Amid concerns and calls for delay, Madison is near decisions on sweeping changes for its bus system that will deliver more frequent and consistent service with fewer routes and transfers and better links to outlying areas, and eliminate transfer points and buses from lower State Street.
But for some riders the changes will mean longer walks to the bus stop and less service.
The city, after two years of study, community outreach and dozens of public meetings, may make decisions this week on a Metro Transit network redesign and host of amendments based on extensive feedback. The Transportation Policy and Planning Board (TPPB) is set to consider the redesign and amendments on Monday and the City Council on Tuesday.
“I am focused on improving our transit system in a way that makes it faster, more efficient, more accessible and — most importantly — more equitable,” Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said. “I believe this redesign moves us in the right direction and I hope the council will support it.”
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But many have concerns about impacts, the process and claims of equity, and want the city to slow down.
“We don’t accept the assertion that this redesign will improve equity for targeted and marginalized communities. Rather, it will adversely affect them,” a joint statement from the local NAACP, South Madison Unite! and the Southdale Tenants’ Association on Friday says. “We urge the TPPB to pause the approval process of the draft plan. We oppose its passage by Madison City Council and urge the city to recommit to investing in full-service transit.”
The redesign and amendments envision bus rapid transit (BRT) — a high-frequency, high-capacity, limited-stop service that would run on city streets and dedicated lanes with special stations — as the backbone of the new network, which is a separate initiative. The initial 15.5-mile, east-to-west BRT route will run roughly from East Towne to West Towne, while a future route will run from north to south.
The proposed network reconfigures bus service in all parts of the city with a completely new set of routes designed to better meet the goal of connecting the most people with the places they need to go in a reasonable amount of time, city officials said.
“No matter the change, there will be some individuals who are impacted, but I feel strongly that the benefits of this plan far outweigh the negatives,” Rhodes-Conway said. “This includes more than tripling the number of people, especially those of color, with access to a frequent and direct route. The only way to avoid impacts are to make no change and continue to perpetuate the inequities of our current system. I don’t view that as an acceptable solution.”
Ridership over coverage
Currently, Metro has bus routes that reach most of the city’s neighborhoods.
But the network doesn’t conveniently serve many trips because it favors extensive coverage over direct and frequent service, as well as peak-hour trips to Downtown over all-day service. Many areas are served once an hour or less, sometimes on one-way loops, and many routes require transfers for short trips, while some routes change completely on weekends. Trips can take much longer outside peak hours, and between outlying locations.
With the current system, Black riders have to transfer three times more frequently and experience trips longer than 45 minutes almost three times more frequently than white riders, a Metro report from May 16 says.
The city has been exploring two main alternatives for the redesign: “ridership,” which focuses service on fewer routes so buses could run more often, and “coverage,” which delivers service to as many areas as possible. The city doesn’t have the resources to fully do both, officials have stressed. The network is designed to be cost-neutral compared to Metro’s operating budget and expenses in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The proposed network leans toward ridership, meaning focusing service in high-density corridors, more frequent service, little expansion of coverage, changing coverage in some areas, with some riders having to walk farther to catch a bus, and dropping the transfer point system established in 1998.
It is intended to take full advantage of BRT and make sure the benefits of future BRT routes extend beyond the initial east-west route to the whole city, officials said. The proposed BRT routes would run every 15 minutes or better, seven days a week, with improvements on other routes to allow riders to connect more quickly and easily, they said.
Overall, the system will be “far simpler, more logical, and easier to use,” the May 16 report says.
Critics: Slow down
Although there is widespread support for a redesign, the proposed plan has many flaws, and the city is moving too fast, critics say.
“One reason to ask for more time is that the whole process of public meetings has been flawed and needs to be done better,” said Susan De Vos, president of Madison Area Bus Advocates. “Except for a hybrid meeting May 16 at the Municipal Building, all contact has been by internet.
“A second reason is that many bus riders are only now becoming aware of the plans. It is thus premature to close the public feedback period,” she said. “A third reason is that the planners keep rolling out amendments to the original plan, often too close to a neighborhood meeting time for people to have seen it. This kind of piecemeal planning is not good practice and does not provide people the overall picture needed. There really is no reason to rush things so.”
The process has been “massively flawed” from the beginning,” said Ald. Charles Myadze, 18th District. “The assumption to connect people to workplaces is unfounded. They should have asked riders and non-riders where they need service. Basing the changes to the post-COVID 2021 routes is discriminatory.”
“There is a lot of talk about equity but this plan fails on many fronts,” said Ald. Gary Halverson, 17th District.
The process has helped shape a better plan and will continue to do so, other city officials said.
“Having the City Council identify the planned network now allows our consultant to perform analysis needed to understand the effects to all of our communities,” city transportation director Tom Lynch said. “This analysis can’t occur without identifying which amendments will be incorporated. Delays also reduce or eliminate our ability to make adjustments between the soft rollout in June (2023) and the start of the fall semester. There will be physical changes to almost 1,000 bus stops – all of which take time. We would prefer to continue this process.”
Ald. Juliana Bennett, 8th District, said the city should move forward with a redesign, with the question being whether to go ahead with the current plan or make more amendments.
A series of changes
Through mid-May, Metro’s May 16 report says, the city had held more than 50 community outreach meetings and received more than 3,100 feedback emails and survey responses that produced several major themes:
- Support for more of a coverage model.
- People walking farther, a special hardship in winter.
- Service doesn’t go enough into neighborhoods.
- The redesign feels inequitable to low-income riders, people of color, and those with disabilities.
In response, Metro produced a series of amendments and budget changes, with 18 of 28 possible amendments endorsed by staff adding a net operating cost of roughly $1 million.
“The draft plan was designed to provide high quality service to areas with dense housing, especially in neighborhoods with higher percentages of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) or low-income households,” council president and TPPB member Keith Furman said. “There are definitely tradeoffs, but the draft provides 31% of Madison residents with improvements in service, while a small percent would see a decrease. Proposed amendments are expected to improve that.”
The staff-recommended amendments would impact many parts of the city as well as Fitchburg and Middleton. They include service to Troy Gardens and Mendota Mental Health on the North Side; faster and more direct service through the Isthmus; service to Olin Avenue, John Nolen Drive and Fish Hatchery Road; more service to the Southwest Side; and direct service from Fitchburg to the UW-Madison campus. But they reduce BRT frequency from 15 to 30 minutes on Sundays and start evening service at 7 p.m. rather than 8 p.m.
“We have almost 20 amendments with multiple sub-options that are a direct result from interactions with community members,” Lynch said. “The initial amendments were developed based on North Side comments. Then South, East and West side amendments were created with subsequent meetings. This input has been valuable in developing a planned network that addresses the inequities of our current system, yet responding to specific neighborhood access needs.
“Change is hard,” he said. “Yet there are inequities in the current system that we really need to address. It is not fair that people of color and those with lower incomes have to transfer two to three times more than other riders. They also have longer travel times. Lower quality weekend and evening transit service is hard for residents with non-traditional work hours. The Transit Network Redesign seeks to address these issues.”
But Metro has not provided an easy means of comparing new route proposals with the pre-pandemic network, and most comparisons are based on service patterns put in place after the pandemic started, said Jonathan Mertzing, speaking as an individual member of Madison Area Bus Advocates.
Amendments like the ones to reduce BRT frequencies on the weekend and cut frequencies across the network at an earlier evening starting time seem to counter the broad goals of the redesign, Mertzing said, adding, “That would seem to suggest we’re trying to do way too much with too little funding.”
“We oppose piecemeal concessions and the amendment process,” the joint statement by the NAACP and others says. “The current process whereby amendments are in competition for selection pits neighbors against neighbors and sidesteps the city’s accountability for the redesign process itself and mistaken assumptions on which the ridership model is based.”
Residents have requested increase service levels for decades, and the current process continues to highlight the desire for more transit service, Lynch said. “If funding increases are required to implement the additional services, Metro would submit that as part of the 2023 budget request,” he said.
“In the near term, any additional costs can be funded with federal funds, but the council will need to work collaboratively with staff and my office over the next few years to ensure sustainable long-term funding,” Rhodes-Conway said.
The Transportation Policy and Planning Board conducted a well-attended, nearly three-hour public hearing on May 31 and will discuss the proposed plan and amendments with possible recommendations on Monday. The City Council is scheduled to consider the redesign and amendments on Tuesday.
If the redesign is approved, a private consultant will conduct a required, federal Title VI equity analysis and identify any needed adjustments. Then, the city’s Transportation Commission would consider specific schedules and bus stop changes with the redesign starting in June 2023.
"There are definitely tradeoffs, but the draft provides 31% of Madison residents with improvements in service, while a small percent would see a decrease. Proposed amendments are expected to improve that.”
Keith Furman, Madison City Council president
"The assumption to connect people to workplaces is unfounded. They should have asked riders and non-riders where they need service."
Ald. Charles Myadze, 18th District