Austin's bus system - VERY UNIMPRESSIVE (Dallas, San Antonio: neighborhood, salary, live in)

[mark311]

I've actually been on the UT shuttles and they are pretty nice. I wouldn't group them in with the rest of the buses around town. I wonder if the filthiness that the Op saw in the past two weeks was somewhat related to bus/shuttle use during ACL. A lot of the buses that were running the ACL shuttle to and from Zilker and Republic Square were filthy due to the muddy/treated sewage conditions of ACL. They probably didn't have a chance to clean them before they went back to their regular routes last week.

[readymade]

Originally Posted by twange

Even if Austin stayed at the exact population of today, it would still need to improve its PT. Add in the inevitable growth and there is potentially a real possibility in the next 20 years of this city getting L.A.-ish.

Only LA has a much better public transportation system, believe it or not. It's not even close to, say, NY, Boston, or Chicago... but you CAN get around safely and relatively easily using their bus system. I did for a little while, anyway. I was surprised by how relatively painless it was.

[mark311]

Originally Posted by readymade

Only LA has a much better public transportation system, believe it or not. It's not even close to, say, NY, Boston, or Chicago... but you CAN get around safely and relatively easily using their bus system. I did for a little while, anyway. I was surprised by how relatively painless it was.

I would hope that it does have better public transportation because of its size and the crazy amount of taxes that people have to pay there. I think it's still the second largest city in the nation. The city of L.A. is 5 times the population of Austin. The L.A. metro population is about 7 or 8 times the size of the Austin metro population.

[Trainwreck20]

but you CAN get around safely and relatively easily using their bus system.

My brother has ridden the busses in Austin for the past 20 years (he hasn't owned a car in that time). He actually says that they run very close to schedule. He goes to almost every meeting that cap metro has that is public, just to keep up with what is going on. Anyway, there have been times that he has had to bum a ride, but mostly when he was working shift work and the busses did not run that late.

[Nomadic9460678748]

"My brother has ridden the busses in Austin for the past 20 years (he hasn't owned a car in that time). He actually says that they run very close to schedule"

Tis true with some routes. 1L/1M, 5, 3 (sometimes), 10 (sometimes), 7, are usually very easy to catch, but there are so many other routes for which one is essentially left at the mercy of the often unkind Public Transportation Gods.

Also, does your brother live relatively central? I'm merely curious as that can really impact the level of service one receives.

[artsyguy]

Are the central services better? What were your experiences with the UT shuttle?

Originally Posted by Nomadic9460678748

"My brother has ridden the busses in Austin for the past 20 years (he hasn't owned a car in that time). He actually says that they run very close to schedule"

Tis true with some routes. 1L/1M, 5, 3 (sometimes), 10 (sometimes), 7, are usually very easy to catch, but there are so many other routes for which one is essentially left at the mercy of the often unkind Public Transportation Gods.

Also, does your brother live relatively central? I'm merely curious as that can really impact the level of service one receives.

[twange]

Originally Posted by readymade

Only LA has a much better public transportation system, believe it or not. It's not even close to, say, NY, Boston, or Chicago... but you CAN get around safely and relatively easily using their bus system. I did for a little while, anyway. I was surprised by how relatively painless it was.

Good point. I guess I'm just thinking that the farther/wider Austin spreads, the more expensive it will be to build rail and expand bus service. Because of Austin's relatively small footprint, it would seem that getting a handle on the area now would be much easier than 10-15 years from now when the city doubles.

[orbius]

If Austin doesnt pick a stance pretty soon the entire city will grind to a halt and the people will leave. You cant allow big box stores and strip malls to develop where they want albeit in piecemeal, purposefully limit road building/road size and build toll roads as infrastructure, and make a few gestures toward public transport but ultimately be indifferent towards it. Something will give.
I dont like Round Rock but I at least respect their thought process. We're going to be a strip mall city and we're going to build efficent and large roads to service those stores. That at least makes sense.

Austin is going in 5 different directions at once and none of these directions fit with each other.

[Jebra]

I used the UT shuttles exclusively for 3 years when I was a student at UT. Some days I'd make multiple trips to campus because of my terrible schedule.

They weren't horrible, but not great either. I got from point A to point B, and it definitely was better than paying for gas and parking permits to get to campus everyday.

Major issue was that around student apartments off campus during morning and afternoon rush, the bus would load up to max capacity before even finishing the route. Sucky to watch the bus completely drive right past your stop when you're trying to catch a class or worse, an exam. Many times, I found myself walking an extra 15 minutes to the previous stop to get a standing room only spot. Doesn't sound bad, but when you add 15 minutes to walk to the stop, another 10 to go further to the one ahead, a 30 minute ride through rush hour traffic, and another 10 to walk to class...that adds up to a long commute time for living 5 miles away. Especially bad when you've had a bad breakfast burrito; stop and go traffic for half an hour does not help at all

[love roses]

Originally Posted by mark311

You've just described the bus riding experiences that I've had in San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco as well. Are there cities where this isn't the case for riding the bus?

I used the bus system in Denver, and can't say it was any different than what was described either