Santa Rosa CityBus

When a bus driver really makes a difference!

2010-11-08T11:22:00.000-08:00

One of our Santa Rosa CityBus routes is a shuttle service in the Oakmont neighborhood of Santa Rosa. The service is subsidized by the residents of Oakmont and provides a daily trip to a local shopping center, then spends the rest of the day making loops throughout Oakmont to connect the residents to the community services offered in Oakmont.

Last month we received the following letter. (I’ve retyped it here so that it would be easier to read.)
__________________________________________________________________________________

October 8, 2010

Manager
Santa Rosa City Bus
100 Santa Rosa Avenue
Santa Rosa, CA 95404

Dear Sir:

My wife and I recently took my 96 year old mother on the Oakmont Route #16 bus. We wanted to introduce her to using the bus to do some of her shopping and thus boarded the bus as it heads from Oakmont to St. Francis area’s Safeway. Initially, she was very reluctant to use the bus.

When the bus stopped to pick us up we were greeted with a big smile and a friendly “good morning.” Mark, the bus driver, is a “jewel”. We noticed that he helped all his passengers in and out of the bus, checked to see if they needed help carrying their groceries, knew everyone by name and checked to see that all were accounted for before heading back to Oakmont from Safeway.

My mother was delighted to see many of her friends on the bus and was welcomed into the friendly group. All her insecurities vanished when she saw her friends and how Mark attended all of them. He is an extremely caring individual and deserves lots of credit for the effort he expends watching and caring for his passengers.

Sincerely,

Keith & Barbara
Gustine, CA
____________________________________________________________________________________
We are very proud of our drivers as they are an integral part of all the work we do to make our service of value to our community. As you can imagine, there is a lot of hard work and planning that goes into providing a City’s public transit service. Without a doubt one of the key components is our drivers. When we hear from our riders how our drivers have gone above and beyond to provide exceptional customer service to make them feel safe and appreciated, well that truly is the icing on the cake!

So, here’s to Mark! Thanks for doing such a great job for the Oakmont residents! All of us really appreciate it!

Transit Travel - A true story!

2010-10-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

I was invited to CalACT in Santa Barbara last week to give two presentations, one on our activity and experiences using Social Media and the second to present our Learn to Ride CityBus Travel Training program and how we’ve been able to adapt it to any and all community members interested in learning how to ride our fixed route bus service.

I planned to travel from Santa Rosa to Santa Barbara with a co-worker in our department hybrid car. Since he wasn’t traveling back on the same day I wanted to, I became determined on get back on transit. After all that’s what we do!
I’ve always wanted to take Amtrak’s Coast Starlight train. This particular train would leave Santa Barbara around noon and arrive in Emeryville (the closest depot) after 10:00 at night. Since I didn’t want to have someone pick me up and since I didn’t want to get home that late, I decided to look at other options, focusing on the train for the major part of my trip.

I decided to take Amtrak’s bus from Santa Barbara to Bakersfield, transfer to the Amtrak route 713 train to Martinez and take another Amtrak bus from Martinez to Santa Rosa.

Here’s how the day went:
The first part began with a 6:05am bus trip from Santa Barbara to Bakersfield. There were two women getting on the bus headed to Salinas. Both were well prepared for travel; comfortable shoes, layered clothing, snacks…etc.

It was dark when we pulled out of Santa Barbara with just me and the driver on the coach. Turns out he really is a surfer at heart though he’s been driving buses for 30 years to support his surfing “addiction.” He was more than happy to point out the best surfing along the central coast: Rincon, Little Rincon and of course, The Rincon. We did see surfers and dolphin! The driver also worked part time as a wine tour bus driver and special charter driver, so we discussed the quality of Central Coast wines along with my favorites from Sonoma and Lake Counties.

As we made stops in Carpentaria, Ventura, Oxnard, Santa Paula and finally Fillmore, we picked up an additional 6 passengers. It was fun to travel through these towns and see what types of transit facilities they have to offer. Oxnard in particular has a very nice, new transit depot complete with a small snack bar that served all types of burgers, sandwiches, hot coffee and pre-packaged snack items.
The trip took us along Highway 126 through a stunning agricultural valley. Then up over the Grapevine and into Bakersfield. All-in-all the trip was about 3 ½ hours and completely enjoyable.

The train was waiting for us when we arrived in Bakersfield. After a short wait we were allowed to board. As this was my first train trip I was totally excited and pretty clueless. I headed upstairs thinking the view would be better, though not on purpose, this was the correct thing today as the seats on the lower level are reserved for passengers who can’t climb the stairs.

This Amtrak train was very nice and roomy; there is an electrical outlet right next to me and a handy pull down table. At first I thought the train whistle was really charming… however, because the engineer kept blowing it, it did becoming annoying. Next time I’ll travel in one of the cars further away from the engine. For this trip I was in the second car.

Our first stop was the town of Wasco. It was a really quick stop, just long enough for me to enjoy the peace and quiet, nope, didn’t miss that whistle!
Just outside of Wasco we went past a really pretty field of mixed flowers!! I later found out that Wasco is a major flower provider, that 55% of all the roses grown in the United States are grown in or around Wasco.

Second Stop – Corcoran. Lovely depot, I have to admit I’ve lived in California all of my life and don’t think I’ve ever heard of Corcoran. Corcoran is most famous as the site of the California State Prison, Corcoran, which is home to a number of notable inmates such as Charles Manson, and Juan Corona. The conductor was funny: “Corcoran will be a short stop, so unless you want to spend the afternoon in Corcoran, don’t step off the train!” Nope, sorry, don’t think I’d like to spend too much time in Corcoran.

The entire train trip was approximately 6 hours. It was very interesting to see the San Joaquin Valley, the agriculture, the small towns, the homes and businesses along the way.

When we got to Fresno, I ventured to the dining car. The ride was a bit bumpy, so I waited until the train was stopped. There was a nice menu of pre-packaged food items at what I thought were reasonable prices. I selected a chicken Caesar salad and Diet Pepsi and headed back to my seat. Other than sightseeing, I spent some time on my laptop and even got a little cat nap. Ok, I finally did get used to the train’s whistle!

Arriving in Martinez, it was very easy to find the correct bus to take me on the last leg of my trip to Santa Rosa. Once we were underway the driver announced that Santa Rosa would be the first stop before continuing up highway 101 to McKinleyville. So, non-stop to Santa Rosa! Good news!

As on the first bus ride out of Santa Barbara, I was sitting in the front row across from the driver. I like this spot; you can see out of the large front windshield as well as the window on my right. Being in this location also allows you to hear any communications the bus driver has with the main office.

We had come to a stop at the signal light on Sears Point Road (Highway 37) and Arnold Drive and, once the light turned green, our bus seemed to have trouble getting back up to speed. The driver radioed in that he thought the “tranny” was slipping and requested a different bus meet us in Santa Rosa for the continuation of the trip. The replacement bus arranged, we continued to Lakeville Highway and in to Petaluma, coming to a stop at the intersection of Lakeville Highway and Casa Grande Road. And that was the end of the bus ride, stuck on the road in Petaluma. Although the driver radioed in that the bus wasn’t going anywhere, his exact words were “Send a hook (evidently a code word for a tow truck) and a bus!” It was 5:00pm, I’d been traveling for 11 hours and the LAST thing I felt like doing was waiting. Fortunately for me a very good friend of mine just happened to live about a half a mile from where we were broken down. I called him and fortunately, again, he was just getting home from work. So, the last unexpected leg of my big transit travel day was in a convertible Mercedes-Benz!

As anyone who has ever traveled anywhere knows, there can definitely be challenges. So would I take the train or bus again? Yes, of course I would. I enjoyed everything I saw; the buses and train were comfortable and I was able to travel on the day I wanted to. Did I learn a lot? You bet! Be prepared – comfortable shoes, and layered clothes, something to do (book, laptop etc.), snacks or some money to buy them along the way, then sit back, relax and enjoy the journey!!

Now it’s your turn. If you’ve had an entertaining or adventurous transit trip, we’d love to hear from you. Where did you go? What did you notice? What did you learn? What was funny? What was challenging?
Thanks, and see you on the rails!

Incentives for Choosing a Clean Air Commute!

2010-09-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

One of our programs that we haven’t presented here is our Santa Rosa Trip Reduction Incentive Program – Free Ride!

The program began fourteen years ago and continues through the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s Transportation Fund for Clean Air. The continuing objective for the program is to improve our air quality while reducing traffic and parking congestion. This is done by offering local employers a way to encourage their employees who work in Santa Rosa to get out of their single-occupancy vehicles and take a commute alternative such as walking, biking, car pooling or riding the bus to and from work a few times a week.

The incentive for bus riders is a significantly reduced monthly pass on Santa Rosa CityBus or Sonoma County Transit. The incentive for those who choose to walk, bike or carpool recently changed from a movie ticket, to entry in a monthly drawing for a $50 gift card. This change was brought about when the Rialto, whose movie tickets were purchased through the grant, lost their lease and recently closed. Previously, the movie tickets were “won” when participants used a commute option (walking, biking or carpooling) at least 16 times a month (somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 round trips each week). With the new gift card drawing incentive, participants are entered into the monthly drawing once for every 2 commute options they chose during the previous month. For example, if a person walks, bikes or carpools to work 20 times (one-way trips) during the month, they are automatically entered into the drawing 10 times! We made this change to help control the costs of the program which, like everything else during this economic downturn, has seen significant reductions in funding, and to “reward” program participants who are really trying to make a difference by increasing their chances to “win”.

To participate, an employer located within the Santa Rosa city limits designates a Free Ride program coordinator within their organization who then signs up the organization on the program’s Web site, http://www.santarosefreeride.org/. Once the organization is registered, the coordinator can sign up employees who would like to participate. Next, the individual employee visits the Web site to record their commute options on their monthly commute calendars. Bus riders purchase their reduced fare monthly passes at the Santa Rosa Transit Department, which is located at City Hall, 100 Santa Rosa Avenue – Room 6. The gift card winners are posted on the program’s Web site during the second week of the following month.

Another key feature of the program is the Guaranteed Ride Home. Participating organization program coordinators are given a taxi voucher they can issue to their registered participant who used a commute option to get to work that day and who has an emergency and needs to get back home. Of course, there are guidelines as to what an “emergency” is, but for the most part the program coordinators have been doing an excellent job respecting the purpose of this aspect of the program! We really appreciate this, it helps to keep the program fiscally stable.

Although in an ideal world, people wouldn’t need an incentive to make good commute choices to help the environment, we are very pleased with the success of our Santa Rosa Trip Reduction Incentive Program – Free Ride! The following statistics are very impressive!

Since the launch of the Web site (January 2007), the Santa Rosa Trip Reduction Incentive Program – Free Ride, has been extremely effective. Totals as of June 2010:
Organizations
255
Participating Employees
1532
Bike Commutes
199,635
Carpool Commutes
69,896
Walking Commutes
54,209
Santa Rosa CityBus Commutes
128,808
Sonoma County Transit Commutes
44,547
Total Trips Reduced
497,095
Total Miles Reduced
3,552,104

Goodbye!

2010-08-26T16:33:00.000-07:00

The time has come to announce what I've known was coming for the past month....I am leaving Santa Rosa CityBus to work on behalf of the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit District. It's been the toughest career choice of my life. My colleagues at Santa Rosa CityBus have been a delight to work with (why, in fact just this afternoon we had to separate the two ladies at our front counter because they couldn't stop giggling). You can't buy that kind of joy in the workplace. And the idea of not being able to blog about this fantastic bus system and the great work being done here just breaks my heart. I'll miss all of it terribly.

I'll be moving on to SMART to help them find the money needed to get that train up and running. The region of the North Bay needs that train badly to help shape the development and transportation conversations of the future and to ensure that this region doesn't become detached from the rest of the economy of the Bay Area. It's about basic access to services and opportunity for some places along the SMART corridor.

And I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the plucky bus company that is Santa Rosa CityBus. And my colleagues promise to give blogging their best shot. If you think this blog is a useful thing to keep up and running, be sure to let them know. Thanks for reading.

Santa Rosa CityBus Twitter Milestone: 200 followers

2010-08-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

Sure we are no Justin Bieber (currently he has 4,358,291 followers and is listed 241,348 times), but we just gained follower number 200 today.

What has been unique amongst our followers is that many of them are just following us (again unlike Justin Bieber, who is following 79,485 others).

And all we post on our Twitter account are Santa Rosa CityBus service notices, such as route delays or temporary bus stop closures or route re-configurations. I'm sure Justin Bieber posts less useful information than that (and no, I'm not a Bieber-hater), so how come we don't have four million followers yet? :) We've written about our Twitter services before and have posted cards in our buses explaining how to use this service to simplify your Santa Rosa travel experiences. We also use it to simplify the management of our system.

Keep signing up!

Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall Photo

2010-07-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this photo of the west half of our Transit Mall....from above. It is pretty clear that pedestrians have free reign in this one block of Santa Rosa.

Travel Training: Bergin University of Canine Studies

2010-07-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned that we conduct "Learn to Ride Santa Rosa CityBus" travel training with interested groups. While those are regularly scheduled events, with portions of the class taking place on our buses during their regular services, we also conduct a very special travel training class in conjunction with the Bergin University of Canine Studies, located here in Santa Rosa. Bergin University of Canine Studies is the home of the Assistance Dog Institute, training dogs and people for assisted living situations. They also have programs for people who are learning how to train dogs and train people for assisted living situations. People come from all over the United States, the world even, to attend this program.

Periodically, Santa Rosa CityBus partners with the Bergin University of Canine Studies by providing them with one of our fixed route buses and allowing them to practice with their trainers, their dogs and their clients learning to utilize assistance dogs.

On Tuesday, July 20, one of those practice sessions took place with two trips. Each trip involved approximately 5-6 indivduals participating in the assistance dog boot camp and 3-4 individuals participating in the training instructor program. The individuals practice boarding the bus with their dogs and then the first group is taken on a short trip and returned, where they practice alighting from the bus. The assistance dog boot camp is a two-week program where the client and the dogs must learn 89 commands to function in the world. For many people in this program, this is their first experience on a bus. In the case where buses do not have low floors, the dogs must learn to have their leashes relinquished to the driver while the wheelchair lift is lowered to the street to allow the client to board the bus. In the case where buses do have low floors, the dogs can remain with their owner throughout the process.

This partnership is above and beyond the normal duties of a public transit system, but it is one of the training programs that we love to provide. If we can show people how to use our transit system to provide them with access to opportunities in life, they can feel comfortable learning how to use public transit systems elsewhere.

Learning to use public transit is a valuable life skill and we love to help with that. We also really like to hang out with puppies when we get a chance.

Ridership Report: June and Fiscal Year End

2010-07-21T12:17:00.001-07:00

Our fixed route ridership numbers are in for June 2010 and the total Fiscal Year (July 2009 - June 2010) and the results are pretty good. Ridership is up quite a bit for June compared to last year and up overall for the entire year.

June 2010 Total = 239,420
Difference June 2010 over June 2009 = UP 7.94%
Difference June 2010 over May 2010 = UP 1.16%
June 2010 Bicycles Carried = 3,160

Fiscal Year 2009-2010 Total = 2,886,480
FY 09-10 over FY 08-09 = UP .99%

We'll update this information when we get our average weekday ridership numbers and our financial performance figures.

New Pilot Program: Free Rides for Paratransit Clients on CityBus

2010-07-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

We are testing a new program here at the City of Santa Rosa's Transit Department. For a six month period starting July 1, 2010, we are going to allow our paratransit-eligible clients who possess a Santa Rosa Paratransit identification card to ride for free on any Santa Rosa CityBus fixed route bus. More details are included in the letter shown to the right. We are going to monitor this in terms of ridership and performance in January 2011 and determine whether we would like to make this program permanent.

Why are we doing this? The short answer is always "budget reasons", though the longer answer has more subtleties. Every public transit operator is required by the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act law to provide complementary paratransit services to clients who are unable to use the transit fixed route services. That means that paratransit services are provided within 3/4 of a mile on either side of any fixed route bus line and during the same hours of operation of that bus line.

Paratransit rides, being more costly to provide per rider, require more public subsidy (as well as higher out of pocket costs to the rider). The fare that each paratransit passenger pays is $2.50 (compared to $1.25 for a adult fixed route bus ride). The cost to provide paratransit services in Santa Rosa averages to $21 per passenger trip. The difference between the paratransit trip fare and the cost of providing that trip ($18.50) is paid for by grants and revenues.

The average cost to provide a passenger trip on the Santa Rosa CityBus fixed route system is $3.40. By allowing Santa Rosa Paratransit clients to ride for free on the CityBus fixed route system, the paratransit passenger is saving $2.50 and the City of Santa Rosa Transit Department is saving $15.10 for each trip taken on fixed route.

Santa Rosa Paratransit currently provides 49,000 trips per year, or 177 trips on an average weekday. Santa Rosa CityBus fixed route services provide 2,800,000 trips per year, or 10,000 on an average weekday. So even if every paratransit trip transfers over to fixed route (which will not be the case), it won't overwhelm existing capacity.

We don't have any information quite yet about how many of our paratransit riders have tested this new service, but several have tried it. When we do our evaluation in January 2011, we know how many of these types of trips we've provided and how much money we will have saved Santa Rosa's Transit Department through this policy....and maybe we'll learn a few other things that we haven't anticipated. We will definitely save our transit system some money and that money is desperately needed.

UPDATE: Within the first six days of the program, we have provided 245 ADA eligible trips. That is an estimated savings of $612.50 to the paratransit riders and $3,699.50 to Santa Rosa Transit in six days alone! We've also heard from at least one rider that he lives in a location where there is a bus stop right in front of his house and this new program has encouraged him (and in some cases riders have an eligible personal care attendant) to try the fixed route bus service for trips where he knows he can physically handle the destination part of his trip. For cases where he knows the destination part of his trip is too difficult, he will choose our paratransit service. So far, so good.

Bus Driver Safety Awards Banquet

2010-06-29T15:16:00.000-07:00

The Santa Rosa CityBus bus driver's safety awards banquet was held on Sunday June 27 at the Transit Operations Building. The National Safety Council recognizes safe commercial drivers with awards for driving an entire year without a preventable accident. Santa Rosa CityBus has been hosting an annual awards banquet to honor the organization's recipients since around 1987 (the same year we first opened the Downtown Santa Rosa Transit Mall). Several CityBus staff, including a couple of drivers and the director of the department, have attended every safety award banquet hosted by Santa Rosa CityBus. The awards were presented by our Transit Superintendent, our Deputy Director and Director of Transit.

For this year's banquet, the awards given ranged from one year to twenty seven years of safe driving. In all, 42 bus operators received awards that add up to 315 years of safe driving. Why does it matter that Santa Rosa CityBus drivers have a strong safety record? Besides the obvious answer, that we want our riders to feel safe and secure and to provide them with the best service possible, it matters because it saves money. Santa Rosa CityBus has such an excellent safety record that we are charged lower insurance premiums than many other operators through CalTip, our insurance provider.

Also awarded at this year's banquet were the six employees who had perfect attendance records for the year. That number is unprecedented and nearly 9% of our non-management operations workforce. They didn't miss a single shift for the whole year. Particularly impressive is that one of the perfect attendance people was Ed, one of our three "Transit Service Representatives" whose job it is to provide customer service within our Transit Mall. Collectively we consider it phenomenal that he can stay 100% healthy working outside in the Transit Mall, in all kinds of weather, interacting with thousands of people. I'm thinking of asking him his secret.

Transit employees bring their families with them to the annual banquet, so we try to keep it fun while we are honoring everyone's fantastic records. The event was catered by Firehouse Barbeque and the food was so delicious that there wasn't any left when our Director of Transit showed up a touch late (due to a family emergency)....whoops! Sorry Bob. We had parlor games and a marathon hula-hoop contest (mostly for the kids). The first hula-hooping kid to drop their hoop got bombed by water balloons. Really, so much fun! Good thing it was the first truly hot day of summer.

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Card

2010-06-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

We received another warm comment card sent via US Postal Service (with a stamp and everything) again today. It still is a pleasant and complete surprise when a Santa Rosa CityBus patron takes the time (and money for the stamp) to send us a compliment. Not a complaint or criticism, a compliment! We love our riders right back.

Travel Training: Learn to Ride CityBus!

2010-06-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

Students in Santa Rosa are learning to ride Santa Rosa CityBus this summer!

We haven't really discussed this very much on this blog, but Santa Rosa CityBus offers FREE travel training classes for groups who want to have someone help them learn our transit system in "real time". This service is generally used by seniors, students and those who have mobility challenges.

Santa Rosa CityBus was contacted by teachers from both Santa Rosa High School and Slater Middle School who wanted their students to learn how to use public transit. Both instructors realize that knowing how to read and understand the System Route Map and Time Schedule is a very valuable life skill and more than worth taking the time to learn.

So last week, 39 Santa Rosa students and 8 school staff members were treated to a comprehensive, hands-on training program. CityBus staff met the students at their schools and started the training by providing a general introduction to Santa Rosa CityBus, including helpful information on fares, bus tickets, monthly passes and transfers.

The students were given detailed instructions on how read the CityBus System Route Map and Time Schedules so they could comfortably plan the best routes for their CityBus trips.

After a short 20-30 minute in-class presentation the students all walked out of their classrooms to the closest CityBus stop and hopped on! Santa Rosa High School students rode the Route 1 to the downtown Transit Mall, then enjoyed a quite ride on the Route 19, our South City Connector. The students from Slater Middle School boarded the Route 8 on Sonoma Avenue, right in front of their school, and rode it to the downtown Transit Mall and back. This turned out to be a great practice trip for them as they were planning on taking CityBus to the Santa Rosa Plaza the very next day.

All the students in the training classes were given a Santa Rosa CityBus Youth Bus pass good for unlimited rides during the entire month of June, so they can practice and enjoy riding CityBus.

Feed back from students is always very positive. They really enjoy the class and, as a result, feel confident to use Santa Rosa CityBus to travel around town.

The Learn to Ride CityBus Travel Training Program was developed after the Council on Aging surveyed local senior citizens. One of questions asked in the survey was about their use of public transit. Twenty-five percent of the respondents said that they did not ride Santa Rosa CityBus simply because they didn’t know how. Seeing this as a great opportunity, Santa Rosa CityBus staff created the Learn to Ride CityBus – Travel Training Program.

Over the years, hundreds of Santa Rosa residents have taken advantage of the Travel Training Program and we are always more than happy to welcome Santa Rosa students aboard!

For more information or to schedule a Learn to Ride CityBus Travel Training for your class or organization, call Joy Gipson at (707) 543-3336. Classes are also available on the second Monday of each month (through October) at the Santa Rosa Senior Center. Call (707) 546-8608 to sign-up for this FREE class.

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Cards

2010-06-10T18:38:00.001-07:00

Here's a cute shout out to our fantastic bus drivers!

Ridership Report: Spring 2010 (Feb. - May)

2010-06-10T18:21:00.000-07:00

We've had some good news recently on our ridership numbers. The last time we posted them was early February (mostly because we've been way too busy this spring). At that time we discussed the December 2009 and January 2010 ridership numbers. Each of those months had lower ridership than the same month in the prior year, not a good indication. On top of that, the "fiscal year to date" showed our ridership down 2.32%.

Each month since them we have been showing more riders than in 2009.

February 2010 had 223,924 riders, up 6.21% from Feb. 2009.
March 2010 had 257,799 riders, up 8.85% from March 2009.
April 2010 had 254,206 riders up 5.04% from April 2009.
May 2010 had 236,669 riders up 1.84% from May 2009.

Bicycle use of the buses is holding steady, actually up a bit from Spring 2009, but down from Fall 2009, at 2,800 per month.

For the year to date, we have had 2,647,060 riders, up .41% from the same time in 2009.

With only one month to go in the fiscal year (the State fiscal year ends June 30th), we are ahead of ourselves last year.

Here's to a productive June!

Car Free Challenge Results Are In: Fabian is the Big Winner!

2010-06-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

From June 1-7, the regional Car Free Challenge was held, hosted by TransForm. As we've reported, a couple of Santa Rosa City staff participated in the challenge, one of them Santa Rosa Transit staffperson Fabian Favila.

Well, the results are in and Fabian won prizes in several categories: most money raised for TransForm's advocacy efforts; highest number of donators; and, the most miles traveled via public transit over the course of the week.

What's even more notable about his performance is that he travels like this every week! From San Francisco to Santa Rosa, and then to San Jose on his off days. Relaxing and working the whole time he is in motion.

In addition to Fabian's win for the above prize categories, the other City of Santa Rosa employee participating in the Car Free Challenge, Ed Buonaccorsi, won the prize for the most miles traveled over the week on a bicycle!

We aren't quite sure what to make of Santa Rosa's success? More enthusiasm for bikes and transit? Better ability to self select contestants? Perhaps. It could also have something to do with how far Santa Rosa is from "the Bay Area". Sixty miles each way is quite a haul.

Once again we are proud of our co-workers for their extraordinary efforts and just for being who they are. Congratulations and, until next year, let's all practice riding the bus and our bicycles!

Update on Santa Rosa Paratransit Award

2010-06-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

In April, the City of Santa Rosa's Paratransit Division won the CalACT Outstanding Program Award for 2010.

Last night, the Santa Rosa City Council invited members of the Santa Rosa Paratransit Users Group and the Paratransit Program Manager, Michael Ivory, to come before council and receive a proclamation commending their work and thanking them for helping to make the system a model one. A video of the council meeting will be posted on the main city web page shortly, if anyone wants to watch the proceedings.

The applause was well deserved. We are all proud of Michael's efforts. And we are also appreciative of the enthusiastic Santa Rosa Paratransit Users Group, who work hard alongside Michael to address challenges and make Santa Rosa Paratransit an award winning system.

We are so proud of Michael, in fact, that one of our staff made an amusing video in his honor....

Update on Car Free Challenge: Fabian Wants YOU to Ride the Bus!

2010-06-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

Santa Rosa CityBus staffer Fabian Favila has entered the TransForm Car Free Challenge and is about to wrap up his last day of the week-long event. I have greatly enjoyed his reports and observations and hope that people will take a moment to read some of his blog posts. If you like what you read, donate a token pledge of support to Fabian and TransForm. (Turns out Fabian is in the running for top donation earner....if you help push him over the top he may get a rewarding prize, which he richly deserves!).

Or better yet, get on the bus!

Below is an excerpt from his Day 3 post "Who Rides the Bus?"

Let’s face it; the American “car culture” makes it difficult to ponder the possibility of any other form of transportation, least of all the bus. I’ve heard people say they’ll take the bus when it comes to their door step. There is also the stereotype that the bus is for “icky” people or only the poor. Well, not really.

I have met some interesting people on the bus. There’s the correctional counselor for Marin County who commutes from the City. He can calm any storm and you can tell he’s a good soul. We once had an interesting discussion about “gateway drugs.” There are the toll takers who work the graveyard shift and catch the first bus north and the High-Tech guy. One toll taker is proud to be putting his daughter through college, a nice man. He always says hello, or ‘Have a good weekend’ as he exits in San Rafael. The other toll taker pulls her beanie cap over her eyes and it is lights out to almost Santa Rosa (SR). She’s putting herself through grad. school. The High-Tech has clients overseas. He is texting at all different hours so his office time in Petaluma is for meetings mostly. He takes MUNI to connect with GGT at the bridge and Petaluma Transit on the final leg to the office. The BART guy lives in SR but works graveyards cleaning BART stations. When I’m going to work in the mornings, he’s going home. There is the opera guy who lives half time in the City when he’s in a production. He takes GGT to SR to connect with Sonoma County Transit to take him to his other home in Guerneville. There’s the I.T. contractor that commutes to Novato. She helps restructure I.T. systems for loan agencies—victims of mortgage crisis. She once reprogrammed my Blackberry for me. There’s the chef who travels from the City to his job in SR. We can’t forget the bus drivers, some real great people with a lot responsibility and lives in their hands. Ever cross the Bridge when the wind is really blowing and the rain is coming down in buckets? I’m glad I’m not driving. The driver I have now runs the bus like clock work. He’s never late to my stop. I can tell when he’s taken a vacation day. The bus runs a little late to my stop—the replacement driver not used to the route.

Update on Car Free Challenge

2010-06-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

Santa Rosa CityBus' own Fabian Favila has entered the TransForm Car Free Challenge. His first blog entry was an entertaining one and answered a lot of questions that his co-workers have about him, such as "How did he become such a fan of transit?" He points out the simple logic of incorporating transit into one's life:

About my middle school years my friends and I discovered the bus for ourselves. We could now crisscross the city and explore, and go pretty far. It was a new sense of freedom. We were no longer confined to our neighborhood. Speaking of buses, I also used to take the intercity bus –something called Greyhound—to my grandmother’s house about 55 miles south of San Jose when I was in the 5th grade or so. It was normal. It was a way of life. It worked.

Fabian has also sent out a request for donations in support of his fund raising goal and the work that TransForm does as an advocacy group for transit in the Bay Area and California. But if you can't donate, he'd be just as happy if you tried taking transit every now and then. Just get on the bus! It's affordable and easy.

Santa Rosa CityBus enters the TransForm Car Free Challenge!

2010-05-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

I am so excited because one of our own Santa Rosa Transit Department staff, Fabian Favila, has decided to enter the 2010 TransForm Car Free Challenge! It shouldn't be too difficult for him to succeed in living car-free for a week, despite the fact that he lives in San Francisco, works in Santa Rosa, and has family all over the Bay Area. In fact, he regularly travels around the Bay Area by bus and train. What will be tough for him is.....BLOGGING about it! We are all gently encouraging him to break out of his shell and start putting some of those enjoyable transit experience stories to good use and, personally, I can't wait until I get to read all about his travels in the upcoming week.

There are a couple of other Santa Rosa people participating in this weeklong event, including Tanya Narath and City of Santa Rosa employee Ed Buonaccorsi, both competing on the Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy Team. The competition is an exercise in community building and a fund raiser for TransForm, an organization devoted to advocating for world-class public transportation and walkable communities in the Bay Area, California and the entire country.

It's not too late to join the Car Free Challenge! Even though it starts on June 1st, you can register up to June 2nd! Help create new habits, reduce your carbon footprint, save money and get in shape - challenge yourself to live car free (or as close to it as you can get).

Rider Alert Reminder! Amgen Tour of California in Santa Rosa Today, Expect Delays

2010-05-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

Please see the attached rider alert for specific routes impacted.

Unfortunately, our transit operations staff will be too busy today to provide any specific route updates via Twitter. Our transit patrons' patience today is appreciated.

Santa Rosa Bike to Work Day

2010-05-13T10:58:00.001-07:00

What a beautiful day to ride your bike to work here in Santa Rosa. It was not too hot and not too cold. Just right.

A coalition of volunteers and organizations put together another impressive energizer station in front of Santa Rosa City Hall. The street was blocked off, REI was making pancakes, Froggy 92.9 was playing music, Fleet Feet was handing out goodies, and the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition was providing goody bags full of useful information and things like bike patches, courtesy of regional and local sponsors. Santa Rosa's Transit Department was serving delicious juices, fruits, bagels and muffins thanks to the super generous donation that we received this year from Whole Foods (Mimi, you rock!). And to wash it all down, refreshing Culligan water.

The City of Santa Rosa also hosted an energizer station at the West Side Transit Transfer facility across from Finley (where we had the goody bags, Whole Foods donated yummies and juices, and Culligan water).

As always, the goody bags fly out the door. (So next year, bike to work earlier!).

The turnout was good. City Hall saw 350 cyclists, including several children and a dog in tow. Santa Rosa Councilmember Gary Wysocky was there and spent some time chatting and enjoying the beautiful morning. At the Westside Transfer facility, 167 bicyclists came through on their way to the rest of their day.

A big, BIG thank you to everyone who donated the food and time to host this event. We couldn't have done it without you.

(Please forgive any misspellings in this entry, we've all been up since 3:30 this morning, so....good night.)

Press Release: Thursday is Bike To Work Day in Santa Rosa!

2010-05-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

Bike to Work Day is Thursday, May 13!

On the morning of Thursday, May 13, Santa Rosa CityBus – Transit Department will be operating two Energizer Stations, one at the Westside Transfer Station providing free beverages, snacks and encouragement to bicyclists and our “not to be missed” super-deluxe station downtown between City Hall and City Hall Annex. Once again we will be closing the street between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. and partnering with:

REI – who will supply fresh hot pancakes with fresh fruit!

Santa Rosa CityBus – is doing all the organizing and gathering of goodies for our 2 energizer stations!

Froggy 92.9 – live on the air updates and great music!

Culligan Water – is supplying the water for ALL of the County energizer stations. Stop by and fill up your water bottle!

Whole Foods – is supplying yummy fresh fruit and baked goods!

If you have not participated before, try it this year by yourself or get a group of friends/coworkers together.

The goal of all of this activity - to promote commuting on a bicycle as a great alternative! So hop on your bike and bike to work!

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Cards

2010-05-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

Here are three rider comment cards that, like many others we've received, are complementary to our drivers.

One rider does make a comment about the one bus in our fleet that is not a "low floor" bus. That bus, Bus #702, is a renovated bus that we originally purchased in 1991 and renovated in 2007 to install hybrid gasoline electric power drive (making it more environmentally friendly). Because we used federal funds to renovate the bus, we must keep the bus in our active fleet for 12 years total (10 more years to go from now). Unfortunately, we barely have enough buses in our fleet to keep providing the level of services we currently provide, let alone enough buses to be able to remove one permanently from service without replacing it. We do continue to seek grant funds to expand our bus fleet.

In the meantime, Bus #702 is rotated around through all the bus shifts and routes so that all areas of the City share this bus. We do not put Bus #702 onto routes that have only one bus circulating, so if you absolutely cannot walk up the stairs, you can wait for the next bus that will serve your route and it will be a low-floor bus. Bus #702 is ADA compliant and wheelchair accessible, but people who are standing are not allowed to use the "wheelchair lift" because when it rises up, it has vertical access under 5 feet. In other words, you'll hit your head. The bus can kneel, and the drivers will do that for you. We apologize for the inconvenience of this bus, but we are not in a position to eliminate this bus from our fleet for some time. Instead, we hope that you enjoy every other bus in our fleet that does have a low floor. We also want to assure you that we will not be purchasing any other buses that have steps like Bus #702.

Car Free Challenge: Santa Rosa participants wanted!

2010-04-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

One week, one goal: Drive as few miles as possible.

From June 1st through June 7th, 2010, the Bay Area group Transform is sponsoring the "Car Free Challenge". The average Bay Area driver drives 224 miles in a week and Transform wants everyone to challenge themselves to track their own car usage versus how far they travel during the first week in June. They really encourage people to sign up, even if they already live car-free.

There are prizes for all kinds of categories during this challenge. Visit their web page, http://www.thecarfreechallenge.org/ to sign up. It would be good to have people from the North Bay represented, and to have them win prizes.

Rider Alert: Monday, May 17, Santa Rosa CityBus Service Impacts, Amgen Tour

2010-04-27T13:06:00.001-07:00

For the fifth year, the City of Santa Rosa will host the Amgen Tour of California, a multi-day cycling road race around the state. Santa Rosa will host the ending of the second stage of the Amgen Tour on Monday, May 17. Many city streets across the race route will be closed and many Santa Rosa CityBus routes will be impacted, some for the entire day. Please be advised that because of the road closures, general automobile traffic within Santa Rosa will experience greater delays and those delays will, in turn, result in Santa Rosa CityBus service delays (we sit in the same traffic as all other vehicles). We will work to minimize disruptions, but we do apologize to our riders in advance for the inconveniences they will experience on May 17th.

We do encourage all of our transit users to take time when they are downtown to enjoy the festivities and excitement surrounding the Amgen Tour of California. The event and it's continued return to Santa Rosa is something to partake in and feel proud about. We also encourage those who are attending the event to take advantage of Santa Rosa CityBus and other transit services and avoid contributing to the automobile congestion the City will be experiencing on May 17th.

Rider Alert: Saturday, May 15, Santa Rosa CityBus Service Impacts, Rose Parade

2010-04-27T12:56:00.001-07:00

The 116th Annual Luther Burbank Rose Parade and Festival will take place in Santa Rosa on Saturday, May 15, 2010. Please see the Rider Alerts for details on Santa Rosa CityBus routes and bus stops that will be impacted from 6:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. on that day.

Rider Alerts: Five May Events

2010-04-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

May is an event-filled month for us here at Santa Rosa CityBus. Some of those events are going to be pure fun and some of those events are going to be about having fun, but will also require us to re-route some of our services. We will post reminders about these events as they are closer in the calendar, but in the meantime we wanted to give you a month-long advance warning schedule.

First, on Saturday, May 1, the Committee for Immigrant Rights, Sonoma County, is hosting the 2010 Santa Rosa International Worker's Day March and Rally. The activities commence midday in the Sebastopol Road to Julliard Park areas and may cause some Santa Rosa CityBus service impacts.

The second event is on Thursday, May 13, is Bike To Work Day. Santa Rosa's Transit Department is the City department responsible for hosting and staffing the City's efforts in support of the Bike To Work event. We will be out bright and early on First Street adjacent to Santa Rosa City Hall and at our Westside Transit Transfer Center to welcome people who are bicycling to the downtown that morning with goodies and encouragement.

The next event, is the 116th Annual Luther Burbank Rose Parade & Festival being held in Santa Rosa on Saturday, May 15. The Rose Parade & Festival will result in all buses that would normally use the Downtown Transit Mall departing instead from B Street by Macy's during the hours of 6:45 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. In addition, Santa Rosa CityBus routes with stops located along the Rose Parade route will have those stops impacted and some services will be delayed. Routes impacted include Route 1, Route 2, Route 3, Route 4, Route 5, Route 7, Route 8, Route 14, and Route 18. Details of the stops impacted between 6:45 a.m. and 1 p.m. are available in this separate blog entry and in Rider Alert handouts that will be made available on our buses and in our City Hall office.

The fourth event on the May calendar is the Monday, May 17th arrival of the Amgen Tour of California to Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa will be hosting the finish of the second stage of the Amgen Tour of California, the "largest cycling event in America" and a "Tour de France-style cycling road race". This is the fifth year that Santa Rosa will be hosting a stage of the Amgen Tour, but the first year that the race will travel through Santa Rosa on a weekday. Many roads will be closed in the Downtown area and Santa Rosa CityBus routes and stops will be impacted. Because of the road closures and resulting traffic congestion, expect delays on most CityBus routes all day. In addition, some routes will have bus stops that will be closed all day. A full listing of the routes and stops to be directly impacted are available in this separate blog entry and in Rider Alert handouts that will be made available on our buses and in our City Hall office.

The fifth event on the May calendar takes place during the week of Monday, May 24 through Friday, May 28, and will not result in service impacts to Santa Rosa CityBus. May is Older Americans Month and in celebration of that, and in celebration of our Santa Rosa seniors and senior bus riders, Santa Rosa CityBus will be hosting a weeklong event we call Seniors on the Go!. During this last week in May, rides on Santa Rosa CityBus will be free to people aged 65 years and older. The flyers that will be posted on our buses advertising Seniors on the Go! will have a listing of classes and activities at the City's Bennett Valley Senior Center facility, in case anyone is looking for a reason to hop on a bus.

It isn't even May yet, but I'm tired just thinking about everything that's going to be going on! May is beautiful in Santa Rosa, so come out and enjoy the events and ride CityBus to get where you want to go. We will work to minimize service disruptions and we suspect that even with service disruptions, it will be more relaxing to ride the bus around Santa Rosa than to navigate the street closures by driving on your own.

Enjoy Spring!

Press Release: Santa Rosa Paratransit Wins Award!

2010-04-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

We just found out last week that our paratransit program won the 2010 CalACT Outstanding Paratransit Program Award. So much of our paratransit program success is due to our Paratransit Program Manager, Michael Ivory, so this is really a congratulations to him! We are so proud of his work and the program. Below is the press release and included to the right is a picture of the award he/we won today.

PRESS RELEASE:

SANTA ROSA PARATRANSIT WINNER
2010 OUTSTANDING PARATRANSIT PROGRAM AWARD
FROM THE CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF COORDINATED TRANSPORTATION

Santa Rosa, CA – April 20, 2010: The City of Santa Rosa’s Transit Department is very pleased to announce their division, Santa Rosa Paratransit, has been recognized as the 2010 Outstanding Paratransit Program by the California Association of Coordinated Transportation (CalACT).
The award was presented at the CalACT Annual Awards presentation at their 2010 Spring Conference and Expo, at the Hyatt Regency, San Francisco on April 20, 2010.

Over the past five years, Santa Rosa Paratransit staff has been dedicated to improving all aspects of the Paratransit service provided to the residents of Santa Rosa. In particular, incredible improvements have been made in the following areas:

1. Operations: Reliability and accountability are the driving forces behind the implementation of new software and technology which include:

Trapeze Scheduling Software to improve productivity and reliability.

Upgraded phone system with recording feature to enhance accountability.

Installed Mentor Ranger Mobil Data Terminals and Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) systems to link with Trapeze and further improve productivity, reliability and accountability.

All fleet vehicles will have been replaced with new vehicles by May, 2010, including upgrading sedans to accessible mini-vans.

A standard Type 7 cutaway bus was replaced with a low-floor cutaway bus, for a deviated fixed route in the Oakmont Senior Community. This service allows Paratransit eligible passengers to schedule route deviations to their homes for shopping trips or travel within the Oakmont Community. Since implementation in 2008, 40-50 deviations are made per month, which in the past, likely would have been the more expensive Paratransit trips.

Purchased a new mobile Transit Information Center for the Santa Rosa Transit Mall to provide fixed route information and assistance to elderly and disabled patrons which has the added benefit of controlling capacity on the Paratransit service.

2. Safety and Security:

Installed Emission Reduction Devices which reduced particulate matter emissions by 40% (compared to 2005 levels) and Nitrous Oxide (NOx) by 3.2 g/bhp-hr. Reducing emissions is important to the health and safety of our clients and well as the entire community.

The installation of the AVL system with Global Positioning Units allows us to track the location of each vehicle and its passengers at all times.

Five Mobile View IV video cameras were installed on each vehicle to record daily activities, which increase security and reduce the City’s risk exposure.

The installation of G-force activated DriveCam cameras and recorders has resulted in safer driving habits.

3. Quality Assurance: In July 2007, Santa Rosa Paratransit implemented a Functional Testing Program to ensure that the City’s ADA complementary Paratransit service was, indeed, reserved for only those who could not utilize fixed route service. Extensive community outreach was conduced in addition to having members of the Paratransit Users’ Group and Santa Rosa City Council participate in the eligibility screenings. Ultimately, the new Eligibility Testing Program has become one of the City’s primary ways of preserving the ability to deliver the highest quality service to its clientele. The completion of the new Transit Operation Building in 2006 provides a facility for the functional assessments, thereby mitigating the overhead costs of a remote assessment site.

4. Regional Coordination: Meeting on a monthly basis with regional agencies to coordinate guidelines, transfer opportunities and resolve issues common to everyone, has proven to be invaluable. One area of joint concern is Mobility Management Options; the Santa Rosa Paratransit Program Manager joined with other county Adult and Aging Services staff members and two local elected officials to travel to the Senior Transportation Institute in Washington D.C. last summer. The goal was to evaluate and improve the level of service currently available to the elderly and person with disabilities. Cooperation and work between agencies on items identified is ongoing.

5. Public Perception: Undoubtedly, Santa Rosa Paratransit and the City of Santa Rosa have invested a great deal of time, energy and resources to improve its system. Ridership has stabilized, quality of service has been enhanced and service reliability has improved. Staff has also continued to strengthen relationships with the disabled community by facilitating community evolvement and education through the Paratransit Users’ Group (PUG), travel training seminars, the development and publication of educational literature and by including representatives from the disabled community in appropriate programs and projects.

Through all of its concrete investments and strengthened relationships with the senior and disabled community, public perception of the Santa Rosa Paratransit system has significantly improved. Today, Santa Rosa Paratransit is well respected, especially for its notable achievements, completed in a short period of time, during a time of dwindling financial resources.

“Santa Rosa Paratransit is to be congratulated for taking on the challenge of system-wide upgrades, and most especially for striving to achieve and maintain a high level of quality service delivery that is a local asset.” – Janet Spilman, Deputy of Planning and Public Outreach, Sonoma County Transportation Authority.

“Over the past three years, Santa Rosa CityBus/Paratransit has demonstrated its commitment to improve transit service to seniors and people with disabilities. When functional assessments for Paratransit eligibility were initiated, the Paratransit Administrator for CityBus came to explain the new process to our social workers and address specific needs of the challenging clients we serve. System changes have significantly improved service for our clients.” Ginny Doyle, Planner, Area Agency on Aging.

“The most spectacular project in this program probably was our insisting on an up-graded reservation and routing procedure. The reservation system now is completely computerized and every call is registered and filed. Schedules, routes and individual bus-ride manifests are printed out and all these records are accessible. Today “on-time” performance statistics are at almost 99%. And we haven’t heard about a missed bus-ride in years now.” T. J. O’Leary, Paratransit Users’ Group.

Earth Day Fair Today in Santa Rosa!

2010-04-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

Santa Rosa CityBus staff are at the Santa Rosa Earth Day Fair in Courthouse Square in downtown Santa Rosa today (Saturday the 17th) from 12 until 4. And there is a band (they are tuning up in the terrible photo I just took). Walk, bike, take the bus and come on down and listen to music with us!

UPDATE: We had a great time at the Earth Day Fair. Turns out we had the best seat in the house for the great music (provided by the Linda Ferro Band) and the entertaining and interactive dancing led by Tone Fitness and UJam Fitness, both of Santa Rosa. And no, we did not join in the dancing.

And Bagzilla was there (see photo). Bagzilla can dance.

Ride Santa Rosa CityBus on Earth Day, April 22nd!

2010-04-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Card on current economy

2010-04-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

We recently received a Tell Us! Comment card from one of our grateful riders who wanted to know what more we can do to help out riders financially. This rider handed it to the bus driver, rather than mailing it in and saved 44 cents in the process, so we believe them when they say they are watching their expenses. While getting a request like this is a sign of the economic times, we here at Santa Rosa CityBus know that even during "normal" years, many of our riders function on a small budget.

LOCAL FARE BOX RECOVERY RATIO:

This rider specifically asked for an extension to our two hour free transfer. Unfortunately, adding time to our transfer tickets would likely have a negative consequence for Santa Rosa CityBus, it would drop our "local farebox recovery ratio" below 20%. We are required to have a minimum of 20% of our revenues come from purely "local" sources. If we consistently drop below that number, our other grant revenues will be withheld. Within Sonoma County, there are relatively few truly local revenue sources. Measure M, the sales tax dedicated to transportation projects provides us with some funds, but the bulk of our local revenues come from rider fares. If we drop our rider fare collection down, we have to make up for it with some other local revenue source. Often other transit operators have more diverse local revenue streams to work with (property taxes, parking revenues, city general fund revenues, higher proportions of county sales tax revenues, etc.) than we do in Sonoma County.

One other thought about our current transfer policy is that it is important to remember that the function of the transfer is to allow a rider to complete a one way trip. Our policy does allow a transfer to be used for a round trip if it works out that way. The idea was to allow someone to return a library book or rented movie on one fare. As far as regular day use goes, 2 hours for $1.25 seems to be reasonable. Other regional operators, such as Muni and AC Transit allow transfers to be accepted for only 1 1/2 hours.

FARE DAY PASSES:

One option that we are considering for the future, which may or may not assist this rider, is a Day Pass. This pass would provide riders who do not ride transit frequently enough to justify investment in a monthly transit pass with the option of buying single Day Passes that would give them unlimited rides for the day in which they are first used. Such a pass would cost more than a single adult fare, likely double a single fare. To more successfully implement such a product, Santa Rosa CityBus will ideally first need to have all of the system's fare boxes (the equipment on the buses that collect, dispense and track rider tickets and passes) upgraded technologically. As we have been expanding and replacing our bus fleet, we have been outfitting the new buses with current fare boxes. If we are unable to replace our older fleet in a timely fashion, we will consider investment in additional fareboxes to retrofit the remainder of the fleet so that we can better track our ridership data and provide more diverse fare options for our riders, such as Day Passes.

KEEPING OUR BUDGET EXPENSES DOWN:

While we cannot offer more direct financial incentives to our bus riders right now, we want you to know that we are doing all we can to stretch our grant and revenue dollars to continue to bring you transit service. Unlike most operators in the Bay Area and the country, Santa Rosa CityBus has not raised fares or cut transit service on the street since the current financial crisis/recession/depression began in earnest in the fall of 2008. As riders of other Bay Area systems can attest, fares have risen and service has been cut, dramatically in some places, in order to keep transit operators from running deficits. The adult base fare on Muni and AC Transit is now $2 and the discounts to seniors, youth and disabled are being reduced starting in May. Both of those operators, and many others, have also dramatically reconfigured and reduced their bus routes.

While it's true that Santa Rosa CityBus does not offer as robust levels of service to begin with as some other urban operators, we have also not had the level of local funding that those operators have had (mentioned above under Local Fare Box Recovery Ratio). What is important for this conversation is that we have lived within our means and we have historically maintained an appropriate level of financial reserves.

Between Fiscal Year 2007/2008 and the upcoming Fiscal Year 2010/2011 (that starts July 1, 2010), our Transit Operating budget has risen from $10,372,000 to $10,700,000, or roughly 1% per year on average. That is quite unusual and bodes well for our ability to weather this economic downturn.

Of course, we owe a debt of gratitude to the federal government for being able to survive, largely because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA/Stimulus Funds). ARRA funds have provided us with roughly $1 million in operating revenues and a federal rule change that allowed us to utilize our annual federal formula grant funds for operating ($1.3 million) have helped offset the downturn in sales tax collection that resulted in our main revenue stream dropping by 28% over the four year budget time period of FY07/08 to FY10/11. We also owe a debt of gratitude to our drivers and service workers who agreed to an extension on their contract for two years with a 0% growth in compensation.

We are continuing to work towards (1) managing our expenses, (2) keeping our current level of service on the streets, (3) growing our revenue streams, particularly the local ones, so that we can maintain and eventually improve our transit services, and (4) implementing programs and policies that will help our transit riders that need us the most, those who are struggling financially and need us to get to work, school and other opportunities. Thanks to all for helping us along in our efforts.

Press Release: Santa Rosa Earth Week Events - Ride CityBus Free April 22nd!

2010-04-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

The year 2010 marks the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day and the City of Santa Rosa has a number of events scheduled. A press release on these events is shown attached and more information can be found on the City of Santa Rosa's web page.

Of note to us here at Santa Rosa CityBus, and thanks to grant funds from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, we will be offering free transit service to all on Thursday, April 22nd. We hope everyone takes advantage of this opportunity to have someone else drive you around Santa Rosa for free, all while reducing our individual impacts to the environment and our collective home, Planet Earth. Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your classmates! Members of the Santa Rosa City Council will be taking the bus for their trips on April 22nd as well, so strike up a conversation if you see them.

In addition to Free Rides on CityBus on April 22nd, Santa Rosa CityBus will have an information booth set up this Saturday, April 17th, at the First Annual Santa Rosa Earth Day Fair at Courthouse Square from 12-4 pm. See you there!

Rider Comments: Which mobility devices can be used on CityBus buses?

2010-04-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

In response to our Monday, April 5, blog entry on one of our Tell Us! rider comment cards, a reader submitted three comments about our system. One of those comments was regarding whether we had a list of what we refer to as "mobility devices" that are allowed onto our fixed route CityBus system.

Specifically, the commenter said:

"Please publish a list of scooters that can make the turn onto all of your buses (all sizes of them) that people with disabilities might use if they must use a scooter. My guess is that all wheelchairs can make the turn, but not all scooters. For example, I asked my driver if a ZAP could make the turn onto his bus, and he did not think so."

The request merits its own blog entry.

Mobility devices accommodation can be a complicated issue. Santa Rosa CityBus and Santa Rosa Paratransit follow the requirements, guidelines and standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Those guidelines do not specify which individual mobility devices or manufacturers are to be accommodated, but they do outline general standards for the devices that must be accommodated by public transit systems. Santa Rosa Paratransit has a "Paratransit User's Guide" posted online and item #13 refers to the general requirements for mobility devices (see graphic). Those standards are similar to what is allowable on Santa Rosa CityBus' fixed route service.

Santa Rosa CityBus does not monitor, measure or otherwise categorize scooters or other non-standard mobility devices manufactured by the private sector to determine whether they can be accommodated on our fixed route bus fleet. We do not have the staff time available to provide this service and to do so would create a situation that would be complicated for us, since our federal grant funding prohibits us from recommending private manufacturers' products (which might be a by-product of any such "list").

The Santa Rosa CityBus fixed route bus fleet does meet ADA requirements that public transit buses accommodate standard mobility devices that are up to 30" wide, 48" long and that weigh (in combination with the device user) up to 600 pounds. Each of our buses has space for two wheelchairs/mobility devices. A couple of other specific notes about mobility devices on our fixed route fleet/services to keep in mind include the following:

The mobility device cannot be powered by gasoline or other flammable fuels.

The mobility device must be able to make the turn from the boarding ramp to the bus aisle/wheelchair area without driver/passenger assistance (attendants are the exception to that and our buses have a 36" turning radius available to accommodate standard mobility devices).

Passenger and driver safety must be a consideration in which mobility devices beyond a "common wheelchair" can be accommodated (aisles must be clear, mobility device and device user must be secure, etc.).

Mobility devices must be secured on the bus, by the bus driver, using the four restraints provided on the bus.

Mobility device users are requested to consider the amount of time drivers must take to secure non-standard devices (beyond the "common wheelchair").

Many scooter products do not have equipment built-in to secure the mobility device with the bus and the drivers must take valuable time to determine how/where to properly secure the mobility device. The drivers want to ensure the safety of the device user, the other passengers, the bus and the driver her/himself. The drivers also don't want to damage the mobility device, which can happen if the device doesn't have four securing handles the driver can use to strap the device into the bus. And then there is the concern for maintaining a schedule. In providing fixed route bus service, as everyone knows, adhering to a schedule is critical. Santa Rosa CityBus, and all bus systems, provide some degree of cushion into their schedules to allow for routine time delays and everyday business (traffic congestion, complicated fare transactions, securing of mobility devices, bicycle rack usage, etc.). To the extent that the drivers must make efforts to accommodate non-standard mobility devices, and that those efforts take an unexpected amount of time, transit service on-time performance may suffer.

We welcome all mobility device users onto Santa Rosa CityBus, but we do no specify which vendor's mobility devices can be allowed onto our buses.

We also want to thank this commenter for raising the issue within our blog venue so that we could have this chance to answer this question in a way that others can have access to this information.

CityBus Service Updates: Twitter updates

2010-04-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

As we mentioned last month, Santa Rosa CityBus has been announcing service updates using Twitter since spring 2009. We had been testing the process, giving our Transit Supervisors (the people in charge of service operations as they are happening in the street) time to incorporate the additional task of tweeting service changes. When service changes occur, it is usually because of some kind of mini-crisis in the field. Often the Transit Supervisors are busy with managing the details of the mini-crisis and taking the time to tweet is an extra responsibility. After some time, the task of tweeting service changes has been incorporated into the regular Transit Supervisor responsibilities of managing crises in the field of operations, so we decided to "go live" with advertising our Twitter usage to our customers - our daily riders who are not necessarily people who are already using Twitter for anything in their daily lives.

In the beginning of March we posted Twitter service information "car cards" (the larger information/advertisements that are posted overhead) and "take aways" (the schedule-sized handouts in holders at the front of the buses) in our buses. We weren't sure what kind of response we would get from our riders, but, sure enough, we began to see a different kind person sign up to follow us on Twitter. Specifically, the kind of people who signed up were signing up just to follow us, or they were only following 3-6 entities on Twitter, not 50 or 200 or 2,000. We also found that younger people and a few people who appear to be Spanish speakers signing up.

We will keep advertising our Twitter services and keep tweeting our CityBus schedule changes in real time and we hope more and more people will sign up to follow us on Twitter. Not because we want to brag about the number of people following us (though that is nice), but because this is the kind of tool that makes our service more customer friendly. If you are traveling around Santa Rosa on CityBus, you are now able to have the flexibility to make your own decisions and choices about how you spend your time rather than sitting at a bus stop, waiting without knowing when what you are waiting for will arrive. Having control over your own life is a good thing.

Santa Rosa CityBus Blog: How are we doing? (Part Two)

2010-04-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

Admittedly I've been neglecting our blog lately. Unfortunately, until it becomes clear that our community thinks that this blog is a strong communication and information tool, it will always be more of a hobby for our department. Just something we try to squeeze in to our "to do" list along with all the other responsibilities of running a small transit system (trust me, I'd rather be blogging). Our City Council has been clear that they love more frequent communications and information distribution to our community and that this blog experiment is part of that effort, so that's nice. We'd like to think of this blog as a two way conversation, though the bulk of our community comments still come to us via handwritten notes on our Tell Us! Cards.

Last week we received a lovely nod of support from The Source, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority blog. On March 30, the editor at The Source compiled a list of "8 essential transit agency blogs", and one of them was our own Santa Rosa CityBus blog! When you see how tiny we really are (both as a transit agency and as blog site), you'll understand why this reference makes us proud. And they got it right at The Source, we are doing this to try and connect with our customers. We'd love it if our customers embrace us on the internet in a way that encourages dialogue and gets us all where we want to go: operating a robust, well used transit system that is appreciated by the community.

So, how is our blog doing? We last looked at our blog "viewership" at four months into our experiment, about one year ago on March 31, 2009. Ironically, some of the most content rich comments we have received to date have been in response to that blog entry. We need more of that. Looking at our data reports this year, since we started this blog in December 2008 we have had 9,850 total visits, with 7,301 of those being new visitors. Our largest market, thankfully, is Santa Rosa itself with 1,615 visits. San Francisco is running a close second with 1,013 visits. Our most popular page is the home page of the blog. Our blog entry on our online trip planning tool is second, followed by a personal transit story that gets looked at regularly because it is about the Santa Rosa/Oakland connection and many folks are out there looking for how to take transit between the two. The blog entry highlighting fascinating people you meet on the bus is fourth on our most visited blog entry thanks in large part to the Streetsblog Network, because they gave us a headline one day. The blog entry on the Levi Leipheimer's King Ridge GranFondo has made our top five because, well, we are a bit of a bicycle mecca.

On another note, I've finally added one of those "label clouds" at the bottom-right section of the blog. Just so you can find other topics of interest more easily. Just click on any of the words and all the articles that contain those labels will appear. The larger the word, the more entries on that topic. (Thank goodness I have written more about our riders than about funding! Since I am really the grant development person here, that kind of suprises me, but it just goes to show how customer oriented we are at Santa Rosa CityBus.)

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Cards

2010-04-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

Here is another complementary comment card from one of our riders. Enjoy!

Paratransit Rider Comments: Tell Us! Cards

2010-03-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

Part of the Santa Rosa Transit Department's responsibility is providing paratransit service that is Americans' with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant and complementary to our fixed route Santa Rosa CityBus service. The Santa Rosa Paratransit program is a contracted service utilizing 11 buses and providing approximately 48,000 trips per year (or 177 average weekday trips).

There is too much to talk about paratransit in one post, but we wanted to let you know that we do get comment cards from our paratransit riders, in addition to our fixed route riders, and we will try to start posting them on our blog in case people are curious. As with our fixed route Tell Us! Cards, many of the paratransit Tell Us! Cards are conveying a complement. We simply have overlooked posting them until now.

CityBus Service Updates: Follow us on Twitter!

2010-03-09T17:41:00.000-08:00

In the spring of 2009, Santa Rosa CityBus started to announce service disruptions by using Twitter.com. The decision to do this was based in part on the fact that the City of Santa Rosa was undergoing a staff re-organization in 2009 that required Santa Rosa CityBus to provide customer service with fewer people and to provide customer service staffing of our front counters/phones for shorter hours.

One of the current features of our CityBus system is a customer service we provide whereby bus riders can call a phone number posted on every one of our bus stops and speak to a staff person regarding the status of any particular bus. This customer service system is convenient for riders who have cell phones, but is very resource intensive to staff. Santa Rosa CityBus does not currently have the capability to track the progress of its buses via satellite/computer (called: Automatic Vehicle Locator System) to provide direct answers to bus riders telephoning in from a bus stop. Instead, our customer service staff must l00k at our bus schedules for expected bus arrival times and, on the occasions where something seems amiss, place the caller on hold and contact one of our transit operations supervisors to inquire about the status of a bus.

Now that we are using Twitter to announce service disruptions, our customer service staff can see directly whether a service delay is in effect, thus eliminating the step of communicating directly with our transit operations supervisors (who are generally busy responding to operations issues when buses are experiencing delays). We can also provide that service delay information directly to riders who sign up, thus eliminating the need for riders to contact our customer service staff (who are often busy selling bus passes or processing disability cards, etc.).

We encourage everyone to sign up. The tweets are to the point, only about service changes/disruptions, and could be very useful for our customers. Someday we hope to have the financial capability of investing in an Automatic Vehicle Locator system and Real Time transit arrival displays at our major transit stops. We have over 500 bus stops, so it is unlikely that we will every have Real Time bus arrival information at all the stops, so some form of technological tool like Twitter may always be in our future. Until we have the finances to implement any Automatic Vehicle Locator/Real Time transit systems, we hope that Twitter will help us to get needed information to our riders.

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Cards

2010-03-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest Tell Us! Card we received from one of our riders. This one is so sad and sweet. Sometimes I still cannot believe how positive people's feelings are towards us. Seriously! Do other operators get these kinds of cards of thanks? It is such a nice community on our buses.

Ridership Report: December 2009 and January 2010

2010-03-01T14:19:00.000-08:00

Our ridership numbers are in for December 2009 and January 2010 and it isn't exactly pretty.

December 2009 had 224,741 trips (down 2.49% from December 2008 and 4.32% from November 2009, the month prior).

January 2010 had 218,453 trips (down 6.12% from January 2009 and down 2.8% from December 2009, the month prior).

For the Fiscal Year to Date (comparing July 2009-January 2010 to July 2008-January 2009), Santa Rosa CityBus ridership is down 2.32%.

On the one had, that could be considered bad because we have had this drop in ridership despite the fact that we have not cut service on the streets. Other operators, such as Golden Gate Transit and Sonoma County Transit, have had larger decreases in ridership (due to economic conditions and, in the case of Sonoma County Transit, a 20% decrease in service on the streets in June 2009).

On the other hand, CityBus' decrease of 2.32% could be considered good, because it is a decrease off of our record ridership year of 2008-2009 that was generated in part due to gas prices hitting unprecedented heights. Santa Rosa CityBus was still experiencing elevated ridership numbers in December 2008 and January 2009, numbers which are the "baseline" for comparison of December 2009 and January 2010. If our ridership numbers continue to sag through Spring 2010 as compared to Spring 2009 (when we started the trend of our recent decline), then we'll know we are in trouble and will end the year significantly off where we would like to be.

In other ridership news, we carried 2,590 bikes in December 2009 and 2,375 bikes in January 2010. Our wheelchair ridership was roughly 2,000 wheelchair trips for each month.

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Cards

2010-03-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

My favorite thing about this Tell Us! Card we just received is that this person has just tried Santa Rosa CityBus for the first time and enjoyed her experience so much that she wrote us a note!

It's like the woman at the Sonoma County Forum breakfast presentation I gave in January who, when she raised her hand during the question and answer period, just wanted to say that she had recently started taking trips on Santa Rosa CityBus buses and was amazed at how everyone seemed to know each other and there were all these conversations taking place on the bus. It was like a whole enjoyable community within her community that she didn't know existed.

Transit Budgets: Additional ARRA Funding - Not TIGER Grant

2010-02-17T16:51:00.001-08:00

On February 12, four days before the deadline set by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) for BART to resolve outstanding issues on the Oakland Airport Connector project with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the FTA Administrator officially rejected BART's proposed corrective action plan. Because of this rejection, the MTC has authorized a re-direction of American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA/Recovery Act/Stimulus Funds) that had been programmed to BART for the Connector project to other transit projects within the region. These "new" funds have to now be amended into our existing ARRA grants by March 5th.

I don't want to bore you with tedious details, but to complete this by the March 5th deadline will be like moving mountains. We never refuse money though, no matter how hard we must work to have access to it.

There will be 18 operators in the region, including BART, that will divide the $70 million in "Tier 2" ARRA transit funds. The list of projects that will receive the funding was decided upon prior to the actual adoption of the ARRA (which happens to have been February 17, 2009....that's right, Happy Anniversary everyone!). The MTC first adopted a list of Tier 2 transit projects to be funded at their February 25, 2009, meeting. That project list was developed simultaneous to the Tier 1 ARRA transit project list. Because of current time limitations on executing the grant amendments by March 5, 2010, the Tier 2 list will stand as it was last amended in July 2009.

What will Santa Rosa CityBus be doing with this ARRA Tier 2 funding? We will be adding $983,249 to our original ARRA grant and will be putting those funds together with a smaller second ARRA grant we received in the spring of 2009 (for $312,865) and we will be purchasing two hybrid gasoline electric transit buses (just like in the photo above and like the buses we put into service last July). These new, ARRA funded buses will replace two of the older buses in our fleet.

And, I should add, we will be doing all of this quickly!

Unfortunately, in other news today, Santa Rosa CityBus' ARRA TIGER application (see here for the staff report under City Council Agenda Item 10.4 - for money to conduct a major transit (Rapid Bus) investment study, complete with supporting land use specific plans) was not on the list of final grant winners released by the Federal Department of Transportation.

Bikes and Buses: Video on Sharing the Road

2010-02-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

Share the Road - Buses and Bicycles from Chicago Bicycle Program on Vimeo.

Santa Rosa is an urban environment where, for the most part, there is not the opportunity to expand the right-of-way on existing roads to enable buses and bicycles and automobiles to have all the space they desire. Instead, the discussions about space and road users tends to focus on trade-offs between the desires of multiple users. Should a road have dedicated left turn lanes? Dedicated bicycle lanes? Dedicated curbside auto parking spaces? Dedicated space for street landscaping and trees? Additional sidewalk space for pedestrians and waiting transit passengers? Discussed less often is whether sufficient space exists for buses to travel and turn.

Santa Rosa is not unique in trying to grapple with space limitations. In the end, whatever space is available on the road, all the users must share the space. The right lane of any road tends to be the most active and complicated to share. Parked cars, vehicles turning right, bicycles, buses and bus stops (with all those pedestrians just waiting to become transit riders) mean that there is plenty of potential for conflict.

Please take a look at the training video made by the City of Chicago's Bicycle Program that discusses the various details of sharing the road that users need to keep an eye on, for both bicyclists and bus drivers.

It's quite useful for auto drivers too, who are sharing the road with ever more bicyclists and transit users in Santa Rosa.

Thanks Chicago!

Bus Culture: Children and Buses

2010-02-04T14:17:00.000-08:00

I've been too busy with boring grant work to post much these days. I also don't like to bump beautiful pieces of artwork from the top spot on the blog because this serves as my home page and it has made me happy to see the rainbow colorings of the children who visited us at City Hall every time the blog has appeared. Finally, I have found a worthy entry. Here is another cute expression of bus-love that I must share....

Early this week, while her father was filling out his Santa Rosa Free Ride trip calendar in our City Hall office, an eight year old girl drew a lovely rendition of a Santa Rosa CityBus on the back of a business card. Two things to love about this picture: First, the bus is full! And the people seem happy! Second, this budding artist seems to have figured out how to combine the graphics from our older buses with the graphics from our newer buses. How clever! More bus art from everyone, please!

Bus Culture: Second Graders Visit City Hall

2010-01-25T11:17:00.000-08:00

On Wed., January 20, we had a pleasant break from our normal hurried days when Ms. Bell's second grade class came on a tour of Santa Rosa City Hall. There were 21 of the little charmers. They went into the Council Chamber, met our Mayor, and got to "vote" using the electronic buttons that our City Council uses when they vote on matters before them.

Then they came to our CityBus/Transit office in City Hall. Sure it's not as exciting as going to our operations building or touring on a bus, but there are perks. Turns out that we are shameless in how we try to convince impressionable children that riding the bus is fun. We have bus shaped animal crackers and coloring books with all kinds of bus pictures. We really know how to make a "transit positive" impression.

The children wrote all of us at City Hall thank you notes and virtually every one mentioned the cookies we gave them. The next most popular part of the tour: meeting our nice Mayor. I'd like to share what Miguel and Crystal wrote. It's been raining quite a bit here over the past couple of weeks, but the day they came to City Hall there was a bit of sunshine.....

Rider Alert: Continued Delays on Stony Point Road

2010-01-06T14:44:00.000-08:00

As reported in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, ongoing re-paving work along Stony Point Road in Southwest Santa Rosa is expected to continue through Thursday. Motorists have been encouraged to avoid the area and Santa Rosa CityBus routes 15 and 9 have been impacted. Both routes experienced severe delays on Tuesday, January 5th. Though delays are being minimized due to revisions in traffic management, both routes have bus stops that have been closed for the duration of the repaving project.

As posted so far today on our Santa Rosa CityBus Twitter feed:

Regarding Bus Stops: "Route 15 bus stop on Stony Point Road near Mesa will be out-of-service all day due to repaving of road. Route 15 bus stop on Stony Point near Sebastopol Rd. is out of service due to road closure. Route 9 bus stops at Stony Point @ Sebastopol is out-of-service all day due to repaving of road. Route 9 bus stop on Stony Point @ Mesa was out of service Wednesday until 3:15"

Regarding Route Delays: "As of 3:15, Routes 9 and 15 are running 15 to 30 minutes lates due to repaving".

We apologize to our riders for the inconvenience. We will continue to work with Santa Rosa's Public Works Department and the project contractors to minimize delays to Santa Rosa CityBus routes for the duration of the project.

Press Release: Public Opinion Needed on Transit Mall Art by January 15th

2010-01-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

(as posted earlier)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Joy Gipson – Transit Marketing and Outreach
(707) 543-3336

SANTA ROSA TRANSIT DEPARTMENT
INVITES PUBLIC OPINION ON ARTIST PROPOSALS FOR THE DOWNTOWN TRANSIT MALL

Santa Rosa, CA – January 5, 2010: The Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall will have a major refurbishment construction project beginning in the summer of 2010; part of this project will be the installation of substantial public art and design features. Art features are planned for installation in the waiting areas, adjacent to the parking garage and in the new bus shelters.The initial “Call for Artists” was advertised locally through the Arts Council of Sonoma County and on the nationally-recognized Call for Artists.org Web site, from this, 115 artists submitted their qualifications from across the US, including international submissions from Mexico and Canada. The artists were then narrowed to 10 finalists based on their displayed body of work as they related to the specifications identified in the call. A Public Artwork Selection Committee then evaluated each artist and invited proposals from the top three artists. The displays are the result of this process, but do not represent the final artwork that will be installed in the Transit Mall.The City of Santa Rosa’s Transit Department has posted the design proposals from the three finalists for comments in the Transit Mall. The displays are located in front of the mobile Transit Information Center in the middle of the block on the north side. CityBus staff working in the Transit Mall can direct any interested individuals to the displays. Everyone is invited to “vote” for their preferred artist. The design finalists are also available for viewing and voting inside the Transit Department’s City Hall office, Room 6, and via an online survey on the Santa Rosa Transit Department Web page (under Transit Mall Refurbishing Project). www.srcity.org/citybus

Community members are invited to look at the design proposals and vote for their favorite! The Transit Department will be collecting “votes” through January 15, 2010.

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Card to Start 2010

2010-01-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

We received a lovely comment card this week from one of our riders. It's always great to get positive reinforcement at the start of a challenging new year.

Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall: We need your opinion by January 15th!

2009-12-22T17:12:00.000-08:00

Our Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall is about to have a major refurbishment construction project begin in 2010 and part of that project is the installation of substantial art and design features throughout. Art features are planned for installation in the waiting areas, at future information kiosks and in the bus shelters.

The initial “Call for Artists” was advertised locally through the Arts Council of Sonoma County and on the nationally-recognized “Call for Artists.org” website, garnering 115 artist submitting their qualifications from across the US, and including international submissions from Mexico and Canada. The artists were then narrowed to 10 finalists based on their displayed body of work as they related to the specifications identified in the call. The Public Artwork Selection Committee then evaluated each artist and invited proposals from the top three artists. The displays are the result of this process, but do not represent the final artwork that will be installed in the Transit Mall.

The Transit Department will perform outreach to the Downtown business community and issue a general press release regarding the public comment opportunity. In addition, the project manager, Jason Parrish, will be discussing the three artists and the concept artwork at the next Downtown Subcommittee Meeting on January 5, 2010.

We have posted three design finalists for comments in the Transit Mall. Currently, the display is located in front of our Transit Information Center in the middle of the block on the north side. We will try to rotate the display around the Transit Mall as weather and time permit. Feel free to ask CityBus staff located in the Transit Mall if you can't find the displays. We really want your comments. We have also posted the design finalists inside our City Hall offices, Room 6, and on our Santa Rosa Transit Department web page (under Transit Mall Refurbishing Project).

Please take a moment to look at the design proposals and tell us what you think via our online survey. We will be collecting comments through January 15, 2010. Thanks!

Holiday Greetings!

2009-12-22T16:48:00.000-08:00

We've gotten a few holiday greetings that we'd like to share. One is a poem written by one of our riders, one is a sweet hand written note of thanks, and one is a multi-piece card from a consulting company that was so creative and transit-centric we had to give it a wider audience. The multi-piece card is to be sung to "The 12 Days of Christmas", and the backs of each of these cards, when strung together on a ribbon in sequence, spell out "Happy Holidays".

The poem we received was sent to us from (and authored by?) one of our Paratransit users, Sylvie:

"Clink, clank, beep, beep,
Here comes the Paratransit Jeep.
Cheers for the driver,
The helping hand to the needy rider,
The smile, the care that truly trumps
The rattles and the bouncy bumps.
To top it off, for a ride so nifty,
Is the super deal - Ah! it's only two fifty!

HAPPY HOLIDAYs to all the Paratransit coordinators and drivers. THANK YOU SO MUCH for your wonderful service."

Thanks and Happy Holidays to you to Sylvie!

Rider Comments: Tell Us Card!

2009-12-21T16:01:00.001-08:00

We received another rider comment card today and wanted to share it with our internet audience. Happy Winter Solstice!

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on Daily Show

2009-12-16T13:55:00.000-08:00

For those who missed it, the Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, was on the Daily Show with John Stewart last night. Most recently, the Secretary's path crossed with Santa Rosa CityBus when he posted a brief article on his blog on how the federal stimulus funding has helped us. The video of his appearance can be seen here.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Ray LaHood

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

He talks about jobs, the federal stimulus funding and even briefly mentions a field trip to the New Flyer facility, where our newest hybrid buses were constructed. We will be going to Santa Rosa City Council on January 26th with a contract award that will include one bus partially funded with the federal stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) funds. We are hopeful that new discussions in Washington, D.C., of additional federal funding to support jobs will come to fruition and result in funding we can use for continued operating support and purchase of additional hybrid buses to replace our diesel fleet that has reached the end of its useful life. And rest assured, even though Secretary LaHood covered virtually every transportation topic on the Daily Show besides bicycles and pedestrians, he has a reputation for being supportive of investment in all modes and is personally reputed to be a big fan of bicycling.

Ridership Report: Average Weekday Ridership and Year End Ridership Thoughts

2009-12-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

Despite the recent trend in our total ridership numbers being a downward trend, there is one possible bright spot for CityBus, our average weekday ridership is actually holding steady from year to year.

The actual numbers are included in the graphic attached. For Fiscal Year 2009-2010 (the current budget year), our average weekday ridership numbers are looking quite strong. We still have to get through our traditional slow patch of mid-winter, where our ridership numbers will be impacted by the weather. If you look at the average weekday ridership from July 2008 through November 2008 and compare it to July 2009 through November 2009, the average weekday ridership is nearly identical at 10,661 and 10,652 respectively.

Of course, this can partially be attributed to our more robust service levels on weekdays and the fact that approximately 18% of our riders are students who mostly travel on school days. But there are also a host of other reasons, like doctors appointments, jobs, and shopping trips that occur mostly on weekdays as well. With the number of people being moved by CityBus on a weekday holding steady, despite overall ridership numbers declining slightly, there is an argument that can be constructed about how CityBus is part of the economic engine for Santa Rosa.

Ultimately, the real point to keep in mind as we head into our winter ridership slow season, is if everyone were to ride the bus one more time per week than they would otherwise, our ridership numbers would go up dramatically. In past years we have offered a free week of service during the end of year holiday season, in part to combat our usual ridership decreases. This year, due to the economic troubles we are all facing, we will not be offering that service. But we want to encourage people to ride just one day more than they would otherwise for the same reason we originally offered our "free rides for the holidays" promotion: the more our ridership numbers rise, the larger the share of grant money we become eligible to receive. It is a vicious circle of chicken and egg, more grant money means better service levels, better service levels should mean better ridership numbers, which mean a greater share of grants.....and so on.

Remember: Riding the bus to school or work one day per week reduces your commute carbon footprint by 20%!

Ridership Report: October/November 2009

2009-12-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

We have our ridership figures in for October and November 2009 and there are a couple of small interesting things happening. We try to extrapolate theories as to why ridership changes, but they are just theories. Without devoting a serious amount of resources to data collection and passenger interviews, we've only got the raw numbers and driver observations to work with.

Having said that, our October 2009 ridership was 267,466 passenger trips, down 6.7% from October 2008 when we broke our all time monthly record of nearly 287,000 riders. October is traditionally a high ridership month for us, probably because of the combination of school being in session and the weather being conducive to a transit riding crowd. For the record, our October 2007 monthly ridership was 265,558, so we are improving slightly if you forget about that year when gas prices spiked so high that transit ridership numbers skewed extremely high.

Our November 2009 ridership is actually up 6.6% on November 2008, coming in at 234,879. That 2009 figure is also relatively flat from November 2007.

The number of bicycles we carried in October fell to 3,025 (from the 3,200 range during July - September) and in November that number fell further to 2,506. Our City Employee ridership also dropped in November after peaking in October.

Curiously, the number of transfers we accept (from other transit operators) seems to drop in November and December every year, and November 2009 was no exception, with transfers dropping by 10,000. We aren't sure what this means yet. We usually experience a drop off in student riders who start out the school year taking CityBus to school and then begin to find other ways to get to and from school as the year progresses. By and large, however, our riders are quite loyal and we seem to have seen ridership finally level off after the incredible rise due to gas price increases and the natural decline after gas prices dropped back into the sub-$3 per gallon range.

Ridership is down 1.58% to date this fiscal year over last fiscal year.

News Roundup and Holiday Greetings

2009-12-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

We were hoping to have more holiday cheer to share this year, but we haven't had the endearing personal holiday cards roll in yet like we did last year. Instead, here's a bit of a news round up for those who aren't following Santa Rosa's local, local news. Thanks to the Press Democrat for many of the links.

First, our City Manager has taken another job as the City Manager of Beverly Hills, California. Transitions and change are always tough, but at this particular time, with the continuing budget deficits and general organizational struggles facing the City, this transition will attract a great deal of attention and energy. It is our intent to keep our attention and energy focused on the job at hand during this transition, making Santa Rosa CityBus the best public transit system we possibly can.

Second, the public dialogue has continued locally over land uses, large corporate development wishes, and the need for urgency over job creation and reducing our City's carbon footprint. While the last time it was Lowe's, the most current discussion involves the construction of a regional hospital outside the City of Santa Rosa limits. The guest editorial in the Press Democrat details some of the transportation issues related to the location choice for the hospital.

Third, there is a definite 'non-holiday' spirit running around regarding governmental entities. Last week we had a major, multi-day freeze take place. Apparently many people showed up at the City's utilities counter in a very angry mood, thinking the City had shut off their water when in fact their pipes had frozen and burst. Today there was an incident at the Santa Rosa DMV . And over the past weekend, someone smashed at least eight full sized pane glass windows and doors at City Hall and at two nearby downtown businesses. We don't know why. Frankly, it can get kind of scary to think about it all, even if they are random events and not directed specifically at public servants. Even if the target isn't public employees per se, it can still be stressful to work in an environment where this kind of aggression is floating around in the air. Regardless, fixing these things, much like cleaning graffiti off of buses and bus shelters, is not how we like to spend the public's money, but they must be fixed.

To combat the bad feelings such a gesture creates, we've entertained ourselves with imagining how to decorate the temporary plywood coverings that have been used to replace the broken glass. Make due with what you've got.

Don't go out and hug a public servant for the holidays, because it will probably freak them out.

Do smile and be polite and things will work out much better for all of us.

We really are just working hard and feeling the pressure of these difficult times just like everyone else. And we really want everyone to have a Happy Holiday Season.

Transit Budgets: Federal ARRA/Stimulus Funds Reporting

2009-12-03T10:17:00.001-08:00

On November 18th, Santa Rosa CityBus was featured in the blog of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Ray LaHood. The blog entry reported our successful use of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, or 'stimulus') funds to offset local and state revenue losses enough to defer the need to raise fares or cut service levels.

We had reported this information before on our own blog, so if you are a regular reader, the information isn't anything new. What might be interesting to readers, was just how excited folks were that the Secretary noticed! Our local Federal Transit Administration staff was so sweet and c0mplimentary about this Secretary blog report that she sent an email to all of the transit operators she works with to tell them about the honor and to congratulate us on being selected for his blog. And our sister transit agencies noticed and complimented us. There was also a reference to this in our City Manager's weekly email/newsletter highlighting the jobs saved (one correction is that the reference mistakenly said CityBus had been included in the "Federal Transit Administration Secretary's" blog, when it was actually the blog of the Secretary of the Department of Transportation...all transportation, not just transit). We've got a pretty version of the Secretary's blog entry hanging in our offices now...framed!

Despite the sheer numbers of reports we have had to file on our ARRA funds and how they are being spent (detailed in our prior blog entry on the topic), it does seem that a simple paragraph and a few pictures speak volumes and actually create the kind of transparency and understanding of the value of the federal stimulus funds that people desired.

Ridership Report: August/September 2009

2009-12-03T10:01:00.000-08:00

Catching up on posting our ridership numbers.....

August 2009 had 240,658 passengers, down 3.59% from August 2008.
September 2009 had 255,940 passengers, down 2.01% from September 2008. For the fiscal year to date (July through September), our ridership is down 2.05%.

The numbers of bicycles being carried by CityBus continues to rise a bit, with 3,321 in August 2009 and 3,215 in September 2009. That August figure is our all time high since tracking bicycle rack usage began nearly two years ago, with the September figure coming in a close second.

The percentage of passengers being carried that are in a wheelchair remains steady at .87% for the fiscal year to date.

One other tiny bright spot is that the number of Santa Rosa employee trips on CityBus has risen 83% since the start of the fiscal year.....the actual numbers are small, but seem to be growing significantly. We continue to encourage our employees to ride the bus for city business and for their own personal and commute trips. We have a long way to go, but this initial dramatic improvement is promising.

Rider Comments: And yet even more Tell Us! cards

2009-11-17T10:05:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple more comment cards we received from one of our riders late last week.

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Card

2009-11-10T07:48:00.000-08:00

Another in our ongoing posts of comment cards we receive from our riders, here is a card received November 4th. Since the bulk of our riders still communicate with us via printed mail and telephone, we thought we'd try and give some of the comments a different audience by posting them on our blog.

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Cards

2009-11-03T12:28:00.000-08:00

We've received another comment card that speaks to how considerate our drivers are, and how they help contribute to the friendly ambiance of Santa Rosa. Enjoy!

Bus Culture: Guess where I am?

2009-11-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been getting a hard time again from my friendly co-workers for not posting regularly, but there is a very good reason.....I'm actually on vacation. I have been traveling lately and have promised myself I wouldn't be a "bus geek" while on my trip. I've succeeded in taking zero pictures of buses and transit to post on the blog while I'm away....except this one. Can you guess where this bus is from? Anyone? Anyone?

Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall Photos

2009-10-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

Since we started talking about our Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall in our most recent blog entry, we thought we'd post some photos to give you a little visual context.

Included in the visuals is our system map, with the Downtown Transit Mall circled in the middle of the City/map along 2nd Street, between Santa Rosa Avenue and B Street. Also included here are a couple of photos showing our Transit Mall, buses and passengers. Keep in mind, the Transit Mall is one short city block (175 yards), and it hosts the following activity:

4 transit providers, 14 bus bays, 30 transit routes, and 525 buses per day (375 Santa Rosa CityBus and 150 from other operators);
Open 18 hours per day and 358 days per year (some holidays are closed) and has been operating for 22 years;

A weekday average of 10,000 passengers travel through it (80% CityBus and 20% other), with approximately 7,000 of those passengers starting or ending their transit journey at the Transit Mall.

In our opinion, it is the most urban block in all of Santa Rosa....or even the North Bay!

Rider Comments: Tell Us! Cards

2009-10-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

This post includes two Tell Us! comment cards that our riders and system users have submitted.

The comment card regarding our "terminal manager in Downtown Santa Rosa" is about a CityBus staff person dedicated to monitoring the Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall.

Never heard of the Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall? The Transit Mall is the largest transit hub in the North Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Transit Mall hosts 4 transit providers, 14 bus bays, 30 transit routes, and 525 buses per day (375 Santa Rosa CityBus and 150 from other operators, including Sonoma County Transit, Golden Gate Transit and Mendocino Transit....Napa Vine is hosted across the street). The Santa Rosa Transit Mall is open 18 hours per day and 358 days per year (some holidays are closed) and has been operating for 22 years. The Transit Mall has a weekday average of 10,000 passengers travel through it (80% CityBus and 20% other), with approximately 7,000 of those passengers starting or ending their transit journey at the Transit Mall. In addition security cameras at the facility, the Transit Mall is staffed during hours of operation for customer service and security reasons.

And "Don", the gentleman complimented in the Tell Us! comment card above is one of those staff people. And we noticed that the gentleman making the comment is "bi-continental", in case anyone thinks that the only people who ride Santa Rosa CityBus have never been out of Santa Rosa.

Press Release: Seniors on the Go!

2009-10-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

SANTA ROSA CITYBUS CELEBRATES “SENIORS ON THE GO!”

Santa Rosa, CA, TUESDAY, October 6, 2009 – To encourage new senior riders and to “thank” our regular senior riders, Santa Rosa CityBus is again sponsoring its annual Seniors on the Go! celebration. This year, seniors as young as 65 can ride Santa Rosa CityBus for FREE all week beginning Monday, October 19th through Friday, October 23rd 2009.

To ride any Santa Rosa CityBus FREE, seniors simply show the bus driver their Seniors on the Go! 2009 pass when boarding the bus. These special passes are available on every Santa Rosa CityBus, the Transit Department at City Hall, and at the Santa Rosa Senior Center.

Each year, numerous events are planned during Seniors on the Go! week. This year’s activities include:
- A Flu Shot Clinic, Bingo Games, Ballroom Dancing, a Pool Tournament and a Hot Dog Bar-B-Q party will be held at the Santa Rosa Senior Center.

The dates, time and locations for all of this Seniors on the Go! events are listed on the back of the Seniors on the Go! pass.

So grab a pass, jump on the bus and enjoy the convenience and reliability of riding Santa Rosa CityBus during Seniors on the Go! Week. Monday, October 19th through Friday, October 23rd.

For more information call (707) 543-3336!

Transit Budgets: California State Supreme Court Upholds Lower Court Ruling in Support of Transit

2009-10-02T10:19:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, October 1, 2009, the California Supreme Court upheld the lower court ruling that the State of California has been illegally diverting voter approved funds from public transit purposes to backfill the general fund and its funding deficits. The lawsuit was originally filed by the California Transit Association on behalf of transit operators in the State of California. The ruling on the case rested with the definition of "mass transportation", which the State claimed to mean "a means or system of conveying a large number of people". The Court ruled that the definition of mass transportation that was intended by the voters of California (in the measures controlling the State Transit Assistance funds subject to the lawsuit), to be more synonymous with the definition of "public transportation" and specifically did not include school buses, charter services and services not available to the general public. The State has been diverting State Transit Assistance funds into the General Fund specifically to cover the costs of school bus transportation and transportation of developmentally disabled individuals to regional training centers, neither of which are defined as "mass transportation" by the courts because the services are not "indiscriminately available" to the public.

While it is not clear if, how or when the State will repay funds to transit, this is a positive turn of events for the State's struggling public transit agencies, many of which have been forced to cut service or raise fares (or both) since the onset of the economic downturn in the past year.

Santa Rosa CityBus has traditionally used State Transit Assistance funds (the subject of the lawsuit) for Paratransit service provision and for the provision of Lifeline services, including the Route 19 started in August 2008. Estimates of the amount of State Transit Assistance funds that have been illegally diverted from Sonoma County transit operators alone since the lawsuit was filed (Fiscal Year 2007-2008) through the current fiscal year (Fiscal Year 2009-2010) is $11,432,436. Of that, $4,089,266 was for FY09/10 alone. Statewide, the estimated total for funds illegally diverted from public mass transportation into the State's general fund is $2 billion.

Field Trip: MTC's Minority Citizens Advisory Committee Visits CityBus

2009-10-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday afternoon, we had the pleasure of hosting members of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's Minority Citizens Advisory Committee for a tour of our Transit Operations Building and one of our Lifeline grant funded routes, the Route 19.

The City of Santa Rosa is home to one of MTC's designated "communities of concern", the Roseland neighborhood. The Roseland neighborhood was the subject of one of the Community Based Transportation Plans funded by MTC. The plan looked at neighborhood demographics and transportation and access challenges and proposed a list of transportation improvement priorities. Included in the list of priorities for the Roseland neighborhood was increases in transit service and coverage. The Lifeline grant program is an effort to focus some funding towards implementation of Community Based Transportation Plan priority projects and in Sonoma County that has meant partially funding the operations of the new Route 19. The Route 19 , which links Roseland and Southwest Santa Rosa to the commercial areas along Santa Rosa Avenue to the east of Highway 101, has been in operations since August 2008 and has had acceptable ridership for its first year of service.

We were notified that members of the Minority Citizens Advisory Committee wanted to take a tour and we were thrilled. We started our tour by discussing a few Santa Rosa CityBus topics of interest, in particular the Lifeline grant program in Sonoma County, and then took a brief tour of our Transit Operations Building and one of our newest hybrid buses. Then we took the Route 6 to the Transit Mall, where we had to hustle over to the Route 19 bus that was ready to depart, right on time! Our lucky driver was Arauna, who has been the star of several of our Bus Operator Interviews posted on this blog. Poor Arauna! I don't think she's ever had a more rambunctious group on her bus. We had so much to talk about! After completing our full Route 19 trip, we had a few minutes to discuss our impending Transit Mall renovation project (partially funded by the Transportation for Livable Communities program). Then we took the Route 3 back to the Transit Operations Building, passing through Railroad Square and past the future Downtown Santa Rosa SMART Station.

It was great fun and informative too. Minority Citizens Advisory Committee members in attendance included Jacquee Castain (Alameda County), Bob Liems (Napa County), James McGhee (San Francisco City and County), Bill Allen (San Mateo County), Michael D'Augelli (Native American Representative), and our local Sonoma County representatives Lee Pierce and David Rosas (who provided the photo above).

Ridership: Trends in Children Riding the Bus

2009-09-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

One of the things I always notice when I ride a Santa Rosa CityBus is the surprising number of babies and small children that move about this city with their parents. I've written before about riding a bus with small children and I thought I should look into just how many people are getting around with kids on CityBus.

If you ride buses around Sonoma County, you've likely noticed how many folks are riding the buses with young children. Just about every time we take photographs for some marketing purpose or another there is a baby in the picture (see the picture for our ARRA grant report with the baby coming out the back exit to the bus...she was likely coming from a visit to the local Kaiser Hospital, judging by the route). And since I seem to get people visiting this blog who are looking for information on how to ride the bus with children, I thought I should let everyone know that it is more than possible to travel around Santa Rosa on a bus with babies and young children.

So, just how many children ride our buses? We track riders based on the type of fare they pay. If there is no fare paid, that means that rider is a child four years of age and younger (traveling with an adult). We limit the free rides to 3 children per adult.

For Fiscal Year 08/09 (July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009), we had 214,619 trips made by children aged four and under. That is 8% of our total ridership (of 2.7 million trips). Some of our routes carry a slightly higher percentage of children on the buses than others and those routes tend to serve our Roseland and Southwest Santa Rosa neighborhoods. Some of the routes that have higher ridership also have higher numbers of children riding the bus, they just aren't a great a percentage of the total riders as on other routes. Our busiest route is the Route 9, traveling along Sebastopol Road in Roseland, and 10% of its riders last year were young children (26,320). Route 12 had 12% of riders come in at under 5 years old (23,281) and Route 5 had 11% of riders come in at under 5 years old (20,772).

By comparison, while children 4 years old and under comprised 8% of our trips in FY08/09, wheelchairs comprised 1% of our trips, seniors/disabled fares comprised 15% of our trips and youth/student fares comprised 18% of our trips. So, moving around town with a baby in your arms is pretty common and makes up a significant portion of our ridership.

I would imagine this is true for Sonoma County Transit as well. As I commute relatively regularly on the SCT 60/60X bus, I see many people traveling with young children. On my ride to work last Thursday, there were at least 6 different young children traveling with adults (one with his father), on a bus that occasionally had standing room only. The photo above was of a young boy (20 months) on that trip. He never made a sound and was either looking out the window or at people around him the entire trip.

Transit Budgets: Update on CityBus ARRA Grants and Draft Report to Congress

2009-09-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

The Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is in full swing and we here at CityBus have had most of the funds we will receive awarded to us. We are in the process of spending those funds and filing reports with the various entities seeking information. The reporting process for these funds is above and beyond the normal thorough reporting processes we are required to follow for our annual federal grants.

Specifically, we file monthly reports with the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, an initial supplemental ARRA report to the Federal Transit Administration that is followed by annual supplemental ARRA reports to the FTA, and quarterly reports to the Federal Office of Management and Budget. Not all transit operators around the country have been assigned the House T&I Committee reporting, and it isn't quite clear the criteria for choosing one operator over another, but we feel lucky to be picked. Perhaps it will give us an opportunity to have our story heard before the congressional committee. We also send copies of our House T&I Committee report to Metropolitan Transportation Commission staff and the State of California's Legislative Analyst Office staff.

Recently, the Federal Transit Administration sent out a request for stories on the impacts of ARRA funds on transit operators and the places in which they operate. Apparently the FTA Administrator has been asked to testify before a congressional committee at the beginning of October. We sent a brief write up to our FTA Regional Offices and walked over to our Downtown Transit Mall and shot a photo of one of our buses with the ARRA sticker located next to the bus door. That sticker indicates ARRA funds and tax dollar support for our transit services. We thought you might want to see our write up and photo, in case you don't make a habit of following congressional committees, or in case our story isn't part of the final FTA report to Congress.

Transit Budgets: Update on CityBus ARRA Grants Received

2009-09-23T12:36:00.000-07:00

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been in effect for seven months and an incredible amount of work has been completed in terms of establishing how much money each entity will get and for what projects. On March 10, 2009, the Santa Rosa City Council heard an initial city-wide list of project priorities that many different departments within Santa Rosa would be proposing for ARRA funds.

For transit projects seeking funding, the list of priorities has remained consistent, but the available funds were not as substantial as originally speculated back in the January 2009 timeframe. Since the February enactment of ARRA and the March presentation to the Santa Rosa City Council, Santa Rosa CityBus' project list is now refined to projects for which actual written applications were submitted and that list is pictured here. Also included is specific information on amounts and award dates. One major change to the March "wish list" is that Transit Operations has actually moved from a distant, but desired, priority to a funded priority due to changes in the ARRA legislation in June 2009.

Rider Alert: Purchase CityBus Passes Online!

2009-09-22T16:45:00.000-07:00

We've been providing this service for awhile, but here's a friendly reminder that you can buy your bus passes online. Save yourself the hassle of physically traveling to buy your bus pass and have it delivered directly to you! Follow the first link in this blog entry or just go to www.srcity.org/citybus and click on the purchase passes and tickets link on the left side of the web page.

If you don't have access to the internet or a credit card, or you would just rather buy your bus passes in person, you can visit our main office in Santa Rosa City Hall (Room 6), or you can buy CityBus passes at any of the Safeway locations within Santa Rosa, at G&G Market on College Avenue, and at Oliver's Market on Stony Point Road.

If you are a student, you can purchase your youth bus pass at most high schools or middle schools in Santa Rosa.

Rider Alert: 10-4-09 Route 3 Detour

2009-09-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, October 4, 2009, CityBus Route 3 bus stops along 5th, Wilson and Donohue Streets will be closed all day for an event at the Toad in the Hole pub. Please plan your trip accordingly. The Route 6 provides the closest stop to the event at the corner of Wilson Street and West 3rd Street.

Press Release: New Transfer Discounts between CityBus and Golden Gate Transit

2009-09-17T04:46:00.001-07:00

Good news for those Santa Rosa CityBus riders who transfer to Golden Gate! Now your CityBus transfer gets you a $1 discount on Golden Gate Transit trips. Prior to September 13, 2009, your CityBus ticket would get a ten cent discount on that same Golden Gate trip. That's quite an improvement! More details are included in the attached press release from Golden Gate Transit.

If you want to transfer from Golden Gate Transit to Santa Rosa CityBus, the rules are still the same. Your Golden Gate ticket will still get you a free ride on CityBus at points where our system intersects (i.e., the Downtown Transit Mall). And that's not a bad deal either.

We hope people will consider using Santa Rosa CityBus as a feeder service to Golden Gate Transit for their interregional travel needs.

Planning for the Future: Increasing CityBus Service Levels

2009-09-08T15:18:00.001-07:00

Probably one of the most frequent comments we receive here at CityBus is "I would ride the bus if there was more frequent service or if it ran longer hours." We receive comments like this one from co-workers we speak with, from Councilmembers (who are in turn hearing this from their constituents), from neighborhood activists, from the "climate change" community, and from our existing riders. The "Tell Us!" rider comment card we just received and that is attached to this blog post is a perfect example.

We just wanted to take the time to thank everyone for their comments on this topic and to say "we agree with you, 100%" that increasing Santa Rosa CityBus service levels is a goal for our system and our community. So why then aren't we moving ahead with increasing service levels right now? While we agree that in some areas of Santa Rosa the commenter's sentiment that putting more service out onto the streets will result in those services being "utilized exponentially", that is not true for all areas and the ultimate answer is complicated.

The short answer is that we do not have the funding to implement service enhancements at this time. Santa Rosa CityBus is fully funded by grants (from federal, state and local agencies) and by the fares our riders pay (about 15% of our revenues). Unfortunately, revenues have actually been falling dramatically, not increasing, so increasing service levels while revenues are decreasing in problematic. When making decisions about what kinds of investments to make, the effectiveness of an investment is part of the equation: how many people can be positively impacted for the least amount of money?

The longer answer is a bit more complicated. First, you have to look more closely at revenues and expenses. Second, you have to look at the types of service enhancements that are possible and practical to implement.

REVENUES AND EXPENSES
First, let's look a little closer at the money, starting with our revenues and budgeted expenses. How much money do we have budgeted to spend? Our adopted budget for FY08/09 was $11.4m and our adopted budget for Fy09/10 is $10.8m, a decrease of 5%.

Why have we had to decrease our budget? Revenues have been falling. Through 2008 and 2009, sales tax revenues have been shrinking at an alarming rate. Sales taxes are the revenues that back some of the grants we receive (Sonoma County Measure M funds and California Transportation Development Act funds) and these revenues have decreased approximately 16.6% from February 2007 to February 2009 ($3.5m). In addition, the State of California essentially eliminated State Transit Assistance (STA) funds from their budget (though that decision is part of pending litigation against the state). CityBus used these STA funds for the provision of Paratransit Service and fixed route bus service in "Lifeline" communities (defined by the region as low income and minority). The elimination of the STA funds cost CityBus 4.5% ($514,639) of its budgeted revenue in FY08/09 and 16.3% ($1,700,000) of expected revenue for FY09/10.

Through FY09/10, Santa Rosa CityBus has managed to make budget reductions without eliminating or reconfiguring service on the streets. CityBus has reduced administration costs for FY09/10 and has maintained a fairly constant hourly expense cost of $98-$108/hour over the past two years, despite wildly fluctuating fuel costs. CityBus has also managed to partially offset the rapid decrease in revenues through FY09/10 with a one-time infusion of federal dollars through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a., the "stimulus" or "recovery" funds). At this point, the future beyond Fy09/10 will be filled with difficult decisions about how to handle what are expected to be continuing decreases in revenue.

TRANSIT SERVICE ENHANCEMENTS
Next, let's look at the types of service enhancements that can be made to a bus system (and this is where we continue to need everyone's input!) Essentially there are three kinds of service enhancements: longer hours of service, more geographic coverage, and more frequent service along existing routes.

Keep in mind when thinking about expanding service coverage/hours that is costs approximately $108/hour to run a single bus. Also keep in mind what ridership numbers you would expect from running a particular service enhancement. Transit systems are required by the Federal Transit Administration to ensure that at least 20% of the revenues funding the full expenses of operating the system come from "local" sources. That means if rider fares only cover 15% of the revenues in the budget, then other local sources will make up the difference. To date, for CityBus, the other "local sources" has meant Sonoma County "Measure M" sales tax dedicated to transportation. If future service enhancements are implemented and the ridership on those service enhancements are much lower than what the system is now carrying, the other local revenue sources will have to be created to compensate. For example, if CityBus operates in the evening hours and ridership only generates fares that cover 8% of the funding needed to pay for that increase in service, then any of a number of local revenue sources will have to be implemented to make up the difference (city funds/county sales tax/special local district fees/etc.) If the local revenue ratio drops too low, then CityBus will no longer be eligible to receive federal dollars and federal dollars provide approximately 35-40% of CityBus' annual revenues.

So, what kind of service enhancements should be made? The most popular comment we hear is that CityBus needs to operate later in the evening (that, by the way, is also a very popular comment for another transit operator in the region, BART). Extending hours is one way to enhance service levels, but it can be a costly one and complicated endeavor. For example, would you run all of the system's routes later into the evening? Or would you pick just a couple of routes? Or would you run a uniquely structured evening route that would get you more coverage using fewer resources? And, most important, how would you fund it and maximize ridership on those routes? Currently our ridership drops dramatically at around 5pm on an average weekday (see chart), even though our service continues until after 8pm (with the last buses, for all but the Route 7, leaving the Downtown Transit Mall between 7:30 and 7:45). Would extending service hours later into the night improve the ridership after 5pm?

In the interest of full disclosure, continuing to run all of CityBus' routes one extra hour into the night would cost a minimum of $2,484 per hour, or $52,785 per month, or $633,423 per year. Additional staffing costs above that hourly rate would be likely because of things like additional supervisor shifts and because buses would be returning to the bus yard later at night (and still having to be maintained and fueled, but in fewer hours, thus needing more staff to complete the job). Currently the revenues that would be needed to implement any kind of expansion of hours do not exist.

What about enhancing service by increasing geographic coverage? While it is true that the City of Santa Rosa has grown over the past 25 years, including the annexation and development of land at the edges of the incorporated area, the geographic coverage by Santa Rosa CityBus remains fairly impressive. Yes, we still have a few outlying areas that we are trying to include better into our system in future service plans. One example is the Rincon Valley area, which is difficult to improve service to because of geographic distance to the City core, low density land use patterns, and a lack of revenues and resources to implement any service expansion. But if you look at our previous post on "Distance from the Nearest CityBus Stop", you can see that a remarkable percentage of Santa Rosa's residential units are within 1/4 mile, and an even more remarkable percentage are within 1/2 mile, of a CityBus bus stop. That isn't to say that modifying existing routes wouldn't make improvements to the overall system, but in terms of geographic accessibility, the CityBus system is fairly well set up.

What about increasing frequency on existing CityBus routes during existing service hours? What if, in certain transit service corridors you knew that a bus was coming every 10-15 minutes? If you missed a bus, you wouldn't have to wait for 30-45 minutes for the next one to arrive.

Over the past 25 years, from 1983 until 2008, the population of Santa Rosa has doubled (to nearly 160,000) and the number of average daily riders on CityBus has more than tripled. The number of buses in our fleet have not increased in a commensurate fashion and our headways (the frequency with which buses run on routes) have stayed roughly the same (with some notable exceptions). Our most frequent routes have buses arriving every 30 minutes, which some would argue is not an adequate urban level of service. The biggest obstacle we have to decreasing headways (and increasing frequency) is lack of buses, followed by lack of operating funds. Recognizing these limitations, we have worked hard through 2008 to make sure that the capital and operating funding needs that we foresee for the 25-year future are included in all the regional transporation plans and federal/state funding requests.

Another large obstacle to decreasing headways is that traditionally the concept of "if you build it, we will find a way to serve it by transit" has done nothing to encourage more compact, transit oriented land use pattern. Providing transit routes in certain neighborhoods hasn't yielded the ridership necessary to justify that investment. The density of land uses is too sparse, or the distance from the core of Santa Rosa is too great, or the willingness of people to ride the bus is too low. Resources have been devoted to creating geographic coverage of the City. And since resources are finite (and revenues are shrinking) creating geographic coverage of the City has meant that there have been trade-offs in other areas, like not being able to provide greater frequency of service. If the focus is changed such that land uses become transit oriented and development is encouraged along corridors that are already well served by transit, then CityBus could focus its future resources to provide more frequent service along those corridors, rather than in trying to make sure that future, low density developments at the periphery of town are served by transit. The less money we have to devote to covering larger geographic areas, the more we would have available to spend increasing hours and frequency of service. Land use decisions matter to transit.

In conclusion, we LOVE to receive suggestions and comments on service enhancements, whether they are comments about increasing service hours, increasing or altering geographic coverage, or improving service frequency. Until our funding and revenues increase, however, we won't be able to implement bigger or more radical service changes.

Support for increasing our resources is critical in this equation. And so is riding the bus.

Press Release: Levi Leipheimer's King Ridge GranFondo is Coming!

2009-09-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

For those who haven't heard, Sonoma County is prime bicycling country. On Saturday, October 3, 2009, professional cyclist Levi Leipheimer is "hosting" the first King Ridge GranFondo. A GranFondo is an organized group ride (not a race) and this particular GranFondo has three distances to choose from (105-65-36 miles). The event departs and finishes in cycling-friendly Santa Rosa at the Finley Center on the corner of College Avenue and Stony Point Road (across the street from our Santa Rosa CityBus Transit Operations Building, by the way!). All the GranFondo riders will depart from the Finley Center at the same time at 8 a.m. and while they are out riding, the FondoSonoma Festival will take place at Finley Community Park all day. The FondoSonoma Festival is open to the general public and is FREE!

The GranFondo event has 3,500 registered riders, and in addition to the GranFondo riders, countless supporters, volunteers, staff and those celebrating at the FondoSonoma Festival are expected to attend, making parking availability in the Finley Center area limited.

For the GranFondo and FondoSonoma Festival, Santa Rosa CityBus is providing free rides on the Routes 3 and 6 and the City of Santa Rosa is providing free parking in the Downtown parking garage located at 555 First Street. The Route 3 and 6 travel between the Santa Rosa Transit Mall (adjacent to the free parking at 555 First Street) and the Westside Transfer Center (across the street from the Finley Center).

To get a free ride on the Routes 3 and 6 on the day of the King Ridge Gran Fondo, just print out the brochure page in the upper right corner of this blog entry (the one with the map on it) and show it to the driver on those routes. To check schedules, you can look at our online Trip Planner (look up the two "landmarks" under the landmark category "transit hubs"...start at the "Santa Rosa Transit Mall" and end at the "Westside Transfer Center") or our printed map and schedules.

On a Saturday, a bus leaves the Santa Rosa Transit Mall every 1/2 hour headed for the Westside Transfer Center/Finley Center and the journey takes 10-15 minutes. The first bus leaves the Transit Mall at 7:05 am and the last bus leaves the Westside Transfer Center for the return trip at 7:15 pm. And you can sign up to follow us on Twitter for any service announcements and updates. If you want to take transit to Santa Rosa from elsewhere, go to 511.org for Golden Gate Transit and Sonoma County Transit schedules.

Have a great time at the event whether you are riding, watching or volunteering!

Bus Operator Interviews: "Buses to Books" Program, part 2

2009-09-03T12:33:00.001-07:00

The second in our bus operator interviews on the "Buses to Books" Program is Roger. Take it away Roger......

Bus Operator Interviews: "Buses to Books" Program

2009-09-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

Over the past months we have been posting bus operator interviews that were outtakes from footage shot for our 50th Anniversary Video. Today's videos are about the "Buses to Books" program, which we described in an earlier blog post. First, bus operator Naydra, describing her experiences with the Buses to Books program.

Bus Culture: Buses and Children

2009-09-03T11:02:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in a previous post, Santa Rosa CityBus participates in a program called "Buses to Books".

This program connects children with public transit and the public libraries.

As part of this effort, our marketing department developed a few educational visual aids in 2007 to distribute to children. These are attached and they speak for themselves. Enjoy!

Bus Culture: "Buses to Books" Program

2009-09-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

School is back in session! In honor of that, let's start talking about children, education and (our favorite topic) buses!

The "Buses to Books" Program is not something unique to Santa Rosa CityBus. A simple internet search shows that other transit operators around North America participate in this program.

What is "Buses to Books"? It is a program that is run by local educators and coordinated with CityBus that teaches children the value of having a public transportation system in their community while opening up a world of learning for them at their local library.

Santa Rosa CityBus has participated in this program annually (though the program was not conducted by the organizer, Community Child Care Council, in 2009). Shown is our press release for our 2007 "Buses to Books" event. In the blog posts that follow we will post some of our visual aids for the children and a couple of interviews with the bus operators that participated in this event.

Rider Comments: A "Tell Us Card" for Today!

2009-09-03T10:24:00.001-07:00

(I received some good natured ribbing from a colleague yesterday about not posting on the blog much lately.....sorry! The "lazy days of summer" have been a bit too busy for me. Let me make it up to everyone......)

We received another "Tell Us Card" yesterday. "Tell Us Cards" are the comment cards that are self addressed and can be found in all of our buses. Remarkably, we receive quite a few from our riders that are positive and supportive comments. Estimates are about 70% of the comments we receive are positive and we like to share those with you. It is clear to us that many of our riders are not the types to be posting comments on blogs, so this is our way of giving them a new audience.

Today's comment card is a very thoughtful observation about one of our drivers and that driver's ability to maintain a cheerful demeanor in the face of the regular chaos and complaints of the job. It is sweet that someone took the time to notice and send us such a pleasant comment. Thanks!

Rider Comments: Another "Tell Us" Card

2009-08-31T11:15:00.000-07:00

We received another rider comment card that we'd like to share. We hope everyone has had a lovely summer. It sure was a short one! We've been gearing up for a very busy fall here at CityBus.

Ridership Report: July 2009

2009-08-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Our ridership numbers are in for July 2009 and the trend of ridership dropping from the same month the year prior continues. July 2009 ridership was at 222,641 trips, down 4.6% from July 2008. As we've mentioned before, that is not a huge surprise when you consider the height gas prices had reached in the summer of 2008 and the record passenger numbers nearly every transit operator experienced because of it. This is the fourth month in a row that ridership has been lower than the same month in 2008.

Three interesting notes include that ridership was up in July 2009 over June 2009 by .4%. That could be interpreted as a promising sign, but if you look back through CityBus ridership through the years, July ridership is consistently higher than June ridership. In fact, that is why we tend to compare a given month to the same month the year prior, because each month usually exhibits similar characteristics to that same month in other years (school in session, school not in session, rainy season, holidays, short month of February, etc.).

The second interesting note is that we broke our record for the number of bicycles carried on our buses in one month with 3,195. Our prior best was 2,927 in October 2008, when we also broke our all time monthly ridership record. For October 2008, bicycles represented 1% of our trips. For July 2009, bicycles represented 1.4% of our trips.

And finally, we have been tracking employee ridership since April 2009 and since that time, our employee ridership has nearly doubled! We'll leave it at that, in the interest of positive reinforcement, and say that we are glad that City employees are taking transit for their personal and professional trips and hope they continue to do so.

Planning for the Future: Current CityBus Service Coverage

2009-08-13T14:37:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, at the Way to Go Expo!, Santa Rosa's Information Technology group debuted a couple of maps that presented some of the GIS information they have available in a new light. One of the maps we "borrowed" to include in our display was a map that looked at how many housing units within Santa Rosa are within different distances of Santa Rosa CityBus stops. The housing unit types are single family houses, multi-family houses, and senior housing. The distances are 1/10 of a mile, 1/4 of a mile, 1/2 of a mile, and a full mile. The data is from the 2000 Census.

We knew we were doing a good job of covering the City, but this map showed that within 1/4 mile of all the bus stops in the City we are covering 95.3% of all multi-family homes, 93% of all senior housing, and, astoundingly, 70.4% of all single family homes. Within a 1/2 mile, those numbers go to 99% of multi-family, 94% of senior housing and 91.3% of single family homes. Generally, 1/2 mile is the threshold used by planners to determine whether people are comfortable walking to transit, but here we think that 1/4 mile or less for a bus system is more reasonable. Sure, there are still improvements to be made, especially given that the 2000 Census was some time ago. But given that we will never be able to cover 100% of all the residential units within the City because we simply do not have the financial capability to do so, we are quite thrilled with the kind of coverage we have been able to provide our community.

Local Events: Report on the "Way to Go Expo!"

2009-08-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the "Way to Go Expo!" hosted by the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. It took place in Courthouse Square as part of the Wednesday night Downtown Market. This is the third year we have participated and the second year the event has taken place in conjunction with the Downtown Market.

It was hot (last year was hot, too) and it was windy. We brought our brand new gasoline hybrid New Flyer bus for people to see and test. In addition to our regular brochures and information, we displayed a new map produced by our City's Information Technology department that shows how close all residential units are within Santa Rosa to a Santa Rosa CityBus bus stop.

And our precision driving Transit Superintendent parked that new bus so impressively close to the curb (in a busy road and without touching any of the festive balloons) that our administrative staff that was assigned the camera for the event took a bunch of pictures of it. Artistic, no?

Local Events: Way to Go Expo!

2009-08-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

Today, in conjunction with the Santa Rosa Downtown Market, Santa Rosa CityBus will be participating in the Way to Go Expo! This Expo brings together alternative transportation of all kinds into the Courthouse Square area for demonstrations and information displays. We will have one of our new gasoline hybrid electric buses for people to look at, tour around and give the ol' kick the tires test. Come by and say hi. Our technology department just put together a series of cool maps showing things like the number of housing units within 1/4 mile of one of our bus stops. We will have a copy of the map and if you want to come by and put a red sticker on the bus stop closest to your house, we'll give you a free bus ticket.

Ridership Report: Comparing April - June 2009 Decreases

2009-08-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

Relatively recently we posted our April 2009 and May/June 2009 ridership reports. The short version is that our April 2009 ridership was down 2.85% from April 2008, May 2009 was down 9.5% from May 2008 and June 2009 was down 4.55% from June 2008.

Though it sounds grim on the face of it, keep in mind that through the spring, summer, and even into fall of last year (2008), gas prices were at record highs and transit operators around the country were experiencing unprecedented ridership gains. Looking at a few other regional operators (the ones who actually post their ridership regularly or who have had news reports filed on it), it seems that ridership drops this spring and summer are not uncommon. In fact, other operators in the region seem to be experiencing far more severe cumulative drops than CityBus' is experiencing.

For example, using the same method of comparing a month in 2009 to the same month in 2008, Golden Gate Transit experienced far greater decreases in bus ridership than CityBus. Golden Gate Transit saw April 2009 bus ridership come in down 13.2% compared to April 2008, May 2009 come in down 14.4% compared to May 2008, and June 2009 ridership come in down 13.4% compared to June 2008. Even BART experienced ridership decreases. For BART, April 2009 saw a ridership drop of 5.5% over April 2008, May 2009 saw a 5.6% drop from May 2008, and June 2009 saw an 8.9% drop from June 2008. Rumor has it that Sonoma County Transit's recent ridership is also experiencing sharp declines, with June 2009 rumored to be down 8% from June 2008.

Bikes on Buses: General Thoughts

2009-08-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

We here at CityBus love bicyclists. Several of us use bicycles to get to work nearly every day. As we've mentioned before, CityBus now moves more bicycles on our bike racks in a given month than we move wheelchairs. We have bicycle racks on all of our buses. Most of the racks accommodate two bicycles ("only two" largely because of headlight limitations on those buses) and our new buses have room for three bicycles on the bike racks.

We here at CityBus are primarily in the business of running a bus transit system. To us that means running an efficient, timely, predictable and comfortable bus service. And we work hard to attract riders, existing and new. Part of attracting riders is to make our system accessible for all. "All" includes seniors, parents, children, disabled, commuters, students, shoppers and people accessing services and recreation.

Many of these people can be and are bicyclists. To that end, we have expanded our traditional bicycle accessibility (allowing bicycles on racks in front of the bus) so that people are now allowed to bring their bicycles inside the bus in certain circumstances. Our brochure outlining our rules is posted in an earlier blog entry. In addition to the rules outlined in the brochure, we now (as of 7/29/09) also allow bicycles inside the bus if the front racks are not completely full, in order to accommodate cyclists unable to lift their bicycle onto the rack. All bicyclists are expected to follow the rules outlined in the brochure otherwise.

It is worth pointing out that Santa Rosa CityBus is one of the very few urban bus operators that even allow bicycles inside the buses. Particularly given that Santa Rosa is a relatively compact and flat city, it is unusual to allow bikes onto the buses. It might be more common on rural/long haul operators (Sonoma County Transit, YoloBus come to mind). Also, VTA in Santa Clara County and Samtrans in San Mateo County allow bikes inside. But that is about it for bus operators around the Bay Area. AC Transit, MUNI, WHEELS (LAVTA), WESTCAT and Vallejo Transit do not allow bicycles inside their urban buses. AC Transit and Vallejo Transit allow bicycles inside the luggage compartment for their long-haul commuter buses, as do some (but not most) Golden Gate Transit buses. Golden Gate Transit is in the process of adding capacity to the bike racks on its buses by replacing many of the two-bike racks with three-bike racks, starting in July 2009. When they are finished, 50% of their buses will have three-bike racks. We are the only bus operator (that we know of) that allows cyclists to have their bicycle inside the bus even if the bike rack on the front of the bus is empty.

As CityBus gets more crowded, especially with the surprising number of babies/baby carriages that we seem to carry, it will become more difficult to consistently provide space inside our buses for bicycles. Safety is our first concern. And we are very cognizant of the fact that some people won't be willing to try using the bus for the first time if they feel they have to fight their way onto a bus and around an obstacle course to get to a seat. That shouldn't be the case if bicyclists are adhering to the rules provided and keeping bicycles out of the aisle way. However, often in the transit world we have to deal with perceptions, rather than actualities, so we are cognizant that some people may feel intimidated by buses crowded with equipment and luggage.

In addition, loading and unloading bicycles takes time and as we get more and more passengers and cyclists using our CityBus system, it will become increasingly important to minimize the time it takes to get each passenger on and off the bus. This includes the time it takes for them to pay the fare. If it starts taking a long time for each "transaction", then our buses will not be able to maintain a schedule and then we will fail in the goals we outlined above: to run an efficient, timely, predictable and comfortable bus service.

It is because of these issues that, while we are happy to accommodate as many bicyclists and bicycles on board the buses now, we are trying to move towards providing secure bike parking (lockers, etc.) at transit nodes. This is the strategy of most major transit operators (LA Metro, BART, etc.), but many of those operators find that they are moving in that direction long after it is needed rather than proactively, as we are trying to do. It is likely that this process will take some time to implement, largely because we use the same grant funds for bicycle storage that are used for implementing bike lane and other public works projects. Competition for these scarce dollars is fierce and other priorities city-wide may surface over time, but for us, secure bicycle parking at transit nodes will be a growing desire.

Recently this very issue came up for a June 3, 2009, panel discussion on "Critical Issues in Bicycle Commuting" hosted by the Commonwealth Club and many of the speakers mentioned the need to transition away from accommodating bicycles on buses and into the need to accommodate bicycles by providing a range of secure bicycle parking at transit stops, stations and nodes. This also came up at a second Commonwealth Club panel discussion on bicycling in San Francisco on July 20, 2009. "Secure bicycle parking" includes racks, lockers, and bicycle cages or stations (both staffed and unstaffed). There have even been discussions about the need for real time information for cyclists waiting for the arrival of transit vehicles (particularly rail and long haul bus vehicles) so that the bicyclist knows in advance about whether the vehicle has room for a bicycle. If the vehicle does not have available space, then the bicyclist can use the secure bicycle parking provided to lock his/her bicycle before the arrival of the transit vehicle. This is not something that is currently a funded investment for most transit operators, but perhaps if more grant funding is made available in the future, such investments can be made.

It is probably also worth mentioning that in most communities with high transit and bicycle usage outside the United States, the transit operators do not allow bicycles inside or even outside the transit vehicles. Instead, secure bicycle parking is prevalent in most cities and bike sharing programs in some cities provide greater mobility options once passengers reach their destinations.

The other strategy, one that any cyclist who wishes for the greatest mobility options should use, is to have a foldable/collapsible bicycle. These are allowed inside all buses on most systems (though not MUNI) at any time.

Bringing Your Bike onto CityBus: Instructional Brochure

2009-07-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

Following up on the video posted yesterday on how to load your bike onto a bus rack, here is the brochure our talented marketing and information department (1 person!) produced on the rules and procedures for taking your bike aboard a CityBus.

The are two changes to be made to the brochure. First, our phone number is now (707)543-3333. Second, our latest buses (of which we have four) have bike rack capacity for three bikes. The remainder of our fleet (33 buses) have bike rack capacity for two bicycles. In addition to the brochure and the videos, we have instructions of how to load your bicycle onto a rack and the rules for traveling with your bicycle on one of our buses posted on our web site.

How to Use CityBus Bike Racks: Instructional Videos

2009-07-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

We have been requested to put videos on our web page of how to put your bicycle onto the bike racks on the front of the buses. We will work on putting together an original video for our buses, but in the meantime, look at this short video. The mechanics of using a bike rack on a bus is the same whether it is a two bike rack or a three bike rack.

Also, here is a funny link to a video that was put together by the Transit Authority River City in Kentucky. Any video we do will not be this musical, guaranteed.

More on the New Buses: The Council Meets #916

2009-07-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

We introduced some of our Council members to one of our New Flyer gasoline hybrid electric buses. Here is a montage of photos of the event. Several folks came by and tried out the bike rack that is in the front of the bus. The new buses have capacity for three bicycles on the bike rack (not possible with our previous hybrids due to the location of that buses headlights). We have been requested to post an instructional video as to how to use the bike rack on the front of the bus. We will work towards that and post what information is already available on the web in the meantime.

We will provide more information on the new buses as we move forward. For now, just know that this particular bus had a vendor cost of $600,000. Funding for the bus came from our Federal Transit Administration Section 5307 funds ($434,000) and from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's Transportation Fund for Clean Air Program ($166,000).

Rider Comments: More "Tell Us" Cards! They really like us!

2009-07-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

This is a positive way to end the week. We received another comment we'd like to share from one of our riders. It may seem like we are selectively posting only positive comments, but rest assured, that is not the case. We are perfectly happy to post "negative" or critical comments that we receive if the comment or our response can be useful to people. Since we started posting these cards on our blog, we have only received two negative cards, neither of which were appropriate to post. Honestly, I've never worked in a place where our clientele takes the time to write so many positive notes to us. So here's another one......

Introducing.....Our New Buses!

2009-07-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

We received four new buses into our maintenance yard a couple of weeks ago. They are all 40' New Flyer gasoline-electric hybrids. They are all low-floor and ADA accessible and have 38 seats. These buses are in addition to the three Gillig buses we received in 2008 (one of which is featured at the top of our blog).

Three of these new New Flyer buses will be "expansion" buses and one will be a replacement for our old bus, #911, the 1991 Gillig Detroit. The expansion buses will not mean that we will be able to expand services. Instead, they will give us the capacity to have sufficient numbers of spare buses on hand in order to make sure that if we have mechanical issues with one of our buses that is out in service we won't have to actually cancel routes. Instead, we will be able to deploy one of the reserve buses into action.

We can't wait to get these buses out onto the road, but in the meantime we thought you'd like to see how we install our name and graphics onto a bus that has its base colors in place. We'll provide more information later on the environmental benefits and other cool features that come with these new buses. We'll also pay a tribute to Ol' 911 on its way out the door. In the meantime, enjoy this peak behind the scenes!!

(Thanks to my friends, The Real Sippin' Whiskeys, for providing the background music. The song has nothing to do with the subject, but it is peppy. And believe me when I tell you, it is much easier to listen to than the background noises in the garage. Besides, I love the music they play and I love buses, so I thought I'd see what they were like combined!)

Rider Comments: More "Tell Us" cards

2009-07-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

Two more rider comment cards came in today that we'd like to share for the good of the order. Our senior riders may not be sending us emails or commenting on our blog, but they sure do take the time to fill out the "Tell Us" comment cards that they can pick up on any of our buses.

Bus Operator Interviews: What is the Future of Santa Rosa CityBus?

2009-07-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

Over time we have been posting videos of interviews we had with our bus operators in honor of our 50th Anniversary in 2008. Today, we'd like to post a response from one of our bus operators, Naydra, when asked: "What is the future of Santa Rosa CityBus? How do you see the agency 10 years from now?"

Transportation Demand Management: www.bikeandbus.com

2009-07-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

Here at the Santa Rosa Transit Department, we are always encouraging everyone to travel, at least occasionally, by any method other than the private single occupancy vehicle. With that in mind, we also like to encourage other organizations who work towards that same goal.

A Sonoma County organization called "Bike and Bus" has formed to help merchants who want to promote travel to their businesses by alternative means (and who want to promote their business). The premise is that people purchase a $20 card that will entitle them to discounts at participating merchants. The card identifies the user as a bicycle or bus rider. We don't have much information on how many are participating in the program, but we like the idea of a "card carrying" alternative transportation club, check out their web page for more information.

Planning for the Future: What kind of guidance is the U.S. Department of Transportation providing?

2009-07-15T20:03:00.001-07:00

Communities have control over their own array of policies related to how they want to grow and develop. However, an individual community works within the context of the state and federal rules and funding availability.

So, what is exactly is the federal context in which the City of Santa Rosa finds itself? Honestly, it still isn't completely clear what the remainder of this four year presidential term brings for federal structure, guidance and funding. And that is true across many federal policy-setting agencies.

The context in which communities are working today is a new presidential administration in a complicated time. Not only is the current federal administration attempting to implement a massive government infrastructure investment and job creation package (a.k.a., the stimulus package), but it is also gearing up to formulate and pass the next 6-year federal transportation funding legislation, all while grappling with critical climate change concerns.

President Obama's Secretary of the Department of Transportation is Ray LaHood, a former U.S. Congressman from Illinois. Since Secretary LaHood's appointment seven months ago, he has traveled around the country visiting sites implementing federally funding stimulus projects, spoken to congressional committees regarding White House priorities, and he has.....blogged? He "tweets" too.

Ahh yes, it is a new era.

Secretary LaHood's blog is entitled "Welcome to the Fast Lane" and in the July 14th entry, he reported on his statements to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The title of his entry: "Smart community planning, more transportation options lead to reduced carbon emissions".

LaHood goes on to say "We must implement policies and programs that reduce vehicle miles driven. This means providing communities with additional transportation choices, such as light rail, fuel-efficient buses, and paths for pedestrians and bicycles that intersect with transit centers. These options will also reduce household transportation costs, strengthen local economies, lower traffic congestion, and reduce reliance on foreign oil. Our strategy also calls for investing transportation dollars in coordination with housing and economic development. By doing so, we can promote strong communities with mixed-income housing located close to transit in walkable neighborhoods."

He summarizes at the end of his blog entry the latest thinking of the current administration by saying "Well there it is, for all to read: If we want to reduce transportation carbon emissions, we need to reduce the amount of driving we do."

It is still too soon to predict how the administration's evolving policy and guidance will impact legislative efforts on federal transportation funding and climate change policies. Ray LaHood's comments yesterday in the Senate and on his blog might lead a community interested in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, and investing in its transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure, to believe they may find federal support in the near future.

If nothing else, the fact that the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation has a blog is a sign of some kind of change!

Rider Comments: More "Tell Us" Cards!

2009-07-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

We've received another "Tell Us" comment card from one of our riders and I thought I'd post it. As I've mentioned before, about 70% of our rider comment cards are positive, and this one fits that category. If you want to see any of the others that we've posted, just click on the "comments" label below.

Transportation Demand Management: AAA Oregon Now Assists Bicycles

2009-07-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

Though our main function with this blog is to highlight topics related to buses and our bus system, we are also the Transportation Demand Management program managers. With that in mind, here is an interesting development that might concern those who ride bicycles: one chapter of the American Association of Automobiles Oregon/Idaho chapter is now providing roadside assistance to its bicycle riding members! Such service is only being provided in Oregon and parts of Idaho for now, but perhaps there is interest in such services in Santa Rosa?

Bus Culture: Being creative on the bus

2009-07-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

Though I don't often have the time to seek out what's new in the world of blogging, every now and then I stumble upon a blog that makes me smile. And sometimes I become a touch jealous that I am not the person creating that blog or having that experience. In our efforts here on the Santa Rosa CityBus blog, we try to explore some new ideas, ask some difficult questions, or make some creative observations, but we are essentially a policy and operations based outfit. Sometimes what I really want to do is sit on the bus and read a book......

With that in mind, check out the blogs of two women who spend their time being creative on the bus, Booking It Bus Style (who spends her bus time reading and writing) and Bus Paintings (who spends her bus commute creating visual art).

What a lovely way to spend your time! Keep up the good work ladies!

Ridership Report: May 2009 and June 2009

2009-07-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

Our ridership reports are in for May 2009 and June 2009 and though the numbers aren't spectacular, there are a few interesting things to be found.

For May 2009, ridership was 232,401 trips. That total number was down 9.5% from May 2008 and down 3.97% from April 2009.

For June 2009, ridership was 221,817 trips. That total number was down 3.28% from June 2008 and down 4.55% from May 2009.

That's the bad news. The interesting news is that the number of bicycles that have used a bike rack on our buses has continued to climb overall. May 2009 had 2,676 bikes, down slightly from the April 2009 number of 2,721. But June 2009 saw the second highest number of bikes in a month in the year we have been tracking the figure, 2,888, behind only October 2008 (our busiest month of all time for passengers) which had 2,927. The number of bicycles we carry on our buses continues to outpace the number of wheelchair trips.

One other interesting piece of information is that we have begun to track Santa Rosa employee trips on the bus. The actual number of trips is not worth reporting at this time, but that number of employee trips has grown 35% in the first two months we have been tracking it! Hopefully the number of employeess taking CityBus around town at work and on their own time will continue to grow through the years to the point where the actual number of employee trips will be worth reporting.

Also of note, our ridership number for our entire Fiscal Year 2008-2009 is actually up 1% over Fiscal Year 2007-2008. That may not seem like a number to be proud of, but considering the unusually high ridership levels experienced in Fiscal Year 2007-2008, 1% increase is something we can live with. For Fiscal Year 2007-2008, our ridership was up 5.3% over Fiscal Year 2006-2007, and for the last half of Fiscal Year 2007-2008 (April/May/June 2008) ridership numbers showed dramatic increases because of extremely high fuel prices. So we'll take the 1% increase over last year and proceed into Fiscal Year 2009-2010 with lofty goals.

Transit Budgets: California Courts Rule State Took Public Transit Money Illegally

2009-07-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

On June 30, 2009, the California State Court of Appeals (Third District) ruled that the State of California has been illegally programming money approved by the voters of California for public transit purposes to non-public transit programs since 2007. Though this ruling will be appealed by the Governor's office to the State Supreme Court, and though the Appeals Court has said that it cannot enforce the ruling retro-actively, this decision could have wide ranging repercussions. How the decision impacts the State's budget discussions for Fiscal Year 2009/2010 is uncertain, since the budget proposals adopted by the Governor and legislators in February 2008 included over $900 million being taken from public transit to cover FY09/10 general fund budget issues.

The California Transit Association, the organization that filed the lawsuit, has more information on the outcome and next steps on their web page.

Santa Rosa CityBus alone was estimated to have lost approximately $1.5 million to $2 million worth of State Transit Assistance funds in FY08/09 because of actions taken by the State to divert funds from public transit to the general fund programs.