4 ms·

one reason that buses seem so unpleasant in the US is the current system of laws governing the use of streets/roads. it's not hard to imagine different laws whi

one reason that buses seem so unpleasant in the US is the current system of laws governing the use of streets/roads. it's not hard to imagine different laws which would improve the experience of bus riders: what if cars were only allowed to use streets during non rush hour times? what if two out of the four lanes on every freeway were dedicated to buses and only buses 24/7? what if individual car registrations were simply capped at a small number? what if car registration fees/taxes were increased significantly because, per passenger mile, cars wear the roads down and take up more road space than buses? what if through a combination of better policing, more surveillance, more robust passenger identification, and so on, buses could be made cleaner, safer and more pleasant? these things sound draconian and anti-democratic, to be sure, but the technology of buses could be far more efficient than they are today if the laws were tilted heavily in their favor. but right now, individual cars rule the road.

rsync 10y ago
These are all petty optimizations that we've been conditioned to accept, and work with, because of the anti-transit politics of a car-centric US culture. What we need are trains and subways - with service levels and cleanliness acceptable to all classes - not new and interesting ways to stockpile poor people into shitty buses.
- HillaryBriss 10y ago
  oh. why did those ideas seem like they were intended to stockpile poor people into shitty buses?
  - kermittd 10y ago
    Not op but I think the shitty buses comment goes like this. No way any middle class person(wealthy,etc) with a car is going to suffer through a bus ride. Unless we has a 10x improvement with a so called Tesla of buses. With government today I really don't see it.
mikeash 10y ago
In places in the US where I've used buses, none of that would make much of a difference. The main reason the buses I've used sucked are because they run infrequently and make stops absurdly often. Infrequent buses mean you need a lot of planning, transfers often take forever, and you need to plan to arrive early so you're not screwed if you're delayed. This is easy to fix, but costly. Stopping absurdly often makes the buses extremely slow. Bus journeys can take an order of magnitude longer than the same journey would take by car, because the bus spends most of its time winding through neighborhoods and stopping every two blocks to take on or discharge passengers. Fixing this would probably require more bus routes, and also some willingness for people to walk a little farther to get to the bus stop. On a bit of a tangent: do buses really wear the roads less than cars? Road damage is approximately proportional to the fourth power of vehicle weight, so I would expect that concentrating people in buses would make things worse, not better, compared to lots of individual cars. Not that this alone is a reason to stick with cars.
- HillaryBriss 10y ago
  > do buses really wear the roads less than cars? You're right! I stand corrected. Thank you. Here's a quotation I found: "When discussing road wear cars don't matter: road damage is effectively caused by trucks" From: http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776/776-roads-handout.pdf http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776... What if I change it to: more small buses running more often? Maybe that addresses the problem of buses stopping absurdly often too.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I love the idea of small buses running more often. Tear up the roads less, produce less noise, better schedules, win all around except for cost. Maybe autonomous vehicles can solve that. Elon Musk has talked about doing this with Tesla. I wonder how much easier it would be to program a small autonomous bus to follow a single route, compared to solving the problem of autonomous driving in general.

rsync 10y ago

These are all petty optimizations that we've been conditioned to accept, and work with, because of the anti-transit politics of a car-centric US culture. What we need are trains and subways - with service levels and cleanliness acceptable to all classes - not new and interesting ways to stockpile poor people into shitty buses.

HillaryBriss 10y ago
oh. why did those ideas seem like they were intended to stockpile poor people into shitty buses?
- kermittd 10y ago
  Not op but I think the shitty buses comment goes like this. No way any middle class person(wealthy,etc) with a car is going to suffer through a bus ride. Unless we has a 10x improvement with a so called Tesla of buses. With government today I really don't see it.

mikeash 10y ago

In places in the US where I've used buses, none of that would make much of a difference. The main reason the buses I've used sucked are because they run infrequently and make stops absurdly often. Infrequent buses mean you need a lot of planning, transfers often take forever, and you need to plan to arrive early so you're not screwed if you're delayed. This is easy to fix, but costly. Stopping absurdly often makes the buses extremely slow. Bus journeys can take an order of magnitude longer than the same journey would take by car, because the bus spends most of its time winding through neighborhoods and stopping every two blocks to take on or discharge passengers. Fixing this would probably require more bus routes, and also some willingness for people to walk a little farther to get to the bus stop. On a bit of a tangent: do buses really wear the roads less than cars? Road damage is approximately proportional to the fourth power of vehicle weight, so I would expect that concentrating people in buses would make things worse, not better, compared to lots of individual cars. Not that this alone is a reason to stick with cars.

HillaryBriss 10y ago
> do buses really wear the roads less than cars? You're right! I stand corrected. Thank you. Here's a quotation I found: "When discussing road wear cars don't matter: road damage is effectively caused by trucks" From: http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776/776-roads-handout.pdf http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776... What if I change it to: more small buses running more often? Maybe that addresses the problem of buses stopping absurdly often too.
- mikeash 10y ago
  I love the idea of small buses running more often. Tear up the roads less, produce less noise, better schedules, win all around except for cost. Maybe autonomous vehicles can solve that. Elon Musk has talked about doing this with Tesla. I wonder how much easier it would be to program a small autonomous bus to follow a single route, compared to solving the problem of autonomous driving in general.