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In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

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Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#91

Post by woodruffw »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #84
woodruffw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public bus systems can be good; most cities and municipalities simply don't bother to make it so (because "polite society" drives everywhere). NYC's buses have their own flaws, but they demonstrate many of the necessary conditions for success: dedicated bus lanes, split-service (local and express on the same route, with corresponding bus sizes), and multimodal connections (light rail, streetcars, subways). This is al…

Sounds pretty good, if you overlook people smoking meth or crack, publicly urinating and defecating on the bus, violence, etc. Not unique to buses for sure. Thanks, but I'll keep my "polite society" vehicle and properly planned highways in Orange County.

I have never once seen any of these on a public bus, either in my city or others. What you're describing sounds like a civic problem where you live, not some kind of intrinsic quality of public transportation.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#92

Post by [deleted] »

helloooooooo wrote: post #85
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #78

Yessss!!! There is no best one-size-for-all solution for transportation, we need lots of different methods to select the best methods for the situation. Scooters, [e-]bikes, vans, trolleys, buses, subways, trains, funiculars. (And more that have yet to be invented; personally I hope for rentable e-assist pedi-cabs to take cargo like groceries home in cities without the need for a 2-ton+ vehicle) I think this van serv…

This kind of strategy must be combined with changing the ways cities are built. Your last point about the single mom, this SHOULDNT be a problem. At all. How did people 100 years ago deal with not having access to food without a time consuming trip? They either grew their own, or they lived close enough to a place where they could buy it. The private automobile completely killed the idea of living close to what you n…

[deleted]

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#93

Post by topkai22 »

whatever1 wrote: post #37

Public transit that is not subway on rails suck big time. I have wasted thousands of hours waiting for the bus that either came early, or is late, under 100 degrees of sun and under snowstorms. Add to that the I have walked thousands of miles because the bus stops do not align with my destinations. Since I got a car and live in the suburbs, I pay much lower housing costs, I start exactly 20’ before my punch in time,…

I used to commute by bus rapid transit. It was great. The buses were every 5-10 minutes during peak times, the stations and website gave spot on updates, the air conditioning always worked, the buses were clean, you had internet the whole way and generally everyone could find seating. When there was an accident or road construction the bus... went around it.

When I moved to a subway-oriented city the trains were a bit more frequent and not subject to street traffic, but they were more crowded, the internet/phone service regularly failed; and when things went wrong, they REALLY went wrong, which occurred monthly. A 15 minute ride turning into hot crowded 1h+ mess was not uncommon. And the regular track and station closures created all sorts of chaos that I never dealt with on the bus.

Bus rapid transit is one of the most underrated modes of transportation and light rail easily the most overrated, IMO. It's not bad, but it has captured the public's attention in an unhealthy way.

Of course, now I work from home and walk to about 50% of the places I need to go, even in the deep suburbs.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#94

Post by semi-extrinsic »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #78

Yessss!!! There is no best one-size-for-all solution for transportation, we need lots of different methods to select the best methods for the situation. Scooters, [e-]bikes, vans, trolleys, buses, subways, trains, funiculars. (And more that have yet to be invented; personally I hope for rentable e-assist pedi-cabs to take cargo like groceries home in cities without the need for a 2-ton+ vehicle) I think this van serv…

This is America trying to fix problems that are caused by their poor-to-nonexistent urban planning, FWIW. I've lived in several countries in Europe, and you have to be far out into the countryside before it gets difficult to go grocery shopping with a bike and bike trailer, or even just a backpack and walking.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#95

Post by scarmig »

woodruffw wrote: post #91
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds pretty good, if you overlook people smoking meth or crack, publicly urinating and defecating on the bus, violence, etc. Not unique to buses for sure. Thanks, but I'll keep my "polite society" vehicle and properly planned highways in Orange County.

I have never once seen any of these on a public bus, either in my city or others. What you're describing sounds like a civic problem where you live, not some kind of intrinsic quality of public transportation.

Definitely saw a foilie in use on the bus yesterday evening.

The issue is that my city promotes itself as a good example of public transit and receives accolades from public transit folks, and naive people take it as archetypal.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#96

Post by sdrwefgfvb »

whatever1 wrote: post #37

Public transit that is not subway on rails suck big time. I have wasted thousands of hours waiting for the bus that either came early, or is late, under 100 degrees of sun and under snowstorms. Add to that the I have walked thousands of miles because the bus stops do not align with my destinations. Since I got a car and live in the suburbs, I pay much lower housing costs, I start exactly 20’ before my punch in time,…

That sounds specific to where you live. In London the buses are amazing.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#97

Post by jimkleiber »

vel0city wrote: post #67
bluGill wrote: post #27

Another bad idea that keeps coming back. Real experts have written about it. Start with https://humantransit.org/2019/08/what-is-microtransit-for.ht... and be prepared to read for a while to understand why this is not a good idea despite the hype.

> It’s one tool for providing lifeline access to hard-to-serve areas, where availability, not ridership, is the point. From your own article. Flexible/microtransit/whatever you want to call it can be a good idea, and it can be done right. Its not a replacement for a bus route with any level of decent ridership, its for the areas where there literally aren't enough people interested in riding a bus to make the bus pra…

It makes me think of how I've heard some universities will pave the paths that students had walked, vs creating the paved paths and hoping students walk on them [0]:

> The team at UNC went back into the archive for us and found some plans from the 60s and 70s, when they were really expanding the campus. An archivist discovered one of the written goals for planners was to "build paths where students were going rather than building some sort of grid system."

I believe micro-transit could play a similar role, basically helping the planners even figure out which routes people want to take before they turn them into fully funded routes.

[0]: https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/next/desired-paths-...

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#98

Post by simonebrunozzi »

whatever1 wrote: post #37

Public transit that is not subway on rails suck big time. I have wasted thousands of hours waiting for the bus that either came early, or is late, under 100 degrees of sun and under snowstorms. Add to that the I have walked thousands of miles because the bus stops do not align with my destinations. Since I got a car and live in the suburbs, I pay much lower housing costs, I start exactly 20’ before my punch in time,…

> a 2mile commute can last easily 45 minutes.

at 10mph average, which includes stops, I doubt a 2 mile commute could take 45 minutes. It should take... 12 minutes. Let's call it 15.

> I have walked thousands of miles because the bus stops do not align with my destinations.

It's probably good for your health.

Seriously, now: I get your point. The

> under 100 degrees of sun and under snowstorms

is the worst part, I guess.

I commuted by bus only occasionally in my life, and I've luckily been telecommuting for the past ~15 years or so. But I can relate.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#99

Post by kaetemi »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #84
woodruffw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public bus systems can be good; most cities and municipalities simply don't bother to make it so (because "polite society" drives everywhere). NYC's buses have their own flaws, but they demonstrate many of the necessary conditions for success: dedicated bus lanes, split-service (local and express on the same route, with corresponding bus sizes), and multimodal connections (light rail, streetcars, subways). This is al…

Sounds pretty good, if you overlook people smoking meth or crack, publicly urinating and defecating on the bus, violence, etc. Not unique to buses for sure. Thanks, but I'll keep my "polite society" vehicle and properly planned highways in Orange County.

Sounds like they need to put toilets on the bus. People poop, it's normal.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#100

Post by semi-extrinsic »

bluGill wrote: post #46
chaos_emergent wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are buses that inefficient? Why is the objective to remove them, and by what measure are they inefficient?

Buses require expensive drivers and so they are the most expensive form of transit. A small bus costs almost as much as a big on to run. A train costs more per trip, but a train typically has many more people on. In theory you could run a train for service where a small bus would work, but since nobody does that the fact that a train would cost a lot more for that service is irrelevant.

Buses are far from the most expensive form of transit. High-speed ferryboats or helicopters probably claim that prize. I'm pretty sure airplanes are also more expensive, as are subways if you include the cost to build them in the first place, as well as cars if you include total cost of ownership.
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