Rapid Bus

It's good to hear that WMATA is set to expand MetroExtra service adding new routes for these faster buses that stop less frequently and have "signal priority" technology that lets them briefly hold green lights so the bus can make it past the intersection. Given the flexibility and relative lack of expense involved in buses, these are the kind of measures that jurisdictions all across the country should be looking at.

The next step, and the one that could really change things, would be the implementation of dedicated (and well-enforced) bus lanes. As pictured above, an equal number of people can fit into a vastly smaller space if they're riding a bus than if they're in single passenger cars so ultimately the best way to deal with the problem of a large number of people wanting to pass through a limited roadspace is to make it more appealing to take the bus.

A dedicated bus lane means that your bus can go faster (especially when combined with signal priority) which makes for a shorter commute, thus making the bus a more attractive option. But a faster bus also means it reaches the end point sooner and then goes back the other way. That means that, even holding the number of buses constant, a dedicated bus lane makes bus service more frequent which makes taking the bus a more attractive option. And, of course, if the bus becomes more attractive there'll be more demand on the route and therefore more fares, which makes it more viable to run buses more frequently which, again, will make it a more desirable option.

Comments

Isn't that basically why trolleys died? We weren't willing to dedicate space to them so they had to share the road with cars. And once you're sharing the road with cars, you might as well go with buses, because at least they can go AROUND cars. And once you have buses, why not just use the same infrastructure you have for cars, and not run dedicated lanes?

I guess I'm saying, for most urban transit, it's not particularly likely.

Posted by Mike | July 9, 2008 7:59 PM

I just rode on the TransJakarta bus, which seemed like a great use of dedicated bus lanes. The lanes aren't just painted to be bus-only. There's a little barrier, almost like a line of bricks, that makes it impossible to veer into the bus lanes (although I imagine emergency vehicles could cross into the lanes if they needed).

Posted by brian z | July 9, 2008 8:17 PM

I live in San Francisco and there are some express buses, the 30X (Marina Express) being one, and then there are some lines that run only at peak commute hours (the 41 runs down into the Financial District from about 5am to 9am and then again from about 4pm-7pm). They work fairly well. There's also been some talk of doing some dedicated bus only lanes on a major commuter artery (Van Ness Ave). There are also some other dedicated bus/cab only lanes downtown but the problem with SF transit is that the frequency is terrible and that several lines with heavy ridership bottleneck due to one way streets (I'm looking at the 30 and 45 which go through the middle of Chinatown).

Having said all that, if you can commute on the trolley here when it's not tourist season, it's the best, followed by the ferries.

Posted by Mike P | July 9, 2008 10:14 PM

Matt: "As pictured above, an equal number of people can fit into a vastly smaller space if they're riding a bus..."

Now THIS is a "duh" post...

Now talk about why all those people who AREN'T on the bus are driving cars.

Christ.

By the way, in San Francisco there are tons of "express buses" and at 5PM rush hour they are crammed with passengers downtown. I sometimes take them. I get on the 38 Geary downtown when it's only half full. In the next six blocks it gets crammed to the gills. I usually have to get off a couple blocks before my stop because there's no way you CAN get off them once they're crammed like cattle cars. Once I see the mob starting to block the doors, I get off and walk the rest of the way.

You might also note that dedicated bus lanes aren't going to motivate enough people to take the bus to offset the cramming of the remaining car traffic into the lessened street space, thus increasing traffic congestion.

In other words, the bus lane stays empty ninety percent of the time - a total waste of street space - except when a bus is actually going by.

Bottom line: you're an idiot, Matt.

It would obviously be vastly better to have an overhead rail service that bypasses the streets entirely. There's a reason Chicago and other cities do that.

By the way, unless those buses are electrically powered, as many of San Francisco's buses are, the incredible NOISE level of the diesel engines on more buses will cause half the population to lose their hearing.

The few times San Francisco has been incredibly quiet are when Muni is on strike. And believe me, it was very noticeably quieter.

Of course, it's preferable to have electric buses anyway. So I would suggest you support the Nanotech Energy Initiative, since that's the only way you're going to get them.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 9, 2008 11:20 PM

In the rapidly growing suburban county where I live, a set of studies by the local transit authority just concluded that bus rapid transit (with bigger-than-normal buses and dedicated lanes) would be far more cost-effective per ride. So much so (as low as half the cost) that BRT was thought to be far more likely to get federal funding than a light rail line, even after 20 years of continued growth.

I'm increasingly skeptical that, other things being equal, rail lines are a better solution than BRT. Cities that have already poured hundreds of millions into rail might be locked in, but if the capital costs of BRT are so much lower that any growing city should be looking at it.

I wonder if Matt would agree.

Posted by Michael Andersen | July 9, 2008 11:52 PM

Andersen, that's an interesting point. San Francisco uses larger than regular buses on many of its heavier traveled lines - double buses with articulated connections. The express buses are frequently double buses.

But "cost effective per ride", while appropriate for comparison to light rail, won't change the considerations for those who drive cars now. ALL the considerations for why people drive cars need to be compared to buses and light rail, and THEN the "cost effectiveness" has to be lower than cars for the people - not the transit service - in order to get them out of their cars. Meaning, time, convenience, and comfort has to be computed.

And that ain't happening. Riding a bus is almost always a painful experience, thanks to the chimpanzees who build, maintain, drive and ride those buses.

Light rail can be better - BART here in San Francisco is pretty comfortable. Muni, not so much.

Make public transportation not only available to every area in town, but also conveniently close to everybody and comfortable - and that would be a winner. The only way I can see to do that is either underground rail that goes everywhere in town - within four blocks of EVERYWHERE - or over the streets rail that does ditto.

In other words, replace buses with light rail that goes everywhere the buses go. Or a light rail system that goes most places with COMFORTABLE buses that go everywhere else and connects to the light rail in a TIMELY manner. (Or cheap jitneys that substitute for the buses.)

No walking ten minutes to a bus stop, waiting twenty minutes for the bus, then another twenty minutes for the trip - and again coming back. That's a non-starter compared to a car.

Let's see the cost benefit of all that compared to cars. Then we can have a meaningful discussion about public transportation.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 10, 2008 3:24 AM

I'm with Richard Steven Hack on some of his points.

- The noise of diesel buses.

- The sardine effect. One of the things that is utterly maddening about how transit authorities run things is that they try eagerly to maximize ridership, then give no thought to the experience of the riders once they're in the system. I've yet to hear a transit official speak publicly or privately about avoiding the creation of the "screw this, I'll never put myself through THIS again!" commuter. Wal-Mart, for example, didn't take over the world by getting people in the door then making them utterly miserable while they are there. After the misery of some rush-hour routes (especially in summer) I have wondered whether or not the people who handle such matters believe, deep down, that people who want to ride the bus should, like penitents, be made to suffer for the greater glory of the higher ideals being served.

- The luggage effect. Why is it that people who design mass transit seem to think that each passenger is carrying only a newspaper? I used to HATE public transit with a vibrating passion when I had court: I had my robe bag, my briefcase and a backpack on many occasions. When a transit official accepts the sardine effect he is also accepting that people won't be able to carry a goddamned thing onto the bus.

In defence of the transit authorities, though, part of the "too many people on the bus" problem may be under-investment in buses. It's hard to provide a large number of buses when your budget simply has not allowed for them to be purchased. But ....

I've never understood why midsize and microbuses aren't used more often. Huge GM-type vehicles roaring along with eight or nine passengers cannot possibly be a fiscally sensible service provision model. Moreover, if you use a huge bus on a small-ridership route you are taking that bus away from a high-usage route. If you spend, say, $100k on a large bus it can, by definition, only handle one route at a time, frequently an under-utilized but necessary one. Spend that same some on two halfsize buses and you can cover two routes, or have one of those buses available for emergency backup on days of especially heavy ridership.

I'm also on the side of more express buses. Transit authorities whine like bitchy supermodels that people won't commute from point A to point Z on their systems, then guarantee that they won't by making the damned things stop at all points B through Y. If you don't have dedicated rail then you must have express buses.

Posted by seeker6079 | July 10, 2008 7:03 AM

"I guess I'm saying, for most urban transit, it's not particularly likely."

There are plenty of dedicated bus lanes in London and other UK cities, and they seem to work pretty well. It doesn't stop motorists griping, but the buses do run a lot quicker and they're rarely empty (until the service switches over to nightbuses, of course, but there's no congestion then anyway).
There's a study of high occupancy vehicle lanes here, but it mainly covers highways rather than urban roads.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | July 10, 2008 7:44 AM

"If you don't have dedicated rail then you must have express buses."

Now that I think about it, express buses are a good idea when partnered with dedicated rail. The latter can only cover a few key transit lanes, but likely not commuter traffic flow route. Express bus could handle those other areas.

Posted by seeker6079 | July 10, 2008 7:55 AM

Re Richard Steven Hack

As painful as it is, I have to agree with Mr. Hack on the noise level of diesel powered buses. The answer is to replace them with natural gas powered buses. The local bus company in the Washington, D.C area has about 1/3 of its bus fleet powered by natural gas. They are a lot quieter and also a lot less polluting. They also have much better acceleration then do the diesels.

Posted by SLC | July 10, 2008 6:18 PM

I've never understood why midsize and microbuses aren't used more often. Huge GM-type vehicles roaring along with eight or nine passengers cannot possibly be a fiscally sensible service provision model. Moreover, if you use a huge bus on a small-ridership route you are taking that bus away from a high-usage route. If you spend, say, $100k on a large bus it can, by definition, only handle one route at a time, frequently an under-utilized but necessary one. Spend that same some on two halfsize buses and you can cover two routes, or have one of those buses available for emergency backup on days of especially heavy ridership.

More buses obviously means higher costs. Not only higher capital costs for purchase, but higher operating costs (drivers, mechanics, cleaning, parts, storage, scheduling, etc.). Demand varies dramatically between different days of the week, different times of the day, and different stops along a route. Your buses need to be large enough to accommodate peak demand. But that means they will be running mostly empty at other times and in other locations. Transit authorities sometimes mitigate this by reducing the frequency of service and/or using smaller vehicles at off-peak times. Many bus routes don't operate at all at night or on weekends. But this obviously makes the service less viable as a replacement for car travel, so there are limits to the extent to which transit authorities can cut services to improve efficiency. Using two or more parallel fleets of different-sized buses on a route, larger ones for peak periods and smaller ones for off-peak, also incurs additional costs and complications. If your fleet of large buses is idle at all times except morning and evening rush hours on weekdays, your return on capital for the purchase of those vehicles will be much lower. Another issue is accessibility. The typical transit bus has wide automatic doors to facilitate entry and exit. The entry door passes by the driver to facilitate the collection of fares and passenger inquiries. There is a central aisle to facilitate access to seating. Special seating is provided at the front of the bus for the elderly and disabled. Many buses have special areas for wheelchairs or baggage. Some have racks for bikes. And so on. Try doing that with a fleet of microbuses. Demand patterns also change in response to new road construction and infrastructure development, and planners must also factor this into their decisions about the types and sizes of vehicles to purchase and operate. Transit authorities have to reconcile all these different economic, practical and political considerations in designing their bus services. It's unlikely that you've thought of an idea for significantly improving efficiency that they haven't already considered.

Posted by Mixner | July 10, 2008 7:13 PM

Oh, seriously man, that comparison picture is messed up, the frame on the left is zoomed in at least 75% more than the one on the right. By a similar technique of photomontage I could claim, for example, that the entire planet Earth is smaller than Bjork's head. (Which is obviously untrue; it is less complicated, but much, much larger.)

In no way am I saying I disagree with your argument, but that jay-peg is straight outa Fox news, i.e. the next best thing to an outright lie. Use this one instead:

http://uncharted.org/frownland/pix/busvcar2.jpg

See how the people are more or less at the same scale? And regarding bus lanes, it says the same thing.

Posted by W. Kiernan | July 10, 2008 9:32 PM