• She likely could afford a car since she has a mayor's salary, but wisely chooses to ride the bus because of its many benefits to society

To give more history about this route, there is a annual "race the 8! event scheduled by seattle urbanists where people start off on the worst part of its route and do increasingly outlandish activities on foot while still beating it to its designations. Folks have beat it juggling, walking backwards, dancing, etc. Katie and her kids participated before she was the mayor, and you guessed it, beat it.

This route serves an intensely dense part of the city and has been failing people for years. The city/county have been making piddly, empty changes for nearly a decade that fixed nothing, like adding a 1 block bus lane. Yup, one block only.

The bus is regularly 30-40 minutes late, which makes using it miserable and unreliable. The reason its route is terrible is that there is a highway onramp thats right there near Amazon HQ. So for years and years people commuting in and out of the city have been prioritized over people who live in it, and no previous mayor had the stones to push back and fix it for actual residents.

Cause they had an extra lane for their private vehicle and they feel like a service their taxes paid for has been robbed from them to serve people "that haven't worked hard enough for it." They worked hard to buy and pay for their car and they feel upset if their ability to use their private vehicle on public infrastructure has been diminished. Despite the fact that cars have been given the vast majority of space and funding for decades. There is also nothing stopping them from using the improved bus service except their preconception that "its for the poors."

With all the stops, cycling is usually faster unless the route is uphill or you really don't have a lot of stops and probably need more.

Maybe I'm just a dumbass, but I think your rule of thumb is busted?

X should be slower than A, but should not be faster than A + B.

Isn't slower the same as "not faster"? I think it should be slower than A, but faster than A + B. So between A and A + B.

Or "the bus should be faster if it's already here, but cycling should be faster if you'd have to wait for the bus". I think that's what you were going for.

Its a good rule of thumb. I ride an hour in to work (on an e-scooter) because it is faster than that bus during rush hour. Outside of rush hour though, the bus beats me every time. It'd be cool if I could become mayor to add a bus lane for that route. And all the other routes that need it tbh.

My rule of thumb is that within a city, a bus (other than BRT) is likely roughly the same speed as a bike, assuming good bike routes.

If the bikes are stopping regularly because of red lights, that will obviously change.

if a bicycle is slower than a bus, then it is definitely slower than waiting+taking a bus

Bike with parking can and often should be faster start to destination than walking+bus+walking at least compared to city buses, it’s different with buses who are allowed to go faster than 50 km/h

I have done something similar on Oxford Street.

I suspect this is not the same.

As someone commuting to the city from the Eastside (now taking the train every day), I was unfamiliar with the sad state of the 8 line before this post.

There's a dedicated website: https://fixthel8.com/

I learned from that site that all-girl punk band Tacocat wrote a song called F. U. #8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRFlROqgFwo

Well, Seattle has a more temperate climate than New York City

And I don’t know if it’s possible to add more bus lanes to NYC

Wait, she’s a jazz musician?

Pedantry warning

Mamdani is mayor (city level), not governor (state level).

I hope this is a description of the inner machinizations of the outraged crowd in question.. rather than you being the example.

Whoa, whoa. Chill. It's just a bus.

Yeah, true. Turns out that bike lanes can move more people in urban environments, and forcing bikes into car lanes will slow everyone down. WHO WOULDA THUNK

But that would require thinking a little more than only about themselves. They are never part of the traffic, they're special, everyone else are getting in their way.

AS NJB put it, bike lanes are car infrastructure. People like Doug Ford is just maximising suffering, considering how many of his policies is just to make Toronto worse, it could actually be the real goal.