The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#41

Post by tdy721 » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #39

ChuckMcM wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the stacking social ills problem. If SF had an effective set of homeless policies/programs then they wouldn't misuse the bus. While it is true that people respect "free" services less than paid ones, I have yet to read any reports from places that have implemented free bus service that suggested general damage/misuse due to a lack of respect. The bus service in Logan UT for example is pretty awesome.

Any effective homeless/mentally ill/drug addiction policy would have to come from the Feds.

What is ineffective about addressing the issue locally? Why “the feds”?

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#42

Post by nakkijono » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:58 AM UTC

BubRoss wrote: post #21

lenepp wrote: post #20

It's kind of incredible the article doesn't mention it, but the typical city bus makes sounds at a decibel level that is harmful to the human body (anything above 85 dB is harmful). There's a scene in Mad Men that I always like to bring up when it comes to things like this, where the Drapers are having a picnic in a bucolic park, and then they just get up and walk away, leaving their trash behind. It looks crazy and…

You think people don't ride buses because they are loud to the people around them? A bus is still going to be there if they ride it or not.

Most of the loudness discomfort I've experienced while riding the bus comes from waiting the bus on the roadside. Traffic in general is ridiculously noisy for pedestrians. Especially at ~50mph the road noise starts to be unbearable. Inside a car it's all so quiet. Reducing traffic speeds would help with this a lot.

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#43

Post by longtimegoogler » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 2:01 AM UTC

The bus system in Taiwan is amazing. You see all ages represented from school kids to the elderly. They don't smell and have dedicated lanes in places. There are so many of them that you rarely have to wait more than 10 minutes at any stop. It's a great alternative to the subway for shorter rides.

It seems like cities like NY and San Francisco have the density to support similar systems.

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#44

Post by mirimir » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 2:18 AM UTC

alexhutcheson wrote: post #7

In New York, specifically, it's not much of a mystery - the incredibly close stop spacing and inefficient boarding procedures make it so the bus is barely faster than walking. Most buses stop almost every block, they board through a single door, and they use the two slowest payment methods available in almost any system (cash and magnetic strip cards). However, I don't expect this to change anytime soon, because many…

I vaguely remember reading about buses that board ~like subways, through multiple doors, from ~stations. Maybe in Brazil?

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#45

Post by paulie_a » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

duxup wrote: post #31

fmajid wrote: post #23

Nearly every comment on the NYT site makes the same point: buses are unreliable, and filled with homeless, mentally unstable or drugged people who make them a terrifying experience. What is the response of cities? Kneecap the alternatives like Uber/Lyft, or spend taxpayers' money not on fixing those two problems but on ridiculous ideas like paying people to take the bus. Almost as if the people are here to serve the…

Are uber and lyft really bus alternatives?

It was for me in Chicago. Door to door service I could use my commuter benefits on.

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#46

Post by austhrow743 » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 3:20 AM UTC

tdy721 wrote: post #41

lotsofpulp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any effective homeless/mentally ill/drug addiction policy would have to come from the Feds.

What is ineffective about addressing the issue locally? Why “the feds”?

Unless the solution being proposed is to brutalise the homeless to make them move elsewhere, then it needs to be enacted at the level with control over freedom of movement of people. If SF creates policies to help the homeless, more will move there than already do so.

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#47

Post by vkou » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 6:14 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #32

vkou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, of course, no good thing goes untouched. Last year, statewide voters approved an initiative that guts Seattle's ability to tax ourselves for transit ("$30" car tabs, which are nothing of the sort since even that initiative doesn't reduce vehicle registration costs to $30). This was utterly maddening. A bunch of... Politically-opinionated persons in rural Washington voted for legislature that bans Seattle from…

According to 2018 population figures on Wikipedia, metro Seattle has just over half of the state's population. Sounds like it wasn't just rural people voting for that initiative.

Seattle voted against it, outside of Seattle voted for it by a larger margin.

Given that the measure does nothing absolutely nothing to the counties who voted for it, I think I'm pretty justified in believing that their opinion on Seattle's tax system shouldn't matter one whit. If they don't want to pay more than $30 for car tabs, they should vote for it in their county, not across the state.

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#48

Post by frandroid » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #44

alexhutcheson wrote: post #7

In New York, specifically, it's not much of a mystery - the incredibly close stop spacing and inefficient boarding procedures make it so the bus is barely faster than walking. Most buses stop almost every block, they board through a single door, and they use the two slowest payment methods available in almost any system (cash and magnetic strip cards). However, I don't expect this to change anytime soon, because many…

I vaguely remember reading about buses that board ~like subways, through multiple doors, from ~stations. Maybe in Brazil?

Toronto now has open boarding (i.e. you can enter at any door) through all its streetcar lines and many bus lines. The new streetcars have totally separated the drivers from the passengers, so payment is more of an honour system + fare cops* proposition, compared to the old "show the pass/pay the driver" paradigm. Boarding speed and fare evasion have both increased.

*: "Revenue Protection Officers", a totally non-Orwellian job title.

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#49

Post by frandroid » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 6:35 AM UTC

ArtDev wrote: post #12

Can't we just "check in" to a bus stop on an app, then have the bus create a route based on that? How about a button at each stop, with a live estimate when the bus will arrive? Currently, the bus system is like a newspaper. Inconvenient, messy and smells bad.

> How about a button at each stop, with a live estimate when the bus will arrive?

There are already many, many apps for that.

Google Maps will give you some decent good route mapping and alternatives, though less realtime than apps that use data back ends like NextBus.

You can do better routing than Google if you're familiar with a route/combination and its intricacies, but if you're in a part of town you don't know as much, Google Maps' transit routing is a godsend.

Re: The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

#50

Post by jellicle » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 12:58 PM UTC

alexhutcheson wrote: post #7

In New York, specifically, it's not much of a mystery - the incredibly close stop spacing and inefficient boarding procedures make it so the bus is barely faster than walking. Most buses stop almost every block, they board through a single door, and they use the two slowest payment methods available in almost any system (cash and magnetic strip cards). However, I don't expect this to change anytime soon, because many…

For some reason car drivers always think that bus service needs to be reduced (fewer stops) in order to provide "better" bus service.

The studies show that decreasing stops has minimal effect on transit times. Two stops with ten people each only takes a bit longer to board than one stop with twenty people. You save a couple of minutes across the entire length of a bus route.

And each stop removal increases rider commute times - now I have to walk 5 minutes longer to get a bus that's 2 minutes faster. Overall commute: 3 minutes longer. Plus each stop removal decreases the number of people served - if the old stop was a ten minute walk and the new one is a fifteen minute walk, you'll just stop taking transit altogether.

So in general, stop removal is not at all a panacea and is often a 100% negative to transit riders.

What actually works: getting rid of ride-hailing and other things that tend to clog the streets with empty, dead-heading vehicles; dedicated bus lanes and general banning of single-passenger automobiles; congestion charges; making sure transit is frequent and inexpensive so that it works well for people; etc.