Little Transit - Systems for Any Town: Episode 5

Huge thanks to our new (and only) patron Mike Christensen! Mike, we'll give you a shoutout on air next episode. The support is much appreciated.

Links and stuffs

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:35 Theme song ♪
• 01:04 Cache Valley Transit District (Logan, UT) ^{[1] [2] [3] [20]}
  • 02:02 Original service (1992)
  • 02:47 Service expansions (1992-1997); 1 million riders a year
  • 03:32 Merger with Cache Valley Transit District (2007); 2 million riders a year ^[4]
  • 04:34 Remarkably cost-effective ^{[4] [5] [6]}
  • 05:17 What's Cache Valley doing right?
    • 05:23 Frequency & Saturday service ^[7]
    • 06:04 Service spread out, not hub and spoke ^[8]
    • 06:37 Did we mention it's free? ^[9]
• 08:01 Great Falls Transit District (Great Falls, MT) ^{[19] [21]}
  • 08:16 Pretty unchanged since starting in 1982 ^[10]
  • 08:50 Innovative timed transfer system
  • 09:36 They don't have bus stops
  • 09:57 30 min. typical frequency
  • 10:34 Two-seat ride to anywhere
  • 10:52 Ridership growth
  • 11:48 Comparison to Boise's bus system ^{[11] [12] [13]}
  • 13:01 Review of what Great Falls does right
  • 13:53 It's colddddddd
• 14:59 Conclusions?
  • 15:07 No one-size-fits-all solution
  • 15:58 It's not big city transit, but it can still be good
• 16:43 What we think small cities could improve
  • 16:54 Streetcars! ^{[14] [15] [16]}
    • 18:14 The government likes paying for streetcars right now
    • 18:46 Trunk rail routes
    • 19:26 Run it like a trolley—no stations!
  • 20:05 Get that 15-minute frequency
  • 21:19 Internet integration, tracking ^{[17] [18] [21]}
  • 22:32 Ridership would get better
  • 23:08 Help out tourists; Great Falls airport service
  • 24:41 Recap
• 24:54 Transit can serve any size town
• 26:22 Outro

References & notes

1. [1] Logan, UT population: 52,778 (in 2020)
2. [2] Cache County, UT population: 133,154 (in 2020)
3. [3] Cache Valley Transit District: History
4. [4] Federal Transit Administration: Cache Valley Transit District 2019 Annual Agency Profile
5. [5] Federal Transit Administration: Utah Transit Authority 2019 Annual Agency Profile
6. [6] CVTD's service area is about 100,000 (not 150,000); see [4]
7. [7] Cache Valley Transit District: Routes & Schedules
8. [8] CVTD: System Map
9. [9] CVTD: Zero Fare
10. [10] Cache County population growth: Wikipedia: Cache County, Utah § Demographics
11. [11] FTA: Great Falls Transit District 2019 Annual Agency Profile
12. [12] FTA: Valley Regional Transit 2019 Annual Agency Profile
13. [13] More accurately: Great Falls gets a third of the rides with about one sixth the population, compared to Boise (see [11] [12] )
14. [14] Siemens: Cutting-edge hybrid S700 streetcar is game-changer for Charlotte Area Transit System
15. [15] YouTube: Detroit QLine Streetcar - Battery Powered!
16. [16] Article with a picture of a FrontRunner train's yellow striped snowplow: Deseret News
17. [17] TransitWiki: General Transit Feed Specification
18. [18] Transit App
19. [19] Wikipedia: Great Falls Transit
20. [20] National Transit Database: Cache Valley Transit District
21. [21] Great Falls Transit District website