6 ms·
There's a middle ground between buses and rail: building defacto rail lines by transforming far-left lanes and middle dividers into dedicated bus tracks and sem
by kkitay 10y ago
There's a middle ground between buses and rail: building defacto rail lines by transforming far-left lanes and middle dividers into dedicated bus tracks and semipermanent bus stations.
Urbanized (Gary Hustwit, 2011) highlights the TransMilenio bus system, which serves the city of Bogota. It specifically covers elevating the experience and status of taking the bus by adopting positive aspects of rail systems: covered waiting areas, dedicated transit lanes, more reliable service. Except it's less expensive to implement and more flexible.
TransMilenio bus and station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Av_Am%C3%A9ricas_Transmilenio_Mundo_Aventura.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Av_Am%C3%A9ricas_Transmil...
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransMilenio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransMilenio
With so much road already laid, LA is a perfect candidate for a system like this!
- melvinmt 10y agoThey have the same thing in Istanbul: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrobus_(Istanbul) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrobus_(Istanbul)
- fatihpense 10y agoIf you need statistics for the maximum people this system can take, you can ask the municipality of Istanbul. They also can't increase the number of buses because of congestion. Here is a well-known joke about it: http://imgur.com/5ZFMoMZ http://imgur.com/5ZFMoMZ
- avn2109 10y agoBus themed solutions would definitely be an improvement over LA's status quo. However a better idea would be to reduce the need to travel long distances by building denser. LA roads are super wide right now, so the easiest way to raise density would be by putting buildings in the middle of the road, leaving a Really Narrow Street (tm) along either side. Ground floors of new buildings could be commercial, upper floors residential. (Some LA roads are so wide we could put 2 or more blocks of Really Narrow Streets in the space consumed by a single car-oriented surface street). This would reduce housing prices by bringing a crazy amount of inventory online, and would greatly lower maintenance expenses by severely curtailing the number of square feet of publicly-funded roads, traffic lights, signage etc. If we structured this correctly, the city could make a giant pile of money in both land sales and new real estate taxes. Maybe they could then use the surplus money to build a real train system or just reduce taxes. Lastly, there would obviously also be large environmental benefits such as smog reduction, CO2 emission reductions etc. Yes, I realize this will never happen, and yes, I realize I'm proposing turning LA into old Paris. Old Paris is great, we should copy it more. I stole these ideas from [0]. [0] http://newworldeconomics.com/the-eco-metropolis/ http://newworldeconomics.com/the-eco-metropolis/
- mabramo 10y agoHere's hoping that NY, LA, and other major US cities adopt "Old Parisian" urban planning methods. Wishful thinking.
- freedrock87 10y agoBecause housing is so cheap in Paris.
- jaredklewis 10y agoMy impression is that yes, housing in Paris is cheaper than in LA. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=France&city1=Paris&country2=United+States&city2=Los+Angeles%2C+CA https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoThose numbers are really outdated for LA.
- noir_lord 10y agoIt doesn't have to be perfect to be better. Paris has a set of issues like any major city but when it comes to managing urban density it does it broadly better than LA, for that matter so does New York.
- OrwellianChild 10y agoBus Rapid Transit expansion is a near-term fix that can happen in a year or two. Rezones and construction to densify a city take longer. I don't think these two solutions are incompatible - they address the problem at different time scales.
- trome 10y agoZoning is inherently racist, designed to keep the poor and working class out of areas of the city. It stunts economic growth to boot, and should be done away with entirely. That being said, the roadways are public property, and should be redesigned to be on a road diet, but building structures in the middle is perhaps not the best idea. Parkifying some sections, expanding others into plazas (while infilling parking to densify) and selling the edges of the roadway to new development so it may be denser would be better approaches.
- photojosh 10y agoDitto for Quito, Ecuador: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Quito https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Quito I'm now back in Australia, and despairing because my small city is putting in a light rail solution when a bus rapid transit option would be so much cheaper, given our low ridership. But buses aren't cool. :(
- astrodust 10y agoWhich city is doing LRT? These can be more cost-effective in the long run at certain ridership levels, plus they're usually a better experience for the passenger. Busses just plain suck.
- sanswork 10y agohttp://www.metrolinx.com/en/projectsandprograms/transitexpansionprojects/toronto_lrt.aspx http://www.metrolinx.com/en/projectsandprograms/transitexpan...
- illumin8 10y agoSalt Lake City, Utah, has had very good success with light rail.
- photojosh 10y agoSydney is doing them, and it seems okay. Newcastle is doing a 4km line...
- rusabd 10y agoO-Bahn might work quite well - combining benefits of rail and buses... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway It's fast, comfortable and those buses are able to collect passengers in suburbia.
- bobthepanda 10y agoThe general idea (open-access busway) works well, but guided buses specifically do not, since you combine all the disadvantages of rail (expensive, compatible vehicles) with the disadvantages of the bus (much lower capacity, much higher labor requirement, etc.) Brisbane is a much better example of this: http://humantransit.org/2009/05/brisbane-a-short-tour-of-the-south-east-busway.html http://humantransit.org/2009/05/brisbane-a-short-tour-of-the...
- mturmon 10y agoLA already has some BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) lines like you describe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Metro_Busway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Metro_Busway These systems operate mostly in dedicated right-of-way. There are more planned. I think they have been quite successful, for the reasons you describe.
- bestnameever 10y agoThey are not ideal though. Travel times can be close to double using the orange line. It's something I imagine people using only they're not in a hurry or can't drive for whatever reason.
- cholantesh 10y agoThis has been done in the York Region adjacent to metro Toronto. Unfortunately, transit fares are quite high there and usage is low because of infrequent service. The lesson here, I guess, is that if you build it, there really isn't any guarantee that they will come. IE, there's still a cultural shift involved in convincing a car-centric culture to adopt transit en masse.
- MK999 10y agoIf you enjoy urban plannning docs like 'Urbanized', check out 'The Pruitt Igoe Myth' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth