Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever • Hacker News Board

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#191

Post by jameshart » Thu, May 10, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

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…

First of all, those objections seem very context-specific. Buses work great already in plenty of cities without those problems. It seems like you’re looking for ‘how can buses be better than BART for my specific commute’, not ‘how can buses be better than driving or ridesharing for everybody who doesn’t have another mass transit option already?’

But to your point about stopping in every block: optimizing a bus route along a major avenue in a block-based US city seems like a similar problem to elevator scheduling in a high-rise building. I wonder if similar models to ‘sky lobbies’ and destination selection could be applied to get people more efficiently to their destination.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#192

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, May 10, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

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…

London is doing a decent job of covering your points:

> You can't make it stop at every block in order to make it take less walking to get to the bus stop.

How big's a block? London often has bus stops a few hundred metres apart even out in the sticks.

> Similarly, you can't have parallel lines a block apart.

London often has multiple routes serving the same area in addition to parallel routes nearby.

> You have to limit the service area so that you can afford to run busses every 5-10 minutes.

My most frequent bus (53) goes from Central London to Plumstead Station (~11 miles) on a 6-12 minute schedule during the day. That's not uncommon for London.

> And you'll want to improve streets so that busses can run down the center and pick up passengers from protected islands

Slowly happening over London - couple of stops near me have had their inset bus stop bays pushed out into the road to block traffic when the bus is stopped.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#193

Post by pc86 » Thu, May 10, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

icc97 wrote: post #179

vilmosi wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I don't think London buses have the same problems as US buses.

Agreed, London buses are in a much better state than American in general. But then you should be comparing them with NY. The main issue of London buses is that they can be slower over long distances. But over shorter distances, you are normally less crammed in, have a view with sunlight rather than tunnels, don't have to go all the way down to the tube and back up.

I wasn't aware London had sunlight.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#194

Post by humanrebar » Thu, May 10, 2018, 11:56 AM UTC

zucked wrote: post #41

Buses have two main problems as I see it. Number one is an image problem - they aren't sexy. Here in the States, we are obsessed with the 'European' way of life. Most major European cities have some form of streetcar system or underground metro, if not both. To us, those are sexy. Nevermind that those cities have buses, too. The bus _could_ be more sexy. BRT with dedicated lanes, priority signaling, clean & modern in…

> Here in the States, we are obsessed with the 'European' way of life.

I promise that's a "blue state" phenomenon. It's just America is exceedingly good at creating cultural bubbles so it seems like a broader American inclination.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#195

Post by KozmoNau7 » Thu, May 10, 2018, 12:00 PM UTC

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…

I live in Copenhagen, and I prefer public transport (primarily buses) because I don't have to worry about finding and paying for a parking space or getting home drunk from a night out. It's also significantly less expensive than owning a car. I spent 4x the cost of my transit card[1] every month in gas alone, never mind maintenance and insurance costs.

I would have to walk significantly further from most parking garages to where I'm going, that from the nearest bus stop.

This talk of banning certain people is nonsense. The whole point of public transport is that it's for everyone. And what you're suggesting with "multi passenger vehicles" already exist in many countries. Here we call the "telebus", and it's working quite well in less densely populated areas. Just you know, without the rampant disregard for workers that Uber and Lyft display.

[1] Unlimited traveling in the city zone and the zone I live in for DKK375/month ($60).

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#196

Post by KozmoNau7 » Thu, May 10, 2018, 12:04 PM UTC

maoistinquisitr wrote: post #47

jdavis703 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Private bus networks with access limited to certain people (employees of companies or groups of companies, universities, etc) seem to work ok; what generally doesn’t seem to work are public buses. This sounds like an argument for restricting transit access to the most privileged members of society. The real reason private buses are successful is because they have a limited amount of stops, it's more like riding a t…

Diesel buses are very energy efficient. Electrified rail is surprisingly inefficient. Building bus rapid transit lanes makes more sense than spinning up a light rail infrastructure almost any way you measure: capital costs, energy, maintenance, flexibility... I also wonder how much sense intercity rail even makes for most trips. If you could set aside a lane for buses only on I-95 Boston to DC (for example), you coul…

>"Diesel buses are very energy efficient. Electrified rail is surprisingly inefficient."

I would really like to see a citation, because I find that extremely hard to believe.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#197

Post by KozmoNau7 » Thu, May 10, 2018, 12:09 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #124

Reason077 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Further, large diesel engines running heavy start-stop duty cycles like buses probably generates unproportionally more particles than just about everything else." The good news: electric busses are coming. City busses will be huge winners from electrification, both for economic and environmental reasons. Greatly reduced fuel and maintenance costs, improved ride quality, less noise and pollution.

Electric cars are coming too.

The problem with cars in cities is not just the pollution, although that is a huge factor.

It is also the fact that they are grossly inefficient space-wise. The majority have only the driver (and maybe, maybe a single passenger) in an otherwise empty car. Congestion would be vastly reduced if we could get most of those people on public transport or bikes instead.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#198

Post by KozmoNau7 » Thu, May 10, 2018, 12:17 PM UTC

kpil wrote: post #98

busterarm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God I would love it Manhattan banned Uber and all non-commercial traffic (exile all civilian traffic to the highways and parking garages alongside them) and upped the number of buses. Clean new yellow cabs too and tougher requirements to drive them (raise the fares, I don't care).

It kind of works for Venice, it's so nice to be in a car free town with a slow but nice public transport (the vaporettos) so I started to dream about if it would be possible to a similar thing with buses, combined with the existing subway and trams, and just exile all cars. The thing is that where I live, the bus network is heavily funded and I'm suspecting that it's probably operating already with too little efficie…

>"Where I live, the focus on buses is driven by a political agenda - basically the environmentalists and the left have defined buses as "good" and cars as "bad""

That's a bit of a strawman argument, but nevertheless there are strong and indisputable benefits to public transport over cars.

One is the pollution. Per passenger, even diesel buses pollute a lot less than cars, and electric buses are being phased in. There are also some buses that run on cleaner-burning natural gas, but those are more of a stopgap measure.

Secondly, congestion is markedly reduced by getting more people on public transport and bikes. People simply take up less space when they're not driving around a mostly empty car.

Regarding the dust, it's not really produced by the buses, but it does get whirled up more by large vehicles. The dust is produced by everything; cars, buses, trucks, bikes, even pedestrians to some extent. Reducing one of those sources, by for instance getting thousands of people to take the bus instead of driving their cars alone, will significantly reduce particle pollution.

>"Unfortunatly, I suspect that research on topics like those is probably heretical and a thought crime in most Universities' departments for environmental studies."

That's nonsense. My girlfriend studies at our national technical university and there is plenty research being done on all environmental factors.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#199

Post by wool_gather » Thu, May 10, 2018, 12:28 PM UTC

Zanni wrote: post #182

wool_gather wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've seen this same argument about buses only taking up the amount of space as a handful of cars, but I think it's based on an incorrect assumption. Namely, it's only true in a static picture. If you look at the dynamic picture, cars and buses in motion, then buses take up a lot more "room." They're slow to accelerate. They stop frequently. They block traffic when they stop. They're huge, and people can't get around…

These all sound like more reasons to put buses and cars into separate paths.

Re: Buses Need Our Love More Than Ever

#200

Post by rdl » Thu, May 10, 2018, 12:30 PM UTC

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #196

maoistinquisitr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diesel buses are very energy efficient. Electrified rail is surprisingly inefficient. Building bus rapid transit lanes makes more sense than spinning up a light rail infrastructure almost any way you measure: capital costs, energy, maintenance, flexibility... I also wonder how much sense intercity rail even makes for most trips. If you could set aside a lane for buses only on I-95 Boston to DC (for example), you coul…

>"Diesel buses are very energy efficient. Electrified rail is surprisingly inefficient." I would really like to see a citation, because I find that extremely hard to believe.

Really depends on ridership. There's also pollution other than just energy inefficiency; old diesel buses with low ridership put a lot of particulates and other pollution into the air, compared to the same number of passengers in the newest petrol (or cleaner diesel, or obviously electric) cars.