Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

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Better mass transit needs straight lines to run on more than density. When the bus has to go down every long cul-de-sac nobody will ride because the bus takes so long, when it doesn't few people ride because of the long walk to the bus. If developments has more long straight streets down the middle there wouldn't be a long walk to a bus that runs a reasonable route.

As you said, closer isn't a measure of only distance it is also a measure of time. If the transit system can isn't too far to walk to, runs often enough that people don't worry about when it comes, and doesn't waste time going places the rider don't want to go: people will take it. When transit is inconvenient to get to, doesn't run when/were individuals want to go, or takes too long to get there: people won't take it.

Fixing that isn't easy though. Roads/streets need to be designed for transit. Enough people need to ride that the system isn't mostly empty. It needs to go more or less direct routes to where people want to go, not take long detours to other destinations. Only the middle depends on density at all, if you fail the other two density won't give your transit systems many riders. Pass the other two and you can still get a lot of riders despite not being very dense.

It's hard when American culture seems obsessed with houses rather than flats. You can build in straight lines, but if each 4 people dwelling takes up 400 square metres of horizontal space, there is no way distances will ever be walkable- often not even those between two bus or tram stops.

That just limits how many people can get on in a given distance. If the transit is useful enough people will walk. There are farms in Europe with better bus service than Suburbs in the US, even though farms are much less dense.

You won't be running a bus every 5 minutes through the suburbs, but you can support one 30 minutes, which is the minimum frequency to be useful, and allows 1/6th the destiny to have the same riders.

There are areas of the US nearly as dense as Paris, but because the geometry is so transit hostile there will never be transit despite the density seeming to support it. Los Vagas for example has inward facing apartments that make getting to any through street from the door hard.

I lived in an older suburb near Detroit that was a mix of single family houses and duplexes. It was fairly walkable, but that's because the houses were built on small lots with very little space between the houses. I had 2 bus lines within walking distance from my house, and I took it into work every day. In fact, I used my car so infrequently that somebody thought it was abandoned and called the city who promptly came out and issued me a move it ticket.

No one said it would be easy.

Yes, it will require urban planning. Personally, I’d prefer trains/subways to buses.

The future of mass transit should arrive within a decade or so as China finishes developing low-speed maglevs that travel around 100 mph. Oakland out 50 miles should become commutable.

For now, what’s the subway situation from Oakland to downtown San Francisco? Getting people to commute in that direction would be a good start. As well as getting companies to build in Oakland.

Technology is not important. The reasons to prefer trains and subways are not the technology so much as most buses are running in the same lane as cars and so they have the same limitations. A bus in a truly dedicated lane would work just as well for most purposes, if only we cared about them.

There are a couple advantages to trains/subways over buses, but for the most part they don't apply.

They can be longer: have more riders, which is only important when they come every 5 minutes. When the bus isn't coming every 5 minutes you should address overcrowding by adding more buses which makes the whole system more convenient for the riders.

They run steel on steel which is more energy efficient. While this is a factor, a bus is so much more better than cars we shouldn't count it.

Even with a dedicated lane, there will still be more delays than with a grade separation (subway). Intersections are a bottleneck.

Not when buses get signal priority.

Signal priority over pedestrians too?

A bus every 5 minutes carries enough people to be worth that, and leaves plenty of space in between for pedestrians to cross. (Assuming a dedicated lane). For various reasons you should get a bus to come more than once every 5 minutes, upgrade to a train. (with great dispatch you can get down to every 3 minutes, but it is better to put in a non-grade level train at that point)

Intersections aren't as much of a factor when the majority of travel is on a freeway.

Are you thinking of dedicated on-ramps and off-ramps as well? Otherwise, I think stops will take a long time due to lane changes.

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