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Comment by smelendez | Hacker News Reader

> Within the city of Denver, only about 34 percent of people live within walking distance from stops where a bus arrives every 15 minutes or less, far behind cities like Seattle or San Francisco.

That seems critical, especially in a city that gets cold during the winter. Nobody wants to wait half an hour for the bus, when it's cold and dark out and you have things to do.

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Can confirm that this is a problem. I live in cap hill, which is about two miles from work. If I miss the bus, I might as well walk. In practice I just call a lyft, you know, contributing to the problem.

No offense, but have you considered a bicycle? Two miles wouldn't get you sweaty and temperatures are generally mild throughout the winter and summer. Obviously July/August aren't good times to ride in the afternoons. You can buy a lot of bicycle for the cost of a year of daily Lyft rides.

I got doored recently; I'm taking a break.

I agree. There are so many people here promoting autodrive cars as a safer alternative to the dangers of driving. But riding a bike to work every day looks more dangerous than skydiving. I haven't met any cyclist who, after a few years commuting to work, hasn't had some sort of serious accident or injury. And not just with cars. A good friend of mine needed stitches after hitting a pedestrian.

How was the pedestrian?

Fine. Not a scratch.

Wouldn't you time your arrival at the bus stop to coincide with the arrival of the bus?

If you're waiting 30 minutes for an uninterrupted service you're doing it wrong....

You seem to think Denver is Tokyo where the actual people driving the buses and trains have pride in their work. That's not the case in Denver; when I came back from Tokyo in 2002 I was disgusted watching two or three buses nearly bumper to bumper pull up to my stop. If they had pride in their work this wouldn't happen; instead people just run their routes because it's there job, they don't care at all. Not sure why this is, maybe just a US thing? I hate to say it's a blood type thing by my ex-wife swore it was because Japan is largely A-positive blood type.

The entire concept of a "blood type thing" has no basis in fact, and isn't commonly accepted in the West.

Yeah it was surprising how often it came up. We'd just gotten married and every single relative I met asked my blood type within the first minute. And everyone was shocked that I had no idea what mine was, or that my my ex married me without knowing it. I just chalked it up to a sort of horoscope for Japan, or fan will kill you if left on while sleeping Korean myth type of thing.

Its mainly b/c mass transit is considered an afterthought and is not a first class citizen in America. That is why we are stuck...

That is simply the state of public transportation in the US. I don't use buses very frequently, but the times I had to, my success rate with getting on a bus at the time it was scheduled is somewhere around 40%.

Sometimes it comes 15 minutes late, sometimes it doesn't come entirely and then it's a 30 minute wait (or longer) until the next one. One time it actually came early AND left early. I have no idea what the people who expected it 10 minutes later did. I guess they had to wait 40 minutes.

And it's not a walkable distance either (5-6 miles), so I still have to wait.

I took the bus in Pittsburgh PA for many years. I'd often show up 10 minutes before the scheduled arrival time and quite commonly the busses were 20-30 minutes late... or didn't come. Or came by, but didn't stop.

Waiting for 30 minutes seemed about the average.

Buses, given they lack a prioritized corridor, are still up to the whims of traffic, so it's not like they show up at exactly 30 minute intervals...

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