53 Replies to “Sunday Movie: Transit Anti-Patterns”
June 2 note: The tile maintenance at Columbia City station is postponed due to rain, so trains are running normally.
Work at SeaTac station is ongoing, so those going to Angle Lake may have to transfer to a train or RapidRide A. (ST has changed its mind three times since yesterday evening, so I won’t try to guess the exact situation.)
Yesterday at westlake when they were still pretending they would get the work done I saw several SB trains displaying destination different than rhe arrival screens including onte hat arrived as “angle lake” before changing to “Northgate while stopped before heading further south. This was at about
1230pm. All SB trains were very full and essentually unboardable.
Operational excellence!. oLoks like we’ll get to deal with it again in a few weeks…groan.
The video makes a few assumptions I don’t think are always accurate:
1. Bus frequency is 30 minutes or greater vs. very frequent rail.
2. Rail is always faster than buses including transfers and first/last mile access. Some longer buses are express and use HOV lanes, and some buses make a lot of stops because that is their mission.
3. Buses truly mimic the route rail takes with the same stop locations. Not everyone can walk an additional 15 minutes to reach a train station rather than a nearby bus stop, or do the same at their destination.
4. The rail and bus agencies are one so that saving on truncating buses benefits rail.
5. The rail and bus routes are through very dense areas.
6. The cost of building rail.
Sometimes (rarely) the huge cost of building light rail makes sense, usually measured by dollar per rider mile. Sometime the flexibility and lower infrastructure costs (existing roads) make buses a better option, especially when first/last mile access is factored into the trip and time of transfers.
The implementation of real time bus arrival information in a phone app pretty much can mean that a rider doesn’t have to wait for a low frequency bus over 5-10 minutes depending on the distance to the stop. They can instead wait at home. Granted it still requires waiting longer at home ( certainly more comfortable) and it works badly for a return trip. Still, it really helps a rider get to the stop at about the right time without bus arrival angst (“Do I have to walk faster or run to the bus stop?”) — before the bus comes but not too far before.
Real-time bus location apps really help riders when using low frequency routes better than high frequency routes when waits aren’t too long.
I don’t think he is making assumptions, just pointing out a specific example of an anti-pattern. Just to back up here, the term anti-pattern may not be well known. Wikipedia has a good definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern. As a former software engineer I see a lot of similarity between software and transit designs. There are no absolutes. For example, when should you use a database to store your data? There are certain guidelines, but plenty of nuance. When should you replace a bus with a tram or metro? Same answer.
In this case the anti-pattern is more about frequency than anything else. It would apply if the subway line (which happens to be extremely frequent) was instead a slow bus (or set of buses) that are extremely frequent.
Of course there are exceptions. But this anti-pattern is part of a larger one about consolidation. Imagine four buses on parallel streets each a block away from each other. Now imagine each bus is running every hour. This is an anti-pattern (the dispersal anti-pattern if you will). It would be much better to have one bus running down one of the streets every fifteen minutes. It is basically a ridership/coverage trade-off, but a very poor one. Riders gain a tiny bit of coverage while they lose a ton of ridership.
Reece mentioned a variation on this general idea. It doesn’t make sense to run an infrequent bus really near frequent transit. If you look around you can see examples of this anti-pattern. For example the 73 runs very close to the 67 up and over Maple Leaf. The 67 runs every fifteen minutes while the 73 runs every half hour. As a result, the 73 has seen ridership plummet. Basically people just walked to the more frequent bus.
The RapidRide G restructure has the same problem. Notice how the 2 is very close to the RapidRide G for much of its route. The G will be a lot more frequent. Meanwhile the 10, 11 and 12 all go downtown via Pike/Pine. But they spread out while being quite close to each other for much of the way. The result is very poor frequency on each line. This is similar to the mythical example I gave. Instead of one bus running every ten minutes (or better) you have three buses running every twenty. A rider has no idea where to go to catch a frequent trip downtown (unless they walk over to the G or to Link). This is not some distant, low-density part of town, either. It is the opposite. It is probably the part of town with the greatest potential for high transit ridership, yet they will be given a crappy anti-pattern.
“Notice how the 2 is very close to the RapidRide G for much of its route. The G will be a lot more frequent. Meanwhile the 2, 11 and 12 all go downtown via Pike/Pine.”
The 10, 11, and 12 will all go downtown via Pike/Pine. The 2-Pine-12th-Union concept was the one in Metro Connects that’s not in this restructure.
“Imagine four buses on parallel streets each a block away from each other.”
I immediately thought of Queen Anne before the northern end of the 3/4/13 were consolidated. There are still several parallel routes a few blocks away from each other, but they used to be more so. The 1 was on 10th W, the 2 on 6th W, the 3 on 3rd W (no longer), the 13 on Queen Anne Ave (essentially 0 W), then the 4 was on Queen Anne Ave in the opposite direction of the 13. And the 1/2/13 trunk is on Queen Anne Ave, while the 3/4 trunk is on 5th/Taylor. The remaining parallelism can be explained by the steep hills between the routes. But the previous situation between the 3, 4, and 13 was particularly nonsensical. If you were going downtown, you had to know which side of the street to be on for the next 13 or 4.
The 10, 11, and 12 will all go downtown via Pike/Pine.
Correct. I made a mistake and will update my comment. Thanks.
I wonder why the Queen Anne routes were like that. Maybe they originally were just turning around and then got extended. It might go way back to streetcar days (e. g. the counterbalance).
I assume it was the streetcar routes. The 4 used to serve Queen Anne High School before it was converted to condos. So a route would either have to come up Taylor and button-hook as the 4 did, or come up Queen Anne Ave and turn away. That might underserve Taylor. Or it may have given access to the high school up the steep hillside.
When the old route 3 terminus was still active I went there to try to figure out why it did that. The area is residential, with no particular reason to have a branch that I could see. It’s three flat blocks to the Queen Anne Ave trunk, so what’s the point? It’s probably lost in the history of decisions decades ago. Maybe there was something else on 3rd Ave W at the time. Maybe there wasn’t a route 13 yet, so there was no other transit on the north side of the hill.
Thanks, Glenn — cool map. That does help explain the old routing. The streetcars went to the top of the hill and then stayed up there. They stayed up on the plateau (instead of going down towards Fremont). At that point routing that goes this way and that doesn’t hurt riders or cost much. They probably looped around in some cases (without stopping). It seems possible that property owners pushed for streetcars on their street (I’m guessing — I don’t know the politics of streetcars).
I think the real problem is reese calling it ‘transit heat death” which is a very odd phrase to use versus the more typical “coverage vs frequency”.
As videos go, I do have an opposite viewpoint that needs to be considered.
Specifically , Reece is an able bodied young male adult. Walking to a nearby rail station is not difficult for him. But that’s not always the situation for every citizen. This bus route may be a lifeline for someone with mobility challenges — like an arthritis sufferer, a wheelchaired rider, someone with luggage or a stroller or big package or many other conditions and situations. Plus there may be those going directly between destinations on Dupont (it has lots of retail) making going to the rail station ridiculous and very time consuming for what may be a short distance shopping trip.
The unfortunate thing is merely that the route parallels a rail line a half-mile away for its entire distance. Keep in mind that this is a greater distance the exists for most of the Madison RapidRide stops compared to Link. We have many Metro bus routes paralleling Link this close here.
My sense is that he wants the bus to be more frequent. But he implies that he feels like its low 30-minute frequency results in waste for everyone just because it doesn’t work for him and his tripmaking. That’s a selfish perspective.
I don’t mind walking, but it can be extremely time consuming. The closest bus to me runs every 45 minutes much of the day. It’s annoying it’s not frequent, but it would add 15 minutes to my commute time if I had to walk to the next nearest bus.
His example is a poor one, but his point is accurate. This example is poor because the real problem is just bad service on Dupont Street. Dupont sits basically midway between the trams on St. Clair and the subway line on Bloor. It is about 2 kilometers between them. Of course there is a bus (or tram) there. His example actually contradicts the stated problem. He specifically mentions when a bus route is “in close proximity” to a metro. A kilometer doesn’t qualify as “close proximity” in my book. It is pretty close to ideal if not a bit too wide (https://humantransit.org/2010/11/san-francisco-a-rational-stop-spacing-plan.html) for line spacing.
He finds himself walking to the subway instead, but that is just an extreme example of how people often favor a more frequent route. It doesn’t mean that a bus on Dupont is inherently a bad idea. If anything this is a variation on the problem. In some cases the bus shouldn’t exist. In other cases (like this one) the bus should be a lot more frequent. If it was more frequent it would reach a “tipping point” where ridership would go up substantially. Right now it competes (and loses) to more frequent service not because it is “in close proximity” to the other routes, but because it runs so infrequently in comparison. He gets into this towards the end of the video. The closer you are to frequent transit, the more often you have to run (until eventually you get so close it doesn’t make sense to run there). He also mentions consolidation, which is key (but again, not on Dupont Street — it should definitely have transit).
Keep in mind that this is a greater distance the exists for most of the Madison RapidRide stops compared to Link.
Yes, which is why it is a major problem. The situation with RapidRide G and the 2 is a much better example of this particular problem (as I mentioned elsewhere). I mentioned some other examples.
We have many Metro bus routes paralleling Link this close here.
Where specifically? If you mean downtown it is because the buses are basically dropping people off (or picking them up) there. The alternative would be to force a transfer (which would be a bad idea.) There is also an issue with Link in terms of its depth. The really deep stops downtown make it less popular for short trips than it would be otherwise.
In Rainier Valley we have a bus following the train because the train doesn’t have enough stops (that is basically another issue — poor stop spacing). Notice that on Bloor (where the Toronto Subway runs) there is no “shadow” bus service (it isn’t needed). They have night service (for when the train stops running).
Greenwood (Metro Route 5) and Aurora (RapidRide E) are exactly the same distance apart.
Keep in mind that even though Canada uses the metric system now, the land was laid out in Imperial British measurements.
“In Rainier Valley we have a bus following the train because the train doesn’t have enough stops (that is basically another issue — poor stop spacing).”
You can’t have a train stopping every quarter mile or it would only be good for short-distance trips: Rainier Beach would be about the furthest people would tolerate, and even that may be too far.
Greenwood (Metro Route 5) and Aurora (RapidRide E) are exactly the same distance apart.
As what? And what exactly is your point?
You can’t have a train stopping every quarter mile or it would only be good for short-distance trips: Rainier Beach would be about the furthest people would tolerate, and even that may be too far.
Yet somehow people ride the Paris Metro. The New York Subway has short stop spacing as well. They do have express lines, but those don’t run that often. The Toronto Subway has plenty of stops that are 400 to 600 meters apart. On MLK the gaps are huge (1.8, 2.5 and 1.6 km). Every gap is over a mile. Graham Street Station will definitely help, even though the gap is fairly large by world standards (a kilometer instead of 4-800 meters). But MLK is diagonal, so for a lot of people between the two stops the walking distance won’t be as bad as it would be otherwise (https://maps.app.goo.gl/CNYsNAv97ZGncFc38). North of Graham there is a bigger gap. We could use more crossing buses, and if we had one at Orcas than a station there would make sense. Otherwise a station a bit farther north (at Brandon) would provide a good midpoint (between Graham and Columbia City). Half way in between Columbia City and Mount Baker is pretty desolate (it bumps up against a greenbelt). I think you just live without anything. But I could see something between Othello and Rainier Beach. So that is two extra stations (or three if you count Graham). That is still pretty wide stop spacing by international standards, and when you consider the gigantic gap between Rainier Beach and TIBS it is strikingly sparse when it comes to stops.
One of the fundamental advantages of rail is that is saves service hours. A train can carry way more people than a bus, which means that you can run fewer vehicles. But we are basically throwing that away when we need to run a bus down the exact same pathway because the stops are too far apart. It is especially weird given that the train is running on the surface through there. Either there aren’t enough people to justify a bus (running every 15 minutes, which is actually fairly frequent for our system and only a hair worse than the train) or there are enough people to justify a train stop.
The main point of it is that there are limited resources, of course it’d be nice if every route was covered, but you’ll end up with few frequency. Then of course it can get into the details and tradeoffs but unfortunately the video doesn’t really get there.
It seemed to me a was talking about the very specific case of a transit-rich urban area.
I generally agree, but he didn’t really even hand-wave at those who find it difficult to impossible to walk 15 minutes.
Personally, I think we should offer door-to-door service for those folks via good wheelchair-ready vans.
We shouldn’t use disabilities as an excuse to do nothing on improving a transit network.
There are more people who have travel difficulty that don’t qualify for paratransit service than those that do. They’ll likely have a surcharge for on-demand transit. A new mother, a renter with a new TV, someone in high heeled shoes, a person who bagged an extra bag of groceries, …. Do I need to go on?
And every trip on fixed route transit feees up the on-demand service for those that really need it — and even when unproductive it still carries more riders than a on-deman service would.
Actually, you might need to go on.
Having lived in a city where the vast majority of people didn’t have a car, and pretty much everyone, including old ladies and people in heels, walked to the subway, I don’t think this is a significant issue. Women would simply wear sneakers and carry their heals. Old ladies with all have carts that broke down and collapsed, and wheeled them on the subway or bus. If you had to buy something big, you borrowed a car and had it delivered. This stuff is solvable and really a non-issue.
Why that’s quite noble of you, Cam to admit that you expect us all to be as agile as people you know.. Are you by chance an able-bodied white adult male like Reece?
You do realize this is a half-mile distance, right? I can give you lots of major cities with bus routes that run parallel and a half-mile half- mile from rail lines. Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and even Toronto’s streetcar network have similar parallel spacing.
I think Reece is generally insightful — but honestly this video looks like a misfire on his part. He attributes his personal travel destinations and agility as the important considerations.
I think you guys were missing Reese’s main point was that even though the infrequent bus brought him to destination it was so infrequent that for consistency he and others would just walk to other more frequent buses
I think you guys were missing Reese’s main point was that even though the infrequent bus brought him to destination it was so infrequent that for consistency he and others would just walk to other more frequent buses
Exactly. To be fair Reece made a mistake in the video by leading with that. As I noted elsewhere his example contradicts his idea. He specifically mentioned buses that were in close proximity to the subway line, then the first thing he mentions is a bus that is not close at all to the subway line. His personal example is worthwhile to show how far people will go to avoid an infrequent bus, but it is not a good example to show how buses can be rerouted. I am quite sure that Reece is not suggesting we get rid of the bus route — only that we run it more often.
It begs the question though — why isn’t Toronto running it more often? The simple answer is because other buses (in other parts of the city) should be consolidated. He basically made his argument for consolidation but he took a roundabout way getting there, and if you simply jumped on the example (as many did) you missed the point.
I agree it is a bit muddled but I think it is different than the ridership/coverage trade-off. If you have an infrequent bus in close proximity to frequent transit than you offer neither ridership nor coverage. You aren’t adding much ridership because it is infrequent (and can’t compete with the nearby frequent transit). You aren’t adding much in the way of coverage because it is very close to the other bus.
The main failing was in the order of the examples. Eventually he mentions routes that should be consolidated. He should have led with that. By consolidating you get better frequency. This would fix the case he mentions in the first example. If the Dupont bus was running every ten minutes then he wouldn’t walk to the subway. Ridership would not only go up on that bus, it would go way up (for that reason).
The other thing he muddled was in the fixation with the subway, and ignoring that this happens with buses (or trams) as well. An infrequent bus that is close to a frequent bus is going to struggle. They should be consolidated.
One thing I really like though is that he mentions this as an “anti-pattern”. This particular subject really isn’t that different than Walker’s stop/line spacing discussion: https://humantransit.org/2010/11/san-francisco-a-rational-stop-spacing-plan.html. Walker tends to focus on the positive (what you should do) and ignore when agencies do what they shouldn’t. The latter is an anti-pattern and worth calling it out.
You do realize that he’s talking about a half-mile, right? That’s the distance between Greenwood and Aurora. And Greenwood doesn’t have the retail that Dupont does.
When it comes to consolidation, he is not talking about a half mile. He only gives a specific example of consolidation starting at about the 5:30 mark of the video (giving examples in Montreal). He mentioned consolidating routes that are 300 to 500 meters apart (service is on one way streets so it varies). So basically roughly 400 meters, or a quarter mile. Some of the examples I gave were even closer together, but that is definitely in the ballpark where consolidation makes sense.
Again, I understand why you got confused. I have said repeatedly that he muddled the message by leading with the example he gave. But let me make this clear: He never suggested getting rid of the bus on Dupont. He said it should run more often.
Yeah maybe I’m being overly focused on his less than optimal example. It does seem to diminish the point to consolidate stops/ routes that are overly close but one only arrives every 30 minutes. . .
Here is Seattle and in other hilly cities, elevation may necessitate closer spacing. It’s what makes the idea of First Ave service more appealing even though it’s close to Third Ave. (I’ve suggested here that more lateral level tunnels to Downtown Link station mezzanines from First or Second Avenues would seem strategic.) It’s also why there are buses on Westlake, Aurora and Dexter on the east side of Queen Anne hill. And if the terrain was flat, walking between Link (Third Ave) and Harborview would be reasonable for many people.
In contrast, Toronto is mostly flat with a few valleys or canyons or coulees or whatever someone wants to call them. The flatness does help justify consolidating routes to one street.
Yes, hills are definitely an issue.
There are no absolutes when it comes to the issue. Walker lays out the case of 400 meters being the generally accepted standard (https://humantransit.org/2011/04/basics-walking-distance-to-transit.html) but then he immediately discusses exceptions. Europe tends to be comfortable with slightly longer distances. People walk further to faster services (which is what Reece was getting at). Frequency matters for the same reason. He doesn’t mention hills (but for some reason I remember him mentioning it in some other context). Obviously these all matter. He also finishes it off by mentioning the trade-offs. They pushed the envelope in Canberra, expecting people to walk up to 500 meters simply because the benefit was so great. There are going to be situations where it is the opposite, and running transit fairly close together is OK because spreading out the lines gets you so little.
@Ross:
Very few European cities have urban hills as steep as many areas of central Seattle including our Downtown. Some have hilly outer edges like Barcelona and Budapest and Marseille but even there the cores are relatively flat. Maybe Lisbon is the hilliest European major city?
Seattle and San Fransisco are pretty darn hilly (and we used to have more of them). Luxembourg City is basically a plateau with a big ravines. To quote Wikipedia “Although Luxembourg City is not particularly large, its layout is complex, as the city is set on several levels, straddling hills and dropping into the two gorges”. I remember taking an elevator to the top (I have no idea how many elevators there are). Bolzano/Bozen has a gondola connecting it to Ritten (which is essentially the same city). I think Rome has some steep sections and Lisbon was more or less built on the hills (to confuse invaders). Same goes for other (smaller) cities.
Istanbul too! They have urban funicular subway lines! (The other major cities in Turkey are hilly too — but technically they are in Asia.)
I do think the new Luxembourg funicular is great, by the way. It’s not only functional, but it’s also scenic!
@Al S,
Athens has one urban funicular, but it is fairly short.
It’s a two rail system with Abt switches, and it is also subterranean. Not very scenic until you get to the upper station.
And not all of turkey is in Asia.
“ And not all of turkey is in Asia.”
Yep. That’s why I added Istanbul to the earlier list of European hilly cities.
I don’t know Athens that well, and wondered how hilly the central area is. That’s why my initial list was just noting a few examples and wasn’t complete.
@Al S,
Athens isn’t really that hilly, at least by Seattle standards. Just a few knobs, including Mount Lycabettus, which is where the funicular is. The annoying thing is you have to walk half way up the knob to catch the short funicular. But there is a great view at the top, and you get to look down on the acropolis.
The funiculars in Lisbon are actually much more enjoyable to ride. And Lisbon has both a neo-gothic elevator and a historic tram system. But Athens does better for modern transit.
As per funiculars, Wikipedia has a complete list.
One of my favorite transit anti patterns is when buses traveling in opposite direction stop at the exact same stop (in the middle of a route, not at the very beginning/end).
At a minimum, it makes it very easy for passengers to accidentally get on the wrong bus, but more fundamentally, if buses that are supposed to be traveling opposite direction are facing the same way, that feel like a sign that that something is off. In particular, it implies that one bus or the other or both is making a 360-degree turn in the middle of the route, which is not good.
Usually, this tends to happen at transit center. It’s the classic attitude of “we can’t do anything about your 20 minute wait, but what we can do is delay everyone else on the bus so you can have the pleasure of standing in one place for 20 minutes and not have to cross street”. Thanks, but no thanks. Instead of making the trip better for people who are transferring, it just makes it worse for people who are not.
That’s what the 128 does to serve South Seattle College: going both directions, the bus goes north on 16th, does a U turn in the college parking lot, then goes south on 16th, covering that several block section of 16th twice.
Yeah, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. A 10-minute delay for everybody else on the bus so that people headed to one destination don’t have to make a connection with the 125. This is the kind of detour than is hard to justify unless more people are using the 128 to go specifically to South Seattle College than everywhere else put together. And, even if that were the case, it begs the question of whether a service restructure could do the job more efficiently – for example, the section of the 128 south of SSC could be shifted to the 125 and go to downtown rather than West Seattle after SSC. Of course, this would mean a transfer to go between West Seattle and White Center, but if there’s enough such people to make a transfer unacceptable, that’s also enough people to make a detour unacceptable, as a detour like this effectively adds just as much travel time as a transfer, anyway.
Another way I like to think of it is that, if a bus system is run properly, once you’re done waiting and are already on the bus, any difference in travel time between bus vs. driving should be time directly spent loading and unloading actual passengers. Meaning that a bus that is empty should be able to traverse its route as fast as a car, with the bus slower than a car only as a direct response to people actually riding it. A poorly designed is structurally slow, to the point where it takes two or three times as long as driving to get anywhere, even if you’re the only person on the bus.
I think this is two anti-patterns. One is the detour. It is very common, unfortunately and the result of places not being “on the way”. The second involves the same bus going different directions serving the same stop (because of the detour).
I think anytime you have a looping detour there is the potential for that problem. Glenn mentioned the 128, but there is also the 50 (loops through the V. A. parking lot) and the 345 (Four Freedoms House and Northwest Hospital) as well as lots of buses that serve transit centers. At a minimum the bus stops should be setup to avoid confusion. For example check out this nice map of the Northgate Transit Center: https://kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/maps/boarding/03302024/pdf/northgate_station_map. Look at the bottom to see the bays that the buses serve. They are grouped based on destination not route. This is quite handy. For example I wait at Bay 1 where all of the buses head towards my home (although some get me closer than others). But I get dropped off at Bay 4. Notice that the 20 serves both bays. But putting the stops in different places a rider is less likely to catch the 20 going the wrong direction, since the signs will say “20 Lake City” at Bay 1 and “20 Licton Springs, Green Lake, U District” at Bay 4. Thus they avoid this particular anti-pattern (the buses don’t stop at the exact same stop).
If there is space for two bus stops then they should do the same thing. I’m not sure if both the 125 and 128 serve the campus of South Seattle College (https://maps.app.goo.gl/sBp2Jd7xZQjCp9tq8) both directions. I will assume that it is, but if I’m mistaken and the 125 only serves it southbound then a similar approach makes sense. You could put the southbound buses on one end, and the northbound buses at the other. In the case of the 128 I mean buses that keep going south (instead of ones that go south for a while and then head north to High Point, etc.). If you are headed to Westwood Village than either a southbound 125 or 128 will work. If you are trying to get downtown the (northbound) 125 is better, but the northbound 128 would allow you to transfer to the H and be downtown without too much of a detour. Thus you group buses that are (more or less) headed the same direction while also reducing confusion. Of course the signage on the bus is essential — in these cases the numbers aren’t enough.
Ideally you avoid detours in the first place. Sometimes they are inevitable, but buses that terminate at places like these are really not detours. For example the 62 serves NOAA at Sand Point. No one on the bus is hurt by it. In contrast if the 75 was routed to loop through there it would definitely be a detour.
I always liked the South Bellevue former park-ride stops — inline heading north on the curb with buses heading south making an easy jog across the street before returning to the street after the stop. I sure beats the idea of looping through a transit center.
I always found it telling how the Mt Baker TC isn’t used by its two main through bus routes — 7 and 106. Its main function appears to be able to provide driver breaks/ layovers more than something for riders. It’s yet another example of how looping into a transit center isn’t optimal.
Finally, I know that it’s common to experience vertigo if a bus loops too much. That’s especially true for side-facing seats. It’s very disorienting and some people get nauseous from it. Many people dislike the feeling of being on an amusement park twirling ride!
I always found it telling how the Mt Baker TC isn’t used by its two main through bus routes — 7 and 106. Its main function appears to be able to provide driver breaks/ layovers more than something for riders.
Yes, and it is better for riders. The term “transit center” is rather arbitrary — more style than substance. They vary in design. For example the Northgate Transit Center is basically just the area around the station. It is fundamentally no different than the area around Roosevelt Station. Buses don’t have to detour to serve it (at least not at a micro-level). In contrast the Aurora TC is not on Aurora. It is on a relatively minor side street (close to the county line). The main purpose of that transit center is to allow buses to terminate there.
This is typical. Sometimes the term “transit center” is used because the transit agency (or city) owns the land. For example there is functionally little difference between the Mount Baker TC and the area outside the Lake City Fred Meyer (which as of this writing is not called a transit center). It is an area where the roads (and routes) converge. So even though it isn’t a dead end it makes sense for some of the routes to end there. But to end there you need comfort stations (otherwise known as bathrooms) and a place for buses to turnaround and layover. In the case of Mount Baker they bought out (or leased) property there. In the case of Lake City they just park on the street. Either way the other buses (that are not ending) should not detour to serve those areas.
They did it right in Rainier Valley and Community Transit is doing it wrong on Aurora. Swift should just keep going down SR-99. This is actually a better connection to the other buses than using a transit center. It is a bit ironic that a transit center is so often worse for transit. I would call using transit centers in this manner another variation of the “detour anti-pattern”. Buses should not be forced to detour just because a different bus is ending there.
I see the problem stemming from a limited number of terms that are available.
We have stops and stations (and maybe depots) and transit centers and rarely terminals. Are there many other common terms?
In other English speaking countries, a transit transfer facility is often called an “exchange”.
If I could rename things (daydreaming here) l, i would get sort the term “transit center” into its more specific function wherever possible. Terminals are mostly where routes end, while exchanges are mostly intermediate meeting/ transfer points is what I would recommend.
I would suggest calling Mt Baker a “transit terminal” or just “terminal” rather than a “transit center”. It may not sound as alluring but it would be a lot clearer what the function is.
I guess one could call Aurora Village a “transit terminal” too. However it’s soon going to have mostly through routes rather than terminating routes so its probably an “exchange” instead.
It quickly gets into a gray area. And that doesn’t even touch the idea of timed transfers.
Both terms — exchange and terminal — are much shorter on a sign or masthead than transit center is”. We’ve pretty much accepted the abbreviation “TC” because it’s so many letters.
I think it’s fine to sometimes have either word in a station name too. Plus I think it’s fine to sign station wayfinding “bus exchange” within a station.
I’m still flummoxed on what to call enhanced bus stops with fare machines et al. Technically they could be called stations but maybe a more diminutive term seems warranted. How about “stationettes”? lol!
Finally, I’m glad that “intermodal center” never took hold. I’m more than happy to cede the term “intermodal” to the freight world.
I like the term “terminals”. Wikipedia uses the term “Bus Station” as:
a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can stop. It may be intended as a terminal station for a number of routes, or as a transfer station where the routes continue.
I think the key is the former, not the latter. A large area designed as a terminal station for many buses is quite reasonable. The fact that people transfer there is also fine. But there should be nothing special about the transfers that occur there — there should be dozens of transfer points all over the place (otherwise you probably did it wrong).
There are exceptions, largely rail related. King Street Station as an exchange makes a lot of sense. Likewise when East Link makes it over the lake I could see calling the CID an “exchange”. But when it comes to buses and trains, just about every Link station could be considered an exchange (between buses and the train). It seems silly to name them. Worse is when we just have buses detouring to some place that is rather arbitrary (like the Aurora Village Transit Center). There are much better ways of achieving the same thing when it comes to transfers.
“Bus station” sounds like an intercity bus station to me. I suspect that’s why “transit center” evolved in the first place. Bus stations have often had less than glamorous pasts.
As I’ve thought about it these past few hours, I’ve grown to like the term “stationettes”! I know it sounds corny at first, but it really does get at the heart of what they are — more than a stop but less than a station. It also gives a pretty good clue to what it would look like to a person on the street.
If a lay person was told to look for the Aurora Village Stationette to catch transit, they would seem to have a clear image of what it would look like. That’s as opposed to Transir Center, which leaves a lot to interpretation..
“Exchange” would seem to also need “bus” or “transit” in the name — making it longer than “center” if written out. Plus it may get confused the a freeway “interchange”
You’re right that many
You’re right that any station could be called an exchange.
I think exchange could be thought of as an area inside a station rather than the whole station itself. The Bellevue TC could be called the Bellevue Downtown Exchange as an extension of the Link station function. Or Federal Way bus loop or Lynnwood bus loop would be called the “exchange” part of the station area.
Another available term is “bus plaza”. That may be even better the more I think of it. It definitely evokes an open air spot for buses so a rider would know it when they see it..
That leaves something like Eastgate park and ride, Issaquah TC and Issaquah Highlands park and ride. What do you call it when there is a large parking garage adjacent? RM Transit calls the garages parkades. But what about the bus loading areas? Is Issaquah deserving of “transit center” but not the other two?
Then there are the Stride facilities coming on line too. What do we call them?
Yeah I’m having fun with the topic.
“Mt Baker TC isn’t used by its two main through bus routes — 7 and 106. Its main function appears to be able to provide driver breaks/ layovers more than something for riders.”
The first “transit center” I encountered was when Bellevue TC was built in 1982. It took a spaghetti of crossing routes into a timed transfer point, with buses leaving at the :20 and :50. I sometimes transferred there, sometimes rode through, and sometimes walked to it, so it was useful to me.
Later I saw “transit center” applied to hubs in the middle of nowhere with just a P&R (Issaquah), or a couple blocks from the real transfer point with a P&R (Burien, Smokey Point), or just a layover space (Mt Baker). That seems like a disservice to passengers: making it sound like a walkable transfer hub, but then it isn’t.
“For example the Northgate Transit Center is basically just the area around the station. It is fundamentally no different than the area around Roosevelt Station.”
The difference is the number of routes. Northgate is the hub for all of far north Seattle and Shoreline. Roosevelt is a minor mini-hub.
“I’m glad that “intermodal center” never took hold”
It has taken hold. It’s what Everett Stationm, Tacoma Dome, and Portland’s train station are. King Street Station/Convention Place Station either is or could be (with the 4th Avenue Shallow vision and more activities at Union Station). The word “intermodal” is certainly used, although with something other than “center” I think. “Intermodal transportation hub”? Something like that.
June 2 note: The tile maintenance at Columbia City station is postponed due to rain, so trains are running normally.
Work at SeaTac station is ongoing, so those going to Angle Lake may have to transfer to a train or RapidRide A. (ST has changed its mind three times since yesterday evening, so I won’t try to guess the exact situation.)
Yesterday at westlake when they were still pretending they would get the work done I saw several SB trains displaying destination different than rhe arrival screens including onte hat arrived as “angle lake” before changing to “Northgate while stopped before heading further south. This was at about
1230pm. All SB trains were very full and essentually unboardable.
Operational excellence!. oLoks like we’ll get to deal with it again in a few weeks…groan.
The video makes a few assumptions I don’t think are always accurate:
1. Bus frequency is 30 minutes or greater vs. very frequent rail.
2. Rail is always faster than buses including transfers and first/last mile access. Some longer buses are express and use HOV lanes, and some buses make a lot of stops because that is their mission.
3. Buses truly mimic the route rail takes with the same stop locations. Not everyone can walk an additional 15 minutes to reach a train station rather than a nearby bus stop, or do the same at their destination.
4. The rail and bus agencies are one so that saving on truncating buses benefits rail.
5. The rail and bus routes are through very dense areas.
6. The cost of building rail.
Sometimes (rarely) the huge cost of building light rail makes sense, usually measured by dollar per rider mile. Sometime the flexibility and lower infrastructure costs (existing roads) make buses a better option, especially when first/last mile access is factored into the trip and time of transfers.
The implementation of real time bus arrival information in a phone app pretty much can mean that a rider doesn’t have to wait for a low frequency bus over 5-10 minutes depending on the distance to the stop. They can instead wait at home. Granted it still requires waiting longer at home ( certainly more comfortable) and it works badly for a return trip. Still, it really helps a rider get to the stop at about the right time without bus arrival angst (“Do I have to walk faster or run to the bus stop?”) — before the bus comes but not too far before.
Real-time bus location apps really help riders when using low frequency routes better than high frequency routes when waits aren’t too long.
I don’t think he is making assumptions, just pointing out a specific example of an anti-pattern. Just to back up here, the term anti-pattern may not be well known. Wikipedia has a good definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern. As a former software engineer I see a lot of similarity between software and transit designs. There are no absolutes. For example, when should you use a database to store your data? There are certain guidelines, but plenty of nuance. When should you replace a bus with a tram or metro? Same answer.
In this case the anti-pattern is more about frequency than anything else. It would apply if the subway line (which happens to be extremely frequent) was instead a slow bus (or set of buses) that are extremely frequent.
Of course there are exceptions. But this anti-pattern is part of a larger one about consolidation. Imagine four buses on parallel streets each a block away from each other. Now imagine each bus is running every hour. This is an anti-pattern (the dispersal anti-pattern if you will). It would be much better to have one bus running down one of the streets every fifteen minutes. It is basically a ridership/coverage trade-off, but a very poor one. Riders gain a tiny bit of coverage while they lose a ton of ridership.
Reece mentioned a variation on this general idea. It doesn’t make sense to run an infrequent bus really near frequent transit. If you look around you can see examples of this anti-pattern. For example the 73 runs very close to the 67 up and over Maple Leaf. The 67 runs every fifteen minutes while the 73 runs every half hour. As a result, the 73 has seen ridership plummet. Basically people just walked to the more frequent bus.
The RapidRide G restructure has the same problem. Notice how the 2 is very close to the RapidRide G for much of its route. The G will be a lot more frequent. Meanwhile the 10, 11 and 12 all go downtown via Pike/Pine. But they spread out while being quite close to each other for much of the way. The result is very poor frequency on each line. This is similar to the mythical example I gave. Instead of one bus running every ten minutes (or better) you have three buses running every twenty. A rider has no idea where to go to catch a frequent trip downtown (unless they walk over to the G or to Link). This is not some distant, low-density part of town, either. It is the opposite. It is probably the part of town with the greatest potential for high transit ridership, yet they will be given a crappy anti-pattern.
“Notice how the 2 is very close to the RapidRide G for much of its route. The G will be a lot more frequent. Meanwhile the 2, 11 and 12 all go downtown via Pike/Pine.”
The 10, 11, and 12 will all go downtown via Pike/Pine. The 2-Pine-12th-Union concept was the one in Metro Connects that’s not in this restructure.
“Imagine four buses on parallel streets each a block away from each other.”
I immediately thought of Queen Anne before the northern end of the 3/4/13 were consolidated. There are still several parallel routes a few blocks away from each other, but they used to be more so. The 1 was on 10th W, the 2 on 6th W, the 3 on 3rd W (no longer), the 13 on Queen Anne Ave (essentially 0 W), then the 4 was on Queen Anne Ave in the opposite direction of the 13. And the 1/2/13 trunk is on Queen Anne Ave, while the 3/4 trunk is on 5th/Taylor. The remaining parallelism can be explained by the steep hills between the routes. But the previous situation between the 3, 4, and 13 was particularly nonsensical. If you were going downtown, you had to know which side of the street to be on for the next 13 or 4.
The 10, 11, and 12 will all go downtown via Pike/Pine.
Correct. I made a mistake and will update my comment. Thanks.
I wonder why the Queen Anne routes were like that. Maybe they originally were just turning around and then got extended. It might go way back to streetcar days (e. g. the counterbalance).
I assume it was the streetcar routes. The 4 used to serve Queen Anne High School before it was converted to condos. So a route would either have to come up Taylor and button-hook as the 4 did, or come up Queen Anne Ave and turn away. That might underserve Taylor. Or it may have given access to the high school up the steep hillside.
When the old route 3 terminus was still active I went there to try to figure out why it did that. The area is residential, with no particular reason to have a branch that I could see. It’s three flat blocks to the Queen Anne Ave trunk, so what’s the point? It’s probably lost in the history of decisions decades ago. Maybe there was something else on 3rd Ave W at the time. Maybe there wasn’t a route 13 yet, so there was no other transit on the north side of the hill.
Before highway 99 was built, transit looked a bit different on Queen Anne hill, but has many similarities :
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Map_of_Seattle_Electric_Company_c_1912.png
Thanks, Glenn — cool map. That does help explain the old routing. The streetcars went to the top of the hill and then stayed up there. They stayed up on the plateau (instead of going down towards Fremont). At that point routing that goes this way and that doesn’t hurt riders or cost much. They probably looped around in some cases (without stopping). It seems possible that property owners pushed for streetcars on their street (I’m guessing — I don’t know the politics of streetcars).
I think the real problem is reese calling it ‘transit heat death” which is a very odd phrase to use versus the more typical “coverage vs frequency”.
Yeah, what is Transit Heat Death?
It’s a physics thing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
Pierce Transit development plan 2024-2029 draft.
As videos go, I do have an opposite viewpoint that needs to be considered.
Specifically , Reece is an able bodied young male adult. Walking to a nearby rail station is not difficult for him. But that’s not always the situation for every citizen. This bus route may be a lifeline for someone with mobility challenges — like an arthritis sufferer, a wheelchaired rider, someone with luggage or a stroller or big package or many other conditions and situations. Plus there may be those going directly between destinations on Dupont (it has lots of retail) making going to the rail station ridiculous and very time consuming for what may be a short distance shopping trip.
The unfortunate thing is merely that the route parallels a rail line a half-mile away for its entire distance. Keep in mind that this is a greater distance the exists for most of the Madison RapidRide stops compared to Link. We have many Metro bus routes paralleling Link this close here.
My sense is that he wants the bus to be more frequent. But he implies that he feels like its low 30-minute frequency results in waste for everyone just because it doesn’t work for him and his tripmaking. That’s a selfish perspective.
I don’t mind walking, but it can be extremely time consuming. The closest bus to me runs every 45 minutes much of the day. It’s annoying it’s not frequent, but it would add 15 minutes to my commute time if I had to walk to the next nearest bus.
His example is a poor one, but his point is accurate. This example is poor because the real problem is just bad service on Dupont Street. Dupont sits basically midway between the trams on St. Clair and the subway line on Bloor. It is about 2 kilometers between them. Of course there is a bus (or tram) there. His example actually contradicts the stated problem. He specifically mentions when a bus route is “in close proximity” to a metro. A kilometer doesn’t qualify as “close proximity” in my book. It is pretty close to ideal if not a bit too wide (https://humantransit.org/2010/11/san-francisco-a-rational-stop-spacing-plan.html) for line spacing.
He finds himself walking to the subway instead, but that is just an extreme example of how people often favor a more frequent route. It doesn’t mean that a bus on Dupont is inherently a bad idea. If anything this is a variation on the problem. In some cases the bus shouldn’t exist. In other cases (like this one) the bus should be a lot more frequent. If it was more frequent it would reach a “tipping point” where ridership would go up substantially. Right now it competes (and loses) to more frequent service not because it is “in close proximity” to the other routes, but because it runs so infrequently in comparison. He gets into this towards the end of the video. The closer you are to frequent transit, the more often you have to run (until eventually you get so close it doesn’t make sense to run there). He also mentions consolidation, which is key (but again, not on Dupont Street — it should definitely have transit).
Keep in mind that this is a greater distance the exists for most of the Madison RapidRide stops compared to Link.
Yes, which is why it is a major problem. The situation with RapidRide G and the 2 is a much better example of this particular problem (as I mentioned elsewhere). I mentioned some other examples.
We have many Metro bus routes paralleling Link this close here.
Where specifically? If you mean downtown it is because the buses are basically dropping people off (or picking them up) there. The alternative would be to force a transfer (which would be a bad idea.) There is also an issue with Link in terms of its depth. The really deep stops downtown make it less popular for short trips than it would be otherwise.
In Rainier Valley we have a bus following the train because the train doesn’t have enough stops (that is basically another issue — poor stop spacing). Notice that on Bloor (where the Toronto Subway runs) there is no “shadow” bus service (it isn’t needed). They have night service (for when the train stops running).
Greenwood (Metro Route 5) and Aurora (RapidRide E) are exactly the same distance apart.
Keep in mind that even though Canada uses the metric system now, the land was laid out in Imperial British measurements.
“In Rainier Valley we have a bus following the train because the train doesn’t have enough stops (that is basically another issue — poor stop spacing).”
You can’t have a train stopping every quarter mile or it would only be good for short-distance trips: Rainier Beach would be about the furthest people would tolerate, and even that may be too far.
Greenwood (Metro Route 5) and Aurora (RapidRide E) are exactly the same distance apart.
As what? And what exactly is your point?
You can’t have a train stopping every quarter mile or it would only be good for short-distance trips: Rainier Beach would be about the furthest people would tolerate, and even that may be too far.
Yet somehow people ride the Paris Metro. The New York Subway has short stop spacing as well. They do have express lines, but those don’t run that often. The Toronto Subway has plenty of stops that are 400 to 600 meters apart. On MLK the gaps are huge (1.8, 2.5 and 1.6 km). Every gap is over a mile. Graham Street Station will definitely help, even though the gap is fairly large by world standards (a kilometer instead of 4-800 meters). But MLK is diagonal, so for a lot of people between the two stops the walking distance won’t be as bad as it would be otherwise (https://maps.app.goo.gl/CNYsNAv97ZGncFc38). North of Graham there is a bigger gap. We could use more crossing buses, and if we had one at Orcas than a station there would make sense. Otherwise a station a bit farther north (at Brandon) would provide a good midpoint (between Graham and Columbia City). Half way in between Columbia City and Mount Baker is pretty desolate (it bumps up against a greenbelt). I think you just live without anything. But I could see something between Othello and Rainier Beach. So that is two extra stations (or three if you count Graham). That is still pretty wide stop spacing by international standards, and when you consider the gigantic gap between Rainier Beach and TIBS it is strikingly sparse when it comes to stops.
One of the fundamental advantages of rail is that is saves service hours. A train can carry way more people than a bus, which means that you can run fewer vehicles. But we are basically throwing that away when we need to run a bus down the exact same pathway because the stops are too far apart. It is especially weird given that the train is running on the surface through there. Either there aren’t enough people to justify a bus (running every 15 minutes, which is actually fairly frequent for our system and only a hair worse than the train) or there are enough people to justify a train stop.
The video is alright but I find it more to be a muddled version of Jarrett’s https://humantransit.org/2018/02/basics-the-ridership-coverage-tradeoff.html frequency vs coverage with not many additional details.
The main point of it is that there are limited resources, of course it’d be nice if every route was covered, but you’ll end up with few frequency. Then of course it can get into the details and tradeoffs but unfortunately the video doesn’t really get there.
It seemed to me a was talking about the very specific case of a transit-rich urban area.
I generally agree, but he didn’t really even hand-wave at those who find it difficult to impossible to walk 15 minutes.
Personally, I think we should offer door-to-door service for those folks via good wheelchair-ready vans.
We shouldn’t use disabilities as an excuse to do nothing on improving a transit network.
There are more people who have travel difficulty that don’t qualify for paratransit service than those that do. They’ll likely have a surcharge for on-demand transit. A new mother, a renter with a new TV, someone in high heeled shoes, a person who bagged an extra bag of groceries, …. Do I need to go on?
And every trip on fixed route transit feees up the on-demand service for those that really need it — and even when unproductive it still carries more riders than a on-deman service would.
Actually, you might need to go on.
Having lived in a city where the vast majority of people didn’t have a car, and pretty much everyone, including old ladies and people in heels, walked to the subway, I don’t think this is a significant issue. Women would simply wear sneakers and carry their heals. Old ladies with all have carts that broke down and collapsed, and wheeled them on the subway or bus. If you had to buy something big, you borrowed a car and had it delivered. This stuff is solvable and really a non-issue.
Why that’s quite noble of you, Cam to admit that you expect us all to be as agile as people you know.. Are you by chance an able-bodied white adult male like Reece?
You do realize this is a half-mile distance, right? I can give you lots of major cities with bus routes that run parallel and a half-mile half- mile from rail lines. Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and even Toronto’s streetcar network have similar parallel spacing.
I think Reece is generally insightful — but honestly this video looks like a misfire on his part. He attributes his personal travel destinations and agility as the important considerations.
I think you guys were missing Reese’s main point was that even though the infrequent bus brought him to destination it was so infrequent that for consistency he and others would just walk to other more frequent buses
I think you guys were missing Reese’s main point was that even though the infrequent bus brought him to destination it was so infrequent that for consistency he and others would just walk to other more frequent buses
Exactly. To be fair Reece made a mistake in the video by leading with that. As I noted elsewhere his example contradicts his idea. He specifically mentioned buses that were in close proximity to the subway line, then the first thing he mentions is a bus that is not close at all to the subway line. His personal example is worthwhile to show how far people will go to avoid an infrequent bus, but it is not a good example to show how buses can be rerouted. I am quite sure that Reece is not suggesting we get rid of the bus route — only that we run it more often.
It begs the question though — why isn’t Toronto running it more often? The simple answer is because other buses (in other parts of the city) should be consolidated. He basically made his argument for consolidation but he took a roundabout way getting there, and if you simply jumped on the example (as many did) you missed the point.
I agree it is a bit muddled but I think it is different than the ridership/coverage trade-off. If you have an infrequent bus in close proximity to frequent transit than you offer neither ridership nor coverage. You aren’t adding much ridership because it is infrequent (and can’t compete with the nearby frequent transit). You aren’t adding much in the way of coverage because it is very close to the other bus.
The main failing was in the order of the examples. Eventually he mentions routes that should be consolidated. He should have led with that. By consolidating you get better frequency. This would fix the case he mentions in the first example. If the Dupont bus was running every ten minutes then he wouldn’t walk to the subway. Ridership would not only go up on that bus, it would go way up (for that reason).
The other thing he muddled was in the fixation with the subway, and ignoring that this happens with buses (or trams) as well. An infrequent bus that is close to a frequent bus is going to struggle. They should be consolidated.
One thing I really like though is that he mentions this as an “anti-pattern”. This particular subject really isn’t that different than Walker’s stop/line spacing discussion: https://humantransit.org/2010/11/san-francisco-a-rational-stop-spacing-plan.html. Walker tends to focus on the positive (what you should do) and ignore when agencies do what they shouldn’t. The latter is an anti-pattern and worth calling it out.
You do realize that he’s talking about a half-mile, right? That’s the distance between Greenwood and Aurora. And Greenwood doesn’t have the retail that Dupont does.
When it comes to consolidation, he is not talking about a half mile. He only gives a specific example of consolidation starting at about the 5:30 mark of the video (giving examples in Montreal). He mentioned consolidating routes that are 300 to 500 meters apart (service is on one way streets so it varies). So basically roughly 400 meters, or a quarter mile. Some of the examples I gave were even closer together, but that is definitely in the ballpark where consolidation makes sense.
Again, I understand why you got confused. I have said repeatedly that he muddled the message by leading with the example he gave. But let me make this clear: He never suggested getting rid of the bus on Dupont. He said it should run more often.
Yeah maybe I’m being overly focused on his less than optimal example. It does seem to diminish the point to consolidate stops/ routes that are overly close but one only arrives every 30 minutes. . .
Here is Seattle and in other hilly cities, elevation may necessitate closer spacing. It’s what makes the idea of First Ave service more appealing even though it’s close to Third Ave. (I’ve suggested here that more lateral level tunnels to Downtown Link station mezzanines from First or Second Avenues would seem strategic.) It’s also why there are buses on Westlake, Aurora and Dexter on the east side of Queen Anne hill. And if the terrain was flat, walking between Link (Third Ave) and Harborview would be reasonable for many people.
In contrast, Toronto is mostly flat with a few valleys or canyons or coulees or whatever someone wants to call them. The flatness does help justify consolidating routes to one street.
Yes, hills are definitely an issue.
There are no absolutes when it comes to the issue. Walker lays out the case of 400 meters being the generally accepted standard (https://humantransit.org/2011/04/basics-walking-distance-to-transit.html) but then he immediately discusses exceptions. Europe tends to be comfortable with slightly longer distances. People walk further to faster services (which is what Reece was getting at). Frequency matters for the same reason. He doesn’t mention hills (but for some reason I remember him mentioning it in some other context). Obviously these all matter. He also finishes it off by mentioning the trade-offs. They pushed the envelope in Canberra, expecting people to walk up to 500 meters simply because the benefit was so great. There are going to be situations where it is the opposite, and running transit fairly close together is OK because spreading out the lines gets you so little.
@Ross:
Very few European cities have urban hills as steep as many areas of central Seattle including our Downtown. Some have hilly outer edges like Barcelona and Budapest and Marseille but even there the cores are relatively flat. Maybe Lisbon is the hilliest European major city?
Seattle and San Fransisco are pretty darn hilly (and we used to have more of them). Luxembourg City is basically a plateau with a big ravines. To quote Wikipedia “Although Luxembourg City is not particularly large, its layout is complex, as the city is set on several levels, straddling hills and dropping into the two gorges”. I remember taking an elevator to the top (I have no idea how many elevators there are). Bolzano/Bozen has a gondola connecting it to Ritten (which is essentially the same city). I think Rome has some steep sections and Lisbon was more or less built on the hills (to confuse invaders). Same goes for other (smaller) cities.
Istanbul too! They have urban funicular subway lines! (The other major cities in Turkey are hilly too — but technically they are in Asia.)
I do think the new Luxembourg funicular is great, by the way. It’s not only functional, but it’s also scenic!
@Al S,
Athens has one urban funicular, but it is fairly short.
It’s a two rail system with Abt switches, and it is also subterranean. Not very scenic until you get to the upper station.
And not all of turkey is in Asia.
“ And not all of turkey is in Asia.”
Yep. That’s why I added Istanbul to the earlier list of European hilly cities.
I don’t know Athens that well, and wondered how hilly the central area is. That’s why my initial list was just noting a few examples and wasn’t complete.
@Al S,
Athens isn’t really that hilly, at least by Seattle standards. Just a few knobs, including Mount Lycabettus, which is where the funicular is. The annoying thing is you have to walk half way up the knob to catch the short funicular. But there is a great view at the top, and you get to look down on the acropolis.
The funiculars in Lisbon are actually much more enjoyable to ride. And Lisbon has both a neo-gothic elevator and a historic tram system. But Athens does better for modern transit.
As per funiculars, Wikipedia has a complete list.
One of my favorite transit anti patterns is when buses traveling in opposite direction stop at the exact same stop (in the middle of a route, not at the very beginning/end).
At a minimum, it makes it very easy for passengers to accidentally get on the wrong bus, but more fundamentally, if buses that are supposed to be traveling opposite direction are facing the same way, that feel like a sign that that something is off. In particular, it implies that one bus or the other or both is making a 360-degree turn in the middle of the route, which is not good.
Usually, this tends to happen at transit center. It’s the classic attitude of “we can’t do anything about your 20 minute wait, but what we can do is delay everyone else on the bus so you can have the pleasure of standing in one place for 20 minutes and not have to cross street”. Thanks, but no thanks. Instead of making the trip better for people who are transferring, it just makes it worse for people who are not.
That’s what the 128 does to serve South Seattle College: going both directions, the bus goes north on 16th, does a U turn in the college parking lot, then goes south on 16th, covering that several block section of 16th twice.
Yeah, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. A 10-minute delay for everybody else on the bus so that people headed to one destination don’t have to make a connection with the 125. This is the kind of detour than is hard to justify unless more people are using the 128 to go specifically to South Seattle College than everywhere else put together. And, even if that were the case, it begs the question of whether a service restructure could do the job more efficiently – for example, the section of the 128 south of SSC could be shifted to the 125 and go to downtown rather than West Seattle after SSC. Of course, this would mean a transfer to go between West Seattle and White Center, but if there’s enough such people to make a transfer unacceptable, that’s also enough people to make a detour unacceptable, as a detour like this effectively adds just as much travel time as a transfer, anyway.
Another way I like to think of it is that, if a bus system is run properly, once you’re done waiting and are already on the bus, any difference in travel time between bus vs. driving should be time directly spent loading and unloading actual passengers. Meaning that a bus that is empty should be able to traverse its route as fast as a car, with the bus slower than a car only as a direct response to people actually riding it. A poorly designed is structurally slow, to the point where it takes two or three times as long as driving to get anywhere, even if you’re the only person on the bus.
I think this is two anti-patterns. One is the detour. It is very common, unfortunately and the result of places not being “on the way”. The second involves the same bus going different directions serving the same stop (because of the detour).
I think anytime you have a looping detour there is the potential for that problem. Glenn mentioned the 128, but there is also the 50 (loops through the V. A. parking lot) and the 345 (Four Freedoms House and Northwest Hospital) as well as lots of buses that serve transit centers. At a minimum the bus stops should be setup to avoid confusion. For example check out this nice map of the Northgate Transit Center: https://kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/maps/boarding/03302024/pdf/northgate_station_map. Look at the bottom to see the bays that the buses serve. They are grouped based on destination not route. This is quite handy. For example I wait at Bay 1 where all of the buses head towards my home (although some get me closer than others). But I get dropped off at Bay 4. Notice that the 20 serves both bays. But putting the stops in different places a rider is less likely to catch the 20 going the wrong direction, since the signs will say “20 Lake City” at Bay 1 and “20 Licton Springs, Green Lake, U District” at Bay 4. Thus they avoid this particular anti-pattern (the buses don’t stop at the exact same stop).
If there is space for two bus stops then they should do the same thing. I’m not sure if both the 125 and 128 serve the campus of South Seattle College (https://maps.app.goo.gl/sBp2Jd7xZQjCp9tq8) both directions. I will assume that it is, but if I’m mistaken and the 125 only serves it southbound then a similar approach makes sense. You could put the southbound buses on one end, and the northbound buses at the other. In the case of the 128 I mean buses that keep going south (instead of ones that go south for a while and then head north to High Point, etc.). If you are headed to Westwood Village than either a southbound 125 or 128 will work. If you are trying to get downtown the (northbound) 125 is better, but the northbound 128 would allow you to transfer to the H and be downtown without too much of a detour. Thus you group buses that are (more or less) headed the same direction while also reducing confusion. Of course the signage on the bus is essential — in these cases the numbers aren’t enough.
Ideally you avoid detours in the first place. Sometimes they are inevitable, but buses that terminate at places like these are really not detours. For example the 62 serves NOAA at Sand Point. No one on the bus is hurt by it. In contrast if the 75 was routed to loop through there it would definitely be a detour.
I always liked the South Bellevue former park-ride stops — inline heading north on the curb with buses heading south making an easy jog across the street before returning to the street after the stop. I sure beats the idea of looping through a transit center.
I always found it telling how the Mt Baker TC isn’t used by its two main through bus routes — 7 and 106. Its main function appears to be able to provide driver breaks/ layovers more than something for riders. It’s yet another example of how looping into a transit center isn’t optimal.
Finally, I know that it’s common to experience vertigo if a bus loops too much. That’s especially true for side-facing seats. It’s very disorienting and some people get nauseous from it. Many people dislike the feeling of being on an amusement park twirling ride!
I always found it telling how the Mt Baker TC isn’t used by its two main through bus routes — 7 and 106. Its main function appears to be able to provide driver breaks/ layovers more than something for riders.
Yes, and it is better for riders. The term “transit center” is rather arbitrary — more style than substance. They vary in design. For example the Northgate Transit Center is basically just the area around the station. It is fundamentally no different than the area around Roosevelt Station. Buses don’t have to detour to serve it (at least not at a micro-level). In contrast the Aurora TC is not on Aurora. It is on a relatively minor side street (close to the county line). The main purpose of that transit center is to allow buses to terminate there.
This is typical. Sometimes the term “transit center” is used because the transit agency (or city) owns the land. For example there is functionally little difference between the Mount Baker TC and the area outside the Lake City Fred Meyer (which as of this writing is not called a transit center). It is an area where the roads (and routes) converge. So even though it isn’t a dead end it makes sense for some of the routes to end there. But to end there you need comfort stations (otherwise known as bathrooms) and a place for buses to turnaround and layover. In the case of Mount Baker they bought out (or leased) property there. In the case of Lake City they just park on the street. Either way the other buses (that are not ending) should not detour to serve those areas.
They did it right in Rainier Valley and Community Transit is doing it wrong on Aurora. Swift should just keep going down SR-99. This is actually a better connection to the other buses than using a transit center. It is a bit ironic that a transit center is so often worse for transit. I would call using transit centers in this manner another variation of the “detour anti-pattern”. Buses should not be forced to detour just because a different bus is ending there.
I see the problem stemming from a limited number of terms that are available.
We have stops and stations (and maybe depots) and transit centers and rarely terminals. Are there many other common terms?
In other English speaking countries, a transit transfer facility is often called an “exchange”.
If I could rename things (daydreaming here) l, i would get sort the term “transit center” into its more specific function wherever possible. Terminals are mostly where routes end, while exchanges are mostly intermediate meeting/ transfer points is what I would recommend.
I would suggest calling Mt Baker a “transit terminal” or just “terminal” rather than a “transit center”. It may not sound as alluring but it would be a lot clearer what the function is.
I guess one could call Aurora Village a “transit terminal” too. However it’s soon going to have mostly through routes rather than terminating routes so its probably an “exchange” instead.
It quickly gets into a gray area. And that doesn’t even touch the idea of timed transfers.
Both terms — exchange and terminal — are much shorter on a sign or masthead than transit center is”. We’ve pretty much accepted the abbreviation “TC” because it’s so many letters.
I think it’s fine to sometimes have either word in a station name too. Plus I think it’s fine to sign station wayfinding “bus exchange” within a station.
I’m still flummoxed on what to call enhanced bus stops with fare machines et al. Technically they could be called stations but maybe a more diminutive term seems warranted. How about “stationettes”? lol!
Finally, I’m glad that “intermodal center” never took hold. I’m more than happy to cede the term “intermodal” to the freight world.
I like the term “terminals”. Wikipedia uses the term “Bus Station” as:
a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can stop. It may be intended as a terminal station for a number of routes, or as a transfer station where the routes continue.
I think the key is the former, not the latter. A large area designed as a terminal station for many buses is quite reasonable. The fact that people transfer there is also fine. But there should be nothing special about the transfers that occur there — there should be dozens of transfer points all over the place (otherwise you probably did it wrong).
There are exceptions, largely rail related. King Street Station as an exchange makes a lot of sense. Likewise when East Link makes it over the lake I could see calling the CID an “exchange”. But when it comes to buses and trains, just about every Link station could be considered an exchange (between buses and the train). It seems silly to name them. Worse is when we just have buses detouring to some place that is rather arbitrary (like the Aurora Village Transit Center). There are much better ways of achieving the same thing when it comes to transfers.
“Bus station” sounds like an intercity bus station to me. I suspect that’s why “transit center” evolved in the first place. Bus stations have often had less than glamorous pasts.
As I’ve thought about it these past few hours, I’ve grown to like the term “stationettes”! I know it sounds corny at first, but it really does get at the heart of what they are — more than a stop but less than a station. It also gives a pretty good clue to what it would look like to a person on the street.
If a lay person was told to look for the Aurora Village Stationette to catch transit, they would seem to have a clear image of what it would look like. That’s as opposed to Transir Center, which leaves a lot to interpretation..
“Exchange” would seem to also need “bus” or “transit” in the name — making it longer than “center” if written out. Plus it may get confused the a freeway “interchange”
You’re right that many
You’re right that any station could be called an exchange.
I think exchange could be thought of as an area inside a station rather than the whole station itself. The Bellevue TC could be called the Bellevue Downtown Exchange as an extension of the Link station function. Or Federal Way bus loop or Lynnwood bus loop would be called the “exchange” part of the station area.
Another available term is “bus plaza”. That may be even better the more I think of it. It definitely evokes an open air spot for buses so a rider would know it when they see it..
That leaves something like Eastgate park and ride, Issaquah TC and Issaquah Highlands park and ride. What do you call it when there is a large parking garage adjacent? RM Transit calls the garages parkades. But what about the bus loading areas? Is Issaquah deserving of “transit center” but not the other two?
Then there are the Stride facilities coming on line too. What do we call them?
Yeah I’m having fun with the topic.
“Mt Baker TC isn’t used by its two main through bus routes — 7 and 106. Its main function appears to be able to provide driver breaks/ layovers more than something for riders.”
The first “transit center” I encountered was when Bellevue TC was built in 1982. It took a spaghetti of crossing routes into a timed transfer point, with buses leaving at the :20 and :50. I sometimes transferred there, sometimes rode through, and sometimes walked to it, so it was useful to me.
Later I saw “transit center” applied to hubs in the middle of nowhere with just a P&R (Issaquah), or a couple blocks from the real transfer point with a P&R (Burien, Smokey Point), or just a layover space (Mt Baker). That seems like a disservice to passengers: making it sound like a walkable transfer hub, but then it isn’t.
“For example the Northgate Transit Center is basically just the area around the station. It is fundamentally no different than the area around Roosevelt Station.”
The difference is the number of routes. Northgate is the hub for all of far north Seattle and Shoreline. Roosevelt is a minor mini-hub.
“I’m glad that “intermodal center” never took hold”
It has taken hold. It’s what Everett Stationm, Tacoma Dome, and Portland’s train station are. King Street Station/Convention Place Station either is or could be (with the 4th Avenue Shallow vision and more activities at Union Station). The word “intermodal” is certainly used, although with something other than “center” I think. “Intermodal transportation hub”? Something like that.