The "New" Metro, in a very "Old" Metro fashion, has rolled out its new bus service to rave, glowing reviews from those who had a hand in the design, gushing coverage from the Chron's secretarial transportation beat writer and a mix of reactions from everyone else.
One thing is clear, Metro is in full-on PR control mode here. I even had Mr. Spieler himself respond to my tweets on the issue. What really stood out to me in that conversation is that this was, almost entirely, driven by his impressions on what is "working" and what is not. It wasn't that Metro talked to system riders in the design phase, it's that they themselves rode the system and decided that it wasn't working.
And that's my biggest concern about this. Not reimagining the bus system, In fact, there was almost universal acceptance that the old system was broken and ineffective, but the top-down manner in which it was completed.
Metro's new-urbanists had a goal in mind (increase bus service in some areas, improve service downtown and tie it all to the DangerTrain) and they were hell-bent on achieving that. By the time the plan was submitted to the public for opinion, the work was all but complete, and the small adjustments that were made focused around the fringes, adding a little bit here, shaving off some there, with no big overhauls to the grand plan. In short, it feels a little bit like groupthink.
Lest it sound as if I'm opposed to the new system let me say this. I truly hope that it works, especially for those communities who find themselves more dependent on public transportation than others. I think the jury is still out whether or not it helps them however, despite Metro's protestations to the contrary.
Time will tell, fingers crossed and all of that.
Putting all of that aside I will say that a full-on re-route of this magnitude, and that Metro appears to have pulled it off relatively seamlessly, is quite the logistical accomplishment and they should be given an 'atta-boy' for making that aspect work. It could have gone a lot worse. It's a credit to the teams on the ground (the drivers, dispatchers, etc.) that it did not. There's not enough praise given to those people in all of this although there should be.
So now we watch and wait and hope that this is an improvement over the old mess. I wish Metro luck.
