4 ms·

> Roughly, there's 40 or 50 people on the bus, vs 1-2 per car, and you get, what, 3? 2? cars in the space of a bus. He found it completely unjustified to let th

> Roughly, there's 40 or 50 people on the bus, vs 1-2 per car, and you get, what, 3? 2? cars in the space of a bus. He found it completely unjustified to let the convenience of those 45 people be outweighed by the convenience of the 4 or 5. That's only true if the lane is as full of busses as other lanes are full of cars.

cozzyd 8y ago
Yes, but if the bus is faster, more people will take the bus and so you will add more buses. In places like Quito with dedicated busways, there are buses basically non-stop. Buses can follow one another better than trains too because you don't have the signal system reducing headways.
- nordsieck 8y ago
  For the record I'm a huge fan of busses and highly skeptical of trains. I'm sure that there are some places in the world where the Mayor's statement is true. Those places are rare. In a downtown corridor during rush hour? Sure - I could totally see a lane full of just busses. However, most dedicated bus lanes won't be that busy. This isn't to say that there aren't good reasons for dedicated lanes - just that the reason the Mayor gave was at best hyperbolic and at worst maliciously deceptive. > more people will take the bus and so you will add more buses. In a well run business that would be true. In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. This means that the more busses that are run, the more money the system loses (not strictly true, but roughly). What you say should make sense, but it doesn't for important institutional reasons.
  - apendleton 8y ago
    > In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. This means that the more busses that are run, the more money the system loses (not strictly true, but roughly). So what? Transportation infrastructure for single-passenger vehicles is also subsidized in the US (the gas tax doesn't come anywhere near paying for roads, for instance), and it gets more expensive with more users too (in the form of increased wear on roads requiring more maintenance, or the need to expand roads to accommodate increasing use). But we do it anyway, because transportation infrastructure is a public good. I've never understood the inclination that public transit should stand alone among transportation modes and operate without subsidy.
  - so33 8y ago
    >In a downtown corridor during rush hour? Sure - I could totally see a lane full of just busses. However, most dedicated bus lanes won't be that busy. These are precisely the places where dedicated bus lanes and BRTs exist. BRT is called bus rapid transit because there is a planned frequency for these buses - therefore a need for consistent, uninterrupted rights of way. >In a well run business that would be true. In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. Only because highly popular bus routes (and train routes) subsidize unpopular routes that exist for the public good and not to make money - neighborhood routes, night buses, etc. In the US, routes are highly subsidized because of a lack of density compared to Europe or Asia.
  - icc97 8y ago
    > I'm sure that there are some places in the world where the Mayor's statement is true. In Europe this is predominantly true (maybe not the UK outside London). There's still massive traffic jam problems but buses certainly during rush hour are full and special lanes are provided for them.
  - emj 8y ago
    > In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. Public transport makes it possible for more people to use the roads it makes it faster for people that have to go by car. So what you call subsidized is actually a way to activate capital sunk into expensive infrastructure and make it more effective.
labcomputer 8y ago
> That's only true if the lane is as full of busses as other lanes are full of cars. 1) The density of people per unit road area is about 10 times greater than with cars. A bus lane only needs to carry 1/10th as many buses to come out ahead (and a bus occupies considerably less space than 10 cars). 2) The relevant metric isn't people (or vehicles) per unit road area. It's the lane's flux of people per unit time. On that metric, an free flowing carpool lane will beat a congested regular lane every time (even when the carpool lane appears empty to the layman). You can do your own back of the napkin calculation, but vehicles have to packed roughly 5 to 10 times denser in the congested lane to achieve the same vehicle flux per unit time. That means a free flowing carpool lane (>=2 people) only needs about 1/20th the vehicle density per unit area to come out ahead of a congested single-occupancy lane. It's just no contest with an uncongested bus lane: Buses will win on a people per time metric with only 1% as many vehicles per unit area. To visualize this, 100 closely packed cars (remember, they are not touching!) is about three city blocks long.

cozzyd 8y ago

Yes, but if the bus is faster, more people will take the bus and so you will add more buses. In places like Quito with dedicated busways, there are buses basically non-stop. Buses can follow one another better than trains too because you don't have the signal system reducing headways.

nordsieck 8y ago
For the record I'm a huge fan of busses and highly skeptical of trains. I'm sure that there are some places in the world where the Mayor's statement is true. Those places are rare. In a downtown corridor during rush hour? Sure - I could totally see a lane full of just busses. However, most dedicated bus lanes won't be that busy. This isn't to say that there aren't good reasons for dedicated lanes - just that the reason the Mayor gave was at best hyperbolic and at worst maliciously deceptive. > more people will take the bus and so you will add more buses. In a well run business that would be true. In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. This means that the more busses that are run, the more money the system loses (not strictly true, but roughly). What you say should make sense, but it doesn't for important institutional reasons.
- apendleton 8y ago
  > In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. This means that the more busses that are run, the more money the system loses (not strictly true, but roughly). So what? Transportation infrastructure for single-passenger vehicles is also subsidized in the US (the gas tax doesn't come anywhere near paying for roads, for instance), and it gets more expensive with more users too (in the form of increased wear on roads requiring more maintenance, or the need to expand roads to accommodate increasing use). But we do it anyway, because transportation infrastructure is a public good. I've never understood the inclination that public transit should stand alone among transportation modes and operate without subsidy.
- so33 8y ago
  >In a downtown corridor during rush hour? Sure - I could totally see a lane full of just busses. However, most dedicated bus lanes won't be that busy. These are precisely the places where dedicated bus lanes and BRTs exist. BRT is called bus rapid transit because there is a planned frequency for these buses - therefore a need for consistent, uninterrupted rights of way. >In a well run business that would be true. In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. Only because highly popular bus routes (and train routes) subsidize unpopular routes that exist for the public good and not to make money - neighborhood routes, night buses, etc. In the US, routes are highly subsidized because of a lack of density compared to Europe or Asia.
- icc97 8y ago
  > I'm sure that there are some places in the world where the Mayor's statement is true. In Europe this is predominantly true (maybe not the UK outside London). There's still massive traffic jam problems but buses certainly during rush hour are full and special lanes are provided for them.
- emj 8y ago
  > In the first world, most busses are heavily subsidized. Public transport makes it possible for more people to use the roads it makes it faster for people that have to go by car. So what you call subsidized is actually a way to activate capital sunk into expensive infrastructure and make it more effective.

labcomputer 8y ago

> That's only true if the lane is as full of busses as other lanes are full of cars. 1) The density of people per unit road area is about 10 times greater than with cars. A bus lane only needs to carry 1/10th as many buses to come out ahead (and a bus occupies considerably less space than 10 cars). 2) The relevant metric isn't people (or vehicles) per unit road area. It's the lane's flux of people per unit time. On that metric, an free flowing carpool lane will beat a congested regular lane every time (even when the carpool lane appears empty to the layman). You can do your own back of the napkin calculation, but vehicles have to packed roughly 5 to 10 times denser in the congested lane to achieve the same vehicle flux per unit time. That means a free flowing carpool lane (>=2 people) only needs about 1/20th the vehicle density per unit area to come out ahead of a congested single-occupancy lane. It's just no contest with an uncongested bus lane: Buses will win on a people per time metric with only 1% as many vehicles per unit area. To visualize this, 100 closely packed cars (remember, they are not touching!) is about three city blocks long.