Don’t be, all things considered, you’re not doing all that bad, really. I mean, if you look at the caricatures that some countries have voted into power…
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Being so flush to the road, it looks more like our on-rails streetcars. Our buses have more height to them to deal with road variations, damage and winter weather.
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Buckham was involved in nine crashes, eight of which saw him relatively unscathed. After the ninth, however, he had to have a laryngectomy[3] and breathed through a small pipe in his neck for the rest of his life. Despite this, he carried on his aerial photography career, often in very perilous conditions. He felt the best shots were made standing up, writing “If one’s right leg is tied to the seat with a scarf or a piece of rope, it is possible to work in perfect security”.[citation needed ] He was discharged at the end of 1918 as one hundred per cent disabled and was described as being ‘unable to speak’.
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Flickr had a big mobile app update and it really sucks. Stuff like adding a photo to albums or groups is no longer possible. Most of the functionality seems to be gone.
Come and share your photos on the fediverse.
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They routinely jump the traffic lights before they turn green, to ensure that they get ahead of other users of the road. And then their pace becomes very leisurely.
When I visited Vancouver last year, I was quite conscious of how much more quickly their bus drivers drove compared to Toronto.
They may have mellowed out a bit due to some internal mandate and/or limiters. However, at one point, they were like crazy taxi or e-bike/scooter drivers!
More mandrake than carrot.
In Lisbon they are crazy, if you don’t hold on or get seated in time you will absolutely fall or at least heavily stumble. It’s gotten even worse with the advent of electric buses, even though the natural gas powered ones are not slow either. Maybe it’s due to not being used to it, as I rarely go to the capital, but I also see locals/old people stumbling as they accelerate, so it must just be the norm.
In Hungary, traffic lights in busy intersections have an extra “bus” light (especially if there is a bus lane):
If it lights up, the bus (and others in the bus lane, eg cyclists if the lane permits them) can go, getting a head start. A lot of countries have transit priority signals, unfortunately they are not standardized so they can get really confusing.
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Some tram stops in Bratislava that are right in front of traffic light intersections get a notification light for trams to get ready (close the doors) so they can go right as their light turns to “go”. Public transport has its own kind of traffic light and I wonder if that’s also used elsewhere, here’s what it looks like:
Basically if you see vertical arrangement (or diagonal based on which way you turn) it means go, horizontal means stop.
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Unfortunately, we do not have transit priority signalling even though there are transit and trail based traffic lights. The infrastructure is partially there, but there is no political will or agreement to realize traffic safety and optimization.
We have public transport priority on some turns, but it’s not exactly common I’d say. The traffic lights seem to hold the ‘green’ light a bit longer if a tram is approaching, but I can’t say for sure, it’s just my observation. We have plenty of bus-only lanes in large cities and taxis are also allowed to drive in them (for now).
Toronto has some such signals for streetcars, with a vertical white bar. Recently (years late and over budget), two new light rail transit lines were opened, without giving them signal priority. When complaints started pouring in that the LRTs were slower than the buses they replaced, signal priority was introduced. they discussed introducing signal priority but as @afre says they have not done so yet.
The “Premier of Toronto” and likeminded folks tend to disrupt all transit-forward initiatives. When the modern LRT routes finally opened after almost 2 decades of delays, people were literally jogging to their destinations faster than the light rail because they were travelling so slowly and did not benefit from signal priority.
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Yeah, the Netherlands has these, too. Or at least The Hague did, when I grew up there.
Toronto has the worst* air quality in the world today. Wildfires in Ontario are blowing particulate toward the city at the moment. This is crazy: CN train carrying flammable and explosive materials stuck within a forested area in flames.
*PS I.e., for major cities around the world; obviously, locales along the path of atmospheric patterns have even worse air quality. E.g., Toronto’s is ~184, whereas Waterloo, ON (1.5 hour’s drive from here) is ~500.
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NYC is 160 right now. I’m wearing a half-face respirator…
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