Sitting vs. standing on transit

It all comes down to the length of the trip and the amount of people density expected on a transit vehicle.

I am shocked that part of the reason that Ken Livingstone lost the mayoralty of London was his move to "bendy" buses, articulated buses just like the ones that have been running for more than two decades on routes like the X2 or the 70s buses in DC.

But he made a big mistake. These buses have fewer seats than the doubledeckers, and they claimed instead there would be more seats. Plus people complained that some people would duck through rear doors to evade paying (I have witnessed this once in DC in 20 years, but maybe the British have worse behavior...)

The reason that bus rapid transit moves large numbers of people in South America is because they are willing to have buses packed with twice as many passengers as we are likely comfortable with in North America (80-90 vs. 160+). This is the big fallacy of adopting bus rapid transit in the U.S. There is no way it will move large numbers of people--one bus/minute could move 5,400 people in one hour. But there is no doubt it is cheaper than constructing light rail or heavy rail.

Anyway, in San Francisco, according to the Chronicle, "6 seats removed from some BART cars," to increase standing capacity. This has sparked discussion on a local e-list on regional transit issues, because there are the two camps, the people who live far out and have long trips vs. the people who live close-in and can't find seats anyway by the time the train gets to their stop, vs. the need for the system to add capacity given a continued rise in usage.

The open space formerly occupied by handicapped seats is a good place to stash one's luggage, as BART trains are being reconfigured to pack in more commuters by removing some seats and adding hanging hold straps. Chronicle photo by Katy Raddatz. (Full-sized photo clickable within the original article.)