I spent a couple decades of my life driving transit buses in various places. I can tell you one thing for sure, transit riders are easy to please. They only want 2 things. Reliable transportation and courteous service. Rider's don't want tour guides or stand up comedians, they just want to be treated with some measure of respect and left alone. They want to be picked up when the schedule says so and dropped off when the schedule says so. If a transit district cannot provide reliable service then people will abandon it, except for the ones that have no other options.
Ridership is way up across America, ridership at Trimet is down. Why is Trimet losing ridership while most of the other cities (including Seattle) are seeing such huge gains? Only one answer:bad management.
• New York City MTA subways, up 1.82%
• Los Angeles MTA heavy rail, up 3.70%
• Chicago elevated trains, up 4.32%
• Ann Arbor, Michigan, buses, up 6.6%
• Canton, Ohio, overall, up 9%
• Lewisville, Texas (northwest of Dallas), overall up by 11%
• Nashville, Tennessee, overall up 6.8%
• Phoenix light rail, up 6.7%
• Riverside, California, overall up 8%
• Seattle, overall up 12%
• Utah commuter rail up 14.74%; light rail up 14.73%
Commuters give up the 'ball and chain' - CNN.com
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