This article is about the side effects / consequences of stops spaced too close together, if you wish to read the first written article about this topic, comparing Saguenay and Ottawa, I invite you to click on the button below.
Having stops close together can have multiple impacts on one’s commute, as well as the transit agency itself. In this column, we’ll talk about 3 of the downsides associated with stop spacing.
The most noticeable negative consequence of bad stop spacing is the commute times. As mentioned in my last post on this topic, every stop can add about 50 seconds to the line. The perfect stop distance is 400m, or about 5 to 10 minutes walking. To better picture how frequent stops can slow down your commute, picture it this way, over a kilometer. Driving takes about 3 minutes, a bus takes about 4, because it’s slower than a car. Walking that same distance can take about 12 minutes.
In itself, it doesn’t look that bad but now let’s see how well spaced stops on a stretch of about a kilometer can speed the bus up. If the bus stops every 200m, it could take roughly 7 or 8 mins to travel a kilometer, now, if we have stops every 500 meters, which is about a 5 minute walk, we cut this time almost by half, being at about 5 mins.
Just that, reducing the number of stops over a kilometer car cut in travel times in half, making it viable and competitive to walking. While getting people to their destinations faster.
Before takes about 8 minutes, after would take 4 to 5
But opening the doors that often does not only result in a longer commute, it also lets outside air get in. When you get on the bus, it usually is at a right temperature, and that, both summer and winter. Now, what if the doors had to open every minute, what would happen is, the bus would not have time to heat up or cool down.
The air that just got to the right temperature, would always be exiting, which is not something transit agencies want to happen, and a good way to keep that right air in, is by opening the doors less, therefore simply stopping less.
These two facts in themselves do impact the riders a lot, but there is another one that impacts the transit agency even more than you and me. To explain this one, we have to look back at the argument about travel times. If the route takes 60 minutes to complete but could only take 45 minutes if there were less stops. And this route runs every 30 minutes, it might seem like nothing, but it is a 4th bus on a route that could use 3.
This extra bus causes more drivers needed, a bigger capital cost of buying buses, a bigger maintenance facility, and more budget on specific stops as there are more to build. This all costs money and time, and as we know, money isn’t always available, which can lead to line closures on less busy lines, which will bring less people to the main lines, and well, here’s the transit death spiral.
I hope this chronicle allowed you to better understand why stop spacing should be a priority when planning a new transit line, if you are a transit planner, which I doubt you are, I am sending you a formal invitation to next week’s chronicle about how to space stops apart / guarantee a great distance from the start. In the meantime, I hope you can bear your current commute while it gets better!