Counterpoint: USians are very lazy and won't walk more than one km to a bus stop Also, just because it's marked as a stop doesn't mean the bus will stop there. I don't think I've been on a US bus...
Counterpoint: USians are very lazy and won't walk more than one km to a bus stop
Also, just because it's marked as a stop doesn't mean the bus will stop there. I don't think I've been on a US bus that didn't skip stops if no one yanked the yellow rope or there were no people visible at the stop so the fixed stops are somewhat meaningless except for defining a route in navigation apps and, sometimes, shelter from the elements.
There are definitely stops in Chicago where I roll my eyes. It's like 100 meters between stops: before and after a bridge. However, the signalling system / stop lights are such that even if they removed the stop I think it wouldn't save much time--still need to wait for the green light and car traffic.
What makes US buses slow is frequency and distance of most trips. HK style route variations with 39A, 39B, 39C all skipping slightly different stops could help here--but mostly it is an issue of frequency.
It's a double-edged sword. Able-bodied people don't need all these bus stops, just walk a few extra blocks. Non-able-bodied people benefit from additional stops and I really like having public...
It's a double-edged sword. Able-bodied people don't need all these bus stops, just walk a few extra blocks. Non-able-bodied people benefit from additional stops and I really like having public transit that can benefit the public.
I also don't see how additional bus stops are "more expensive" as the author claims, at least in my city where most bus stops are a small sign and zero amenities. And the driver doesn't stop at a third of them anyway as you note.
The bigger hurdle in America is getting people to even consider taking the bus. The last time I suggested taking the bus to my group of friends, two of them declined as the bus is "unsafe," despite not being able to express any reasoning that would hint that the bus was unsafe.
The author wrote: I've observed the same in major European cities. US bus routes have many stops that are only a small sign, whereas European bus routes have fewer stops, but those stops tend to...
The author wrote:
By contrast, a bus stop in a French city like Marseille will have shelters and seating by default. Higher quality stops in the city also include real time arrival information, better lighting for safety, level boarding platforms, curb extensions that prevent illegal parking at bus stops, and improved pedestrian infrastructure leading to the stops. Marseille is not a particularly wealthy French city, but because it has wider stop spacing and fewer stops, it can invest more money into each one.
I've observed the same in major European cities. US bus routes have many stops that are only a small sign, whereas European bus routes have fewer stops, but those stops tend to have shelters, digital signage, and the works.
The bigger hurdle in America is getting people to even consider taking the bus.
I think the bus experience in America is just unpleasant. Frequent and aggressive start/stops (as drivers try to keep to schedule) makes for a very choppy ride experience. There are frequent delays, and the bus speed is still overall slow: I've sometimes given up waiting at a bus stop and simply outwalked the bus.
Plus, America has uniquely... interestingly ratchet characters that I have not encountered in such frequency in other wealthy and poor countries alike.
At the same time, Americans are wealthy and most Americans can afford private vehicles, so many prefer to not deal with the public transit experience.
exactly this is what Americans get wrong conceptually. They think public transit is for poor people. and that's literally the defining reasen it is sooo bad.
At the same time, Americans are wealthy and most Americans can afford private vehicles, so many prefer to not deal with the public transit experience.
exactly this is what Americans get wrong conceptually. They think public transit is for poor people. and that's literally the defining reasen it is sooo bad.
Ultimately this is the big factor. Even in places where public transit is relatively good and even convenient, it has a huge image problem to combat. I'm not exactly sure how to do that, though....
Ultimately this is the big factor. Even in places where public transit is relatively good and even convenient, it has a huge image problem to combat. I'm not exactly sure how to do that, though. We managed to change smoking's public image over time so that way more people my age avoid it, but... honestly, a big part of why people my age didn't smoke cigarettes is because they now carry the same "ew poor people" image that public transportation has.
But public transit in America is designed for poor people. At a policy level, it's treated as a public good/service to be municipally subsidized for the good of a city's working class — but...
But public transit in America is designed for poor people. At a policy level, it's treated as a public good/service to be municipally subsidized for the good of a city's working class — but fundamentally it is not seen as a product to be marketed and sold.
At best, it's a utilitarian experience. At worst, you're dealing with delays, bumpy jerky rides, litter, people blasting music, crowds, some suspicious dark brown stain on your bus' fabric seat that hasn't been cleaned in years, and/or some homeless guy sitting next to you with soiled pants.
In many US cities, public transit is a less comfortable and pleasant experience than private transportation. If you make $70k, then you're probably spending ~$10.5k/year on transportation. You could get yourself a nice used Lexus with comfy seats, a smooth suspension, AC, seat warmers, surround sound system, cup holders, the works.
US public transit is a product of its environment, an environment which has (since the end of WW1 but which really came into its own after WW2) been legally-mandated anti-transit development...
Exemplary
US public transit is a product of its environment, an environment which has (since the end of WW1 but which really came into its own after WW2) been legally-mandated anti-transit development patterns. Single-use zoning, parking mandates, and large minimum lot sizes make it hard to run useful service to the areas which can afford to drive, and driving has been made artificially cheap by the federal government dumping trillions of dollars into a sprawling system of freeways, and subsidizing loans for single-family housing.
And when lots of people choose to drive, it perpetuates more driving because cities and states widen roads and build new highways to "fix traffic," businesses build bigger parking lots (or buy up adjacent lots to tear down buildings to build more parking) to cater to drivers, schools are built with large setbacks to accommodate car-only pickup/dropoff lanes, more traffic causes delays for buses, businesses begin moving to the suburbs to chase customers who don't want to drive into the city just to run errands, more people move to the car-dependent suburbs because the increasing volume of cars in the city produce ever-greater air and noise pollution, redlining makes it difficult to get a loan in a walkable neighborhood because there are too many minorities...in isolation, each manifestation of these factors has a tiny impact, but none of these happen in a vacuum, nor do they only happen once.
Taken as a whole, it creates significant challenges for transit agencies because the people who have means won't bother taking transit when it inconveniences them, especially given the costs associated with running service in suburban sprawl. This is the reason all the private transit operators cratered in the post-WW2 suburban boom period: it became unprofitable to serve most of the newly-minted suburbanites who previously relied on them for all of their trips, creating a death spiral as service cuts caused more people to buy cars and stop taking transit. The end result? The only people who continued to take transit were those with no better options. And since many municipalities imposed mandates like "at least 50% of your revenue must come from fares" when they bought out the bankrupt private operators, making transit a leisurely/pleasant (i.e. non-utilitarian) experience wasn't in the budget.
So transit wasn't "designed for poor people," it was relegated to the poor through decades of policy and legislation in service of upholding the illusion of the American dream. It's come in many forms over the years, from buying up poor neighborhoods and demolishing them for privately-owned sports complexes and other "urban renewal" schemes, to driving highways through minority neighborhoods, to axing transit entirely, and municipalities continue to piss away their short-term budgets, long-term financial sustainability, and freedom of mobility for their citizens in service of the illusion that they are wealthy and prosperous and need not rely on public services like those people.
I'd add that bad experiences on buses are not unique to the US. Buses in Ireland are often plagued by aggressively anti-social groups of teenagers doing things like blaring music, harassing...
At worst, you're dealing with delays, bumpy jerky rides, litter, people blasting music, crowds, some suspicious dark brown stain on your bus' fabric seat that hasn't been cleaned in years, and/or some homeless guy sitting next to you with soiled pants.
I'd add that bad experiences on buses are not unique to the US. Buses in Ireland are often plagued by aggressively anti-social groups of teenagers doing things like blaring music, harassing passengers, taking up seats, and so on. It is made very clear that asking them to stop would result in violence, and there is never any enforcement against them; in fact, I've never seen any security on buses, unlike trains. There also seem to be problems with drug use, there is usually even more litter than in the US, and there can be similarly unpleasant riders (though usually without the mental health problems of the US). Traffic is often bad, even with bus lanes, rides are bumpy, and scheduling can be messy, with the potential for buses leaving late and early, and real-time information that is often wrong (in the worst case I dealt with, I missed a once-per-half-hour bus because I arrived at the first stop fifteen minutes ahead of schedule and it had already left). Buses sometimes just don't go to stops they are listed as going to.
But beyond these: honestly, buses in many countries aren't great in my experience. They are usually the least pleasant option for public transport, and when alternatives are available, I usually prefer them, even if taking them is more difficult: on one route I take regularly, I prefer walking 15 minutes to a train station rather than 3-4 minutes to a bus stop. Likewise, most of my relatives in Southern Europe take metros and trams regularly, but would walk, drive, or take a taxi before taking a public bus.
While this is broadly true, it varies pretty wildly even within European cities. I currently live in Berlin and quite a few stops on my usual bus route are just signs. And I live quite centrally...
whereas European bus routes have fewer stops, but those stops tend to have shelters, digital signage, and the works
While this is broadly true, it varies pretty wildly even within European cities. I currently live in Berlin and quite a few stops on my usual bus route are just signs. And I live quite centrally in the traditionally wealthiest district of the city -- my understanding is that it's worse the further out you go.
"wealthy" is an interesting way of putting it. It's just that our commutes are so far and public transportation is so inefficient that going into debt over a car note is the "cheapest" option. my...
Americans are wealthy and most Americans can afford private vehicles, so many prefer to not deal with the public transit experience.
"wealthy" is an interesting way of putting it. It's just that our commutes are so far and public transportation is so inefficient that going into debt over a car note is the "cheapest" option. my commute to work downdown is roughly 45 minutes, and it'd become well over 3 hours (with a good few miles of walking to boot) if I tried to plan a bus/train route down instead.
Lazy for sure, but it's easy to justify that laziness when so much infrastructure is built without any affordances for pedestrians, or unusable affordances, like sidewalks that get blocked by...
Lazy for sure, but it's easy to justify that laziness when so much infrastructure is built without any affordances for pedestrians, or unusable affordances, like sidewalks that get blocked by roads signs, brush, and that don't get cleared in the winter. Most housing in the USA is literally not walkable to a bus stop, even if the distance isn't that far!
For sure! I responded to this with my experience in Las Vegas, but truth is that my current living situation has even worse public transit. I just mapped out what route I would have to take if I...
For sure! I responded to this with my experience in Las Vegas, but truth is that my current living situation has even worse public transit. I just mapped out what route I would have to take if I wanted to take public transport to a nearby university, and it would start with a 1.6 mile walk to the nearest bus stop. And to make things worse, literally one minute after plotting the course, I got an update that the bus was going to be 23 minutes late. On a service that is supposed to arrive every 30 minutes, no less.
I don't disagree. I live in a small town in the midwest that has decent public transit infra thanks to the university. I even live a short walk from the bus terminal where the buses sleep but I...
so much infrastructure is built without any affordances
I don't disagree. I live in a small town in the midwest that has decent public transit infra thanks to the university. I even live a short walk from the bus terminal where the buses sleep but I have never once ridden the bus because the scheduling and routing doesn't really make sense? It's like the planners all have car brain and they don't think like pedestrians.
There's zero effective "interconnect" with Amtrak (despite having a large bus turnaround and parking lot across the street from the Amtrak station) because the bus hours and route scheduling don't make any effort to do so. It is almost bizarre compared to the experience with public transport in 3rd world countries where transport has to work or nothing gets done.
I can't speak for Chicago but I live in the northern suburbs. Bus stops need to be sheltered and have better nodes up here. I used to live in Colorado and the RTD there had shit on lock - we need...
I can't speak for Chicago but I live in the northern suburbs. Bus stops need to be sheltered and have better nodes up here. I used to live in Colorado and the RTD there had shit on lock - we need to learn from them. I exclusively used public transport for years there with no issues. I still occasionally use their express busses when I visit.
Meanwhile it feels that the PACE busses here are seriously underfunded and poorly implemented.
Final thoughts: we really need to improve pedestrian infrastructure as a whole in this country. Absolutely none of the bus stops in my area have a shelter and the majority don't even have a sidewalk to stand on. It's a pole stuck in the grass on the side of the road.
Plenty of desire paths along ditches in the Chicago suburbs, or bus stops on the opposite side of where pedestrian walkways actually are. Subdivisions built on the edges of towns rarely build...
Plenty of desire paths along ditches in the Chicago suburbs, or bus stops on the opposite side of where pedestrian walkways actually are. Subdivisions built on the edges of towns rarely build sidewalks on their outer parameters.
Might be a state by state thing. Every time i've rode one in Vegas they've hit every stop, people or not.
I don't think I've been on a US bus that didn't skip stops if no one yanked the yellow rope or there were no people visible at the stop so the fixed stops are somewhat meaningless except for defining a route in navigation apps and, sometimes, shelter from the elements.
Might be a state by state thing. Every time i've rode one in Vegas they've hit every stop, people or not.
Huh. There are many deficiencies in US bus systems, but it's expected that the bus does not stop at empty stops until the cord is pulled. Are you saying you've seen buses pass up stops with...
Huh. There are many deficiencies in US bus systems, but it's expected that the bus does not stop at empty stops until the cord is pulled. Are you saying you've seen buses pass up stops with waiting riders? It wouldn't particularly surprise me, unfortunately, but I've never seen that.
I mean that just because the stop is there doesn't mean that it is used. The frequency of use for a given stop is not uniform across all stops. So removing a bus stop makes little difference if it...
I mean that just because the stop is there doesn't mean that it is used. The frequency of use for a given stop is not uniform across all stops. So removing a bus stop makes little difference if it is a rarely used one.
Here's another case: sometimes there will be a person at stop C and other times there will be a person at stop D and the bus only stops once in either one. This is a fairly common situation for these kind of semi-urban too-many-stops situations. Removing stop C or stop D just makes it less convenient for one or the other people.
My point is that comparing these types of stops to European ones may be comparing apples to oranges as the density is different and many US bus stops may be these sort of ephemeral stops where it isn't really impacting anything.
to be clear, busses here in Germany also don't stop if no one has pressed the stop button and there's no one waiting (in contrast to trains and trams, which stop at every stop). My current usual...
to be clear, busses here in Germany also don't stop if no one has pressed the stop button and there's no one waiting (in contrast to trains and trams, which stop at every stop). My current usual route has several such "ephemeral" stops (despite even being solidly urban). I presume this behavior is common to busses internationally.
having the A,B,C busses would probably confuse north americans (am canadian and could see some people here being confuse) https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Area_51-A
having the A,B,C busses would probably confuse north americans (am canadian and could see some people here being confuse) https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Area_51-A
This article seems strangely out of touch to me. Given the mixture of meters and miles, I assume they come from outside of the country (and as a side note, the fact that they kept mixing the units...
This article seems strangely out of touch to me. Given the mixture of meters and miles, I assume they come from outside of the country (and as a side note, the fact that they kept mixing the units made it extremely difficult to understand to me).
The majority of time I have had to deal with busses was in Las Vegas, which by their own graph has station spacing that is on the far end of European countries. And bus service in Las Vegas is absolutely terrible. If you had to go anywhere that was not on the street you were on, then your trip would take an hour and a half seemingly regardless of where you were going. And before you say "maybe people should walk more", it's a fucking desert that is unbearable to be outside for the majority of the year.
On the other hand, if you were trying to take the bus on the Strip, you had the easiest time of all. There are actually multiple concurrant bus lines that go through it - at one time it even had an express bus line that would skip stops, though as of the last time I was there It didn't appear to be there anymore. Stops are also very frequent in that area and the busses that service the strip-specific line are double-decker and have frequent service because there's a lot of ridership. It's faster to take the bus than walking if you're going any reasonable distance even though Las Vegas Boulevard is one of the worst, most congested streets I've ever come across (seriously - it should be paved and left to pedestrians). Things are great for tourists but for people who actually live in the area have a very different experience.
By far, the biggest problem with bus service is not that there are too many stops. Reducing stops just makes the bus service less accessable. There may be improvements to be had in some places, sure, but that's the cowardly "we'll take what we can get" answer that just eventually leads to less service and worse outcomes.
The real problem with bus service is always the same thing: they're busses. They have to share the street with traffic, full of cars that almost universally hate busses and will always try to pass and cut them off. Even though they are holding far more people than cars, they have the same priority at intersections, so they're waiting around for the lights all the same. But actually they're more likely to hit them because they have to move slowly.
There are many ways to fix these problems, such as having bus lanes and bus priority signalling. But these are expensive, and worse - they have the appearance of inconveniencing drivers, which makes them unpopular. So they simply don't happen.
And this is without talking about some of the other also-important parts of American public transportation, such as extremely poor quality rail options for long-distance travel. We're also ignoring the fact that busses themselves are kind of a bad idea compared to how much better things can be if we were to install something like tramway lines which don't have to deal with car traffic at all.
I think busses need the ability to navigate unimpeded to maximize their effectiveness. Dedicated lanes and green lights for busses. Logistically insane I know but I think most solutions require...
I think busses need the ability to navigate unimpeded to maximize their effectiveness. Dedicated lanes and green lights for busses. Logistically insane I know but I think most solutions require massively deprioritizing individual vehicles, which aligns with the goal of getting cars of the roads.
You've just described streetcars (trams). There are a few U.S. cities that have extremely localized tramlines, and the ones I've used in Houston and Phoenix were very efficient and popular....
You've just described streetcars (trams). There are a few U.S. cities that have extremely localized tramlines, and the ones I've used in Houston and Phoenix were very efficient and popular. Basically, they were only located on divided urban boulevards that were broad enough to use what would normally be the median area for the tramline. So they weren't generalizable enough to get rid of traffic congestion or improve pedestrian safety at the stops.
bus lanes and signal prioritization are possible without trams, and trams require a lot more expense in terms of getting them put in. And I think pedestrian safety is largely independent of...
bus lanes and signal prioritization are possible without trams, and trams require a lot more expense in terms of getting them put in. And I think pedestrian safety is largely independent of whether there's a bus or tram involved (or even neither) -- it needs to be prioritized independently of which mode of public transport you're taking.
The saddest part is how many American cities used to have pretty extensive tram networks that were dismantled either partially or entirely. I weep for the Cleveland streetcar tunnels that got filled in.
Trams absolutely could be generalized to cover much larger swaths of many US cities and even much of their suburbs. It would just be wildly expensive and there's already insufficient political will for the much cheaper measure of bus lanes, so. Not holding my breath for tram lines.
Melbourne (Australia) uses a combination of buses and trams. On some roads, buses and trams have their own dedicated lanes and traffic lights. On other roads, they share lanes with cars and...
Melbourne (Australia) uses a combination of buses and trams. On some roads, buses and trams have their own dedicated lanes and traffic lights. On other roads, they share lanes with cars and effectively function like regular traffic. It's really a matter of what's needed where — and what's compatible with the road in question, although Melbourne's planners are certainly willing to make narrow roads into tram/bus/pedestrian-only spaces as needed. It works quite well.
That's really not the problem the author is talking about. Frequent stops slow down travel, a lot, and the primary reason public transit doesn't get used is trip times. Even with trains, smart...
The real problem with bus service is always the same thing: they're busses. They have to share the street with traffic, full of cars that almost universally hate busses and will always try to pass and cut them off. Even though they are holding far more people than cars, they have the same priority at intersections, so they're waiting around for the lights all the same. But actually they're more likely to hit them because they have to move slowly.
That's really not the problem the author is talking about. Frequent stops slow down travel, a lot, and the primary reason public transit doesn't get used is trip times.
Even with trains, smart systems will minimize the number of stops to travel quick. In major transit systems around the world, express buses and trains that skip stops are common. In fact, express point-to-point buses are even used to supplement trains!
There are many ways to fix these problems, such as having bus lanes and bus priority signalling. But these are expensive, and worse - they have the appearance of inconveniencing drivers, which makes them unpopular. So they simply don't happen.
Imagine a gold-standard BRT that stops every few blocks. That BRT will be significantly slower and have lower ridership than a more lean line. This is well-known praxis amongst transit wonks. Metros like Seattle reduce the number of stops when converting a bus line to BRT, along with with paint, signals, etc.
We're also ignoring the fact that busses themselves are kind of a bad idea compared to how much better things can be if we were to install something like tramway lines which don't have to deal with car traffic at all.
Cost is way higher, and the benefits are minimal versus gold-standard BRT with at-grade boarding on low-floor buses. See Kansas City as an example. America is cursed with too many lanes. Easiest fix is turning some of them over to buses!
I feel like you ignored my reasoning entirely. Las Vegas has spacing that is roughly the same as the most sparsely spaced European cities and the service is abysmal. So obviously things are more...
I feel like you ignored my reasoning entirely. Las Vegas has spacing that is roughly the same as the most sparsely spaced European cities and the service is abysmal. So obviously things are more complicated than just stop spacing! Did you notice that roughly 2/3rds of the cities in that graph are within the same range as European cities?
A bigger problem with their analysis is the use of the word “America”. The problem is not with the country, it’s with a very small subset of America overall, and if we were talking about it by coverage it would be statistically insignificant. As bad as the service in Las Vegas was, the vast majority of the country has even worse bus service even with very few bus stops. I wrote in another comment that if I wanted to take the bus near my home, the nearest stop is a 1.6 mile walk, and I’m in a suburb. So while too many bus stops might be a problem in some metro areas, there are far more problems that need to be handled which are universal across the country.
Another thing that I feel like the author is missing is that busses tend to be a different experience in the US, which others have been talking about; busses in the US are essentially the thing you take if you are too poor to afford a car, not the thing that affords you to not need to buy one. This is the fundamental problem that causes bus service to be bad. Busses are shoehorned into a system made for cars, and drivers hate big slow busses that slow down traffic in that lane. This is combined with the double whammy of cities built for cars, which has places separated with lots of space and is generally hostile to pedestrians. If people hate or are scared off walking, they sure as hell aren’t taking the bus. And if people aren’t taking the bus, why improve service?
Also note that I said “like tramways”; is BRT not like a tramway? BRTs are fine. The only problem is that they have the tendency in America to lose their importance over time to eventually become car lanes, which is why tramways are more preferable here, since they aren’t just another road lane.
Sorry, I think we're talking past each other. I completely agree that stop spacing is only a small piece of the puzzle. To be fair, the author does lead by briefly mentioning the other...
I feel like you ignored my reasoning entirely. Las Vegas has spacing that is roughly the same as the most sparsely spaced European cities and the service is abysmal. So obviously things are more complicated than just stop spacing! Did you notice that roughly 2/3rds of the cities in that graph are within the same range as European cities?
Sorry, I think we're talking past each other. I completely agree that stop spacing is only a small piece of the puzzle. To be fair, the author does lead by briefly mentioning the other improvements that can be made to buses, but the article is about stop balancing.
A bigger problem with their analysis is the use of the word “America”. The problem is not with the country, it’s with a very small subset of America overall, and if we were talking about it by coverage it would be statistically insignificant.
I'm familiar with small town bus service, and I agree it's abysmal in most of America by land mass. The author is primarily writing about major metros with the highest ridership. He's proposing a simple fix for some routes in some big cities that already have working bus lines.
Another thing that I feel like the author is missing is that busses tend to be a different experience in the US, which others have been talking about; busses in the US are essentially the thing you take if you are too poor to afford a car, not the thing that affords you to not need to buy one. This is the fundamental problem that causes bus service to be bad. Busses are shoehorned into a system made for cars, and drivers hate big slow busses that slow down traffic in that lane.
Of course, this depends on the city. Plenty of college towns in the US have well-used bus lines, and some metros like Seattle have very popular bus routes! Seattle's new mayor was elected in part due to her promise to fix a major bus line (which she herself uses). You're right about the stigma, but I think there's a chicken-and-the-egg effect with buses and transit.
The only problem is that they have the tendency in America to lose their importance over time to eventually become car lanes, which is why tramways are more preferable here, since they aren’t just another road lane.
Is this that common? I know suburban tramways were turned into motorist streets last century, but I can't recall many stories of bus lanes being converted to general purpose lanes. The exception is maybe some industrial areas where buses and tractor trailers can use the restricted lanes?
I get you now. My problem with the writing was that it seemed like he was making having fewer stops the singular answer to the problem of American public transportation. It might help some places,...
I get you now. My problem with the writing was that it seemed like he was making having fewer stops the singular answer to the problem of American public transportation. It might help some places, but even with the amount of people who live in those places, it's still a pretty small portion of the whole.
To be clear, when I was talking about BRT lanes becoming regular traffic lanes, I meant to say that it was primarily happening during the early stages before the BRT opens. When the will to open a dedicated bus lane boils over, it's really easy for people to say "Hey, why don't we relieve traffic congestion by opening it to cars?" It does happen to running lines as well, but I'm only aware of one example where it was for an experimental semi-autonomous vehicle.
As someone who lives in a city where the buses are awful, the issue is not the stops, since buses go slowly because of the traffic. Buses are in the worst of both worlds: they have to deal with...
As someone who lives in a city where the buses are awful, the issue is not the stops, since buses go slowly because of the traffic. Buses are in the worst of both worlds: they have to deal with the bad street traffic in the car-centric city, but they don’t get the benefit of the freeways since they need to make their stops. Perhaps dedicated bus lanes would mitigate that issue, but the larger problem is the lack of a freeway-equivalent like a rail or subway network.
Cars go so fast on freeways, and people’s lives are built around being able to go anywhere in half an hour by getting on a freeway, which public transit cannot replicate right now.
I guess this is an urban-centric issues. In most suburbs I've been raised in in Southern Ca, stops feel pretty far and worse, are very infrequent. It tends to come on the hour. in my current...
I guess this is an urban-centric issues. In most suburbs I've been raised in in Southern Ca, stops feel pretty far and worse, are very infrequent. It tends to come on the hour.
in my current example (as my car is being fixed), my nearby work route still requires a half mile walk from home to bus then another quarter mile from bus to work. But the fequency is at best 30 minutes. There are just some periods where missing a bus means an hour wait. That doesn't seem to be the usual bus culture from what I see downtown, let alone in places with robust public transportation.
But I guess that's the nature of a suburb. Everything is "far" unless you pick more expensive apartment living next to shopping complexes. The hills here kill a lot of motivation for walking to the closest complexes.
Counterpoint: USians are very lazy and won't walk more than one km to a bus stop
Also, just because it's marked as a stop doesn't mean the bus will stop there. I don't think I've been on a US bus that didn't skip stops if no one yanked the yellow rope or there were no people visible at the stop so the fixed stops are somewhat meaningless except for defining a route in navigation apps and, sometimes, shelter from the elements.
There are definitely stops in Chicago where I roll my eyes. It's like 100 meters between stops: before and after a bridge. However, the signalling system / stop lights are such that even if they removed the stop I think it wouldn't save much time--still need to wait for the green light and car traffic.
What makes US buses slow is frequency and distance of most trips. HK style route variations with 39A, 39B, 39C all skipping slightly different stops could help here--but mostly it is an issue of frequency.
It's a double-edged sword. Able-bodied people don't need all these bus stops, just walk a few extra blocks. Non-able-bodied people benefit from additional stops and I really like having public transit that can benefit the public.
I also don't see how additional bus stops are "more expensive" as the author claims, at least in my city where most bus stops are a small sign and zero amenities. And the driver doesn't stop at a third of them anyway as you note.
The bigger hurdle in America is getting people to even consider taking the bus. The last time I suggested taking the bus to my group of friends, two of them declined as the bus is "unsafe," despite not being able to express any reasoning that would hint that the bus was unsafe.
The author wrote:
I've observed the same in major European cities. US bus routes have many stops that are only a small sign, whereas European bus routes have fewer stops, but those stops tend to have shelters, digital signage, and the works.
I think the bus experience in America is just unpleasant. Frequent and aggressive start/stops (as drivers try to keep to schedule) makes for a very choppy ride experience. There are frequent delays, and the bus speed is still overall slow: I've sometimes given up waiting at a bus stop and simply outwalked the bus.
Plus, America has uniquely... interestingly ratchet characters that I have not encountered in such frequency in other wealthy and poor countries alike.
At the same time, Americans are wealthy and most Americans can afford private vehicles, so many prefer to not deal with the public transit experience.
exactly this is what Americans get wrong conceptually. They think public transit is for poor people. and that's literally the defining reasen it is sooo bad.
Ultimately this is the big factor. Even in places where public transit is relatively good and even convenient, it has a huge image problem to combat. I'm not exactly sure how to do that, though. We managed to change smoking's public image over time so that way more people my age avoid it, but... honestly, a big part of why people my age didn't smoke cigarettes is because they now carry the same "ew poor people" image that public transportation has.
But public transit in America is designed for poor people. At a policy level, it's treated as a public good/service to be municipally subsidized for the good of a city's working class — but fundamentally it is not seen as a product to be marketed and sold.
At best, it's a utilitarian experience. At worst, you're dealing with delays, bumpy jerky rides, litter, people blasting music, crowds, some suspicious dark brown stain on your bus' fabric seat that hasn't been cleaned in years, and/or some homeless guy sitting next to you with soiled pants.
In many US cities, public transit is a less comfortable and pleasant experience than private transportation. If you make $70k, then you're probably spending ~$10.5k/year on transportation. You could get yourself a nice used Lexus with comfy seats, a smooth suspension, AC, seat warmers, surround sound system, cup holders, the works.
US public transit is a product of its environment, an environment which has (since the end of WW1 but which really came into its own after WW2) been legally-mandated anti-transit development patterns. Single-use zoning, parking mandates, and large minimum lot sizes make it hard to run useful service to the areas which can afford to drive, and driving has been made artificially cheap by the federal government dumping trillions of dollars into a sprawling system of freeways, and subsidizing loans for single-family housing.
And when lots of people choose to drive, it perpetuates more driving because cities and states widen roads and build new highways to "fix traffic," businesses build bigger parking lots (or buy up adjacent lots to tear down buildings to build more parking) to cater to drivers, schools are built with large setbacks to accommodate car-only pickup/dropoff lanes, more traffic causes delays for buses, businesses begin moving to the suburbs to chase customers who don't want to drive into the city just to run errands, more people move to the car-dependent suburbs because the increasing volume of cars in the city produce ever-greater air and noise pollution, redlining makes it difficult to get a loan in a walkable neighborhood because there are too many minorities...in isolation, each manifestation of these factors has a tiny impact, but none of these happen in a vacuum, nor do they only happen once.
Taken as a whole, it creates significant challenges for transit agencies because the people who have means won't bother taking transit when it inconveniences them, especially given the costs associated with running service in suburban sprawl. This is the reason all the private transit operators cratered in the post-WW2 suburban boom period: it became unprofitable to serve most of the newly-minted suburbanites who previously relied on them for all of their trips, creating a death spiral as service cuts caused more people to buy cars and stop taking transit. The end result? The only people who continued to take transit were those with no better options. And since many municipalities imposed mandates like "at least 50% of your revenue must come from fares" when they bought out the bankrupt private operators, making transit a leisurely/pleasant (i.e. non-utilitarian) experience wasn't in the budget.
So transit wasn't "designed for poor people," it was relegated to the poor through decades of policy and legislation in service of upholding the illusion of the American dream. It's come in many forms over the years, from buying up poor neighborhoods and demolishing them for privately-owned sports complexes and other "urban renewal" schemes, to driving highways through minority neighborhoods, to axing transit entirely, and municipalities continue to piss away their short-term budgets, long-term financial sustainability, and freedom of mobility for their citizens in service of the illusion that they are wealthy and prosperous and need not rely on public services like those people.
Edit: grammar.
thats exactly what i mean. thats why its shit. Good public transport is a public good. it is actually good for everyone, including radical car people.
I'd add that bad experiences on buses are not unique to the US. Buses in Ireland are often plagued by aggressively anti-social groups of teenagers doing things like blaring music, harassing passengers, taking up seats, and so on. It is made very clear that asking them to stop would result in violence, and there is never any enforcement against them; in fact, I've never seen any security on buses, unlike trains. There also seem to be problems with drug use, there is usually even more litter than in the US, and there can be similarly unpleasant riders (though usually without the mental health problems of the US). Traffic is often bad, even with bus lanes, rides are bumpy, and scheduling can be messy, with the potential for buses leaving late and early, and real-time information that is often wrong (in the worst case I dealt with, I missed a once-per-half-hour bus because I arrived at the first stop fifteen minutes ahead of schedule and it had already left). Buses sometimes just don't go to stops they are listed as going to.
But beyond these: honestly, buses in many countries aren't great in my experience. They are usually the least pleasant option for public transport, and when alternatives are available, I usually prefer them, even if taking them is more difficult: on one route I take regularly, I prefer walking 15 minutes to a train station rather than 3-4 minutes to a bus stop. Likewise, most of my relatives in Southern Europe take metros and trams regularly, but would walk, drive, or take a taxi before taking a public bus.
While this is broadly true, it varies pretty wildly even within European cities. I currently live in Berlin and quite a few stops on my usual bus route are just signs. And I live quite centrally in the traditionally wealthiest district of the city -- my understanding is that it's worse the further out you go.
"wealthy" is an interesting way of putting it. It's just that our commutes are so far and public transportation is so inefficient that going into debt over a car note is the "cheapest" option. my commute to work downdown is roughly 45 minutes, and it'd become well over 3 hours (with a good few miles of walking to boot) if I tried to plan a bus/train route down instead.
Lazy for sure, but it's easy to justify that laziness when so much infrastructure is built without any affordances for pedestrians, or unusable affordances, like sidewalks that get blocked by roads signs, brush, and that don't get cleared in the winter. Most housing in the USA is literally not walkable to a bus stop, even if the distance isn't that far!
For sure! I responded to this with my experience in Las Vegas, but truth is that my current living situation has even worse public transit. I just mapped out what route I would have to take if I wanted to take public transport to a nearby university, and it would start with a 1.6 mile walk to the nearest bus stop. And to make things worse, literally one minute after plotting the course, I got an update that the bus was going to be 23 minutes late. On a service that is supposed to arrive every 30 minutes, no less.
I don't disagree. I live in a small town in the midwest that has decent public transit infra thanks to the university. I even live a short walk from the bus terminal where the buses sleep but I have never once ridden the bus because the scheduling and routing doesn't really make sense? It's like the planners all have car brain and they don't think like pedestrians.
There's zero effective "interconnect" with Amtrak (despite having a large bus turnaround and parking lot across the street from the Amtrak station) because the bus hours and route scheduling don't make any effort to do so. It is almost bizarre compared to the experience with public transport in 3rd world countries where transport has to work or nothing gets done.
I can't speak for Chicago but I live in the northern suburbs. Bus stops need to be sheltered and have better nodes up here. I used to live in Colorado and the RTD there had shit on lock - we need to learn from them. I exclusively used public transport for years there with no issues. I still occasionally use their express busses when I visit.
Meanwhile it feels that the PACE busses here are seriously underfunded and poorly implemented.
Final thoughts: we really need to improve pedestrian infrastructure as a whole in this country. Absolutely none of the bus stops in my area have a shelter and the majority don't even have a sidewalk to stand on. It's a pole stuck in the grass on the side of the road.
Plenty of desire paths along ditches in the Chicago suburbs, or bus stops on the opposite side of where pedestrian walkways actually are. Subdivisions built on the edges of towns rarely build sidewalks on their outer parameters.
Might be a state by state thing. Every time i've rode one in Vegas they've hit every stop, people or not.
Huh. There are many deficiencies in US bus systems, but it's expected that the bus does not stop at empty stops until the cord is pulled. Are you saying you've seen buses pass up stops with waiting riders? It wouldn't particularly surprise me, unfortunately, but I've never seen that.
I mean that just because the stop is there doesn't mean that it is used. The frequency of use for a given stop is not uniform across all stops. So removing a bus stop makes little difference if it is a rarely used one.
Here's another case: sometimes there will be a person at stop C and other times there will be a person at stop D and the bus only stops once in either one. This is a fairly common situation for these kind of semi-urban too-many-stops situations. Removing stop C or stop D just makes it less convenient for one or the other people.
My point is that comparing these types of stops to European ones may be comparing apples to oranges as the density is different and many US bus stops may be these sort of ephemeral stops where it isn't really impacting anything.
to be clear, busses here in Germany also don't stop if no one has pressed the stop button and there's no one waiting (in contrast to trains and trams, which stop at every stop). My current usual route has several such "ephemeral" stops (despite even being solidly urban). I presume this behavior is common to busses internationally.
Ah, I see what you mean now. Thanks.
having the A,B,C busses would probably confuse north americans (am canadian and could see some people here being confuse) https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Area_51-A
This article seems strangely out of touch to me. Given the mixture of meters and miles, I assume they come from outside of the country (and as a side note, the fact that they kept mixing the units made it extremely difficult to understand to me).
The majority of time I have had to deal with busses was in Las Vegas, which by their own graph has station spacing that is on the far end of European countries. And bus service in Las Vegas is absolutely terrible. If you had to go anywhere that was not on the street you were on, then your trip would take an hour and a half seemingly regardless of where you were going. And before you say "maybe people should walk more", it's a fucking desert that is unbearable to be outside for the majority of the year.
On the other hand, if you were trying to take the bus on the Strip, you had the easiest time of all. There are actually multiple concurrant bus lines that go through it - at one time it even had an express bus line that would skip stops, though as of the last time I was there It didn't appear to be there anymore. Stops are also very frequent in that area and the busses that service the strip-specific line are double-decker and have frequent service because there's a lot of ridership. It's faster to take the bus than walking if you're going any reasonable distance even though Las Vegas Boulevard is one of the worst, most congested streets I've ever come across (seriously - it should be paved and left to pedestrians). Things are great for tourists but for people who actually live in the area have a very different experience.
By far, the biggest problem with bus service is not that there are too many stops. Reducing stops just makes the bus service less accessable. There may be improvements to be had in some places, sure, but that's the cowardly "we'll take what we can get" answer that just eventually leads to less service and worse outcomes.
The real problem with bus service is always the same thing: they're busses. They have to share the street with traffic, full of cars that almost universally hate busses and will always try to pass and cut them off. Even though they are holding far more people than cars, they have the same priority at intersections, so they're waiting around for the lights all the same. But actually they're more likely to hit them because they have to move slowly.
There are many ways to fix these problems, such as having bus lanes and bus priority signalling. But these are expensive, and worse - they have the appearance of inconveniencing drivers, which makes them unpopular. So they simply don't happen.
And this is without talking about some of the other also-important parts of American public transportation, such as extremely poor quality rail options for long-distance travel. We're also ignoring the fact that busses themselves are kind of a bad idea compared to how much better things can be if we were to install something like tramway lines which don't have to deal with car traffic at all.
I think busses need the ability to navigate unimpeded to maximize their effectiveness. Dedicated lanes and green lights for busses. Logistically insane I know but I think most solutions require massively deprioritizing individual vehicles, which aligns with the goal of getting cars of the roads.
You've just described streetcars (trams). There are a few U.S. cities that have extremely localized tramlines, and the ones I've used in Houston and Phoenix were very efficient and popular. Basically, they were only located on divided urban boulevards that were broad enough to use what would normally be the median area for the tramline. So they weren't generalizable enough to get rid of traffic congestion or improve pedestrian safety at the stops.
bus lanes and signal prioritization are possible without trams, and trams require a lot more expense in terms of getting them put in. And I think pedestrian safety is largely independent of whether there's a bus or tram involved (or even neither) -- it needs to be prioritized independently of which mode of public transport you're taking.
The saddest part is how many American cities used to have pretty extensive tram networks that were dismantled either partially or entirely. I weep for the Cleveland streetcar tunnels that got filled in.
Trams absolutely could be generalized to cover much larger swaths of many US cities and even much of their suburbs. It would just be wildly expensive and there's already insufficient political will for the much cheaper measure of bus lanes, so. Not holding my breath for tram lines.
Melbourne (Australia) uses a combination of buses and trams. On some roads, buses and trams have their own dedicated lanes and traffic lights. On other roads, they share lanes with cars and effectively function like regular traffic. It's really a matter of what's needed where — and what's compatible with the road in question, although Melbourne's planners are certainly willing to make narrow roads into tram/bus/pedestrian-only spaces as needed. It works quite well.
That's really not the problem the author is talking about. Frequent stops slow down travel, a lot, and the primary reason public transit doesn't get used is trip times.
Even with trains, smart systems will minimize the number of stops to travel quick. In major transit systems around the world, express buses and trains that skip stops are common. In fact, express point-to-point buses are even used to supplement trains!
Imagine a gold-standard BRT that stops every few blocks. That BRT will be significantly slower and have lower ridership than a more lean line. This is well-known praxis amongst transit wonks. Metros like Seattle reduce the number of stops when converting a bus line to BRT, along with with paint, signals, etc.
Cost is way higher, and the benefits are minimal versus gold-standard BRT with at-grade boarding on low-floor buses. See Kansas City as an example. America is cursed with too many lanes. Easiest fix is turning some of them over to buses!
I feel like you ignored my reasoning entirely. Las Vegas has spacing that is roughly the same as the most sparsely spaced European cities and the service is abysmal. So obviously things are more complicated than just stop spacing! Did you notice that roughly 2/3rds of the cities in that graph are within the same range as European cities?
A bigger problem with their analysis is the use of the word “America”. The problem is not with the country, it’s with a very small subset of America overall, and if we were talking about it by coverage it would be statistically insignificant. As bad as the service in Las Vegas was, the vast majority of the country has even worse bus service even with very few bus stops. I wrote in another comment that if I wanted to take the bus near my home, the nearest stop is a 1.6 mile walk, and I’m in a suburb. So while too many bus stops might be a problem in some metro areas, there are far more problems that need to be handled which are universal across the country.
Another thing that I feel like the author is missing is that busses tend to be a different experience in the US, which others have been talking about; busses in the US are essentially the thing you take if you are too poor to afford a car, not the thing that affords you to not need to buy one. This is the fundamental problem that causes bus service to be bad. Busses are shoehorned into a system made for cars, and drivers hate big slow busses that slow down traffic in that lane. This is combined with the double whammy of cities built for cars, which has places separated with lots of space and is generally hostile to pedestrians. If people hate or are scared off walking, they sure as hell aren’t taking the bus. And if people aren’t taking the bus, why improve service?
Also note that I said “like tramways”; is BRT not like a tramway? BRTs are fine. The only problem is that they have the tendency in America to lose their importance over time to eventually become car lanes, which is why tramways are more preferable here, since they aren’t just another road lane.
Sorry, I think we're talking past each other. I completely agree that stop spacing is only a small piece of the puzzle. To be fair, the author does lead by briefly mentioning the other improvements that can be made to buses, but the article is about stop balancing.
I'm familiar with small town bus service, and I agree it's abysmal in most of America by land mass. The author is primarily writing about major metros with the highest ridership. He's proposing a simple fix for some routes in some big cities that already have working bus lines.
Of course, this depends on the city. Plenty of college towns in the US have well-used bus lines, and some metros like Seattle have very popular bus routes! Seattle's new mayor was elected in part due to her promise to fix a major bus line (which she herself uses). You're right about the stigma, but I think there's a chicken-and-the-egg effect with buses and transit.
Is this that common? I know suburban tramways were turned into motorist streets last century, but I can't recall many stories of bus lanes being converted to general purpose lanes. The exception is maybe some industrial areas where buses and tractor trailers can use the restricted lanes?
I get you now. My problem with the writing was that it seemed like he was making having fewer stops the singular answer to the problem of American public transportation. It might help some places, but even with the amount of people who live in those places, it's still a pretty small portion of the whole.
To be clear, when I was talking about BRT lanes becoming regular traffic lanes, I meant to say that it was primarily happening during the early stages before the BRT opens. When the will to open a dedicated bus lane boils over, it's really easy for people to say "Hey, why don't we relieve traffic congestion by opening it to cars?" It does happen to running lines as well, but I'm only aware of one example where it was for an experimental semi-autonomous vehicle.
As someone who lives in a city where the buses are awful, the issue is not the stops, since buses go slowly because of the traffic. Buses are in the worst of both worlds: they have to deal with the bad street traffic in the car-centric city, but they don’t get the benefit of the freeways since they need to make their stops. Perhaps dedicated bus lanes would mitigate that issue, but the larger problem is the lack of a freeway-equivalent like a rail or subway network.
Cars go so fast on freeways, and people’s lives are built around being able to go anywhere in half an hour by getting on a freeway, which public transit cannot replicate right now.
I guess this is an urban-centric issues. In most suburbs I've been raised in in Southern Ca, stops feel pretty far and worse, are very infrequent. It tends to come on the hour.
in my current example (as my car is being fixed), my nearby work route still requires a half mile walk from home to bus then another quarter mile from bus to work. But the fequency is at best 30 minutes. There are just some periods where missing a bus means an hour wait. That doesn't seem to be the usual bus culture from what I see downtown, let alone in places with robust public transportation.
But I guess that's the nature of a suburb. Everything is "far" unless you pick more expensive apartment living next to shopping complexes. The hills here kill a lot of motivation for walking to the closest complexes.