More with Less

First, we have to give credit where it is due — a multi-year, funded transportation bill is a very impressive accomplishment given the tenor of Washington politics today. But it’s also important to point out that the USDOT noted, “This is far short of the amount needed to ... meet the increasing demands on our transportation system.” Moreover, the FTA recently announced that the state of good repair backlog for transit alone is $86 billion and growing. The FAST Act is an important step in the right direction, but the general funding challenges will continue.

Why is this important? For the people who are designing, building, permitting, operating and maintaining the nation’s rail and transit network, the obligation to continue to deliver service remains the same. The public, elected officials, businesses and other stakeholders may recognize that funding is inadequate, but they are not ready to accept anything short of excellent transportation. In fact, with the rise of social media, failures in the network are increasingly highlighted. People can video doors that opened at the wrong time on a subway car, can post pictures of a queue of buses at rush hour (that could be the result of a car accident or other roadway delay) and can quickly email pictures to the local media of various other challenges that arise.

So — what do we do? We have to keep delivering service in an environment of growing ridership and interest in providing transportation alternatives, and we need to do so under ever more watchful eyes that can project their opinions and viewpoints with a click of a smart-phone.

I believe that around the country, we are seeing transportation providers at every level using their dedication, energy, experience and creativity to find solutions to deliver more and better service despite the challenges listed above. I have seen it firsthand with the implementation of the CapeFlyer (full disclosure — I have been a consultant to the project), which is an innovative partnership between the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to renew seasonal train service from Boston to Cape Cod for the first time in more than 50 years. There was a recognition of a need — to get visitors to the Cape and Islands, key tourism destinations in Massachusetts — all while reducing the legendary congestion as visitors must cross over one of two highway bridges that were never meant to handle the current levels of traffic. The Cape Cod RTA wanted visitors to enjoy the region without adding to the single car ethos and gridlock and the state agencies recognized that they had an underutilized right-of-way that served freight traffic and equipment that was not scheduled to be in service over the weekend. The parties worked to expedite improvements and manage costs so that the service could be up and running within 18 months, with the understanding that there could be additional improvements if warranted. It was a bite-size, incremental approach that fit the public budget with continual improvements. And it has been a success over the past three summers with revenue covering operating costs in the first three seasons and great support from the riders, the business community and elected officials.

This is not to say that everything should be done like the CapeFlyer, but it is meant to highlight that despite the challenging climate — a targeted and discrete project that could garner immediate support and be implemented in short-order (and, frankly, canceled if the experiment had not been successful) was quickly carried out by creative project proponents.

Why is this important? I believe that there are many other such projects throughout the country. I believe MPOs, major city transit providers, small rural systems, paratransit providers, procurement departments, customer service departments, and everyone else responsible for the transportation network are developing low (or lower) cost projects, innovative partnerships, expedited project delivery, new methods to engage the public and other creative solutions to meet the needs of their communities. I also believe that those stories need to be told. We should see what our peers are doing — maybe others can borrow a concept to build upon or maybe just get a spark of innovation for tackling a local problem. We need to highlight these stories, celebrate these stories and see what we can learn from these stories.

Please send me what you are doing well and what challenge you have developed a creative solution to solve more quickly, more efficiently or more cost effectively and we will share them in a regular column that highlights the challenge and solution for the benefit of all of us who want the system to work as well as possible while we tackle the bigger policy and funding issues. I can be reached at [email protected].