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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

#151

Post by sho »

mmanfrin wrote: post #27
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…

Like, I take the BART every day into work. It's fantastic. I walk for five to ten minutes to get to the station, a train comes every 5 minutes so I don't have to worry about the train schedule, then I walk another five to ten minutes to get to the office. If the bus experience could match that, it'd take over a lot of commuting. For what it's worth, this is only the case if you live near a station with overlap (or li…

> BART has a carriage shortage so they try to shave off cars from longer routes

This is just crazy. Compared to the cost of new track some additional rolling stock should be almost insignificant. You couldn't come up with a better example of penny wise, pound foolish...

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#152

Post by dasil003 »

hug wrote: post #129
mmanfrin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, I take the BART every day into work. It's fantastic. I walk for five to ten minutes to get to the station, a train comes every 5 minutes so I don't have to worry about the train schedule, then I walk another five to ten minutes to get to the office. If the bus experience could match that, it'd take over a lot of commuting. For what it's worth, this is only the case if you live near a station with overlap (or li…

This is less a "problem with trains" than it is a "problem with rail in the United States", or maybe just with SF. Melbourne Metro, for example, has roughly the same amount of weekday riders as BART, 415,000 vs 446,000 respectively, with nearly 5 times(!) the amount of track, at 540mi vs 112mi. This is, of course, excluding light rail services -- another 150mi of track in Melbourne with some 1,700 stops, and non-Metr…

The problem with BART is that it runs 4 out of 5 lines on the same single stretch of track through SF. So even with the most modern signaling, there will still be 1/4th the maximum train frequency after the individual lines split. The Pittsburg-Bay Point line counteracts this during rush hour with trains that come just into the city and then turn around, but it's still only an average of ~7 mins between trains. Compare with the Victoria line in London which I believe runs 36 trains an hour!

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#153

Post by Camillo »

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.…

If you're going to do all that, I'd honestly rather go the extra mile and build a tram mile. Trams are superior to buses in terms of comfort.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#154

Post by chipotle_coyote »

sho wrote: post #151
mmanfrin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, I take the BART every day into work. It's fantastic. I walk for five to ten minutes to get to the station, a train comes every 5 minutes so I don't have to worry about the train schedule, then I walk another five to ten minutes to get to the office. If the bus experience could match that, it'd take over a lot of commuting. For what it's worth, this is only the case if you live near a station with overlap (or li…

> BART has a carriage shortage so they try to shave off cars from longer routes This is just crazy. Compared to the cost of new track some additional rolling stock should be almost insignificant. You couldn't come up with a better example of penny wise, pound foolish...

BART is in the process of replacing all their cars now, as nearly all of the ones they're running are long past their expected end of service dates.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#155

Post by apendleton »

nordsieck wrote: post #135
cozzyd wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reas…

> 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).

So what? Transportation infrastructure for single-passenger vehicles is also subsidized in the US (the gas tax doesn't come anywhere near paying for roads, for instance), and it gets more expensive with more users too (in the form of increased wear on roads requiring more maintenance, or the need to expand roads to accommodate increasing use). But we do it anyway, because transportation infrastructure is a public good. I've never understood the inclination that public transit should stand alone among transportation modes and operate without subsidy.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#156

Post by Jommi »

kalleboo wrote: post #125
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.…

They did this where I lived in Sweden too. The city wanted a tram line, but couldn't afford it. So they built a bus line. Bought massive triple bendy busses. Even used tram signals at the stoplights. Worked great.

Same in Finland(Helsinki) as well. Its called the joker line, huge busses that go every 8-10 mins. Now theyre actually trying to replace it with a fast tram.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#157

Post by gregmac »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #116
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.

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.

I went to school in Ottawa, where they have a 'transitway' [1] that is basically a series of bus-only highways, though there are some parts that are only dedicated lanes.

I wasn't a daily user but it was decent enough - along the route I used to use most often a bus came every 3 minutes during peak times.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitway_(Ottawa)

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#158

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#159

Post by adrianN »

hug wrote: post #129
mmanfrin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, I take the BART every day into work. It's fantastic. I walk for five to ten minutes to get to the station, a train comes every 5 minutes so I don't have to worry about the train schedule, then I walk another five to ten minutes to get to the office. If the bus experience could match that, it'd take over a lot of commuting. For what it's worth, this is only the case if you live near a station with overlap (or li…

This is less a "problem with trains" than it is a "problem with rail in the United States", or maybe just with SF. Melbourne Metro, for example, has roughly the same amount of weekday riders as BART, 415,000 vs 446,000 respectively, with nearly 5 times(!) the amount of track, at 540mi vs 112mi. This is, of course, excluding light rail services -- another 150mi of track in Melbourne with some 1,700 stops, and non-Metr…

Buses in Berlin are okay, but trains are usually twice as fast. Buses serve the last mile between the train station and your destination.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#160

Post by megablast »

komali2 wrote: post #7

Me: I would ride the bus if it was available more than once every 30 minutes. At this point it's faster for me to Uber. City councilmember: why should we allocate even more funds to the busses? Nobody's riding them!

It will always be faster to uber, what a ridiculous thing to say.
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