Bus Riders Union of Austin, Texas | El Sindicato de Pasajeros

In April, Capital Metro officials sat down with members of PODER and BRU-ATX to say that they were interested in "reallocating 'Dillo resources" by shifting some of the routes. When we viewed their presentation, we were told that they're interested in shortening the frequency between 'Dillo arrivals from 20 minutes to 5 minutes at the cost of shrinking the service area of the currently free service to the Downtown west of I-35.

Later in the next week we discovered that Capital Metro was actually changing 'Dillo services in order to cut $1 million. What we found interesting, though, was that the proposed 'Dillo cuts did not correlate with the well performing routes. We have concluded, after surveying the facts, that the 'Dillos could be slated for complete elimination sometime in the not-too-distant future in exchange for circulator routes that charge fares.

Note: all maps and graphs listed below are adapted from a Powerpoint by Capital Metro staffers. Click on each picture to enlarge.

 

Currently the routes with highest consistent ridership are the Red, Gold, and Silver lines. The Red line runs from UT to Austin High School while the Gold line runs from UT to south of the river along Barton Springs Road to the Toomey Park-N-Ride. The Silver line runs from 7th and Pleasant Valley (near Capital Metro headquarters) to Austin High School.

At the beginning their presentation, Capital Metro staffers said that riders generally prefer linear routes to circulatory routes. However, the proposed North/South route appears to be merely a combination of the Blue and Orange routes, currently the two lowest performing routes by a fairly large margin.

The line most discussed at the meeting was the Silver 'Dillo since it is the main 'Dillo that services East Austin residents (the Orange 'Dillo runs to a few of the Manor Road restaurants, and that leg only operates between 11:30am to 2pm on weekdays).

Capital Metro staffers then tried to appease us by telling us that the loss of the Silver 'Dillo in East Austin would be replaced by increased frequencies in routes 4 (which runs along 7th Street) and 17 (which runs along César Chávez). However, the headway on route 4 would only improve by 2 minutes, from 22 to 20 minutes. Additionally, while route 4 will no longer end in Downtown but will now end at Austin High School, we quickly pointed out that the change can and should happen outside of any 'Dillo changes. Finally, route 17 now has a twelve minute headway and is actually one of the best performing fixed-route services. Capital Metro has alluded to improving the route's headway but has given us no specific time change. Pardon us for the cynicism, but it's safe to assume it will go unchanged.

After a little math, we figured out that with these changes, Capital Metro is going to take 2.5 buses off the road each hour: The Silver 'Dillo currently provides at least 3 buses per hour - with its 15-20 headways, and route 4 provides 2-3 buses per hour - with its 22 minute headways, for a combined total of 5-6 buses per hour, on average. Eliminating the Silver 'Dillo and increasing the headway on route 4 by a whole two minutes would only provide 3 total buses per hour, giving us approximately 2.5 buses less per hour.

When broken down by stop, it is clear that the Silver 'Dillo is among those that gives the 'Dillo service some of the largest service area. The Silver 'Dillo transports many East Austin residents to Downtown, to Austin High School, and back again. When we asked why the Silver 'Dillo was on the chopping block, Capital Metro staffers reported that the Silver 'Dillo didn't have that many more passengers, their drivers just took cigarette and bathroom breaks. Since ridership is calculated by an automatic counter, it cannot distinguish between a driver alighting and re-boarding from a break and normal riders. They made sure to point this out in their powerpoint slide.

Since it's safe to assume that drivers on the Red and Blue lines also take breaks at the end of their routes, we can then look at all the routes, keeping in mind that perhaps some of the larger dots on each route is actually the driver and not normal riders.

Comparing this last slide with the Proposed Routes, we can see that the proposed routes will actually not include any of the largest dots on the ridership map, meaning the new 'Dillo service will be rendered fairly useless, whether intentional or not. Add this to the fact that Capital Metro now wants to charge 25 cents per boarding - we all know that the higher (or implementation of) the fare, the lower the ridership - and it is safe to conclude that the 'Dillos will surely be slated for complete elimination in a matter of years since their ridership will achieve disappointing new lows.

The next question is: Why? Looking at the proposed August 2008 changes, we noticed the five new MetroRail Connector Routes to connect rail riders to the Capitol, Guadalupe/Lavaca, Riverside/City Hall, Brackenridge Hospital, and UT-Austin. It's coincidental, surely, that a free service will be rendered useless while new routes that will collect fares are instituted.

It's not that BRU-ATX is against a smarter allocation of resources, but we do oppose cutting one route that services South Congress and another route that has greatly serviced East Austin - lessons of historical racism aside - to make room for suburban rail line passengers. At the April meeting we were asked to work on an alternative proposal for these 'Dillo cuts as a matter of equity, and frankly, our Free and Faster Buses Proposal is the only written piece that would suffice.