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3 ESSENTIALS FOR TRANSIT PEOPLE WANT TO RIDE


-> To make transit a useful travel option that people want to ride, there are three basic goals.

Speed: Routes should be direct. Fare payment needs to be fast and easy. Transit needs dedicated space on the street and priority at traffic lights.
Frequency and Reliability: A network of routes that arrive at least every 15 minutes. Accurate, real-time data published in app-friendly formats. Properly-managed dispatching to keep transit evenly spaced.
Walkability and Accessibility: Concentrating transit in compact, walkable places, and making it easier to walk to transit in places where pedestrian infrastructure is lacking. Adding bus shelters, painting crosswalks, and expanding pedestrian space in the short term, and lifting restrictions on new development near transit in the long term.
http://bit.ly/2rpl3iv

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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MTA to install $11 million in traffic light sensors to prioritize buses in Baltimore


By Colin Campbell, Baltimore Sun

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As part of Gov. Larry Hogan's BaltimoreLink bus system overhaul, the Maryland Transit Administration has budgeted $11 million to install sensors on 200 local buses — out of 760 — and city traffic signals that will keep traffic lights green for six to 10 seconds longer when a bus is approaching, and shorten red lights for waiting buses by the same amount of time.

The goal of the Transit Signal Priority technology — along with the planned creation of five miles of bus-only lanes and removal of hundreds of underused bus stops — is to allow buses to spend more time moving and less time in traffic, increasing on-time rates across the system.

"The system has not been efficient, and it has not been reliable," MTA administrator Paul Comfort acknowledged. "It takes too long to ride the bus to travel half a mile."
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-md-mta-bus-sensors-20170323-story.html
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While other cities try to replicate Houston’s successful bus network overhaul, Maryland’s plan for Baltimore falls short


Via Transportation for America

At a time when other cities are redesigning their bus transit service and aggressively investing overall in public transportation to provide more consistent, predictable service to serve residents and employers, Baltimore — thanks to the state of Maryland — is attempting to get the most out of its bus system with only marginal new investment and changes in service that won’t do much to improve access to jobs, schools, or opportunity
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http://t4america.org/2016/12/15/with-other-cities-trying-to-replicate-houstons-successful-bus-network-overhaul-marylands-plan-for-baltimore-falls-short/
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Larry Hogan’s “BaltimoreLink” Fails to Deliver for Transit Riders


By Angie Schmitt, Streets Blog

When Maryland Governor Larry Hogan unilaterally killed plans for Baltimore’s 14-mile Red Line light rail, shifting the funds to road projects in whiter parts of the state, local advocates filed a civil rights complaint. Hogan, meanwhile, said he would make it up to the city with a set of bus improvements called BaltimoreLink.

After getting a good long look at the details of BaltimoreLink, advocates are not impressed. Stephen Lee Davis at Transportation for America reports on a recent analysis that concluded Hogan’s initiative won’t do much to improve local transit service:
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Making matters worse, the whole BaltimoreLink initiative will be under the control of the state, giving city agencies little opportunity to influence it, Davis reports.
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http://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/12/16/larry-hogans-baltimorelink-fails-to-deliver-for-transit-riders/
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Ignoring Fare Evaders Can Make Mass Transit Faster—And Richer


By AARIAN MARSHALL, Wired

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So the enterprising Norwegians had an idea: Don’t just ditch the malfunctioning hardware. Ditch the turnstiles and gates altogether, along with the idea of physical barriers that demand payment.

It’s not so radical. By nixing fare gates, public transit agencies emphasize ease of access over making every last rider pay. Europe got into “proof of payment” systems—where wandering personnel request evidence you paid your way—in the 1960s. They made it to American shores, mostly in light rail systems, by the 1990s.
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https://www.wired.com/2016/12/ignoring-fare-evaders-can-make-mass-transit-faster-richer/
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Oh no, we passed a law that favors transportation projects in urban areas over rural


[B' Spokes: More and more it seems politics gets split between urban vs rural. Rural needs more miles of road per person and urban would like more transit per person. I can see where people on one side resent people on the other side of this issue especially since there is not enough money to build our way out of congestion. So how to split a limited resource fairly? Should we allocate more money that benefits less people? That is what they are asking for. Don't get me wrong, we should have road projects in rural Maryland but IMHO it comes down to how frequently. What I have seen in the past that I think our current legislation address is that every county wanted a new road project, every year, every budget. Maryland is very rural so you can see how that approach would make less money available for projects like the Red Line. So sure lets give rural Maryland at least one project a year that it wants the most. But which rural county is going to benefit the most and who is going to have to do without? Would some sort of taking turns work? What I fear is going back to a system where every county has to get some major project every year so transit always has to suffer. Anyway read the Washington Post's take on this: ]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/md-lawmakers-signal-interest-in-va-model-for-transportation-funding/2016/11/18/996d0b1c-adbe-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html
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HIDDEN TRANSPORTATION SAFETY SOLUTION: PUBLIC TRANSIT


-> A new American Public Transportation Association study shows that a person can reduce the chance of being in a crash by more than 90 percent simply by taking public transit instead of commuting by car. (The Hidden Transportation Safety Solution: Public Transportation: http://bit.ly/2d54b9m) Traveling by public transportation is ten times safer per mile than traveling by auto. The authors reveal that transit-oriented communities are five times safer because they have about a fifth the per capita traffic casualty rate (fatalities and injuries) as automobile-oriented communities. This means public transit cuts a community’s crash risk in half even for those who do not use public transit. Public transportation communities spur compact development, which reduces auto miles traveled and produces safer speeds.

Cities that average more than 50 annual transit trips per capita have about half the average traffic fatality rates as cities where residents average fewer than 20 annual trips. Since Americans average about 1,350 annual trips on all modes, this increase from less than 20 to more than 50 annual transit trips represents a small increase in transit mode share, from about 1.5 percent up to about 4 percent. That equates to an increase in transit mode share of less than 3 trips a month per person. http://bit.ly/2cm4tw9

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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MTA Bus Network Redesign


Network Redesign
The current MTA bus network has many routes that are antiquated, serve outdated job locations and are too long to manage reliably. Additionally, the routes that currently traverse downtown Baltimore compound congestion and jeopardize on-time reliability throughout the system. Under BaltimoreLink, we've created a more efficient and reliable bus network by spreading out the routes within the downtown core and creating a grid of high frequency routes serving more downtown locations. To accomplish these needed improvements, we are implementing three levels of bus service:
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https://mta.maryland.gov/baltimorelink/service/network-redesign
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