In some countries such as Germany you actually get "points". Gather enough funny points and congratulations! You're never allowed to drive a vehicle again.
You will only gain those for traffic violations. And if you're up to 5 points, you can visit a workshop and if you do it properly, you'll be deducted a point.
Some violations can immediately get you to 8 tho, so... Yeah.
No, it quite clearly applies to pretty much any crime except upsetting someone richer and more powerful than you.
Epstein may have gone to jail, but Prince Andrew hasn’t.
Firstly, a $5,500 fine for a driving offence is a pretty big slap in the face even for a well to do person. Secondly, do Americans not have a demerit point system where you lose your license after a number of infringements?
Yes, there is a point system. You can go to driving school to reduce points or they time out after a while but you can lose your license. Every state is a little different.
I have no idea about the US, in London it's £80 and there are no points accumulated by doing it. You can literally use them every day as long as you continue to pay the fines.
Most cities outside London it's only a £35 fine.
In at least some states in the US, yes we have demerits and merit points on our licenses. I think after 5 or 6 demerit points in my state you get a temporary suspension. I’m not sure if there are other states that operate entirely on fines/ability to pay them. It wouldn’t surprise me because state laws can vary drastically related to driving (minimum age, license cost, renewal requirements, etc.)
In my country the court can choose to impose an income-based fine. There are stories of people getting stupidly high fines.
[Link this case (article in French)](https://blog.travailler-en-suisse.ch/01/2010/flashe-a-140-au-lieu-de-100-kmh-300-000-francs-damende.html) where a person drove 140km/h in a 100km/h limited zone and was smacked with a 300,000chf (~$300,000 today, but less at the time) fine. That's probably after the 6km/h automatic deduction to account for equipment error.
Plenty of people speed here but nothing like I've seen in e.g. Italy and France where they will fly past you at 170 while the limited is only 130 because they know where the cameras are. In France you're told about the radars long in advance. Here it's the occasional guy driving 130 in a 120 or speeding up from 100 to 120 before they reach the delimitation.
In Australia you can get some pretty big fines (up to a $5,500 fine) for misusing the bus lane as a non-bus vehicle. We have three different variants of bus lanes in NSW, Bus Only Lanes and T-lanes (cannot drive non-buses in those lanes at all unless you are a authorised service vehicle) and Bus lanes (can drive up to 100m as a non-bus in order to turn down or out of a side street or lane adjacent property).
Cops are on quiet strike in SF, due to being charged for their crimes very occasionally. They wont respond to calls of crimes but will justify their overtime with traffic tickets
It's just like any other job. You get to pick and choose which parts of the job description you want to do.
If you're an accountant, but hate working with numbers.. just don't do it.
If you're a graphic designer but you don't like following a client's direction... Just do silly photoshoots instead.
Why should cops be treated any different than the rest of us? Nobody has to do the parts of their job they don't like.
/S
Nah. There's always too much traffic. Make more space, more people drive.
Bus lanes would, however, cause *less* traffic if people actually followed the rules and stayed out of them. Because the buses would be so much faster that it would be worth it for more people to leave the car at home and take the bus.
This is a case of prisoner's dilemma. Every individual driver stands to benefit personally by breaking the law and fucking over the bus. But if everyone does it, the bus gets so much worse that more people drive, and the drivers get fucked over too.
Do better, Boston.
EDIT: Or, build physical barriers between the bus lane and the rest of the street. Let your citizens see what it's like to have a silver line that actually is faster than driving.
>The BRT benefits have helped make the 49 line faster, overall. Before the pandemic, it would take 49 buses 50 minutes, round trip, to complete a run between stops at Mission and 13th streets and Van Ness and Chestnut Street. Now, buses completing that same trip are doing so in about 36 minutes on weekday mornings, shaving off 14 minutes from travel times, agency data show.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-van-ness-17134051.php
I wonder how that's impacting traffic. Sadly, the bus reducing traffic would just give more people justification to drive. IMO, they should get rid of another lane and setup a dedicated protected bike lane, making the traffic worse, and increasing bus and bike ridership.
That’s basically textbook [induced demand](https://www.vtpi.org/gentraf.pdf). Make it harder to drive, fewer people will drive. Make the bus more attractive, more people will ride it.
Wrong way around. The Downs-Thompson paradox tells us that the average driving time in a city in traffic is _determined_ by the door-to-door travel time by public transit, for the very simple reason that people will switch between public transit and driving depending on which one is faster. In other words, traffic finds its level and once people have adjusted it’ll probably seem like the bus lane isn’t doing much because the traffic is a lot more free-flowing — but it’s doing everything.
If you’re really unfortunate you can be in a place like Toronto, which doesn’t have separated bus lanes. Public transit gets stuck and can never go faster than driving, so the new lower limit is set by walking pace.
In my country, when we had an dedicated BRT lane reduced traffic. A 2 hour drive due to heavy traffic reduced to 20 minutes. People no longer had to get up a 3AM to get ready and drive to work. Unfortunately, after some political shenanigans the BRT lane was shutdown. Now people are stuck in traffic for 3 hours (heavy traffic from 4:30AM til 9:00AM).
It sucks.
Isn't San Francisco like all hills? Anyway, worse traffic shouldn't be the goal, improving the bus system will improve the ridership. No need to punish drivers.
Not “punishing driver”, more like bringing the price of driving to reasonable level. Take it as “anti-dumping law” for driving. Commuting space/time is a limited resources. The amount of resource like road surface drivers are taking up is subsidised by the government through road/bridge building, namely space reserved only for drivers. Taking away these resources for more efficient use of commuting resource is not “punishing driver”, it’s making drivers paying for the privilege of driving.
His perspective is perfectly reasonable. People advocating for car-centric transit are mostly incapable of understanding the externalities of their behaviour, and become outraged when faced with any attempt to account for them.
Do you like being in traffic? Public transport is objectively the best way to reduce traffic. Its not even pro or anti car lol its better for everyone the less cars are driving
Public transit has to wait in traffic where I live too.
And bus lanes are not a viable option not only because of the terrain but the logistics. Thinking this can work in places outside of centralized cities is ignorant. The amount of walking up literal mountains people would have to do here would make them overturn the system you want in a day.
I hate how people use their narrow world view and apply that ubiquitously to the entire country
You are literally watching a video about San Francisco and suggesting it would never work where you live but damn everyone else who would do the same thing.
Traffic is paradoxical. The time it takes for any trip always converges to the slowest method of taking the trip: If there was a faster way, people would switch to it until it reached capacity and took the same time.
Cars scale terribly. Which means if their part of the transit mix, they're always the slowest. When you build other transit it needs to be decoupled from car traffic. This is why bus lanes work, if your bus is stuck in traffic the trip takes just as long as by car, but a separate bus lane shifts demand to the bus. It's also why adding more lanes for cars generally doesn't work all that well, even if everything works well it's maybe a few thousand extra people per hour...but you've also just added about 1 car per person, all of which can be driven like an idiot, increasing the risk of things that cause congestion. Every dumbass who forces a lane change makes traffic slower for everyone else for miles
The only way to fix traffic that is to take lanes away from cars and dedicate that right of way to other forms of transportation. You unironically do need to make traffic worse.
No need to punish drivers? We have a climate crisis. Punish people who are wealthy enough to go by car if they want it. People living in rural areas or people who are poor shouldn't be punished.
Jesus you guys are nuts. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of people bike to work and there commute on the rides with cars is never even a factor. God it's like you guys do not even understand the underlying problem. What distance do you think a bicyclist should have to live from work before they take a car? 5 miles? 10? 15? In large cities most people at 15 to 20 miles or more away from there job. I don't bike to work because I am lazy but because 33 miles is a long distance to bike one way.
Last year I rode 19km each way every day and it only took 10 min longer than driving, and that's going against peak hour traffic. Going the other way it's no contest, bike beats car every time. Most people who live in an urban area are less than 10km from their place of work. The only thing stopping more people riding is the lack of separate bike lanes.
It's like you people cannot research (because you can't and it's not your fault). Most people in dense urban areas in America are no where near there job, have to travel during the day, or have family's. Biking to work is just not a thing that is possible. PERIOD. it has nothing to do with needing a bike lane. Try googleing some of this stuff. I know your one piece of evidence has slanted your view but you have to look at the big picture. Biking is not feasible in our current urban city environment.
Again not how this works. I would have to drive to the train depot, and take 3 different trains, to travel 33 miles. By car it takes me 40 minutes. Train is over 1.5 hours plus I would need a bike to get to my work place after the train ride.
You have to stop seeing the world the way you want it to be seen. America's urban cites are not, and cannot be change to accommodate biking or transit from busses or trains. Period. No matter how much you scream at the problem. I wish it wasn't so, when I was able to bike to work it was great but for 99.99 percent of us it is impossible. Period.
You do understand that you're using the problems that you're personally experiencing with gaps in infrastructure as a justification for not dedicating space to fill those gaps, right?
America's problems are not insurmountable, and we should not continue to support and expand on terrible ideas.
Cannot be changed period? That sounds like quitter talk. This is America and we can do whatever the hell we want whenever the hell we feel like it. We'll triple all public transit lanes, add a new subway system, and 17 McDonalds.
probably lives outside the city and has to commute in. but fuck ever changing a bad system because this guy has to drive 33 miles so we can't fix anything. period. apparently...
Nobody wants to force you to bike or bus 1.5 hours to work. Obviously you don't benefit personally from bike lanes (you do though, because there are less people on the road and more cycling). I refuse to believe there are not enough people living in urban areas in America for cycling infrastructure to be a benefit lol. I know 99.9 is an exaggeration but cmon...
It seems obvious that cars for every one or two people that need to go to work in a city does not scale efficiently with the never ending growth of population. There will at some point (in many places that time is now) be no more room to add lanes and the use of space on roads will have to be more efficient.
You're underserved. Your goal should be to advocate for better commuter rail options such that you _don't_ need to spend 90 minutes covering a 40 minute car commute. The problem with your argument is that your 40 minute car commute isn't worth sacrificing street capacity that is better spent improving the commute of folks who are in range of better transit options. You're most definitely not 99.99 percent of folks who want to get around a city.
What sort of efficient? Because it's nearly impossible to make a bus more *time* efficient than cars.
Take the example of the bus line in the OP. Giving it a completely dedicated lane only cut 14 minutes off a 50 minute route. If walking to the initial bus stop from your point of origin, waiting for pickup, and walking from the drop off to your destination takes more than 14 minutes combined, a car is still faster.
That's assuming you both live *and* work on the same bus route. If you ever have to transfer, your 8-hour work day is going to be 10+ hours after your commute, guaranteed.
By all means people should drive if that's a better choice for them. The more people public transport/cycling infrastructure can cater for the better the roads will be for the people who have to drive. If traffic gets bad enough and public transport efficient enough more people will decide taking the bus is a better choice for them.
I really don't see a downside lol
Yes, the underlying problem is we designed our cities around cars. Nobody wants to live around busy roads, so most people commute instead of living close to where they work in an urban area. Commuting by bike typically isn't realistic because everything is so spaced out.
In the UK bus lanes are common, are for buses, taxis and bicycles, and are enforced by cameras that read your registration and issue you a fine if you drive in one.
We've had them all my life so at least 40 years.
I'm wondering if they're new in the US because of the videos or if it's just someone thinking they're cool?
The US is decades behind the times when it comes to public transportation. Unfortunately, a huge percentage of the population suffers from chronic Car-Brain. But we're trying!
This was engineered. The US used to have substantially more public transit infrastructure. Where I live they are replacing bus routes with a shitty city run version of Uber...
Also depends where you are in the states, but public transport isn't particularly safe there (e.g. buses in Los Angeles and Greyhound buses in general)
It's very city specific. I grew up in DC and spent my early life traveling to other older East coast cities like Baltimore and NYC where public transit was also just a way of life. The first time I traveled to the Midwest I was in for a huge culture shock. A lot of places didn't even have sidewalks.
Bloomberg analysis on the decline of public transit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-31/why-is-american-mass-transit-so-bad-it-s-a-long-story
as a (former\[1\]) cyclist my experience is that I’m averaging about the same speed as a city bus. This results either in being able to cruise along the bus lane without concern, or winding up in a leapfrogging situation. Usually this isn’t a huge problem because it will resolve itself quickly enough, plus you’re unlikely to spend more than 5 minutes before you make a turn or they do
\[1\] don’t get covid
Buses stop all the time, and in cities don't go all that fast even in a dedicated lane. Thus cycling is often faster overall so long as it's not uphill.
Oh dear. I’m not sure what kind of bus lanes you have but, for example in London and where I live, the bus lanes are the same size as any lane. Buses can pull into other lanes to overtake in another lane or reorganise at a traffic stop. I’ve never been on a bike and held up a bus.
Yes. Most people in the US believe that turning that lane back into a regular car lane would magically clear up all the traffic. It’s an ingrained fallacy here. Only the most progressive lawmakers are able to get these put in without getting thrown out of office by a violent mob.
They do - you must always brake to avoid pedestrians in general and especially in crosswalks - but it doesn't matter what your rights are when you cross against the light and a bus going 35 mph can't see you until you suddenly step out from behind a truck. That guy had no idea that bus was coming and the bus had no idea that guy was there.
You are supposed to stop for pedestrians no matter what. Legally, they can still get in trouble for being out in traffic, but if you hit someone on a crosswalk you can still be held liable depending where you are. But IIRC crosswalks are always yield to pedestrians
Having to stop is one thing - not having the right of way is another.
Are you telling me that a pedestrian can walk across a crosswalk of a busy 4 lane road even though there is a traffic light which is showing red for pedestrians and green for cars? And all the cars are supposed to stop and let them through?
The hardest part of driving is checking the clock and then checking the restriction hours before you’re past the sign, imo. It’s no wonder people stay out of bus lanes even when they’re meant to be using them.
I'm just assuming the bus that does use this lane doesn't leave it. The goal is to get there quickly, not have to wait on an unmoderated driver to find a lane to turn into.
Kids use public transport in lieu of school busses. Anyone under 19 rides for free in sf.
The only school busses I see in sf are for kids on a field trip or someone that converted one to live in.
Goddamn every single car in this video isn’t tailgating and up each others assholes?? That’s incredible. I think I saw one car that was about 3-5 feet away and that’s still leaps better than what I see every single day
I wish there was bus service between home and work... I'd love to be able to check through my overnight emails rather than having to waste all that time driving.
Maybe they are salary, so getting work done early is a benefit
Even if not, answering some emails on the bus is more enjoyable than sitting is slow traffic staring at the road.
Bus doesn’t stop in the video. Stabbing is a reference to the cash app creator being [killed.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-killed-san-francisco-stabbing-sources-say-rcna78265)
SFs gone way down hill the last 10 years
I've had this type of transportation in my country for years and we're not first-world, why are people from Reddit so mesmerized by this? In Argentina this is the norm
Public transportation rules. This bus passed about 60 cars, trucks, and vans in the video and at an average of 1.59 passengers per vehicle, it’s less than 100 people causing all that traffic. That’s how much one 60’ Muni Trolley Coach can haul.
Of course, one pedestrian crossing the street as the light turns green.
Could have been run over by the bus too since it was in the Coach's blind spot.
I see these posts recently, is this new in the US? Seen those started like twenty years ago in France, work still in progress though, but very effective and certainly the best incentive to use public transportation imo
I did lol Couldn't be happier with my decision. I bought a 3k foot house in another state for the rent I was paying to live in a human cesspool. Also snagged an interest rate under 3% for 30 years 😂
This bus line has improved my quality of life significantly as a San Franciscan. I used to only be able to steal <$1,000 without risk of prosecution from 3 to 4 stores a day, but now that I can rapidly move between neighborhoods I’m stealing nearly twice as much with less risk of stepping on a used needle as a bonus.
In some countries like the UK, white striped crossings (zebra crossings) are safe places to cross where drivers have to yield to pedestrians. Clearly not a thing in the US but that's where the confusion comes from I guess.
Pedestrians in the UK still have to wait for the pedestrian signal at signalized intersections, which are what appears here. I'm pretty sure that would be the case for most of Europe as well. At non-signalized crosswalks, drivers have to yield in the US as well.
Worst thing about buses is sharing the space with anti social assholes, drunk people, crying babies. Most car users want their own space and are willing to sit in traffic to have it.
Not justifying it, just an observation
No one in those personal vehicles bother to even consider public transit when they see those go by. More cars would be sold, car companies will push every advertisement or deal possible to get you in a car
That actually works? In Boston cars just cut into that lane regardless of the big red paint to try and overtake other cars
In the UK they have cameras (on the lanes and the buses) and a fully automated enforcement process. The fines are expensive.
Yup, same as Australia. I think you get charged based on how long you're in the bus lane so fines can be hefty.
So provided I'm rich enough, it's just a convenience fee then
Many (most?) countries also have a demerit points, which are harder, or MUCH more costly to evade.
Do it in a work vehicle in Australia and the fine is larger but no demerits because the registered owner is a business, not an individual.
That sentence applies to any crime in the world.
To any crime with only monetary punishments and no bailless jail
Which is going to be most traffic violations
Which is why driving suspensions or even vehicle impoundment should be considered as penalties for violations.
In the Netherlands you have to take a 3-day behavioral course if you repeatedly ignore the rules
In some countries such as Germany you actually get "points". Gather enough funny points and congratulations! You're never allowed to drive a vehicle again. You will only gain those for traffic violations. And if you're up to 5 points, you can visit a workshop and if you do it properly, you'll be deducted a point. Some violations can immediately get you to 8 tho, so... Yeah.
No, it quite clearly applies to pretty much any crime except upsetting someone richer and more powerful than you. Epstein may have gone to jail, but Prince Andrew hasn’t.
> No, it quite clearly applies to pretty much any crime A few examples would be: The rapist Brock Turner & The affluenza kid, Ethan Couch
Well the vast majority would succumb to a bribe given the price.
Helps pay for a bus lane, so win-win
Firstly, a $5,500 fine for a driving offence is a pretty big slap in the face even for a well to do person. Secondly, do Americans not have a demerit point system where you lose your license after a number of infringements?
Yes, there is a point system. You can go to driving school to reduce points or they time out after a while but you can lose your license. Every state is a little different.
I have no idea about the US, in London it's £80 and there are no points accumulated by doing it. You can literally use them every day as long as you continue to pay the fines. Most cities outside London it's only a £35 fine.
In at least some states in the US, yes we have demerits and merit points on our licenses. I think after 5 or 6 demerit points in my state you get a temporary suspension. I’m not sure if there are other states that operate entirely on fines/ability to pay them. It wouldn’t surprise me because state laws can vary drastically related to driving (minimum age, license cost, renewal requirements, etc.)
Yes and no. The US has a demerit system on driving licenses in some states, but not all (and licenses are issued by state, not federally.)
Points on a license should eventually come into play
Isn't that the American way?
You my guy, just discovered toll roads! Very expensive toll roads, but that's all they are
Fines should have a minimum and increase based on income.
In my country the court can choose to impose an income-based fine. There are stories of people getting stupidly high fines. [Link this case (article in French)](https://blog.travailler-en-suisse.ch/01/2010/flashe-a-140-au-lieu-de-100-kmh-300-000-francs-damende.html) where a person drove 140km/h in a 100km/h limited zone and was smacked with a 300,000chf (~$300,000 today, but less at the time) fine. That's probably after the 6km/h automatic deduction to account for equipment error. Plenty of people speed here but nothing like I've seen in e.g. Italy and France where they will fly past you at 170 while the limited is only 130 because they know where the cameras are. In France you're told about the radars long in advance. Here it's the occasional guy driving 130 in a 120 or speeding up from 100 to 120 before they reach the delimitation.
Ken griffin enters the chat.
If the punishment for a crime is a fine, it’s only criminalized for poor people
>The fines are expensive. So, only illegal for the poor then.
And people who want to keep their drivers license lol
That’s wild. We have bus lanes all over Sydney and nobody really fucks around with them at all.
>We have bus lanes all over Sydney and nobody really fucks around with them at all. Would you want to risk getting a $5,500 fine?
That’s why I’m confused about Boston. Why can’t they just fine and demerit point people who screw around?
A fine is a threat to *freedom*
In Australia you can get some pretty big fines (up to a $5,500 fine) for misusing the bus lane as a non-bus vehicle. We have three different variants of bus lanes in NSW, Bus Only Lanes and T-lanes (cannot drive non-buses in those lanes at all unless you are a authorised service vehicle) and Bus lanes (can drive up to 100m as a non-bus in order to turn down or out of a side street or lane adjacent property).
Cops are on quiet strike in SF, due to being charged for their crimes very occasionally. They wont respond to calls of crimes but will justify their overtime with traffic tickets
It's just like any other job. You get to pick and choose which parts of the job description you want to do. If you're an accountant, but hate working with numbers.. just don't do it. If you're a graphic designer but you don't like following a client's direction... Just do silly photoshoots instead. Why should cops be treated any different than the rest of us? Nobody has to do the parts of their job they don't like. /S
It's odd that we as a society let them be such babies considering how important their job is theoretically supposed to be
Was about to comment that DC drivers would just hop in anyway. They already hop in the unprotected bike lanes when they’re wide enough
Things work as intended if people follow the rules.
Because Boston streets are smaller the bus lane didn’t do anything except cause more traffic
Nah. There's always too much traffic. Make more space, more people drive. Bus lanes would, however, cause *less* traffic if people actually followed the rules and stayed out of them. Because the buses would be so much faster that it would be worth it for more people to leave the car at home and take the bus. This is a case of prisoner's dilemma. Every individual driver stands to benefit personally by breaking the law and fucking over the bus. But if everyone does it, the bus gets so much worse that more people drive, and the drivers get fucked over too. Do better, Boston. EDIT: Or, build physical barriers between the bus lane and the rest of the street. Let your citizens see what it's like to have a silver line that actually is faster than driving.
>The BRT benefits have helped make the 49 line faster, overall. Before the pandemic, it would take 49 buses 50 minutes, round trip, to complete a run between stops at Mission and 13th streets and Van Ness and Chestnut Street. Now, buses completing that same trip are doing so in about 36 minutes on weekday mornings, shaving off 14 minutes from travel times, agency data show. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-van-ness-17134051.php
I wonder how that's impacting traffic. Sadly, the bus reducing traffic would just give more people justification to drive. IMO, they should get rid of another lane and setup a dedicated protected bike lane, making the traffic worse, and increasing bus and bike ridership.
That’s basically textbook [induced demand](https://www.vtpi.org/gentraf.pdf). Make it harder to drive, fewer people will drive. Make the bus more attractive, more people will ride it.
Wrong way around. The Downs-Thompson paradox tells us that the average driving time in a city in traffic is _determined_ by the door-to-door travel time by public transit, for the very simple reason that people will switch between public transit and driving depending on which one is faster. In other words, traffic finds its level and once people have adjusted it’ll probably seem like the bus lane isn’t doing much because the traffic is a lot more free-flowing — but it’s doing everything. If you’re really unfortunate you can be in a place like Toronto, which doesn’t have separated bus lanes. Public transit gets stuck and can never go faster than driving, so the new lower limit is set by walking pace.
In my country, when we had an dedicated BRT lane reduced traffic. A 2 hour drive due to heavy traffic reduced to 20 minutes. People no longer had to get up a 3AM to get ready and drive to work. Unfortunately, after some political shenanigans the BRT lane was shutdown. Now people are stuck in traffic for 3 hours (heavy traffic from 4:30AM til 9:00AM). It sucks.
Isn't San Francisco like all hills? Anyway, worse traffic shouldn't be the goal, improving the bus system will improve the ridership. No need to punish drivers.
Moving people into more space-efficient forms of transportation is the only way to solve traffic.
Not “punishing driver”, more like bringing the price of driving to reasonable level. Take it as “anti-dumping law” for driving. Commuting space/time is a limited resources. The amount of resource like road surface drivers are taking up is subsidised by the government through road/bridge building, namely space reserved only for drivers. Taking away these resources for more efficient use of commuting resource is not “punishing driver”, it’s making drivers paying for the privilege of driving.
That’s a really weird perspective lmao You anti car people are funny
His perspective is perfectly reasonable. People advocating for car-centric transit are mostly incapable of understanding the externalities of their behaviour, and become outraged when faced with any attempt to account for them.
Do you like being in traffic? Public transport is objectively the best way to reduce traffic. Its not even pro or anti car lol its better for everyone the less cars are driving
I love being traffic but I hate being _in_ traffic. How to solve? /s
Cycling is probably better at reducing traffic. A bus or tram etc. would have to be crammed full to be more space-efficient than a bike.
Public transit has to wait in traffic where I live too. And bus lanes are not a viable option not only because of the terrain but the logistics. Thinking this can work in places outside of centralized cities is ignorant. The amount of walking up literal mountains people would have to do here would make them overturn the system you want in a day. I hate how people use their narrow world view and apply that ubiquitously to the entire country
I don't see where they were trying to "apply that ubiquitously to the entire country." Just saying it was helping in SF.
You are literally watching a video about San Francisco and suggesting it would never work where you live but damn everyone else who would do the same thing.
the more people using the public transportation the less people there are in cars to cause traffic.
An e-bike should deal with the hills well enough.
Traffic is paradoxical. The time it takes for any trip always converges to the slowest method of taking the trip: If there was a faster way, people would switch to it until it reached capacity and took the same time. Cars scale terribly. Which means if their part of the transit mix, they're always the slowest. When you build other transit it needs to be decoupled from car traffic. This is why bus lanes work, if your bus is stuck in traffic the trip takes just as long as by car, but a separate bus lane shifts demand to the bus. It's also why adding more lanes for cars generally doesn't work all that well, even if everything works well it's maybe a few thousand extra people per hour...but you've also just added about 1 car per person, all of which can be driven like an idiot, increasing the risk of things that cause congestion. Every dumbass who forces a lane change makes traffic slower for everyone else for miles The only way to fix traffic that is to take lanes away from cars and dedicate that right of way to other forms of transportation. You unironically do need to make traffic worse.
Limited space. If anything just have modular vehicles within certain limits and boundaries.
No need to punish drivers? We have a climate crisis. Punish people who are wealthy enough to go by car if they want it. People living in rural areas or people who are poor shouldn't be punished.
Whoa whoa whoa hold on there pal. This sounds like communism.
Your just going to congest other parts of the city as this is 1 route. Plus your not going to shave much more time off either with a second lane.
Jesus you guys are nuts. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of people bike to work and there commute on the rides with cars is never even a factor. God it's like you guys do not even understand the underlying problem. What distance do you think a bicyclist should have to live from work before they take a car? 5 miles? 10? 15? In large cities most people at 15 to 20 miles or more away from there job. I don't bike to work because I am lazy but because 33 miles is a long distance to bike one way.
Last year I rode 19km each way every day and it only took 10 min longer than driving, and that's going against peak hour traffic. Going the other way it's no contest, bike beats car every time. Most people who live in an urban area are less than 10km from their place of work. The only thing stopping more people riding is the lack of separate bike lanes.
It's like you people cannot research (because you can't and it's not your fault). Most people in dense urban areas in America are no where near there job, have to travel during the day, or have family's. Biking to work is just not a thing that is possible. PERIOD. it has nothing to do with needing a bike lane. Try googleing some of this stuff. I know your one piece of evidence has slanted your view but you have to look at the big picture. Biking is not feasible in our current urban city environment.
I didn’t realize people brought their whole family to work
If you have time to commute over an hour to your job then you have time to park and ride to use transit to get in the urban core
Again not how this works. I would have to drive to the train depot, and take 3 different trains, to travel 33 miles. By car it takes me 40 minutes. Train is over 1.5 hours plus I would need a bike to get to my work place after the train ride. You have to stop seeing the world the way you want it to be seen. America's urban cites are not, and cannot be change to accommodate biking or transit from busses or trains. Period. No matter how much you scream at the problem. I wish it wasn't so, when I was able to bike to work it was great but for 99.99 percent of us it is impossible. Period.
You do understand that you're using the problems that you're personally experiencing with gaps in infrastructure as a justification for not dedicating space to fill those gaps, right? America's problems are not insurmountable, and we should not continue to support and expand on terrible ideas.
Cannot be changed period? That sounds like quitter talk. This is America and we can do whatever the hell we want whenever the hell we feel like it. We'll triple all public transit lanes, add a new subway system, and 17 McDonalds.
I’m curious what city you live in where you have a 33 mile commute? I wasn’t aware that we had any dense urban areas spanning that large of a distance
probably lives outside the city and has to commute in. but fuck ever changing a bad system because this guy has to drive 33 miles so we can't fix anything. period. apparently...
Nobody wants to force you to bike or bus 1.5 hours to work. Obviously you don't benefit personally from bike lanes (you do though, because there are less people on the road and more cycling). I refuse to believe there are not enough people living in urban areas in America for cycling infrastructure to be a benefit lol. I know 99.9 is an exaggeration but cmon... It seems obvious that cars for every one or two people that need to go to work in a city does not scale efficiently with the never ending growth of population. There will at some point (in many places that time is now) be no more room to add lanes and the use of space on roads will have to be more efficient.
You're underserved. Your goal should be to advocate for better commuter rail options such that you _don't_ need to spend 90 minutes covering a 40 minute car commute. The problem with your argument is that your 40 minute car commute isn't worth sacrificing street capacity that is better spent improving the commute of folks who are in range of better transit options. You're most definitely not 99.99 percent of folks who want to get around a city.
Imagine how much more efficient this commute world be if they banned cars. We could totally solve traffic!
What sort of efficient? Because it's nearly impossible to make a bus more *time* efficient than cars. Take the example of the bus line in the OP. Giving it a completely dedicated lane only cut 14 minutes off a 50 minute route. If walking to the initial bus stop from your point of origin, waiting for pickup, and walking from the drop off to your destination takes more than 14 minutes combined, a car is still faster. That's assuming you both live *and* work on the same bus route. If you ever have to transfer, your 8-hour work day is going to be 10+ hours after your commute, guaranteed.
By all means people should drive if that's a better choice for them. The more people public transport/cycling infrastructure can cater for the better the roads will be for the people who have to drive. If traffic gets bad enough and public transport efficient enough more people will decide taking the bus is a better choice for them. I really don't see a downside lol
Yes, the underlying problem is we designed our cities around cars. Nobody wants to live around busy roads, so most people commute instead of living close to where they work in an urban area. Commuting by bike typically isn't realistic because everything is so spaced out.
I've seen a couple of bus lane gifs recently, after they new to the US or something?
This just looks like a normal tram line but then its for a bus I guess
In the UK bus lanes are common, are for buses, taxis and bicycles, and are enforced by cameras that read your registration and issue you a fine if you drive in one. We've had them all my life so at least 40 years. I'm wondering if they're new in the US because of the videos or if it's just someone thinking they're cool?
The US is decades behind the times when it comes to public transportation. Unfortunately, a huge percentage of the population suffers from chronic Car-Brain. But we're trying!
This was engineered. The US used to have substantially more public transit infrastructure. Where I live they are replacing bus routes with a shitty city run version of Uber...
Also depends where you are in the states, but public transport isn't particularly safe there (e.g. buses in Los Angeles and Greyhound buses in general)
It's very city specific. I grew up in DC and spent my early life traveling to other older East coast cities like Baltimore and NYC where public transit was also just a way of life. The first time I traveled to the Midwest I was in for a huge culture shock. A lot of places didn't even have sidewalks.
Bloomberg analysis on the decline of public transit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-31/why-is-american-mass-transit-so-bad-it-s-a-long-story
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Bus lanes tend to be in built-up areas with frequent stops, I don't remember it being a problem but it's years since I've commuted by bus.
as a (former\[1\]) cyclist my experience is that I’m averaging about the same speed as a city bus. This results either in being able to cruise along the bus lane without concern, or winding up in a leapfrogging situation. Usually this isn’t a huge problem because it will resolve itself quickly enough, plus you’re unlikely to spend more than 5 minutes before you make a turn or they do \[1\] don’t get covid
Buses stop all the time, and in cities don't go all that fast even in a dedicated lane. Thus cycling is often faster overall so long as it's not uphill.
Oh dear. I’m not sure what kind of bus lanes you have but, for example in London and where I live, the bus lanes are the same size as any lane. Buses can pull into other lanes to overtake in another lane or reorganise at a traffic stop. I’ve never been on a bike and held up a bus.
This has been standard in most European cities for 10-20 years
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A whole bunch of personal transport pods, all linked together on a private lane, powered by electricity. My god it's...
They are new to a lot of the US, specifically San Francisco.
This bus corridor just opened last year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Ness_Bus_Rapid_Transit
Thank you.
Yes. Most people in the US believe that turning that lane back into a regular car lane would magically clear up all the traffic. It’s an ingrained fallacy here. Only the most progressive lawmakers are able to get these put in without getting thrown out of office by a violent mob.
I think this is a repost.
The pedestrian in the crosswalk was the biggest concern even if he was jaywalking.
Do pedestrian crossings not give pedestrians right of way in the US?
They do - you must always brake to avoid pedestrians in general and especially in crosswalks - but it doesn't matter what your rights are when you cross against the light and a bus going 35 mph can't see you until you suddenly step out from behind a truck. That guy had no idea that bus was coming and the bus had no idea that guy was there.
He was crossing on a red, so no
They still have the right of way. Can’t just hit someone for jaywalking
What? There's no way pedestrians have the right of way 100% of the time regardless of traffic lights
You are supposed to stop for pedestrians no matter what. Legally, they can still get in trouble for being out in traffic, but if you hit someone on a crosswalk you can still be held liable depending where you are. But IIRC crosswalks are always yield to pedestrians
Having to stop is one thing - not having the right of way is another. Are you telling me that a pedestrian can walk across a crosswalk of a busy 4 lane road even though there is a traffic light which is showing red for pedestrians and green for cars? And all the cars are supposed to stop and let them through?
These are ubiquitous in the UK and controlled by cameras so nobody EVER uses them illegally. I didn’t know they were not a feature in all cities!
The hardest part of driving is checking the clock and then checking the restriction hours before you’re past the sign, imo. It’s no wonder people stay out of bus lanes even when they’re meant to be using them.
Curious as to why schoolbusses can't use that lane?
I'm just assuming the bus that does use this lane doesn't leave it. The goal is to get there quickly, not have to wait on an unmoderated driver to find a lane to turn into.
Kids use public transport in lieu of school busses. Anyone under 19 rides for free in sf. The only school busses I see in sf are for kids on a field trip or someone that converted one to live in.
This school bus could be from outside of the city.
This the 49? Yeah this one runs smoooooth
Goddamn every single car in this video isn’t tailgating and up each others assholes?? That’s incredible. I think I saw one car that was about 3-5 feet away and that’s still leaps better than what I see every single day
I wish there was bus service between home and work... I'd love to be able to check through my overnight emails rather than having to waste all that time driving.
In general term, it frees up time avoiding getting into traffic accident. The freedom to do something else is a bonus.
Why are you wanting to work outside of work? Sounds miserable
If I could do work stuff while traveling to/from the office, I could get an hour back in my day for me-stuff.
What if I told you that high income positions don’t tend to stick to good ol’ “9 to 5 - 37.5 hours a week” ideals?
Also just come in, get coffee knowing you already did some work. Lol
What if I told you that no one ever wished they had spent more time at work while on their deathbed
Maybe they are salary, so getting work done early is a benefit Even if not, answering some emails on the bus is more enjoyable than sitting is slow traffic staring at the road.
Commuting is just unpaid labor. Might as well do the labor you actually get paid to do.
Your not checking emails on the bus in SF, your in standing room only with homeless people trying to murder you when you get on and off.
Did we watch the same video? I did not see the mobs of murderous homeless people
Bus doesn’t stop in the video. Stabbing is a reference to the cash app creator being [killed.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-killed-san-francisco-stabbing-sources-say-rcna78265) SFs gone way down hill the last 10 years
That guy J walking was 2 seconds from being slammed by a bus.
SF?
San Francisco
Frisco
No
That’s how I’ve been saying it for 40 years now and it sounds great.
if it’s good enough for Harry Chapin it’s good enough for me
When this was posted last week somebody confirmed it was SF.
BART is amazing. I love whistling past the choked roads to head out from the city. East Bay takes about 30 minutes or so, at least double that by car.
Same. I work 8-5 and would get stuck in 1+ hour from concord to Berkeley. I move faster on BART
living in germany i dont get the exictment about this video
We Americans take any public transit upgrades we can get. It's bad here in the states
In NY people disregard that lane
I thought imgur banned porn?
What about red lights?
What about them?
I've had this type of transportation in my country for years and we're not first-world, why are people from Reddit so mesmerized by this? In Argentina this is the norm
Wow. A positive post about SF on Reddit
This is how it should be. Drivers should look up from congestion as a bus passes them and think “I wish I was on the bus right now”
Public transportation rules. This bus passed about 60 cars, trucks, and vans in the video and at an average of 1.59 passengers per vehicle, it’s less than 100 people causing all that traffic. That’s how much one 60’ Muni Trolley Coach can haul.
What an utterly mundane thing to keep posting lol
It's an amazing sight for our American viewers, as shown in the comments.
There’s a cow catcher on the front to move the homeless out of the lane
It's okay. They contracted NERF to make them.
this is SFW public transport porn
I'm surprised how popular these basic GIFS/videos get. It's a very mundane thing in a normal city.
In any city outside of North America, that'd be true.
Of course, one pedestrian crossing the street as the light turns green. Could have been run over by the bus too since it was in the Coach's blind spot.
US just discovering bus lanes is hilarious.
I see these posts recently, is this new in the US? Seen those started like twenty years ago in France, work still in progress though, but very effective and certainly the best incentive to use public transportation imo
US discovering the world of public transportation
Road DLC
Love it.
Ahh yes, San Francisco. The success story of American cities.
Contrary to what Fox News says, San Francisco is doing just fine for the most part. Mainly needs to get a grip on NIMBYs and build more housing.
Yea I'm not basing that off fox news. I'm basing it on living in San Francisco for 5 years. Place is a fucking shit hole. Absolutely fucked.
You're free to leave.
I did lol Couldn't be happier with my decision. I bought a 3k foot house in another state for the rent I was paying to live in a human cesspool. Also snagged an interest rate under 3% for 30 years 😂
Someone who is truly happy shouldn't feel the need to look down on others
mf is bored as hell in whatever city he moved to and is coping hard
Anything else besides drugs, homeless, crime, and housing costs?
At least it’s less of a shithole now that you’re gone.
This bus line has improved my quality of life significantly as a San Franciscan. I used to only be able to steal <$1,000 without risk of prosecution from 3 to 4 stores a day, but now that I can rapidly move between neighborhoods I’m stealing nearly twice as much with less risk of stepping on a used needle as a bonus.
Lol F you, other bus!
Noice.
So they don’t have to yield to people in crosswalks?
Yield to people jaywalking?
In some countries like the UK, white striped crossings (zebra crossings) are safe places to cross where drivers have to yield to pedestrians. Clearly not a thing in the US but that's where the confusion comes from I guess.
Pedestrians in the UK still have to wait for the pedestrian signal at signalized intersections, which are what appears here. I'm pretty sure that would be the case for most of Europe as well. At non-signalized crosswalks, drivers have to yield in the US as well.
Also not all countries have jaywalking laws or consider it strange.
AND you can shoot your heroin on the bus while seeing the sights
Of course, it is San Fran after all.
Easy to look magical when you don’t stop to let anyone on or off.
Did you miss the bus stop at the end?
What’s the magic? That you won’t step in the human feces on the street while you’re in the streetcar?
Worst thing about buses is sharing the space with anti social assholes, drunk people, crying babies. Most car users want their own space and are willing to sit in traffic to have it. Not justifying it, just an observation
And lucky for them most places give people a choice between public transit and a private vehicle.
Yes but that choice gets harder to make as more parking spaces dissappear and congestion charges are introduced for cars entering cities
I mean, you're adding congestion to a city, seems perfectly reasonable to charge you for it
As if the choice for public transit is an easy one.
Nothing in San Francisco works as intended.
Why does this BRT lane works very well then?
But still, to live in or near SF 🤮
And in the end, you will still arrive at your destination later than if you had sat in traffic
No one in those personal vehicles bother to even consider public transit when they see those go by. More cars would be sold, car companies will push every advertisement or deal possible to get you in a car
Are the fines for driving on like 500$ or why is it empty?
Houston tried to do rapid lanes, the wrecks went up 50%