The Case For Quarter Mile Bus Stop Spacing

[streets.mn]

The Case For Quarter Mile Bus Stop Spacing https://streets.mn/2014/09/11/the-case-f ... p-spacing/

[mamundsen]

I'm all for longer stop spacing. But this reminds me of the arguments about the Green Line and why the 16 needed to stay after LRT started.

Confession: I'm probably not helping because I use a stop that is a short block from another stop on the 61. The one I DON'T use is further from my house. It is also at a stop sign so if I used it I would speed up service. (Hangs head in shame)

[mullen]

when I moved to a new neighborhood I remember riding the 18 the first time and rolling my eyes as the stop indicator dinged at nearly every corner. it was a small torture. neighborhood groups would resist the elimination of stops. transit needs to serve the greatest number of people it can and those who might not be able to walk longer distances to a stop. i understand all of that. but it makes me prefer biking to busing.

thankful for limited stop bus service like the 53 and wish metro transit would run it more hours.

[ECtransplant]

Can we PLEASE start with the 28th and Hennepin bus stop. You literally don't even need to cross the street to get to the uptown transit center from it.

[David Greene]

I'm all for more limited-stop service. I'd also be fine with limiting local routes to stopping every other block.

The Met Council and Hennepin County have done some great work in mapping real walksheds, taking into account topography, paths/sidewalks, etc. They're using them to measure station area improvements to get the biggest increase in walkshed per dollar. The SWLRT community works site has some interesting blob maps which are unfortunately difficult to find just by navigating the site. Here's an example:

http://www.swlrtcommunityworks.org/site ... -%20KW.pdf

The different shadings show how pedestrian improvements increase the walkshed. That's what we should use to determine coverage, not circles and diamonds.

[Anondson]

The Met Council, at one of the meetings held for SWLRT at the SLP council chambers presented a GIS data took they developed to present those pedestrian walksheds. There was a lot of excitement that this walkshed tool be used for other purposes.

[twincitizen]

Can we PLEASE start with the 28th and Hennepin bus stop. You literally don't even need to cross the street to get to the uptown transit center from it.

YES. The stops at 28th & Hennepin (both directions) need to go away. What a joke. Starting at major transfer points with high-amenity hubs (Uptown, Chi-Lake, etc.) and eliminating the next closest stop would be a great start.

Perhaps this is something worth bringing to Lisa Bender/Goodman. While the city doesn't control transit, requests for stop eliminations/movements/additions almost always come from the locality, rather than initiated by Metro Transit. They aren't going to give themselves a bunch of work (and resultant customer relations headache) that comes along with eliminating a stop. As I commented on streets.mn, every existing stop has a built-in constituency. (Sadly), It probably has higher ridership than 90% of the stops in the city. I'd bet it even compares well with the stops further north on Hennepin. It's VERY difficult for Metro Transit to justify eliminating a well-used stop on a case-by-case basis. That said, again, a policy change to implement greater stop spacing near transit hubs would be a good start.

[MNdible]

Makes sense, but in the case of Hennepin, wouldn't you want stops at Franklin, 24th, 26th, 28th, and the Transit Center? If you omit 28th, now it's a pretty good haul between 26th and the Transit Center.

[mulad]

On one hand, it's 2000 feet. On the other hand, it's 3 blocks.

[MNdible]

Well, yes. But the article was advocating for 1/4 mile spacing, and now we're talking 3/8 mile... and if there's a route that's got enough density to justify more frequent stop spacing, this one is probably it.

[mulad]

Well, that's the thing -- higher-density areas are more likely to require buses to stop more often, so you really need to resist the temptation to add more of them beyond a certain threshold. In a blank-canvas world, I'd actually say that 1/3-mile spacing is best, but I've often dropped to 1/4-mile spacing just because that fits the street grid in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Anywhere in the 2-4 stops per mile range is pretty good in my opinion.

[RailBaronYarr]

The different shadings show how pedestrian improvements increase the walkshed. That's what we should use to determine coverage, not circles and diamonds.

The SW Community Works stuff is cool, and certainly is useful as station area planners are evaluating best bang for the buck pedestrian improvements.

But (it's buried in a comment on the article): http://www.its.berkeley.edu/publication ... 2011-5.pdf Circles or diamonds work just fine, and the cost to do all sorts of modeling probably aren't worth it. Besides, for the vast majority of stops in the system, they're on a rectilinear grid so diamonds are probably 95% accurate anyway.

[RailBaronYarr]

Also, this was too much for the article, but I found this analytic optimization interesting:

Their estimates of optimal stop spacing distances for a large and small city accounted for passengers’ access, waiting, and in-vehicle times, as well as the transit provider’s operating costs and revenues. Their simulation also explicitly considered the effects of access and service frequency on transit demand. Van Nes and Bovy derived optimal spacing distances for a variety of alternative scenarios ranging from the simple access–in-vehicle time minimization problem posed by Vuchic and Newell to a comprehensive joint cost minimization solution for the full set of passenger and operator variables. Their findings in the latter case yielded optimal stop spacing distances of 600 m for a small city and 800 m for a large city.

http://tram.mcgill.ca/Research/Publicat ... dation.pdf

[ECtransplant]

How are "small" and "large" cities defined?

[Mdcastle]

That was one of the things that really turned me off to buses, despite having a half mile walk on one end and a quarter mile on the other it seemed like it took forever because it would stop so often.

[RailBaronYarr]

How are "small" and "large" cities defined?

I'm not sure, it's actually just a review of another study within that paper and I can't find access to the full text. Either way, whether you think the urban parts of Minneapolis/St Paul are big city/small city, we're talking 3/8 mile to 1/2 mile. Another thing to consider is that might be average or "general" distances for a bus network. Most transit agencies surveyed have much wider stop spacing in the lower density/suburban areas of their network (though few went much above 1/4 mile), so that particular research may recommend tighter distances in denser areas. I'm not sure.

[Tcmetro]

I wonder how necessary the rapid bus program would be if the stops on the local buses were every 1/4 mile. It seems that there could be a middle ground between the local and express versions of a route that would be simpler for the riders to understand. There are other problems, though. Ridership at many of the remaining stops wouldn't warrant upgrades like shelters and ticket machines, so perhaps full off-board payment wouldn't be possible. An additional problem would be that if a rapid bus line was warranted, should the local stop every 1/4 mile or every 1/8 mile?

In any case, it would ideal if Metro Transit could reduce the amount of stops to 4 per mile. It would make a lot of difference on the busier routes in the central parts of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and would certainly allow for more bus service to be operated.

[RailBaronYarr]

I think that's a valid question regarding corridors with arterial lines being planned - how much of the benefits in travel time for the aBRT lines are attributable to spacing vs off-board payment vs faster boarding via doors/floors vs stop placement vs etc. Certainly there's a non-efficiency benefit attributable to the station amenities (shelters/heat/info) and better ADA access that warrants the investment.

I would say that some of the aBRT lines stretch perhaps a bit too far from the core - why does the Central Line need to go so far north, if do Nicollet & Chicago need to go all the way to American Blvd, etc. If we were to make all local routes 1/4 mile, maybe those spendy amenities for stations would be most cost-effectively built within a 5 mile radius of downtown (or so) rather than trying to be more of some combination of express / local routes. ie keep the arterial plan just tighten it up to justify the capital expenses.

[Minneapolisite]

1/4 mile spacing would mean people would be more willing to travel further distances on local routes. I know I would.

[ECtransplant]

That was one of the things that really turned me off to buses, despite having a half mile walk on one end and a quarter mile on the other it seemed like it took forever because it would stop so often.

Yup. Taking the 6 from downtown to uptown during rush hour you're pretty much guaranteed to stop nearly early block. Incredibly frustrating if you miss the 12.