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Don’t get me wrong, I would absolutely dearly love to have proper trains running on time to every location.
But we basically made a souffle, and you’re asking us to turn it into chocolate cake.
We could get away with an advanced network of buses.
Buses are great for public transit and the most cost effective option for some communities. There also seems to be a stigma against buses, though, where people are more willing to take a train than a bus. I’m starting to suspect that stigma extends to people wanting to build trains instead of buses that can get the same job done for less money than building a brand new train system.
There also seems to be a stigma against buses, though, where people are more willing to take a train than a bus.
I’ll absolutely take a train over a bus if they are going to the same destination.
- train has fewer stops meaning train reaches the destination faster
- train has ultimate right-of-way, and doesn’t have to stop for pedestrians on the tracks, red lights, or other things
- trains in some cities, go under waterways meaning more direct routes than busses
- there’s more space inside trains and usually more choice of seats. Standing is also an option which isn’t allowed on most busses
- acceleration and deceleration are more predictable and comfortable
- nearly all metro light rail trains are powered by electricity, while many city busses remain diesel
Most of those can addressed by busses too actually.
Train has fewer stops meaning train reaches the destination faster
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or any bus line can have less stop for this reason. To expand on BRT routes, they can be dedicated lanes for busses, with right of way. They can be specific only for busses, and cars not allowed to use it ever or also mixed usage where certain rush hours are for bus use only but outside those hours can be used by other vehicles.
Train has ultimate right-of-way, and doesn’t have to stop for pedestrians on the tracks, red lights, or other things
This can also be done with BRT routes.
trains in some cities, go under waterways meaning more direct routes than busses
BRT as well.
there’s more space inside trains and usually more choice of seats. Standing is also an option which isn’t allowed on most busses
Busses can absolutely support this. Paris has more open busses to allow more people standing or people with disabilities.
acceleration and deceleration are more predictable and comfortable
With dedicated BRT lanes, I believe that can also be done considering there’s only bus stops that need to be slowed down on.
Nearly all metro light rail trains are powered by electricity, while many city busses remain diesel
I know technically electric busses are possible, but I’m not certain how feasible this is.
My understanding is that BRT routes are cheaper and faster to setup than trains, and can be upgraded to trains. I’m not saying BRT is better than light or heavy rail, but that should be a more common path for mass transit that is not utilized in the US.
For this discussion, you’re really torturing the definition of a bus if you’re going to use BRT to mean busses. BRT does not meet most peoples definition of “city bus” as the conversation up to now has suggested.
I’m not saying BRT is better than light or heavy rail, but that should be a more common path for mass transit that is not utilized in the U
BRT would nearly always be a zero sum solution to make your statement true. You would have to subtract from current roads that accommodate traffic to create BRT to meet your metric. Land, espeically in dense cities is nearly always already allocated. If anything besides the zero sum BRT, light rail would likely be a better choice than BRT because it can subterranean or elevated with fewer building challenges/dangers.
I’m not saying BRT is better than light or heavy rail, but that should be a more common path for mass transit that is not utilized in the US
I’m interested in an example of a city you have a in mind that BRT would be a better choice than city busses or light rail.
- trains can drive at higher speeds than buses
- train wheels don’t emit microplastic particles like bus tires do
- trains are significantly safer than buses
- trains move on tracks which results in them moving in a stable and predictable way while buses often shake more which can result in people feeling sick (happens to me often when taking the bus)
train wheels don’t emit microplastic particles like bus tires do
we can help solve this by using plastic breaks on trains
Lol
finally someone who provides a solution to the problem!
most politicians still don’t know what the problem is.
Believe it or not, RTD (regional Denver) is building BRT right now. Blew my mind. I’m looking forward to it
Hey, BRT is great! I’ll happily support that rather than building regular car infrastructure.
I also still vastly prefer the train. Or a ferry, if that’s an option.
Point not brought up by the other person: Bicycles. I am primarily a bike commuter, and have had one good experience with a bike and bus:
Last bus out of the city, like 2:30am. Driver has no time for our shit, tells us to bring them inside and hang on, to hell with the front rack. We didn’t even pay.
I’ve also had my bike half pop out of said front rack, get taco’d, and got absolutely nothing out of it. Totally fucked. No restitution.
Best case with bikes on a bus is you get lucky and get a spot, usually you’re better off just riding the whole way.
Trains, have room. Never not made a train with my bike.
Yeah. Busses join traffic. They reduce it, but traffic delays them
Having lived in several countries in Europe, in and around major cities, I have actually chosen the train over even the tube (aka subway) because it’s significantly faster for longer distances (fewer stops, better acceleration) and in general more pleasant (a bit more space, actual open spaces outside the windows rather than just dark walls).
In my experience, trains, subway and buses have different optimal use cases: trains for longer distance (in a city context that’s 20+ km) mass transportation of people to and from hub points in the city (they basically feed people to and from cities), the subway distributes people around the city center and buses are what feeds the trains and tube stations in the areas further away from the city center (were the subway coverage is far more spread out) and in cities without a subway they do the work of the subway (but they’re less efficient than one).
Note that I’m not talking about the use case of trains to transporting people between different cities at long distances (50km+), but a different use case which is of trains for commuting which feed people from the suburbs and satellite cities to a main city and back.
Trams basically fit the same niche as the subway when there’s no subway - they’re much cheaper do deploy but can get stuck in traffic unless the tram lines are in physically segregated lanes from automobile traffic.
The way I’ve seen buses used in general is them set-up to going around to “every nook and crany” in residential areas plus with main tube/train stations as part of their route (often at the start and end of the bus line), so they have pretty windy routes and are a pretty slow way to do longer (5km+) distances since they’re really there to feed people to and from the train and tube lines so are trying to cover as much of the residentia areas as possible hence travel back and forth in out of the way places and stop a lot.
Buses are also used in the city centers when there is good subway coverage but there they tend to just be secondary to the subway, generally just making up for gaps or other flaws in the subway network design (for example, parallel subway lines which only join far away so to do the trip with the subway you would have to go all the away around so the bus has a direct route) and as you get further out from the city center and the subway lines open up a spread out to cover those areas which end up too far from a subway station.
When the timetables of those things are properly synched it’s really amazing: you can be living in a suburban area or smaller village outside the city proper, use a bus (or a bicycle, or walk) to get to the train station, catch a train to a main station in the city center and in there switch to the subway which takes you to a station near your destination were you just exit and then just walk to your final destination (with a proper subway service, in the central area of the city you seldom have to walk more than 500m to get anywhere from the nearest subway station) and you’ve spent maybe 30 - 45m to get from a house or appartment in the suburbs to an office in the center of a major city, zero chance of getting stuck in traffic, no worries about having to find a parking space, way less exposure to polution that if driving.
There could be dedicated separated bus lanes - I saw one in my world travels but never in USA. IMHO it is a better solution for short distance (i.e non-competing with plane) than inflexible heavy metro transit infra…
I live in a city with a decent network of busses and trains. The trains are just nicer. The trains aren’t that different in fanciness to the busses, but they are bigger on the inside and I think that makes a big difference.
As somebody from one of the related industries: The problem is federal grants in the US. Every year thousands of municipal and state government employees write to the feds grants for funding transportation. The money available until the infrastructure investment act was all money for roads. Even now with money for commuter rail is still very small in comparison and stipulations like requiring nearby travel lanes for other types of vehicles still mean that elevated and tunneled train systems are not being adequately funded.
The effect is obvious: Do you as a munucipal/state government administrator build a free new federally funded road to make people feel like a problem is being addressed and then blame the unaddressed problems on the next elected person or do you raise taxes to fund a light rail system that is infinitely more costly despite the fact nobody else will build public rail links to connect it to. Planning departments usually do know what transit will work best, but getting funding for trains has been nearly impossible.
The feds have, I think since the 50s, discouraged new public rail and we are paying that price over and over again. Say what you will about biden but him being a train guy is probably the only thing that has improved the number of light rail projects in the states and we won’t see those benefits for years.
The rest of the problem lies in urban sprawl and parking lot minimums. Which is a similar problem where its impossible to not create unwalkable sprawl.
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Embrace trams, the worst of all worlds
No, trams are amazing. They’re trains but on bus-stop scale. Perfect for transport across the core of a city
Maybe I’m just bitter that my city doesn’t have a proper metro. I’m still fairly grateful though. My home town had no public transportation at all.
Trams are the best! I’ll go out of my way to take a tram over a bus any day
They are just so much smoother
I used to commute from south of Baltimore to north of Baltimore. My home was five blocks from the light rail station and my work was a couple blocks in the light rail station.
I drove everyday and hadn’t even tried to take the light rail because I already have a car and insurance and why pay another $5 a day too get to and from work.
My car had a mechanical problem and I didn’t have time to fix it so I decided I would go ahead and take the light rail until work slowed down a little and I had time.
My car ride was right around 35 to 45 minutes. It took me about 10 minutes to walk to the light rail station The train could come anywhere between immediate and 20 minutes out the Baltimore light rail does not run on a set schedule. The train took about 30 minutes to get from my house to the center of town, At which point I had to switch to another train which could then take anywhere between zero and 15 minutes. That train then took about 35 minutes to get to work. Then I had to walk another couple of blocks which took on average about another 10 minutes They were long blocks.
So instead of losing an hour to an hour and a half everyday I was losing somewhere closer to 3-4 hours. Then on days where there was actually a problem, It might take 4 hours one way, or, God forbid there was a baseball or football game starting or stopping around the time I needed to come through.
Even where we have public transportation, we barely put forth enough effort to make it viable.
Lack of schedule coordination is an American thing. Or building suburban train lines which scheduling rarely beats the car.
- Trains
- Trams
- Ebikes
- Public Busses
In that order, preferably. Fuck this techbro shit.
You’re forgetting a fundamental one:
- Sidewalks
Technology is not mature yet, we’ll need another 10 years til we could make those work.
Just let Elon Musk handle it, it will be ready in two year tops. Perpetually two years away.
He’ll get two miles of underground sidewalks put in during four of those two years.
And 6 years after starting his two year project it’ll go bankrupt because no one is paying to use his underground sidewalk service.
Looking around the infrastructure of Texas, it’s gonna be a whole lot longer than 10 years if they decide to make anything sidewalk safe.
Better get used to walking on grass if you choose to walk somewhere here.
Whats wrong with walking on the grass? It always blows my mind people choose to walk in the road, as close to vehicles as possible, rather than choose the clearly safer option and walk on the grass.
I’m genuinely curious why so many people are afraid of the grass, fuck, ill walk in the weeds/trees before I walk on the side of a road.
Agreed with preferring to walk on grass than the road, but the grass here is thick, uneven, and patchy. Very easy to trip or get stuck going through a section that hasn’t been mowed in months.
If they had instead just made a sidewalk, things would be much easier. Especially in the areas that have sidewalk ramps that lead to nothing but grass. Laziness.
The road isn’t a better option but issues with grass in residential areas:
- Tree roots and other trip hazards
- People parking their 5 giant SUVs and pickup trucks on them (this can happen on sidewalks too, but it’s often worse)
- Dog shit that is less visible
- Road design is usually more hostile when there aren’t sidewalks since they don’t even consider the existence of pedestrians
- Sometimes it’s not grass so much as mud, particularly when flooding has occurred recently (which has gotten more common as climate change has advanced).
- Running on a sidewalk (or road) is better for reducing injury despite grass feeling softer (since it’s more uneven).
And on the larger sidewalks you can ride bikes on them relatively safely.
YUP
I want state owned electric self driving g taxis. I want to walk out of my door and get in the neighborhood self driving bus to take me (up to) 2 miles from work, where I can either walk or use a lil razer scooter to get to my job.
Alas, I work 62 miles away from home.
What about little electric scooters that you can rent with an app but we just dump them all over the fucking sidewalk when no one is using them.
I like the idea, but I have no clue how to regulate them properly. Right now it’s chaos all over the world.
I live close to my workplace and have been a skater most of my life, bought an electric one and I take it to work whenever the weather is nice.
It’s a great cash save and the board itself is awesome fun and very fucking quick.
Have to be heavy duty e-bikes. most americans are probably too heavy for normal ones that have a weight limit of like 200lbs.
A pointlessly, stereotyping answer. The type of people willing to invest hundreds of dollars into a [e]bike are usually fit enough to ride them without undue difficulty.
It’s because they all live in the US.
If the operated out of the UK they would know what a bus was. It would be late of course, but at least they would see them.
We have busses.
Tech bros are afraid of poor people and only poor people take the bus. We obviously need a luxury bus to service tech startups.
If they used the train network they would be very familiar with busses.
The point is to not ride the public transportation with the lesser peoples.
- and 2. class wagons?
Twitter is bad.
The end goal of robo-taxis is to shuttle people between the home/destination and the train station.
Wouldn’t buses/trams be more efficient at that? They move more than 1 person to their desired destination.
That would be more efficient, but there are enough places with no bus or tram. And then you have services that are infrequent or shut down early and could use some help.
Shuttles are already a thing
Neither takes you and your bags to your front door. Cars move more than 1 person too.
We already have that in my city, it’s called Metro Micro and it costs $2.50 and includes a free transfer to public transit.
I don’t know what Musk thinks he’s going to charge for it, but I doubt it’ll be better than that.
Which btw that program isn’t doing too well. It’s a huge cost right now, compared to more traditional public transit. And imagine that this is with regular “cheap” vans rather than more expensive vehicles. These also seem to be a small step better than Personal vehicles as I hear most rides are solo rides (which is not exactly the aim). What is great about micro is they support bikes, and people with disabilities to help reach the last mile in their trip.
I’ve never had a solo ride in one, and I never noticed anything about their vans that seemed cheap. My biggest complaint is that you have to order one hours in advance because they’re so busy. That might depend on the service area you’re in though.
AFAIK all the buses here support bikes too, at least all the ones I’ve been on with Metro.
Imagine needing to get back home from a train station, but there are 13 people that will need to be dropped-off before you, at their individual homes.
So, exactly like when I was a kid riding the school bus and our household was the first one on in the morning and the last one off in the afternoon.
Oh, interesting, maybe.
I’ve never been on a school bus, we just used regular buses.
i know he acts like that, but he’s actually 53.
edit: oh, by “joke” you mean the tweet. never mind.
This is btw also what Apple tried to build. That’s why their car project failed.
To be fair, a cab is not a bus, but still an essential part of transit. They are usually far too expensive to be considered an option(for me, a European city dweller) so anything that makes them more accessible is good.
I ain’t paying 10 bucks to go 5 miles.
Are cabs so essential that they get to share the bus lane?
Of course not. Why would you think that?
In many cities it is existing custom for cabs to use bus lanes.
Ok, but how did I allude to that.
You didn’t. I was just interested in how essential you think cabs are. We agree that they should have no special privileges above a normal private car.
