Cap Remap Makes a Better Bus System Capital Metro将重新绘制一个更好的汽车总线系统
TCN
Back in the fall of 2015, Capital Metro began the process of looking at the agency’s long-term service plan and revising its bus network. The board of directors approved the Connections 2025 Transit Planin February 2017, and that was meant to guide Austin’s transit planning for 10 years.
In June, Cap Metro will implement the major parts of the plan’s recommendations with Cap Remap. During that first week — June 3-9 — customers will be able to ride Cap Metro services free of charge.
Cap Metro将于6月份通过Cap Remap实施计划建议的主要部分。在第一周的6月3日至9日期间- 客户将可以免费乘坐Cap Metro服务。
Capital Metro makes changes to its service a few times each year as a matter of routine. The agency’s planners adjust a bus’s routing a little bit, put in an extra bus trip for a particular time of day in a newly busy part of town, that kind of thing. If it’s a big change, they’ll put in place a whole new service like MetroRailor MetroRapid.
This June, though, half of Cap Metro’s current 88 routes will see some level of change, and there will be 10 brand new routes added. Service linking the east and west sides of Austin will greatly improve and some routes will be entirely eliminated.
The loss of whole routes might not sound great, but most riders who lose their current service will see even better service replace it. Those low-ridership routes not being replaced is a consequence of the desire to improve the bus network as a whole, to have it work as an efficient and connected system. And also, in the most cases, what replaces those lost routes will be much better.
For example, the Route 100 MetroAirport serves Austin Bergstrom International Airport and serves ABIA every 30 minutes. That route will be eliminated, but the Route 20 Manor Road/Riverside will replace that service to the airport and operate every 15 minutes.
The agency is confident the system will work better for the whole region. It’ll work better for Cap Metro as a public organization, because it ensures your tax dollars are being used more effectively. And, more importantly, it will work better for customers, because it creates a bus network that has more direct routing and is easier to understand.
It will also mean buses will come much more often. Right now, there are four Local routes that operate as part of the High-Frequency Network. In June, that number will triple.
Those bus routes arrive at a bus stop every 15 minutes. Routes not in that network, on the other hand, arrive every 30 or 45 minutes, and some only run every hour or more. That makes it hard for a rider (or potential rider) to rely on the bus as a way to get around.
Increasing the frequency of bus routes decreases the amount of time a rider has to wait for the next bus. And ensuring the network of routes work together improves a rider’s ability to transfer between routes. Each of those has the effect of making the trip more reliable and improving a rider’s experience on the bus.
The goal of Cap Remap is to provide a bus network that is more frequent, more reliable and better connected.
Cap Remap的目标是提供更频繁，更可靠和更好连接的总线网络。
Capital Metro has seen it work before, too. The High-Frequency Network launched in 2015 with increased service on four routes so that buses run at least every 15 minutes, instead of 30 to 45 minutes. In the first full year of the network, each of the four Local routes saw increases in ridership, some by as much as 15 and 37 percent. And last year, the agency’s two MetroRapid lines increased frequencies to 10 minutes, even on weekends. Ridership has increased for them by more than 30 percent.
Capital Metro已经看到了之前的成功经验。2015年启动的高频网络增加了四条线路的服务，使公交车至少每15分钟运行一次，而不是30至45分钟。在该网络运行的第一年，四条当地航线中的每条航线都增加了乘客数量，有些增加了15％和37％。去年，该机构的两条MetroRapid线路将频率增加到10分钟，甚至在周末也是如此。乘客数量增加了30％以上。
The point is that more riders choose to take the bus when they’re confident in the service. When they need to get somewhere, riders are able to head to the stop with the knowledge that a bus will be there soon after. They don’t need to check a timetable and coordinate their schedule to make sure they get to the stop at the exact right time. They can simply head out knowing a bus will be there shortly.
With the changes coming from Cap Remap, Capital Metro will implement that sort of redesign for the entire system. Riders will have a great many more options to get around the city more easily.
That means if you need to get from East Austin to downtown (or vice versa), you’ve got several options to do so on a bus that runs every 15 minutes, 7 days a week. For instance:
The 18 will get you from Springdale and MLK to your State job downtown.
The 2 will take you from Tillery and Oak Springs to Republic Square ( on Guadalupe between 4thand 5thStreets).
And the Route 4 will bring you from Republic Square to Cap Metro Headquarters at 5th and Pleasant Valley.
That’s just a small sampling too. It’s important to notice the many frequent routes that serve Republic Square, because it gets to another huge asset of the new plan: connectivity. With more buses running more frequently — and on more major corridors — it will be easier to transfer from one route to another and to get from one part of the region to another.
And it’s not just downtown either. Northeast Austin has Routes 10, 20, 300, 325 and 335 operating frequently all week long. It also features Route 337, which will partially replace the current Route 37 Colony Park/Windsor Park, and connect Colony Park to Koenig and MoPac (serving Reagan High School and ACC Highland on the way).
The 37 is an important outlet for residents in far East Austin, so it’s good to examine how Cap Remap will affect its riders. It also is representative of many of Cap Remap’s other changes. The route travels from Colony Park to Cameron Road and then through Mueller into downtown. It usually travels at about 30-minute frequencies. And many people rely on it to get to work.
Beginning June 3, though, there won’t be a Route 37 anymore. Capital Metro is very confident in what’s replacing its service. The new Route 337 will replace the 37’s current routing east of Cameron Road, but from there, the 337 travels along St. Johns and provides a one-seat ride to ACC Highland before traveling on 2222 to Balcones Drive, just west of MoPac.
While not technically a part of the High-Frequency Network, but it will run every 15 minutes on weekdays between 6 and 9 a.m. and from 3 to 8 p.m. In order to connect riders to downtown, the Route 337 will provide easy transfers to High-Frequency Routes 7, 10, 20, 300, 801 and 803. For current Route 37 riders who travel into Central Austin and downtown, the transfers to Routes 10 and 20 will provide reliable service from Colony Park and East Austin. Of course, in addition to transfers downtown, these connecting routes also provide quicker access to Midtown and North Austin destinations.
The increased frequency on so many routes is the biggest improvement Cap Remap will bring to the bus system. But another goal of the redesign is to provide better east-west connections throughout Austin. So much of the way Austin’s transportation network is designed is to move people north and south (along I-35, MoPac and Lamar Boulevard, for example). Cap Metro’s services have sometimes followed suit, making it difficult for people to get from east of the highway to the other side of town.
Cap Remap’s new bus network, though, goes a long way toward improving that situation. In the north part of the city, Route 325 travels along Rundberg Lane between Metric Boulevard and Cameron Road. And in South Austin, Route 333 will operate on William Cannon from Brodie Lane all the way east of I-35 past Onion Creek Park. The Route 300 is a long route that goes from Crestview Station (at Lamar and St. Johns) down south to the Westgate Shopping Center. Along the way, it provides excellent east-west connectivity on St. Johns, 51stStreet and Oltorf.
Aside from those three routes, Cap Remap will deliver excellent High-Frequency service on major east-west corridors like 38 ½ Street, Manor Road, MLK Boulevard, 7thStreet, Cesar Chavez and Stassney Lane.
In addition to improving cross-town service, sticking to those major streets has another benefit. Cap Remap will also reroute buses off neighborhood streets and onto busier corridors. This is for several reasons and will benefit the system overall, but it will require longer walks to get to the better service.
This kind of change allows buses to travel on streets that are more pedestrian friendly and conducive to transit use. It also increases the connectivity of the network since traveling on major corridors increases the transfer points between routes. Bus operators like these changes because neighborhood streets tend to be narrower and often twist and turn in ways that larger corridors don’t. Put directly, it’s simpler and safer to drive on a street like 51st Street than on a neighborhood street like Rogge Lane.
As an example of how this affects a route, it’s helpful to look again at the Route 300, which currently travels southbound along Berkman Drive before turning east on Rogge Lane. It twists and turns through the Windsor Park neighborhood before reaching Springdale Road and heading south. It is the only bus route that runs on Rogge.
With Cap Remap, the new Route 300 Springdale/Oltorf keeps to primary roads like Cameron Road and 51stStreet or Oltorf and Lamar. Rather than running on a street that is heavily residential and offers no close connections to other transit, the new 300 routing takes it along 51st Street from Cameron to Springdale. That allows customers to connect with three other High-Frequency routes (10, 20 and 335) on that stretch alone.
If you’re interested in learning more about the new bus network, visit CapMetro.org/Remap. You’ll find interactive maps, bus schedules, lots of detailed information and, most importantly, the Cap Metro Trip Planner. With that, you can learn which bus to take and when it to take it.
如果您有兴趣了解有关新巴士网络的更多信息，请访问CapMetro.org/Remap。您可以找到互动地图，公交时刻表，大量详细信息，最重要的是Cap Metro Trip Planner。有了这个，你可以了解要乘哪个巴士以及何时乘坐它。