Omaha Forums

Opposing viewpoints certainly can be valid, but are not so merely by virtue of being opposing.

There's the fallacy. That if I don't accept all opposing viewpoints in a "we're all OK," "everything's honky-dory" fashion, then I don't recognize that people can have valid opposing viewpoints.

Some viewpoints are right, and some are wrong. Some viewpoints are more right or wrong than others.

But now that I realize you are a lawyer the picture is a little clearer. You haven't been trained to think rationally, you've been trained to think like a lawyer.

Seth wrote:Firm to help improve bus service

Omaha World Herald wrote:The Council Bluffs City Council on Monday evening unanimously approved the hiring of a firm to find ways to improve bus service in the community.

The Seattle-based firm, Perteet, “will help strategize increased ridership and increased revenue and find areas to cut costs,” Councilman Matt Walsh said.

Can we get them to come across the river and tell MAT that they suck in Omaha too?

Study completed:

Consultant proposes new bus routes

Council Bluffs bus service could be reduced from five routes to two but go to new destination points, including Iowa Western Community College on the east and the Marketplace and Metro Crossing shopping centers in the south.

The proposed new service was announced Monday afternoon at the City Council study session by a spokesman for Perteet, a Seattle-based company that was chosen by the council to perform a study to make public transportation more effective and cost efficient. . . .

[center]
Council Bluffs bus service could be reduced from five routes to two but go to new destination points, including Iowa Western Community College on the east and the Marketplace and Metro Crossing shopping centers.[/center]

Lets hope they implement those routes faster than they have implemented the whole "METRO" thing... I still have not seen a single bus marked "METRO".

Metro has partnered with UNO Student Government to offer free transit passes to 400 UNO students on a first come first served basis for the Spring 2011 semester.

http://www.unomaha.edu/news/releases/20 ... avride.php

I am delighted to learn of this, and I hope it is a trial that will lead to offering free transit passes to all students in the future. Here in Albany, my university provides free public transit use just by swiping one's student ID card and the impact it has had on college student ridership is incredible. It's an excellent way to help foster a culture of public transit use at a formative age, not to mention providing an amazing service to students who can really use the transportation savings.

As long as UNO is 100 percent footing the bill, why not.

I told Jeff B from World Group the other day that I find it funny, World Group replaced Hundreds of signs all over the metro with their new sign in less than a month.  However I have yet to see my first "Metro" bus.  The buses all park in the same garage every night.

I had to do a double take when I saw my 1st one Saturday.

omaja wrote:As long as UNO is 100 percent footing the bill, why not.

In essence, I agree with you. I think it should just be a built-in fee for all students that allows all students to use all buses at no extra charge. The fee would be quite small, but many students will still choose to drive, allowing for the value for those who need the service or choose to use public transit.

But frankly, when you say "as long as UNO is 100 percent footing the bill," what do you mean? Both UNO and Metro are public entities, so unless it's student fees paying for it, it's still a public subsidy one way or the other.

That's exactly my point.  It better be completely funded by student activity fees or similar.  I'm not familiar with how UNO's student government is funded.

Having students ride around for free won't do much in the way of making Metro more viable.  It needs to focus on optimizing its route system and a concerted advertising campaign to really brand itself before subsidizing passes for a loss-making operation as it is.

Again, in essence I agree with you.

Although, regardless of how good the system is, I don't think UNO can offer all of its students free transit passes (c/o student fees) soon enough. It would give young people an incentive to use the system, provide additional revenue for Metro, increase understanding and awareness of transit issues while simultaneously breaking down the stigmas associated with it in Omaha, and as I've mentioned, would help in the creation of a new generation of transit riders.

For as poor as public transit in Omaha is, UNO is ideally located with major routes passing along Dodge, Pacific, and Center Streets. From UNO, one can get to almost all major destinations in Omaha relatively easily.

If the system were really that great I think we'd see more usage than we do.  Metro's problems are systemic and giving away free passes does nothing to address that.  Best case: a few people use it a couple times, but still rely heavily on their cars to get around.  Worst case: students use it, see how pathetic Metro really is, and return to their cars without a second thought as to public transportation.  Like I said, if UNO's student government is footing the bill via student fees, then I'm all for it.  Adding more red ink to an already struggling public entity will do just that and nothing more.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110208/N ... to-pass-up

When Metropolitan Community College started offering free bus passes to students in late 2009, not even the program's proponents figured Metro students would abandon their trusty Toyotas and Fords.

Some Metro administrators predicted the program they named Pass to Class would result in Metro students riding the bus 50 times each month.

Others — more optimistic types, such as Daniel Lawse, the college's sustainable practices coordinator — hoped Metro students would hop the bus to campus 150 times a month, maybe even 200.

The pessimists were wrong. So were the optimists.

In January, Metro students logged 18,767 bus trips.

I was just reading that...  Here is the part that bugs me:

Several even rode to Village Pointe, where they got off the bus and figured out a way to travel the four remaining miles to Metro's Elkhorn campus.

All told, Metro  students accounted for nearly 7 percent of Omaha's total bus ridership last month.

If Metro (School) is doing METRO (Bus) a huge favor and account for SEVEN PERCENT of your ridership why is that bus not spending an extra 5 min going the rest of the way to the Elkhorn Campus!

Because Elkhorn doesn't want anything to do with Omaha, silly.  

Okay, so it really isn't anything unique.  Metro is giving MCC students a 50 percent discount on monthly passes and MCC is subsidizing the cost of those passes.  Sounds good to me.  Why not extend the half-off thing to all Omaha-area university students?  Then the individual schools can determine whether to subsidize the cost of the passes.

Brad wrote:

Several even rode to Village Pointe, where they got off the bus and figured out a way to travel the four remaining miles to Metro's Elkhorn campus.

All told, Metro  students accounted for nearly 7 percent of Omaha's total bus ridership last month.

If Metro (School) is doing METRO (Bus) a huge favor and account for SEVEN PERCENT of your ridership why is that bus not spending an extra 5 min going the rest of the way to the Elkhorn Campus!

Exactly part of the systemic issues that need to be addressed if Metro is to be successful.  You'd think someone would have noticed that back in 2009 when MCC first started subsidizing the passes.

The program at UNO is a good start, although judging from the results with MCC's plan, they could do a lot better than a meager 400 passes.

Where I went to school (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), the city bus system was well-integrated with campus.  They had a contract with the university to provide bus services (which is more than simply offering reduced passes) which was passed along to all students through a specific fee (I think it was about $40 a semester, which you could opt-out of if you wanted).  When I started, they had campus-specific routes, but the routes were revamped the summer before I started grad school.  They switched from separate campus-only routes to reorganizing and adding city-wide routes that effectively served campus.  It was a nice improvement, as it made it faster and more convenient to get across town or from campus to downtown, etc.  It also improved interaction between students and the rest of town and businesses outside of campustown.  It also allowed them to run 15-minute headways on the core routes.

As I've said before, CUMTD (yeah, the acronym does suck) is light years ahead of METRO.  Why a metro area of 100,000 with one university has a bus system that is so much better than one of 800,000 and several major universities beats me.  I hate to keep talking about how much better it was, but if a little town in the middle of rural Illinois can run an effective mass transit system, why can't the biggest city in the entire state of Nebraska do it?

Yep!

Seth wrote:As I've said before, CUMTD (yeah, the acronym does suck) is light years ahead of METRO.  Why a metro area of 100,000 with one university has a bus system that is so much better than one of 800,000 and several major universities beats me.  I hate to keep talking about how much better it was, but if a little town in the middle of rural Illinois can run an effective mass transit system, why can't the biggest city in the entire state of Nebraska do it?

It seems that college towns generally have top notch transit systems. In Iowa, Ames's CyRide bus sytem had 1 bus for every 1,200 people, compared to Des Moines with 1 bus for every 6,100 people. It was free for students and relatively convenient for going to most of the city's most frequented destinations. It also has the Moonlight Express service, or, as it is more commonly referred to by students, the "Drunk Bus" offering door to door service from the bar districts until 3:00 AM on Friday and Saturday.

I can't say I often used CyRide for more than its Park and Ride service to campus though. It just wasn't convenient enough for me to ditch my car completely. One time when my car was in for repairs after I slid it into a curb on some ice, I resorted to CyRide to get to work. What was a 10-15 minute drive turned into a 40-45 minute bus ride. After only one day of that I resorted to buming rides from friends.

This is exactly why connecting college students to the places they want to go is an surefire way to get more people using the bus.

nebugeater wrote:How many buses are there in the Omaha Metro system?

130+ buses

315,000 monthly ridership

I read through a lot of this thread, and wondered if any of you have called MAT (nka Omaha Metro) and complained about bad services and dirty buses? Have you called the mayor's office too?

Saw a bus with Metro design on it, but it looked like it was only half finished  :?  The back half was just all white.

iamjacobm wrote:Saw a bus with Metro design on it, but it looked like it was only half finished  :?  The back half was just all white.

They are done.

BusMan wrote:

iamjacobm wrote:Saw a bus with Metro design on it, but it looked like it was only half finished  :?  The back half was just all white.

They are done.

Ahh I see, well thats pretty disappointing.

iamjacobm wrote:

BusMan wrote:

iamjacobm wrote:Saw a bus with Metro design on it, but it looked like it was only half finished  :?  The back half was just all white.

They are done.

Ahh I see, well thats pretty disappointing.

Not a lot of space for anything else given the venting, license plate and sign frame.

So I was thinking about the Metro and had a few ideas (some of which have already been discussed). Tell me if I'm crazy.

Rather than dive right into streetcars, what if we completely overhaul the Metro?

-Use smaller shuttles rather than the large buses.

-Re-hire Oxide to do really nice, extensive signage throughout the entire city that makes the Metro a prominent identity.
  -Advertisements that show off the Metro as well.

-Create kiosk type things at bus stops and around the city that have large, back-lit maps as well as small portable maps.

-Find ways to distribute maps throughout the city better.

-Potentially scrap the entire route system and start over.
   -Research which areas need transportation the most and which areas would use it the most, and start there.
   -Gradually expand the routes throughout the city.
   -Create routes that make sense and are consistently on time.

I feel like part of the Metro's problem is that nobody knows much about it, how to use it, or when to use it. I also feel like this could be a way to introduce public transportation to Omaha is a less expensive (and potentially safer) way.

Of course, all of this would cost a lot of money and there are still a lot of problems left over. But am I totally crazy on this?

I would say overhaul the routes, good signage, and the back lit map kiosk would be a big start.  I was at a stoplight the other day and was looking at the bus stop and there was absolutely nothing there that said anything about where the bus goes, how often, etc....  All I could tell is that it was a stop.

On a side note, I finally saw a "metro" buss the other day...  I was on the corner of 19th and Dodge and saw TWO of them at once!  I have seen three more since them as well.  I guess now that it warmed up they finally started adding the decals to them?

ShawJ wrote:-Use smaller shuttles rather than the large buses.

They need to keep the main routes the big guys.  Those things are actually really full now a a days.  The shuttle buses could be used on a couple of the less used routes though.

One idea I have is the use a few busses(or shuttles) as "streetcars" downtown.  Run it in a loop around 16th 10th  Cuming and Levenworth.  If not all the time than just nights, but run it until 2 on weekends/nights where something is going on at Qwest/TD.

Brad wrote:I would say overhaul the routes, good signage, and the back lit map kiosk would be a big start.  I was at a stoplight the other day and was looking at the bus stop and there was absolutely nothing there that said anything about where the bus goes, how often, etc....  All I could tell is that it was a stop.

Exactly.

iamjacobm wrote:They need to keep the main routes the big guys.  Those things are actually really full now a a days.  The shuttle buses could be used on a couple of the less used routes though.

That's a good idea. I'm sure that some of the buses have more use than I initially gave them credit for. Again, the right amount of large buses vs smaller shuttles could be found through active research.

More riders hop on buses

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110318/N ... p-on-buses

Bob Glissmann WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER wrote:It looks like more Omahans are choosing to take the bus these days.

Curt Simon, executive director of Metro, formerly known as Metro Area Transit or MAT, said overall passenger traffic was up 4.5 percent last week compared to the same period in 2010.

“It represents an increase of about 2,830 passengers on a volume of 68,395,” he said.

ShawJ wrote:So I was thinking about the Metro and had a few ideas (some of which have already been discussed). Tell me if I'm crazy.

Rather than dive right into streetcars, what if we completely overhaul the Metro?

-Use smaller shuttles rather than the large buses.

-Re-hire Oxide to do really nice, extensive signage throughout the entire city that makes the Metro a prominent identity.
  -Advertisements that show off the Metro as well.

-Create kiosk type things at bus stops and around the city that have large, back-lit maps as well as small portable maps.

-Find ways to distribute maps throughout the city better.

-Potentially scrap the entire route system and start over.
   -Research which areas need transportation the most and which areas would use it the most, and start there.
   -Gradually expand the routes throughout the city.
   -Create routes that make sense and are consistently on time.

I feel like part of the Metro's problem is that nobody knows much about it, how to use it, or when to use it. I also feel like this could be a way to introduce public transportation to Omaha is a less expensive (and potentially safer) way.

Of course, all of this would cost a lot of money and there are still a lot of problems left over. But am I totally crazy on this?

The main problem with Metro is the leadership. Completely stagnant and complacent from top down.

The buses were/are in horrible shape for years. No washing, constantly breaking down during routes. They put band-aids on a severed arm, if they even bothered to go that far. It's a disgrace that the Mayor hasn't walked into Metro's office and fired everyone in sight by now.

The shelters are a huge problem for any city. They are hard to maintain, and often look terrible. Just check out the shelters. Few ads, and they are in bad shape. Management seems to not care one bit about the image of Metro. It needs experienced new blood to turn things around.

Apparently Metro got all their decals in last month, Suddenly every bus is now a "Metro" bus.  That didn't take very long...

Every bus is not a "Metro" bus?

StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Every bus is not a "Metro" bus?

I think he means that every bus has not changed over to the new name and look yet.

Not surprising at all given the way that Omaha Metro management runs things.

Ah, I see. Yes, that makes sense.

You're right, Seth. There are still ghost signs around where you can see that they actually used to display the routes. It's almost impossible to fathom that in the early 2000s, then-MAT took a deliberate and conscious step backward (from an already embarrassingly dysfunctional system) and replaced all the old signs with new, useless signs. The equivalent of how many firms opt for "flexible" labor/employee solutions (non-union) that allow them to hire, fire, and change wages as they see fit with limited resistance. So too has MAT (now Metro) rendered it's system useless by keeping it "flexible" for their needs by not being wedded to routes.

I completely agree that initiating a smartphone app program to entice the "creative class" would be very effective. I would say it's unbelievable that they haven't done this yet... except for the fact that it's so believable.

But I would say that while "most people" have these devices today, that among the population that is totally reliant on the bus for transportation, many people don't, and they need to be served first and foremost by improving the physical legibility of the system (a rising tide that would lift all our boats).

Metro getting natural gas buses

Metro has been awarded $640,000 in federal money to purchase up to eight small — 28-foot to 30-foot — buses that will run on compressed natural gas.

Omaha’s transit system soon will join the ranks of big-city systems that have vehicles powered by natural gas in their fleets.

Yes, but not the ranks of big-city systems that offer functional, clean, efficient, attractive systems. This is certainly good news (even if Metro is way behind the curve, as usual), but I wish they would put more effort into creating a functional system.

I guess having nice new buses plays into that, but you know, I'm just perpetually frustrated with that organization.

StreetsOfOmaha wrote:

Omaha’s transit system soon will join the ranks of big-city systems that have vehicles powered by natural gas in their fleets.

Yes, but not the ranks of big-city systems that offer functional, clean, efficient, attractive systems. This is certainly good news (even if Metro is way behind the curve, as usual), but I wish they would put more effort into creating a functional system.

I guess having nice new buses plays into that, but you know, I'm just perpetually frustrated with that organization.

Yeah, this seems a lot like an impoverished person living in a run-down trailer who buys a expensive, brand-new car because they think it makes them look affluent.

New Bus Transit Center at Crossroads

http://www.omaha.com/article/20111018/NE

Omaha's bus system is getting $2.2 million in federal transportation funds to help pay for construction of a transit center at the future mixed-use development on the Crossroads Mall site.e Crossroads Mall site.

Glad to see this going in... that area has a ton of buses moving it through it now and I always see people out in the cold without protection from the elements waiting for their bus. Hopefully they'll have some digital signage at the transit center to let people know what/when buses are coming and where they're heading.

Great news!

The 76th transit center is lacking and just inconvenient.  Having a major transit center at a major intersection with a major redevelopment just makes a ton of sense to me.