Fwd: Re: Does Transit Work?

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

Subject:     Re: Does Transit Work?
Sent:        7/1/19 10:53 AM
Received:    7/1/99 9:22 PM
From:        John Williams, john@montana.com
To:          smartgro@micron.net
             smartgro@onenw.org


=====  A message from the 'smartgro' discussion list  =====

>=====  A message from the 'smartgro' discussion list  =====
>
>Thanks for sharing this important work.  Boiseans have been told too many
>times that mass transit doesn't work and that people won't get out of their
>cars, when the real problem has long been quality of experience, efficiency,
>and access to the choice.

Missoula's got an interesting program that they run every summer. 
It's called "Kids Ride Free" and means that anyone under 18 (or 18 
and under??) can ride the bus for nothing all summer long. The first 
summer they ran this, they had something like 10,000 rides by kids in 
our relatively small city. Kids I knew were calling their friends to 
figure out how to meet at the swimming pool using various routes and, 
naturally, they'd take their bikes along.

Mountain Line (transit agency) has since started a "Kids Ride Cheap" 
program, which gives kids a pretty low rate the rest of the year (I 
believe it's 25 cents). And they frequently run tv ads on the Ride 
Free program.

The nice thing about getting the kids involved is that they're often 
the ones being squired around to soccer and movies and so on by 
parents (see the recent STPP High Mileage Moms report). It's getting 
to where the work trip is a small fraction of traffic (something like 
15% and falling, in some places) and focusing on trips like these can 
pay off in a serious way.

John Williams, editor
Bicycle Forum
Tracy-Williams Consulting
http://www.bikeplan.com



------------------------
William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com