Especially since so many transit stops are badly designed. Browne Molyneux is putting together a list of all the bus stops in LA, evaluating them for safety and ease of use. She has already posted about a dangerous stop and documented LA Metro's tendency to put bus stops between the exits and entrances of drive throughs.
Madison, Wisconsin might be a stop on a high speed train line. The station for the that line might be downtown and it might in the "Eastside", where ever that is. Hopefully, Madison gets a train, and hopefully the people taking it know where they are going to end up. (From a comments on a Political Environment post.)
People are more less likely to use transit if they know about the downsides ahead of time. But those people who start to use transit are more likely to keep using transit if they know the challenges ahead of time, and have a plan to overcome them. Also, citizens are more likely to put pressure on transit agencies and politicians to fix obstacles that have been documented.
2 comments:
"Eastside" refers to the Yahara Station, which, while not downtown, is much closer to the state office complex on Capitol Hill and the University of Wisconsin and the sports arena.
The real value of that line, however, is in moving people from beyond Milwaukee to Chicago, avoiding the traffic snarls in those cities, or on the intermediate destinations.
http://coldspringshops.blogspot.com/2010/02/federal-capital-grants-come-with-catch.html
Actually, I think that the post that I got this information from may have been using "Eastside" to refer to an airport (or close to airport) station while downtown referred to what you are calling the Yahara Station. The post referred to the placement that he preferred as being nearish to the state capitol.
I am looking at Google maps, and to me it looks like Yahara Station is within walking distance of downtown. Am I wrong? I could be wrong.
And I agree. The value of this line is as part of a system that can take people where they want to go. Not just Milwaukee. Not just Chicago even. But St. Louis and Indianapolis and Detroit. And even to much smaller towns.
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