Ridership is increasing on the late bus to downtown, but it could be better if there was more aggressive promotion of the Voorheesville/Altamont/Park and Ride Bus.
That’s how I look at it. I think there was just one passenger on the Monday, when the service started. Then I rode the bus on Tuesday and Wednesday, and there was me and one other passenger. A third passenger got on Thursday. Today, Friday, there were 9 passengers on the bus – almost up to a sustainable ride count. It will be interesting to see how things are next week. Maybe by the time we reach the end of February the bus will be packed.
More then half of the spaces in the Park and Ride Lot were filled this morning. That’s encouraging.
I know it’s off-peak, but some of it is the fault of CDTA not doing a very good job at promoting the new buses along the Voorheesville Route. They could do a lot better job at promoting bus ridership, especially to suburban commuters. I believe there is a lot of demand for express buses if they could only explain to people the benefits and ease of riding the bus.
Maybe they should have done more advertising – either television or radio. That’s expensive, but a good way to reach out to people. That said, the most effective way to reach people is direct mail. They could have mailed everyone a bus schedule within a ¼ mile of the new Route 719. Throw in a free day pass as an added perk, as the lost revenue would be minimal. It probably wouldn’t have cost more than $10,000 or so – a reasonable proposition especially if you’re planning on investing and building the bus service over the long-term.
They could have also put big banners at the Park and Ride, and maybe even signs at select bus stops saying “More Buses Here Soon! See www.cdta.org”. But by not fully pushing the bus service, they have failed to maximize the possible ridership and are potentially dooming the additional service to failure.
I had to laugh when I saw the proposed routing for the new BusPlus at the State Office Campus.
That is when it’s 90 degrees out or -10 degrees out?
Think about it for a minute. Any bus rider who wants to ride the bus, under this rendering of the proposal will be forced to walk 500 feet with no shelter to their office building in the State Office Campus. If you not going to drive, the least you would expect would be the bus to drop you off in front of your office — especially if you’re a middle class person who works for government and can afford an automobile.
Not only would such proposal make you walk, but if it’s raining out, you would get quite wet. There are no provisions for a roof over the sidewalk from the bus stop — 500 feet in the pouring rain. If you’re a professional who wears a suit to work, good luck not ruining it on your daily bus commute.
This picture suggests that one would have to cross not only the Busway to get to work, but the inner-loop of the State Office Campus. Look both ways, and maybe if the drivers are feeling very nice, maybe they will stop for you. But don’t bet on it! Run quickly, and buy yourself a good life insurance policy.
Not to Mention Most State Office Workers Don’t Even Live in the City
Most Middle-Class State Workers live in the suburbs, such as Clifton Park or Delmar. A bus that heads from Crossgates Mall to the State Office Campus — or worst from Downtown to the State Office Campus won’t help them out much at all, besides drinking up their taxpayer dollars.
Not Opposed to Bus Rapid Transit But Use Some Common Sense
It might make sense to speed buses up along Western Avenue by running them along one of the underused Ring Roads — possibly dedicated exclusively to bus use. Most of the traffic on the Route 10 bus goes between colleges, so avoiding some traffic lights might make sense. Or maybe the bus should just follow the existing State Office Campus Roads, with a simpler and cheaper connector to the University of Albany.
But it’s silly to build a bus station in the middle of nowhere that nobody is ever going to use, and claim your including the State Office Campus in your routing, when all your doing is driving through it to save time. If you want to improve transit, send more buses at an affordable rate to places where people actually live or park and ride to, rather than bus stop that will never be used.
Took the lightly used, later new Route 719 bus downtown this morning. It was a pleasant experience.
Monday started the new Route 719 express service downtown past my house. It actually only saves about 5 minutes, and it means I only to work a few minutes earlier, but it’s still nice not to be in a pokey bus going downtown. Route 32 at least psychologically seems a lot faster than taking Delaware Avenue and stopping every few stops.
I had previously taken the earlier 719 bus downtown, but that bus was so early that it didn’t work well with my schedule — I would get to work well before 9 AM — and that made for unnecessarily long days.
So far that bus seems lightly subscribed to. I was the second passenger to get on the bus, at Delaware and Cherry – despite the bus starting at 20 Mall then visiting Altamont and Voorheesville before passing my house. No further passengers got on the bus. It was such a change into the routine, and quite a pleasant experience compared to riding the normal bus, I question how long it can last with such light ridership. Maybe people need to become more aware of the service, but I question how long it will be in tooth.
It certainly was a different experience compared to the normal bus ride.
I am absolutely thrilled that starting Monday I will be able to take the Route 719 express bus downtown at a reasonable hour for work. It used to be an option for me, but it always so early, that I would get to work like 30-45 minutes earlier then necessary. I had done that occasionally in the past when I needed to get to work early, but otherwise, I am not going to get to work a half hour early when there is no reason get there so early.
While riding the bus is much easier than dealing with city traffic, taking the uncrowded express downtown sure will be nice for a change. Occasionally I may take the local in evening, especially when I have to stay late for work, but especially during the slow time of the year (the summer months), the express bus will be awesome.
Route #1 (Central Avenue) – Saturday frequency will be increased to every 20 minutes from 8am-8pm providing relief for overcrowding.
Route #12 (Washington Avenue) – Weekday frequency will be increased to every 10 minutes during the afternoon & evening. Saturday service from 12pm-10pm will increase to every 15 minutes. Sunday frequency will be increased to every 20 minutes for a majority of the day.
Route #224 (Albany-Troy-Rensselaer)– Weekday morning frequency will be increased to every 15 minutes, while afternoon frequency will be increased to 20 minutes Monday – Friday.
Route #712 (Harriman Campus/Patroon Creek) – A total of 9 round trips will be added to address multiple work start times and enhance service for afternoon return trips.
Route #905 (BusPlus, Albany-Schenectady) – Saturday service will be extended to 12:45am, while frequency will be increased to every 15 minutes from 10am-7pm. Sunday night service will be expanded to 12:15am.
Good Morning! Happy Monday. So we go around in the grand circle of things. Next weekend, I will be downstate for work, but the following I am planning to take a trip to somewhere. Moose Plains, or maybe Central NY with a one day jaunt down to Pennsylvania for a visit some of the parks in Endless Mountain Country. A lot depends on weather, and whether or not they already have snow at Moose Plains.
Election Day Next Week. I will probably drive or take a bus up to the Board of Elections and vote by absentee ballot, and get it done. Your supposed to be out of the county during election day if you vote by absentee ballot, but if I happen to be in the county, I can either go and vote on lever machine or risk my ballot getting tossed out if I get hauled into court to testify about my whereabouts. The absentee rules in NY State are kind of dumb – they should allow everybody to participate in early voting if they so choose, by absentee ballot.
Got Really Sick Last Week. It just was a really bad cold. But tell that to somebody who is feels as sick as dog. I slept most of Thursday and Friday, with a sore throat, aches, and dizziness. But so be it. Finally on Saturday, had enough energy to spend some of the day awake, working on some code, and then going down to the library to upload photos, and then finally, for my evening walk. At least it was just a cold, so once the virus let up, I didn’t have to go to doctor or spend money besides getting some soup and buying more nyquil, which will probably last most of the winter.
But A Nice Bright and Sunny Morning Today. It’s a Monday, and good to stay positive. To make sure I wouldn’t get hungry until mid-afternoon, I made a good breakfast up of hash browns from Empire Plaza farmers market potatoes, sweet peppers, and mushrooms, some crappy pre-cooked sausage, scrambled up a couple of eggs, and some cheese. Not to bad. Made the regular bus I normally catch with relative ease, and today the bus is a brand new Gillig Hybrid, a 4112H. Life is good.
Google Maps Added to the Blog. I have for some time been sharing Google Maps on the blog, but I never had a Google Maps of the Day feature. I built in hooks for the Google Maps of Day and full KML integration into the blog. There is still some minor bugs in the code, but I hope to post some many new and interesting maps over the cmoing months.
I missed the Capital District Transportation Authority bus this morning. Drove down to Four Corners in Delmar, New York, left my truck there, and caught the bus. As I took the express bus home, I didn’t have my truck. Caught the 9:30 bus downtown to fetch my truck.
Ran into a older lady — probably a housekeeper or babysitter — or had some kind of evening job in suburbs. She didn’t own a car, but she rides the bus, with the later evening service back home. She talked about how difficult it is to get around on the buses, especially in evening — and how important the Route 18 evening bus, all the way to Cherry Avenue is to her. There actually where several people on the bus when I got on it, most appearing to be of working folks.
I found it interesting, as there was no late bus service after 6 PM to Cherry Avenue before November 2011, and it only ran hourly to Four Corners. That was a real inconvenience when I worked late, or wanted to go out for a drink after work. For me, having evening service on bus is a nice thing. But for many working folks, without cars, having reliable evening bus service in suburbs is a a necessity.
When New Jersey Transit upgraded the public address system at its Newark transit hub a year ago, they began piping in classical music along with the announcements on train arrivals and connections. The authority subscribed to a music service and station agents could select from different channels, which also include easy-listening and jazz.
The idea, said a NJ Transit spokesperson, is to relax customers “and make it more pleasant to traverse the facilities.”
But in cities from Atlanta to Minneapolis and London, there’s often a bigger strategy at work: turn on the great composers and turn away the loiterers, vagrants and troublemakers who are drawn to bus stations, malls and parking lots. Last month, the Associated Press reported on a YMCA in Columbus, OH that began piping Vivaldi into its parking lot, and claiming to disperse petty drug dealers as a result.
