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Because they got free money from a TIGR grant instead of having to compete for money like normal transit projects. And maybe they wanted to believe. But yes, it was pretty obvious this segment by itself was a massive fail.
Streetcar on a busy street with no signalization is going to be a massive fail, but many proponents don't seem to recognize that (not referring to anyone on this board-most of them seem to understand that).
Fortunately, it's fixable.
I knew from the beginning it was going to be a failure and said that we have to wait 6-12 months before we can get a real picture of how successful this will be. The ridership numbers are even more dismal than I thought they would be and this is with NO FARE. Numbers probably drop by half when they begin charging. It's no wonder we didn't get more funding from the government when you see these numbers.
Are you kidding me? We're supposed throw even more money into the pit and just hope that it works out when all the data currently available shows that it's an utter failure? Oh, but hey, it's just taxpayer money. That ****'s practically free, right?
Yooooooo, all of y'all need to chill out for a moment and actually look at the data being reported.
The Raw Data for the months of May 2015, June 2015, July 2015, and August 2015 are all zero, which indicates a non reported value. The city has not submitted official ridership counts to the National Transit Database for the past four months. That doesn't mean it hasn't been keeping count, just that, for some reason, it isn't getting reported.
The Adjusted Data appears to use a sort of averaging model to determine an estimated value for the months of missing data. Basically, when you have missing data, NTB puts in a zero. When they estimate the ridership for that month, they look at the earlier month and use that value to estimate a ridership and I think (couldn't actually find any methodology in their manuals) national FTA trends. That shows up as a decreased value for that missing month from the previous month. Without further data to use, it shows up as a perpetual decrease in ridership that continues as ridership approaches zero.
The blogger uses this Adjusted data.
SO. What we have here is a failure to communicate, not necessarily the ridership collapse that is being reported by the blogger. I invite you to ask why there hasn't been official reporting in the past four months all you want (interestingly enough, MARTA is also missing data for July and August), but don't hold this up as evidence of a failed system, since it isn't.
This is bad statistics, not evidence.
These ridership numbers that are being shown in the Blog post are useless! They don't actually indicate anything other than missing data!
You can have your concerns and criticisms all you want (and lord knows I have mine for this project), but don't use the posted article as evidence for ANYTHING.
It's a tourist ride for carrying a few out of state visitors per day, to see the King Center, and ride the stupid Ferris wheel. Signal priority is not needed for that.
Build the plan out so that we have an actual city transit system on our hands, then you work on signal priority, which would then make sense.
It needs to be built more, but there are things that need to be added.
It HAS to be part of Marta, most notably for the ease of use between the two and transfers, etc, without that it will fail. Where it goes now is and was a fail, the future connected with MARTA would be successful, connects numerous high volume areas, and takes people where they want to go.
If it were so obvious that the tiny, little useless loop was so tiny, little, and useless, why didn't they plan the initial track in a better way? When a small program fails, I want to see the small program fixed before expanding it. If it can't be fixed within the current confines, then it should be shuttered.
Good question. They twice ran a bus route between these two venues and twice the routes were cancelled due to low ridership. And yet the city forged on.
Because they got free money from a TIGR grant instead of having to compete for money like normal transit projects. And maybe they wanted to believe. But yes, it was pretty obvious this segment by itself was a massive fail.
Streetcar on a busy street with no signalization is going to be a massive fail, but many proponents don't seem to recognize that (not referring to anyone on this board-most of them seem to understand that).
They competed against other projects for the TIGER funds. I will agree not prioritizing the signals was a massive fail.
Good question. They twice ran a bus route between these two venues and twice the routes were cancelled due to low ridership. And yet the city forged on.
That is because new riders and visitors are less inclined to ride a bus. Research has shown that rubber-tired buses make new riders feel less confident that the bus will adhere to the route, crazy I know. Also, let us not forget the TIGER grants are also about economic development and no one can deny the positive impact the streetcar has had on development in the corridor.
As far as an app, never much needed and I am not sure what is taking the city so long. I mean the streetcar stops aren't even shown in Google Maps at this point.
The fix is expand the streetcar and get it dedicated lanes & signal prioritization.
This is a win for anti-transit folks and a lost for those who actually believe in smart transit. Gtconrdog is going to have a field day with this and it makes me angry.
Don't worry...gtcorndog has thankfully been gone from this forum for almost 10 months. Have you not noticed the missing blatant anti-transit shouting in every transit post?
Don't worry...gtcorndog has thankfully been gone from this forum for almost 10 months. Have you not noticed the missing blatant anti-transit shouting in every transit post?
Oh no, you are mistaken. He is is back.
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