Hacker News Reader

Comment by pandaman | Hacker News Reader

I watched a video of several seconds of a bus driving past cars stopped at a red light, then the bus stopped and video cut off. I wonder what happened? Could have all these cars passed the bus? Hmmm, would not get upvotes on Reddit, would it? So yeah, physics still rule out reality outside Reddit as far as I am concerned and Google maps seem to agree with me. What was your Portland route, I can check it out too.

View on HN

Do you really think all of those cars passed the bus? I have been on that route and I can tell you that the likelihood of that happening is 0. Also, the buses have priority signaling so they never have to wait at red lights for long

The route in Portland was downtown to approximately 42nd Street and powell. The bus drives on bus only roads and crosses a transit only bridge so it beats cars sitting in bumper to bumper traffic every time

Yes, the cars appear to be waiting on the red light and not in a jam. Google maps shows 14 min by car and 28 min by transit between SE 42nd Ave and Powell Blvd to the Pioneer Courthouse Square. I imagine there might be times when car traffic is impeded to the point it takes 60 mins, but Portland buses with dedicated lanes are not everywhere, they have the same problem as trains: the routes are limited and getting around Portland on transit is extremely slow in general.

I am getting 12-28 minutes to drive during rush hour and 27 minutes to take the bus. The car travel time also doesn't factor in walking to the parking garage (10ish minutes when I lived there) and was typically longer than what Google maps is predicting.

You are right that the routes are limited and that's it's a problem. However, this isn't because cars are better, it's because we built the city for cars. It's pretty telling that given all of the hostile car-centric infrastructure, buses can still be competitive to driving. I was resistant to taking the bus at first but then once I tried it, it was the obvious choice for me.

Buses are competitive to driving because they are subsidized, obviously. Poor or frugal people will choose a bus because they either cannot or don't want to afford a car. Ill people also might not be able to drive at all. This is why you don't see private buses. If they really had been competitive on their own, businesses ran them for profit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com