View Poll Results: Would you ditch your car for bus or rail service in the burbs?

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  • Never.

    13 39.39%
  • Maybe, if it saved enough time or money

    4 12.12%
  • I'd use bus service

    1 3.03%
  • If built, I'd use rail service

    18 54.55%
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Thread: Would you ditch your car to use mass transit instead?

  1. #1
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    Would you ditch your car to use mass transit instead?

    There is a story in The News today about the widening of Transit Road and Wehrle Drive. By next year, the section from the I90 to Main Street on Transit will be your basic nightmare of lane closures etc.

    And, according to regional transportation officials, the corridor will be overcapacity again in 20 years anyway.

    So, if you live or travel out that way much, would you ditch your car for buses or even rail service? I thinking primarily as a way to get to and from work.

    I mean, how much wider are those roads supposed to get?

    Here is the story:

    "After five years or so of relative peace, the tearing-up and subsequent rebuilding of Transit Road — one of Erie County’s most congested and detested commuter corridors — resumed last week.

    You practically could feel the shudder.

    “It’s coming,” said Clarence Supervisor Kathleen Hallock, a veteran of the nearly two decades already devoted to rebuilding Transit Road.

    “It’s a huge project, and there will be major impacts,” added Hallock, who calls herself a “survivor” of the innumerable traffic jams caused by lane closures while the work was done.

    This time around, the reconstruction will involve the two miles from Aero Drive, south of the Thruway, to Main Street, a stretch jammed with 44,100 vehicles a day, or 20 percent over capacity.

    No major lane closures are anticipated this season, said Susan Surdej, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, because construction will focus on such tasks as improving drainage, work off to the side of the road. The department also is reconfiguring some side streets to steer traffic away from the intersection of Transit and Wehrle Drive.

    Call it the calm before the storm, however.

    By the time it is finished in late 2009, the $28.4 million project will transform the Transit- Wehrle commuter corridor. Between the Thruway and Main Street, Transit will have three lanes, instead of two, in each direction and include a raised median and turn lanes with signals at intersections.

    Just west of Transit, Wehrle, now a two-lane street rushing toward capacity, will be widened to seven lanes — the size of the Thruway — and will get two leftturn lanes at the intersection to move traffic more quickly.

    Next year, Erie County also will launch its own $13 million makeover of Wehrle, expanding it to three lanes from Ellicott Creek to about Ingram Micro and then to five lanes to the state’s seven- lane behemoth.

    The state plans to add access roads so drivers more easily can reach businesses in construction zones.

    Full story:

    http://www.buffalonews.com/101/story/51176.html

  2. #2
    Member buffy's Avatar
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    I've walked to work, it took me 1 1/2 hours. As soon as it warms up, I plan to ride my bike to work.

  3. #3
    Member Ms.Depew.to.you's Avatar
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    I don't work, but I would absolutely use the trains to go into the city if they came out this far. I'm not holding my breath though.

  4. #4
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    I wouldn't get rid of my car, but I would take a subway if it ran from downtown to the suburbs.

  5. #5
    Member 300miles's Avatar
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    ditching your car is not an option in WNY. But I think many would use mass transit more often if it were more convenient, covered more area, and was less complicated.

  6. #6
    I'm retired. I only drive about 5,000 miles a year. I gave up on horsepower and drive a ford escape hybrid. I'm not ready to give up my car.

    Why I first graduated from high school, the good jobs were in the city. I took a bus. I took a bus to work until Shelly's closed. I was in my thirties.

    If I worked and there was mass transit I would take it. Hell, I rode a bus during the blizzard of 77. It got me close enough to a safe haven.

    WNY needs better mass transit. The big question is: will people use it?

  7. #7
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    I ride light rail whenever I can but never buses

    I ride light rail whenever I can but never buses and I expect there are alotta people who feel the same way...

    why? light rail has cameras on the train, security at the stations, air conditioning and heat in the winter was well as parking lots. Plus its a heck of a smooth ride....compared to that carbon monoxide coffin that bumps along and drops you out in the snow so a mugger can knock you over and take your wallet.

  8. #8
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    clarification

    This is my first poll, so I didn't do it very well. When I said "ditch" your car, I didn't mean sell it. I just meant relying on it less routinely.

    Sorry about that.

  9. #9
    Member Mr. Lackawanna's Avatar
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    Maybe if I felt they were save at night.

  10. #10
    Member Linda_D's Avatar
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    I think a real impediment to more people using mass transit is configuration; the buses don't run from where people live to where they work because most of the transit lines are based on commuting patterns from 50 years ago.

    Virtually all bus routes run from the city line to downtown or vice versa, and the routes beyond the city line into the suburbs are limited or virtually non-existant. There are few cross town routes or suburb-to-suburb routes, and those that do exist run so infrequently as to be useless to most commuters. If you live close to Delaware or Main Street, even out past the city line, and work downtown, you're golden. If you live near Main and Hertel and work near Niagara and Porter, you best not miss your cross-town bus! If you live on the Lower West Side and work at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital ... good luck getting there by bus!

    The fact is that there are more and more jobs in the suburbs and more and more people living there, but the NFTA doesn't seem to recognize this. When I lived in the Albany area, the CDTA (Capital District Transit Authority) frequently "tweaked" schedules and experimented with new routing to accommodate commuters. I have seen or heard of the NFTA doing much of this at all in all the years since I've returned to WNY.
    Your right to buy a military weapon without hindrance, delay or training cannot trump Daniel Barden’s right to see his eighth birthday. -- Jim Himes

  11. #11
    Member Linda_D's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timmy
    I ride light rail whenever I can but never buses and I expect there are alotta people who feel the same way...

    why? light rail has cameras on the train, security at the stations, air conditioning and heat in the winter was well as parking lots. Plus its a heck of a smooth ride....compared to that carbon monoxide coffin that bumps along and drops you out in the snow so a mugger can knock you over and take your wallet.
    LRRT is too expensive to be practical. It costs far more than building/expanded roads and expressways, takes decades to build, and has no flexibility whatsoever. The only way LRRT would work in the Buffalo area is if the local governments still owned all the old, abandoned railroad ROWs like that of the old Buffalo Beltway. I know in Buffalo that's not the case.
    Your right to buy a military weapon without hindrance, delay or training cannot trump Daniel Barden’s right to see his eighth birthday. -- Jim Himes

  12. #12
    Member 300miles's Avatar
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    Buses make more sense economically. But the truth is that most people that wouldn't be caught dead on a bus would be happy to ride rail. Trains are considered cool, clean, and easy to use. Buses are looked at as being for poor people. Nobody wants to be seen standing in the rain at a muddy bus stop on Transit Road. It's like saying "Look at me! I have no car, no money, and no life!" It's not an elitest comment, it seems to be in our culture.

    If they want more people to use buses, they need to change that image drastically and make buses convenient and cool.

  13. #13
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    True story...

    Many years ago, a friend and I wanted to attend a concert (Tragically Hip) at the then Marine Midland Arena. We had the idea to drive to UB, leave the car and ride Metro Rail downtown. I was already aware of NFTA's habit to strand people attending events by running the last train before the concert ended, so I called them to get that nights schedule. After pressing a few buttons on the phone, I was informed that METRO RAIL left Mt. St. Mary's Hospital in Lewiston, CROSSED GRAND ISLAND, and ended somewhere in Hamburg. I called NFTA back and spoke to a nice lady who apologized for the mistake, saying "We know about it, the recordings are made by an out of town company who don't understand our routes." She couldn't tell me what time the last outbound train left, though. We drove to the Arena that night, and I have had nothing to do with NFTA since. So I'm keeping my car.
    Last edited by Effigy; April 12th, 2007 at 12:17 PM.

  14. #14
    Member nickelcityhomes's Avatar
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    I've put my car/truck into a ditch many times, but never in the name of mass transit. It's usually a deer, case of brew, or an over-anxious female passenger that causes me to ditch the car.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by nickelcityhomes
    I've put my car/truck into a ditch many times, but never in the name of mass transit. It's usually a deer, case of brew, or an over-anxious female passenger that causes me to ditch the car.
    All good reasons.

    Next time, I'll try to be more accurate in my wording!

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