Why are there so many goddamn buses in Seattle? I mean holy

Imagine all those people were in their own cars, or even on bikes, and imagine the death of all movement in the city. Buses are needed more than ever but when the majority of people who take them are considered 'undesireables' it is usually linked to where you are going or coming from more than the mode of transport.

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>>1101638
Build more roads faggot.

The way Americans look down on buses never seizes to amaze me. It's just a mode of transportation. And a pretty effective one at that.

>>1101636
Wow, you're really a cunt aren't you?
I'd like to be there when you're down on your luck so I can talk shit about you having to take public transit for any reason.

>>1101662
*ceases

>>1101636
I'm from Germany and in my City they use doubble articulated busses (3 cabs).
Theses things are horrible since they can't even corner properly and killed many cyclists.

>>1101636

The congestion would be a lot worse without the buses with all the lower income citizens forced to lease a car.

>>1101636

>we literally made fun of other kids in school

And here is another American basing his adult years on how things went in school.

What is it with the American obsession of high school? Grown fucking men still complaining about Chad and Stacey.

>>1101669

Hamburg?

The only people I have seen to stupid shit around those artics are Freds and there ain't nothing wrong with culling some Freds

>>1101672
No, Aachen.
And people now joke that the bus drivers are racing against each other...

>>1101662
i hate buses too they are more versatile than tracks sure but they usually roll coal as the default mode of operation fucking ancient diesels badly maintained and held together by vomit and duck tape.

>>1101662
The social issues around public transport are actually a serious interest of mine. This is some unfocused and half-baked thoughts on the issue.

The US Department of Education did a study about literacy (including reading data tables) in the US and the majority of people can't actually read bus schedules or train schedules, but admitting that would be worse than blustering about taxes like the talking heads on the TV. When you think about it, they are pretty complicated tables of data that also need to be mapped to a map of the transit routes.

Also, in cities without dedicated bus lanes, the buses are often early (and fucking run off anyway, seriously I've seen it happen), or late (need to catch a connecting bus? Good fucking luck!). They end up stuck in traffic like everyone else. Then, because ridership is so low because of all of those service problems that come from bad infrastructure planning and Capitalistic urban development "planning," they keep needing to raise fares to "be profitable." Multiple churches run charity transportation services around here, because even the city transport service for seriously disabled people is unreliable. Someone could schedule a pickup and they could call and say, "Sorry we're over capacity," or just not show up at all.

People rationalize all of these issues away by saying "public transit is for the poor huddled masses, not for us wealthy Americans." That doesn't take any work to rectify, because it just reinforces that status quo, and most Americans are lazy shitheads.

>>1101736
Cultural attitude seems to follow the money.

In US we blame individuals for bad driving, having to endure terrible public transit, getting hit by a car, getting raped (powderkeg), being poor/broke, poor health, not being able to afford medical care, etc.

Until it happens to us-

Mass failure to connect the big picture with personal well being. Obviously there is some personal responsibility with all these things, but it's not the whole picture.

If someone disagrees, they have probably lived a pretty fortunate life.

To myself and anyone reading this, think hard before you point a finger. Trolling or not, OP is the problem.

>>1101636
Seattle dude here

One of the streets he was on/near is actually bus only during certain parts of the day, because there's practically a bus station there, where most of the buses in seattle run thru. I assume he was there when it was bus only time.

seattle here

busses are for the poor people so it's fine if they're a shitty- but they gotta have 'em

bike/uber is for the fags who can afford it

>>1101736
>The US Department of Education did a study about literacy (including reading data tables) in the US and the majority of people can't actually read bus schedules or train schedules, but admitting that would be worse than blustering about taxes like the talking heads on the TV. When you think about it, they are pretty complicated tables of data that also need to be mapped to a map of the transit routes.
Easy solution, make it like in the USSR. Make no schedules or don't follow announced schedules at all. Busses arrive at random intervals.

>>1101776
That would be fine in a Communist state where the workers mattered as anything but replaceable parts in the Capitalist production machine.

A late bus gets people fired, and then homeless in the USA, Comrade.

>>1101664
I'd rather live on a farm or a trailer park than in some cuckpartment.

>>1101760
Interesting. How is that enforced? Is there a road block or do they just fine people like good little fascists?

>>1101779
>A late bus gets people fired, and then homeless in the USA, Comrade.
Under Stalin late people were sent into Gulag. This is not a joke. Check it up been second late at work was a felony.

>>1101781
Being homeless is America's equivalent of the Gulag, Comrade.

>>1101780
Driving a car isn't a right, faggot.

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>>1101638

>>1101783
There is huge distance between been fired from job and been homeless. There is no distance between been in gulag and gulag.

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Over here in a second grade country like Poland we actually got a decent transit system. With a company for larger cities having clean new buses which is surprising. On the other hand there is the other company that runs basically through the countryside and smaller towns (which there's a shit-ton of) which while using older USSR buses gets the job done and is spacious and ventilated enough for hobos to not be a problem.

A thing that pops up as a rather unsaid issue is riding without a ticket. The fines here are large (not taking the literal monetary conversion it's about 70£ if you don't pay instantly) with tickets being given out for buying the cheaper ones (for vegetables,grannies and kids) if you don't have a proof of identity with ya.

From what I find buses are very necessary as our country is quite large and on foot or even with a bike it takes an hour or two to get to the outskirt town with a straight road leading there. Its also safer than driving as our drivers are no joke worse than Americans and Russians probably due to the fact we can drink pure ethanol.

The best til I can give to avoid unpleasant people is to act like an absolute introvert and keep to yourself. Looking poor also helps if you going through a Detroit-like area.

Also, three cab buses? Just make a two cab two floorer if you are that desperate for capacity.

>>1101788
*Fines not tickets, ma bad.

>>1101786
Not for the working poor in America, homie. Why do you think wage theft is a multi-billion dollar industry? The poor are desperately clinging to the bottom rung of a greased ladder while everyone above them shits on them. They don't even have time to fight for their rights.

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>Oh boy, here we go

here's nothing cucked about public transit. If anything is cucked it's spending gorillions of your hard earned money on inefficient individual transport, and wasting valuable time in traffic. There's nothing commie "big-government-y" about public transit, precisely because it's a city or metropolitan issue for the most part (except long distance trains or buses and the like). Now imagine how stupid it would be if everyone had to generate their own electricity, maintaining and running a generator, getting fuel for it, dealing with breakdowns... that's just dumb.

Noone actually makes a lot of money from public transit, except the taxpayer. Yes, there's companies that build the buses and trains, but there's by far not the kind of benefit that's in cars, also because people don't care so much about the style of a bus they don't even own, so the market doesn't move so fast. Some companies, especially rail-based ones, barely stay afloat. The jobs created by public transit are in large part in the cities themselves, operating and maintaining transit, not in lots of factories.

If buses are disgusting and full of homeless people how the fuck is that the fault of public transit itself? In any case it's the fault of a failed neoliberal cleptocracy that leaves its own people to starve like dogs. But hey, to each his own, that's how it's always been in burgerland. Just don't fucking blame public transit for it. At least public transit jobs can't be outsorced like car factory jobs. So you can't suddenly end up with loads of unemployed on a car maker's whim.

>>1101662
Actually buses are poorfag tier elsewhere too.

My hometown made this presentation according to which only 5% of bus ridership would have access to a car. Buses are for shuttling around poor people and underage children and don't help reduce traffic.
While on light rail, 40% of the ridership are car owners.

http://web.archive.org/web/20071217194255/http://rvna.de/projekte/rsb_vortrag-stadtbahn-ka_straehle.pdf (31 MiB, german language, the part about bus vs. light rail ridership on page 10)

>>1101662
Buses are garbage though. Proper mass transit means rails. Beyond rails, bikes or feet will suffice. Buses are for filling in the gaps for your failed rail ''''''strategy''''''

>>1101799
this

>>1101799
For longer distances in the countryside sadly the bus is the only option if you don't want to turn it into a hike or don't have a car.

>>1101636

Because it's full of liberal retard poorfags.

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>>1101796
https://youtu.be/PQleT6BtCbE?t=60

>>1101796
>At least public transit jobs can't be outsorced like car factory jobs. So you can't suddenly end up with loads of unemployed on a car maker's whim.


My city is a major testing ground for self driving cars. Self driving buses would be far easier than self driving cars because they run on fixed routes that can easily be mapped. If an accident happens they can pull the "bitch I'm a bus" excuse.

Bus drivers won't be outsourced. They will be replaced by technology that is always aware of its surroundings, always awake and alert, and is not a member of those pesky unions.

>>1101813
this post was definitely written by a phone's auto complete feature

>>1101766
>no idea what I'm talking about, the post
Peak-commute buses are full of white collar office workers on their way to downtown or Bellevue/Redmond. I ride the bus all the time (car-free) despite being a reasonably well paid engineer and even off-peak bus riders seem to be pretty normal (i.e. not super poor), at least in my part of NE Seattle.
Now, Everett Transit buses, those are the ones solely ridden by the dregs of society. Metro, Sound Transit, and Community Transit have been totally fine in my experience.

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>>1101796
Don't try to argue against the Jeep Commercials you commie pinko longhair faggot hippie queermo

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>>1101796
>If buses are disgusting and full of homeless people how the fuck is that the fault of public transit itself? In any case it's the fault of a failed neoliberal cleptocracy that leaves its own people to starve like dogs. But hey, to each his own, that's how it's always been in burgerland. Just don't fucking blame public transit for it. At least public transit jobs can't be outsorced like car factory jobs. So you can't suddenly end up with loads of unemployed on a car maker's whim.
Preach it brother.

Bus & coach companies are barely floating because their products cannot follow the "planned obsolescence" scheme of operation like consumer good manufacturers (ie cars). The shit they make must last decades with minimal maintenance.

>>1101796
>If buses are disgusting and full of homeless people how the fuck is that the fault of public transit itself? In any case it's the fault of a failed neoliberal cleptocracy that leaves its own people to starve like dogs.
Needs more market M8
>>1098383

>>1101803
>What's cucked about that again?
That you can't choose quality and quantity of product you consume. Just like under communism.

>>1101803
if you haven't noticed yet, everyone of these alt-right or whatevers is basically either a troll or the literal definition of what they despise.
don't bother trying to understand their mental stretches, cause they're usually more than illogical.

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>>1101959

>Minimal maintenance

I was looking to bring in some British city buses to compete with pic related. The idea was the added capacity would offset the added costs.

These are dump trucks with bus bodies. These make city buses look like maintenance nightmares. In all heavy vehicles working those hours you are changing oil between every two and four weeks. It may seem like maintenance is minimal compared to the hours they work but to you as a shop worker you will start giving busses nicknames because you see them so frequently.

Think of all the hydraulic systems in place. Think of all the pneumatics. The electrical. Then the janitorial requirements. Then the mechanical requirements.

Commercial and industrial machinery require more stringent maintenance intervals because if it fails it is money down the drain, the mechanical failure itself is expensive and the financial failure just compounds it. They also take a beating. Just look up service intervals for a Volvo truck and their busses are going to be similar.

>>1101636
You are what's wrong with America

>>1101963
>quality and quantity of product
>quality
>spending literal hours in traffic
hurr communism

>>1101962
>Needs more market M8
>variable pricing
actually, yes. Why not? Just like trains have different classes.

hah. San antonio is fucking horrible for size comparison. Where houston doesnt have 6 buses all lined up in 2 rows like san antonio. Houston traffic blows. 59 corridor all the way from mexican border to dallas. 8hrs of driving non stop. No traffic impedement. Yet u get a 3± car accident or fucking truck flip. Every 2 minutes of all lanes closeed (at the most boondock located area) you get 1 mile of traffic backup on south and north bound lanes. 10minues is a 5 mile backup. Its insanity. In the UN texas "green district" map where they wanna herd everyone. Big triangle A pt (sant antonio) B pt (houston) Apex (slightly north of Dallas). If u look back at trans routes you can see how these cities are filling in these boundries and merging. As well as the second and third districts texas will have.

If your interested in transportation planning you need to see these district projection maps. Kinda scary this is hunger games stuff. Its documented and planned. And is straight up "livingspace" (cant spell the german labensbraun? Fuk it) herding eberyone into districts to open up much of the land pushing people out and herding into cities. Crazy transportation future vision cross.

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I HATE BUSES AND PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND I AM NOT KEKED

I AM ALSO SOCIALLY LIBERAL AND "MUH DEGENERACY FAGS ARE GAY"

FUCK AUTHORITARIANISM, FUCK NEO LIBERALISM, FUCK FASCISM

>>1101636
>How do you cuckd city fags deal with it?
You write like an angry child posting a homophobic antisemitic rant about things you 'heard' but are woefully uneducated about.

You buy a ticket for the zone you're traveling to.
You get on the bus.
You get off the bus.
It costs $5 - $7 a day. Students pay $1.
Free if you're over 65 or disabled, because that's what Jesus would do.

>>1101684
Another guy from Aachen here.
No, we don't.

The biggest problem with bus drivers in Aachen is that some of them regularly depart before the time announced in the time table despite them having a fucking indicator for that in their cockpit.

It's like the ASEAG doesn't fucking care.

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>>1102077
>Free if you're over 65 or disabled, because that's what Jesus would do.
Here all you have to do for free™ public transport in all cities is donate at least 20 litres of blood.
You get a little booklet (and a medal) that says "Distinguished Honrary Blood Donor - Meritorious to the Health of the Nation".
You also get to skip queues in a hospital/clinics like a pregnant woman as well as write off every litre from your tax.

Bretty fucking good deal if you ask me.
I just need 4 more litres.

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>>1102129
How much do you donate at a time? The US donates a pint at a time or about 480ml. Do you get a bonus for special blood types? I'm O- and CMV negative so they tell my donations go to new born infants.

That would be so useful for me. I've always wanted to sell my body for transportation.

>>1102178
>I've always wanted to sell my body for transportation.
if all else fails, there's always truck-stop hooking

>>1102183
Too cliche. Plus I try to stay away from super cagers and their mega cages.

>>1102129
Also how long between donations?

The Portland, OR bus system is actually pretty good but it has a light rail as well. The key to it being a much easier to deal with system is openly availably gps data about the buses in real-time so the riders are not reliant on schedules that can be very confusing.

>>1102178
>>1102202
450ml of full blood every two months. But plasma every 2 weeks

>>1102129
That sounds like a great deal. For both sides.

A blood bottle is worth about €50, so 20 litres = 40 bottles = €2000.

>>1102253
>A blood bottle is worth about €50, so 20 litres = 40 bottles = €2000.
and the tax exemption is 130PLN ~ 30 EUR per litre in any given year.

>That sounds like a great deal. For both sides.
like I said.

>>1101685
In Seattle the vast majority of buses on the roads are diesel electric. There are still a few legacy buses like the old Gillig Phantoms, but for the most part nowadays they're hybrids.

Additionally, the purple buses like the one you can see in the background of OP are fully electric.

If most of your buses are still rolling coal that's the fault of the transit systems, not of the bus as a mode of transport.

>>1101962
I hope the free market wills a bus to crash into you

>>1101785
Based Joseph.

>>1101786
It depends. If you were fired because your company was mismanaged and had to kill off staff, or for some other reason out of your control, then no, getting fired would probably not result in becoming homeless. However, if you get fired because the bus system is shit and you can't reliably get to work, then odds are you'll have trouble keeping any job, and will end up homeless.

>>1101934
The difference is that self driving vehicles will take time to implement, meaning new hires can choose a different line of work or face the consequence of being a fucking idiot, will generate new jobs, and decrease operation costs (hypothetically) of public transit, benefiting the entire city, instead of moving a factory into Mexico so Pablo can make $1/day to get new claws for his fighting rooster and the CEO of GM can get a new yacht.

Technological advancement is completely different than outsourcing.

>>1102077
>$5 - $7 a day
Holy fuck. In my city buses are $1.25 per ride, or $2.50 for a commute. A monthly pass is $48, which is probably less than what most Americans spend on gas to commute per month.

>>1102288
>Additionally, the purple buses like the one you can see in the background of OP are fully electric.
Very very false. Metro buses are painted different colors randomly, it doesn't mean anything.

There are a handful of fully electric Metro buses but they only operate on the Eastside (for now).

>>1101780
>Interesting. How is that enforced? Is there a road block or do they just fine people like good little fascists?
Transit-only lanes are literally fascism now?

>>1102210
>The key to it being a much easier to deal with system is openly availably gps data about the buses in real-time so the riders are not reliant on schedules that can be very confusing.
Is there a single major city that doesn't have open GPS data for their buses? Genuinely curious.

>>1104587
No, the purple ones are all electric trolleys. The rest (diesels, diesel-electrics) are painted blue, green, and occasionally teal at random.

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>>1104597
That is incorrect. The colors literally mean nothing.

Time for a Seattle bus riding story:
>trying to get back to Seattle from Boeing Everett
>decide to take Swift/RapidRide E just to try it
>board Swift at 99/Airport
>everyone looks like a meth addict because that's just how Snohomish county is, but whatever, this bus is fast with few stops, closest thing to BRT we have in the region
>transfer to RR-E at Aurora Village TC
>stops spaced every 5 blocks
>implying "rapid"
>homeless woman gets in with a trash bag
>smells strongly of piss
>entire fucking bus now smells like piss
>meth addict in the back of the bus losing her mind over the smell
>stew in an acrid cloud of piss smell for 40 blocks before getting off and transferring to the based, muscular, and clean 45.
Really made me question why I decided to go car-free.

>>1104599
That's blue, you fucking mong.

I've only seen purple ones on the 44 and 49, and those are trolley routes.

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>>1104603
The bus in that pic is not blue. Here's another though.

>>1104602
The obvious solution would have been to take the bus to South Everett P&R and take Sound Transit.

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>>1104607
>pic related
Having ridden the 150, I can assure you that they are not purple.

>>1104608
Boeing Everett has absolute shit tier transit connections outside of peak hours. Not even to Everett Station. There is no service to S Everett P&R either. I ordinarily would take an Uber to Ash Way P&R and catch the ST 512, but I figured I'd give our B""""R""""T a try

>>1104609
>>1104608
In fact, S Everett P&R has no local bus service at all. Express only. I regret not bringing my bike.

>>1104609
>Having ridden the 150, I can assure you that they are not purple.
Well I stand corrected. That color still looks purple to me but according to Metro they call it blue.

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>>1104614
Yep, this is what Metro calls purple.

>>1104609
>Boeing Everett has absolute shit tier transit connections outside of peak hours. Not even to Everett Station. There is no service to S Everett P&R either. I ordinarily would take an Uber to Ash Way P&R and catch the ST 512, but I figured I'd give our B""""R""""T a try
RapidRide is a complete joke. It was a ploy to get the feds to pay for new buses and it worked. Funny thing is it wouldn't take much to improve it.

Now they're making plans for RapidRide Plus™ as if we need yet another service brand in this city.

>>1104617
Are they actually going to have RR+ branding? I thought that was just a term thrown around by wonks on Seattle Transit Blog. Madison (RR-G) is going to have a lot of BRT features, but is still going to be branded as regular RapidRide.

RR is definitely an improvement over local buses - the offboard payment and level boarding helps a lot. It's just that there's no political will for bus-only lanes or even BAT lanes. Roosevelt RR is not going to have any dedicated lanes at all north of the ship canal. Fuck that, I'll take Link instead.

>>1104619
I doubt they will use this branding when service begins but they did use it during the Move Seattle campaign:

>Building off the success of King County Metro’s RapidRide bus network, the replacement levy will fund seven new RapidRide+ corridors that will take the network to another level.

I also very much doubt that all these promised "plus" features won't be deluded down to almost nothing. It's impossible to turn the 44 into any form of BRT without eliminating street parking, which will never happen. Even the Madison BRT line has been watered down.