rapid

The 👉2023-05 meeting of the Rapid Planning meeting contained the "Rousing Debate".👈. Truly riveting reading for those of us who are the type of people who read meeting minutes. 🙂 Fortunatley for us, this conversation continued at 👉the 2023-09 Planning meeting (PDF, minutes)👈

The text from the meeting minutes has been edited slightly for readability.

A little known local transit detail is that the Rapid operates a set of route extensions during the GRPS school year. This includes routes #1 (Division/Madison), #4 (Eastern), #7 (West Leonard), #10 (Clyde Park), and #12 (West Fulton). These route extensions operate on weekdays in the ~7am and ~2pm hours.

Route #33

The Rapid will begin operating a weekday express route to the Walker industrial park. The industrial park was previously served by an interline with route #9 (Alpine) - - - which was very confusing.

Route 33 will run hourly from 5:45am - 10:45am and 1:45pm - 5:45pm, Monday through Friday.

The Rapid's fixed-route ridership increased by 13% in June 2023 relative to June 2022. The strongest growth is in evening (53.6%) and weekend (53.8%) ridership.

Source: July Performance & Productivity Packet

Within 👉the minutes of the 2023-05 Rapid Planning meeting👈 is an interesting conversation about the future - or perceived future - of mobility in the region. This group plays an instrumental role in drafting the plan for the future of the Rapid; which for bureaucratic & regulatory reasons happens in twenty (20) year increments. Yes, a 20 year plan seems absurd; something the participants of this body appear to be aware of.

Everyone loves maps, and the RAPID's "Mobility For All" survey is up. You check out the survey, think about it, and provide feedback. This survey supports the required Comprehensive Operational Analysis which will determine the next phase of the RAPID's operation.

Now, the maps....

This is a map of voter's support of RAPID funding in November 2017. Creation of this map was inspired by the "Transit Supporter Split" BLOG post. That post, at least proposed, that in the city of Portland [Oregon] that transit support had a conical shape: strongest downtown, tapering down as one moved out through the neighborhoods, and zeroing out into opposition when one reached the true suburbs. It raised the question of what support for the RAPID looks like in Grand Rapids.