The United States Needs Fewer Bus Stops (worksinprogress.co)
- Reference: 0180586348
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/15/1648212/the-united-states-needs-fewer-bus-stops
- Source link: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-united-states-needs-fewer-bus-stops/
Mean spacing in American cities is roughly 313 meters, about five stops per mile, while older cities like Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco pack stops even tighter at 214, 223 and 248 meters respectively. European cities typically space stops at 300 to 450 meters.
Each stop costs time: passengers boarding and exiting, acceleration and deceleration, buses kneeling for wheelchairs, missed traffic light cycles. Buses spend about 20% of their operating time just stopping and starting, and since labor accounts for the majority of transit operating costs, slower buses translate directly to higher expenses.
Cities that have tried spacing stops further apart have seen results. San Francisco recorded a 4.4 to 14% increase in travel speeds by reducing from six stops per mile to two and a half. Vancouver's pilot removed a quarter of stops and cut average trip times by five minutes while saving about $500,000 annually on a single route. A McGill study found that even substantial stop consolidation reduced overall system coverage by just 1%.
[1] https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-united-states-needs-fewer-bus-stops/
Let's maximize it: (Score:5, Funny)
No stops at all! Then passengers would be really zipping around town!
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You could supplement this by putting into service a very long, long bus....
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Only joke on the rich target? The jokes I was looking for would have involved how far people are willing to walk (though I probably enjoy walking more than is reasonable). Did see some posts that call for an "Ignorant" moderation as regards Tokyo...
Having said that, I mostly avoid riding buses. They seem too expensive against the alternatives. Also too often unreasonably slow, even in comparison to walking the direct route while the bus route wanders hither and yon. So I guess my position is kind of paradox
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> No stops at all! Then passengers would be really zipping around town!
You jest, but my county actually did this. They replaced the bus service with a government-run taxi service. The main gripes seem to be that it puts more cars on the road, and it's less affordable than the bus. I've noticed a serious uptick in people getting around now using e-bikes and e-scooters.
I guess the message from the local government was if you're too poor to own an e-bike or e-scooter, sucks to be you.
Running speed (Score:5, Informative)
"...about eight miles per hour -- barely faster than a brisk walk" -- I would challenge anyone to walk 8 miles in one hour. That is most definitely running at about 7:30/mile pace. Admittedly slow by automotive standards, but not the best analogy to start.
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Yeah when I used to go to school in Britain I had a choice of using buses or spending my fare on chocolate. (I like chocolate! Don't judge me!)
I normally opted for the latter, and it took me about 45 minutes to get to school, rather than 20 minutes by bus.
This was despite the fact that everyone "knew" that buses had an average speed of 9mph, what with city traffic being what it was, and "all" the stops, and the 5-10 minute waiting time for the next bus.
It doesn't work the way people who make these studies t
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This. But public transport is infamously shit in the USA so I don't suspect a sane solution to come out of the USA. The actual movement time for busses is rarely a limiting factor. It's changes, waiting at the station, it's the bus being stuck in traffic due to shitty prioritisation and lack of bus lanes.
Removing stops is not the answer, it only fucks over the old and disabled.
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"Removing stops is not the answer, it only fucks over the old and disabled"
a very popular bakery in a neighborhood i lived in some years back used to have a bus stop at the door which was removed because drivers complained about not being to stop / drop off at the corner.
the closest stop is now 200 feet away. today we woke up to about 1 foot of snow which is challenging even for those who are not elderly nor disabled
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200 feet? It is in no way practical to cater to everyone who needs walks less than 200 feet for public transportation. No country or city does that regardless of weather patterns.
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It'd be more like remove a stop and now you have to get off half a mile away in either direction.
And, now that EVs are the new hotness, and "everyone" can afford one, there'll be no need for buses.
There's a question: if your car is fully autonomous, do you even need a license?
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This article dumb, buses dont stop at every stop in Chicago. Only stop if someone needs to get out or on, the driver normally just passes a stop normally. Also traffic lights & normal traffic also make driving in general in Chicago a pain in the ass.
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but if I have to walk half a mile more to get to from from the nearest bus stop it's added twenty minutes to my trip.
Your walking speed is 1.5 miles per hour? Normal walking speed is over twice that.
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The actual article says 8mph is "only about double walking speeds in the fastest countries", so I assume this is a summary error.
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8 mph is more like how fast I run when I'm late for the bus. And that was when I was 16. (the bus stop was too far to sprint the whole way, better to set a pace that can be maintained the entire way)
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Yeah not sure where that came from, the article states "a paltry eight miles per hour, only about double walking speeds in the fastest countries."
"Only double" does not equal barely.
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> I would challenge anyone to walk 8 miles in one hour.
Yeah, that was another great example of a blogger being clueless and uninformed - but not letting that fact stop him from blathering on anyway.
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Yes, a 7:30 mile is a pretty vigorous run. Very few people who have not trained speed in running can maintain that pace for more than a very short period of time. Keep it up for a marathon and you are qualifying for the Boston marathon in many age groups for men (and almost all for women).
I'd say that's closer to what an average urban cyclist would average with stops and starts (which tracks). When I lived in dense urban areas, I could usually beat the bus on a bike, but not by a lot. It did save time since
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At my best shape I could run a mile in about 7 minutes. 8mph runs you a mile in 7.5 minutes. So yeah, way faster than a brisk walk.
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Of course!
I mean, they'll rip and the contents will be strewn about the area, but I'll still have their tattered remains in my hands when I cross that finish line!
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> This is in New York and San Francisco. The title says "America" as if these are indicative of the patterns across the nation. Trash reporting.
While those may be the poster children, most of the major metropolitan cities with extensive bus systems (and large bus ridership numbers) are not a lot faster for their local service (some of those locations also have various express or limited services that tend to be a lot faster by skipping a lot of stops).
No true scotsman? (Score:3)
These reports check the highest ridership bus systems for metrics. In smaller cities, amateurs have reported average system times under 4 mph. These are potentially outliers or service lines that are mandatory for maintaining community access but not well funded.
MTA (NYC) is famously down to 8 mph (from 8.5 mph in previous years)
LA metro is a speed 12 mph, but still slower than most European systems.
CTA (Chicago) is 9 mph
NJ transit is 14 mph, probably helps that many of their routes run long distances with
Trains solve everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Look to Japan.
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Trains do also have to have stations, and somebody has to decide how many and where the stations will be. And if it's a junction station, now you're talking megabucks.
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Yeah, in the UK I had a choice between driving to work or taking the train. Driving was ten minutes, train was well over an hour.
Walk to station, wait for train, get off at next station and wait half an hour for the train to the town where I worked, get off at the town where I worked, walk half an hour to where I worked.
Trains were a great 19th century solution to getting lots of industrial workers from point A to point B at the same time, but we're not living in the 19th century any more.
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Trains aren't perfect but your example is a spectacularly bad edge case. Even in the UK depending where you live and work a train may get you to your destination significantly faster than driving. It's a matter of connection. The only time I've ever waited half an hour at any station was during a major disturbance. A good functioning train system means you don't actually need to check a timetable, you just rock up at a station and assume you'll be waiting less than 15minutes. But the trains in the UK are in
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> Walk to station, wait for train, get off at next station and wait half an hour for the train to the town where I worked, get off at the town where I worked, walk half an hour to where I worked.
That's the problem dockless bikes and scooters aim to solve. Or just bring your own on the train.
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Hm in the UK I have a choice between the train, biking and in principle driving if I was a complete masochist and owned a car. Bike is quickest, train isn't much worse. Driving that route takes bloody ages.
Trains were a great 19th century solution to getting lots of industrial workers from point A to point B at the same time, but we're not living in the 19th century any more.
The UK has some of the worst traffic in Europe and also some of the worst public transport in Europe. Coincidence...?
Look closer, wrong answer. (Score:3)
> Look to Japan.
Yes look to Japan, but look far more closely. Trains serve a different function than buses and buses still exist. Train ridership in Japan is high as people often work in different wards to where they live, it's medium to long distance transit, not local transit. In fact if you look at what trains are available you'll find little more than a single large ring with a 10km diameter going from Tokyo to Shinjuku connecting different cities in the greater Tokyo area, and the JR line cutting across the north of t
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To make trains a thing in America you'd have to build rail to the city center of every community served for it to be useful. The cost alone of buying all that urban area land makes implementing trains now in America impossible never mind the fact that we'd most assuredly need to use imminent domain laws to do this which would trigger endless lawsuits that we'd never get out from under. Then there's the noise complaint lawsuits because we've just introduced a major source of noise.
Other countries got to wher
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Other countries got to where they are for rail by building out over time and building to city centers when the cities where far smaller. Trying to do that in one go with modern populations numbers just isn't practical.
London recently opened a brand new new heavy rail line right through the centre. It was quite expensive to put it mildly, but it has a rush hour passenger capacity of 36000 people per hour per direction. You'd need a 26 lane highway, never mind the feeder roads to match that (which you do seem
Disimproved with more last-mile problems (Score:2)
The problem with busses is that people still have to walk or use their wheelchair quite a ways to their destination: the last mile problem. Here in Silicon Valley, ebikes are as fast as buses, not because of the stops, but because of the traffic here. So, here in the South Bay, during the day, an ebike gets down Hamilton Avenue, just as fast as a car. We need smaller lighter cars, the kind we presently cannot legally own and operate.
Re:Disimproved with more last-mile problems (Score:4, Insightful)
> We need smaller lighter cars
Better yet, no cars so buses aren't blocked by packed streets.
More and more European cities are banning private transport from city centers because it has various advantages beside improved public transport.
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> Better yet, no cars so buses aren't blocked by packed streets.
Certainly in Seattle, the reason busses often move so slow isn't due to the frequency of stops... it's because they're stuck in automobile traffic. Even the dedicated bus lanes frequently get blocked by cars needing to turn off, since at that point those cars have to also be in those lanes.
Light rail works much better in that regard, but it's quite expensive to build... and also can't cover a broad area the way busses can.
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> The problem with busses is that people still have to walk or use their wheelchair quite a ways to their destination
The problem is that this is a problem. The average American is not mentally and/or physically equipped to walk long distances, and there isn't enough walkable infrastructure.
Lots of chickens and eggs.
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> an ebike gets down Hamilton Avenue, just as fast as a car
While there are very definite law about cars riding down the sidewalk and striking pedestrians, unfortunately, not so much for e-bikes.
As a pedestrians who worked on a college campus last year, I feel secure in declaring: FUCK E-BIKES
The gig was about 9-10 weeks long, which puts me at an average of being struck once per week. Ranging from torn-clothing scrapes, to full-on linebacker hits onto concrete.
Furthermore, I was privy to the scene when the students left for summer. Dead e-bikes ditched in the middl
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> While there are very definite law about cars riding down the sidewalk and striking pedestrians, unfortunately, not so much for e-bikes.
> As a pedestrians who worked on a college campus last year, I feel secure in declaring: FUCK E-BIKES
There are laws against riding those on sidewalks too, at least in most civilized jurisdictions. Problem is, traffic law enforcement against bikes mostly takes the form of collisions with cars, and the rulings are often final and non-appealable. Perhaps if more pedestrians carried mop handles regularly, this enforcement mechanism could be extended to the sidewalks.
As a pedestrian, driver and occasional cyclist, I wouldn't mind license plates and proper traffic enforcement. Not sure how that would be done
is headline supported by data? (Score:3)
"San Francisco recorded a 4.4 to 14% increase in travel speeds by reducing from six stops per mile to two and a half."
That sounds like a bad trade. The other way to say it is you can add 150% more stops for less than 12.5% decrease in speed.
The important metric needs to be how well served the people are. Average speeds do not represent that as is made obvious here.
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> The important metric needs to be how well served the people are. Average speeds do not represent that as is made obvious here.
If you make it a pain in the ass to use busses and trains, then people will just go back to cars. Either buying their own, or renting per ride via Uber or something. If you're going to use a bus, then you're just going to have to accept that it's slow mode of transport. But it still beats walking in the snow.
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Yes likely, but you miss the entire point. More stops and slower average speeds might make the "mode of transport" faster, travel times include more than just the time you're on the bus. You have to travel to and from the stops as well, and that average walking distance is much lower when there are many more stops.
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> The important metric needs to be how well served the people are.
This is America. The important metric is to make public transport useless and make people more car dependent. It's especially stupid comparing it to European cities. Most people only catch a bus a couple of stops in Europe, because then they will be connected to another form of transit. I.e. You use your bus to get to the tram, metro, or trainstation, one of which will likely be within 1-2km of you so it really doesn't matter if it travels at 10km/h or 12km/h.
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"The important metric is to make public transport useless and make people more car dependent."
It's the same metric, you're just pointing out that many think the lowest possible result is the goal. Beside, the article presumes that the goal is to improve public transportation, when there are plenty that want to make sure that doesn't happen. Ask Elon Musk.
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Actually I'm making a facetious joke about the state of American city design. The article can presume what it wants. The reality is there's no appetite in government to find a correct solution. The article looks like the kind of thing you may get out of a "thinktank" sponsored by Ford. Comparing it to European cities fundamentally misses the point of the difference between how cities are designed that enable that one variable to work well.
For example are our busses here faster because the stops are further
It's crazy how fast some people think they walk (Score:2, Informative)
3 MPH is a quite brisk walk. 8 mph is a 7.5 minute mile. Most people can't run one mile that fast much less a bunch in a row.
Walking (Score:2)
With fewer stops, there will be more walking. They don't even mention the health benefits of getting people to walk more, even if it's just a bit more.
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That's a really excellent point. Rephrased and expanded, the speed of busses is part of the velocity measurement, but from a usage perspective, it's really "how long it takes me to go from/to the store to/from home." So it's roughly "time to get to bus stop" + "time on the bus" + "time to get from the bus stop to my destination." This shortens "time on the bus," with it doesn't seem to address "time to get from/to bus stop," which would inevitably increase. Meaningfully, probably. While you're carrying
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And possibly in the rain or in some areas, snow or worse ice on the sidewalk. And down south, slogging in 100+ temps.
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Yeah, I really miss walking half a mile through the snow to and from the bus stop at forty below zero.
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I'm retired now, but I used to do that. Still more pleasant than driving in traffic. Once I'm on the bus, I pull out a book and have a pleasant read while the bus driver deals with the weather and the traffic.
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> With fewer stops, there will be more walking.
You misspelled "driving", I heard that this is a national fetish in America.
Hmm (Score:2)
How to speed up public transport.
1) Tap on, single fare OR Tap On, Tap Off OR Tap On, Multiple Journeys within an hour in that fare (e.g., London)
2) Don't accept cash, payment card or travelcard only (e.g., London Oyster)
3) Dedicated bus lanes in busy stretches of road
4) Don't stop too often, but don't go too far the other way either, it depends on the population density of that area
5) Different bus stands for different routes, so prevent contention at the single bus stop (at busy stops)
6) Accessibility mus
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Also high frequency to allow for a turn up and go service is often more important than being really fast.
6 buses an hour is the minimum for people to not feel they are risking a long wait if they use the bus option.
What problem are we solving, really? (Score:2)
In most places that I have used urban bus lines, the problem is not the frequency of stops nor the annoying delays of having to service the needs of paying passengers. Rather it it the common practice of routing busses in the general traffic to crawl along with the rest. Same applies to light rail systems. This stuff will work smoothly and efficiently if a dedicated laneway is made available. But in most places I am sure the real estate is not available. So instead we will punish the riders by making them w
Why they think fewer bus stops is a good idea (Score:3)
Their bus stop policy is insane.
1) Busses often have to deal with non-busses blocking their space. Right turn lanes for example, encourage cars to sit there and block it.
2) Kneeling busses exist because they do not put curbs high enough. If the curb is as high as the bus, you do not need the bus to kneel, you just need an extension.
3) Busses are overloaded. There are lines waiting for the bus during non-rush hour. If you have busses coming every 5 minutes in rush hour rather than every 10 or 15, no lines, everything moves faster. For non-rush hour, you need every ten minutes. For late night traffic then you can go to every 20 minutes. If your busses are overcrowded enough to mean lines then you need more busses more often.
4) Light timing. Lights should be timed so that a bus moving at standard rush hour traffic speed, never needs to stop except at the bus stops. This is not hard and should be the priority over non-bus traffic.
If you do these things, then you do not need to decrease the bus stops.
But shmucks hate busses so they make busses terrible then say the busses are terrible so no money for them.
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> 4) Light timing. Lights should be timed so that a bus moving at standard rush hour traffic speed, never needs to stop except at the bus stops. This is not hard and should be the priority over non-bus traffic.
Do one better. Put in right turn lanes. You have right turn on red allowance so there's never a car in the lane. Have the bus sit in that right turn lane and have a traffic light with a dedicate buss right of way light that allows the bus to go first.
In many places in the world (e.g. Vienna) the bus moves faster than the peak hour traffic even though it shares the road with it.
"People kept ringing the bell!" (Score:2)
[1]Almost obligatory. [youtu.be]
[1] https://youtu.be/cmlCAhrAWYw?t=80
Jackassery (Score:2)
Article brought to you by folks who dont need public transit, are generalizing every major city from Los Angeles to Little Rock, and think these systems work efficiently to begin with.
Re: Jackassery (Score:2)
I completely agree with you.
There is a strong contingent of uninformed people in SF who want to tear down the entire city and build glass towers. (They are being played by developers who claim that this is to solve homelessness and low income housing. But itâ(TM)s not possible to have new construction that is also affordable housing. The cost per square foot is too high. So itâ(TM)s all a lie.) One way they are doing that is by passing zoning laws which claim that major bus stops are the same as m
Re: Jackassery (Score:2)
Since slashdot canâ(TM)t handle utf-8 characters properly, Iâ(TM)m reposting this.
There is a vocal group in San Francisco that supports widespread demolition and replacement of existing neighborhoods with glass high rises. Many of these supporters are being played by developers who frame this approach as a solution to homelessness and low income housing. In practice, new construction at current costs per square foot cannot produce truly affordable housing, so this rationale is misleading.
One mecha
Screw the proles. (Score:2)
We can make more money if we put the seats closer together on the airplanes. Screw the proles: Treat them like sardines!
We can save money by having all the air traffic controllers in some "regional center" instead of having them locate at the airports so they can better see what's going on. Screw the proles: Safety is for the rich!
We can let the agribusinesses make more money if we get rid of food standards. Let them clean filthy chicken soaked with chlorine instead of actually implementing cleanliness stan
I have an idea (Score:2)
Buses can run much much faster if we eliminate bus stops altogether.
Not a panacea (Score:2)
Fewer bus stops further apart may help if the issue is that busses are stopping unnecessarily, but bus stops at places where busses often stop anyway (such as traffic lights) are less burdensome in that regard. Moreover, as others have mentioned, reducing the time spent on a bus is good, but it comes with an increase of distance (and thus time spent walking) to get to the bus stop. Not all passengers are equally good at walking. Those who are not will be particularly burdened by increasing the walk to the b
Not in my area (Score:2)
Of San Jose. Nearest bus stop 2.5 miles away.
less service? (Score:2)
You could speed up the busses with less traffic too, why resort to less service?
A brisk walk? (Score:2)
> buses ... crawl along at about eight miles per hour -- barely faster than a brisk walk
More like a moderate run. Google says 3.5-4 mph is a brisk walk and 4-6 mph is jogging, so 8 mph is running. I have a hiking treadmill that goes up to 6 mph (and a 25% incline) and that speed is running, for me anyway at 5'6". [Pro tip: Do *not* try 6 mph at 25% incline. :-) ]
How about alternate stopping? (Score:2)
Instead of providing fewer stops, how about more busses that do alternate stops along the same route. For example, one does the odd stops and another does the even stops, several minutes apart. That provides the benefits of fewer stops w/o fewer actual stops. Granted there may still be more walking, but not as much as with fewer actual stops.
Logical conclusion (Score:2)
> Cities that have tried spacing stops further apart have seen results.
Placing stops infinitely apart will yield the best times.
Or maybe no stops - the driver just leaves the depot, drives around, and returns.
Public transit isn't (necessarily) about speed, but access, availability, reliability, convenience and cost. For greater speed and directness, at a higher cost, there are taxis and other private transports like Uber, etc... and personal vehicles.
No mention of bicycles? (Score:3)
In my home town, riding a bicycle, I am usually as fast as public transport buses without any wait times considered , and when I consider an average wait time for a bus, I am significantly faster on average. The comparison to "walking" makes no sense to me - why would I want to walk instead of riding a bus when I can just as well ride a bicycle, for also almost no cost at all?
This "fix" really benefits who? Hint: not riders (Score:2)
This article is a libertarian take on public infrastructure, specifically public transportation infrastructure. The article is trying to sell stop consolidation as the magic, low-cost way to speed up buses. This is unsurprising given the source of the article: a libertarian-leaning magazine that reliably treats “efficiency” as a fig leaf for eroding public service and knee-capping social obligations. And yes, the provenance matters. The founding editor of Works In Progress has affiliations with
Let's punish commuters by making them walk farther (Score:2)
What a dumb idea -- make people walk instead of taking the bus to make the bus faster.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I highly recommend you study the videos on this channel. Smarter minds and all that. Been there, done that, etc.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/@NotJu... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes
Re:We need a different paradigm (Score:4, Insightful)
We expand laterally because it is cheaper and easier when you have the land to do it. Manhattan expands vertically because it's an island, LA expands laterally because it can.
Is it actually better to grow vertically? You're compounding congestion at a fantastic rate rather than spreading the traffic around.
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> Is it actually better to grow vertically?
Yes so long as you build in the infrastructure to support it which includes robust public transport.
How does Tokyo manage to be denser than pretty much every American city but still have terrific public transport and housing is still affordable?
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Is that actually better or just "even more expensive"?
Isn't Tokyo where they have people who cram passengers into subway cars because they're so crowded? And aren't they having an affordability crisis there?
"According to Tokyo Kantei, the income multiple for newly constructed apartments in Japan was 8.19 in 2019, indicating that the average price of a new apartment was over eight times the average annual income. This figure highlights the serious affordability crisis faced by many residents. The Demo
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Sure, when buying and compare that to again, NYC and SF, what are their multiples?
[1]https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of... [numbeo.com]
Cost of Living Including Rent in Tokyo is 55.4% lower than in San Francisco, CA
[2]https://livingcost.org/cost/sa... [livingcost.org]
The cost of living in San Francisco is 142% more expensive than in Tokyo.
And again, take into consideration the Tokyo metro is multiple times larger and more population than NYC or SF, so again, how do they do it?
[1] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=San+Francisco%2C+CA&country2=Japan&city2=Tokyo
[2] https://livingcost.org/cost/san-francisco/tokyo
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Better leadership. Better policies. Fewer self-inflicted problems.
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Yes, density, transport, housing abundance is good for cities. Doesn't have to be everywhere but in cities you need those things.
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Rent is 55% less but it gets you a place 85% smaller.
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That's good for you but nobody is talking about you or any particular individual.
You've fucking wasted everyone's time including your own with bullshit nobody is talking about.
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What is the fair point? His personal preferences? Does this person even live in a city?
Please explain to me why are one persons individual opinions are relevant to the broader question of urban planning and transport in cities?
In response to a question about people besides yourself the only response being "How do I make this about me " is indicative of something but value is not one of them. It's a performative virtue signal and nothing more, glad I can explain this to you for next time.
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> Please explain to me why are one persons individual opinions are relevant to the broader question of urban planning and transport in cities?
Individual opinions and experiences are necessarily and inextricably part of the discussion of city planning. If you can't see this, then you are apparently one who tends toward authoritarianism. If you do see this, but believe the individual should always be silent and concede to the collective, then you tend toward communism. Since you obviously want to silence any
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Delicious. Stay mad motherfucker.
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Agreeing here with Jack's Smirking Reven[ge?] that what you said is totally fine for you but it is not what is being discussed here. I have basically the same opinion as you about where I prefer to live, in fact. I view cities as places to visit when necessary or for tourism, but pretty undesirable to live in. However, I also recognize that many people seem to be quite happy to live in them, and I am fine with that. In fact, I am not clear on why you don't seem to realize that lots of people living that way
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Everyone living in stinking bumblefuck sounds lonely as all fuck ... I want to interact with strangers at random. The spice of life, being outside of existing friend and family bubbles. But, I get it ... Americans are asocials, generally speaking.
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Well, you certainly are entitled to your opinion. Frankly, it doesn't seem like city living is any more social than, for example, country living. Just being surrounded by thousands of people in the street is not actually the same as being social, for example. Sure, maybe there are some people who live like hermits in completely remote locations, but people can live like hermits in cities too. I mean, let's not forget that, in Sabbede's comment he talked about "...grilling and space to have friends over for
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That's great if you already have a friend network ... being able to walk to the bar on the corner isn't the same as flying your flying car 100 miles from some bumblefuck turdhole.
Re:We need a different paradigm (Score:4, Insightful)
> Is it actually better to grow vertically? You're compounding congestion at a fantastic rate rather than spreading the traffic around.
Except that [1]tall buildings don't cause congestion, parking garages do. [streetsblog.org]
Traffic is a solved problem. When buses no longer get [2]stuck [youtu.be] in car traffic, people will ride them, freeing up [3]a LOT of space on the roads [imgur.com] for everyone who still has to drive.
It's cheap to restripe a car lane into a lane for buses, emergency vehicles, and right turning traffic. Then run both local and limited-stop express buses so people can choose faster travel speed or less walking, and run buses every 10 minutes or better during peak travel times to improve transfers between the two and to reduce schedule pressure and thereby reduce dwell times and further improve travel speeds.
[1] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/01/15/tall-buildings-dont-cause-congestion-parking-garages-do
[2] https://youtu.be/RQY6WGOoYis
[3] https://imgur.com/jdq0N
Re: (Score:2)
Tall buildings mean there is limited space, which means the need for parking garages. Also, busses suck. Have you ridden them? Even in a small city, they suck.
Traffic isn't solved. It's a process of constant attempts at improvement, many of which backfire. Changing roads is hideously expensive, especially when you've been building up instead of out. In many cities, they cannot possibly be widened.
When you have millions of people who need to move around an area of only a few square miles, traffic
Re: (Score:3)
> Tall buildings mean there is limited space, which means the need for parking garages.
Not everyone needs a car.
> In many cities, [roads] cannot possibly be widened.
Who said they need to be?
Re: (Score:2)
You may think buses suck, but lots of people disagree with you. Including me. I think buses are great! The 13 and the 113 and the SuperLoop near me are all fantastic. Quiet, comfortable, easy to use. I have a car, but living in London, it’s easiest to be multi-modal.
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I'm partial to London Bridge stop M, because there are about a million buses per hour going Northbound.
I've not had call to use the SL yet.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Back in the real world, most people want to live in a nice house with a big yard and not in a Stalinist concrete tower block.
Re: (Score:3)
The real world looks a lot more like millions of Americans choosing to live in cities rather than out in the burbs from where I'm sitting.
Why do people who don't like urban areas think everyone doesn't?
Re: (Score:2)
Why do Americans appear to assume that the only two possibilities are vast McMansions with huge yards or some tiny box with standing room only?
One of the big problems in America is the zoning laws don't allow for a variety of different developments nearby which creates all sorts of problems.
I live in greater London, in a reasonably sized terraced house with a garden. Nearby there are detached houses, semis, blocks of flats and full on mixed use with flats above commercial buildings. It's fewer than 5 minute
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Sure, and then in the real world they all get high blood pressure from absurdly long and congested commutes because of car-dependent sprawl.
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> Back in the real world, most people want to live in a nice house with a big yard and not in a Stalinist concrete tower block.
And yet the PPSF of those "Stalinist concrete tower blocks" is much higher than single family detached homes. Why would that be if people didn't want to live in them?
It's like the old Yogi Berra quote, "nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
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Breaking news! Manhattan was built by Stalin!
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> The US needs a different transportation paradigm. We keep expanding laterally, which simply makes the problem worse. It's not going to get better this way.
> With talks of alternate energy science, this could be within our grasp, but it would be a very big fundamental change.
I'd be happy with just converting from full sized busses to twice as many 15-seat passenger vans. Driver salary may make that cost prohibitive today. If we could make busses autonomous, then we'd be on to something.
As you say, you could just make this autonomous Uber Pool: when you whistle up a bus, you put in your destination and some clever route planning software could group riders. One could even imagine a range of vehicle sizes, from single seat to 45, depending on demand.
Other tricks (Score:5, Informative)
You can color code your bus stops and have a route alternate between 2 or more colors. A decent sign with schedule information and an identifier on the bus will help people understand why the bus just flew past them but another one will be arriving in 12 minutes.
Re: (Score:2)
Add more busses!
Add bus lanes!
Add stop light preference! Why should only the police get to control the traffic signs? It would be a huge speed boost if the bus never stopped at a street light; we have a crazy amount of them.
When you get so many busses and start to consider creating a bus lane... create the bus lane while you spend a decade trying to get a train put in that spot. Also, don't have the train stop at the intersections (they do that too but at least the train has a higher speed limit.)
Re: (Score:2)
Add stop light preference! Why should only the police get to control the traffic signs? It would be a huge speed boost if the bus never stopped at a street light; we have a crazy amount of them.
You don't have that there?