3 ms·

Aren't most modern city buses with low floors and wheelchair ramps?

by dsego 7y ago

ACow_Adonis 7y ago
Like the other pros and cons, it's a matter of degree and trade off. We have buses as well (I still use them locally for trips too). I don't have a wheel chair, but I do have a stroller and no car, so I'm using then both heavily. In my old city I often put my bike on the front of the buses and relied on the express bus with commuter dedicated lanes that came every 5 minutes for a commute which worked very well in a town of 400,000 of mostly car drivers. But does it scale? You can get several prams practically straight onto and off of a flat bottom tram without almost any stopping or logistical penalty. On buses, not only is it comparatively awkward to get on and off, you have to nod, thank, praise every other passenger for getting out of the way, and you spend most of your time praying you'll be the only one using that particular aspect of the bus, because otherwise it becomes a lot more complicated. Could you run three times as many buses to accommodate? Sure, but then you end up running into increasing start-stop-merging problems and the bus bunching problem presents itself earlier along the supply curve than with the tram.
- close04 7y ago
  Getting the bike on a (small) bus is not the best experience. But that's what trains or subways are for. They take hundreds of people longer distances to the general destination area. Perfect use case if you cycle. > a flat bottom tram Only modern trams have this, just like any modern bus. But consider this, a single bus costs several hundreds of thousands of E/$ (double if it's electric). A single tram costs several millions. That's before laying track.
bobthepanda 7y ago
At least in the US, buses tend to only be partially low floor, with a higher section where the engine and fuel tank are in the back. Bus tires also are generally larger diameter and wider than the wheels of a tram, so the wheel well physically juts out into the low floor section and reduces available space. And (this may be fixable) the doors on a bus tend to be narrower, almost but not quite wide enough for two people to walk off simultaneously, and are more poorly laid out to minimize distance for passengers to the door.
asdff 7y ago
They are and it takes all of two minutes for the buss driver do deploy the ramp and secure the wheelchair to the cabin
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Two minutes is a long time in an individual person's commute, especially if it is done multiple times on the route. Two minutes is often the difference between making a timed connection to another route and missing it.

Aren't most modern city buses with low floors and wheelchair ramps?

by dsego 7y ago

Aren't most modern city buses with low floors and wheelchair ramps?

Like the other pros and cons, it's a matter of degree and trade off. We have buses as well (I still use them locally for trips too). I don't have a wheel chair, but I do have a stroller and no car, so I'm using then both heavily. In my old city I often put my bike on the front of the buses and relied on the express bus with commuter dedicated lanes that came every 5 minutes for a commute which worked very well in a town of 400,000 of mostly car drivers. But does it scale? You can get several prams practically straight onto and off of a flat bottom tram without almost any stopping or logistical penalty. On buses, not only is it comparatively awkward to get on and off, you have to nod, thank, praise every other passenger for getting out of the way, and you spend most of your time praying you'll be the only one using that particular aspect of the bus, because otherwise it becomes a lot more complicated. Could you run three times as many buses to accommodate? Sure, but then you end up running into increasing start-stop-merging problems and the bus bunching problem presents itself earlier along the supply curve than with the tram.

close04 7y ago
Getting the bike on a (small) bus is not the best experience. But that's what trains or subways are for. They take hundreds of people longer distances to the general destination area. Perfect use case if you cycle. > a flat bottom tram Only modern trams have this, just like any modern bus. But consider this, a single bus costs several hundreds of thousands of E/$ (double if it's electric). A single tram costs several millions. That's before laying track.

bobthepanda 7y ago

At least in the US, buses tend to only be partially low floor, with a higher section where the engine and fuel tank are in the back. Bus tires also are generally larger diameter and wider than the wheels of a tram, so the wheel well physically juts out into the low floor section and reduces available space. And (this may be fixable) the doors on a bus tend to be narrower, almost but not quite wide enough for two people to walk off simultaneously, and are more poorly laid out to minimize distance for passengers to the door.

asdff 7y ago

They are and it takes all of two minutes for the buss driver do deploy the ramp and secure the wheelchair to the cabin

bobthepanda 7y ago
Two minutes is a long time in an individual person's commute, especially if it is done multiple times on the route. Two minutes is often the difference between making a timed connection to another route and missing it.