Welcome, my friends and colleagues. Welcome to my nightmare of poorly designed public transportation systems.
Before we begin, let me be the first to clarify that I have no problem with well-designed public transportation. I love well-designed public transportation. Every time I’m in a new city, particularly those with a state-of-the-art subway system (or even the clunky, aging, 1950s-era steampunk-like contraptions rattling around Moscow), I rejoice in my ability to whisk myself away in a matter of minutes from one end of a multimillion-person megalopolis to the other. All those people who complain about how we don’t have teleportation devices like in Star Trek should be overjoyed at how we’re pretty much halfway there.
Sadly, it’s as completely different story when it comes to buses. And it’s not so much that buses are stupid. It’s the humans designing those bus systems are stupid. Every single one of them. ALL OVER THE WORLD.
Stupid design flaw #1: NO F#@%ING MAPS!!!
Take a look at the Montreal Metro map, which is present at every single station in the city and in multiple locations at each of those stations.
Not only is there a handy map of the entire city, but there’s also a handy map of just the subway system, so you can easily determine exactly where you are, and where you need to go, with easily-navigable and color coded routes which take about as much time to figure out as 4th grade math problem. It’s great. Literally every subway system encounter that I’ve ever had has taken about 30 seconds to figure out exactly where I’m going, and off I go.
Now let’s take a look at the stupid bullshit that passes for a bus system route map in the same city:
If you were able to figure this out, good for you! But you’re also a total liar.
At practically every bus stop in the world that I’ve ever seen, the info presented shows a very brief, often-inaccurate schedule of the buses that pass through there, with numbered routes alongside estimated arrival times and NO F*&%$ING MAP ANYWHERE IN SIGHT. How the hell do you figure out where you’re going if you have no idea where you are or which route you’re supposed to take!??!!
If it weren’t for Google Maps and its public transit directions, navigating a new city would be an appalling travesty. And when your battery dies or your mobile coverage goes out, you go right back to the Stone Age.
Take a look at this one:
The only thing they give you besides the bus route numbers is literally garbage.
“Just ask someone which number you need!”
Ah yes, the ol’ “just ask a local” trick which only works if you speak the same language and he/she might give you wrong directions anyway. Also, have you ever been to a bus stop in the middle of the night and have no idea what the hell is going on and there’s no one around to ask? Or what if you do know the route number you need, but you don’t know where the bus stop is?!? That’s a good time for a MAP OF THE DAMN BUS ROUTES!!!
And don’t tell me it’s about money, because it’s literally just a sheet of paper that could be stapled nearby. STAPLE DAMN YOU. STAPLE!!!
Stupid design flaw #2: Inexcusable signage inadequacy
Let’s play a little game called Find the Bus Stop.
You’ve got 30 seconds to find it or you’ll miss your flight and be stranded here for days and miss your own wedding AAAAAHHHHHH!!!
Trick question! There was none. Good try, though!
Now let’s take a look at how easy it is to find a metro stop:
Not so tricky, is it?
Subway signs are ALWAYS bigger, not only so you know where to get on, but also where to get off, since they have massive signs with gigantic letters telling you which station you’re at, which is incredibly goddamn useful and bus routes never bother doing that either, because why?!!?
The only explanation I can think of is that subway designers are intelligent and considerate people who want their system to be widely used and easily accessible, whereas bus system designers are terrible humans whose mothers don’t love them.
Stupid design flaw #3: Ticket purchase sequencing flaw
This is a more subtle problem, but it is the one most likely to lead to the greatest degree of awkwardness and inadvisable police encounters.
Let’s take a look at how it’s handled with a subway system, because subway systems are always better and everything else is stupid:
Take a look at the shorts-clad gentleman on the left, who is paying for his ticket before reaching the turnstiles. This is a wonderful design feature, because paying after passing through the turnstiles would just be a ridiculous disaster. This ensures that no one accidentally gets on the subway without having paid ahead of time. If you suddenly realize you have no cash to pay for a ticket, it will happen before any inadvertent illegality.
Now let’s consider the embarrassing cesspool of stupidity that is the bus system’s method of dealing with the same problem, which occurs in a variety of somewhat-stupid to incredibly-stupid variations:
- You pay as you get on the bus (decent)
- You pay as you get off the bus (stupid)
- You buy a ticket at a nearby kiosk (decent)
- You bang your head against the wall because the world is a terrible place and it’s all just pointless anyway (soothing, but futile)
Options 1 and 3 aren’t viscerally objectionable, but neither is without its problems; with Option 1, you often have to pay with exact change, because the machines usually don’t give change back. If all you’ve got is a $20 bill and don’t have time to change it for smaller bills, you might as well just take a taxi.
Option 3 is great for getting change and taking your time, but if you don’t know where the kiosk is, you’re just going to be left wandering the streets aimlessly until you find it.
Which is why they should just combine the goddamn 1st and 3rd options together and let you do either one goddammit. That way you could jump onto the bus immediately if you happen to have change, or buy your ticket at a leisurely pace from a nearby supermarket if you don’t. It’s still not perfect, but it’s certainly better than either option alone, and won’t result in you getting on a bus without a ticket and being forced to pay a fine. But what they should really do is have the goddamn ticket machine right next to the bus stop like with all the goddamn subway stations. ARGH!!!
(And yes, I know there are a billion bus stops all over the place, and installing a ticket machine near each one would be financially problematic, so they could just let you buy tickets at any supermarket or kiosk, and install machines only at the busiest bus stops to speed things up for everyone. Yes, kids. Intelligence is sexy!)
By the way, this problem can potentially present a new challenge every few days; if you’re a tourist in a new country, you have no idea which system the country is using unless you ask someone ahead of time, or otherwise figure it out somehow. Once you do, you might already be headed off to the next city, which might have a completely different system…and have you ever gone from a city where you’re supposed to pay after you get on the bus and then you go to another city in the same country where you’re supposed to pay before you get on the bus, but you’ve already gotten onto the bus and the police officer is asking you what the hell you think you’re doing because nobody tells you these things?!?! Because I sure have. STOP MAKING CITIES WITHIN THE SAME COUNTRY OPERATE UNDER A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SYSTEM, YOU TERRIBLE HUMANS.
Other stupid crap
I’m too upset right now to go on about this too much longer, so we’re moving to the lightning round.
- Subways tell you which direction you’re going, whereas buses only sometimes do. THIS COULD BE SOLVED WITH THE AFOREMENTIONED IMPROVEMENTS IN SIGN TECHNOLOGY.
- If you miss your stop or go the wrong way (see previous problem), you can just jump right back on the opposite-direction subway train and get there for no extra charge. With buses, you might have to pay again, ALL BECAUSE OF A STUPID PROBLEM THAT COULD BE FIXED WITH SIGNS.
- With a subway system, you always know exactly where you are and how many stops you have left to go, because of the aforementioned handy little map that shows you exactly how many stops there are until your destination, and all you have to do is count the stops until you get there, or, even better, LOOK AT THE GODDAMN SIGNS WRITTEN IN GIANT LETTERS WHICH ARE ALWAYS THERE ON SUBWAYS BUT NEVER FOR BUSES AND GODDAMMIT I HATE THEM.
Argh. No wonder ride-sharing apps are so hot right now.
Matt,
You nailed it.
I’ve nearly pulled my hair out several times when trying to navigate a foreign bus system.
For example, the bus system in England. Decent for the most part but as my girlfriend and I found out this past summer, they make it incredibly difficult to pay. We struggled to find kiosks during the day but could easily find bus stops so we resorted to waiting for the next bus, asking the driver how to get where we wanted to go, then asking where we could purchase fare (they don’t take cash).
The funny thing is, each time we asked a driver where to purchase fare, they looked VERY confused as though they had NEVER been asked such an odd question before!!
Then, they would inevitably lead us to an electronic kiosk hidden deep within a sidestreet building.
And worse, as we decided to take the bus to Heathrow at 4 in the morning we found out that, though the bus runs as that hour, there is no way to purchase fare outside of business hours (all the sidestreet buildings housing the kiosks are closed at night)
You really wonder who comes up with these systems!!
Try coming to San Antonio. If you live anywhere outside downtown you are eternally screwed to riding a bus one hour to where you need to go. Riding a bike would work better. Hell, half the time walking would be better. Why would people use public transportation when buying an inefficient car would pay back dividends in free time such as: exploring the woods no one ever goes into, or walking and finding some cool niche store, or talking to your neighbor who happens to be from another country, or making a tasty meal for your family (which you learned to make while TRAVELING!) Make public trans easier! Their are some cities that do it great, but I live in the worse one.
I just spent two weeks in Auckland, NZ. Crazy bus and train system. The AT card gets you access to both. Their AT app let me down a couple of times. However both times I was rescued by random busses that just happened to drive by.
The AT app is almost a really great app. However it was created with a government budget so Im sure they dont have money to fix the bugs or add features.
In Madrid I needed to go from the metro to a bus to get to my last evening’s hotel before flying out. Came out of the metro and I could see a big section with lots of buses so I figured I could just walk over and see the bus number I needed on a sign and stand there. Nope. No bus number signs (though I knew I’d gotten off at the correct metro stop for it). In my poor Spanish I asked bus drivers where the Trespaderne – Barbadillo bus stop was. To which I got 9 different answers with lots of arm waving in a lot of different directions. Finally I asked a pop-up drink stand guy and he pointed across the street in the direction I’d come from the metro. He said for sure bus to Trespaderne – Barbadillo, stand by bench. And he was right thank goodness. But no signs….
Spain and Italy like to do things like that.
Lol, so funny coz it’s true. I love you SN.
It makes me happy that my hate can generate love.
I’ve been places where both complaints are valid, but I’ve also been places where every bus stop has an easily seen shelter with colorful maps on it.
I’m sure the idiot bus planners will burn that fellow at the stake just as soon as they catch him.
The bus routes here in Hong Kong are planned by morons literally.
For example:
– we commonly pay on boarding – but BOTH boarding and alighting on a few routes.
– the letter P at the end means the route is a peak-hour route – but exactly the reverse on the case of 18 and 18P, where 18 is a peak-hour route and 18P is a full-day route!
– the letter X indicates express route – but exactly the reverse on the case of 8 and 8X, which 8X is slower than 8 and N8X is slower than N8
– mobile apps only work on a single operator, you cannot find for a route if you don’t know its operator in advance, like 960, 961 and 962 serving similar area but different operators
– multiple routes serving same area can have vastly different fare – you don’t know how much to pay for the exact fare before a bus come, and each route is operating at 25 to 30 minutes interval uncoordinated!
– and there is literally completely no signage for minibus routes – you just hop it anywhere along the route if you are lucky to see one with available seats.
I almost wonder if taxi companies run the bus systems, and sabotage them from the inside…