Driving Peeves: SUV's & Turn Signals

[BicycleTree]

If a bus has even two people on it, it's not causing congestion, it's reducing congestion. A bus with one person on it increases congestion by a small amount compared to a car in most traffic conditions (ten extra feet out of fifty, perhaps, counting the space needed between vehicles). But the average bus contains a great deal more than one person.

 

[BicycleTree]

Two things - it says 45% of the population live in what is deemed suburbs, quite a large percent of the population live in small towns that are not considered suburbs, this means that the number of people living in the suburbs of a large city vastly outnumbers city dwellers (which supports chroot)

How much attention are you paying to this discussion?? The people I am talking about are suburb dwellers who commute. People who live in the city are not people I am concerned with at the moment. These statistics support me in saying that there is a need for more buses from the suburbs and for more people who take buses from the suburbs.

and the statistics are 15 years old.

 

[chroot]

If a bus has even two people on it, it's not causing congestion, it's reducing congestion.

What??

Buses are slow. They accelerate poorly from stop lights. They have to turn slowly. They have low top speeds. They have to stop all the time. A bus probably has to continually carry a dozen people or more to make it a net "congestion savings!"

But the average bus contains a great deal more than one person.

Again, this is true in the city. It would not be true anywhere else -- and your proposed "sea of buses" was aimed not at cities, but at freeway traffic jams. As we've all already tried to explain, that won't work.

- Warren

 

[BicycleTree]

Chroot, you didn't even know that we were talking exclusively about highway traffic jams going into the city from the suburbs until a short time ago.

Consider this, which I have alluded to before in this discussion: before entrance ramps to the highway, there is a bus station and parking lot. You park your car and board a bus, and because people do this there is no jam.

Also, having to walk from a parking garage is as much inconvenience as having to walk from where the bus drops you off.

 

[BicycleTree]

Point taken about the acceleration of buses (although they can attain highway speeds). However, the fair number of people who ride any given bus make buses a space-saver.

 

[Moonbear]

This is certainly a problem.

I'd also like to discuss the myth of BicycleTree's work-on-the-bus proposal. My professional work involves hundreds of thousands of dollars of test and measurement equipment sprawled over several benches -- obviously I cannot do any real work on the bus. Many other people have the same problem: buses don't provide enough room per passenger to actually do any serious work. Some professionals could bring a laptop and work on a presentation, perhaps, but many people find the fifty sweating bodies crammed into your personal space to be a bit of a distraction. Needless to say, unless your "work" involves reading novels, most people aren't going to get a whole lot done on a bus.

- Warren

I've been on packed commuter buses. You're lucky if you get a seat, let alone space to sprawl out and do work. Those who do get a seat sometimes take a nap, which makes up for the extra half hour earlier they have to leave home to make sure they catch the bus (because if the first bus is full, you're waiting until the next one comes along).

 

[Evo]

How much attention are you paying to this discussion?? The people I am talking about are suburb dwellers who commute. People who live in the city are not people I am concerned with at the moment. These statistics support me in saying that there is a need for more buses from the suburbs and for more people who take buses from the suburbs.

Apparently I'm paying more attention than you, I wasn't responding to you, I was responding to knavish.

And the statistics do not support you, with the surburban sprawl, fewer and fewer jobs are in inner cities, they are in suburban areas, as chroot mentioned. Most of the jobs in this area are in a suburb of the "city".

 

[BicycleTree]

Moonbear, about bus scheduling: yes, not having hours consistent with the bus is a good reason not to take the bus. But if many people have this problem, it's only another good reason to have regular buses that come and go until 10 or 11 PM.

 

[Moonbear]

Chroot, you didn't even know that we were talking exclusively about highway traffic jams going into the city from the suburbs until a short time ago.

No, this is where we started this discussion, but you keep changing the topic. When one argument doesn't work, you circle around back to another.

 

[BicycleTree]

Many Americans no longer live where they work and instead live in the suburbs, commuting to work.

Does this mean "commuting to a different place in the same town"? I think it means "commuting to the city."

 

[chroot]

Chroot, you didn't even know that we were talking exclusively about highway traffic jams going into the city from the suburbs until a short time ago.

You didn't decide this yourself until a short time ago, kiddo. You were originally talking about buses on freeways, and I don't see many freeways inside cities.

Consider this, which I have alluded to before in this discussion: before entrance ramps to the highway, there is a bus station and parking lot. You park your car and board a bus, and because people do this there is no jam.

I'll say it again for perhaps the fourth time: I consider the problem of getting people from the suburbs into the downtown areas to be already solved. The majority of the cars making up a freeway traffic jam are not going to a city.

- Warren

 

[Moonbear]

Moonbear, about bus scheduling: yes, not having hours consistent with the bus is a good reason not to take the bus. But if many people have this problem, it's only another good reason to have regular buses that come and go until 10 or 11 PM.

No, it's not, and the reason is that you only have a handful of people at any given destination who need to get home at those hours. You'd also want to reduce the frequency of buses to account for reduced travelers (you wouldn't want to run a bus every 15 min when three out of 4 buses an hour will run empty and one of them will have two people on it; that ADDS to traffic). If it's 9 or 10 at night and I'm ready to leave the office and get to the bus stop at 10:05, I'm not going to want to wait another 55 minutes for a bus when I could drive and be home in that time, especially if I woke up at 5 AM. That is a very typical professional schedule in a big city.

 

[BicycleTree]

Also, Evo, whoever you were responding to, you were making statements which were not true relating to things I have said.

Moonbear, it is a fact that chroot was not aware of that until recently. If you read back you can establish this.

I am responding to every point made; if I have missed one by now (I think I've covered them) then please draw my attention to it.

 

[Moonbear]

Moonbear, it is a fact that chroot was not aware of that until recently. If you read back you can establish this.

Only chroot can establish what he was or was not aware of. I know what I was aware of and his arguments have been consistent with that.

 

[chroot]

Does this mean "commuting to a different place in the same town"? I think it means "commuting to the city."

What makes you feel so comfortable making assumptions like this with no supporting evidence? Almost everyone I know commutes from what is considered one suburb to another. I live in the San Francisco bay area, however, so there may be some bias here due to the weird geography. I will continue to believe that the majority of suburbanites actually do not work in their parent cities, however, unless you can prove otherwise.

- Warren

 

[BicycleTree]

No, it's not, and the reason is that you only have a handful of people at any given destination who need to get home at those hours. You'd also want to reduce the frequency of buses to account for reduced travelers (you wouldn't want to run a bus every 15 min when three out of 4 buses an hour will run empty and one of them will have two people on it; that ADDS to traffic). If it's 9 or 10 at night and I'm ready to leave the office and get to the bus stop at 10:05, I'm not going to want to wait another 55 minutes for a bus when I could drive and be home in that time, especially if I woke up at 5 AM. That is a very typical professional schedule in a big city.

The buses could easily be coordinated to arrive when people need them. If there are only a few people coming out of work at a given time, then buses would not come until later. If people come out of work at 10:05 and want a bus at 10:15, the buses would be there at 10:15.

 

[BicycleTree]

What makes you feel so comfortable making assumptions like this with no supporting evidence? Almost everyone I know commutes from what is considered one suburb to another. I live in the San Francisco bay area, however, so there may be some bias here due to the weird geography. I will continue to believe that the majority of suburbanites actually do not work in their parent cities, however, unless you can prove otherwise.

Actually, there's a subtle issue in the Wikipedia sentence:

Many Americans no longer live where they work and instead live in the suburbs, commuting to work.

It says the Americans live in the suburbs instead of living where they work. This means that where they work is someplace else, i.e. not the suburbs. So you have them working in cities or rural areas--which is more likely to be the meaning of the sentence?

 

[chroot]

If people come out of work at 10:05 and want a bus at 10:15, the buses would be there at 10:15.

I'd like a bus to stop at my doorstep at exactly 8:52 am each morning, and then another to stop at my office at exactly 6:12 pm. Both buses, of course, will take me directly from home to office, and back. Oh, except on the days when I work late, I'd like the bus to stop at exactly 7:24 pm. Can you arrange that for me, glorious public transportation master?

- Warren

 

[Moonbear]

Consider this, which I have alluded to before in this discussion: before entrance ramps to the highway, there is a bus station and parking lot. You park your car and board a bus, and because people do this there is no jam.

These are called park and rides. They already exist. They haven't solved the problem.

 

[BicycleTree]

It would probably be practical to have a bus arrive whenever there is a prediction of, say, fifty people who want to use it within the preceding 15 minutes.

 

[Moonbear]

The buses could easily be coordinated to arrive when people need them. If there are only a few people coming out of work at a given time, then buses would not come until later. If people come out of work at 10:05 and want a bus at 10:15, the buses would be there at 10:15.

Until the day I'm done early and want to leave at 8? You know what that sort of door-to-door transportation-on-demand is called? A car.

 

[BicycleTree]

These are called park and rides. They already exist. They haven't solved the problem.

Well, that's interesting, and something I didn't know. Certainly they have helped solve the problem as opposed to hindering the its solution. What do you think the reason is that park-and-rides haven't solved it?

 

[chroot]

Actually, there's a subtle issue in the Wikipedia sentence:

It says the Americans live in the suburbs instead of living where they work. This means that where they work is someplace else, i.e. not the suburbs. So you have them working in cities or rural areas--which is more likely to be the meaning of the sentence?

So now we're speculating on the meaning of an ambiguous sentence, are we BicycleTree? Does that strike you as a particularly strong argument?

I live in a suburb. I work in a different suburb. Many other people do, also. In fact, you've thus far annoyed me enough with your all-talk-and-no-numbers dance that I'm considering doing your research for you.

- Warren

 

[Evo]

Actually, there's a subtle issue in the Wikipedia sentence:

It says the Americans live in the suburbs instead of living where they work. This means that where they work is someplace else, i.e. not the suburbs. So you have them working in cities or rural areas--which is more likely to be the meaning of the sentence?

They don't work in their suburb, they could work in a different suburban area, like chroot. That's also the case here, business moved out of the high priced downtown area and took advantage of lucrative tax cuts in suburban areas. Most of the office space in our downtown area is vacant.

 

[Moonbear]

It would probably be practical to have a bus arrive whenever there is a prediction of, say, fifty people who want to use it within the preceding 15 minutes.

Which is why there aren't any buses running to the suburbs after 8 or 9 PM.

 

[chroot]

It would probably be practical to have a bus arrive whenever there is a prediction of, say, fifty people who want to use it within the preceding 15 minutes.

I don't even think I can muster the strength to counter this kind of brilliance.

- Warren

 

[BicycleTree]

They don't work in their suburb, they could work in a different suburban area, like chroot. That's also the case here, business moved out of the high priced downtown area and took advantage of lucrative tax cuts in suburban areas. Most of the office space in our downtown area is vacant.

If they were moving from one suburb to another, would it be called "Suburbanization"? No.

The sentence is not ambiguous. It might require a moment to understand it, but there is no ambiguity.

 

[chroot]

If they were moving from one suburb to another, would it be called "Suburbanization"? No.

Okay, BicycleTree -- I'm calling BS on this, as a referee. Unless you can provide some evidence that most people living in the suburbs actually commute to the parent city, I'm not going to permit you to keep using it as a premise in your arguments. Suitable evidence will include neither the supposed definitions of words, nor the open interpretation of a single sentence from a publicly-editable website.

- Warren

 

[BicycleTree]

Which is why there aren't any buses running to the suburbs after 8 or 9 PM.

So there aren't buses running to the suburbs after 8 or 9 pm... because people aren't there to use them. And your reason why people aren't there to use them is... they have to take cars back because... there aren't any buses after 8 or 9 pm. Is that an accurate representation?

 

[BicycleTree]

Fair enough, Chroot. I'll go look for some statistics now.

 

[Moonbear]

Well, that's interesting, and something I didn't know. Certainly they have helped solve the problem as opposed to hindering the its solution. What do you think the reason is that park-and-rides haven't solved it?

All of the reasons I've been telling you more buses is not the solution. There are already LOTS of buses heading from suburbs to major cities, where congestion is a problem. Did you read the blurb about the XBL lanes through the Lincoln Tunnel? They've already maxed out the capacity of the exclusive bus lanes to the point where adding more buses isn't feasible. If the buses are going to sit in traffic as long as the cars will, then people will drive their own cars rather than sit on a crowded bus. When the bus lanes are just as congested as the car lanes because there are so many buses, more buses just make the problem worse. There are huge volumes of people moving in and out of cities at rush hour.

Here in Cincinnati, there isn't much "suburban" space and everything opens up pretty quickly into rural areas where public transportation isn't at all feasible. Some of the larger corporations have instead taken a different approach to alleviating congestion on the interstates by staggering their shift start and end times. Some start the day at 7:30 and end at 4:30, others 8 to 5, others 8:30 to 5:30. It keeps everyone from spilling out at exactly the same time. But we only have a few large corporations like that. In a bigger city, like NY or Boston, that's not feasible either.

 

[Huckleberry]

We could make a public transportation system that uses a BT powered thread treadmill. That would solve everyones transportation problems.

 

[Evo]

From the US Department of Transportation

Changing demographic and travel behavior characteristics have
resulted in significant challenges for transportation decision-
makers, planners, and practitioners throughout the U.S. Efforts
to meet these challenges have had varying degrees of success
and/or failure and, as we look to the future, it appears that
dealing with existing and evolving transportation needs will
only become more difficult. Commuting in the U.S. has evolved
substantially over the past several decades, from the more
traditional commute with a majority of destinations in the
central business district to new travel patterns where commuting
from suburb to suburb has grown to be the dominant commuting
pattern.

http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/CAUS.html

 

[BicycleTree]

http://www.uncc.edu/bgraves/City/lectures/Subover.htm
This indicates that suburb-to-suburb commuting actually composed twice as much commuting as suburb-to-city commuting in 1994. Also, "Suburbs to central city has not been dominant since 1970." So it seems that suburb-to-city commuting does not compose the greatest amount of transportation. Nevertheless, when you consider the 40 million workers in suburbs, it is definitely a significant problem, accounting for about six million people.

 

[Moonbear]

So there aren't buses running to the suburbs after 8 or 9 pm... because people aren't there to use them. And your reason why people aren't there to use them is... they have to take cars back because... there aren't any buses after 8 or 9 pm. Is that an accurate representation?

No. It's because there aren't ENOUGH people to make it worth running buses AT ANY GIVEN TIME going to ANY GIVEN LOCATION. Scattered over the evening, and across all the various suburban areas, this is still a lot of people. Oh, and don't forget that all of these roads are shared all the time by interstate travelers and vacationers; on Fridays in the summer, anyone heading south out of NYC not only faces the usual rush hour commuter traffic, but also the roads jam-packed with travelers to the Jersey shore (with their cars jam-packed with kids and stuff for the beach).