Every Monday, the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities showcases a song related to transportation, energy, or sustainability.  This week, we’re taking a ride with the “Engine Driver” by The Decemberists.

This week is the fourth and last post of a one month exploration of SEPTA’s ridership for FY12  through infographics (you can find the first week’s here, second week’s here, and last week’s here).  This week we have have produced two graphs.

First, we graphed the SEPTA Subway Routes.  Is your subway route the highest used in the city?

Second, we graphed those SEPTA bus, regional rail, trolley, and subway routes with the top 10 highest ridership (regardless of mode).  Is your route one of the top 10 most popular routes in Philadelphia?

Every Monday, the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities showcases a song related to transportation, energy, or sustainability.  This week, let’s jog around the “Roundabout” by Yes.

Ryan Chalmers’s Push Across America rolls into Philly next Wednesday! (Click for full-size)

Find out more about his journey, track his progress, and donate at http://pushacrossamerica.org/

Some service planners at New York City Transit Authority and the Metro-North Railroad set out to document and measure how people sit, stand, and circulate on New York City subway trains. As they mention in a current working paper, the interior layouts of their trains haven’t changed much in decades, and a redesign would have the potential to get more use out of limited space and make customers more comfortable.

What did these planners discover? Their most striking observation was that people really do not like “middle” seats—nobody wants to sit between two strangers without any physical separation. Riders frequently choose to stand rather than take an open “middle” seat. Such seats were more attractive, though, if poles or partitions split up a long row of seats into discrete pairs, effectively equipping every seat with a separator on at least one side.

They also found that when standing, passengers overwhelmingly prefer holding on to vertical poles rather than overhead bars or hanging straps. Passengers liked to congregate near the doors and only move in to the aisles as a last resort.

In this illustration from the study, layout (a) depicts a typical existing subway car, as viewed from above (the blue areas are seats). Layouts (b) and (c) are two recommendations developed by the authors that provide the same number of seats but eliminate the dreaded “middle” ones by strategically positioning separators. They also rearrange the doors so that they no longer face each other, creating a more open feel that encourages passengers to move further into all available standing areas.

The results of this study will potentially be applied to future generations of subway cars in New York City, but more research would help to confirm that these findings can extend to other cities and other types of vehicles. Bus and light-rail trains, for example, often only allow boarding at the front door to collect fares, which probably results in a different pattern of standing room and seat selection.  Varying travel distances and degrees of congestion among different markets would also influence local customer preferences.

The Broad Street Subway uses both transverse and longitudinal seats. (Image from orenstransitpage.com)

Philadelphia is served by three heavy-rail lines with vehicles similar to those examined in the study. On the Market-Frankford and PATCO Lines, transverse seating provides more places to sit but less overall passenger capacity compared to a longitudinal layout. The Broad Street Line uses a mixed longitudinal and transverse seating plan.

The Federal Transit Administration estimates the useful life of a heavy-rail vehicle at 25 years, with many actually used for longer, so design decisions are made in advance of an entire generation of riders. Transit agencies have limited means to respond to changing trends, such as the 14% increase in SEPTA system ridership since 2006. Facing similar growth, Chicago decided to transition from transverse to longitudinal seating in their new vehicle purchases, while Boston has removed seats entirely from a few subway cars.

We want to hear from you: Would you rather have a better chance of finding a seat or have the room to quickly get on and off the train? How would you design a future generation of heavy rail vehicles?

This week is the third post of a one month exploration of SEPTA’s ridership for FY12  through infographics (you can find the first week’s here and last week’s here).  This week we have graphed the SEPTA Regional Rail Routes  Is your regional rail route the highest used in the city?

All data is courtesy of the SEPTA FY 2013 Annual Service Plan – http://www.septa.org/reports/pdf/asp13.pdf

Every Monday, the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities showcases a song related to transportation, energy, or sustainability.  This week, we’ll turn up the lights on “Electricity” by Balthrop Alabama.

This week is the second post of a one month exploration of SEPTA’s ridership for FY12  through infographics (you can find last week’s here).  This week we have graphed the SEPTA City Trolley Routes.  Is your trolley route the highest used in the city?

All data is courtesy of the SEPTA FY 2013 Annual Service Plan – http://www.septa.org/reports/pdf/asp13.pdf

Every Monday, the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities showcases a transportation, energy, or sustainability related song.  This week let’s keep things going with U2’s “Walk On.”

Over the past year, ACPHD partnered with several other agencies and non-profits to conduct surveys and focus groups asking local bus riders about their health circumstances, access to work, activities, and appointments, and the effects of service cuts and fare increases on their daily lives.  Beyond asking directly about access to health care, healthy foods, or recreation, ACPHD investigated other key factors that help a person stay healthy.  For example, after recent cuts to bus services, 28% of those interviewed reported a major increase in commute time of 30 minutes or more, and another 19% reported a similar lengthening of the time it takes to get to school.  Long commutes have been linked to increased stress and less time for sleep and exercise.  They can also limit the number of hours a person can work, reducing the ability to afford basic needs for maintaining good health.  For some riders, fare increases also meant less spending on food, social activities, and health care visits, all factors important for good health.

Many residents in Alameda County do not have access to a car, and prior studies had shown that lower-income people and people of color in their region rely heavily on bus services in particular.  These groups also face higher health burdens and live in areas with fewer health-promoting resources.  Philadelphia is similar to Alameda County in that over 35% of Philadelphia households do not have any vehicles available, and only half of workers travel to work by car, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  Both of these measures indicate that our residents share many of the concerns about quality bus service as those examined by Alameda County.

However, SEPTA faces a $38 million deficit in the operating budget for the coming fiscal year, expected to grow to $160 million by 2018.  Additionally, an economic analysis of SEPTA published last month highlights just a $304 million capital budget available in 2013 for a capital needs backlog of $4.7 billion.  This illustrates the difficult decision-making context SEPTA must navigate to provide public mobility while maintaining affordable fares and constrained budgets.  Looking west at the Pittsburgh Port Authority, similar budget shortfalls required a 35% service cut in early 2011, scaled back to 15% only after an emergency fund transfer.  Another budget gap was looming in 2012, threatening to raise fares while eliminating 46 bus routes and ending most other service at 10 p.m.  While the cuts were later temporarily delayed with emergency funding, these actions would have seriously reduced the access to jobs, social connection, and affordability of basic needs that ACPHD identified as factors for maintaining public health.

The farmers’ market at the Frankford Transportation Center in Northeast Philadelphia will reopen for the 2013 season in just a few weeks. Image courtesy of septa.org

Still, SEPTA has managed to support some of the public health goals identified by the ACPHD such as protecting job access by operating overnight service on key bus routes that accommodate non-traditional hours.  It has also partnered with organizations to host farmers markets at major SEPTA hubs including the Olney and Frankford Transportation Centers, increasing access to fresh produce options that are accessible without a car.  An additional 38 farmers’ markets can be found at or near other SEPTA stations and routes.

The Food Trust, which organizes many of these markets, has additional information on Philadelphia farmer’s markets: http://thefoodtrust.org/farmers-markets