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>>“Seattle has a solid bus system but everyone who can afford a car has a car." The "solid" descriptor is doing a LOT of heavy lifting there. While IDK specifi

by toss1 2y ago

>>“Seattle has a solid bus system but everyone who can afford a car has a car." The "solid" descriptor is doing a LOT of heavy lifting there. While IDK specifically about the Seattle system, experience with other systems (Boston, NYC) shows that "good enough" often isn't. If the system is not reliably on time, as in 99%+, its value degrades exponentially. When people rely on public transport to get to work, and they have consequences for being late even a couple times per year, if it isn't 100% reliable, they MUST take the earlier bus/train/trolley, and thereby waste every day the interval between rides. Same if it is overcrowded and they cannot reliably get on the ride. Sure, similar 'leave early due to traffic' considerations are also rampant for automobile transport, but it is much more in your own control. Leaving 2min late in a car will rarely make you 35min late because you missed that train. Same for staying late at work. If you need an extra 10min, commuting by car you'll probably get home 9min later (evening rush-hour clearing a bit), but with the train, that 10min will reliably cost you 50min. And if you can't rely on the trains running on time it might be even worse. If the people running public transport really want to substantially increase ridership and decrease auto traffic, they MUST upgrade their standards from "good enough for government work" to much closer to Swiss trains, where I could reliably watch the train start motion in the exact second the second hand ticked past the minute of scheduled departure. While a 'good enough' system is better than none and will always have some ridership, it is not enough better to make the difference that is needed for full utilization.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
There is another alternative: frequent enough that it doesn't matter if you miss a train, because the next is in 5 minutes or so.
- toss1 2y ago
  YES, that would absolutely work As long as the infrastructure is good enough that it doesn't delay all the trains/busses (which happens a lot in Boston metro area, unfixed for decades). At that point, it's just a capital equation - is it more costly to ensure they run 99.995% reliably +/-30sec or just invest enough capital to field and maintain a new train every 5min on average? One advantage of the latter is a lot more redundant equipment available. But also a lot more total wear and maintenance. But either works
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
>>“Seattle has a solid bus system but everyone who can afford a car has a car." “Solid” is definitely doing a lot of heavy lifting. Seattle is terribly managed, because it imported mass quantities of Bay Area voters over the last 15 years as the tech industry grew (Amazon), which rapidly changed everything (population, politics, city in general). It had amazing traffic flow up to 10 years ago and you could drive anywhere quickly even in rush hour. But that has changed. The decade long period of rapid population growth coupled with the war on cars has destroyed what was a highly functional road network. Now there are less lanes to drive on, lots of mostly empty bike lanes, bus lanes that are a waste of space, reduced speed limits to try to force drivers onto public transit, etc. There’s also an insanely expensive light rail (around 100 billion budget so far) that is partially functional and won’t be completed until the 2040s. But to use it you need to take buses to get to the station (parking is full and break-ins are frequent) so it is much too time consuming. The buses themselves are ALWAYS off schedule, to a point where sometimes you can wait more than one cycle on the schedule to see the bus on many routes. Their app to track the buses by GPS is unreliable and misleading. None of the public transit is 24/7 either, despite huge budgets. And with the city facing a massive deficit I doubt there’s more to spend. A bigger issue is the blight across the city. A decade of soft on crime policies means a lot of public transit feels unsafe. Seattle’s police department is at half the level of staffing it needs to be just to match the average. The light rail can sometimes feel like a mobile homeless shelter, which is a shame because of how new and clean the cars are otherwise. Buses often have drug addicts on them. Low level crimes are common but violent crimes are rising. There was an incident recently that was on national news, where a bus driver got stabbed by a rider. People avoid public transit if they have the means. I think for the rail system in Seattle to be useful it has to be frequent, 24/7, with matching frequent and 24/7 bus transit feeding into it, and with a massive focus on law enforcement AND prosecution.

by toss1 2y ago

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

There is another alternative: frequent enough that it doesn't matter if you miss a train, because the next is in 5 minutes or so.

toss1 2y ago
YES, that would absolutely work As long as the infrastructure is good enough that it doesn't delay all the trains/busses (which happens a lot in Boston metro area, unfixed for decades). At that point, it's just a capital equation - is it more costly to ensure they run 99.995% reliably +/-30sec or just invest enough capital to field and maintain a new train every 5min on average? One advantage of the latter is a lot more redundant equipment available. But also a lot more total wear and maintenance. But either works

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

>>“Seattle has a solid bus system but everyone who can afford a car has a car." “Solid” is definitely doing a lot of heavy lifting. Seattle is terribly managed, because it imported mass quantities of Bay Area voters over the last 15 years as the tech industry grew (Amazon), which rapidly changed everything (population, politics, city in general). It had amazing traffic flow up to 10 years ago and you could drive anywhere quickly even in rush hour. But that has changed. The decade long period of rapid population growth coupled with the war on cars has destroyed what was a highly functional road network. Now there are less lanes to drive on, lots of mostly empty bike lanes, bus lanes that are a waste of space, reduced speed limits to try to force drivers onto public transit, etc. There’s also an insanely expensive light rail (around 100 billion budget so far) that is partially functional and won’t be completed until the 2040s. But to use it you need to take buses to get to the station (parking is full and break-ins are frequent) so it is much too time consuming. The buses themselves are ALWAYS off schedule, to a point where sometimes you can wait more than one cycle on the schedule to see the bus on many routes. Their app to track the buses by GPS is unreliable and misleading. None of the public transit is 24/7 either, despite huge budgets. And with the city facing a massive deficit I doubt there’s more to spend. A bigger issue is the blight across the city. A decade of soft on crime policies means a lot of public transit feels unsafe. Seattle’s police department is at half the level of staffing it needs to be just to match the average. The light rail can sometimes feel like a mobile homeless shelter, which is a shame because of how new and clean the cars are otherwise. Buses often have drug addicts on them. Low level crimes are common but violent crimes are rising. There was an incident recently that was on national news, where a bus driver got stabbed by a rider. People avoid public transit if they have the means. I think for the rail system in Seattle to be useful it has to be frequent, 24/7, with matching frequent and 24/7 bus transit feeding into it, and with a massive focus on law enforcement AND prosecution.