What Richmond can't teach DC about bus services

I am looking forward to receiving a review copy of the recently published Better Buses, Better Cities from Island Press.

In Sunday's paper, the Washington Post local opinions page has reprinted an article ("What Richmond can teach Washington about transit") which I feel like I read in Greater Greater Washington already.  And a similar piece ran as an article in the Washington City Paper.

Another piece in the Sunday paper, "The bus — yes, the bus — is key to fixing our transportation woes;," is by Robert Puentes, who chairs the advisory committee for WMATA's Bus Transformation Project.

The project and the conclusions in the op-ed aren't much different from what I've recommended in various posts for many years.

And I still argue for double deck buses as an obvious and definitive rebranding tool.


Las Vegas has used double deck buses as part of the special branding for its Deuce bus service on the Strip.  From the Las Vegas Review-Journal article "Tina Quigley, CEO of Southern Nevada transportation agency, to retire":

It all started with her first day on duty with the RTC in 2005 when Quigley helped unveil the Deuce buses on the Strip, a day she remembers fondly.

“We had a parade of Deuce vehicles up and down the Strip, and it was clear to me that this was something very new and exciting as it related to transportation,” Quigley said. “Bringing in those double-deckers — it’s hard to think of a bus as being sexy, but these were some sexy vehicles. As they paraded around the Strip and I saw the excitement and the coverage and subsequently the ridership that came along with that, I was hooked in realizing that how you present transit and create transit in a way that it is desirable and attractive really reframes the national conversation on transit.”

Although the Deuce buses ought to have a much more vibrant color scheme.

More cities than just London have deployed such buses.  They are common across the UK and in Hong Kong.  More transit agencies are using them across North America, although none in a large scale way.

I responded to the original entry in a blog post.

-- "Reviving DC area bus service: and a counterpoint to the recent Washington City Paper article"

The DC area has plenty of lessons to learn from other areas, but the Richmond experience with changes to its service network and the introduction of bus rapid transit isn't particularly noteworthy.


Pulse bus and station in Downtown Richmond.  Photo by BeyondDC.

The DC area has at least 1.2 million transit trips daily; Richmond, 30,000.  How much can Richmond teach us?  Note that the Post headline should read "What Richmond can teach Washington about bus service."

First, the DC area crushes the Richmond area in terms of "transit" usage overall including the number of "bus" riders.

On an average day, the DC area has about 600,000 subway trips, and at least 600,000 bus trips.  That's a minimum of 1.2 million daily transit trips.

Last year I wrote about a great marketing program for the Richmond transit agency, focused on the economic value of transit service.  Richmond Times-Dispatch photo.

Richmond has about 30,000 daily bus trips.

That's just a tad more than the ridership of DC's 70s Metrobus line, which runs between Silver Spring and Downtown DC.

That Richmond has experienced large percentage increases in bus usage is a function of a low base of riders, not some world changing move forward in best practice.

The problem is not that we need to do what Richmond is doing and we aren't.  We are.  We're just not doing it enough.

[Although, to be fair, except for integration, customer service and branding elements, the DC area is ahead of many jurisdictions in that bus to bus transfers are free across the different agencies, which use the same transit fare card system (using the same card isn't unique, but having free transfers across systems is relatively unique). And bus fares are relatively low.]

And I have written about that extensively.

The recommendations (with details and references to past blog entries and other links in the August response):

1. The Metropolitan Planning Organization, not the various transit agencies, should be the primary transit planner, setting master requirements for network breadth, network depth (frequency and levels of service), and levels of quality.

2. Contract with transit agencies to provide this level of service.

3. Define the transit network in terms of networks first at the Metropolitan; Suburban: and Center City scales; and then primary; secondary; and tertiary networks within them, which is particularly relevant to bus service.

4. To best provide service, the DC area should create a German style transport association to better plan and deliver all transit services in a more integrated fashion.

5. The bus services should be integrated better in terms of branding and support, using the model of the services in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, where they provide one call center providing information for all the services, have integrated schedules, a common branding system,, etc.

6. There should be a night network and other improvements, like dedicated transitways, better transit information, etc. (Dedicated transitways are expanding in DC.)

But some systems have increased ridership in the face of decline. Among the exceptions, there are four that are outliers: Columbus, Ohio; Las Vegas; Richmond, Virginia; and Seattle.

Guess what, it's not rocket science.

Free transit.

More service.

Defined high frequency lines (usually a form of bus rapid transit).  Note that DC proper has a sub-network of seven high frequency lines that have about 15,000 to 25,000 total riders on each line.

A unified brand is the big lesson from Richmond. Richmond's Pulse BRT service advantage is that it is the only rapid bus program in Greater Richmond. By contrast the DC area has at least seven different initiatives. So instead of one brand to focus on, we have a polyglot. I argue that there should be one unified brand for BRT and/or your "high frequency bus network."

Expanding the rail network leads to increases in bus ridership.