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Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

citylab.com

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Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#111

Post by clumsysmurf »

Endama wrote: post #5

I suspect the uncomfortable truth behind a lot of the problems regarding public transit isn't the transit itself, but the passengers. If you had the choice of riding a public bus with a large collection of the public or paying a few bucks and selecting a preferred subset of the ridership (e.g. chariot in SF, uber, lyft, etc.) I think most will choose the non-bus option to feel comfortable during their ride. I'm not s…

Especially if you are a germ-a-phoebe like myself. My friend accidentally sat in a seat soaked in urine by the previous passenger, and had to go back home to change clothes of course. I decided ... nope. And then there is the occasional smoker, so if you have asthma ...

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#112

Post by kcorbitt »

s2g wrote: post #39
SilasX wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can do bus-only lanes though. Ideally, also toll the roads high enough so that the traffic is never backed up. (And, even more ideally, have no toll when when the road is below capacity.)

Force the middle class out of the city, give them shitty transit options, then tax the hell out of them when they decide to drive. Wonderful.

Buses works great as a middle-class transit option in lots of places. When I lived in Barcelona I used the city bus as my primary method of short- to medium-distance transit, as did, I believe, the majority of middle-class residents.

Taking the bus doesn't have to be the terrible experience it has devolved into in many US metro areas.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#113

Post by stefan_ »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #78
reaperducer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They can't have too short a route or too fast an interval, it doesn't work when you have huge variance due to personal cars, lights etc. impeding them. Lots of cities have found ways around this. Express buses with dedicated rights-of-way in Pittsburgh, for example. Or Chicago's 146 Outer Drive Express and J14 Jeffrey Jump routes are also good examples. Too often the biggest problem with buses getting around isn't t…

Which itself is a symptom of infrastructure not meeting capacity. If there were enough parking people wouldn't park illegally.

There will never be enough parking. You might also consider that the 20 m^2 land for a parking spot in prime locations like San Francisco are easily worth >$1000 per month and using that for free parking is part of why your rent is so high.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#114

Post by IshKebab »

rdl wrote: post #29

The challenge here is riding the bus is inferior in convenience and comfort, fundamentally, vs other options. Unless price (likely by eliminating any subsidies for other methods; today even a $0 bus fare would still not be enough) or other features (bypassing traffic) make up for it, why would a rational person take the bus? There are probably places on the margin where buses are more acceptable right now (in a downt…

Public buses do work well in a few cities. London and Manchester. Vancouver seems good. Maybe San Francisco. Ok very few cities.

The problem is you need a critical mass of people using them before anyone puts any real effort into making them not awful.

There are too many cities that have a few rubbish busses, but they aren't on Google Maps, they don't have live departure boards at bus stops, everybody pays in cash, they follow terrible routes that cater to people with no alternative (children and OAPs), they're infrequent and unreliable, no bus lanes, etc. etc.

That said I don't think the future of transport is busses. They're just too slow and shit in general.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#115

Post by DrScump »

tgb wrote: post #45

Here's a possibly dumb proposal: don't support wheelchairs on buses, instead give them a city/state-run uber-for-wheelchairs service. The problem is that supporting wheelchairs adds an inordinate burden to buses and makes sticking to a schedule completely impossible even if there is no traffic. If you want to take the bus 3 miles, a wheelchair user getting on could double your ride time. So would giving the wheelchai…

  instead give them a city/state-run uber-for-wheelchairs service
The San Jose area has that: "Paratransit". It was supposed to serve mobility-impaired people who have difficulty using buses (although all buses have lifts).

As it turned out, they just let anybody ride who has the gall to call them. 90% of their trips amount to a taxpayer-subsidized cab service for the self-important.

The award of the contract was suspect, too, and the subcontractor had to be dumped at great expense... just like the county's ambulance contract with Rural/Metro.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#116

Post by InclinedPlane »

stefan_ wrote: post #11
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #9

The bus system has to make pretty aggressive tradeoffs in order to be useful to commuters. You can't make it stop at every block in order to make it take less walking to get to the bus stop. Similarly, you can't have parallel lines a block apart. You have to limit the service area so that you can afford to run busses every 5-10 minutes. And you'll want to improve streets so that busses can run down the center and pic…

That's exactly the problem, buses can never match that. They can't have too short a route or too fast an interval, it doesn't work when you have huge variance due to personal cars, lights etc. impeding them.

Bus rapid transit. Dedicated, sometimes separated, lanes. High throughput stations. Carefully designed light systems, etc. If you do it right you can get a system that is nearly as good as a subway at a fraction of the cost. A lot of cities in South America, for example, have proven that it works already.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#117

Post by wool_gather »

evo_9 wrote: post #15

Nah how about we all work from home 2 or 3 days a week. People will actually do that and it saves not only the city but whole bunch of other things for the employee and the employer.

Interesting idea, but the law of hidden consequences will surely bite in some form or another. For example, the aggregate of employees' houses is almost certainly less efficient energy-wise than their offices. I feel confident that many neighborhoods' internet service would struggle under the weight of simultaneous videoconferencing from every house.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#118

Post by nordsieck »

wool_gather wrote: post #107
paulgerhardt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citylab's push here is in response to South American cities doing exactly that with great success[1]. Initially developed in Curitaba, follow on initiatives in Bogota have been very popular[2]. Basically, treat the bus like a metro. Give them their own lane. Make sure the platform is level with pickup. And you've got a massively cost down subway system. For an inspiring documentary you should check this[3] video out.…

I recall reading an article a few years ago about Bogotá's transit, where the mayor (I think) said something very interesting. Among other arguments, he made a moral argument about the dedicated lane for transit. Roughly, there's 40 or 50 people on the bus, vs 1-2 per car, and you get, what, 3? 2? cars in the space of a bus. He found it completely unjustified to let the convenience of those 45 people be outweighed by…

> Roughly, there's 40 or 50 people on the bus, vs 1-2 per car, and you get, what, 3? 2? cars in the space of a bus. He found it completely unjustified to let the convenience of those 45 people be outweighed by the convenience of the 4 or 5.

That's only true if the lane is as full of busses as other lanes are full of cars.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#119

Post by jayess »

Transit ridership is down across the country:

https://www.nationaltransitdatabase.org/national-statistics/

I just don't see how you convince people to ride the bus vs rides haring. The bus is virtually always incredibly inconvenient and slow. It really is a last resort mode of transportation. It's no surprise that virtually all transit agencies across the country are seeing dramatic declines in bus usage since 2014.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#120

Post by cozzyd »

I ride the bus every day and honestly, if it's not crowded, it's usually more comfortable than sitting in a car. You don't have to strike up conversation with anyone or anything either. You can usually bust out your laptop too. I sometimes avoid taking the express buses to work because I know I'll get a seat on the local bus, even if it takes an extra 10 mins.

My biggest issue is I systematically underestimate the time it takes me to get to the stop (I use bus trackers and leave with the minimum amount of time required to make it to the stop), so I often end up running or sometimes barely miss the bus.

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