Muni To Speed Up Buses
Just stating the obvious — speeding buses are not good for cyclists. Buses are dangerous to humans — we need to phase them out.
Streetcars are not a big problem, relatively speaking, because cyclists and pedestrians have a pretty good idea of where streetcars are going to be - on the rails - so we just don’t have to worry about them as much as we have to worry about completely unpredictable, massive glass and metal objects - up to 60 feet long - hurtling through spacetime.
Some will want to talk about ‘reliability,’ and that’s fine - as far as reliability goes - but those us in the reality-based community know what buses do - they do what cars do - they speed - they break the law and make themselves even more dangerous to humans - and when they’re not compelled to slow down and stop by red lights - they speed even more. Red lights are great traffic-calming devices - we should not attempt to eliminate them as such until we’ve made cycling and walking in this town safer - ideally by replacing bus service with rail service. (Adding, we know that whole ‘Stop at the red light thing’ is not exactly Muni buses’ forte.)
Buses are a dead-end. No amount of money and marketing will ever change that.
So far have we parts of Washington, D.C., New York, and a very small sliver of San Francisco hopping on the anti-BRT, pro-rail bandwagon. I’m hoping more folks wake up to the realities of BRT in the very near future.
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January 5th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Except that rail costs so much more than BRT or rapid buses. How much was the 3rd St. LRT - $250 m . And the service is not better than the 15 bus it replaced.
The 72R works well here in the East Bay. Cost was low, benefit (increased ridership) high. $7 million for a 20 mile line.
BRT or rapid buses can work with bike lanes, etc. Blanket statements that buses are bad and rail is good don’t hold water.