15 Sunday Oct 2023
Posted in Uncategorized
≈ Comments Off on Bring back the WPA projects for the Homeless.
In the days of increasing and increasing homelessness, most are lost for a clue as to what to do. Why not bring back the WPA projects as were done in the 30’s. In our area, numerous hiking trails into the hills were paved by the WPA who also built bridges and many stone walls. They stand as good as ever to this day. An idea.
02 Monday Oct 2023
Posted in Jobs and the workplace, money, Uncategorized
≈ Comments Off on Arizona needs to wake up and smell the Petrol.
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Let me say, at this writing, gasoline is up to $4.25 a gallon and I know, yes I know, many of you are in places where the prices are two and three dollars above that.
That said, Tucson and most of Arizona is very car dependent due to the fact that everything is so spread out. It is pretty impossible to exist here, in any comfort, without a car. Recently, my car has been in the shop three times for a repeated number of repairs. At $1200 for repairs and over $200 in Lyft/Uber rides, we’ll see if three times is the charm.
The bus system: the bus system here runs every 30 minutes on weekdays (when they aren’t late) and every hour on weekends. Most services stop around 7ish, so if you have some evening event to attend, you are out of luck. The system has good apps for your phone. However, if you don’t have a phone, if your phone is out of charge, if you don’t know/can’t find the app, you are out of luck. The bus stops all have metal signs with the route number. There are no bus schedules with the times, no maps with the routes, their starting/stopping points and no information about when they stop running. Inside of the bus, a digital screen displays a stop when a customer pulls the stop cord. Again, there are no bus schedules, no times, no maps, no starting/stopping points, etc. As a result of this, bus drivers are continuely beleagered by passengers asking a thousand questions. This is stressful to them because 1) they have to answer the same questions over and over and b) they are on a tight schedule and are not supposed to be late to their next stop.
Lyft/Uber: since I have taken so many rides this month, I have spent time tracking the costs. During the day, approximately before 4-5 pm, the cost, per mile, can be as low at $1.78 per mile. As the day progresses, the cost can then jump to $3.00+ per mile. The evenings are the real killers; rides to entertainment events in the evenings for the basic same distance can be a whopping $30 each way! Boy, am I in the wrong business!
A lot of this, of course, is pushed by the rising and fluctuating prices of gas. If the city had decent and dependable public transportation, then all of us would not have to be stuck in the giant maw which is the automotive/petrol complex. Like flys stuck in a sticky webb, we can never break free. Again, time to wake up and smell the petrol!!!!!!
01 Sunday Oct 2023
Posted in homelessnes, Jobs and the workplace, money
≈ Comments Off on 10 Cities and their Public Transport Systems
MAR 22, 2021
REMIX
Living in Arizonia, a place with extremely poor public transportation, we could learn a lot from these model cities.
Because Portland, Oregon, residents care a lot about the environment, it’s no surprise that they have a pretty great city transportation infrastructure. They have a bus and rail system (known as TriMet), and residents and visitors alike can easily get around the city for cheap fare.
There is a light rail line that runs to the airport, and both buses and trains run around every 15 minutes each day. The city also has a Hop Fastpass app which makes it easy to manage fares and pay for rides from a smartphone. All transit stations in Portland are ADA accessible, another big plus.
Commuters in Pittsburgh can take advantage of both bus rides and an underground light rail, which is known as the T. A one-way ride on a bus or train is $2.50 if riders have a ConnectCard, or if they pay cash it’s $2.75.
All of Pittsburgh’s buses and light rail vehicles are accessible with ramps or lifts. There are 53 T stations, and the T runs from 5 a.m. until midnight each day. When waiting for the bus, users can get alerts via text with TrueTime-to-Text to find out when a bus is coming.
Denver has a great system set up for public transit, with 68.4% of residents approving of the infrastructure. All stations are ADA accessible, and the city has both bus and rail options for riders, with over 125 bus routes. These systems connect easily to the airport and sports stadiums.
Rail rides can range from $2.60 to $9.00 depending on the length of the ride, and day passes cost $5.20 for bus or rail for local service. This system is fairly straightforward and helps people get across the vast city each day with minimal effort.
The smaller city of Madison, Wisconsin, is home to the University of Wisconsin and is a great place for families to settle down. Their Metro transportation system is an example of a bus-only transportation strategy that functions well for residents, visitors, and university students.
The city’s transportation team is redesigning the bus system, which supports about 12.9 million riders. The government is asking for community feedback to help improve the system as the city comes out of the pandemic. This kind of collaboration through community support and feedback is a great way to ensure that riders’ needs are being met.
Chicago is the nation’s third-largest city and has one of the best transit structures out there — the CTA. This system includes many different bus routes and train lines that connect all over the city, and 90.7% of residents approve of the transportation system. Chicago also has a robust Metra system of railways to connect to the many different suburbs so commuters can get into town without having to sit in heavy car traffic.
Ridership was down in 2020 because of the pandemic, but these systems normally support nearly 500 million people each year. The train system, known as the El because it is mostly on elevated tracks, has eight different routes designated by color with 145 train stations, many of which are ADA accessible. Getting around the windy city — including from both big airports, to downtown, and to the suburbs — is a breeze with the CTA. One-way trips cost $2.50 for the train and $2.25 for the bus.
The nation’s capital has a successful transit system that makes it easy to get around the main city center as well as commute from the suburbs and nearby regions. The city’s subway system is called the Metro, and there are also connecting MARC trains for Maryland riders and the VRE for those coming in from Virginia.
The subway usually takes on nearly 200 million trips each year; it is the second-largest system in the U.S. based on ridership. The bus system also takes on around 130 million trips every year. There are 91 Metro stations, so people can hop on from many different neighborhoods throughout the area.
Of course, we can’t talk about public transportation in America without mentioning New York City’s Metro, the nation’s largest system. On an average weekday, the subway supports 5.5 million riders with almost 1.7 billion riders each year. There are 472 subway stations with Times Square being the busiest.
The city also has a successful bus system with 2.2 million riders on average per weekday. Over 77% of residents approve of the system, and over half of residents take public transit to commute, a higher percentage than any other U.S. city. New York also has a ferry system for commuters on top of its commuter trains, subways, and buses.
Supporting the largest city in the country, the Metro is a great example of how to coordinate so many moving parts for a successful transportation system.
Travelers to San Francisco love the city’s historic cable cars, but the city also has a bus system, a light rail system known as the BART, and the Muni, which is a municipal railway. The city uses a lot of electric power for its public transportation, making it more energy-efficient and economical than other cities.
There are about 220 million riders each day in San Francisco. Because traffic can be very congested, taking transit helps cut down the average commute time.
The Boston metro system includes a subway (known as the T), an extensive bus system, and a trolley car service. Over 30% of Boston residents use public transit to get to work. The T connects to the airport, Harvard, and other key locations throughout the area.
Boston has the fifth-largest mass transit system in the U.S. and serves over 4 million people across the region. Another plus of Boston’s system is that 20% of the electricity is bought from certified renewable energy sources.
Seattle can be a role model for many cities on successful transportation infrastructure. Even though Seattle isn’t the largest city by any means, its transportation system is robust and features rail, buses, streetcars, and water taxis.
A study from WalletHub found that Seattle’s ridership numbers continue to grow as the city expands its service. The company ranked Seattle number one when comparing transit systems across 100 cities in the U.S. based on accessibility, convenience, safety, reliability, and available resources. All of the city’s transit stations are ADA accessible.
Because Seattle is now the sixth most congested U.S. city, transit helps residents significantly decrease average commute times and provides a fast and easy way for visitors to get around.
These 10 cities can show city planners a lot about what works in public transportation systems. Here is a walk-through of some of the most crucial components:
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