alt Hacker NewsAt some level this is driven by street design. The reason bus stops are so close in Philadelphia is because they stop every block, and there's a stop sign every block. The blocks are very small.
I don't know that 'removing' these as bus-stops would actually change anything. I think a larger question is whether route changes should occur.
There was a large effort in Philly called the 'Bus Revolution' [1] that aimed to re-balance routes (I have a map from the 50s on my wall and the bus routes are the same, including numbers, as they are today). The problem there was that there was a funding crisis that massively delayed the implementation [2]. These services are massively under-funded, and that's the primary issue; implementing the article's suggestions are not free.
[1] https://wwww.septa.org/initiatives/bus/ [2] https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/transportation-and-tran...
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> The reason bus stops are so close in Philadelphia is because they stop every block
Which is the issue. Philadelphia's blocks were sized in the 1600s, they weren't designed to be the optimal spacing for bus stops. Given how tiny the blocks are, there is no need to stop at every block.
> I have a map from the 50s on my wall and the bus routes are the same, including numbers, as they are today
A surprising number of bus routes in Dublin still follow, to a large extent, tram routes laid out in the 1870s. And use the same numbers. This stuff is _sticky_ (partly because significantly redesigning an existing route tends to annoy people; there's a fairly strong tendency to just make a new one and leave the existing one running in some capacity).
we'll see how cutting stops works out: that's part of what they're planning to rework the trolleys.
Removing the stops helps a lot. As an example on SEPTA, the 124/125 [1][2] to Wissahickon T.C. takes 10+ minutes longer than taking the 27 [3] when starting at J.F.K. & 15th.
(for context: the 124/5 operate locally west through center city before getting on the highway while the 27 only makes 1-2 more stops in center city before getting on the highway)
Making these extra stops causes the bus to 'miss' the light cycle at almost every stop.
[1] https://www.septa.org/schedules/124?startStop=17842&endStop=...
[2] https://www.septa.org/schedules/125?startStop=17842&endStop=...
[3] https://www.septa.org/schedules/27?startStop=17842&endStop=3...