Some 50,000 Seattle transit riders use the popular OneBusAway bus-tracking program per week says creator Brian Ferris, a graduate student who’ll finish up his work at the University of Washington shortly, and head off to work at Google Transit.
That last news has created consternation in about 50,000 hearts, as it’s not clear what will become of OneBusAway once Ferris departs. On his blog, Ferris tries to allay concerns:
…we’re not pulling the plug on OneBusAway the day I graduate. OneBusAway is NOT “abandoning Seattle“. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure the lights stay on and while I can’t say exactly what that will look like at this time, know that there are a number of options on the table and I’m confident we’ll find a solution going forward.
Ironically, when GeekWire reported that Portland had won out over Seattle as a test monkey for live transit updates, I breezily dismissed the news, since (as their story notes) we already have OneBusAway, and that’s about as good as it gets until Metro can install more modern, bus-centric tracking equipment, a process perhaps hindered by all the budget slashing of late.
When I spoke to Metro chief Kevin Desmond in 2009, he told me the first GPS bus would hit the road in late spring of 2010 and all would be newly outfitted by 2011. (I’m checking in with him now about a progress update.)
As for Ferris, he drops a few hints about what the future may bring: “My goal is that some day soon, you’ll be getting all your transit info from Google,” he writes.
And before I leave for Google this summer, I’m doing everything I can to make sure Puget Sound transit agencies are putting their best foot forward in terms of providing the data that powers service like OneBusAway and Google Transit. I won’t say too much about that now, but in case you doubt my conviction, know that I’ll be defending my dissertation and going through new employee orientation at King County Metro less than 24 hours apart.
This moment, interestingly, was foreseen by Desmond in that interview he gave. The question of whether or not Metro should try to “own” software solutions so that riders weren’t left to the whim of the market is obviously a live one. On the other hand, the OneBusAway code is open source, so there is always the option of simply handing the baton forward to one or more interested parties.
A trolley bus in action, captured by our Flickr pool's smohundro on film
King County Metro Transit has been kicking bus-power tires, trying to decide whether or not to stick with its fleet of 159 electric trolley buses as they near the end of their useful lives, and need to be replaced over the course of 2013 to 2014.
The trolley buses run through Seattle, 14 routes along nearly 70 miles of overhead electrified wire, and in 2010, Seattle’s Department of Transportation was pushing Metro to adopt diesel hybrids [UPDATE: SDOT writes to say: “SDOT has very clearly opposed any plan that would replace electric trolleys with diesel/diesel hybrid buses, without exception,” and clarifies that the notion of switching was all Metro’s] instead, after a quick-and-dirty audit seemed to show that electrics were more expensive. (The annual cost worked out to Hybrid bus: $141,878 per year vs. Trolley: $177,318.)
This idea met with an immediate popular outcry, as the electric trolley buses are much quieter than the diesel-powered hybrids, and unsurprisingly, smell less like diesel exhaust. Thankfully, we live in Seattle, where a new study to contradict the old study is just a wish away. The King County Council asked Metro for a full cost analysis, and the preliminary findings lean heavily in favor of electric trolleys, as you might expect if you have checked diesel prices lately.
The transit wonks at Seattle Transit Blog underscore one clear area of high performance: “On environmental criteria, the trolleybuses came out ahead on every metric except visual impact. As Seattle City Light’s energy comes mostly from hydro, the Carbon footprint was much smaller.”
But what happened to the conclusion of last year’s audit: “Transit could save $8.7 million per year by replacing the trolley buses with hybrid diesel/electric buses, through cost and scheduling efficiencies”?
It turns out that that audit skipped over a few details, explains Metro’s Chris O’Claire. For starters, it left out the cost of decommissioning the electric system (removing wires and changing out transformers), and it turns out that to handle the extra diesel hybrids, Metro would have to add fueling stations (estimated at around $5 million alone). For maintenance costs, the audit relied on Metro’s current fleet’s costs, whereas for the new study, Metro built off the maintenance costs from other transit systems using new trolley buses.
If you look more closely at all the costs, then, you get the chart below:
Cost comparison from Metro's 2011 study
But even better, as the Slog notes, new electric trolleys would come with a power assist so that they can briefly go off-wire, and bypass anything that’s stuck in front of them. That tendency for trolleys to stack up powerlessly counted against them in last year’s audit; with the new buses, it wouldn’t.
Metro hasn’t decided on a generator or battery at this point, says O’Claire–a diesel generator could provide as much as 20 to 30 miles of off-wire travel, but Metro estimates that a mile to a mile and a half is all that would be needed. Even if a whole segment of wire goes down, 90 percent of the system’s circuits are within a mile of each other, so the bus could travel wirelessly until it reached a working power source again.
To learn more about the study, and add your comments, as it’s still in progress, you’re invited to stop by a King County Metro Transit open house on Wednesday, April 27, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Hildebrand Hall at Plymouth Congregational Church (1217 Sixth Ave., Seattle). Once a decision is made, and after the county approves the budget in November 2011, Metro can begin the actual bus procurement process in 2012.
Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.
Paris Metro (Photo: Chloe Lodge, http://www.chloelodge.com)
I’m a Paris metro enthusiast. It’s probably as close to a perfect mode of transportation as it gets; it’s reliable, fast, covers the entire city, and provides me with endless free accordion entertainment. I’ll miss the ease of the metro when I return to Seattle and am either forced back into a car or forced onto light rail, which from what I hear goes to three helpful places and a bunch of useless ones.
For the rest of our time here, I’m going to fully enjoy my cushy European public transportation. But when I get home, I’ve decided to focus on the negative aspects of the Paris metro so I don’t feel so sad about no longer having it. Such as:
1. You get sick, all the time.
After you’ve stepped into a metro car, someone will immediately cough and/or sneeze in your face. By the time you get off, you will have three different kinds of flu, pinkeye, and some complimentary E. coli on your hands because you opted to hold onto the bar instead of being tossed into a group of German tourists when you rounded a curve.
2. In the summer, you bake like a miserable little muffin.
In the hottest days of summer, metro trains and tunnels become ovens where people lose their minds and turn on each other like rabid dogs. I once passed an angry, sweaty American woman in a metro tunnel in the middle of August. She was screaming after her husband, who was twenty steps ahead carrying all their bags, “WHY CAN’T WE JUST TAKE A F@#!!*G CAB AND STOP LIVING THIS GODDAMN F@#$!!*G NIGHTMARE YOU F!@#!!*G MORON!!?” I sure hope they enjoyed their dream vacation to Paris.
Paris Metro (Photo: Chloe Lodge, http://www.chloelodge.com)
3. The smells, my god, the smells.
On their best days, the metro tunnels smell like an underarm peeing on a foot. I don’t want to talk about the other days.
4. If you have small children with you, nervous breakdown is imminent.
It’s not just the danger of falling off the platform; there are other things of which to be fearful. For instance, my four-year-old son once jumped into the trough that runs along the back wall of most metro platforms. No one really knows what the darkish liquid is in the troughs, but everyone would probably agree it isn’t good, and it probably came from human bodies, and it isn’t something in which to frolic with joyful abandon.
Another thing to be apprehensive of is “the kid sandwich.” I’ve seen it often–a parent runs to catch the train, dragging their kid behind by the hand. The parent makes it in the car but BAM, the kid gets stuck between the closing doors. The kid cries, other riders help pry open the doors, and then they yell angry things at the dipshit dad. (Strange, but it’s usually a dipshit dad. Rarely does a dipshit mom make a kid sandwich. Discuss.)
With little kids, there’s also the stroller issue. Sometimes there are doors at metro turnstiles through which you can pass your stroller easily, but sometimes there are not. Once, coming back from a day at my own personal hell on earth, Eurodisney, my husband, Alex, tried to push our stroller through the automatic doors at the metro exit. It didn’t fit. He backed up and, walking a little faster, rammed the stroller unsuccessfully into the door frame again. Then he tried a third time because he’s insane.
A man coming into the station from the other side generously offered to “catch” the stroller if Al wanted to pass it over the turnstile doors. As most people probably know, French men are not the bulkiest. As Al hoisted the stroller up over his head, it looked like he was about to toss a load of bricks onto a toothpick. Thankfully, the stroller didn’t fit over the top, so we didn’t have to see that nice man crumpled on the ground. We eventually folded the damn thing and shoved it through the doors, but after all that we had many bruises and many enemies.
Paris Metro (Photo: Chloe Lodge, http://www.chloelodge.com)
5. If you’re using the metro to get to the train station or airport for a fun vacation, you will second-guess your desire to ever leave your apartment.
See number four above, then add a few suitcases.
Alex once charged through a turnstile with two huge suitcases, one in front of him and one behind. Al sometimes believes something is going to work just because he really wants it to. Unfortunately for him, Paris metro turnstiles don’t give a crap what he wants.
The kids and I stood back a safe distance and watched it unfold. Alex was stuck between the two bags in between the turnstile and the door thingie for a nice long time. He pushed and squirmed and grunted and turned very red in the face. Just as I started explaining to the kids they were going to get a new daddy now, he climbed over a suitcase and hopped back towards us. We wrestled the bags back underneath the turnstile and voila!–none of us had made any progress whatsoever towards our train.
6. You get hit in the face with lots of things.
A side effect of most people not owning cars in Paris is they have to carry home everything they buy, which is occasionally a large or awkwardly shaped item. The biggest thing I’ve been smacked in the face with on the metro is a stepladder. There was also once an ironing board. The most common item to be hit in the face with is a baguette, but that’s OK because if you time it just right, you can grab a bite as it swings past your face.
There are more, of course, but that’s all I’ve got for now. Do you feel better about being stuck in your car on the viaduct now? (You really shouldn’t, get off that horrible thing, get off it now.)
