Transportation 9.1: Group Transportation- Buses, Taxis, Ferries

When moving a lot of people from one place to another, it is easier, cheaper, and causes fewer traffic problems when there are many in each vehicle. This is why having a strong system of group transportation is important. Even seasonal visitors who don’t take public transit at home could be induced to do so here as part of the Vineyard experience. Having a good transit system is especially important to those with limited access to cars, including as school-age children, and people unable to drive because of disabilities.

The VTA, the Island’s regional transit authority operates a fleet of 28 fully accessible vehicles that carry 18-37 passengers on fixed routes (14 in the high season and 12 in the off-season), which cover all major roads and all parts of the Island. The VTA also runs a series of paratransit and other services known collectively as “The Lift”, using five 10-16 passenger vans. Fare-box revenues provide about one third of the required funding, with the balance coming from federal, state and local sources.

The Martha's Vineyard Regional School District owns, and the VTA maintains, 21 school buses for regular on-Island trips to school, as well as several other vehicles on and off-Island. Local tour buses provide an estimated 2000 tours, charters and transfers each year, with an average of 30 passengers per trip.

Objective T2:  Improve the efficiency and promotion of the Island’s buses, taxis, and ferries.

·  Strategy T2-1: Create public-private alliances to improve and promote alternative transportation There are a number of ways in which town business associations, VTA, and citizens can collaborate to deal with business-related transportation issues. Setting up programs (education, incentives, enforcement) to have in-town retail-restaurant-bar employees use park-and-rides would free up scarce in-town parking spaces for customers and other visitors. Familiarizing hospitality employees with the transit system would not only encourage them to use it, but would also let them encourage and assist visitors to use it. Instituting rideshare promotion, car sharing, staggered and flexible work hours, telecommuting, and employer commute programs would also help relieve traffic. The Chamber of Commerce, hotels, inns, rental agents, the Steamship Authority, and other carriers should strengthen efforts to encourage visitors not to bring a car for a short term visit, or to bring only one car for a longer term visit by clearly explaining the availability of alternate forms of transportation (bus, taxi, bike).

·  Strategy T2-2: Maintain and expand bus service. In the short term, it is important to maintain the current levels of service, in the face of the current financial difficulties. Since the bus system is operating at or beyond capacity on key routes during the summer, it would be desirable to expand capacity during these periods, recognizing the difficulty of getting additional buses and drivers for short periods of time. In the longer term, it would be desirable to increase the level of service, both during the summer and off season. This will require additional capital and operating funding.

·  Strategy T2-3: Create a uptown-downtown shuttles: This proposal involves providing a free, high-frequency, hop-on/hop-off shuttle linking the uptown and downtown areas of each of the three Down-Island towns, namely Upper Main and Main Streets in Edgartown, Upper State Road and Main Street in Tisbury, and possibly, Circuit and Dukes County Avenues in Oak Bluffs. Linking the two main employment, hotel, and shopping areas of each town would allow people to easily go from one area to the other throughout the day, without driving. It would also encourage people to park in the Park-and-Rides at the edge of town. This would be a relatively minor expansion of the Park-and-Ride shuttles that already exist in Edgartown and Tisbury. This service would require additional funding, and would be most functional if there were a separate bus-only route so that shuttles are not slowed by traffic.

·  Strategy T2-4: Implement hybrid taxi/bus service. Trip-planning software, could make it possible to reconfigure taxi/bus service, offering a hybrid service in low density areas that combines the best features of taxi and fixed route buses, with better service at a lower cost. In the longer term, this could include splitting the current taxi service – which are effectively group shuttles -- into two services: moderate-cost group shuttles and higher-cost, single-client service.

·  Strategy T2-5: Better integrate the Steamship Authority into Island transportation planning initiatives: This would include working with the Steamship Authority and having a greater influence on the SSA’s policies in order to minimize number of vehicles carried to the Island (e.g. maintaining cap on vehicle-carrying capacity), to encourage seamless integration of Steamship Authority website and trip planning information with VTA, to distribute information on buses, taxis, bike rentals, etc. when reservations are fulfilled, to establish variable pricing to encourage a more even daily and monthly distribution of ridership, and to encourage charter buses to coordinate with Vineyard tour companies and leave their vehicles in Woods Hole.

·   Strategy T2-6: Offer detailed trip planners: We can make it easier to use transit by offering integrated trip planners online and in key public locations such as ferry terminals and the airport. They would show connecting regional and local transportation services, allowing people to develop and print itineraries for transit trips to and from Island destinations as well as on-Island trips. Ideally, this would be coordinated with national trip-planning software (MapQuest, Google).  It could include sale of combination tickets, to make it even easier for users.

·   Strategy T2-7: Consider rebranding the transit system:  To make our buses more appealing to visitors who are unfamiliar with or have a negative view of public transportation and transit authorities, we could make our buses more of a fun, special experience. This could include the name of the system, the design of buses, signs, maps, etc.

Strategy T2-8: Improve taxi regulations, training, quality, and dispatching: Because each town licenses taxis individually, fares and policies differ in each town, creating confusion for customers. It would be desirable to standardize taxi regulations and rates among towns, and post rates at main stands and on vehicles. We should improve driver training (e.g. Island knowledge, visitor courtesy) and taxi quality standards (e.g. vehicle condition and cleanliness). Setting up a coordinated dispatching system using trip-planning software could promote higher vehicle occupancy (reduce empty one-way trips), improve service, lower costs to users, and improve driver/owner revenue. The fact that taxis taking people from one town to another are not allowed to pick up fares in the second town results in less efficiency and in empty taxis traveling unnecessarily, so it would be desirable to move to Island-wide licensing.