Opinion: Make Buses More Like Sidewalks

In a piece for Fast Company, Andy Boenau argues that city buses should serve residents in the same way that sidewalks do, offering intuitive, easy-to-use mobility. 

A well-run bus system is an express sidewalk—a piece of infrastructure that dramatically expands the number of destinations within walking distance.

However, “In most American cities, public transit is treated like a last-resort service, a social program for people who can’t afford cars, something to be endured rather than embraced.” Transit systems are underfunded, so their service becomes “infrequent, inconvenient, hard to use, and often stuck in traffic.”

Boenau lists four key principles that support an effective transit system: frequency, convenience, safety, and reliability. Bus stops should be readily available, with frequent service to places people want to go and safe, comfortable places to wait. “If general purpose car traffic dominates the curb, buses will never scale, and walking—the most ancient, equitable form of transport—remains functionally capped.”

As Boenau notes, “we don’t build sidewalks out of pity. We build them because they’re essential infrastructure like plumbing or electricity.” Local transit systems could be a similarly crucial resource. “The moment we stop treating the bus as a social program and start treating it like an express sidewalk, we unlock a public good that meets people where they are and moves them forward.”