5 ms·

There are two groups of people that you can optimize for. One is the group of people who already rides the bus. In most US cities this is a small group of peopl

There are two groups of people that you can optimize for. One is the group of people who already rides the bus. In most US cities this is a small group of people who have no real alternative. The other is the group of people who might ride the bus if it were convenient. Not just in terms of accessibility to a stop, but also accounting for the journey time. If someone tries riding the bus and finds that a 20 minute drive becomes an hour with stops every single block, they might never ride it again. In most US cities (outside of the few big ones with decent transit), public transit is basically treated as a welfare service for those who cannot get around by any other means. Not saying that this service doesn't have value, but making all decisions in that mindset isn't going to attract more ridership from those who could choose to drive instead.

pavel_lishin 8mo ago
There are very, very few people in America who - when given a choice between driving and taking public transit - will take public transit, no matter how convenient the public transit is. And in this example, how many stops would you have to cut to turn an hour-long bus ride into a 20 minute one, to compete with the car? You're effectively cutting it down to two stops - where you board, and where you disembark. That's just not a plausible way to organize a bus route, aiming it at one person with a car.
- kenjackson 8mo ago
  If public transit was super convenient I think way more people would take it. There are things and places I don’t frequent purely because of parking and public transit isn’t convenient. But I don’t want to drive three miles to park in a sketchy lot to hop on a train that will drop me off a mile from the venue.
- ambicapter 8mo ago
  > There are very, very few people in America who - when given a choice between driving and taking public transit - will take public transit, no matter how convenient the public transit is. I find this very unlikely to be true for people who have spent any amount of time driving in a city.
  - pavel_lishin 8mo ago
    I think the majority of city residents tend not to own cars, but I could be wrong about that.
    - stetrain 8mo ago
      That feels like you've made a tautology here. In places where public transit is more convenient than driving (and parking), many people choose not to own and drive a car.
    - dghlsakjg 8mo ago
      Owning a car is not mutually exclusive with commuting via transit. > I think the majority of city residents tend not to own cars This depends a HUGE amount on the city. NYC/London/Paris probably true. LA? It is not uncommon for a household to have more cars than drivers
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - ambicapter 8mo ago
      They don't own cars because owning a car in the city sucks in a lot of ways, more so than in rural areas. So yeah, if your point is that if you take away all the bad parts of using a car, and leave public transit as is, then using a car comes out ahead. Splendid.
- janalsncm 8mo ago
  Counterpoint: many people are driving cars they cannot afford and car loan delinquencies are at record highs. People would take public transit if it were an option.
- selimthegrim 8mo ago
  You’re assuming parking is free. Donald Shoup’s shade is shaking its head at you
- TulliusCicero 8mo ago
  > There are very, very few people in America who - when given a choice between driving and taking public transit - will take public transit, no matter how convenient the public transit is. Yeah, no, this simply isn't true. People don't take transit in America because largely that transit is sparse, infrequent, unreliable, and slow. When a twenty minute drive becomes a hour and a half of buses and walking, virtually nobody rational will willingly choose that.
maldev 8mo ago
I would ride the bus if it wasn't filled with crackheads. Stopped Bart when it went downhill and all the white collar people stopped riding it and it just became desperate people, homeless, or crackheads.
- janalsncm 8mo ago
  The public services death spiral is real. Services get defunded -> they get worse -> reduced user base -> more cuts. The only way to break the cycle is to improve the services. Safety is only one of the issues. Convenience and comfort are others. Basically a city needs to decide whether it wants people to use the bus, and then act like it.
- supertrope 8mo ago
  Mass transit systems generally reduce anti-social behavior with either fare gates or heavy policing. For whatever reason, when you crack down on fare evasion you filter out a lot of troublemakers.
- rsynnott 8mo ago
  I was in SF middle of last year and was on the BART a good bit, and it was... fine? It remains the most objectionably noisy mode of transport I've ever been on, but it didn't feel any less safe than when I've been there previously.
- jacobolus 8mo ago
  BART is full of white-collar people who use it to commute and to travel around the area (alongside all sorts of other kinds of people, as you would expect for a broadly used service). Ridership collapsed in 2020 because of the pandemic, for obvious reasons, but it's hard to really blame that on the service itself, or the riders. Ridership has been gradually recovering since then. Total trips are now up to something like 70% of 2019 levels, and continuing to rise. Number of unique riders is actually above the 2019 level now. Maybe you haven't tried riding BART again within the past several years?
  - maldev 8mo ago
janalsncm 8mo ago
In my experience, the problem was long wait times between buses and unreliable pickup times. That meant you realistically had to add buffer at each end of your trip: in case the bus was early and in case the bus was late. Not only was that more than 20% of my trip time, it was also mental overhead of worrying whether you already missed the bus. The bus might come 2x per hour. Maybe 2:18 and 2:48. But it might come at 2:15 or 2:25. So you need to arrive at 2:13 and possibly wait 12 minutes. Or if you arrive late you might be waiting 30+ minutes. Make the buses fast and safe.
- adgjlsfhk1 8mo ago
  Removing unnecessary bus stops is a prerequisite to making busses fast. You can't run a fast bus service if the bus is stopping every single block.
  - oblio 8mo ago
    There are 2 big prerequisites for fast bus service : 1. Dedicated bus lanes (speed, predictability). 2. Traffic light priority ( speed, predictability). How many US cities implement even one of those?
    - adgjlsfhk1 8mo ago
      Not nearly enough
    - angmarsbane 8mo ago
      Dedicated bus lanes that are physically separated from car traffic specifically, like the BRT system in Mexico City.
    - connorboyle 7mo ago
      Regardless of exclusive RoW or signal priority, it is physically impossible for a bus route to: 1) stop every few hundred feet to pick up and drop off passengers 2) maintain an effective speed significantly faster than running
  - 8mo ago

pavel_lishin 8mo ago

There are very, very few people in America who - when given a choice between driving and taking public transit - will take public transit, no matter how convenient the public transit is. And in this example, how many stops would you have to cut to turn an hour-long bus ride into a 20 minute one, to compete with the car? You're effectively cutting it down to two stops - where you board, and where you disembark. That's just not a plausible way to organize a bus route, aiming it at one person with a car.

kenjackson 8mo ago
If public transit was super convenient I think way more people would take it. There are things and places I don’t frequent purely because of parking and public transit isn’t convenient. But I don’t want to drive three miles to park in a sketchy lot to hop on a train that will drop me off a mile from the venue.
ambicapter 8mo ago
> There are very, very few people in America who - when given a choice between driving and taking public transit - will take public transit, no matter how convenient the public transit is. I find this very unlikely to be true for people who have spent any amount of time driving in a city.
- pavel_lishin 8mo ago
  I think the majority of city residents tend not to own cars, but I could be wrong about that.
  - stetrain 8mo ago
    That feels like you've made a tautology here. In places where public transit is more convenient than driving (and parking), many people choose not to own and drive a car.
  - dghlsakjg 8mo ago
    Owning a car is not mutually exclusive with commuting via transit. > I think the majority of city residents tend not to own cars This depends a HUGE amount on the city. NYC/London/Paris probably true. LA? It is not uncommon for a household to have more cars than drivers
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ambicapter 8mo ago
    They don't own cars because owning a car in the city sucks in a lot of ways, more so than in rural areas. So yeah, if your point is that if you take away all the bad parts of using a car, and leave public transit as is, then using a car comes out ahead. Splendid.
janalsncm 8mo ago
Counterpoint: many people are driving cars they cannot afford and car loan delinquencies are at record highs. People would take public transit if it were an option.
selimthegrim 8mo ago
You’re assuming parking is free. Donald Shoup’s shade is shaking its head at you
TulliusCicero 8mo ago
> There are very, very few people in America who - when given a choice between driving and taking public transit - will take public transit, no matter how convenient the public transit is. Yeah, no, this simply isn't true. People don't take transit in America because largely that transit is sparse, infrequent, unreliable, and slow. When a twenty minute drive becomes a hour and a half of buses and walking, virtually nobody rational will willingly choose that.

maldev 8mo ago

I would ride the bus if it wasn't filled with crackheads. Stopped Bart when it went downhill and all the white collar people stopped riding it and it just became desperate people, homeless, or crackheads.

janalsncm 8mo ago
The public services death spiral is real. Services get defunded -> they get worse -> reduced user base -> more cuts. The only way to break the cycle is to improve the services. Safety is only one of the issues. Convenience and comfort are others. Basically a city needs to decide whether it wants people to use the bus, and then act like it.
supertrope 8mo ago
Mass transit systems generally reduce anti-social behavior with either fare gates or heavy policing. For whatever reason, when you crack down on fare evasion you filter out a lot of troublemakers.
rsynnott 8mo ago
I was in SF middle of last year and was on the BART a good bit, and it was... fine? It remains the most objectionably noisy mode of transport I've ever been on, but it didn't feel any less safe than when I've been there previously.
jacobolus 8mo ago
BART is full of white-collar people who use it to commute and to travel around the area (alongside all sorts of other kinds of people, as you would expect for a broadly used service). Ridership collapsed in 2020 because of the pandemic, for obvious reasons, but it's hard to really blame that on the service itself, or the riders. Ridership has been gradually recovering since then. Total trips are now up to something like 70% of 2019 levels, and continuing to rise. Number of unique riders is actually above the 2019 level now. Maybe you haven't tried riding BART again within the past several years?
- maldev 8mo ago

janalsncm 8mo ago

In my experience, the problem was long wait times between buses and unreliable pickup times. That meant you realistically had to add buffer at each end of your trip: in case the bus was early and in case the bus was late. Not only was that more than 20% of my trip time, it was also mental overhead of worrying whether you already missed the bus. The bus might come 2x per hour. Maybe 2:18 and 2:48. But it might come at 2:15 or 2:25. So you need to arrive at 2:13 and possibly wait 12 minutes. Or if you arrive late you might be waiting 30+ minutes. Make the buses fast and safe.

adgjlsfhk1 8mo ago
Removing unnecessary bus stops is a prerequisite to making busses fast. You can't run a fast bus service if the bus is stopping every single block.
- oblio 8mo ago
  There are 2 big prerequisites for fast bus service : 1. Dedicated bus lanes (speed, predictability). 2. Traffic light priority ( speed, predictability). How many US cities implement even one of those?
  - adgjlsfhk1 8mo ago
    Not nearly enough
  - angmarsbane 8mo ago
    Dedicated bus lanes that are physically separated from car traffic specifically, like the BRT system in Mexico City.
  - connorboyle 7mo ago
    Regardless of exclusive RoW or signal priority, it is physically impossible for a bus route to: 1) stop every few hundred feet to pick up and drop off passengers 2) maintain an effective speed significantly faster than running
- 8mo ago