An Opportunity to Improve Madison’s Bus System
Good Plans Include Options Despite adding $40 to the Vehicle Registration Fee (VRF or "wheel tax") of Madison residents in the Fall of 2019 to supposedly improve transit, the mayor dictated that there be only one redesign plan, and that the plan use the pre-VRF funding level to operate both the new bus rapid transit line (BRT) and the older local bus system. Consultants provided alternatives for what that one plan might ultimately look like but could not produce more than one plan. They probably knew that it is standard practice in the democratic world for plans of this scale to have options because they did provide options when recently helping Cleveland in the redesign of its bus system.
Actually, the 2019-level mandate might be disingenuous. Consider the follow-up survey question to the draft plan:
4. If Metro Transit had additional money they could use to expand service, what is the ONE improvement you think they should invest in FIRST from the following list? 1) More service after midnight; 2) More frequent weekend service; 3) More frequent evening service; 4) More frequent service at peak or rush hours; 5) Routes to more places, anytime service is running; 6) Routes to more places, at peak or rush hours specifically; 7) Something else (please specify)
How is having "additional money" consistent with limiting plans to the 2019 funding level?Misuse of the "Frequency is Freedom" Concept Despite selling its ridership alternative by arguing that its frequency would provide freedom, what the alternative actually produced was quite disappointing. Some feel they were deceived. The redesign plan does not increase service frequency outside a handful of core routes. Most lines still only run every 30 minutes (often still reduced to every 60 minutes on weekends and late evenings). Although some outlying areas actually see an improvement, there is no improvement in most neighborhoods, and in some, a significant downgrade.
This outcome is as much (or more) a product of the budgetary situation as the routes themselves. The proposed maps could be the backbone of a high-frequency system, but without funding, we're stuck with something that isn't much better--and in some cases significantly worse--than the status quo.
True Equity Does Not Over-Use "Separate but Equal" Paratransit Transportation planning staff does not seem to realize just how expensive, and what a step backwards it is for everyone, that relying on paratransit for disabled people is. Metro's own 2019 Annual Report estimated per ride paratransit average operating costs at $46.10 compared to $3.85 for a regular (“fixed-route”) bus ride. Madison once seemed to understand that mainstreaming, rather than “separate but equal” segregation made moral and economic sense. Madison modified buses for handicapped accessibility; insisted the Transit and Parking Commission always had a disabled person as a voting member (not the case now with the Transportation Policy and Planning Board); and additionally had an advisory ADA Transit Subcommittee. Only people who still could not ride the mainline services used paratransit.
Further, though Madison's Civil Rights department has a division dedicated to Disability Rights, and the city's Metro Forward blueprint's number one goal is to "expand accessibility and service" for all, it nevertheless curiously forgets its history: Madison Metro had actually started "elderly and handicapped" services before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed over thirty years ago. The new transit system's purported goal, to improve social equity, ends up pitting natural allies against each other when it narrowly defines accessibility in terms of race and income, but forgets disabled people who will struggle greatly with increased distances to bus stops, crossing busy streets, and navigating steep inclines.
Good Transit and Efficient Land Use Go Hand in Hand Madison anticipates adding over 70,000 people and 37,000 jobs in the next 20 years but without using much additional land. This requires that more travel be via carpool, transit, bicycling and walking, and that the shift be reflected in the city's transportation budget.
"Infill" development -- the process of developing vacant or under-used parcels within existing urban areas that are already largely developed -- is key but would only get minimal service under redesign plans. On the west side examples that will get peak-hour only service include an area on Odana Rd., a new infill development proposed on Speedway Rd. and growing dense developments west of High Point. The state owns large areas of land between Park St. and Fish Hatchery that could be developed into affordable housing, yet the redesign would entirely eliminate any nearby transit (the local #4), requiring a long walk to the BRT on Park St.
A redesign for the next 30 years should reflect the fact that Madison has grown way beyond having a focus on downtown or the University. Transit routes should encourage development along arterials such as Highway 51 or Gammon Rd., with local routes that connect riders to both a BRT line that gets them across town rapidly, and also to more nearby employment locations, a diversity of housing options (including affordable housing), health and education centers, grocery stores and other shops and services.
Conclusion Madison has needed a redesign of its transit system for years. When plans for Transport 2020 fell through, Madison's mayor budgeted over a half million dollars in 2012 for a plan to redesign transit. A decade later we may finally have a plan, only initially at least, it is a plan without options, that is based on misleading people about their "frequency is freedom" ridership alternative, that takes us backward in its understanding of equity, and that does not coordinate land use needs with transit.
We also have been given the skeleton of what could be an amazing plan, if more funds could go to putting flesh on those bones. We are constantly being told that we cannot afford a full bodied transit system, but we have the money. We are just not being told the honest truth of how our transportation money is being spent. Give us the choice. What if we opted for a transit system that at once included Bus Rapid Transit, applied true notions of access, equity and frequency, and coordinated with land use plans that stressed infill, efficiency and environmental sustainability? Madison needs to reprioritize its transportation budget so sufficient funds go to transit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The author is grateful for the review and suggestions of Jonathan Mertzig and Stanley Jackson but remains fully responsible for the contents of this piece.
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