Action Alert: Safe Streets Legislation

After many years of advocating for safer streets, we are happy to announce Atlanta is one step closer to joining hundreds of cities worldwide in adopting Vision Zero, an action plan to reduce crashes, eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries.

On Wednesday, March 11 the Atlanta City Council’s Transportation Committee had its first read on legislation to introduce a 25 mph speed limit on local roads. The second read of the legislation is scheduled to take place Wednesday, March 25 at 9:30 a.m.

In 2019, there were 73 traffic fatalities in Atlanta alone; 22 of the individuals were pedestrians. Our traffic fatality rate is three times higher than peer cities like Boston and Seattle. Last year Oslo, Norway, one of the first cities to adopt Vision Zero, achieved zero road deaths.

If passed, this legislation, as it is written today, will reduce the speed limit to 25 mph on all local roads. No one deserves to die or have their life at risk just simply trying to get from one place to the next. Even so, more must be done to make all Atlanta roadways safer, not just neighborhood streets.

The bill does not include collectors (e.g. Atlanta Student Movement Blvd), Downtown/Midtown arterials (e.g. Piedmont Ave), and minor arterials (e.g., Cascade Road and DeKalb Ave). These streets are on the State List of Roadways Approved for use of Speed Detection Devices, also known as the “laser list.” and reducing the speed without a traffic study would create challenges for enforcement. In order to cover all Atlanta streets, the City could: 1) reduce the speed limit, 2) install traffic cameras in areas outside of school zones, and 3) re-certify each street from the laser list for local enforcement. Research shows that occasional traffic enforcement does not have much effect on driver behavior, but reducing the speed limit is an effective way to reduce outlier speeds.

Here’s what we’re asking you to do:

• Email the Transportation Committee members and the mayor’s office asking them to take bold action to make our streets safer for everyone.

• Post on social media that you support a 25 mph speed limit.

<<Click here for sample content and email addresses for the councilmembers>>

Due to coronavirus, the transportation committee meeting (Wednesday, March 25 at 9:30 a.m.) will be streamed on Facebook Live at @atlcouncil or you can listen in by calling toll-free (877)-579-6743, conference ID: 8315991256. Public comment will be accepted via email up to 30 minutes before the meeting at publiccomment@atlantaga.gov.

Thank you for helping in the fight to save lives and make Atlanta a safer place to call home.

Book Club Meeting 3

The chapters for this week, Make the Bus Walkable and Dignified and Make the Bus Fair and Welcoming, focused on the factors beyond frequency and reliability that impact the transit experience. Here are the highlights. 

Disconnect between walkability and transit.

The ability to walk safely and efficiently to a bus stop, and then have a safe place to wait for the bus once you are there, is in no way guaranteed in Atlanta and metro area. Some examples: in Cobb County, bus stops are placed the length of a football field (300 feet) from intersections so they do not interfere with turn lanes, forcing bus riders to choose between unsafe mid-block crossings and walking far out of their way, usually without sidewalks. One participant, who lives off Northside Drive, described a harrowing road-crossing experience to get home: to cross Northside and 10th, only some of the four legal crosswalks have markings, and for those, lights are not timed for pedestrians. It can take 5 minutes or more simply to cross the street. 

Bus shelters and benches

Higashide discussed a study in which transit riders were asked to rate how long they perceived their wait at a bus to be, which was then compared to the time they actually spent waiting (surreptitiously recorded by the scientists). Quantitatively, when conditions were adverse — cold, wet weather; noisy, dangerous traffic; no place to rest — participants thought they had waited much longer than they actually had. One of the things that can ameliorate this perception is access to a bus shelter. The MARTA standard for adding a shelter at a bus stop is 25 or more boardings per day, if a suitable place can be found. Yet, one of the participants shared his experience of trying to get a bus shelter placed in front of his storefront. It met all the criteria and was added to the list of bus shelters to be placed, a year and a half ago. There is still no bus shelter. Other participants recalled bus shelters in Midtown and Downtown that had been removed in order to prevent homeless people from using them, which brings us to the next item: 

“Equitable transit requires equitable politics.”

Each of us has experienced things we wish would change about transit in our respective corners of Atlanta, yet, as one participant mused: “How much do I advocate for what I want outside my front door, versus what the whole city should have?” Another countered that this isn’t an either-or: fundamentally, we want to advocate for a shift in priority for transit funding. This comes down to winning the fight for transit and specifically for buses: per dollar spent, an investment in the bus network has the potential to be transformative for mobility across Atlanta.

Book Club Meeting 2

The focus of our second meeting of the “Better Buses, Better Cities” book club was Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 explained trade offs between frequency and coverage how “frequency is freedom” when it comes to providing service that people can plan their lives around. Chapter 3 centered on speed and reliability and how dedicated right of way and technology can permit faster bus service with low service disruptions. 

To explore the frequency/coverage trade offs in Atlanta, the book club participants used the MARTA app to look up the weekday service level for all routes. The frequencies were sorted into four groups: less than 15 minutes, 20 minutes or more, 30 minutes or more, and 1 hour hour more. This photo from the activity shows the distribution of frequencies of the current MARTA bus network. 

Out of over a hundred routes, there are a handful of routes with headways (the time between buses) of 15-minutes or better, the minimum level most consider to be “frequent” service. At this level, one is less dependent on time schedules and less impacted from missing the bus because the next bus is likely a few minutes away. However, the vast majority of routes are at 30-minute frequencies. At this frequency, trips must be planned and schedules consulted. Missing a bus that comes every 15-minutes or less is in stark contrast to missing one that is 30 minutes or more. 

Based on the frequency analysis of MARTA’s current bus network, the participants discussed whether the service currently provided is adequate for metro Atlanta’s transit needs. The overwhelming response was no. And here’s why:

First, the current network emphasizes coverage over frequency, likely at the cost of ridership and reliability. The map below shows MARTA’s bus routes color coded by frequency. High frequency lines are in thick red lines and the low frequency routes are in thin blue lines. Areas served by the blue lines may reach a lot of people, but the low frequency does not make it easier for people to plan their life around transit. 

Second, MARTA’s bus network is experiencing a similar issue faced by Houston’s bus network referenced in Chapter 2 before the redesign: changing neighborhoods. In Houston, many neighborhoods had changed demographically and produced areas of low-income households without adequate service. Similarly, Maria, one of the book club participants, noted how as development increased in her area, the level of transit service remained stagnant. As neighborhoods in metro Atlanta change demographics and population, the bus network should be adapted to better serve existing and new residents. 

As Higashide mentions in Chapter 3, if the bus is frequent but unreliable day after day, riders will still be less likely to use it. The book mentions various strategies to implement speed and reliability enhancements to bus networks, however, our book club discussion primarily focused on the topic of pop-up bus lanes. 

This tactic promotes installing temporary, low-cost bus-only lanes to test out their effectiveness for improving bus reliability. The City of Atlanta recently tested out a pop-up bike lane on 10th Street for one week, providing hope that bus lanes may receive the same treatment in the future. The consensus among the participants was one week is not long enough to truly assess performance. “Pop-ups should be six months to a year,” one partcipant chimed in, “If it doesn’t work, we take it out. You learn what we do right and what we do wrong.”

Participants had numerous ideas for where to put pop-up bus/transit lanes: along Edgewood Avenue for the Streetcar, Buford Highway for Route 39, and Clifton Corridor for multiple agencies. The question remaining was “So, what can we do to support the transit agencies and local governments to make pop-up bus lanes and other improvements possible?” 

One idea is to help connect riders to service information through technology. Pigeon Transit was one such crowdsourced app that allows for transit users to report delays, crowds, construction, and more. Although this does not fix the root causes of service disruptions, it provides transparency into the system which allows riders to plan their trips with accurate information.

Another idea pitched is to equip riders with information through a regular publication on transit best practices, transit successes, and even the myths vs. facts of riding transit. This information can be used by anyone at neighborhood meetings, public hearings, or local debates to answer everything from “How many bus stops should we request for this street?” to “Should we ask for more frequency on this route?”

Finally, outside organizations, such as MARTA Army, are in a unique position to apply outside pressure where transit agencies may not be able to. Understanding from agencies where operational improvements are needed gives MARTA Army the opportunity to add an extra voice of support to conversations around bus performance.

Book Club Meeting 1

Last Wednesday, a dozen Atlantans braved the rainy weather to meet at Atlanta City Studio for the first meeting in a book club series on Steven Higashide’s “Better Buses, Better Cities”. The purpose of the book club is to learn how individuals, organizations, and agencies can win the fight for effective transit in Atlanta and to provide a space for people to meet others who share the same interest or curiosity in buses. 

The meeting began like the book’s prologue where Higashide shared his personal bus story and why he came to write the book. Each of the participants shared their own stories on the following:

1. Their favorite bus memory

2. Their least favorite bus memory

3. What brought them to the book club

Common themes emerged as we shared our favorite bus memories, despite each person holding a different perspective on riding the bus. There is a sense of community gained from regularly riding the bus. For Audrey, this was when her bus driver checked in with her after she’d been gone a few days: “Where’ve ya been?” Nava recalled sitting on a bus in New York and relishing the conversation and community among elderly residents going about their daily business by bus. On one ride on the old Route 16, a small child climbed in Sonia’s lap and started playing angry birds with her. Morgan and his wife met a new friend from South Korea on the bus. Josh recalled a bus ride where two guys convinced the entire bus to play heads-up. We all appreciated these opportunities for community that we would have missed riding alone in a car. 

Participants also shared a negative experience they’ve had while riding MARTA buses. A common frustration was buses that disappear from the tracker or never show at all (aka “ghost buses,” which were quite appropriate with Halloween the next day). Less spooky, but equally frustrating, was the experience of having a bus fly by while someone was waiting at the bus stop. One participant described his frustration of the bus being treated as second class by transit agencies - far less of a priority than rail service. Another recalled bus routes that used to be direct — until neighborhoods pushed them off their streets and forced a winding, circuitous route (looking at you, 27 and 36). 

As for what brought us together, the common theme was the deep appreciation for the bus and the perception of missed opportunities to take action and make a better bus network. “All I hear is people complaining about traffic. It seems obvious that we could do more with buses here,” one participant observed. 

The night’s discussion was dominated by the topic of the false dichotomy of choice and captive riders, raised in chapter one of the book. For those unfamiliar, “choice” riders is a term used to indicate those who have the financial means to choose to ride transit or not. “Captive’ riders do not. “Choice” riders are prized by transit planners; “captive” riders are taken for granted. Yet, as Sally pointed out: we all have choices. We could walk, or bike, or rideshare, or not go out at all. Frequently, especially for older people, the choice is to not go out, and the subsequent social isolation and lack of access to community that comes from that. The book supports this argument by providing evidence showing when transit becomes really poor, even the “captive” riders will leave.

Not only is the distinction between choice and captive meaningless for riders of the MARTA system, it may be missing the point. Josh related his experience of boycotting cars for the summer. Josh is the kind of guy who emails event organizers when they neglect to put transit directions on their advertisements, and he got the idea to go all summer without riding in a car. He observed that, for example, when his friends went to Ponce City Market, they didn’t want to leave, because they’d already paid for parking. By contrast, he could hop on one of three MARTA buses or on a bikeshare or a scooter and zip off to the next fun thing. In some sense, his friends were captive - to their cars. 

The consensus in the room was that a transit system functions best by providing convenience, access, and reliability for all riders, period. Transit planners, agencies, and advocates should not be focused on “Choice vs. Captive”, but rather focus on what makes transit worth riding for anybody. Over the next four weeks, we will be doing just that by exploring the seven hallmarks of good transit systems:

1. Service goes where you want to go

2. Service runs frequently

3. Service is reasonably fast

4. Service is reliable

5. Service is walkable to final destination

6. Service is safe and comfortable

7. Service is affordable

Join us this Wednesday at Atlanta City Studios as we discuss Chapters 2 and 3 that deal with . coverage and frequency, reliability and speed.