I disagree with:



You cannot compare the lines ridership if they both serve the same area, people are always going to take the more convenient route, i.e. fewer transfers. Now if he would do a study of two relatively same-size cites, one with a direct line to the CBD and one using a circulator to access the CBD, you could get a valid result. The only other way to directly compare the two in Denver would be to shut down the D,F, and H and funnel all traffic to the C and E to see just how much of a loss in ridership you get.

Now I get the objection. I'd still say that this is the best you can get - if you try to use one city with circulators against another with direct access, everybody says the cities are too different to compare.

Christof's argument was that people don't like circulators. At its root, that's not that different to what you're saying - you just think the people who don't like circulators would take them if the direct service ended; but he (and obviously I) think they'd just go back to their cars.

[wong21fr]

We'll have to see. Denver's Intermodal Station will flesh out in a decade and then a better comparison of how many people are willing to make transfers will be available.

I personally think that people are willing to do one well-planned transfer, it's when there's two or three, or poor planning that ridership sees a big drop-off

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

I personally think that people are willing to do one well-planned transfer, it's when there's two or three, or poor planning that ridership sees a big drop-off

Even in Manhattan, only a (admittedly substantial) fraction of passengers will make a well-planned transfer. They're constantly trying to provide more one-seat rides there to boost ridership.

In a city like Denver or Austin where parking downtown doesn't cost 50 bucks, requiring transfers for most passengers will be the kiss of death. Somebody point me to an intermodal center that choice commuters actually use in large numbers in a city which has widely available parking downtown, and I'll gladly recant.

In Manhattan, in other words, transit is competing with not only slow-moving traffic but also hugely expensive and unavailable parking. And even so, their transfers are of superior quality to anything envisioned in Denver or Austin.

In Austin, and as far as I can tell, Denver, parking is readily available downtown, and although not commonly free for casual users, is bundled with employment for many, and is as a result still far too cheap to be a substantial disincentive for choice commuters. In these cities, transit is ONLY competing against traffic - NOT against parking.