By Tom Flanigan
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-977258.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Tallahassee's new, improved bus system got up and running Monday. Tom Flanigan reports the new StarMetro features a dozen different routes with lots of interconnecting points.
Right on time, a bus arrived near the Fresh Market on the city's Northeast Side Monday morning. A smiling StarMetro lady in a bright red shirt was there to help a passenger figure out how to reach her destination.
"You're going to get on the Forest and you're going to transfer at Appleyard and get on the Forest route and that will take you right there to Hartsfield right where Comcast is at."
There was another passenger who doesn't usually take the bus to work Tallahassee Mayor John Marks.
"Just sitting on the bus now looking outside, it really is very comfortable; very nice as opposed to driving so I expect that I'll probably use it quite a bit."
One reason the mayor may hop on board more often is that the whole system has been restructured. Instead of an a seemingly random hodge-podge of routes, there are now twelve interconnected routes with names like "Azalea", "Canopy", "Forest" and "Red Hills". All transfers used to take place at the downtown C-K Steele Bus Plaza. Now there are forty transfer points all over town. Mayor Marks says it makes the whole system much more passenger-friendly, especially for people with regular work schedules.
"It makes a lot of sense for them with set schedules, eight to five, nine to six whenever it is, and they can really take advantage of this. And not only that, we just heard from a rider before say she could take it now on lunch break from her office to someplace and have lunch."
Riding with the mayor and several reporters on this particular bus was StarMetro Director Ron Garrison. He admits there was some concern in the community about all the changes. Much of it from older riders and people with disabilities for whom the new bus stops might be farther away than they were with the old route system.
"In going out in the public and having over a hundred meetings, you know getting feedback from folks - this works, this doesn't work, have you thought about this, this is a good idea - and incorporating this into the overall plan and to make it a better system. We had to change every single StarStop, we had to do a poll survey to see where people rode the bus, we had a lot of technical things we had to do."
Among the technical things, installing special poles at each bus stop. The poles have a hexagonal cross section, so people with vision disabilities can easily identify a bus stop. While at a stop, passengers can find out by text message when the next bus is coming. Soon, there will be a special web site to help riders plan their trips. They tell the web site where they are and where they want to go, the site will prepare a customized itinerary, sort of like a Triple-A Auto Club Trip-Tik. All of this, Garrison says, to encourage more people to hop on board.
"We've looked at the metrics, not only with us, but also with consultants and then with Florida State University and their planning department and all the metrics show that over a three-year period we can get between twenty-three and thirty-percent increase in ridership over the three years."
Bottom line, Garrison says the goal is a public transit system closer to the holy grail of self sufficiency.
"What you have is the fare box recovery ratio. That's what you use to pay for your operating, okay? Most places have between eighteen and twenty percent; we average between thirty-three and thirty-six percent. When we increase ridership, that number exponentially goes up. So you hit a thirty-percent increase in ridership, you know we could end up with a forty or fifty-percent fare box recovery ratio over time."
And that, Garrison says, would make StarMetro among the very best transit systems in the country. All it takes are more people getting on the bus. To make that test-ride even more attractive, all StarMetro rides this week are free.