The Rapid’s Bus Rapid Transit (referred to as BRT), also known as the Silver Line, is completing its $40 million construction through downtown Grand Rapids and south Division. While we constantly hear The Rapid’s talking point that the BRT will potentially save bus riders 40% in reduced travel times, we decided to take a look…
A study released this week by professors from UCLA and the University of Massachusetts shows that low-income households who were given access to a car tended to choose to live in higher-opportunity neighborhoods, and as a result, those households realized greater economic security. One news story on the study summarizes its findings: Families with cars…
Today we noticed that an individual sent a tweet to The Rapid asking “what is your cost per rider to the taxpayer?” In response, The Rapid tweeted back that their cost to transport one passenger was $2.87 in 2010 and that the regular fare is $1.50, therefore the cost to taxpayers is about $1.37 per…
TV News Channel 3 reporter David Bailey dealt a heavy blow to The Rapid this week when he started questioning how The Rapid is spending money. Bailey is the first local reporter to critically analyze how The Rapid operates and the result is stunning. Peter Varga, the head bureaucrat at The Rapid, was interviewed for…
Last year we definitively showed, using The Rapid’s own data, that The Rapid’s buses actually add pollution to the environment, contrary to the statements that The Rapid’s staff makes about the bus system being “green.” In the last year, the data The Rapid reports to the federal government has been updated. How much better is…
We have previously pointed out that The Rapid spent $250,000 of public funds on a single piece of art for its headquarters. We recently noticed, when browsing The Rapid’s annual audits (which we post on our site, The Rapid does not make these available on its site), that The Rapid has in fact spent over…
The one statistic that creates the most controversy when we point it out is the fact that The Rapid’s buses operate, on average, about 90% empty. The Rapid’s supporters (including the Grand Rapids Press uncritically regurgitating misleading data released by The Rapid) do everything they could to “refute” this number, but the fact is that…
On April 22 of 2009, just two weeks before the millage election to raise property taxes to fund the $50 million Silver Line bus in Grand Rapids, the unelected board of the Interurban Transit Partnership (The Rapid) suddenly changed the route. This is only vaguely referenced in the minutes of that meeting. Mr. Varga [CEO…
In today’s Grand Rapids Press, we are told that The Rapid does a better job than the Lansing bus system (CATA) because of two rather oddly-chosen metrics of performance: Specifically, The Rapid’s operating cost per bus hour is $78.22 and $6.15 per bus-mile. While the average among peers is $101.41 per hour and $7.53 per…
In honor of Earth Day 2011, ITP Watch is releasing the results of our analysis of The Rapid’s environmental impact. The Rapid and its supporters have long justified repeated tax increase requests by pointing to The Rapid’s environmental benefit. For example, The Rapid’s web site, under the “The Rapid & the Environment” page, says the…