All posts by inthesaltcity

Transit and Ridesharing in Upstate

Transportation

On February 6, the New York State Senate passed a bill that would legalize ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber in Upstate New York. (Ridesharing has been legal in New York City since 2011.) That bill was based, in part, on a bill that Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed in his FY 2018 budget. Governor Cuomo’s proposal guarantees that a portion of the fees collected from ridesharing will fund upstate transit agencies. The Senate’s bill makes no such guarantee.

Ridesharing provides transportation to people who cannot or will not drive a car. This puts the service in direct competition with upstate transit agencies like Centro. The Post-Standard said as much in an editorial published in the Spring of 2015. The Editorial Board cited “rising costs and stagnant funding” as the cause of Centro’s poor service, and suggested that ridesharing could provide better transportation service for commuters and “the elderly and disabled… at times when the buses aren’t running.”

Centro’s rising costs and stagnant funding are not facts of nature. They are the results of choices made at every level of government from the Common Council to Congress. If rising costs and stagnant funding have created a problem worth solving, then the City and County should assess the mortgage recording tax on all new development, the State should index the State Operating Assistance Fund to inflation, and the Federal Government should expand its funding to cover Centro’s operating costs.

More to the point, ridesharing will not provide better service for the people who rely on public transit the most. These people fall into two categories: those who cannot afford to purchase and maintain their own personal vehicle, and those who cannot operate their own personal vehicle because of a disability.

Centro rides cost $2, and they include option of a free transfer. Ridesharing charges significantly higher fares, and the people who ride the bus for economic reasons cannot afford them. Nevermind that almost half of Syracuse’s low-income households can’t afford an internet subscription, and won’t be able to access any ridesharing apps at all.

Every Centro bus is ADA compliant and accessible to wheelchairs, and its Call-A-Bus service provides more specialized transportation for anybody whose disability keeps them off the bus. Ridesharing is, at-best, only intermittently accessible to the disabled. Philadelphia’s disabled community is lobbying against ridesharing because its members have such a hard time finding handicap-accessible Ubers.

Ridesharing will compete directly with upstate transit authorities, but its cost and the nature of its vehicles mean that it will not be a viable option for the poor or the disabled. Legalizing it without making provision to also support upstate transit will improve transportation options for the better off at the expense of those who need public transportation the most.

All that said, if the state government does legalize ridesharing in Upstate, Centro could work with ridesharing companies to dramatically improve its service. Currently, Centro must provide bus service for the entire County, including its more sparsely populated rural and suburban regions. Many bus routes in these areas are little used, and they draw money away from high-demand routes. If Centro contracts ridesharing companies to provide handicap-accessible service in rural and suburban areas at no extra cost to riders, it could then redirect funds to provide better service along routes through the more densely populated areas where transit can be its most effective.

Consolidation and the Public Schools

Power

On Thursday February 9, Consensus released its final report on government efficiency in Onondaga County. The report contains both service level recommendations and City-County consolidation recommendations.

The service level recommendations are things like coordinated snow removal and modernized code enforcement. These are the kind of nuts and bolts ideas that can improve government for everyone in the County. They are worth consideration.

The City-County consolidation recommendations are a travesty. The proposed governance structure will deny city residents any real control in the new government. That is unacceptable as long as Consensus refuses to seriously address public education.

Consensus proposes dissolving the city government and enlarging the county legislature from 17 legislators to 33. 15 of these would represent suburban voters, 5 would represent city voters, and 9 would represent hybrid districts including both city and suburban voters. Voters across the County would elect an additional 4 at-large legislators.

This proposal guarantees the suburbs a majority in the only local governmental body that will represent city voters. Even if city voters make up the majority of all 9 hybrid districts, they will only elect 14 of the 33 legislators. Suburban voters will completely control 15 legislators, and they will outnumber city voters 2-1 in elections for the 4 at-large seats.

The City cannot expect to benefit from a government controlled by the suburbs unless the City can trust the suburbs. That cannot happen until city and suburban school districts merge.

Differences between public school districts drive the differences in housing prices across Onondaga County. Houses in highly rated suburban school districts cost more than houses in the poorly rated city school district. This draws families with money out to the suburbs and pushes families without money into the City, effectively segregating the County by income. The resulting disparities in property tax revenue create a cycle of ever poorer schools and communities in the City and ever richer schools and communities in the suburbs. When school performance, property values, and community wealth all hang together, it is in suburban voters’ interest to maintain this status quo at the City’s expense.

As long as talk of a consolidation ignores the public schools, the City and its suburbs will remain divided. As long as the City and its suburbs remain divided, the City cannot trust a government controlled by the suburbs. As long as the City does not trust a controlled by the suburbs, there is no point in talking about consolidation.

Complementary Centro Schedules

Transportation

In order for transit to meet a variety of peoples’ daily needs, its service must be both regular and frequent. Regular service makes runs throughout the whole day, and those runs are all separated by similar lengths of time. Frequent service makes many runs in a day, and those runs are all separated by short lengths of time. When service is both regular and frequent, people can rely on the bus to run when they need it.

Very few of Centro’s bus routes offer regular frequent service. For people relying on a single irregular or infrequent bus route, it can take hours to get across town for work, appointments, or errands.

Fortunately, many places in the City of Syracuse are within walking distance of multiple bus routes. Because all routes terminate at Centro’s downtown transit hub, and because most riders are trying to get to Downtown Syracuse, places within walking distance of multiple routes enjoy service that is regular and frequent.  People living in these places can rely on transit to meet their daily needs.

The following schedules show how people living in specific places can use multiple bus routes in order to meet daily transit needs:

Southside (S Salina and Colvin)

Northside (Grant and Bear)

Northside (Butternut Circle)

West Side (W Genesee and Milton)

Valley (S Salina at Green Hills Farms)

Gondolas as Transit

Transportation

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s FY 2018 budget proposal included funds to link the State Fairgrounds to the Lakeview Amphitheater with a system of gondolas. The completed system will also stop at the Grey Lot, and it is part of a much larger State effort to reconfigure access to the Fairgrounds via I-690.

In the days since the plans became public, Richard Ball, New York State Agriculture Commissioner, has defended the proposal, arguing that gondolas will make the Fairgrounds a year-round facility, integrate the Amphitheater with the Fair Experience, and become an attraction in their own right.

Private money funded a feasibility study for a similar gondola proposal in Albany. That system would cross the Hudson River to connect Albany proper with the Albany-Rensselaer Amtrak Station.

As transit solutions, both gondola proposals fall flat. Each will cost between $15 and $20 million to construct, each will serve a very limited population and purpose, and each will connect points already linked by sidewalks and surface roads.

Unfortunately, many people don’t think of the New York State Fair or the Albany-Rensselaer Amtrak Station as problems in need of transit solutions. These are two of the only places in Upstate New York where many people will ever experience what it’s like to go without a car. These people have never gotten to work an hour early because that’s when the bus runs, and they’ve never needed a taxi to get to the grocery store. It’s easy for them to think of the Fair and the Train Station as unique problems–to say “it sucks to get to the Amphitheater without a car.”

It sucks to get anywhere in Upstate without a car. Our transit systems offer infrequent service to limited areas. People who rely transit face this problem everyday. They know that it’s not strange to wait an hour for the next bus or to walk along the highway to get where you’re going–these are symptoms of underfunded transit systems.

These gondolas are a waste of public money. Each will cost as much to build as Centro’s Transit Hub. The Albany gondola is projected to cost $2.4 million annually which is equal to 2.9% of CDTA’s annual expenses or 3.4% of Centro’s. That doesn’t seem like much until you remember that the State’s contribution to the regional transit authorities hasn’t kept up with the cost of inflation for a decade.

For less money, the State could fund more frequent service along CDTA’s existing Route 214, connecting Hudson Valley Community College, Rensselaer, Amtrak, downtown Albany, and SUNY Albany. The State could also expand its existing contract with Centro to provide shuttle service between the State Fairgrounds and the Lakeview Amphitheater when necessary. The remaining funds could go directly into the Statewide Mass Transportation Operating Assistance program, improving transit service in all the other situations where people really need it.