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I took the bus in LA for a few years. Mostly as parking was insanely expensive. So costs do affect behavior. Also, it was a wash in terms of time. But taking th

I took the bus in LA for a few years. Mostly as parking was insanely expensive. So costs do affect behavior. Also, it was a wash in terms of time. But taking the bus was hell. I'm a larger than average human and was fairly fit at the time, but I still would not board a lot of those busses. There were a lot of not-so-savory people on LA busses. Also, it was never on time in the evenings and I had to do all my weekly out-of-house chores on the weekends, as busses would not cut it. But if I were an average-sized woman, there is no way in hell I would have taken those busses, they were just plain unsafe.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago
This is par for the course on almost all bussing systems I've seen in America. They are designed with the assumption that the people using them have no choice, are poor, and have ample free time to take inefficient routes. Busses are just too cumbersome. Once self driving actually is feasible through software and/or convergent infrastructure, bussing should be almost on demand with basically the equivalent of minivans self-driving groups of people between locations. Uber and Lyft are (currently) just dead end variants of this ideal.
- esotericn 7y ago
  I mean, this is true of most public transport even in places like London. Why is sitting on a bus not as comfortable as being a passenger in a mid range car? It totally could be, but that would cost more than the bare minimum. So we have broken AC and uncomfortable seats. So it goes. It's not awful. It's actually quite good. But I really wish sometimes that public transport could be _nice_ rather than tolerable.
  - laurencerowe 7y ago
    Because that would take up more space letting fewer people fit on the bus. Most are designed to have half the people standing at peak times. Long distance train seats used to be really comfortable, but newer designs opt instead to fit more seats in each carriage. I've found buses in London to be better optimized for people trying to get somewhere than in San Francisco. There are far more bus lanes, no waiting for people paying a cash fare, and wheelchair transport tends to use black cabs. People often take buses by choice as the alternative can mean being packed in like sardines on the Tube at rush hour. (Driving isn't really practical anywhere in central London.)
    - esotericn 7y ago
      Yes, as I said, it's not lowest common denominator. There's no reason we couldn't have twice as many buses, there's more than enough space on the road. It'd just cost more than having everyone standing at peak time, so it's impossible. By contrast, an individual (who's not deathly poor) can choose to buy a shitbox for a few hundred quid or a comfortable car for a few thousand. It's a big failing of public transport in my view.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

This is par for the course on almost all bussing systems I've seen in America. They are designed with the assumption that the people using them have no choice, are poor, and have ample free time to take inefficient routes. Busses are just too cumbersome. Once self driving actually is feasible through software and/or convergent infrastructure, bussing should be almost on demand with basically the equivalent of minivans self-driving groups of people between locations. Uber and Lyft are (currently) just dead end variants of this ideal.

esotericn 7y ago
I mean, this is true of most public transport even in places like London. Why is sitting on a bus not as comfortable as being a passenger in a mid range car? It totally could be, but that would cost more than the bare minimum. So we have broken AC and uncomfortable seats. So it goes. It's not awful. It's actually quite good. But I really wish sometimes that public transport could be _nice_ rather than tolerable.
- laurencerowe 7y ago
  Because that would take up more space letting fewer people fit on the bus. Most are designed to have half the people standing at peak times. Long distance train seats used to be really comfortable, but newer designs opt instead to fit more seats in each carriage. I've found buses in London to be better optimized for people trying to get somewhere than in San Francisco. There are far more bus lanes, no waiting for people paying a cash fare, and wheelchair transport tends to use black cabs. People often take buses by choice as the alternative can mean being packed in like sardines on the Tube at rush hour. (Driving isn't really practical anywhere in central London.)
  - esotericn 7y ago
    Yes, as I said, it's not lowest common denominator. There's no reason we couldn't have twice as many buses, there's more than enough space on the road. It'd just cost more than having everyone standing at peak time, so it's impossible. By contrast, an individual (who's not deathly poor) can choose to buy a shitbox for a few hundred quid or a comfortable car for a few thousand. It's a big failing of public transport in my view.