Human Transit (2011)
humantransit.org
humantransit.org
- There are very few inherent differences between buses and rail—most of what we think of as inherent differences are incidental (such as grade separation and offboard payment).
- Running a bus faster is cheaper than running it slowly.
- Introducing a transfer into someone's trip, all else equal, can make the trip faster.
It’s hard for people to understand how good busses can be unless you’ve seen a system of the sort Jarrett would hold up as an example.
This is one of a handful of books that I like to recommend to erstwhile transportation geeks along with Vanderbilt’s, Downs’s, and Shoup’s. Disclosure: I had a minuscule role in helping review an early draft of Jarrett’s book.
Tom Vanderbilt - Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do
Anthony Downs - Stuck in Traffic (and the follow-up, Still Stuck in Traffic)
Donald Shoup - The High Cost of Free Parking
And of course Jarrett Walker's Human Transit :-)
EDIT: The rationale is that all of these engagingly explain something interesting that isn't necessarily intuitive or apparent to regular everyday users of the transportation system.
How do transfers save time? By indirectly eliminating stops (two express routes)?
Transfers are explained here: http://humantransit.org/2009/04/why-transferring-is-good-for...
I'm not sure they've done any work in the SF bay area, but nearby I recently ran across a background analysis they did for Sacramento which I found really interesting http://www.sacrtforward.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SacRT...
But yeah, recently started reading this book and I think it's the one book that finally begins to codify my interest in transit infrastructure and urban form.