Darren Davis is the Principal Public Transport Planner at Auckland Transport (@darrendavis10) – self-described as “proudly car-free, transit nerd, big city fan, travel addict.” All of which he proved by spending his vacation travelling to ten cities in North America this last month, exploring their transit systems, gathering statistics and sharing knowledge.
So when he got to Vancouver, of course we had to hold a reception for him:
Darren is at the front on the left.
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Here is the kind of thing Darren loves to do: comparative statistics that, in this case, compare various modes of transit (bus, rail, ferry) by ridership and percent for world cities of various sizes *:
Click to enlarge.
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I asked him what he thought was worth noticing:
- Out of the 14 cities I looked at, in 10 of those cities bus ridership exceeded rail ridership. The exceptions were New York City, Paris, Sydney and Seoul.
- Rail trips are generally longer than bus trips, with in Auckland’s case rail trips being an average of 14 km versus 6.5 km by bus, so the difference in passenger kilometres isn’t as great as the difference in ridership.
- That said, one of the biases we face in transport planning is to favour longer trips in the peak because of their greater “congestion relief” benefits over shorter trips, but in reality all trips are equally important as they get someone from somewhere to somewhere else, which is really what accessibility is all about. And of course, the best trip is a trip avoided or shortened by through what Brent Toderian describes as “the power of nearness.”
- What was really obvious in my recent 10 city US and Canada trip is a clear disparity in customer amenity between, for example, a typical Canadian or US bus exchange used intensely 18 hours a day every day of the week and a typical Canadian or US commuter rail station, used intermittently for a couple of hours on weekday mornings and evenings. This fits with what I see as a general undervaluing of bus customers, especially in urban core areas.
- Of note in statistics is that even cities with well developed rapid transit systems such as London, Portland and Vancouver still have significantly more bus riders than rail riders. Those cities where rail beats bus all have extensive rail networks with frequent all-day “turn up and go” service. While rail may do the heavy lifting for longer-distance trips, bus is still often the heavy lifter for a larger number of shorter, but equally important, journeys.
Highlight for me: Two-thirds of transit trips in Vancouver are by bus, one-third by rail – just the inverse (at least) of the time we spend talking about each. As Darren says, it’s reflective of “a general undervaluing of bus customers.”
There is no city of similar size (2-3 million) that even comes close to our transit ridership. We end up comparing ourselves to the Sydney’s and San Francisco’s (which we surpass) – metro areas two or three times our size.
And while we’re at it, I notice that opposition is already building to the idea of any subway along Broadway because it’s ‘just a developers’ ploy’ to get rezonings of Metrotown-style densities along the corridor.
Folks, in terms of ridership, we’re already there:
Extraordinary Facts: Five Metrotowns on Broadway
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Coincidentally, thanks to Direct Transfer, a blog post from Urban kchoze asks, what is the right place for buses in a properly designed city? It began when the author was looking at the bus share in Japanese cities:
One thing I noticed quickly when I found a document grouping together trip surveys for many Japanese cities was how low bus mode share was, everywhere, almost never more than 10%, even in big cities often only 3 or 4% of trips were made on buses. That led me to wonder why it was so low. …
Thinking about it more, I think I have come to a conclusion that some people may not like very much: buses simply do not have a large role to play in a properly designed city. …
… a very high mode share for local buses is probably not a good sign in terms of urban planning and sustainable urbanism and likely a symptom of poor zoning and of an automobile-centered urban design that forces people to use motorized vehicles to get around even for short local trips.
The argument (with graphs!) is here.
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* Notes for chart below fold.
Belfast figure includes all Northern Ireland rail, as this figure is not separated out for inside and outside of Belfast, hence an overcount for rail.
Los Angeles figure only includes services operated by LA Metro and hence is an undercount for bus as it excludes municipal bus operators in Los Angeles County.
New York figure includes services run by the MTA, including MTA subway and bus, Staten Island Railway, Metro North and Long Island Railroad and services run by New York City Department of Transportation. Hence includes Connecticut commuter rail service to New York City but not services to, from and within New Jersey.
San Francisco figure is for the City and County of San Francisco only for MUNI-operated services, hence excludes BART journeys within San Francisco meaning an undercount for rail.
New York figure includes services run by the MTA, including MTA subway and bus, Staten Island Railway, Metro North and Long Island Railroad and services run by New York City Department of Transportation. Hence includes Connecticut commuter rail service to New York City but not services to, from and within New Jersey.
San Francisco figure is for the City and County of San Francisco only for MUNI-operated services, hence excludes BART journeys within San Francisco meaning an undercount for rail.
I’m guessing the San Francisco total is urban in some sense, because annual BART plus Muni ridership surely exceeds 300 million, not including CalTrain and other municipal bus services. By contrast, I think the Vancouver total includes all Translink boardings across the entire metropolitan service area.
The last time I looked the No. 9 bus alone was carrying 100,000 passengers a day in the Broadway corridor, comparable to the Canada Line. So yes the ridership is already there. In my view, what Broadway needs is a high speed high capacity system to essentially function like a horizontal elevator across the city to serve current and future need. Commuters would use it but it’s primary function, like the metro in Paris, is to shunt people across town quickly and in this respect, I think subway is the best long term solution for the corridor rather than light rail at grade.
Stand corrected by Gordon’s numbers on the overall passenger load in the Broadway corridor: over 100,000 total.
It would be really nice to see transit usage by percentage of trips. If Vancouver has 12-14% transit use for trips, what is the percentage for New York, San Francisco and Sydney?
Does the train percentage tend to increase in those cities with higher transit use or is it that longer established transit systems tend to use the trains more?
“And while we’re at it, I notice that opposition is already building to the idea of any subway along Broadway because it’s ‘just a developers’ ploy’ to get rezonings of Metrotown-style densities along the corridor.”
This reminds me of one of the arguments against the Point Grey bike route – that it favoured the “fat cats” who lived there by eliminating annoying traffic. It’s a strategy that seems to be carefully crafted to turn the people who would benefit the most against the project – an Orwellian kind of “doublespeak”.
Or perhaps it is just like conservatives selling the middle classes that lower taxes are the answer to all the world’s problems, while in reality the ruling elite benefits the most. It’s easy for the wealthy to make people believe that what benefits their pocketbook is some sort of social good, they’ve got deep pockets.
Gordon,
“And while we’re at it, I notice that opposition is already building to the idea of any subway along Broadway because it’s ‘just a developers’ ploy’ to get rezonings of Metrotown-style densities along the corridor.”
Yes, isn’t that the role transit plays in cities? Not just to permit todays travel but to create capacity for more travel in the future by a) having the service, which b) lifts land values by reducing valued time to jobs and housing, which c) concentrates residential, commercial and retail development along its route, with the flow on effect of d) creating highly walkable mixed-use precincts throughout the urban area.
Yes, developers will make money because governments in Canada don’t build things anymore….except car bridges.
In my lectures and conversations I have often described Broadway as being so congested that any new development is (likely) halted at the application level because of the Traffic Impact Assessment. Not even the busses can take more volume, let alone the road. Yet, new development wants to be along this corridor as it is, properly, the second downtown of Vancouver (city). Because it hasn’t been allowed to happen along Broadway (due to TIA) the jobs, taxes and benefits are going to other jurisdictions.
From an urban design sensibility, Metrotown is tragic. It is the worst case scenario for Broadway. However, Broadway is the best place for increased residential density and business activity; if not there, then where? Surrey? Lonsdale? Calgary? Edmonton? Nanaimo? The development needs to be high to maximise the limited land, with great public realm facing the corridor and with ultra low car parking ratios.
Oh, and I completely agree with the both assertion: we need more busses, busses are a symptom of bad planning.
I was just in Shanghai: subways everywhere, regional trips by bullet train, lots of walking in walkable neighbourhoods…but busses were very few.