PlanItMetro

Strategic planning is the process of determining what an organization does, where it wants to be and how it plans to get there. Organizations with well-defined strategic plans have the distinct advantage of clarity of common direction. It offers discipline, focus, and results-orientation, enabling the entire enterprise to focus its talents and energies and to measure achievements against expectations and potential constraints. At Metro, it also provides leaders clear direction for prioritizing decisions around improvements, investments, expansion, operations, and maintenance.

Metro needs a strategic plan for all of the above reasons and more. The organization is implementing hundreds of improvements to rehabilitate the system via MetroForward and instilling management discipline to the organization through the General Manager/CEO’s business plan. These efforts will have positive effects in the near term, but will be insufficient to prepare the system and organization for the challenges to come. Read more…

You’ve been diligently telling us what you think our priorities should be and we’ve listened. We’ve been hard at work putting the final touches on Momentum: The Next Generation of Metro and Metro’s Board endorsed the plan today.

Starting Monday, over the following 40 weekdays, we’ll be rolling out the most interesting parts of the plan in daily posts here on PlanItMetro.

Monday Posts: Preparing for Tomorrow’s Region Today

Tuesday Posts: Metro’s Importance to the Region

Wednesday Posts: Metro’s Recent Accomplishments and Public Engagement

Thursday Posts: Strategies and Priority Actions to Make this Vision a Reality

Friday Posts: Metro 2025 – Seven Priority Capital Initiatives

If you want to read and download either the full Momentum plan or the Executive Summary, go right ahead. But if you want to stop back for a daily dose of Momentum, don’t be shy. If you notice something that strikes your fancy, leave us a comment.

Regional support is important to making Momentum a reality! A number of regional stakeholders have already endorsed Momentum. Please sign on and add your name to endorse Momentum and send the message that public transit is vital to the National Capital Region.

Thank you for all for your valued contributions on MindMixer over the past several months. All of your comments and ideas have been reviewed to see what improvements we can begin to undertake and plan for and many have been incorporated into Momentum: The Next Generation of Metro, our strategic plan. We also appreciate your continued patience while we developed new topics.

We’re happy to announce that new topics are open! We want to hear from you on the staff draft of Momentum and initiatives for Metro 2025 so that we can maximize our existing system. Additionally, for the cartographers out there, there is a question about proposed changes to the Metrorail map in advance of the Silver Line opening later this year. So please log back on and let us know what you think. If you haven’t joined the conversation, please do! We want to hear from you and we’re listening.

Since Metro’s MindMixer site opened on September 27^th, the response has been overwhelming. To date, we’ve had over 425 participants provide more than 1900 votes, 450 comments, and115 ideason a range of topics. The first round of questions generated over 150 pages of comments alone! The site is expected to continue through the end of the year at a minimum, so please continue to join the conversation.

Metro is using MindMixer to start a conversation with our customers about how they envision the next generation of Metro. A quick review of the site shows a wide range of comments and ideas, some that are short-term and many that are very far in the future.

All comments and ideas are being reviewed as part of Momentum: The Next Generation of Metro, the agency’s strategic plan. Metro staff is responding to some of the comments and ideas as they are posted. Often this is to direct a participant to work that is already underway or to provide short responses or explanations of current policies. Other ideas have created discussions between participants, which is one of the main purposes for the site. The vast majority of ideas and comments require further study, more discussion of what is possible within Metro’s environment, and/or prioritization among other needs at Metro. Many of the ideas also require substantial resources to implement.

As the site continues, we are collating and summarizing your comments and ideas based on themes, such as core capacity, information provision, and non-Metro expansion.  This high level summary will be used to support Momentum, our strategic plan, as it provides an indication of the elements that are most important to you, our riders. We will also be taking comments directly from MindMixer to incorporate in the strategic plan document. As part of this blog, we will be further developing some of the ideas and comments to form the basis for a Metro 101 section on PlanItMetro. These posts will help increase the level of understanding of transit in this region. Lastly, for those ideas that require further study, they will be compiled and when MindMixer concludes, this information will be circulated to the respective Metro departments. This will help ensure that decision makers throughout the organization review the thoughtful ideas that have been provided on MindMixer.

The first round of MindMixer questions for Momentum: The Next Generation of Metro closed on October 26^th. 370 people joined the conversation and posted over 90 ideas, 300 comments, and 1,600 votes. There were 4,300 visits to the site, of which 63% were unique visits. There were almost 24,000 page views and visitors stayed on the site for an average of five and a half minutes. The response was terrific and we’re excited to continue the conversation and new questions are currently on the site.

Who Commented

Mind Mixer responses by zipcode. Click for larger version.

Your fellow Metro riders who joined the conversation came from across the region.Below is a map of the number of participants by zip code.Participants ranged from 18 to over 65, with an average age of 36.5. 70% of participants were men.As our ridership is much more evenly split, we’d love to hear from more women, so please don’t be shy!Guys – please tell your female colleagues, friends, and family about the site and encourage them to comment.This month we are advertising on buses and in multiple English and non-English newspapers to further engage our riders, so keep an eye out.

What We Heard

We have compiled a summary of the vote tally from each first round question, as well as a summary of the themes of the comments within each question. The major takeaways for Metro were that our riders have a lot of interesting, creative ideas for small, short-term improvements to their daily ride, many of which could be inexpensive. Additionally, there is a desire for large infrastructure projects to expand the system, connect communities, and increase the capacity in the system core. We also noticed a need for a Metro 101 to better explain the basics of how Metro operates, as well as the pros and cons of ideas and concepts. Stay tuned to PlanItMetro for posts tagged as Metro 101.

Overall, the major themes we heard were:

• Safety—repair and relieve crowding
• Address core crowding first
  • More train frequency
  • Bus priority
  • Station entrances; faregates
• More information
• Integrate and connect other services, communities
• Funding—long-term source

Are you eager to tell us what needs to happen to make bus service more predictable and make your trip faster?

Do you have a great idea to help move more passengers through heavily-traveled stations in Washington and Arlington?

Do you sit in traffic and think, if only there were a fast, quick, comfortable transit option, life would be so much better?

Have you noticed a great concept or idea in another city’s transit system that Metro should implement?

If the answer to any of these questions is “Yes!” then please join the conversation about the future of your transit system at Momentum: The Next Generation of Metro.  We are using asking the public about how we can better serve their needs, and among other ways we are hosting questions at wmata.mindmixer.com!

MindMixer, our online community engagement tool, has been live for more than two weeks. We started the conversation to gather your thoughts on some of the key questions facing Metro and the region in the future, such as:

• What do you think our priorities should be for future infrastructure investments?
• What areas should be better connected by transit?
• What concepts that work in other cities should we use here?

Response has been high, the discourse has been positive, and several great ideas have been proposed!  For example, some of the ideas include:focus expansion and development in the core before any end of line expansion; develop an all inclusive mobile application for next bus, schedules, SmarTrip^® balance, and alerts; and add mezzanines, improved signage, and stairs to our stations.

As of of October 15^th, there were 325 active participants who have cast 1,300 votes to our survey questions, posted 375 comments, and have generated 66 ideas.  The site has been visited 2,900 times, with nearly 2,000 by unique individuals.  The next set of questions is slated to go live on October 27, so please check back next week and invite your colleagues, friends, and family too. We’re listening!

Metro is working with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) on the Super NoVa project to identify travel needs, evaluate current gaps in transit and TDM programs, and identify a vision to improve mobility. DRPT will be hosting a set of four public meetings through northern Virginia to gather your comments/ideas on bus, rail, carpooling, and vanpooling. The Super NoVa region considers the needs of commuters in northern Virginia as well as those from Washington D.C., Maryland, and West Virginia.

Citizens are invited to learn more about the study and provide feedback by attending any one of the following identical meetings. For special assistance or information, call 804-786-4440 or TDD 711 at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting date.

Other mechanisms to participate include:

Written comments also may be sent to: Super NoVa Transit/TDM Vision Plan, 11400 Commerce Park Drive, Suite 400, Reston, VA 20191.

Si usted necesita servicios de traducción a participar, por favor manda un email: espanol@kimley-horn.com

Back in August, we posted information about our latest endeavors to improve bike and walk access to Metrorail.  We have since completed our field work and now have a laundry list of more than 3,000 individual projects throughout the Metrorail system that we identified through that effort.  The projects range from the small and simple (e.g., Vienna racks) to the larger and more complex (e.g. additional Bike & Rides).  Metro’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Element of 2012-2017 Capital Improvement Program (1.1 MB, PDF) summarizes the findings by category, and provides an overview of the methodologies we employed to prioritize projects, as we identified a larger need than is currently funded.

And, although the  primary goal of this project is to provide a list of needed bike and pedestrian access projects to be funded through Metro’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP),  the list of needs developed in the inventory also will help better inform our partnerships on transit oriented development (TOD) and other projects near our stations.  Many of the projects improve the links from our station property to that of other property owners and will be instructive as stations undergo development transformations.

Project Highlights

Field teams were out evaluating conditions all over the system.  They highlighted desire lines to stations, bike parking needs, sidewalk & pathway improvements, intersection improvements and other pedestrian and bike needs.  Below are some high level summaries to give you a flavor of what we found out there:

Sidewalks and paths: Our field work identified hundreds of small sidewalk and pathway projects typically on Metro property that will improve access to our stations.  Each project tends to be small, say 200 to 500 feet long, but added together from end to end, they would stretch 10 miles.  Most of these projects are at suburban stations, where our entrances tend not to be directly located on the street network.

Intersection improvements: We looked at the intersections that serve our stations for places where new crosswalks, curb ramps, crossing islands or other improvements were needed and found 700 locations for such improvements.  Many of these are located off of our property on adjoining streets, so we plan to work with the local jurisdictions to address these.

Bike parking: More than 400 potential locations for future bike parking were identified, including the type and expected capacity of parking.  The field survey explored potential locations for additional Bike & Ride parking facilities and covers for bike racks.  Our plan is to build or reserve space for bike parking in the amounts needed to help us reach our mode share goals of 2.1% by 2020 and 3.5% by 2030.  To make these numbers work, we’ll continue to work with our local bike/ped planning partners to improve the on- and off-street connections to our stations so we can fill this bike parking.

Prioritizing Projects

So, 3000+ is a lot of projects.  We’d love to be able to do them all.  However, our funding is currently constrained.  So, what do we do? – we prioritize.  And, how do we do that?  We look to our Agency goals.  At the top of the list is safety & security, delivering quality service and using resources wisely.   We took a look at how our projects stacked up against these goals and created an action plan to complete the projects that best achieved them.  There are more details about the process in the attached document, but let it suffice to say we think we’ll make some real headway in meeting these goals and their accompanying objectives as we improve access to our stations.  In the meantime, if other funding opportunities crop up – say TIGER IV, or V, or XXXII – we’ll be ready to go.

Follow Along with Us

We have already begun work on the projects identified, and planning for more projects is underway.  As we complete projects we’ll continue to post them here.  Please let us know what you think.  Have they helped?  Are there other projects you see out there?

Update January 18, 2012: Maps of all project needs at by individual Metrorail station are available below. Due to the size of the files, we’ve posted them as 8 separate documents in alphabetical order by station name. They should be readable with Adobe Acrobat 6.0 or later:

1. Addison Road-Seat Pleasant to Capitol South (PDF, 2.2 MB)
2. Cheverly to Dunn Loring-Merrifield (PDF, 2.2 MB)
3. Dupont Circle to Gallery Pl-Chinatown (PDF, 2.5 MB)
4. Georgia Ave-Petworth to King Street (PDF, 6.0 MB)
5. Landover to Metro Center (PDF, 1.2 MB)
6. Minnesota Ave to New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U (PDF, 7.0 MB)
7. Pentagon City to Twinbrook (PDF, 3.2 MB)
8. U St/African-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo to Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan (PDF, 2.4 MB)

Back in December, we told you about the Metrorail Bicycle and Pedestrian Access Improvements Study, which recommended ways for enhancing bicycle and pedestrian access in and around Metrorail stations.  Since then, Metro has been developing a capital program aimed at implementing some of these recommendations.  Here is an update on our progress and some discussion on what’s next:

Recent Highlights

In February, Metro’s Board of Directors adopted a goal to increase bike mode share from 0.7% to 2.1% by 2020 and 3.5% by 2030.  Around the same time, we made improvements to the bicycle section on Metro’s website.   This spring, we surveyed use and capacity of bike racks at Metrorail stations and conducted an inventory of unmet bike and pedestrian needs at Metrorail stations.
Read more…