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Comment by et-al | Hacker News Reader

I can see why they switched. Above ground, busses are better than rail transit for a number of reasons:

* if a bus ahead breaks down, the bus behind can still go around it, so the line's not totally clogged up

* busses are quieter going through neighborhoods (have a friend who lives by Duboce Park and it rumbles)

* you can share the road with regular automobiles, whereas rails depend on the implementation (yes most of the ones in SF do as well)

* easier to turn a bus around than a train at the terminus

An actual subway could be quicker, but again that requires money, cooperation from the neighborhood, and time.

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"I can see why they switched. Above ground, busses are better than rail transit for a number of reasons"

There is nothing worse than buses.

I, and many others, will do almost anything to avoid riding a bus.

There is very little I can think of in our built, urban environment that is more aesthetically terrible and ill mannered than big, dumb (and in most cities, black exhaust spewing) buses bonking their way around city streets.

Steve Jobs said it best:

"If you see a (bus), they blew it."[1]

[1] https://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/jobs-if-you-see-a-stylus...

Having a bunch of taxis (or Lyft/Uber) is worse than busses. They're definitely less efficient and cause more congestion. Yes, for the riders of the cabs, it's a more pleasant experience, but at the cost of the collective whole.

And which city does not utilize a bus system? Tokyo is the only one where the busses don't stand out in my memory, but I'm sure they still have busses. It's impossible for a city to be served completely by rail.

I agree that the bus experience in general is substandard to rail, but the reality is that when transit planners need to service a new area, they can just route a bus in a few months as opposed to building out a rail line.

"And which city does not utilize a bus system? Tokyo is the only one where the busses don't stand out in my memory, but I'm sure they still have busses. It's impossible for a city to be served completely by rail."

Zurich comes to mind. While there are indeed buses in Zurich, they're somewhat superfluous and only used in (rare) edge cases. Contrary to your assumption, Zurich is almost entirely served by rail.

If I understood your original argument correctly, you believe that if transit planners have to resort to using busses, they've failed ("blew it").

In the case of Zürich, how did they not fail your metric? If the busses are truly superfluous, then why doesn't the transit agency discontinue those lines? I'd like to think they're there for a reason other than paying bus drivers and lining some pockets.

The reality is that cities, because they're changing, will always need busses alongside rail. As new areas become popular and need access, it's far quicker and cheaper to route a new bus line there. Today's bus route might become tomorrow's rail.

Buses seem to work fairly well in London and Singapore.

Yes the Singapore buses are great. You can go a long distance, there are enough different routes to obviate connections, fares are low...

The same attitude is common in England, where buses are often infrequent, inconvenient, uncomfortable, and used mainly by the poor.

Interestingly, it's not true of London, where just about anyone will get the bus, especially for journeys where the tube and rail connections are difficult. The buses are extraordinarily frequent in the centre, serve a wide network, and are full of a wide range of citizens.

For all I'm a big fan of rail, bus service can be both excellent and popular. It normally isn't, though.

Really, your main argument is that it's ugly? At least address the design concerns outlined by your parent post.

Also, I believe SF buses are generally electric except to cover excess load.

In any case, how do you expect people in the suburbs to get to the light rail? It's just not realistic to entirely discard busses on aesthetic(!!) bases.

Also, I'm not sure why you're quoting Steve Jobs that way. I'm enjoying using a stylus with my iPad now. It is a perfect example of pragmatism clearly displacing... whatever it was that irked Jobs about a stylus.

Most buses in San Francisco are diesel. Some of them are diesel-electric hybrid, but they still noisily rev up their diesel motors when accelerating. Especially uphill.

Besides the noise right outside my window at midnight, from an empty bus, that regulations require to have the hydraulics to kneel and to pick up wheelchairs; I don’t like navigating around buses because they block the road with their bulk and their dangerous mass. I prefer to ride my bike to the train station.

There are many bus lines in the city, and a number of regional bus lines with Transbay Terminal service that are packed full of downtown office workers. I would much rather ride a transbay bus than take the train during rush hour. Also, many busses in SF are zero-emission and i think all of them are low-emission.

> you can share the road with regular automobiles

This guarantees that transit will always be worse than driving oneself.

Yes, as is the case with San Francisco's N-Judah. However, when it comes to proposals, if you told residents "hey, you can no longer drive/park on the street in front of your house" they'd probably oppose the new rail line.

well on multi-lane roads like geary, you could just have a dedicated lane that normal traffic can't enter

That'd be nice, but Geary is not really a multi-lane road until you go west of Van Ness, and the main areas of congestion seem to be downtown, east of Van Ness.

The way the current metro light-rail is laid out is a good idea on paper: underground for the dense urban areas, and above ground where you can have space for a dedicated lane. If a potential Geary Metro was underground from Embarcadero to Japantown (Laguna or Webster), then above ground the rest of the way, I can see see a light-rail system working. Now let's find a politician with the clout to have Geary under construction for 5-7 years (optimistically).

East of Van Ness, Geary and O'Farrell form a one-way pair. But yes, there's not much space, and the area dense so running underground would make sense.

As others have pointed out, there is in fact a BRT project in progress to bring a separated, dedicated-lane busway to Geary [1].

[1] http://www.sfcta.org/geary-corridor-bus-rapid-transit-home

Thanks, I'm looking forward to seeing this finally come to fruition.

Worse in regards to travel time, for one individual. Its still better for that one individual in terms of effort, and in terms of ability to do something besides driving (read, watch tv, etc.) And each person taking the bus is on average ~1 less car on the road to cause traffic.

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