Melanie wrote: > Unless there is *scientific evidence* that the beeping is effective in preventing crashes/injury to peds, bikers and other vehicles, I vote to discontinue the noise as unnecessary urban noise pollution, and would focus instead on better training of Madison Metro drivers.
I don't think that the two are mutually exclusive. Of course the drivers should be well-trained, but giving pedestrians, bicyclists, and others an audible cue is not a bad thing, not just for potential safety reasons but also because these signals are a cue (because signalling occurs concurrent with pulling into and out of a bus stop) to a would-be passenger that a bus is a stop away (at least when it is audible from the next bus stop upstream). Hearing a bus at a stop down the road signals to me that I might need to step up my pace to get to my stop at the right time. There are probably other reasons for which some people would find the signal to be a convenience. Besides, where do you obtain the "scientific (or other) evidence" if you don't test it? Or is Madison going to take the NIMBY position that some other transit system has to generate the data before we consider it? As for "urban noise pollution," that sounds like a bit of a contradiction to me. We aren't out in the country or the wilderness. Urban areas have a lot of sounds, most of which are much more frequent than the once every half-hour or hour that a MadMet bus runs. Get over it. At least be glad that you live on a bus route and have that convenience. At least from my experience, living with stops to the east and the west of my house, I hear them, but it's not much of an intrusion, and is a lot quieter and/or a less frequent noise than street traffic, gasoline-powered lawn mowers, trains, garbage trucks, and a lot of other urban noises. The amount of added noise from buses (which someone else noted are not exactly whisper-quiet anyway, beeps or no beeps), is a tiny drop in a big bucket. People who live on streets that have been major construction zones and had to endure real noise and real inconvenience would probably laugh at you for thinking a few seconds of bus-beeping is a noise problem. Oddly enough, I was just out on a quick lunchtime errand by bicycle and I encountered a turning bus. I didn't consider the beep to be at all painful, intrusive, or any of the other horrible and exaggerated assertions some others have made here. To quote a fellow coach, speaking of a toxic hockey parent, "If [name] didn't have anything to complain about, she'd complain about that, too." That's how all the whining about this trivial non-issue comes across to an observer of this discussion. There are far more important and credible mass transit issues on which transit advocates could be expending their organizing capital. Now go have a lunch. _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
