DTW to downtown transportation...

[48202]

FAST. Michigan Avenue. Route 261.

https://www.smartbus.org/Portals/0/D...igan%20Map.jpg

[Atticus]

FAST. Michigan Avenue. Route 261.

https://www.smartbus.org/Portals/0/D...igan%20Map.jpg

I just call it “FAST-er”.

It is faster than the bus that used to connect DTW with downtown, but still way too slow to be justified as “fast” by most people who can afford a plane ticket.

[Danny]

There was the SMART bus Rte. 190 called the "Taylor Flyer". Due to extreme low ridership, they end the route.

[casscorridor]

I just call it “FAST-er”.

It is faster than the bus that used to connect DTW with downtown, but still way too slow to be justified as “fast” by most people who can afford a plane ticket.

yeah, ridiculously misleading branding. especially for how EASY it would be to put in place an actual express bus every 15-30 minutes from the airport, down 94 to Downtown.

[middetres]

yeah, ridiculously misleading branding. especially for how EASY it would be to put in place an actual express bus every 15-30 minutes from the airport, down 94 to Downtown.

Misleading? Perhaps, but highly effective. 49% increase from June 2017 to June 2019 in weekday ridership on the 3 corridors with FAST routes.

An Express bus that only picks up downtown and gets you to the airport in 25 minutes along I-94 would be fantastic, but it would also cost more because of its limited audience. Even at $5 a ride you would lose most airport workers from using it, and you would most likely never get any of the "people who can afford a plane ticket" crowd from giving up their autonomy.

[Honky Tonk]

Misleading? Perhaps, but highly effective. 49% increase from June 2017 to June 2019 in weekday ridership on the 3 corridors with FAST routes.

An Express bus that only picks up downtown and gets you to the airport in 25 minutes along I-94 would be fantastic, but it would also cost more because of its limited audience. Even at $5 a ride you would lose most airport workers from using it, and you would most likely never get any of the "people who can afford a plane ticket" crowd from giving up their autonomy.

Look @ the reality of the situation. Other than business people traveling with a backpack, most people heading out on vacation, travel with several pieces of luggage, children, have physical ailments, etc. Do you really think they're going to go to and park @ a bus stop to transfer all that several times, when you can just drive to and park @ the airport and transfer it once?

[EGrant]

Do you really think they're going to go to and park @ a bus stop to transfer all that several times, when you can just drive to and park @ the airport and transfer it once?

Riding public transportation to and from the airport with luggage and children is the norm in pretty much every large city on earth.

[bust]

Riding public transportation to and from the airport with luggage and children is the norm in pretty much every large city on earth.

There is at least one exception: NY. But that's one of its failures.

Look @ the reality of the situation. Other than business people traveling with a backpack, most people heading out on vacation, travel with several pieces of luggage, children, have physical ailments, etc. Do you really think they're going to go to and park @ a bus stop to transfer all that several times, when you can just drive to and park @ the airport and transfer it once?

No, the people you describe will hire a driver. It costs far less than parking and is equally convenient.

So there are [[at least) two use cases: 1) people traveling solo and/or without lots of complications; 2) people traveling with lots of complications.

For the latter set public transit may rarely be the answer. For the former it can be a great solution.

I don't know the numbers, but I am willing to bet the number of airport travelers among the former set is vastly more.

[cramerro]

Misleading? Perhaps, but highly effective. 49% increase from June 2017 to June 2019 in weekday ridership on the 3 corridors with FAST routes.

An Express bus that only picks up downtown and gets you to the airport in 25 minutes along I-94 would be fantastic, but it would also cost more because of its limited audience. Even at $5 a ride you would lose most airport workers from using it, and you would most likely never get any of the "people who can afford a plane ticket" crowd from giving up their autonomy.

FAST is intended to offer a direct connection with 7 day service to the airport that wasn't there before. It's a decent option for someone traveling without a lot of luggage who lives along the FAST Michigan route.

Direct service is possible, use Air Ride from AA-DTW via Ypsi as an example. It has great ridership [[from two dense nodes with a relatively short, direct route to DTW) and has been said to recover about 75% of cost at the farebox. The cost? $22 each way - that's 11 times the cost of a ride on FAST. Subtract the 20 cent water bottle and it's 10.75 times the cost. Two totally different services.

Fixed route airport service is very expensive to provide because it has to run 24-7-365 [[or pretty close) to be a 'always there' option. The only way this is viable is having a few concentrated nodes for people to board that would support the cost of the service. Remember, a commuter route can serve a person every weekday all year - even the most frequent airline travelers would average maybe a round trip once a quarter, with most people less frequent than that. Downtown Detroit might be able to support the volume, but even that would be a stretch for the millions of dollars you'd pay to have just one route running to the airport with any decent frequency. A more flexible, reservation-based solution would control costs and provide a better quality of service when actually used.