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People don't like buses, at least in the US. That's a marketing problem which greatly reduces both ridership and funding, two things which then make many of the

by yodon 5y ago

People don't like buses, at least in the US. That's a marketing problem which greatly reduces both ridership and funding, two things which then make many of the negative perceptions of bus systems into realities.

mjg59 5y ago
It's not just a marketing problem! With three minute headway, you can turn up a train that can carry up to ~2000 people (under BART's definition of crush load) and have another train there three minutes later. The largest AC Transit transbay bus holds 78 passengers, which means to provide an equivalent service you'd need 25 of them leaving every three minutes, or a double decker coach leaving the Salesforce terminal every 8 seconds. This is, given the infrastructure that exists, obviously impossible. Even given a world where instead of building the transbay tube we built another bridge devoted to buses, it wouldn't be possible without demolishing a bunch more of downtown to build a much larger bus terminal (or, alternatively, building it underground instead, and then we're really getting into a position where the economic benefits of buses are much less compelling) I'm a big fan of high quality long-distance bus transit, and I've used it a bunch whenever I'm in Seattle. But it's really not obvious to me that experiences of buses in San Francisco give a great deal of information about how viable they as an alternative to genuine rail rapid transit systems.
- yodon 5y ago
  You've obviously thought about this a lot and these are obviously far from trivial optimization problems to select between. The problem with the 2,000 person train calculation is that the train is already full by the time it hits downtown, by virtue of the nature of the route it travels which was defined in 1960. It's not able to pick up anywhere near 2,000 people at the downtown stops during rush hour, so that 78 passenger bus with a route designed to start where and when it is needed ends up being far more competitive with the nominally more load carrying train than the simple calculation suggests.
  - mjg59 5y ago
    I used to work at 24th and had no problem getting a seat in peak hours - the majority of the people taking BART eastbound across the bay are getting on at downtown stations. Given existing infrastructure, it would be literally impossible to shift that load to buses instead.
ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
It's not a marketing problem, it's a comfort problem. Source: Me who lived in the Bay for years without a car and knew the VTA, Caltrain and BART like the back of my hand.

by yodon 5y ago

mjg59 5y ago

It's not just a marketing problem! With three minute headway, you can turn up a train that can carry up to ~2000 people (under BART's definition of crush load) and have another train there three minutes later. The largest AC Transit transbay bus holds 78 passengers, which means to provide an equivalent service you'd need 25 of them leaving every three minutes, or a double decker coach leaving the Salesforce terminal every 8 seconds. This is, given the infrastructure that exists, obviously impossible. Even given a world where instead of building the transbay tube we built another bridge devoted to buses, it wouldn't be possible without demolishing a bunch more of downtown to build a much larger bus terminal (or, alternatively, building it underground instead, and then we're really getting into a position where the economic benefits of buses are much less compelling) I'm a big fan of high quality long-distance bus transit, and I've used it a bunch whenever I'm in Seattle. But it's really not obvious to me that experiences of buses in San Francisco give a great deal of information about how viable they as an alternative to genuine rail rapid transit systems.

yodon 5y ago
You've obviously thought about this a lot and these are obviously far from trivial optimization problems to select between. The problem with the 2,000 person train calculation is that the train is already full by the time it hits downtown, by virtue of the nature of the route it travels which was defined in 1960. It's not able to pick up anywhere near 2,000 people at the downtown stops during rush hour, so that 78 passenger bus with a route designed to start where and when it is needed ends up being far more competitive with the nominally more load carrying train than the simple calculation suggests.
- mjg59 5y ago
  I used to work at 24th and had no problem getting a seat in peak hours - the majority of the people taking BART eastbound across the bay are getting on at downtown stations. Given existing infrastructure, it would be literally impossible to shift that load to buses instead.

ZanyProgrammer 5y ago

It's not a marketing problem, it's a comfort problem. Source: Me who lived in the Bay for years without a car and knew the VTA, Caltrain and BART like the back of my hand.