Doing the obvious but better late than never

County Executive wants to boost sales tax to add buses. He wants

...so many buses that riders won't even need a schedule.

Comments

[Foulard]

Definitely! For high-use commutes like Downtown-Ballard, you really *shouldn't* have to look at a schedule. I think the possibility of a killer 30 minute wait for an overcrowded bus is one thing that turns people off Metro.

I also think either a dedicated bus lane or giving automatic right of way to public transit would really transform the commute. It's crazy that a bus carrying 50 people during rush hour doesn't have priority over one person in a car.

[Jesse McCann]

It's about time! Many of the routes inside the city are under-bussed, and a lot of the older equipment is degrading (esp. the MAN trolleybuses).

[Holly B]

Sims sounds clueless about the fact that schedules do more than provide departure times. They also let a rider know when the bus will be arriving at transfer points and final destinations.

First thing Sims can do if he's serious about bus service improvements to densely populated neighborhoods might be adding a route in West Seattle so that residents of the condominium superblocks facing Alki Beach have an alternative to their current bus service that is nonexistent on Sundays and nonexistent weekdays after 6 p.m.

[JRoth]

Hey! Comments are back!

I can't say anything specific about the Seattle situation, of course, but I'll say that one thing that has made my wife's car-free professional life not merely viable but actually preferable is that we live near the Busway, a limited access road built on an old RR R.O.W. (and alongside an active line) where buses do, indeed, run often enough that she doesn't even think about the schedule.

The only hitch is that, when it's not rush hour, they run less often, and it's hard to remember that, for a weekend ride Downtown, it may in fact be a 20+ minute wait for an 8 minute ride.

[Adam Villani]

I think frequency of buses has to be a top priority for any bus system serious about attracting ridership. Who has the time to wait half an hour on a street corner wodnering if a bus will show up? Riders need the reassurance that they can take care of their business as they see fit, and then go out and wait for a bus that will come before they've had enough time to get bored.

[M1EK]

See, I disagree completely, and this is why transit is so hard in this country. Y'all are looking at the macro picture and assuming "more buses = more passengers", when you really need to look at the individual incentives.

(Yes, not having to read a schedule is a minor improvement, I guess, but having more buses which are just as unreliable and slow as the old buses were is not going to pull a choice commuter away from their car after they ride a couple of times and figure out the math).

We go through this all the time in Austin - people who fight rail (whether the good 2000 light rail plan or the awful 2004 commuter rail plan) keep saying "just run more buses", ignoring the fact that the bus system already has nearly 100% of the "I'd ride a bus even if it were much slower and much less reliable than my car" market.

Yeah, at pathological levels like headways of an hour, increased frequency can add riders, but it usually doesn't work beyond that. Even half-hour headways aren't a big deal for commuters in most cases.

[JRoth]

I'm not sure I understand M1EK's point. In most urban conditions, bus speed is pretty comparable to car speed (especially the familiar joke of the commuter driving behind the bus all the way to work - funny because it's true!). It's the standing around pointlessly for 15-30 minutes that makes bus-riding intolerable. At least, that's always been my take. To me, the biggest allure of using my car when I could also be taking the bus is the ability to walk out my door and begin my trip within seconds. If my car took 15 minutes to warm up, I'd be on the bus every time.

You may not double ridership by doubling frequency, but the goal of transit isn't to fill every bus. The twin goals are to serve those without cars and to reduce the number of car trips (achieving the latter can increase the number of the former).

I might add that I don't see this scheduling issue as having anything at all to do with bus vs. light rail. There may be specific instances where increased frequency is offered as an alternate to rail investment, but they aren't inherently linked. Think of increased bus frequency as a tradeoff with building more parking.

[Benjamin Hemric]

Not being familiar with Seattle, I wonder if the would be recipient of this proposed tax subsidy is a bus system that is a publicly-owned monopoly?

Also, to what extent do Seattle residents rely on private bus lines, commuter vans, jitneys, taxis / black cars ("radio" dispatched limousines), etc.?

Although I am an enthusiastic supporter of busses as a mode of public transportation, it seems to me that the best approach to discouraging an over reliance on private auto use and encouraging more diverse forms of transit is for government to build the infrastructure (e.g., busways) and to create operating rules favorable to public transit(like exclusive drop off lanes for busses, vans, etc.) but for private companies to actually operate -- without subsidies -- the busses, vans, taxis, black cars, etc.

(In NYC, unfortunately, Mayor Bloomberg seems to have taken a step in the opposite direction, however. NYC has recently taken over the remaining big bus companies in the outer boroughs. Fortunately, though, these areas are at least still serviced by non-monopoly-owned private commuter vans, taxis, black cars, etc.)

[M1EK]

"I'm not sure I understand M1EK's point. In most urban conditions, bus speed is pretty comparable to car speed"

No, not even close. Your car can switch to the next block over; or can change lanes. Your car doesn't have to make stops, and even the most underpowered econobox looks like a drag racer compared to a bus.

Cars fail at reliabiltiy (just like buses) but they make up for it in speed. Simply running buses more often does nothing to make each bus faster OR more reliable - there are just more slow unreliable buses running the same route.

For each individual potential transit user, therefore, below certain pathological headways previously mentioned(*), it's unlikely that running buses more often will make any difference whatsoever in their decision to use transit or drive. (The ones who can't drive, of course, are already customers; we're talking about the ones who aren't currently riding the bus here).

Only rail can improve transit speed and reliability in most cases, since BRT always ends up diluted down to nicer buses that can hold a green light a few seconds.

(* - and barring pathologically high fuel prices which somehow aren't passed through to transit fares, and/or pathologically high prices for parking, of course).

[David Crabtree]

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TRADE your job with someone who commutes to work close to where you live and does the same kind of work you do (or simlar). That way you don't have to commute at all. One "Job Exchange" saves 2 people from commuting.

This new website makes it possible. http://www.jobexchangeusa.com/exchange/