4 ms·

I may be showing a bias against buses here, but the ride will be infuriatingly tortuous. Bus routes attempting to operate along train stations are always convo

I may be showing a bias against buses here, but the ride will be infuriatingly tortuous. Bus routes attempting to operate along train stations are always convoluted routes forced to go back and forth between main roads and the stations, trying to drop passengers off at the same transfer points as the train. It would better just drop people off along El Camino, instead of looping round and round through those stations. Not that it's dramatically worse than having no option, of course. Just that it would drive me crazy as a mode of transport, if you're expecting it to behave like a train...

skybrian 12y ago
Perhaps they're expecting people to have parked at the train station?
- cema 12y ago
  Precisely. And that, of course, is also how buses operate that replace portions of the subways that are temporarily out of service. For example, I sometimes encounter it when I come home late at night on Boston Orange line, which has a lot of construction (they are trying to insert a new station inside an operating segment) and an occasional late-night or weekend replacement of subway service with a shuttle service. I never remember that tonight it is going to be a bus and, in any case, I have to park in a parking garage next to a [redacted] subway station where I have a monthly parking ticket.
girvo 12y ago
That's what a lot of the buses do here in Brisbane, Australia (well sort of), and they run buses directly along the routes when there are track works (which for the last few years has been nearly every weekend sigh), but it's really not that bad. In fact, I quite enjoy it, it's more comfortable and heading down the highway can often be quicker funnily enough (especially now that they're running the trains slower to "save money"...)
fennecfoxen 12y ago
Eh. Caltrain parallels US-101 pretty closely and El Camino even closer. Between these two I doubt it will be more tortuous than a Caltrain local service (sooo many stops) and to save $50+ on the alternatives, easily worth it. Towards the beginning of my career (while still relatively poor) I got stranded in San Jose after Caltrain hours. I got a ride with someone to San Bruno, waited in the cold and dark for a bus with my laptop as a space-heater, caught the night bus, and after ~2.5 hours and 3 buses -- including a transfer in a dark creepy neighborhood at the southern edge of San Francisco proper that I didn't actually expect I'd need to make -- I made it the rest of the way home. Now THAT was tortuous. :b

skybrian 12y ago

Perhaps they're expecting people to have parked at the train station?

cema 12y ago
Precisely. And that, of course, is also how buses operate that replace portions of the subways that are temporarily out of service. For example, I sometimes encounter it when I come home late at night on Boston Orange line, which has a lot of construction (they are trying to insert a new station inside an operating segment) and an occasional late-night or weekend replacement of subway service with a shuttle service. I never remember that tonight it is going to be a bus and, in any case, I have to park in a parking garage next to a [redacted] subway station where I have a monthly parking ticket.

girvo 12y ago

That's what a lot of the buses do here in Brisbane, Australia (well sort of), and they run buses directly along the routes when there are track works (which for the last few years has been nearly every weekend sigh), but it's really not that bad. In fact, I quite enjoy it, it's more comfortable and heading down the highway can often be quicker funnily enough (especially now that they're running the trains slower to "save money"...)

fennecfoxen 12y ago

Eh. Caltrain parallels US-101 pretty closely and El Camino even closer. Between these two I doubt it will be more tortuous than a Caltrain local service (sooo many stops) and to save $50+ on the alternatives, easily worth it. Towards the beginning of my career (while still relatively poor) I got stranded in San Jose after Caltrain hours. I got a ride with someone to San Bruno, waited in the cold and dark for a bus with my laptop as a space-heater, caught the night bus, and after ~2.5 hours and 3 buses -- including a transfer in a dark creepy neighborhood at the southern edge of San Francisco proper that I didn't actually expect I'd need to make -- I made it the rest of the way home. Now THAT was tortuous. :b