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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

I'd go further and say that in most smaller cities that try to run a bus service but just don't have the ridership to support adequate service they would be better off just subsidizing Ubers or Waymos or whatever is available. Pare down the bus service to only the heavily used routes and run them way more often.

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100%. Most bus routes are terribly expensive to run, multiple drivers, benefits and then the physical equipment. It would be interesting if you could work out a subsidy program for low income riders.

A route is expensive to run, but there is no reason you cannot automate a bus driver just like a car driver.

Sure but most folks don’t want to take a bus in the US. Perhaps you build mini ride share busses that are driverless and I think this is where something like Waymo would actually go to.

Nobody understands their why. They say they don't want to, but what they really mean is service sucks so they can't and assume that means they don't want to. It is regularly proved around the world that when you give good service people suddenly want to ride.

I think that is a pretty broad generalization that lacks cultural differences and regional challenges. There are indeed many whys but one of the core issues in American is the rooted desire to be free by driving a car. It’s kind of similar to how folks argue small cars should be manufactured in the US when in reality most folks don’t want to buy them.

You could not efficiently run a bus service in most US cities at a level of “good service”. Now I absolutely agree you could probably get there with some sort of 10 seat ride share setups that optimizes pickups and dropoffs but I don’t see that happening yet and Waymo is at least a nice step on the potential direction.

Even with great service it’s an uphill battle to get enough ridership.

Last mile is an incredibly hard problem in the US. If you have the option to someone to commute by bus with a single transfer or to take their car I think most folks would opt for a car. That is why I say it’s not feasible to run a bus service because you would need to get it down to zero transfer and effectively door to door service.

> You could not efficiently run a bus service in most US cities at a level of “good service”.

Only because you can never get the political supported needed to get there. If you somehow got the needed support people would start using it and it would turn the US city into a transit city. Note that political support needs to last for at least 5 years, in the real world there is an election every 2 years and so before you can get your bus system working for 5 someone will win an election on "lets stop wasting all that money on the bus system" platform and kill the whole thing.

> Now I absolutely agree you could probably get there with some sort of 10 seat ride share setups that optimizes pickups and dropoffs

We we cannot. you cannot optimize a 10 set ride share that much. They would be even more expensive at that scale. Nobody likes busy ride shares - you have a deadline of when you need to be there and flexible routes mean that some days you are late because the rideshare decided to take a detour to pick up (or drop off) someone else.

> Last mile is an incredibly hard problem in the US. If you have the option to someone to commute by bus with a single transfer or to take their car I think most folks would opt for a car

Because the bus nearly everywhere provides terrible service. Sure some people can take a few trips via bus, but then the car they need for the rest is just sitting around while you still make payments (including taxes and insurance).

> That is why I say it’s not feasible to run a bus service because you would need to get it down to zero transfer and effectively door to door service.

You don't need to get there. You just need to get "close enough". If you give people a situation where they can REASONABLE do nearly everything on transit most will give up the car. However if there is even one semi-regular trip that needs a car they may as well use the car for everything.

Sorry no you are ignoring the most important fact. Unless you can get door to door service, people in a place like Dallas are not going to use a bus. You tell me it’s not feasible to do a rideshare small bus? Well then it’s definitely not feasible to run bus networks. I think the narrative is conflicting within itself.

- if you give someone the option of a bus with a transfer or taking a car they will almost always take a car (thinking of Dallas)

- if you can get me a bus that very nearly gets me door to door with low to no wait people will consider taking it over a car. Very nearly to me is 5-10 mins of walking at most. That’s like a single section of a frontage road in Dallas at best.

- I don’t see how you build that kind of service. Maybe you do live in DFW but it’s massive. Just walking from one intersection of a frontage road to the next would take me at least 10-15mins and thinking of job density there it’s pretty low and then thinking of those folks and how many are commuting from similar places is even lower.

You are arguing that if you could create a great bus service that people would take it and I am trying to point out that a great bus service in a place like Dallas is not economically feasible. It has nothing to do with politics at least from the upfront problem of it not being feasible.

> I am trying to point out that a great bus service in a place like Dallas is not economically feasible.

I disagree. It is not politically feasible and so we won't get there, but the economics work out: a great transit network even in a place like Dallas could get enough riders to sustain itself. Problem is we need 50% of the families in Dallas Fort Worth to pay $200/month to pay for it, and nobody will stand for that - even though nearly every family in spending more than that per car.

DFW is simply not dense enough. I don’t know why politics come into play. absolutely cities preference does but at the end of the day most US cities are not dense enough that buses and other forms of public transit work well.

This is already the case. A lot of transit agencies have a vanpools, rideshares, and ridehales for their low frequency areas. I used one recently in Tacoma because my ferry was late and the bus from the ferry arrives only ones an hour.

I will say it was super nice. However, I would prefer a regular and a direct bus any day. Being able to just walk into a bus, scan my transit card and get on with my day is a much preferable experience then to order a ridehail via an app.

So if a transit agency can just increase their bus frequency, they should. They should not however pass the limited funds they do have over to a private company.

Last I checked, buses, related infrastructure, and fuel are all made by private companies

If they were taking the bus in Tacoma, it would be owned and operated by King County Metro which is publicly owned and uses roads that are publicly owned. A great deal of the buses are electric or zero emissions, using electricity from Seattle City Light which is publicly owned.

Most share cities could get adequate ridership just by expanding service. That is more service would be more riders than they are getting. However they need a lot more service to reach this topping point to where people will choose to give up their car, and you can't get support for those costs until you already have had that level of service for five years.

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