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| Re: Fast bus plan not so great (351071) | |||
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Re: Fast bus plan not so great |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Sat Jul 18 07:45:06 2026, in response to Fast bus plan not so great, posted by BrooklynBus on Fri Jul 17 10:00:17 2026. The MTA claims it will publish bus origin-destination statistics for bus trips during Q3 2026. The data is derived by looking at Metrocard/OMNY data and figuring out where the person got off by looking at the next trip. If the data is like the subway trip OD data, then the data will be hourly, specify the bus route and the stops. Such data should go a long way to predicting how many people would be affected and by how much. Otherwise, it's a statistical crap shoot.Here's a link to the "plan", in case anyone wants to actually read it. https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/next-stop-fast-buses-better-service.pdf The report is short on specifics, which makes it more than a "vision" than a plan. However, here are a few of my impressions. 1. The plan's scope is limited to 50 bus corridors. This means the trip O/D data is important to figuring out how many people would be affected. If it includes 20% of all rides, then who cares? About 30% of bus trips are to/from subway stops. This is based on doubling the number of transfers onto subways and comparing it to the total number of bus trips. The corridors are aimed at the other 70% of bus ridership. 2. Mamdani grossly underestimated the number of NYC residents who live beyond the 1/2 mile (800 meter) walking distance to a subway. He stated it was 100K, in his beginning letter. Buses would not be a major component of city transportation, were this statement true. The metric I use for subway access is walking distance from buildings. I use this metric because many important destinations are not residences but work places. Also, it permits comparison with other cities where census block data is not available. Only 42% of buildings within NYC are within 800m walking distance from a subway entrance. If proximity to a subway entrance is uniformly distributed between residential and non-residential buildings, the bus dependent population is 58% of 8 million or in excess of 4 million. By contrast, 97% of buildings within Paris lie within a 800m walk of a Metro entrance. 3. One aim is to provide benches at the bus stops on the 50 selected corridors. What about a seat during the bus ride? The Bingham buses averaged 50 seats and room for 20 standees, when they were introduced in the 1950's. Today's buses average 35 seats, with room for 35 standees. This presents two problems. If the MTA wants to provide the same comfort level our grandparents enjoyed, they would need to increase service levels by 42%. The presence of standees impedes passenger flow at stops. This results in greater dwell times. Studies show that standee presence negates any prepayment or all-door loading gains. The plan promises all-door loading. This won't provide any benefit, if standees block passage from door threshold to the bus interior. 4. The plan mentions the accepted walking distance standard to subway and bus stops is 1/2 mile or 800 m. That's not correct. The standard for subway stop access is 800m. The standard for bus stop access is 400m or 1/4 mile. Approximately 74% of all NYC buildings lie within 400m of a bus stop. The comparable figure for Paris is 82%. 5. NYC bus speeds are not that bad, compared to other worldwide cities. Comparison is difficult because not all agencies publish route shape as part of the GTFS. My workaround is to assume a straight line route between stops for a comparison. This will give lower values for average speed because travel distance is shortened but not travel time. The figure for NYC is 12.7 km/hr. Here are some inner city comparisons: Berlin 15.1; London 11.2; Madrid 11.0; Paris 9.5; Sydney 12.7. |
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