Shared Thoughts & Shared Mobility

This second episode focuses on the local opinions of people who we interviewed (kept anonymously) who wanted to provide some insight into how the public transit systems of Riverside and Long Beach could be improved from their perspective or how it had benefitted them. Our insights are also paired with the local opinions to give context.

Audio Link:

Transcript

Aidan: Welcome back to Shared Thoughts and Shared Mobility! Today we will be travelling!

Catherine: Yeah so we were able to travel to both Long Beach and Riverside and interview locals about their thoughts on the transportation systems of the respective cities.

Aidan: Well. Cindy and I drove to Long Beach a few weeks back in a very sunny afternoon, so let us begin by listening to what locals of Long Beach have to say about the city’s transportation system.

The first person we encountered was a homeless woman, who was sitting on a bench near the bus stop, so we first approached her. When we asked about her opinion on how good she thought the public transportation in Long Beach was, She responded very passionately, saying,  

[“The transportation here is very… is excellent… they are efficient, they are usually on time, they run every 15 minutes, well some of them, and yeah, they take you where you want to go…”]

Well our observations were very similar to what she said: there were a lot of buses downtown that can be seen at every intersection. At the bus stop, they lined up at final stops and drivers were chatting with a bunch of their colleagues, waiting for their next departures. At the bus stop, we noticed a route map which displayed the available routes in Long Beach and there were quite a lot. The density of routes even reminded me of the bus map I once saw in Manhattan, where, you know, has a very advanced bus transit system and one can basically see buses and coaches on every street.

Catherine: Umm that’s interesting, coz although I’ve never been to Manhattan, my impression of Manhattan and New York in general is that it’s probably much more dense than Long Beach, so I am just wondering why Long Beach has so many bus routes. Do a lot of people take the buses in Long Beach?

Aidan: From what we saw, we saw many students and workers getting off the buses. We got to Long Beach at around 4pm, so that’s like the beginning of rush hour. Which, this reminds me, while interviewing the homeless woman, we also asked her how many people take the bus each day. She gave us an estimate based on what she had observed.

[Woman: Oh my god there could be hundreds of people. I’ve been sitting here for a week and there’s hundreds of people that take the bus on Saturdays.”]

Aidan: She also mentioned that most of the passengers were either veterans or students. There were some working class, definitely,  but not that many. Indeed, when we interviewed people who worked in Long Beach or nearby cities or local communities, most of them responded this way:

“Blonde Lady with a kid: I don’t know much about public transportation. I mean I live here but I do not take it…

Man with a suit: I have no idea, sorry. I just drive here and go…”

Catherine: Oh, that’s an interesting difference between Long Beach and Riverside, because all of the locals we interviewed belonged in the working class and while we were at Riverside, a majority of the people taking the train were actually working class individuals as well.

Aidan: Yeah, that is a very notable difference. I mean there is metros also in Long Beach that go to LA downtown, but the thing is when we got there the metro was broken. It was uhh, it wend over a renovation thing, so we did not have the chance to interview people that got off from the metro.

Catherine: Oh ok that’s great news I’m glad that they have the funds to fix the metros because I heard that Long Beach metro are worn down and kind of broken. So far you’ve only mentioned good things about Long Beach’s transportation system. So Aidan, did some locals express any negative concerns about the transit system?

Aidan: Absolutely! We asked some local students who frequently ride the bus, and this is what they had to say:

“Male: In my opinion, it could use some work… it could really use some work. Umm, certain buses come every few minutes, which is good, but other buses, like, would be really extremely late, especially if you want to rush somewhere they can be really late. I’ve waited as long as 30 minutes for bus and it was like 30 minutes late.”

“Another Male: Time. I feel like, uhh, you get out of school at like four ish and if you miss your bus – yeah that’s what I would say. I used to miss my buses sometimes, and when I missed it I would have to wait another whole hour. Sometimes it gets delayed.

Aidan: So there isn’t enough frequency.

Male/Female: Yeah. ”

Aidan: The main concerns, according to them, are insufficient frequency and serious delays. By analyzing the situation, Cindy and I posited that those problems are largely due to insufficient demand for buses locally, potential high cost to purchase new vehicles for public transit agency, and a serious downtown traffic during rush hours.

Catherine: Hm so it seems that our solutions should focus on reducing the impact of traffic jams for public transit, and encouraging people to take buses more by making it more convenient for them.

Aidan: Yeah I believe so. On the other hand, we should also consider if there are alternatives for buses that are also locally convenient, efficient and minimally affected by traffic conditions such as bike. We saw some rental bikes down the street but I didn’t see that much, you know, that many people used them.

Catherine: Yeah, I agree. Now we will switch cities and listen to the perspectives of Riverside residents. The first local we interviewed was a man working in Cyber security. When asked how he uses the train, he replied with quite an extensive travel route:

[I take it from Riverside to Union Station, then from Union Station, I transfer to the red or purple line, which is the subway. I go three stops to sit on the Metro, so I can then go upstairs to the Expo line and take that out to Culver City and then from there, I take an Uber for about five miles to get from the station over to where my office is.]

Catherine: He also provided some feedback on other potential types of transportation.

[I’m actually looking forward to the automated cars, so I can just ride that, but I also, being in cyber security understand the possible pitfalls.

You could also do shared cars where you could maybe summon one and it would be somebody’s from down the block because there’s plenty of them obviously and most of the time they’re sitting in a parking lot. But there’s going to be a need for some cultural changes and things because not everybody’s going to want to say, “Yeah, I’ll donate my car out.”]

Catherine: I actually found his comment on shared cars really interesting because it relates to what we talked about in class, about how we’re proposing these potential solutions to the issue of transportation sustainability, but to actually implement these solutions may require that people make lifestyle changes or cultural changes and because of this, I think that these solutions may not necessarily work or work as they were intended.

Aidan: Right, right your point makes sense. Going off what you have just said, this is, I belive especially applicable to transportation because how we travel is ingrained in our lifestyle and our behavior which are developed over time, so, therfore, it will take a long time for people who commute daily to get adjusted to using the bus or train instead of driving.

Catherine: Yeah exactly. So during our interviews, we also asked locals why they prefer taking public transportation instead of driving and almost everybody said the same thing.

Aidan: Let’s hear them out!

[Middle aged women: I did it originally to get out of driving and so much traffic, but I like that it helps the environment.

Cybersecurity Man: Well I use the train because I don’t feel like sitting on the freeway for two and a half, three hours.]

Aidan: It seems like a lot of people would rather take public transportation because of traffic.

Catherine: Yeah and I can see why. So we actually drove to Riverside at 5 am in the morning.

Aidan: Wow 5 am!!

Catherine: Yeah and even then, there was already traffic on the 91 heading towards Irvine and when we came back around 7 am, it still took us 2 hours to arrive at Irvine.

Aidan: That is insane!!

Catherine: Yeah so we were trying to beat traffic there but we still got caught in it. And so I can completely attest to what the locals were saying and why they take the train to work instead of driving. We also asked locals whether they would drive or not if there was no traffic, most of the locals said yes but some had other opinions.

[Microbiologist: Maybe? I mean it depends on the price of gas.

Man: It’s a 50-50 on that. I mean the best part is the lack of traffic but honestly, also just having your mind at ease and not have to worry about, you know, the wear and tear on your vehicle or just people cutting you off. I reada read a book or I get to watch a show or something on Netflix versus having my mind on, you know, driving or I can sleep.]

Aidan: Well, so it seems like locals don’t see traffic as the only motivation for using public transit, although it is indeed a huge factor. Based on my understanding, locals also regard public transportation from comfort and economic perspectives, which we should also consider when addressing the overall issue of shared mobility and transportation sustainability. From that, we should also explore other ways to improve public transit systems.

Catherine : Great Point! We asked locals if there was anything they would change about the transit system at Riverside and this is what they had to say.

[“Woman: It’s not always on time. It needed to wait for other trains to come through.  If it was on a better, more regulated schedule that would be perfect and if there’s more trains coming through more often.”

Man: “I would just add Wi-Fi.”

Woman: Probably have more trains at different hours.”

Cyber Security Man: “Right now, there’s a problem. They have purchased new engines, but the engines that they’ve been using on some of these trains are still really old from when they first started, so they break down quite often. They might need to also do more separation because I’ve been on several trains that have hit people.”]

Catherine: So it seems that a lot of the improvements that need to be made to the Riverside transit system is to increase the frequency and punctuality of the trains and the overall maintenance and services available on the trains.

Aidan: Yeah, but I also noticed that most of the people you interviewed only use the trains or metro but not buses.  

Catherine: Yeah, even though the buses were running at that time, we noticed that nobody was really taking them. A lot of the buses were just parked while those that were running were empty. It may have just been the time that we went though because it was quite early.

Aidan: Umm that’s interesting because I read a performance report from AMMA Transit Planning (2018) on Riverside public transportation. Well, according to the report, Riverside is now seeing declines in bus ridership in which the ridership levels were 4.18% below that of last year. Do you know the reason for that?

Catherine: Hm I don’t quite know the exact reason but I think it might have to with the fact that most people aren’t traveling to very closeby cities, so for example we interviewed people who were traveling from Riverside to Anaheim or Culver City which is quite up north. And so I think because of that taking the train is just overall faster and more convenient.

Aidan: Well I think there’s also a problem exists in the system itself. So Congressman Mark Takano did a survey in Inland Empire asking people why they didn’t take a bus that frequently and most of the respondents said that there was no night services for the bus so they could not take the bus to their home when they got off from their work, right? That is also a huge problem. And if the local government and Riverside transit agency want more people to take buses, that is a problem that they need to solve.

Catherine: Yes I agree with you. We actually interviewed a local who talked about how she didn’t like the fact that at night there were less trains and because of that she would always have to come back earlier. And so I think what you just said is not only applicable to the bus system but also the metro as well. So having heard perspectives from both cities I think we have some valuable insights on how we can help improve the transportation systems of these cities.

Aidan: Let’s note all those problems and opinions down, and stay tuned for our next episode where we will have special guests, Professor Garde, Professor Hyland and Professor McNally from UC Irvine discuss their expertise on this subject of transportation systems and shared mobility.