When Buses and Subways Make Transit Worse 

A useful note - *of course* some folks rely on local services, which is why I emphasized that we should improve the frequency of such services. Those who can't walk 500 meters shouldn't be expected to wait for 50 minutes for a bus, and this creates a second lower quality transit system for those with mobility issues, where it is not necessary. As stated early on in the video - the issue I have is with *infrequent* parallel services. One commenter mentioned Copenhagen's approach of providing a super frequent (but sparse) bus network, layered on top of a lower frequency ~15 minute bus network that provides dense local connectivity, this should be the model!

Here in Copenhagen, we have more or less two bus networks - there's the high frequency, pseudo-grid-based "A lines", marked with red corners of the bus. These have 4-8 minute headways during the daytime, and have night service too. Then there are all the "plain" lines, which usually have 10-15 minute headways in the weekdays and 20 minute headways in the weekend and during evenings, and often take less direct routes serving more places - though many of them are still somewhat direct. Then there are a small handful of lines with 30 minute headways and VERY circuitous routes, but these are mainly meant for seniors who need to have transit very close to their doorstep and destination, so most others don't use them. Then there are the S-buses, which are express routes, but those aren't very useful for moving around within the city itself, since they're meant for longer journeys. And there are E-buses, which duplicate the S-bus routes but skip even more stops along the way.

Don't forget the elderly who often can't walk the route that would take you 15 minutes.

I completely disagree (finally lol). Here in Kyiv we have surface transit that follows almost all metro lines. For example, trolleybus line 7 goes exactly over M1 from the city centre to the very outskirts, and it's always packed. First of all, metro is a high-capacity high speed transport, where stations are spaced to justify their use. Busses and trolleybuses can have much more packed stopping pattern and serve more destinations directly. Sometimes you need to go from a place between two metro stations to a place between other two metro stations, and there's a LOT of examples in aforementioned M1/7 case. Second, there are people for whom a brisk 10-minute walk to the closest metro station is unbearable. People with visible and invisible disabilities, elderly people, mums with strollers - for lots of them waiting longer at a closer stop and having to transfer shortly is better although longer. In Kyiv, we have very obscure bus lines such as 2, that have headways of up to 45 minutes which is ridiculous, but they are always jam packed with people for whom a potentially 45-minute wait is easier than a 400-metre walk to the fast and frequent LRT line nearby. Third, there is a hidden time cost in case of some deep-level metros like we have here in Ukraine: escalators. If I need to travel from Shuliavska to any adjacent station on the same line M1, I will ALWAYS choose trolleybus even if there's traffic jam and 3 extra stops, it will still be faster, because going down two escalators and then up one takes more time than the actual metro ride. Finally, there is ALWAYS a question of personal preference. I hate metro. I don't like being put underground whilst I'm still alive, I don't care it's fast and cool in summer and there's LTE coverage, and yatta-yatta-yatta. Just let me look at my chestnuts blooming from a bus window.

I think there's one circumstance where it makes sense to have a bus run along a rapid transit line which is where the bus serves as an inline feeder for the rapid transit. Reece and I might be happy to walk 1 km to a subway station but not everyone is so nimble on their legs, so a subway system with say 2 km station spacing can be supported by a bus system with 400 m stop spacing to help get people to the subway stations. However this only makes sense if the bus is _very_ frequent.

“Or a large US city” 💀 so true but sad

I know someone who lives on that 26 Dupont bus line and it is really bad, one of the worst buses in the city. Lower frequency and very inconsistent. I once walked 45 minutes to my destination and still beat the bus that I would have been waiting for.

In my small city buses are essential for old people, who can't walk very long. I only use the buses when I am sick, injured or have heavy luggage. As much as a like public transport, I try to avoid buses as much as possible as a bus feels like a big car. Your are stuck in the same traffic as cars, unless there is a dedicated bus lane. In Beijing I used buses quite frequently, because they come very often and they usually go along large an straight streets. So they really save you time, while costing almost nothing to ride.

Super relevant for my situation in Burnaby, outside Vancouver; I live right in the middle of two SkyTrain stations. There's a bus that stops right outside my place, but it only comes every half hour. So i often just take the 10-15 minute walk to the station instead of waiting for the bus.

I am disabled and can't walk much or fast. The buses don't run frequently and the difference between having to walk even a minute slower can mean over an hour of difference in geting a bus and hours if you need a transfer on your route

I usually ride an e-bike to the nearest MARTA station rather than riding a 60 min headway bus route 24.

In NYC, this stems mostly from refusal of the agency (for decades) to add accessibility features to the subway. Their method of complying with Americans with Disabilities Act is to run the buses and paratransit, creating a perception that these services are for the poor (even if fares are the same, or sometimes greater). The MTA's leadership only just figured out how this is penny wise and pound foolish; they're now figuring out they can just eat the onetime cost in elevators, removing the need to run service that is redundant and unpopular even with the population that is served.

In Chicago, the 56 bus parallels the blue line. However, since the blue line has so few ADA accessible stations, many people with disabilities rely on the 56 vus to take them to the nearest blue line station with an elevator, or just take the bus for the whole journey.

What’s super strange is that Melbourne has many tram routes that parallel train lines with many tram routes running higher frequencies than the trains (at least off-peak trams run more frequently)! Examples of trams running parallel to trains are: • Route 19 and Upfield line • Route 11 and Mernda line • Route 86 and Hurstbridge line (for inner sections) • Route 96 and Hurstbridge/Mernda lines (for inner north sections) • Route 109 and Belgrave and Lilydale lines • Route 67 and Sandringham line • Route 12 used to parallel St Kilda line (before it closed and converted to light rail). Now it parallels route 96 (south of the city)! I’m sure I’ve missed some, but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head… Both transport modes (despite paralleling) are still well used.

As a frequent user of buses 55 and 80 in Montréal I can tell you that they are packed. Maybe the 55 cannibalises the orange line a little bit but it can only be justified by the fact that this part of Montréal between rue St-Laurent and Saint-Denis (orange line) includes perhaps some of the most service dense destination boroughs in the city. Some users probably save time compared to the 10+10 min walk between St-Laurent and the metro

If the bus ends before a major trip generator, the termination of an infrequent bus is the worse option, and will actually significantly reduce any transport patronage. Perth realised this very early on the design of the Mandurah line - which is why all the buses on Canning Highway generally continue to the the major trip generator (CBD). It's about the total journey time... Transferring from the infrequent to the frequent is also seen as desirable, but extremely undesirable in the opposite direction. Just as a side note, in Australia... wait time is considered 2x wait time (that every second waiting, is 2 seconds overall), and interchange time is considered as 10x (every second is considered 10 seconds), and it has been shown to be very accurate - even at somewhere like Wolli Creek, where it is 8tph meeting 6tph trains off peak - demand patterns actually show people interchanging at other locations, because the percieved wait time is too great... That is the big problem with curtailing low frequency buses prior to a major trip generator (but only if they actually have some patronage prior to the curtailment point). Data from that work place showed that if you doubled frequency, but curtailed the bus prior to the main trip generator (Route 308 is a prime example in Sydney), patronage collapsed.

Forget about the 55 and the 14, the 30 bus runs even closer to the orange line and basically parallels the entire length of its eastern leg - and runs every 30 minutes if you're lucky. That's why they call it the 30 🙃 (BTW, I literally just transferred from the orange line to a Bixi because I didn't want to wait half an hour for the bus to take me to my final destination. In the winter I typically just walk 😅)

You guys talking about problems of two lines and here I am in SWFL with no options at all in transit

1:06 the Q24, B47 and B46 on Broadway in Brooklyn, NY running parallel to the J train's entire Broadway run between Broadway Junction and Marcy Ave. And the traffic between Myrtle Avenue-Broadway and Flushing Avenue is RIDICULOUS.

We have this problem in Berlin with the 221 Bus and U6 between Kurt-Schumacher-Platz and Leopoldplatz. (technically even between Scharnweberstraße and Leopoldplatz) North of Kurt-Schumacher-Platz the 221 runs every 10 Minutes, but on the section to Leopoldplatz it's only every 20 Minutes - if the bus is punctual. However oftentimes, that section is skipped if the Busses are too delayed. When I complained about that to the Transit agency, they told me that the line sees too infrequent use to try to better the situation. I proposed a Bus line that would serve our section better - even just cutting it off from 221 and having its own line here so that were not dependent on the delays of other lines. The BVG says that we can just go use the U-Bahn though, which at the widest sections is about 800m away from the Bus.

History has a political example. During the cold war, the Berlin S-Bahn in the west-sectors of the city was still run by Deutsche Reichsbahn from the east. The west boycoted it by running buses on the highway that's mostly in parallel to the ringbahn. So yes. You had bus stops on the highway.

I live along an infrequent bus route and have just printed the timetable and stuck it to my apartment door. If I have too much time, I carry the garbage out or do some other chore that I would have to do anyway. It also helps that the bus arrives in ±1 minutes of its desired time here.

I think a main reason for this, especially in the US and Canada, is due to the Americans with disabilities, and the Canadian equivalent, transit agencies are required to run buses to cover more area, especially for elderly and disabled people, because buses are often seen as something for the low income and disabled so it makes sense from that perspective, but it’s not great.

Frequencies of 30 and 50 minutes near the center of a city with 2 million inhabitants seems insane to me. Here in Vienna you'll only find such frequencies on the night buses. During weekdays and even on weekendends there really isn't any bus/tram/metro line with frequencies of more than 10min, even though there are a lot of lines that run less than 500 meters parallel to each other. So waiting more than 7 or 8 minutes for any line anywhere in the city is quite unusual, especially during the week. But then again, I guess here in Vienna we are quite spoiled concerning public transit.

You hit the nail on the head with Montreal buses. The 14 runs directly in front of my door, and stops within a block of my gym, doctors office and a good friend’s house. I’ve taken it once in the last year, when I miraculously spotted it as I was leaving home. Otherwise it’s always been faster to walk or Bixi for these 2-3 km trips than wait for it 30-45 minutes (or possibly longer).

There is also the "one size fits all" issue. I live in downtown Toronto and I see the Rosedale 82 bus leaving Rosedale station with only a few people on board, but it is a full size bus. This is a route that would be better served with smaller buses and with those you could have more frequent service. Mind you, I usually walk downtown. The Wellesley 94 route runs every 10 minutes between Castle Frank and Wellesley which takes 11 minutes, but walking is often faster if you aren't going the full route (which takes 27 minutes to walk).

Recently in Hong Kong, many routes the government tender out conflict with many existing, high frequency routes, and also don't serve enough areas, take Ching Tin Estate routes for example. It was tendered out to citybus and started running a couple years ago. CTB 50 a half day service between Ching Tin and Kowloon have low passenger numbers due to competition from the MTR and KMB providing faster, more frequent and cheaper services (this route runs every 20 - 35 minutes). (Every time I see this route there's almost no one on board) CTB 50M the all day service between Wo Tin and Tuen Mun MTR conflicts with the Light Rail and MTR buses for the majority of the journey. The bus runs every 15 - 20 minutes all day while the light rail runs every 2 - 10 minutes making passenger numbers low during non-peak. The route is also very circuitous causing it to take longer that it should take due to bad planning. CTB 56 and 56A two services that runs on weekdays between Ching Tin and Sheung Shui/Fanling highly overlap with existing minibus route 44A and 44A1 which combined provides services every couple minutes making 56 and 56A have lower passenger numbers. Then there's the most useless of the series... 50R which is a after event special from HK Coliseum to Ching Tin... Who thought it was a good idea to run a special departure of a route with almost no patronage? btw the transport department designed all these routes... 78C, 78X and 79X are also really bad as being circuitous, also designed by the transport department (just look at the routes on a map)

I just got back from a trip to Montreal. I really enjoyed using transit to explore the city. The one exception to that was the 55 route bus which was always involved long waits and crowded buses. So I just stopped using it and walked to the Metro instead but clearly lots of people are still trying to use the line.

A most classic RM video! Real time bus tracking that is reliable can be a big part of the solution. the worse the service level, the higher is the reliance of loyal customers on tracking. Having such info displayed at 'proper bus stations' with shelter, seating and more. The real solution is accurate pricing of driving - something we won't see for a long time.

Thos happened to me yesterday where I was waiting for the bus. I missed the bus I needed to get on by 1 minute, 20 minute frequency. Than next bus said it will be 14 minutes late, & the alternative route where I have to walk 4 blocks another 10 minutes. So I ended up walking 8 blocks to the train, & took that instead.

This is great and the points made are clear. But if you could could you expand on this in a future video where disability and accessibility are taken into account more? Consolidation is efficient but it leaves greater distances to be traveled by foot which may not be accessible to some. Perhaps temporary roots could be used at specific times.

Great video. The book "Better Buses, Better Cities" talks about this, and discusses several cities that revamped their bus network to get better frequencies along the important corridors. Paratransit is often overlooked as a tool here, to help the people with disabilities or mobility issues that cannot walk the extra distance. Often, transit agencies looking to revamp their system to get better frequencies along fewer corridors will pair this with expansions of their paratransit services to help cover the gaps. And for everyone in between, better walkability always helps this along. It's one thing if the high-frequency rapid transit is only 400 meters away, but it doesn't really matter if that 400 m includes crossing a six-lane highway with no good pedestrian access.

Here in Duisburg Germany, buses are considered a poor persons transport. Almost all routes are infrequent with a 30 minute wait seen as good. So if you have a car, there is no incentive to use public transit.

In many parts of Chicago, you’ll encounter this exact situation with how the CTA Buses connect to the L.

In London, there are plenty of popular bus routes that run aligned to a tube line. The central line, shepherds bush to Tottenham court road comes to mind. The bus is cheaper in central london and easier to evade fares on due to the lack of barriers.

Tellement bien vu Reece ! 👌 à méditer, et à mettre en pratique.

Reece, long time viewer and fan of RMT. Thank you for doing these videos. I'm a transit operator in a medium sized municipality. I hate to say it, but I do think your point is a little off the mark here. I can read from your comments below that you've already acknowledged people who are disabled and senior populations that require above-ground, near residence service, so kudos for recognizing that there is a need there. I pick up so many people who can barely walk and only need to go one stop. I can say with some degree of confidence there are many reasons why a route may have infrequent service. Whether it's a shortage of drivers and/or working busses, prioritizing other high-usage routes, or just simple lack of passengers, there's almost always a reason for a route's existence and current status. In my system, there was a route that was deliberately shortened during a large construction project. This shortening made for a much quicker journey for passengers, most of whom were heading towards the final stop - a large shopping centre. When the construction concluded, the route was not immediately restored because it was served, in part, by two other separate routes. Anyone hoping to get to the shopping centre along this particular portion of the route would now have to take two busses (or just one, and walk about 20 minutes). The local community fought to get service fully restored, but resources had since been reallocated to other routes. Eventually, the route was restored to its original routing with one caveat: more infrequent service across all three routes. Another interesting point is that not a lot of people on this part of the route even take the bus, because incomes are higher, people own cars, etc. Even if the level of service was increased beyond what it was prior to construction, I don't think we'd start seeing full busses all of a sudden. People have better options. Anyways, I digress. My point is this: there are always going to be trade-offs. Every system does not have limitless funding and resources to throw at a route, and we can't continuously run empty busses up and down a road at high frequency just expecting people to suddenly appear. Maybe it's sad, but a retired senior is more likely to be able to accompany their grocery-shopping schedule around a bus that runs once an hour compared to a work commuter who needs to get to their job on time.

I think, these busses need to be values as "walking aid" for those people, who can not walk (or bike) to a rapid transit option. I see this with the old lady living above me: I often meet her at the next bus stop from here to the city center waiting for a 9 minute bus-ride to the central square. Walking there would take me _less_ time (because the bus doesn't go right through the pedestrian zone), but those 600 meters are no option for her.

I think that the rationale for slow infrequent bus line is that some interest group went up to the city commission and lobbied hard for the line that serves their particular needs. Kinda like a bus that ties a few senior living center with shopping malls or medical centers, or a few residential neighborhoods with specialty high schools. This can be served by the specialty paratransit services, like senior citizens shuttle services or school buses. Sending regular buses to these kinds or routes feels like a waste for the large swaths of riding public, but for those special communities, it helps them very much. From the perspective of city planners it’s tomAto/tomah-to, the same budget subsidies both types of transit. Long story short - public transit is not just about grids and frequency, it’s about helping specific groups of people achieve specific transportation goals.

Here in Warsaw large parts of our metro have busy tram routes running literally above providing a service with more frequent stops. On the 8km downtown section of the M1 there are metro stations every kilometer (with 2 large gaps because of unbuilt stations) and there's a separated tram above with stops every 300 meters.

This frustrating issue is insanely common in the U.S., but it's mostly a function of multiple disparate transit providers failing to integrate with each other whatsoever. When it's Toronto, with one agency, it's just embarrassing. Only caveat is lines that serve e.g. a senior center or similar.

All routes get the same image line on the map but they aren't designed for everybody. And it looks like these routes aren't designed for young and fit people like Reese. But that doesn't mean they should get erased. They don't demand much of the agency's resources so what is the problem with a few routes being low frequency for people who can't reach routes farther away? I'd like to see Reese take a better look at his own "optimal" design through the lens of the elderly and others with mobility challenges. He touches upon it, but it doesn't sound like he understands.

Here in NY, we have some parallel bus/subway routes where the bus runs better/equivalent headways, especially in the peak shoulders (I'm looking at you, J & Q56). That means the bus can actually be more convenient than the subway that runs over it if your trip is short and not within a block or two of the subway stop.

I live in Calgary and the southern Red Line has a massive issue with this (especially with Shawnessy Station) the 52, 78, 81, 102, etc

What you're talking about is pretty common in Sweden. And in Denmark where I'm from such measures have been proposed a few times, notably in Aalborg ahead of their BRT opening. They were debating on how to reshape the transit network once their BRT line would open, and involving the public, and one proposal meant having fewer lines but have them be less winding, and all running every 7.5 minutes! However a lot of the public were against it for having to walk too far to the bus, and I quote "Discriminating against the disabled and people with poor walking ability". So it got scrapped, and the bus network stayed largely the same, with around 10 minute service on most lines during peak hours, but every 20-30 minute service off peak.

Great video, and this is something that I have experienced throughout the greater Seattle region. But I think you missed accounting for geography/terrain. Where I live, there was a frequent route at the bottom of the hill, and an infrequent feeder route that ran up the hill and parallel. The frequent bus was only a 7 minute walk, but when the infrequent feeder route was removed due to restructuring, older people now refuse to walk down the hill and opt to drive instead.

I know this. I have a 15 minute walk to the train station and have never taken a bus there, although the option exists because buses operate infrequently, so the total time with the bus is worse for me than walking. Also, now that there is an option to buy train tickets online/app I usually go on time so I enter the platform when the train arrives.

What I found interesting about the 15 min walk to subway is that in Asia, where people often say they have good public transport, it's quite typical to walk such distance to get to subway, while people in North America, even for places like Toronto which has a descent public transportation network (although not great), that 15 minute walk seems like an agony, and people with home or offices 15 min walk away from the station would never tell you they live close to the subway. I think the key is the design of the stations and their exits. In Asia, whether you look at Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Osaka or Taipei, you often find that a subway station would come with 10 to 20 exits, and many of them are quite far away from the actual station body. They build long tunnel that connects an "exit" to the station body, and I have walked an exit that is 1.2 km long in Tokyo. A walk "inside" that station that takes 15-20 minutes are quite typical actually in Asia, but then the exit to the ground that is actually 15-20 min walk away from the station is then built right next to where you want to go to. That 15-20 min walk inside the station vs. the same walk on the street is perceived differently in people's mind. If you are walking in the station exit tunnel for 15 min, you "think" your home is right next to the station, but when you need to walk outside in the elements for 15 min to get to the station exit that is right on top of the platform, you would think your home is far away from the station, and therefore start to get into a car and drive. The walk really is the same but you get a really different outcome. I think what Toronto needs to do is to build more exits that are further away from the station body, especially along streets that have a lot of apartments, such as along Yonge Street between Sheppard and Cummer, or along Sheppard between Leslie and Yonge, or along Eglinton. That will bring more people into the high capacity transportation systems, and those infrequent short range buses that are supposed to be bringing people from 15 min walk away to the stations can then be eliminated. I would think building pedestrian tunnels connecting to the stations would be easier than building tracks.

I also lived in the Dupont and Christie area for a few years, until about a year ago. I went to U of T and it just wasn't worth taking any of the buses on Dupont, Christie, or Davenport. I would just walk all the way to campus cause it would take 30 minutes, otherwise I'd be paying 3ish bucks to save 5-10 mins on my commute. Lovely area though, we might have walked past each other at some point lol.

In Hong Kong, there are numerous bus routes that operate directly above metro lines. But their combined frequencies are still frequent, and are great at travelling to or from places on the metro line but relatively far away from metro station.

Same thing here! I moved like 25 minutes walking from Wilson station and was really happy because TTC 104 bus has a stop like 40 meters from my door. Quite honestly, I have taken that bus like 5 times in six months. Supposedly it passes every 30 minutes but it is never on time so now I just walk the 25 minutes a quite often ended up saving time

The worse example is the 97 young bus right above the subway

Surely there needs to be consideration for those who need the local because they can't walk far?

Why is reece so keen on removing stops for frequency? Coverage is way more important and makes more trips possible and not some trips faster

In Chicago, the 36 runs next to some of the north red line but it's always very busy.

Where I grew up in the Harrow, North-west London, there is a bus which parrallels the tube all the way from Harrow to Northwood. It might not be useful for getting to your nearest station but it is often packed by people who have been to the main shopping district in Harrow and then back out to one of the suburbs. Mainly because it goes direct rather than a walk from the station which is still an interchange of sorts. The 18 in London also parrallels the Bakerloo all the way from Baker Street to Wembley. It is one of the busiest buses in the whole city despite this.

You're so right. Line 14 could technically get me to my favourite hair salon, but I usually walk there because the bus doesn't come at a convenient time for my appointment.

Hi. Of course you make many valid points. Especially so if passengers are making frequent commuter-style journeys to common destinations downtown. In terms of destinations, buses may have more flexibility (assuming the buses and rapit transport do not follow the same route).

1:50 an Example of this scenario for me is similar, as in just outside of downtown in the Riverdale Area. When I want to go to Donlands Station from the Stop at Jones and Boultbee, I will usually just walk up to the station since the Bus runs every 15 Minutes, even though the Walking time is Similar to the Buses' Frequency. by the time it Reaches my stop I would already be at Danforth

Love that you used Ljubljana bus shelters as a synonym for waiting. They are very synonymous.

I live right on the corner ! This is my daily struggle haha ! Great video

Frick that’s a good idea for Montreal. I take the 55 or the 129 to work all winter. I could also take the 80 which drives by the 55/129 stop at Saint Catherine but unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. In the summer I don’t even bother with the bus because it’s too slow and crowded compared to the bixi bikes. Combining those three bus routes into one would make my miserable winter waiting more manageable.

I live at St Clair on Avenue Road. There is a bus stop right in front of my building, but the bus only comes every 30 minutes and is so consistently off schedule that walking ten minutes to Yonge and St Clair is seriously the only option I've ever considered.

I just moved to Montreal from Vancouver and I gotta say, I miss transit in Vancouver, bus frequency was 8-15 on most routes. The 185 bus I usually takes runs every half hour. Thankfully I’m close enough to the metro.

Listening to this thinking about the driver for Scarborough’s old Route 13 Rouge Go Station, East Avenue to Toronto Zoo. That poor driver was so bored on weekends and holidays in the winter but he was the only one delivering 30 minute service

Dublin has a variation of this that's gradually being fixed. It has to do with two things: too many routes being routed through the city centre due to a lack of orbital routes and interference with route planning from local politicians. This has lead to a situation where there are bus routes that are slight variations on each other to appease local demands. Part of the solution has been to replace per-journey fees with 90 minute windows, which makes interchanges much more attractive. The other thing is the introduction of orbitals, which means that if you want to get from one part of the city on the same side of the river to the other, you're not stuck going into town. What people are fighting tooth and nail against is the consolidation of radial routes, as they see it as their service being taken away.

In the city I live in, buses have the right of way. When a bus has its indicator on all other vehicles must let the bus change lanes or pull out of the bus stop. This creates a better flow for the buses and has also lowered traffic congestion. The public transport system is designed extremely well to the point that over 80% of the people in my city use public transport to get to work. With the use of a guided busway the bus only takes 15 minutes to get from the outer city suburbs to the city centre but by car it takes around 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on the time of day. Guided busways have all the advantages of rail but at a fraction of the cost with the added benefit that the buses can be used for normal bus services.

Here in Frankfurt (Main) in Germany, there are quite a lot of bus lines that kinda follow the U-Bahn (yes, technically its a stadtbahn), but also meander to get more direct service to more people. i have a bus stop right in front of my building and always (if i am not carrying heavy groceries or ikea stuff) walk to the U-Bahn stop about 700m away.

In Sydney all the express bus routes to the city use up all the buses. Thus, the buses going from suburb to suburb, and suburb to train station get horrific frequencies of every 25 minutes off peak. This is all despite the express bus routes usually start at rail stations! Castle Hill and Bella Vista!

Thanks for another informative video. I live in Kuala Lumpur suburb of Taman Desa, served by popular bus route 650 to KL City hub of Pasar Seni with decent 20 peak/30 off peak minutes frequencies. In 2023 when MRT2 line started and to boost ridership the MRT2 corporation added a feeder bus service T585 about 2 km to Kuchai MRT Station to same suburb served by route 650 with frequency of 30 minutes which are hopelessly long to wait. As a result you will be lucky to see a handful of riders on T585 and dozen during peak. Even more funny is that the new T585 feeder bus routes run opposite direction to old 650 often with no bus shelters. To promote the tens of billon dollar MRT investment the feeder buses are branded as MRT and to average car centric commuters you only use these MRT buses if you want to feed into MRT!

The 97 used to have 5 buses an hour between the Lawrence-Steeles and York Mills-Davisville/St. Clair/Queens Quay sections, which meant Lawrence-York Mills had proper bus service in the populated gap between them. Then after Covid the service was slashed to two buses an hour the whole way with a split at Yonge Blvd. Now anyone who can’t walk the kilometre from Yonge/Yonge to either station has to wait up to half an hour for a bus while the subway rumbles beneath them every few minutes.

Great video, I have noticed this, especially the 97 bus along Yonge which appears every blue moon, I just don't understand who even uses it. But my main point when it comes to all of this is that we should improve not for the sake of an environmental cause (which is admirable), but because it's the right thing to do. 50 minute bus - means essentially no bus and transit agency can claim points on technicality, but unlike trivia, technicalities are irrelevant in real life.

During my trip to montreal, i had 3 bus experiences. First was the airport bus,. That had you waiting in a single file line to get on, and there wasn't enough room for everyone. Thankfully this will be fixed soon with the new rail connection. The second, there was construction at the start of the line and the bus stop was moved a good half mile away, we barely made it cause we'd have to wait 30 minutes for another bus. The third , there was again construction, and i simply couldnt figure out where to get on, so we didnt use it and decided on something else easier to get to. All disappointing experiences when the metro there was somewhat decent.

We have this issue in Chicago with the 56 bus. It runs on Milwaukee Ave which is basically the same alignment as the blue line. In many cases the bus stops for the route are at the same intersection as the L stops.

I'm spoilt for choice in my neighbourhood, with one train line (soon to be two) and four bus routes into the city. My waiting times are thus usually fairly short. The factor you don't mention though is cost. The local transport system in Sydney uses a single payment card system, but different fare structures for trains (more expensive) and buses (less expensive). I'm happy to put up with slightly longer wait times for the bus if it saves me a bit of money.

Parallel buses are probably there when the subway line adjacent has many inaccessible stations

Interestingly, the situation in Bengaluru is the opposite. There's a one-way couplet in the Maleswaram district that has around 26 bus lines -- over 60 if you count the line variants -- making it very easy to connect to the metro lines.

My city (Glasgow) has loads of bus routes duplicating rapid transit or near-rapid transit routes, and the weird part is people actually use them a lot. In Scotland since 2022 ,Under 22s and over 6somethings get free bus travel here, whereas trains are paid, but these buses were still heavily used before this was introduced. They were even more expensive than taking the train in some cases! Frequencies on these routes tend to be pretty good so that's my best explanation for this, people find them more covenient because they require less walking and in some cases have frequencies better than trains.

Eglinton Crosstown really going to have a bus service for an LRT route, is why reminded me of this. Especially west of Science Centre

In philly we have busses that run up and down broad street right above the broad street line. But there's good ridership on them and a real necessity because most of the stations on this line aren't wheelchair accessible. There are busses running down chestnut and walnut just a block or so from the el which is the busiest rapid transit line but they actually get very high ridership because they can take you closer to your destination in many places and many people will prefer the bus over the el because the el is seen as overcrowded, dirty, people smoke and the fear of crime

The problem in Montreal is that the orange line of theMetro is already saturated at rush hours. Having an alternate surface route for those who would travel just over a few stations on St-Laurent (shopping and restaurants) diverts some _traffic_ from the already saturated** Metro for those traveling over longer distances. **No one wants to be shoved in like they are in Japan.

The 53 in Edmonton probably meets your criteria. (Parallel to the LRT between Coliseum and Belvedere). Asked to Transit app to recommend a trip solution from an Industrial site (storage locker) on the route. It recommended I walk to the nearest train station as the Bird flies. What the app did not know about was fencing blocking the most direct route. The indirect route I took had a "substantial" change in altitude (about 50m). Even being able-bodied: it was a miserable trek. Next time I just waited for the infrequent bus.

I live in Surrey, BC. We have a bus route called R1 which is a rapid bus that runs every 10 min. We also have a bus called the 321 which serves the same route but goes further on one end by about 20 miles to another city. It runs about every 30 min. They are both completely packed for most of the day until late at night. The 321 stops at every stop. The R1 only stops about every 4 blocks. The R1 will get you from one side of the city about as fast as a car. Sometimes during rush hour it is actually faster because of how the streets are configured to favor it. Removing the 321 would leave a significant number of elderly and disabled unable to get to about a third of the route due to distance. If you are physically able this does not matter. But either way the route exists for a reason. It would not make sense to make the 321 more frequent. It is a point to point commuter line and the other bus is for people who need to get off between stops the faster bus does not stop at. What would you do in this case? It is always super busy for both busses too.

San Diego is planning the Purple Line regional rail with 3 miles between stops even in dense areas and 10 min frequencies. They're also planning a BRT line with 10 min frequencies that will closely parallel it to provide local service. I say scrap the BRT line, automate the Purple Line, run it every 2 minutes, and put stops a mile apart in dense areas. Which is exactly what the Sepulveda Heavy Rail will be.

In Vancouver the 9 and 15 busses run on the route as the 99 bline bus and Canada line respectively. They justify it by providing local service for the stops between the longer stop on the bline and Canada line

So idk about Canada, but I put your idea into the context of my neighborhood in Chicago. The Green Line on the Westside is paralleled by the Route 20 bus, but I find the Route 20 immensely useful still since the gap between the Ashland and California Stations is so huge. The Route 20 here runs at about the same frequency as the Green Line, and it is much easier to get to the bus stop than it is to climb the steps to the 'L'. What's funny about this specific example (and maybe shines a light on US being ass) is that while I'm a few miles away from downtown, if the bus is coming now, but the train is supposed to come in 10 minutes, it's possible to beat the train to Washington/Wabash by taking the bus lol. Might get better once they finish the Damen Station though. Thanks for the video!

In Stockholm they split the busses into various cathegories so that they can serve both the elderly who might have trouble biking or walking and relieve the metro. Close traffic busses on demand that you call 30 minutes in advance if you have mobility issues and they send a small bus of 5-20 seats with a wheelchair lift. Close traffic busses with about two dozen fixed lines running very infrequently about once an hour specifically targeting hospitals, retiree communities and community centres numbered in the in the nine hundreds. Suburban buses numbered from the hundreds to the eight hundreds depending on which suburb they serve usually running between 10 and 30 minute frequency with 19 to 47 seats. Suburban direct busses that take the highway in and out of the city with about 10 minute frequency in rush hour but as low as every other hour outside of rush hour and 68 seats. Stem buses with two digit numbers across the inner city with 10 or 15 minute frequency and 19-47 seats. Blue stem busses with single digit number serving expanded versions of the network used by the trams before they built the metro, they usually run on 3 or 4 minute frequency, 47 seats and have frequent stops, serving as circle lines to the metro which doesn't have any. (They're called blue because all other lines are red.) This might seem convoluted but it kind of adresses the issue of people who can't walk or bike to the metro, light rail or commuter rail.

Have a look into the 900 series bus services in Perth, Western Australia. There is a conference paper from around 2017 that covers how Transperth very succesfully undertook (and continues to undertake) route consolidation and the uptick in passenger boardings as a result.

Not sure in Canada because the metros are newer, but here in Paris we have buses parallel to Metros because most of the metro stations are not ADA or handicapped. Whenever I am using my wheelchair, I usually take the bus because the metros don't have elevators or even escalators.

The 55 Saint-Laurent bus is useful because it connects to the Saint-Laurent station. If I arrive from the green line and need to go, say, Laurier/Saint-Laurent. I don't wanna transfer and take the 80 or the orange line, and then walk 10 minutes... Plus, I would need to do the same on the way back. I'm old and tired, a 10 min walk isn't negligible.

In Denver, I have three bus lines to choose from to get from my place to school: 15L, 10, and 6. Soon, the 15L will be replaced with a BRT line! I expect that I will ride the 10 and 6 less because I'm always running late!

In Phoenix the transit agency explained this as an ADA problem. They did not want to put Light Rail stops every 1/2 mile but that is required for an ADA compliant transit service. It creates the problem of more stops on a high capacity line, or running a parallel service to comply with the requirements.

The San Francisco area has way too many of these bad bus routes.

I think it's still common that even in Hong Kong you have metro down there with at least 1 bus routes that is cover 50% of a metro route. (e.g. KMB 1/2/6, Citybus 2,2A,10, and every routes between Wong Tai Sin/Lam Tin that via Route 7) Even crazier on the Hong Kong Island side you have tram + bus +metro running the same corridor, which I have used each of those before. I do think the issue in the Toronto's network is heavily following the grid, that it goes either horizontally or vertically along the grid rather than having some turns.

Yonge-University Line/97 Yonge in Toronto is an Easy one Eventually there will also be Line 5 Running alongside the 32 Eglinton West/34 Eglinton East and Line 6 running alongside the 36 Finch West

Man, now I feel so glad that I live in Berlin. It's unheard of for a bus to run less than once every 20 minutes. Most buses run every 10 minutes with service up to every 5 minutes, during peak time. Although with regards to running buses parallel to rapid transit. The 100 bus connects Alexanderplatz to the Zoo, which directly mirrors the much, much faster S-Bahn overground train line. No one in their right mind when trying to get between the two termini would take that bus. However, it does have a purpose. It is an extremely popular tourist route, where tourists can ride a bus on the public transport network, avoiding tour bus fees, while seeing many of the sites in Berlin.

I would guess a lot of those routes, with higher population densities, have a high enough density of the elderly and disabled who can't walk, so it needs more than dial-a-ride service, but most people can walk to the subway (enjoying exercise even if it's a minute or two slower), so the planners see little rider benefit likely to come from running more frequently?

Here in the Philippines, buses (BRT) run underneath the MRT because it can't handle the excess load of passengers (fewer trains), it's cheaper, and it stops at major malls along the route.

In Athens, there are bus routes which parallel the tram (which only has two lines), and because of this I think that it would be better if the tram was instead a light railway compatible with the national network or a metro line. It serves dense areas, and since the bus is sometimes quicker than the tram, I think that this ruins the advantages of a tramway like its capacity or greener energy. There also are bus routes which parallel the metro lines, but these are night routes running while the metro is closed.

My city has this. A bus from my district for 2/3 of its route goes right next to or close to a light rail line. It does provide a useful service to my district, but if it was shortened to the first light rail stop it intersects with, it could have a higher frequency. But the people would get outraged because „no direct connection!!!” Even though their commute would improve.