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Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

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Re: Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

#31

Post by ahallock »

AWolfAtTheDoor wrote: post #4

It seems like San Francisco is one of the few places where you can have a company completely fail, only to see it revamp its product in a way that it will probably completely fail again. While I can't speak for San Francisco's bus system, everything about this product video screams to me that the solution that is being provided here does not actually solve a problem other than "I am white, privileged, and want to rid…

Your comment is hyperbolic and race baiting. That this new service solves a problem or adds anything of value is up to the consumer. Maybe there are certain amenities that people want and will pay extra for. There's nothing wrong with that. In your world, it sounds like we should only use the bare minimum and everything else is waste and privilege.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

#32

Post by msandford »

jfb wrote: post #13
sgrove wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative comment (that would likely be more useful and spark more interesting conversation) might focus on listing the ways in which you see public transportation in SF as broken, and thoughts on how they might be sustainably (and profitably) fixed.

It's not clear to me that profitability is a useful metric in thinking about how to fix public transportation, unless one is running a transportation startup.

Well it's useful in the sense that if an alternative transportation company as opposed to a city enterprise is able to turn a profit, that would indicate something.

I think it would indicate that the city isn't making enough of an effort on the mass transit side of things.

Overall it would be great if people could start up private bus lines that they believe are underserved which the city would then later take over. If you structure it so that the city paid a royalty to the entity which established the line for a few years, they could probably do a fair amount of good.

Now, how would you prevent this from turning into a tollway that's only going to charge for 20 years but 50 years later it's still for-pay? By making the city pay an external entity rather than keeping the revenue. They'll keep their word -- at least when it comes to paying the bus startup -- very rigidly if it's an outflow. How would you ensure that they then lower the price once the royalty is done? That's harder. I guess at least the scam would be more transparent that way.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

#33

Post by fijal »

Wow. All you guys need in SF is more ticketing systems. There is already what? 3? 4? In places like e.g. Germany, you have one ticketing system being serviced by different companies that all bid for the slots based on their costs (including the official railway service DB) without inconviniencing the customer.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

#34

Post by untog »

krschultz wrote: post #19
untog wrote: post #8

I'll be interested to see how this works from afar in New York. To my mind it's likely to just make for more traffic and not take a sizable number of cars off the road, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Why would you think it would just make more traffic and not take cars off the road? A bus takes up the space of 3-4 cars. If there are more than 4 people on the bus, it is increasing the capacity of the road. Surely there are some negative effects because busses stop & take longer to turn, but I also don't think their business plan involves driving busses with only 4 people on them.

That assumes everyone on the bus was previously driving. This is more likely to take people who currently ride public transit, so you'll have two buses, half as full as the previous one was.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

#35

Post by [deleted] »

AWolfAtTheDoor wrote: post #4

It seems like San Francisco is one of the few places where you can have a company completely fail, only to see it revamp its product in a way that it will probably completely fail again. While I can't speak for San Francisco's bus system, everything about this product video screams to me that the solution that is being provided here does not actually solve a problem other than "I am white, privileged, and want to rid…

[deleted]

Re: Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

#36

Post by lclarkmichalek »

cryptoz wrote: post #24
AWolfAtTheDoor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What aspect of a fancy bus that drives in normal traffic like any other bus (or car, assuming there are not bus-only lanes) makes it any more capable of getting a person to their destination sooner? Addendum: this is a private company that technically speaking does not have to adhere to any schedule and isn't liable for various things (according to the TOS posted in this tree), so if anything you're more likely to be…

Not sure about SF, but in Toronto, the only problem is scheduling and management. Also, I won't vouch for Leap or make any assumptions about SF's transit, but if it's anything like Toronto, the only thing you need to change is scheduling. Traffic is not a problem. ONLY SCHEDULING. The problems in Toronto result in 30-60 minute waits for a bus or a streetcar in the wintertime (during -20°C weather too). Then you will…

Are you sure that's scheduling and not just the natural grouping up of buses over time? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_bunching

Re: Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

#38

Post by lotsofmangos »

dagw wrote: post #21
lotsofmangos wrote: post #17

Leap buses are not also currently accessible to wheelchair-using or disabled passengers, but Kirchhoff plans to add that in future buses. They redesigned the entire bus interior from the ground up and didn't include this? Surely if you are going to rebuild your fleet before you start, it is insane not to do the work then. Doing it in the future will be far more expensive and is a difficult decision to make, given you…

You make it sound like they completely forgot about disabled passengers, when the reality is almost certainly that they intentionally excluded them because they are a pain to deal with (slow getting on and off, take up more space than an able bodied passenger etc.)

The article presents it as though it was merely an unfortunate oversight. I assumed incompetence rather than maliciousness for my comment, purely out of a sudden fit of politeness.

I completely agree however that assuming pure idiocy rather than malignancy is stretching probability more than slightly in this case, given we are talking about highly experienced profiteers.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

#39

Post by jfb »

cryptoz wrote: post #24
AWolfAtTheDoor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What aspect of a fancy bus that drives in normal traffic like any other bus (or car, assuming there are not bus-only lanes) makes it any more capable of getting a person to their destination sooner? Addendum: this is a private company that technically speaking does not have to adhere to any schedule and isn't liable for various things (according to the TOS posted in this tree), so if anything you're more likely to be…

Not sure about SF, but in Toronto, the only problem is scheduling and management. Also, I won't vouch for Leap or make any assumptions about SF's transit, but if it's anything like Toronto, the only thing you need to change is scheduling. Traffic is not a problem. ONLY SCHEDULING. The problems in Toronto result in 30-60 minute waits for a bus or a streetcar in the wintertime (during -20°C weather too). Then you will…

I live in Toronto, and the problem is certainly one of traffic density, exacerbated by the heavy use of streetcars on Queen/King &c and the brain-dead payment model. The TTC doesn't schedule buses and streetcars to stack up -- it happens because of traffic holdups. That's not to say that they couldn't schedule better, of course; I think that dynamic scheduling, where buses can for instance skip stops if there's another following within 90sec or some other heuristic to catch up further on the route.
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