Metro’s using $1 coins in fare machines

I didn’t see this announced anywhere else, but over on the WMATA youtube channel there’s a video starring Metro’s Chief Financial Officer, Carol Kissal, and Ed Moy, the Director of the US Mint announcing that Metro fare vending machines will be accepting $1 coins as well as giving them as change.  So instead of getting 12 quarters back as change from a $7 purchase on a $10 bill, you’ll get three coins.  I thought WMATA had been accepting $1 coins for a long time, but giving them out is new as of December.

WMATA and the Mint tout the convenience for riders as well as the savings to the Government.  According to the video, the $1 coins last for decades and are 100% recyclable.  Mr. Moy put the savings from using $1 coins as “billions” of dollars.  He also said that Boston and New York were giving $1 coins as change in their transit systems.

I’ve always been a fan of dollar coins.  I get them at the bank and use them for parking meters and vending machines.  Now I’ll have another source for them (though I don’t do many cash transactions at fare machines).

So what’s next for American currency?  Go completely Euro-style, get a $2 coin, and eliminate the $1 bill entirely?  Retain both the bill and the coin for years longer?  Eliminate the penny?

Starting New Parking Survey

I’m starting a new parking survey of the 500-700 blocks of M Street SE, right near where I work.  My goal for the survey is to find out when the peak of parking demand is for these spaces.  My guess (in science class you might call this a “hypothesis”) is that the peak of demand is between 11:00 am and 12:00 noon, based on some TCRP reports I’ve read.  I plan to take data once per day for a while.  It only takes 10 minutes to walk out to that block and write down how many cars are parked on the 5 block faces in the area.  I’ve already gotten some data confirming that there is not significant parking before 10am or after 3pm (unless the data is really, really weird and doesn’t follow a bell curve).  Based on 7-8 data points taken so far, it’s starting to look like a bell curve, though the holidays usually have low demand and therefore I will be taking much more data than I would otherwise need.

This block has seen a lot of change, parking-wise, since it was used for my previous study about who parks in the Navy Yard area.  The blocks used to be completely full of parkers from out of state that parked all day for free.  Now, after DDOT installed and started enforcing rush hour restrictions, and turned on the multispace meters, the blocks are nearly always empty (or significantly below 50% capacity), and I see the same commuter out-of-state cars parking elsewhere in the area (still for free).  I briefly chatted with one parker that was using a multispace meter, he stated that he was visiting the area for a meeting and would be parked about two hours.

Setting the meter prices right doesn’t always mean to raise the price.  Sometimes, when demand is low enough, it means reducing or eliminating parking charges.  Once I figure out when the peak of demand is, I’ll concentrate on getting data for that time period to make the case that the price is much too high.  I expect that the answer is that there is no time of day where there is a need to charge for parking at all.  I was able to look a couple of times when the rush hour restrictions were in place but the meters were not yet running, and the occupancy was around 50%, still lower than the targeted range of 80-90%.

The parking restrictions on these blocks are a 3-hour limit, no parking during morning and evening rush hours, and a charge of $1.00 for the first hour, and $1.50 each additional hour.  The combination of these restrictions and nearby free parking probably reduce the market value of this on-street parking to near zero, something I will try to confirm through obtaining more data.

Of course I will keep you posted with what I find out, as well as attempt to discuss the results with the DC parking manager.

Phoenix area town seeks federal funds for useless parking garage

According to this article, Gilbert, AZ is considering seeking federal stimulus funding for a parking garage.  The Gilbert, AZ garage is projected to cost $7.5M for 350 spaces (not sure if that's total or marginal) but that's $21,400 per space.  Article states that their downtown "needs more parking".  Here’s an aerial view of the site mentioned in the article.

I think before we use federal funding to buy a garage for this low-density site, we should probably figure out how much parking is worth to the people driving, by pricing or managing the parking they have already.  I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m willing to bet that the parking is not going to be worth more than the $200 per month you’d need to build such a parking garage (based on amortized construction costs and operating costs).  If the small downtown shopping area is popular enough, people should be willing to chip in a couple of bucks to park there in exchange for knowing there will be a space available when they arrive.

Update:  Commenter Mark points out that the town is over 200,000 people, so I've edited the title which used to refer to Gilbert as a "small town".  It's still officially a town, and from the look of the aerial view, still low density.

Smartrip will be available at CVS

It might be a transit geek's favorite stocking stuffer, and this year it will be available at CVS just in time for Christmas. According to this press release, CVS will start selling the Smartrip rechargeable farecard starting December 23 at 190 stores in DC, Maryland and Virginia. I don't see any specific locations now, but once the cards go on sale, you can find a CVS location near you which sells the card using this search tool. CVS stores that sell the card will display a "Smartrip Sold Here" decal on the front door. The cards are available for $10, which includes $5 in pre-loaded value. Starting January 4, the Smartrip card will be the only way to get a discounted transfer between rail and bus, or a free transfer between buses. Additionally, Smartrip card users save $0.10 per trip on bus, as well as speed boarding times for everyone else.

Metro declines to partner with Google Transit

Three years after the launch of Google Transit, which gives directions using transit on Google Maps, and after constant requests by riders and bloggers, WMATA's Director of Customer Service, Brett Tyler, announced their decision that participating in Google Transit is "not in our best interest from a business perspective." That's a very shortsighted decision.

Like many people in this area, I have been looking forward to having the ability to "get there by transit" using Google Transit. The feature, a free service by Google, just requires transit agencies to format their data in the Google Transit Feed Specification format and sign an agreement with Google.

At first, WMATA officials said that their scheduling information was "proprietary" and could not be shared with Google. Later, they told me that formatting the data in GTFS was time-consuming and not a priority for the WMATA staff. In June, General Manager John Catoe said in a Friday lunchtime chat that WMATA was working on it, but that the results were not accurate enough. (Since Transit would use the same data as WMATA's own trip planner, this explanation didn't hold water.) Finally, when I asked about it at the October board meeting, they said that they still needed to hammer out the legal agreements.

On Monday Brett Tyler, Director of Customer Service, gave me a definitive answer:

Metro staff did explore some possibilities with Google, but ultimately we decided that forming a partnership with Google was not in our best interest from a business perspective. We do believe that Metro's newly redesigned Web site, at www.wmata.com, improves customers' access to information about the Metro system. In addition, customers may get real-time information and bus and rail schedules directly on their cell phones or PDAs.

These tools are quite useful, but they're not a substitute for Google Transit. WMATA's Trip Planner doesn't let you explore either your origin or destination neighborhood. It's especially picky in trying to designate the origin or destination, at first asking you to leave off the city and state, then later requesting that you designate what city and state you meant.

Google spends a lot of time working on its user interface. WMATA should take advantage of that experience, especially since Google is willing to provide it for free. Plus, by making the data available, WMATA could allow other innovators to build even more useful tools. A company that specializes in easy-to-use Web sites will probably build a better site than an authority that specializes in running trains and buses, and having more clever programmers helping riders get the most from our public transit beats limiting the information to just a single site.

David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington and I  created a petition to ask WMATA to reconsider their decision and make their data available to Google, as 91 other US transit agencies have done, and publish it online for anyone to use to build innovative new tools and grow transit ridership.

Here are just a few of the many US transit agencies who decided that Google Transit is indeed in their best interest:

• Maryland MTA (including Baltimore and Maryland Transit bus stops within DC)
  
• Fairfax (city), VA
  
• Alexandria, VA
  
• Loudoun County, VA
  
• New York MTA (including the New York subway and commuter railroads)
  
• Chicago Transit Authority
  
• BART (San Francisco Bay Area)
  
• San Diego, CA
  
• Denver/Boulder, CO
  
• Miami, FL
  
• MARTA (Atlanta, GA)
  
• Portland, OR
  
• Dallas, TX
  

Please sign the petition today.  Crossposted on Greater Greater Washington

What do Smartrip Cards Cost?

According to the Director of Customer Service for WMATA, the direct cost for a Smartrip card is $3.50 in bulk from its vendor, Giesecke and Devrient (PDF on the “GO CARD”, the specific design used for Smartrip). According to WMATA, the cards originally cost just under $10.00 each but with larger volume purchases, the costs have fallen. The cards are not usable as delivered and must be initialized. It's not clear whether WMATA has to do those manually or whether they own one of the machines sold or leased by the Smartrip card designer, Cubic Transportation Systems.

Should the cost of a Smartrip card have fallen along with WMATA’s costs?  What do you think?  WMATA has to pay staff to order new cards, process them, and distribute them.  They have to pay staff and a contractor to develop Smartrip improvements as well as manage the existing Smartrip program.  They have to maintain thousands of individual card readers. 

On the other hand, WMATA used to sell you a card for $5 that cost them almost $10, and they’re still willing to give you magnetic stripe cards which are not as reusable for no additional cost, and there are certainly costs associated with the magnetic strip cards.  Now that WMATA is trying to get people away from paper transfers by requiring Smartrip, I think it’s time that the price of a card come down.

Here’s the information about Smartrip from the Director of Customer Service:

The policy established by Metro’s Board of Directors is to sell SmarTrip® cards for $5.00.  This policy has been in place since the program was launched in 1999.  At that time, the cost of each card was just under $10.00.  Over time and with larger volume purchases, the charge per unit has fallen to $3.50 per card.  When we receive the cards, we must initialize them because they are not usable as delivered.

Again, thanks to WMATA’s Director of Customer Service for the answer.

Metro's "Worst Performing" Bus Lines: How reliable are they?

In an earlier post, I took a look at WMATA's Metrobus performance data for 2007.  In it, Metro highlights the "worst performing" lines based on ridership and financial performance data.  The criteria for good performance are:

More than 300 passengers per day

More than 10 passengers per trip

More than 1.3 passengers per revenue mile

High cost recovery ratio (>12.4%)

Low subsidy per passenger (<$4.80)

Recently, a Washington Post article by Lena Sun discussed WMATA's new ability to track bus on-time performance, and reported that WMATA has an overall system on-time performance of 75%.  This figure is based on showing up at the published time points between 2 minutes early and 7 minutes late.  Almost immediately after the article, I requested the on-time performance figure for each bus line in the system. 

Based on the information reported (excel), The worst performing routes in terms of WMATA's ridership and financial criteria are better than average for on-time performance, probably because the routes operate in lower-density areas and don't have to slow down as often or as long to board or alight (drop off) passengers.  On the other hand, WMATA's best performing routes have lower than average on-time performance, probably for the opposite reason:  high traffic and congestion as well as ridership-driven delays due to boarding and alighting.

This brings up an interesting idea:  How do you evaluate transit system performance?  From the look of the WMATA productivity report, the only performance data highlighted is financial and ridership based.  For a board that's trying to ensure the region gets a reasonable bang for its subsidy buck, that makes sense.  But for the ridership, is it really the best measurement?

I'll compare it to a transit system that I think is a leader in reporting performance data to its ridership.  When Chicago Transit Authority publishes its "dashboard"-style performance data for the system, they track six categories of system performance:

What's the ridership?

Is it on time?

Is it efficient?

Is it safe?

Is it clean?

Is it courteous?

Chicago publishes a performance metric report monthly, prominently linked from the home page.  In the report, the performance goals are stated and the system performance is shown for many months, highlighted in green when the goal was met, and in red when it was not.  The item being measured is described so you know what they're talking about.  For example, one of the metrics is "% of bunched intervals, bus", which is defined as "Number of weekday bus intervals (time between buses at a bus stop) that are 60 seconds or less divided by the total number of weekday bus intervals during the month."  They have a goal of 2% or less, and it looks like they are not meeting it but with no strong trend up or down.

The Metrobus Performance Report appears to ask only one question:  Does it carry a lot of passengers compared to how much we (WMATA) have to pay?  That's a good question to ask for a system efficiency standpoint, but I think the riders of Metrobus deserve to have Chicago's five questions asked and reported too.  I'll note in WMATA's defense that I only have the Metrobus performance report and I do not know whether there are other reports out there that are as comprehensive as Chicago's.  I know that the Customer Service Operations and Safety Committee receives a monthly report on system on-time or reliability performance, and also a report on safety.  If there are better comprehensive reports, they not collected into one easy-to-read format for public consumption.

Here's the data.  The first table is for the previously reported worst performing bus lines, and the second is for the best.  The data is collected for the month of August 2008, which is from a different year than the 2007 Performance Report.  I've been asking for the 2008 report for a couple of months through various channels and have not gotten a response, so I apologize for not having more up-to-date information.  There are a couple of bus lines missing from the reliability data because WMATA does not track on-time performance for them and there are a couple of lines that are no longer operated so I can't make a direct comparison.  Also, if you look at the excel spreadsheet linked above, bus lines ending in "99" are employee shuttles not open to the public.

The "worsts" for ridership:

Bus Route #	Reliability
24T	81.56%
98	49.41
E6	89.13
15K	73.90
15L	78.95
20F	87.25
20W	no data
20X	73.35
17A	85.29
17B	74.07
17F	no data
17M	89.52
N8	no data
18E	86.08
18F	91.67
3T	85.84
C7	78.79
C9	69.79
System Average	75.33
This group average	79.64
System Median	78.79
This group median	81.56

 

And the "bests" for ridership:

Bus Route #	Reliability
30	Restructured
32	no data
34	Restructured
35	Restructured
36	75.65
X2	76.85
C2	73.62
C4	66.07
11Y	69.17
System Average	75.33
This group average	72.27
System Median	78.79
This group median	73.62

Bleg: Anyone have a high-speed scanner?

I just received a very large document from WMATA:  The original 2003 contract with Cubic for Smartrip upgrades.  Unfortunately, it's about 300 pages and all in paper.  I have a flatbed scanner but there's no way I'm going to be able to scan the pages to PDF by hand in any reasonable amount of time.

Are there any readers out there who have access to a high-speed scanner that will scan to PDF or some other decent format?  I would be forever grateful, and you would be able to examine the document first-hand.  I guess that's a plus for some people.

Alternatively, if anyone knows of a service that will scan large documents to PDF, I could pass the hat around here and get the fee together through donations.

WMATA declined to provide the document electronically because it had been redacted by hand using a black marker.

I'll write up an article about the document, but I did want to be able to share it with you all so you can see what I'm talking about.

Metro launches new web site

Metro just launched a new version of its web site.  The content is for the most part the same, it's just better organized than before.  The front page ride guide now has some sort of AJAX processing so it can give you suggestions as you type, more topics are organized by transit function, such as "Rail" or "Bus".  I've been able to find all the hidden corners of the site that I use to get information.

Something interesting I hadn't noticed before was Metro's list of center platform stations, used by people with disabilities to get where they are going much faster than waiting for a shuttle in the event of a platform elevator out of service. 

Overall, I like the design and the new site.  It definitely fixed the biggest problem I saw with the old site, which was the likelihood that a new visitor to the DC region would be utterly lost upon loading the old site.  This one has the ride guide at the top left, the most prominent spot on the page, and then along the top the maps and stations page, a link to the PIDS system data for the next train arrival, and the new user's guide.

Metrobus transfer elimination

Washington City Paper's Sarah Godfrey has an excellent piece about the elimination of bus tranfers. The article goes beyond the simple nuts-and-bolts of the change and investigates the social aspects of transfers. It's definitely worth a read.

DC solves the Navy Yard “free parking for commuters” problem

Earlier in the year, I investigated commuter parking in the Navy Yard area.  I looked at how many out-of-state license plates were parked in the same spot multiple times, and how many of those cars were parked there all day, in violation of the 3 hour parking limit.  My goal was to show that DC should just charge people for the use of the parking space and get some revenue that could be used to fix our broken sidewalks and other improvements, and that charging for parking would not likely harm DC residents.

Well, I can report that DC has fixed the problem, though not in the manner that I had suggested.  Instead of having operable parking meters that would collect revenue, DC installed signs that prohibit parking during the morning and evening rush hours, and started enforcing that prohibition.  Now, when I get to work around 7:30, instead of the same dozen cars parked there every day, the street parking is empty because it’s restricted before 9:30am.

It’s bad for revenue, in that DC will have to continue periodically enforcing the restriction but won’t have any meter money to show for it.  It’s bad for pedestrians, because the parking lane used to provide a buffer between the sidewalk and the travel lanes, and the wider street further encourages speeding along the 25mph speed limit boulevard.  It’s also bad for those commuters, who now have had to find other places to park (don’t feel too bad, though, I’ve recognized some of them in other nearby free parking areas).

I’ve got a question in with DDOT about the meters, which were installed there in September but are still not operating.

Principles of the Social Security Program

Andrew Biggs, my favorite blog for the conservative side of thinking about Social Security, linked to an informative piece by the Social Security Administration about the principles of the Social Security Program.  It’s worth a read.  In summary, the basic principles are:

1. Social Security Benefits are Paid as a Legal Right and not According to Need
2. Social Security Benefits are Related to Your Work
3. Social Security is Financed by Your Payroll Taxes
4. Social Security Benefits are Weighted

On another note, “Where has Michael been?” you might be asking.  I took a weeklong trip for work down to Charleston, SC.  I didn’t get a chance to write about what might be one of the biggest Metro stories of the year (a million plus riders for inauguration day, and an unprecedented 15 straight hours of rush hour train service), and I rediscovered Transport Tycoon Deluxe (in the form of its Open-source clone, Openttd).

Coming up, I’m going to be writing about a 400-page contract I received as part of a PARP request from Metro, and a property that really needs a crosswalk.