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Present: Carolyn McPherson, Carolyn Caywood, Dan Koach, Mike Aschkenas, Nancy Craft, Emily Fisher
Next meeting Monday, Feb. 6, 5:30pm, Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation office, 2400 Potters Road, Suite 300. We will meet with Jim Spore, Mark Schnaufer, and Ray Amoruso. Dan will organize and present our recommendations. Nancy offered to make a powerpoint. Carolyn C will write a paragraph about the group's work since we first met with Mr. Spore and provide a roster.
Technology - Mike & Dan
Dan shared a letter from Alicia Cain of HRT about the phone app that would allow riders to track when the bus would arrive at their stop in real time. Sometime in 2012, HRT will offer interactive voice recognition for a rider to enter the number of the bus stop and receive the planned bus schedule. This is not the same as getting live information about actual arrival time which is what we propose. HRT already has GPS tracking on the buses. Los Angeles, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Denver have the sort of app we recommend. Our rationales are that this will be a more modern technology and create a culture that will attract discretionary and perhaps younger riders. Also, it will improve customer service for all riders, and it will reduce the anxiety created by the lengthy headway on most VB routes.
Secondly we recommend WIFI be added to all buses, particularly those on long routes, again to appeal to the modern technology culture and attract younger riders and improve customer service for all riders.
We talked about an EZPass-like debit account for riders but we have not researched whether being able to buy a month pass makes it unnecessary. (Carolyn M checked and it is available in Washington DC and Los Angeles on their buses).
Availability (where it goes, timing)
Phase in evening and Sunday service. These are working hours for many people today and others will want to attend church. Buses need to run from Newtown Station the hours that light rail runs.
Add route 28 express from the Resort Area to Town Center to Newtown Station and back to enable more people to use light rail.
We also talked about adding route 7 running Town Center to Newtown Station to the airport and back, but Henry Ryto says this is no longer an option.
Accessibility
Primarily we think training for bus drivers in sensitivity and customer service would respond to the complaints we have heard. We have heard about concerns with drivers willingness to provide reasonable service for people with disabilities. Announcements need to be both auditory and visual. Bikes take more time which needs to be allowed. More ticket sales locations and more consistency of locations is needed. More information should be in more places on how to get the right ticket, how to rack a bike, etc. to encourage new users.
Other - parking
Overnight parking locations and means of regulation or permitting are needed for night shift workers (e. g. hospitals), and soon for Amtrak riders, and possibly air travelers.
We believe the City is rethinking the building code governing parking spaces. We have two suggestions. First, to decrease the required parking spaces for residential and commercial buildings to encourage use of public transit (and other environmentally friendly modes). Second, to increase the park and ride lots to provide more access for drivers doing inter-modal car/public transit. This would be particularly important in the SGA areas.
Public transit funding
Virginia Beach spends $25/capita and Norfolk $163/capita for public transit. We wondered about Chesapeake which is geographically more similar. St. Louis spends $83/capita and Denver $143/capita. We are interested in the $2.5 million that the consortium working on the tunnels has promised HRT to compensate for the new tolls and we feel Virginia Beach needs to get a piece of this pie.
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