In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by martinflack » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 5:01 AM UTC

stmfreak wrote: post #168

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…

No, public transit systems can only be good on paper. Then they get implemented, the fares are held artificially low for equity reasons, bums move in, polite society abandons the system and it turns into a rolling cesspool. Every time. My private car however has only my germs. No drugs. No needles. No piss. No stinky bums laying across the seats. My music. Air conditioning. Goes where I want, when I want it. The only…

> No, public transit systems can only be good on paper. Then they get implemented, the fares are held artificially low for equity reasons, bums move in, polite society abandons the system and it turns into a rolling cesspool. Every time.

Have you been to London? Paris? Zurich?

I'm trying to understand the basis for your absolutism and pessimism. In those cities, polite society definitely hasn't abandoned the public transit systems; at least not when I had been.

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

#172

Post by yakak » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 7:48 AM UTC

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.

> Thanks, but I'll keep my "polite society" vehicle and properly planned highways in Orange County.

Ah yes, my fondest memories of the US are passing the dead and the dying in their little metal boxes after the long backup of other funeral gazers.

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

#173

Post by sofixa » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

topkai22 wrote: post #93

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 bi…

> Bus rapid transit is one of the most underrated modes of transportation and light rail easily the most overrated

Bus rapid transit is great and vastly cheaper than anything on rails upfront, but even really well designed ones like Curitiba's one has lower capacity (albeit at a higher frequency, in their case). However until electric buses become the norm BRT has a few other massive downsides - pollution, noise, maintenance, emissions.

Overall, each transportation method (bike, e-scooter, BRT, regular buses, trolleybuses, trams, light rail, heavy rail, commuter rail, car) has it's own set of advantages and disadvantages, and they are often location and urban design specific. The best public transit systems are those with a mix that works for them.

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

#174

Post by sofixa » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 9:58 AM UTC

Originami wrote: post #140

helloooooooo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

100 years ago there were no single moms. Unmarried births have increased from 19% in 1950 to 72% in 2010 for Africa-American women: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/12/e... Largely due to the expansion of the welfare state which encourages single motherhood.

> Largely due to the expansion of the welfare state which encourages single motherhood.

That's a wild claim. I highly doubt many women choose to have a kid on their own (with all the physical and mental stress that brings, not to mention time and money spent) only or mainly because they won't starve to death with their kid thanks to some welfare.

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

#175

Post by samarthr1 » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 9:26 AM UTC

stmfreak wrote: post #168

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…

No, public transit systems can only be good on paper. Then they get implemented, the fares are held artificially low for equity reasons, bums move in, polite society abandons the system and it turns into a rolling cesspool. Every time. My private car however has only my germs. No drugs. No needles. No piss. No stinky bums laying across the seats. My music. Air conditioning. Goes where I want, when I want it. The only…

I am a resident of Bengaluru. We have a city bus service that is quite good, has air conditioning on some routes, and is quite cheap (I spend about 50c to go about 25km).

Our government subsidises the operations of BMTC, so it is cheap.

The central government spent a whole lot of money in cleaning up the country, and I am glad to report that a lot of changes did take place.

All things considered, our cost of living is lower, we try to ensure that there are not too many homeless folks, so that is there.

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

#176

Post by kwhitefoot » Fri, Jul 22, 2022, 11:11 PM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #139

kwhitefoot wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The vast majority of people can use private vehicles just fine, Roughly half the population of the UK has nowhere off road to park the car and only enough space in the road to park one or sometimes only one for each two dwellings and you risk someone else taking the space if you move your car. This means that while it might be literally true there is nonetheless a substantial number of people for whom using a priva…

You have it backwards. Half the population of the UK lives in areas where public transport has enabled limiting the space required by traffic. In some other parts of the world, similar situations have been resolved by removing excess houses, making more space for traffic. Also, private vehicles include bikes and scooters, which are often more appropriate for urban settings than cars.

People living in terraced houses in the middle of my home town would be rather surprised to hear that I think. Many of the houses in question are at least a hundred years old, they were there and the roads they are on were there long before "public transport enabled limiting the space required by traffic". And anyway the remark is not about traffic, it is about where the cars sit when they are not in traffic. And who is going to decide that your house is an "excess" house? It's not as if it is easy to find a place to live in some parts of the UK.

> In some other parts of the world, similar situations have been resolved by removing excess houses, making more space for traffic.

Such as?