All Connected? Not by Bus.
FOP* Freddie O’Connell, a technowiz at NashvillePost.com who in his spare time cohosts Liberadio on WRVU and serves as president of the Salemtown neighborhood association, has been mounting a campaign to focus attention on the service deficiencies of Nashville’s bus system. Earlier this month Freddie delivered to the mayor’s office a letter with 100 signatures urging full funding for MTA in next year's Metro budget.
So how does Freddie feel about Mayor Karl Dean’s proposed budget and its plans for MTA? The answer après le jump.
In an email to signers of that letter (I am one of them), Freddie said he’s pleased the mayor is fully funding education and law enforcement, but disappointed that a meaningful upgrade in mass transit isn’t on the table:
”Where MTA is concerned, [the mayor] actually made a small improvement: He authorized funding that will allow all Metro employees to join Vanderbilt and the state to ride MTA as an employee benefit. Unfortunately, what he has done with this budget is increase demand while restricting supply. The mayor's budget, far short of allowing MTA to enhance its service provision, requires the board to review the budget and plan route cuts during FY2009. While it's possible that the mayor's bus rapid transit idea might begin to see the light of day this year, it's frustrating to me as a regular rider that we are now facing a brand new terminal that will actually serve as a home for worse service.”
Freddie is referring, of course, to the new downtown $53 million Music City Central bus terminal under construction on Charlotte between 4th and 5th Avenues and scheduled to open in the fall. Certainly it’s going to be a tight budget year for Metro, so a significant expansion in bus service would have been a surprise. Still, Karl Dean did present himself as a serious public transit advocate on the campaign trail, so it’s more than a little disappointing to see that the first bullet point on the MTA slide in his first budget presentation contains the words “reduced levels of service.” It may be “all connected,” as Dean the candidate liked to remind us, but apparently not by public transportation.
*Friend of Pith
Comments
For clarification, my goal is to wind up as an advocate, not an adversary.
It just stands to reason that if a municipal service experiences a surge (love that word!) of demand on the order of 50% over 3 years (~6 million rides in 2006 to ~9 million estimated for 2008), the approach to dealing with that demand would not be to restrict supply.
Imagine if Metro General or Metro Parks experienced 50% increases in patient or patron numbers during that window.
Crime, for instance, has fallen for 4 consecutive years. I'm not going to argue with fully staffing MNPD because I value public safety. But there's a noticeable contrast in approach to priorities.
The scenario at play with MTA is economically and demographically unique, and the growth in usage is more dramatic than that facing any other Metro department or agency I've studied.
And MTA is something that makes sense for a city struggling with growth and experiencing an influx of transplants and tourists used to spending time in cities that have a better multi-modal transportation infrastructure.
If someone knows of another Metro service experiencing such a considerable leap in usage, please let me know.
Posted 03/27/2008 at 11:09:37 AMExcept for Police, Fire and Education all Metro Departments are being hit hard. Nearly 5% of Metro Jobs are being eliminated. Its nearly impossible to improve anything (including bus service) when there is no $$$.
With the no property tax increase referundum having passed - things at Metro are looking pretty grim - especially with Schools and Insurance costs skyrocketing. Unless something significant changes (like a new revenue source), Metro could be gutted over the next few years.
Posted 03/27/2008 at 11:17:08 AMIMO, one of the major deficiencies of the metro bus system is having to hub at the downtown transit stop to get anywhere. There needs to be more routes. For example, East Nashville to Hillsboro.
The http://www.nashvillemta.org/ website is horrible and a nightmare to navigate. Just try to plan a trip with the trip planner and you will see exactly what I mean.
Posted 03/27/2008 at 11:18:31 AMFrom a city planning standpoint, at what point do you have no choice but to at least start thinking about rail of some sort, light or otherwise?
Posted 03/27/2008 at 12:56:35 PMSteve H., the issue with MTA isn't that the city's roads are clogged from too many buses on them. It's that the routes are full of riders and can't be expanded because of budgetary constraints.
MTA's own planning staff is very talented and competent. Have you checked out their 5-Year Service Improvement Plan?
I think rail adds a similar fiscal burden and invokes other infrastructure considerations. Not that I'm opposed to it, but the limitations of buses are all on the funding side, not the capacity side.
Posted 03/27/2008 at 01:28:21 PMBut, at some point buses are no longer enough because the roads are just too clogged, right? I guess that's putting the cart before the horse. Or the train before the bus.
I do see your point. I was speaking out of whimsy, really. Sort of.
Posted 03/27/2008 at 03:06:44 PMSteve H...
If I could weigh in as well... I don't think the issue is the roads being too clogged. And I don't know at what point that will be an issue.
But if you could take the money from the Music City Star regional rail system (which, and correct me if I'm wrong here, has been an abject failure) and put it to the bus system, perhaps we'd be better off.
Music City Star cost $41 million to start up and I think about seven people use it. It sounds like a good chunk of that money would benefit MTA. Perhaps.
Posted 03/27/2008 at 05:51:17 PMI'll second Darryl's comments. I would LOVE to use public transit, but I live in East Nashville and work on West End. I can get there from here, but I would have at least a 30 min delay waiting on a transfer downtown. It's not just a convenience issue -- I have to have enough time to drop off one child at school in East Nashville, one at day care on West End, get to my office, work a full day, and then pick up both kids before their schools close. It literally isn't possible with the single option I have for a bus.
Posted 03/28/2008 at 09:45:14 PM