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I'm hopeful that autonomous buses make this extra capacity possible. The main problems are unpredictable/long waits and overcrowding; the proposals I've seen in
by eastbayjake 9y ago
I'm hopeful that autonomous buses make this extra capacity possible. The main problems are unpredictable/long waits and overcrowding; the proposals I've seen involve smaller (<20 passenger) buses that run much more frequently and can fit more people into standing-room space because automated drivers have better planned acceleration and longer braking. It's so much cheaper and easier to add hundreds of small buses to the peninsula's streets than to build rail or subways.
Another crazy low-footprint idea: connecting our city of hills with an aerial gondola network. https://www.fastcodesign.com/1671214/a-mass-transit-proposal-to-connect-a-city-using-aerial-gondolas https://www.fastcodesign.com/1671214/a-mass-transit-proposal...
- ghaff 9y agoHonestly? Sounds like magical thinking about how self-driving will make things possible that aren't with a relatively low-paid human driver today. And probably wouldn't be available for a few decades anyway. Small buses are available in a lot of countries today.
- eastbayjake 9y agoUnionized MUNI drivers make three times the SF minimum wage [0] before overtime so they're not "low-paid" by any means, but yes if money were unlimited we could achieve a smaller-but-more-numerous bus strategy... the ride will just be really jerky and require more seats at lower capacity, in addition to costing a prohibitive amount of money. And "a few decades" seems extremely conservative when we're already testing driverless buses in San Francisco today [1] [0] https://missionlocal.org/2014/06/is-32-an-hour-too-much-for-muni-drivers/ https://missionlocal.org/2014/06/is-32-an-hour-too-much-for-... [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-autonomous-bus-idUSKBN16E08I http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-autonomous-bus-...