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it is intended to reduce crowding. unfortunately the elephant in the living room is that the streets have become dangerous---something nobody wants to talk about. so then public transport is also dangerous. its hard to mug someone going 70 mph in a steel box called a ford.
Actually the danger on the streets is caused by speeding cars, not buses full of imaginary hooligans.
A little off-topic, but this line from the article is a real head-scratcher:
Quote:
Hobson added that L.A. has been ahead of Santa Clara in implementing a bus rapid transit, or BRT, system.
“They recognize they have a pretty spread-out population that isn’t best served by subways or light rails,” he said.
Sure we have an expanding BRT system, but it is dwarfed by our LRT and subway system.
About 1/3 of Americans do not drive; too old, too young, too poor, disabled or not interested.
Smart cities also realize that fossil fuel single occupancy vehicles are not in our future (or past) and are planning ahead.
Yes. And I'd say that another 1/3 SHOULD NOT drive: too old, too immature, too distracted, too reckless, too nervous, too likely to make poor judgments, etc.
Our almost complete reliance on private vehicles isn't good for ANYONE.
First of all, it is usually not cities but regional transit agencies that provide it. A form of welfare? No, welfare is normally for the poor, but on commuter trains you will find many with family income over $100K who may have a BMW or two in the garage. The answer is to facilitate travel and keep the city and region strong. It is common in cities with weak public transportation to have nothing downtown but government offices and the media.
Yes, transit is usually regional. That's something 'real urbanists' don't seem to get when they say "there is no transit in the suburbs". Whether you call it welfare or something else, it's subsidized. And yes, I'm well aware roads are subsidized too, including the roads the buses use.
Location: SF Bay Area (recent MN transplant...go gophers)
148 posts, read 149,343 times
Reputation: 368
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric
Not many buses are getting 5 mpg, that's even high for the new diesel hybrids, and the average bus does not have "just 10 people."
I'd like to see that stats for that. I couldn't find any myself, so I just made my own.
Let's look back to Metro Transit in the Twin Cities, which is the 11th best in the country with approximately 230,000 riders per weekday. Now, they have 123 bus lines running every single day, but they don't tell me how many runs these 123 bus lines do as a whole, so I'd have to find out by clicking on every route page and counting the number of trips each route takes. Because I'm lazy, I'll do you a favor...I'll take one of the busiest lines (Route 16) with one of the most trips per day, and treat it as though it's the perfect average.
Route 16 has 116 trips per day. If it were the mean for all routes (and it's not...it's far more), that would mean the Metro Transit buses as a whole take 14,268 trips per day. Divide 230,000 daily riders by the 14268 trips, and you get...16.1 riders per trip.
Granted, this is obviously only one metropolitan area, and I'm not sure if Sacremento is as good at the Twin Cities at surveying and changing their number of routes and trips based on route ridership. That being said, I got 160% of your 10, and that's when I fudged the numbers in your favor.
I'd like to see that stats for that. I couldn't find any myself, so I just made my own.
Let's look back to Metro Transit in the Twin Cities, which is the 11th best in the country with approximately 230,000 riders per weekday. Now, they have 123 bus lines running every single day, but they don't tell me how many runs these 123 bus lines do as a whole, so I'd have to find out by clicking on every route page and counting the number of trips each route takes. Because I'm lazy, I'll do you a favor...I'll take one of the busiest lines (Route 16) with one of the most trips per day, and treat it as though it's the perfect average.
Route 16 has 116 trips per day. If it were the mean for all routes (and it's not...it's far more), that would mean the Metro Transit buses as a whole take 14,268 trips per day. Divide 230,000 daily riders by the 14268 trips, and you get...16.1 riders per trip.
Granted, this is obviously only one metropolitan area, and I'm not sure if Sacremento is as good at the Twin Cities at surveying and changing their number of routes and trips based on route ridership. That being said, I got 160% of your 10, and that's when I fudged the numbers in your favor.
16 trips per run doesn't seem contradictory at all with 8-9 passengers, seems about right. Most people aren't going to ride the bus for the entire route, after all.
Fuel Story - Metro Transit - City of Madison, Wisconsin
Again, that's better than most places. Seattle was getting about 3 mpg. More urban service, of course, usually does worse since there's more starting and stopping which requires a lot of energy in heavy bus even if some of it can be recuperated through regenerative braking.
err not quite. A few families and kids will push the average up and lots of people drop their kids off before going to work. Not to mention lack(or cost) of baby sitting so you drive your kids to shopping and other things too.
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