Comment by ericmay
10 days ago
Simpler solution but they’re a strictly worse version of your car and they still depend on highway widening projects. In other words, more of the same.
To change the culture in the US we will have to make category changes. Cars and busses are in one category, walking, biking, and rail options in another. We need the latter or we risk just wasting time, effort, and resources.
Busses make more sense and work better as an add-on to rail systems and walking/biking.
A typical commute bus would carry 30-80 people so that replaces probably 30-80 cars. I don't know how a bus is worse than a train in this regard. Both need land to be built. Unless you are talking underground but they are expensive.
If your city is a shit place to commute adding buses and bus lanes can help. Once you are on a bus zooming past all the traffic you can see.
Also important point: I'd do min 300m between stops maybe more.
I would be more pro train and anti bus for "last mile(s)" if the bus is petrol but if all electric I am for the bus! Where I live there are a plethora of places my kids can get to on a bus much quicker than even if we were near a station and they got a train.
It's more about changing cultural habits. We already have busses and bus rapid transit, for example, where I live. And while I generally support the effort, it doesn't and won't have the adoption that something like, say, a street car or tram would have going along other various routes. The issue is the bus is just a worse version of your car. Even today people buy cars, drive them, pay $15 to park, rather than hop on our park-and-ride service that are conveniently located in the suburbs. That should tell you something about how difficult it is to change cultural habits.
But rail is a category change. You walk up to it, it takes you somewhere on a fixed line, you hop off. You continue on your walking journey. You expect things to be a little closer, more dense (but not too dense). You're not thinking much about bus time tables, it's new, it's cool, Europe has it. Japan has it. And those are great places you've visited, right?
That's the main difference.
The bus is way more nice to get suburbs to city than my car though. It is actually quicker. And that is with a walk both ends and leaving at $random time. Make it a better car and people will switch. Part of it is making the car crapper. Bus lanes do that. Limited parking does it.
Of course if there were a train nearby I would probably get it. I'd pay an extra 10 mim commute time for that smooth ride (e.g. if train stops further away as they likely are). But if you are low on trains, buses can do a great job.
And if people won't shift make them free. Might be cheaper than building more roads anyway.