This City Fixed Its Public Transit System Without Spending a Dime

Houston just revamped its entire transit system, an upgrade that doubles the number of frequent bus lines but didn’t cost a cent.
Some 2.1. million residents live in the nation’s fourth largest city, and they’re spread over a wide geographic area. (Point of reference: Nearly eight times as many people live on one New York City block compared to Houston.) And since the Texas town is known as a place where cars are a prerequisite, this makes Houston METRO’s feat all the more astonishing.
How did the transit authority do it? By focusing on areas where ridership could be increased and people could be moved most efficiently. Duplicate routes and meandering zig-zags that were originally designed to pick up a few hard-to-reach passengers were dropped.
A small number of residents, designers admit, will have to walk further to reach service, but only 0.5 percent of bus riders will be more than one-quarter of a mile from a stop.
“The core idea of the new network is the high-frequency grid,” says planner Jarrett Walker. Downtown, for instance, this means riders will be able to catch any bus within 15 minutes and transfer somewhere else along the line. While that may require one additional stop than riders are used to, residents will be able to move around town much faster than ever before.

How Our Nation’s Capital is Improving Life for Commuters

On the heels of Apple’s unveiling of the new iPhone 6 and iWatch, Washington D.C.’s transit system Metro announced a new pilot program in line with the next wave of technology.
Metro’s new program will let riders pay transit fares with a smartphone, contactless credit and debit cards and other types of near field communication (NFC) devices like the iWatch. Starting in January, 10 Metrorail stations, six bus routes and two parking facilities will be outfitted with the new technology, but Metro officials plan to begin installing the new fare readers in October, according to the Washington City Paper.

“The main goal of this whole program is to eventually eliminate the need for people to convert their U.S. currency into Metro money,” says Metro spokesman Dan Stessel.

Officials contend the initiative is to make public transportation easier for both D.C. riders as well as tourists.

The nation’s capital is not the first city in the world to march toward contactless payment for public transit network. London’s bus system has already removed cash from its fare system, and the underground Tube is rolling out a new contactless payment program September 16.

But are days numbered for Metro’s old fare gates, vending machines and SmarTrip card program? Not anytime in the “foreseeable future,” according to city officials. If the pilot is met with success, Metro plans to install new fare readers across the entire transit system in 2017.

The city will begin recruiting around 2,000 participants for the pilot project this fall, encouraging residents who commute between the stations or along the bus routes included in the program to sign up. More details of the recruitment process are expected to be announced next month, according to Stessel.

MORE: Will California’s New Kill Switch Policy Reduce Phone Theft?