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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

#451

Post by Karrot_Kream »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #432
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have enough density to support a bus lane, you have enough density to support a subway. Not at all. Building a subway in most US cities right now is very expensive. Raising the tax revenue alone is probably a non-starter. Moreover you're going to have to close the road down anyway to do any form of cut-and-cover or even deep bore construction, which means every business on the corridor and every person who l…

> Building a subway in most US cities right now is very expensive. This is true but seems like a problem worth solving. It's also true of more than subways; we have the same problem with bridges, housing and many other things. Better to get on with fixing it than use it as an excuse for doing something worse. > Moreover you're going to have to close the road down anyway That's a one-time cost, and you're not required…

I agree with you (and importantly you can't make a subway political football the way you can make a bus lane), but my experience doing transit advocacy points otherwise. Americans in dense areas are feeling the HCOL pinch and are not very willing to float extra taxes to fund transit expansion.

IMO it comes back to the fact that Americans are just not willing to accept change of any kind right now. The economy feels too shaky, the electorate too divided (even within states and municipalities), and there's too little faith in government to architect the kind of change you'd need to build subways, underground metros, or even BRT. We need a larger feeling of unity even at a state level to make the changes necessary, which is why municipalities continue to do bare minimum maintenance of roadways and pretty much nothing else. The last big set of constriction in dense urban areas was funded by the Obama stimulus from the GFC which was passed 17 years ago.

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

#452

Post by panick21_ »

enraged_camel wrote: post #192
janalsncm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it goes without saying, but the reason you don’t mind the bus in Europe is not because you are European but because the European buses are nicer. The things you say about noise and pollution are also true in the US, and American drivers are acutely aware of them. But the alternative is not a European bus, so people drive.

>> Maybe it goes without saying, but the reason you don’t mind the bus in Europe is not because you are European but because the European buses are nicer. Actually I think it is both. Car culture in Europe is nowhere as dominant as it is in the US. Many Europeans grow up with public transportation as the default mode of getting around. So they are more likely to be accustomed to things that become grievances for Amer…

And a lot of Americans sit in their cars in start stop traffic for hours every day. With road rage and stress from road rage being a huge issue. You only need to look across most of American popular culture to see how deeply ingrained this is.

I would also not say that 'there is no concept of personal space'. Even in rush hour most of the time its not that bad in place I have been. You are sitting next to people, and rarely standing next to people. But its usually not a big issue.

Its often more comfortable then flying in a plane.

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

#453

Post by j-conn »

dirk94018 wrote: post #449

Hmm. Interesting thought but maybe not everyone without a car needs a bus? My favorite way to get around SF is an EUC. On the side walk, I'm a pedestrian, moving at 2 miles per hour. On the road I'm a car, moving at 30-40 miles per hour. In the coffee shop, I'm a guy with luggage. CALTRAIN is great for moving me and the EUC between San Francisco and Palo Alto. Truck takes me and the EUC to the coast for a swim.

(EUC = electric unicycle)

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

#455

Post by panick21_ »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #217
enraged_camel wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Maybe it goes without saying, but the reason you don’t mind the bus in Europe is not because you are European but because the European buses are nicer. Actually I think it is both. Car culture in Europe is nowhere as dominant as it is in the US. Many Europeans grow up with public transportation as the default mode of getting around. So they are more likely to be accustomed to things that become grievances for Amer…

There is also the monetary angle. How many european households can afford a car for both parents and a car each for two kids, registered, insured, paid for to park wherever they go? Even if you are poor in the US cars are remarkably accessible. You can finance a used car with no credit and a couple dozen dollars a month.

Many more households could afford it then want to afford it. Its just a huge waste of money. Cars are assets that massively deprecate in value and are utilized a extreme minimum of time. They are a horrible investment of large amounts of money.

In the rare cases where you need a second car, you can rent one extremely easily.

> Even if you are poor in the US cars are remarkably accessible. You can finance a used car with no credit and a couple dozen dollars a month.

This partly true but also really ignores a lot of issue that it creates.

The amount of car debt in the US is crazy. Lots of people get cars at absolutely absurd interest rates because their credit is bad and the need a car. Stretching out payment over many, many years. Its extremely predatory.

And then because of the arms race where everybody needs an ever bigger car or get killed, people buy more and more expensive cars all the time.

And of course because of the lack of safety inspections, people driving these really badly maintained crap cars that cause issues for everybody.

And even worse, people are so afraid of being without a car that people rather give up their homes and live in their cars then the other way around. Letting people slip into homelessness because if they want any hope in the future they need a car.

People paying interest on car loans rather then investing in their 401k isn't a great deal for society.

So yeah, my parents could defiantly afford two cars, but very, very rarely did we have 2 cars. And the only in special circumstances where that second car would be shared with some other people as well. Its just bad business and not that useful.

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

#457

Post by jltsiren »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #425
xmprt wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And this is why point-to-point transportation is almost always faster and more convenient Point-to-point transportation is faster and more convenient because: 1. we don't have bus lanes so buses are forced to sit in the same traffic as cars and 2. buses are often underfunded so have slow/infrequent service. Point to point transportation is often slower and less convenient if buses and public transit is done right.…

Bus lanes still seem like the thing people who hate cars propose to intentionally screw over the people who have them. "Hey, we have this road with two or three lanes in each direction but it's fairly congested. Each of the lanes is carrying something like 50 cars per minute during the day! Why don't we impound one of them so we can have a bus carrying 40 people drive on it once every 15 minutes?" If you have enough…

> If you have enough density to justify a bus lane, you have enough density to justify a subway.

That assumes a linear city, where everyone lives within a short walking distance of the same street.

In actual cities, bus lines from different neighborhoods converge on main streets. While individual lines may have 10–15 minute intervals, bus traffic on the main streets may be high enough to justify dedicated bus lanes.

Then, as the city grows, it can make sense to replace the bus lanes with light rail and direct bus lines with collector lines connecting to the rail line. Which should be cheap, as a dedicated lane is usually the most expensive part in building light rail.

But you generally want to avoid building subways until you have no other options left. Subway lines tend to be an order of magnitude more expensive than light rail lines. Travel times are also often higher, as the distances between stops are longer and there is more walking involved.

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

#458

Post by retired »

stevesimmons wrote: post #398
retired wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> public transportation as the default mode Do you have any sources on that? In basically any European country the car dominates and is used far more than public transport. Even in cycle-friendly Netherlands the majority of people go to work by car. https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/verkeer-en-vervoer/pe...

That's not majority of trips, it's by distance travelled. Basically in the Netherlands, if you're within 5-10km, you go by bike. If public transport is reasonable, which it mostly is in urban areas, you take it. You'd almost never choose car within a major city, unless it's on the outskirts.

Point still stands that public transportation is not the default mode. There isn’t a country with the cycling infrastructure of The Netherlands. And The Netherlands only has that cycling infrastructure due to its urban sprawl and low density cities. In most places in Europe you walk to your doctor, supermarket or cafe.

https://www.pbl.nl/en/latest/blog/putting-dutch-urban-sprawl...

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

#459

Post by JBorrow »

jjk166 wrote: post #309
JBorrow wrote: post #54

At some level this is driven by street design. The reason bus stops are so close in Philadelphia is because they stop every block, and there's a stop sign every block. The blocks are very small. I don't know that 'removing' these as bus-stops would actually change anything. I think a larger question is whether route changes should occur. There was a large effort in Philly called the 'Bus Revolution' [1] that aimed to…

> The reason bus stops are so close in Philadelphia is because they stop every block Which is the issue. Philadelphia's blocks were sized in the 1600s, they weren't designed to be the optimal spacing for bus stops. Given how tiny the blocks are, there is no need to stop at every block.

My point was that there’s a stop sign every block, so they need to stop anyway.

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

#460

Post by [deleted] »

tr_user wrote: post #420
janalsncm wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marginal changes cut in both directions. The transport duration between A and B is only one part of the calculation. A rider also needs to get from their starting point to A, and from B to their destination. Decreasing the number of As and Bs by half might reduce that 20% start/stop time by half, shaving 10% off the total time. (This is ignoring the fact that more people will need to board and leave at each stop, whi…

You could just have two bus stops. People who live and work at both ends will be very happy. But everyone else gets thrown under the bus.

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