What About Increasing Frequency of Buses?
It seems that people I have heard from think that vans providing on-demand pickup to deliver residents to bus stop has zero-to-little chance of succeeding in getting people on buses.
So, here is another potential plan by the city and county: Increased frequency. Instead of waiting 30 minutes for a bus they will come every 7 to 15 minutes (on certain routes). I believe this has an estimated cost to the county of about $1.5 million. I’m not sure if Park City Municipal would have costs in addition to that (i.e. paying their share) but I would guess so.
What do you think? Would that get you on a bus more often?
Parkrag
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5 Comments
If it still takes an hour to get somewhere, forget about. Increased frequency without increased direct routes means spending almost as much time on a bus.
I’m still unclear how increasing the frequency of buses solves the shopping problem – I go to Walmart, Smiths, Whole Foods with a stop for lunch at Zupas. How is that trip manageable using the bus? More frequent service does nothing to limit that sort of traffic in Kimball Junction.
Moreover, The full-time resident population isn’t the traffic problem. When was the last time you were in a traffic jam in late April? For my $0.02, I say charge a $20 entry/exit toll on 224 and 248 for anyone without a resident sticker. Let’s be sure we understand what the problem really is before we spend money on expensive solutions.
KB-
Good point about KJ. I think what the county hopes you will do is ride a bus to Kimball and then get on their new Kimball Circulator Bus and ride it around. Then, you’ll get back on a bus and go home.
How you are going to do that with 12 bags from Walmart, Smiths, and Whole Foods is another matter. 🙂
So, I completely agree with you that frequency does nothing to solve that problem.
Buses just need to be routed better/more directly. Having every route exit the highway and drive around in Kimball is stupid. The Kimball loop bus might help with that. In general, though, I think the buses run frequently enough.
The bottom line is that the carrots (free bus) are already there. There needs to be an element of pain involved in driving (or better, parking) to encourage people to actually use the bus. But if the bus takes 2-3 times as long (hell, it takes quite a bit longer than riding a bike, and I’m betting I can run from Jeremy to PCMR about as fast as the bus makes it, too) then it’s pointless.
I still like the electric bike share idea, though it probably doesn’t help much in the winter.
Walt is 100% correct. As long as driving is easier than busing then i will drive my car. I have tried to do the right thing on holidays and take the bus into old town but guess what, they are too infrequent, too full, and when you do finally get on, they continue to make all the stops (while full) and then pull out into single vehicle traffic. Dedicated bus lanes are a start, but there needs to be a disincentive to solo driving in the form of expensive old town core parking. otherwise people will drive.
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