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Comment by robotcookies | Hacker News Reader

People do in general prefer trains over buses. This article is basically just saying that as you make the buses more train-like by giving them dedicated lanes and more reliability, people start to like buses more. Make them longer (articulated), faster, with dedicated lanes, and basically they start to become like a train with rubber tires. I think that is in fact, confirming people like trains better.

Titles do matter and I have an issue with the title of the article. It's like saying people prefer lobster soup over pea soup, but as you start to add more lobster to the pea soup... people start to like the pea soup... and therefore, it's a "myth" that people prefer lobster over peas. People prefer faster, reliable service with fewer stops - duh.

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Boses have traffic. People don't like traffic. Trains don't have traffic.

I've had to wait in a train for over 30 minutes due to another train passing by. I guess it depends where you're at.

Sounds like Amtrak, lower priority than freight and using ancient tracks.

Or England at a busy station.

It's not a common occurance, but it happens often enough that people who use trains regularly can remember a time it happened to them.

(I tend to like trains, but I use buses and coaches more often because price and convenience.)

Light rail frequently has traffic. This being said, buses have an advantage when they do - if there's an accident or the transit vehicle in front has a patron in need of an ambulance, a bus can usually go around it. Light rail has to wait.

Trains also sometimes have lounge cars, dining cars and theaters.

Buses confine you to a cramped seat and if you're lucky there's a tiny bathroom on board.

In England some coaches (long distance buses) have tables (seat four people); power sockets and WIFI. They might have a fridge with cold bottled water.

Some buses have WIFI.

We have wifi and nice coach buses in the US. Still don't want to ride them over a train. Trains are certainly faster and more dependable in terms of time of arrival.

This. Also, bus travel can induce motion sickness.

> Trains don't have traffic.

Trains have traffic. It's baked into their schedules, so it can never improve based on variations in usage.

Trains reliably run to timetable. Buses don't.

Buses around here do.

One basic idea in TFA is that you can have buses in their own lanes that don't have traffic.

Yes but in cities like LA which are planned around cars the major arteries are 3 lanes in each direction, so you can put up signs saying $200 fine if you use the bus lane, give buses priority at traffic lights, run articulated buses with pre paid tickets and you have buses that operate pretty much like trams ('light rail') at a fraction of the cost. In most European cities this won't work as streets are too narrow to accommodate seperated traffic so you need a combination of congestion charging with streets restricted to public transport and/or expensive tunnels. Trams make sense if you have sections of tunnel in denser parts of the city and grade seperated sections in outer areas; buses can't run in tunnels. They also reduce pollution at street level. Diesel fumes from buses are a significant problem in dense European cities.

I'm curious why can't buss s run in tunnels? Is it simply a problem of air quality because of emissions? I wonder if this could be solved by using hybrid diesel electric buses that run off of overhead electrical wiring in tunnels, but an onboard diesel-electric prime mover above ground.

The Silver Line in Boston is exactly that: dual mode buses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-mode_bus), and part of the line is a dedicated tunnel for the buses, while the other part is normal streets.

UK: Pop your buses on tracks set in the bus lanes and can have the train wheels! We used to call them trams. A tram service often referred to as 'the metro' these days to make them sound modern because we spent loads of money in the middle of the 20th century ripping up the tram lines in many of our larger cities.

http://www.metrolink.co.uk/

and the route map at

http://www.metrolink.co.uk/stationinfo/Documents/Route_map.p...

Also Sheffield, Leeds and a single route in Birmingham.

Happy to change the title if you or anyone can suggest one that is accurate and neutral.

Edit: Ok, we took a crack at it. Can change it again if anyone has a better idea.

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