Why You Can't Have Bus Service

Sometimes our neighbors oppose more housing in our neighborhoods because they fear the traffic impacts, claiming that public transportation service isn’t sufficient to serve all the new neighbors who might want to use it to satisfy their mobility needs.

But as Julio Gonzalez Altamirano writes, they have it backwards. More people (and more jobs and shopping) in a neighborhood are what make transit viable and efficient.

"Low density communities cost a lot more to serve with bus. It’s not just that the bus has to travel longer distances from job centers and key destinations to your community. It’s mostly that transit users typically walk to their stop and wait for service. The potential ridership ‘market’ for a bus stop are all of the people that live within a walkable radius of that stop (about 0.25 to 0.4 miles).

If very few people live within that walkable radius, the ridership is low for those service hours. If you live in a residential neighborhood that predominantly consists of single-family homes with car garages, your bus stops won’t generate as much ridership as a residential community with a mix of single family, abundant duplexes, and many apartments. And if your neighborhood is not dense, there’s a chance its sidewalk grid is winding or non-existent, making matters even worse."

“A better option is to promote pockets of transit-supportive density, especially in your community. You should also encourage the City Council and County Commissioners appoint representatives to CapMetro that are assertive in prioritizing low per-rider subsidies. Once your community has a competitive level of density to generate good ridership, you’ll have the moral authority and the math to back up your request for additional service.”

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Good points, if the people aren’t just using the lack of service as an excuse to stay low-density.