Today’s Headlines

More Postmortems on the Nashville Transit Referendum (CityLab, Tennessean)
Metro Detroit Revives Regional Transit Talk, But Bill Would Let Counties Opt Out (Freep)
Charlotte Transit Ridership Down 20 Percent This Year (Observer)
VA Will Spend I-66 Toll Revenue on Transit, Park-and-Ride Lots (WTOP)
San Antonio Mayor Rules Out Light Rail in Transit Plan (Express-News)
Fort Lauderdale Commission Formally Pulls Support for Wave (Local 10)
Ballots for Kansas City Streetcar Referendum Are in the Mail (KMBZ)
Complete Streets Makeover Announced in Midtown Atlanta (Curbed)
Upgraded Trolleys Return to Downtown Memphis (WMCA)

HamTech87

it is great that Midtown Atlanta is working on calming streets, but those streets could really use some more retail. All those new glass towers have weird setbacks, and too few storefront entrances. Walking to a CVS took over 10 minutes; this is ridiculous for a city.
Sean

Gnashing of teeth over Nashville choosing not to spend $13,000 for every man woman and child on transit.
Two links after that is a story on a 20% drop in transit usage in Charlottesville.
It’s also down in VA, DC, Seattle…
People are getting screwed left and right by transit agencies, looks like Nashville is dodging a bullet.
Courtney

I don’t think the Nashville vote is a total defeat. There are some valid critiques of the plan. I think the majority of folks in Nashville want transit, they just didn’t want THAT transit plan. There’s a lot of value in bus rapid transit, improving sidewalks, and creating safe biking conditions/routes. There should also be measures in place to prevent displacement and increase affordable housing near transit.
I know light rail and trains are super sexy but buses can be put on streets much faster and bus routes can easily be adapted to changes in density/demand/etc.
Tooscrapps

– Charlotte
– Transit usage in Seattle is up.
– VA/DC has been plagued by deferred maintenance issues and service reductions as a result. If you neglect to fund your transit and cut service to balance the budget, you a transit system can easily enter a death spiral. Roads are not subject to such scrutiny.

Yet another post where you continue to not know what you’re talking about.
Sean

If you look at the size of the system, and the population the rider/mile/population is lower than it was a decade ago.
Car usage including rideshare is plateaud/slowly rising. That’s not a sign of an improving system.

As for ‘neglecting to fund’ metro, that’s a joke. A pretty sick one. We have funded metro to the tune of $8/metro ride and I believe $6 per bus ride if you include federal grants and other subsidies. That’s a preposterously high number for such garbage service.
If you support WMATA and consider them a victim of circumstance there is no question who is ignorant here.
Sean

Seattle just opened a bunch of new stations. Of course ridership is going to naturally grow up, but that’s a daft way to measure.
The same way we measure say, store/restaurant success is the way to measure transit success. “Same store sales” is the way you do it.
Otherwise you’re building a measurement strategy that makes it impossible for an expanding system to be considered a failure.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to ride my bike home. I’d take the metro, except the air conditioners in my station are broken, (as they were last summer) and the headways look completely screwed as always.