On-Board Surveys Off to Processing

A delivery truck full of surveys (maybe 10,000?) left Community Transit offices last Monday morning after the previous week's on-board survey effort to get information from the passengers on all our buses. We asked questions like "Where did you come from before you got on this bus?" "Why do you use public transit?" and "How did you pay for this bus trip?"


The completed surveys are now in the hands of a vendor which will spend the next two months entering and standardizing the data in electronic format. Their preliminary analysis will provide a wealth of information on bus transfers, what percentage of trips are to or from work, how many of our riders are unable to drive, and other basic rider demographic information.

The final report is due back to Community Transit by Dec. 13.

The data will then be available for further analysis by Community Transit staff. Service Planning and Strategic Planning are big users of the data, but our grants program, communications staff, transportation and others also use the data in many ways.

Survey Project Manager Brent Russell explained that while we do this every three to five years, this year’s survey has several firsts.

For the first time, the survey was developed completely in-house, without a consultant. Also, it’s the first time “origin” and “destination” data will be geo-coded. This will allow easy mapping and analysis of where people come from and go to on our buses.

About 37,000 copies of the survey were distributed on buses for completion on Oct. 20 and 23. Many were turned in on-board, and about 1,000 surveys came back in the mail. We are hoping for a 30 percent return rate when all are accounted for.

Many thanks to all the passengers who took the time to complete the surveys. Our last on-board survey was in 2006, and it will be very valuable to see what has changed or stayed the same since then.

Here are some tidbits from the 2006 survey:

• The majority of Community Transit riders indicate they got to the bus by walking (57 percent), driving their car (24 percent) and/or riding a bus/train/ferry (11 percent).
• Lynnwood was the most popular origin for bus trips. Twenty-one percent of riders started there.
• Youth make up 18 percent of local bus riders based on fare payment. Nine percent of passengers on local buses pay the reduced fare for senior or disabled people.
• On average, riders had been using the bus for six years. A quarter of all riders had been riding for more than 10 years.
• More than half of all riders had completed some college or had a bachelor degree or the equivalent.
• Nearly a quarter of all local bus riders had a total household income of less than $10,000.

Riders Talk About Transit’s Benefits

By Karen Will Johnson,

Community Transit Creative Manager

She looked me straight in the eye and said, “If Community Transit doesn’t go there, then neither do I.”

I couldn’t have scripted it any better.

Her simple statement may have been my first unsolicited storytelling testimonial.  It was Thursday,

July 31, 2007 at a ribbon-cutting event for The Double Tall, our double decker bus. She was wearing a festive sunhat and white gloves. The elegant senior who never learned to drive and has used public transit for her entire life expressed in her own words what Community Transit meant to her.  She was sharing her story.

Storytelling is society’s way of communicating between people. The histories, the hopes, the personal details. We know that people’s lives are affected by what we do, and we’ve asked them to share their stories, in their own words. Unscripted. Unrehearsed. Unaltered.

Storytelling testimonial videos are now an ongoing project at Community Transit. We find storytellers at outreach events, transit centers and at our own children’s birthday parties. They are your co-workers and your neighbors. They wear festive sunhats and white gloves. They have a connection to Community Transit in common, but their stories are as varied and compelling as they are.

And in the process, we’re discovering not only our riders’ stories, but those of business and community leaders whose companies and organizations are enhanced by the services Community Transit provides.

You can hear their stories too. Visit our Storytelling Testimonial page on our website at www.communitytransit.org/storytelling

On a larger scale, the American Public Transit Association  has just launched their own initiative, Telling Our Story/The Wall, which captures video testimonials from hundreds of people across the country who benefit from public transit. Watching those videos reminded me how grateful I am to work for an industry that performs the important job of connecting people and building communities. 

I imagine there are compelling stories out there just waiting to be shared. If you or someone you know uses Community Transit local or commuter service and would like to tell your story on camera, we’d like to hear from you. Email storytelling@commtrans.org and tell us how Community Transit helps you connect with work, friends and family. Do you ride public transit for the cost savings or for environmental reasons?  Do you benefit from more personal time or the pleasure of a relaxing commute?

Let us hear from you. Because telling your story is the best way to tell our own.

Seats Filling Up on Commuter Routes

Although the Great Recession continues to bring bad news to transit agencies around the country, the Community Transit board did get some good news last week: productivity on commuter routes is up.
Productivity is a measure of the number of passengers per hour of service on a given route (boardings per revenue hour, in transit speak). It is impacted by ridership and by the length of a route, both in terms of distance and time.

• Boeing routes have improved from 23 boardings per revenue hour to 26.
• University routes have improved from 25 boardings per hour to 32.
• Seattle routes have improved from 26 boardings per hour to 33.

The improvements in efficiency show that while the service reductions made in June were painful, many of them were strategic, just as we’d intended. Commuter buses no longer make slow-speed loops through neighborhoods to pick up a handful of passengers. Instead, we’ve focused service on park & rides where many commuters board at once.

Seattle routes from north Snohomish County with extra capacity (empty seats) now make stops at Lynnwood Transit Center to fill up. That’s brought Route 421 from Marysville up from 16 boardings an hour to 25.
Boeing ridership overall is down because we cut the earliest trips of the day, but the remaining service is being better utilized at lower cost to Community Transit and our taxpayers. Route 247 from Stanwood has gone from 24 boardings an hour last July and August to 35 this summer.

Local routes that were reconfigured in June have also improved in efficiency, though productivity on local routes overall is down along with ridership. Swift bus rapid transit continues to buck that trend, growing in boardings per revenue hour despite having the most time on the street of any route in our system.

CEO Joyce Eleanor Testifies in D.C.

An exciting day for Community Transit!

CEO Joyce Eleanor this morning testified before the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in Washington, D.C. She discussed how Community Transit has spent the $17.5 million it received last year in federal stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

Joyce was one of two transit agency representatives on a panel that included an electrician from bus manufacturer New Flyer of America, the director of Baltimore's public works department and a construction worker from Columbus, Indiana.

She described the four Community Transit projects funded by the ARRA federal stimulus money:
Bus replacement - 23 double decker bus purchases, $10.7 million
Operations and preventative maintenance funding, $3.3 million
Bus replacement - hybrid bus cost differential, $3 million
Mountlake Terrace Transit Center parking lot redevelopment, $425,000

Joyce was introduced by U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Larsen was a member of the Community Transit Board of Directors when he was a Snohomish County Councilmember.

Joyce was asked by Committee Chair Rep. Jim Oberstar about the flexibility for transit agencies to use some federal funding for operations, not just capital. Joyce replied that flexibility is good but agencies still need capital funding to replace aging vehicles and facilities. More funding overall is needed, especially during these tough economic times.

See Joyce's testimony here. (Joyce starts about 1 hour and 15 minutes in.)
Read Joyce's testimony here.

CEO To Testify Before Congressional Committee

Community Transit CEO Joyce Eleanor has been invited to testify tomorrow morning (Sept. 29) before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in Washington, D.C.

Because Community Transit received federal stimulus funds last year, Joyce will be giving the Committee an update on our use of those funds. This is a rare opportunity for Joyce to address this important funding committee.

The hearing will be webcast live at http://transportation.house.gov/

In 2009, Community Transit received $17.5 million in federal stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

$10.7 million was spent on the purchase of 23 replacement buses, which will be put into service near the end of 2010. The buses ordered are double decker buses that will go into commuter service to downtown Seattle.

$3.3 million was used for operations and preventative maintenance, which is allowed under the flexible funding formula. This helped prevent service cuts in 2009, rather than June of this year.

$3 million was used to pay the difference between hybrid buses and standard diesel for a 24-bus replacement order placed this year. This TIGGER grant will allow Community Transit to put 15 hybrid buses into local service in 2011.

$425,000 was used for redevelopment of the upper parking lot at the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center. This project was completed last month.

Personal Assistance Helps Curb Congestion

By Wendy Scholtz, Curb the Congestion Specialist


“How long would it take me to get to work by bus?”
“What’s a vanpool?”
“I’m thinking about biking when the weather’s good. How can I cross I-5?”

These are typical questions I receive as the Curb the Congestion Specialist at Community Transit.

The Curb the Congestion program is a partnership between Community Transit and Snohomish County to reduce traffic on certain congested roads: 164th Street (Lynnwood-Mill Creek), 128th Street (S. Everett-Silver Firs) and 20th Street (near Lake Stevens). The program offers personalized information and other tools to help participants make more trips by bus, carpool, vanpool, bicycling or walking instead of driving alone. Incentive prizes help motivate people to change their daily travel habits. The program is funded by Snohomish County through grants and development fees.

Over the years, I’ve been a daily bus rider, vanpooler, carpooler, bicycle commuter and walker. I’ve even been known to drive alone now and then. I love having transportation options and helping others learn about theirs. People often have opportunities they don’t know about, like a neighbor who wants to carpool or a convenient bus route. Or they may assume these options are difficult or time-consuming.

Providing personalized assistance is one of the best parts of my job. I don’t ask people to abandon driving alone altogether, but I can help them think about using a smarter mode on certain trips. With small changes, their trip to work or shopping just might become more enjoyable and affordable. And we all benefit from more efficient use of our county’s transportation system, cleaner air and less traffic congestion.

James McGavin’s story is a great example of how the program works. A physical therapist, James rides Community Transit Route 412 to a First Hill clinic in Seattle. In April, he learned that he would begin working two days a week at a Northgate clinic. James registered for Curb the Congestion and asked for help planning his commute to Northgate.

First, we examined his bus options. Since there wasn’t a direct bus, I put him in touch with vanpool groups traveling to Northgate. I also helped him use http://www.rideshareonline.com/ to find a carpool partner. The carpool works great. “We save at least half an hour each way using the HOV lanes,” he says.

James logs all his smarter trips on his online Curb the Congestion calendar. In July, he won the $1,000 quarterly incentive prize.

If you travel 164th Street, 128th Street or 20th Street, learn more and sign up at www.communitytransit.org/CurbIt.

OneBus Away Posts Community Transit Data

Kudos to the folks at OneBusAway for doing both the leg-work and head-work to procure and convert Community Transit schedule data for use in their online transit applications. While the same schedule data is available on our own website, OneBusAway has many mobile-friendly apps.

Their web-based schedule-finder makes it easy to find stops and their schedules using a Google map. Zoom in close to see all the stops in an area and select for schedule info. Here's what a co-worker had to say bout the Android app: " I have just been scrolling around the beautiful map, touching different stops and looking at available routes, 'starring' my favorite stops and routes, etc. looks great! i am even more psyched we are on there now, and i see why everyone loves it."

I did have some trouble accessing stop-based schedules using my phone or text message. Each transit agency has its own set of stop ID numbers. OneBusAway has a zip code feature to help sort out which area you are traveling in and thus which agency’s stop information you want. Apparently, I had improperly or never set my "default location," and the system thought I was in California. When I reset my location and entered a Community Transit stop # (find yours by route on Community Transit's website or posted on the bus stop itself), I heard just how many minutes until each bus route was scheduled to arrive at that stop.

Snohomish County residents and travelers also can access Sound Transit and King County Metro Transit data at OneBusAway. In the case of data from King County, it is "real-time" based on GPS input from the buses as they travel their routes. Community Transit doesn't yet have that technology, so our data on OneBusAway is identical to what you see printed online and on paper, based on schedules, not actual arrivals.

While I'm talking about cool things other people have done to make transit information more accessible, see this map of all ORCA card retail and customer service locations. It's as up-to-date as the regional ORCA website (which is to say a little behind). For a current list of outlets in Snohomish County - without maps - see our web page.