METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles (and Streetcars!).

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Alec12321
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Post by Alec12321 »

Oh… okay. I was thinking there had to be limitations… although for someone living on campus that's about as good as a full, free bus pass… either way it increases bus occupancy.
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RNcyanide
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Post by RNcyanide »

Well shoot. If I'd have known that, I would have bussed to UNO instead of driving.
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Dundeemaha
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Post by Dundeemaha »

HR Paperstacks wrote: I was thinking something more like this:
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit? ... QCoyFbfWIc
That map is awesome, ideally have the West and Southwest lines connect up to Cuming on 13th making for number of easier transfers.
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Post by BRoss »

Dundeemaha wrote:
HR Paperstacks wrote: I was thinking something more like this:
https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit? ... QCoyFbfWIc
That map is awesome, ideally have the West and Southwest lines connect up to Cuming on 13th making for number of easier transfers.
Thanks! It's a concept I've spent some time on. But it's very much a pipe dream that I doubt I'll ever see come to frustration. But here's to dreaming!!
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Post by Brad »

Hansen: 26-minute bus ride from Papillion to downtown an eye-opener

http://www.omaha.com/article/20131119/N ... eye-opener
Matthew Hansen / World-Herald columnist wrote:I have lived in Omaha for more than seven years.

In those seven years, I have never done something that is oh-so-common in New York and Washington, D.C., and even Minneapolis.

I have never once boarded a city bus.

That changed before dawn on a recent Monday, when I drove my car to the Tara Plaza parking lot in Papillion. I climbed on the 93 Express with a dozen commuters and Evan Schweitz, a 27-year-old working hard to change Omaha's attitude about catching the bus.
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Post by Coyote »

Brad wrote:Hansen: 26-minute bus ride from Papillion to downtown an eye-opener

http://www.omaha.com/article/20131119/N ... eye-opener
Matthew Hansen / World-Herald columnist wrote:I have lived in Omaha for more than seven years.

In those seven years, I have never done something that is oh-so-common in New York and Washington, D.C., and even Minneapolis.

I have never once boarded a city bus.

That changed before dawn on a recent Monday, when I drove my car to the Tara Plaza parking lot in Papillion. I climbed on the 93 Express with a dozen commuters and Evan Schweitz, a 27-year-old working hard to change Omaha's attitude about catching the bus.
I just read this article, and even though I am not a 'mass transit virgin' I haven't boarded a bus in Omaha since high school. But going from Tara Plaza to 14th and Douglas in 26 minutes in amazing.
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Post by RNcyanide »

I've been thinking about trying to take the bus more often. My car doesn't get the best gas mileage, so going downtown can sometimes be an expensive trip for me.
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Post by Garrett »

The thought of having to drive again when I get back home is kind of annoying hahaha
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Post by skinzfan23 »

I wish they had a route from Bellevue to downtown.  There is a lot of traffic that commutes from Bellevue and Plattsmouth to downtown and 75 is always congested in the morning.  I am sure another lane at least to Cornhusker would help alleviate this but I would be open to riding the bus.  And better yet, my employer pays for a bus pass if we ride at least 3 days per week.
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Post by bigredmed »

Coyote wrote:
Brad wrote:Hansen: 26-minute bus ride from Papillion to downtown an eye-opener

http://www.omaha.com/article/20131119/N ... eye-opener
Matthew Hansen / World-Herald columnist wrote:I have lived in Omaha for more than seven years.

In those seven years, I have never done something that is oh-so-common in New York and Washington, D.C., and even Minneapolis.

I have never once boarded a city bus.

That changed before dawn on a recent Monday, when I drove my car to the Tara Plaza parking lot in Papillion. I climbed on the 93 Express with a dozen commuters and Evan Schweitz, a 27-year-old working hard to change Omaha's attitude about catching the bus.
I just read this article, and even though I am not a 'mass transit virgin' I haven't boarded a bus in Omaha since high school. But going from Tara Plaza to 14th and Douglas in 26 minutes in amazing.
Metro would get a lot more riders if they would just break down and do more of these express buses.  On the days like today, where I am at once place and will likely leave at a normal time this evening, I could easily catch a bus from my area to UNMC.  IF such a bus existed.   I live in the Burke area and we have basically no bus service.  

In Metro's case, poor ridership is largely due to P Poor Planning on Metro's part.   Obsession with "midtown" makes the YUPPIES happy, but doesn't fix the gaps in service that keep the system from being the utility it should be.
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Post by Busguy2010 »

skinzfan23 wrote:I wish they had a route from Bellevue to downtown.  There is a lot of traffic that commutes from Bellevue and Plattsmouth to downtown and 75 is always congested in the morning.  I am sure another lane at least to Cornhusker would help alleviate this but I would be open to riding the bus.  And better yet, my employer pays for a bus pass if we ride at least 3 days per week.
There is a route from Bellevue to Downtown.  Route 95.  It is an express route with two park and ride lots; one at the No Frills at 370 and Galvin, and one at the No Frills at Chandler Rd. and Fort Crook Rd.  40 minutes and 20 minutes to Downtown from those park and ride lots respectively.  Two inbound trips in the morning and two outbound trips in the afternoon.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Busguy2010 »

Share your thoughts and ideas with Metro in a series of public forums to be held in early march. Every suggestion and opinion counts toward a better transit future! :D

http://ometro.com/news/community-forum-notice" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"If you are unable to attend or have additional thoughts after attending, you may submit comments in writing to: Metro Transit - Forum, 2222 Cuming Street, Omaha, NE 68102; by fax to (402) 342-0949; or electronically on our website. Comments must be post marked / received no later than midnight Sunday, March 16, 2014."
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by bigredmed »

Busguy2010 wrote:Share your thoughts and ideas with Metro in a series of public forums to be held in early march.  Every suggestion and opinion counts toward a better transit future! :D

http://ometro.com/news/community-forum-notice" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"If you are unable to attend or have additional thoughts after attending, you may submit comments in writing to: Metro Transit - Forum, 2222 Cuming Street, Omaha, NE 68102; by fax to (402) 342-0949; or electronically on our website. Comments must be post marked / received no later than midnight Sunday, March 16, 2014."
Pretty much guaranteeing that they will get no one to attend. Thanks for posting directions for written comments. I will send some.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Busguy2010 »

I've explored the idea of making the 24 a crosstown route before. Makes you wonder how many people transfer between the 24 and the 7 just to get to the other side of 24th. Although there are riders who use it to transfer to many other routes downtown, so that's something to consider. It'll make them have to make an extra transfer. I think it would benefit the majority of riders, though.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by bigredmed »

A route out Dodge with connections at a small number of hubs to small circulating buses would work.
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Post by Busguy2010 »

The results of the survey are in. Only 200 responses. 30 percent were people who regularly use the bus.

The majority of people are in favor of reducing route deviations and are willing to walk a few extra blocks to access a more direct route.

More people would rather have main lines run later and more often over having extra routes serve new areas.

Survey results: http://s3.amazonaws.com/omaha-metro/res ... esults.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Globochem »

I'm not sure this is a useful statistic, but it seems jarring to me. The annual operating budget it $27.7 million. Annual ridership is 4.2 million. That works out to spending about $6.5 per person PER YEAR. Seems awfully low. Do transit analysts use this number when comparing dollar spending effectiveness?
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Post by Busguy2010 »

Globochem wrote:I'm not sure this is a useful statistic, but it seems jarring to me.  The annual operating budget it $27.7 million.  Annual ridership is 4.2 million.  That works out to spending about $6.5 per person PER YEAR.  Seems awfully low.  Do transit analysts use this number when comparing dollar spending effectiveness?
Ridership refers to single trips. Each time a person boards a bus that counts as a trip; no matter if the trip is 45 minutes or 1 minute. So that works out to $6.5 per trip, not per person per year. Daily ridership works out to about 11,506 boardings per day; less than 3% of Omaha's population per day.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Busguy2010 »

http://www.ometro.com/announcements/pro ... provements" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Talk about streamlining.

This is a link to pdfs of each of the route changes proposed.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by iamjacobm »

http://www.omaha.com/article/20140512/N ... ne-express
The only route that would be completely canceled is 94, which Metro calls an underperforming route. It runs between downtown and the Village Pointe shopping center area.

Daily 94 rider Jimmy Owens said he's unhappy with the proposal because that is an express-style bus, and Metro customer surveys found that such routes were popular among most riders.

A majority of the 170 riders surveyed said they wanted the transit agency to provide faster, more direct service along straight bus lines. Owens said that's exactly what route 94 provides.
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Post by Busguy2010 »

The 94 runs between Downtown and Lakeside, not Village Pointe. They would also remove routes 7, 9, 22, 25, 32 and considerable portions of routes 5 and 55.

Route 94 should be a good performing route as it travels along one of the most denst suburban corridors. There's many things Metro could do to improve the success of their express routes. No-brainer things like less frequent stops, more shelters designated express stops, real time arrival information, and transit exclusive park and ride lots. But then again, most of those things require funding, and as long as their budget doesn't increase, they wont happen.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by guitarguy »

I was just thinking to myself about how badly they need to ditch the number system and just name them in an obvious way based on where they go. That alone would make a huge difference in simplifying it. Other than NYC most places have intuitively named public transportion routes.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Garrett »

guitarguy wrote:I was just thinking to myself about how badly they need to ditch the number system and just name them in an obvious way based on where they go. That alone would make a huge difference in simplifying it. Other than NYC most places have intuitively named public transportion routes.

Not really... here in Chicago all of the bus routes are numbered and then have a subheadding of what street they run on. So, for example, I live right next to the 74/Fullerton Bus. Couldn't tell you much more than that.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by guitarguy »

But that makes sense! Having just a number to indicate which route it is must be a huge factor in why people don't even want to try to use the bus system in town.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Busguy2010 »

guitarguy wrote:But that makes sense! Having just a number to indicate which route it is must be a huge factor in why people don't even want to try to use the bus system in town.
I can agree with you. Although on the website and on the paper schedules, there are names associated with the route numbers. For example 2 Dodge, 11 Leavenworth, 97 Millard Express. With the hoodsigns on the buses they can switch back and forth between two different messages. For example the 98 headed for North Park will show "98 North Park" and then switch to "Limited Stops" and then back to "98 North Park"

If metro wanted to they could do that with the destination and the route taken to that destination. the 2 would show "2 Downtown" then "2 Dodge".

If metro were to do what the big cities usually do they would say "2 Downtown Via Dodge". That is ideally what Metro would do. And that wouldn't be a hard thing to change at all.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Dundeemaha »

Looks like the route changes are actually going to happen and will go into effect May 31.

http://www.ometro.com/news/metro-transi ... g-may-31st" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/big-cha ... 92855.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by jessep28 »

A map of the changes would have been nice.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by bigredmed »

The map is there on the ometro site.

Basically, no service west of 120th and no service to the central core of Omaha (108th to 144th Blondo to Center) except for an express bus that goes down Center twice a day. Now, we know why no one rides buses in Central and Western Omaha, there are no buses to ride.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by zane2049 »

jessep28 wrote:A map of the changes would have been nice.

Exactly. I have a hard time visualizing what is changing. I really prefer maps when we talk about transportation in the city.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

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bigredmed wrote:Basically, no service west of 120th and no service to the central core of Omaha (108th to 144th Blondo to Center) except for an express bus that goes down Center twice a day.
I'm sure the "buses are for the poor, elderly, and hoodlums" crowd are fine with that. By their reasoning, it will keep the riff-raff out of their neighborhoods.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by bigredmed »

Seth wrote:
bigredmed wrote:Basically, no service west of 120th and no service to the central core of Omaha (108th to 144th Blondo to Center) except for an express bus that goes down Center twice a day.
I'm sure the "buses are for the poor, elderly, and hoodlums" crowd are fine with that.  By their reasoning, it will keep the riff-raff out of their neighborhoods.
Score on the bigot meter.

If you want people to harden habits that you don't want them to maintain, make it really hard to change them.

When employers are talking up busses as an alternative to more $25M parking structures, and are talking incentivizing mass transit, let's make a big noise about improving bus service and leave all of central Omaha out. That way people can be car dependent, miss out on the employee incentives, and get po'd at the city. Because we need more Tea Party members.
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Seth
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Seth »

bigredmed wrote:When employers are talking up busses as an alternative to more $25M parking structures, and are talking incentivizing mass transit, let's make a big noise about improving bus service and leave all of central Omaha out.
That actually brings up a really good point. Have any major employers in the CBD or Dodge Corridor (e.g. 90th and Dodge) considered partnering with Metro to improve service? With the current attitudes toward mass transit, I wonder if that could be a genuine opportunity?

Although I'm a fan of solid mass transit, I haven't ridden Metro once in the 5 years I've lived in Omaha. Why? Because even though I leave east of 72nd where the service has (relatively) better coverage, it's never gone where I needed to at the times I needed to. Most of the time, I can get to my destination faster by bicycle, or I'm hauling something big enough I take the car.

Last week, I traveled back to my alma mater, University of Illinois, to recruit at a career fair. I flew into the local airport, went to my hotel, to the university for the career fair, back to the hotel, downtown to meet people for dinner, back to the hotel, then back to the airport the next day, all without a car. Not only did I save over $150 in car rental, but it was genuinely more convenient. Champaign-Urbana has a population of about 100,000, yet they have a bus system that makes ours look like a joke. They do both a good job of covering not only the denser urban areas, but also the sparser suburban parts of the city. Granted, the large university has an influence, but the system is hardly built around it. The culture is a lot more supportive of riding the bus, and since the bus actually covers routes that are convenient, more people use it. Can you imagine if Omaha's coverage looked like this?
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by mr. omaha »

Any chance Metro could bring those retro busses back into service?
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by guy4omaha »

mr. omaha wrote:Any chance Metro could bring those retro busses back into service?
Please no. The ones I rode, at least, burned blue smoke and choked you as a rider. They were way past the need for new rings.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by TitosBuritoBarn »

The Atlantic's CityLab did a full article on Metro's route changes.

Omaha Just Designed a Way Better Transit System for Zero Cost

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http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/0 ... st/393620/
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Garrett »

The article also mentions that BRT will be launching by 2018
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by TitosBuritoBarn »

The HuffPo did an article on the changes too. I'm kind of surprised by the national coverage these changes are getting.

One Midwestern City Is Fixing Its Public Transit Without Hiking Fares

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/2 ... 90494.html
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Dundeemaha »

Metro really does seem to be getting better. The improvements they've been doing lately have been spot on (Bike racks on all buses, streamlining express routes, increasing frequency) and not just the large pieces, the new map is much more readable and modern than the old.
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Re: METRO (Formerly Metro Area Transit - MAT)

Post by Busguy2010 »

I'm very pleased with the changes, though I feel this is the first step of a process. There are still a lot of gaps to fill.
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