New BRT line off to slow start in Tampa

[thelakelander]

This week, the type of bus rapid transit system JTA wants to bring to Jax, opened in Tampa.  It appears it may take residents some time to get used to it.

Hillsborough's new MetroRapid bus system off to a slow start

At midday Tuesday, the 320-space park-and-ride lot north of Tampa was empty. For the first part of the trip downtown, a bus was, too.

Then ridership picked up once a MetroRapid bus left Fletcher Avenue and headed south along Nebraska Avenue.

But confusion set in.

On the debut day of Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority's newest service, riders quickly learned the new green-and-white buses don't stop where the normal ones do â€" no matter how much a passenger protests.

Financed through the county's Community Investment Tax, the roughly $25 million MetroRapid project is meant to better serve current riders and lure new ones to ditch their cars in favor of mass transportation.

For many, Tuesday was a learning experience.

"It's still the first day," said Sandra Pinto, HART spokeswoman. "People are still trying to figure out the whole new service."

Featuring 12 buses equipped with Transit Signal Priority, a GPS-based technology that extends green lights and shortens red lights, MetroRapid shaves 15 to 20 percent off normal bus route travel time, clocking it at about an hour for the entire route.

full article: http://www.tampabay.com/news/transportation/masstransit/hillsboroughs-new-metrorapid-bus-system-off-to-a-slow-start/2123522

[Jason]

Wonder if actually painting a green line on the roadway to give residents a visual of the route would be beneficial?

Honestly, I would love it if JTA did that with its express routes....

[Ocklawaha]

There are now several articles out on the Los Angeles 'Orange Line' which WAS the poster child for how to do BRT in the USA after Curitiba Brasil, Bogota Colombia, and the Boston Silver Line, all failed in some way or another to 'BE THE BUS.' The articles and studies basically say it has no where near the hourly capacity they thought it would have, it has had VERY high accident rates (not all the fault of the BRT mind you), and the best little nugget is that it is hardly any faster then any other way to travel the same route. It was sold as 45 to 50 minutes faster end to end, and has ended up more like 5 to 7 minutes faster with buses bunching up at certain stops. The moral of the story being, don't sell me a bus and tell me it is a train - don't piss on my leg and tell me it is raining.

The most telling part of the Los Angles 'wildly successful' BRT experience is this, LA will not build any more. 

[JayBird]

I use the BRT lines in NYC and I love it.  There it is called SelectBus Service and with four lines running (34th Street, 1st Avenue/2nd Avenue, 23rd Street, and a Harlem-Bronx Line) I find them very convenient.  NYC is a love-hate relationship with mass transit.  Everyone needs it, everyone gets annoyed by some factor of it. However, this method has been very positive. With these buses you swipe your MTA card while waiting for bus, take your receipt and board through front or back doors when it comes.  MTA Police do routine spot checks at various stops (however it is possible to ride the bus for free if they aren't checking that day - cost of business I guess). Even though Manhattan has bus lanes, the route I use most often is the 1st Avenue/2nd Avenue line which runs between 125th Street in Harlem and Whitehall Terminal at the bottom of the island. MTA operates the M15 bus and the M15SBS.  They both follow the same route, with the SBS stopping about every 10 blocks compared to every 2 or 3. It has proven much quicker, very reliable, and super efficient. I also use the crosstown M34 and M34A buses which are both BRT to get from the East River to Penn Station for NJ Transit and Amtrak. The MTA is currently looking at configuring more BRT routes, one is either coming or has already started out on Staten Island. They have talked about adding SBS to the M42 route (Crosstown 42nd Street) because that is the slowest operating line in the city (ridiculously like 7 miles per hour), but are holding off because there has been talk about adding a light rail line instead (www.vision42.com).

All that being said, it has to be planned right.  Once the 2nd Avenue Subway Line opens in 2016 (hopefully) I will use that instead of the M15SBS simply because of time, nothing is faster than the subways. I could see BRT possibly working on the westside, if it ran from Riverside/Avondale down Blanding.  Maybe BRT down 103rd and Normandy would work well.  I feel instead of starting with the North Corridor like they plan, I think it would have been more beneficial to run one down Beach and/or Atlantic.  Unless they are using BRT as a placeholder for a rail system (i.e. "look at all the people we have boarding here and disembarking here, this is why a commuter rail will succeed").  I think one of the biggest things you need for BRT is traffic.  In Jacksonville, I honestly do not see how a BRT bus would be that much faster than a regular bus line.

[Ocklawaha]

New York has among the slowest buses in the nation. In congested areas, such as Downtown Brooklyn and Midtown Manhattan, buses move at four to five miles per hour, barely faster than the average pedestrian.
SOURCE: MTA

I agree that BRT down the Arlington Expressway/Atlantic all the way to the beach would be a hugely popular success. Likewise both Normandy and Blanding would work as well, in fact I'd send the early morning/afternoon Blanding buses, (maybe everything between 4 AM and 9 AM/4 PM and 9 PM) all the way to the Clay Transit Center via Blanding and Middleburg. My personal preference through Riverside (if it must be a surface street) would be Downtown-Riverside-Post...which becomes Normandy, and intersects Cassat (in a segment generally busier then the north end of Blanding). Of course Cassat leads right onto Blanding in Lakeshore.

Northwest JAX is the most likely route to be an immediate success, however I like PEARL better then Boulevard. I'd stay with the Boulevard/Jefferson plan until it reaches the old 'S' line, then right alongside the trail and future rail link we'd build a busway between Boulevard and Main. The BRT could use the Boulevard-Pearl segment, then northward to Gateway and Lem Turner, then one last change, Lem Turner to the Trade Zone and International Airport.

[JayBird]

Northwest JAX is the most likely route to be an immediate success, however I like PEARL better then Boulevard. I'd stay with the Boulevard/Jefferson plan until it reaches the old 'S' line, then right alongside the trail and future rail link we'd build a busway between Boulevard and Main. The BRT could use the Boulevard-Pearl segment, then northward to Gateway and Lem Turner, then one last change, Lem Turner to the Trade Zone and International Airport.

+1

That actually makes a lot more sense! And I agree with linking Trade Zone and JTA. My mother used to work in the Trade Zone and the company moved to Baymeadows because the call center kept getting excuses of not making it to work from car breakdowns or dead batteries. Now they are right on the bus line that goes down Baymeadows Way and no longer have that issue.

Kind of makes you wonder, when they change the bus routes every Aprilish and Octoberish, and plan new routes ... what are they using to base the routes on?

[tufsu1]

Saw the KC MAX system up close this weekend....it is barely better than regular bus service....and while it traverses the primary corridor in town, it has hardly spurred new development....that said, at least the bus stops look nice

[fieldafm]

Saw the KC MAX system up close this weekend....it is barely better than regular bus service....and while it traverses the primary corridor in town, it has hardly spurred new development....that said, at least the bus stops look nice

Good news.  Glad we modeled BRT after a system that has worked so flawlessly.   

[fsujax]

anything short of a Cleveland BRT (health line) will not spur development. thats a fact Jack!

[thelakelander]

^I'll be staying at a hotel adjacent to a Cleveland BRT station in University Circle next week.  Since I'll be using their rail and bus system to get around for three days, I plan to have follow up photo heavy articles about that BRT line, the adjacent heavy rail line and TOD that's come as a result.  I'm flying out of Tampa (+$200 cheaper than JAX and I can stop by my parents), so I may try and check out MetroRapid also.

Saw the KC MAX system up close this weekend....it is barely better than regular bus service....and while it traverses the primary corridor in town, it has hardly spurred new development....that said, at least the bus stops look nice

Good news.  Glad we modeled BRT after a system that has worked so flawlessly.   

I mentioned this a few years ago after a trip to Kansas City. Other than just attempting to take advantage of federal money, I really don't see a reason why we can't implement such a BRT-lite system through the modification of a few existing bus routes. I believe, this is what LA (Silver Line), Charlotte (Sprinter), and Tampa (MetroRapid) have done.

Here are some photos of the Kansas City Max from that trip.  This will give you a good impression of what's coming to Jacksonville:

[tufsu1]

anything short of a Cleveland BRT (health line) will not spur development. thats a fact Jack!

agreed!

as to Lake's comments about paying for system locally, Tampa did just that w/ the first MetroRapid line(north-south)...used Community Reinvestment Tax (started in the mid-90s) monies...but they now want Federal money for the second line (east-west).

[thelakelander]

^No new McDonald's, Burger Kings or 7-Elevens along the Kansas City Max route?  Maybe the development community hasn't realized it's in operation yet. After all, it's only been around for eight years now. Give it a chance!

[tufsu1]

oh there were a few fast food joints and I even stopped in at a Walgreens!

[Ocklawaha]

The trouble with going the Cleveland route, unless you have some very peculiar circumstances, recent studies show that it costs you more over the life of the system then streetcar and some rapid streetcar would. I would think special circumstances translated into Jax terms pretty much dictates the 'Boullevard-Lem Turner route' and a future 'Arlington Expressway-Mathews Bridge-Atlantic route' and possibly a 'Downtown-Blanding-Orange Park route.' The later if it ran on the surface streets, I'd like to see a study of taking it down Post to Normandy/Cassat to Blanding. This sets it up for a future spur on Normandy, Lenox, Old Middleburg, 103rd, Edgewood, all of which is within a mile or so of the Post/Normandy-Cassat intersection.

All of this is likely going to be BRT light, I would think the only ones immediately worth spending any real money on are the Beach and Orange Park route.

[thelakelander]

Cleveland's BRT project cost more than $25 million/mile to construct.  That's already in modern streetcar price range. JTA's new BRT-lite plan probably comes in around $3-$4 million/mile.  That's Kansas City Max price range.