Albuquerque's bus system on the wrong road?

Albuquerque NM - The Albuquerque Tribune reports that the city's buses will be "taking art on the move". Normally this wouldn't garner my attention but one quote in the article immediately caught my eye.

The City's Transit Director Greg Payne stated the following:

"We're a much different transit department than we were a year ago," Payne said. We will do anything and everything to attract people to mass transit, including putting art exhibits inside and outside of our buses."

Well Mr. Payne, what will attract riders is a clean, safe, reliable and convenient operation that takes people where they need and want to go. As I have commented in the past, you could have 5-star service with attendants fluffing your pillows while serving you drinks and it won't attract the ridership if your service isn't up to par.

Mr. Payne appears to have fallen into the marketing trap of style over substance transit operations. The roving art exhibit isn't going to bring new ridership and neither is any other fluff marketing campaign. What sells transit is good service and advertising that good service without the Madison Avenue treatment that is more lies than truth.

The best advertising for any system that provides good transportation service is education. When you educate the public about the transit service and how to use it to their advantage, you will attract ridership. Trying to sell a transit system like a can of Pepsi does nothing but waste valuable money that could be used to improve service.

I've been finding that transit systems that hide behind the style over substance type of promotions tend to be rather poor transit providers. Their system tend to be sadly lacking in providing convenient and reliable service and that fact is buried in the "sell the sizzle, not the steak" style of marketing they use. People aren't fooled however and ultimately what happens is the marketing campaign flops, costs a lot of money and you usually end up with less riders than when you started out with the campaign.

Mr. Payne, concentrate on providing quality transit service and people will ride. The "anything and everything" concept will only cost money while not doing anything to put new butts on the seats.

(Edited to change the name of the City Transit Director which I originally has posted as Scott Payne instead of Greg Payne)

Politicians & Transit - Do Not Mix Together

Albuquerque NM - The Editorial in the Albuquerque Tribune on December 5, 2006 is a very good overview of why politicians need to be taken out of public transit decisions.

A big push for an electric streetcar line in Albuquerque by Mayor Martin Chavez and a majority of the City Council was met with less than enthusiasm by the residents of the city. Questions were asked by the public and the politicians scattered like cockroaches in the kitchen when a light is turned on.

The most telling point in this whole editorial was the mention of the "quickie study" that was commissioned by the pro-streetcar Mayor. This type of quickly done study is typical of cities pushing for expensive capital projects for things like light rail and trolley service.

All too often the preliminary studies commissioned will paint a picture of economic boom times that will occur if the project is built. This is sold to the people as a plan with no drawbacks. After millions are spent on further required studies, planning and other prep work needed before the funding application can be submitted, people begin to wake up that they were snookered into accepting a plan that will do little beside cost them money. By then, it's too late to turn back.

The residents of Albuquerque were right to ask the hard questions considering that ultimately, they would be paying a big part of the cost through higher taxes. It's too bad that residents of other cities just follow the bumbling politicians like a herd of sheep when it comes to projects designed more for a politician's personal legacy than for serving the public or improving the economy of the area (hint - if you want to improve the economy of the region, try lowering taxes and making a business friendly environment).

What happened in Albuquerque is a classic example of why politics and public transit don't mix. Politicians today want to use public transit as a development/economic tool rather than what it is supposed to be for, moving people.

A Laurel goes out to the residents of Albuquerque for questioning the plan right out of the box and not letting the Mayor and City Council baffle them with answers that danced around the questions. By making the politicians squirm, they defeated a boondoggle that would have cost them millions in taxes if the politicians had their way.