Raise the Hammer

Great article, Sean. I share your frustration.

A telling comment that I heard from Wednesday's Council meeting re: the bus lane was Judi Partridge saying that she "takes care of HER residents and has not heard any positive feedback about the bus-only lane". Whaaat? Since when are councillors supposed to myopically focus on only their own ward to the exclusion of anything else in the entire city?

The question needs to be asked of all council and individual councillors: What is your vision for transit in this city? If not LRT, then how would you resolve the growing issue of inadequate service?

Send the mayor and council an email with this article or the like. We need to apply the pressure.

This was actually originally an email to council that has been reprinted here.

Terry Whitehead responded in three words:

"Your kidding right?"

Can you post the email exchange please?

Likewise, last week I sent him this article and highlighted the huge line-up at the bus stop on Main Street:

https://www.raisethehammer.org/article/2...

His response: 'stop being myopic'.

Apparently it's myopic when hundreds of people wait over an hour for the bus as they get passed by continually (and have been for over a decade), but it's a serious problem that needs immediate fixing when students on the Mountain are passed by for the first time ever.

...hundreds of people wait over an hour for the bus...

Really? When does this occur? My wife has had to wait downtown for, at most, 15 minutes for a bus when passed by ones at capacity. You're not being myopic, but rather, dishonest. No wonder nobody in the municipal government listens to you.

Even the contraction didn't get traction.

Was that Terry or his hairpiece talking? That thing has a mind of its own.

Actually, what bothers me most is not the glibness of his remark but the poor grammar.

Comment edited by DrAwesomesauce on 2014-12-19 22:00:20

Actually, what bothers me most is that you believe what was posted without proof.

What an a-hole.

Oh goody.

As it happens, I just sent my own e-mail, linking your piece and discussing similar issues.

agreed. Although they've proven they only listen to 'feedback' that lines up with their auto-only biases. Feedback that is for proper city building is called whining, entitled, myopic and doesn't count as real feedback.

Normally poor grammar (especially lack or misuse of apostrophes) drives me crazy, but in this case, it's the entire lack of respect in the reply. I guess the feeling of job security is quite cushy at this point in the term.

I notice that in the listing of Sub Committees/Volunteer Committees, there is no listing for a Transit Volunteer Sub-Committee. Therefore, there is no organized conduit from the general public to City Council for suggested improvements. This should change.

Whitehead doesn't have to show any respect to anyone who's not going to vote for him. It's clear that he has no ambition to be more than a two-bit councillor. He'd never run for another position, for fear that if he didn't win he'd have no career prospects outside of politics.

Sad, but his past job history/experience shows it to be true.

This describes fully 3/4s of city council. People who would never have a job if they lost their council seat. Hamilton deserves better.

Maybe fmurray does. Why don't you step up, rather than telling others to shut up.

I'm content with the way things are going, at least on the transit file. Don't need to fix what isn't broken, council-wise.

Over 25,000 pass-bys each year is fine with you? I'm guessing you don't run a business.

https://www.raisethehammer.org/comment/1...

http://www.raisethehammer.org/comment/10...

Comment edited by DowntownInHamilton on 2014-12-23 22:20:05

Re: Over 25,000 pass-bys each year

The 6,298 pass-bys in September-December 2013 is a four-month sample, so even you assume that the pass-by rate remains constant in the absence of students, that’d be 18,894 pass-bys after 12 months.

A single loop of the 1 King route contains 130 stops. A single loop of the 5 Delaware route contains 202 stops.
A single loop of the 10 Express route contains 30 stops. A single loop of the 51 University route contains 76 stops

So a single rotation of 1/5/10/51 buses have the potential to make 411 stops in all. Any one of those 411 stops could potentially be passed by. Now multiply 411 by the total number of runs being made by the 1/5/10/51 routes over the course of a week, and then multiply that by 52 and you’ll have the total number of potential passbys, against which you can measure the recorded passbys.

Sloppy mental math! A single rotation of 1/5/10/51 buses contains 438 potential stops (and 438 potential pass-bys).

*Note that from Sept-Dec 2013, the HSR recorded 3,541 pass-bys on the B-Line corridor’s 1/5/10/51 routes.

I agree that pass-bys are to be avoided, and they reflect a poorly managed system. Part of that poor management, IMHO, is that U-Passes are discounted to the point where they present the HSR with as many negatives as positives (eg. crush-loaded buses face more wear and tear on top of the passbys, but ridership revenue is elusive, since U-Pass undercuts the adult pass cost by 80%). If U-Passes doubled in price, that would still be roughly half the student monthly rate — but the HSR might have the revenue to eliminate B-Line passbys, which are shown to constitute 56% of the system-wide issue. (The MSU and the University would presumably see a larger cut of the action for administering the fee.)

*And* we could invest a higher percentage of our taxes in transit...

If council can't commit to improving existing transit, rapid transit will remain a distant hypothetical. But the HSR is making odd choices given its well-established fiscal realities. WagJagging one of your few moneymaking routes has the predictable consequences of fare leakage and impaired service.

We need to stop worrying about the farebox. If we are really going to rely on rider revenue, we should also toll some local roads so that we can spend less on them from the general levy

PWYC, sure. Again, revamping the HSR's business model just comes down to political stickhandling.

Good numbers.

I would prefer we add 50 new attics to the fleet and follow the recommendations in Rapid Ready to have a network of routes that are high frequency, all day everyday so the public knows they are reliable. Ridership would take off.

If we were to lose some of the student riders, that simply means more cars etc.....

In light of your fleet numbers, adding 50 buses to service would increase the HSR's annual operating budget by around 20%. Not impossible, but will require some adept stick-handling by council's progressives given that the police are catching flak for a 3%/$4.2 M budget jump.

Or we could invest a higher percentage of our taxes in transit...

Taxes as % of HSR Budget

1994: 60
2005: 44

hamilton catch.org/vie w_arti cle.p hp

agreed. And it wouldn't take much considering how abysmally low it currently is. As far as I can tell, our fleet will be 227 buses as of next year. 10 years ago it was 217. 10 whole buses in a decade. We need to be adding 10-15 per year at least with new express routes.

HSR Fleet Size

1988: 284 buses
1994: 172 buses
2005: 204 buses

Between 1986 and 2001, local transit went from handling 12% of morning peak period trips to 6%. (By 2011, it had increased to 9.3%.) Between 1986 and 2001, on an all-day basis, local transit went from handling 10% of trips to 5%.

Sources:
hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=139
hamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/0F8E4AC6-98CC-4BD0-B3A9-26FB6D8EC71C/0/Jun05TransitCommitteeReport06004.pdf
statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-012-x/2011003/tbl/tbl1a-eng.cfm

Related:
raisethehammer.org/article/969/neglected_transit:_time_to_bring_hamiltons_unloved_stepchild_back_into_the_fold

the person I chatted with from the transit end of things told me it was the results from the last quarter of 2013. Whether they have a typo on that presentation, or perhaps my source was off by a month, I'm not sure.

So, let's call it somewhere between 19,000-25,000 pass-bys per year.
Horrendous either way IMO

"...complaints about buses speeding by would-be passengers at stops are poised to top 200 for the second year in a row."

thespec.com/news-story/5161141-absenteeism-rate-among-city-bus-drivers-around-14-per-cent

Some more great work being done by areas with far more suburban sprawl than us. Again proving, you build good transit, people will ride. Even out in the car-dependant suburbs:

http://www.vivanext.com

http://thetransitwayblog.tumblr.com

I am all for tolling roads when they eliminate the gas taxes, licensing taxes, environmental taxes and HST on cars.

maybe the government can buy you a car while they're at it....

ya... the 100 bux a year plate stickers is going a lonnnng way to pay for the province-wide network of highways and roads.

those of us who drive are subsidized by those who don't. this is a mathematical fact. you don't have to believe it any more than you have to believe the world is round, but it doesn't change its accuracy

100 bucks for the plate. 80 for the license. 3000 for the gas. 500 for the tax on insurance. 3000 for insurance becasue that is a tax. 7500 hst for the car. 100 bucks i wish.stfu.

You renew your license every year? last I checked it was every 5 years. Insurance companies profit off of you - that's not tax. Same with oil companies. HST is applied to the car only at time of purchase. None of these are recurring yearly taxes but the roads are yearly recurring expenses. The tax on our gas does not cover the equivalent wear and tear and maintenance resulting from each km driven on the road.

You want to talk about the big picture? Shall we discuss auto maker bailouts? The HUGE tax breaks that oil and car companies get while the little guy pays through the nose? Or social cost externalities? Probably not because these are beyond your knuckle dragging comprehension.

It is mathematically proven that we drivers are heavily subsidized. Again, you don't have to believe it but closing your eyes doesn't make it go away.

Try not to get too close to the edge of the earth when you're out fishin'

So if you only pay a fee once every five years its not a fee? The tax on the car is not a tax because you only pay it once? The government forces you to have insurance by law - hst on the insurance is a tax as is the tax on tires and on repairs etc. etc. the tax on running a new car for five years is probably close to $30,000.00. The auto sector is subsidized but they are not getting any money from bus ticket taxes.

The auto industry is THE driver in western economies. Stop farting and wake up.

knob with a capital K

According to this article drivers in Hamilton and Toronto are paying more than their fair share.