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I moved downtown last month from the suburbs and I've found that in the city, the problem of getting to your destination is vastly more complicated. I'm complet

I moved downtown last month from the suburbs and I've found that in the city, the problem of getting to your destination is vastly more complicated. I'm completely bewildered by the changing bus/train schedules and don't understand how anyone can juggle all of those routes and times in their head to construct a path to their destination. Walk 3 blocks to A stop (absolutely not the stop closest to you, that's very important), wait B minutes for the bus but make sure not to get on the C bus, only get on the D, and make sure not to miss the stop at E or you'll go clear across the bay, and then walk a block to the station at F, take the G train to H; there's no public transport there so you're going to have to walk. Don't stay too late because the lines don't run all night. Oh, and you'd better go now because all of those directions will be useless tomorrow because it's Saturday. It's insane. I want to leave any time I want, pull up in a vast parking lot less than a hundred yards from my destination, my GPS guiding me every turn of the way, and get there in air conditioned comfort without getting all sweaty from walking everywhere. I want to be able to go to any restaurant or shop within a 20 mile radius without thinking twice about it, instead of being constrained to a few places within walking distance. I want to be able to drive home a car overflowing with groceries from any store I care to visit instead of having to spread my shopping across every day of the week so that I can carry it home on the bus/train. On the restricted/liberated spectrum, I feel strongly on the restricted side. You can't get anywhere in this city without paying, either for parking or public transport or an uber/lyft/taxi ride. I feel imprisoned within walking distance, unless I have a specific errand that justifies the price of a ride.

kimburgess 12y ago
> I'm completely bewildered by the changing bus/train schedules and don't understand how anyone can juggle all of those routes and times in their head to construct a path to their destination. Two words: Google Maps.
- zyxley 12y ago
  This is pretty much it. There's literally no need to memorize schedules, just plug in point A and point B.
sampo 12y ago
> I'm completely bewildered by the changing bus/train schedules and don't understand how anyone can juggle all of those routes and times in their head I think bigger cities have a journey planner website and a mobile app to go with it. For example, here's the one for London: http://tfl.gov.uk/ http://tfl.gov.uk/ Also, the trunk transport lines (they can be metro, train or buses) should go every 10 minutes, or every 5 minutes, so one does not need a timetable to use them.
_delirium 12y ago
As some others have mentioned, I think smartphones are helping to solve this as they get more common and the transit planning gets fast/good. But another way is just to have stable and frequent service, instead of trying to microoptimize different on-peak/off-peak/night or weekday/weekend schedules. That way people just learn that this is the service, and it always runs, problem solved. Copenhagen has mostly converged on that: the metro, trains, and trunk bus routes now mostly run 24/7, with the same route all the time, and high enough frequency that you don't have to worry about when they'll come and how to time connections (typically 2-7 minute headways during the day, 15-20 minutes at night, 30 at night for some buses). Works well, though of course it isn't cheap to operate such a level of service. I definitely find it easier to take night buses now in particular, as they've been moving more of them to this schedule. It's something I do only occasionally so I'd never remember what the "N" night-bus routes were, but now it's easy, because the answer is that it's just the same "A" bus routes as always, not special night buses.

kimburgess 12y ago

> I'm completely bewildered by the changing bus/train schedules and don't understand how anyone can juggle all of those routes and times in their head to construct a path to their destination. Two words: Google Maps.

zyxley 12y ago
This is pretty much it. There's literally no need to memorize schedules, just plug in point A and point B.

sampo 12y ago

> I'm completely bewildered by the changing bus/train schedules and don't understand how anyone can juggle all of those routes and times in their head I think bigger cities have a journey planner website and a mobile app to go with it. For example, here's the one for London: http://tfl.gov.uk/ http://tfl.gov.uk/ Also, the trunk transport lines (they can be metro, train or buses) should go every 10 minutes, or every 5 minutes, so one does not need a timetable to use them.

_delirium 12y ago

As some others have mentioned, I think smartphones are helping to solve this as they get more common and the transit planning gets fast/good. But another way is just to have stable and frequent service, instead of trying to microoptimize different on-peak/off-peak/night or weekday/weekend schedules. That way people just learn that this is the service, and it always runs, problem solved. Copenhagen has mostly converged on that: the metro, trains, and trunk bus routes now mostly run 24/7, with the same route all the time, and high enough frequency that you don't have to worry about when they'll come and how to time connections (typically 2-7 minute headways during the day, 15-20 minutes at night, 30 at night for some buses). Works well, though of course it isn't cheap to operate such a level of service. I definitely find it easier to take night buses now in particular, as they've been moving more of them to this schedule. It's something I do only occasionally so I'd never remember what the "N" night-bus routes were, but now it's easy, because the answer is that it's just the same "A" bus routes as always, not special night buses.