4 ms·

Why is a bus not fit for endless culdesac suburbia where people are commuting between the suburbs instead of to the downtown? I really don't get it. Pretty muc

by yreg 2mo ago

Why is a bus not fit for endless culdesac suburbia where people are commuting between the suburbs instead of to the downtown? I really don't get it. Pretty much everywhere outside of US buses work no matter the city layout. Just add some stops and run some buses.

missedthecue 2mo ago
because you can't fill the buses! 1. Cul-de-sacs and surburbia lack through-streets. So it forces heavy long buses to navigate winding narrow loops. This makes your routing complex and slow. 2. When commuters travel suburb-to-suburb instead of hub-and-spoke downtown, origin-destination pairs are too scattered to support fixed routes with meaningful frequency. 3. Low passenger volume per mile makes fixed-route bus operations financially unsustainable. 4. Disconnected street networks and long setbacks force residents to drive just to reach a bus stop. Like seriously pull up google maps. There are a million suburbs in the greater DFW area where you need to walk 15 minutes just to get out of your neighborhood to the nearest main road where a bus stop would be placed. When it's a thirty minute round trip of walking, (not to mention what the walking situation looks like at your destination), and you throw in stopping at every bus stop on the route, every commute takes several hours instead of 20-30 minutes driving.
- yreg 2mo ago
  1. I promise you that a bus can get through winding narrow loops just fine. All medieval old towns are like that. 2. You either create loops or hubs where people transfer. The hub can be just a regular bus stop where lines meet. 3. Looking up the density of Dallas suburbs I can tell you that buses can work well in far less dense places. 4. The math doesn't add up, if you can get somewhere by car in 20 - 30mins driving then even with 15 minute walk on either side the bus will take you there in less than 'hours'. And walking 15 minutes to the bus stop is not the end of the world. There would also be plenty of people living/working closer to the stop. From your original comment I got the idea that you think buses need to be these massive heavy vehicles, but that's not really the case either. I've been to places where the public transport was operated by microvans with as low as 12 seats. I don't think they were actually much bigger than american pickups. But I think a regular bus would work alright.
  - birdman3131 2mo ago
    I can't say for a properly designed system but I can get anywhere in my city (~90k population / ~0.25m metro) in 15 minutes via car. (Some days traffic effects a bit.) Many bus stops are up to 1:45 away. Can and implemented are often worlds apart. A 12 seater is not a microvan. That is in full size van territory.
  - alooPotato 2mo ago
    Just scale your small bus further down and you get a cybercab/waymo. It gets full easily but its routes are fully customizable and you never have to change lines and it runs at all hours with no wait. Ohh and its actually way cheaper to run per passenger mile. IMO shared, electric, autonomous AVs are the best solution for mass transit for 90% of the routes
    - galangalalgol 2mo ago
      Lots of single user "busses" cause dramatically lower road wear and microplastics than a many user bus. Those scale with axle weight to the third and fourth powers respectively.
  - ricardobayes 2mo ago
    It works in some countries with a low gini coefficient. In places like Germany or Spain people use public transport because everyone, broadly speaking, is in a very similar socioeconomic status. In some other countries, the wealth inequality is much higher, and people with a higher economic standing don't want to share space with crackheads or mentally ill (a direct consequence of not having access to cheap or free mental health). Some societies are set up in a way that public transport can work, and others don't, it's just the way it is.
  - xnx 2mo ago
    > I've been to places where the public transport was operated by microvans with as low as 12 seats. Right-sizing the vehicle is smart. Why not also allow 4 person buses that run on demand to and from any point?
- rigrassm 2mo ago
  I've seen big yellow buses driving through every neighborhood I've ever lived in picking up and dropping people off on a fixed schedule... Seems like the concept works just fine when it's not being actively fought against and sabotaged.
  - HDThoreaun 2mo ago
    school buses only work because their customers have no other options. Take a look at transportation methods among Dallas high schoolers old enough to drive. Suddenly big yellow buses arent so popular.
hahla 2mo ago
Your entire view point is framed incorrectly. The problem isn’t can a bus solve the problem, it’s the majority of people don’t want to endure the hassle of riding the bus.
- ricardobayes 2mo ago
  Not saying to refute your point just flagging that in places like Germany the bus works flawlessly. People there are really proud that you can even go hiking with public transport, buses are clean, safe and cheap (cheaper than using your car).
  - sdthjbvuiiijbb 2mo ago
    The human geography of Germany is completely different from the US. The US has much more continuous sprawl vs Germany has more clearly defined borders between higher density areas (towns and cities) and lower density ones along with land use laws that maintain this. Also US zoning laws typically don't help either with clear divisions between commercial and residential instead of more mixed use zoning. I am pretty pro transit and urbanism but it really annoys me in these discussions when people (not you specifically) just wave their hands and go "add more buses, ez, problem solved", completely disregarding the physical realities of how we have constructed our civilization.
  - DeathArrow 2mo ago
    In Germany they penalize using cars by taxing cars and fuels. They reward using public transport by subsidizing it. Car owners pay so public transit users get cheaper rides. So people are using public transit in Germany not because they love to but because they are forced to. And the system is far from perfect, Germans are complaining because public transportation is having a lot of delays. You can't reach every point you need, you have to wait and some times public transportation is dirty and filled with dirty, rude, violent people, drug addicts and drunks. Not a lovely way to travel.
- FromHoiPolloi 2mo ago
  ok... Why the majority of people don't want to endure the hassle of riding the bus?
mnahkies 2mo ago
Why not both? Driver-less (or even just with drivers) mini buses, without fixed stops and dynamic routes/stops based on demand. I guess you don't want to stop more times than needed, so maybe you'd want to cluster the demand somehow into "virtual stops", and you may lack some amenities like shelters.. so maybe the traditional bus route is good enough. Though it feels like it's ripe for optimisation (you know the classic no buses come for 30min then 3 arrive at once, or these buses are all full whilst others are roaming empty)
infecto 2mo ago
Why would you think it works? Let’s say you have a community of 100 people in Dallas. That neighborhood is going to be commuting in all sorts of directions, sure you might be able to transport some groups going the same direction but there is a complete lack of central offices so how does the last mile work? Lots of transfers would be required and that’s a nonstarter
- bluGill 2mo ago
  Your community should be more like 500 people. Each house will have more than two people (most people live with a romantic partner, and kids are still common enough) and there are more than 100 houses in the neighborhood.
  - infecto 2mo ago
    And now what? You now have 500 people going in every different direction still sure some overlap but in a metro like DFW you probably don’t see anything meaningful until the thousands and DFW does not have that kind of density.
JKCalhoun 2mo ago
A bus isn't going to be able to pull into my driveway, obv.
IG_Semmelweiss 2mo ago
Buses were indeed the logical solution before Waymo/etc. Now, they are just a modern version of horse carriages. Dirty, slow, smelly and insecure. The faster you get out of the bus, the faster you liberate grandma and kids from a fall, being mugged, or from freezing to death while waiting, and instead you promote an active lifestyle. Waymo-like transport is incredibly liberating for low middle class parents, that cannot be trust their young kids to ride a bus alone and take time off blue collar work to take their kids to X practice. Plus, they are much cheaper and safer to operate long term Buses are a solution today, but only for upper class americans & soccer moms, who don't realize the issues that low income or limited fixed income seniors face in their everyday life.

by yreg 2mo ago

missedthecue 2mo ago

because you can't fill the buses! 1. Cul-de-sacs and surburbia lack through-streets. So it forces heavy long buses to navigate winding narrow loops. This makes your routing complex and slow. 2. When commuters travel suburb-to-suburb instead of hub-and-spoke downtown, origin-destination pairs are too scattered to support fixed routes with meaningful frequency. 3. Low passenger volume per mile makes fixed-route bus operations financially unsustainable. 4. Disconnected street networks and long setbacks force residents to drive just to reach a bus stop. Like seriously pull up google maps. There are a million suburbs in the greater DFW area where you need to walk 15 minutes just to get out of your neighborhood to the nearest main road where a bus stop would be placed. When it's a thirty minute round trip of walking, (not to mention what the walking situation looks like at your destination), and you throw in stopping at every bus stop on the route, every commute takes several hours instead of 20-30 minutes driving.

yreg 2mo ago
1. I promise you that a bus can get through winding narrow loops just fine. All medieval old towns are like that. 2. You either create loops or hubs where people transfer. The hub can be just a regular bus stop where lines meet. 3. Looking up the density of Dallas suburbs I can tell you that buses can work well in far less dense places. 4. The math doesn't add up, if you can get somewhere by car in 20 - 30mins driving then even with 15 minute walk on either side the bus will take you there in less than 'hours'. And walking 15 minutes to the bus stop is not the end of the world. There would also be plenty of people living/working closer to the stop. From your original comment I got the idea that you think buses need to be these massive heavy vehicles, but that's not really the case either. I've been to places where the public transport was operated by microvans with as low as 12 seats. I don't think they were actually much bigger than american pickups. But I think a regular bus would work alright.
- birdman3131 2mo ago
  I can't say for a properly designed system but I can get anywhere in my city (~90k population / ~0.25m metro) in 15 minutes via car. (Some days traffic effects a bit.) Many bus stops are up to 1:45 away. Can and implemented are often worlds apart. A 12 seater is not a microvan. That is in full size van territory.
- alooPotato 2mo ago
  Just scale your small bus further down and you get a cybercab/waymo. It gets full easily but its routes are fully customizable and you never have to change lines and it runs at all hours with no wait. Ohh and its actually way cheaper to run per passenger mile. IMO shared, electric, autonomous AVs are the best solution for mass transit for 90% of the routes
  - galangalalgol 2mo ago
    Lots of single user "busses" cause dramatically lower road wear and microplastics than a many user bus. Those scale with axle weight to the third and fourth powers respectively.
- ricardobayes 2mo ago
  It works in some countries with a low gini coefficient. In places like Germany or Spain people use public transport because everyone, broadly speaking, is in a very similar socioeconomic status. In some other countries, the wealth inequality is much higher, and people with a higher economic standing don't want to share space with crackheads or mentally ill (a direct consequence of not having access to cheap or free mental health). Some societies are set up in a way that public transport can work, and others don't, it's just the way it is.
- xnx 2mo ago
  > I've been to places where the public transport was operated by microvans with as low as 12 seats. Right-sizing the vehicle is smart. Why not also allow 4 person buses that run on demand to and from any point?
rigrassm 2mo ago
I've seen big yellow buses driving through every neighborhood I've ever lived in picking up and dropping people off on a fixed schedule... Seems like the concept works just fine when it's not being actively fought against and sabotaged.
- HDThoreaun 2mo ago
  school buses only work because their customers have no other options. Take a look at transportation methods among Dallas high schoolers old enough to drive. Suddenly big yellow buses arent so popular.

hahla 2mo ago

Your entire view point is framed incorrectly. The problem isn’t can a bus solve the problem, it’s the majority of people don’t want to endure the hassle of riding the bus.

ricardobayes 2mo ago
Not saying to refute your point just flagging that in places like Germany the bus works flawlessly. People there are really proud that you can even go hiking with public transport, buses are clean, safe and cheap (cheaper than using your car).
- sdthjbvuiiijbb 2mo ago
  The human geography of Germany is completely different from the US. The US has much more continuous sprawl vs Germany has more clearly defined borders between higher density areas (towns and cities) and lower density ones along with land use laws that maintain this. Also US zoning laws typically don't help either with clear divisions between commercial and residential instead of more mixed use zoning. I am pretty pro transit and urbanism but it really annoys me in these discussions when people (not you specifically) just wave their hands and go "add more buses, ez, problem solved", completely disregarding the physical realities of how we have constructed our civilization.
- DeathArrow 2mo ago
  In Germany they penalize using cars by taxing cars and fuels. They reward using public transport by subsidizing it. Car owners pay so public transit users get cheaper rides. So people are using public transit in Germany not because they love to but because they are forced to. And the system is far from perfect, Germans are complaining because public transportation is having a lot of delays. You can't reach every point you need, you have to wait and some times public transportation is dirty and filled with dirty, rude, violent people, drug addicts and drunks. Not a lovely way to travel.
FromHoiPolloi 2mo ago
ok... Why the majority of people don't want to endure the hassle of riding the bus?

mnahkies 2mo ago

Why not both? Driver-less (or even just with drivers) mini buses, without fixed stops and dynamic routes/stops based on demand. I guess you don't want to stop more times than needed, so maybe you'd want to cluster the demand somehow into "virtual stops", and you may lack some amenities like shelters.. so maybe the traditional bus route is good enough. Though it feels like it's ripe for optimisation (you know the classic no buses come for 30min then 3 arrive at once, or these buses are all full whilst others are roaming empty)

infecto 2mo ago

Why would you think it works? Let’s say you have a community of 100 people in Dallas. That neighborhood is going to be commuting in all sorts of directions, sure you might be able to transport some groups going the same direction but there is a complete lack of central offices so how does the last mile work? Lots of transfers would be required and that’s a nonstarter

bluGill 2mo ago
Your community should be more like 500 people. Each house will have more than two people (most people live with a romantic partner, and kids are still common enough) and there are more than 100 houses in the neighborhood.
- infecto 2mo ago
  And now what? You now have 500 people going in every different direction still sure some overlap but in a metro like DFW you probably don’t see anything meaningful until the thousands and DFW does not have that kind of density.

JKCalhoun 2mo ago

A bus isn't going to be able to pull into my driveway, obv.

IG_Semmelweiss 2mo ago

Buses were indeed the logical solution before Waymo/etc. Now, they are just a modern version of horse carriages. Dirty, slow, smelly and insecure. The faster you get out of the bus, the faster you liberate grandma and kids from a fall, being mugged, or from freezing to death while waiting, and instead you promote an active lifestyle. Waymo-like transport is incredibly liberating for low middle class parents, that cannot be trust their young kids to ride a bus alone and take time off blue collar work to take their kids to X practice. Plus, they are much cheaper and safer to operate long term Buses are a solution today, but only for upper class americans & soccer moms, who don't realize the issues that low income or limited fixed income seniors face in their everyday life.