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Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

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Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#41

Post by cletus »

ghaff wrote: post #34
cletus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to mention NYC too but in terms of the Subway, which is related. The "local" stops on a lot of Subway lines really shouldn't be there. I'm looking at you 18th Street, 28th Street, 50th Street and so on. 18th Street in particular is 4 blocks away (where 1 block = In the other direction 23rd Street is 5 blocks away. The Subway spends billions of dollars a year on power. Most of that power (for trains) is sp…

I'm guessing you have no physical issues and don't think twice about walking 10 blocks. I (usually) don't either but that doesn't describe everyone and am able to just grab a cab or a Lyft if not.

Take the 18th Street stop. You actually can't get in or out of this station without using stairs AFAIK. There are other stations like this. Are you really using these stations if you're unable to walk a few blocks?

It's expensive in time and money to stop and start the trains. Also you need to maintain a station and employ people there.

If you want to provide for those with physical difficulties where walking 4 blocks is an issue, you support those people directly by, say, paying for their Ubers/cabs.

Are you American by any chance? I find Americans are more prone to this particular issue of not being able to make exceptions where necessary. People can't walk 4 blocks? Make everyone wait! Have more stops! Build more stations!

I mean this is exactly why Prop 13 in California was and is ridiculous. If we're really concerned about old people being forced out of their homes by rising property tax bills, why not just give them in particular a subsidized rate? Why do houses in Malibu and Beverly Hills need caps on property taxes because of some retired person in Bakersfield?

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#42

Post by ghaff »

LargeWu wrote: post #35
ghaff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you have no physical issues and don't think twice about walking 10 blocks. I (usually) don't either but that doesn't describe everyone and am able to just grab a cab or a Lyft if not.

There are always going to be competing interests and tradeoffs. Stopping the train is expensive, in terms of time. If one wants to be most accommodating for those with physical issues, then the cost of that is slower or less frequent trains.

Of course. But it's easy for many to unthinkingly look at public transit through the lens of efficiency for able-bodied riders and ignore those who are long-term or temporarily disabled in some manner.

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#43

Post by zimpenfish »

dreen wrote: post #13

London also has bus route 389 - the entire route is I think 1.5 miles, with something like a dozen stops

My rough calculations give it 15 stops for 2420m in direction 1 (avg 160m), and 2235m in direction 2 (avg 148m).

Alas, it appears that route 631 has it beat - 1440m in direction 1 (avg 130m), 1751m in direction 2 (avg 134m)

(although, peculiarly, the information in TfL's bus route download doesn't match what you get from the web site when you look up 631.)

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#44

Post by lubomir »

jonsen wrote: post #32
eequah9L wrote: post #29

Prague Per [0] (2001; in Czech), average distance between subway stations is 1038m, tram stops 500m and bus stops 698m. A related metric is walking distance from home to public transportation stop. Per [1] (2011; in Czech), most of people in the city need to walk less than 5 minutes to reach a stop. (There's a table with a breakdown by walking time and city part in chapter 7.) The same work cites average walking spee…

walking speed as 88.69 m/s cm/s ?

It's meters per minute.

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#45

Post by a-saleh »

Depends on the line, heavily.

There are some, especially in the center where distances around 300m are common, in the outskirt, you could ride for a kilometer or more between stops.

I found a gis data for Prague public transport, so oyu might be able to query that: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=http://mpp...

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#46

Post by superqwert »

zimpenfish wrote: post #43
dreen wrote: post #13

London also has bus route 389 - the entire route is I think 1.5 miles, with something like a dozen stops

My rough calculations give it 15 stops for 2420m in direction 1 (avg 160m), and 2235m in direction 2 (avg 148m). Alas, it appears that route 631 has it beat - 1440m in direction 1 (avg 130m), 1751m in direction 2 (avg 134m) (although, peculiarly, the information in TfL's bus route download doesn't match what you get from the web site when you look up 631.)

Using TfL open API

-----------------------------

389 inbound:

min: 24.14811016418819

lq: 63.13737031546762

med: 117.45915732519208

avg: 159.1719773263877

uq: 188.0955557392336

max: 845.60445291754

389 outbound:

min: 27.01945592261999

lq: 41.34298814984834

med: 117.00503319935248

avg: 146.97253048021068

uq: 167.28703169991314

max: 809.8962084249061

631 inbound:

min: 7.0860750640801

lq: 27.685480182275676

med: 104.91095883281287

avg: 128.12981380619047

uq: 218.11267557818746

max: 363.41330216008436

631 outbound:

min: 7.636546343123111

lq: 45.34651661429212

med: 105.97332735159804

avg: 135.50969372368004

uq: 203.01187569586028

max: 363.41330216008436

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#48

Post by Wowfunhappy »

cletus wrote: post #31
g_sch wrote: post #14

In NYC, it depends heavily on the bus line. Some stop nearly every block (which can be as little as every 100m) whereas some have more widely-spaced stops. The buses here are notorious for running very slowly (and thus behind schedule), and one of the proposals to speed some some slow buses is to eliminate stops on lines where they are densely clustered. It's become a subject of considerable debate, as residents and…

I was going to mention NYC too but in terms of the Subway, which is related. The "local" stops on a lot of Subway lines really shouldn't be there. I'm looking at you 18th Street, 28th Street, 50th Street and so on. 18th Street in particular is 4 blocks away (where 1 block = In the other direction 23rd Street is 5 blocks away. The Subway spends billions of dollars a year on power. Most of that power (for trains) is sp…

I really like the frequent subway stops. It makes it easy to hop and and off wherever you are. If they were every block like the busses, I would say that's too much, but they're not, they're every 4-5 blocks, and only in Manhattan.

If you took out half the local stops, I'm not sure what the purpose of the express line would be. Of course the express trains would still be marginally faster, but even as is, I was just having a debate with a coworker this morning about whether transferring from local → express trains actually makes sense. (I absolutely think it does, but she made some good points and it's not always clear cut!)

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#49

Post by cgriswald »

cletus wrote: post #41
ghaff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you have no physical issues and don't think twice about walking 10 blocks. I (usually) don't either but that doesn't describe everyone and am able to just grab a cab or a Lyft if not.

Take the 18th Street stop. You actually can't get in or out of this station without using stairs AFAIK. There are other stations like this. Are you really using these stations if you're unable to walk a few blocks? It's expensive in time and money to stop and start the trains. Also you need to maintain a station and employ people there. If you want to provide for those with physical difficulties where walking 4 block…

> Take the 18th Street stop. You actually can't get in or out of this station without using stairs AFAIK. There are other stations like this. Are you really using these stations if you're unable to walk a few blocks?

I'd imagine for someone in a wheelchair the stairs would present a much greater challenge than an extra four blocks. On the other hand, for someone with a prosthetic leg, climbing a set of stairs while holding a railing is probably far preferable to navigating an extra four blocks of icy sidewalks and streets.

> It's expensive in time and money to stop and start the trains. Also you need to maintain a station and employ people there.

> If you want to provide for those with physical difficulties where walking 4 blocks is an issue, you support those people directly by, say, paying for their Ubers/cabs.

Since both solutions are expensive (and the latter is exposed to exploitation), I'd like to see a cost-benefit analysis (which includes the benefits to non-disabled for having more frequent stops as well).

> People can't walk 4 blocks? Make everyone wait!

It gets paid for in time or money. Maybe it's an American thing to value money more than time? I'm not sure anyone else has to wait, though. They can always walk if it is faster.

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#50

Post by tomcam »

cletus wrote: post #41
ghaff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you have no physical issues and don't think twice about walking 10 blocks. I (usually) don't either but that doesn't describe everyone and am able to just grab a cab or a Lyft if not.

Take the 18th Street stop. You actually can't get in or out of this station without using stairs AFAIK. There are other stations like this. Are you really using these stations if you're unable to walk a few blocks? It's expensive in time and money to stop and start the trains. Also you need to maintain a station and employ people there. If you want to provide for those with physical difficulties where walking 4 block…

From a question on the density of subway stops to a rant about Prop 13 in two steps. Impressive. Note to self: research the average number of hops from any topic on HN to Prop 13.
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