One of the best things is to separate transit from traffic in places where traffic jams occur. This can give transit a speed advantage over traffic making it more likely people use it thereby reducing traffic for everyone else.
@@RMTransit That is exactly what was done in the Swedish city of Jönköping (pronounced Yonshoping), the buses only have dedicated right of way in specific high car congestion areas only and are other wise in mixed traffic.
@@jan-lukas That doesn't always work. Here in Mississauga, Ontraio we are building a Light rail train (LRT) along Hurontario street and that is a very busy street in the city. You can't just ban cars from that road or else you would create very big problems that wouldn't be easy to solve
When planning a city, expansion, or development of any kind. Cities should have a contingency plan in place for if or when that place becomes more developed and needs transits Right of Ways and corridors and planning and zoning should be written into law to circumvent nimbyism. It’s easier to build a commuter rail branch line in the future if the ROW and maybe even the land way set aside right from the beginning when the area was being developed.
Yeah, I think this is a good way to save a huge headache from acquiring right-of-way in the future. Saves alot of time and money. This also provides a better roadmap for the city or town developments, which will benefit alot back on funding the transit especially expensive like railways.. I have witness several times where ROW is so expensive and difficult to do now, to the point it discourages the government to do it in the first place, due to the fact the lack of foresight and reserving that piece of land for railways. If they do, it often leads up outside the city center for the new rail corridor, which means you still need another transfer points and another transit modes to connect the station to the established city center.
On hindsight Singapore could've saved money if it'd built its Downtown Line Stage 2 a few years later, after neighbouring Malaysia's nat'l rail operator KTM had cut back service to the Causeway int'l border crossing between the 2 countries, removing the track between that & Tg Pagar railway staion on the edge of downtown Singapore (where its trains had previously run to). Then the right-of-way previously occupied by KTM's tracks could've been used by the Downtown Line (for the stretch between terminus station DT1 _Bt Panjang_ & DT5 Beauty World), instead of having to build new tunnels for it running parallel. The next stretch of the Downtown Line (DT5 Beauty World-DT11 Newton) could perhaps also have been built at-grade/elevated as it runs along the dual-carriageway Bt Timah & Dunearn Rds (the same road but with each carriageway named differently), which has a huge centre median in-between in the form of the _Bt Timah_ Canal, where the Line's tracks could've perhaps been built over
There used to be a commuter bus within a half mile of my house in the suburbs. No joke, it arrived once in the morning around 5am. It did not return in the afternoon and only came back to the main transit hub of the city over 3 miles away. That stop ending up getting cut.
it would be really cool to see some case studies, if you haven't already, of medium-sized cities. Everyone knows of London, New York, Paris, and Tokyo... but what about Lyon, Kyoto, Calgary, and Edinburgh?
Another way that could reduce operating costs could be encouraging biking, which as you said in a previous video increases the catchment area of your network but also maybe frees up spending on super local routes as residents could reasonably just bike there and spend more on the arterial corridors? Super bike friendly cites seems to have less redundant routes I've noticed.
The widespread use of bikes within a city could also reduce the number of transit stops needed, since transit riders can bike to their destination from a stop that's slightly further away. Less stops can enable higher average speed and frequency at the remaining stops, which makes the transit service even more appealing to people traveling beyond their confortable biking range. Also, the shortest trips could be made entirely by bike, reducing the chance of overcrowding on transit vehicles during peak hours.
Reliability and punctuality is the biggest need imo. Here in Ireland the fact busses can arrive 15 minutes on either side of the scheduled time(if they do at all) makes it hard to argue they're a trustworthy form of transport
Agree. Here our transit is considered to be very good but even still buses will leave early, arrive late or will be cancelled outright with no notice. Real time displays or map data would help with this a lot.
I think one trap some cities fall into with light rail is maximising coverage per dollar at the cost of service quality. You see the tracks that snake through the city and suburbs, trying to maximise the number of places it stops at, but then you end up with a slow service that runs on what ends up being a very long route. Sometimes it gets to the point where cycling directly to your destination from the near suburbs is faster than by rail, and an express bus service would be quicker further out. So you could have had a shorter, more direct rail route (that's maybe even light metro instead of light rail) with fewer stations in the densest areas and instead run a few more buses and build some extra cycle lanes for the money you saved in infrastructure, for a system that probably reduces travel time for nearly everyone.
Completely agreed. It's better to make something that is good for some people, rather than something that is bad for all people. That being said, bicycles really are a very strong competitor to public transit if there is good bike infrastructure over distances less than 5km. It's really hard to beat the combination of point-to-point transportation, good speed, no waiting time before the tram/bus/train/whatever arrives, and hardly any delays due to traffic because they don't affect bikes nearly as much as cars or at-grade transit. Saying it like "sometimes even cycling is faster" is really giving cycling less credit than it deserves. But I especially like the combination of good cycling infrastructure and public transit, because they work together really nicely, and supplement each other very nicely as well. Good cycling infrastructure can help even very small investments in public transit go a long way.
@@alex2143 Eh, I'd argue cycling works better complementing public transit than competing with it, outside of ultra dense environments. Even 5km is too much for some commuters (and let's be honest, 5km isn't very far, for city centre workers that means living pretty close in which is often unaffordable), depending on weather, terrain, occupation and level of fitness among other things. Having a fast metro, suburban, or light rail with stations linked to high quality cycling infrastructure can help compensate for fewer stations and expand service radii. And it's easier to persuade people to cycle 2-3km a day as part of a multi modal commute than 10 from door to door.
@@alex2143 Yeah, it's when a city decides it's not going to extend the metro line or whatever because they supposedly want more people to cycle that annoys me. It's clear they just don't have or don't want to spend the money. Also when they put in anti car measures and think that's magically going to make people take up cycling rather than just make commutes a lot longer and push people away from certain areas.
oh my, i never thought you would use prague footage in a video. in here (prague), im actually very satisfied with our transit network, except for our future projects taking too much time
To the section 7 on quality of life I would add good route information. In Paris each bus stop has a map of the city and bus routes with the route from that stop highlighted. Another thing that helps is realtime displays showing when the next bus will arrive. We have these in Bristol and they really help. Shelters with seats are vital. There is a phenomenon known as ‘sparks effect’ where when a bus route or railway is electrified the ridership increases. Trolleybuses, battery-trolleybuses and battery buses are much kinder to the environment as they as they don’t produce pollution in the street. Trams also have this benefit as well as producing fewer particulates as they don’t have rubber tires/tyres. That is worth something. People like trams.
Yeah, route and passenger information is I think a better improvement to not just quality of life, but also accessibility as well if there is a voice announcement. I find that a better thing to do than on-board WiFi. These days, 4G and now growing 5G is faster and more reliable than most on-board WiFi out there. For passengers having access to transit information is a huge help. Not to mention on-board WiFi is a security nightmare as well. There is a huge potential of data sniffing in public WiFi, and also inconvenient since passer will have to scan for WiFi, connect to it, usually register or login before they can use it. In high density areas, there is interference and WiFi base station getting saturated, depending on the device.
@@kornkernel2232 On 4G/5G data, that would be the case if wireless carriers don't rip consumers with ridiculous expensive plans. WiFi will always be needed for any reason (e.g. device doesn't have 4G/5G modem, cannot afford data, poor service coverage by carrier, apps requiring WiFi for certain specific tasks, etc.).
In places (especially in North America) with a strong bias against buses, investing in rail transit is often the only way to get people to take the bus.
10:29 Auckland abandoned articulated buses in 2019 due to fuel inefficiency, impractically tight turning and prone to side-swipe and jack-knifing accidents. Those buses are replaced by more frequent triple-axle buses and/or triple-axle double-deckers with two doors.
I agree that triple door buses are underappreciated. Unfortunately they are very rare in the US, articulated are used instead. AC transit has a small fleet of triple door European VanHools, but they are getting phased out and new ones are being acquired because they don't meet stupid Buy America regulation.
I would be interested in hearing about ”last mile" (km) solutions like bicycle racks or the dreaded park&ride. I used a scooter to get from my North Vancouver apartment to the seabus as bus frequency was underwhelming.
Why would you dread park and ride? It's been working successfully in Oxford for decades. Our problem is the selfish bastards who insist on driving in to the centre.
Much smaller places than Whitehorse have transit too. For example, Bowen Island and Salt Spring Island in BC both have transit service, and they have populations of ~4000 and ~10000, respectively.
Yellowknife might be a better example. It's smaller and arguably more remote than Whitehorse, while also having a solid transit network. And it's not a major tourist destination like Whitehorse (which even had direct flights to Europe during summer season)
The city where I live (Gothenburg, Sweden ~700 000 population) has a well established bus network with ~300 lines, and 13 tram lines. However the tram runs operates like a streetcar through most of the city centre, and while express bus service does exist, it doesn’t in the city centre due to the lack of motorways, and streets allowing a genially higher speed. I really wish there would be some investment into a heavy or semi-heavy rail transit system in the city. It doesn’t have to be a tonne, something similar to the Seattle Link or the Ottawa O-train I think would be sufficient
I just learned something that has helped me understand where your videos are coming from a lot better and could also help other Europeans. I live in Dublin (1.2 million urban population) which has terrible public transport, but if the Luas (our tram system) was located in the US it would be the 10th busiest rapid transit system in the US (48m passengers in 2019) and Dublin Bus would be the 4th busiest bus network (151m)
Yeah, America really dropped the ball on our transit in the 1950s - 60s, and by that i mean we spiked it into the ground by ripping it out and bulldozing cities for the car. And now a lot of us just want acceptable transit that would be laughable by European standards. Acela is our best intercity train, and Amtrak's only profitable route and yet it averages 68mph. (For reference the trains have a topspeed of 220mph but they litterally can't achieve it on the tracks they run on.) I think the worst part about the state of transit in the USA is the knowledge that we were once a leader in transit but got swindled into thinking the car was the future. (A car like mode is needed in rural areas, but in cities transit should be king)
I live in metro Vancouver. I like skytrain, as the cost over time is lower due to not needing a driver per train. Over 30+ years this is a great investment.
For Step 4: I like to think that every 30 minutes is the minimum to consider line reliable enough any time you need it and anything under every 10 minutes is reliable enough to just stop anytime at the stop and not bother with schedule so you can just hop on and hop off when you need :)
studies showed that a headway of 15 minutes or lower seems to be the magic border between people showing up for a turn-up-and-go style service rather than having to plan their trips (a lot less ridership)
I tend to avoid every 30 minute lines as much as I can as I have found them not to be reliable. Always end up waiting whenever I have to take one. 15 minutes is the minimum I have found to consider a like reliable.
I've got an every-30-minute line within easy walking distance of my house, but it's always seemed like an "eh, we need some coverage here, let's invest as little as possible". It's a half-hour ride to get to the nearest railhead, and most of the time it makes far less sense than driving to the park-n-ride a few miles away, or just driving all the way (we're already in the car...). They're extending that rail line to be a 10 minute bus ride, but that's not scheduled to be completed until '24.
1. Build wide meshy-network. Can be anything - even tiny buses 2. Make them go every 5-10 min or often 3. Separate public transport from cars everywhere you can. Bus lines will do more than enough, can be done with paint bucket, Overnight. 4. Invest in local bike/scooter/motorbike infrastructure for local commutes. (1 car spot = 5 motorbike spots = 10 bike spots) 5. Reuse existing network as much as possible - convert all disused rail tracks and convert them to tram / suburban rail / you name it . . 8. if nescesarry think of dedicated infrastracture. Sidenote. Building office/ retail spots all around the city is cheaper than managing centralised transportation network.
Sidenote 2. Creating 1000 km dedicated buslanes over every existing 2x2 roads is cheaper than building 3-lane 50 km metro system. which one will be more useful and reliable?
A focus for metro development should be to properly classify/subdivide a city into proper types. Certain types have a huge demand for transit (office space, universities, airports, stadiums, shopping districts, high density residential, etc...). On the flip side low density residential and low density industrial don't benefit as much. The hidden secret to understand successful transit though is parking. Even if traffic weren't bad in say Chicago or NY, transit would still be popular because there is no where else to park in the downtown. Transit create vibrant downtowns where more people can shop/work/play than otherwise could as parking takes up too much space. More parking means lower density which means longer commutes, more cars and create a nasty feedback loop. A common argument should be transit vs parking.
I don't think that always works, if you reduce parking and still only provide mediocre transit, people won't travel to the city center at all, they'll go to suburban malls and the like instead, and downtown becomes a ghost town. Big cities generally have enough pull regardless, but smaller cities not so much.
@@Croz89 We have a very good example of what you say in Edmonton, Canada. Council talks and spends to make the downtown vibrant. People do not want nor have a reason to go downtown. Even working downtown has died out. There are massive malls all over the city making it easier and fun to buy food or shop for anything. We call downtown the deadmonton part of the city. It's filled with drunks, beggars, slags making it not safe. Grocery stores and other places to shop have long abandoned the downtown core. Yet city Council used the downtown as the intersection to transfer between rail lines aka LRT.
Don't forget that often enough, those high-density areas are just one end of a potential trip, and the other is in a low-density area. Then, ignoring that low-density area means ignoring a significant part of your potential ridership. That's a mistake that has happened often in transit and is what Reece called a "death spiral" in the video.
Don't forget the land use planning side of a transit system in any growing city. If a bus goes by more people each kilometre it is cheaper to provide frequent service. Stopping or slowing sprawl means transit doesn't have to travel as far, and an increase in funding leads directly to increased frequency, making the service more attractive.
Hi Reece, I'd like to hear your thoughts concerning on-demand bus networks for small towns especially as we're seeing an explosion of them in Victoria Australia
I personally think they a good idea as long as you have a longer term plan with them. For example if you have an underserved area and implement on-demand buses with a plan to formalise the most common and popular routes with regular buses that match the pre-existing riders habits. Then continue till you can take over with more traditional methods.
Agreed. A lot of misconception on what On demand services can and cannot do. Durham Region (Ontario) has an interesting case study of how they applied their on demand.
@@michaelmcconnell3913 We moved to OnDemand in Durham here in Ontario in my town. I think it is a lifeboat type of service at this point. No ability to carry bikes and still a max 15min wait at a stop for a van to a nearby busier route to transfer to (with another wait). As RM says, better than nothing, I suppose.
The video makes a correct point that light rail isn't that competitive with buses...but IMO glossed over a chance to differentiate metro from light rail and to discuss how metro if done properly is WAAY better than a bus. Buses have many problems. They pollute (or need expensive pollution workarounds), they need expensive drivers, they're slow to load/unload, the drivers need shifts/bathroom breaks, they have to be replaced every 10 years, they are expensive to maintain, but most of all they are incredibly slow. NY busses average 6.7 mph for example. Part of the problem with the bus is that it DOES use circulator routes which are talked about in the video. If stops C & D are on say a circular route, this means those going from A - F are slowed downed because of this which is inefficient. Metro rails are (mostly) straight as the crow flies. So somebody going from A - F will only be slowed by the time it takes to stop, not the time it takes to change direction. Because a proper grade separated metro is so fast, they can create their own demand and can be built without waiting for a bus inbetween step. Often you see high density developing spring up around metro stations and not bus stations. Why is this?
I always love the different perceptions of "big" and "small" on the different sides of the atlantic. Your example of Whitehorse is small from a north american perspective, but 25k residents is definitely an urban area for me, not a large one, but urban for sure. My home town has 9k people, and with the surrounding villages which all belong to the town, we have 19k residents. We have 9 bus lines and a train line. Granted, they're far from frequent, hourly at best, which is why most people, including myself, think the system is not that good, but they exist. And while I couldn't find an exact number of buses that operate here, I have a feeling that it's more than 10.
Buses are better than cars by a mile (1.6 km) if they have people in them. Most transit channels have a lot of doom and gloom, or completely ignore the areas outside of the northwest corridor, the west coast, and Canada. We need transit too, and fortunately or unfortunately it starts with the bus.
You should talk about T3 transit on Prince Edward Island. They're end goal it to have their network cover the entire province. They're already covering a very large area of their main city
Halifax, Nova Scotia has an urban population of 317K and is the second-fastest growing city in Canada. The city is opting for bus rapid transit, but without grade separation. So, basically, four bus routes with fewer stops and a patchy assembly of dedicated bus lanes and queue-jumps sharing the regular road network, along with a few new ferry routes (maybe). Considering the province is aiming to double its population over the next decade (with the majority of that one million newcomers ending up in Halifax), the new transit plan strikes me as pretty underwhelming.
One thing you missed from this video is that your entire premise is that whoever is planning transit is just responding to city growth that's happening by itself because of whatever's happening in the city, rather than new transit creating it's own growth or a coherant plan where transit is planned along with the city's development plan. Case in point: Metroland in London. The Metropolitan line was built out into the countryside and developers were encouraged to build new housing in those places, and then they advertised the heck out of it to attract people out of London, so that they'd become reliant on the line. Then there's Docklands and the DLR. When it was built, it was an industrial wasteland and if you didn't know the plan, it would have looked nonsensical, but now it's super heavily used. The advantage of doing this, is it's easy to buy up the land needed to create the rail corridors before it has become built up. So, I guess there's a difference between building out a network in a place that already exists and has bad transit, vs planning a completely new area of development. Perhaps that could be a "part 2" video?
Hi Reece, I'm from Houston, TX, arguably the most lackluster rail network for a city in the US for its size. (3 small yet enjoyable MetroRail LRT lines, with Amtrak Sunset Limited Service as the only intercity/commuter rail). Would love to hear your thoughts on what Houston could do to improve its network, like possibly a SkyTrain style rail that would go from Downtown, Midtown, Greenway, Gulfton, and Sugarland. The trickiest workaround though is that since the city is VERY prone to flooding (thanks Exxon), underground segments would probably be off the table.
I would love if you give the same talk to any City Council and Transit Systems governing bodies. We will never have a very good systems in BC Canada unless our polititians understand TRANSIT
Would love to see what you go through a step by step process of perfecting a city transit system! Eliminating transit deserts, looking at population density, major employment hubs, attractions, etc…
For Singapore, maybe more intensive studies on the viability of engineering, especially for the possible Cross Island Line extension to the future Changi Airport Terminal 5, interchanging with the Thomson East Coast Line extension beyond Sungei Bedok, and even the line running parallel with the North South Line and the Thomson Section of the Thomson East Coast Line.
I would recommend transit network planning strategies and best practice application. Mainly radial, multi-hub, or grid network designs. Sometimes road networks/natural geography make grids (the best strategy) infeasible. For example Barrie Ontario.
Thanks for this video and the hint to the White Horse, YU, bus system. What should be mentioned is that at a certain point subjects like zoning and - in terms of urban expansion - street patterns should be adressed. Both are important levers to create cityscapes well or worse suitable for public transit. The core is to avoid disperse dwellings, location of retail and public facilities in central areas and in bigger cities creating also small cores of retail and service in suburban areas at at interchanges where bus services coming from downtown spreading into local branches. These should be designed so they can become transfer centers between rapid transit or LRT services from doentown to local bus services covering residential and other perioher areas in the future. But also in smaller towns it is important to avoid disperse structures and to stop the demise of downtown area and to restrict developments at the periphery including concentration of retail spaces on locations best suitable for transit if you want to invent a sort of public transit that is sustainable and shall develop to a part of urban life. Especially in smaller towns having too disperse structures no pt will ever succeed. Frequency is important in a way that it should be on a systematic pattern (60’ /30’ /20’/15’) especially when frequency is lower than every 10 minutes to make the system easier to use (you can remind departures better), for enabling to create systematical transfers at interchanges and to enable different lines from the outskirts can combine to a higher frequency together on arterials towards downtown (all this seems so in White Horse).
I know you've had videos about airport rail services and replacing short-haul flights before, but I haven't come across any videos where you mention Frankfurt airport - not even on your German high-speed rail explained video. Not only does it have both a regional and a high-speed rail link, including to international destinations such as Paris, but Lufthansa (the German airline) and DB (the main German rail operator) have been selling tickets in conjunction for a few decades already, where basically selected high-speed trains that stop at Frankfurt airport have Lufthansa flight numbers, and thus you are able to buy air + rail transportation on the same ticket. In case you have indeed not mentioned this station and intermodal integration in any former video, I think it deserves a video of its own.
From my observation efforts to bring transit into car centric cities tend to fail when there isn't enough transit friendly urban development around stations. Say what Vancouver successfully does but many American cities don't do.
Although transit oriented developments may help ridership this attitude is really defeatist and won’t help cities become better. Putting transit in underdeveloped areas is still necessary and if we say “we need a TOD before we establish a bus route” we will never get transit in tiny cities.
@@euanpound639 That's what I ment, take Vancouver as an example, they put transit in under developed areas and then developed them to be transit friendly. In many American cities they put transit in undeveloped areas and often don't develop them, even after decades in a city that's growing in population, that's condemning a transit to constant low ridership.
@@RMTransit indeed service can do wonders but the problem in many American cities is that things like low density zoning and pressure from NIMBYs can make higher density zones around transit stops impossible or very difficult to achieve, which limits the growth potential in ridership.
Sandusky has a bus system for the town. However I have a few gripes: Amtrak stops in the town in the middle of the night (with a one hour delay, the train did not come till 1:30am), when the buses aren't running. TBH most people going to Cedar Point will drive there (going to other parks while they are at it, multiple days just there, or just for the day). It did seem that the lines I used [Red, Yellow, Blue] often passed 2-3 an hour in most areas I went to (Cedar Point Associate Housing, downtown, The Mall/Fast Food boulevard area, Wal-Mart/Staples). Based on the Amtrak thing, it makes sense to keep Cedar Point's drivers the only busses on the causeway, but it still feels like a disconnect. It benefits not only Cedar Point employees, but people who work at other tourism-related areas such as the non-park owned resorts (Great Wolf, Kalahari, various other hotels) and the elderly (just like most mass transit services).
Although when Amtrak comes sucks, it provides a decent connection between some major theme parks (mostly top tier ones people from other seas dream of visiting. A few suck harder than others)
My Regional Transit managment agency (not the operator) did retrofit WiFi into all S-Bahns using the fines the operator had to pay for delays (on schedule departure is only at 80% but by contract has to be 95%)
Funny how that's exactly how I start in Transport Fever ;) First Bus, than Tram on sections with high demand, than S-Bahn and Regional Rail. Nice Video anyway! Greetings from Berlin
Super informative - thank you. Wonder if it’s worth doing some on building transit to stimulate certain kinds of land use. Often the move from bus to LRT is also framed not just an efficient upgrade, but to facility the economic regeneration of a neglaected are, or to ensure an urban expansion is transit orientated.
Have you ever discussed the maximum distance people are willing to walk to catch transit? Consider walking up or down hill. Consider frequency versus a schedule in attracting riders.
I remember witnessing a really interesting change of hierarchy of a tram-line being replaced by a metro-line because the city had built more residential buildings in the area (and beyond of it too) so they needed to increase the capacity and speed per vehicle, but they ALSO left a bus-line running ~almost~ parallel to the metro (ok, it is only for the like, last two stops of the bus-line before it meets the metro-line at an exchange node at the end of the bus-line) for a more ~detailed~ or "specific" service for the area. And that was in a city where public transit has been established for over hundred years now, so yes, cities and communities change, and one always needs to check where one can optimize transit according to these changes.
A transit system's first and foremost priority is to move people to where they want to go. If it doesn't do that then it will usually fail. You don't build it to attract real estate developers, or for political reasons, or for a photo op. Good example of a bad system: Las Vegas monorail
It's a Czech made 12 (NB12) meter long bus, it relies on the fact that Prague public transport uses time based tickets for the entire network and the driver doesn't check or sell tickets. All doors open, people get in and out, often spending less than 15 seconds at a stop.
I didn't even know 4 door articulated busses exist outside airports 😁. All the articulated bus in my City have only 3 doors. Same with non articulated busses, most of them in my City have 3 doors.
It is really interesting listening to your videos. Meanwhile I think about what good or wrong has been made in the cities where I lived and how better could be developed the transit network
You can actually have a Profitable service. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland, Austria, Estonia etc have a policy of having Transit that must at least pay back the construction and operating cost. (In some of these, the government makes more money directly from the fares of a transit than they spend on it, or in some cases they are run by a private company itself) But, for this to happen you need to have many pre-requisites. Out of my head I'm trying to list them. 1. No Zoning laws and laws that indirectly enfore Zoning. This will create a natural rise of a nice mix of houses of multiple densities, the denser ones developing near transit. 2. Having a similar policy to other modes of transport. Selectively applying profitability to some modes of transport like transit while subsidizing others like Air and Car is unfair. Most roads must be made toll roads, taxes from fuel must Fully pay the cost of roads etc. This will create a level playing ground. 3. Asking Popular vote on the approval of a transit project than asking its critics solely. In Dallas, for a Bus route service they planned a route, local news agencies reported that 75% of the population supports that. But the council called only its critics(not add more bus service type critics, but those who want no route) to a meeting and cancelled the plan. The worst thing is North America till 1950s had all three conditions. 100% of the routes ran profitably and for cheap.
@@CoolMan-ig1ol Maybe the critics in Dallas as you describe in 3. are the politicians' biggest donors. In any case, constituents should be calling up their local council members to express their views. Still, the more people express how important transit is to them, the more likely politicians will favor it.
@@CoolMan-ig1ol zoning laws are fine, and in fact can actually Help. Like many laws and regulations that get blamed for problems (in the USA in particular, but also in other places), the problem isn't that there are laws, it's that the law making process is incapable of actually producing good laws. Many cities in the USA use zoning to enforce undesirable configurations (racial segregation, suburban sprawl, etc). Meanwhile, in other places, such zoning is used more sensibly, preventing chemical plants from being built right next to schools, actively encouraging small clusters of light commercial in residential areas, preserving historic features, and so on. With good planning, you can literally zone areas as Transit Corridors well ahead of time while still allowing the land to be used for other things until you actually get to building said transit, meaning that the land can be bought and used for other things, with those other things limited to activities and structures that won't get in the way too much of building a new rail line right through it later (the zoning in this instance also coming with an obligation to sell in the event that such a project begins, but also a guarantee of not losing money on the proposition, just as an example). Mixed use zoning is also possible! ~5 floor buildings with the bottom one being various shops, restaurants, etc, the one above maybe being lower traffic businesses, and the rest being residential, for example. This is Great for transit, too, as you have people consistently wanting to use connections betweens such an area and almost any other type. Zoning also ensures green-space, Particularly useful when allowing dense residential areas, as most developers will attempt to cram more, less liveable housing onto each lot rather than retaining such, and it both significantly increases quality of life And makes for a good place to stick a station that serves the surrounding buildings (if the park itself isn't too massive, at least). So far as I understand it, the zoning in my city (Not in the USA, or North America at all) is mostly just a list of what you can just do because you own the land, what you can do if your neighbours don't object (you are required to specifically ask them and prove that you did, as I understand it), and what you require explicit permissions from the local government before you can use that land for it. You can do Almost anything with almost any bit of land, in theory, it just becomes more hassle as your plans become more divergent from the purpose of the zone. Point is, zoning is only a problem if implemented badly. Ever played Cities Skylines? The number of times people complain about traffic jams and bad AI only to be told 'well, yeah, that's because you zoned a HUGE area of industry on one side of your city, a HUGE area of light residential on the other, and only connected them with the one main road straight through he middle of your commercial area. Of course it's going to lock up!' is (or at least was, back in the day) kind of silly . But the reverse is also true: Arrange your zones Properly with multiple road connections and the city can get much, Much bigger with no problems at all, both in the game and in reality (the specifics are, of course, much more complicated in reality than in the game). Likewise, Zoning can be (but at least in the USA, rarely is) used to ensure that most residences are within walking or biking distance of appropriate transit stops that in turn Definitely run to places those people will want to go, such as the main shopping districts, or the places most convenient for work. Simply not having zoning laws or equivalent Might naturally create a 'nice mix' of usages. More often it creates Massive Headaches. Zoning laws generally come into effect simply because of how often things get built in places that are completely unsuited for them, causing issues with drainage, air quality, traffic flow, utility supply, land values (sometimes going up so much that necessary things can't be built on them, sometimes plummeting so much that the existing owners can't even get enough from selling to cover the cost of moving away), and so on. Again: Your government being so corrupt and/or incompetent that it cannot make basic laws and regulations that deal with common issues for which there is clear established precedent regarding best practice (and also why certain things are a bad idea and to be avoided) does not mean that regulation of such issues is inherently bad, but rather it means that your government is terrible at its job and is in desperate need of reform.
One thing I notice, stands out like a sore thumb in North America is the number of 'School' buses owned and operated by each Local Education Authority. They operate for 60 to 90 minutes before 0800 and after 1500. They only are operational Monday to Friday during the school term. The rest of the time, they sit idle... Instead of wasting good rolling stock (albeit very 1950s designs) sitting for the majority of their operational life, put them into regular services. They could operate 19 to 24 hours per day and up to seven days per week. The bus routes would be able to have a higher frequency of service and would be open to anyone. Instead of routes A to B (be being the Schools) in the am and B to A in the pm, the buses could have routes that are A to B to C, D, E, F etc... where students can have a choice of bus time and route and adults would be able to go from home to work, home to shop, etc. Those yellow and black buses sitting for the majority of each day doing nothing seems to be extremely under utilised.
In and around the city I live in (not North America) a 'school bus' is literally a regular bus with a high visibility 'school' plate mounted on each end. The only get used like that on School Routes to pick up students who live out in the countryside, or similar situations. Actually in the city proper? They only operate in such a matter when being used as charter buses by the school for, say, field trips, or sports teams going to away games, or the like. Students just use regular public transit routes otherwise. (actually, most students in the city walk or bike to school, though with the wider catchment areas, high school students do use the buses a fair bit too.) That's... basically the same idea, really.
@@laurencefraser The disadvantage of this kind of arrangement is that parents of children under the age of 11 and possibly older will simply refuse to let their children travel unaccompanied to school on a regular bus service for fear of paedophiles and to a lesser extent that their child might play truant. They end up being chauffeured to school by one of their parents adding an extra car to the road. A dedicated school bus at least provides parents with some peace of mind that their child will make it to the school. I agree that these same buses could and should be used on non school routes outside school hours.
Funny enough, I'm playing Cities: Skylines while listening to this, and a few points translate well to the game. I hope you make more videos like this!
I lived in a county called Saint Charles in Missouri and in 2020 public transportation was scrapped This is an exception for a county with 450000 residents
I definitely agree with using buses to their full potential. Some towns I’ve seen operate buses on almost identical routes as their old trolleys once did decades ago but it can make for a fairly annoying setup if the economic center has shifted to the other side of town where bus routes are now more needed
After this video, you should do a comparison of how transit expanded in Brampton vs York Region. York took the shiny infrastructure but weak service route while Brampton was focused on building up it's service. See how each strategy is doing and what each should do differently.
If the bus turns up on time, it’s a miracle. That said, my village of 6000 has a circular bus route, two bus routes to other towns and a train station so I shouldn’t complain.
I live in southern New Hampshire, we'll be lucky if we ever get our MBTA line back and frequent bus service even though it is more than dense enough for its own commuter rail service in the Golden Triangle and Seacoast.
I can't wait for automated buses to be a thing. Reducing the operating cost of bus routes can lead to a huge increase in service for routes that currently don't make fiscal sense.
If you can plan far enough, you can even build transit before the area is developed, since I have seen a metro station in China stands in the middle of nowhere, where would be a populated area in a few years
remember folks, just because you are the product... doesn't mean it's instantly bad... You are getting near free public transport because those advertisers will pay a premium for you to see their advertisements for longer than 30 seconds, you won't just be stuck in front of their banner for 30 seconds... you could be stuck in front of it for an hour and they want to pay a lot for that. And in return advertisers would be more than happy to jump on more routes too, skin that tram, skin that train, skin the buses! because with those skins come the perks of low cost and frequent transports. And of course, shelters... so the next time you see a bus with advertisements, don't think of it as distasteful, think of it as capitalism helping to fund your way to work, school or just wherever.
I think electric buses should influence people to use transit more because it’s a more pleasant, smoother and less rattly, noisy ride. The issue is that people generally don’t know that so they only realise once they’ve experienced the difference for themselves. But for people like me, it definitely would get me to take the bus again. And even though I’m in a very niche group, we’re probably big enough for the bus companies to benefit from listening to us and electrifying their fleets much faster.
To build a better public transport/transit system it needs to go the basics like the location's topography and is current urban design like if still has traditional square network of streets and population density where a person can walk 8 minutes or less walk to a bus stop or if the location has been a victim of car based, cud de sac, urban sprawl. These basic components will have an affect on the overall design and costs of build, adding or enhancing the system and operation. Good public transport/train system. Good public transport/transit is important in capturing and retaining rides, an open 'tap and travel' payment/ticketing system, a good information and travel website and a good smart phone app.
Well, so looking small scale on my local bus route (the only one that is near my house), since I've managed to expand the route's Eastern limits, and make the route run until 10:45pm (it was 6:15pm 3 years ago), the only thing I can do after the City Rail Link is done, is to change the bus terminal at the city end away from the liquor shop for safety reasons. It was fine to terminate right outside Britomart 10 years ago, but now that the entire lower end is pedestrians only, it moved to a nearby real estate firm's office, but right opposite bars and liquor shops, which still pose a risk after dark.
Interesting... from what I gather circular rail and subway routes are quite popular and useful, but here you note circular bus routes are better swapped out for linear ones with transfers as a system grows. I'd be curious to see a video explaining how (if I am correct above) these two modes differ and thus operate better in these opposite ways. :)
I think the main difference is that busroutes tend to only go in 1 direction but most circular routes for rail are bidirectional. This means if you have stops 1,2,3,4,5 then going from 3 -> 4 is easy but going 3 -> 2 means you have to ride basically all the way around the route. I also think the for rail based systems the circular is getting added later and is letting people transfer between radials so that suburb to suburb lets you bypass the downtown hub. (Basically the exact logic as when highway "belt ways" get added, they are bypassing the core)
@@jasonreed7522 Ahhh, thanks, I realized I had been holding the scales wrong in my head. :P If budget was an issue, I could see a system switching from one or two circular/circuitous routes (and skipping making those routes bidirectional) to a linear set of routes then, at a later time, adding back a larger circular route (or routes) to emulate the rail/subway model to create those cross-connections. Cool, got it now. Thanks! :D
Here's my 3 step plan for established transit networks: 1. Add transit only lanes on busy streets - add paint instead of spending billions on flashy new infrastructure. 2. Add transit priority traffic lights on all routes - this is nearly free, most traffic lights are computer controlled. 3. Decentralize your transit authority offices and remove the parking, take away the cars from transit supervisors, make transit planners ACTUALLY USE TRANSIT.
There really is no minimum. A place called Kamerik. I'ts close to where I live, they have less than r000 residents and is kind of in the middle of nowhere for Dutch Standards. Yet they still have lik 2 bus lines. An even better example would be Woerdense Verlaat, a village with just about 800 residents and still has a bus stop. I have no idea about frequencies though
I wonder what the attitude towards buses is in other parts of the world. I am in Melbourne and would say that buses have a stigma - whereas travelling via the tram network is seen as cool.
If you are looking to get started on the political organizing and advocacy for pubic transit, start with your local development organization. Even in small cities and towns, development orgs exist to promote and guide economic and community development, including public transit. More than likely, there are others already doing this work. Connect with them, start going to the organization meetings, and get involved!
I'm not sure coverage over frequency/quality as step 1 is universally applicable . Generally a problem in a lot of Europe is that this step has been done, but relatively low ridership means that policymakers are often unwilling to improve the service. Investing more to get better frequencies at the beginning can avoid this death spiral of inadequate service
Now I wonder what the **** is clock based schedule, isn't any schedule clock based? You have a timetable at the station or online which shows you the bus will depart at 1:33 PM, 2:03 PM, 2:33 PM and so one. This is normal right? The only thing I can imagine to a not clock based schedule I ever experienced was on the Wuppertal suspension railway, there at stations there was just a sign that trains depart every 3 to 4 minutes. Oh and on people mover there was just a call train now button or wait 120 seconds. But both have such high frequencies that it doesn't really matter.
I have two questions. What about monorail instead of an underground? Why did you say on your video about express rail services that the three tracks scheme is bad?
Not sure if this next statement is a praise for Whitehorse or just shows how bad transit is in the States. But it's pretty crazy that Whitehorse has a system that's just as good as many cities in the US that have 10-20 times more population.
One of the best things is to separate transit from traffic in places where traffic jams occur. This can give transit a speed advantage over traffic making it more likely people use it thereby reducing traffic for everyone else.
Yep, investing in dedicated space in all places isn’t always feasible, smart localized solutions can get you most of the way there
@@RMTransit That is exactly what was done in the Swedish city of Jönköping (pronounced Yonshoping), the buses only have dedicated right of way in specific high car congestion areas only and are other wise in mixed traffic.
Or ban cars from that route entirely if you want to save some money
@@jan-lukas that won't help if you don't give them a transit option though, it'll just move the congestion elsewhere
@@jan-lukas That doesn't always work. Here in Mississauga, Ontraio we are building a Light rail train (LRT) along Hurontario street and that is a very busy street in the city. You can't just ban cars from that road or else you would create very big problems that wouldn't be easy to solve
When planning a city, expansion, or development of any kind.
Cities should have a contingency plan in place for if or when that place becomes more developed and needs transits Right of Ways and corridors and planning and zoning should be written into law to circumvent nimbyism. It’s easier to build a commuter rail branch line in the future if the ROW and maybe even the land way set aside right from the beginning when the area was being developed.
Absolutely, this can be a fantastic way to save money in the future!
Yeah, I think this is a good way to save a huge headache from acquiring right-of-way in the future. Saves alot of time and money. This also provides a better roadmap for the city or town developments, which will benefit alot back on funding the transit especially expensive like railways..
I have witness several times where ROW is so expensive and difficult to do now, to the point it discourages the government to do it in the first place, due to the fact the lack of foresight and reserving that piece of land for railways. If they do, it often leads up outside the city center for the new rail corridor, which means you still need another transfer points and another transit modes to connect the station to the established city center.
Lately this is what I’ve been doing in cities:skylines, and though bulldozing areas isn’t a huge deal in game, it has still saved some headaches
On hindsight Singapore could've saved money if it'd built its Downtown Line Stage 2 a few years later, after neighbouring Malaysia's nat'l rail operator KTM had cut back service to the Causeway int'l border crossing between the 2 countries, removing the track between that & Tg Pagar railway staion on the edge of downtown Singapore (where its trains had previously run to). Then the right-of-way previously occupied by KTM's tracks could've been used by the Downtown Line (for the stretch between terminus station DT1 _Bt Panjang_ & DT5 Beauty World), instead of having to build new tunnels for it running parallel. The next stretch of the Downtown Line (DT5 Beauty World-DT11 Newton) could perhaps also have been built at-grade/elevated as it runs along the dual-carriageway Bt Timah & Dunearn Rds (the same road but with each carriageway named differently), which has a huge centre median in-between in the form of the _Bt Timah_ Canal, where the Line's tracks could've perhaps been built over
That's a good way to lower the amount of new developments
There used to be a commuter bus within a half mile of my house in the suburbs. No joke, it arrived once in the morning around 5am. It did not return in the afternoon and only came back to the main transit hub of the city over 3 miles away.
That stop ending up getting cut.
Sort of the Stradivarius of poor service!
it would be really cool to see some case studies, if you haven't already, of medium-sized cities. Everyone knows of London, New York, Paris, and Tokyo... but what about Lyon, Kyoto, Calgary, and Edinburgh?
Yes, i want a video on clockface-scheduling!
You’ve got it! :) stay tuned
Another way that could reduce operating costs could be encouraging biking, which as you said in a previous video increases the catchment area of your network but also maybe frees up spending on super local routes as residents could reasonably just bike there and spend more on the arterial corridors? Super bike friendly cites seems to have less redundant routes I've noticed.
The widespread use of bikes within a city could also reduce the number of transit stops needed, since transit riders can bike to their destination from a stop that's slightly further away. Less stops can enable higher average speed and frequency at the remaining stops, which makes the transit service even more appealing to people traveling beyond their confortable biking range.
Also, the shortest trips could be made entirely by bike, reducing the chance of overcrowding on transit vehicles during peak hours.
Reliability and punctuality is the biggest need imo. Here in Ireland the fact busses can arrive 15 minutes on either side of the scheduled time(if they do at all) makes it hard to argue they're a trustworthy form of transport
Agree. Here our transit is considered to be very good but even still buses will leave early, arrive late or will be cancelled outright with no notice. Real time displays or map data would help with this a lot.
I think one trap some cities fall into with light rail is maximising coverage per dollar at the cost of service quality. You see the tracks that snake through the city and suburbs, trying to maximise the number of places it stops at, but then you end up with a slow service that runs on what ends up being a very long route. Sometimes it gets to the point where cycling directly to your destination from the near suburbs is faster than by rail, and an express bus service would be quicker further out. So you could have had a shorter, more direct rail route (that's maybe even light metro instead of light rail) with fewer stations in the densest areas and instead run a few more buses and build some extra cycle lanes for the money you saved in infrastructure, for a system that probably reduces travel time for nearly everyone.
**cough** Dallas **cough**
Completely agreed. It's better to make something that is good for some people, rather than something that is bad for all people.
That being said, bicycles really are a very strong competitor to public transit if there is good bike infrastructure over distances less than 5km. It's really hard to beat the combination of point-to-point transportation, good speed, no waiting time before the tram/bus/train/whatever arrives, and hardly any delays due to traffic because they don't affect bikes nearly as much as cars or at-grade transit. Saying it like "sometimes even cycling is faster" is really giving cycling less credit than it deserves.
But I especially like the combination of good cycling infrastructure and public transit, because they work together really nicely, and supplement each other very nicely as well. Good cycling infrastructure can help even very small investments in public transit go a long way.
@@alex2143 Eh, I'd argue cycling works better complementing public transit than competing with it, outside of ultra dense environments. Even 5km is too much for some commuters (and let's be honest, 5km isn't very far, for city centre workers that means living pretty close in which is often unaffordable), depending on weather, terrain, occupation and level of fitness among other things. Having a fast metro, suburban, or light rail with stations linked to high quality cycling infrastructure can help compensate for fewer stations and expand service radii. And it's easier to persuade people to cycle 2-3km a day as part of a multi modal commute than 10 from door to door.
@@Croz89 the great part is that you don't have to choose, since cycling can do both at the same time. But i think we mostly agree, which is nice :)
@@alex2143 Yeah, it's when a city decides it's not going to extend the metro line or whatever because they supposedly want more people to cycle that annoys me. It's clear they just don't have or don't want to spend the money. Also when they put in anti car measures and think that's magically going to make people take up cycling rather than just make commutes a lot longer and push people away from certain areas.
oh my, i never thought you would use prague footage in a video. in here (prague), im actually very satisfied with our transit network, except for our future projects taking too much time
Prague has lots of good stuff!
To the section 7 on quality of life I would add good route information. In Paris each bus stop has a map of the city and bus routes with the route from that stop highlighted. Another thing that helps is realtime displays showing when the next bus will arrive. We have these in Bristol and they really help. Shelters with seats are vital. There is a phenomenon known as ‘sparks effect’ where when a bus route or railway is electrified the ridership increases. Trolleybuses, battery-trolleybuses and battery buses are much kinder to the environment as they as they don’t produce pollution in the street. Trams also have this benefit as well as producing fewer particulates as they don’t have rubber tires/tyres. That is worth something. People like trams.
Yeah, route and passenger information is I think a better improvement to not just quality of life, but also accessibility as well if there is a voice announcement.
I find that a better thing to do than on-board WiFi. These days, 4G and now growing 5G is faster and more reliable than most on-board WiFi out there.
For passengers having access to transit information is a huge help.
Not to mention on-board WiFi is a security nightmare as well. There is a huge potential of data sniffing in public WiFi, and also inconvenient since passer will have to scan for WiFi, connect to it, usually register or login before they can use it. In high density areas, there is interference and WiFi base station getting saturated, depending on the device.
@@kornkernel2232 On 4G/5G data, that would be the case if wireless carriers don't rip consumers with ridiculous expensive plans. WiFi will always be needed for any reason (e.g. device doesn't have 4G/5G modem, cannot afford data, poor service coverage by carrier, apps requiring WiFi for certain specific tasks, etc.).
In places (especially in North America) with a strong bias against buses, investing in rail transit is often the only way to get people to take the bus.
10:29 Auckland abandoned articulated buses in 2019 due to fuel inefficiency, impractically tight turning and prone to side-swipe and jack-knifing accidents. Those buses are replaced by more frequent triple-axle buses and/or triple-axle double-deckers with two doors.
I agree that triple door buses are underappreciated. Unfortunately they are very rare in the US, articulated are used instead. AC transit has a small fleet of triple door European VanHools, but they are getting phased out and new ones are being acquired because they don't meet stupid Buy America regulation.
@@misha.michael we need to repeal every protectionist policy.
I would be interested in hearing about ”last mile" (km) solutions like bicycle racks or the dreaded park&ride. I used a scooter to get from my North Vancouver apartment to the seabus as bus frequency was underwhelming.
Last mile/kilometer seems to be the most overlooked part of transportation infrastructure… at least in North America!
Why would you dread park and ride? It's been working successfully in Oxford for decades. Our problem is the selfish bastards who insist on driving in to the centre.
Much smaller places than Whitehorse have transit too. For example, Bowen Island and Salt Spring Island in BC both have transit service, and they have populations of ~4000 and ~10000, respectively.
Yep, I just like the example of Whitehorse because of its remoteness!
Yellowknife might be a better example. It's smaller and arguably more remote than Whitehorse, while also having a solid transit network. And it's not a major tourist destination like Whitehorse (which even had direct flights to Europe during summer season)
But isn't long distance transport for evacuation from wildfires that is the problem in Yellowknife, not local transit?
The city where I live (Gothenburg, Sweden ~700 000 population) has a well established bus network with ~300 lines, and 13 tram lines. However the tram runs operates like a streetcar through most of the city centre, and while express bus service does exist, it doesn’t in the city centre due to the lack of motorways, and streets allowing a genially higher speed. I really wish there would be some investment into a heavy or semi-heavy rail transit system in the city. It doesn’t have to be a tonne, something similar to the Seattle Link or the Ottawa O-train I think would be sufficient
Great video! As a Transit Planner I'm consistently learning new things from this channel
I just learned something that has helped me understand where your videos are coming from a lot better and could also help other Europeans. I live in Dublin (1.2 million urban population) which has terrible public transport, but if the Luas (our tram system) was located in the US it would be the 10th busiest rapid transit system in the US (48m passengers in 2019) and Dublin Bus would be the 4th busiest bus network (151m)
@@afcgeo882 the population in the city limits is around 500,000
Yeah, America really dropped the ball on our transit in the 1950s - 60s, and by that i mean we spiked it into the ground by ripping it out and bulldozing cities for the car.
And now a lot of us just want acceptable transit that would be laughable by European standards. Acela is our best intercity train, and Amtrak's only profitable route and yet it averages 68mph. (For reference the trains have a topspeed of 220mph but they litterally can't achieve it on the tracks they run on.)
I think the worst part about the state of transit in the USA is the knowledge that we were once a leader in transit but got swindled into thinking the car was the future. (A car like mode is needed in rural areas, but in cities transit should be king)
I live in metro Vancouver. I like skytrain, as the cost over time is lower due to not needing a driver per train. Over 30+ years this is a great investment.
For Step 4: I like to think that every 30 minutes is the minimum to consider line reliable enough any time you need it and anything under every 10 minutes is reliable enough to just stop anytime at the stop and not bother with schedule so you can just hop on and hop off when you need :)
studies showed that a headway of 15 minutes or lower seems to be the magic border between people showing up for a turn-up-and-go style service rather than having to plan their trips (a lot less ridership)
I tend to avoid every 30 minute lines as much as I can as I have found them not to be reliable. Always end up waiting whenever I have to take one. 15 minutes is the minimum I have found to consider a like reliable.
I've got an every-30-minute line within easy walking distance of my house, but it's always seemed like an "eh, we need some coverage here, let's invest as little as possible". It's a half-hour ride to get to the nearest railhead, and most of the time it makes far less sense than driving to the park-n-ride a few miles away, or just driving all the way (we're already in the car...). They're extending that rail line to be a 10 minute bus ride, but that's not scheduled to be completed until '24.
1. Build wide meshy-network. Can be anything - even tiny buses
2. Make them go every 5-10 min or often
3. Separate public transport from cars everywhere you can. Bus lines will do more than enough, can be done with paint bucket, Overnight.
4. Invest in local bike/scooter/motorbike infrastructure for local commutes. (1 car spot = 5 motorbike spots = 10 bike spots)
5. Reuse existing network as much as possible - convert all disused rail tracks and convert them to tram / suburban rail / you name it
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8. if nescesarry think of dedicated infrastracture.
Sidenote. Building office/ retail spots all around the city is cheaper than managing centralised transportation network.
Sidenote 2. Creating 1000 km dedicated buslanes over every existing 2x2 roads is cheaper than building 3-lane 50 km metro system. which one will be more useful and reliable?
A focus for metro development should be to properly classify/subdivide a city into proper types. Certain types have a huge demand for transit (office space, universities, airports, stadiums, shopping districts, high density residential, etc...). On the flip side low density residential and low density industrial don't benefit as much. The hidden secret to understand successful transit though is parking. Even if traffic weren't bad in say Chicago or NY, transit would still be popular because there is no where else to park in the downtown. Transit create vibrant downtowns where more people can shop/work/play than otherwise could as parking takes up too much space. More parking means lower density which means longer commutes, more cars and create a nasty feedback loop. A common argument should be transit vs parking.
I don't think that always works, if you reduce parking and still only provide mediocre transit, people won't travel to the city center at all, they'll go to suburban malls and the like instead, and downtown becomes a ghost town. Big cities generally have enough pull regardless, but smaller cities not so much.
@@Croz89 We have a very good example of what you say in Edmonton, Canada. Council talks and spends to make the downtown vibrant. People do not want nor have a reason to go downtown. Even working downtown has died out. There are massive malls all over the city making it easier and fun to buy food or shop for anything. We call downtown the deadmonton part of the city. It's filled with drunks, beggars, slags making it not safe. Grocery stores and other places to shop have long abandoned the downtown core. Yet city Council used the downtown as the intersection to transfer between rail lines aka LRT.
Don't forget that often enough, those high-density areas are just one end of a potential trip, and the other is in a low-density area. Then, ignoring that low-density area means ignoring a significant part of your potential ridership. That's a mistake that has happened often in transit and is what Reece called a "death spiral" in the video.
Don't forget the land use planning side of a transit system in any growing city. If a bus goes by more people each kilometre it is cheaper to provide frequent service. Stopping or slowing sprawl means transit doesn't have to travel as far, and an increase in funding leads directly to increased frequency, making the service more attractive.
Hi Reece,
I'd like to hear your thoughts concerning on-demand bus networks for small towns especially as we're seeing an explosion of them in Victoria Australia
I personally think they a good idea as long as you have a longer term plan with them.
For example if you have an underserved area and implement on-demand buses with a plan to formalise the most common and popular routes with regular buses that match the pre-existing riders habits. Then continue till you can take over with more traditional methods.
We have that service in Guelph ON Canada as well!
Agreed. A lot of misconception on what On demand services can and cannot do. Durham Region (Ontario) has an interesting case study of how they applied their on demand.
It’s certainly better than nothing, but an issue is that they seem difficult to convert into something better, since you haven’t built corridor demand
@@michaelmcconnell3913 We moved to OnDemand in Durham here in Ontario in my town. I think it is a lifeboat type of service at this point. No ability to carry bikes and still a max 15min wait at a stop for a van to a nearby busier route to transfer to (with another wait). As RM says, better than nothing, I suppose.
The video makes a correct point that light rail isn't that competitive with buses...but IMO glossed over a chance to differentiate metro from light rail and to discuss how metro if done properly is WAAY better than a bus. Buses have many problems. They pollute (or need expensive pollution workarounds), they need expensive drivers, they're slow to load/unload, the drivers need shifts/bathroom breaks, they have to be replaced every 10 years, they are expensive to maintain, but most of all they are incredibly slow. NY busses average 6.7 mph for example. Part of the problem with the bus is that it DOES use circulator routes which are talked about in the video. If stops C & D are on say a circular route, this means those going from A - F are slowed downed because of this which is inefficient. Metro rails are (mostly) straight as the crow flies. So somebody going from A - F will only be slowed by the time it takes to stop, not the time it takes to change direction. Because a proper grade separated metro is so fast, they can create their own demand and can be built without waiting for a bus inbetween step. Often you see high density developing spring up around metro stations and not bus stations. Why is this?
I feel like I have talked about this in other videos haha
I always love the different perceptions of "big" and "small" on the different sides of the atlantic. Your example of Whitehorse is small from a north american perspective, but 25k residents is definitely an urban area for me, not a large one, but urban for sure. My home town has 9k people, and with the surrounding villages which all belong to the town, we have 19k residents. We have 9 bus lines and a train line. Granted, they're far from frequent, hourly at best, which is why most people, including myself, think the system is not that good, but they exist. And while I couldn't find an exact number of buses that operate here, I have a feeling that it's more than 10.
Yeah my village has 450 people, the biggest near town has 5k. The cities near me have 13k, 21k and 18k
Haha yeah it is very interesting, though to be fair Whitehorse is also very remote!
I want a Whitehorse Yukon transit explained video!
Buses are better than cars by a mile (1.6 km) if they have people in them. Most transit channels have a lot of doom and gloom, or completely ignore the areas outside of the northwest corridor, the west coast, and Canada. We need transit too, and fortunately or unfortunately it starts with the bus.
You should talk about T3 transit on Prince Edward Island. They're end goal it to have their network cover the entire province. They're already covering a very large area of their main city
Halifax, Nova Scotia has an urban population of 317K and is the second-fastest growing city in Canada. The city is opting for bus rapid transit, but without grade separation. So, basically, four bus routes with fewer stops and a patchy assembly of dedicated bus lanes and queue-jumps sharing the regular road network, along with a few new ferry routes (maybe). Considering the province is aiming to double its population over the next decade (with the majority of that one million newcomers ending up in Halifax), the new transit plan strikes me as pretty underwhelming.
Yup, very disappointing!
bus rapid transit seems to be the new transit fad in north america. Not that it cannot be done well, it just seems that everyone wants to do it
Please do talk about the advantages of clock-face scheduling, especially at low frequency.
One thing you missed from this video is that your entire premise is that whoever is planning transit is just responding to city growth that's happening by itself because of whatever's happening in the city, rather than new transit creating it's own growth or a coherant plan where transit is planned along with the city's development plan. Case in point: Metroland in London. The Metropolitan line was built out into the countryside and developers were encouraged to build new housing in those places, and then they advertised the heck out of it to attract people out of London, so that they'd become reliant on the line. Then there's Docklands and the DLR. When it was built, it was an industrial wasteland and if you didn't know the plan, it would have looked nonsensical, but now it's super heavily used. The advantage of doing this, is it's easy to buy up the land needed to create the rail corridors before it has become built up. So, I guess there's a difference between building out a network in a place that already exists and has bad transit, vs planning a completely new area of development. Perhaps that could be a "part 2" video?
Definitely a video on timed schedules (no idea how to spell the word you used)
Hi Reece,
I'm from Houston, TX, arguably the most lackluster rail network for a city in the US for its size. (3 small yet enjoyable MetroRail LRT lines, with Amtrak Sunset Limited Service as the only intercity/commuter rail). Would love to hear your thoughts on what Houston could do to improve its network, like possibly a SkyTrain style rail that would go from Downtown, Midtown, Greenway, Gulfton, and Sugarland. The trickiest workaround though is that since the city is VERY prone to flooding (thanks Exxon), underground segments would probably be off the table.
I would love if you give the same talk to any City Council and Transit Systems governing bodies. We will never have a very good systems in BC Canada unless our polititians understand TRANSIT
Would love to see what you go through a step by step process of perfecting a city transit system! Eliminating transit deserts, looking at population density, major employment hubs, attractions, etc…
This is the best video on this channel. Just so incredibly useful. Thanks RMT.
Which of these steps does your city need to focus on most?
I think Bangkok and maybe other cities like Ayuttya and maybe a metro in Tak because there are no metros there.
For Singapore, maybe more intensive studies on the viability of engineering, especially for the possible Cross Island Line extension to the future Changi Airport Terminal 5, interchanging with the Thomson East Coast Line extension beyond Sungei Bedok, and even the line running parallel with the North South Line and the Thomson Section of the Thomson East Coast Line.
I would recommend transit network planning strategies and best practice application. Mainly radial, multi-hub, or grid network designs. Sometimes road networks/natural geography make grids (the best strategy) infeasible. For example Barrie Ontario.
My place is between step 1 and step 2
My city needs to do a Houston Style "system reimagining" to make the buses work better.
Thanks for this video and the hint to the White Horse, YU, bus system. What should be mentioned is that at a certain point subjects like zoning and - in terms of urban expansion - street patterns should be adressed. Both are important levers to create cityscapes well or worse suitable for public transit. The core is to avoid disperse dwellings, location of retail and public facilities in central areas and in bigger cities creating also small cores of retail and service in suburban areas at at interchanges where bus services coming from downtown spreading into local branches. These should be designed so they can become transfer centers between rapid transit or LRT services from doentown to local bus services covering residential and other perioher areas in the future. But also in smaller towns it is important to avoid disperse structures and to stop the demise of downtown area and to restrict developments at the periphery including concentration of retail spaces on locations best suitable for transit if you want to invent a sort of public transit that is sustainable and shall develop to a part of urban life. Especially in smaller towns having too disperse structures no pt will ever succeed.
Frequency is important in a way that it should be on a systematic pattern (60’ /30’ /20’/15’) especially when frequency is lower than every 10 minutes to make the system easier to use (you can remind departures better), for enabling to create systematical transfers at interchanges and to enable different lines from the outskirts can combine to a higher frequency together on arterials towards downtown (all this seems so in White Horse).
I know you've had videos about airport rail services and replacing short-haul flights before, but I haven't come across any videos where you mention Frankfurt airport - not even on your German high-speed rail explained video. Not only does it have both a regional and a high-speed rail link, including to international destinations such as Paris, but Lufthansa (the German airline) and DB (the main German rail operator) have been selling tickets in conjunction for a few decades already, where basically selected high-speed trains that stop at Frankfurt airport have Lufthansa flight numbers, and thus you are able to buy air + rail transportation on the same ticket. In case you have indeed not mentioned this station and intermodal integration in any former video, I think it deserves a video of its own.
From my observation efforts to bring transit into car centric cities tend to fail when there isn't enough transit friendly urban development around stations. Say what Vancouver successfully does but many American cities don't do.
Although transit oriented developments may help ridership this attitude is really defeatist and won’t help cities become better. Putting transit in underdeveloped areas is still necessary and if we say “we need a TOD before we establish a bus route” we will never get transit in tiny cities.
@@euanpound639 That's what I ment, take Vancouver as an example, they put transit in under developed areas and then developed them to be transit friendly. In many American cities they put transit in undeveloped areas and often don't develop them, even after decades in a city that's growing in population, that's condemning a transit to constant low ridership.
Honestly I think everything comes back to service, good service can do wonders
@@RMTransit indeed service can do wonders but the problem in many American cities is that things like low density zoning and pressure from NIMBYs can make higher density zones around transit stops impossible or very difficult to achieve, which limits the growth potential in ridership.
You fixed the intro 😍😍. The logo and tag line are now the same opacity. Thank you.
Sandusky has a bus system for the town. However I have a few gripes: Amtrak stops in the town in the middle of the night (with a one hour delay, the train did not come till 1:30am), when the buses aren't running. TBH most people going to Cedar Point will drive there (going to other parks while they are at it, multiple days just there, or just for the day). It did seem that the lines I used [Red, Yellow, Blue] often passed 2-3 an hour in most areas I went to (Cedar Point Associate Housing, downtown, The Mall/Fast Food boulevard area, Wal-Mart/Staples). Based on the Amtrak thing, it makes sense to keep Cedar Point's drivers the only busses on the causeway, but it still feels like a disconnect. It benefits not only Cedar Point employees, but people who work at other tourism-related areas such as the non-park owned resorts (Great Wolf, Kalahari, various other hotels) and the elderly (just like most mass transit services).
Although when Amtrak comes sucks, it provides a decent connection between some major theme parks (mostly top tier ones people from other seas dream of visiting. A few suck harder than others)
My Regional Transit managment agency (not the operator) did retrofit WiFi into all S-Bahns using the fines the operator had to pay for delays (on schedule departure is only at 80% but by contract has to be 95%)
I dare you to make something about the huge train infrastructure Romania. The rail past and near past fascinating, the rail present .... apocalyptic.
Looking up transit is small towns can be so fascinating. Like, some towns in Ontario apparently just have a guy with a van you can call? (IIRC.)
Ooo, I want a video on ridership death spirals! Perhaps the three most gruesome examples?
Thanks for the tips Reece! I've made my own transit systems in custom cities so thanks for telling me how I can make them better!
Funny how that's exactly how I start in Transport Fever ;) First Bus, than Tram on sections with high demand, than S-Bahn and Regional Rail. Nice Video anyway! Greetings from Berlin
Awesome explanation! This really helps me to understand my local transit much better. Much appreciated!
Yas! Clock face scheduling! Please teach us! 🤗
Super informative - thank you. Wonder if it’s worth doing some on building transit to stimulate certain kinds of land use. Often the move from bus to LRT is also framed not just an efficient upgrade, but to facility the economic regeneration of a neglaected are, or to ensure an urban expansion is transit orientated.
Have you ever discussed the maximum distance people are willing to walk to catch transit? Consider walking up or down hill. Consider frequency versus a schedule in attracting riders.
you: If you want a video on X matter, you know what to do in the comments.
me everytime: YES
I remember witnessing a really interesting change of hierarchy of a tram-line being replaced by a metro-line because the city had built more residential buildings in the area (and beyond of it too) so they needed to increase the capacity and speed per vehicle, but they ALSO left a bus-line running ~almost~ parallel to the metro (ok, it is only for the like, last two stops of the bus-line before it meets the metro-line at an exchange node at the end of the bus-line) for a more ~detailed~ or "specific" service for the area.
And that was in a city where public transit has been established for over hundred years now, so yes, cities and communities change, and one always needs to check where one can optimize transit according to these changes.
A transit system's first and foremost priority is to move people to where they want to go. If it doesn't do that then it will usually fail. You don't build it to attract real estate developers, or for political reasons, or for a photo op. Good example of a bad system: Las Vegas monorail
5:55 is that a non-articulated bus with FOUR doors? Who knew those existed?
It's a Czech made 12 (NB12) meter long bus, it relies on the fact that Prague public transport uses time based tickets for the entire network and the driver doesn't check or sell tickets. All doors open, people get in and out, often spending less than 15 seconds at a stop.
I didn't even know 4 door articulated busses exist outside airports 😁. All the articulated bus in my City have only 3 doors. Same with non articulated busses, most of them in my City have 3 doors.
Yep! Fairly common in Europe!
It is really interesting listening to your videos. Meanwhile I think about what good or wrong has been made in the cities where I lived and how better could be developed the transit network
Thanks! I try to create thought provoking stuff for exactly this purpose!
You've got to get a Via Rail Siemens Charger canvas in the background.
I think Toronto needs a circle line, you know why.
Metrolinx should take over all transit in the gtha and unify them under one banner and fare.
like what happened in paris with IDFM ?
One question I need to ask is how can we convince North American's that transit is a service and not a for-profit transport method
You can actually have a Profitable service. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland, Austria, Estonia etc have a policy of having Transit that must at least pay back the construction and operating cost. (In some of these, the government makes more money directly from the fares of a transit than they spend on it, or in some cases they are run by a private company itself)
But, for this to happen you need to have many pre-requisites. Out of my head I'm trying to list them.
1. No Zoning laws and laws that indirectly enfore Zoning. This will create a natural rise of a nice mix of houses of multiple densities, the denser ones developing near transit.
2. Having a similar policy to other modes of transport. Selectively applying profitability to some modes of transport like transit while subsidizing others like Air and Car is unfair. Most roads must be made toll roads, taxes from fuel must Fully pay the cost of roads etc. This will create a level playing ground.
3. Asking Popular vote on the approval of a transit project than asking its critics solely. In Dallas, for a Bus route service they planned a route, local news agencies reported that 75% of the population supports that. But the council called only its critics(not add more bus service type critics, but those who want no route) to a meeting and cancelled the plan.
The worst thing is North America till 1950s had all three conditions. 100% of the routes ran profitably and for cheap.
@Sweet Toother exactly my point. but most people point at revenue as a net loss and assume "transit bad"
@@CoolMan-ig1ol Maybe the critics in Dallas as you describe in 3. are the politicians' biggest donors. In any case, constituents should be calling up their local council members to express their views. Still, the more people express how important transit is to them, the more likely politicians will favor it.
I think that those may not actually necessarily have to be different things!
@@CoolMan-ig1ol zoning laws are fine, and in fact can actually Help. Like many laws and regulations that get blamed for problems (in the USA in particular, but also in other places), the problem isn't that there are laws, it's that the law making process is incapable of actually producing good laws.
Many cities in the USA use zoning to enforce undesirable configurations (racial segregation, suburban sprawl, etc). Meanwhile, in other places, such zoning is used more sensibly, preventing chemical plants from being built right next to schools, actively encouraging small clusters of light commercial in residential areas, preserving historic features, and so on. With good planning, you can literally zone areas as Transit Corridors well ahead of time while still allowing the land to be used for other things until you actually get to building said transit, meaning that the land can be bought and used for other things, with those other things limited to activities and structures that won't get in the way too much of building a new rail line right through it later (the zoning in this instance also coming with an obligation to sell in the event that such a project begins, but also a guarantee of not losing money on the proposition, just as an example).
Mixed use zoning is also possible! ~5 floor buildings with the bottom one being various shops, restaurants, etc, the one above maybe being lower traffic businesses, and the rest being residential, for example. This is Great for transit, too, as you have people consistently wanting to use connections betweens such an area and almost any other type.
Zoning also ensures green-space, Particularly useful when allowing dense residential areas, as most developers will attempt to cram more, less liveable housing onto each lot rather than retaining such, and it both significantly increases quality of life And makes for a good place to stick a station that serves the surrounding buildings (if the park itself isn't too massive, at least).
So far as I understand it, the zoning in my city (Not in the USA, or North America at all) is mostly just a list of what you can just do because you own the land, what you can do if your neighbours don't object (you are required to specifically ask them and prove that you did, as I understand it), and what you require explicit permissions from the local government before you can use that land for it. You can do Almost anything with almost any bit of land, in theory, it just becomes more hassle as your plans become more divergent from the purpose of the zone.
Point is, zoning is only a problem if implemented badly. Ever played Cities Skylines? The number of times people complain about traffic jams and bad AI only to be told 'well, yeah, that's because you zoned a HUGE area of industry on one side of your city, a HUGE area of light residential on the other, and only connected them with the one main road straight through he middle of your commercial area. Of course it's going to lock up!' is (or at least was, back in the day) kind of silly . But the reverse is also true: Arrange your zones Properly with multiple road connections and the city can get much, Much bigger with no problems at all, both in the game and in reality (the specifics are, of course, much more complicated in reality than in the game). Likewise, Zoning can be (but at least in the USA, rarely is) used to ensure that most residences are within walking or biking distance of appropriate transit stops that in turn Definitely run to places those people will want to go, such as the main shopping districts, or the places most convenient for work.
Simply not having zoning laws or equivalent Might naturally create a 'nice mix' of usages. More often it creates Massive Headaches. Zoning laws generally come into effect simply because of how often things get built in places that are completely unsuited for them, causing issues with drainage, air quality, traffic flow, utility supply, land values (sometimes going up so much that necessary things can't be built on them, sometimes plummeting so much that the existing owners can't even get enough from selling to cover the cost of moving away), and so on.
Again: Your government being so corrupt and/or incompetent that it cannot make basic laws and regulations that deal with common issues for which there is clear established precedent regarding best practice (and also why certain things are a bad idea and to be avoided) does not mean that regulation of such issues is inherently bad, but rather it means that your government is terrible at its job and is in desperate need of reform.
One thing I notice, stands out like a sore thumb in North America is the number of 'School' buses owned and operated by each Local Education Authority. They operate for 60 to 90 minutes before 0800 and after 1500. They only are operational Monday to Friday during the school term. The rest of the time, they sit idle... Instead of wasting good rolling stock (albeit very 1950s designs) sitting for the majority of their operational life, put them into regular services. They could operate 19 to 24 hours per day and up to seven days per week. The bus routes would be able to have a higher frequency of service and would be open to anyone. Instead of routes A to B (be being the Schools) in the am and B to A in the pm, the buses could have routes that are A to B to C, D, E, F etc... where students can have a choice of bus time and route and adults would be able to go from home to work, home to shop, etc.
Those yellow and black buses sitting for the majority of each day doing nothing seems to be extremely under utilised.
In and around the city I live in (not North America) a 'school bus' is literally a regular bus with a high visibility 'school' plate mounted on each end. The only get used like that on School Routes to pick up students who live out in the countryside, or similar situations. Actually in the city proper? They only operate in such a matter when being used as charter buses by the school for, say, field trips, or sports teams going to away games, or the like. Students just use regular public transit routes otherwise. (actually, most students in the city walk or bike to school, though with the wider catchment areas, high school students do use the buses a fair bit too.)
That's... basically the same idea, really.
@@laurencefraser The disadvantage of this kind of arrangement is that parents of children under the age of 11 and possibly older will simply refuse to let their children travel unaccompanied to school on a regular bus service for fear of paedophiles and to a lesser extent that their child might play truant. They end up being chauffeured to school by one of their parents adding an extra car to the road. A dedicated school bus at least provides parents with some peace of mind that their child will make it to the school. I agree that these same
buses could and should be used on non school routes outside school hours.
Funny enough, I'm playing Cities: Skylines while listening to this, and a few points translate well to the game. I hope you make more videos like this!
I lived in a county called Saint Charles in Missouri and in 2020 public transportation was scrapped
This is an exception for a county with 450000 residents
I definitely agree with using buses to their full potential. Some towns I’ve seen operate buses on almost identical routes as their old trolleys once did decades ago but it can make for a fairly annoying setup if the economic center has shifted to the other side of town where bus routes are now more needed
After this video, you should do a comparison of how transit expanded in Brampton vs York Region. York took the shiny infrastructure but weak service route while Brampton was focused on building up it's service. See how each strategy is doing and what each should do differently.
If the bus turns up on time, it’s a miracle. That said, my village of 6000 has a circular bus route, two bus routes to other towns and a train station so I shouldn’t complain.
I live in southern New Hampshire, we'll be lucky if we ever get our MBTA line back and frequent bus service even though it is more than dense enough for its own commuter rail service in the Golden Triangle and Seacoast.
I can't wait for automated buses to be a thing. Reducing the operating cost of bus routes can lead to a huge increase in service for routes that currently don't make fiscal sense.
I now live in Columbia-Boone County in Missouri with 7 bus routes with less residents than Saint Charles County
If you can plan far enough, you can even build transit before the area is developed, since I have seen a metro station in China stands in the middle of nowhere, where would be a populated area in a few years
remember folks, just because you are the product... doesn't mean it's instantly bad...
You are getting near free public transport because those advertisers will pay a premium for you to see their advertisements for longer than 30 seconds, you won't just be stuck in front of their banner for 30 seconds... you could be stuck in front of it for an hour and they want to pay a lot for that.
And in return advertisers would be more than happy to jump on more routes too, skin that tram, skin that train, skin the buses! because with those skins come the perks of low cost and frequent transports.
And of course, shelters... so the next time you see a bus with advertisements, don't think of it as distasteful, think of it as capitalism helping to fund your way to work, school or just wherever.
I think electric buses should influence people to use transit more because it’s a more pleasant, smoother and less rattly, noisy ride. The issue is that people generally don’t know that so they only realise once they’ve experienced the difference for themselves. But for people like me, it definitely would get me to take the bus again. And even though I’m in a very niche group, we’re probably big enough for the bus companies to benefit from listening to us and electrifying their fleets much faster.
To build a better public transport/transit system it needs to go the basics like the location's topography and is current urban design like if still has traditional square network of streets and population density where a person can walk 8 minutes or less walk to a bus stop or if the location has been a victim of car based, cud de sac, urban sprawl. These basic components will have an affect on the overall design and costs of build, adding or enhancing the system and operation. Good public transport/train system. Good public transport/transit is important in capturing and retaining rides, an open 'tap and travel' payment/ticketing system, a good information and travel website and a good smart phone app.
Have you played City Skylines?? I would imagine you could create some very interesting content with that sim.
Well, so looking small scale on my local bus route (the only one that is near my house), since I've managed to expand the route's Eastern limits, and make the route run until 10:45pm (it was 6:15pm 3 years ago), the only thing I can do after the City Rail Link is done, is to change the bus terminal at the city end away from the liquor shop for safety reasons.
It was fine to terminate right outside Britomart 10 years ago, but now that the entire lower end is pedestrians only, it moved to a nearby real estate firm's office, but right opposite bars and liquor shops, which still pose a risk after dark.
Interesting... from what I gather circular rail and subway routes are quite popular and useful, but here you note circular bus routes are better swapped out for linear ones with transfers as a system grows. I'd be curious to see a video explaining how (if I am correct above) these two modes differ and thus operate better in these opposite ways. :)
I think the main difference is that busroutes tend to only go in 1 direction but most circular routes for rail are bidirectional. This means if you have stops 1,2,3,4,5 then going from 3 -> 4 is easy but going 3 -> 2 means you have to ride basically all the way around the route.
I also think the for rail based systems the circular is getting added later and is letting people transfer between radials so that suburb to suburb lets you bypass the downtown hub. (Basically the exact logic as when highway "belt ways" get added, they are bypassing the core)
@@jasonreed7522 Ahhh, thanks, I realized I had been holding the scales wrong in my head. :P If budget was an issue, I could see a system switching from one or two circular/circuitous routes (and skipping making those routes bidirectional) to a linear set of routes then, at a later time, adding back a larger circular route (or routes) to emulate the rail/subway model to create those cross-connections. Cool, got it now. Thanks! :D
I'd love to hear more about clockface scheduling with regards to bussing
Would love to see a video on clockface scheduling!
I can't believe Edmonton only introduced a hierarchical, transfer-based bus network last year.
Meanwhile, Portland has both short trains and low frequency (though at least the system is built to allow for literally double the current frequency).
You have to start with the funding: the sales taxes, bonds and then the governance.
love the new intro
Here's my 3 step plan for established transit networks:
1. Add transit only lanes on busy streets - add paint instead of spending billions on flashy new infrastructure.
2. Add transit priority traffic lights on all routes - this is nearly free, most traffic lights are computer controlled.
3. Decentralize your transit authority offices and remove the parking, take away the cars from transit supervisors, make transit planners ACTUALLY USE TRANSIT.
There really is no minimum. A place called Kamerik. I'ts close to where I live, they have less than r000 residents and is kind of in the middle of nowhere for Dutch Standards. Yet they still have lik 2 bus lines.
An even better example would be Woerdense Verlaat, a village with just about 800 residents and still has a bus stop. I have no idea about frequencies though
I wonder what the attitude towards buses is in other parts of the world. I am in Melbourne and would say that buses have a stigma - whereas travelling via the tram network is seen as cool.
A new intro for the video, I liked the previous one though.
Can you explain my city's metro system called MRT Jakarta please
If you are looking to get started on the political organizing and advocacy for pubic transit, start with your local development organization. Even in small cities and towns, development orgs exist to promote and guide economic and community development, including public transit. More than likely, there are others already doing this work. Connect with them, start going to the organization meetings, and get involved!
I'm not sure coverage over frequency/quality as step 1 is universally applicable . Generally a problem in a lot of Europe is that this step has been done, but relatively low ridership means that policymakers are often unwilling to improve the service. Investing more to get better frequencies at the beginning can avoid this death spiral of inadequate service
Goddamnit Reece, I was just in Whitehorse
Haha, they have quite the little network!
Now I wonder what the **** is clock based schedule, isn't any schedule clock based?
You have a timetable at the station or online which shows you the bus will depart at 1:33 PM, 2:03 PM, 2:33 PM and so one.
This is normal right?
The only thing I can imagine to a not clock based schedule I ever experienced was on the Wuppertal suspension railway, there at stations there was just a sign that trains depart every 3 to 4 minutes.
Oh and on people mover there was just a call train now button or wait 120 seconds.
But both have such high frequencies that it doesn't really matter.
Viable - now that is worth review. Any transit systems that are self sustaining? Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa???
The issue is how you view transport externalities
Could you please do a video on transit advocacy and funding?
Thanks Reese. I'll keep this in mind when I become dictator of Toronto.
You should make a video on Kanpur metro in India. It's the fastest metro construction in the world !
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Rather than crunching this much theory in on one video kindly make a series with examples from cities all over the world.
I have two questions. What about monorail instead of an underground?
Why did you say on your video about express rail services that the three tracks scheme is bad?
Not sure if this next statement is a praise for Whitehorse or just shows how bad transit is in the States. But it's pretty crazy that Whitehorse has a system that's just as good as many cities in the US that have 10-20 times more population.
Can you do a video on the new nyc line that the governor just announced?