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Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

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Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#311

Post by mikepurvis »

anonymous541908 wrote: post #235
mikepurvis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of sounding like a mindless futurist, I will say that the Transit App has considerably improved my experience of public transit in the US, because it doesn't tell me when the next scheduled ride is, but instead when the next actual bus is, based on realtime data provided by other Transit users onboard the vehicle. The only time in recent memory that this screwed me was in SF trying to get a Muni that I though…

>"how to get to X by " I would recommend Citymapper ( https://citymapper.com/ ) in such a situation.

Appreciate the recc but what I'm trying to get at in the parent comment is that by that time you've picked X without having an overall picture of the transit story, you've often already lost. Basically, current route planning works well when you already know where you're going, but is much more limited when you're exploring the problem space that is where could I be going.

My internal thought process as a tourist is that I have a starting point and end point in a city, and some number of hours in between. I want to do some touristy things in that time, and I don't want to waste it all waiting for transfers. I'm not asking Google Maps to be a tour operator for me, but it also can't even help when I have a specific thing I need of which there are many instances, and I'm like... I don't care which electronics store I go to, I just need an electronics store and would like one that's convenient to where I am by transit. Or like, there are four Apple Stores in this city, which one is fastest to get to by transit?

Another recent example was having a seven hour layover in Tokyo where I had to do the Narita -> Haneda shuffle, and wanted to eat something not-airport-food during that time. I really struggled with getting Google Maps to show me where would be a good point to aim for a stop that was convenient by train to both airports; in the end I asked ChatGPT which suggested Ueno Station and I ate monjayaki which was delicious.

Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#312

Post by angmarsbane »

recursivecaveat wrote: post #176
idontwantthis wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience buses are safe and clean, despite what people say and assume in my city both online and in real life. However they are not on time or predictable and that is a huge problem.

They're no dirtier than subways, which people don't mind. People have a very negative association with buses though. The streetcar experience for example is pretty much identical minus the bumps, but they're perceived much more positively. The timing and routes are indeed brutal though. If I wanted to ride the bus to my work the best route is 20 minutes of walking, 10 minutes of riding on a bus that runs every half h…

What I find interesting is that people have a negative relationship with buses but not with trolley cars, like the old SF trolley cars where you could almost hang off them. If we injected some fun or joy into busses like trolley cars would that improve people's relationships or perspective of them too?

Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#313

Post by eikenberry »

janalsncm wrote: post #118

I believe the central thesis of this article is unsupported, and other assertions are false. One, the article asserts that too many stops is the main cause of low ridership in the US. I didn’t even see a correlation (which would still not prove one causes the other) between number of stops and ridership. This is the central thesis of the article. Two, removing stops will likely not make the remaining stops nicer. Cit…

The problem with buses is always not enough buses. If a bus came every 5 minutes you wouldn't need to spread out the stops as they would naturally spread out with fewer people getting on/off due to more busses. It would make transfers more tolerable, missing a bus wouldn't matter, buses wouldn't get packed around rush-hour, etc. Buses could be a great public transportation system but I don't think any city cares enough about public transportation to properly fund it. It's easier to pass single, large funding bill for some light-rail boondoggle than it is to continuously fund a working solution.

Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#314

Post by kelvinjps10 »

janalsncm wrote: post #118

I believe the central thesis of this article is unsupported, and other assertions are false. One, the article asserts that too many stops is the main cause of low ridership in the US. I didn’t even see a correlation (which would still not prove one causes the other) between number of stops and ridership. This is the central thesis of the article. Two, removing stops will likely not make the remaining stops nicer. Cit…

In other countries there is like the main bus system you take and there is another that take you to the main stops

Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#315

Post by Symbiote »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #229
Symbiote wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen the pull-cord things in Europe, but they seem to be common in the US. To European eyes they seem old fashioned, untidy, and possibly dirty.

Can you clarify what you mean by dirty? Or why that would be any more dirty than anything else in public? European buses frequently have stop buttons, not sure how those would be any cleaner than a plastic covered cord. Also not sure what is old-fashioned about a pull cord compared to a bunch of buttons. Just a different way of activating an electrical circuit.

It's just the impression I get. Buses I've used in the USA are usually older and tattier than here, and the cord is part of that.

Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#316

Post by righthand »

sailingparrot wrote: post #227
janalsncm wrote: post #118

I believe the central thesis of this article is unsupported, and other assertions are false. One, the article asserts that too many stops is the main cause of low ridership in the US. I didn’t even see a correlation (which would still not prove one causes the other) between number of stops and ridership. This is the central thesis of the article. Two, removing stops will likely not make the remaining stops nicer. Cit…

> Two, removing stops will likely not make the remaining stops nicer. Cities aren’t thinking about how to allocate a fixed bus budget. But that’s not at all what the article is about? The thesis is not that having bus stops with music and heating and free drinks will make more people take the bus, it’s that in the U.S., the slowness of buses is making them an unattractive option. And stopping too often is a major rea…

There is weird stigma in the US about buses but not trains (entirely). If you ride the bus you’re assumed poor or pathetic. I was in Colorado for work, they had me stay in Boulder and I would take the bus in the morning to Lafayette. A few people were on the bus in the morning when I got on and by the time we left Boulder city limits I had the bus to myself. Pretty fast, smooth, and cheap. I would then explain to my coworkers how I arrived that day; they were confused why I wouldn’t take an expensive Uber or rent a car and demanded that I accept a ride back to the hotel from them instead. Some even offering to drive 40minutes round trip since they didn’t live in Boulder. They said the “buses weren’t good” with no explainer as to why. I personally think they just wanted to show-off their cars. Just bizarre.

Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#317

Post by angmarsbane »

oblio wrote: post #174
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing unnecessary bus stops is a prerequisite to making busses fast. You can't run a fast bus service if the bus is stopping every single block.

There are 2 big prerequisites for fast bus service : 1. Dedicated bus lanes (speed, predictability). 2. Traffic light priority ( speed, predictability). How many US cities implement even one of those?

Dedicated bus lanes that are physically separated from car traffic specifically, like the BRT system in Mexico City.

Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#318

Post by MaulingMonkey »

Skeptical notes based on my own experiences in Seattle (≈1148ft average per article - which might be considered high enough that the article already considers the mission for fewer bus stops a success?):

Some of the routes I've taken had "express" variants that skipped many stops, yet still stopped at my usual start and exit. I never bothered waiting for them - the savings were marginal, and taking the first bus was typically fastest, express or not. Time variation due to traffic etc. meant you couldn't really plan around which one you wanted to take either.

The buses already skip stops where they don't see anyone waiting for the bus, and nobody pulls the coord to request an exit, and said skipping tends to happen even during the dense rush hour. Additionally, stop time seems to be dominated by passenger load/unload. Clustering at fewer bus stops doesn't significantly change how much time that takes much, it just bunches it together in longer chunks. The routes where this happens a lot also tend to be the routes where they're going to be starting and stopping frequently for traffic lights anyways - often stopping before a light for shorter than the red, or after a light and then catching up to the next red.

What makes a significant difference in bus speed is the route.

If the bus takes a route where a highway is taken - up/down I-5 or I-405, or crossing Lake Washington, there are significant time savings. This isn't "having less/fewer bus stops", this is "having some long distance routes that bypass entire metro areas".

Alternatively, buses that manage to take low density routes - not highways per se, but places where there are still few if any traffic lights, and minimal traffic - tend to manage a lot better speed, compared to routes going through city centers. They may have plenty of bus stops, but again skip many of them due to lower density also resulting in lower passenger numbers, and when they do stop it's for less time than a typical traffic light cycle. A passenger might pull the coord, get up to exit, stand while the bus comes to a stop, hop off, and watch the bus pull off, delaying the bus by what... 10 seconds pessimistically for the stop itself, and another 10 seconds for deacceleration and then acceleration back to the speed limit?

Finally, there's also grade separated light rail, grade seperated bus lanes, and bus tunnels through downtown Seattle, that significantly help mass transit flow smoothly even in rush hour, for when you do have to go through a dense metro area. While these are far from fast or cheap to implement, axing a few bus stops isn't going to make other routes competitive when these are an option.

Re: Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

#320

Post by janalsncm »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #157
janalsncm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the problem was long wait times between buses and unreliable pickup times. That meant you realistically had to add buffer at each end of your trip: in case the bus was early and in case the bus was late. Not only was that more than 20% of my trip time, it was also mental overhead of worrying whether you already missed the bus. The bus might come 2x per hour. Maybe 2:18 and 2:48. But it might come at…

Removing unnecessary bus stops is a prerequisite to making busses fast. You can't run a fast bus service if the bus is stopping every single block.

There already are “express” buses that don’t stop at every stop. They don’t solve the issues I described above. Cutting the time between bus arrivals would be a much more effective solution.
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