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Old 09-4-2016, 12:54 AM   #1
CocoaPuff3100
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Default What's public transit like where you live?

Do you take it often, and by choice or out of necessity? Do you like it?

It's alright in Vancouver, BC. It gets worse as you leave the city proper, but it's still usable. It's certainly not the worst city for public transit.

I just got back from Seattle (on Amtrak, a real train! ), and they have a ton more buses and bus routes than Vancouver. Vancouver has 3 (soon 4) grade-separated light rail lines, so usually bus routes are designed just to get people to the train. In Seattle, it seems like bus routes are actually used to go to the destinations. They don't seem to mind service duplication, while in Vancouver, if 2-3 bus routes use the same corridor, one's gonna get rerouted for sure.

But Seattle (King County Metro) does have bus route 348, which is the best number in the world. A pretty good route too, after riding it. And it was a New Flyer XDE35 which is a bus I had never rode before and didn't even know existed.

Also, any transit fans on here (e.g. anyone who likes buses, trains, airplanes, ferries, etc.)?
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Old 09-4-2016, 01:27 AM   #2
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

Transit in my city is far more vehicle-friendly than pedestrian-friendly. My city is very typical of "urban spread", with much infrastructure designed with the car in mind. It takes quite a long time to get from one corner of the city to another, there are tons of huge parking lots in big box stores, a lot of roads have no sidewalks or ramps, and so on.

The light rail in my city was for the longest of times (and still is) primitive. Until very recently, it was a single line that went from point A (south central part of the city) to point B (northeast corner of the city). As of less than a year ago, a branching line was finally made that would take some of the trains to a university in the north central part of the city. The interior of the trains is also quite dated, with an ugly brownish-yellowish carpeting and seating, a color popular in the 70s (apparently that was a "golden" color back then but looks like barf to me). The speed of these trains is also super slow, like literally no more than 60 km/h. A car can easily drive faster. The stops are relatively close together however, so they're not spread far apart. Wait times between trains are like 10-20 minutes, which is pretty slow compared to other light rails around the world, where trains can come every 2 minutes.

The Edmonton transit system (ETS) has actually a pretty good army of buses that cover most of the city's roads. Wait times are rather long though (15-30 minutes).

To put everything into an overall perspective, I think your "alright" transit in Vancouver is probably a lot better (SkyTrain!), and Edmonton's probably sucks a lot more. It is gradually improving though. Edmonton being a newer city is behind in a lot of trends, and transit is no exception.
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Old 09-4-2016, 01:48 AM   #3
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

I try to avoid taking public transport as much as possible! Haha. Although I didn't get my license til 21, so before that I caught a lot of busses and trains to get to where I wanted / needed to. For university, or to meet up a friend etc. I used to catch a bus to the train station, train to the city and then walk 10 mins to get to my bus stop to uni. It was a 3 hour trip in total a day. XD I used to get quite anxious in crowds, esp on a bus - so I didn't like it for that reason. The busses are also so unpredictable. We have a timetable, but it's hit and miss if they're on time. Also compared to places I've travelled (Europe, Asia) the trains are a million x faster.
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Old 09-4-2016, 02:19 AM   #4
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

We have a few highways and sometimes a bus that is 45 minutes late will drive by and not pick you up.


If you can't drive yourself here then you're probably either homeless or have some beefy legs
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Old 09-4-2016, 06:57 AM   #5
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

If you want trains that skip stations, terminate before their intended destination, change from stopping-all-stations to express cause it's running 3 minutes late and the company doesn't want to get fined for poor performance, then come on down to Melbourne.

Let me tell you about our WONDERFUL ticket system. About 4-5 years ago, our PT switched ticketing systems from recyclable paper tickets, to these terrible plastic cards that were supposed to help save the environment by not cutting down trees (but replacing them with cheap plastic cards... go figure). I think the main reason was so the city could look somewhat techy, rather than old school paper tickets but I never saw a problem with these. Anyway, these Myki cards are an absolute joke (TheThong, you're going to 'love' our ticket system...).

There are so many faults with these cards, such as:
- They crack and bend very easily.
- The tiniest crack, which sometimes you cannot even see, will render your card useless.
- Sometimes you will get charged double for your trip so you gotta call customer support for a claim and we all know what big companies customer support is like...
- If the Myki reader isn't working at the station and you jump on the train/tram/bus anyway cause you gotta get to work, you're basically boned if ticket inspectors get on the train (gl trying to convince them the machine wasn't working).
- Sometimes the machines aren't fixed for days and conveniently, your station becomes the target of an invalid ticket crackdown.
- If you leave your Myki card at home, gotta buy a new one, regardless of how much money was left of your other one.
- Transferring money between cards is basically impossible.
- Every time you have to buy a new Myki, you have to pay $6 for it (with no travel money on it yet).
- Just to get to the city as a visitor in Melb, you have to pay $6 for the card, and then about another $8 bucks just for the ride in and out.
- If you forget to touch your card off when you complete your journey, it will charge you the amount of a full ticket the next time you touch your card on (mainly applies to students cause they get discounted travel costs).
- Visitors to the city have no idea how the ticket system works as there is very little signage/information on how to use it.
- Ticket Top Up machines are only at train stations, or you can top up your card at a Myki supported newsagent or 7/11. Can't do it on the actual transport itself.

Oh, Myki also cost $1b which I personally think is the biggest waste of money.

On the brighter side, the combination of trains, trams and buses will take you almost anywhere in Melb. Only thing is, the times never line up cause PT is almost ALWAYS late.
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Old 09-4-2016, 11:45 AM   #6
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

It's trash here in Miami
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Old 09-4-2016, 12:37 PM   #7
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

Mostly just buses here, but they are usually poorly kept and tend to just not show up every once in a while.
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Old 09-4-2016, 05:11 PM   #8
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

There are like 3 bus stops in my city but I've never seen any buses
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Old 09-4-2016, 05:28 PM   #9
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

I'd say it's ass, but that depends on where you live in the city or metro area. A lot of people are using Lyft/Uber as an alternative.
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Old 09-4-2016, 05:35 PM   #10
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

i don't like pittsburgh's all that much. we have a subway system, but it's limited in its range and i have no reason to ever take it because there's no east spur of track. so one alternative, which is like philly's regional rails, are the busways - there's a whole set of buses which provide express service on restricted roads to particular neighborhoods, lots and garages. these don't serve me either. there is decent bus coverage, but they just don't run some routes often enough. the buses i take are typically 90% full by the time they get to me and that's still maybe 20 stops from the universities.

similar to melbourne above, pgh is trying to transition to a less-paper system. notably, they're raising the price for people who pay with cash and trying to do away with paper transfers. the price already incentivizes their cards, but that's supposed to be the new way you transfer too - so if you pay with cash, gg, you get to pay two full fares on a one-way trip :^) one thing that balances this out is them doing away with zone-based fares totally, because what even is a zone, but i've never seen those enforced in practice anyway. airport trips are supposed to automatically be 2 zones, for instance, but the drivers themselves reject that reality.
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Old 09-4-2016, 10:59 PM   #11
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

Vancouver has also moved to a smartcard system (Compass Card). Sounds like it has similar issues to Myki and Connect Card. The main argument against it is that people have to pay twice if they buy a paper fare on the bus and transfer to SkyTrain. I believe this is also the case with Sound Transit's Link light rail.

My Compass Card is still in pristine condition, so it sounds like they're manufactured differently than Myki. Chips and dents shouldn't matter as long as the antenna and RFID chip isn't damaged. A crack, of course, could break the antenna (which goes around the edge of the card). I wonder why Myki doesn't have a way to register the cards though? Here lost/damaged cards can be replaced (for a fee) if they were registered.

Also with the advent of the Compass Card came the abolishing of the zone system for bus travel only. This was because the card readers on buses were taking upwards of 4 seconds to process each card when tapping out. SkyTrain isn't affected by this, so zones still exist there and on SeaBus.

Overall I'm neutral about Compass. I don't like the fare gates because it takes time to tap in and out. With the paper monthly pass (seen in my signature), which was discontinued in Dec 2015, you didn't even have to take it out when boarding SkyTrain, which was much more convenient.

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The light rail in my city was for the longest of times (and still is) primitive.
Haha, I actually like Edmonton light rail because they have the button in the cars to open the doors (which makes sense because it's hella cold there). They tried that for a couple of years in Vancouver (when SkyTrain was first built), but it turned out no one could figure out how to open the doors, so they removed it. However, the button is still pressable on the outside of the Mark I cars.

Vancouver's suburbs are also built with the car in mind, at least where I live. Walking home from my bus stop is a little scary due to the lack of sidewalks and visibility.



This thread has gotten great replies. It's tempting to compare Vancouver to somewhere like New York or Tokyo and think it's shit, but it could be much worse. I feel so lucky that I can go from my house to anywhere in Vancouver on my own whenever I want. When I first started taking the bus, I was amazed by that. I had always relied on cars until then, so it was like discovering a whole new world, something that had always been there but I'd never noticed.
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Old 09-18-2016, 06:16 AM   #12
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

It's shit, no buses in or out of my town past 5pm. Utter shit.
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Old 09-18-2016, 09:18 AM   #13
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

In Boston I thought it was pretty bad. I was especially mad when the scheduled last buses for every night went from 2:50 A.M. to 12:50 A.M.

But man, the MBTA is like riding the trains to heaven compared to the shitstain that is the Amherst bus system. I'd honestly rather just walk 2-4 miles most days instead of wait 45 minutes for a bus where the driver likes to TAKE A BREAK EVERY GODDAMN STOP TO CALL HIS WIFE.
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Old 09-18-2016, 10:57 AM   #14
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

It's non existent. You need a car if you want to get around.
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Old 09-18-2016, 11:03 AM   #15
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

great because its germany.

i use it to & back for school daily, and except occasional 5 minute delays there are no complaints here. (note: not a school bus, public transit)

and its free for people who attend school here so no out-of-pocket expense either.

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Old 09-18-2016, 11:20 AM   #16
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

Van is really just an issue with how much construction has been happening and how overcrowded it's been. I'm hoping that things will be more stable soon. I am excited for the Evergreen line and the updated Expo line.

In any case, I used to live in both Squamish and Kelowna. Squamish has 3 buses, sometimes 4. They do the routes maybe once every hour. You basically have to get to your location super early and wait to transfer.
Kelowna, meanwhile... it was such a sprawled out city. The buses couldn't really accommodate it. After the university became more populated, the routes had to change to take on more students, but the buses were almost always full. Plus the routes only ran every half hour to hour for the non-university lines. It took forever to get anywhere. @_@
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Old 09-18-2016, 12:21 PM   #17
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

NYC here.

Public transit can get a lot of shit here because everything looks somewhat run down (with the exception of newer stuff like the Fulton transit center) and it can get crowded depending on where you are going, but overall I love the convenience.

There are subway lines everywhere and they run frequently, despite being an older system. If you don't like the subway, then you can always use a bus. If you need to cross the river, there are bridges, underground subway lines, ferries, etc.

And if you want to visit a neighboring city, it's usually just a quick train/bus ride away. You can easily get to areas like Boston, DC, Philly, etc.

I've almost never needed a car while living here (and when I do, I just rent Zipcar for the day). Sometimes I'll call an Uber if a line is down somewhere that would make pubic transit too inconvenient that day.

But yeah the public transit is convenient here. It's really freeing -- I prefer it to living situations where you need a car to get around or else you're fucked. I'd also prefer not to deal with the hassle of buying a car, paying for maintenance, worrying about parking, paying for gas, etc.

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Old 09-18-2016, 12:42 PM   #18
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

Buses everywhere they're slow as shit
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Old 09-18-2016, 01:16 PM   #19
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Default the public transit where I live

When I walk around no one is ever at the bus stops
but when I ride the bus it lets people off
and on at nearly every stop. Odd.
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Old 09-18-2016, 02:24 PM   #20
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Default Re: What's public transit like where you live?

i've been taking the bus for 2-3 years and i love it

however, most buses arrive every 30 minutes here and some only arrive every hour

whenever i go to a bus stop i usually only have to wait for 5-15 minutes though if i don't time it so i usually don't have to wait that long

it's really inexpensive though and i love seeing all the people on the bus and talking with the bus driver

i can relax without worrying about driving and i never have to walk far since they stop at most of the streets with signs and traffic lights

however, since they only arrive every 30 minutes, the streets that are really busy have A LOT of people on each bus in the afternoon and it's so crowded that you can barely move and there's no space anywhere

sometimes i have to wait for the next bus on those streets because some buses literally cannot fit any more people; however, there's two different bus lines on that street so i don't have to wait for that long

but most streets aren't that busy and most buses don't have that many people on it

buses are really useful here but i wish there were a lot more bus lines, not just ones that go on the major streets and i wish they arrived every 15 minutes

i can also take trains here, but i usually don't take a train unless it's at least 15 miles away because they only stop every 10 miles or so; they're also pretty inexpensive but the train stop closest to me is about 6 miles away so i have to take two buses just to get there

i do love riding the train but it's usually not convenient unless i'm going really far
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