Monthly Archives: February 2007

Detroit visit: a recap

I’ve been to Detroit a total of four times–each time accompanied by Bus Nerd. Except for the second trip, when we stayed downtown and practiced getting around solely by bus, our visits have involved a fair amount of car use. His parents, though bus chick sympathizers, are not bus riders themselves, and since we usually go there to visit them, we roll how they roll. And then there’s the fact that Detroit is the most transit-poor major city I have ever visited.

In Seattle, folks tend to be surprised if you use the bus as your primary form of transportation. In Detroit, they are surprised if you use the bus at all. It’s not that people in Detroit don’t ride buses (the buses we’ve ridden there have been pretty full); it’s that people who have a choice don’t ride buses. As I’ve mentioned before, the bus-stop signs don’t even tell you which routes stop there. There are no schedules, and maybe that’s a good thing, since (so residents say) buses are regularly very late. Sometimes (as I learned on my second visit), they don’t come at all. The trip planner on DDOT’s website worked for us on one of our previous trips, but when we tried to use it last Sunday, it was down. I’ve tried using it since I’ve been home. Still down.

A Detroit city bus

Many factors have contributed to the state of Detroit’s transit system:

1) The Big Three: These guys have been undermining and outright blocking efforts to create real transit in the region for decades. They sell the heck out of car culture, and it’s working. It also doesn’t hurt that almost everyone who lives there is employed by the industry (assuming they’re employed at all), and they are justifiably proud of what they produce.
2) Sprawl: Detroit is a huge, spread-out city with no real central point of commerce. Many (maybe most) of its employment and commercial centers are in surrounding suburbs. As I learned in Houston, planning routes and transfer points under these conditions is a challenge.
3) Poor environment for pedestrians: Let’s just say that walking around in the Motor City made me long for Montlake.
4) Two systems that don’t play well together: The Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) runs the city buses, but Suburban Mobility Authority for Rapid Transit (SMART) runs the buses in the suburbs, including buses that go from the suburbs to Detroit. Individual cities elect to participate in SMART, and some (Livonia, for example) have elected not to. This means no bus service whatsoever for the residents of those cities.
5) Racism: Detroit is one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in the country. The city is predominantly black, and the suburbs are predominantly (often, exclusively) white. Many suburban cities see transit as a threat (don’t want the “blacks from Detroit” to have an easy way to get there), so they don’t support it.
6) Weather: (Bus Nerd will disagree with me on this one.) It’s simply too dang cold to be standing outside in the winter.

Some reasons for hope:

1) Recent efforts to build a light rail line between Detroit and Ann Arbor: This would provide easy access to U of M and stop at the airport on the way.
2) Transportation Riders United: This is a very cool transit advocacy organization that is working hard on the light rail issue and also happens to have its offices in my very favorite Detroit building.
3) Post Super Bowl transit talks: During the Super Bowl, DDOT ran free shuttles from the suburbs and various neighborhoods to the festivities downtown. Lots of people–visitors, suburbanites, and Detroiters–used them, proving that folks will take advantage of options that are useful and convenient. It looks like city officials are starting to see the value.
4) Rosa Parks Transit Center: It’s in progress as I type and will have lots of cool features (for example, a climate-controlled waiting area) I’d like to see here.

And speaking of Miss Rosa (who, me?) … Detroit is also home to the bus she was riding on the day she become my shero.

194 – 20 = a very long ride

Transit Now improvements or no, if you need to get downtown from SeaTac after 7:30 PM on a Sunday, you won’t be riding the 194. Prepare instead, my friends, to creep downtown on its ugly steproute, a bus that someone, somewhere, must enjoy riding.

More service!

I’m still in Detroit, so I almost forgot that the first phase of service improvements funded by Transit Now took effect today. Here’s a summary of the changes:

Route 8 – Adding several trips during the morning and afternoon commute to offer bus service every 15 minutes on the portion of this route between Seattle Center and Capitol Hill;
Route 44 – Adding early evening service on weekdays to achieve a 15-minute frequency for Ballard, Wallingford and the University District;
Route 101 – Adding three trips to relieve overcrowding and provide better connections at the Renton Transit Center and South Renton Park-and-Ride;
Route 120 – Doubling the amount of Saturday service to every 15 minutes from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. between Seattle, White Center and Burien;
Route 140 – Doubling midday weekday service to every 15 minutes on this route serving Burien, SeaTac, Tukwila and Renton;
Route 194 – Adding two early morning trips on Saturdays and Sundays between downtown Seattle and Sea-Tac International Airport to better serve airport workers and travelers with early flights;
Route 234 – Adding evening service on this route serving Kenmore, Juanita, Kirkland and Bellevue;
Route 245 – Doubling Sunday service to every 30 minutes on this route serving Kirkland, Rose Hill, Overlake, Crossroads, Eastgate, and Factoria; and
Route 271 – Adding trips between the University of Washington campus and Eastgate to increase afternoon service to a 15-minute frequency.

Around here, it’d be nice just to get route numbers and schedules posted at bus stops.

Greetings from the Motor City

Day 1 in the D:

Our hotel lobby

Detroit Historical Museum

Paying to play

Bus Nerd and I do our best to limit air travel–in part because of the ridiculous amount of fuel it uses. This sucks a little because we like to go places. And sometimes, we need to go places. Like this weekend, for example. We’re headed to Detroit to visit his family (missed them over the holidays) and (this was his idea) participate in Detroit’s Winter Blast. The tagline for this event: “A Detroit celebration!” Hey, when it’s 12 degrees outside, I’m in no mood to celebrate. I’d rather sit in my Gail’s kitchen, drink a cup of something hot, and play with Hope, her newly adopted bulldog/lab. But I digress.

I first heard about TerraPass back in September. In a nutshell, it’s a company that helps individuals offset their carbon emissions by assessing fees for environmentally damaging activities (such as driving or flying) and donating the money to various clean-energy projects. It’s a reasonable concept, but I’m afraid it gives the impression that people (specifically, people with money to spare) can continue unsustainable, earth-damaging habits and then “undo” the damage by writing a check. (The FAQ on TerraPass’s website addresses this somewhat.)

Of course, you don’t need TerraPass to donate to alternative energy projects, but they do make it more convenient. They partner with major corporations, so you can pay up at the time you make a carbon-unfriendly purchase, and they even calculate the “cost” of your activity. We paid our fees ($17 per person–cheap, considering) through Expedia. It still feels a little like so much guilt balm, but I’m glad they’re out there–if for no other reason than to remind people of the impact of their choices.

And you know I’ll be rockin’ one of these snazzy luggage tags they sent us:

Carbon-friendly luggage

Maybe we’ll get noticed on the 194.

Fellow riders, take heart

We have rounded the bend!

Buds!

I know the photograph ain’t much (yet again, the bus was coming), so in case you can’t tell: It’s a cherry tree (near the westbound 27 stop at Yesler & Broadway), sporting actual buds.

Only 83 days until the beginning of bus chick high season.

And speaking of unique bus stops…

In the process of excavating my inbox (which I ignored for most of the month of January), I found a gem: a series of photographs of Soviet-era roadside bus stops–in Russia, I think–sent to me about three weeks ago by Sound Transit Andrew.

While many of us are aware of the elaborate splendor of the Moscow underground, it is easy to overlook the phenomenon of the common roadside bus stop as an example of soviet art and design letting loose and becoming a little weird and crazy.

They “let loose” alright. The stops are all pretty insane. They’re also really, really isolated. There’s a horse hanging out at one. Seriously.

I wonder what the maximum walking distance is for their trip planners.

Speaking of good news…

Yesterday, April from Northgate e-mailed to tell me about a new development at her stop at 15th & Northgate Way.

Over the weekend, someone placed what looks like a handmade wooden bench [there]. I take the 73 or 373 to the UW almost every day–but this morning was the first morning I could sit while I waited.

She also sent a picture of the bench:

A public service

I love it when people surprise me with evidence of creativity and kindness (and resourcefulness, and generosity…). Thanks, April! As one of my very wise readers, “Port Townsend Chris,” once said, “Bus people are awesome!”

Super Bowl Sunday (aka Original Bus Chick’s birfday) was a 1070

Last year, Bus Nerd and I spent Super Bowl Sunday in Detroit with our friends, Tosha and Keith. (The fact that they watched the game at Ford Field and we watched it at a bar across the street from the stadium is a minor detail.) This year, we spent the day at Tosha and Keith’s house in Kirkland.

It was worth the six-bus round trip (there: 4 + 255 + 254, back: 254 + 255 + 48)–even the transfer at Montlake on the way home–just to see Prince do his thing. (It doesn’t get better than “Purple Rain” in the rain.) The icing on the cake: victory for the Colts. Despite my mild distaste for Peyton Manning, and despite the fact that we were watching at the home of a Chicago native, I was pulling for Tony Dungy’s boys.

Then again, when your friends feed you fried fish, potato salad, chicken wings, and brownies with ice cream, does it really matter who wins the game?