Back up transportation modes

[S. Arlington Observer]

Here is a question for the planning/infrastructure geeks.

I bike to and from work almost every work day. But on rainy days like today I take a bus for at least one of the legs of my round trip. (As I did today, I will sometimes put my bike on the bus rack in the rain in hopes of riding home. And, sometimes I have the bike at work and put it on the rack in the evening if rain develops during the day.)

Having alternatives is what makes biking truly feasible for all but the most hardy (who will ride in the rain regardless.) It is a great benefit to have the backup mode of transportation. But, I wonder if I am really doing all that much to help reduce the need for bus infrastructure if I still need it to backstop me in the event of bad weather. After all, the alternative infrastructure (the bus system) still has to be in place if I want to rely on it — even occasionally.

While biking is good for ME, is there any way I can say it is doing much to take the load off public transportation when, in fact, I still rely on public transportation when weather requires it? It makes me feel not very green or helpful knowing that the bus is still running every day while I pedal – at least partially so I can grab it when I need to.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@S. Arlington Observer 127678 wrote:

Here is a question for the planning/infrastructure geeks.

I bike to and from work almost every work day. But on rainy days like today I take a bus for at least one of the legs of my round trip. (As I did today, I will sometimes put my bike on the bus rack in the rain in hopes of riding home. And, sometimes I have the bike at work and put it on the rack in the evening if rain develops during the day.)

Having alternatives is what makes biking truly feasible for all but the most hardy (who will ride in the rain regardless.) It is a great benefit to have the backup mode of transportation. But, I wonder if I am really doing all that much to help reduce the need for bus infrastructure if I still need it to backstop me in the event of bad weather. After all, the alternative infrastructure (the bus system) still has to be in place if I want to rely on it — even occasionally.

While biking is good for ME, is there any way I can say it is doing much to take the load off public transportation when, in fact, I still rely on public transportation when weather requires it? It makes me feel not very green or helpful knowing that the bus is still running every day while I pedal – at least partially so I can grab it when I need to.

I’m not sure I understand…are you saying you feel guilty because you’re creating a “need” for the bus system because you use it occasionally, and you’d prefer that we didn’t have to have a bus system at all?

[S. Arlington Observer]

@TwoWheelsDC 127679 wrote:

I’m not sure I understand…are you saying you feel guilty because you’re creating a “need” for the bus system because you use it occasionally, and you’d prefer that we didn’t have to have a bus system at all?

I definitely love the bus system, which I used in various capacities weekly. It was just a sad realization that bicycling most days does nothing to actually reduce the need for other modes of transportation. I do think that multiple modes of transportation are an important lifestyle and well being tools for a community.

[Steve O]

@S. Arlington Observer 127678 wrote:

Here is a question for the planning/infrastructure geeks.

While biking is good for ME, is there any way I can say it is doing much to take the load off public transportation when, in fact, I still rely on public transportation when weather requires it? It makes me feel not very green or helpful knowing that the bus is still running every day while I pedal – at least partially so I can grab it when I need to.

The better way of looking at this is to think of transportation, in total, as a system. The more viable options that are fast, safe, comfortable, reliable, green and cost-effective, the better it serves everyone. In the US, we tend to think of each “mode” as somehow independent of the others. In fact, one of the “reasons” Metro recently cited regarding its declining ridership is increasing biking, particularly with CaBi. But if the point of a transportation system is to help people get around, then Metro should not be competing with CaBi. Higher powers should fund transportation as a system to meet these ultimate objectives (fast, safe, comfortable, reliable, green, cost-effective, etc.) for the population as a whole. The fact that the bus system serves you in a particular way and someone else in a different way actually proves that the system is working, at least a little.

[KLizotte]

You probably wouldn’t bike quite as much if you didn’t have the bus available for such emergencies/one way trips. I’ve never taken my bike on the bus but I’m glad the “insurance policy” is there if I ever need it. Plus buses and metro provide options for folks who only want to bike in warm, dry weather. Lastly, as someone who has been injured during biking, sometimes those alternative modes become invaluable while one is healing and cannot ride.

[S. Arlington Observer]

I really like the holistic model. On some days I get around by bus, bike, metro and walking (four modes). Having such options is what makes living here special. Bus availability really does encourage me to bike. (for example, I might have forgone it yesterday morning if I was not assured I could put the bike on the bus in the evening when the showers arrived.) And the combination of the two (buses and bike paths) keeps me out of my automobile for weeks at a time.

Also, in pondering this, I realized that, for those whose alternative is a motor vehicle, each day of cycling does reduce the pollution footprint on THAT DAY.

[dasgeh]

I have met the enemy, and he is the car. Cars (particularly single occupancy vehicles or SOVs) are bad for transportation demand (they take up a lot of space while moving and while parked); bad for the environment (duh); bad for public health (people aren’t moving); bad for public safety (see, e.g., fatalities of people outside of cars due to cars); bad for community development (people in tin boxes don’t talk to each other); etc; etc; etc

However, cars help get us around long distance, in a way that’s accessible and comfortable to lots of people.

So any system of transportation that makes moving people around in ways other than more attractive than using SOVs is a better system. Realistically, the way we live, that’s going to be a mix of walk, bike, bus and rail.

[Anonymous]

@S. Arlington Observer 127678 wrote:

While biking is good for ME, is there any way I can say it is doing much to take the load off public transportation when, in fact, I still rely on public transportation when weather requires it? It makes me feel not very green or helpful knowing that the bus is still running every day while I pedal – at least partially so I can grab it when I need to.

Ok, how frequently the bus is going to run is presumably going to depend on how much it’s used. But they’re not going to increase the number of buses that run to accommodate one extra person once a month or so, right? It takes much more demand than that to get an extra bus.

So, guess how many rides per week you think it might take to get an extra bus added to your route’s schedule. Let’s say you guess 100– if an extra 100 bus rides per week are added to the demand on your route, WMATA will add one extra bus to accommodate the extra demand. IF you took the bus every day, both ways, you’d be adding 10 rides per week to the system, or all by yourself would be 1/10th of the way to another bus– nine more of you gets an extra bus. If instead you take the bus one way, one day per week, you are adding 1 ride per week of demand to the system, and it will take 99 more of you to get another bus added to the system.

Does that help?

It’s the same reasoning (I think, I haven’t thought this through all that carefully) that says we probably each ought to recycle instead of just throwing everything in the garbage to head to the landfill, even though we can’t recycle *everything*. Yes, we still need landfills and garbage collection trucks, in part to accommodate the portion of my garbage that doesn’t get recycled. And no, my personal diversion of garbage-to-recycling doesn’t really do much to decrease the overall demand for landfill space, and the garbage truck comes every week regardless of how big my pile is. But me plus other people all diverting some of our garbage to recycling does make a difference in aggregate. Probably. Or so I like to imagine.

[brookeewhite]

Sometimes I wonder what effect rain has on people’s commuting choices, and ultimately road traffic and subway congestion. There’s probably someone who has studied this and charged WMATA for the information. For every person who normally bikes but takes a bus in the rain, there might be another person who normally takes the bus and instead takes subway or drives. (If so, this would make the bus ridership impact nil.) Then there are people with ultra flexible workplaces that can take the day off or telework when they don’t want to go out in the weather. Again, I don’t know the actual figures for any of these, just something that makes me curious, and something I think about when leaving for work in the morning… Which way is going to be the least crowded and fastest on a rainy day like today?

[Steve O]

@brookeewhite 127722 wrote:

Sometimes I wonder what effect rain has on people’s commuting choices

At least for biking in Arlington, there is a rich data set from the counters.
http://www.bikearlington.com/pages/biking-in-arlington/counting-bikes-to-plan-for-bikes/counter-dashboard/
Just correlate with weather data.

[GovernorSilver]

@Steve O 127733 wrote:

At least for biking in Arlington, there is a rich data set from the counters.
http://www.bikearlington.com/pages/biking-in-arlington/counting-bikes-to-plan-for-bikes/counter-dashboard/
Just correlate with weather data.

I last rode over 14th St. Bridge on 11/5, yet the counter is 0 for that day (midnight to 11:59 PM). I was passed by 3 cyclists in the morning. Count should have been at least 5.

[Steve O]

@GovernorSilver 127736 wrote:

I last rode over 14th St. Bridge on 11/5, yet the counter is 0 for that day (midnight to 11:59 PM). I was passed by 3 cyclists in the morning. Count should have been at least 5.

Yes, it seems a number of them are not working right now – zeros. Same with some out in my neighborhood.

[brookeewhite]

Yeah, the ones near Custis and Key bridge only showed 2 for yesterday… Which is hard to fathom… It was raining and not a lot of bikes, but I was out there and it’s hard to believe there was only one other cyclist all day long.

[Author]

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