Grand Forks area bus ridership breaks record, but officials aren’t sure why
December 2, 2012 at 11:05 pm in Grand Forks Herald
Bus ridership in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks continues to increase, but the reason more people are taking the bus is unknown to city officials.From January to October of this year, more than 300,000 riders were recorded on buses up from about 270,000 riders from this time last year. Continue Reading
The numbers are up in Fargo as well, I believe, mainly because increase in the free rides they are giving. Are they even close to making money or breaking even? They never seem to report on the financials. I not against them, just asking as I see still mainly empty buses.
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We discussed previously why they don’t use 15 person vans or those parking lot vans like you see at the airport, & if I remember correctly the answer was federal matching dollars. The old “one size fits all” Washington DC solution.
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Public transportation just like public airports aren’t designed or intended to make money they are intended to break even.
On another note I can’t figure out why they are moving to dedicated stops when I do ride the bus the reason the buses are so late at those times seems to be because of traffic and not having to pick up or drop off riders.
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I would be shocked if they break even.
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Mass transit will never break even. In NYC, millions ride the buses and subways at 2.50 a pop, and they are millions in the red. Of course, much there is due to the fact that union employees are making on average over 100K. Nevertheless, you cannot charge what the true cost is.
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You are absolutely correct about not being able to charge the actual cost. But the story does not stop there. Could you imagine getting around NYC, LA, SF, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, or Washington DC without mass transit? In order to get to work you would have to leave the night before. The gridlock of 100,000 additional automobiles would be unimaginable. Not to mention having to wear self contained breathing apparatus because of the air. Think Mexico City X 10.
Mass transit is run as a service to the poor and as a way to reduce the wear and tear on the roads as well as protect the environment from the number one source of air pollution in the US: cars.
Because there is no road/air pollution problem in GF, people concentrate on the poor and ridicule it. I always laugh when I read these comments. Karma is a real bear. Gonna suck to be you when your turn comes to ride the bus because your car is broke and you have no other way to get to work
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FN, what comments are you referring to here that is ridiculing the poor? They used to release financials more in the past but that has changed. Is Amtrak for the poor? That is a bust. With programs like cash for clunkers that cost $24,000 per car that crushed good running cars, the used car market is up 30 to 40%. There must be a lot more people in this area without cars. Fargo just bought four new hybrid buses that are bigger (5 feet longer) than the ones they replaced at 600K a piece. Do we need bigger ones when they appear mostly empty?
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“Mass transit is run as a service to the poor”
Ever ride the NYC subways? Hardly for the poor. You have Wall St bigshots heading downtown. Hassidic Jews going to the diamond market on E. 47th St. Chinese on their way to Canal St. Same with the DC Metro.
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The fact Bergman can’t figure out why scares me. With the average cost of a new car $15,000 – $25,000, gas hovering around $4 a gallon, insurance costing more & covering less; the reasons seem fairly obvious.
My question: will GF ever have a real bus system that actually takes people where they need to go? As this article shows, it is a needed service. However the route map is still anorexic at best.
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AGAIN, not one word about actual ridership versus bus capacity.
First Guess: Instead of three people on a forty-person bus, they sometimes have four people.
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Same reason we need a forensic accountant to tell us how much the Alerus loses every year.
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In this case Schurkey the city is fairly blameless. It is the feds (both GOP and Democrat for the last generation so do not go there) that are causing the problem.
Federal money is contingent on buying only certain types of busses (a pork project for whomever’s district has the manufacturing plant). GF transit cant use smaller more economical vehicles without losing funding.
Here is the link for the DOT report. All 412 pages of it. Bus specifications are discussed in the second chapter. For God’s sake don’t run it off. Even an “I hate the earth” advocate would balk at that.
http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/CBRT_2009_Update.pdf
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But that still doesn’t explain Schurkey’s original observation that bus windows are now blacked out so no one can see how empty they are. I’ve followed then down University Ave from UND to the terminus when they never made a stop. btw, whatever happened to the trolley-shaped bus. It just disappeared. Course, you could see how empty it was.
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If you ask them they will probably tell you it is to reduce the need for air conditioning. That is such a huge issue in Grand Forks.
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The trolley was terribly uncomfortable for passengers. Hard wooden seats…
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And what bunch of boneheads decided that blowing a heap of tax dollars on the stupid “Trolley” was a good idea in the first place? Anyone with a lick of sense saw that it was a dead-end. Literally.
That same group of people should be unemployed…at least as far as the City of Grand Forks (tax-funded) positions go.
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Why dosen’t grand forks have a “drunk bus”. Run a couple routes until 2 30 charge a couple bucks and people will ride it. That would fill the buses up. You could even take away the und subsidized taxi program and use that money on a more efficient people mover called a bus program!
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They have a student fee supported cab system that does just that. It will pick you up and take you home. For non UND students you have the other cabs.
University of Arizona used to have a drunk bus that ran between 4th ave (main drinking strip) and the campus. It was stopped when people complained their fees and tax dollars were supporting student drinking and bars located somewhere other than 4th ave threatened to sue to have the bus stop at their place.
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Mankato and marshall have a latenight bus. Dubbed the “drunk bus” by students. It boggles my mind that bus service stops at 10 pm in grand forks.
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It boggles my mind that they have bus service AT ALL.
I’d cancel it like a postage stamp if the ridership is what I suspect it is–about 10% of capacity or less.
They’ve had thirty years or more to build ridership; MISSION UTTERLY FAILED.
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Clarification: It boggles my mind that GRAND FORKS has bus service AT ALL…
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Schurkey,
You surely remember the council meetings when the subject of reducing bus service came up, and the 10 people who used it showed up. Much like the handful of parents who argued against closing northend schools and south end parents who wanted a new one. In both cases the city council and school board did not have the coglioni to say NO to them. It was ok to refuse an intimate apparel store that would inject money into the city, not take it, though.
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