Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Bus Route Racism?

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Photo courtesy of here.

For years, I have heard rumblings that there exists some kind of systemic racism to how the Metro bus routes are designed.  I’ve heard how unreasonable it is, for example, for people from black neighborhoods to have to go all the way to Government Square for a transfer out to a white neighborhood.  Or how it is impossible to get from places like schools to jobs in the necessary amount of time.  I never knew, however, the best way to substantiate these rumors one way or another.  At least, not until now.  I just realized that the Metro site has this trip planner, kind of like MapQuest for the local bus routes.  So does anyone feel like thinking up sample locations for departures and arrivals, to see what the go-Metro trip planner returns?

The interface is a bit bulky.  For example, when I tried typing in an address or location and then hitting the “Get a Trip” button, I was returned to a screen where I had to select the same address I typed from a list.  Whatever.  Though the interface isn’t perfect, it does seem to return results.

For example, it takes over an hour to get from Fay Apartments to Hyde Park Square.  The route involves .81 miles of walking, and a transfer downtown, at Government Square.

Or, it takes 33 minutes to get from Avondale to Mt. Lookout, with one transfer at Highland Avenue and Goodman Street.

I do not mean to indicate one way or another if these particular routes are highly accessible, or inaccessible, or whether they are representative.  I programmed the routes for 1pm, on today (April 22nd).  I would be interested if any readers had ideas for locations to program, or times of day, or whatever, to make a strong indication one way or another about whether there is truth to the rumor about systemic racism in the Metro bus routes.

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White Male says:
22 Apr 2008  at  11:23 am | #

For example, it takes over an hour to get from Fay Apartments to Hyde Park Square.  The route involves .81 miles of walking, and a transfer downtown, at Government Square.

----------------------------------------------------------

Dean of Cincinnati, could it be that research indicates that there is no demand for such a route? 

After the Miami Valley RTA in Dayton began routes from the inner city and west side to the Dayton Mall - can you believe that crime increased greatly at the mall?  Crimes that were non existent prior to the bus service began to occur.  These included parking lot robberies, muggings, purse snatchings, shoplifting, and rapes.

says:
22 Apr 2008  at  06:34 pm | #

Actually, I’ve found that the biggest problem with Metro is that it assumes everyone wants to go downtown. My wife wanted to take the bus from Springdale to her job in Mason, but could only do it if she went all the way downtown, then back out to Mason—about two hours in all.

Or, if she wanted to visit her sister in Milford...all the way to GSquare, then back out.

Metro’s good for what it does, but it leaves a lot to be desired. At least Dayton’s RTA realized that not everyone (or eventually, anyone) wanted to be forced to go downtown to go elsewhere.

says:
22 Apr 2008  at  07:10 pm | #

White Male,

I never said there was, or should be, demand for my two sample routes.  In this post, I simply identified something I’ve been hearing for years, but don’t know how to verify or disprove one way or another.  I just thought up to sample routes for the sake of illustration.

Again, I’d be curious to hear routes that readers think demonstrate the argument one way or another.

says:
22 Apr 2008  at  07:11 pm | #

Al, there are apparently three “crosstown routes,” but I don’t know how effective they are in being “crosstown” from a pragmatic sense.

Sparky says:
22 Apr 2008  at  08:17 pm | #

people living in Fay apartments have no business being in Hyde park.

Anon says:
22 Apr 2008  at  09:39 pm | #

NEIGHBORHOOD MIXING IN CINCINNATI????

OH NO---have you lost THE REST of your mind, Dean?

anon says:
22 Apr 2008  at  10:56 pm | #

What about the “express” routes.  Where do they come from and what neighborhoods don’t have them.  That might be telling.

says:
23 Apr 2008  at  04:51 am | #

Sparky, don’t be silly.  Of course they have business.  One, they just may like to go there, as we do live in a free land.  But maybe they would like to have a job there.  Or meet new people.  Or have coffee at Awakenings.

White Male says:
23 Apr 2008  at  06:46 am | #

The Dean of Cincinnati says:
22 Apr 2008 at 07:10 pm | #

In this post, I simply identified something I’ve been hearing for years, but don’t know how to verify or disprove one way or another.

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Dean, do you think that a group of people huddle in a room and explore ways to
exclude black people from certain bus routes and neighborhoods?

A well respected African American retired bus driver, Sensible Don, put in 40+ years with Metro.  He has become a local radion talk show personality and does an excellent job.  I’ll bet that over his 40+ years with Metro he would have heard or seen something to verify your claim.

You should give Sensible Don a call on Saturday morning (700 WLW) and ask him what he thinks.

Back in the late 1960s-early 1970s we had an office in Roselawn at Section & Reading Rd.  The bus route that went north on Reading Road from downtown thru Avondale would drop off several African American women who were apparently day workers for Amberly Village residents.  From our office we observed the woman get into swanky cars driven by white women and hauled off to their homes in Amberly.  The same thing would occur late in the afternoon when the day workers were dropped off by their employers at the Section-Reading road stop.  Maybe the Metro could have had a route that would have turned right on Section Road and went into Amberly Village. Chances are no one inquired about such a route because the system, as I saw it, worked well with the Amberly women driving to the bus stop to pick up their day workers.  So, I ask you Dean, would it have been racism for the Metro NOT to have had a route that went through the Amberly Village area?

Mellifluous says:
23 Apr 2008  at  07:01 am | #

One thing you might want to do is get a paper copy of the system map just to spread it out and look at how the bus routes run, which ways and through what neighborhoods.  Last time I checked, there was still no bus to Indian Hill.

One problem with the express routes is that they only work in one direction at a time: from the hinterlands to downtown in the morning and the reverse in the evening.  If you want to travel against that usual commute flow, Queen City Metro doesn’t serve you.

41, the latest ‘crosstown’ route, sho’ ‘nuff helps me get from my mailbox in College Hill to Jordan Crossing in Bond Hill (the old Swifton Commons) a lot quicker.  I missed the return bus after class last night and taking the 45 downtown and the 17 back out to Northside took me an additional hour.  I might’ve been better off waiting on the next 41…

BTW, as far as I’m concerned, this is perhaps the biggest reason that installing a two-mile trolley line costing tens of millions of dollars is such a ludicrous boondoggle.  How many more buses could you buy and drivers could you pay in order to expand routes for the same money?  How much more flexibility would you gain?  (Plus, people who think that trains are merely picturesque, cute and fun rather than also being noisy and disruptive have never worked or lived near a rail line).

Francis says:
23 Apr 2008  at  10:56 am | #

There is method to get from Point A to Point B on your sample routes…

It’s called a taxi....

Mike says:
23 Apr 2008  at  10:21 pm | #

I think you have it all wrong. The people that should be mad are the whites living in Hyde Park who can’t get to Fay apartments very easily.

Chris S says:
24 Apr 2008  at  08:18 am | #

Metro trip planner is so bad, its really a waste of time to play with it.  In fact, its soooo bad that I went through the work to put together my own type of planner - http://www.cogitatio.net/cincymetro/

Best bet for this type of research is an actual copy of the system map.  The online tools on Metro’s site are worrh your time or effort because half the time they are wrong or can’t find nearby bus stops.

anonymous says:
24 Apr 2008  at  08:51 am | #

I think if you look at a map of the routes you’ll see that most of the buses follow the roads (duh) and most of the roads follow the topography. It’s not a matter of racism. It’s the effect of all the hills in Cincinnati that prevents a lot of crosstown routes.

A lesson in Cincinnati geography would include the fact that Cincinnati is a terminal morain and that glaciers and glacial melt carved out channels that run in a predominantly north/south direction. North of us, say in Columbus, it’s totally flat from the glaciers scraping over the terrain and moving on. However in Cincinnati the glacier stopped, digging out grooves and gouges in the land, dumping all the stuff it picked up as it melted away to the river.

says:
28 Apr 2008  at  10:14 pm | #

as a frequent rider of metro, I’d say that in some areas, lets just say that some residents don’t want the bus service.... Glendale is one such community, and I think parts of Evendale.... also, not sure of the route, but there are parts of Galbraith Road that metro does not go on.... alot of none routes are because residents, most of them white, don’t want to deal with the noise or the congestion and/or lastly, the darker hued riders that would be milling about in their neighborhood, minding their own business....

I think this is why, in part, that metro’s commuter rail plan went down in defeat.... rumor has it that since CincinnAPATHY is on course to divest itself from the country w/ their ‘trolley route’, Forest Park city council is proposing something similar....if so, here’s hoping that they include the communities of Springdale, Woodlawn (mine) and maybe Sharonville....

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