Silicon Valley Could Offer a Public Bus Commute That's Quicker Than Driving

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/11/silicon-valley-may-soon-offer-a-public-bus-commute-thats-quicker-than-driving/382897/

by gkop • 12 years ago

63 60 12 years ago

citylab.com

timjahn4• 12 years ago

"The big advantage of driving to work over taking the bus is time. A bus ride just takes longer: walking to the stop, waiting for the bus, picking up passengers, all while toughing out the same traffic as cars."

Generally, yes, driving will always beat a bus. Train is always the way to go, as there is no traffic on the tracks (a majority of the time).

To me, it's a common misconception that driving is quicker. In Chicago, driving is almost never quicker (due to traffic), and regardless, it's always wasted time. You can't DO anything while you're driving. Taking the bus or the L, at least you can work on what you need to work on.

aylons• 12 years ago

"all while toughing out the same traffic as cars."

The point is, bus shouldn't need to share traffic with cars. A bus system should always flow in a dedicated lane, except for the most capillary streets in low-traffic areas.

Not doing so is inefficient and, of course, will always hinder public transportation.

greglindahl5• 12 years ago

You're making the same point that the article, which of course you read before commenting, makes. The quoted text is from the intro, and the next sentence makes the suggested solution clear:

  A bus ride just takes longer: walking to the stop,
  waiting for the bus, picking up passengers, all while 
  toughing out the same traffic as cars. But when transit 
  is done well, the time gap shrinks, and when it's done 
  really well—with frequent service, all-door boarding, and 
  exclusive lanes—the gap can disappear entirely.

monksy2• 12 years ago

Well this is true except for what happened last week: Rare occurrences can disrupt the train. Oh well, I'll still commute via train/bus. I don't miss commuting by car.

timjahn4• 12 years ago

Keyword being rare.

selectodude2• 12 years ago

In Chicago, driving is almost never quicker

Come on, that's not even the slightest bit true.

timjahn4• 12 years ago

Not sure where you live but I'm off the Kennedy and its absolutely true.

faitswulff4• 12 years ago

Agreed. Driving in Chicago is generally twice as fast as taking public transit within or near the loop. The difference grows when you have to go further.

You can get in a car and be almost anywhere interesting in 20 minutes without traffic, whereas you would need 5-10 minutes just to get to a CTA stop and wait for the bus/train.

Public transit is only ever faster than driving during rush hours in heavily trafficked areas.

jtlienwis• 12 years ago

I used to use the Silicon Valley bus system back in the 80's. On rainy days when you most needed the bus system to work all the Grumman buses they had then had a feature that when it rained, the electrical system would short out and the buses would stop running. Hopefully they have fixed that.

Patrick_Devine2• 12 years ago

Or, alternatively, you could pump all that money into the Caltrain electrification project which runs roughly along the same route between the exact same destinations.

I do, however think a road diet on El Camino would be nice. As someone who lives within 2 blocks, it's really unpleasant to have cross 84'+ of asphalt to get to the other side of the street. 10' traffic lanes and separated bike lanes would go a long way to making it more livable.

greglindahl5• 12 years ago

I believe that the expected total passenger volume is higher than what electrified Caltrain can support by itself... and many trips from some point on El Camino to another point on El Camino will find the BRT to be faster.

Patrick_Devine2• 12 years ago

I haven't seen the figures for passenger volume, but given you can more easily take your bicycle onto Caltrain than on BRT, my strong preference would be for more frequent train service.

As it is, the 522 doesn't stop anywhere close to my house, so would require biking to a stop. I believe the BRT stops are the same as the 522?

iandanforth• 12 years ago

If you've never lived in a city that does busing well you probably think this is a silly idea. I did before I lived in Ottawa. They have tons of busses running all the time with dedicated bus roads along many stretches. It's just such a sensible system, but until you've lived it's a hard sell.

noarchy• 12 years ago

If you don't live along Ottawa's Transitway, though, your experience may be quite different. It is popular for Ottawans to beat up on OCTranspo.

With all of that said, it will be interesting to see how the LRT changes things. Right now it is causing headaches, so the proof will be once the line is up and running.

revelation• 12 years ago

Umm, by 2040?

My plan for 2040 was to step outside and not see a single freaking personal use car, or bus (stop|lane). Surely we'll have figured out a sane solution by then to commuting?

myhf• 12 years ago

http://longbets.org/

Bahamut• 12 years ago

I actually haven't had a bad experience for the most part with the 522 on El Camino going westward - I'd make it from Sunnyvale/Mountain View to Downtown Palo Alto in ~20 minutes, which compares quite favorably to driving. Then again, I often am leaving for work around 6:30 - 7:30, so I rarely see the traffic issues that are typical around 8 am.

craftkiller• 12 years ago

you shut your mouth, I want a faster commute :-)

ulfw5• 12 years ago

You'll have it. In 26 years from now!

forrestthewoods• 12 years ago

I think a pre-requisite to a "good" public transportation infrastructure is a shitty road infrastructure. To me asking for better public transportation is, to quote Henry Ford, asking for a Faster Horse.

I'm a member of the autonomous vehicle church. I think a fleet of self-driving cars absolutely blows away any bus system. And that's without roads specialized for the self driving car. Once you start custom crafting intersections it just gets even better.

gtremper• 12 years ago

I agree, in places where there is already extensive road infrastructure, a "public" transportation system using a fleet of autonomous vehicles is much more better use of existing resources.

slyall• 12 years ago

Some problems with autonomous vehicles:

* Time. Lets be optomistic and say they are perfected in 5 years time AND can be added to new cars for minimal cost then then it'll be say 2030 before all the cars on the road have them (assuming laws outlaw manual cars when 90% of people are using driverless ones)

* Now at that point we are going to assuming that driverless cars are so good that they get twice the efficiency on your local road and highways resemble NASCAR races (without the 5% chance of a crash each trip)

* The problem is that now since driving is so easy the amount of traffic goes up so you are back where you were previously. Anywhere with enough traffic to have problems already has a tonne of latent demand just sitting around ready to generate more journeys.

Note:

* 5 years is really optimistic for driverless car perfection

* 10 years is to ban all manual cars?

* Ever tried crossing a NASCAR raceway on foot?

* Your assuming driverless vans/buses won't also happen. Share your rid cost with a dozen others, semi-fixed routes (easier to survey/programme), fleet management.

saraid216• 12 years ago

* Every tried crossing a NASCAR raceway on foot?

This is one of the interesting advantages a public transit system has over a self-driving fleet of cars (which, incidentally, I also look forward to). Mass transit depends on the concept of "stops" or "stations". The way people get between destinations (like their home, the shop, etc.) and the transit station is largely by walking. Thus, mass transit necessarily builds in pedestrian friendliness.

This isn't true for cars, which do not have such nexi. (Indeed, this lack is generally agreed to be an advantage.) This means that such designs will have to deliberately include pedestrian friendliness in order to have it, rather than being forced into it by the facts of the design requirements.

I'm not saying it's a sufficient advantage for one or the other, but it's a definite thing.

bsder• 12 years ago

5 years is really optimistic for driverless car perfection

I don't think that's true. This is likely one of those problems whose solution accelerates after introduction.

Let's assume that 99% of the problem is solved (probably not, but we're worst-casing here). The problem is that you need to stumble on a 1% case and fail in order to fix that bug. At this point, I suspect that we're probably limited by the fact that buggy cases just aren't coming up often enough for the small number of autonomous vehicles that exist.

Look at what happened in the DARPA challenge. The first year, nobody got anywhere. It didn't take very long until that challenge went from nobody completed to worrying about things actually moving too quickly.

prawn• 12 years ago

We will see self-driving buses as well servicing a more budget market. Mass transit isn't going away in a hurry.

stevep982• 12 years ago

I am a fan of autonomous vehicles too, and that's why I'm also a fan of BRT.

2 years ago, I would have advocated ripping up el Camino and putting BART underneath, all the way from San Jose to Millbrae.

Now, we can do the same route with BRT for much less money. Why would I advocate this? It's still a waste, but much less money than something like light rail, which is a disaster.

So, go ahead, spend some small millions on BRT, but at least make it cheap to rip out in ten years.

chipsy• 12 years ago

The capacity of mass transit modes is still worthwhile even in a fully automated universe, once you get dense enough. It's a simple calculation of space usage: If you fit more people in a vehicle, you use less road. Depending on mode and scale, you may save energy too.

Now, you could postulate that we'll go smaller with AVs, or we'll develop ways to reconfigure vehicles on demand to synthesize a larger vehicle. But those things are not as clearly on the horizon as an immediate post-AV situation where traffic patterns remain roughly the same(ease of trips encourages more trips per day, cancelling efficiencies), but per-vehicle usage rates are up(due to better sharing). In that situation, we get better safety and convenience, and future zoning will require less parking...i.e. you get a global spike in density, which motivates better transit.

dmishe2• 12 years ago

I like how it takes the tech center of the world 3 years to add a bus lane and then another 22 to make something of it

saryant• 12 years ago

I first moved out of California as a kid when I was six. Work had just begun on the new Benicia bridge over the Carquinez.

Work completed a year after I moved out of Benicia the second time when I was 16. Originally estimated to cost $286 million, the final tally was $1.3 billion.

ulfw5• 12 years ago

If you ever lived there you'd know that those times are optimistic 'best case' scenarios. Most likely it won't even happen at all.

dmishe2• 12 years ago

Yeah I've moved here 6 months ago :)

discardorama• 12 years ago

The big advantage of driving to work over taking the bus is time

No. The big advantage of driving is reliability: I know that my means of transportation will be there, where I left it, at any time that I want it. How many of us have missed the CalTrain by a few minutes, only to have to wait an hour till the next one comes by?

whyenot• 12 years ago

CalTrain is decent unless there is a breakdown or as happens on average more than once a month, someone is struck by a train. If either of those things happen, the whole system shuts down and you can easily be two hours late. I don't know how to solve the problem, but it really sucks and keeps CalTrain from being a dependable form of transportation.

ulfw5• 12 years ago

By building infrastructure new rather than utilising something that is not from 1863. I mean I am shocked the line isn't even electrified yet. Something that happened across Europe fifty years ago.

jackowayed• 12 years ago

That's another advantage of Bus Rapid Transit over trains. It's much cheaper to run one bus than one train, and the vehicles are generally smaller, so they run more of them for the same usage, meaning you generally aren't scheduled to wait as long. Of course, things can still go wrong.

VTA's rapid bus (the 522) runs every 15 minutes at rush hour, and the non-rapid one runs every 11. Off-hours is every 20-30 for each, but that's still 2-3x as often as Caltrain.

cauterized• 12 years ago

Then that's a poorly resourced and underused rapid transit system. A heavily used subway line can run trains every 3-5 min during rush hour (and on some lines, ridership is high enough that they'd run them even more frequently if safety allowed); a bus route, every 2-3 min; and commuter rail every 10-15 min. Even at 3am, my nearest subway line runs trains 2-3 times per hour.

Unfortunately, underutilized transit options are subject to a vicious cycle wherein it's impossible to justify running more frequent service for low ridership, and lack of frequent service suppresses ridership. Once you do have a strong public transit culture, it builds on itself and makes investment in frequency an obvious choice (not just for convenience but because you need more buses/trains to fit more passengers!)

ulfw5• 12 years ago

Not just reliability but more so flexibility. Want to buy some groceries on the way home? Planning to meet a friend for dinner or drinks? Trying to go that show you always wanted to see?

Most likely none will be on your bus route. Suburbia in the US is built for the car, not for walking or public transport. So most likely the (right) grocery store won't be near your house (nor your place of work). The restaurant or bar where you'd want to meet your friend will most likely be in another town nearby (but not on your route). And the (movie) theatre will be in the outskirts, next to the highway.

Good luck changing all that.

mistakoala• 12 years ago

Does it account for performance artists sitting down in front of the bus to protest about something or other, though?

Animats• 12 years ago

This proposes a bus line parallel to the rail line. That's kind of pointless.

greglindahl5• 12 years ago

There's already a (slow) bus line parallel to the rail line. Demand is high enough to justify both.

ac29• 12 years ago

Some places along the route the distance from the Caltrain tracks to El Camino would take 20+ minutes to walk.

wmobit• 12 years ago

I live on El Camino and frequently take the bus. It's a 40 minute walk to the nearest caltrain station

TheCoelacanth2• 12 years ago

I will be impressed if they actually manage to build BRT. BRT projects in the US tend to suffer from "BRT creep". Although the upfront cost is significantly lower than rail, it is still much more expensive than normal buses, so most localities don't have the political will to build BRT without removing most of the features that make it rapid.

greglindahl5• 12 years ago

... in this case the lane already exists. We're talking platforms and re-striping. The biggest cost is the political argument about making some car journeys take more time.

TheCoelacanth2• 12 years ago

That helps, but the cost of the other features is still significant. I would still expect them to get a lot of complaints about why they are spending so much money on "bus stops" and why they can't just put up a pole with a little sign on it.

OmarIsmail• 12 years ago

My guess is that a near term local maxima is the combination of Lyft/Uber and a bus - or Uber Pool on steroids. It's very rare that I need to leave now, usually if I leave sometime in the next 30 minutes that is sufficient. Furthermore I don't mind walking a minute or two to get to the car/bus, or from the car/bus to my final destination.

Relaxing the constraints on time and distance will (my guess) vastly increase the number of people that want to go on a similar route as me. Therefore depending on how many people get matched up the system can intelligently assign the right type of vehicle (small car, SUV, small bus, big bus).

hw• 12 years ago

A dedicated lane for buses seems like quite a waste if there aren't many buses sharing that same route. Dedicated lanes on a road like El Camino Real with plenty of traffic lights won't help too much either. I've lived in a city where there were dedicated lanes for buses and it was a nightmare if you were driving, especially if you had to make a turn that takes you across these dedicated bus lanes. There's also issues of bottlenecks where the bus lanes end and merge into regular lanes.

stevep982• 12 years ago

My understandings is that the plan calls for the bus lanes to be in the median. And the traffic lights will be synchronized so the buses won't have to stop.

rgovind• 12 years ago

I wonder if it is possible to rent out (motor)bikes or mopeds so people can commute short distances without needing to wait for a bus. For example, it would be great to have a (motor)bike from great mall to other parts of milpitas or nearby places in San Jose

tricolon• 12 years ago

During a recent visit to SF, I noticed some red scooters with the Scoot logo on them: http://scootnetworks.com/

I don't know if they have plans to expand to San Jose.

ulfw5• 12 years ago

"In the plan's best-case scenario, the El Camino BRT would travel the corridor almost as quickly as cars by 2018, when the line hopes to open, and occasionally beat them by 2040."

In the BEST CASE it could OCCASIONALLY beat cars 26 years from now. Is that some kind of joke? I mean seriously now.

Silicon Valley Could Offer a Public Bus Commute That's Quicker Than Driving

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