UPDATE: TRU has prepared an email tool you can use to tell SMART we need buses more places, more often! Click the red button above to send your message.
As a shortage of drivers continues to disrupt SMART service, the agency is pursuing a major overhaul of its route system. Consultants for the project gave a presentation on it as part of TRU’s Transit Tuesday Talks series. Either scenario it presents would significantly reshape SMART service for the first time in years – but it’s worth noting what’s not in the scenarios, too.
Frequency or Coverage?
The “SMARTer Mobility” project presents two different scenarios. Scenario 1 prioritizes frequency: how often the bus comes. Scenario 2 prioritizes coverage: how many locations the bus reaches. You can delve deeper into the scenarios at this link.
The trade-off between frequency and coverage is a basic dilemma of transit planning. (This article by transit planner Jarrett Walker provides a useful summary.) Frequent service tends to result in higher ridership. Higher coverage reaches more people and destinations.
Both SMARTer Mobility scenarios leave many routes as they are, but they also create new ones and delete 8 others (mostly peak-hour commuter routes) with lower ridership.
Scenario 1 (Frequency) creates 5 new routes. Scenario 2 (Coverage) creates 13 new routes, but that comes at a cost. Under Scenario 2, no route in the system would run more than every 30 minutes, and two-thirds of all routes would only run hourly.
TRU’s Take: We Need Both
There are positive elements in both scenarios: the addition of a new route connecting Hamtramck to Midtown Detroit, for instance, and a new Downriver FAST route on Fort. Ultimately, though, the scenarios point up the need for far more investment in regional transit, so the tough trade-offs they force can be avoided.
In Scenario 2, it’s hard not to see the permanent pare-back of FAST service, to a frequency of only 30 minutes (!!!), as anything other than unacceptable. SMART might as well get rid of the FAST (Frequent, Affordable, Safe Transit) moniker, since that level of service is in no way frequent. (When launched in 2018, FAST buses came every 15 minutes, which is usually considered the bare minimum for service to be described as “frequent.”)
Scenario 1, meanwhile, leaves large swathes of the region without any fixed-route service, including major corridors like Mound Road.
This comes down to the fact that SMARTer Mobility’s scenarios are both based on today’s current, anemic funding levels. Quite simply, the region invests a just one-third as much per capita in transit compared to most major metro regions, and the SMARTer Mobility initiative doesn’t say anything about changing that.
By contrast, DDOT’s “DDOT Reimagined” planning process imagined the possibilities that might exist for the system if funding were to be substantially increased.
Questions on Flex
Another confusing part of the SMARTer Mobility scenarios is how Flex service is treated. While many community leaders like the idea of having this on-demand, Uber-type service, it is quite costly to provide (per ride), is operated by underpaid non-union workers, and still struggles to live up to its promises regarding reliability and response time.
SMART needs to develop clear consistent criteria for where this appealing but costly service is provided – whether based on population density, supplemental local community investment, or other factors. Instead, SMARTer Mobility mostly just tweaks the existing Flex zones without ever explaining why they include Dearborn and Clawson but not River Rouge, Southfield, or Warren.
Getting There
TRU urges SMART to create a third scenario that is not so tightly financially constrained, but that instead focuses on the service our communities need: one that includes FAST buses running at least every 15 minutes and includes service expansion into areas that need at least some transit connection. The new scenario should also clearly justify the rationale for Flex service. Then, SMART can develop a plan to raise the funds needed to fully implement that service, while they start moving forward with initial implementation.
The public can provide comments on the SMARTer Mobility scenarios through September, and we urge all riders and potential riders to review the scenarios and share your own opinions. But the bottom line is that without more funding, SMART simply can’t meet the region’s transit needs. That’s why we need to continue our organizing and advocacy for more transit funding, and more competitive wages for drivers, so we can win the level of transit we deserve.