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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

#591

Post by connorboyle »

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?

Regardless of exclusive RoW or signal priority, it is physically impossible for a bus route to:

1) stop every few hundred feet to pick up and drop off passengers

2) maintain an effective speed significantly faster than running

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

#592

Post by youknownothing »

"The problem with buses is that they are slow"

At least in Los Angeles, the main problem with buses (for me) is not that they're slow, but that they're disgusting. They're always dirty, and the people who ride it aren't particularly nice. I once rode the bus with a backpack, put it on the floor, and when I picked it up it was all stained with beer. I saw people drinking a soda can and then throwing it out the window. That's the main reason why I stopped riding buses.

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

#594

Post by SoftTalker »

panick21_ wrote: post #526
SoftTalker wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice idea but it quickly runs up against budget realities.

Nonsense. The infrastructure in much of the US is already there. All you need is willingness to enforce it. All you need maybe is a bit of paint. Police could actually make some money.

You need more than paint to build physically separated, elevated bus lanes.

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

#595

Post by thomastjeffery »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #292
thomastjeffery wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That optimizes speed, not latency. I don't care how long it takes to get off the bus nearly as much as I care how long it takes to get on .

For a fixed number of busses, the faster the busses are traveling the less time there is between busses.

Right, but for a fixed schedule...

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

#596

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #595
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a fixed number of busses, the faster the busses are traveling the less time there is between busses.

Right, but for a fixed schedule...

Schedules get adjusted based on budgets. Faster busses yield better schedules.

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

#597

Post by sfink »

simoncion wrote: post #564
sfink wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. As long as we're looking for relatively easy or cheap improvements, I believe that UX is a huge one. Buses have a long tradition of user-hostile design. "Exact change only", unhelpful and condescending and impatient drivers, unwritten etiquette rules, and everything else you listed. It has always baffled me why they make it so hard for first-time users in particular. Sure, they mostly care about the regular cust…

> Buses have a long tradition of user-hostile design. "Exact change only"... On every pay-in-cabin bus I've ever ridden, this is synonymous with "No change given". The machines are quite happy to accept more money than is needed for a single ticket, and the reason for that is pretty obvious. > It has always baffled me why they make it so hard for first-time users in particular. The SFMTA (the San Francisco bus/train…

>> Buses have a long tradition of user-hostile design. "Exact change only"...

> On every pay-in-cabin bus I've ever ridden, this is synonymous with "No change given". The machines are quite happy to accept more money than is needed for a single ticket, and the reason for that is pretty obvious....the most useful information about fares is posted on the paybox inside the bus

That's fair, but (1) when I was a kid and starting out riding a bus, I didn't know that; and (2) as that same kid, neither my family nor I had very much money at all and paying "extra" for something is just not something you do. Consider it a cultural thing. "inside the bus" is good but insufficient when I'm deciding between walking a mile or chancing the bus that I don't understand. (I almost always walked the mile. I was cheap, and I hated looking stupid in front of unsympathetic people.)

As for Muni, I didn't live where I could use it until I was no longer that kid. But adult me fully agrees with you. My experience with Muni has been much better than with most other busses I've used.

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

#598

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

philwelch wrote: post #421
Retric wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Buses are implicitly subsidized by road maintenance spending. Road wear and tear occurs according to the fourth power of axle weight, which effectively means almost all of the wear and tear is incurred by the heaviest vehicles, which include buses.

Axle weight and vehicle weight aren't the same (or even very closely correlated). A bus will weight ~3-4x more than a car, but has wider tires, and carrying far more people. As such the weight of a bus is likely similar to or lower than an equivalent number of cars.

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

#599

Post by xmprt »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #443
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.…

> Point to point transportation is often slower and less convenient if buses and public transit is done right. Only if you're also intentionally making point-to-point worse. Note that I'm not comparing to "get in your own car and drive", which has the disadvantage of having to park. I'm comparing the ideal taxi-shaped thing to the ideal bus-and-tram-and-train-shaped thing.

> Only if you're also intentionally making point-to-point worse

I feel like you missed my last paragraph. If public transit is better then more people would use it and there would be fewer cars on the road. Can you imagine how terrible point-to-point traffic in SF would be if everyone was driving to work instead of relying on Caltrain or BART?

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

#600

Post by coryrc »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #553
tcoff91 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only way to solve this is to invest much more into making buses nicer & increasing the numbers, and then instituting bus-only lanes on major arterial roads so that taking the bus becomes faster than fighting traffic.

Chicago has already done all of those things unfortunately (or fortunately).

If they have bus-only lanes then they won't be stuck in traffic, so I don't think they have.
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