More Why People Don't Use Transit

My brother-in-law, who lives in Boulder, comes to the DC area three or four times a year on business, so we like to get together for dinner while he is in town.  Today's the day.  He's teaching a course in the Springfield area, and we decided to meet him in Shirlington at 6:30 this evening and choose one of the many fine restaurants once we are there.

My wife is attending a seminar today at 2400 N Street NW in DC, which she traveled to by Metrorail.  I suggested to her that rather than come home first at the end of the day, she go directly to Shirlington and just meet us there.  Neither of us has used transit to get to Shirlington from DC, but I'm savvy, so I know I could use the Metro trip planner to get her there.

So I did, and as usual it gave me three options:
1) Foggy Bottom Metro at 5:51 (Blue line); transfer at Crystal City to the 23A; arrive Shirlington 6:27 (36 minutes)
2) Foggy Bottom Metro at 5:49 (Orange line); transfer at Ballston to the 23A; arrive Shirlington 6:26 (37 minutes)
3) Foggy Bottom Metro at 5:46 (Blue line); transfer at Crystal City to the 23A; arrive Shirlington 6:27 (41 minutes).  This one's not another option!  It's the same bus as #1, just an earlier train.

None of these is the best choice, though.  Being familiar with the area and our transit system, I was pretty certain that there are buses from the Pentagon to Shirlington.  Lo and behold, there are.  In fact, I learned that she could catch a bus direct from the Pentagon to Shirlington at 5:59, 6:02, 6:07, 6:15 (2 choices of bus) or 6:25.  This is clearly the preferred choice--for two reasons.  First, it's fastest (how come the metro planner failed to find this choice?).  She can catch the train at Foggy Bottom at 6:03 and arrive in Shirlington at 6:27 (24 minutes).  Second--and more importantly, it's way more flexible--if she misses her bus, it's a short wait for the next one.  With the Metro Planner, if she misses the 6:10 at Crystal City, it's a 30-minute wait for the next bus.

All of this took me a good 10-15 minutes and a high-speed Internet connection to figure out.  I'm not even sure if there might be some other good options that I missed (the Way to Go Interactive Shirlington map does not even show the 7E or 7C routes stopping in  Shirlington Village).  The larger point being that if we want people to use transit, it has to be way, way simpler.  If people have to be an expert before they even get started, then they will just hop in their cars. 

Let me assure you that if I had given her the Metro Planner options (or she had done it herself and not known to look for a Pentagon option) and she missed the bus by a minute or two, I would never get her to do it again.  She would either drive or take a taxi.  Or more likely, she would leave her seminar early, come home first and then drive with us to Shirlington, an hour-long exercise rather than 24 minutes.

So I instructed her to go the Pentagon and catch the 7C or the 7E.  I had to write it down, though, because the  7A, 7B, 7D, 7F, 7H, 7P, 7W and 7X don't go there or aren't running or something.  Why are there 10 different 7's?  Just to make it harder on passengers?  I'll rant on that on a different post.
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Steve Offutt, Arlington resident and Director - Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions (AIRE), Transportation Projects

Comments

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[Lawrence]

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[Bob Sweet]

There is just too much unsaid information that is necessary for a complete trip. An example is that if you didn't know that the flickering lights at the station means the train is coming, you never would know it because it isn't said anywhere that I have seen. My wife had someone tell her and she in turn told me. Another is that if you are not completely aware of the towns or stops in the general direction you want to go there is going to be another problem. I haven't even talked about the maintenance problems. The only time I take the METRO is when time isn't a huge item in my day. There is just no way you can judge how long it is going to take. I used to joke that one stop or 50 stops, it would take an hour. It gotten better, but lately, it's going backward again. One more really annoying thing, who did the layout for the stops that have the incoming and outgoing people crossing in front of each other?!! I just hope I never get stuck at either Bethesda or the Hospital exit when those darn elevators do their magic and break down. I'm a senior and still work and there is just no way I could negotiate that mess. By the way, no matter what you say, the bus option at the stations just do not work....I say again, they do not work!! Just too hard to predict the time factor to make it worth while.

[James]

You know I think this may be an issue of the audience of the Metro Trip planner. It is not really geared towards experienced commuters.

Imagine if, for example, tourists started to try an use Bus routes (other than the circulater)?

There is still a stigma associated with Bus transport. It was clearly easy for you to find out the quickest route because you like many in the area are seasoned public transport users. As for the others, they stick to Metro, which is what the trip planner spit out.

www.dcmetrocentric.com

James

[Commuter182]

There are TWELVE route 16 bus lines, on three different schedules:

Columbia Heights West - Pentagon City Line (16K, 16G, 16H, 16W)

Columbia Pike Line (16F, 16J, 16E, 16A, 16L, 16B, 16D)

Columbia Pike-Farragut Square Line (16Y)

Metro is doing a great job of keeping tourists and other out of towners confused. Heck, they're doing a wonderful job on us native Washingtonians as well.

Guess Metro thinks having to use 3 digit bus route numbers like Fairfax Connector will confuse people, so repeating numbers with letters works out much better, right?

[Joe]

There really are ten different Metrobus 7 routes! I thought Steve was exaggerating until I checked. Even with a route map and plenty of time to study, it would be difficult to be sure that you're getting on the right bus. And if you get off track on the bus, you don't have the flexibility that you have with a car to find your way back.

If you do figure out where a given bus goes, you can't be sure that it will still work the same way in six months. The people operating the bus systems keep tweaking the routes and schedules. The goal is to provide better service, but changes, especially changes that make a route more complex, create uncertainty. Metrorail is so successful because it's simple, the tracks never move, the trains never leave the track, and it runs frequently enough that the schedule doesn't matter. (Unless you miss the last train.)

One hopeful note -- there IS room for improvement in tools like Metro's Trip Planner, and if the tools can be improved, perhaps taking the bus for non-commuting trips will become more practical.

[A]

I'm hoping Google Transit gets support for DC routes soon http://www.google.com/transit

[Fritz]

Is driving in unfamiliar cities "easy" or "trivial" also? We're used to driving around in circles, lost and confused and don't make a big deal about it except to make jokes about male unwillingness to ask for directions.

When it's like this on public transit, however, it's "IT'S SO FRUSTRATING I'LL NEVER USE IT AGAIN!" The level of inconvenience or time lost might be similar, but we think of it as acceptable for driving but unacceptably frustrating for transit.

A big blocker for most people is probably fear of the unknown. Occasional trips like in your example probably aren't the best case -- mass transit is for regular commutes, and regular commuters have a set schedule. Once you figure it out, it just becomes part of the routine, just like driving does.

Another big blocker, of course, is inflexibility. I can't hit the snooze button -- if I do, I miss my bus, which means I miss my train connection, which means I miss my work shuttle. That 10 minutes of extra snooze results in me getting to work nearly an hour later.

[Tyler]

I completely agree with you on the Trip Planner having major deficiencies. I live in Shirlington, so I am very familiar with the situation that you went through.

I was trying to get from Shirlington into the city the other day the fastest way, so I used the planner and it didn't show me the 7 route either. Very confusing! Luckily I knew what to do to get around that.

We have a good system here in DC, it's just a matter of making it a little more user friendly...

[Commuter 182]

"The larger point being that if we want people to use transit, it has to be way, way simpler. If people have to be an expert before they even get started, then they will just hop in their cars."

The fact that one needs so much information to use transit for trips other the usual commute is a major stumbling block. That even an authoritative source such as Metro's Trip Planner could not come up with the optimal route in Steve's example proves this point.

Unfortunately, making transit simple and user friendly is a tough challenge, as outlined under the section "Additional Factors" in this oft-cited URL about the subject:

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/MassTransit.HTM

Trying to make public transit a comparable substitute to the private automobile in all or even most situations and times may require expending so much effort and resources that it could end up being seriously cost-ineffective.

Instead, maybe we should try our best to make public transportation supplement, rather than necessarily supplant driving. Transit provides the much needed ability to move large numbers of additional people during and despite rush hour congestion, in the form of subways running underground and commuter buses traveling down HOV lanes. High occupancy per vehicle and dedicated rights of way are transit's advantages, which we should play to. But we should avoid playing to transit's weaknesses, which include fixed and inflexible routes, frequent stops, high cost to move relatively small numbers of people outside of rush hour, travel time required,
(compared to cars outside of rush hour), and per today's example, the amount of knowledge and information (bus schedules) required to plan an effective trip. Depending on the origin, time, and destination, an EFFICIENT trip is often not even possible by transit.

Appreciate transit's strengths and recognize its weaknesses. And if it's not rush hour and you're not going to some place with known congestion and/or difficult/expensive parking, why shouldn't you drive?