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Quorum
Sep 24, 2014

REMIND ME AGAIN HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES MOVE?

Cicero posted:

I think this doesn't get enough play. Google Maps is pretty useful for driving, but it and similar apps are a total game changer for transit, in my opinion. I mean, if you're just taking the same route over and over, for work or something, it's not a huge deal, but for any kind of novel trip it's sooooo much easier.

That and various transit systems having their own apps which specialize in calculating the most efficient route, timing train arrivals, finding the nearest station, and other things that make using transit genuinely pleasant. I keep my Embark app at the ready whenever I'm up in DC, even though by now I know the system core pretty well-- you never know when there's a disruption you didn't know about, but which the app has already accounted for.

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Ceiling fan
Dec 26, 2003

I really like ceilings.
Dead Man’s Band

Quorum posted:

...you never know when there's a disruption you didn't know about, but which the app has already accounted for.

This. Most road map apps in urban areas get real time updates on traffic congestion, delays, and closures. They adjust the trip to divert around them. Very useful.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
You know, if self-driving cars get stymied by lovely lane markings, that's not a good sign for any place that gets snow.

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.
I'm sure they'll figure it out roughly the same way humans do: guess at where the lanes should be based on the size of the road and where other cars currently are.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Cicero posted:

I'm sure they'll figure it out roughly the same way humans do: guess at where the lanes should be based on the size of the road and where other cars currently are.

Easier said than done. If they can't handle marginal road markings, how are they going to do that?

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

PT6A posted:

Easier said than done. If they can't handle marginal road markings, how are they going to do that?
With sensors and math? I mean, small local streets often don't have striping at all and apparently the cars can already handle that.

Bozza
Mar 5, 2004

"I'm a really useful engine!"

Warcabbit posted:

Pleasure to meet you. The major difference between the two is the London Underground shuts down after midnight, I believe. NYC doesn't sleep.

Which does mean we're a bit hosed. That's the problem with massive infrastructure. Repairing it is killer. The only way I could see to do it would be some sort of parasitic piggyback control set that could be A/B tested and both run at once during the conversion process.

...I honestly thought that was just a song. How on earth is maintenance done without a period of shutdown?

Afraid my knowledge of most metro control systems is a bit lacking compared to my mainline but still, you'd probably have to design, build and test externally in a warehouse somewhere then just do short busts of installation (axle counters instead of track circuits etc so they don't interfere) piecemeal until the whole thing can just be correspondence tested. I'd imagine it'd take you a year of installation to get one route installed like that without weekend shut downs.

Still need to invest in a huge amount of rolling stock, not sure how captive the fleets are in NY compared to the Tube where each line has its own discreet stock.

Basically you're planning 10 years into the future at least from both a fleet and control perspective, so I can see why that won't find favour with elected officials.

Grand Theft Autobot
Feb 28, 2008

I'm something of a fucking idiot myself
The proposed Gold Line BRT looks like this:



It is making some suburbanites awfully upset

Suburban Douchebags to Traffic Alleviation: "Not in my Suburb!"

quote:

Virginia Zeitz wants her suburb to remain, well, suburban.

She is fighting a plan that she said would “urbanize” her Oakdale neighborhood with the $485 million Gold Line rapid-transit bus line.

Zeitz said it would bring a steady stream of buses through her neighborhood each day, attract low-income people who can’t afford cars and lead to more crime.

“This is why we don’t want to live in the city; we do not want to bring the city to us,” said Zeitz. “This is the suburbs. People do not move to suburbs to take a bus."


Zeitz is part of a kill-the-bus crusade that has been joined by hundreds of her neighbors. It was triggered by a January vote in Lake Elmo that banned rapid-transit buses. Another combatant has joined the fight — a new anti-bus nonprofit called Citizens for Smart Transit.

The issue is heating up as the Legislature considers a request for $3 million to continue planning the project.

“We are moving forward,” said Lyssa Leitner, manager of the Gateway Corridor Commission, which is lobbying for the project. “This is the only transit project with bipartisan support.”

The Gold Line would be unique — Minnesota’s first all-local rapid-transit bus line. It would run from Woodbury to downtown St. Paul, making 12 stops along its own dedicated two-lane roadway.

It would also be uniquely expensive. At $485 million, it would be the state’s most costly bus line ever built. Per passenger, it would be twice as expensive as the Green Line light rail between St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Virginia Zeitz wants her suburb to remain, well, suburban.

She is fighting a plan that she said would “urbanize” her Oakdale neighborhood with the $485 million Gold Line rapid-transit bus line.

Zeitz said it would bring a steady stream of buses through her neighborhood each day, attract low-income people who can’t afford cars and lead to more crime.

“This is why we don’t want to live in the city; we do not want to bring the city to us,” said Zeitz. “This is the suburbs. People do not move to suburbs to take a bus."


Zeitz is part of a kill-the-bus crusade that has been joined by hundreds of her neighbors. It was triggered by a January vote in Lake Elmo that banned rapid-transit buses. Another combatant has joined the fight — a new anti-bus nonprofit called Citizens for Smart Transit.

The issue is heating up as the Legislature considers a request for $3 million to continue planning the project.

“We are moving forward,” said Lyssa Leitner, manager of the Gateway Corridor. Commission, which is lobbying for the project. “This is the only transit project with bipartisan support.”

Construction on the line is expected to start in 2018; service would begin in 2022.Backers say the cost is worth it, arguing that the line would ease congestion along Interstate 94, stimulate growth of businesses and housing, and offer local bus service to residents without cars.
Opponents, meanwhile, say that the price tag is astronomical for a bus line and that the same benefits could be achieved by running buses on existing roads.

At a recent meeting, state Sen. Susan Kent, DFL-Woodbury, said 300,000 people are living east of St. Paul along the I-94 corridor, and 90,000 more will move in by 2030.

That would make rush-hour congestion worse — and the Gold Line is the way to fix it. Kent said the system would carry many commuters to their jobs, mostly at the 3M Co. campus in Maplewood or downtown St. Paul.

But opponents don’t think commuters will like it.

That’s because, they say, the Gold Line will be slow. Even with its own private roadway, the Gold Line would be six minutes slower than existing express bus service.

It would be 13 minutes slower than driving, under normal conditions. And that’s not including time spent getting to the bus stop and waiting for a bus.

Only half the riders will be commuters, said project manager Leitner, because easing freeway congestion isn’t the primary purpose of the line. Its main function is to provide local service to 12 stops for people without cars.

The system would be perfect for a mom who needs to take a sick child to a doctor, she said. Or a car-less dad who wanted to take his kids to a Minnesota Twins game.

The Gold Line might not attract residents who already live in the suburbs and own cars. But it would be heavily used by newcomers, who would move in as housing complexes were built near the bus stations. That’s what has happened along the Green Line light rail in St. Paul.

Leitner said she can’t guarantee growth — officials can’t control how developers spend their money. But she said the Gold Line would provide an incentive to build businesses and housing nearby.

But if a community doesn’t want low-income housing, said Leitner, it won’t happen.

City councils would decide about the size and use of any building. “The city determines if it is one story or 14 stories,” said Leitner.

Gold Line supporters make another argument — it’s their turn. Since 2008, Ramsey, Hennepin, Washington, Anoka and Dakota counties have been paying a 0.25 percent sales tax into a fund for transportation projects.

But so far, projects have been concentrated in the west-metro area.

The commuter-rail projects receiving tax funds include the Northstar Commuter Line from Minneapolis to Big Lake, the Blue Line from Minneapolis to the Mall of America, the St. Paul-Minneapolis Green Line, and the proposed Southwest Line from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie.

The tax has funded several bus lines, including the Red Line from Apple Valley to the megamall in Bloomington. Some tax-funded bus lines have been proposed, including the Metro Orange BRT line from Minneapolis to Burnsville, the Red Rock Line from Hastings to St. Paul, and the Rush Line between Forest Lake and St. Paul.

Gold Line supporters say it’s the east metro’s turn to spend some local money — and it’s Minnesota’s turn to get some federal money.

[/b]If the Gold Line were built, the federal government would pay the largest share — 45 percent. The five-county sales tax would kick in 35 percent, with 10 percent from the state, and 5 percent each from Washington and Ramsey counties.

The total contribution from Ramsey County would be $56 million, including payments into the sales tax fund. Washington County would pay $34 million.[/b]

If the federal money were not spent on the Gold Line, said Kent, it would go to other states. “They are going to send it to Utah,” the state senator said at a recent meeting.

Nevertheless, local opposition to the Gold Line seems to be growing.

The anti-bus movement got a boost in Lake Elmo when the city council voted to ban rapid-transit buses. That means that instead of using Lake Elmo’s undeveloped land, the Gold Line most likely will be routed through the malls and neighborhoods of Woodbury.

And opponents are speaking out. About 300 Oakdale residents have signed a petition to stop the bus line.

Officials got a sample of the anti-bus fervor in January at a town hall meeting at Oakdale City Hall.

It was supposed to be a routine meet-the-public gathering for legislators, but it was hijacked by about 60 protesters with signs saying “Stop the BRT!” and

"Oakdale People Matter.”

:lol:

“I talked this over with my neighbors, and no one is in favor of this,” said protester Cia Westphal. “Please, for the love of God, no! We don’t want this!”

Driving a car is still faster than taking any hypothetical bus or rail system — so the Gold Line will never be popular, said protester Kathleen Buraglio.

“Who will ride that?” Buraglio asked. “I went to a Twins game. I drove to Sun Ray Mall in my car, then took the bus to Union Depot, then got on the light rail. It took two hours.”

“Commuters are just going to take the express bus. Anyone in their right mind knows that is faster,” said Linda Stanton, who founded the bus-fighting nonprofit Citizens for Smart Transit.

Protest leader Zeitz represents the 80-unit Oak Run Shores neighborhood association. The bus route along Fourth Street in Oakdale, she said, is lined with senior citizens who don’t want to bring urban problems to their suburb.

“We will not give up. If the shovels go down, we will be out there with wheelchairs and walkers. We are not going to be pushed around,” said Zeitz, a longtime resident of the southside Oakdale neighborhood.

“We built this community, and it is unjust to take it from us.”


As always, the comments are illuminating examples of the suburban mindset.

On the one hand, I agree that this thing is expensive, and I dislike very much the idea of building a BRT just to secure development along the line. I also understand that suburbanites probably aren't going to ride this thing. But still, goddamn, they have some hilariously racist and dramatic ways of explaining why they don't want a loving bus line.

Grand Theft Autobot fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Apr 2, 2016

mastershakeman
Oct 28, 2008

by vyelkin
I'll post more on Chicago later, but it's in a weird spot right now where service cuts six years ago and the white dinc push back into the city has resulted in a third of the city riding on maxed out infrastructure while the rest of it is underserved.

There's also talk about adding high speed rail out to O'Hare, using the heavier rail tracks, but it wouldn't really be that effective vs the current light rail that goes there.

That being said, this gentleman has a fantastic weblog about gentrification, housing, transit and racism in Chicago and elsewhere. https://danielkayhertz.com highly worth a read and it's completely on point to this thread.

And speaking of brt, here's a hilarious Portland nimby article http://www.wauwatosanow.com/news/wauwatosa-parents-protest-proposed-bus-rapid-transit-system-b99693083z1-373377771.html?lc=Smart

Personally I don't like the Chicago brt idea that's being implemented and think it'll be a disaster but that's the future of transit for most cities.

mastershakeman fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Apr 2, 2016

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Are any of the BRT projects in the US actual BRTs? Like with dedicated lanes and special stations? In Austin what was sold to us as BRT is a total joke - semidedicated lanes downtown and then they use normal lanes everywhere else. They run on the exact same routes as normal buses and are 3 or 4 minutes fast I think.

Grand Theft Autobot
Feb 28, 2008

I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Badger of Basra posted:

Are any of the BRT projects in the US actual BRTs? Like with dedicated lanes and special stations? In Austin what was sold to us as BRT is a total joke - semidedicated lanes downtown and then they use normal lanes everywhere else. They run on the exact same routes as normal buses and are 3 or 4 minutes fast I think.

In Minneapolis/St. Paul:

The Gold Line is a true BRT with dedicated lanes, but it makes so many stops that its time advantage is completely eroded.

The A Line running from the 46th Street LRT Station in Minneapolis to Rosedale Mall claims to be BRT but is actually just an express bus with special stations and boarding and exiting procedures to speed it up. It will run 20% faster than the existing line.

So the answer is no.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

In Minneapolis/St. Paul:

The Gold Line is a true BRT with dedicated lanes, but it makes so many stops that its time advantage is completely eroded.

The A Line running from the 46th Street LRT Station in Minneapolis to Rosedale Mall claims to be BRT but is actually just an express bus with special stations and boarding and exiting procedures to speed it up. It will run 20% faster than the existing line.

So the answer is no.

I wonder who came up with selling BRTs like this in the US. Is this something else I can blame on Richard Florida?

Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



Grand Theft Autobot posted:

On the one hand, I agree that this thing is expensive, and I dislike very much the idea of building a BRT just to secure development along the line. I also understand that suburbanites probably aren't going to ride this thing. But still, goddamn, they have some hilariously racist and dramatic ways of explaining why they don't want a loving bus line.

"What you've proposed is provably mediocre but it's making everyone panic so hard that it basically guarantees this is the best project for the area we're going to get for another decade or two," said every American transit advocate, a single tear rolling down their cheek as they tried to force a smile by thinking about rezoning senior citizen NIMBYists' neighborhoods for high-density development the second they finally drop dead.

mastershakeman posted:

I'll post more on Chicago later, but it's in a weird spot right now where service cuts six years ago and the white dinc push back into the city has resulted in a third of the city riding on maxed out infrastructure while the rest of it is underserved.

Thanks for the input and links, posts on the situation in Chicago are greatly appreciated since it's such a massive system but I know next to nothing about the local politics.

Also, $30-35 for a single ride on an express train to O'Hare? :psyduck: Don't even bother with the cost-benefit calculations, absolutely anyone can tell you how ridiculous that is right off the bat.

Grand Theft Autobot
Feb 28, 2008

I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

mastershakeman posted:

I'll post more on Chicago later, but it's in a weird spot right now where service cuts six years ago and the white dinc push back into the city has resulted in a third of the city riding on maxed out infrastructure while the rest of it is underserved.

There's also talk about adding high speed rail out to O'Hare, using the heavier rail tracks, but it wouldn't really be that effective vs the current light rail that goes there.

That being said, this gentleman has a fantastic weblog about gentrification, housing, transit and racism in Chicago and elsewhere. https://danielkayhertz.com highly worth a read and it's completely on point to this thread.

And speaking of brt, here's a hilarious Portland nimby article http://www.wauwatosanow.com/news/wauwatosa-parents-protest-proposed-bus-rapid-transit-system-b99693083z1-373377771.html?lc=Smart

Personally I don't like the Chicago brt idea that's being implemented and think it'll be a disaster but that's the future of transit for most cities.

You mean Milwaukee, right?

Parents don't want the BRT because it will make walking to school more dangerous, somehow. Just teach your dumbass kids not to walk in front of a loving bus.

Dr Jankenstein
Aug 6, 2009

Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.
A BRT from Shakopee to Bloomington with a run through that casino, the racetrack and the airport.

The tourist line would get more traffic at a higher fare rate than the current gold line plan. Even if it's an hour round trip, let's face it, most of the visitors to the cities want to see mall of America, and usually one other thing (valley fair, the casino, or a twins/Vikings game.(because no one willingly visits to see the wolves or the wild))

A line to Shakopee could probably be funded fully by the casino and valley fair.

Comedy option would be for valley fair to take federal funding to build a light rail to the airport and build it entirely out of coaster track .

But connecting rich suburbs to the hood for half a billion dollars sounds like the sort of bad idea that can only come from something focus grouped to death

Soy Division
Aug 12, 2004

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

You mean Milwaukee, right?

Parents don't want the BRT because it will make walking to school more dangerous, somehow. Just teach your dumbass kids not to walk in front of a loving bus.
I think he might be referring to this dumb pseudo-BRT setup that Chicago just rolled out downtown and didn't do much to improve anything:

http://chi.streetsblog.org/2015/12/23/why-are-loop-link-buses-moving-so-slow-and-will-they-get-faster/

quote:

That sounded far-fetched, so after I returned to the platform at Washington and State, I spoke with a CTA supervisor who was serving as an air traffic controller for buses, waving the drivers in towards the platform. He told me that the drivers are, in fact, instructed to drive 1 mph alongside the stations, because the raised platform means that people who stand in the dark gray, textured area near the platform edge are in danger of being struck in the head by the buses’ rearview mirrors.
Not that upgrades weren't needed, but calling it BRT was a huge mistake - now when real BRT is proposed (which Chicago could use some of) people will associate it with this project and assume it's a waste of money.

Harik
Sep 9, 2001

From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars


Plaster Town Cop
Surprisingly, my little shithole isn't the worst when it comes to transit. After repeatedly spending way too much rebuilding I4 through Orlando, we actually got some light rail.

I'm currently waiting on the phase 2 expansion to get to me. Right now I have to drive most of the way to my office before I pick up a train - it's just not worth it for the last 10 minutes.

Downtown Orlando is pretty walkable as well, coupled with a free bus-loop service running in dedicated lanes carved out of the existing roadways. Zipcar and bike rentals complete the picture.

It's especially impressive given our history with any sort of non-car-based transportation:

quote:

January 2010 - President Obama announces during a speech at the University of Tampa that Florida will recieve $1.25 billion to begin work on the Tampa-Lakeland-Orlando line. The earlier work of the FHSRA makes Florida the most "shovel-ready" state. Jobs can be created immediately, and the project is scheduled to be completed in 2015.

October 2010 - Florida receives an additional $800 million. Unlike the first grant, this portion requires 20% matching funds, either state, local, or private.

December 2010 - Conservative governors in Wisconsin and Ohio "return" their grant money to the federal government, and $342 million of that money is reallocated to Florida, bringing the total amount of federal funding to $2.4 billion - 90% of the total cost.

January 2011 - Governor Scott takes office and puts the project on hold until he can review its feasibility. When asked about the project, the Governor repeatedly indicates he is waiting for an updated ridership study due to be completed in February.

February 16, 2011 - During a morning press conference, Governor Scott unexpectedly announces that he is returning the federal money. He expresses concern about potential risk to Florida taxpayers of cost-overruns, operating subsidies if the line is not profitable, and having the repay the federal government if the operator goes bankrupt. The ridership study which would address the issue of profitability has not been released and the private sector companies interested in building the project have indicated a willingness to cover any cost overruns, should they occur. However, since the Request for Proposals was never issued, the private sector has not had an opportunity to put their best offers on the table.

:barf:

Yeah, who wants 2.4 billion dollars when you can say "gently caress you" to the ni*BONG* president instead.

zakharov
Nov 30, 2002

:kimchi: Tater Love :kimchi:

Bozza posted:

...I honestly thought that was just a song. How on earth is maintenance done without a period of shutdown?



Each weekend, there are service changes on a bunch of lines to accommodate track work. They've recently started the Fastrack program where sections of a line are shutdown overnight during the week for more extensive work. The system is still falling apart because it's 113 years old and the fare was 5 cents forever (among many other reasons).

Amused to Death
Aug 10, 2009

google "The Night Witches", and prepare for :stare:
In Connecticut, the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line is supposed to maybe hopefully be active within 2 years

kefkafloyd
Jun 8, 2006

What really knocked me out
Was her cheap sunglasses

Amused to Death posted:

In Connecticut, the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line is supposed to maybe hopefully be active within 2 years

Currently restoration of double tracking from NH to Hartford is under construction, with new stations going up.

Compared to the New Britain-Hartford Busway (now known as CTFasTrak), the NHHS line is far more transparent. http://www.nhhsrail.com

Grand Theft Autobot
Feb 28, 2008

I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

AA is for Quitters posted:

A BRT from Shakopee to Bloomington with a run through that casino, the racetrack and the airport.

The tourist line would get more traffic at a higher fare rate than the current gold line plan. Even if it's an hour round trip, let's face it, most of the visitors to the cities want to see mall of America, and usually one other thing (valley fair, the casino, or a twins/Vikings game.(because no one willingly visits to see the wolves or the wild))

A line to Shakopee could probably be funded fully by the casino and valley fair.

Comedy option would be for valley fair to take federal funding to build a light rail to the airport and build it entirely out of coaster track .

But connecting rich suburbs to the hood for half a billion dollars sounds like the sort of bad idea that can only come from something focus grouped to death

I just want rail from DT St. Paul to the airport.

Klaus88
Jan 23, 2011

Violence has its own economy, therefore be thoughtful and precise in your investment

Harik posted:

Surprisingly, my little shithole isn't the worst when it comes to transit. After repeatedly spending way too much rebuilding I4 through Orlando, we actually got some light rail.

I'm currently waiting on the phase 2 expansion to get to me. Right now I have to drive most of the way to my office before I pick up a train - it's just not worth it for the last 10 minutes.

Downtown Orlando is pretty walkable as well, coupled with a free bus-loop service running in dedicated lanes carved out of the existing roadways. Zipcar and bike rentals complete the picture.

It's especially impressive given our history with any sort of non-car-based transportation:


:barf:

Yeah, who wants 2.4 billion dollars when you can say "gently caress you" to the ni*BONG* president instead.

Considering the history of mass transit in Florida, this is probably the best outcome, actually.

Amused to Death
Aug 10, 2009

google "The Night Witches", and prepare for :stare:

kefkafloyd posted:

Currently restoration of double tracking from NH to Hartford is under construction, with new stations going up.

Compared to the New Britain-Hartford Busway (now known as CTFasTrak), the NHHS line is far more transparent. http://www.nhhsrail.com

I still for the life of me can't figure out why with planning for the NHHS line in the works at the time that we didn't instead just try to reactivate the tracks from Waterbury to Hartford

Curvature of Earth
Sep 9, 2011

Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Badger of Basra posted:

Are any of the BRT projects in the US actual BRTs? Like with dedicated lanes and special stations? In Austin what was sold to us as BRT is a total joke - semidedicated lanes downtown and then they use normal lanes everywhere else. They run on the exact same routes as normal buses and are 3 or 4 minutes fast I think.

The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy has a rigorous scoring system for grading BRT.

They also have a brief BRT guide here, in case you don't find detailed scoring systems inherently interesting. This page is much more useful, since it has a map of every known BRT system in the world, and classifies each as meeting basic, bronze, silver, or gold standards for BRT. (The blue dots on the map represent BRT systems notable for exemplifying a particular element of BRT. You can actually click on these, unlike the other dots. Also, white is "basic" but barely-darker-than-white gray is "silver", confusingly. They should've made basic black or something.) Individual BRT lines are rated, which is why there are dense clusters of them in Central and South America.

So to answer your question: the US has 3 basic BRTs, 4 bronze-standard BRTs, and one silver-standard BRT (that's the Cleveland Healthline). It has no gold BRTs. For that, you'll have to go to south of the border to Bogota, Columbia, where BRT was invented and there are five gold-standard BRT lines servicing that city alone.

Badger of Basra posted:

I wonder who came up with selling BRTs like this in the US. Is this something else I can blame on Richard Florida?

Nobody came up with it. It's just American clusterfuck politics in general.

BRT is sold as "like light rail, but cheaper", so you can get anti-rail-transit people to support it*, and transit advocates in the US are generally desperate enough to compromise. Of course, the usual crop of white baby-boomer NIMBYs appear to oppose any transit at all. Then when it comes time to actually dedicate entire road lanes to the BRT, car-lovers go "Whaaaaa? Take... a lane away? But muh freedom cars! :qq:" Then anti-government-spending conservatives come spilling out, because they just can't fathom putting actual resources into what they view as last-resort poverty transit. "Spend money on a bus station?! It's just a bus station! Gubmint wastin yer money agin! :bahgawd:"

The coup de grace, of course, are the sudden disappearance of the anti-rail transit people's support. For them, BRT is a red herring to distract transit advocates with. Their support was never genuine. Once they managed to stop the Great Rail Satan, they evaporated and recondensed back into NIMBYs, car-fuckers, and budget hawks.

*I am not kidding, the fastest way to make a bunch of insincere BRT advocates materialize is mention "light rail" on a libertarian website.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Curvature of Earth posted:

Nobody came up with it. It's just American clusterfuck politics in general.

BRT is sold as "like light rail, but cheaper", so you can get anti-rail-transit people to support it*, and transit advocates in the US are generally desperate enough to compromise. Of course, the usual crop of white baby-boomer NIMBYs appear to oppose any transit at all. Then when it comes time to actually dedicate entire road lanes to the BRT, car-lovers go "Whaaaaa? Take... a lane away? But muh freedom cars! :qq:" Then anti-government-spending conservatives come spilling out, because they just can't fathom putting actual resources into what they view as last-resort poverty transit. "Spend money on a bus station?! It's just a bus station! Gubmint wastin yer money agin! :bahgawd:"

The coup de grace, of course, are the sudden disappearance of the anti-rail transit people's support. For them, BRT is a red herring to distract transit advocates with. Their support was never genuine. Once they managed to stop the Great Rail Satan, they evaporated and recondensed back into NIMBYs, car-fuckers, and budget hawks.

*I am not kidding, the fastest way to make a bunch of insincere BRT advocates materialize is mention "light rail" on a libertarian website.

I think this is pretty much how it worked out in Austin. We also just lost a rail bond election last year from a combo of people in the outer parts of the city not thinking it would benefit them and transit advocates refusing to vote for it because they thought it didn't follow the correct route :jerkbag: It wasn't on the route they wanted because that's the route our """BRT""" is on.

Greatbacon
Apr 9, 2012

by Pragmatica
A fun little story about BRT in the Denver metro area I just remembered. One of the selling points of the upgraded/dedicated bus route between Boulder and Denver was that the buses would be driving on the shoulder of the highway. No new lanes needed :rolleye:

Of course it was like, 3 weeks before the route was set to open before someone realized that driving on the shoulder in this state is (was) straight up :siren:illegal.:siren: Obviously the legislature scrambled for an exemption and the buses run fine now, but it sort of reflects quite a bit on the state of our local public transit system and the people responsible for it.

http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_29148597/set-debut-boulder-denver-bus-line-clipped-by

Renaissance Robot
Oct 10, 2010

Bite my furry metal ass
So what happens when somebody breaks down and needs to stop in the bus lane?

Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



This is a good overview of current high-speed rail plans in Southeast Asia. (It's basically an all-out industrial war between China and Japan.)

RuanGacho
Jun 20, 2002

"You're gunna break it!"

Is there any New South Wales transit experts around? I visited Sydney recently and was floored how amazing transit is in a country that apparently funds it properly.

Highlights:
"Orca" cards can be prepaid or registered and become your one stop shop for all transit in the area. Need to cross Sydney Harbor to get to Taronga Zoo? tap your card on the nearest bus to the central station, use that station to go to the docks, ride the ferry, get on the bus up the hill to the top, each time a computer going "oh you were just on that transit length, you get a transfer discount"

Near as I can tell, even with the distant suburbs you can get around JUST by transit, you do not need to own a car in the wider Sydney area.

The system is well staffed with both security and maintenance, it's almost as if someone thinks freedom of travel helps an economy and it's worth doing well.

I didn't see any roads even in the suburbs that were in the condition of the typical road in America, I thought we did a decent job and we do(did) but there's another level of infrastructure maintenance where you keep it going nice long before it really actually starts to affect function.

But all I know of it is from a two week trip and being a city worker who would notice this kind of thing explicitly (council worker for you Aussies)

Anyone out there able to give more insight into this infrastructure strip tease?

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)
Not mentioned in the OP, but something that I have some experience with:

Not-quite-mass-transit

Probably 95% of American transit riders are in really big cities or counties, or in cities and counties that are within 10-20 miles of a major city. But there is a pretty large suburban/exurban population that uses (when it uses at all), little transit systems that are put together without much resources and planning. What constitutes a "little" transit system can vary quite a bit, there are towns that have literally a single van sized bus that runs twice a day, while larger cities have regular buses and transit center and passes and websites and the like.

For example, the Portland area is famous for Tri-Met, which has a big light rail system, frequent buses, sophisticated IT, lots of transit centers and its own transit-only bridge. Outside of Portland, you have

C-Tran: which serves Clark County, the county in Washington State that lies across the Columbia River from Portland. Clark County is big, relatively affluent, and has a transit system that is more or less an urban transit system: busses that run around 18 hours a day, frequent service on busy routes, transit centers, and the like.

YCTA: Serving Yamhill County, to the southwest of the Portland metro area, with 100,000 residents, and which is exurban/rural. Tehre are five lines, and they run several times a day, but not beyond rush hour. These transit systems are good for taking trips for occasional appointments (and these transit systems are often made with seniors in mind), but don't really work for people who are commuting.

Cheeriots, serving Marion County (the home of Salem, Oregon's capital, and either a separate city/exurb of Portland. Buses in Salem se
serve major areas, and run until around 9 PM. There is also a semi-separate system that runs out to the smaller towns. Inside of Salem, the buses can be used for commuting. Outside, not so much. There are buses that connect to Yamhill County, and to the Tri-Met commuter rail to Wilsonville.

There are actually a half-dozen other lines, but I realized I shouldn't describe them because...its not really relevant.

The point was more than there is a lot of transit in areas outside of urban cores, but that that transit often doesn't reach the critical mass that transit needs, where people start riding it because it is convenient, which creates more lines, drawing more people in, and then people stop being car-dependent. Instead, those transit systems are often created to serve the needs of the poor and seniors (who are an influential voting block), and are seen as distant second options.

The other thing about this is that the difference between a fully functioning urban transit system and a suburban transit system does not scale linearly with population. For example, Tri-Met has about 1.5 million people in its service area, and has one of North America's larger light rail systems. Across the river, C-Tran has around a third of that, and has a decent transit system. Salem, with a population of around 300,000, has a transit system that is barely workable for commuters. Yamhill County, with a population of 100,000, has a transit system that isn't designed for commuters. There is a logarithmic relationship between population and transit size.

Paolomania
Apr 26, 2006

Proposition Joe posted:

The MBTA is in quite a sorry state right now. Last winter, the system shut down for weeks because of heavy snow which caused significant public outcry. Of course, Massachusetts had recently elected a Republican governor so instead of actual fixes the governor put in place a Fiscal Management and Control Board which has largely ignored the MBTA's existential problems, like its massive debt and state of good repair backlog. Instead, they've raise fares over LOUD objections, put certain bus routes out to bid for privatization, and cut services like late night. That last service cut was done without even doing an equity analysis to find out the negative impact on the low income riders who used the late night service and that got the FTA to lodge a complaint, but the service is still getting axed.

The MBTA could get out of this rut if the state government did things like took some of its debt, flexed some more of its federal transportation funding, and raised gas taxes and implemented tolls. However, the problem with state governments in America is that no matter if they're red or blue they bias suburban and rural regions over the urban areas through overrepresentation in state legislatures, and those folks don't give a gently caress about transit and would gleefully watch it burn even if it inevitably takes their state's economy with it.

It must be mentioned that this is a perfect example of politics impacting public transit as not only is the currrent austeriocrat a problem, but the MBTA's financial issues exist for one major reason: the "forward funding" changes that came in 2000 that transferred about $1.65B prior debt onto the MBTA, piled on $1.7B of Big Dig mitigation debt, and has resulted in $1.85B debt since.

mastershakeman
Oct 28, 2008

by vyelkin

Curvature of Earth posted:

The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy has a rigorous scoring system for grading BRT.

They also have a brief BRT guide here, in case you don't find detailed scoring systems inherently interesting. This page is much more useful, since it has a map of every known BRT system in the world, and classifies each as meeting basic, bronze, silver, or gold standards for BRT. (The blue dots on the map represent BRT systems notable for exemplifying a particular element of BRT. You can actually click on these, unlike the other dots. Also, white is "basic" but barely-darker-than-white gray is "silver", confusingly. They should've made basic black or something.) Individual BRT lines are rated, which is why there are dense clusters of them in Central and South America.

So to answer your question: the US has 3 basic BRTs, 4 bronze-standard BRTs, and one silver-standard BRT (that's the Cleveland Healthline). It has no gold BRTs. For that, you'll have to go to south of the border to Bogota, Columbia, where BRT was invented and there are five gold-standard BRT lines servicing that city alone.


Nobody came up with it. It's just American clusterfuck politics in general.

BRT is sold as "like light rail, but cheaper", so you can get anti-rail-transit people to support it*, and transit advocates in the US are generally desperate enough to compromise. Of course, the usual crop of white baby-boomer NIMBYs appear to oppose any transit at all. Then when it comes time to actually dedicate entire road lanes to the BRT, car-lovers go "Whaaaaa? Take... a lane away? But muh freedom cars! :qq:" Then anti-government-spending conservatives come spilling out, because they just can't fathom putting actual resources into what they view as last-resort poverty transit. "Spend money on a bus station?! It's just a bus station! Gubmint wastin yer money agin! :bahgawd:"

The coup de grace, of course, are the sudden disappearance of the anti-rail transit people's support. For them, BRT is a red herring to distract transit advocates with. Their support was never genuine. Once they managed to stop the Great Rail Satan, they evaporated and recondensed back into NIMBYs, car-fuckers, and budget hawks.

*I am not kidding, the fastest way to make a bunch of insincere BRT advocates materialize is mention "light rail" on a libertarian website.

To be fair, removing a lane of cars to put in BRT seems incredibly short sighted. So far it's been tried once in Chicago and is about to go in on another major road, and exactly what you'd expect to happen does: the cars that all get forced into the other lane end up blocking the bus lane, whether waiting at turns or just in general. Enforcement needs to get upped bigtime but no one's going to want to come out in favor of more parking/traffic tickets.

The Maroon Hawk
May 10, 2008

glowing-fish posted:

"Little" transit

This seems quite popular in Colorado right now, actually; there's RTD, which covers eight counties around the Denver metro area and runs buses and all of the lightrail/commuter rail lines, but there's also several outlying regional transit agencies (all of which are exclusively bus/shuttle services).

Off the top of my head - Boulder, Ft Collins, Greeley, Colorado Springs, Vail, Aspen/Glenwood Springs, and Summit County all have their own transit services.

The ones in the mountains - Vail, Summit County, and Aspen/Glenwood Springs are all pretty obviously driven by the tourist industry, with Summit County being primarily between the ski areas and Vail and Aspen mostly servicing their ski resorts and related parts of town.

I'm not as familiar with the bus services in Boulder or Ft Collins, but I went to school in Greeley in for a few years, and I gotta say, their bus service is absolutely useless for the student population, which probably makes up at least a solid fifth of the city's population, and I don't really see how it's even that useful for the non-student population. Most of the bus routes seem focused towards the dilapidated Greeley Mall, the one shopping center on the Western end of the town, the "downtown" block, and the government services up North (DMV, assorted county buildings, etc).

I would like to think that eventually our commuter rail aspirations will see us laying tracks to places like Greeley, Ft Collins, and Colorado Springs (none of which are much further from Denver than Longmont, the current endpoint of the planned B Line), so perhaps those cities will invest more in their local transit services once they have connections to a broader, statewide RTD system, but that's decades into the future so it's anyone's guess at this point. I've actually considered running for CO state legislature with the key objective of pushing to expand mass transit throughout the state like that.

Curvature of Earth
Sep 9, 2011

Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

mastershakeman posted:

To be fair, removing a lane of cars to put in BRT seems incredibly short sighted. So far it's been tried once in Chicago and is about to go in on another major road, and exactly what you'd expect to happen does: the cars that all get forced into the other lane end up blocking the bus lane, whether waiting at turns or just in general. Enforcement needs to get upped bigtime but no one's going to want to come out in favor of more parking/traffic tickets.

In the immediate term, yes. In the long term, traffic goes down (or stabilizes in a growing city) because BRT, by definition, is good enough to replace a substantial number of previously car-only trips along its designated route, thus getting more cars off the road. In fact, if you just want traffic to go down without having to spend money on improving alternative transit systems, one of the most effective ways is to remove lanes and replace them with nothing, because induced demand is a thing, and it's surprisingly easy to reverse.

Dedicated lanes were successfully implemented in Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Eugene. If the problems you describe persist, then it's a Chicago issue, not a BRT issue. It's worked fine in most other places.

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

The Maroon Hawk posted:


I'm not as familiar with the bus services in Boulder or Ft Collins, but I went to school in Greeley in for a few years, and I gotta say, their bus service is absolutely useless for the student population, which probably makes up at least a solid fifth of the city's population, and I don't really see how it's even that useful for the non-student population. Most of the bus routes seem focused towards the dilapidated Greeley Mall, the one shopping center on the Western end of the town, the "downtown" block, and the government services up North (DMV, assorted county buildings, etc).


These services/areas might be keyed to the needs of a senior population, whose needs might be rather mysterious to younger people, but also have a disproportionate say in local issues because they vote and show up to 9 AM meetings at the community center.

Curvature of Earth
Sep 9, 2011

Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

glowing-fish posted:

Not mentioned in the OP, but something that I have some experience with:

Not-quite-mass-transit

Probably 95% of American transit riders are in really big cities or counties, or in cities and counties that are within 10-20 miles of a major city. But there is a pretty large suburban/exurban population that uses (when it uses at all), little transit systems that are put together without much resources and planning. What constitutes a "little" transit system can vary quite a bit, there are towns that have literally a single van sized bus that runs twice a day, while larger cities have regular buses and transit center and passes and websites and the like.

I'm bus-dependent in one of these cities. Albany, Oregon is a smaller more blue-collar suburb of the larger white-collar suburbs of Salem and Eugene. We have a bus system running from 6am to 6pm, and each stop gets visited only once an hour, with several gaps due to lunch breaks and the schedule shift when it splits from the single-line morning route to the two-line daytime route. Even the most minor errands eats three hours out of my day. We also have an inter-city bus loop that has a surprisingly large middle-class clientele (as in, "engineer at Hewlett-Packard" middle-class), but that's because it runs at the right times and goes to the right places (the university the next town over and the aforementioned HP campus).

glowing-fish posted:

The other thing about this is that the difference between a fully functioning urban transit system and a suburban transit system does not scale linearly with population. For example, Tri-Met has about 1.5 million people in its service area, and has one of North America's larger light rail systems. Across the river, C-Tran has around a third of that, and has a decent transit system. Salem, with a population of around 300,000, has a transit system that is barely workable for commuters. Yamhill County, with a population of 100,000, has a transit system that isn't designed for commuters. There is a logarithmic relationship between population and transit size.

Albany's population is a little over 51,000, and when I last checked in 2014/15 our transit system's daily ridership was something like 350ish. Most of that is students going to the local community college, seniors, adults like me who can't afford a car, and a surprising number of teenagers.

glowing-fish
Feb 18, 2013

Keep grinding,
I hope you level up! :)

Curvature of Earth posted:

I'm bus-dependent in one of these cities. Albany, Oregon is a smaller more blue-collar suburb of the larger white-collar suburbs of Salem and Eugene. We have a bus system running from 6am to 6pm, and each stop gets visited only once an hour, with several gaps due to lunch breaks and the schedule shift when it splits from the single-line morning route to the two-line daytime route. Even the most minor errands eats three hours out of my day. We also have an inter-city bus loop that has a surprisingly large middle-class clientele (as in, "engineer at Hewlett-Packard" middle-class), but that's because it runs at the right times and goes to the right places (the university the next town over and the aforementioned HP campus).

Also, there is no public transit between the Salem area and Albany. You can get a bus from Salem to Stayon, but not from Salem to Albany. You can take Amtrak or Greyhound, but that is not the same thing! (I am sure that the many people who are reading this thread to read about high speed rail in Chicago or New York are fascinated to learn about the bus from Salem to Stayton)

quote:

Albany's population is a little over 51,000, and when I last checked in 2014/15 our transit system's daily ridership was something like 350ish. Most of that is students going to the local community college, seniors, adults like me who can't afford a car, and a surprising number of teenagers.

That seems low, but checking numbers, I guess it checks out.

But it does show how it scales, and someone with more data might be able to scatterplot a graph between area served and ridership, and figure out the exponential relationship.

Curvature of Earth
Sep 9, 2011

Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

glowing-fish posted:

Also, there is no public transit between the Salem area and Albany. You can get a bus from Salem to Stayon, but not from Salem to Albany. You can take Amtrak or Greyhound, but that is not the same thing! (I am sure that the many people who are reading this thread to read about high speed rail in Chicago or New York are fascinated to learn about the bus from Salem to Stayton)

And man does that suck. When I was still looking for work, I was heavily considering Salem, which would've opened up a lot more job opportunities for me. But with no cheap, regular public transit between Albany and Salem, I might as well have been applying for jobs in Seattle for the all good it'd do me. There is, of all things, apparently a regular shuttle between Corvallis and Portland, but that's because Corvallis has the closest big research university to the Silicon Forest, so there's enough of a trickle directly between the two cities to justify it. Why this doesn't exist for Salem and Albany, given the number of commuters between the cities, I have no idea.

glowing-fish posted:

That seems low, but checking numbers, I guess it checks out.

But it does show how it scales, and someone with more data might be able to scatterplot a graph between area served and ridership, and figure out the exponential relationship.

I was incorrect! The latest report the Albany Transit System posted on their website is from 2011, and it reports that in 2009 (when Albany's population was a bit over 48,000) their average daily ridership was 314. Assuming it scaled with population growth, its current ridership is... 324 :eng99: Even if we assume a generous boost from the recession, I doubt it's over 500 per day. Watch out Portland! Cower before our 0.9% public transit usage!

Soy Division
Aug 12, 2004

Curvature of Earth posted:

In the immediate term, yes. In the long term, traffic goes down (or stabilizes in a growing city) because BRT, by definition, is good enough to replace a substantial number of previously car-only trips along its designated route, thus getting more cars off the road. In fact, if you just want traffic to go down without having to spend money on improving alternative transit systems, one of the most effective ways is to remove lanes and replace them with nothing, because induced demand is a thing, and it's surprisingly easy to reverse.

Dedicated lanes were successfully implemented in Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Eugene. If the problems you describe persist, then it's a Chicago issue, not a BRT issue. It's worked fine in most other places.
This pseudo-BRT only runs for like 10 blocks in the city center, it's just a bus lane with upgraded stops. The goal is basically to permit increased bus service because buses are completely packed and bunching like crazy during rush hours.

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Warcabbit
Apr 26, 2008

Wedge Regret
http://transportation.westchestergov.com/bee-line

This is what buses look like in my area. Frequent, multiple lines, even a para-transit shared ride service built in. Uses the same Metrocard system as NYC.

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