Thursday April 19, 2018, 4-7 PM
I was excited to try a new microtransit service initiated by Regional Transit so I invited a few friends to come along and test out SmaRT Ride in Citrus Heights. Come one everybody! Let's have a microtransit-assisted bar crawl in the suburbs!
SmaRT Ride combines the kind of technology used by Transportation Network Companies like Lyft with public transit. There are numerous microtransit services popping up all over the country nowadays. A paper written by LA County Metro's Office of Extraordinary Innovation for the Eno Transportation Institute, 'Uprouted,' describes the perils and pitfalls of initiating microtransit services by describing the mixed results of microtransit services initiated in Kansas City, San Jose, and Alameda County, CA.
Here's how the Microtransit service in Citrus Heights works (see app screenshot below):
- The service area is defined by the app, one can only get a ride from and to locations within the highlighted area.
- The service area is not contiguous -- it includes nearby areas, such as WalMart and Mercy San Juan Hospital, these are the little white dots you see around the large Citrus Heights Polygon.
- Just like the Lyft app:
- The user can select their origin by dragging a pin on a map, or by using their phone's GPS.
- The user selects their destination by dragging a pin on a map or entering it into a search window.
- Definitely an improvement over the Lyft app:
- Then the user selects how many passengers they will be traveling with, and whether or not there is a wheelchair passenger in the party.
- Configurations vary, but some busses can hold up to twelve people and two wheelchair passengers.
- Once the ride is requested, it can be cancelled with no penalty.
- Only one ride can be requested per hour (so if making frequent hops around town with a group, it's a good idea to have a team of two or more people using the app).
- The app notifies the user through text messages when the ride has been accepted, when the ride is enroute, and when the ride has arrived.
What's missing in the description above is payment. That's because the app doesn't have an integrated pay feature. The bus that shows up is like any transit bus: it accepts cash, passes, and is equipped to validate the Connect Card. Everyone in the party can pay for themselves in a different way. And the RT $7.00 day pass is accepted. Since public transit already has an established pay structure, an integrated payment feature is not required here. The extra expense of online transactions is not a factor.
I chose to start our journey at Loree's Little Shack - Greenback because it is located within the zone and was the easiest starting point within Citrus Heights to reach by public transit.
Loree's Little Shack is 14 miles away from Downtown Sacramento. It takes 1 hour 20 minutes to get there from the office via Regional Transit. That's an average speed of about 10.5 MPH. 10.5 MPH even though almost half of the trip distance (6 miles) is on the Regional Transit Blue Line between CA 160/Del Paso Bl and Watt/I-80 Station -- that's double-tracked light rail with a dedicated right of way.
During the most congested times of the day, Google driving directions predicts a travel time by car ranging of from 30 minutes to an hour. An hour-long drive from downtown Sacramento to Loree's Little Shack is competitive with the 1 hour and 20 minute transit time, especially when one considers the costs of operating a vehicle and parking costs in downtown Sacramento. But when traffic is lighter, the travel time by car is almost 1/3 that of public transit.
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| Lots of route options, but RT Blue Line to RT #1 seemed to be the most convenient. |
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Leona snapped a nice picture of the Watt / I-80 Station
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| I also took a picture of the the Watt I/80 Station. |
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| Waiting for a bus on a freeway bridge surrounded by congested traffic, suspended over thousands more cars, is kind of a bummer. |
We transferred to RT #1, which goes up Auburn Bl, turns on Greenback, and gets right into the heart of Citrus Heights. When the bus showed up, it efficiently took us to Citrus Heights with only a minor diversion from Auburn Bl to go by American River College.
We asked a few people on the bus if they had tried SmaRT Ride, but they hadn't heard of it.
We got off at the Greenback / Hilltree stop and walked down the miniscule sidewalk and waited a very long time for the light across Greenback to change. About those Greenback sidewalks, they are so narrow and so close to the six lanes of traffic that when traffic is behind you you wonder how close you are to getting nailed by a car who's driver was momentarily distracted by a Facebook notification popping up on their phone. Or at least I do. The message sent by this sidewalk and the olympic-length crosswalks is "Don't Be Here!"
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| Cars regularly travel hundreds of miles per hour down Greenback. Pedestrians are granted a tiny strip of sidewalk with telephone poles that don't mind if they do take up half the sidewalk |
Loree's Little Shack - Greenback is in a nice strip mall with a travel agent, a beauty parlor and a used book store.
Shortly after we arrived at Lorie's, about five minutes before 4 PM, Toby exploded into the bar fresh off of a multi-modal bus-to-bike trip from his home in Arden Arcade.
Toby knows a lot about Citrus Heights -- I love that he was game for a weird adventure like this. The second I mentioned that SmaRT Ride was serving Citrus heights, he sent me this text:
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| The patio at Loree's, + Toby's sweet Schwinn World Sport |
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| Thousands of dollars stapled to the ceiling of Loree's. It would be ironic if the owner ever complained about the cost of roof repair. |
I had pre-loaded the Microtransit app on my phone when I started planning this trip, but it does not work properly if you are not in the service area. So I had thought the app simply didn't work well and that I would have to use the web version of the service in my phone's browser (I was confused - the app works fine). So, using my phone's web browser I summoned our first ride from Loree's while we enjoyed some fabulous tacos (fish and beef) complete with a jar of 'Hotbox Beans.'
While finishing my drink, I noticed that there was a Lyft poster stapled on the wall next to the bulletin boards where all the taxi driver business cards are posted. I went ahead and crossed out the Lyft logo and wrote in "SmaRT Ride YES!!!!!"
Later that night I would find that the Microtransit app works great -- one just needs to be in the service area to use it. Since I tried to test it before I arrived in the of the service area, I had thought it didn't work with my phone, but once I was in the service area, the Microtransit app worked fine-- better, in fact, than trying to use the web browser in my phone. It is useful to be able to use multiple platforms to summon SmaRT ride: the app, the website, and even via telephone using one's own human voice! The disadvantages I noticed while using the website to request a SmaRT Ride compared to the Microtransit App were that the web browser version does not support notifications and the bus tracking feature. So because I used the web browser version for this first ride, I found myself refreshing the browser a lot and I was generally worried we would miss the notification of when the first bus was approaching.
Bar 1: Time waiting for SmartRide at Loree's Little Shack, Greenback: 25 minutes
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| Grandma is pictured on third row back - they were heading in our direction when SmaRT ride diverted to pick us up. A true shared ride experience!!! |
The primary architectural feature of Shakers may be one of the seven wonders of Citrus Heights, a cocktail glass on the roof, made out of bird netting! Shakers is in an interesting location, it's on a service road facing the back of a mini-mega strip mall nestled up against tilt-up industrial and medium density housing and backing up to single family homes. Shaker's is a true neighborhood bar-- nestled into a mixed-use and mixed density area that, due to its older design, almost feels less isolated then some of the more recently-built suburban neighborhoods in this part of Sacramento.
Bar 2: Time waiting for SmartRide at Shakers: 18 minutes
After a modest wait, we hopped in the bus and it was the same two drivers! They said there were two busses running. They also began to realize that we were having a bar crawl on the SmaRT Ride service, which tickled them. Our next stop was Rocky's 7440 club. Rocky's is hand's down the finest establishment on our roster. Less of a dive than a classy road house with a woody, well-maintained interior and an expansive outdoor area. However, we have no pictures because by this time, we were having a great time and calling establishments 'estabilshments'.
There was a pretty mellow vibe in Rocky's, and when we came in the five or so people at the bar greeted us warmly. We told them all what we were doing and one of them said he wanted to try it. So I showed him the app and then told him the bad news; SmaRT Ride only runs on weekdays and only from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. He was a sport about it and said: "That's ok, I'll just have to start earlier!" SmaRT Ride has since expanded their hours to 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM
After everyone had settled into Rocky's I summoned the next SmaRT Ride and in came right away. Too fast! We were in the nice yard area exchanging yoga pose advice. Plus Rosie and Mark had showed up and hadn't yet been exposed to the awesomeness traveling with your friends (and occasional strangers) on an on-demand bus. So they wanted to 'finish their drinks.' Whatever. SmaRT Ride is cool if you cancel the ride--no penalty. So we did and summoned it again a few minutes later, after my continuous encouragements became more annoying to the group.
Bar 3: Time waiting for SmartRide at Rocky's 7440: 10 minutes
On our ride to the Corner Pocket sports bar, we were approaching from the other side of the street. The big arterials out in Citrus Heights have median islands that reduce opportunities to turn left into parking lots near big intersections in order to reduce accidents because everyone is driving at or above the speed of light. Since we were in a mini-bus, I would have expected to be let off at the nearest crosswalk and invited to cross the street to get to the bar. However, the driver passed the bar, took a left, and then once we passed the median island, the driver safely used the shoulder area in front of a business to change direction and viola! We got dropped off right in front. It was a nice little gesture the driver did which made us feel more like we were being chauffeured rather than riding public transit.
The corner Pocket is a well-worn and popular bar. It feels homey there. In the bathroom, they have some murder and shooting related decorations, which... is a theme they can have. If they want that for themselves.
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| Laminators are a valuable tool for a small business and they are getting cheaper and cheaper every year. |
After 30 minutes here, we summoned SmaRT Ride again. The driver instructed us to call for it by 6:50 because if the projected pick-up time was after SmaRT Ride's closing time of 7:00, the ride would not be honored. I forgot this sage advice and summoned the ride at 6:55; the ride came exactly at 7:00. The same driver who dropped us off at the corner pocket took us back to Loree's Little Shack - Greenback, right where we started.
In total, we summoned five rides (one of which we cancelled) to go to 4 bars. And we did it all within three hours and for the per-person cost of a day pass! Using Transportation Network Companies like Lyft is faster than SmaRT Ride. Though the SmaRT Ride wait times were longer than Lyft, they were comparable. It would be impossible to duplicate the speed of our SmaRT Ride trips on conventional public transit. Though at least one bus (RT #1) does have 15 minute headways for much of the day, the other busses out here in Citrus Heights have 30 minute to one-hour headways, making transfers difficult or impossible. Further, not all arterials in Citrus Heights have bus service.
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| You can access this google map of all of Toby's excellent Citrus Heights bar research by clicking the link below: |
Here's a summary of the rides we summoned and how long they took:
Since going on this trip SmaRT Ride has been dramatically expanded. It now runs from 5:45 AM to 9PM and has expanded from Citrus Heights to cover Antelope, Orangevale, and it even now serves the Folsom Light Rail Station (though it does not serve the surrounding areas in Folsom. A second expansion opened up a vast swath of SmaRT Ride service area in South Sacramento, covering the southernmost stops along RT's Blue Line. I'm interested in finding out if SmaRT Ride is designed to work with the SacRT Blue Line, which runs through the middle of the South Sacramento service area. And now SmaRT Ride has a promotion where a group of five or more can travel for free! Here's the official source of info for SmaRT Ride: http://www.sacrt.com/apps/smartride/ .
Another SmaRT Ride Bar Crawl within the expanded service areas is certainly in order. Also, West Sacramento has started a different type of publicly sanctioned rideshare service called Via:
https://www.cityofwestsacramento.org/government/departments/public-works/traffic-transportation/on-demand-rideshare-via/-fsiteid-1
So a Via bar crawl may also be in order in the future. From what I can tell from the website, Via doesn't accept wheelchairs, charges $3.50 per ride with additional travelers costing an extra $1 each up to six passengers maximum ($8.50). Via has no day pass options but they do have a $15 weekly pass.
There is an interesting wrinkle in governance and operations with Via; the service was initiated by the City of West Sacramento, not by the regional transportation agency (Yolobus). In a way, Via is competing with Yolobus for riders in West Sacramento, where Yolobus provides the local bus service. Via is a public/private partnership with the City of West Sacramento, but not with the regional transportation agency. This is somewhat troubling if we are seeking coordinated transit service, especially in an era of declining ridership. Why isn't Yolobus an active and engaged partner with Via?
Other critiques: Via claims that their service is wheelchair accessible, but there is also language on their site that requires prospective riders to request a wheelchair accessible vehicle - which continues the separation between paratransit and regular public transit (separate but equal-ish), SmaRT ride dissolves this separation. I suspect that Via will be much more lame than SmaRT Ride, but I am willing to be proven wrong.
I'm sure the bars in West Sacramento will be equally splendid and that their staff will use laminators for postings in high-humidity areas just as infrequently.
