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ChineseDaily Transit Links Roundup
Contributed by Fred Camino on May 13th, 2008 at 10:46 am
- Four reasons why rising gas prices are hurting public transit.
- The O.C. to spend $12 million studying monorails and trolleys for the area.
- Megabus about to bail from Los Angeles confirming stereotype that Angelenos love their cars.
- Save mass transit, save the world.
- Amtrak needs to get on the wi-fi tip and quick. Strike while the iron’s hot!
- L.A. Visions provides an update on the Downtown Regional Connector.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
I never got a chance to ride Megabus before it dried up. Fooey.
The Megabus schedules are still open through about June 22, but they pared it down to two buses a day. It looks like they’re going to at least severely cut back on service to keep buses packed and full of passengers, though, to keep their prices low.
I wish they’d keep this service. I really relied on this to travel between the Bay Area and Southern California. Amtrak and Greyhound are slower and much more expensive in comparison.
Interesting OC article.
It reminds of the upcoming Streetcar workshop posted in the Forum by Nick Matonak.
http://www.reconnectingamerica.org/public/lastreetcar
Would OC be more receptive to monorail than L.A. County? If the OC ends up creating transit-friendly areas, then you know the world has changed.
I think Megabus failed because they were inflexible and impatient, believing that they would replicate their Midwestern success within a matter of weeks, without having to do much more than roll out their buses.
Megabus and its online-reservations-only scheme doesn’t lend itself to last minute travel planning, nor does its over-emphasis on yield management when talking to the press, which probably led to a customer impression that they’d really screw you if you did try to book at the last minute. Yes, everyone does it, but they don’t shout about it from the rooftops like Megabus.
While Amtrak and Greyhound might be more expensive and take longer, they are well-established here and ingrained into customers as habit patterns. Furthermore, they have dozens of daily trips between them and passengers can simply show up at the station to buy their tickets (or in some cases, even do so on the vehicle itself).
Finally, most of the press they’ve been getting lately is about service cutbacks or abandoning destinations. If that’s all I see about Megabus, how much faith should I have that they’re going to get me there and back — or that they can get me where I want to go in the first place?
Perhaps Megabus would have benefited from a business plan and a little market research beyond “Well, it worked in the Midwest!”
I think the Megabus pullout is more about them seeing a gold mine on the East Coast, and going for the easy money rather than continuing to cultivate a growing market on the West Coast.
It was good while it lasted, I suppose.
I am very disappointed in Megabus’s failure.
First off, journalists are better off not covering transportation if they try to force an angle like “$1 fares not enough to lure Angelenos out of cars.” The source the writer interviewed just undercut her whole premise, while not offering anything to support her lead.
A more concise reason for Megabus’s failure was that it did not invest enough in marketing or ticketing. Megabus put very little into advertising, counting predominantly on word of mouth and press releases. Greyhound advertises all the time, plus it has the advantage of being the only national intercity bus network. Yet if a journalist interviewed a Greyhound representative, The Dog would say they have no trouble filling an L.A. to San Francisco bus at much higher prices.
Megabus pretty much put concrete shoes on itself and sank because it relied on customers to buy tickets solely online. There was no ticketing window, kiosk, or off-site ticketing agency. Low-income riders do not have access to computers and by choice or circumstance, only purchase in cash. Also, there is still a great cultural resistance to making purchases online. Megabus pretty much limited its demographics, and with no good reason. Mass transportation is not mass media; the business model does not require them to chase high-income consumers.
Reason number 2 is VERY true:
When I used to take the Blue Line to work a few years ago, the street platforms were designed to accomidate 2 cars. Eventually, the platforms were extended to include 3 cars. Despite the expansions, the platforms (and trains) were still packed during rush hour. Now, there is no more room to expand the platforms on most of the city stops since they already take up a whole city block.
BTW, I only stopped taking the Blue Line because my job changed locations. Otherwise, I still might be using it.
Re: Blue Line: Might be time to
a. upgrade it to full grade separation ($$$$$, I know, or)
b. build some parallel light rail lines, say along Long Beach Blvd, etc.
Aside from the fact that the Blue Line scares the shit out of me, grade separating it would be a monumental achievement, but I find that project to be less likely than seeing a high speed rail line to Vegas.
There has already been one major grade separation: the overhead ramp at the Rosa Parks station.
Most of the future grade separations would involve moving the roads, rather than disrupting train service for extended periods of time.
Two of the most immediate that would need to be done are the Florence and Compton stations.
It’s really too bad about the blue line. I’m always annoyed by the street running section at washington. But as you say, any grade separation is unlikely anytime soon, it would cost about as much as building a new line. This is why you build lines with grade separation to begin with.
Actually, the street running along Washington isn’t all that bad. It tops out at about 40 mph (I measured it with my GPS unit a few years ago) and rarely hits a red light. I wouldn’t mind seeing a similar set up on a few other major streets as well. It’s not really a replacement for a subway on Wilshire, though.
In my experience, the Blue Line’s street-level running in Los Angeles works okay. It’s the Long Beach end of the Line that is pokey. Something about the spacing and the frequency of the signals. As for grade separations, the LACTC obviously made compromises about which streets most urgently needed to be bypassed. It’s a little pointless now to comprise a wish list that doesn’t reflect economic realities. Ironic too that when the Red Cars originally plied that same route, they did without grade separations entirely! Of course, that was 1902. What would Henry Huntington think of all the subsequent changes?
Long Beach keeps the train slow in the loop for safety reasons.
Very true Wad. During my first year of riding the trains, I saw some Darwin Award Reject walk almost directly in front of a moving train while I was waiting at the Transit Mall Stop. Lucky for him/her, the train didn’t turn that s**twit into minute steak. Heck, I still remember that incident as clear as day.
The other thing is that the city engineer of Long Beach refuses to synchronize the segment of Long Beach Boulevard for the train. So you have the train making stops for single cars making left turns at minor streets.