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Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

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Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#131

Post by reaperducer »

munk-a wrote: post #77
reaperducer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it's not even the passengers... it's the driver. Riding the 152 in Chicago one snowy night (about seven years ago), the bus suddenly stopped and the driver made everyone get off into the snow because it was the end of his shift. When we asked when the next bus was, he said there wouldn't be once because he was the last bus of the night. I ended up walking about a mile to the nearest Blue Line subway station…

That story sounds like it goes against intended policy, similar to complaining about a Barista throwing your coffee in your face isn't a really good argument against a chain of coffee shops. If you reported the incident, do you know if the driver was reprimanded?

I didn't report it. It was very late at night and I just wanted to get home. Plus, I've only had one interaction with authority in Chicago[0], and after that I learned to keep my head down and stay off the radar.

[0]: On the day I moved to Chicago, I called 911 to report a drug deal in the alley behind my building. The cops arrived an hour later and the officer told me that I was wasting their time. I'll never forget him saying, "We don't do that in the big city."

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#132

Post by reaperducer »

cozzyd wrote: post #128
reaperducer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it's not even the passengers... it's the driver. Riding the 152 in Chicago one snowy night (about seven years ago), the bus suddenly stopped and the driver made everyone get off into the snow because it was the end of his shift. When we asked when the next bus was, he said there wouldn't be once because he was the last bus of the night. I ended up walking about a mile to the nearest Blue Line subway station…

If you were on an Eastbound 152, the schedule clearly indicates that the last Eastbound 152's of the night only go to Central, so while perhaps the driver may not have communicated it properly, they were right. If it was a westbound 152 then that's ridiculous and you should have called CTA. Not much use to you now but the the parallel 80 (Irving Park) and 77 (Belmont) are each half a mile away (in opposite directions…

It was eastbound. We got chucked out in front of Lane Tech and WGN. I was new to the city at the time and didn't know about the 80. I ended up taking that occasionally in the future (going the opposite direction) when there was bad weather because taking the 146(?) up Lake Shore Drive and connecting to the 80 was better than connecting to the 152 because I could wait in Starbucks for the 80, but the 152 connecting stop is exposed to the winter winds off the lake.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#133

Post by cozzyd »

reaperducer wrote: post #132
cozzyd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were on an Eastbound 152, the schedule clearly indicates that the last Eastbound 152's of the night only go to Central, so while perhaps the driver may not have communicated it properly, they were right. If it was a westbound 152 then that's ridiculous and you should have called CTA. Not much use to you now but the the parallel 80 (Irving Park) and 77 (Belmont) are each half a mile away (in opposite directions…

It was eastbound. We got chucked out in front of Lane Tech and WGN. I was new to the city at the time and didn't know about the 80. I ended up taking that occasionally in the future (going the opposite direction) when there was bad weather because taking the 146(?) up Lake Shore Drive and connecting to the 80 was better than connecting to the 152 because I could wait in Starbucks for the 80, but the 152 connecting st…

Yeah one disadvantage of buses is that you really have to know the system pretty well... by the time you ask Google Maps how you should get home it might be too late.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#134

Post by ebullientocelot »

dmitrygr wrote: post #22

I keep hearing a lot of anti-car sentiment on HN, and a lot of claims that cities with good public transit are wonderful. Amsterdam is often cited as an example. So I decided to find out for myself. I went there. It convinced me more than ever that I will always prefer car/uber/lyft to public transit. Wait, hear me out. Yes, buses and bikes were wonderful. But, they do not stop at my door, and they do not stop at whe…

I like my car. A lot. Stereo is great, seats are comfortable, goes where I want it to go when I want it to. Sure it's expensive, I have 220$ monthly parking bill (Pittsburgh, I know it's worse elsewhere), insurance, traffic, whatever--in a way I think my car is like a child's safety blanket. I just don't feel right without it handy.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#135

Post by nordsieck »

cozzyd wrote: post #130
nordsieck wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, but if the bus is faster, more people will take the bus and so you will add more buses. In places like Quito with dedicated busways, there are buses basically non-stop. Buses can follow one another better than trains too because you don't have the signal system reducing headways.

For the record I'm a huge fan of busses and highly skeptical of trains. I'm sure that there are some places in the world where the Mayor's statement is true. Those places are rare.

In a downtown corridor during rush hour? Sure - I could totally see a lane full of just busses. However, most dedicated bus lanes won't be that busy. This isn't to say that there aren't good reasons for dedicated lanes - just that the reason the Mayor gave was at best hyperbolic and at worst maliciously deceptive.

> more people will take the bus and so you will add more buses.

In a well run business that would be true.

In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. This means that the more busses that are run, the more money the system loses (not strictly true, but roughly).

What you say should make sense, but it doesn't for important institutional reasons.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#136

Post by TheCoelacanth »

cgy1 wrote: post #74

I find it much more intimidating to take buses versus rail. For example, unlike most rail systems, buses will skip stops unless a passenger requests that the bus make a stop. Well, when I'm riding the bus for the first time or at night, it's quite easy to miss when I should request a stop. Meanwhile, if I take a train, I know the stations will stop at every station in its route and their are prominent signs at each s…

I found Transit[1] extremely helpful for this. It lets you search for bus routes that will take you where you want to go, provides a walking route to the bus stop and tells you when you need to leave to get there on time, provides real-time arrival information and tells you how many stops are left before your destination and when to get off.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(app)

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#137

Post by panda888888 »

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…

I think there's a tipping point where this is no longer the case. I live in Seattle, a great city for bus rides, and at least at rush hour, it's 95% office commuters going to/from work. No problems if you travel at rush hour.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#138

Post by bunderbunder »

j2kun wrote: post #18
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…

Plenty of cities (Chicago, in my experience) have parallel lines 1-2 blocks apart. For the record, I take the transbay bus to work most days, and it's a similar deal (plus I can almost always get a seat). Slightly less convenient with the schedule (every 10 minutes instead of 5)

It sounds like you're talking about downtown Chicago. There are a lot of bus lines that converge in that area, along with every single train except the yellow line, because the city is hyper-centralized so that's where everyone's commuting to.

In most the city, buses just run along the major thoroughfares, which typically means they are spaced 4-ish city blocks apart.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#139

Post by systoll »

dbasedweeb wrote: post #51
jstanley wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your bike doesn't stop at your door or doesn't go where you want to go, you're using it wrong. I bought an electric bicycle recently after years of being a staunch car supporter. I am now convinced that the electric bicycle is the perfect mode of personal transport for non-rural areas. It takes up hardly any room, it doesn't make much noise, it doesn't go fast enough to be a danger to anyone, it doesn't get stuck…

It's personal transport of the future. Everyone should get one. In warm and dry parts of the world with good roads. You try biking in Toronto in the winter! Some people also understand that roads are dangerous, and being hit by a car when you’re on a bike is very bad news.

> Some people also understand that roads are dangerous, and being hit by a car when you’re on a bike is very bad news.

Some people understand that cars are dangerous, and would see the risk of killing people with your car as a downside to using a car.

The parent specifically mentioned 'it doesn't go fast enough to be a danger to anyone' as an advantage for the bike.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#140

Post by subpixel »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #36
stefan_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.…

The transmillenio is a mess: https://thebogotapost.com/2017/04/06/transmilenio-transport-...
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