Premium Buses

I spent a month riding buses up and down the east coast a few years back: Grayhound, BoltBus, the China-town buses, etc. Pretty minor price differences ($10?) but very different experiences. Boltbus was all students and professionals, with clean seats, laptop plugs, and wifi. The Chinatown bus was clearly unsafe--heat from the engine leaking into the passenger compartment, and all the windows were open to the snow to compensate. 

The world would be a better place if we had more premium bus services. ie, LandLine. Awkwardly, for mass transit, price differentiation is important. For buses, part of the image problem is that they lump everyone into one price, and one class of service. (IIRC, Grayhound actually owned BoltBus). 

I know the pandemic bankrupted a whole array of intercity bus companies--they were operating on a shoestring, and when your equipment is 'rented' (ie, requiring regular loan payments), you can't just pause operations. Not sure how many of them have been replaced, or if the disruption has simply destroyed markets. 

 

On the efficiency of transit

"Transit is the most space efficient mode, and thus it should be rewarded with dedicated ROW rather than tossed into low-efficiency auto traffic" - Warren G. Wells

I hate to be the naysayer, but that's kind of irrelevant. In terms of moving people, what matters isn't space efficiency, but time-efficiency. Transit moves a lot of people per vehicle, but not a lot of people per lane. For urban traffic, the main capacity limitation are at intersections. But even there, for a dedicated transit line to be  more space-efficient than an automobile, you basically have to have 90 people on the bus, and a bus coming every 5 minutes (which is pretty high quality BRT).

The space-efficiency of transit simply isn't relevant from a transportation efficiency perspective. But the advantage of transit is enormous in terms of space efficiency, simply due to parking**. Each parking spot requires between 250-400 SF, and each car requires about 8 parking spots. So every person on the bus saves about 2500 SF of space. 10 people on bus saves half an acre of parking. 2000 people by bus saves 100 acres of parking. 

So when we talk about the efficiencies of transit, we're really talking about the space efficiency of urban land. (For pre-war transit, supplying transit transformed rural land into urban land, with the concomitant increase in rents. We need to forget about that--it was tied to a specific non-recurring historic context). For modern transit, transit in the 'light rail' era, the purpose of transit is to reduce parking demand, not transportation demand. (Transit reduces transportation demand only by forcing people to accept a crappier version of transportation, reducing their consumption of it, ie- people drinking eating fewer vegetables because the only ones they can get are rotten). 

So if we're planning fixed guide-way transit, it's all about the parking garages. Because that shows two things: a) there is a lot of transportation demand there, and the costs associated with providing parking are already high, and b) there is some (agency, corporation, muni) with the capacity and need for capital intensive transportation infrastructure. Those are where the stations need to go. Other places will get transit service, but only by virtue of being on the way.

Why b) is important: If transit efficiency is all about reducing parking demand. As a society, we've more or less made the decision that capacity improvements benefit everyone (they don't), so we're ok with government provision of roads. But we're much charier of provision of parking, because we associate parking with private land uses (never mind that it's hand-in-glove with automobility). So when we start providing rapid transit, we're really reducing parking demand at a handful of places. And those places tend to be: colleges, hospital, and civic centers. Because those are the places we've perceive as being part of the 'public' realm, and local/regional voters are willing to help those, in a civic-sense. State buildings/campuses often fall under the same penumbra, as do Federal buildings--the Feds provide half of the capital funding for new transit, and they understand the financial value of reduced parking demand.

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*A bus without dedicated guide way isn't BRT, regardless of FTA's bullshit terminology. 

**Traffic engineers don't care about parking. They aren't trained for it. They only care insofar: a) access to and from it doesn't disrupt roadway capacity, and b) there is enough of it that cars don't back up onto the roads. 

Bus* Definitions

Bus, express bus, BRT-lite and BRT can all be considered steps in a progression of incremental investment a transit line, gradually increasing the capacity, performance, and reliability. The fundamental goal over these improvements is to reduce the amount of time spent not moving, and increase the average speed while moving. The different steps are distinct based on the following factors:

• Right of Way

• Station Spacing

• Vehicle Characteristics

• Service Characteristics/Headway

• Intelligent Transportation Systems elements

Bu Rapid Transit

BRT is characterized by what Vuchic calls 'semi-rapid' guideway: barrier separated except at intersections, with limited sections of mixed traffic operations. BRT stations are substantial structures with passenger amenities, typically seating, off-board fare vending, trash-cans, and informational posters, capable of supporting level boarding for non-low floor vehicles. BRT vehicles may be regular or articulated vehicles with distinct appearance, either low-floor of platform-height boarding, and multiple door boarding. Service consists of regular headway throughout the day, and reliability maintained through the use of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) features. The term BRT is often misapplied to a variety of inferior systems lacking many of these characteristics. Neither buses in dedicated lanes (busways) nor buses in HOV lanes represent BRT.

Express Bus

Express buses consist typically consist of long-distances routes with widely spaced stops, characterized by high speeds and comfortable travel.  Express buses typically operate in mixed traffic conditions, with minimal semi-rapid guideway. Examples include on-highway buses which operating in bus-only lanes for part of the route, but as a regular bus in mixed traffic within the central city. Many express buses provide only commuter service, operating for a limited number of hours each day. For the purposes of comparability, a non-commuter express bus is presumed [1]. 

FTA BRT & BRT-lite

For the purposes of funding, the Federal Transit Agency has defined systems with more than 51% dedicated (semi-rapid) guideway as BRT, and bus routes sufficiently meeting the other BRT standards as ‘BRT-lite’. BRT-lite is a bus with BRT-sauce: running in mixed traffic, but with limited stops and ITS features such as queue-jumps. No guideway requirements, which means BRT-lite can have anything from 0-50%. Outcomes are hence variable. 

ITDP does a better job of scoring BRTs. 

Incremental Investment

Bus, express bus, BRT-lite and BRT can all be considered steps in a progression of incremental investment in transit routes, gradually increasing the speed, comfort, and reliability, moving it toward a Rapid Transit standard. Because most of these investments are in operations (greater frequency, extended hours) they are reversible. In contrast, fixed-guideway transit investments such as those funded by the FTA typically represent a complete package of Rapid Transit elements, all at once: Dedicated guideway, signal priority, substantial stations to speed boarding, wider stop spacing, higher frequency and longer operating hours. They also come with a required guarantee of minimum service standards, to ensure that expensive capital investments are properly used. Because all of the improvements happen once, simultaneously, rather than incrementally, fixed-guideway rapid transit projects are perceived as development catalysts, capable of inducing development and revitalizing nearby areas. Streetcars represent the apogee of such a catalyst: providing a sudden increase in property values in a limited area, potentially spurring new, denser development.

Feasibly, in combination with appropriate revisions to zoning and parking requirements, a new light rail line could result in substantial additional multi-family development. Multifamily development is characterized by lower car ownership, and higher density residential is associated with great transit use (more people nearby the transit station generates more riders). The influx of residential population could then trigger a surge in demand for nearby retail and services, leading to the re-use or redevelopment of older buildings nearby. Following the exhaustion of available space nearby, the oldest and most-run down buildings will be torn down and replaced by new development. At sufficiently high densities, the combination of residential density generates sufficient street-life to represent an attractive walkable urban center, which attracts further residential develop, and additional retail and services.  Walkable mixed-use districts are generally considered to be highly attractive to both college-age populations and college educated professionals, and makes it possible for the region to compete to attract such populations. 

In contrast, incremental development will generate an incremental response: there will be no sudden upsurge in property values, the process of re-use, rehabilitation and redevelopment will be spread out over more years, and new development generated will be at a lower intensity. Incremental investment will never make the nearby area a ‘hot’ neighborhood. Correspondingly, the feedback loop of benefits to the area will be slower, the annual return on capital lower, and the whole area less attractive to developers. 

Fixed guideway rapid transit systems also offer an opportunity to attract ‘choice’ riders to the system, who elect to ride transit out of choice, rather than lack of alternatives. A fully implemented rapid transit route is exponentially better than it’s non-rapid equivalent due to the synergy between the elements: frequency and longer operating hours. Vehicles move faster and spend less time stopped, making is possible to provide the same amount of transit service with fewer vehicles. The combination of high frequency and dedicated guideway improve the reliability of the transit route. But the improved reliability of a central rapid transit ‘spine’ makes a transfer-based transit network feasible. It becomes possible to transition from a ‘hub-and-spoke’ based network toward a ‘fishbone’ arrangement of a rapid transit spine and bus ‘ribs’. Transfer-based transit networks are more efficient than centralized hub and spoke arrangements 

Uber as Transit costs much more than Transit

Somebody tried it. A suburban muni with suburban muni problems (low density residential, poorly connected street network, distributed destinations, etc)

BUT

The article notes

Since the introduction of ride-sharing companies such as Uber, transit use has fallen in major American cities nearly 2%, and those losses are cumulative: since Uber first started in San Francisco in 2010, bus ridership has dropped by more than 12%.

If you weren't aware, transit service in San Francisco is not actually all the great. There is BART (flabby and run down), and Muni Metro, but most of the action is on buses. Which run on narrow streets, in mixed traffic. So the buses are slow, and unreliable. Which is what made UBER viable (and attractive) in the first place.

UBER is going to destroy all the low-quality bus routes. In San Francisco, and everywhere. The productivity (riders per route mile) for such routes is already low. If it drops a bit lower, then the service gets cut to lower frequency. And so fewer people ride it, in the classic transit death spiral. The only stuff that is going to be immune to this are the high-quality service, the bus routes good enough to attract bus riders. A frequent network route.

So my vision is this: A limited route network (about 1 mile between lines), running at very high frequencies. And UBER to fill in the gaps, with a subsidy based on distance from a frequent network stop. People nearby continue to have an incentive to walk to the stop, people far away can still get their. (With some fudge factor for the disabled/elderly). 

Two sprawling sunbelt cities are making their transit systems work, even while ridership in the big 7 is falling

Phoenix and Houston redesigned their bus networks, and it WORKED. 


"Transit ridership fell in 31 of 35 major metropolitan areas in the United States last year, including the seven cities that serve the majority of riders...(New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, D.C., San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia)

Exceptions to the trend: Seattle, Phoenix and Houston, which either expanded transit coverage and boosted service or underwent ambitious network overhauls, as in Houston’s case."

More service, more riders? Who'da'thunk? 

Not saying more service is the cure: Service in the right amounts, in the proper places is what is proper. 

SLC Central Station

UTA's free fare zone map leaves something to be desired.
 It shows the TRAX, but not the bus. When I look at the bus map for downtown SLC, there is a lot of service there! UTA might do better just combining the two maps, given their near-identical extents. Here is my MS-PAINT take on such a map: (Gray line with FFZ acronym)

 On a proper mapping program, I'd use a specially dashed line, perhaps using arrow symbols. Using a shader or a hash would obscure the information inside the box.

If UTA wanted to move away from a free fare zone, they could designate certain stops or stations, rather than an area.

So... looks like either 200 south or North temple is a really nice place to put a central station. State Street and 200 South, specifically...

BRT vs. Traffic Lane, Part 3

Continuing our series on BRT vs. Traffic Lane (Part 1, Part 2), another exploration how how the two compare. Mike Brown observed that:

1. A 5-minute, fully loaded BRT would carry about as many people as a standard Arterial lane
2. Unless you can trust that you can fully load each bus for an hour, then a 5-minute BRT will not move as many people as standard cars would.
3. That's not necessarily a reason to go with cars.  Cars create car dependency, and they max out in what they can carry, but BRT can be increased to more than 5-minutes.
4. "BRT" need not be a single route. In many downtowns, some block segments have a bus each minute, and sometimes more often.  
5. Dedicating a lane exclusively to buses in these cases will result in more people per lane, assuming most buses are quite full.
6. If automated vehicles and vehicle sharing begin to overtake private ownership, it is possible to imagine lanes where auto occupancy might reach 4 or more passengers carried in "minivan"-type vehicles.  In this "jitney-like" transit scenario, lanes even outside downtowns can start to carry far higher numbers than 5-minute suburban BRT," which is very aggressive service for suburbs.

Mike came up with the following numbers:

I'll add a few comments to what Mike has said.

1) I don't think it's physically possible to run 60 buses an hour, even dedicated bus pullouts. That would require a bus to decelerate, board, rejoin traffic, and accelerate. Even with elevated platforms, off-board fare collection and multi-door boarding, I think that would be a hard standard to achieve. And even one late bus would make all the buses in the queue later, and congestion would ripple down the line.

 The really serious BRT routes (Gold Standard) have four lanes: A curbside lane (to reduce time spent re-entering the travel lane) used for boarding, and a bypass lane. This seems to permit operations at headways as low as a minute and a half. But that would be four lanes, and outside our scope of analysis. Hit with capacity constraints, the current solution is to make a bus more train-like, but adding another unit, using double-articulated buses rather than just articulated buses. Double-articulated buses with capacities up to 180 are currently in use in Utrecht. Volvo has a 300 person capacity bus that is being tested on the TransMilenio.

2) Rare is a system that could load such a bus so heavily. But it might be possible. Daily ridership on route 830 (the route that the Provo-Orem BRT is to replace) reached 3,000 per day. The BRT was projected (in 2011) to have 12,900 daily riders. Assuming 10% of ridership takes place in the hour of the morning peak., that's 1,290 riders. Assuming the planned five minute headway is used, that's about 107 riders per bus. Or course, they won't all be on the bus at the same time. But it does suggest that the Provo-Orem BRT will be pretty heavily used. In 2030, the BRT is projected to have 16,100 daily riders, or about 137 riders per bus. Again, they won't all be on the bus at the same time.

3) BRT does scale better. Moving to a double-articulated bus would boost capacity to 120. At five minute headway, such a bus could carry 1400 persons per direction per hour , greater than a major arterial at 5pm. Alternately, just adding 3 more buses (to boost headway to once every 4 minutes an hour) increases it to 1400 persons per direction per hour. A bus every four minutes seems like something a single lane could manage. TRAX puts a train through an intersection every 5 minutes regularly (400 S. and Main). On 'crush load' (game) days, it might be as high as double that.

4) Branded Bus Corridors are a great idea. But they are only as long as the 'rainbow' portion of the corridor, where multiple lines overlap. Beyond that, you have to transfer. TRAX is a 'rainbow' corridor from 2100 South to Courthouse station. For trains with limited amounts of guideway, service laps are almost inevitable. But for buses, I'm not sure about inter-lining services: Does it just add more confusion? I think it only really works when buses are converging on a termini. I don't see it on the Salt Lake County or Utah County map, but you can see where one should be branded on the downtown Salt Lake Map: State Street from 5th South to North Temple, and thence west along North Temple to 300 West. All of North Temple could be branded, and both 200 South and 400 South might also be candidates.

5) The key question is not "Will the buses be full?" but "When will the pavement carry more people as a bus lane than as an automobile lane, during the peak hour." Not at five minute headway and 90 person loads, but at 100 persons/bus (at 5 minute headway) or 80 persons per bus (4 minute headway), a bus edges ahead. Based on the 2030 numbers, it seems likely that a BRT is a better long-term investment than a traffic lane.

6) A full discussion on automated vehicles is going to require a full blog post.

Waiting For Transit

"Service frequency determines the average wait time for transit, and thus much of the overall travel time for a trip"

Q: Reallly? People spend that much time waiting for transit? 

A: Not average trip time, average wait time. Wait time, however, is a substantial portion of many transit trips, and the part of the trip people hate worst. The lit says that riders treat a minute of wait as the same as multiple minutes of in vehicle time. Many UTA buses (especially in Utah County) run at 20, 30 or 60 minute headways. Once you include the amount of time you have to wait when the bus is late, this can mean substantial waits. Given that people choose transit based largely on its time competitiveness to the automobile, this is a significant issue. It's most significant for short trips.  TRAX is frequent and (generally) reliable,. A 10 mile bus journey on a local bus is pretty miserable. WFRC likes to use 5-10 minutes for the wait, but I don't that that effectively reflects how miserable the experience is. It assumes people know where the bus stop is, how long it will take to walk there, and how long the wait will be. That is valid if you are taking the bus to work, once per day, but doesn't reflect the experience of using the bus for general transportation. The longer the headway, the higher the time-cost of missing a bus, so the more likely you are to leave your current location early to make sure your make it. If you have to use an (unreliable) bus connection to make that connection (such as bus to FrontRunner), there is even more waiting, because you can't control if you arrive 10 minutes early or 2 minutes too late, so you have to be 25 minutes early to be guaranteed a connection. Hence, I prefer to assume random arrival, at 1/2 headway, for any bus. This becomes increasingly important as UTA moves away from the '1-seat ride' model and toward the more efficient 'transfer network'. 

A Concise History of Rail Transit in America

Modern transit comes from two historic lineages: Steam railroads, and horse-cart street railways. To operate in an urban environment, steam railroads underwent a number of modifications. To reduce conflicts with street level traffic, were either elevated or under-grounded. At some point, they were also electrified, typically use a third-rail system. Once that occurred, expansion required the continued use of grade separated, exclusive guideway, so no one touched the third rail and died. In contrast, street railways were electrified as trolleys, using a pantograph. (Cable-cars can be thought of as a 'dead branch' alternative to electrification). The converging modes of electrified heavy rail and street railways were hybridized as the "Inter-urban". Electrified the whole-way, using a pantograph, and running in a mix of at-grade and tunnels. After the second World War, almost all pure street running 'trolley' systems were 'bus-tituted' out of existence, while some inter-urban systems survived. The survivors all had some off-street running-way, viz: RTA Streetcars, San Francisco cable car, MBTA Green Line & Ashmont–Mattapan High Speed Line, SEPTA Subway–Surface Lines: Suburban Trolley Lines & Girard Ave Trolley, RTA Rapid Transit: Blue and Green Lines, Newark Light Rail, Muni Metro. Between ~1930-1972 is sort of a 'Dark Age' for urban rail--almost nothing new is built. Then there is a resurgence of heavy-rail systems to deal with traffic congestion: BART (1972), Washington Metro (1976), MARTA (1979), Baltimore Subway (1983), and Miami-Dade (1984). All run at-grade in the suburbs, and in tunnels in the city center. About 1980, America adopts the Stadtbahn/'City Rail' concept from Germany, and APTA coins it 'Light Rail'. It runs at-grade in the suburbs, and at-grade in the city-center, like the inter-urbans. Being regulated as 'light' rail, it is allowed to operate in mixed-traffic with cars, making it easier/cheaper to build. Over time, the surviving inter-urbans are rebuilt/revitalized, making use of the same vehicles as the new 'Light Rail' systems. Circa 2001, Portland reinvents the 'streetcar', which runs at-grade, in mixed traffic, with smaller vehicles, and making extensive use of single-track.

Now, to get back to what is 'Rapid' transit: Rapid transit is something that has it's own (unshared) guideway. Subways, elevated rail, commuter rail all clearly meet this standard, as do most of the 'Metro' systems of the 1970's heavy-rail revival. But the surviving inter-urbans and new light rail systems are a confusing mix: They have portions of exclusive guideway, so they have rapid transit portions. But LRT means 'Light Rail Transit' rather than 'Light RAPID Transit'. This gets confusion in the context of BRT, which actually means 'Bus RAPID Transit'. BRT gets developed in Latin America as a sort of bus version of a heavy rail system--buses with unshared guideway. But that's another topic. In summary: HeavyRail = Rapid, Streetcar !=Rapid, LRT !=Rapid...but does have sections that could be. (Cable-cars get lumped in with LRT largely on the basis of Cable-car != heavy-rail.)

And finally: Metro!=Heavy-rail, but Metro ⊂ Heavy-rail. Freight, Metro, Subway, Elevated, Commuter Rail ⊂ Heavy-rail.

=     Equal to
!=    Not equal to
⊂    Is a subset of.

Standing on buses

My personal transit trifecta is 'Fast, Frequent, and Reliable'. I'm much less concerned about comfort, especially for shorter trips. For anything under a mile, I'm happy to stand. And willing, for much longer distances. But it is not so much the distance as the time. I stood for 20 minutes on the Eugene BRT, and was not unhappy for it.

The bus was not over-supplied with seats, but had plenty of wheelchair and bike space.

Bus vs. Trains

I was reading Human Transit today, and thinking about the rail map. SLC has a similarly complex bus system. Why is not possible to have a similar map? Jared Walker has the right of it when he says 'many transit services that are stuck in mixed traffic'. This is the fundamental divide--not bus vs. train, but dedicated right of way vs. mixed traffic. Trains, being heavier and slower to stop, frequently get their own. Buses do not, and that makes all the difference.  Effective BRT means dedicated right of way

Bridge to Bus Transfer

Minneapolis's bridge-to-transit transfer looks pretty nifty. Salt Lake is adding our own version of the same, between TRAX and FrontRunner, @ North Temple and 500 West. Hope it looks half so nice.

Update: Guess not. Probably a lot cheaper, though.

Dynamic Bus Map

I know UTA has an RFP out for this, but the U of U already has one operating. Check it out!

UTA Update

Courtesy of the Utah Transportation Report:

Mid-Jordan, West Valley TRAX lines open in August

SALT LAKE—On Aug. 7, UTA will open the Mid-Jordan and West Valley TRAX lines. The Mid-Jordan line will travel from South Jordan to the University of Utah and replace the existing University line. The West Valley line will travel from West Valley City to downtown Salt Lake City. These new lines also bring many changes to UTA's bus system. To prepare for the rail openings and to explore what UTA's riders wanted in the bus system UTA conducted an extensive outreach effort that included an online survey, a telephone survey and a series of open houses last fall. Using the information gathered during that effort, UTA planners developed two service proposals, which were put out for review and comment during a public comment period in March 2011. UTA received more than 900 comments on the proposals and based on those comments UTA has created a final service plan. The final plan addresses more than 60 percent of the comments received while still meeting UTA's goals. It is estimated ridership under the new plan will increase by 6 percent. UTA prides itself on listening to its riders and making changes where possible to meet both their needs and the budget concerns of the agency. Examples of changes adopted due to comments are: Most Sunday service will remain Convert all Fast Bus routes to express routes with the exception of route 307, which will convert to local service. This will allow some routes proposed for elimination to keep some trips. Route 454 from Grantsville will retain one A.M. and P.M. trip (it previously had two and was proposed to be eliminated) Make routing changes to some routes to provide better coverage to affected areas Create several new flex routes to provide better coverage to affected areas Maintain some service on several routes that were proposed to be cancelled Operate the light rail lines as proposed Timeline July 7—Online schedules and trip planning available Mid July—Printed schedules available Aug. 7—New rail lines open and bus changes begin

 I had to look up what UTA defined a 'Fast' bus as. Apparently, it just means limited stops, so that the 320 just ran the same route as the 220, with fewer stops. I seem to recall the 320 was a 'commuter' bus - five buses in the morning, five buses at night.

The 307 converting to local service.

I was started to learn their is a 207 bus. But it only runs from 5300 TRAX to 10000 South TRAX, along 7th East. I can't say I care for the 'TRAX to TRAX' route buses--Probably faster to get off at the nearest TRAX (64th, 72nd, 78th, 90th, 94th) station and walk 10 blocks east. Confusing, the 307 route runs a totally different route than the 207, despite the similarity in numbers. I'm glad to hear about the conversion to local service--it will be nice to have a local bus along 7th east.

The 'Express bus' seems to be UTA's 'Commuter Bus'. 5 buses in the morning, five buses at night, limited stops. (Which begs the question why the 'Fast Bus' distinction existed at all.)

Date for TRAX open moved up against--now August 7th, down from 17th.  

Seems UTA also intends to provide a lot more of their 'coverage' service using Flex Buses, rather than scheduled service. I'd call that an improvement. But that's an issue for its own post.

Transit Benchmarks

Mountain Line Transit in Missoula, Montana has a benchmark that a bus trip should be "no greater than 200% of automobile trip time". While I initially found the idea ridiculous, I came to recognize while the benchmark may be set low, the idea of benchmarks was an excellent idea.

A co-worker once told me that the purpose of accounting is not fairness or equity in distribution, but a technique for detecting what produces value. There are a raft of possible improvements that transit agencies can spend their funding on. Many transit agencies spend far too little on tracking their own performance, and as a result are unable to assess the success or failure of their own efforts. Without rigorous accounting, there is a danger that transit improvements will be limited to what is politically palatable, or the 'flavor of the week'. Worse still, without metrics, when program and policy efforts prove ineffective, transit agencies have little justification for cutting them when faced by an active and vocal campaign by a narrow interest group.

How good is your transit? Has it gotten better? How will you know when it does?

Consistency Matters

I have friends who would never willingly ride a bus who will eagerly take a ride on TRAX. I cannot blame them. TRAX was the start of my love affair with Salt Lake City transit. The fundamental difference between TRAX and a bus is reliability--TRAX can keep a schedule. When I was commuting to the University of Utah from Sandy, I knew, to the minute, when TRAX left Sandy station and arrived at the University of Utah.

Much as I support buses, I cannot muster any love for them. Because I cannot trust a bus. By its very nature, a bus is an unreliable beast. No bus can keep a schedule, and the sheer uncertainty of that is maddening. Even when I rode a bus daily to work, I still found myself doing the 'bus bob', craning my neck down the street to look and see if the bus was coming yet. When the bus actually came varied by weather conditions, by time of day, and by individual driver. It was actually pleasing when a regular driver was consistently ten minutes late every day.  I knew exactly when I had to be at the stop and I no longer had to stand in the cold for ten minutes every morning, waiting for a bus that the schedule claimed had already arrived. 

The bus schedule was worse than useless. It only shows what time the bus is supposed to come, not when it actually will. It is possible and even likely to arrive ten minutes before the schedule time, and wait 20 minutes to catch a bus. But with 15 minute headways between buses or trains, there is only one chance to catch the right bus, so everyone is forced to be early, just to be sure. Thus, irregular arrival times vastly increasing their door to door travel time, to the enormous detriment of ridership.

SLC Frequent Network

Salt Lake City's 'Frequent Network' (15 minutes or less between vehicles) is oddly distributed. N-S routes through SLC include Trax, the 203, the 205, the 209, 213, and the 220. E-W routes would be the 2, Trax, and.... 21, at 2100 S. So between Trax at 4th South, and the 2100 S., there is no frequent E-W service. Both the 9 and the 17 run at 30 minute headway, and include a baffling detour (a topic for a later post). It's a strange absence, given that the street grid is still largely intact in that area.  Closer examination of the street-grid explains the lack--Liberty Park obstructs any potential E-W route from 9th to 13th, and any route between 13th and 21st would have to pick its way through an off-set grid.

1300 South is certainly a through street, so the total lack of any bus service along it is certainly puzzling. The brutal hill between 1100 E. and 1500 E. may be the explanation for that--it is very difficult to safely load and unload a wheelchair on a 20 degree slope.