Quote:
Why is a streetcar more "clear" than a bus route
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1. You can see the tracks right there. Tracks are clearly different than the roads on which cars drive. That means it's easy to visually distinguish a rail line from a regular street, which is impossible with a bus line unless you already know where it's going. Even if there are good bus maps, if your route takes even one turn riders have to know about it on their own - they can't just see that it happens. BTW, this effect works on pedestrians too; preference for visual markings are why special pavers are so popular at major crosswalks.
2. Train headways are usually shorter than bus headways, so train lines feel more significant and more reliable. Not needing to consult a schedule is a lot like being able to see the tracks - it means you know with absolute authority that you will get where you need to go in short order. To get that on a bus, you almost have to be a regular rider, which means *new* riders are intimidated.
3. There are so many bus routes criss-crossing any major city that the bus map doesn't have any affect on how people think of their city's geography. On the other hand, in almost every city in the world with rail service, the rail map is one of the most dominant geographic indicators for that city. People look at a rail map once and automatically memorize its basic layout. People then think in terms of where they are on the rail map. For example, I tell people I live on the Orange Line and everyone in DC knows immediately what group of neighborhoods I'm talking about. This is why putting Boston's Silver Line on the rail map is such an important aspect of the Silver Line's success, and why you couldn't just call it the 15J or something. Of course, the catch with this is that though you can put a bus route or two on your rail map, you can't put very many on, or it defeats the purpose.
These are all *real* differences that have a *real* effect on how the majority of people perceive transit. If you don't perceive things that way then more power to you, but virtually everyone else does.