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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

#151

Post by nickorlow »

JBorrow wrote: post #54

At some level this is driven by street design. The reason bus stops are so close in Philadelphia is because they stop every block, and there's a stop sign every block. The blocks are very small. I don't know that 'removing' these as bus-stops would actually change anything. I think a larger question is whether route changes should occur. There was a large effort in Philly called the 'Bus Revolution' [1] that aimed to…

Removing the stops helps a lot. As an example on SEPTA, the 124/125 [1][2] to Wissahickon T.C. takes 10+ minutes longer than taking the 27 [3] when starting at J.F.K. & 15th.

(for context: the 124/5 operate locally west through center city before getting on the highway while the 27 only makes 1-2 more stops in center city before getting on the highway)

Making these extra stops causes the bus to 'miss' the light cycle at almost every stop.

[1] https://www.septa.org/schedules/124?startStop=17842&endStop=...

[2] https://www.septa.org/schedules/125?startStop=17842&endStop=...

[3] https://www.septa.org/schedules/27?startStop=17842&endStop=3...

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

#152

Post by janalsncm »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #90
stetrain wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two groups of people that you can optimize for. One is the group of people who already rides the bus. In most US cities this is a small group of people who have no real alternative. The other is the group of people who might ride the bus if it were convenient. Not just in terms of accessibility to a stop, but also accounting for the journey time. If someone tries riding the bus and finds that a 20 minute dr…

There are very, very few people in America who - when given a choice between driving and taking public transit - will take public transit, no matter how convenient the public transit is. And in this example, how many stops would you have to cut to turn an hour-long bus ride into a 20 minute one, to compete with the car? You're effectively cutting it down to two stops - where you board, and where you disembark. That's…

Counterpoint: many people are driving cars they cannot afford and car loan delinquencies are at record highs. People would take public transit if it were an option.

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

#153

Post by kaitai »

The article says, "This pattern, of only those without good alternative options riding the bus, is especially pronounced in the US. But close stop spacing creates problems." But it does not address the point. The bus in the US is aimed at poor, elderly, and disabled people. Elderly and disabled people want stops closer to their homes, especially given the low overall density of bus lines.

The US has a lot of competing problems, and underinvestment in poor people and health support is one that collides with public transit.

One thing I've realized in the US is that because of our inequality, people strive hard to earn and buy their way out of misery in a way that is not necessary in large parts of Europe. So in the US we work very hard to earn money to pay for big cars to drive through the suburbs so that we don't have to see homeless people sleeping on the bus when it's cold, and once we've invested in our suburban cars & houses we have personal assets we need to defend (at the expense of communal infrastructure in some cases).

I take the bus regularly in my city, often with a child. janalsncm has legit criticisms of many US public bus systems. I take the bus with the kid so I can avoid driving/parking and go to a few spots that are convenient unencumbered by a vehicle. We tend to take a rapid line that has fewer stops -- and the speed makes it convenient. So the article isn't all wrong. The rapid transit line does earn my business. But at the same time, we don't take the bus everywhere because it is not convenient for long trips with transfers, and I likely have a higher threshold for explaining, "Honey don't stare at that guy with the foil and the lighter" than most well-off US parents. (In Europe we take transit all over.)

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

#154

Post by wat10000 »

avazhi wrote: post #99

People don’t use public transport for many reasons other than this, personal safety and comfort being two big ones that no amount of optimisation can fix. I’d rather get to work half as quickly if it means I don’t have to listen to a druggie issue schizophrenic violent threats towards random women throughout my journey (occurred just last week on a tram in Melbourne). Other cities I’ve been to and used public transpo…

Increased ridership can help a lot with that. People typically behave better when there's a large audience.

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

#155

Post by wat10000 »

aiauthoritydev wrote: post #5

United states does not need buses ! What might benefit is smaller vans that do more intelligent routing than fixed bus routes. Unfortunately city admins run bus services as jobs programs for adults and not for the convenience of the people. Buses get funded by taxes and not fare collection and as a result even private competition can not emerge.

City buses aren't profitable. There's no fare that would cover costs. Your choices aren't to have a subsidized government bus service or have competitive private bus services, your choices are to have a subsidized government bus service or have no bus service.

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

#156

Post by kazinator »

A really stupid thing in the world of bus stops is the bus stop that is placed immediately before an intersection with a traffic light. The light is green, but someone wants to get on or off, so the bus has to stop at that stop. Then just as it is about to pull out, the light goes yellow.

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

#157

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

janalsncm wrote: post #127
stetrain wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two groups of people that you can optimize for. One is the group of people who already rides the bus. In most US cities this is a small group of people who have no real alternative. The other is the group of people who might ride the bus if it were convenient. Not just in terms of accessibility to a stop, but also accounting for the journey time. If someone tries riding the bus and finds that a 20 minute dr…

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.

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

#158

Post by janalsncm »

epolanski wrote: post #128
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…

As an European I don't mind buses at all. I neither feel unsafe nor I find them dirty. A single bus carries on average 20 times the people cars occupying the same space would (as you rarely get more than 1 person per car in peak hours). I'd rather take buses than the car in any city. Cars make cities dangerous, noisy, polluted, congestions make people nervous behind the wheel, fights are far from uncommon. Finding pa…

Maybe it goes without saying, but the reason you don’t mind the bus in Europe is not because you are European but because the European buses are nicer.

The things you say about noise and pollution are also true in the US, and American drivers are acutely aware of them. But the alternative is not a European bus, so people drive.

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

#160

Post by Symbiote »

ipdashc wrote: post #122
krzyk wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in SF, my European mind was astonished why bus stops are so often (and why there is a cable to pull, but that's a different thing). Considering that the area was less populated than my city. And we also have speedbuses that stop every second or third bus stop. It was unreal. In my city bus stops have 1km between them (sometimes it is 700m sometimes 1.3km) so about 3200 feet. It is about 15min walk between…

> and why there is a cable to pull, but that's a different thing Huh... How is it set up where you live? I've ridden buses in Europe and I remember them having cables, or at least buttons.

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.

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