Building Transit Networks That Reflect Community Values with Ricky Angueira, Principal at Jarrett Walker & Associates

Stop Requested. Welcome to Stop Requested, the podcast where we discuss everything transit. I’m your co-host, Levi McCollum, Director of Operations at ETA Transit.

And I’m your co-host, Christian Londono, Senior Customer Success Manager at ETA Transit. Welcome back to Stop Requested. Christian, how are you?

I’m very excited today, uh, Levi, and about today’s episode. How about yourself? I’m doing very well, and this episode means a lot because you and I are both planners. We’re gonna be talking to a planner.

Uh, in fact, we’re gonna be bringing on Ricky Anguiera from Jarrett Walker & Associates, who’s the principal associate there. Ricky, how are you doing today? I’m doing great. Thank you for, for having me on the podcast.

Yeah. It’s really a pleasure, and I’m, I’m so excited to get into some of the details of this. But before we go too deep because we, Christian and I, can nerd out immediately on this, uh, I would like to introduce our listeners to you a bit, if you can give some of your background, you know, both educational and professional, and just tell us what you do at Jarrett Walker & Associates. Sure. I can do that.

So, um, so what I do now is that I’m a principal at Jarrett Walker & Associates, and we primarily do transit service planning. And so I go, uh, from city to city across the country and across the world, helping different cities think about their transit service.

We very often do full network redesigns, but we do all kinds of transit service planning including visionary, uh, expansion projects.

And I lead a lot of those projects. Uh, we also offer courses and workshops as part of our projects, but also separately to help educate, uh, elected officials, stakeholders, the public on key trade-offs associated with transit.

I And so didn’t get into transit, uh, very young like a lot of people maybe did. No. I grew up in Puerto Rico in the suburbs of San Juan in a place where there was transit service, but

I didn’t use it very much when I was a kid. Um, and then I partially grew up in rural New Jersey in a place where my neighbors were cows in a cornfield. So I didn’t really grow up with transit. Uh, then when I went to car- when I went to college, I went to, uh, the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez to study civil engineering.

Um, and then I did a first master’s in transportation engineering at UCONN. Um, I basically started with engineering because I like cities and I’m good with math. Uh, that was really my main reason at the beginning.

Uh, but then as I kept studying, I started learning about how cities work. Um, I started learning about the role of transportation in cities, and I started learning about the role of land use and how that affects transportation. And I started to understand how in this side of the world, we drive a lot because of the way that the cities are built, and the cities are built because of the way that we drive and because of how much we drive.

And so I realized that I wanted to learn a little more about urban planning and urban design and how cities work. And so then I went to Spain, and I did a second master’s in urban planning at the

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid where I just learned a lot about how cities work. I learned about urban planning, urban design. Um, and it’s just a fascinating place to, to study urban planning because Spain is just such a urban, uh, country. In general, it has a lot of urban and rural places, but doesn’t quite have as much sprawl and s- suburban places as, as we do over here and many countries even in Europe do.

Um, there is some sprawl. It’s not immune to sprawl, but it’s still just a fascinating place to, to study urban planning. Then I came back. I was in Puerto Rico for a little bit. Did a small project in my hometown, and then I came to D.C. And here in D.C., I did… I started consulting and after a few years,

I went over to Jarrett Walker & Associates. And now I’m a principal, and I’m in charge of big, exciting projects. I love that background. It, it’s very fascinating, uh, how everyone has their own ways of kind of snaking through their professional journey and then finding public transportation.

One thing that you mentioned there that’s, that’s, uh, I think kind of connects actually the three of us i- is that we’ve all spent a decent amount of time in Spain.

Uh, I’m, I’m curious, Ricky, uh, what is your take on the, the differences in the way that urbanism is taught, uh, you know, at, the university level between the United States and, and Spain? Or did you see a big difference? Yes. There is, there is a difference.

Just the way that cities are laid out over there, everything is much more dense and urban and sort of a continuation of the urban form. Whereas here in the way that everything is sprawled, uh, you separate land uses so much and you make everything so far away and, and you build highways everywhere and think about cars first. That is just really different in general.

Uh, when we’re thinking about transit planning specifically, there is so much more investment as well. Uh, people invest so much more in transit in Europe and in Spain compared to what it is here that it’s just really, really different.

Um, they do have some really big challenges associated with transit. Um, have a lot of systems that have a lot of very complex they routes.

Um, and so they could use a lot of transit s-… but with just the sheer quantity of transit service that they have and the investment that they have, it’s just, um, very different from what it is here. Yeah. Just like Levi in… as he pointed out, um, you know, our time in, in different countries in Europe and particularly in Spain, it, it makes us, you know, reflect about, you know, transit here versus there and also see what, uh, transit can do when you build, you know, um, premium transit and transit that actually serves the purpose for the community. But then there’s the right environment in terms of the infrastructure for, uh, transit to be successful.So, i- in the different projects you work on i- in your career, and, uh, particularly as far as, uh, Gerald Walker & Associates, uh, could you tell us and our listeners about some key projects, uh, that you were part of that you thought w- were, were very interesting, and maybe some accomplishments through those projects? Yeah, sure. So, so most of what we do is full transit network redesign projects um, in different countries, uh, everywhere, throughout the US and a little bit international.

Um, I’ve worked in mil- many places from Miami to San Francisco. Um, recently I worked in Knoxville, Tennessee in a transit network redesign that was implemented in August of last year, so almost a year now.

And I’ve recently been working for PSEA, Pinellas County, St. Pete, Florida, where, uh, they adopted their new plan in March, and they’re going to implement in the fall of this year.

And right now, I’m working in Des Moines, Iowa, where we’re going through a similar process and helping them rethink their transit network. That’s really cool. And, and when you guys are approaching those projects, could you tell us a little bit about the philosophy? Like, how do you help, uh, engage the communities and, you know, get all the stakeholders involved, uh, with either, you know, service planning work or particularly, uh, system redesigns? Yeah, that’s a good question. So, so when we’re thinking about, uh, transit service planning or redesigning a bus network, there’s a lot of really good stuff that we can get from the data. We can get a lot of good information about how the system is performing, so from ridership data, on-time performance, and all kinds of things.

Um, but the data can only tell us half the story in what we need to design a transit network. There’s a really important component about what the transit network is trying to achieve.

And so, it’s important that we think about the values of the community and what the community wants to achieve through the transit network. There isn’t one right answer when we’re designing a transit network, because it depends on the goals of what you’re trying to achieve.

If there was just one answer, then this would be easy, you wouldn’t need a consultant like me, and I wouldn’t have a job, and we would all have great transit networks. Um, but there isn’t a right answer, because it depends on the goals of what you’re trying to achieve.

And different people can disagree on what the goal for transit should be. And so it’s important that throughout any transit planning process, we involve the public stakeholders, elected officials, and everybody to have clear conversations about what we ha- what we want the transit network to do.

You could potentially des- there are many goals associated with transit, but we, we can narrow it down to two specific goals and two specific networks. So the way that we can design it.

One option would be to design a network that has fewer routes, but because you have fewer routes in just the main streets, you can concentrate all the service there, and you can provide service that is very frequent, so buses might come every 10 or 15 minutes. And if you’re doing that, then because the service is frequent, many people find it useful, and you would expect many people to ride transit. And so we would call that a ridership network.

Instead, you could take the same number of resources, the same number of buses and dollars, and you can spread that out over many routes that go through every little corner of the city.

And in spreading the service out, it means that you would have more routes, but you also spread the service out thinly, which means that the buses here wouldn’t come as frequent, and they might come every 30 to 60 minutes.

And I would call a network like that a coverage network, because people have to wait a long time, so they might not find the service as useful, and people might not ride this network as much, so you wouldn’t get high ridership.

But that’s okay, because the goal of the coverage network is not to get high ridership. The goal of a coverage ne- network is to provide high coverage to as many people as possible. And so both of these goals, ridership and coverage, are important, and many people disagree on which one is more, more important, and many people wanna do both. But you can’t do both with the same dollar. Just mathematically, with a fixed number of resources and a fixed budget, you can only do one or the other or s- or land somewhere in the middle and find a balance between the two.

And whether you go for a ridership goal or for a coverage goal, it really depends on the values that the community has.

And so through all of our transit planning projects, we always engage communities, and we facilitate conversations around transit so that we can have a clearer understanding on what transit can do based on the goal, uh, that you want to go for. Ricky, le- let me ask you a question, uh, regarding to that, uh, coverage versus ridership.

So, and this is my perspective, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I think, uh, for public in general and a lot of the stakeholders of transit, ridership is the metric, right? And, and, and then regardless, they’re looking for, you know, people to be riding all of the services and, and all the system.

And, uh, it seems that they only see a ridership network, uh, stakeholders. So when it comes to coverage in a community, I would imagine, uh, typically has a mix of coverage and ridership that they choose to go with or they operate.

How do you help them measure that coverage network if they choose that that’s what’s important for them to see the success and not just wait for ridership, uh, a- and, and those type of numbers to reflect? Yeah, it all comes down to having a clear conversation.

When you’re… Transit agencies everywhere just hear many people talking about ridership and asking for ridership. They say that the thing that they care the most about is ridership, ridership, ridership.

But that’s only true until you show them what that means. If the only thing that a transit agency cares about is ridership, then that would mean only running very few routes on just the main corridors and running those as fre-… only as you can, so that as many people uh, would find the service useful and as many people would ride it.

as you can, But then that would mean that you don’t provide service to a lot of other places, places that a lot of people might care about. Maybe it’s low income, minority neighborhoods that people want to provide service to. Um, maybe it’s just about providing some sort of lifeline access to as many people as possible.

And so, when you show people the options of what the transit network can be, you can get very different reactions. And I’ve seen that in different cities. We’ve worked on, on plans like this all over the country, and I’ve seen different reactions to it.

In Knoxville, in Knoxville we did, uh, a process in which we developed conceptual alternatives of what the network could look like if you focus on ridership or what it could look like if you focus on coverage.

And we took those alternatives, um, we, we ran analysis on them so that we showed people how those compare to the existing network, looking at how many people are close to transit, how many people are close to frequent transit, how many and opportunities the average resident can reach in each of the concepts compared today. And when we show that to the public, in Knoxville, we, we heard from the public that they wanted to lean towards ridership.

Now, leaning towards ridership means that you would remove service from some places at the expense of being able to provide higher frequency along the main corridors.

And so in Knoxville, when we provided that, we asked the public what they thought, and they came back and said they wanted to lean towards ridership. uh, We took that to the board in charge of making decisions. In Knoxville, that’s the PTA board.

And they, uh, voted and decided that the draft plan and that the final plan should lean towards ridership, and that’s what we designed, and that’s how we were able to move forward with a new network.

Um, but it’s different in different places. We just did this project in, uh, St. Pete, Florida, for PSEA, where we went through a similar process and asked the public, “What do you prefer between ridership and coverage?” We did conceptual alternatives within the same budget in a very similar way and asked the public. And in asking the public, what they said was that they didn’t want to get rid of any of the coverage that they have today.

And so that also, that means saying no to, to a very high ridership network. Because you’re not getting rid of the coverage, that means that you still have to provide service to a lot of those places that have service today.

And so that’s the network that we developed for them. It was the network that was approved with the board, and it’s the network that’s gonna be implemented later this fall. Now, there were certain improvements that we were able to make in, for PSEA.

Um, we were able to spread the service out throughout the week. We were able to do some easier connections at key points throughout the county, where people can, where different routes can gather together and people can make transfers easier. And so there are many improvements that are coming about as part of this plan. Routes are simpler, direct, um, and le- there’s less duplication. So there’s a lot of improvement coming along in this plan, it isn’t getting, getting rid of any coverage. And that’s fine, it all depends on the c- on the goals but that the community wants.

I really appreciate that approach, uh, because, uh, sometimes, you know, being i- on the agency side, you, you feel like, “Oh, these are, these are the things that I think the community should want.” Right? Uh, you know, and a, a planner can almost naturally feel that way if you’ve, i- done any bit of reading and you know, maybe you’ve, uh, you’ve traveled to other places that have a certain type of transit or a certain type of urban environment that you find appealing. That doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s what the community wants. So, you know, taking their feedback first and then designing a system based on that, I, I, you know, really, uh, commend that approach, because it, it’s not easy.

Uh, it can go against what our intuition is at times. Uh, one, one thing that I, I wanna ask you about there, Ricky, is, uh, the, the ridership versus coverage framework that you described, that spectrum.

Uh, it’s probably one of Jarrett Walker’s most renowned ideas, I would say. Um, m- you know, correct me if you think that there’s another one there. But

I, I feel like that one has been made a cornerstone of transit planning thinking now for at least the last, uh, 15 years or so, uh, since his first book came out.

Uh, y- you know, it seems like ridership, that, that one may be a little bit easier to, uh, to conceptualize for our audience. You know, it’s, it’s putting high frequency on the, on buses and trains, making sure that those lines are direct.

For coverage, we’ve seen that change a little bit over the, the last 10 or so years with technology, uh, specifically with micro transit.

Uh, i- is that what you’re, you’re seeing now as well, uh, when, when you’re designing these services, to try to fill in that, that coverage part of the, um, the map? Yeah, that can be applicable in some places.

So, uh, for, for the people listening, you might have heard of micro transit, on-demand, demand response. Uh, those are s- all similar types of services. It’s a service where you would either use an app or you would call get a ride, get a car to come, get a car, a vehicle, a small bus or something, to come to pick you up at your origin, wait for you to put your coat on, get in the car, and take you to your destination.

And so those type of services, um, are not necessarily new, because it’s something that’s very similar to a taxi service that has always existed.

But the apps and the new dispatch technology is what is making it more popular now. And that’s why you see it in a lot of places in the country.

Um, but there’s a lot of misunderstanding around what it can be. Um, sometimes you hear people, uh, be very excited about it, thinking that it’s gonna resolve all of their issues, uh, but it’s important to understand what it can and can’t do.

And so, micro transit service, uh…… are essentially a coverage tool. Um, if you think about what the driver is doing, the driver is going to pick up one person from their origin, drive to where they’re going, then drive to pick up the next person, drive to their destination. And then, in doing so, you can imagine that what the driver is physically able to do.

Um, it’s because it’s similar to a taxi service, a driver can only really move three, maybe four trips in an hour.

And so as a result, the… uh, a microtransit vehicle is never gonna get you more than four trips an hour, and that’s not very much. If you imagine what a low productivity bus is, a bus might be able to get you, um,

10 boardings an hour. And if you were to replace that with microtransit, then that means that you need three microtransit vehicles to replace the one bus. And so microtransit can’t move a lot of people. It’s just physically unable to because of the ratio from riders to drivers.

Um, but what it is, is a coverage tool. It can provide a little bit of lifeline service to an area where you don’t expect to get high ridership.

If you end up making the service very- very attractive and you end up getting a lot of people to ride microtransit, then it means that you need an additional vehicle. And so in maybe providing service to eight people that would normally ride a fixed route, you would need on-demand or microtransit vehicles to provide the same service.

two And so it’s service that if you get a lot of people to ride it, it can be really expensive per person, but if you provide it in a place where you really just want to provide coverage, then it’s a great tool.

And we use microtransit a lot when we’re, uh, thinking about coverage services. Um, I’m working right now in Des Moines, Iowa where we just went through the process where we developed conceptual alternatives of what the network could be. We developed a ridership concept and we developed a coverage concept.

In the coverage concept, we designed five different microtransit zones that the region could potentially have if they decide to focus on coverage.

But it’s important to be clear about that. Uh, microtransit is a coverage tool, and it will never be able to get you many riders per cost. Not a lot of riders per hour per vehicle. That’s a really good point, Ricky.

So, eh, what about when you want to move, you know, folks from maybe a- a less dense area and get them to that higher ridership part of the uh, network? Do you- do you feel like it- eh, it is a- a funnel to be able to get more folks, uh, access that, to you know, that bus or train line that’s every

15 minutes or less? Yeah, potentially. If it’s a low density place where you would not expect to get a lot of people to use it, then yes, you could use microtransit. If you do expect to get people to use it, a lot of people to use it, even if it’s a low density place, then a- a fixed route is always gonna be more efficient. You’re gonna be able to move more people.

But if it’s a place where you don’t expect to get a lot of riders, then microtransit can provide that service, uh, really well. Yeah. And do you have any, you know, real world examples? I know you mentioned a couple there already with, uh, Des Moines, which is the other DART, right? Like the baby DART.

Um, and- and then you’ve also, uh, you also mentioned an- a- another one previously. D- do you have any- any more of, uh, more examples of agencies kind of using that ridership and coverage framework and, um, eh, you know, trying to improve their services for the- the betterment or the- the individuals using them? Yeah, I mean, we’ve used the ridership versus coverage, uh, framework in a lot of different places.

Um, you know, apart from the ones I mentioned, um, we’ve done it in Miami. Uh, we went through the same process and they implemented their network in November of 2023.

Uh, um, we had a similar conversation in Suffolk County in Long Island, New York, and they implemented their network in the fall of 2023 also.

Um, here in the DC area, we- we helped design the network in Alexandria. Um, that was a few years ago.

and so yeah, we’ve used this in a lot of different cities where we help have a clear conversations about Um, transit.

If you go to the public directly with a draft plan, you’re gonna get a lot of angry people. If you go out directly with a draft plan, people are gonna feel like you already made the decisions for them.

But if you go to the public with conceptual alternatives and you ask the public about their priorities and ask the public about what they think the transit network should be and what they want transit to achieve, then you can have a much better and clearer conversation.

And that’s why through all of our processes, um, we always involve so much public engagement, um, so many other, uh, conversations with, uh, stakeholders, elected officials, presentations to city council, whoever’s in charge of making decisions.

Because through that educational component is how you can bring these people together to start understanding why the network looks the way they are. If you remove a route, why you’re removing that route, and what you’re getting in exchange.

Um, it’s not just going to the public with a draft plan and telling them it’s better, because the definition of better can be different in different places. And so it’s important to ask the public and the community to tell you what their definition is of be- is of better.

I never go anywhere and pretend to be an expert, uh, the local community.

on I am a technical expert. I’m a transit expert. And so the public stakeholders, they’re the ones that are experts on the community. And so what I do when I go to a new city is that

I look to fuse those expertise together so that together we can come up with the best plan. I’m not there to impose my values in the community. I’m there to make the best network for that city and for that community. So, eh, based on that, eh, w- you know, a lot of agencies have a transit development plan…… um, you know, try to write down a vision for that transit system.

they And a lot of the times, um, you know, those documents are just collecting dust on the shelf, or they’re not being, you know, acted upon.

Um, would you say that has to do with lack of involvement from their… from the community in building that plan? That it’s more a few that make those decisions of what the future of transit should be and it’s lacking that, that component, like, that, that true involvement from the… from all the stakeholders? Yeah, that could be part of it, definitely. I think, uh, I think through any transit service planning process, it’s important to involve the c- community. Because if the community is involved and the community knows what transit can do for them, then it’s more likely to be implemented and it’s more likely to be expanded.

when you develop some sort of vision plan Um, or any sort of strategic planning for the future, it’s important that you don’t just come up with lines on the map.

Um, there always has to be some sort of budget associated with it so that you’re thinking about what the transit service is and within what parameters.

But what’s also important is the story behind it. It’s… The idea behi- behind those visionary plans is to create excitement so that when people ask for new funding, they’re not just asking for more money to more service, they’re asking for more funding for specific outcomes.

You might be able to say, “Well, you know, we need additional money so that we can expand the number of people that are close to frequent use for transit service.

We need more money so that we can allow these people to reach X percent more jobs.” Or, “We need more money to be able to expand, uh, service into the weekends, or improve the frequencies in the evening so that, uh, service and retail workers can get to their jobs, to and from their jobs.”

And so it’s important that there is a story about what you get with those visionary plans and what you get with that additional investment, because the lines on the m- on the map is, is not enough. And so the public conversation and the messaging is, is really important. So, the, the other piece, the other component of that… Because e- as you were saying, when it’s adding more service or, you know, adding more, uh, there’s, there’s the, you know, asking for more funds. I- i- it’s almost like for e- any additional thing we’re providing, we, we need additional funds. And, and that’s always a difficult conversation. Uh, you know, all the local governments are trying to balance that budget and choose, uh, among different options for, you know, where to put their investment.

But, uh, also, what would you say are some, um, pieces of advice you could give to agencies to stay adaptive when plans needs to change, right? With, with a new board or, you know, new players in the community, there might be now an opportunity for expanding service, or there’s times that the conditions are, you know, pushing the agency to adapt and maybe change those plans. So what would be some, some piece of advice to stay adaptive? Yeah. That’s a, that’s a good point.

Um, regardless of what the level of investment is in whatever community, whether it’s less than today, more than today, or about the same, the ridership versus coverage conversation on values still applies, right? I mean, you can imagine an area that might have four routes that come every 60 minutes, and that’s coverage. If you combine those and you have one route that comes every 15 minutes, then that’s ridership.

But then you could also have double the quantity of service. You might have eight routes that come every 60 minutes, or two routes that come every 15, and that’s ridership. And so the ridership conversation conve-

The ridership, uh, coverage conversation and the conversation around goals applies regardless of where you are in, in your budget level.

But you’re right, that it is important for agencies to be able to, to scale up or down depending on, their current situation.

on There’s many places that, after COVID, had a lot of challenges associated with their budget. There’s places that have, uh, less drivers th- and just can’t hire fast enough to have all the drivers that they need.

And so them being able to have a plan that adapts to a smaller budget can be really beneficial to And if they have a visionary plan, then they can think about what they would do if they do have them.

more money. And we’ve helped different agencies think about the scalability of their networks. In Miami after, uh, COVID-19, we helped develop a resiliency plan that we did as we were doing the redesign project, where we helped, uh,

Miami-Dade Transit think about how they would do their network if they had different levels of investment, if they didn’t have the same funds that they do today.

And we’ve done other scalability studies when we worked in, uh, Columbia, South Carolina. In Knoxville, there was a scalability component there too.

Um, and so what’s important of this is to be clear and have a conversation with all about what it is you’re trying to achieve, regardless of what the budget level is. Uh, so the, uh, the Miami plan was pretty interesting. You know, from just being, uh, uh, an hour or so north, you know, a lot of the, the talk kind of spread up to, you know, Broward and, and Palm Beach

County. But what I find really fascinating about, you know, what happened there is that there was a third party, right? The Transit Alliance, I believe is their name, uh- Yes. … that really got the ball rolling and ended up hiring

Jarrett Walker & Associates. Do I have that right, or a- am I messing up- Yeah. … the timeline there? No, that’s right. It was… The contract was through them, yes. A- a… Can you speak to that? Is that something that i- is very common? Because me just reading it from the outside, you know, not being involved at all, it, it felt unique i- in what was happening there.

Yeah, you’re right. That’s not very common, and that was a very unique situation. Transit Alliance, a sort of, um…… advocacy and public engagement, uh, Um, group. They, they had the contract. And so we did our project through them.

Um, and the way that it worked, it, it was really interesting because they were really hands-on and on the ground. And so when we went to the public with the concepts of what the network could be, they had a huge team that they used to, uh, get as many people as possible to take the survey and tell us what they think.

it actually turned out to be a really good team because, And so um, they were en- able to engage with the so much that we really did get really good feedback from everybody.

Um, so yeah. It was a really different situation, but it worked really well. Y- you know, I’d like to, uh, move on to the future of public transportation. Just trying to get a sense of what that looks like. You know, down in Miami, since we were t- just talking about that, they have a, a people mover, um, you know, in Jacksonville, just up, uh, up the road from us, you know? It’s five or six hours.

th- they, Uh, actually, I just saw today, launched their autonomous vehicles, uh, program, or not, not just the program but the actual service, rather.

Um, th- what do you see as some of these emerging trends, uh, other than the ones I mentioned, or if you have, you know, something to, to add to those? Do you, do you see those as being, uh, a major part of public transportation in the future? Uh, potentially. So I think that one of the biggest trends that I’m seeing right now is, uh, changes in travel patterns.

Um, the world has changed a lot in the last five years, and people aren’t just traveling 9:00 to 5:00 like they were before. And so today, in a lot of cities, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to provide a lot of very heavy peak service the way that we historically have in this country.

Um, instead, you’re seeing many cities and many people that value all day, all week service so they can use transit for all kinds of trips, not just going to and from their 9:00 to 5:00 work.

Um, there’s also always been service in retail workers that don’t have shifts that are 9:00 to 5:00 and work, uh, later in the evening, and they work Saturdays and Sundays.

And so we’re seeing a shift in the way that people are traveling. And something else that we see is a lot of excitement ar- around infrastructure. We see, which is something that isn’t necessarily new but I feel like it is coming back, there’s a lot of people that are just really excited about, um, whether it’s, uh, streetcar or gondolas here in DC. It’s always an ongoing conversation, and many other things like that.

But I think people need to stake a s- take a step back and planners need to think about what they’re trying to achieve with transit. And so one of the way, the ways that we always talk about what makes transit useful is we talk about access, and we talk about how many opportunities the average resident can reach in X amount of time. We all have limited amount of time in our days, and so it’s important to think about, uh, how many destinations and how many things we can reach in

45 minutes or whatever time is reasonable. And so in thinking about that, um, what we really wanna pri- prioritize is people being able to move and get to places within that reasonable amount of time.

It’s not specifically that we want a train or we want a gondola or we want a streetcar or whatever it may be, or the people mover. What we need to think about when we’re thinking about making transit useful is just people being able to access important destinations.

And so when we think about transit planning, we are very often talking about buses. Um, but it’s not because we just love buses and we don’t like trains. I love trains very much.

But it’s because we’re prioritizing th- the conversation around service and access to opportunities. And so that’s important to keep in mind as, uh, all these new technologies and cities change and, and new things emerge.

It’s always important to take a step back and think about what transit service is truly trying to do and how you make it useful. So in your experience working with agencies all over the country and, and the world, uh, you know, there are challenges, right? Es- especially here in the US where it, it seems like we have a battle, uh, pretty consistently over how much funding public transportation should receive, uh, from the federal government and how y- you know, it’s not, uh, paying for itself,

Uh, i- can you think of any other challenges or any th- that you hear in your sort of day-to-day right? conversations with, uh, transit agencies that, you know, maybe gives them anxiety? Well, um, I, I think you said the biggest one. I think the fiscal and budget challenges that many cities are going through right now is giving everybody a lot of anxiety.

I mean, it’s just really hard to think about, uh, Um, reduction in budget because of, because of whate- whatever outside source it may be.

Um, and so we have been helping different agencies think about what do we mean for them to develop a network when they have a smaller budget.

Um, right now in my project in Des Moines, Iowa, they, their commission just approved a new budget, uh, that has a reduction in budget of 10%.

And, and that’s just due to the financial reality of what the ne- what the region is. Um, but within that process, we’re helping them make the best use of their current resources.

Uh, we have been having this conversation of ridership versus coverage. And in doing so, we’ve been talking not just about the budget itself, but about the comm- the priorities of the community, so that even with that smaller budget, we’re able to develop the best network that we can that best reflects um, what the public, the commission, and everybody just wants transit to achieve.

So I know it’s, uh, it’s hard times right now for a lot of agencies, uh, but we’re here to help the best we can. So, um, you know, just, uh, uh, follow up on what you said. So, in your experience, from all the different, uh, communities you work with, um, how many would you say, when they look at a system redesign, uh, they do it only looking within their budget or trying to achieve a lower budget?

And how many, through the process, actually look at additional funding to, to deliver, you know, the priorities to the community? Uh, that’s a good question.

Uh, most of the projects that I work in are cost-neutral transit redesign. So, it’s usually agencies that haven’t thought about their bus networks in 20, 30, or longer years, and, and it’s time for a redesign because they have only been making small tweaks here and there, and they haven’t thought about the whole network holistically in a very long time.

And so, uh, usually, in a lot of my projects, it’s cost-neutral. It’s with the same number of resources, drivers, buses that they have today, and thinking about how to reallocate those services to better reflect what they want transit to do.

Um, y- a lot of the projects do have a different component, a visionary component of what it could be if transit… if you were to invest more in transit.

Uh, that’s similar to what we did in Alexandria here in the DC area, where we did a cost-neutral redesign, but then we also did a visionary, uh, 10-year plan of what it could be if you invest more in transit.

And so, uh, most projects are cost-neutral, uh, but they usually have a visionary component. Thank you for, for answering that. That’s, that’s what I hope, that we’re all looking at transit and how we can, uh, build better transit networks for the community, not just on the budgetary number, you know? How can we save money or not spend too much in transit? Which

I, I feel that’s a lot of the times what elected officials are asking, uh, for transit professionals to do. So that’s encouraging. And, you know, always to have, uh, plans or some conceptual design of, you know, plans for the future ready for when that funding comes is, is, uh, advantageous.

Um, so, you know, as we’re winding down, uh, I wanna ask you if you could share with our listeners some final thoughts and maybe, you know, a piece of advice for transit agencies as they’re considering a system redesign. Yeah. Um, so for agencies and cities, I would say, uh, don’t be afraid of having a clear conversation with the public.

Um, you really should hear from what the public thinks about goals and priorities. So, don’t shy away from a conversation. Uh, be transparent with whatever you’re doing. If you’re having difficult fiscal challenges, you know, don’t, don’t try to sugarcoat it. Just, uh, be honest, and you will get a, a lot of uh, grace from the public if, if you just, be honest about what’s happening and be transparent.

uh, Uh, it’s good to have a good conversation with the public, stakeholders, and elected officials, and that unifies the region. And if you have a clear conversation, you’re gonna come out stronger, with a plan that doesn’t just do what you want, but everybody understands why it does what it does.

And so, don’t shy away from having, uh, robust public engagement phases with your transit service planning processes. That’s a great piece of advice. Uh, thank you for sharing that with our listeners.

Uh, and, Ricky, um, you know, it’s been a pleasure to have you on this episode of Stop Requested. That conversation, ridership versus coverage, is definitely a very important conversation for agencies to have and for transit planners to always keep present in their minds.

You know, one of the things as a transit planner that I started doing after, you know, learning more about that, uh, conversation, ridership versus coverage, is looking at, even at the individual routes as ridership versus coverage. Like, how much of this service in this route is coverage? How much is, is, is- Exactly. … about ridership?

And, uh, you know, the, the other piece is access, right? Uh, is one of the most critical pieces when it comes to, uh, conveying the message and the impact, is not everything is ridership.

You know, that access, uh, could be very important for some of those workers in the community. So, Ricky, where, uh, listeners can, uh, follow your work or learn more about Jerry Walker & Associates and, and maybe get in touch with you? Yeah. Um, you can easily find me on LinkedIn, uh,

Ricky Angueira. Last name is Angueira, A-N-G-U-E-I-R-A. Um, you can email me, ricky@jerrywalker.com.

Uh, you could follow me on Twitter. I’m not very active, but you can follow, uh, our founder, Jerry Walker. He’s very active. And you could go into our website, jerrywalker.com, and you can learn more about our projects there. Thank you, Ricky, and, and thank you for joining us today for Stop Requested.

Uh, and thank you to all of our listeners, uh, for tuning in and learning a little bit about Ricky and, uh, Jerry Walker & Associates.

Uh, we’ll see you again. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me. Of course. We’ll see you at the next episode. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.