ba.transportation competition!
Richard Mlynarik
2010 due the opening of the BART extension south of Colma.
Your job is to predict the average number of exits and exits
from all of the extension stations -- South San Francisco ("Costco"),
San Bruno ("Failedmall1"), San Francisco International Airport
("Failedmall2") and Millbrae ("Parkinglot") -- for the month of
March 2004. (The number of new trips, excluding those forced
to transfer from other modes, is more interesting but harder to
adjudicate.)
Entries must be postmaked by groups.google.com (ie submitted to
ba.transportation, or you can send me mail and I'll post your
entry to ba.transportation, anonymously if necessary for those who
work inside the bellies of the beasts) by midnight PDT on 31 May 2003.
You may submit an entry more than once, but only the last submission
before the deadline counts.
The winner -- the entrant submitting the closest number to that
collected by BART's faregates -- will be announced in April or
early May 2004, and will receive, in addition to universal accolade,
a fabulous but inutile prize of my choosing.
Hint: Remember to account for any cannibalisation of Colma ridership
Hint: Remember to account for any intra-extension ridership.
Neatness does not count, but entries must be legible. (No Flash!)
You do not need to show your work, though it's bound to be
interesting, and particularly clever and accurate (or stupendously
wild) additional predictions (say of individual station trips, or time
of day flows, or weekday versus weekend, etc) are bound to stimulate
and entertain your peers.
The very first entry comes from our wonderful, wonderful friends
at BART, who predict... drum roll please... ... ... ... ... ...
32300 additional BART trips a day for FY04!
Let's all give a big hand to BART for being the first contestants!
Note that this does _not_ account for cannibalisation from existing
Colma ridership; we'll adjust BART's entry by comparing March 2003 and
March 2004 Colma entries and exits, multiplying the difference by the
system-wide percent ridership gain or loss to be scrupulously fair.
So figure BART's official entry is a thousand or so fewer.
Now the agency is just too gosh-darned shy to actually come out
and _say_ this number anywhere, including to its directors or to the
public, but a little work will tease it out from Section 4.1.1.2 and
Figure 11 on page 4-4 (p38 in the PDF) of the BART FY03 Short Range
Transit Plan <http://www.bart.gov/docs/FY03DSRTP.pdf>.
(Note that BART spokesdroid Molly MacArthur claims in today's SF
Chronicle <http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/21/BA146692.DTL>
that "estimates for immediate ridership have not been made", but
that's just routine and obvious level BART mendacity.
The agency does do _some_ planning, after all.)
Another fun fact to extract from the FY03 draft SRTP document is that
BART's current projection for FY12 SFOX ridersship is 48100 daily
entries and exits. Compare this to an extrapolation to 71500 NEW
trips from the FY10 "projection"(!!!!) in the SFOX EIS.
Where or where can all those happy willing transit riders have
gone since 1996? (Perhaps they're being kept in cryogenic storage
and will be defrosted to participate in VTA's San Jose BART extension
EIR after having done yeoman duty in Florida in November 2000.)
The trick, it seems, is to give out one figure to funding agencies
when begging for a couple billion in scraps to keep Bechtel, PBQD and
Ron Tutor from abject penury, and to keep another set of books with
different numbers for your own internal revenue projections.
Another valuable lesson in Transportation Enronomics from the masters!
Erin
I got dibs on zero!
Dean
please reply to deanr...@yahoo.com
P.S. Prize request: May I have Carl Guardino's conscience?
"Richard Mlynarik" <M...@POBox.COM> wrote in message
news:gun3ckb...@bolt.sonic.net...
JCARTRAIN
In Message-ID: <gun3ckb...@bolt.sonic.net>
Dated: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 19:23:48 GMT
>Note that this does _not_ account for cannibalisation from existing
>Colma ridership;
Cannibalize Colma ridership…surely you must be kidding, right?
Remember, Colma WAS NOT going to decrease ridership at Daly City. Daly City
would continue to have a ridership of 20,000 entries/exits and Colma was
predicted to have/add 16,000-18,000 additional entries/exits to the BART system
by 2000/2005.
When Colma opened Daly City ridership promptly went down to around
14,000-15,000 if I remember correctly and Colma had around 10,000-12,000 (I
have the actual figures around here somewhere in my vast unorganized filing
system, but don't have time to find them right now).
Remember SamTrans also truncated a number of routes that ran to Downtown SF and
raised (DOUBLED) the fares OUT of San Francisco; so former bus riders would
switch to BART.
Currently, Daly City and Colma ridership is around 28,000, about 14,000
entries/exits each.
Jeff Carter PUBLIC TRANSIT ADVOCATE JCAR...@aol.com
CalTrain customer for 22 years!!
Richard Mlynarik
Date: 22 Apr 2003 11:57:57 GMT
Richard Mlynarik posted:
>Note that this does _not_ account for cannibalisation from existing
>Colma ridership;
Cannibalize Colma ridership -- surely you must be kidding, right?
Remember, Colma WAS NOT going to decrease ridership at Daly City. [...]
I meant what I said. I don't think it's likely that opening a giant
parking garage (with a train station attached somewhere) in Millbrae
will have no effect upon the occupancy of the giant parking garage
(with a train station attached somewhere) next to a Home Depot in
Colma. I expect the effects to be along the same lines as that of
opening a giant parking garage (with a train station attached
somewhere) in Colma upon the giant parking garage in Daly City.
But you can think whatever you like. You can call it something other
than "cannibalisation" if you choose. (My favourite adjective for
anything BART-related is "fraudulent".) WhatEVER.
Just submit your entry before the end of May and may the best psychic win!
JCARTRAIN
In Message-ID: <gunfzoa...@bolt.sonic.net>
Dated: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 18:54:24 GMT
>But you can think whatever you like. You can call it something other
>than "cannibalisation" if you choose. (My favourite adjective for
>anything BART-related is "fraudulent".) WhatEVER.
You may be taking my comments wrong, I AGREE with you, I was just being
facetious…
Anyway as for cannibalization of Colma (and Daly City) ridership, I revisited
the issue as it was discussed here on ba.transportation back in November 1997
as: Daly City / Colma Ridership Figures…Check the following URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=19971117024400.
VAA06443%40ladder02.news.aol.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DColma%2BRidersh
ip%2Bgroup:ba.transportation%2Bauthor:JCARTRAIN%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DU
TF-8%26scoring%3Dr%26selm%3D19971117024400.VAA06443%2540ladder02.news.aol.
com%26rnum%3D1
In the 12 months prior to the opening of the Colma station in late February
1996, the average weekday ridership at Daly City was 19,380. In March 1996
Daly City ridership dropped to 14,424 and Colma ridership was 9,076, the DC &
Colma total ridership was 23,500 and the total number of NEW trips was 4,120.
After 18 months (Aug. 1997) the average ridership at Daly City was 12,882 and
at Colma was 10,934, for a total ridership at DC & Colma of 23,816, which is
4,436 NEW trips. How many of these "new trips" are former SamTrans Bus riders
due to the bus routes that were truncated at Colma (formerly serving Downtown
SF) and the fare increase on routes that still served Downtown SF is
challenging to determine.
Current average weekday ridership at DC & Colma is 27,169 for the fiscal year
July 2002 through Feb. 2003 (approx. 15,000 for Daly City and 13,000 for
Colma).
Remember, Daly City ridership WAS NOT going to decline (or be cannibalized)
when Colma opened and Colma was supposed to add 18,000 NEW TRIPS to BART.
I do expect Daly City & Colma ridership to fall with the opening of the SFO
extension but not quite as much as Daly City did when Colma opened. After the
first 18 months Daly City ridership was down by 33%, Colma was 39% below
forecast and the number of new trips was 75% under the projections, it should
be noted that some of these new trips are merely former bus riders that were
forced on to BART.
I would figure Daly City to drop approximately 10-15% (about 2,000) and Colma
to drop by 20-25% (about 3,000) when the SFO extension opens. I figure that
the number of NEW riders using the SFO extension stations will be well below
BART projections as took place at Colma.
My prediction for the number of NEW TRANSIT TRIPS for the SFO stations by May
2004 is as follows:
South San Francisco: 1,972 new trips (8,000 projected).
San Bruno: 2,415 new trips (9,800 projected).
SFO: 4,387 new trips (17,800 projected).
Millbrae: 8,133 new trips (33,000 projected).
Total SFO Extension: 16,906 new trips (68,600 projected)
These projections are 75.36% below the "official" ridership estimations by
BART.
The total ridership for the SFO stations should be somewhere in the
neighborhood of 25,000 when you include approximately 5,000 riders that used to
go to DC & Colma plus an indeterminate number of riders that switch from
SamTrans and CalTrain.
Riders who drive and park at the SFO stations and Colma (I am not sure about
Daly City), will now have to pay $2.00/day or $42.00/month for that privilege,
HALLELUIAH, no more free parking…..so this is another factor in predicting
ridership.
Of course the big fudge factor is what happens with SamTrans bus service and
CalTrain service.
SamTrans plans to make changes to several routes when BART opens.
As for CalTrain the first step has already been approved by the JPB, which is
the OUTRAGEOUS FARE INCREASE for Millbrae to SF… The CalTrain fare from
Millbrae to Downtown SF will be $4.25, ($3.00 CalTrain, plus $1.25 MUNI) or
$124.50/monthly ($79.50 CalTrain plus $45.00 MUNI) the MUNI fares assume the
proposed MUNI fare increase. The BART fare from Millbrae to Montgomery
(adopted in September 2002) will be $3.35 or $127.30 monthly (based on 38
trips).
The CURRENT CalTrain fare from Millbrae to Downtown SF is $3.25 ($2.25 CalTrain
plus $1.00 MUNI) or $91.50 monthly ($58.50 CalTrain plus $33.00 MUNI).
So here you have it…this is my 2 cents. What are your projections?
Richard Mlynarik
predict the average number of trips to, from, or between the
BART stations in South San Francisco, San Bruno, SFIA and Millbrae
during the month of March 2004. (ie number of extension station
exits + extension station entries - the number of intra-extension trips,
which are only counted once.)
Response has been disappointing, considering what big transit wonks
you're all supposed to be.
You have until midnight PDT on Saturday 31 May 2003 to enter.
I will publicly post all predictions, with pseudonyms for those
whose professional positions do not allow them to speak the truth
in public, to the ba.transportation group as an archival record
to be judged in April 2004.
See
<http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=gun3ckbu01p.fsf%40bolt.sonic.net>
(aka <news://gun3ckbu01p.fsf%40bolt.sonic.net>) for the original
competition announcement
As a reminder, it appears that BART's prediction (teased out from
numbers in the BART FY03 SRTP) is 32000 new trips system-wide.
(Note that to conform to the contest rules this needs to be adjusted
up to account for ridership drops at Colma and Daly City.)
BART's FEIS "predicted" (nudge nudge, wink wink) 68000 new trips
in FY12. Using the same FY03-FY12 ridership growth assumptions as the
FY03 SRTP, this would translate to 47600 new trips. Wink wink.
(Again, this needs to be adjusted up slightly to meet the contest
conditions and account for cannibalisation from existing stations.)
The prize: fame, accolades, big transportation weenie bragging rights,
and a fabulous gift of my choosing.
And perhaps one day when MTC finds it needs any sort of executive
who can do basic arithmetic, there will be a knock at your door as
a grateful populance seeks your skills and expertise in public service.
(Or it might just be the Department of Homeland Security.)
My prediction: 20500.
RicSilver
average number of trips to, from, or between the BART stations in South San
Francisco, San Bruno, SFIA and Millbrae
>during the month of March 2004.
59,804 as a mimum, but if the economy improves it could be higher. If the
Express trains (Baby Bullet) are running then even more.
Richard Silver
650-368-7112
Nicholas Byram
Nick Byram (Bay Area Exile)
Antelope, CA
In 1959, Nikita Khrushchev saw his first U.S. interstate freeway and said he
was shocked by the waste of time, money, and effort. In his country, "there
was little need for such roads because the Soviet people lived close
together, did not care for automobiles, and seldom moved."
"Richard Mlynarik" <M...@POBox.COM> wrote in message
news:gunr86g...@bolt.sonic.net...
Nim Chimpsky
> predict the average number of trips to, from, or between the
> BART stations in South San Francisco, San Bruno, SFIA and Millbrae
> during the month of March 2004.
My prediction: 32,575.
Yeoh Yiu
Andy Chow
SFO would attract 9000 to 10000 boardings and Millbrae be about 12000 to
14000 boardings.
The passengers on the Millbrae Caltrain - SFO BART shuttle be about a
500-750 people a day.
"Richard Mlynarik" <M...@POBox.COM> wrote in message
news:gunr86g...@bolt.sonic.net...
bikerider7
15k new trips (~5.5k new parking spots, and some Caltrain transfers)
2k SFO
total: 27k (+- 5k)
[SFO ridership based on the assumption that workers will lose their
cheap bus service and that March is a slow air travel month.]
How will the winner be decided if BART doesn't release March '04
extension figures?
Michael Kincaid
> predict the average number of trips to, from, or between the
> BART stations in South San Francisco, San Bruno, SFIA and Millbrae
> during the month of March 2004. (ie number of extension station
> exits + extension station entries - the number of intra-extension trips,
> which are only counted once.)
23000.
What would also be interesting to know - but I'm not going to venture
a guess at - is how much Millbrae-San Francisco Caltrain ridership
lost between, say, March 2003 and March 2004. Anyone know of any good
sources for Caltrain station-by-station ridership numbers? The best I
could find was a few years old.
JCARTRAIN
Scott Mace
> Riders who drive and park at the SFO stations and Colma (I am not sure
about
> Daly City), will now have to pay $2.00/day or $42.00/month for that
privilege,
> HALLELUIAH, no more free parking...so this is another factor in predicting
> ridership.
Daly City parking charges are coming too this month, according to BART.
This could be a good or a bad thing for the movement to charge for BART
parking.
Possible good thing: The new parking fare collection machines and systems
work well, depriving free-parking advocates of the argument that there is no
good way to collect these revenues on a daily basis.
Possible bad thing: The new machines work poorly, or are too hard to use, or
break down a lot (can anyone say BART parking validation machine?), BART
reverts to free parking at all the new stations, and the critics use this to
bury paid daily BART parking for the duration of our lifetimes.
The good news is, I don't see any middle ground for this to fail halfway. Of
course, if any transit system in the Bay Area can fail halfway, it's BART.
Scott Mace
--
Please sign a petition to maximize BART parking revenue --
http://www.petitiononline.com/bart2/petition.html
Blog: http://urbification.blogspot.com/
Michael Kincaid
> Possible bad thing: The new machines work poorly, or are too hard to use, or
> break down a lot (can anyone say BART parking validation machine?), BART
> reverts to free parking at all the new stations, and the critics use this to
> bury paid daily BART parking for the duration of our lifetimes.
It's an added function of Addfare, so if this happens, it would mean
the new Cubic fare equipment [works poorly | is too hard to use |
breaks down a lot], which would be bad news for all riders. I'm
optimistic though.
JCARTRAIN
In Message-ID: <vdmso5o...@corp.supernews.com>
Dated: Sun, 1 Jun 2003 21:22:21 -0700
>This could be a good or a bad thing for the movement to charge for BART
>parking.
>
>Possible good thing: The new parking fare collection machines and systems
>work well, depriving free-parking advocates of the argument that there is no
>good way to collect these revenues on a daily basis.
>
>Possible bad thing: The new machines work poorly, or are too hard to use, or
>break down a lot (can anyone say BART parking validation machine?), BART
>reverts to free parking at all the new stations, and the critics use this to
>bury paid daily BART parking for the duration of our lifetimes.
Another possible bad thing is the $42.00 per month parking charge.
Where did they come up with $42.00 per Month?
There is no problem with $2.00 per day, but $42.00 per month gives drivers
ABSOLUTELY NO INCENTIVE to buy a monthly parking permit, it's like it's
designed to be a failure from the beginning. Why not $20.00 per month for
parking permits?
The $63.00 monthly reserved parking is pretty much been a failure except at a
couple of stations, remember BART thought that reserved parking would be such a
hit that they could increase the reserved monthly parking fee to as high as
$109.00.
Of course this is BART and they have ABSOLUTELY ON IDEA of the
concept/incentives/benefit of monthly passes or monthly parking charges.
RicSilver
Regarding the parking fee at the San Mateo County BART stations:
JC>Another possible bad thing is the $42.00 per month parking charge. Where did
they come up with $42.00 per Month?
There is no problem with $2.00 per day, but $42.00 per month gives drivers
ABSOLUTELY NO INCENTIVE to buy a monthly parking permit, it's like it's
designed to be a failure from the beginning.
I though that in the anti-Car culture that exists in this groups the idea WAS
to make it as inconvient and costly as possible for those that use cars to
access BART. Has something changed?
In any case, even at $42 per month it's still has some advantages. First its
just plain easier to have a pass then fumble for the $2 each day, you can get
bonus points if you change the purchase on a credit card :-) and some folks may
actually park at BART more than 21 times a month.
Admittly none of these are better than a discount, but a discount would defeat
the desire of this group to get as much out of auto owners as possible.
Richard Silver
650-368-7112
Andy Chow
news:20030601132558...@mb-m22.aol.com...
> You may be taking my comments wrong, I AGREE with you, I was just being
> facetious.
>
> Anyway as for cannibalization of Colma (and Daly City) ridership, I
revisited
> the issue as it was discussed here on ba.transportation back in November
1997
> as: Daly City / Colma Ridership Figures.Check the following URL:
I don't think the Daly City ridership will drop much with the opening of the
new stations. Since the opening of Colma, Daly City is no longer the end of
the line. Also, the new stations would attract new ridership to/from Daly
City. It is reasonable to expect new riders between Daly City and the
Airport and Millbrae (to connect with Caltrain), while when Colma opened, I
don't think there were any new riders riding only between Daly City and
Colma.
Before the Colma station was opened, SamTrans ran a bus between the Colma
SamTrans park and ride lot (behind the present BART station) and the Daly
City station. Of course with the new station, people who used to park in
Colma and take the bus to DC can just take BART from Colma directly.
I expect Colma to take a bigger hit. Colma is largely and park and ride
station with few developments. But Colma has the advantage of direct access
to I-280. For those who live along the Coastside or I-280, the Colma station
is still attractive despite the extension.
> As for CalTrain the first step has already been approved by the JPB, which
is
> the OUTRAGEOUS FARE INCREASE for Millbrae to SF. The CalTrain fare from
> Millbrae to Downtown SF will be $4.25, ($3.00 CalTrain, plus $1.25 MUNI)
or
> $124.50/monthly ($79.50 CalTrain plus $45.00 MUNI) the MUNI fares assume
the
> proposed MUNI fare increase. The BART fare from Millbrae to Montgomery
> (adopted in September 2002) will be $3.35 or $127.30 monthly (based on 38
> trips).
Despite my opposition to the new fares, the fare between San Bruno/SSF and
SF would go down.
Also, the Caltrain monthly fare between Millbrae and Redwood City would only
be a few dollars more than the $42 monthly parking permit in Millbrae. The
$42 permit is only a hunting license for parking.
Michael Kincaid
> Also, the Caltrain monthly fare between Millbrae and Redwood City would only
> be a few dollars more than the $42 monthly parking permit in Millbrae. The
> $42 permit is only a hunting license for parking.
Also, interestingly, there's a slight incentive for Millbrae parkers
to ride Caltrain rather than BART because a $33 Caltrain monthly gets
you reserved space in one area that's set aside for Caltrain parking
pass holders, and you need to buy a monthly pass or 2 10-rides to get
one (versus the BART $42 pass which is, as you said, a hunting
license).
Not The Ric Silver
> I though that in the anti-Car culture that exists in this groups the idea WAS
> to make it as inconvient and costly as possible for those that use cars to
> access BART. Has something changed?
Wrong! Only to limit the number of car users so that spare capacity
is created at stations whose parking lots are filled up.
Richard Mlynarik
Derisive jeers to those too chicken to make a prediction.
Here follow the entries I received. Please let me know if I
overlooked anybody.
In May 2004 we'll take the total number of BART faregate entries and
exits at the four extension stations for the entire month of March
2004, subtract the number of intra-extension trips made (to avoid
double-counting), and divide by 31 to determine the average number of
daily extension trips and thus determine the content entry with the
closest estimate.
May the least deluded contestant win!
* Dean Ruggles <deanr...@yahoo.com> 21 Apr 2003 19:29:34 -0700
0 extension trips
<news:b829eg$2le$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b829eg%242le%241%40slb6.atl.mindspring.net>
"Prize request: May I have Carl Guardino's conscience?"
* Nicholas Byram <n.b...@comcast.net> 22 Apr 2003 10:57:16 -0700
14535 extension trips.
Mail Messgae-ID <<005b01c308f8$9cc98530$7747d50c@Nick>
"This figure is arrived at by taking whatever BART claims and
multiplying it by 0.45 (slightly less than half), BART management
being slightly more than half full of shit."
* Jeff Carter <jcar...@aol.com> 27 Apr 2003 23:16:16 +0000
16906 extension trips.
<news:20030427191616...@mb-m14.aol.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20030427191616.27959.00000204%40mb-m14.aol.com>
"South San Francisco: 1,972 new trips (8,000 projected).
San Bruno: 2,415 new trips (9,800 projected).
SFO: 4,387 new trips (17,800 projected).
Millbrae: 8,133 new trips (33,000 projected).
Total SFO Extension: 16,906 new trips (68,600 projected)
I would figure Daly City to drop approximately 10-15% (about 2,000)
and Colma to drop by 20-25% (about 3,000) when the SFO extension opens
Of course the big fudge factor is what happens with SamTrans bus service
and CalTrain service."
* Richard Mlynarik <M...@POBox.COM> 30 May 2003 14:52:20 -0700
20500 extension trips
<news:gunr86g...@bolt.sonic.net>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=gunr86ggl0x.fsf%40bolt.sonic.net>
* Michael Kincaid <ln146...@sneakemail.com> 31 May 2003 23:28:46 -0700
23000 extension trips.
<news:e50ef708.03053...@posting.google.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=e50ef708.0305312228.4e1f75ff%40posting.google.com>
* Steve Boland <bola...@earthlink.net> 31 May 2003 10:48:31 -0700
26700 extension trips.
Mail Message-ID <004c01c3279c$e0636e60$12cbf7a5@bolandse>
* Anonymous Insider #1 Mon, 28 Apr 2003 09:15:34 -0700
27000 extension trips.
(private correspondence)
"Personally, I don't see how they can get 27000, but I don't want to
go too far out on a limb.
The parking spaces are, what, 7000? They will fill up. One person
per car space.
Some people will walk, what, 2000?
That leaves SamTrans and Caltrain and the airport.
The Caltrain transfers... 2000?
SamTrans, I don't know. Big issue is how much service they will
run, how much they will take out of Colma. Call it 7000 transfers.
The total is 18000.
The Airport I guess could be 10,000 per day but I just don't know
how air travel [...] is going to get very high in the short term.")
* "bikerider7" <bay_bri...@yahoo.com> 31 May 2003 22:05:04 -0700
27000 extension trips.
<news:d35d6005.03053...@posting.google.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=d35d6005.0305312105.42a9f4c0%40posting.google.com>
"10k Colma+Samtrans canabalized trips
15k new trips (~5.5k new parking spots, and some Caltrain transfers)
2k SFO total: 27k (+- 5k)
SFO ridership based on the assumption that workers will lose their
cheap bus service and that March is a slow air travel month."
* Stuart Cohen <stuc...@igc.org> 31 May 2003 03:03:22 -0700
27832 extension trips
(private correspondence, message-id lost)
* Yeoh Yiu <sq...@panix.com> 31 May 2003 23:25:22 -0400
28500 extension trips.
<news:oxgn0h2...@panix5.panix.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=oxgn0h2cwd9.fsf%40panix5.panix.com>
* Andy Chow <andy...@attbi.com> 01 Jun 2003 04:43:47 GMT
30500 extension trips (lower range of estimates; higher was 33750.)
<news:7wfCa.1066085$F1.125783@sccrnsc04>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=7wfCa.1066085%24F1.125783%40sccrnsc04>
("I think the daily boardings from SSF and San Bruno be about 4500 each.
The SFO would attract 9000 to 10000 boardings and
Millbrae about 12000 to 14000 boardings.
Millbrae Caltrain - SFO BART shuttle about 500-750 people a day.")
* BART <http://www.bart.gov/docs/FY03DSRTP.pdf>
32300 new trips.
(deduced from Section 4.1.1.2 and Figure 11 on page 4-4 of BART's
FY03 Short Range Transit Plan):
Note: this number does account for cannibalisation from Colma and
Daly City, so it will need to be adjusted upwards somewhat in order
to represent extension station riders only.
* "Nim Chimpsky" <nim-ch...@rock.com> 31 May 2003 14:36:32 -0700
32575 extension trips.
<news:d837f383.03053...@posting.google.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=d837f383.0305311336.5656e9b1%40posting.google.com>
* BART SFOX Final Environmental Impact Statement (the tissue
of lies which supposedly "justified" the fraudulent expense of
close to two billion public dollars):
47600 new trips
(This number was obtained by decreasing the 68600 trips "predicted"
for FY12 in the FEIS by the annual ridership increase factors
between now and then which are used in BART's FY03 SRTP draft.)
Note: this DOES account for cannibalisation from Colma and Daly City,
so it will need to be adjusted upwards somewhat in order to represent
extension station riders only.
* Rick Silver <rics...@aol.com> 30 May 2003 22:29:55 +0000
59804 extension trips.
<news:20030530182955...@mb-m28.aol.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20030530182955.15851.00000575%40mb-m28.aol.com>
"as a mimum [sic], but if the economy improves it could be higher"
Entries from BART and SamTrans planning and budgeting departments remain
conspiculously absent.
Richard Mlynarik
Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 01:51:56 GMT
Thanks so those who entered.
Derisive jeers to those too chicken to make a prediction.
Here follow the entries I received. Please let me know if I
overlooked anybody.
and exit, and if so was the exit in an extension station, elsewhere on
the system, or was the faregate at the destination broken _again_, or
did he jump the gate?) from David Crawford.
Plus, as a bonus, BART's spokesdroid Healy finally let slip, in last
Friday's East Bay Business Times, an estimate of 33000 per day.
(You'll recall, of course, that as recently as 21 April, BART's
spokesdroids were outright lying to the press and claiming
that "estimates for immediate ridership have not been made".)
And lest anybody forget, that 33000 number is down about 33% from the
number BART's crew of habitual liars used to justify the project to
the federal government.
Again, may the least deluded contestant win!
(I think it's already pretty clear who the most deluded entrants are.)
======================================================================
Corrected:
Total: 27k (+- 5k)
SFO ridership based on the assumption that workers will lose their
cheap bus service and that March is a slow air travel month."
* Stuart Cohen <stuc...@igc.org> 31 May 2003 03:03:22 -0700
27832 extension trips
(private correspondence, message-id lost)
* Yeoh Yiu <sq...@panix.com> 31 May 2003 23:25:22 -0400
28500 extension trips.
<news:oxgn0h2...@panix5.panix.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=oxgn0h2cwd9.fsf%40panix5.panix.com>
* Andy Chow <andy...@attbi.com> 01 Jun 2003 04:43:47 GMT
30500 extension trips (lower range of estimates; higher was 33750.)
<news:7wfCa.1066085$F1.125783@sccrnsc04>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=7wfCa.1066085%24F1.125783%40sccrnsc04>
("I think the daily boardings from SSF and San Bruno be about 4500 each.
The SFO would attract 9000 to 10000 boardings and
Millbrae about 12000 to 14000 boardings.
Millbrae Caltrain - SFO BART shuttle about 500-750 people a day.")
* David W. Crawford <d...@omor.com> 30 May 2003 02:25:01 -0400
30823 extension trips
<news:xz3znl5...@panix5.panix.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=xz3znl5dk8y.fsf%40panix5.panix.com>
"32500 weekday ave, 26000 everyday ave.
Let's just say I counted parking spaces and multiplied by a small number."
* BART <http://www.bart.gov/docs/FY03DSRTP.pdf>
32300 new trips.
(deduced from Section 4.1.1.2 and Figure 11 on page 4-4 of BART's
FY03 Short Range Transit Plan):
Note: this number does account for cannibalisation from Colma and
Daly City, so it will need to be adjusted upwards somewhat in order
to represent extension station riders only.
* "Nim Chimpsky" <nim-ch...@rock.com> 31 May 2003 14:36:32 -0700
32575 extension trips.
<news:d837f383.03053...@posting.google.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=d837f383.0305311336.5656e9b1%40posting.google.com>
* BART spokesdroid published 9 June 2003
33000 extension trips
<http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2003/06/09/story5.html>
East Bay Business Times 9 June 2003.
(Not technically eligible, per the contest deadline of 31 May, but
since we're bending the rules allowing BART to enter as many times
as it wishes to put its foot in the public's mouth, why not?)
* BART SFOX Final Environmental Impact Statement (the tissue
of lies which supposedly "justified" the fraudulent expense of
close to two billion public dollars) published June 1996:
47600 new trips
(This number was obtained by decreasing the 68600 weekday trips
"predicted" for FY12 in the FEIS by the annual ridership increase
factors between now and then which are used in BART's FY03 SRTP
draft.)
Note: this DOES account for cannibalisation from Colma and Daly City,
so it will need to be adjusted upwards somewhat in order to represent
extension station riders only.
* Rick Silver <rics...@aol.com> 30 May 2003 22:29:55 +0000
59804 extension trips.
<news:20030530182955...@mb-m28.aol.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20030530182955.15851.00000575%40mb-m28.aol.com>
"as a mimum [sic], but if the economy improves it could be higher"
* BART spokesdroid published 21 April 2003
63072 extension trips
<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/21/BA146692.DTL>
"70,000 new trips per day by 2010", reduced by average FY03-FY10
1.5% annual system ridership increase implied in BART FY03 SRTP.
* BART spokesdroid published 21 April 2003
Immeasurable number of extension trips.
After all, measuring ridership is just typical western reductionist
bullshit! We need to consider the entire synergistic effect of the
extension on the Feng Shui of the entire hemisphere, and instead of
trying to hold anybody to some sort of impersonal, meaningless
statistic, we need to celbrate the individual special abilities of
everybody involved. A creative, intuitive, nurturing approach to
the extension is every bit as valid as the discredited
numerically-obsessed regime under which some every spark of
holistic intuition is extinguished. BART extension has nothing to
do with toiling under ridership numbers, it's all about how it makes
you feel, and how it fosters and combines social networks and
the exploration of and deeping of relationships with personal growth!
<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/21/BA146692.DTL>
"No projections for the first months or year of operation have been
produced."
John David Galt
Visit the Pittsburg/Bay Point station any day after about 10 am, and you'll
find half an acre of unused capacity -- all reserved for carpools. If you
want to ride BART you have to drive on to North Concord.
Scott Mace
> Visit the Pittsburg/Bay Point station any day after about 10 am, and
you'll
> find half an acre of unused capacity -- all reserved for carpools. If you
> want to ride BART you have to drive on to North Concord.
I actually believe BART is reserving too many spaces for carpools. I
encourage anyone else to report what they see of underused carpool capacity.
Such tales can only fortify the case for a series of more sensible parking
policies across the board in the BART system.
RicSilver
SM>I actually believe BART is reserving too many spaces for carpools. I
encourage anyone else to report what they see of underused carpool capacity.
Such tales can only fortify the case for a series of more sensible parking
policies across the board in the BART system.
Agreed, and you might mention then underuse of disabled parking in many, (but
not all) of the BART parking lots. Some station like Dublin have dozens of
disablied spaces that are never used.
The same thing is happening at ACE station and some Caltrain stations.
Richard Silver
650-368-7112
y_p_w
> Scott Mace posted:
>
> SM>I actually believe BART is reserving too many spaces for carpools. I
> encourage anyone else to report what they see of underused carpool capacity.
> Such tales can only fortify the case for a series of more sensible parking
> policies across the board in the BART system.
>
> Agreed, and you might mention then underuse of disabled parking in many, (but
> not all) of the BART parking lots. Some station like Dublin have dozens of
> disablied spaces that are never used.
Can't do anything about that. The Americans With Disabilities Act sets a
minimum proportion of disabled parking spaces. I'm not sure if California
requires a higher proportion. In addition, counties or cities could also
increase the number of spaces.
Heck - I was in the Wal-Mart in San Leandro last weekend, and EVERY disabled
parking space was occupied.
David Nebenzahl
As our population pyramid becomes ever more top-heavy, expect to see more and
more of that.
Some day, you young whippersnappers who're complaining about handicapped
spaces will thank [insert deity here] for them.
--
Clearly a decision had been taken to pump up the case against Iraq.
- Richard Butler, chief U.N. weapons inspector during the 1990s
(http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/061603.html)
Richard Mlynarik
competition in May 2003 to estimate the average daily number of riders
on the BART extension south of Colma for the month of March 2004.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=gun3ckbu01p.fsf%40bolt.sonic.net
The final set of entries
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=guny90bm60h.fsf_-_%40bolt.sonic.net
is reproduced below for reference.
The total number of passengers entering or exiting at the four
extension stations -- counting only intra-extension trips which both
entered and exited at one of those stations -- for the month of March
2004 are as follows.
South San Francisco: 100839
San Bruno: 77982
San Francisco Airport: 167241
Millbrae: 151416
Total: 479478
Average per day: 16048
**********************************************************************
******* JEFF CARTER (estimate 16906) was RIGHT ON THE MONEY. *******
**********************************************************************
Congratulations, Jeff, I'm recommending that you be made new director
of the Bay Area's Metrolpolitan Planning Organization, since clearly
you are at least twice at good at ridership and cost estimation as any
of the frausters who've recently held that position!
Close runner-up Nicholas Byram, who was extremely close to ridership
actuals until the significant upswing in March gave it to Carter,
certainly deserves special recognition for the combination of
succinctness and predictive power of his technique ("[take] whatever
BART claims and multiplying it by 0.45 (slightly less than half), BART
management being slightly more than half full of shit.") Based on
extensive historical data this technique can be shown to have
excellent applicability to major BART capital budgets as well.
Thanks for playing.
(And jeers those of you who didn't have the guts to enter.)
Suggestion for our next competition: guess how much Gavin Newsom will
be paid for having killed the Caltrain extension to the Transbay Terminal!
Unfortunately, the record-keeping for such deals generally isn't done
according to Generally Accepted Non-Mafia Accounting Practices, and
not even BART's newest fare gates yet have software set up to record
Average Daily Kickbacks, so it would be pretty difficult to accurately
adjudicate the competition. We may have to think of something else.
======================================================================
Some additional data ("AWR" is average weekday ridership,
"ADR" is average daily ridership; all figures are for extries+exits
per station, counting intra-extension (and same-station "excursion")
trips only once. Note that the actual numbers of humans riding is
about half the number of recorded trips.)
Jul03 Aug03 Sep03 Oct03 Nov03 Dec03 Jan04 Feb04 Mar04
DC 307954 314492 370054 391188 324154 324622 291751 326051 361573
DC AWR 12191 12707 15557 15285 14553 12984 12012 14800 14068
Colma 202430 191883 191951 203530 173570 181892 173408 162579 189074
Colma AWR 8012 7732 7869 7800 7579 7151 7057 7279 7284
SSF 70870 71332 78410 88609 78524 85007 83928 82736 100839
SSF AWR 2822 2922 3289 3473 3549 3446 3555 3838 4002
Bruno 69303 71517 70655 72076 62010 68142 65396 65364 77982
Bruno AWR 2632 2795 2832 2690 2596 2587 2603 2842 2949
SFO 188059 194709 160769 162330 157498 169177 138334 128607 167241
SFO AWR 6498 6793 5673 5526 5676 5867 4783 4906 5641
Millbrae 126226 126988 126948 142607 124791 132965 131848 134040 151416
Mill AWR 4684 4900 5041 5340 5382 5221 5353 5759 5727
5 stations 656888 656429 628733 669152 596393 637183 592914 573326 686553
5 AWR 24648 25142 24704 24830 24781 24270 23352 24624 25602
4 stations 454458 464546 436782 465622 422823 455291 419506 410747 497478
4 AWR 19964 20242 19663 19490 19399 19049 17999 18865 19875
4 ADR 14660 14985 14559 15020 14094 14687 13532 13250 16048
======================================================================
Entrant Estimate Error
Dean Ruggles 0 100.0% (no, you may not have Carl
Guardino's non-existent conscience.)
Nicholas Byram 14535 9.4%
Jeff Carter 16906 5.3% (the winner)
Richard Mlynarik 20500 27.7% (pathetic)
Michael Kincaid 23000 43.3%
Steve Boland 26700 66.4%
"Anonymous Insider" 27000 68.2%
"bay_bridge_tgv" 27000 68.2%
Stuart Cohen 27832 73.4%
Yeoh Yiu 28500 77.6%
Andy Chow 30500 90.1%
David Crawford 30823 92.1%
BART FY03 SRTP 32300 101.3% (May we please have our $1.8bn back now?)
"Nim Chimpsky" 32575 103.0%
BART cheerleader 33000 105.6%
BART FEIS 47600 196.6%
Rick Silver 63072 272.7% (BART's looking for skilled men
like you for WSX, SJX and
seismic retrofit budgets!)
BART cheerleader infinite infinite
======================================================================
Competition entries:
* Dean Ruggles <deanr...@yahoo.com> 21 Apr 2003 19:29:34 -0700
0 extension trips
<news:b829eg$2le$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b829eg%242le%241%40slb6.atl.mindspring.net>
"Prize request: May I have Carl Guardino's conscience?"
* Nicholas Byram <n.b...@comcast.net> 22 Apr 2003 10:57:16 -0700
14535 extension trips.
Mail Messgae-ID <<005b01c308f8$9cc98530$7747d50c@Nick>
"This figure is arrived at by taking whatever BART claims and
multiplying it by 0.45 (slightly less than half), BART management
being slightly more than half full of shit."
* Jeff Carter <jcar...@aol.com> 27 Apr 2003 23:16:16 +0000
16906 extension trips.
<news:20030427191616...@mb-m14.aol.com>
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20030427191616.27959.00000204%40mb-m14.aol.com>
"South San Francisco: 1,972 new trips (8,000 projected).
San Bruno: 2,415 new trips (9,800 projected).
SFO: 4,387 new trips (17,800 projected).
Millbrae: 8,133 new trips (33,000 projected).
Total SFO Extension: 16,906 new trips (68,600 projected)
I would figure Daly City to drop approximately 10-15% (about 2,000)
and Colma to drop by 20-25% (about 3,000) when the SFO extension
opens. Of course the big fudge factor is what happens with
bikerider7
> Jul03 Aug03 Sep03 Oct03 Nov03 Dec03 Jan04 Feb04 Mar04
It's interesting that the total Colma and DC ridership held steady. In my
estimate, I had assumed half those riders would shift to the new stations
on the basis of what the opening of Colma did to DC ridership.
Nicholas Byram
"Richard Mlynarik" <M...@POBox.COM> wrote in message
news:gun7jvz...@bolt.sonic.net...
> competition in May 2003 to estimate the average daily number of riders
> on the BART extension south of Colma for the month of March 2004.
>
> South San Francisco: 100839
> San Bruno: 77982
> San Francisco Airport: 167241
> Millbrae: 151416
> Total: 479478
> Average per day: 16048
>
> Close runner-up Nicholas Byram, who was extremely close to ridership
> actuals until the significant upswing in March gave it to Carter,
> certainly deserves special recognition for the combination of
> succinctness and predictive power of his technique ("[take] whatever
> BART claims and multiplying it by 0.45 (slightly less than half), BART
> management being slightly more than half full of shit.") Based on
> extensive historical data this technique can be shown to have
> excellent applicability to major BART capital budgets as well.
Congrats to Jeff for his very precise calculations.
Hmmm....the 16,048 average per day is 49.6842% of the 32,300 BART
projection, so BART is still slightly more than half full of shit, but
better than expected, to their credit. In fairness, BART management is
better than VTA in San Jose or RT in Sacramento, whose projections on light
rail ridership have been even worse.
Jack May
"Richard Mlynarik" <M...@POBox.COM> wrote in message
news:gun7jvz...@bolt.sonic.net...
> actuals until the significant upswing in March gave it to Carter,
> certainly deserves special recognition for the combination of
> succinctness and predictive power of his technique ("[take] whatever
> BART claims and multiplying it by 0.45 (slightly less than half), BART
> management being slightly more than half full of shit.") Based on
> extensive historical data this technique can be shown to have
> excellent applicability to major BART capital budgets as well.
I love the simplicity of the 0.45 prediction. What is the factor for the
capital budget? Is it a nice symmetric value like the actual cost is the
predicted cost divided by 0.45?
Carter's estimate is right in line with the characteristics of most large
complex systems. We find over and over that when systems become large and
complex, that only a very small number of variables are very good at
predicting the characterization of that system. Its call emergent
properties.
Because of emergent properties, large systems are often much easier to
predict than small simple systems. It also says that it is easy for BART to
have simple rules of thumb to get reasonably accurate estimates. Because
they are consistently off by the same factor just says they are probably
just flat out lying with their public estimates. Of course they could also
be too stupid to even notice simple rules of thumb.
Anyway, congratulations Carter. You are intuitively or with knowledge
understanding a new, little known field of technology.