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Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective

worksinprogress.co

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

#171

Post by janalsncm »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #123
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…

Why have bus stops at all, waymo should build a transit bus or large van and run them autonomously. Then they could optimize the fleet as they please. Bus stops were a solution to a lack of connectivity and demand.

Autonomy isn’t necessary, but aside from cost there’s nothing stopping a city from operating a bus more like a shared Uber ride. Having fixed stops at fixed times is fairly primitive. They would be smaller shuttles.

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

#172

Post by bombcar »

realo wrote: post #149
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…

I live in a relatively large Canadian city. Not as a suburbanite, but right in the heart of the city. I have a car, which I use when the weather is not nice, or when it would be inconvenient to take public transportation. Otherwise, on sunny week-ends i often chose public transports. Here they are efficient , clean, secure and most importantly predictable. We have apps for payment and bus status that show us , on the…

Predictability and reliability is as important, perhaps more important than security.

One reason that trains "work" is that the rails on the ground is a promise that a train is coming.

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

#173

Post by cozzyd »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #123
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…

Why have bus stops at all, waymo should build a transit bus or large van and run them autonomously. Then they could optimize the fleet as they please. Bus stops were a solution to a lack of connectivity and demand.

Wait until you're waiting in the wind and snow with a toddler, and you'll prefer a bus shelter.

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

#174

Post by oblio »

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 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?

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

#175

Post by rickydroll »

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…

I know I'm a corner case on this, but there are two cases where our car life significantly improves your quality of life.

1: you live with ADHD: "Oh my God, I need to leave five minutes ago" scheduling method. To anyone who says, "You just need to be more disciplined about time," I refer you to the part about ADHD.

2: If your quality of life depends on activities that are more wilderness/far away from cities, such as hiking, astronomy, camping, bird watching, and don't include (actively exclude?) urban experiences that require amenities.

3: Friends and family live 30 minutes to 6 hours away.

I have no problem with improving bus service for people and getting them out of cars because that means there'll be more room for me to go to where I want to go when I want to go.

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

#176

Post by recursivecaveat »

idontwantthis wrote: post #135
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 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 hour, then another 20 minutes of walking. This is definitely not a rural area or anything either.

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

#177

Post by spenczar5 »

"Cheap" how? I have a friend who works on Seattle's bus planning. Removing a stop is a _lot_ of political work. When an elderly person depends on that bus stop being within a block so they can get to their doctor, and you're proposing to move it six blocks further away, that's essentially a _political_ cost.

It might better in the system throughput, and those benefits may even outweigh the misery put on that one person. But in the US, we largely sort that out by using cool-down times, hearings, and "community input."

Net result, according to my friend at least, is that bus stops feel _very_ sticky and hard to change.

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

#178

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

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…

I think you missed the core arguments of the article. Fewer stops mean faster bus and faster bus helps with regularity and wait time. It also means you can do more loops with the same number of buses and drivers so it reduces cost per trip.

It's not marginal at all. Stops rebalancing actually address your core issues. Less stops also mean more money per stop to provide nice shelters which solves your second issue.

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

#179

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

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?

Not nearly enough

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

#180

Post by bogedy »

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…

always seemed obvious to me that the reason for the disparity is that european buses are a way to get around dense cities and US buses are a welfare program for residents of sparser cities who can't afford cars. the bus lines don't actually go anywhere people care about, they're their just to provide the bare minimum ability to go somewhere.

the top comment is right and this article is a good exmaple of what transit people do. they get so excited about transit and how awesome it is that they forget about some of the more fundamental issues.

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