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| ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops (350754) | |
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| (350754) | |
ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Wed Feb 4 23:49:54 2026 Click hereEurope gets higher transit ridership and faster trips with fewer bus stops per mile. Maybe bus stop consolidation isn't as bad as some make it out to be? |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Thu Feb 5 08:28:12 2026, in response to ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Wed Feb 4 23:49:54 2026. This is a popular misconception. I gave a talk at NYC's Transportation Camp on this subject in 2022. The Transportation Center issued a report on this subject back in 2014. Their city-to-city comparison data was based on 2014 data from the NTD. I used this data in my analysis. The cities studied were: LA; Phi; DC; BOS; CHI; SF and NYC.1. This canard has been used as the basis for the MTA's bus redesign projects. However, you will note that many US cities in the article have shorter distances between stops, yet have higher overall bus speeds. The correlation between average distance between stops and bus speed for the various cities is fairly low - around 49%. 2. One important parameter, other than bus stop distance, number of turns, etc. is the number of passengers carried. One parameter is the number of unlinked passenger trips (UPT) per vehicle-revenue-hour (VRH) or vehicle-revenue-mile (VRM). In this regard, NYC and San Francisco have much higher passengers per revenue-mile or revenue-hour than any other city. The correlation between UPT/VRM is for the study cities in 2014 was -91%. (More passengers along the route means a slower speed i.e. negative correlation.) 3. This implies it's the number passengers on each bus, getting on and off, that slows things down - not the spacing between stops. 4. Not all bus passengers are created equal with respect to dwell time. It's the standees in the aisles that block easy access to doors that increase dwell times. This principle was explained in the patent for the BRT's steel cars back around 1914. The seat positions, standee poles and door positions were designed to ensure that every passenger had a clear path to the door. 4a. The Bingham buses that were introduced in the late 1940's were 40 ft long, seated 51 and 19 standees for a capacity of 70 passengers per bus. The current crop of low floor 40 ft buses have a seating capacity around 35 and room for 35 standees for a capacity of 70 passengers per bus. 50 passengers on a Bingham bus could enter or exit unhindered by standees; it's a struggle to enter or leave for 50 passengers on a current bus because of standees. 5. Most US transit operators include the shape file in their GTFS feeds; most European operators don't. This makes it difficult to verify distance between stop claims. However, this metric does not address the customers' concern - how much do I have to walk to get to a bus stop. Weighting by population is difficult because census block data isn't as convenient to obtain as in the US. There is another metric: what's the walking distance from each building to the nearest bus stop. This is a fairly easy metric to obtain from Open Street Maps data and the GTFS stop file texts. The median distance for Greater London (32 boroughs) is 257 meters; the median distance for NYC's 5 boroughs is 269 meters. This despite the allegation that bus stops in London are further apart than in NYC. 6. I noticed that a subscription to your link is $100. I'll pass. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by New Flyer #857 on Thu Feb 5 09:00:48 2026, in response to ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Wed Feb 4 23:49:54 2026. Europe (very broadly speaking) has less traffic signals than the US. In the US it's the missed traffic cycle that gets you when you make an additional stop. Literally one person can cost the better part of a minute (whatever the length of a cycle is), so the bus can go from being a minute ahead of schedule to a minute behind just because 2 people happened to be at separate inconvenient bus stops. This is especially the case off-peak.In my travels in Europe (again, very broadly speaking -- Europe is a big place) it seems that when a vehicle makes a stop, it is at least overall slightly more likely that the delay is only as long as it takes to open the doors and let the people on/off. There are traffic signals around but more for the sake of the major plazas. . .not so much signals uniformly sync'd in a straight line up an avenue like we're used to in the US. So in Europe it's not as if every bus stop carries the penalty of a missed cycle as consistently as in the US. |
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| (350757) | |
Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Snilcher on Thu Feb 5 12:19:15 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Stephen Bauman on Thu Feb 5 08:28:12 2026. The Bingham buses that were introduced in the late 1940's were 40 ft long, seated 51 and 19 standees for a capacity of 70 passengers per bus. The current crop of low floor 40 ft buses have a seating capacity around 35 and room for 35 standees for a capacity of 70 passengers per bus. 50 passengers on a Bingham bus could enter or exit unhindered by standees; it's a struggle to enter or leave for 50 passengers on a current bus because of standees.About time this was pointed out. The number of seats in buses has been declining more or less steadily since around 1980. I presume this was intended to make life easier for the disabled, and cannot find fault with that. But it still has a negative impact on everyone else. |
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| (350758) | |
Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Snilcher on Thu Feb 5 12:20:50 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by New Flyer #857 on Thu Feb 5 09:00:48 2026. The missed traffic signal issue is the main reason that bus stops have been moved from near corners to far corners of most intersections, something that's been in progress for many decades. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Thu Feb 5 12:59:57 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Snilcher on Thu Feb 5 12:19:15 2026. The number of seats in buses has been declining more or less steadily since around 1980.It's been longer than that. The first NYCTA buses that drastically reduced seating were purchased around 1958. These were GMC's old looks that replaced the 2000 series that was purchased around 1948. These buses were the first to use passenger operated rear doors and had plastic seats. The rear used galley seating which reduced seats in favor of standees. |
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| (350760) | |
Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Thu Feb 5 13:09:22 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Snilcher on Thu Feb 5 12:20:50 2026. The missed traffic signal issue is the main reason that bus stops have been moved from near corners to far corners of most intersections,Not according to the TRB (Transportation Research Board). It's a safety feature. Consider a pedestrian at the corner, while a bus is still standing in the stop. For a near side stop, the pedestrian is passing in front of the bus. The bus obscures the view for any motorist passing the stopped bus or the pedestrian looking for oncoming traffic. For a far side stop, the pedestrian is passing the back of the bus. Both the pedestrian and any motorist have a clear view of one another. |
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| (350761) | |
Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by New Flyer #857 on Thu Feb 5 13:20:32 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Snilcher on Thu Feb 5 12:19:15 2026. There is a lot of wasted space on the current buses because of the wheel-wells and the steps to change levels to go to the back. But most of the time I'm still happier with that as opposed to an elderly person navigating steps to board/alight. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Snilcher on Fri Feb 6 22:33:04 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Stephen Bauman on Thu Feb 5 12:59:57 2026. It's been longer than that. The first NYCTA buses that drastically reduced seating were purchased around 1958. These were GMC's old looks that replaced the 2000 series that was purchased around 1948. These buses were the first to use passenger operated rear doors and had plastic seats. The rear used galley seating which reduced seats in favor of standees.Guess I only noticed it in the post-Fishbowl era because here in Queens the private lines had the old-fashioned row-by-row seating; only the city buses (MTA and MaBSTOA) had the sidewise (whatever you want to call it) seating which meant fewer actual seats than before. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Feb 15 12:55:31 2026, in response to ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Wed Feb 4 23:49:54 2026. Europe gets higher transit ridership and faster trips with fewer bus stops per mileThat's because high taxation and regulation makes driving unaffordable. It also makes private bus operation unaffordable. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops? |
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Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Feb 15 13:00:10 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by New Flyer #857 on Thu Feb 5 09:00:48 2026. Europe (very broadly speaking) has less traffic signals than the USNo they don't. They certainly have more signaled pedestrian crossings than the US does. And where they have the land to abuse (in spite of their rhetoric), they have more |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Tue Feb 17 10:06:28 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Feb 15 12:55:31 2026. That's because high taxation and regulation makes driving unaffordable.Is that a bad thing? |
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| (350772) | |
Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Allen45 on Tue Feb 17 10:07:58 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Feb 15 12:55:31 2026. Also there is a social contract that largely historically homogenous European societies have that America, as a low trust society cannot have. Also there is a greater tradition of people not venturing far from their homes. It is in Americans DNA to want to travel as far as they want when they want and transit has its limit for that. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Allen45 on Tue Feb 17 10:09:02 2026, in response to ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Wed Feb 4 23:49:54 2026. Just because Europe does something, doesn't mean America has to do it. Europeans have a harder time integrating immigrants than Americans do and Denmark's Social Democrats hold onto power by being progressive but nativist, do you want Democrats here to do that? |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Tue Feb 17 10:12:55 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Allen45 on Tue Feb 17 10:09:02 2026. I think the Europeans have this one right broadly speaking. I have yet to hear a logical explanation for why bus stops in the US have to be so close together when European bus stops are further apart, there isn't necessarily legislation mandating accessibility comparable to the ADA, yet people of all ages seem to be able to get around more easily and more reliably. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Allen45 on Tue Feb 17 10:15:24 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Stephen Bauman on Thu Feb 5 08:28:12 2026. The crux of the issue is that the MTA does not care about passengers, just reducing its run time and giving a facade of pretending to care for customers when they really do not. If they are not going to make the system more convenient or listen to riders thoughtfully, the buses might as well be fare free. Riders Alliance does nothing more than manufacture consent for service changes that many riders do not care for anyways and the MTA's history of employing condescending and arrogant planners like Norman Silverman (MTA Bus got a blank check subsidy and he was in charge of operations planning then) does not help things either. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Allen45 on Tue Feb 17 10:18:52 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Snilcher on Fri Feb 6 22:33:04 2026. I wished that more GMDD Fishbowls were ordered in the 1980s. |
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| (350777) | |
Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Tue Feb 17 15:01:48 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Tue Feb 17 10:12:55 2026. I have yet to hear a logical explanation for why bus stops in the US have to be so close together when European bus stops are further apartYour question should be: what's the objective for making bus stops further apart? Your next question should be: is this objective designed for the bus operator's or the rider's convenience? As I noted in my first post, European bus stops may be further apart for each bus route but the walking distance between each building and its nearest bus stop is approximately the same as in NYC. The distance between stops along the route is a bus operation metric; the distance between a building and its closest bus stop is a rider based metric. There was a recent bus redesign for Queens. I calculated the difference for the operator metric and what I consider to be a rider based metric. The before data is for 18 Sep 2024; the after data is for 17 Sep 2025. Both are Wednesday. Here's a comparison of operator sensitive metrics. The distance between stops increased from 944 to 1411 ft. The number of trips increased from 17051 to 18058. The number of vehicle revenue miles increased from 113,192 to 116,547 The average trip length decreased from 6.64 to 6.45 miles. These figures represent a slight increase in operating costs because of the increased VRM and number of trips. What was the rider's benefit? My rider based metric is how long the trip will take. This depends on the trip origin, destination and time of day. For origin I took any census block or building. For destination I took the closest subway entrance. For time of day I selected every 5 minute interval during the 24 hour day. The trip time was the sum of: walk time to bus stop; wait time for bus arrival; bus travel time; and walk time from bus stop to subway entrance. I calculated the averages and percentiles and filtered by walk distance to subway; hour of day; zip code; legislative districts; community boards and neighborhoods. Here are some demographic data for all of Queens: Approximately 1 million of 2.4 million residents live within 0.5 miles walking distance of a subway entrance. Approximately 113K of 458K buildings lie within 0.5 miles walking distance of a subway entrance. This confirms that multi-family buildings lie closer to subways and single family buildings lie in "subway deserts". Here are some 24 hour results for all of Queens filtered by walking distance to a subway entrance. N.B. 0.5 miles or 800 meters is considered the standard for walking distance to a subway and 0.25 miles or 400 meters is considered what walking distance should be to a bus stop. I'm going to consider only population and buildings that depend on a bus to the subway - walking distance to nearest subway entrance is greater than 0.5 miles. I'll also consider the median values. The assumed walking speed is 3 mph, so the 0.25 distance to a bus stop is equivalent to 5 minutes. The population median bus-to-subway travel time decreased from 23.01 to 22.37 minutes. The population median walk-to-bus time increased from 5.27 to 5.76 minutes. The population median wait-for-bus time increased from 2.61 to 2.66 minutes. The population median bus-travel-time decreased from 9.77 to 9.40 minutes. The population median walk-from-bus time decreased from 3.25 to 2.00 minutes. The building median bus-to-subway travel time decreased from 25.86 to 25.24 minutes The building median walk-to-bus time increased from 5.60 to 6.15 minutes The building median wait-for-bus time increased from 2.69 to 2.77 minutes The building median bus-travel-time from decreased 11.93 to 11.87 minutes The building median walk-from-bus time decreased from 3.25 to 1.70 minutes What does this suggest? The spacing between stops increased by 49%. This resulted in a decrease in population median bus-travel-time of 3.7% and a decrease in building median bus-travel-time of 0.5%. This would indicate that the increasing distance between bus stops has a very small proportional effect on bus travel time. At least in Queens, walking distances to bus stops and waiting times have a greater impact on total travel time. There is a caveat. The before/after travel time data was derived from the static GTFS schedules. The real world performance can differ. It's possible to make comparisons using the GTFS-RT feed. I have archived this data but have not yet started a comparison. My anecdotal evidence is that there's a big gap in perceived performance in my area. There has been a preponderance of what Mike Quill called "banana buses." One advantage of using the static GTFS schedules is to evaluate what planners are promising. I'm underwhelmed by the total performance improvement in exchange extra walking distance. I hope this illustrates real world shortcomings of increasing bus stop distances. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Allen45 on Tue Feb 17 15:35:57 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Stephen Bauman on Tue Feb 17 15:01:48 2026. The door to door travel time has increased for many. Same thing with LIRR east side access but I digress. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by New Flyer #857 on Wed Feb 18 09:13:47 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by WMATAGMOAGH on Tue Feb 17 10:12:55 2026. One other thing to note about European cities is that since they are "transit-dense" your origin/destination are likely to already be on or very close to a bus line. So the walking to the actual corridor is on average low, meaning you can get away with the stops being further apart.In NYC "suburb sections" you may already have walked many minutes just to get to the bus corridor itself, before then having to find a stop. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Spider-Pig on Wed Feb 18 14:02:10 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Allen45 on Tue Feb 17 10:07:58 2026. That's nonsense. Most people don't travel so far on a daily basis that transit would be impractical.I will agree with you about the "low trust society." |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Allen45 on Thu Feb 19 06:34:06 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Spider-Pig on Wed Feb 18 14:02:10 2026. Using transit is a sacrifice and one thing the pandemic made clear is there are limits as to how much sacrifice people will tolerate. Also you can't have a bus route or transit option on literally every street. Americans tend to be very independent, individualism is good in moderation and collectivism is good in moderation. Many people want to determine when, where and how they get places and not a condescending and arrogant planner such as Norman Silverman who used to be at the MTA doing it. |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Avid reader on Thu Feb 19 10:37:17 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Allen45 on Thu Feb 19 06:34:06 2026. Where there ever Trollies on Queens Blvd? |
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Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Thu Feb 19 11:26:26 2026, in response to Re: ARTICLE: The United States needs fewer bus stops, posted by Avid reader on Thu Feb 19 10:37:17 2026. absolutely. It was the forerunner of the Q60, operated by the Manhattan & Queens Traction Company. It ran under the El from Van Dam to Greenpoint. It then ran on the side medians to Union Tpk then on the center median to Jamaica Ave.Here's a link showing the operation under the El. https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_6c29ddb9-65ed-47f4-9aa9-a531915089f7/ |
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