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The problems with buses are all caused by cars. Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses? This would allow you to superimpose a subway like system

by 7952 15y ago

The problems with buses are all caused by cars. Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses? This would allow you to superimpose a subway like system on top of city's without the restrictions and cost of rail. Let specially licensed freight use it also to give business benefits.

Silhouette 15y ago
> The problems with buses are all caused by cars. Sorry, but that's just not true. In a relatively small city with narrow streets like Cambridge, buses have just as many problems navigating around cyclists, awkward intersections, and indeed other buses. And the problems buses cause, particularly when only sparsely occupied, have nothing to do with cars at all. > Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses? Where are we going to put those? They're trying to create new roads only for the use of buses, by taking away lanes that used to be for everyone and designating them to be bus lanes instead. That is making things much worse for everyone else, because it means 50% of the road surface on major arterial routes is unused most of the time. And it isn't even helping buses that much, because they still have to get to and from those major routes on the back roads they serve, and they still have to stop at lights or give way at roundabouts just like everyone else. (Cambridge also has far too many sets of traffic lights for its size, which introduces an entirely artificial ceiling on the capacity of its road network for reasons no-one seems to quite understand. You can usually tell when the lights fail at a major intersection, because the drivers all start being polite and taking turns to proceed, there are hardly any queues in the area, and journeys are invariably quicker and more pleasant. Note to people wanting saner traffic systems for cities in future: competitive routes and stop/go lights are an evil that will cripple your efficiency.)
- saraid216 15y ago
  > (Cambridge also has far too many sets of traffic lights for its size, which introduces an entirely artificial ceiling on the capacity of its road network for reasons no-one seems to quite understand. You can usually tell when the lights fail at a major intersection, because the drivers all start being polite and taking turns to proceed, there are hardly any queues in the area, and journeys are invariably quicker and more pleasant. Note to people wanting saner traffic systems for cities in future: competitive routes and stop/go lights are an evil that will cripple your efficiency.) Incidentally, I did hear about a study that indicates that roundabouts are far better for safety than traffic lights. Unfortunately, I don't remember the reason they concluded for this. Suffice to say... I don't really see much reason to ever use traffic lights if they can be avoided.
  - shalmanese 15y ago
    It's because it's only possible to have an angular impact at a roundabout which is far safer than a T-bone impact which is common at traffic lights.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - willyt 15y ago
    Roundabouts typically take up a bit more room. You would need to cut chamfers off (demolish and rebuild) the corners of buildings at junctions to make enough room for a roundabout that's more efficient than traffic lights.
  - anthonyb 15y ago
    Only if you're in a car. For cyclists they're far more dangerous than traffic lights (where you can do a hook turn), and also pedestrians (you can install pedestrian lights, and the cars will be going slower anyway).
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      It depends a lot on the design of the roundabout. Our traditional medium-sized model here in the UK, with two or three lanes coming in as one block from feeder roads, certainly isn't great for cyclists. However, we seem to be moving towards a more continental style, where for a medium-sized four-road roundabout you'd have one lane peeling off to the "first exit" and a physically separated lane onto the roundabout for those going further round. This is generally an improvement for everyone, because you only ever have to worry about merging with traffic from one other lane at once. It's also an improvement for cyclists in particular, because you can construct those single lanes so that either they are wide enough to pass a cyclist with a good clearance or they are narrow enough that overtaking is clearly not an option. When there are several adjacent lanes, an aggressive driver will often force a cyclist into the next lane over (even if there's another vehicle there). When doing so requires driving through solid concrete lane dividers, funnily enough it doesn't happen so often...
rjurney 15y ago
Works very well in Mexico City.
cstross 15y ago
Point of note: the average dwelling in the UK is 75 years old. That's a mean; a substantial proportion are over a century old, and many are under preservation orders ... and they were designed at a time when automobiles either did not exist, or were owned by fewer than 2% of the population. (Car ownership hit one vehicle per 25 people only some time after 1945.) We just don't have the land area to go throwing up new construction (including buildings or roads) willy-nilly -- if the US land area was populated to the same average density as the UK there would be around 6 billion people living there, not 300 million. This goes for most of the living urban cores of European cities, similarly. Urban sprawl is cheap and lets you build around the automobile -- although it's intrinsically hostile to public transport by reducing population density. But if land is astronomically expensive to re-purpose, urban sprawl simply isn't a viable solution to the transport problem. TL;DR: we need teleport booths, stat.
- arethuza 15y ago
  Of course the average population density of the UK is a bit misleading because significant chunks of our islands are rather thinly populated - particularly the Scottish Highlands and Islands. That means we're pretty tightly squeezed here in the bits that are densely populated.
learc83 15y ago
> Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses? These are called railroads. One of the biggest advantage of buses over trains is that you don't need to build new infrastructure.
- fennecfoxen 15y ago
  The typical bus lane is still a lot cheaper than the typical railroad installation for light rail.
  - learc83 15y ago
    I was replying to the new roads part of >Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses?

by 7952 15y ago

Silhouette 15y ago

> The problems with buses are all caused by cars. Sorry, but that's just not true. In a relatively small city with narrow streets like Cambridge, buses have just as many problems navigating around cyclists, awkward intersections, and indeed other buses. And the problems buses cause, particularly when only sparsely occupied, have nothing to do with cars at all. > Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses? Where are we going to put those? They're trying to create new roads only for the use of buses, by taking away lanes that used to be for everyone and designating them to be bus lanes instead. That is making things much worse for everyone else, because it means 50% of the road surface on major arterial routes is unused most of the time. And it isn't even helping buses that much, because they still have to get to and from those major routes on the back roads they serve, and they still have to stop at lights or give way at roundabouts just like everyone else. (Cambridge also has far too many sets of traffic lights for its size, which introduces an entirely artificial ceiling on the capacity of its road network for reasons no-one seems to quite understand. You can usually tell when the lights fail at a major intersection, because the drivers all start being polite and taking turns to proceed, there are hardly any queues in the area, and journeys are invariably quicker and more pleasant. Note to people wanting saner traffic systems for cities in future: competitive routes and stop/go lights are an evil that will cripple your efficiency.)

saraid216 15y ago
> (Cambridge also has far too many sets of traffic lights for its size, which introduces an entirely artificial ceiling on the capacity of its road network for reasons no-one seems to quite understand. You can usually tell when the lights fail at a major intersection, because the drivers all start being polite and taking turns to proceed, there are hardly any queues in the area, and journeys are invariably quicker and more pleasant. Note to people wanting saner traffic systems for cities in future: competitive routes and stop/go lights are an evil that will cripple your efficiency.) Incidentally, I did hear about a study that indicates that roundabouts are far better for safety than traffic lights. Unfortunately, I don't remember the reason they concluded for this. Suffice to say... I don't really see much reason to ever use traffic lights if they can be avoided.
- shalmanese 15y ago
  It's because it's only possible to have an angular impact at a roundabout which is far safer than a T-bone impact which is common at traffic lights.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- willyt 15y ago
  Roundabouts typically take up a bit more room. You would need to cut chamfers off (demolish and rebuild) the corners of buildings at junctions to make enough room for a roundabout that's more efficient than traffic lights.
- anthonyb 15y ago
  Only if you're in a car. For cyclists they're far more dangerous than traffic lights (where you can do a hook turn), and also pedestrians (you can install pedestrian lights, and the cars will be going slower anyway).
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    It depends a lot on the design of the roundabout. Our traditional medium-sized model here in the UK, with two or three lanes coming in as one block from feeder roads, certainly isn't great for cyclists. However, we seem to be moving towards a more continental style, where for a medium-sized four-road roundabout you'd have one lane peeling off to the "first exit" and a physically separated lane onto the roundabout for those going further round. This is generally an improvement for everyone, because you only ever have to worry about merging with traffic from one other lane at once. It's also an improvement for cyclists in particular, because you can construct those single lanes so that either they are wide enough to pass a cyclist with a good clearance or they are narrow enough that overtaking is clearly not an option. When there are several adjacent lanes, an aggressive driver will often force a cyclist into the next lane over (even if there's another vehicle there). When doing so requires driving through solid concrete lane dividers, funnily enough it doesn't happen so often...

rjurney 15y ago

Works very well in Mexico City.

cstross 15y ago

Point of note: the average dwelling in the UK is 75 years old. That's a mean; a substantial proportion are over a century old, and many are under preservation orders ... and they were designed at a time when automobiles either did not exist, or were owned by fewer than 2% of the population. (Car ownership hit one vehicle per 25 people only some time after 1945.) We just don't have the land area to go throwing up new construction (including buildings or roads) willy-nilly -- if the US land area was populated to the same average density as the UK there would be around 6 billion people living there, not 300 million. This goes for most of the living urban cores of European cities, similarly. Urban sprawl is cheap and lets you build around the automobile -- although it's intrinsically hostile to public transport by reducing population density. But if land is astronomically expensive to re-purpose, urban sprawl simply isn't a viable solution to the transport problem. TL;DR: we need teleport booths, stat.

arethuza 15y ago
Of course the average population density of the UK is a bit misleading because significant chunks of our islands are rather thinly populated - particularly the Scottish Highlands and Islands. That means we're pretty tightly squeezed here in the bits that are densely populated.

learc83 15y ago

> Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses? These are called railroads. One of the biggest advantage of buses over trains is that you don't need to build new infrastructure.

fennecfoxen 15y ago
The typical bus lane is still a lot cheaper than the typical railroad installation for light rail.
- learc83 15y ago
  I was replying to the new roads part of >Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses?