How far would you walk to the LRT/Bus

edmonton daily photo · 03-08-2012, 01:48 PM

http://www.humantransit.org/2011/04/...o-transit.html

Edmonton/carlgary are used an example in this article...

basics: walking distance to transit
The question of walking distance in transit is much bigger than it seems. A huge range of consequential decisions -- including stop spacing, network structure, travel time, reliability standards, frequency and even mode choice -- depend on assumptions about how far customers will be willing to walk. The same issue also governs the amount of money an agency will have to spend on predictably low-ridership services that exist purely for social-service or "equity" reasons.

This survey-based graph shows the breakdown of local bus passengers by the distance they walked to get to the service. As you'd expect, few people walk more than 200m in downtown Washington, DC because in such a densely served area, few people would need to. In low-density Calgary, at the opposite extreme, many people have to walk fairly long distances.

Medwards · 03-08-2012, 01:59 PM

Edmonton also has a policy that there has to be a bus stop within 400 M of every household... I don't think Calgary has the same thing.

IanO · 03-08-2012, 02:27 PM

General rule of thumb is 400m catchment with 800m being total

EveB · 03-08-2012, 02:32 PM

It's hard to me to tell because Google doesn't seem to register footpaths, but I walk between about 600 to 700 m to the train stop in the morning. It's not onerous.

Eve

edmonton daily photo · 03-08-2012, 03:09 PM

It's interestign that in DC low income neighborhoods have to walk farther than high income...

Calgary amazes me lol... Poor calgary.

edmonton daily photo · 03-08-2012, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IanO

General rule of thumb is 400m catchment with 800m being total

Yep 400 seems to be the golden rule... it's interesting to note that Europe's is larger.

edmonton daily photo · 03-08-2012, 03:11 PM

This is neat...

In both images, the red dot is a transit stop and the red circle is an air-distance radius. If you draw 400m circles around stops based on the assumption of a 400m walking distance, you're implying that the whole circle is within walking distance. In fact, even with the near-perfect pedestrian grid in the right-hand image, the area within 400m walk (outline in blue) is only 64% of the red air-distance circle. With an obstructed suburban network like the left-hand image, it can be less than 30%.

fanfare · 04-08-2012, 01:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EveB

It's hard to me to tell because Google doesn't seem to register footpaths, but I walk between about 600 to 700 m to the train stop in the morning. It's not onerous.

Eve

You can use this to determine a more exact distance, if you ever wish to:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

EveB · 04-08-2012, 09:15 AM

I tried that but it refuses to let me cross in front of Blood Services (it insists on going all around the building). There really is a sidewalk between the parking lot at the building and it also makes a couple of other detours as I cross the street where I actually cross the street (it looks for a road which isn't on my route). Interesting tool though.

It's an especially interesting exercise to display the differences between walking geography and vehicle geography.

Edited to add: I figured out how to use the manual setting and came up with 674 meters.

Eve
<off to see how it does with navigating the campus>

EveB · 04-08-2012, 09:37 AM

Oh, incidentally to answer the direct question posed by this thread, I could and sometimes have, waited at a bus stop around the corner (well within the 400m). A 4, 51 or 94 will whip around the curve between the Mazankowski and parkade and put me down in front of the Stollery, I cross the street and go to the Health Sciences stop. A 7 or 57 will take me to the transit centre on campus where I go to the train elevator by the Education Building which takes me right down to the train platform.

But this involves waiting for a bus and by the time it would come I'm already most of the way to Blood Services. Besides I like putting steps on my pedometer in this pleasant fashion. We'll see what my attitude is come winter because I don't know how well these sidewalks are maintained or travelled.

Eve

highlander · 04-08-2012, 09:30 PM

I walk about 150m to the bus stop from home, but I walk about 1000m from corona station to the office, and I pass 2 bus stops on either side of 104 ave that both have buses that would be a one seat ride to within 2 blocks of my house.

Why? Partly because the LRT is more direct, but mostly because it's faster, and more frequent. If I wait for the 2 it can be a 15 minute wait and then a slow ride through downtown. If I catch the 8 it's a slow ride in traffic. But mostly I don't take transit at all, I would rather bike. And tellingly, I have taken the bus only twice since they put bendy buses on the 8, then reduced my section to 15 minute service. And one of those times was an outing with a 5 year old.

To me, the walk is less important than the wait, and less important than the speed of service.

edmonton daily photo · 04-08-2012, 09:39 PM

I walk 200m to jasper or 400 to 104ave.

But many times I walk the 2.something kim to work

highlander · 04-08-2012, 09:39 PM

Once you get deeper into the material on Humantransit.org, you'll find he talks a lot about stop spacing, and it's effect on travel speed. It turns out that there is little accessibility benefit to 200m spacing like we have, and on busy routes like my 8, or on whyte or jasper ave it can make for much slower travel than 300 or 400m spacing.
If the #8 were every 5 minutes like the LRT, and had about half the stops, and some sort of signal priority, then I would use it more.

edmonton daily photo · 04-08-2012, 09:44 PM

There are way too many stops on jasper.. Some are a block apart. It's horrid!
I think I am going to buy his book he has some very interesting ideas.. I really enjoy his blog

AShetsen · 04-08-2012, 11:39 PM

I used to live about 600 metres from a bus that took me to the LRT (South Campus) in about ten minutes.

I moved to a place that is about five blocks from an LRT station (Health Sciences).

Same distance to walk, but somehow going to the train directly makes it rather more motivating to use the public transit whenever possible.

Also the neighborhood is rather more urban and very pleasant, except for the ambulances.

edmonton daily photo · 04-08-2012, 11:58 PM

Ya and I admit I would walk to 104 ave instead of jasper to take the lrt m

03-08-2012, 01:48 PM	#1
edmonton daily photo Addicted to C2E Join Date: May 2008	How far would you walk to the LRT/Bus http://www.humantransit.org/2011/04/...o-transit.html Edmonton/carlgary are used an example in this article... basics: walking distance to transit The question of walking distance in transit is much bigger than it seems. A huge range of consequential decisions -- including stop spacing, network structure, travel time, reliability standards, frequency and even mode choice -- depend on assumptions about how far customers will be willing to walk. The same issue also governs the amount of money an agency will have to spend on predictably low-ridership services that exist purely for social-service or "equity" reasons. This survey-based graph shows the breakdown of local bus passengers by the distance they walked to get to the service. As you'd expect, few people walk more than 200m in downtown Washington, DC because in such a densely served area, few people would need to. In low-density Calgary, at the opposite extreme, many people have to walk fairly long distances. __________________ "Do you give people who already use transit a better service, or do you build it where they don't use it in the hopes they might start to use it?" Nenshi

03-08-2012, 02:27 PM	#3
IanO Addicted to C2E Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Edmonton	General rule of thumb is 400m catchment with 800m being total __________________ inspiration or mediocrity www.decl.org Ottawa-Edmonton-Vancouver-Edmonton

03-08-2012, 03:09 PM	#5
edmonton daily photo Addicted to C2E Join Date: May 2008	It's interestign that in DC low income neighborhoods have to walk farther than high income... Calgary amazes me lol... Poor calgary. __________________ "Do you give people who already use transit a better service, or do you build it where they don't use it in the hopes they might start to use it?" Nenshi

03-08-2012, 03:11 PM	#7
edmonton daily photo Addicted to C2E Join Date: May 2008	This is neat... In both images, the red dot is a transit stop and the red circle is an air-distance radius. If you draw 400m circles around stops based on the assumption of a 400m walking distance, you're implying that the whole circle is within walking distance. In fact, even with the near-perfect pedestrian grid in the right-hand image, the area within 400m walk (outline in blue) is only 64% of the red air-distance circle. With an obstructed suburban network like the left-hand image, it can be less than 30%. __________________ "Do you give people who already use transit a better service, or do you build it where they don't use it in the hopes they might start to use it?" Nenshi

04-08-2012, 09:15 AM	#9
EveB Addicted to C2E Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Garneau (previously North Downtown) Edmonton	I tried that but it refuses to let me cross in front of Blood Services (it insists on going all around the building). There really is a sidewalk between the parking lot at the building and it also makes a couple of other detours as I cross the street where I actually cross the street (it looks for a road which isn't on my route). Interesting tool though. It's an especially interesting exercise to display the differences between walking geography and vehicle geography. Edited to add: I figured out how to use the manual setting and came up with 674 meters. Eve <off to see how it does with navigating the campus> Last edited by EveB; 04-08-2012 at 09:18 AM..

03-08-2012, 01:59 PM	#2
Medwards Addicted to C2E Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Edmonton	Edmonton also has a policy that there has to be a bus stop within 400 M of every household... I don't think Calgary has the same thing.

03-08-2012, 02:32 PM	#4
EveB Addicted to C2E Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Garneau (previously North Downtown) Edmonton	It's hard to me to tell because Google doesn't seem to register footpaths, but I walk between about 600 to 700 m to the train stop in the morning. It's not onerous. Eve

04-08-2012, 09:37 AM	#10
EveB Addicted to C2E Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Garneau (previously North Downtown) Edmonton	Oh, incidentally to answer the direct question posed by this thread, I could and sometimes have, waited at a bus stop around the corner (well within the 400m). A 4, 51 or 94 will whip around the curve between the Mazankowski and parkade and put me down in front of the Stollery, I cross the street and go to the Health Sciences stop. A 7 or 57 will take me to the transit centre on campus where I go to the train elevator by the Education Building which takes me right down to the train platform. But this involves waiting for a bus and by the time it would come I'm already most of the way to Blood Services. Besides I like putting steps on my pedometer in this pleasant fashion. We'll see what my attitude is come winter because I don't know how well these sidewalks are maintained or travelled. Eve

04-08-2012, 09:30 PM	#11
highlander Addicted to C2E Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Highlands/North Edge Commuter	I walk about 150m to the bus stop from home, but I walk about 1000m from corona station to the office, and I pass 2 bus stops on either side of 104 ave that both have buses that would be a one seat ride to within 2 blocks of my house. Why? Partly because the LRT is more direct, but mostly because it's faster, and more frequent. If I wait for the 2 it can be a 15 minute wait and then a slow ride through downtown. If I catch the 8 it's a slow ride in traffic. But mostly I don't take transit at all, I would rather bike. And tellingly, I have taken the bus only twice since they put bendy buses on the 8, then reduced my section to 15 minute service. And one of those times was an outing with a 5 year old. To me, the walk is less important than the wait, and less important than the speed of service.

04-08-2012, 09:39 PM	#12
edmonton daily photo Addicted to C2E Join Date: May 2008	I walk 200m to jasper or 400 to 104ave. But many times I walk the 2.something kim to work __________________ "Do you give people who already use transit a better service, or do you build it where they don't use it in the hopes they might start to use it?" Nenshi

04-08-2012, 09:44 PM	#14
edmonton daily photo Addicted to C2E Join Date: May 2008	There are way too many stops on jasper.. Some are a block apart. It's horrid! I think I am going to buy his book he has some very interesting ideas.. I really enjoy his blog __________________ "Do you give people who already use transit a better service, or do you build it where they don't use it in the hopes they might start to use it?" Nenshi

04-08-2012, 11:39 PM	#15
AShetsen Addicted to C2E Join Date: May 2012	I used to live about 600 metres from a bus that took me to the LRT (South Campus) in about ten minutes. I moved to a place that is about five blocks from an LRT station (Health Sciences). Same distance to walk, but somehow going to the train directly makes it rather more motivating to use the public transit whenever possible. Also the neighborhood is rather more urban and very pleasant, except for the ambulances.

04-08-2012, 11:58 PM	#16
edmonton daily photo Addicted to C2E Join Date: May 2008	Ya and I admit I would walk to 104 ave instead of jasper to take the lrt m __________________ "Do you give people who already use transit a better service, or do you build it where they don't use it in the hopes they might start to use it?" Nenshi