Signaling a bus in Orange County means you press a button and a light alerts the bus driver:
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UPDATE: Scot also thinks this is worth the read, from New Zealand’s transportblog – by Stu Donovan
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Engineers versus … everyone else?
How do you define “optimal conditions” in a transport sense? The graphic below paints a stark difference in opinion on what constitutes “optimal conditions” for different professions:
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It highlights a very important issue: Engineers tend to measure performance using indicators that measure mobility, whereas economists tend to measure performance using indicators that measure value. …
I’m going to say this right now: Level of service tells you *nothing* about what people value. Why? Because it’s measured independently of the costs associated with being able to move freely. We could, for example, enjoy great LOS if we bulldozed the entire city and replaced it all with twenty-lane motorways connecting to vast carparks, with the occasional office building or house dotted amongst the seas of asphalt. But I think it’s obvious that would be a really, really bad outcome for almost everything else that we value.
From an economic perspective, congestion in cities can be seen as a good thing. It’s an indicator that lots of people are using the city in lots of different ways – going to work, travelling to see friends or family, going shopping, visiting sports games or art museums etc. Congestion has costs, of course, but eliminating it entirely would be even more costly.
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Full article and comments here.
By order of priority a bus stop should feature
1/ proper lighting at night
2/ a bench
3/ a shelter
Whether (1) is provided, a button to alert the bus driver could be superfluous, and trump the order of priorities if (2) and (3) is not provided
btw: how you cross the street to reach the bus stop on the opposite side?
Here is my prioritized ideal bus stop:
1/ A list of routes that stop at this stop
2/ A shelter with concrete pad and walkway connected to the sidewalk (no one likes standing in the mud waiting for a bus)
3/ A timetable for the stopping routes, if practical. A telephone number to call or text for bus times can substitute provided it doesn’t take 5 minutes to look up.
4/ A bench
5/ Night lights
This button is unnecessary. To me it suggests this stop is used so infrequently that it warrants wiring up electricity for someone to push a button to get the driver’s attention. What ever happened to eye contact, smiling, and a friendly wave? Although, I see your point — it looks like there is not a lot of street lighting and this route could very well be very dark at night.
A lot of this sort of stuff is becoming redundant with the proliferation of smart phones. A smart phone app can use GPS to figure out what bus stop you’re at, bring up a map showing the bus routes that the stop services, show where the actual buses are on those routes, and list when the next bus for each route will arrive.
I’m thinking that the “smart stops” on Main street (which show next bus information) aren’t likely to be replicated on any other routes because of this. They were built in the small window between the time when Translink started acquiring the real-time information needed to run the signs and the time when smartphones started to proliferate.
It’s true that not everyone has a smartphone. But I think there’s a pretty obvious trend toward providing more and more smartphone services because they allow companies to add a lot of value at very little cost. It’s not going to be very long before people are going to need a smartphone to fully participate in society.
And lest you think I’m some sort of young whippersnapper, I was born in 1955.
I agree smartphones are making such things obsolete.
Except when you don’t have a smart phone or your smartphone battery is dead.
Getting around on transit that expects the user to have a smartphone is just as bad as transit without timetables and maps.
I have a smart phone but I think it’s morally and strategically wrong for transit agencies to rely on people having one.
Smart phones are expensive. Public transit is for the public – even (especially?) for those who cannot afford a smart phone.
And is it really, really necessary to be bouncing microwaves / radio waves around for that purpose?
I have watched buses go past me on the street without stopping and sail right past my desired stop even after ringing the bell and standing prominently at the doorway, but those are rare events. Usually I experience the opposite situation at my neighbourhood stop: every bus stops for me unless I make it blindingly obvious that I’m waiting for the other route serving the same stop.
The goal of every highway is to move vehicles so the empty one in the photo is an engineering failure. It would be “perfect” if it was “filled” with vehicles travelling at the design speed.
As for the patio I don’t see any reason to assign LOS F. Is there an hour long wait for a table? Surely that dog isn’t going to block the sidewalk all day. Add the fact that you can park immediately adjacent to the patio and the fact that there’s zero traffic visible on the road and the only valid engineering conclusion is that it’s a successful street.
Just to give a little more context here. The wall is a sound barrier separating El Camino Real from Interstate 5 in San Clemente where I used to live for 7 years. I agree that the reason for the signal light is because of infrequent use. There was a second button that activated an overhead light at the stop, all solar powered. There was a bench, trash can but no shelter. Bus Frequency was every 1/2 hour
If we want to think like Economists, the question should be “how much congestion is optimal”? Or, when does the cost of reducing congestion become greater than the benefit from reducing congestion? Part of why Economists (and others) love the idea of road pricing so much, is it doesn’t seek to solve the problem of congestion from some centralized bureaucracy, which almost certainly lacks the information needed to know what is the “optimal level of congestion” (they are forced to crudely guess and pass regulations to force that outcome). By instead forcing the individual driver to bear the costs of their choices, drivers can themselves determine if the trip they are about to make is “worth it”. This aligns “society’s interest” with the individual’s interest – if the benefit from the trip is greater than all the costs (environmental, congestion, etc), then society should WANT the trip to occur, and it will, if the individual bears the costs. So, from a theoretical standpoint, road pricing could lead to the “efficient” number of trips by car – no more, no less. This is a beautiful thing.
That’s the basis for bridge tolls on the Port Mann Bridge – demand side management.
Without the toll, the period of free flowing traffic on the bridge would be significantly shorter. The toll reduces demand (i.e. those willing to pay) which keeps the bridge free flowing for any more years.
See page 37 of the Gateway Project Definition Report, here.
The Port Mann Bridge toll is clearly a “congestion reduction measure”.
http://www.pmh1project.com/Policy%20Planning%20%20Reports/10-016488%20%20Gateway%20Program%20Definiton%20Report%20PDR.pdf
This point was first made by William “Holly”: Whyte in his 1988 book, City: Rediscovering the Center. Congestion is bad for roads, great for sidewalks.