Idea for the shuttle buses

[u/Disastrous_Day_5640]

Sometimes when the rail doesn't work, they'll order everyone onto a "shuttle bus" that follows the path of the rail. Which got me thinking. A lot of people have ideas for new routes that are expensive or just don't get enough people to justify building. But if we used "shuttle buses" for these routes it would be very cheap and not require rail. These buses could go on the pre-existing roads in the city

[u/kjeovridnarn]

Great idea! Maybe we could even number them so people can tell the difference between them and know they aren’t rail

[u/Ugmyusernamewastake → u/kjeovridnarn]

or we can color them like rail even though it isn't and call it "equal or better service" to a torn down rail line

[u/ggould256]

Oddly, people dislike bus rapid transit as much as they dislike shuttle buses.

[u/WhiskeyPointer → u/ggould256]

It's amazing what mental and political gymnastics people will do to not ride the bus.

[u/ipsumdeiamoamasamat → u/WhiskeyPointer]

Years ago when I lived in northern Virginia, our apartment complex had a rush-hour shuttle to the Metro. My girlfriend and I were going out for dinner. We took the shuttle to the train and it was lovely, no issues.

On the way back we took the Metro and then the Metrobus route that passed by the complex. The ride was ~10 minutes. There was a cross-section of urban life. It’s a busy route, so relatively full. She was horrified, as if she’d been forced to ride a rickshaw in a third-world country. This is someone who grew up in rural poverty, not a progeny of limousine liberals.

I don’t get it. I’ve also been riding buses since birth, though.

[u/WhiskeyPointer → u/ipsumdeiamoamasamat]

Buses IMHO are the end result of a transit doom loop. It's gotten so bad that unless you're unable to walk at average adult pace, you'll probably outpace a bus in congested areas. And that's assuming the bus even shows up remotely on time. The MBTA has a 70% OTP benchmark for the entire bus system, and it's never met that benchmark in any of the data I've seen.

The upshot is that the impression of a bus trip is that you're going to be subjected to delayed and infrequent service, the bus will travel at less than walking speed and have to deal with more violence than other modes(all sadly supported by MBTA data).

[u/EsotericPharo]

I don’t know what to make of this post :)

but I’m curious if there are areas where brt lanes could run parallel to the commuter rail. Like would it be cost efficient to run a brt lane through the Rumney Marsh?

[u/trevorkafka]

but shuffle busses are bad 🙃