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1 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS The goals of this research were to examine the current status of suburban transit, both from operational and land-use perspectives, and develop guidelines for evaluating, selecting and implementing those services, which would be manifested in the form of a guidebook that would inform both technical staffs and policy boards. The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team and included evaluation of approximately 30 preliminary and eight detailed case studies that included substantial communication and understanding of those preliminary and detailed case studies which was then compiled in the findings and conclusions of the research. Unlike some research efforts that focus on the mathematical formulae associated with specific public transit issues, this research, as will be described more thoroughly below, reinforced the importance of public policy decisions within an area that is still developing. These policy-related perspectives combined with the other technical results to form the following summary of findings: 1. The state of suburban transit services continues to evolve just as the state of suburbs also evolves. For example, as suburbia extends into new areas the former suburban areas begin to more resemble the downtown areas of decades ago, thus further stretching the resources required to adequately connect those new suburban areas with public transit. 2. Although the menu of solutions, commuter, regional connection and local circulation, remains similar from prior studies, the decision making process to retain or withdraw these suburban services is primarily based on local policies, which are substantially influenced by the availability of local funding. 3. Measurement processes for these services can also vary from a relatively stringent quantitative analysis, e.g. meeting a minimum ridership per hour threshold, to a less stringent qualitative view, which could include maintaining community control of local circulators. Denver RTD does use a modified performance level evaluation for all of its family of suburban transit services that appears can serve as a model for other agencies to consider and will be described in detail in the guidebook. 4. Efforts by the research team to more specifically analyze the land-use connection with suburban transit services provide mixed results. On the one hand, the more general use of density, diversity and design components, as more thoroughly described herein, shows potential for assisting the local transit planning process at the local level. 5. However, the more detailed use of land-use data, as seen in some of the detailed case study results, did not assist in developing a comparative analysis that could be used in general throughout the country, in part because the land-use data were inconsistent and difficult to assemble into a uniform format, and, in part, because the attributes of the services varied greatly from location to location, making general comparisons difficult. 6. In fact, several research team members believed that further national collection of those specific land-use data, for example percentage of persons employed in manufacturing, would not expand the value of those data, and, perhaps the best incorporation of land- use data would be at the local level as recorded and analyzed at the local level. 7. It appears at the current time that more agencies are grappling with the issue of how to provide alternative services in those areas that cannot support fixed-route services. Some alternatives, such as point and route deviation, appear to be accepted by local
2 communities in some areas and not accepted in others. In addition, there are increasing examples of demand-responsive services, many of which require order taking and scheduling on the fly by operators, expanding their role. 8. It would also appear that many of these services are developed with the goal of expanding suburban transit service coverage, which is sometimes counter to the goal of fixed-route services to maximize productivity. Some of these services incorporate the responsibility to deliver ADA complementary paratransit services by blending in those ADA-eligible clients into the suburban service solutions, thus eliminating the need for the separate ADA service. 9. Additional research may prove beneficial by focusing on these non-fixed-route alternatives and the potential to incorporate the goal of coordinating human service transportation, as evidenced by the increasing emphasis on the Federal United We Ride program, as well as examining alternatives for ADA paratransit, which has increased significantly in demand in both urban and suburban locales, with costs outpacing the funding sources used to finance those programs. 10. Although the specificity of land-use data and uniformity of suburban transit data were not that as originally anticipated by the research team, there appear to be a variety of more general trends and conclusions that will move forward the understanding of the complexities of suburban transit services and underscore the importance of the local policy making process. Not all research processes can result in easy to adapt findings. The state of suburban transit services indicates yet again that many aspects of public transit service delivery, whether from the planning or policy perspectives remains more art than science, but scientific developed findings can assist the informed policy boards based on an ongoing understanding of service alternatives and attributes. The guidebook on suburban transit service has been published separately as TCRP Report 116 (available online at http://trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=6525).
