Transit Camp Bay Area

http://barcamp.org/TransitCampBayArea

It started out with a presentation by Mark Simon of Samtrans on the issues and data around buses. There was some discussion on the Translink but it is no way as convenient as FasTrak. Also some discussion on modal point a to point b times and aggregating the data for all these modes and looking for equivalence in some corridors. And the big success with the bullet service.

Then Kelly Furgerson and Terry Nagel and a councilperson from Pacifica did a presentation on the Coalition to Expand Transit Services. They pronounce the acronym as seats meaning more seats on the train. But Samtrans runs parallel bus service with Caltrain and there was some talk around how to use the buses more effectively and line them up with the Caltrain schedules including the funding of shuttles. Pacifica was interested in coastside connections which today are missing on weekends. I think we should have both expanded transit service and bullet service.

Andy Chow of Bay Rail Alliance developed a transit wiki. This was great because it sought to present all the info that was missing when people want to use transit like to get into the station and how to use the ticket machine etc. The wiki needs to have trails added and get the bicycle connections flushed out. The bike connector could be augmented with business' around the station that have bike parking and maybe if they give a discount.

Google's presentation was a bit elitist about using maps and other tools to track buses via GPS but that could be overcome if the tools are adopted by agencies and displayed at the station or kiosk.

Then NextBus did an excellent presentation and they said that to make it happen they needed data (like bus schedules) from the agency and a manifesto from Transit Camp which should ask for the data to be released in a public format. Nextbus can provide a full kiosk at a station or a display sign in a bus shelter which Cities in the Grand Boulevard should take into account for the area specific plans involving the El Camino. I talked to Terry Nagel afterwards and said I've known about Nextbus for ten years now and have seen their data displayed in bus shelters in Europe. Nagel said that we need to talk to decision makers and that means the JPB board and the Samtrans board and the SamTA board and perhaps the CCAG board too and the Coalition for Efficient Transit. She said that way everyone can be asking for Nextbus and there could be a move to get the TA to release the data.

The camp was the idea of a couple of techy folks. Adina one of the presenters talked about using blogs and websites to develop opinions on transit issues like say Caltrans and then having more say with policy makers and the news media. And speaking of tech EFF was there too!

Zimride was a bit different because it involved car sharing and didn't quite address transit. However empty seats in cars are the biggest unused transport asset out there so maybe it was cool. I though they could work with cities like Belmont to provide a shared taxi type of service to deliver people to Caltrain. Their main asset is that they present a kind of security because they are designed through Facebook. Jeffery who presented for them thought that the program could be used more locally to help moms get kids to commute to school.

Ryanishungry.com was a cool video site that makes informational videos on how to use transit. Similar to what Lyndon Johnson was doing at BART. The lady who presented did one on taking the train to LA and then using a Metro to go downtown. She had to be downtown in an hour and was able to do it and the total cost was 2.50 roundtrip instead of about 85 one way by taxi. She said that there could be videos on how to get a ticket from the vending machine at Caltrain and how to cross El Camino at Ralston, etc. so people could take the guesswork out of having to try transit.