[Durham INC] Bull City Connector

Tue Jun 7 08:55:34 EDT 2011

Ditto.  Last night I decided to get some refrigerated items from Whole
Foods, counting on the bus leaving Duke at 9:20pm to pick me up at the Ninth
St. stop going eastbound.  At 9:20 or so there were still passengers waiting
to go westbound from in front of Whole Foods; that bus was running late.

We're not the first people to complain about this.  I had presumed getting
Triangle Transit involved in the operation would have meant better on-time
performance against the schedule....

--
Kevin Davis
ksdavis at gmail.com
www.bullcityrising.com
(919) 323-8432

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 7:11 AM, Ken Gasch <Ken at kengasch.com> wrote:

> I don't know how to get other people to ride. I do know that we would ride
> it a lot more if it was on time. Just last Friday night, my family waited 11
> minutes past the posted arrival time for a stop and just decided to walk in
> the end. We then walked the route for 5 blocks and never saw it. When it
> runs on time, we will ride it.
>
>
> print <http://www.heraldsun.com/printer_friendly/13876522#1>
>  Free bus ridership falling short
> 06.05.11 - 11:05 pm
> By Ray Gronberg
>
> gronberg at heraldsun.com; 419-6648
>
> DURHAM -- Ridership on the Durham Area Transit Authority's downtown-to-Duke
> free shuttle service has settled into a weekday average in the
> 1,400-to-1,500 range, short of the expectations backers had for it going in.
>
> The numbers have Durham officials looking for ways to better market the
> Bull City Connector, particularly to folks at Duke University and to people
> who visit downtown on nights and weekends.
>
> "The positive is that [the average count] appears to be very stable," city
> Transportation Director Mark Ahrendsen said. "Our charge is to try to make
> more people aware of how they can use the service."
>
> Officials launched the connector -- which links Duke, downtown and the
> Golden Belt business center -- last August with heavy fanfare.
>
> The idea is that riders can count on seeing one of the cantaloupe-colored
> buses pass any given stop along the Main Street corridor every 15 minutes on
> weekdays and every 20 minutes nights and Saturdays.
>
> Grant money, subsidies from Duke University and revenue from
> vehicle-registration fees are helping pay the shuttle's annual operating
> expenses.
>
> When they launched it last August, officials said they were hoping the
> connector would be serving 1,125 riders a day after a month, 1,575 riders a
> day after six months and 2,035 riders a day after a year.
>
> Ridership growth met the one-month target, but it fell short of the
> six-month mark and as of mid-May wasn't on track to hit the one-year goal.
>
> The average boarding counts grew steadily from the connector's Aug. 16
> launch until just before Thanksgiving, when they slumped. The numbers stayed
> down through the holidays, only beginning to climb again after the start of
> the new year.
>
> But it took until late January and early February for the average to make
> up for the lost ground. Since then, it's held fairly steady around the
> 1,400-a-day mark, though the general trend remains modestly upward.
>
> From talking to riders, it seems clear that there's a disconnect between
> general awareness that DATA operates the connector and specific knowledge of
> how the shuttle works, Durham Public Affairs Director Beverly Thompson said.
>
> "There are some people who don't know it's free, they don't know what the
> schedules are, or where it takes them exactly," she said. "People know
> there's a Bull City Connector, but they're not sure what it does or what the
> service is. We have to figure out how to bridge that."
>
> Saturday ridership is more prone to fluctuations than the weekday average,
> but usually runs somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the weekday count.
> Ahrendsen said the Saturday highs tend to coincide with special events at
> Duke and in downtown.
>
> The single-day peak for boardings on the connector came on April 14, a
> Thursday, when drivers reported serving 1,892 riders.
>
> The spring run-up in gasoline prices didn't seem to have any drastic impact
> on the numbers, at least none clearly different from the changes that came
> after the holidays as people got back into their normal routines.
>
> Other transit providers in the area, Triangle Transit most notably, have
> reported increases in ridership this spring that they think were a response
> to the rise in gas prices.
>
> The ridership numbers were current as of May 14. Ahrendsen's staff keeps
> track of the counts and from time to time forwards a spreadsheet containing
> them to higher-ups in city government.
>
> The connector all told had served 267,490 riders from Aug. 16 to May 14.
>
> Ahrendsen said officials "are comfortable with the service in how it's
> currently provided," meaning that they think its routing and schedule are
> right.
>
> City officials are convinced they can secure more riders among Duke
> faculty, staff and students, in part because parking on campus is both
> limited and costly. They also think their counterparts at Duke will help
> with marketing because the school long-term would like to avoid the costs
> associated with building more parking decks.
>
> The shuttle helps link the campus to Duke operations based downtown.
>
> The other growth opportunity city officials see is in convincing more
> residents and visitors to Durham to use the service to get to restaurants,
> clubs and other social hotspots downtown.
>
> Thompson said her staff will work with officials at Duke and Triangle
> Transit to plan the revised marketing effort. They hope to have a plan
> together in a month, so they can be ready when most students at Duke and
> N.C. Central University return in August.
> © heraldsun.com 2011
>
> Ken Gasch
> REALTOR, Seagroves Realty
> Contractor, TurnLight Partners, Ltd.
>
> C: 919.475.8866
> F: 866.229.4267
>
> www.KenGasch.com
>
> Follow my latest restoration at http://wheelerhouse.blogspot.com/
>
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