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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

#151

Post by woodruffw »

marcosdumay wrote: post #147
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…

> because "polite society" drives everywhere In other words, because they are currently bad.

Chicken and egg; we've (in the US) culturally encoded public transport as inconvenient, inefficient, and for "poor people," all but ensuring that it remains that way. Other parts of the world don't have that stigma, and are better off for it.

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

#152

Post by 1123581321 »

hammock wrote: post #74

Why does no one talk about the private bus companies and the colectivos that are found throughout Central and South America? The system is amazing for anyone who has used it, compared to alternatives.

Perhaps tell us why it’s amazing and the road to where it is today.

I think most can surmise that all forms of transit have been repeatedly tried all over the world. Sharing details and their applicability to other other municipalities are what will advance transit.

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

#153

Post by bluGill »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #100
bluGill wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cost is typically measured per passenger km or some such. Ferryboats can come out cheap if there are enough people on them. I'm not aware of anyone using helicopters for mass transit. Airplanes are very cheap for long distance service.

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

#154

Post by saimiam »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #142
woodruffw wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Vulnerability to traffic" can be alternately expressed as "right of way violated by individual cars." The history of the decline of streetcars in the US is the history of automotive companies convincing the public that cars take priority over all other forms of transportation, consequences for the commons be damned.

The same reason they invented the crime of “jaywalking”.

I’d argue Jaywalking is probably one of biggest reasons traffic in India is so chaotic.

People simply walk on the street and it wrecks traffic flow, reducing all flow to stop and go with accompanying honking.

I, for one, wish jaywalking were treated as a crime on Indian streets.

Maybe then we’d fight to take back the pavements currently used by hawkers and for parking.

Side note: how does one reverse the tragedy of the commons? How do we make people treat roads and public areas like a shared resource?

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

#155

Post by marssaxman »

mcspiff wrote: post #145
marssaxman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bus Rapid Transit calls when you are proposing a subway or a tram, promising great things at a low price. After you agree to settle for a shinier bus line instead of the nice, fast, reliable transit system you originally wanted, the value engineers get to work compromising the design, and you end up with... another bus route. Maybe it has a different color of paint this time.

Both Seattle, WA and Ottawa, ON built out dedicated BRT infrastructure that was later repurposed for light rail. So I wouldn’t say it’s always just a new coat of paint.

The downtown Seattle transit tunnel is an unusual beast; it was built from the start as a hybrid bus and rail system, though the city did not yet have any plan to build a train network. The builders designed the tunnel and its stations for train service and laid tracks anyway, expecting they would eventually be needed.

So... where BRT is a proposal to save money on transit by building cheaper infrastructure - a promise it can always keep, since bus service can be degraded as far as necessary to fit a budget - the DSTT project instead used the promise of future rail service as a motivation to spend more money on transit, building better infrastructure than they actually needed at the time.

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

#156

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

saimiam wrote: post #154
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason they invented the crime of “jaywalking”.

I’d argue Jaywalking is probably one of biggest reasons traffic in India is so chaotic. People simply walk on the street and it wrecks traffic flow, reducing all flow to stop and go with accompanying honking. I, for one, wish jaywalking were treated as a crime on Indian streets. Maybe then we’d fight to take back the pavements currently used by hawkers and for parking. Side note: how does one reverse the tragedy of t…

Some European cities, especially in the Netherlands, found a solution, and I think it works quite well.

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

#157

Post by saimiam »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #156
saimiam wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue Jaywalking is probably one of biggest reasons traffic in India is so chaotic. People simply walk on the street and it wrecks traffic flow, reducing all flow to stop and go with accompanying honking. I, for one, wish jaywalking were treated as a crime on Indian streets. Maybe then we’d fight to take back the pavements currently used by hawkers and for parking. Side note: how does one reverse the tragedy of t…

Some European cities, especially in the Netherlands, found a solution, and I think it works quite well.

You mean bikes? India is usually too hot to cycle.

Here’s another statistic which amazed me when I first heard - apparently 70% of working age Mumbaikars (Mumbai-ites?) walk to work.

That could be another reason why there are so many people on the road all the time.

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

#158

Post by woodruffw »

saimiam wrote: post #157
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some European cities, especially in the Netherlands, found a solution, and I think it works quite well.

You mean bikes? India is usually too hot to cycle. Here’s another statistic which amazed me when I first heard - apparently 70% of working age Mumbaikars (Mumbai-ites?) walk to work. That could be another reason why there are so many people on the road all the time.

I think they probably meant the Netherlands' general urban planning principles. Cycling access is one small part, but there are lots of other things that can be copied: making it impractical to drive in city centers, restricting commercial traffic to highways and off-hours stops, fully separating pedestrian and cycling crossings, etc.

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

#159

Post by hammock »

1123581321 wrote: post #152
hammock wrote: post #74

Why does no one talk about the private bus companies and the colectivos that are found throughout Central and South America? The system is amazing for anyone who has used it, compared to alternatives.

Perhaps tell us why it’s amazing and the road to where it is today. I think most can surmise that all forms of transit have been repeatedly tried all over the world. Sharing details and their applicability to other other municipalities are what will advance transit.

Sure. I’m not really an expert in how they work but if you speak Spanish they’re easy enough to use.

Most cities have private bus companies that run their own routes. Where the bus is going is posted in the front on a piece of paper and you just hop on when you see one. The companies compete with each other so the routes often change, the prices are low and supply always meets demand.

Colectivos are a different phenomenon. In certain meeting places there are combi buses (12 pax vans basically) each one going to a different place usually a suburb or a neighboring town or a landmark outside of town or somewhere within commuting distance. You pay a small fee and the driver will sit there until all the seats are full, and then drive to the destination. Sometimes you sit 5 min before departing, sometimes 30 min. But usually it’s not so bad and it’s far and away the cheapest way to get these longer distances reliably.

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

#160

Post by chrismartin »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #122
chrismartin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a city with a "modern" streetcar. I even rode it to work for a few months. Two reasons why it's not great. 1. It shares busy streets with cars yet has zero ability to maneuver in traffic. If just one car is parked a few inches beyond the edge of the parking lane, the entire streetcar route is blocked. 2. The tracks trap bicycle tires and cause many bicycle crashes. This happened to colleague of mine, fortun…

> If just one car is parked a few inches beyond the edge of the parking lane In places where I have lived and worked that have trams the car always comes off worst because the tram is just so much heavier and more robust. And no one is going to defend the car owner because the tram has right of way. I have even seen buses just touch cars that were illegally parked in bus stops, just a gentle scratch and easily deniab…

In my experience, the streetcar driver is unwilling to make contact. It waits (perhaps for the car to be towed), passengers hop off and continue their journey on foot.
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