[inferiorhuman]

In San Francisco there are some block with maybe five different bus stops on them. In general many routes stop every block, or nearly every block. Part of the reasoning is that there are standards for stop spacing. Off the top of my head I don't remember the specifics but it's along the lines of x% of the city's population must have a bus stop within y feet that provides service at least z hours a day. Stops along a line must be within n feet unless it's on a grade > j% in which case the distance is some fraction of n.

This all works extremely well in theory but is incredibly resource intensive. There've been plenty of discussions on how to speed up service by eliminating some stops — but this is complicated by Muni being a system with a dependency on transfers and by people having their own favorite pet stop. So what happens? Muni goes after lightly used lines — like the line that served Treasure Island. Of course the geniuses at Muni didn't seem to care that you can't walk/bike to Treasure Island. It's personal or public motorized transit only (or it was when they first tried to gut the 108).

The night buses in San Francisco are a godsend, and quite unique in the Bay Area, but not particularly well utilized — partly a visibility issue I'm sure. The stops are generally about as frequent but the service itself is much less frequent (once or twice an hour typically — or roughly 1/2 to 1/4 the daytime service) and there are fewer routes (a few routes run 24x7, there are bus lines that replace the rail lines stop for stop, and two or three dedicated "Owl" lines). Aside from the really infrequent schedules, the biggest challenge is that runs go missing all the fucking time because absolutely none of the street supervisors even notice when the first run or two doesn't go out. Of course once you get on a bus, if you're on an owl route… good luck figuring out where the driver is going to stop.

Meanwhile in London I remember taking the bus from Liverpool St station around 1am ages ago (the 23?). The service seemed reasonably frequent and there were plenty of stops (same as the daytime as far as I could figure). The big challenge I had was understanding the driver — I couldn't see very well out the window. I remember the bus itself seemed fairly crowded — compared to SF where the night buses really empty out as you get away from downtown / market st.

The one thing I've seen that I think would benefit SF (and to a lesser extent London or any area looking to beef up their late night service) was in New York. If you're on a bus at night the drivers are allowed to let you off anywhere along the route as long as it appears safe to do so.