Try this out to guage the difference between survey answers and reality - ask a group of people if any of them take public transit, then ask them to show you their transit passes (daily, monthly, whatever).

Someone in Chicago at least had the foresight to put the rail system in the freeway medians, so commuters stuck in rush-hour traffic can watch the trains at least appear to get to their destination faster than their car is. So no out-of-sight-out-of-mind problem that transit has most everywhere else.

Sam Granato
Ohio DOT, Office of Technical Services
1980 W. Broad Street, Columbus, OH 43223
Phone: 614-644-6796, Fax: 614-752-8646
"Men and nations will all eventually do the right thing - after first exhausting all the other alternatives." - Abba Eban

"Gardner, John F" <GardnerJF@dot.state.sc.us>
Sent by: owner-ctpp-news@chrispy.net

07/10/02 09:05 AM

To: "'Peter J. Foote'" <pfoote@transitchicago.com>, ctpp-news@chrispy.net
cc:
Subject: RE: [CTPP] Reconciling Census Transit Commuters...Impact of Rail Lines etc

Peter Foote's responses are excellent. Although I suspect the smaller
metros have had such an increase in choice riders, because the congestion
and parking cost incentives are not as strong.

Very good point about the impact of prepaid fare media -- day passes,
monthly passes, etc. -- boosting off-peak ridership. Prepaid fares help
level the playing field between cars and transit. Drivers behave as if the
marginal cost of an additonal trip or mile is zero; unlimited-ride passes
induce the same behavior in transit users.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter J. Foote [mailto:pfoote@transitchicago.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 8:34 PM
To: Mark Schlappi; 'Chuck Purvis'; ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Cc: dstuart@transitchicago.com; mpatzloff@transitchicago.com
Subject: Re: [CTPP] Reconciling Census Transit Commuters...Impact of
Rail Lines etc

The impact of a new rail line, branch or extension on a system's unlinked
trip count depends upon many factors.

In general terms, the implementation of rail systems should generate new
unlinked trips because they tend by nature to draw new customers, including
suburban men, out of their cars. This is especially true when parking fees
in the CBD are high. Links can be lost however, when rail route design
allows former bus riders to save one or more transfers previously made on
their commute.

CTA's Orange line (running diagonally across the grid SW from the Chicago's
Loop) which opened 10/31/93, was a bonanza for Pace suburban bus ridership
for routes connecting to CTA at Midway airport. The line exceeded CTA
ridership expectations in part due to high suburban ridership, but also
resulted in some lost linked trips (not individuals) between bus routes -
and of course a substantial shift from bus to rail.

Limited stop express services can add individuals overall but eliminate the
need for some transfers when they cross over route ends. The X49 for
example, eliminated some transfers (unlinked trips) between routes 49A and
49, however ridership increases and customer satisfaction rose far more than
trips lost.

In Chicago, it is more likely that increases in off-peak discretionary
riding by electronic pass users (30 and 7 day rolling pass markets have
grown substantially since the were re-introduced in the Winter of 1998) are
responsible for a portion of this shift. New York of course had tremendous
ridership growth when the eliminated the 2nd fare required to move from bus
to rail when their Metro Card was used. Check with them, but my guess would
be that they have also had big boosts in off-peak riding, etc stimulated by
having pre-paid media available. DC's Smart Card probably generates many
new rides as well. Could the impact of just these 3 systems be enough to
cause an increase in trips with no new net gain in riders? Once you have a
farecard, even a money card rather than a pass, you are much more inclined
to hop on a bus or train to take a trip. Discounting and the impact of
lowered average fares on ridership through the use of these fare instruments
may also be a factor.

The issue of whether census data questions are complete enough to extract
true mode splits (raised in another thread) is a valid one, especially when
respondents are asked about an entire previous week is a valid one. BUT, I
also think that it is unrealistic to expect more from the Census that can
reasonably be expected.

Reconfiguration of a rail line can cause losses. When the Dan Ryan/Lake and
Howard/Englewood/Jackson Park were realigned 2/1993 to connect the busy
South and North branches in the Red Line and less busy South and West
branches as the Green Line many transfers which had been recorded as
unlinked trips were eliminated with no real reduction in persons (average
trip lengths expanded). Reconstruction of a rail line can also cause
losses. The decision to close the Green line for reconstruction rather than
single track in 1/1994 resulted in bus and offset gains made by the new
Orange Line rail.

The impacts of service changes are often complex. It likely that changes in
auto ownership and transit riding frequency among fairly frequent customers
over the decade are also an important of the story. It is also very
difficult to make assessments of persons using a system from unlinked trip
counts. This is part of why NTD average trip length calculations and
passenger miles estimations are important.

Peter J. Foote
PFoote@TransitChicago.com

Market Research/Resource Planning
Planning Division
Chicago Transit Authority

120 N. Racine Avenue
Chicago, IL 60607

(312) 733-7000 x 6840 (Voice)
(312) 432 - 7108 (Fax)

****************************************************************************
****************************************************************************
*******************************************
Unless otherwise stated, the views expressed are those of the author and not
those of the Chicago Transit Authority.
****************************************************************************
****************************************************************************
*******************************************
http://www.TransitChicago.com

CTA CUSTOMER SERVICE HOTLINE
1-888-YOUR-CTA

RTA Travel Information
836-7000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Schlappi" <Schlappi@mag.maricopa.gov>
To: "'Chuck Purvis'" <CPurvis@mtc.ca.gov>; <ctpp-news@chrispy.net>
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 6:01 PM
Subject: RE: [CTPP] Reconciling Census Transit Commuters with Ridership
Statistics

> Is there a possibility that changing route structures, with more rail,
have
> caused more unlinked trips?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chuck Purvis [mailto:CPurvis@mtc.ca.gov]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 3:36 PM
> To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
> Subject: [CTPP] Reconciling Census Transit Commuters with Ridership
> Statistics
>
>
> To: CTPP-News
>
> One of the interesting journey-to-work results is the lack of change, at
the
> NATIONAL level, in the total number of transit commuters. The US had
> 6,069,589 transit commuters according to the 1990 Census, and 6,067,703
> transit commuters according to the 2000 Census, a 0.03 percent decrease.
(On
> the other hand, the US transit commute SHARE declined from 5.3 percent in
> 1990 to 4.7 percent in 2000.)
>
> This compares to national transit ridership statistics which show a 6.4
> percent increase in annual unlinked passenger trips comparing 1990 to
2000.
> (Source is APTA's 2002 Public Transportation Fact Book, Table 26.) The
APTA
> book (I would assume based on FTA-collected ridership statistics) shows
> annual unlinked public transit trips increasing from 8,799 million trips
in
> 1990 to 9,363 million trips in 2000 (the 2000 numbers are preliminary,
> according to the 2002 APTA Fact Book).
>
> So, an issue is how to reconcile a 0.0 percent change in national transit
> commuters with a 6.4 percent increase in national transit ridership.
>
> A plausible explanation is that the work trip share of public
transportation
> trips has declined since 1990. According to the 1990 NPTS, 42.6 percent of
> public transportation person trips are for the purpose of "earning a
living"
> (NPTS Databook, Vol. 1, Table 4.40).
>
> So, I can calculate that about 3,748 million unlinked transit boardings
(in
> 1990) are "work trips" and that this might decline to about 3,747 million
> unlinked transit boarding "work trips", in 2000. This means that perhaps
40
> percent of year 2000 transit boardings are work trips (3,747 / 9,363),
which
> is quite plausible at the national level.
>
> The story might be that the national number of transit work trips, 1990 to
> 2000, has remained fairly stable, and that, at least at the national
level,
> the growth in transit is attributable to non-work travel.
>
> The data question is: is information available from either the 1995 NPTS
or
> the 2001 NHTS that can corroborate this possible trend - - a decline in
the
> work purpose share for public transportation trips?
>
> Also, who has attempted to reconcile their change in regional transit
> commuters with their own transit ridership statistics? What would be most
> helpful is any comparisons of on-board surveys or household travel surveys
> that show any changes in the trip purpose mix for transit trips.
>
> (Other larger issues still loom in terms of the plausibility/fixability of
> the Census data. We are very concerned about the overall LOW numbers of
> TOTAL commuters and employed residents we're seeing in the 2000 Census in
> our region....)
>
> Wishing a Safe & Sane Happy Fourth of July to All!
>
> Chuck Purvis
>
>
> ***********************************************
> Charles L. Purvis, AICP
> Senior Transportation Planner/Analyst
> Metropolitan Transportation Commission
> 101 Eighth Street
> Oakland, CA 94607-4700
> (510) 464-7731 (office)
> (510) 464-7848 (fax)
> www: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/
> Census WWW: http://census.mtc.ca.gov/
> ***********************************************
>