Commuters showing greater interest in alternative transit

BY ROBERT HAMILTON

South Florida Commuter Services reported an increase in 1999 over the previous year in the number of commuters seeking information about alternative transit programs.

In 1999, 10,522 people requested assistance, compared with 9,609 in 1998. The program's ride-matching database (used to match commuters with neighbors and coworkers for car/vanpooling) has expanded even more dramatically from 5,541 members in 1998 to 9,118 in 1999.

In addition, the number of commuters registered for the Emergency Ride Home program coordinated by Commuter Services rose from 765 in 1998 to 2,527 in 1999. This increase suggests that more commuters are becoming comfortable with the idea of leaving their car at home and depending on ridesharing or transit for commuting at least some of the time.

The Emergency Ride Home program provides such commuters with a free transportation backup in the event they need to get home sooner -- or stay at work later -- than their carpool or bus could accommodate. The efforts of Commuter Services took 10,127,684 trips off the road in 1999, compared with 8,082,610 in 1998.

"While we are extremely pleased about what we have accomplished, we are much more excited about what the future holds," said Thomas Cerny, project director of South Florida Commuter Services. "More and more companies are showing interest in helping their employees get to work. And more and more commuters are calling us because they're looking for a better way to get to their worksite."

Cerny's optimism is based on the growing awareness in the corporate community that people need multiple commute options. "Companies are realizing that transportation in our region has a tremendous impact on their business," he observed. Businesses also are recognizing that they account for a large amount of the traffic on area roads.

Commuter Services offers alternatives to driving alone to work. The program works with employers and directly with commuters to help people form carpools and vanpools, facilitate transit use, arrange telecommuting programs, and suggest new approaches to employee parking.

Cerny knows that companies also understand the importance of a healthy return on investment, and Commuter Services -- which is publicly funded by the Florida Department of Transportation -- has proven itself to be a solid performer.

"This program is returning money to the taxpayers," Cerny said. "For every dollar invested, the community gets $2.90 back."

The program eliminated 10 million vehicle miles traveled last year, which would have cost the average taxpaying commuter 29 cents a mile.

Such cost-effective approaches to maximizing the efficiency of South Florida's highways are especially important as the region's economic success continues to grow.

"We can't build our way out of traffic congestion," Cerny observed.

Building new roads is extremely expensive, as is widening existing highways. So the key to making sure the public gets the most out of its investment in concrete is to offer lots of alternatives.

South Florida is hardly alone in its struggle with traffic. The region is distinctive, however, in the way the culture here has shaped the transportation landscape.

South Florida followed the pattern of other major Sunbelt cities -- Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix, to name a few -- by developing as an automobile-based culture. Other cities -- most notably New York, Boston, and Chicago -- developed as transit-oriented cultures. Those two approaches resulted in very different challenges for Sunbelt cities, challenges that persist today.

Years after their auto cultures developed, South Florida and its Sunbelt neighbors are working hard to change course and offer alternatives to driving alone. All have organizations similar to South Florida Commuter Services which provide commute choices in their own metro area, including ridesharing, transit assistance, "emergency ride home" programs, and other incentives for commuters to leave their cars at home.

South Florida Commuter Services ranks well in comparison with similar programs around the country -- higher than some and lower than others in particular measures of success. For example, its requests for service from commuters (10,522) over the last fiscal year ranked higher than Boston (6,011) or Phoenix (5,000-6,000), but lower than cities with long-established commuter assistance programs such as Washington, DC, region (20,548), or San Francisco (49,351).

South Florida's program also ranked in the middle with the number of commuters registered in its ridesharing database. South Florida's 9,118, which nearly doubled in 1999, compares with Phoenix's approximately 5,600 and Houston's 6,000. The Washington, DC, region and San Francisco have about 15,000 each.

Some regions don't have an "emergency ride home" (ERH) program, but among similarly sized metro areas, South Florida Commuter Services' 2,527 ERH participants compares favorably with Washington, DC (3,260) and San Diego (752).

The number of vehicle trips eliminated in different regions varies tremendously. An independent evaluation conducted by the University of South Florida's Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) reported that the South Florida Commuter Services program reduced 445,859 vehicle trips, while the Washington, DC, region had 45,538; San Diego reported 1,763,124, and some did not track this measure at all.

Similar variations were evident in the number of vehicle miles reduced: South Florida reported 10,127,684; Washington, DC, cited 800,158, and San Diego reported 44,427,755. Different methodologies in calculating these statistics could account for some of the variations from program to program.

South Florida has a growing sense of voluntary partnership between the business community, local citizens, and government agencies. That partnership is based on the realization that South Florida's economic growth over the past couple of years is a positive development that brings both benefits and challenges to everyone. In order to continue the benefits, the region must work together to address the side effects of its growth and success.

So, South Floridians are not alone. Other metro areas are exploring a variety of approaches to dealing with congestion. While lessons from other regions are useful, however, each one must reach its own mix of commute alternatives that work.

"Luckily, people here can go to work in the morning knowing someone in South Florida cares about their commute as much as they do," Cerny said. "And employers can open their doors knowing someone is there to help them provide their employees with commute options that make sense."

South Florida Commuter Services provides a range of programs geared to encourage use of ridesharing to ease the automobile traffic congestion on South Florida's roadways. These include carpool and vanpool ride-matching; a 24-hour Call Center to field commuter questions, with automatic transfer to Broward County Transit, Tri-Rail, Palm-Tran and the Miami Dade Transit Agency; the Emergency Ride Home Program; South Florida Vanpools, and employer transportation programs.

For more information, call 800-234-RIDE.