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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

#381

Post by moralestapia »

rsynnott wrote: post #264
moralestapia wrote: post #2

Very detailed analysis. I agree with the claim that "fewer stops, faster service" on the surface. However we'd have to see if that's truly the case, as cities have red lights and traffic, so the bus stops anyway ... I believe, taking this into account, the difference might not be that significant.

There are simulators for this, and of course there's data from places that have actually done it. In Dublin we have a bit of a mixture of newish bus routes which largely have a sensible number of stops, and ancient routes (the oldest evolved out of tram routes laid out in the 1870s), which tend to have a stupidly high number of stops, because once you put one in it's very contentious to remove it. The super-regular s…

In my city there are, so called, express buses, but I haven't seen that anywhere else.

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

#383

Post by crazygringo »

savanaly wrote: post #287
crazygringo wrote: post #286

What a strange article. It only mentions in passing the success of express buses , which stop at e.g. one-tenth the stops. Like the SBS buses in New York City. On busy routes, these are already the main solution, because they stop at the main transit intersections where most people need to transfer. Reducing the number of stops for local buses doesn't seem like it will make much difference, for the simple fact that b…

"Bus stop reduction" makes it sound like it will make it harder to take the bus. But the point of the article is that's compensated by the buses being more useful because they get where they're going more quickly. So "balancing" seems apt to me.

But it does make it harder to take the bus. That's the point.

And as I pointed out, there are two proven ways of making buses actually much faster. This seems exceedingly unlikely to help, since buses already often skip stops.

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

#384

Post by Retric »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #359
Retric wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm personally able to walk a block or two further “A block or 2” each way at the start and destination is a significant difference (4-8 blocks) for most elderly people. Busses fill two different roles, as primary means of transportation and arguably more importantly as a backup means of transportation. They can serve a vital role for cities without the kind of investment it would take to make most typical HN reade…

I think this is a US-centric perspective. In the US, buses (and public transport in general), are thought of as social programmes. Anyone can use them, but they are really for people who can't drive or are too poor to own a car. The rider makeup then looks like that. The elderly and the poor, sadly. Services run at a huge loss and are dependent on massive and unpopular government subsidies. Quality of service is bad.…

Busses get tiny subsides in the US.

It’s a large percentage of total bus revenue by design, and a significant expense for some local governments. But the number only look large because of how we split the vast majority of government spending into federal and state budgets with local budgets being relatively anemic by comparison.

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

#385

Post by resonantjacket5 »

I’m a bit confused why so many people are commenting as if bus stop balancing doesn’t work or that transit riders won’t accept it. From 2010s and 2020s plenty of transit agencies across America have been implementing bus stop rebalancing in Los Angeles, San Francisco, dc, Seattle etc and generally it’s been successful with speeding up buses.

Of course there most of the low hanging fruit with notorious like bus stops every 200/300feet are a lot fewer and the remaining ones to rebalance are a lot harder

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

#386

Post by Retric »

xp84 wrote: post #361
Retric wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm personally able to walk a block or two further “A block or 2” each way at the start and destination is a significant difference (4-8 blocks) for most elderly people. Busses fill two different roles, as primary means of transportation and arguably more importantly as a backup means of transportation. They can serve a vital role for cities without the kind of investment it would take to make most typical HN reade…

Having lived in SF I've seen many cycles where the SFMTA says "We'd like to make (insert any changes)..." and the 'advocates' immediately come out of the woodwork to make the argument you're making, about how walking another block or two is impossible for some constituents. Fundamentally as another commenter here said, a bus "can't wear two hats." In most large US cities, the bus, and sometimes the subway (if one exi…

The US already has a completely separate model where we send yellow busses to pick up and drop off school kids which involve buses going to a large fraction of US homes 4 times a day 180 days a year for minimal expenses that’s free at the point of use.

Nothing stops you have adding express bus routes, thus allowing busses to work for yet another population. Further, bus networks are inherently cheap as long as they see reasonable ridership numbers it’s more economically efficient than cars.

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

#387

Post by singron »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #367
x0x0 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also too, packed with junkies who, at best, behave erratically and at worse assault randoms. Taking the bus around sf makes it immediately clear why (not all, but most) people who have options choose them.

Honestly, there aren't that many crazy people on the SF Muni/busses. The detractor for taking these services is speed and frequency. Even factoring in parking, traffic, and bus lanes, it's much faster to drive within SF than take the bus. Stopping every 2 blocks and missing every other green light kills throughput. My local bus stop to connect to BART supposedly had service every 20 mins, but often a bus would be out…

The crazy people depend a lot on routes, the part of the city, and the time of day. E.g. the 1 (Sacramento St/California St) is basically fine all the time. The 38 (Geary) and 14 (Mission) are OK during the commute rush since they are packed full of commuters, but outside of those times, you will eventually see all kinds of unsocial behavior (shouting, fights, defecation, etc.), especially closer to civic center/tenderloin/mission.

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

#388

Post by mulmen »

xp84 wrote: post #361
Retric wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm personally able to walk a block or two further “A block or 2” each way at the start and destination is a significant difference (4-8 blocks) for most elderly people. Busses fill two different roles, as primary means of transportation and arguably more importantly as a backup means of transportation. They can serve a vital role for cities without the kind of investment it would take to make most typical HN reade…

Having lived in SF I've seen many cycles where the SFMTA says "We'd like to make (insert any changes)..." and the 'advocates' immediately come out of the woodwork to make the argument you're making, about how walking another block or two is impossible for some constituents. Fundamentally as another commenter here said, a bus "can't wear two hats." In most large US cities, the bus, and sometimes the subway (if one exi…

In Seattle large employers still run their own private busses. This has been going on since long before the pandemic. These busses often tie in to existing transit options. They take you from the office to a neighborhood transit hub.

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

#389

Post by oatmeal1 »

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…

Marginal improvements do matter, because any improvement in usage you get from slightly improved service gets more people invested in making the bigger, more important changes done.

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

#390

Post by mulmen »

njarboe wrote: post #331
JoshTriplett wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not feasible to have a bus stop right in front of every house. And this is why point-to-point transportation is almost always faster and more convenient, if you can afford to use it. (That load-bearing "if" is important, though.)

Self driving cars for hire (Waymo, Tesla, others) can be that point-to-point system that is affordable. We will just have to build tunnels to deal with the increase in traffic. Hopefully the Boring Company or someone else can get tunneling costs way down.

As long as one of those points is a transit stop then yeah, robotaxis make sense. In that model you don’t need the tunnels.

They make even more sense if they are a bit larger and can accommodate multiple people at once. Something like a large van or small bus.

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